Latest / Pod Save America / Will Trump & Netanyahu Let Gaza Starve?

Transcript

Will Trump & Netanyahu Let Gaza Starve? · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. There's a lot
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of performative tough-on-crime talk out there. SimpliSafe Home Security actually
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is all about being effective against crime. Their active guard
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: uses smart tech and live agents to proactively deter criminals,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: not just react once they're already in. Most security systems
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: only take action after someone breaks in. That's too late.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: SimpliSafe's new active guard outdoor protection helps stop break-ins before
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: they happen. If someone's lurking, agents talk to them in
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: real time, turn on spotlights, and can call the police
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: proactively deterring crime before it starts. No contracts, no hidden fees.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: It is easy to install. John Lovett did it himself
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and has been very happy with SimpliSafe. Safe as hell.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Safe as hell. So is pundits protected. That's important. SimpliSafe
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: was named the best home security system of 2025 by CNET.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Four million plus Americans trust SimpliSafe. It's ranked number one
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: in customer service by Newsweek and USA Today. Monitoring plans
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: start around a dollar a day. 60-day money-back guarantee. Just
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: visit simplisafe.com slash crooked to claim 50% off a new
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: month free. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: This is Gavin Newsom.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: And this is what you've missed.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Steve Bannon.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: We're in this job because of.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Overpromising and underperforming. Governor Tim Walz.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: These are bad guys, though.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: These are bad guys.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: But they exist, and we can deny they exist.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Not only do they exist, they persist. Anthony Scaramucci.
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: When he goes off on you on Truth Social with
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: the nonsense name-calling, And then you see him like a
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: week later or a day later in California. He acts
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: like it didn't happen, right? Of course.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Scott Galloway.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: It's not that our government or our elected representatives in D.C.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Are whores.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: It's that they're such cheap whores. Frank Lutz. You've taken
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: more sh * * than anyone.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Ezra Klein.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: I would like to see a liberalism that isn't just
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: angry about a bunch of things they're going to fail
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: to do, as I am, but is also optimistic about
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: what is possible.
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: Listen to This is Gavin Newsom on the iHeartRadio app,
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Tommy Vitor. On today's show, stick around later for a
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: big announcement about a live in-person event we'll be holding
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: this fall. That's the teaser. We're also going to talk
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: about Trump's new alliance with Epstein's convicted co-conspirator as a
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: way to keep her from talking. The new taxes we'll
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: all be paying on stuff we buy from Europe. And
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: the $ 1 billion we might end up paying for Trump's
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: new luxury jet. Then you'll hear Tommy's interview with Haaretz
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: columnist Amir T-Bone about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, why
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: a deal to end the war has been so elusive,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and Trump and Netanyahu's relationship. There were quite a few
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: developments in Gaza over the weekend, so let's start there.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: If you've been following this story, you've probably seen that
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: since the Israeli government broke its ceasefire with Hamas in
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: March and blocked all food or aid from entering the territory,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Gaza has become hell on earth. Israel has now destroyed
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: most Palestinian homes, buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and farms.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: They've killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly children, wounded
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands more, and have displaced nearly 2 million Palestinians,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: almost the entire population. In late May, Israel started distributing
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: small amounts of food at four locations run by American contractors,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: but Israeli forces have shot more than 1,000 people who've
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: tried to get that food. And now the U.N. says
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: that every single resident of Gaza is at risk of starvation.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: The World Food Program says 100,000 people are in dire
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: need of treatment for malnutrition, which has claimed the lives
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: of 48 people in July alone, 20 of them children.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Israel has blamed the U.N. and Hamas for the hunger crisis,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: though senior Israeli military officials told the New York Times
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: there is no proof that Hamas has been systematically stealing U.N.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: food and supplies. On Monday, Two of Israel's leading human
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: rights organizations said for the first time that Israel is
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: committing genocide in Gaza. International pressure from some of Israel's
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: closest allies, like the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, and France,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: which chose to officially recognize Palestinian statehood last week, finally
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: led Netanyahu to announce daily pauses in the fighting in
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: three places so that Palestinians can get food, though even
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: that small step doesn't seem to be doing too much.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: And none of this has stopped Bibi from denying the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: reality of the atrocities he's committing. Here he is on Sunday.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Israel is presented as though we are applying a campaign
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: of starvation in Gaza. What a bold-faced lie. There is
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: starvation in Gaza. We enable humanitarian aid throughout the duration
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: of the war to enter Gaza. Otherwise, there would be
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: no Gazans. And what has interdicted the supply of humanitarian
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: aid is one force, Hamas.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: There is no starvation in Gaza, says Bibi. As for
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Israel's closest ally and largest source of military aid, us,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the United States government, here's a sampling of how Donald
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Trump answered questions about Gaza during his golf trip to
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Scotland over the weekend.
• 5:39
  Speaker 6: Well, you know, we gave $ 60 million two weeks ago
• 5:45
  Speaker 6: and nobody even acknowledged it for food. And nobody said, gee,
• 5:49
  Speaker 6: thank you very much. And it would be nice to
• 5:50
  Speaker 6: have at least a thank you. We do have to
• 5:52
  Speaker 6: take care of the humanitarian needs on what they used
• 5:56
  Speaker 6: to call the Gaza Strip. You don't hear that line
• 5:58
  Speaker 6: too much anymore. You don't hear the Gaza Strip. But
• 6:00
  Speaker 6: we're going to be getting some good, strong food. We
• 6:03
  Speaker 6: can save a lot of people. I mean, some of
• 6:05
  Speaker 6: those kids are, that's real starvation stuff. I see it.
• 6:09
  Speaker 6: And you can't fake that.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Real starvation, but no thank you notes for many of
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: the starving children. That was just.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: Who did he want to thank you from? Did some
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: kid there have his number? Did he want Hamas to
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: give him a call?
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wanted him to fire off a thank you note.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: Maybe thank you for the bombs?
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Those are far more expensive than the food. It's like J.D.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Vance asking. They all want people to thank them. That's
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: very weird. Zelensky's got to thank them. The kids in
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Gaza have got to thank them. Let's start with you
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: guys' general reactions to the developments in Gaza over the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: last week. And Tommy, maybe you can tell us what
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: you think about the pause in military activity that Bibi announced? Yeah.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think just generally, I mean, you see
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: these photos of these emaciated, literally starving to death or
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: starved to death children, and it's just impossible. It's the
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: worst thing I've ever seen. It's impossible as a parent
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: not to imagine that being your child and being incapable
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: of protecting them. You know, that's where my brain always goes.
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: And what is so enraging is is that this was
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: not just predictable, it was predicted. Taking aid distribution away
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: from the UN, giving it to this brand new organization,
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that just emerged out of nowhere recently,
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: was destined to fail catastrophically, and every expert said as much.
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: One example why, you mentioned how the GHF has four
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: aid distribution points, the UN had 400. And so what
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: that does, this new system forces Gazans to make these long,
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: dangerous walks through an active war zone to get food.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: There are all these instances of the IDF or contractors
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: shooting them or drones going off near these distribution points.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Hundreds of people have been killed, like 600, 700, 800.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: Gazans have been killed near eight distribution points. There was
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: a former GHF contractor who served in the US Special Forces,
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: did an interview with the BBC. He said, quote, he
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: has never witnessed the level of brutality and use of
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population an unarmed
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: starving population. This was a guard for the GHF. And
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: he said he fought ISIS and the Taliban.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: ISIS and the Taliban.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: And it's, by the way, no longer anonymous, so they
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: can claim, oh, these are fake or anonymous. This person
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: on the record, on camera, describing this, someone who was there, U.S.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Special Forces veteran, also describes it as amateurish, right? Like
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: this is a thing that was just stood up.
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: It's just like the processes are terrible. The individual treatment
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: of people are terrible. So your questions about the humanitarian
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: pauses that are happening, the pauses in military activity, I mean,
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: they're good, but it's like the definition of too little,
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: too late. Because there's no on-off switch for a famine.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Jeremy Cunn-Neindeck, the president of Refugees International, has been sounding
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: the alarm about this, how difficult it is to control
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: a famine once it reaches the tipping point. And the
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: tipping point is like you sort of see clusters of deaths.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: That's how you know this is happening. And it will
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: require a massive surge of aid, food, malnutrition treatment, clean water, sanitation,
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: health care. Not just these bullshit PR airdrops or a
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: few pauses. And so I'm glad there is this acute
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: focus on the famine, but we need to also focus
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: just as much on permanently ending the war. Because as
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: you mentioned, the death toll before this famine has been catastrophic.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: Gaza Health Ministry says 55,000. Other studies say closer to 80,000.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: 70% of structures destroyed. And so the only way the
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: living Israeli hostages are going to survive and get out
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: alive is to permanently end the war. And it's going
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: to take a massive diplomatic push to get there because
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: Netanyahu is extending the war for political purposes.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, Netanyahu blames Hamas for aid not reaching people,
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: and yet under international pressure, he can get more aid
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: into Gaza. This happened repeatedly. The Times published this long
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: and deeply reported story about Netanyahu's conduct before and during
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: the war, and there's a scene that describes Netanyahu facing
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: pressure from the right internally to not allow aid into
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Gaza and from the Biden administration at the time to
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: allow aid into Gaza. And he always relented to the
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: pressure from the biden administration in that instance he responds
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: to pressure how can it be that it is hamas's
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: fault or the un's fault uh and not israel's fault
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: that aid is not getting to people who need it
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: when under pressure that policy changes it's happened multiple times.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah the um The propaganda and the lies in the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: face of like what the entire rest of the world
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: is seeing and has been documented, it's just really like
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: drove me insane over the weekend. The, you know, like
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: the footage of all the UN trucks and it's like
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: they're just sitting around. I think AIPAC tweeted this and
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Israel's been talking about this. And then as soon as
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: he announces the pause, you see pictures of the UN
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: trucks just coming on into Gaza. Yeah. So it's like,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: is anyone gonna, you just lied to everyone and now
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: you're just gonna pretend that you're not gonna even correct
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: yourself or anything. They just don't care.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: The other part of this too is, if you only
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: allow in a fraction of the aid that is required,
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: it is not surprising that the people who will get
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: that aid are the people with guns. It is not
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: surprising that you have chaotic and dangerous scenes among people
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: who are starving and desperate. And experts in this, former
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: envoys to the region who've worked for Democrats and Republicans,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: People who have delivered aid to the region will say
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: the answer is more aid. If you have enough aid,
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: it can't be commoditized. If you have enough aid, if
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Palestinians are no longer terrified that today's truck will be
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: gone tomorrow, right? If people can trust that there will
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: be enough food, then all of a sudden these distribution
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: points by the UN become less chaotic. And by the way,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: this new organization stood up by the Trump administration's allies, right?
