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J. Edgar Boozer · Pod Save America

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• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor. Wow, that was enthusiastic.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Let's go.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Well, on today's show, we're going to talk about Trump's
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: premature victory lap on Iran, his attempts to win back
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Joe Rogan with psychedelics, and Kash Patel suing the Atlantic
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: because over two dozen people basically said he's a paranoid
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: idiot who drinks too much. We'll also cover what was
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: a big weekend for potential Democratic presidential contenders who are
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: very much stepping up their public appearances and honing their
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: stump speeches. Then, Ilan Goldenberg of J Street talks to
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Tommy about how pro-Israel progressives are trying to make their case.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Speaking of progressives trying to make their case, if you
• 2:00
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  Speaker 1: Seeing images of toilets too. There you go.
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  Speaker 2: We are, look, we're one of the only independent pro-democracy
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  Speaker 2: we're putting out for our friends at the pod. Got
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• 2:53
  Speaker 2: and subscribe. All right, let's get to the news. Donald
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Trump spent Friday counting all of his chickens before they hatched,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: firing off a series of manic all caps posts where
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: he announced that Iran had agreed to quote, never close
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: the Strait of Hormuz again, would turn over all their
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: enriched uranium and would receive no money for it, would
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: remove all sea mines, and that Israel would be prohibited
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: from bombing Lebanon any longer. Trump then continued his premature
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: celebration at a TPUSA event in Arizona, where he said this.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Iran has just announced that the Strait of Hormuz is
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: fully open and ready for business. This process should go
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: very quickly and that most of the points are already
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: negotiated and agreed to.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: You'll be very happy.
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: The USA will get all nuclear dust. You know what
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: the nuclear dust is? That was that white powdery substance
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: created by our B-2 bombers, those great B-2 bombers, late
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: one evening, seven months ago. No money will exchange hands
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: in any way, shape or form.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: So right after this, maybe as he was speaking, everything
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: appeared to fall apart. The Iranians said that all of
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Trump's claims were false, closed the strait and fired on
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: two ships. which led Trump to threaten war crimes again,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: fire on an Iranian ship that tried to run the U.S.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: naval blockade, and seize the ship, which in turn led
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: the Iranians to threaten retaliation. And yet it seems as
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: of this recording late Monday afternoon, a second round of
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: negotiations in Pakistan may still happen. The latest is that J.D.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Vance and the U.S. delegation seem to be planning to go.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: And while the Iranians haven't publicly confirmed their attendance, two
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Iranian officials told the Times that they'll likely attend if J.D.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Vance goes. Still some confusing.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: First time in history anyone says, I'm not going to
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: that event unless J.D. Vance is there.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Maybe the last.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Other than his literal wedding.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: So it seems like Trump was either lying or heavily
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: exaggerating on Friday about the progress they'd made on a deal, or...
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: He pissed off the Iranians by spiking the ball before
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: the deal was done. Or maybe a little bit of both.
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Tommy, what do you think?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: What happened? I think he was just making shit up.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: He was tweeting out his wish list of outcomes for
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: talks that had not yet happened. And then he kind
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of elaborated their TPUSA with the golden dust.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: The dust.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Created by our big two bombers.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: The nuclear dust is his way of squaring the... circle
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: between we obliterated the program and we have to fight
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: a war against them. It's all about the dust because
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: it's just dust. RFK is going to snort it off
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: the toilet seat.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: But even last week, it was clear Iran was saying
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: in their tweets that the Strait of Hormuz was only
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: partially open. Foreign Minister Abbas Harachi said the Strait of
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Hormuz is declared completely open. for the remaining period of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the ceasefire on the coordinated route. That's very important, which
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: is like their little part that goes close to their
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: shoreline so they can control everybody. That was what was open.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: And Trump was saying, oh, it'll never be closed again.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Israel will never bomb Lebanon again. It was all, they're
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: going to turn over their stockpile, which is the dust.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: It was all just made up. And then the other
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: problem is within Iran itself, there's all these reports of
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: like an ongoing power struggle between elected officials, the IRGC,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the nationalists versus the Islamists. It's not really clear who's
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: in charge over there. It's like 1979, the kind of
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: first few months. And the way you know that was
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: manifesting was the economists had a great piece today where
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: they talked about how the Islamabad talks. The Iranian delegation
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: had 80 people in it, including 30 who were described
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: as decision makers.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: That's rolling deep.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: That's like a state of the union. Too many cooks.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: A lot of cooks in that kitchen, yeah.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Too many cooks. Too many cooks, not enough dust. Yeah,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: who knows what's going to happen.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Keep them all going. But it was a mess.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Apparently, the Trump administration officials told Axios today that
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: there is this genuine, they kind of blamed it on
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: this genuine split between the negotiating team and the IRGC.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: They also, though, admitted to Axios, they said that the
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Iranians never, ever, at no point, agreed to give up
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: enrichment permanently. They certainly never agreed to do anything for free.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: They also said Trump is willing to lift sanctions, give
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: some money, even though he's not saying that publicly publicly.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And released a bunch of frozen assets, billions of dollars.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. There was also a story about the six cruise
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: ships that had to like sneak through the Strait of
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Hormuz during this opening, which I just, there's something so
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: funny about this. It's like, like, no, honey, we're not,
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: no Portugal. I know it's such a bummer. It's such
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: a bummer that they're empty.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: We just be like.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: We're going through the shit.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: It's like a cannonball run. That's something you just don't
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: tell the passengers. Just look out the window, wave. On
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: your left. That's not a rocket launcher.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: Is that a drone?
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Those are just fireworks.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Look at the beautiful gulf. Yeah, I'm like, I think
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: increasingly we just need to look at whatever Trump is
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: posting about this as a completely separate, like, is he lying?
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Is he telling the truth?
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: It's a bit.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: It's not even.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: It's a performance piece.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: It's just bullshit. It's not even tethered to what he's
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: hearing or not. Maybe it's in some way a version
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: of what he hopes the outcome will be. But based
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: on this and more of the reporting that we'll talk
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: about in a minute, he treats the social media as
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: basically just about what he wants to vent about how
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: he's feeling and what he wants the public to believe
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: is going on. It bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: what he's hearing internally, to what they're conveying to the Iranians,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: to what the internal discussions look like. It is just
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: a separate track.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: It's just like he's journaling.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: He's just doing therapy.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: And sometimes it's therapy. Sometimes it's like a vision board.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Did you guys read all the truths today? There's a
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: lot today. There's a lot. A couple of things that
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: stood out to me there. He says, I'm winning a
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: war by a lot, and then goes on to mock
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Iran for losing again. he attacked Obama and the JCPOA.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: He said Obama gave $ 1. 7 billion in all-capa letters.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Green cash!
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: He emptied out all the cash from banks in D.C., Virginia,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: and Maryland. Those bankers said they've never seen anything like
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: it before.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: There's always got to be some made-up detail.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Like Tony Blinken was going bank to bank.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: All the banks.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Like in the movie Assassins where you have to wait
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: for a couple hours where they count all the money.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: He did one that started, he said, Despite World War
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: I lasting, and then he goes on and talks about
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: the exact length in years and days of World War II,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: World War I, Korean War, Vietnam, Iraq. And then he said,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: I promised six weeks. And by the way, I am
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: under no pressure whatsoever to make a deal, although it
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: will all happen relatively quickly. Time is not my adversary. Oh,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: I would say that. I would say. Yeah, exactly.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Time, time, time.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: The actuarial tables called Democrats, traitors bragged about building the
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: greatest military our country's ever seen, including adding the Space Force.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: That's something that we had to get in today. And
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: then also Israel never talked me into the war with Iran. Sure, buddy.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: My Israel never talked me into the war with Iran
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: t-shirt has answered a lot of questions.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: As is giving a speech, meant to be a kind
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: of political booster speech, and you say, great news, everybody,
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: the Strait of Hormuz is open. That wasn't a problem
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: two months ago.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: The lesson he took from the Iraq war was that
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: the one most successful episode in the whole war was
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: the Mission Accomplished banner, because he basically has been doing
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: that every single day since the war began. Every day
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: it's we won the war, every single day. It's we
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: won the war, or we're going to destroy civilization. That's it.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I'm not pressured to end it soon, but I'm going
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: to end it soon, but I don't care when I
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: end it, because we've already won. Then we're going to
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: accomplish all this stuff. Do you see that Jared Kushner
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and Steve Witkoff are being referred to as Witkush.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: In diplomatic circles?
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: It's so embarrassing.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Whit Cush.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: According to Playbook.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Cush Whit. Cush Whit sounds better.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: Cush Goff.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Jerk Goff.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Jerk.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Cush Off. Jerk Off.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Jer-Off. Jer-Off. That works for me.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Anyway, there was also an incredible Wall Street Journal story
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: over the weekend about how Trump has been, quote, grappling
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: with his own fears about this war, namely that if
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: too many American troops were killed or captured, his presidency
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: could end up like Jimmy Carter's. That seemed to be
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: the main takeaway for him. I also found this part notable.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: When a White House advisor asked Trump about his Remember
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: the Easter Sunday post that threatened war crimes and ended
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: with quote open the fucking straight you crazy bastards Or
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: you'll be living in hell praise be to Allah Happy Easter.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: So Trump said about this post quote. He came up
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: with the with the Allah idea himself He said he
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: wanted to seem as unstable and insulting as possible Believing
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: it could bring the Iranians to the table senior administration
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: officials said I Nailed the first part, I guess.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: I guess.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You guys make it the piece.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I'd quibble with the analysis a bit. I don't think
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you needed the praise be to Allah tweet for the
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Iranians that think you're unstable and insulting to them. That's
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: pretty well established.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: I think with the crazy bastards. Yeah.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: And all the bombing.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Do you guys think that. telling people that you're just
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: pretending to be a lunatic to get a deal kind
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: of ruins the point of pretending to be a lunatic.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the madman theory.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you read the piece like, oh, he really
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: was just, yeah, right. All right, you are what you
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: pretend to be. But he's just sort of jerking everybody around.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: And I look back to like that concern, which I
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: think was completely legitimate given what he was threatening that day.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: And then you read the piece and he was also
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: meeting about the ballroom and doing fundraisers and kind of
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: doing normal business that day. And there was a little
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: bit of like the alarm that wasn't going off and
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: the dog that wasn't barking. There was no, we weren't
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: getting reportings that he was, in the situation room, laying
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: out the final parts of the plan. And so it
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: confirms what we were just talking about, which is what
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: he is posting publicly is not coming out of a
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: conversation with the negotiators. It's not some part of some
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: like public facing strategy and private facing strategy. It's just
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: his separate stream of consciousness. He has a kind of
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: whatever contractors mentality about negotiations. He clearly, like as I
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: think the Iranians have assumed, as a lot of people
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: have assumed, does not want the the economic pain that
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: comes with a long term conflict. So he has to
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: counteract that with by seeming unstable and issuing these big
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: threats and seeming blustery. But behind the scenes, that's all
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: just a show, which is what the Iranians do, because
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: they called his bluff that day and, you know, didn't
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: relent to what he was saying in the lead up
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: to this civilization destroying threat.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the story, I think, really drives home that the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: whole war is just an exercise in ego and narcissism
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and stupidity. There was there was the Venezuela operation that
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: was easy in Trump's mind. He was told by all
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: these sycophants like Lindsey Graham and Pete Hegseth that Iran
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: would be easy too and that he could be a
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: historic figure and reshape the geopolitical order and be better
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: than Obama. And so here we are. And so there's
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: also more detail about how in the opening days they
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: were presenting him hype videos of explosions. And he was like,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: this is cool. Why isn't the press just reporting this?