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Like they are backing the IDF and doing these extremely controlled,
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: distribution points where they're shooting at people, and they claim
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: they're shooting in the air, but lots of reports of hundreds,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: if not a thousand people dying because of it, to
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: maintain control at these four points. When the UN is
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: distributing aid at these hundreds of places, there are times
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: where people are overrunning. What do they do? They back
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: off and let people take the food, right? They don't
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: shoot people under desperate circumstances.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: And imagine, imagine you have a crowd of people where
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: it's like, you literally can't move. And the idea of
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: sort of shooting in the air as a warning shot
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: to try to back people off, but you can't back off.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: Like there's massive crowds of people and people are desperate.
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: And so like, but the other, the thing I know
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: that people are probably going to be tweeting at us
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: as they listen to this is Hamas could end the
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: war right now.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Just about to leave the hostages.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: And it's what I want to say to you is
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: you can repeat that talking point or you can actually
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: get them home because. Hamas is a terrorist organization. They're
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: not good actors. We should not trust them. We should
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: not expect them to act in this, you know, act
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: in a way that we would want them to, right?
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: Like the hostages are their only leverage. The only hope
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: of releasing the hostages is through a deal. And that
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: deal has to include ending the war permanently. And that
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: is what Netanyahu refuses to agree to. And that is,
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: you can talk about it, like Amir and I go
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: through this, there's all the sequencing and, you know, the
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: phasing of hostage release and Palestinians and Israeli prisons getting released.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: The big sticking points are Hamas wants a deal that
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: permanently ends the war and Netanyahu won't do that because
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: it will collapse his government and he will be out
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: of power and he is facing corruption charges and he.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Could go to jail. That's it. The idea that if
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: only everyone who is criticizing Israel would call on Hamas
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: to release the hostages, suddenly Hamas would release the hostages
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and all would be well. It is fucking absurd that
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: we're still doing this in July of 2025 as this
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: war has dragged on, talking about what Hamas can or
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: cannot do. You know what? We're not funding Hamas's military.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Hamas isn't accepting diplomatic pressure, international pressure. The whole point,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Bibi's stated goal when they started the blockade was to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: put pressure, the blockade of food into Gaza was to
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: put pressure on Hamas. Since that time, they've recovered one hostage,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: an Israeli-American hostage, and that was like a side deal
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: with the United States. So it was by Netanyahu's own,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: like his own stated goals, it's been a fucking failure.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to get to pressure Hamas to release the hostages. And
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: what it's done instead is just starved a bunch of
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: people and led to like a staggering loss of life.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Hamas started this war. Hamas has shown incredible disregard for
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: the lives of the people it claims to represent. It
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: is a monstrous organization. We should demand better. of Israel
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: and that it, yes, Hamas does not, Hamas could save
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Palestinian lives right now. So can Israel. We hold Israel
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: to a higher standard because it is an ally of
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: ours who we fund, who we ostensibly believe has a
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: moral and ethical compass that at some point in its
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: history claimed to believe in. So the idea that like, oh, well,
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: you know, it's Hamas's fault.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, sure.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: I agree. Hamas is responsible ultimately. for the ongoing suffering
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: of the Palestinian people because they hold the hostages, because
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: they committed an act of terrorism, a monstrous war crime.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Fine. Okay.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: So what? So Palestinians have to die? That's the answer?
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Israel can, you mean, Israel can do better? So can we.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: So can the United States. We have the capacity to
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: go and do something about this. So does Europe. I mean,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: it's just.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump could end this war with one call to end, yeah.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump has so much political capital in Israel after
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: the Iran strikes. Netanyahu needs him. Netanyahu wants his political backing.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: He also wants the U.S. military and intelligence support. But
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: instead of doing that, instead of getting the Nobel Peace
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: Prize that he wants, Trump has made things exponentially worse
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: by announcing a few months back a plan to ethnically
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: cleanse the entire Gaza Strip and turn it into a
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: resort town. And what that did in practice was make
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: it so much harder to get a deal done to
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: end the war because the far right in Israel was like,
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: that's on the table? Ethnic cleansing is on the table.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: Controlling Gaza fully, permanently is on the table.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: We want that. Yeah, that heritage minister over the weekend
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: last week, he said, all Gaza will be Jewish. The
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: government is pushing for Gaza being wiped out. Thank God
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: we are wiping out this evil. And I realize, you know,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Netanyahu then later said, oh, he doesn't speak for the government.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: But it's like, well, he's one of your fucking ministers.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: He's also the same guy that said they should consider
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: using nuclear weapons in the Gaza Strip and then was, what,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: suspended briefly and then reinstated? And now he's being kind of,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: it took him hours for Netanyahu to ultimately come around
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: to denouncing it. And then anyway.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: But Israel Katz, the defense minister, announced a plan to
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: like focus everybody into one city in Gaza and then
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: push them all out.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: It's ethnic cleansing.
• 16:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And they're like, they're like, they're advertising their ethnic cleansing. Yes.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: But to your point about Trump, like, what do you
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: make of his, his shifting and typically incoherent comments this,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: just the last few days, he did the thank you thing.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: And then it seems like he had a bunch of
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: meetings with European leaders. And then we got, we're recording
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: this Monday. Then we got his comments today, which was like,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, the starvation is bad. And those kids look
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: really hungry and we got to do something. I don't
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: know what to make of it. Like he's just all
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: over the place.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: He's seeing it on television and he knows they're bad.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: And he is a creature of television.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: And he watched- Cable news viewer, Trump again. He knows,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: he remembers- Nation's biggest television fan.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: The Feed the Children ads from the 80s and 90s
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: that were all over television are seared in his memory.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: He knows people don't like it. He knows it's wrong,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: and he doesn't want to be responsible for it.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: He also said, we're going to set up food centers
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: where people can walk in and no boundaries. We're not
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: going to have fences. They see the food. It's all there,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: but nobody's at it because they have fences set up
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: that nobody can get in. It's crazy what's going on
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: over there. It's so crazy. He's just like a dispassionate observer.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: It's somebody who was kind of paying attention to a
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: briefing about the facts. It's like that is the transmuted
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: version of the facts we were just describing that he
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: can barely hold on to. So he's getting some information
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: about this and about Israel's culpability for the lack of it.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Well, we remember it was either during the campaign or
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: during the transition. But basically, Trump's problem was like, I
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: just don't want to see this on TV. You know,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I want I want Bibi to just finish up the
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: war because I don't I don't like the images because
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: he doesn't like the mess.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: It just I think.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: Real like military experts in Israel, like the former defense minister,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: Yoav Galant, said like a year ago that like the
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: military value of the fighting has been exhausted. You know,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: I heard today, I was listening to like a Haaretz
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: podcast or something. I think the IDF has destroyed 25%
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: of Hamas's tunnels. If the goal is 100%, like how
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: long are we going to be there? The organization is decimated.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: There were something like 30,000 Hamas fighters when the war started,
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: and there's been at least 55,000 casualties since.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. His top generals told him a year ago that
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: there was no longer a military advantage to continuing the war.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: There were the reports of.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Them taking a hospital, then withdrawing, then literally going in
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: a circle.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Just taking the same territory.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: Taking the same territory back, this time destroying the hospital.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: There's just lots of, look, Benjamin Netanyahu, his coalition depends
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: on these right-wing ministers, and they told him if he
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: agrees to a truce or a ceasefire, he won't have
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: a government, and he put his own personal political interests
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: against the interests of the hostages. and Israel's long-term interest.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: And here we are a year later, Israel's a pariah nation.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: The suffering of the Palestinians has continued. Thousands, hundreds, if
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: not thousands have died since that truce was on the
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: table a year ago. He lifted the short-term ceasefire. And
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: by the way, it is impossible to measure deaths caused
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: by malnutrition and starvation. You will have specific numbers of
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: people whose deaths are ascribed to that. But hospitals not
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: having supplies, people being weakened to infection, to miscarriage, to
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: all kinds of horrors, the toll is ongoing. It is
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: very difficult to measure just how many people are being
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: hurt if not killed by the fact that food and
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: medicine and aid is so scarce, at least largely because
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Israel has prevented enough aid from reaching people in a
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: sustained way.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I got to say, too, I mean, you know, it's
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: my fault for being on Twitter all weekend, but, you know,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the New York Post ran this story about, there's a
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: picture that was in the New York Times about a
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: mother holding her emaciated, starving child, you know, and his
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: stomach was distended. It's a horrific picture. And the New
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: York Post ran this story, you know, actually, the boy
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: is suffering from genetic disorders. And so it wasn't just
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: starvation and the boy's going to get medical treatment. And
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: then Israel, you know, the Israeli Twitter account tweeted out
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: the same thing. And I saw, it's not just randos
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: in Twitter, like actual pundits, other people being like, well,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: the New York Times ran this picture. And I'm like, what, where,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: what kind of lack of humanity do you have when
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this kid, in addition to being hungry,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: also had a genetic disorder. So therefore all the other
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: fucking pictures we've seen, of like little babies dying, like
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: we shouldn't take seriously. I just, I don't, it's horrifying
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: that this is where we are right now. This is
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: where some people are.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: I'll also say it's a form of weaponized anti-Semitism unspoken
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: because it's that, oh, all of these people that are
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: saying this, all these reports, right? These are people that
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: hate Israel, hate the Jews, are anti-Zionist. And so they're
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: reporting this on what the Hamas officials in Gaza are
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: saying uncritically, or they're going with anonymous sources. They will
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: drum up anything to attack Israel, right? And there is anti-Semitism.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: There are people that are biased against Israel. There are
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: people that mischaracterize what is happening in the conflict. But
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: it requires viewing all of these organizations as lying. It
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: requires the images we can see with our own eyes
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: to deny them. It just requires such a broad conspiracy
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: to believe that this is all being cooked up to
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: damage Israel. And they can try it, but I just,
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: first of all, Donald Trump doesn't agree. Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: doesn't agree. A lot of right-wingers are starting to understand
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: that this is wrong. So, you know, they can try,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: but I just don't think it's, it's working.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: It's all, it's just dehumanization. You know, I mean, there's
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: just so much, the rhetoric, it's so dehumanizing. They treat
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: Palestinians and Gazans like they're not human beings. Like everyone's
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: part of Hamas. Like everyone's a target. Doesn't matter if.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: You're a child.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: We don't feed our enemies.
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: It's, it's just, it's horrific.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: And look, I'll say it for the thousandth time. I
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: think what Hamas did on October 7th was an evil
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: act of terror. I think it's indefensible. I think that
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: No one can ever justify harming civilians. But like the
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: rhetoric you always hear, like when you talk about stats
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: coming out of the Gaza health ministry, they're like, oh,
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: you have to say that that's a Hamas run organization.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: It's like, sure. Okay.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: But you know, the, the numbers they've released have generally
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: been viewed as trustworthy. And in fact, independent outlets think
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: the casualty count is much higher in part because so
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: many people are buried under rubble. And this war has
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: been raging for 662 days now.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: I also just like, yeah, Hamas is monstrous. And, you
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: have Palestinians who have no advocate because you have, uh,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Benjamin Netanyahu, who's putting his own political interest ahead of
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: the interest of the hostages and of Israel, uh, at
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: the great expense of Palestinian lives. And you have Palestinian
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: lives in the hands of a terrorist organization that launched
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: this attack on October 7th, knowing it would lead to
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: untold suffering of, of Palestinians in Gaza. And so, yeah,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: it's like Hamas is awful. These people, uh, uh, have
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: no one who is speaking for them.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by Cook Unity.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: As is Jon Favreau. Before they were ever a sponsor,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I was a Cook Unity guy. Tell me about CookUnity.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know a lot. Basically, there's this great menu
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: every week. There's over 300 meals on the menu. But
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: you can sort them by what kind of food you're
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: looking for. Do you want meat? Do you not want meat?
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Whatever.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: And so you can look that way. They have new items.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: And they're all made by chefs from actual restaurants either
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: around here in California or in New York or other places.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: 160 plus award-winning chefs, it says in the copy.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's really good. And I, they, they send, uh, like,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: you know, however many meals you want, five, six, seven
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: a week to your house and it's all fresh. So
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: you got to eat it that week, but the food
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: is excellent quality. It's like really good variety. Um, and
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: so I'll, I'll tell you, like I just ordered today,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: ground beef, chili, and broccoli rice, California style chicken enchiladas,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: spicy lobster, Diablo tacos, uh, martin's ecuadorian chicken like this
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: is it's really really good.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: I'm copying pasting the link from this ad sending it
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: to my wife right now and we're gonna get some
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: cook unity going nice nice no i i love cook
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: unity you know fully cooked meals you can heat them
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: up as little as five minutes in the oven or
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: microwave and uh it's that fast enjoy yeah high quality
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: culinary masterpieces for a.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Subscriptions start as low as $ 11 a meal. That's the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: other thing. It's really affordable. Skip deliveries, pause, or cancel
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: any time. Let me tell you about the heating up.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: You can heat it in the microwave, but if you
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: have time, you can also reheat it in the oven
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: or in an air fryer, and then the quality is
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: even better. There you go. Get what you're craving. Try
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the freshest, best-tasting meal delivery made by your favorite celebrity chefs.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Go to cookunity.com slash crookedfree. or enter code CROOKEDFREE before
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: checkout for free premium meals for life. That's free premium
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: meals for life by using code CROOKEDFREE or going to cookunity.com
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: slash CROOKEDFREE. Terms and conditions apply. Go to cookunity.com for details.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I saw a group of 21 Senate Democrats are calling
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: on the Trump administration to stop funding the GHF, the
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, that's Israeli-backed and run by American contractors.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and put the UN back in charge of aid distribution.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I also saw Senator Angus King of Maine today put
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: out a statement. He said, I am through supporting the
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: actions of the current Israeli government and will advocate and
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: vote for an end to any United States support whatsoever
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: until there is a demonstrable change in the direction of
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Israeli policy. I mean, good for Angus King. I don't
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: want my taxes funding this. I don't want the people
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: who represent us voting for that funding. I don't want
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the people who represent us taking money from AIPAC. AIPAC,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: who over the last couple of days accused Bernie Sanders
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of blood libel just because Bernie Sanders was criticizing the
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: war and the government. And I don't think Democratic candidates
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: should take money from AIPAC or vote to fund military
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: support for Israel anymore. Like, I really don't. Like, it's just...
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: This government, absolutely not. And that especially includes, I think,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the next Democratic nominee for president. Yeah, I mean, like.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: These are tall orders in the Trump administration. But the
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: things I want to see Democrats at least calling for
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: is cutting off military assistance to Israel. It's a rich country,
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: by the way. They don't need our $ 3 billion a year.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: And hands up, right? Barack Obama signed a 10-year MOU
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: for $ 3. 3 billion a year. So we're part of the
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: problem here. Let's correct it. I would like to see
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: talk about sanctioning Israeli government officials who use genocidal rhetoric
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: or talk about ethnic cleansing openly. We should support a
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: ceasefire resolution at the U.N., We should demand that international
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: press be allowed into the Gaza Strip to report on
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: what's happening without.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: An IDF minder.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: It's insane that the press still can't go into Gaza
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: and cover what's happening. And I also think there has
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: to be a total mindset change in the Democratic Party.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: When the war ends, we are not going back to
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: the pre-October 7th status quo. It's not where the party is.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: It's not where the world is. We're not going to
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: shovel billions a year in military aid. We're not going
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: to veto every effort to recognize the Palestinian state at
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: the UN. We should not take money from AIPAC. And like,
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: I will hold out hope for better political leadership in
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: the US and in Israel. But we have to also
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: recognize that the Biden era, hug Bibi Netanyahu strategy has
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: to be thrown in the trash can for fucking ever.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: Netanyahu is a bad actor. He's continuing a war for
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: political purposes. He bombs Lebanon when he wants to. He
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: bombs Iran when he wants to. He bombs Syria when
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: he wants to. The idea of, they literally bombed the
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: Syrian army headquarters two weeks ago in Damascus. Like this
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: is not a partner we can count on. This is
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: not someone who is like, leading to calm and stability
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: in the region, which should be a core interest. And like,
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: the only good thing is like that, you know, APAC
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: calling Bernie Sanders blood liable or accusing a blood liable
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: a few years ago, I feel like would have been
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: a big deal. But that rhetoric has been so overused
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: that I think the effect has worn off and people
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: are not scared anymore.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: And I think that's good. They're not scared, but it's just,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: it's incredible to me how many democratic politicians still haven't.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, 21 Senate Democrats wrote that letter. That's great.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: That's not the whole caucus. Angus King, how many other
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Senate Democrats have called for cutting off funding? At this point,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: cutting off military funding for a government that is starving
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: 2 million people and advertising how they're ethnically cleansing the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Palestinians seems like the least we can do.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Especially if we're going to head into a primary,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: table stakes is going to be no more military aid
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: for Israel. That's like, you know, I don't understand how
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: the argument in favor of it. And beyond that, I
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: do think, you know, France just recognized Palestinian statehood. You know,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: I went and looked at the AIPAC memo on why
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: that was so bad. And the point it makes is
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: for 40 years, Democratic and Republican administrations have made clear
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: that recognizing the state of Palestine must only come from negotiations.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Where's that gotten us over 40 years, right? Our being
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: the staunch ally and the lone vote in the Security
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Council to prevent Palestine from being recognized. So I do
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: think we need to like, what does it mean for
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: the United States to support Israel's right to exist and
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: defend itself after this war? And it will have to
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: look very different. And that will start, I think, by
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: recognizing the profound shift in the power dynamic after Israel
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: has leveled the Gaza Strip. And by the way, as
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Netanyahu has promoted and sort of stood by as the
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: West Bank has become even more settled over the last, what,
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: how many, I don't know what percent, the expansion of
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: settlements has been dramatic.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the violence.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: And the violence in the West Bank.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, against the Palestinians.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: So there will just, will have to be a shift.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: And I do think that will mean being, uh, putting
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: far more pressure on Israel. And that's what I think
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Democrats want, by the way, that's what the country wants.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: And when you, when you pull Israelis, they say they
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: want a fucking ceasefire. Like is, is Israelis want the
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: hostages returned through, uh, uh, uh, a negotiated settlement. And
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: by the way, that's the way in which the vast
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: majority of hostages who were returned were able to be returned.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: We'll say like, it's funny talking to a mirror for
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: the interview today. Israelis talk so much more bluntly about
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: their criticisms of their own government than Americans do. Americans
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: are so scared because of, you know, sort of groups
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: like AIPAC accusing you of blood libel or people like
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: Jonathan Greenblatt at the ADL who accused me of antisemitism
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: because I said Netanyahu started a war that needed Trump
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: to finish, which is objectively true. I'm talking about Iran,
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: by the way. But, you know, I do think the
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: Democratic Party is way behind where its base is right
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: now and needs to catch up.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: One.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: Two, I hope that in this acute moment of interest
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: in the horrors of this famine and the need to
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: end this war, that we can find a moment to
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: build a broader coalition that goes well beyond the Democratic Party.