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Look at all the things blowing up. And then it
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: also sounds like Hegseth told him, Iran wouldn't close the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Strait of Hormuz or the people around him, or at
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: least Trump was telling them that. So I assume someone
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: told him that they wouldn't respond in the most obvious
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: way possible. And so Trump was shocked when it happened
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: and when global oil prices spiked. And that ultimately, though,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: like what is upsetting him about what's happening with Iran
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: is not the death and the destruction or the high
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: gas prices. It is being compared to Jimmy Carter or
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden. That is what is terrifying him and what
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: he cannot stomach. And so, yeah, he's changing the subject.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: He's talking to his architect about the ballroom or like
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: anything he can to.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Get away from this. Multiple meetings a week on the ballroom.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: He refers to that he sees himself as, quote, the
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: general contractor of the ballroom.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I think in his mind, he would see a
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: successful outcome in Iran as a legacy item. he puts
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: that on the same plane as the ballroom as a
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: legacy item. Like it's all just one level for him,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you know? And look, if the reason he is worried
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: about U.S. casualties and chaos in the Middle East is
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: for reasons of self-preservation and legacy, like that's a fine motivation. But,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: because at least the outcome could be the same. But
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: his other problem is he can never risk seeming like
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: he is not completely dominating and winning at every given moment.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know if the negotiations would be further along
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: right now if he just simply shut his fucking mouth
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: and stopped posting about stuff, but I certainly think he's
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: made it worse. Instead of saying that you won all
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: the time and just pissing off the Iranians and say, oh,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: they did this and they're destroyed. Imagine if every time
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: someone asked about the negotiations, Trump and the White House
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: were just like, When we have something to report, when
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: we have good news to report, we'll let you know. Otherwise,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: we're just engaged in negotiation.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: He's not a big under-promise, over-deliver guy.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: What is the endgame of this? Any actual deal, not
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: one he's describing, but a real deal will involve puts
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: and takes. It'll have compromises on our side, compromises that will,
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: in some way, resemble the parts of the deal he's
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: been mocking for years that the Obama administration did with Iran.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: There's only so many levers that this kind of an
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: agreement will have. And so the hope to me is
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: you come to some sort of conclusion to this that
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: results in a deal that he pretends is some kind
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: of dominating victory. And it is understood by everyone that
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is going to call this the greatest deal
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: in human history, even if it resembles in many ways, uh, the,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: the Obama deal, uh, that's the hope, right?
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: And he wants to give himself the Medal of Honor.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: So that was in there too.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: He's kidding.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: That keeps coming up.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: But it was a joke.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about that.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Who had the story? Was it the Times the other
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: day about how the arch he's building for himself went
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: from like 70 feet to 150 feet? Now it's 250 feet.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: You're going to have.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: To reroute the planes. The planes are going to have
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: to go around.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Even like the architect that was for it was like, no,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: this is crazy. You can't do this.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: It's going to dwarf a bunch of veterans memorials and monuments.
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Before we move on, I just, I want to call
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: your attention to a Politico piece from Friday that has
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: already become to me, just an incredible artifact from a
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: simpler time. The headline is big sigh of relief. Republicans
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: finally get some good news. Can it last? And I
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: was like, I saw him like, what is this about?
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: And the lead is Republicans are breathing a little easier
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: this weekend, cautiously optimistic that Trump has finally found an
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: off ramp to end the war with oil dropping below
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: $ 90 a barrel, the stock market making new all-time highs
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: and Gas down $ 0. 08 a gallon this week. Some feel
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: the slightest bit of a wind at their back for
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: the first time since February. And then it's got Representative
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Carlos Garbelo saying, big sigh of relief from congressional Republicans today.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: It's so funny to do that story and for Republicans
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: to go on the record for that story when there's
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: been an hour after Trump said, everything's open, everything's great.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: It just goes to show that it's like, it's not
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: just Trump. Like this is how, this is like how
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Washington operates.
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: DC media operates the whole thing.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: And there's some, you know, like, oh, this is, they're
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: trying to say, they're trying to, they're wish casting to Trump. See,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: like this is, this is good. When we deescalate, this
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: will be something that you'll get positive precedent from your congressional.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: It's also a window into like the second, no matter
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: what the deal is, no matter how bad the deal is,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: no matter how different it is from the JCPOA, no
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: matter what it is, it's going to be like, like
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: the second there is any kind of a deal and
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: the war is over, it's going to be like, All right,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: now Republicans are feeling bullish again on the midterms.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Great. Yeah, good luck with that.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we can talk about that.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America is brought to you by Mint Mobile.
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• 20:45
  Speaker 2: The vast majority of Americans still hate the war, think
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Trump's doing a shitty job. A brand new NBC News
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: poll looks just like all the others. Trump is at
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: 37% approval, 63% disapproval, including 50% who say they strongly disapprove.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Record lows all around. And his numbers are even worse
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: on Iran and the cost of living. Probably not helped
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: by his energy secretary telling CNN over the weekend that, quote,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: it could be next year before gas is under $ 3
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: a gallon again. Republicans are starting to panic. They may
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: lose the Senate as well as the House. And you
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: can tell the White House is nervous because they're making
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: public overtures to win back a one-time ally, Joe Rogan,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: who's been saying things like this about the war.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Most people.
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: that voted for Trump or wanted Trump to be in office,
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: one of the things that was attractive was this.
• 21:33
  Speaker 7: No more wars.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Sure, of course.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: And now we're in one of the craziest ones. What
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: the fuck are we doing? How is this still going on?
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Well, over the weekend, Trump made a surprise announcement that
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: he's fast-tracking FDA review of psychedelics as a medical treatment,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: an issue Rogan is passionate about. And you can tell
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Trump is too from his mastery of the terms involved.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: It's called ibogaine treatment. Ibogaine. Remember the name. Is that
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: pronounced relatively properly, what you said?
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: I don't want to get it wrong.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: Ibogaine, because it's so important. And experienced an 80 to
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: 90 percent reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety within
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: One month. Can I have some, please? I'll take whatever
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: it takes. I don't have time to be depressed. You know,
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: if you stay busy enough, maybe that works too.
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: That's what I do.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: That's how depression works, for sure.
• 22:29
  Speaker 8: I sent President Trump some information. We have a gigantic
• 22:33
  Speaker 8: opiate problem in this country. I sent him that information.
• 22:36
  Speaker 8: The text message came back, sounds great. Do you want
• 22:40
  Speaker 8: FDA approval? Let's do it. For 56 years, we've lived
• 22:44
  Speaker 8: under those terrible conditions. We're free of that now. We're
• 22:49
  Speaker 8: free of that now. Thanks to all these people that
• 22:52
  Speaker 8: we see next to me, and thanks to President Trump.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: We all respect Joe, and he's a little bit more
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: liberal than.
• 23:00
  Speaker 9: That's okay.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: I have a lot of friends.
• 23:03
  Speaker 10: That are liberal.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Interesting window into how the sausage gets made, huh? You
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: just text the president something and suddenly the FDA, independent
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: regulatory agency, just fast tracks it, no problem.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a good outcome on this specifics here,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: but Joe Rogan texting Trump some medical information and being like, cool,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: let's do it. That's not a good process.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Because you're pissing me on the war and so I'm
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: trying to get you back. So whatever you want, I
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: don't know what this drug is. It sounds great. I'll
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: take some, but I just stave off depression by just
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: I just keep moving. I just keep posting.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, never be alone.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: If you don't want to feel sad, never be alone
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: with your thoughts. Just keep moving. Just keep moving.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Or your family. That's what Trump thinks.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: For sure. Just get out there. Just turn the TV on.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Turn it louder.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Keep posting.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: Got to post through it.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Post through it. Yeah.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: I do think like what wrote, like, I think it's
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: worth saying that this is something people like about Trump.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: The idea that it doesn't have the red tape and
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: the sludge of normal government, that there's stuff that should
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: be happening that isn't because government is slow and stupid
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: and And there should be a president who says, oh,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: this is a good idea. There's good studies. Let's do it.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: And there's two big problems with it.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Real abundance coded there.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: A little bit. Well, there's somewhere between being able to
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: build a train in California and Joe Rogan being a
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: czar for magic mushrooms. But the problem with it with
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Trump is, A, it becomes about, it's not about like, oh,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: doing good things faster based on any kind of a process.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: It's just who knows him and who has access. So yeah,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Rogan can get this done. And maybe that's a good thing.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: But it also means the CEO of United can give
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Trump a million dollars for the inaugural and then soft
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: pitch creating the biggest airline by two in the world
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: and potentially get it done because Trump knows him and
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: it seems like it's a big fun deal to do.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: And when the resulting merger sucks for people, Trump's like, well,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I don't have to deal with that. I have my
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: freak Atari jet. They wish they hadn't made that gift.
• 24:51
  Speaker 11: Right.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Oh, you're mad about the things I did before I left?