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: Because the left got very mad at me on Twitter
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: over the weekend for saying this, but I feel strongly
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: that the coalition that has a chance of pressuring Donald
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: Trump in this moment to end the war in Gaza
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: or to force Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: has to be as broad as possible.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: It's the furthest left.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: To the furthest right, like the isolationist Rand Paul, Thomas
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: Mastey types, and then everyone in between. And that includes
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: people who supported the war and now they don't. That
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: means people who are uncomfortable calling it a genocide because
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: of the legacy of that word in the Holocaust and
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: how it makes them feel. And I'm mostly talking, my
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: tweet said people, I was talking about average people, but
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: we should also recognize that politicians we don't agree with
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: on shit, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, could be very influential
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: and important allies in this fight because she has Trump's ear.
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: And so like what that means in practice is let's
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: welcome people into the tent for the purposes of making
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: this argument, this push to end this war. Like we
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: got to pull the same direction for a bit. That
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: doesn't mean there's no accountability forever. We're buddies forever. We
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: won't vote out people that supported, you know, shoveling money
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: to the IDF through the duration of the fighting, even
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: when it got really bad. But like, just can we just,
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: I would love to see some sort of organizing effort
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: around pressuring Trump in Netanyahu now. Yeah, you know, it's
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: a classic story of politics is you start from the
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: goal that you want to achieve, and then you work
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: backwards to figure out how to get to the goal, right?
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: It sounds simple, but it's like people lose that in
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: the social media mess, right? Which is the goal is
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: to end the war, end the starvation in Gaza. And
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: as you said, Tommy, Trump has a lot of power
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: to do this. And so then the question is, how
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: do you pressure Trump to do it?
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: That's it. And then you build the coalition to do that.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: And just, you know, right now, Benjamin Netanyahu... has Trump.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: But Trump won't be there forever. And what Democrats are
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: saying now about what they will do when they regain
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: power matters. It's funny. In the same way, we need
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: to be signaling to corporations that are capitulating to Trump
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: that there will be an after. We need to be
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: signaling to allies and other countries around the world that
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: there will be an after. And I think the more
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: that Democrats now are saying that there will be increased
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: pressure on Israel, up to and including recognizing a Palestinian
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: state right? That cudgel being real, like they were, Benjamin
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Netanyahu responds to pressure in the same way people pretend
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Trump doesn't, people pretend Bibi doesn't, but he does.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: It's happening internationally too.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, you mentioned the French example, but there's also
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: a huge, there's a letter from like 220 or 240
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: MPs to Keir Starmer calling on him to cut off
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: military support to Israel because David Lamy, the foreign secretary
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: of the UK, who's a good guy, a friend, he's
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: been on Posse of the World a bunch of times,
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: Had some really harsh words for the Israeli government, but
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: they need to be backed by actions. That's what we're all,
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: everybody's calling for action.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Keir Starmer, he was standing with Trump in
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Scotland during the press conference when Trump made the Gaza comments.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: And then he also had to be there for Trump
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: getting a few questions about his late friend and fellow enigma,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. Here's how Trump answered.
• 35:02
  Speaker 6: I don't do drawings. I'm not a drawing person. I
• 35:05
  Speaker 6: don't do drawings. Sometimes people say, would you draw a building?
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: And I'll draw four lines and a little roof. I
• 35:11
  Speaker 6: don't do drawings of women. That I can tell you. Now,
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: with that being said, they say there were many letters
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: done by many people and many big people, you know, big,
• 35:21
  Speaker 6: successful people, because he did something that was inappropriate. He
• 35:24
  Speaker 6: hired help. And I said, don't ever do that again.
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: He stole people that work for me. I said, don't
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: ever do that again. He did it again. And by
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: the way, I never went to the island. And Bill
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: Clinton went there supposedly 28 times. I never had the
• 35:42
  Speaker 6: privilege of going to his island. And I did turn
• 35:45
  Speaker 6: it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: were invited to his island. In one of my very
• 35:50
  Speaker 6: good moments, I turned it down.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to go to his island. So, you know,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: we went through the whole landscape there. First, he was
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: talking about the birthday message. He doesn't draw. He doesn't
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: draw women. Then we got to the island where he
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: keeps saying that Bill Clinton went 28 times, which is
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: not supported by any facts that we know of. He
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: didn't have the privilege to go there. He was also
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: talking about why he had the falling out with Jeffrey
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Epstein years ago. And the White House has been saying
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: that Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago because he
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: was a, quote, creep. But Trump there seems to say
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: that actually he kicked him out because he poached some
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: employees from him at Mar-a-Lago. I don't know, guys. What
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: do you think?
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So first of all, there are always there's been
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: these sort of unsubstantiated and honest reports that actually Trump
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: kicked Epstein. Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago because he was a
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: creep and he was hitting on people. And Trump doesn't
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: seem to know that that story is meant to be
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: true because he tells this other one. It's like, how
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: dare you accuse me of being friends with this sex
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: trafficker and pedophile? I had a falling out with that
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: sex trafficker and pedophile over an unrelated HR matter.
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: He stole my butler.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: It's absurd.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Absurd. Yeah. Like, okay.
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: Just the initial denial about the drawing in the Wall
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: Street Journal was I never wrote a picture in my life.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Remember?
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: And then we learned that Trump donated a doodle to
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: charity every single year and he wrote about it in
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: his book. So now he's saying he doesn't draw women.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: So there's another crisis comms masterclass there.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Pretty soon it's going to be, I've never drawn pubes
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: that are also my signature.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: And as you pointed out, the White House has been saying,
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: oh yeah, he kicked up because he's a creep. Now
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: it's like, then there was a report that it was
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: a fallout over a real estate deal that they were
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: competing over. Now he's just saying, you know, he poached
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: my staff. So it's like, does he just forget the
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: previous spin?
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: It's how you don't have a handle on this.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like the white house probably did not really, uh,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: line up their story with him.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: On, on why he kicked him out. And they probably said, Oh,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: you kicked him out. Right. Yeah. And then they were like, Oh,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: let's just say it's cause he was a creep. You know,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: like I don't, I don't really think there's a lot
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: of rigor going into the briefings here.
• 38:02
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: The, uh, The other part of this is the letter.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: And now he's saying, I don't draw ladies. JD Vance
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: went on social media and said that it was fake news.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: And Chris Hayes got into it with him because JD
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: Vance replies to a lot of people, present company included.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: And Chris's question was, are you saying the letters or
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: the book is fake? His letter's fake. Like what exactly
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: is your contention here? And all J.D. Vance can say is, well,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: they won't even show us the letter, which is exciting
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: because it does mean at some point we're going to
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: see that letter.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: We're going to see they're saving it. Because Jeffrey Epstein's
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: estate has the book. DOJ reviewed it. Just waiting for that.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: And we know Trump is worried about this because he's
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: starting to refer to it as a hoax.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: A witch hunt. Democrats, Comey, Obama, Brennan, you name them.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: They all got together to put the fake pages in
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: the book.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: So now it seems like he knows that whatever we're
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: going to see, if we ever see it, would not.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Be good for him. It was Brennan with the Sharpie.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: With the Sharpie. Brennan.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Comey was the one who drew the pube signature. The shell. Comey's,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that's very much, very metrical.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: And then it was the lovers who squeezed lemon juice
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: on it and put it in the toaster.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: And made it look old. But like, it's been what,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: three weeks now? This has not gone away.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: I think Joe Rogan, there was the quote going around
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: today where he said, the Epstein files are a hardcore
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: line in the sand.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: That the administration is.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: Trying to gaslight you. There's like, we talked about how Congress,
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: the House of Representatives went into recess early to avoid
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: a vote on this Thomas Massey, Ro Khanna legislation that
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: would require the full release of the Epstein files. So
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: that's going to kick back up when they're back in
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: five or six weeks. Ron Wyden is talking about how
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: he's been reviewing... all of these Epstein-specific bank records that
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: are really shady. Trump's superpower is his relentlessness and ability
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: to repeat a line over and over and over again
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: until he just bullies you into submission. But it just
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: doesn't seem like there's a process to make this go away.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: No. Trump said again in that press conference, too, that he's, quote,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: allowed to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. He said this on Friday
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: for the first time. This is all after we learned
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: that Trump's Justice Department gave Maxwell limited immunity. to speak
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: freely about the crime she committed with Epstein during her two-day,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: nine-hour conversation last week with Todd Blanch. Just Ghislaine Maxwell
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: and Todd Blanch, the president's former defense lawyer turned deputy
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: attorney general. That's usually what happens. I don't know if
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: you guys know in the Justice Department that you send
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the number two in the Justice Department, the guy who's
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: usually running the Justice Department, to go alone to hang
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: out with a convicted, uh... accomplice to a sex predator
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: sex trafficker and uh... i don't know was any were
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: any of the career officials who prosecuted the case there
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: no doesn't sound like it.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: Well also it as is normal uh... then the defense
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: attorney for that uh... that convicted sex trafficker says a
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: great job he thought the d o j did in
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: the conversation uh... prod those prosecutors by the way said
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: about maxwell that she previously lied repeatedly about her crimes,
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: exhibited an utter failure to accept responsibility, and demonstrated repeated
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: disrespect for the law and the court. Blanche says that
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: he's showing great courage, and for the first time, we're
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: gonna get answers from Ghislaine Maxwell. She is in prison
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: for 20 years. A lot of these questions, presumably, were
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: asked of her. during the period of time in which
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: she was being investigated, charged, put on trial, and ultimately
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: convicted and sentenced.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: We still don't know what Maxwell said during this two-day session,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: though her attorney told reporters afterwards she was asked, quote,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: maybe about 100 different people, and that she answered every
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: single question. That reminds me of, just like Joe Biden
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: in the debate. She answered every question. Maxwell's also asking
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, She filed this today to overturn her
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: conviction on the grounds that she should have been protected
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: from prosecution by the deal Epstein cut with former U.S.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: attorney Alex Acosta, also turned Trump labor secretary briefly back
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: in 2007. What do you think? Would this whole idea
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: that Trump, like Trump's going to pardon Maxwell potentially because
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: she'll absolve him of any wrongdoing or just name other
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: people and not him. Do you think that helps or
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: hurts his political problems with his base?
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: So clearly they're trying to seed this idea that she
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: could be a victim and she's like a good guy
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: and all this, right? Newsmax's Greg Kelly said on the
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: air she just might be a victim. This seems like
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: a trial balloon. I just want to be clear for
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: folks who don't totally know Ghislaine Maxwell's role in Epstein's crimes.
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: So according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: District of New York, Ghislaine Maxwell recruited and groomed girls
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: as young as 14 for Epstein. She was present for
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: sexual encounters between minor victims in Epstein. And in some instances,
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: Maxwell participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims. She
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: and Epstein would ID vulnerable girls. They would find girls
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: who were poor or from single mother households and prey
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: on them because they were easy to give favors to
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: and then pull into their evil shit. This happened from
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: 94 to 2004. So this was someone who is evil
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: and very much a part of this. And Republicans have
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: spent what, the last decade, I think, calling all their
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: political enemies groomers. And now they are talking about pardoning
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: a literal groomer.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: You see, Mike Johnson said on Meet the Press Sunday
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: that he thinks she actually deserves a life sentence and
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: he hopes that Donald Trump doesn't pardon her. So that's
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: kind of interesting. But that's a quote that seems destined
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: to come back and haunt Mike Johnson.
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: Well, right.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: Well, with Mike Johnson, it's like he'll say something and
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: then he'll just sort of be sort of smacked back
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: into submission, right? He also says we should have full
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: transparency on the Epstein matter and then Has Congress leave
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: the city to avoid having that vote? Like, stepping back,
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: Ghislaine Maxwell was charged under the Trump administration. When Blanche
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: says that we're finally going to get answers, he is
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: saying that those answers were not gotten under the first
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Trump administration when William Barr was attorney general. He's saying
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: Bill Barr? was in on it is.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: Well, there's all the connection with Bill Barr's dad and
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Barr's dad apparently hired him to work
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: at this school in New York, right? So that's all
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: part of this conspiracy theory.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: And so I agree.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: I think he's in on it.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: That's interesting, though.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: But like, what makes it impossible, I think, for all
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: of this to go away is that this whole story
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: is so right-wing shaped, right? That's what makes it so
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: hard for Trump to get... He's never been on the business...
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: He's never been on the losing end of one of
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: these right-wing shaped conspiracy, or when he has, it is
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: sort of like blown up in his face, right?
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Like- It seems on Friday, he was like, I don't
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: focus on conspiracies. I'm focused on getting deals done for
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: the American people.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: If there's anything we know about Donald Trump is he
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: is not focused on conspiracies.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: But like fundamentally, right, Epstein kills himself and a lot
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: of evidence and a lot of what would have come
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: out in trial doesn't happen, right? Because the trial doesn't
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: take place. And they turn this into a- a global
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: pedophilia ring of Democrats, Hollywood elites, deep state operatives, and
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: the Jews. And it's now sort of coming back to
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: haunt him because it turns out nobody is more implicated
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: in that conspiracy than Donald Trump himself. And I don't
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: think you get out of it by pardoning a convicted
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein's chief accomplice.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: You guys see in the Washington Post over the weekend,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: we got a classic of the genre, a Trump fumes
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: story trump fumes over epstein and it's got like a
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: he's he's really angry kind of thing um but there
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: was a few tidbits in there that i think are
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: worth mentioning it's just kind of slipped in for weeks
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: after the memo was released trump and bondi spoke on
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: the phone nearly every day as they often do that's
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: so weird is that is that normal just no yeah
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: president united states just calling up the attorney general remember
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: when remember when there was a big scandal over Bill
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Clinton saying hi to Loretta Lynch on the plane.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: Can I make a neo-lib shill defense of norms?
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: One reason this story doesn't go away is because everyone
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: understands that Pam Bondi is Donald Trump's attorney before she's
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: the country's attorney. She doesn't have the ability to make
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: this story go away for him. In another era, right,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: it could go to the attorney general and say, we're
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: going to investigate this. We're going to look into this.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: It'll be completely independent and be accused of being political
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: in all kinds of ways. But it actually would allow
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: the story to progress, right? It would go to a prosecutor,
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: it would go into an investigation, and it would move
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: off of like the Donald Trump plate into the legal plate.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: But it can't, because there's only one big fucking trough
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: of Trump control. And it means Pam Bondi can't save
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump from this story, because no one thinks she
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: has credibility or integrity or any kind of separate political
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: interest from him.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: And in that trough is about a thousand FBI personnel.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Over two weeks, The thousand personnel had to scour, this
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: is all the Washington Post story, had to scour more
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: than 100,000 pages of Epstein-related documents. Workers toiled around the
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: clock and staffed mandatory weekend shifts for weeks to accommodate
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: punishing deadlines from higher-ups and were told to flag any
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: mentions of Trump and other prominent figures. This is a
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: senior bureau official said in a whistleblower report to the
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Senate Judiciary Committee that was obtained by the Post. After
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: concluding that fewer than a tenth of those documents could
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: be considered for release, staffers were asked to go through
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: them At least four times more.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Again.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: What is happening at the FBI? It's crazy.
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: And it's like, we'll never understand the opportunity cost. Again,
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: a thousand FBI agents working 24-7 to review documents that
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: they then just sit on.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: Like elves on December 22nd.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Just flag, again, with the control F. Could we not
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: control F?
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: I don't understand why we're not. This is, I look.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: AI this shit.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm about to say, look, there are many problems
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: with chat GPT, but throw this bad boy up into
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: the fucking cloud. And get some names.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Well, apparently there's a Microsoft SharePoint online collaborative file that
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Blanche's office put together of mentions of Mr. Trump from
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the piece. So there is an Epstein list. You might
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: call it a list. It's a Microsoft SharePoint. There is
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: a list with Trump's name on it of how many
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: times that someone has. And Dick Durbin is demanding that.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Dick Durbin is also demanding the tapes of the Maxwell
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: interviews that Todd Blanche did. It doesn't seem like he's
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: going to get them, but I don't know.
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: I think it's smart to make that part of the conversation.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't have thought that there might be tapes or
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: might be a transcript or a record of it. I mean,
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: I was thinking about the Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton conversation
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: on the tarmac, however, in 2015, 2016, because Republicans never
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: stopped talking about it.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: We need to get these meetings sort of viewed in
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: that way.