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Get in line. I'm trying to stay ahead of depression.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: But the other and the other part of it, though,
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: and I think it's actually just as important is he
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: actually doesn't do other than other than like the like
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: he can break things very quickly. He can do that
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: with Doge. He can shut down agencies. But when he
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: finishes these events where he's moving fast and doing things
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: that other people couldn't do, nothing fucking happens. Joe Biden is.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: was really fucking slow on getting marijuana off of Schedule 1.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: He put out an order to review it in 2022.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Trump says, I'm going to fast track it, right? That
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: gave him a real opportunity that he shouldn't have had.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: But it hasn't happened. Marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: as we're sitting here and talking. It has been held up.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Ever since he signed that order over a year ago,
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Pam Bondi couldn't get it done. There's an opening for
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: the administrative law judge that could be the one to
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: approve it. And by the way, even if it does happen,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: there's a bunch of Republicans who are lined up to
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: sue to prevent it from going into effect. So he
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: gets the press event about how quickly he can do things.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: But meanwhile, he actually stops paying attention, doesn't really focus
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: on it, doesn't really give a fuck, gets the good
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: headline and never really happens.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I do love the events where you can tell he's
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: learning the details in real time. And he's like, kind
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: of does a meta commentary on himself as he's reading
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the facts about, Oh, that sounds good.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Depression. I don't need that.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: But on Ibogaine, there was a great piece in the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: New York times about Ibogaine treatment by Robert Draper. Uh,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: that's worth reading. He did an episode of the daily
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: that you could listen to it too. It's helped a
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: lot of people. It's helped a lot of people struggling
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: from PTSD, depression, truly debilitating mental health challenges, especially veterans. Uh,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: and the cause was picked up by Rick Perry, Kirsten cinema,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: some interesting people, Sean Ryan, who's got a huge, uh,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: show on YouTube with a bunch of veterans. He's a
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: veteran himself and former Navy SEAL has talked about using
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Ibogaine to shake his addiction to drinking drugs, a lot
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of stuff. So Rogan had a bunch of conversations about
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: this with people impacted, including Sean Ryan, including Rick Perry,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: including a couple people at that event there. And it just,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: it did not, I think there's actually a really good
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: outcome because it didn't make sense that you couldn't do
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: medical trials on people with PTSD, but you could go
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: to Mexico and get treatment.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: That's stupid.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: So I'm glad Trump cut through the red tape here.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Like I'm sure Joe Rogan will kind of like give
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Trump his flowers on this issue rightfully. So I doubt
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: it changes his concern about Iran or the fact that
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: he's talking about it.
• 27:13
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I think it's important for people to like, it doesn't,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: it doesn't short circuit the actual reclassification process or the
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: approval process for the, for the treatments themselves, but for this,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: for the studying. And it's not just, um, for the
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: medical studies and it's Ibogaine, but it's also MDMA and
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: psychedelic mushrooms. It's like a whole, yeah, it's a whole,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: whole category.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: I was at a Phish concert recently. I think a
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: lot of people were in that study.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: A lot of studies.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: A lot of people doing some intense research.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: A lot of studying there. That's right. The sphere is
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: the number one place for studying this stuff. It's a
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: good place to study. Yeah, on the Rogan, like I think,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: if Rogan's smart, He will realize that this was he
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: got Trump to do something he wanted him to do.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: And he will go back to continue. He can criticize
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: him when he wants to criticize him and not criticize
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: him when he thinks he's doing something good. Like it
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: could just be like that. And I don't think it'll
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: change anything big. I think it's smart politics, probably on.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: On both parts. Oh, yeah. On Trump's behalf and on
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Rogan's behalf.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Good for Rogan for saying, fuck it. They think they
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: need me because they see that I'm critical of them. Like,
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: let's get something good to happen. Like, great, good for him.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: That's an amazing thing to do.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: But if you're a Rogan listener and have heard Joe
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Rogan talk about Donald Trump in Iran and the Epstein
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: files and all the other things now that Rogan has
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: criticized Trump for, I don't think this changes. You're not
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: an idiot. This doesn't change anything for you.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: This is the thing I don't get. The Rupert Burdock
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: approach to Trump is always a smart one. You've got
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Fox News doing the propaganda, but then the Wall Street
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Journal is kicking the shit out of him. Reserve some optionality, man.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Show him you can throw a punch. He respects that.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is very true. All right. Speaking of infamous podcasters,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: we should talk about the FBI director who is suing
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: The Atlantic over an absolutely brutal and somewhat terrifying story
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: about his management style and personal behavior. that's sourced to
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: more than two dozen people, including, quote, current and former
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: FBI officials and staff at law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: He is called, quote, erratic, suspicious of others, prone to
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: jumping to conclusions before he has necessary evidence. Always a
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: great quality in an FBI director. Yeah, that's what you want.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: You always want the top cop just jumping to conclusions
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: before you have evidence. He's also accused of, quote, conspicuous
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: inebriation and unexplained absences and described as, a national security vulnerability.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: He's reportedly been so drunk so often that his meetings
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: have had to be rescheduled for later in the day,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: and his security detail has had difficulty waking him up.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: This is from the piece, quote, a request for breaching
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: equipment normally used by SWAT and hostage rescue teams to
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: quickly gain entry into buildings was made last year because
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors. Anyway, Cash is
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: handling this well. Here he is announcing his lawsuit on
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Maria Bartiromo's show.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: You want to attack my character?
• 29:51
  Speaker 9: Come at me.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Bring it on.
• 29:53
  Speaker 9: I'll see you in court.
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: So you're going to sue them?
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: It's coming tomorrow.
• 30:00
  Speaker 9: Tomorrow you will be dropping a lawsuit against The Atlantic magazine.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yes, I will.
• 30:06
  Speaker 9: For defamation.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: And because, you know what, Maria?
• 30:08
  Speaker 9: We have to fight back against the fake news.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: He looks drunk.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Put a tie on. Yeah, I'll be filing it tomorrow,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: but don't expect it before noon.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I'm going to roll into court.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: That's right. File this bad boy.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I heard the problem is he's actually down a podcaster
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: after Bongino resigned.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: That's why he's kind of struggling.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: That man needs more podcasters.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, send more podcasters.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Blockhead Dan.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: What did you guys think of The Atlantic's piece?
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, just worth saying, Kash Patel shouldn't have
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: this job to begin with. He's not remotely qualified to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: be FBI director in the first place. He was a
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: low-level DOJ lawyer, then a Capitol Hill staffer, then he
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: got sucked into the Trump orbit, and now he's the
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: FBI director. This is crazy.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of reporting about how he treated
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the job like a joke, like it was fantasy camp.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: There was Uh, he was focused on the image and
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the perks. Like he used the private jet to fly
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: to the Olympics. He's flying around to see his girlfriend.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: And remember he went to a place called the boondoggle
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: ranch for a weekend off of hunting with a big
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: GOP donor. Um, and then also there's a report that
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: he just, him and Dan Bongino would just freak out
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: about like what Twitter thought of them and plan their tweets,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: not like investigations and things.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Um, look, that's interesting. Yeah.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: But this story. It does make him sound like a
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: genuine danger to the country. Like he is paranoid, prone
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: to emotional outbursts, impulsive. He's so bad at managing the
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: building that good people are leaving. And like he is
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: drunk and let's just be, he is drunk on the job.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: His FBI director is a 24 seven job. You don't
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: get a, a, a night out from the terrorists or
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: the bad guys. And so the question is, why is
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: he still there? And the answer is because he will
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: go after Trump's enemies and Trump knows this and he
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Now that he's even more damaged, he's probably going to
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: step that up and go that extra mile to prosecute
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: John Brennan or whoever.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: And it's scary. Yeah.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Trump likes his cabinet secretary's weak and dependent upon him.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: But this, I do think, crosses a line into probably
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: too weak and too dependent in the same way you
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: saw Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem kind of sweatily trying
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: to regain control. their good graces. It kind of crosses
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: a line that you can't come back from.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: I'll just say, honestly- No one's sweating harder than him.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: No, this guy's- Yeah, well, it's- Sweat not that booze.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: And it has a smell, yeah. I had a different reaction,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: which is, I saw this a little bit the way
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: I saw ICE at the airports. Like, the more ICE
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: at the airports, the fewer of them that are in
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: American cities. And look, I think it is terrible to
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: have someone like Kash Patel in charge of the FBI.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: There's no meeting he is in that he makes better,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: sober or otherwise. And so, but the idea that he's,
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: according to the report, in Vegas, in the poodle room-
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: atop the Fountain Blue Hotel. I went and looked up
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: how you get into this private club, the Poodle Room,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: and it is so exclusive for American Express card holders.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: It is available only to private members, people on a
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: certain level of the hotel in a certain kind of suite,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: and exclusive to certain holders of American Express credit cards,
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: charge cards. So that's interesting. The part to me that
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: is the most alarming is not how he is absent
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: and drinking all the time. It is the way through
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: firings and attrition, the FBI has lost a lot of
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: key people. There was this story. There's also a story
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: last week by ProPublica about 75 people that were part
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: of different public integrity units, cyber units, election units that
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: have all been forced out and left, replaced by Trump
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: diehards and people that were part of the election interference operation.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: And now you have career people and people in the
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: states on phone calls with DHS and the people representing
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: the federal government are the kooks who they used to
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: be suing from the outside. You go from as a
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: secretary of state or a lead law enforcement official in
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: a state trying to fight some of these people. Next
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: thing you know, they're the people representing DHS on the calls.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: And so senior serious people are leaving and kind of
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: kooks and cranks and Trump anti-election zealots are coming in.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: That to me is the biggest and most dangerous part.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Who's going to want to fucking report to this guy
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: who apparently had a panic attack because his email wasn't
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: working and he thought he'd been fired. That's what they
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: report here.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: That's the opening anecdote. It's amazing. Can't get into some
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: part of the system. Probably his password. Couldn't remember his
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: password or something. And then he was like, he called everyone.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I've been fired. I've been fired. I've been fired. And
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: then like news goes around the FBI headquarters. All these
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: people are like, Oh, he's gone. He's gone. He's gone.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: They were like, no, no, it's just technical difficulties. He's fine.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: And then, and then the, the, the, the lawsuit clearly
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: put together by some, whoever kind of lawyers that are
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: going to still be, that are gonna be working for
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: cash would tell at this point, uh, they, they, they
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: referred to this in their, their lawsuit as a, made
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: up rumor basically confirming that he was locked out of
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: his computer and the rumor did at some point exist.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: And then in the lawsuit, they say, Director Patel does
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: not drink to excess at these establishments, the Ned something
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: and the poodle room, doesn't drink to excess there or
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: anywhere else. And this has not and has never been
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: a source of concern across the government. They are claiming
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: in their lawsuit against the Atlantic that no one, in
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: the government, is concerned about Kash Patel's drinking. Quite a
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: claim to make from a Sunday to a Monday.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: It's just also a claim that has nothing to do
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: with proving the lawsuit or the allegation itself. In order
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: for them to win this lawsuit, because this is, they're
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: doing defamation based on what over two dozen sources told
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: the reporter. So basically the way that you win a
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: lawsuit like this is, basically the reporter has to say
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: that she didn't believe any of her sources at all.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: all the, the over 24 that she talked to. And
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: yet she published it.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: Anyway, because she was had a, she, she hated cash
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Patel and wanted him to suffer.