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: And I wondered if Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey could
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: include these documents that Durbin's going after as part of
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: their release, all the Epstein files legislation.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: It feels like it would fall under that bucket. Yeah.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: And then you see all these kind of ways around
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: releasing the episode. It'll be all credible information. And I
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: do like to Tommy's point too, like these were serious
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: and disgusting crimes. And like part of what can't be
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: released is a lot of graphic evidence, victims, right? Like
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: a lot of people were hurt. And like, to me,
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: that just goes to like, they turned like sort of
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: despicable crimes into that were allowed to go on for
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: years into this political cudgel. And they never cared about
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: the victims. It was never even that real to them.
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: It became a kind of like, I don't know, abstraction
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: They thought Bill Clinton was going to go down. They
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: thought they were going to get some way to like
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: prosecute Bill Clinton. They didn't care about the victims. And
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: this whole conversation about releasing Ghislaine Maxwell or giving her
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: a pardon, I mean, Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre said, of Maxwell.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: She is a monster. She's worse than Epstein. She was vicious.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: She was evil.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I know that woman.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, this is one of Epstein's victims.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: It reminds me too, like, you know, they spend all
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: this time saying they're going to, you know, they're going
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: after criminal aliens and then they, in order to get
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: the innocent people out of El Salvador, they release a murderer,
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: a triple murderer onto the streets of the U.S. They
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: spend all these years claiming there's a cabal of people
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: protecting pedophiles and their accomplices and then they're sending people
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: the deputy attorney general down to kind of start the
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: process of a sweetheart deal with one of the, like,
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: like basically a serial predator.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Really don't like them.
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: Patsy of America is brought to you by Helix.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I love Helix mattresses.
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: Super comfortable. We have one in our guest bedroom. Every
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: single person that's visited us has stayed on it and said,
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: I had the best sleep of my life last night.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: That is such a comfortable mattress. Where'd you get it?
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: What's on your bed? Just raving. Ranting and raving. Ranting
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: and raving. Rave reviews. I love this bed so much.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: If you have one of those Apple watches and you
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: sleep on a Helix device, it just says 100.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: It says perfect. It says your life is better in
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: every way, shape, or form.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: That's because Helix knows there's no better way to test
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: out a new mattress than by sleeping on it.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: In your own home.
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: That's why they offer a 100-night trial and a 10-
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: to 15-year warranty to try out your new Helix mattress.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Everyone is unique.
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: Everyone sleeps differently. That's why Helix has several different mattress
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: models to choose from, each designed for specific sleep positions
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: and feel preferences. So how will you know which Helix
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: mattress works best for you and your body? You take
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: the Helix Sleep Quiz and find your perfect mattress in
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: under two minutes. I took the Helix Sleep Quiz. I
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: think we got a Don Lux, were we? I think
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: that's what Hannah and I got. Either way, it's a
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: great mattress. It's super comfortable. It also gets shipped to
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: your door. Remember when you had to go to the
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: mattress store and you lay down on a bunch of
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: weird used mattresses? Then we strapped it on the roof
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: of my buddy's car to get it back to our apartment.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: It's terrible. Don't do that. Use Helix.
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: Go to helixsleep.com slash crooked for 27% off site wide.
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: That's helixsleep.com slash crooked for 27% off site wide. Make
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: sure you enter our show name after checkout so they
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: know we sent you. helixsleep.com slash crooked.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, Trump and the White House are celebrating
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: a big development in the president's global trade war. A
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: new permanent 15% tax on most of the stuff we
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: buy from Europe. The quote-unquote deal Trump announced with the
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: European Union is lower than the 30% tax he initially threatened.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: And in exchange, the EU said it would spend $ 750
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: billion on American energy and invest another $ 600 billion in
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: the U.S., whatever the hell that means. As a reminder, U.S.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: tariffs are at their highest since the 1930s and about
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: six times higher than when Trump took office, which is
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: probably why the BBC went with the headline, Winner Donald Trump,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Loser U.S. Consumers. Here's what Trump said about the deal
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: on Monday.
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: We're going to be setting a tariff for essentially the
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: rest of the world. And that's what they're going to
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: pay if they want to do business in the United States.
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: Because you can't sit down and make 200 deals. I
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: would say it'll be somewhere in the 15 to 20
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: percent range.
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: So maybe 15 or 20?
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: No, I said, you know, I sort of know, but
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: I just want to be nice.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Deals.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: First, we're going to have deals, all the 90 deals
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: in 90 days. Now there's no deals. It takes too
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: much time. So I'm just setting a tax. What's the
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: tax based on? What's the tariff rate based on? We
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: don't know. Big victory because now. Other countries aren't paying tariffs,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: but we're paying tariffs here in the U.S.? What's going on?
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: What is the point of all this? These are not
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: really deals. They're framework agreements. The details are just.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Not ironed out.
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: And you know this because the Japanese are signaling, if
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: not outright saying, that Trump's team is just making shit up.
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: Scott Besson went on Fox, I think Laura Ingraham, and
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: he was like, oh, yeah, they're going to buy all
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: this stuff.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: We're going to have an.
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: Implementation process where we review it every three months. And
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: the Japanese trade negotiator responded, In my eight trips to
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: the United States, during which I held talks with the
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: president and the ministers, I have no recollection of discussing
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: how we ensure the implementation of the latest agreement between
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: Japan and the United States. In other words, bullshit. And
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: the White House is saying that, oh, this is a
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: $ 550 billion investment in the U.S., and the U.S. is
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: going to keep like 90% of the profits. The trade
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: minister from Japan said, no, 1% to 2% of the
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: $ 550 billion is actual investment. The rest is loans and
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: loan guarantees. So it's like, it just, it's bullshit. Like,
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: The EU part of it is a little weird. I
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: was surprised they didn't put up a little more of
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: a fight given that they have some real heft in
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: terms of economic leverage, but it's probably harder to get
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: a big block like that to negotiate as a group.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: And maybe they were just nervous or maybe it's all
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: bullshit too. And we're going to see more details of
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: the EU deal and realize that. I do think like
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: big picture, all these countries benefit from knowing that Trump
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: cares about the day one headline, not the implementation. Remember
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: six months ago, when Trump had that press event with
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: Sam Altman and the head of SoftBank and Larry Ellison,
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: and they announced a 500, a half a trillion dollar
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: thing called Stargate.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Remember this?
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: So the company said, we're going to invest half a
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: trillion dollar on like data centers and infrastructure for AI
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: in the US, including a hundred billion right now. Well,
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: the Wall Street Journal the other day reported that they
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: haven't completed a single data center deal yet. It's like
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: scaling back the ambitions completely. In the first Trump term,
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: Trump made this deal with China where the Chinese promised
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: to buy $ 200 billion in additional U.S. goods and services
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: above the level they purchased in 2017. And then China
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: ultimately bought none of that additional $ 200 billion. So I just,
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: I don't trust that any of this is going to happen.
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: Or that any of it is not investments that were
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: already on the table. I mean, that was like Mexico
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: and Canada. That was their move, right? Like, let's just
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: label shit we were already doing. It's like, oh yeah, Trump,
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: you got us. And so like, you know... We have
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: the EU and the United States, Japan, the United States,
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: our economies are incredibly intertwined. There's billions upon billions of
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: dollars moving between our countries. You can ascribe, oh yeah,
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: we're going to buy a bunch of American energy. Oh yeah,
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: we're going to invest in a bunch of factories. They
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: are every day. That's why this is so fucking stupid.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Markets seem happy these days with the trade war. I
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: think that's, you know, maybe because the period of uncertainty
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: is coming to a close here. And, you know, I
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: guess Trump didn't go with the full liberation day tariffs. But,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: you know, Morgan Stanley says they don't think we'll have
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: a recession, but we still believe the most likely outcome
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: is slow growth and firm inflation. So it's like, great,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: we're going to have inflation now and slow growth. And,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: you know, again, we've said this before, but a lot
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: of these companies have so far either been eating the
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: tariffs themselves or still have goods imported from before they
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: went into effect. So the price increases really haven't said
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: they're about to set in, but they really haven't even
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: set in yet. And I still remember that quote from
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: our friend Jason Furman, who we used to work with
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: on Derek Thompson's podcast. He was like, look, if you
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: asked everyone in the country to come together and set
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: fire to $ 1, 000, it would seem like a phenomenally stupid idea.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: And we'd all remember forever who came up with it,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: but it wouldn't crash the economy. It would just be
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people lighting $ 1, 000 on fire. He's like,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: that's about what's going to happen. Like there's like a
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: half a point of growth that we're going to lose
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: that we would have had otherwise without the tariffs.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: Right, yes. The United States economy is strong enough and
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: robust enough to survive a stupid policy from Donald Trump.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: And by the way, even as a lot of people
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: will end up paying more for things that they need.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: At first, it'll be washing machines. We've seen that before.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: The price of washing machines just goes up. They pass
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: the price on to consumers. And then you'll see a
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: bunch of wealthy people be like, hey, they said this
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: trade war was going to bankrupt the economy. I'm not
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: feeling it at all. Well, of course you're not. Of
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: course you're not. You're not impacted by the daily cost
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: of necessities. That doesn't hit you in the same way
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: it hits a person who will actually be impacted by this.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Speaking of lighting money on fire, you know what it's
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: time for, guys? A corrupt date. Nice.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: Corrupt date.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: God, that sucks. Just sucks. Terrible. You guys remember the
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Qatari jet episode where everyone freaked out for a few
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: days over Trump accepting a free gift from a royal
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: family that funds Hamas? Turns out that Qatar may have
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: built the plane, but guess who's going to pay for it?
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: We are. The New York Times reports that the cost
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: to taxpayers of renovating the plane for Trump's use might
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: be around $ 1 billion. And the reason we know this
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: is because the Times discovered that the Pentagon made a
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: secret transfer for that amount from the program intended... upgrade
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: our nuclear missiles to an anonymous project that's believed to
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: be refurbishing the Qatari jet. But wait, there's more. The
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Washington Post is reporting that in the original draft of
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: the agreement that transfers ownership of the plane, Qatar included
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: language that stipulated the plane would belong specifically to the
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Air Force. But the U.S. pushed back and removed that
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: language so that Trump could take the plane with him
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: when he leaves. As a keepsake, of course, from us,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: as a $ 1 billion thank you to Mr. Trump for
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: making America great again with his Middle Eastern sugar daddy plane. Tommy,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: why isn't this a bigger story? This is incredible. This
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: is incredible.
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: We're paying for our president's plane that he gets to keep.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: He gets a little doggy bag with a plane in
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: it from the Qataris when he leaves the white house
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: and it costs a billion dollars and it comes out
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: of the nuclear missile fund. I mean, if we take
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: back the house, this list is getting longer, but this
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: has got to be like top three items on the oversight,
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: relentless focus list, right? Because remember, The Republicans figured out
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: that Hillary Clinton had a private server and a private
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: email because they did 700 Benghazi hearings.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: That's got to be the focus here.
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: Just like relentlessly demand documents, investigate this stuff, all kinds
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: of oversight over corruption, the crypto, the Qatari plane, all
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: the real estate dealings, all of it as we kind
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: of sell a message about what MAGA has become.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not even just we were talking about this
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: when we on earlier that that it's even being framed like, oh,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: the U.S. is getting a weird gift from the Qataris. No,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: there's a plane that Donald Trump is receiving as a
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: gift that the U.S. government is fixing up for him
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: for free. He is stealing a billion dollars from the U.S.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: government to fix up a present he's getting from the Qataris.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: It's making a brief stopover in D.C., but its final
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: destination is Trump's, quote, presidential library, but it will be
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: his to fly around the world. It will maybe never
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: done in time for him to use as president. And
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: by the way, just.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, hopefully it's done in time for him to
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: leave the White House. Otherwise, he's going to miss out
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: on that gift.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, all of you.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: Well, right on that... I think they won't just get...
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: What happens if he leaves before it's done?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: Well, if it's not done, who cares? He doesn't need
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: all the, like, special comms equipment stuff.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, then he just takes it. He's just like, yeah, don't... Well,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: he can't take it half finished.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: So, none of this makes sense, right? Like, obviously, this
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: is all stupid. They're going to have to finish up
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: the other Air Force Ones that they're already building anyway. So,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: this is just an add-on cost but by the way.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Like did anyone keep the receipt for the other two.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: But like everyone's like oh my god it's a billion
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: dollars there it They don't know how much it's going
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: to cost to fix up this. No one in human
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: history has ever taken a 747-8 from a Middle Eastern government,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: stripped it down to the studs, and then rebuilt it
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: at Air Force One. It's all like, how much did
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: this cost the last time we did that? It's never
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: been done before. They have no idea what.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: It's going to cost. And we need the gold plating, too.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Everything needs to be gold. How much is that going
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: to cost?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: You guys know the Pentagon. They usually come in on time,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: under budget.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Famously so. Famously so. Well, now that they've been doged,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so that's great.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: President Charlie Kirk is going to be getting this at
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: the end of his term.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: If he's lucky.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: All right. When we come back from the break, you'll
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: hear Tommy's conversation with Amir T-Bone. But before we get
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: to that, here's the news that I teased earlier. Big announcement.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: What do we got?
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: Dan's in the Epstein files. So got to get ahead
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: of that.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: No, that's not it. We're here to announce something. It's
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: called Crooked Con. In November, it will have been a
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: year since Donald Trump won again. And everyone has had
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: some time to sit and think about what we've all
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: done and what we haven't done. And we wanted to
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: get everyone together who doesn't want Donald Trump or someone
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: like Donald Trump to be president again to talk about
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: the path forward.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: Republicans have their CPAC.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: This is DPAC.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: Why don't we call it DPAC?
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: It's a terrible name. It's a terrible, terrible name. Truthfully, Republicans...
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: have been really smart about this. And they gather everyone together.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: And sure, at the beginning, it seemed like a bunch
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: of fringe crazies. But guess who's now running the government?
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: Those fringe crazies who started CPAC. So we need to
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: get together, talk about what's going on, get smarter, get better,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: maybe try to figure out how we screwed up so
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: bad in the past, move forward.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: If you have seen the intra-party debate in the Democratic
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: Party play out on the internet and in the media,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: you've probably noticed that it's maybe not the most constructive
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: thing to do. Not always. So a real constructive thing
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: we thought would be to get people together in person
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: and have a bunch of conversations with organizers, strategists, politicians,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: the cool ones.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: If you work in politics at any level, from Capitol
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: Hill to in your community, this is the place to
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: go to learn what's happening in this country, to learn
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: from some of the smartest people out there, and meet
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: the people who are on the front lines trying to
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: beat MAGA.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: Plus, we're going to figure out a way to stop
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: those text messages. We're going to- Yes.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: Truly, like, if there's one thing that can come out
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: of this event, it is stopping the text messages, Dan.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: I don't think we should put that on ourselves. The
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: measure of success can be attend this event, never get
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: an annoying text from a Democratic politician again.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: It's a high bar. And it's going to be in D.C.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: We're going to gather at the Ellipse. It's going to
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: be wild.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: It's going to be wild.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: It will be wild. It will be wild. No, it's
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: going to be at the... Wharf. Wharf. It's going to
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: be at the Wharf. We call it the Wharf? We
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: call it the Wharf, right? It's the Wharf. It's called
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the Wharf. It's going to be a place that's so
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: new that when we lived there, we didn't even.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: It was just a dock.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: It was just a dock.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: Now it's a whole wharf.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: And in case you guys think it's going to be
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: just us neolib Obama shills, we're going to have people
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: from across the political spectrum. If that political spectrum is
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: from The left to the center right.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: It'll run from the left to Tim Miller. Basically, that's the...
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: And Sarah, that's really the bounce.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: We're going to get everyone together and we're going to
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: have some fun. We're also going to do a Positive
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: America show the first night just to kick things off.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: And then the next day, we're going to all get
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: together and get down to business, you know?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, get down to business and fun.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: There'll be alcohol. Dan's going to do shots. Dan's going
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: to do shots.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: If we can solve the text message problem, I'll definitely
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 5: do shots.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what happens at the wharf stays at the wharf.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: Is it even called the wharf?
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: We don't even know if it's called the wharf. What
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: if it's not called the wharf?
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Anyway, get your tickets, crookedcon.com.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: Is it crookedcon.com? Hey, great job getting crookedcon.com. Crookedcon.com.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: Stay tuned for more information, but we're going to be
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: announcing our lineup soon.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: November 6th and 7th, Washington, D.C. Be there. Grab tickets.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: Go online, crooked.com.com. I'm sorry.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: Cricketcon.com. Cricketcon.com.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Cricketcon.com. Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombas.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Summer's here and we're all chasing something. A break, a goal,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: a vibe. Let's not let bad socks and blisters ruin it.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Bombas makes socks that keep up with whatever your summer
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: looks like, whether you're running a marathon or just a
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: few errands. Seriously, you know that song that makes you
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: want to go fast? Bombas running socks are like that.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: They wick sweat, help you keep cool, and fight blisters.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: And it's not just running. They make specialized pairs for hiking, tennis, golf,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: you name it. They even make socks that can make
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: international flights bearable. Yeah, we're talking Bombas compression socks to
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: help curb aches and keep those legs energized for all
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: the sightseeing ahead. Plus, with wedding season in full swing,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: you're going to want to see their ruffle and dress
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: socks that'll make you the best dressed guest. Best of all,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: they don't just feel good, they do good. One purchased
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: equals one donated to someone who needs it. You can
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: also order Bombas abroad. That's right. Along with the U.S.,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: they now ship internationally to over 200 countries. Love Bomba socks.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: I have them. Emily's got them. The kids have them.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: They come in all kinds of different colors. Good, nice,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: fun patterns on them. And they're comfy. It's a little
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: hug for your foot. You know what I mean? There
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: you go. There's something nice about it. You brought it home.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: It just gives your foot a little squeeze. It feels good.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: If you want a hug for your feet. You got
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: to try Bombas. That's right. Head over to Bombas.com and
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: use code CRICKET for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: Code CRICKET at checkout. Bombas.com and use code CRICKET.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: I'm excited to welcome to the show my friend Amir Tibon.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: He is a reporter for Haaretz. He's the author of
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: the book Gates of Gaza, a story of betrayal, survival,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: and hope in Israel's borderlands.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Amir, great to see you.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 7: Hey, thanks for having me.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: As usual, terrible circumstances, but great to see you. I
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: wanted to talk with you about this horrific humanitarian situation
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: in Gaza, why a deal to end the war has
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: been so elusive, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's legal and
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: political challenges and his relationship with Trump, among other things.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: But first, I did want to help listeners understand kind
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: of who you are and your perspective on these issues.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: You have been a harsh critic of Netanyahu. You've been
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: a critic of the war. But you also spent eight hours,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, hiding from Hamas.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: A little more, yeah.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, in a safe room on a kibbutz on October 7th.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: So this is very, very personal for you. I mean,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: can you just tell the listeners a little bit about
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: your experience?