• 35:46
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: And she got all this information and she was like,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: I don't care that all these people are telling me
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: this information. It's all wrong.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going to publish it anyway.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: Video of him drinking to excess at the fucking Olympics.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: He chugged a whole beer. He chugged a whole beer.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: We have, we have, we have proof of him, uh, uh,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: flying off half-cocked because he posted crazy things that we
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: all saw that went beyond the investigation. The proof is
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: publicly available. Forget showing that it wasn't true or that
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: the sources didn't say it. She could just point to
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: the actual public videos that he himself has been in.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: This is also like the 10th story about him being
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: a clown. There was an article in the Times earlier
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: this year about him going to a Five Eyes conference
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: in the UK. It was like our closest intelligent allies.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: And Kash Patel's team said, He wanted to go to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: a Premier League soccer games. He wanted to go jet
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: skiing in London. He wanted to go on a helicopter tour.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: And everyone's like, this is an absolute joke. This guy's laughable.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: You know, before Noam and Bondi, I would have said like,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Trump's just going to keep them like he keeps all
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: of them. But he seems to be on a. and
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: a bit of a tear recently. And I feel like-
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: What's her name, too? Yeah, I want to mention that.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Lori Chavez. So right before we recorded, the news broke
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: that Labor Secretary Lori Chavez de Raymer has resigned. She's
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: the third cabinet member to do so in the last
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: month and a half. And she was under internal investigation
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: for complaints about her conduct and how she treated her staffers.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Also an alleged affair with a security staffer, also using
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: taxpayer funds for personal travel, and also, like Kash Patel,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: drinking on the job.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Also texting her staffers to be like, Savvy B question mark.
• 37:19
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Asking the staffers just to bring up a bottle of
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: wine to the hotel room. I don't know. Is that
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: the worst? Maybe it's the end of a long night.
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: Maybe.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: Part of a pattern perhaps.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So she, she, she's gone. She's gone now too.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: That's another, she resigned. Although I'm sure she, it sounds
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: like she was pushed out and she's, uh, and then
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: the White House and then she's going to the, she's
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: going to the private sector. Just like Pam Bondi.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Is she going to be one of those, what is it,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the shield for the Central Americas or whatever Kristi Noem's
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: fake job was?
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: They didn't even give her a fake, it sounds like
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: with Pam, they decided to stop giving fake jobs after Noem, right?
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Like Pam Bondi's just getting private sector, she's getting private sector.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: It's been the kiss of death recently if somebody at
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: the White House says that the president has utmost confidence
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: in his cabinet secretaries because soon after they're gone. But
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: Caroline Levitt put out a statement about Patel in this
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: article that doesn't even say that. As part of it,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: she says, Director Patel remains a critical player on the
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: administration's law and order team. It's basically the equivalent of
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: like a valued member of our law enforcement operations, which
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: sounds like he could be put fucking anywhere. He's going
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: to be the deputy to Nome at the Shield of
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: the Americas in like the next like 48 hours, maybe
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: before we're done recording.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Wild, wild. Somehow Pete Hegseth still has his job.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that really sucks.
• 38:40
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• 40:07
  Speaker 2: The 2028 Democratic presidential contenders probably won't start announcing their
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: candidacies until shortly after the midterms this November. But a
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: lot of the potential candidates are really ramping up their
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: public appearances and attending events alongside their potential opponents. This
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: last weekend was particularly busy. Kamala Harris, Andy Beshear, and
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Cory Booker were campaigning with other Democrats in Detroit. AOC
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: and Kamala Harris were in Chicago. Pete Buttigieg held an
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: event in Tulsa. And John Ossoff held another Senate reelection
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: rally in Georgia. We thought it'd be useful to just
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: react to a few clips from the weekend that caught
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: our attention so we can talk about how Democrats are
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: thinking about shaping the party's message ahead of 2026 and,
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: of course, 2028. First up, John Ossoff in Georgia. The
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: faithless president.
• 40:55
  Speaker 7: Depicts himself as Christ while he plunges the nation into
• 40:59
  Speaker 7: wars of choice. While he and his family rake in
• 41:04
  Speaker 7: billions from foreign princes. While he plunders our healthcare to
• 41:11
  Speaker 7: cut taxes for the rich. Meanwhile, rent, power, groceries, and
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: health care have all hit all-time highs this year. While
• 41:26
  Speaker 7: you pay more for everything, the first family's wealth is
• 41:31
  Speaker 7: growing by billions of dollars. Because they're crooks.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: I just love how you went.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: They're crooks. What did you guys think?
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I think because they're crooks is the message, right? He
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: brings it all back to corruption. I think it's smart
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: to mention the story of the week, the Christ imagery,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and then kind of wrap that into this broader message
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: of the day about corruption.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: That he has.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: My little nitpick was I want everyone to stop saying
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: war of choice.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: That's what I want that to, I have the same point.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I've done it too. It's just, the phrasing doesn't make sense.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Like people don't really know what you're talking about. It's
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: like this war is immoral. It's illegal. It's a strategic disaster.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Like any other way.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: It's too light for me.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: War of choice.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, I just made the bad choice. It's like, no, no,
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: you launched an illegal war that's killing a whole bunch
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: of people and fucking up the Middle East and the world.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the problem with it, and I noticed
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: it too, he says it, Kamala also says it in
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: her book.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: They all say it.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: They all say it. Everyone says it. And it is
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: a lingering thing from post-Iraq, and it sort of is like,
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: we did this preemptively. We chose to go to war.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: It was war we didn't have to fight. And it
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: feels like it's a legacy of a different kind of
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: a way of talking about it. I had the same
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: thought when I heard it. It was literally the one
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: thing that to me rang very political in the whole speech.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: It's an excellent speech. The other thing I appreciated about it,
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: I just watched the whole thing. He just gets up
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: there and he jumps in. First of all, it's tight.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: It is made for people with low attention spans. He
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: does not waste up. There's not a lot of filler.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: There's an argument. There's a lot of facts. He moves
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: quickly through it. He is into the meat of the
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: speech and to the message of the speech within about
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: a minute or a minute and a half from when
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: he takes the mic, maybe a little bit faster. And
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: he has a great indictment to me, like a broader
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: indictment that's sort of a bipartisan indictment of the current
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: way politics is done. And I thought it was a
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: great quote, which was, there's a lazy, cynical expedience, politics
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: unmoored from fixed moral principles and incapable of inspiration or
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: great national achievement. All of this gave rise to a
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: depraved president who exploits this rot to empower and enrich himself.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: And I Like that to me was as clean a
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: way of critiquing the Republicans and Democrats and a style
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: of politics that's depleting and enervating that.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I just really liked.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: There's a way that he, it wasn't in this clip,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: I should have put it in, but there's a way
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: that he brings the crowd in just very, so that
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: he's not just speaking at them because I think the
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: risk of a, the risk of just giving big rally
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: speeches is that you're just talking to people. And when
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: he gives his speeches and he talks about like something like,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: what Tommy was saying, like, oh, the story of the week,
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: he'll always be like, did you see that?
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Did you see how that happened?
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: I'm interested if after the Senate race and he feels
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: a little looser because he just won reelection, if he's
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: like a little more, you know, informal in the way he's,
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: because I do think like he's really nailed, I think
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: the rally speech better than almost any of the other
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: potential candidates right now. And what I'd love to see
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: from him is like, how does he do an interview?
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: How does he do when he like sits down and
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: just talks about stuff? Because like message wise in a
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: rally speech, it's great. And you don't see really good
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: rally speeches anymore. The tone when he was in here
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: was pretty similar. It was pretty serious, sober kind of cadence.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: I know. And I can't tell if that's like, I'm
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: running for reelection in Georgia. And I got to just
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: focus on that. And I'm not here to opine on
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: national presidential politics. But I don't know. We'll see. Yeah.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: We should play it because it's interesting to how Pete's
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: event was just a different style.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So here's Pete. He's answering a question from an
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Oklahoma voter about how to talk to people who disagree
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: with you.
• 45:06
  Speaker 11: We all live in Oklahoma, or a lot of us do.
• 45:09
  Speaker 11: Lots of people that are on the other side. What's
• 45:12
  Speaker 11: your advice to engage them when we seem to be
• 45:16
  Speaker 11: in such echo chambers and are so divided?
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Step one, I think, try to do it offline as
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: much as possible.
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: And if you go into that encounter with an open heart,
• 45:26
  Speaker 6: you do it knowing that you might have some of
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: your own values and views challenged, and that's okay. That's
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: why I developed this very unexpected specialty of going to
• 45:33
  Speaker 6: places like Fox News and other conservative outlets. How can
• 45:37
  Speaker 6: I blame somebody for not embracing my point of view
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: if they've literally never even heard it?
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I always imagine that I'm.
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: Talking to people like people I grew up with, who
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: I disagree with, and also actually like, which I think
• 45:48
  Speaker 6: is really important too, because we've been made to feel
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: like we just ought to be like snarling at each other.
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: And I think there are so many people who maybe
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: have a different worldview than we do, but just like us,
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: they're tired of the sense that politics is just punching
• 46:02
  Speaker 6: you in the face every time you look at your
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: phone or turn on the TV.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Headline, Pete open to speaking with Hassan Pike.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Was he on the list?
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Did he get that question?
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I don't remember.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Everyone did, I think. I mean, I
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: think he's good.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I think by the time we get to 2028, my
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: hope is that people will want the opposite of Trump
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: and that they'll be betting on a more unifying tone
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: and message. I think Pete is betting on that. And
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: he's trying to argue that I'm the guy who can
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: best reach across the aisle and convince people. I think
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: that the reality of what he's good at is a
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: little more nuanced. Like, He is really smart and can
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: debate anyone and can beat anyone in debate, which is
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: why libs like us are like, yeah, you gave it
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: to Joe Kernan on CNBC. Fuck that guy. Or like
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: he goes on Fox news and he's great. Or the
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: all in podcast. He was really good with them. You
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: can fight back with everyone. That is a little bit
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: of a different skill than being able to reach every
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: community and like, you know, like connect with people. I'm
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: not saying he can't do that. It's just, it's a
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: different thing than they're kind of trying to sell by
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: going to Tulsa for a town hall. If that makes sense.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: It makes sense. It's like intellectually he knows and can
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: articulate why it's so important to connect with people who
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: are different and why, and how he, and what he
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: just said there. And like, it helps to persuade you
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. But there's like another step when
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: you're running to be the president, which is you actually
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: have to do that connecting yourself. Um, and I, I
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: do think that's different. And a lot of it is like,
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: he does, he does deliver maybe the smartest analysis of politics, um,
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: and message. and then, and most Democrats I've seen. And then,
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: but then is that enough or do you need to
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: actually show and not just tell? And look, I think
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: this is, but like, I thought that the, the clip
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: you referenced with Joe Kernan, like that's the one that
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: got me even more excited, even though this is more
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: my style of message, but like what him going back
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: and forth with Kernan and he wasn't a dick either.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Like he, he beat him in that debate, but he
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: wasn't like attacking him.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: And that is red meat for my silo. And I
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: loved it.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: So I, Pete opened this up with, with, like a
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: nine or 10 minute speech just on Mike, which was great.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: And he's, he always shot that too.
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: Both.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: Everyone's doing from below the same thing for, for us up.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: It's like from the below kind of leader shot.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, it's like, is he getting bigger?
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: No, they're tailoring the shit out of those shirts. Unbelievable.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: We got, listen, he's not missing chest.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: What's he doing?
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: What's happening with leg day.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: That's what I want to know. Where's, where's our, what's
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: happening with the other glutes.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: How are the glutes?
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: No, people are posting pics of the fucking awesome glutes now.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Oh no.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: No, he, he, they're it's not like you know back.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: There everyone's for you feet is different yeah that's right.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: That's that's what's coming to my silo but no i
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: i so it's with pete and and asaf it's.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Funny it's interesting to see them like what that would
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: be like competing against each other.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: Well they're both they're both like i was thinking about
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: this sort of what are the lessons from what happened
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: to orban and people writing about what is the message
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: lessons from it and there's a pro-democracy, anti-corruption. Here's how
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: corruption at the top has hurt you message that was
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: galvanizing and unifying. And both of them are doing a
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: version of that message. I think right now, because Ossoff
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: is in the middle of a reelection, he's trying to show,
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: not tell. He's trying to make the biggest argument he
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: can to get to the most people. And that'll be
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: a proof point later. Pete can be more intellectual because
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: he's not running for anything. So he can say, he
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: says this a lot when he's up there, which is, hey,
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: you're not alone. A lot of people feel the way
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: you do, no matter what you're seeing on television. You're
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: trying to make that same argument around a lot of
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: the same issues. I was thinking about Pete because some
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: people ask me all the time. I'm sure they ask you, like,
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: what do you think about Pete? Pete's so good on Fox.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: And I don't really have the answer to it. But
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: to me, it's the difference between Pete's selling, voting for Democrats, democracy, whatever.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: He's an incredible salesman for it. He goes to these
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: hostile places and he sells the fuck out of it.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: And the question is, why is it with Pete sometimes
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: you maybe agree with what he's saying, but you don't
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: come away thinking that's my salesman? You know, you're like,
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: what a pitch. I agree.
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: But it doesn't, in politics, you can't just make an
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: argument for the car. You're making an argument for you
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: as the person selling the car. And there is a
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: gap there with him that I think this is the
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: kind of event he's trying to kind of feel out.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: I don't think he's trying to just prove it. I
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: think he's literally out there kind of getting reps.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: I think where he gets shit from the left in
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: particular is people question whether the bio and the lived
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: experience kind of matches up with the reality. Like when
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: I had Peggy Flanagan in here the other day, Lieutenant
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Governor of Minnesota, running for the Democratic nomination in Minnesota
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: for the Senate seat, she was talking about growing up
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: and living on Medicaid and living on SNAP and how
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: that informs all her choices and the people she fights for.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: And when someone talks to you like that, from that
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: lived experience, it's impossible not to be moved by it
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: and to connect and to believe it. And I think
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: like the criticism Pete sometimes gets is like, well, you know,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: you were in the military and you worked at McKinsey
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: and you did all the things that kind of like
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: check the box on the way to being an elected official.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: But does that mean you were like really connected with
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: the people you represent? I'm not like, I'm not questioning
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: him or trying to be a dick about it, but
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I think that is the hit.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: And I agree, but I also think that is a.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: Newsom will deal with that as well.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: Yes, but for both of them, that is an intellectual,
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: logical framework for trying to understand a feeling, right? Because
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: Trump is worse than all of them, right? But there
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: are people that think that he can connect and there's
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: a way in which he has an ability to overcome that.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: And so I think when people go to that, people
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: look for facts and figures or sort of story to
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: explain it. But then there is something that like, what
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: is it that prevents Pete from connecting to big parts
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: of the Democratic base, which we've talked about a million times?
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: What is that gap? I don't think it's just resume.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: I think it's something else that he's trying to figure out.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Finally, two clips from Kamala Harris. One from the
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Detroit event where she was talking about the war. And one,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: one of the plays she posted that was actually from
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: her trip to North Carolina last week.
• 51:48
  Speaker 10: He entered a war, got pulled into it by Bibi Netanyahu.
• 51:53
  Speaker 10: Let's be clear about that. Entered a war that the
• 51:58
  Speaker 10: American people do not want. putting at risk American service members.
• 52:05
  Speaker 10: Since the start of Trump's war of choice, it's 15
• 52:09
  Speaker 10: more dollars every time you fill up your tank of gas.
• 52:12
  Speaker 10: The price of diesel has now gone up 80% since
• 52:16
  Speaker 10: the start of the war. And you best believe that's
• 52:18
  Speaker 10: going to carry over to how much you're paying for
• 52:20
  Speaker 10: all the goods that are being transported.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Who let her do that?
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I would love to just know how that gas station
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: video came together. Because it's like, my friend, you live
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: in California. The prices are much higher here. If you
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: want some sticker shock in the backdrop. It's like they
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: got out of the car on the way to the airport.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: I think it's the same suit as the Chicago event.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: So is that the same day?
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: I don't think it was the same day. Because I
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: remember wondering what the hell that was a couple days before.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: No, I agree.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: But anyway, I wanted to put both in. Because I
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: do think that she is at her best when she
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: is doing the prosecution of the administration as she was
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: in the first half of the clip. The gas station, look,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: she's not the only one who's done this, but it
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: is such a, talk about like signaling that you are
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: a throwback from a different era of politics. It was
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: a Chuck Schumer event.
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, even Chuck Schumer would give a little, you know,
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: like she's literally driving in North Carolina, gets out of
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: the car, there's a gas station. She's like, all right,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: vertical video, here I am. And I'm going to be,
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to be like, the cost of this
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: war is blah, blah, blah. It's just so like, it's
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: very Senate. You could see a whole bunch of Democratic
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: senators who would maybe not run for president probably do that.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: We all know gas prices are really high. When Chuck
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: Schumer would do the gas station press conferences because gas
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: prices were high.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: And it was the 90s.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: And it was the 90s and 2000s. He was trying
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: to signal to people that he would want to be
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: his voters, that he cares about the things he cares about.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: He was trying to do a hit to get him
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: on CBS2 and ABC7 and have a moment so people
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: see that he cares about these issues. He introduced some
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: kind of like a A message bill that would address
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: gouging or whatever it was. And it was just a
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: message hit to stay in front of his voters to
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: show that he's fighting for them. Kamala is ostensibly not
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: running for anything. And if she is, it won't be
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: for some time. She happens to be in North Carolina.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: We all know gas prices are high because they're on
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: the fucking signs when you go to the gas station.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: That's the beauty of the issue, honestly. So who doesn't
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: know that? We all know that.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it just sort of seems random.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: And I think that's sort of what I'm looking for
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: from political leaders, all of them right now, is I
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: want you to be leading on things in a full-throated
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: way early. You know what I mean? Early on, let's
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: take on the argument against the Iran war, not once
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: the prices are way up. It's okay to do it then,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: but I don't know. It just sort of felt like
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: you've been here. You've been in LA. You could have
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: done these events.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: We have some big political issues here.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: The choices of when to speak out and on what um,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: just confuses me a little bit as a strategic matter,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: I think is what I'm reacting to.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The challenge for her is, so she was the
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: last nominee. She is leading in the polls right now for,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: if you look at polls of national Democrats, um, she's
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: especially leading with black voters. So she's going to get
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: a look, right. And she's going to have, if she
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: decides to run, um, she's, she's going to be, uh,
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: like a real formidable candidate, but that's not going to
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: last long if she doesn't back that up with, okay,
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: here's why I'm running. Here's what I have to say.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Here's what I have learned. And, and here's my thoughts
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: about not just where we are, but like where we
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: have to go. And, and in a way that is
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: like personal to her and that no one else can copy,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: you know, which I mean, they all have to do that.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: But I do think even though she was only nominee
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: for a hundred days, she's already been there. So like the,
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: the burden is even higher for her that, you know,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: the bar is even higher for her to like come
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: up with something, a little new and different.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: And she was vice president of the administration for four years.
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: I always think that's like more important to the challenge
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: that she has.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: And I watched her- But I even, I saw her,
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: I've seen her do the like, she's tried to do
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: the like, well, you know, we need some, I've had experience.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: I've sat in these rooms. I've had these jobs. And
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: I do not think the experience argument is going to
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: carry any Democrat very far in 2020.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, it's also that that was, We already know
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: that argument. It was part of the argument she made
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: when she was running the first time. I watched her,
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: the full event in which she spoke. She spoke out
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: about the war in the way that you clipped. But
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: then when asked about what do Democrats have to do differently,
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: you end up with, I think, something I agree with.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: We can't just be nostalgic for the past. We have
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: to have a different vision. But she does what I
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: think a lot of Democrats have become accustomed to doing,
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: which is say Democrats need to have a vision. Democrats
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: need a vision for what we're going to do about
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: affordable health care. We need a vision for affordable housing.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: I completely agree. I do think that's exactly what we need.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: I know. It's a lot of translating pundits beat that
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: we all do into rhetoric for an audience, right? Like,
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: it's not enough to be against something. We have to
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: be for something.
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: We can't just go back to how things were. That
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: wasn't good enough for people. We got to figure out
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: a new way forward.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. It's like, this is what people are saying
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: in the focus group. So now I'm going to say it.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: And again, this is a problem a lot of them have. Yeah. Anyway,
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: so we'll do that with a couple. We'll do that
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: with different candidates as they pop up. I know there
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: are some other ones out there. I only saw a
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: little bit of Cory Booker's speech. I didn't see much
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: of it. I didn't really see Andy Beshear's, but they'll
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: be out there more. We'll look at a lot of them.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: When we come back, Tommy speaks to Alon Goldenberg of
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: J Street about how pro-Israel progressives are trying to make
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: their case.
• 57:33
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  Speaker 1: Ilan Goldenberg, welcome to Positive America.
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  Speaker 9: Thanks for having me.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Great to see you. So over the last couple of years,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: probably longer, there has been an intense debate about the
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  Speaker 1: war in Gaza, the U.S.-Israel relationship, especially U.S. military support
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: to Israel, and the line between anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism. Now, thanks
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: to President Trump, you can lump in the role Israel
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: may or may not have played in the latest war
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: with Iran and Lebanon to that debate. So most recently
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party, this debate manifested as a fight
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: over whether Democrats should go on a Twitch streamer show,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: a guy named Hassan Piker. There's this think tank called
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: The Third Way. They said that Hassan should essentially be
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: banished from the party. This was in a Wall Street
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: Journal op-ed. So Jon Favreau talked through a lot of
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: this with Hassan for an episode that came out about
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: a week ago. Folks should check that out if they
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: want more. But you wanted to provide a different perspective
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: on how you believe one can still be a supporter
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: of Israel and a liberal Zionist and a Democrat all
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: at once. So we want to talk through that and
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: maybe I can poke and prod your arguments. Here we go.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: So let's just start with where you disagreed with Hassan
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: on his definition of Zionism and kind of we'll go
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: from there.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 9: So the problem with, I think, Hassan's argument on that,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 9: and thanks for having me, Tommy, was, you know, he
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 9: talked about Israel and Zionism as essentially an ethno-state with superior,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 9: you know, essentially looking at a, what you'd call a
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 9: supremacy ideology. And if you actually look at the founding
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 9: documents of the state of Israel, for example, and you
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 9: look at the history of Zionism, you know, Israel is
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 9: intended to be a Jewish democratic state. It was also
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 9: to be in its declaration of independence, described as a
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 9: state with equal rights for all of its citizens. That's
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 9: what the vision of the state was. Now that's been
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 9: incredibly imperfect. And huge efforts still need to be made
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 9: to move it in the right direction. That's one of
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 9: the reasons J Street exists, right?
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, we.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 9: Exist because the view before us was, you know, you
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 9: just got to support Israel and everything. Israel is the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 9: perfect democracy in the Middle East, the only American democracy
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 9: in the Middle East, the only democracy in the Middle East, really. And,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 9: you know, our argument was, no, there's all kinds of
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 9: problems that need to be worked out and we need
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 9: to be honest and critical about with a friend of
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 9: ours in Israel. But the answer isn't to tilt all
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 9: the way in the other direction and to say, well,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 9: you know, Hamas and Israel are, Hamas is a lot
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 9: better than the Israeli government. And I'd much rather have
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 9: Hamas than I would the Israeli government and treating it
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 9: as uniquely evil because look, Bibi Netanyahu is a fascist,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 9: potentially authoritarian. Donald Trump is also a fascist and authoritarian.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 9: Do I call America a fascist state, an authoritarian state? No,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 9: I don't. I recognize that there's huge problems here and
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 9: I operate from within that very kind of basic understanding.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 9: So this, I think, was kind of my problem with Hassan.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 9: Which was the argument was this state is uniquely evil.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 9: This state was founded purely based on ethnic cleansing. I mean,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 9: we have terrible ethnic cleansing and the founding of the
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 9: history of the United States and in so many different
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 9: countries around the world. And so, yeah. I think we
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 9: just need to pull back and have a longer conversation
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 9: about what is wrong and what is right and within
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 9: the context of the state of Israel and how to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 9: move it to a better place.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: So look, I don't want to, I'm not going to
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: try to speak for Hassan or anybody else, frankly, but
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: let me just offer what I think kind of the
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: pushback to your argument would be, which is not that
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: I think anyone was saying Israel.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: Was uniquely evil.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: It was just sort of whether or not there's a
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: supremacy ideology in this sort of the founding documents. I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: think what he would say is, Israel was founded after
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: the mass displacement of, I think, 700,000 Palestinians. Since 1967,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza, and there
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: has been groups of people living under permanent occupation. And
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: the reality today is that it seems like Israel has
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: chosen to be a Jewish state and not a democratic state.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: And so I guess it's fine to debate what David
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: Ben-Gurion and others had in mind in the 1940s. I'm
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: not an expert on this stuff. I would never pretend
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: But I think people would say, look, the reality on
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: the ground is that it's this much darker version of
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: whatever that intention was of permanent occupation. And then some
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: would argue apartheid or at least very clear instances where
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: there are different rules for Jews and Palestinians that we
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: can unpack that as well. What would you say to that?
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 9: Well, I'd say I don't disagree with that.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 9: And but the answer is not Hamas.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 9: I mean, this pull back a little bit. You know,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 9: I also worked. you know, on the presidential campaign in 2024,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 9: I spent a lot of time talking to American Jews.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 9: I'd spent a lot of time talking to voters. And
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 9: I think most voters are not in these two extreme positions, right?
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 9: I mean, I think at the end of the day,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 9: You know, you have those who are from the beginning
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 9: inside the Democratic Party have said, here's the AIPAC position.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 9: We're going to support Israel no matter what. And then
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 9: there's where Hassan is, which is to argue that Israel
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 9: is this kind of uniquely evil or deeply, deeply problematic state,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 9: where the reality is, I think you find most, at
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 9: least American voters, I would argue, and you can look
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 9: at polling that shows this, that can say, hey, you know,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 9: what I really want is for all Jews in Israel
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 9: and all Palestinians to to have freedom, security, equality, a
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 9: state of their own. That's what we're arguing for at
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 9: J Street. I can be horrified by the acts of
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 9: October 7th by Hamas, and I can be horrified by
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 9: the horrific actions that the Israeli government has perpetrated in
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 9: Gaza against Palestinian civilians. You know, I can.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 9: Really hate Bibi Netanyahu, and I can have some sympathy
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 9: for the Israeli people at the same time. I can
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 9: recognize that anti-Semitism is a real problem, and I can
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 9: also recognize that criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism, and
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 9: that even very sharp criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism is
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 9: not anti-Semitism. So this is where, you know, a guy
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 9: like Hasan Piker, I don't necessarily think he's anti-Semitic. I
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 9: just disagree with his views. And I think this is
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 9: the kind of nuanced, hard conversation that I think we
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 9: need to have in the Democratic Party and in the
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 9: sort of Democratic coalition. Because I also think that's where
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 9: most Democratic voters are. That's where I would say most
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 9: normie voters, Democratic voters are. Certainly American Jews that I
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 9: talked to, and that's what J Street was founded to represent,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 9: was that this is where most American Jews are. They're
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 9: not where AIPAC is. But it's also, I think, just
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 9: not where, even if we have some folks on the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 9: base who are going further left, I think that there's
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 9: just a huge constituency for this very common sense view
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 9: that I'm expressing.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, my view on Hamas is that what they
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: did on October 7th is evil and unjustifiable and fuck them,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: and that they're bad for the Palestinian people and for
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: the Jewish people, and that's fine. I think what Hassan
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: was making, kind of an inflammatory point, when you look
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: at the death toll in terms of the number of
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: people that Hamas killed on October 7th versus the IDF,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: but I think you get in trouble when you're doing comparisons.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: I've also been someone who's Was not a fan of
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: BB Netanyahu since 2009 when I first was in the
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: same room with the guy. I think you're getting at
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: this middle ground position. I want to push you on
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: that a bit because I think every elected official in
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: the United States basically pays lip service to the idea
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: of a two-state solution. And I think for decades, the
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: US government made a very sincere effort to facilitate talks
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: But for basically his entire career, Netanyahu has worked to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: block the creation of a Palestinian state. And these days
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: he brags about it. You know, he says like, throw
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: my adept statesmanship. We prevented this from happening. He calls
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: it a terror state. And in reality, I think the
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: peace process has been dead for a long time. And
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: then since October 7th, both Israelis and Palestinians have lost
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: faith that it will ever happen. I think like one
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: fifth of Israelis and Poles think there's any hope for
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: a Palestinian state. And that number is kind of propped
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: up by Arab Israelis. So, you know, meanwhile, the situation
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: on the ground, it's the West Bank gets further annexed
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: every week. Gaza is now even further occupied by Israel.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: So I think the critics would say this liberal Zionist
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: vision of support for Israel and a two state solution
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: is kind of delusional in a way of just avoiding
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: the obvious reality that Israel long ago chose to be
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: a Jewish state and not a democracy. So a full
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: democracy for all people who live there. So what's your
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: response to that argument?
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 9: So look, again, I don't disagree the situation is grim.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 9: And also I'll say I worked on some of those
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 9: negotiations that John Kerry led in 2014. I was part
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 9: of that process during President, under President Obama. Yeah, some
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 9: of the assumptions in that old way of doing things
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 9: were deeply problematic. For example, the idea that we couldn't
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 9: touch security assistance for Israel and we need to give
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 9: them a blank check because if we start to enforce
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 9: or threaten or just basically say, forget even threaten or leverage,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 9: just say, you know what, if you're not behaving in
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 9: a way that is consistent with our policy, And our
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 9: interests and our laws, we're just not going to give
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 9: you these weapons and not sell you these weapons, which
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 9: is really what my position is now and where J
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 9: Street is and has been for a long time. We
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 9: were advocating last week for 40 senators to vote against
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 9: these kinds of weapons. So I'm not arguing for that,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 9: the liberal Zionist old position of let Israel do whatever
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 9: it wants and let's just work this out, right? We
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 9: can use leverage. We do have leverage. And at the
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 9: same time, I also don't think the answer is, well,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 9: we should support Hamas or we should be- No one's
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 9: saying we.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: Should support Hamas.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's a straw man that we're leaning
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: on here to make a silly argument. Fuck Hamas. Everyone agrees,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: fuck Hamas.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 9: Okay, well, let's just say this. I actually think what
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 9: you do have a problem is you have extremists on
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 9: both sides. You have Netanyahu, and you have Hamas, right?
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 9: And let's not forget, in the 90s, when we actually
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 9: almost did get to a peace deal, it was Hamas
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 9: bus bombings that then brought Netanyahu to power. These two guys,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 9: these two sides, they're two sides of the same coin.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 9: They're thriving off, building off each other. You know, and
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 9: similarly in the 2000s, right? Like, Netanyahu actually has millions
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 9: of dollars in cash from Qatar, landing in Ben Gurion
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 9: Airport and being pushed into Gaza to pay off Hamas
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 9: and empower Hamas and keep it quiet while he's purposefully
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 9: weakening alternative moderates on the Palestinian side. So the point
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 9: is what J Street advocates for and what we do
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 9: when we talk to Israelis and Palestinians on the ground
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 9: is there is a, I think, still a strong minority
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 9: who wants to work Towards that alternative vision both on
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 9: Israeli and the Palestinian side whether we don't call it
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 9: a two-state solution We actually call it we started calling
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 9: it a 23 state solution because we don't think it's
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 9: just gonna be a deal that gets a new Palestinian
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 9: state and Israel's being living side by side we think
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 9: it needs to be part of a regional integration that
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 9: actually has Israel at peace with all of its neighbors,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 9: which creates a lot of incentives for the Israelis. And
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 9: part of that is a new Palestinian state. Now, when
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 9: you do polling like that and you present Israelis with
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 9: the president of the United States were to come to
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 9: Israel and say, here's a plan. end all the wars.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 9: This was done during the war in Gaza. We're going
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 9: to end the war in Gaza. We're going to get
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 9: the hostages out. We're going to pursue a plan that
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 9: ultimately ends with Israel at peace with all of its neighbors.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 9: And as part of that, you can have a Palestinian state.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 9: That kind of proposal still gets 60% in Israel.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: Isn't that a lot of hurdles to set up before
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: the Palestinians were just like, I just want to live
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: in in peace and with self-determination. Suddenly, Israel has to
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: make peace with every single neighbor before they can have
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: that opportunity.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 9: No, it's actually not that complicated. You just do both
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 9: processes at the same time. And at the end of
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 9: the day, it's really about peace with Saudi Arabia and
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 9: everybody else goes along.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: Hasn't that been pretty complicated, though?
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 9: It is complicated, but so is a Palestinian state on
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 9: its own. You're trying to create... And by the way,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 9: I should say the problem, like you said, there's a
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 9: lot of non-believers on the Palestinian side, too. Polling in
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 9: the Palestinian public is also pretty terrible right now, right?
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 9: On both sides... But at the same time, on the
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 9: Palestinian side, again, if you actually offer them a pathway,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 9: those numbers change dramatically. If you just say what makes
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 9: the most sense now, I mean, the overwhelming majority is
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 9: still for armed resistance. But there's still 40 percent who
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 9: are pushing for this two-state solution. And the other thing
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 9: I'll say about this is, you know, this goes back
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 9: to my days, again, working at the State Department on these.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 9: When you present both sides of the public with, here's
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 9: a deal, would you take it? And you present it
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 9: to the Israeli public. You know, when you do polling,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 9: you get to about 40%. And you present it to
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 9: the Palestinians, and like, here's a deal, would you take it?
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: 40%.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 9: Then you say, here's a deal, and the other side
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 9: has already agreed to it. The numbers jump to like 65%, 70%.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 9: Point is, I still think there is a desire on both.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: Sides to get there.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 9: And I think what you have to start doing slowly,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 9: and it's gonna take time, is get away from this
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 9: dynamic where it's Hamas on the one side representing the Palestinians,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 9: and Bibi Netanyahu on the other side representing the Israelis,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 9: and they're playing off each other, and they're strengthening each other,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 9: and they're weakening all of the alternatives. You're gonna have
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 9: elections in Israel later this year. That's a real opportunity.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 9: We just saw what happened in Hungary. there is an
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 9: opportunity that those elections aren't going to necessarily bring you
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 9: the most left-leaning government you could ever imagine in Israel.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 9: The alternative to Netanyahu is probably kind of a center-to-center-right government,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 9: but it's one where at least you have people you
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 9: can work with.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the Netanyahu piece of this because, again,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I greatly dislike Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. I have
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: for a very long time. I think he's corrupt. I
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: think he's racist. Um, I think he's bad for Israel. Um,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: but I do, I feel like in the U S
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: people talk about him sometimes as if getting rid of
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: him might, it's like a quick fix and we'll fix everything.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: And I just, like, it seems very unlikely to me,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, like the, the country is lurched to
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: the right. You've got like violent extremists, like literal terrorist sympathizers,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: like this guy, Itamar Ben-Gavir who are now in government.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: And by the way, his support for his party in
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: polls is going up and up and up, not down.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: Even the moderate candidates, though, they're not that liberal on
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: the Palestinian issue. The head of the moderate Yashar party
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: just visited a West Bank settlement that was tied to
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: some really horrible abuses. Yair Lapid seemed to back Mike
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: Huckabee's bizarre claim that Israel has a right to take
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: over the whole Middle East because of biblical claims. So again,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: it would be great to see Netanyahu gone and preferably
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: in a prison somewhere. But isn't there a lot of
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: evidence that for the Palestinians and for the Palestinian issue,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: the even more moderate parties are not going to be
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: all that much better?
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 9: I think what you will see is, first of all,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 9: you're going to stop digging, right? So Going back to
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 9: Ben Gavir, for example, yeah, his numbers have gone up,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 9: but also Smotrich's numbers have gone down, these two parties together.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 9: His numbers, in terms of support.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: Two real extremists currently in the government, yeah. Exactly.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 9: Two extremists currently in the government basically stays the same.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 9: But exactly, guys like Smotrich and Ben Gavir aren't in
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 9: this new government, right? And Smotrich and Ben Gavir, these extremists,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 9: play this unique role of essentially being kingmakers, which gives
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 9: them huge amounts of leverage in areas Israeli decision-making and
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 9: pushes the government to more terrible and terrible places. Whereas
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 9: if you had instead guys like Yair Lapid or Yair Golan,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 9: who are not ideal, but these are kind of the
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 9: Israeli center-left playing the kingmaker role, that's a meaningful difference.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 9: Yair Golan being a retired general who ran down to
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 9: southern Israel on October 7th and saved a lot of people,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 9: just basically got up and went down there, but also
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 9: is very much arguing for a two-state solution and is
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 9: arguing for some of these things. And what you could
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 9: get then at least as a government that at least
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 9: starts cracking down on things like what we are seeing
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 9: in the West Bank and extremist settler violence in the
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 9: West Bank. We're at J Street pushing for legislation actually
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 9: on Capitol Hill called the West Bank Violence Prevention Act
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 9: that at this point has you know, overwhelming support of
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 9: Senate Democrats, more than 40 and 130 or so members
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 9: of the House, which would start to impose sanctions on
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 9: these guys, on these extremist settlers, but could actually make
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 9: a real profound difference because all these things, the violence
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 9: and the settlements and all of it is tied together.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 9: All these institutions are tied together. You can actually start
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 9: to apply a real pressure and change behavior. And so
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 9: I think there's opportunities to, we're not solving this problem
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 9: anytime soon, But if you have a government that is
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 9: at least more restrained and also cares about the U.S.-Israel relationship,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 9: because it's very clear now, and this is also another
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 9: thing that started happening in Israel in the last couple
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 9: weeks in particular. You've seen it with some of the
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 9: polling that's come out about Israel, and you've seen it
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 9: with what's happened with this vote last week in the Senate.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 9: There finally is a questioning that's coming to the center
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 9: of Israeli politics of like, what's happened here? How is
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 9: our relationship with the U.S.? collapsing in such an extreme way.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 9: And as that happens, I think you're going to have
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 9: a government that is more centrist, not great, but is
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 9: going to care more about that. And that gives us
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 9: more leverage and also creates a situation where they start
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 9: to potentially at different moments say, well, yeah, maybe parts
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 9: of the party of our government would like to do
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 9: this thing in the West Bank or in Gaza, but
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 9: we're actually worried about the Americans. and their opinion. And
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 9: we care about, for example, what Democrats also think of us.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 9: And so we're going to restrain ourselves more. And you
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 9: start to move, we're not solving this problem immediately, but
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 9: at least start to change the trajectory of this whole conflict.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I hope that's true.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: I guess I just worry that, look, when I see
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: this effort, it's a very misguided effort by the Third
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: Way to like, to try to declare that Hassan Piker,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: the Twitch streamer, is sort of like out of bounds,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: it seems to me to be part of a broader
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: effort to silence critics of Israel in the U.S. and
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: chill debate about policy that frankly happens all the time
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: in Israeli media. For example, right, like if an American
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: politician was like, Israel is an apartheid state, that is,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: you know, language... that is treated as outrageous or potentially
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: anti-Semitic all the time. But as you know, I mean,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: in 2021, the most prominent Israeli human rights organization in
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: Israel called Israel an apartheid regime. And I was just like,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: that was in 2021. And I've just sort of pushed
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: back on this idea that, you know, maybe the Knesset
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: is growing increasingly concerned about like sort of view U
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: S views of laws and decisions like that, because Pretty recently,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: Israeli lawmakers passed a law to expand the death penalty,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: but only for Palestinians, which seems like a pretty egregious
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: example of the kind of law or policy that B'Tselem
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: was talking about when they wrote that paper several years ago.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: Aren't those pretty clear-cut examples of apartheid-like or unequal treatment
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: of individuals based on religion And shouldn't we be having
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: a more honest conversation about that kind of stuff in
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: the United States and not like doing what the third
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: way is doing here?
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 9: I mean, we should be having an honest conversation about
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 9: these things. You know, I will say I'm not saying
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 9: that the Knesset's moving further to the left. I think
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 9: if you look at the Israeli public and you look
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 9: at polling, we have elections in October. You're going to
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 9: have a different government. This government in Israel is horrific
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 9: in all the different ways. But it's not just this government.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 9: There's a lot of systemic and deeper things. And that's
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 9: exactly the conversation I want us to be having. And
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 9: I 100 percent, we were out there as an organization
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 9: sharply critical about this. But I think we just need
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 9: to be careful when we have that conversation to not,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 9: you know, and like not sway too far in the
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 9: other direction to the point of, you know, essentially casting
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 9: Israel as this, you know, OK, there is ethnic cleansing
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 9: in Israel's history. There's probably ethnic cleansing in cases of
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 9: I'd say 50 or 100 of the countries that exist
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 9: in the world today, including some very recent as well.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 9: And so what we just have to be careful to
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 9: do is not turn Israel into, we need to normalize
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 9: our relationship with Israel, right? That's what I've actually, that's
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 9: one of the things we've argued for a long time.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 9: That means no more blank check. Let's treat Israel like
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 9: a normal country, right? and let's have those hard conversations.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 9: It also means let's not treat it as this uniquely
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 9: evil or sinister thing, which I think is happening in
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 9: some far extreme places. So I think I agree with you,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 9: the whole third way conversation here of like turning Hasan
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 9: Piker into some kind of measuring stick for all this,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 9: you know, I don't think that, you know, I listened
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 9: to the interview with John Favreau. I don't think Hasan
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 9: Piker is anti-Semitic. I just think his views are misinformed.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 9: And in many ways, I just think we need to
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 9: be careful to not go in that direction because if
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 9: you want to ultimately in the United States build a
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 9: political coalition that's actually going to win in 26 and
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 9: more importantly in 28, I don't think that most people
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 9: are where he is. I think most people are kind
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 9: of in this middle in this position. It's not the
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 9: middle ground of Democrats versus Republicans. I'd argue it's the
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 9: middle ground of where the Democratic Party is, which is
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 9: just kind of like, yeah, there's all kinds of horrible
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 9: stuff happening there. And we should do something about that
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 9: instead of just letting them use our weapons. But also,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 9: I don't think these people are the devil necessarily.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 9: And so that's that's what I'm arguing for.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: I hear that. Like, I don't think people, I don't
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: think Hassan is arguing that like Israel is the devil
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: or that Israeli people are evil in any way. I
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: think what, what's happening and what I think the sort
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: of political class can sometimes miss because they've been having
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: these conversations for years, you know, people like you are
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: genuine experts in the founding documents of Israel, right? And
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: maybe sometimes we make a mistake when we kind of
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: try to pull from history. I think the average American's
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: experience of what's happening in Israel right now, especially young people,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: if they started paying attention to politics a couple of
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: years ago, they just see intolerable amounts of killing by Israel,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: first in Gaza, now in Lebanon and Iran, and they're
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: doing it with American weapons. And then if you're my age,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: you've been kind of watching Netanyahu since 2009, sort of
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: doing his best to prevent the Palestinian state from being
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: created coming to Congress to insult Barack Obama and try
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: to blow up the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, and
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: then just wrapping his arms around Donald Trump in the
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: biggest kind of bear hug ever. And so it's like,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: it's not that people have deeply held views about the
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: origins of Zionism or because they're anti-Semitic. They're just like,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: why is this really strong country bombing the shit out
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: of Gaza over and over again? And why are we
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: giving them weapons to do it? Why am I paying
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: for that?
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: And they're just horrified by it. And like, it's a visceral,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: reaction that I think, you know, like Jonathan Greenblatt will
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: try to like scold me if I use the wrong
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: words to try to prevent this conversation from happening, but
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: it's happening no matter what.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 9: Yeah, no, I look, I can't disagree with a lot
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 9: of that in terms of the fact that, I mean,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 9: Bibi Netanyahu is an asshole. And I've also been living
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 9: with him for 15 years, right? I mean, my first
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 9: government job was working on Iran in the Pentagon in 2009,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 9: just literally starting about a month or two after he
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 9: came into office. And he's been the problem since then
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 9: for years and years. And so we're not in a
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 9: different place on that at all. And I think He's
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 9: the one who's done the most damage to this entire
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 9: nature of the relationship. But I agree, it is bigger.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 9: The history is longer. We can have those honest conversations.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 9: I mean, it's one of the reasons now, like, I
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 9: don't know if you've paid attention. We've taken a fair
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 9: amount of flack for it. J Street, we've been advocating
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 9: for years, right, for this position of you can have
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 9: both you know, a support for Israel and no blank check.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 9: Let's ask all the hard questions. So last week we
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 9: came out with a new position, uh, that's flared up
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 9: a lot of interest, which is basically to say there's
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 9: three pieces to the U S Israel security relationship, right?
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 9: The first piece is, you know, we, you know, we
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 9: do operational cooperation on certain things when it's in our interest,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 9: we should do that. Whether it's our militaries working together,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 9: whether it's sharing intel, which they do help us with,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 9: with everything from ISIS to Iran to all kinds of
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 9: other challenges. When it makes sense, we can do that. Two,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 9: basically they get $ 4 billion a year from us, right?
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 9: And have been for years and years and years. And
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 9: J Street's position is, it's time for that to end.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 9: It's basically a financial subsidy, right? And there's no reason
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 9: that they don't need this financial subsidy for anything anymore.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 9: Israel at this point, it's a country with a per
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 9: capita GDP similar to.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 9: France or the UK or Germany or any of these
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 9: very wealthy countries. They don't need this money. They have
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 9: a $ 45 billion budget. So let's just kind of phase
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 9: that out relatively quickly. And by the way, I'm not
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 9: the only guy saying that. Rahm Emanuel is saying that.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 9: Bibi Netanyahu is saying that. Lindsey Graham is saying that.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 9: AOC is saying that. It's one thing everybody agrees on.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 9: It's time for that money to go. And then the
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 9: third piece is when it comes to arms sales, There's
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 9: some things that really do make sense, like Iron Dome,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 9: for example, right? Missile defense system that protects Israeli civilians
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 9: from attacks.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: There are some people who argue that the Iron Dome enables,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: you know, more militarism by the IDF because they know
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: that they can repeatedly bomb a country like Iran and
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: then just be protected from incoming fire. I'm just sort of.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: laying out the other side of that debate for listeners.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 9: No, for sure. And my argument on that is if
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 9: you go back, for example, and imagine there are moments
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 9: when that might be true, but if you really think
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 9: about it in totality, imagine if on October 7th, Israel
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 9: didn't have those systems and hundreds of more in the
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 9: aftermath when Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran started launching, and
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 9: the Houthis started launching missiles at Israel. If Israel didn't
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 9: have the capabilities to protect civilians, first of all, just
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 9: on a human life perspective, we're talking about somewhere between 500,000
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 9: and 700,000 American citizens living in Israel. That's a real issue.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 9: But also, what do you think the Israeli response would
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 9: have been if a couple of thousand more people would
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 9: have been killed as a result of these missiles landing
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 9: in their cities? I think there would have been more
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 9: killing of Palestinians and Lebanese, for example.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: So I.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 9: Would argue for Iron Dome. But I also think when
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 9: it comes to other weapon systems, let's just apply... you know,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 9: the laws that exist on the books already and uphold
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 9: Israel to the same standard as every other country, which
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 9: means there are certain things they wouldn't get. You know, especially,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 9: you know, there's a law called the Leahy Law, which
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 9: reviews unit by unit what partner countries are doing in
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 9: the world. There's a special process for Israel that is
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 9: different than– it's pretty much the most lenient process that
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 9: any country in the world gets. We don't need that.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 9: Israel doesn't need that. That's not good for U.S.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: Interests. It's not good for Israel.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 9: There's other laws which look at if you're preventing aid
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 9: from going in, American aid from going in, you should
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 9: be cut off from certain weapons. Again, we should have
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 9: done that. Biden administration should have done that. I was
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 9: part of the Biden administration. It didn't do that. I
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 9: disagreed with that at the time. I kind of evolved
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 9: on that. I will admit, I evolved on that as
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 9: the war went on. And I certainly am there now, right,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 9: where it's time to cut off some of these weapons.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 9: So you can be just discerning and nuanced in all
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 9: of this, is my view.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: I totally hear that.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: Look, I think I'm really glad that Jay Streeter is
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: part of this conversation and was lobbying senators to cut
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: off certain types of U.S. military. I think the votes
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: last week were what, for 1,000-pound bombs and like armored bulldozers.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: There's absolutely no reason the U.S. needs to be providing
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: those systems to Israel, especially given the context right now.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: I think you're right. We absolutely should not be giving
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: a rich country $ 4 billion a year for no reason
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: for military support. By the way, money is fungible and
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: that money can then be, they're using that to fund
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: a universal healthcare system that a lot of people here
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: would love to have. And so I'm glad that like
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: this conversation has become more nuanced and more rational and
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: that people are less scared of getting like slapped down
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: if you sort of break from the APAC party line
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: or orthodoxy going forward. I do think the challenge the
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party leaders are having is the base of the party,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: young people have moved way further, way faster than the
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: Democratic elected officials have, even if Democratic Party elected officials
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: have moved really, really fast, historically speaking, on this issue.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 9: Yeah, no, I think that that's true. But I also
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 9: think we need to balance that with the sort of
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 9: independent voter and the non-base and majority sort of normie voter, right?
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 9: And I think you're right. If you look at young
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 9: people and their view on this, you know, somebody like me,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 9: I imagine somebody like you are probably roughly the same age, right?
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 9: You know, we both grew up with kind of Israel
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 9: of Yitzhak Rabin, which was not the, you know, Joe
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 9: Biden grew up with the Israel of, I should start with,
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 9: Joe Biden grew up with the Israel of really the
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 9: post-Holocaust scrappy country came out of, you know, you know,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 9: essentially underdog. And every event he would do on this
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 9: always started with this story of going to Israel in
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 9: 1972 in Golda Meir. So he had one mentality, right?
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 9: Like folks like you or I grew up with a
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 9: liberal Israel that was powerful, but was looking to make peace, right?
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 9: At least I did. And then you look at, you know, people,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 9: you look at my kids and you look at just everybody, again,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 9: anybody under the age of 25 or 30 doesn't remember
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 9: a world without Bibi Netanyahu. And it's a huge problem.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 9: But I also think, you know, there's still the majority
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 9: of the Democratic Party that's not necessarily there, despite those
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 9: being the loudest voices, right? And certainly it's not the
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 9: majority of, you know, American voters who are kind of
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 9: at this as far left as the base, as far
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 9: as the base has gone on this. And so we're
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 9: going to have to find, I think we just might,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 9: there's a danger of going too far. I think you're right.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 9: I also think politicians haven't moved far enough yet. But
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 9: I think the 27 will be a really interesting dynamic.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 9: I hope that there can be, that can be a
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 9: unifying moment for politicians and Democratic Party leaders and candidates
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 9: to be able to essentially express a position of not,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 9: throwing the U.S.-Israel relationship in the garbage and still recognizing
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 9: that there is potential value there, while at the same
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 9: time saying the way this has been done in the
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 9: past needs to end. And for me, the answer is, again,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 9: it goes back to treat Israel like a normal country.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 9: Treat Israel like a normal ally, whether you want to
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 9: call it an ally or not. Some would say ally. Others,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 9: more opposed, can just say normal country. That means on
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 9: both sides, right? That means no more blank check. It
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 9: also means there's some things we'll work with them on
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 9: because we have an interest in doing so.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: For sure. I think that's right. Look, I think, I
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: think a normie voter, the most powerful, have not thought
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: about this for one fucking second. And the most powerful
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: argument to them is going to be, let's stop spending
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: money on wars or giving it to other countries and
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: spend it at home.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: And right.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: So like that is really going to be the, the
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: people are gonna have to sketch out thoughtful nuances of
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: foreign policy because that kind of like nationalists isolationist view
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: is going to be the siren song politically that is
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: incredibly powerful, that frankly works on me in a lot
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: of instances and is, I think, something we all just
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: have to keep in mind as we are seeped in
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: this stuff and have more nuanced views that might not,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of get to the average voter on
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: a random day. But either way, look, Ilan, I really
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: appreciate you coming on and talking about this stuff. I
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: imagine this will not be the last time we'll be
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: talking about this. Maybe we'll pop back on to talk
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: about Another round of talks tomorrow in Pakistan with the Iranians.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: Hopefully they're not as terrible as the last one, but
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: we'll find out.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 9: I think I told you before we started is I
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 9: kind of feel like we're just in, it'll be fine.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 9: Trump will make something up and we won't go back
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 9: to war, but we also won't be in a position
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 9: where we've made any progress in the straight up or
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 9: moves will remain closed. That's kind of like my guess.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: On all that. Wonderful. Well, it could be worse, I guess.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on. Where can folks
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: find JC to work and what you guys are up to?
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 9: Well, you can look us up on jstreet.org. We also have, um, our, uh,
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 9: our sub stack, the Jeremy and I, Jeremy Ben-Ami, our founder, uh, writes, um,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 9: myself word on the street, but really the website and, um,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 9: and sign up for, you know, we do a lot
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 9: of different things. We do, you know, we work with candidates.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 9: We do a lot of lobbying on the Hill. Um,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 9: we are going deep into American Jewish community, trying to
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 9: change a conversation and have this nuanced conversation. So there's
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 9: ways to get involved all over the country, 20 chapters
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 9: around the country who are doing this kind of work
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 9: to really build, at the end of the day, a
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 9: liberal alternative to that conversation that until recently was just
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 9: an AIPAC conversation. And this is what we're trying to
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 9: build in really democratic politics with the Jewish community overall.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 3: Excellent.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you again.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: That's our show for today. Thanks to Alon Goldenberg for
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: coming on. Dan and I will be back with a
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: new show on Friday from D.C. How about that? If
• 1:34:02
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• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save
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  Speaker 2: America is a Cricket Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin.
• 1:34:21
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• 1:34:24
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• 1:34:55
  Speaker 11: Thank you.