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 7: Well, first of all, it's important for me to say
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 7: that October 7th for me is very personal. October 7th
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 7: is the day that started this nightmare, started this terrible war,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 7: this disaster, catastrophe that we've been dealing with for 662
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 7: days now. And because my family and I, we live
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 7: in a community, small kibbutz, right on the border with Gaza,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 7: on the Israeli side of the border, within the internationally
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 7: recognized borders of Israel, our community was attacked by Hamas
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 7: on October 7. 16, one six, 16 of my neighbors,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 7: personal friends of mine, people I would see every day,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 7: were murdered and killed on that day. Another seven were
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 7: kidnapped into Gaza. And one close friend of mine, Omri Miran,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 7: a father of two young girls, is still held hostage
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 7: by Hamas terrorists in Gaza today as we speak. separated
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 7: from his wife and two young daughters, like I said,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 7: for 662 days. So this is the background. And I
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 7: come to this issue. From what I describe as a
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 7: liberal Zionist perspective, I'm a proud Israeli, proud Zionist, and
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 7: I can tell you that in the early weeks and
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 7: months of this terrible war, I thought it was terrible
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 7: but necessary. Today, I think it's much more terrible and
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 7: also that we have to end it and that we
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 7: really should have ended it many, many months ago and
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 7: that the fact that it is still continuing, it has
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 7: brought so much suffering and despair. And, you know, I
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 7: look at it with great frustration because the war's continuation,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 7: this is what's keeping the hostages over there in the
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 7: tunnels of Gaza, including my friend Omri. This is what
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 7: is causing all the suffering in Gaza and in Israel.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 7: It's time to end it. And this is the reason
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 7: I'm talking to you, my friend. Honestly, I mean, I
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 7: love seeing you, Tommy, but this is the message I
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 7: want to send through to people. We really need to
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 7: put an end to this.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: I think it's a very important message. So, you know,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: the images that have been coming out of Gaza are horrifying,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: especially quite recently. I mean, there's these images of starving children.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: There are these massive crowds of desperate people just trying
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: to get food. There's all these reports of mass casualty
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: incidents after the IDF or security contractors fired on the
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: crowds of people who were just trying to get food.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: Can you help us just explain or understand how the
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: aid distribution process got so bad, especially what the Gaza
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: Humanitarian Foundation is and what it is supposed to be doing?
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 7: This is going to be a bit of a long answer,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 7: but trust me, it's important. for understanding and putting all
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 7: the pieces together. So in mid-January 2025, half a year ago,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 7: right around the time that the transition from President Biden
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 7: to President Trump was taking place, a ceasefire agreement was
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 7: reached in Gaza after 15 terrible months of war. And
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 7: that ceasefire agreement had several components. One of them was
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 7: the release of Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 7: Another was a partial evacuation of Israeli forces from some
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 7: areas of Gaza. And another one was pushing up the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 7: amount of aid that goes into Gaza. And at the time,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 7: the mechanism was that the aid would come through different
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 7: UN agencies and humanitarian organizations. And that ceasefire was supposed
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 7: to have two phases. Phase one, 60 days, a release
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 7: of 33 Israeli hostages, like I said, partial withdrawal, Palestinian prisoners,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 7: and then there was supposed to be phase two, which
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 7: was supposed to include the release of all the remaining
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 7: Israeli hostages in return for a complete withdrawal from Gaza
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 7: of the Israeli military and a formal end of war agreement.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 7: And in March 2025, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided that he
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 7: doesn't want this deal anymore, even though he signed it.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 7: And he decided to renew the war in Gaza, break
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 7: the terms of the deal, He tried to offer a
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 7: new kind of agreement, which is a weird thing to do, right?
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 7: You sign an agreement, putting up, you know, and I'm
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 7: not here to advocate in any way for Hamas. These
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 7: are monstrous terrorists. I told you about my own background
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 7: with them. But we signed a deal. And to try
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 7: and impose new terms in the middle of that deal
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 7: being implemented is not something you would usually do. Hamas
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 7: didn't accept the new terms that were supposed to be
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 7: basically a prolonging of the temporary ceasefire instead of ending
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 7: the war. And then what Netanyahu did, apart from renewing
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 7: the war, he said, we are going to put a
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 7: blockade on Gaza. We're going to stop all aid from
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 7: coming into the Gaza Strip. This was in March. He
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 7: said it on the record in Hebrew at the weekly
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 7: cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. He said, we're going to stop
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 7: all the aid from coming in. Now, at the time,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 7: this happened right after the two-month ceasefire. So there wasn't
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 7: any shortage of food or aid in Gaza because during
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 7: those two months that there was no war, you had
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 7: hundreds of trucks coming in every day.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: From Israel, from Egypt.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 7: But once this blockade started, you had a clock that
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 7: was beginning to tick-tock, the humanitarian clock. For how long
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 7: will the supplies that came into Gaza during the ceasefire
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 7: actually last for a territory with two million people? And
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 7: a territory that most of the agriculture and the food
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 7: production and the fishing and everything else that used to
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 7: exist there in order to feed people, a lot of
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 7: it doesn't exist anymore because of the devastation of the war.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 7: And around May, the clock was ticking very fast and
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 7: there was a real concern that you would have severe
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 7: food shortages and hunger. And that's when this new player
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 7: arrived on the scene, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. an organization
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 7: that was set up, from the best of my understanding,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 7: in Switzerland. And now there is an investigation going on
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 7: over there about the origins of this. And it involves
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 7: a lot of people from the United States. It is
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 7: led by someone who is a prominent evangelical leader with
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 7: strong ties to some political figures in Israel. And this
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 7: organization says, we are going to take over the aid
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 7: distribution in Gaza. We're going to take it from the
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 7: UN and we're going to run this. And they set
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 7: up four aid distribution centers in different parts of Gaza.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 7: Now think about it. A territory of 2 million people
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 7: getting all their food from four locations.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: How is that even supposed to work?
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I heard the UN had like 400 some odd
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: aid distribution locations.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 7: Yes, and I'm not saying the UN system was great
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 7: or perfect. And there is... something that we all here
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 7: in Israel have been saying and watching and hearing, that
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 7: Hamas would steal the supplies that came in through the
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 7: UN and then sell it on the black market in Gaza.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 7: And this was a huge problem. But the idea that
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 7: you would replace the UN system with all its flaws
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 7: and all its problems, with these four distribution sites, to me,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 7: from the beginning, it sounded impossible.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 7: And these distribution sites became the sites of horrendous scenes,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 7: of crowds packing and pushing and shoving to get to
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 7: whatever food was being distributed. And those firing incidents and
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 7: shelling and these contrasting claims that Israel says Hamas was
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 7: killing these people to keep them away from the GHF
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 7: distribution centers and other eyewitnesses. including Israeli soldiers saying, well,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 7: we were given orders to open fire in the vicinity
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 7: of the distribution centers. It just became a total disaster.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 7: And people didn't want to go there because they were
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 7: afraid for their lives after hundreds of people got killed.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 7: And the humanitarian situation, instead of improving via the presence
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 7: of this humanitarian foundation, it only got worse and worse
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 7: and worse until in the last few weeks, even officials
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 7: in the Israeli military and government began to warn that
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 7: we are facing the prospect of hunger, of starvation in Gaza.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 7: And this became an international issue, and a lot of
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 7: pressure was being placed on Israel from the U.S., from
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 7: European allies. Now remember, the whole point of this policy
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 7: of blocking all the aid from coming in and then
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 7: bringing in this American foundation to run the aid distribution
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 7: supposedly in a way that wouldn't reach Hamas' hands, right?
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 7: This was the selling point of GHF as presented by
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 7: Israeli and American officials. The whole point behind this was
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 7: to pressure Hamas to compromise in the hostage negotiations, accept
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 7: Netanyahu's terms for a partial agreement because what Hamas wants,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 7: they keep insisting to go back to the January ceasefire terms,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 7: which is all the hostages for end of war. And
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 7: what Netanyahu says, no, I'm willing to do a partial agreement,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 7: temporary ceasefire, some hostages come back, and then I renew
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 7: the war. So the whole point of this effort to
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 7: block the aid and then to impose the aid distribution
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 7: through these four apocalyptic distribution centers was to get Hamas
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 7: to compromise. Well, guess what, Tommy? We are now at
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 7: the end of July. Okay, it's four, it's going to
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 7: be five months soon. Hamas hasn't compromised. We haven't had
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 7: any hostage deal, any breakthrough. Only one living hostage came
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 7: back during this entire period, Idan Alexander, the American-Israeli dual citizen.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 7: He was released as part of a separate side deal
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 7: between the Trump administration and Hamas. So this entire thing,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 7: not only is it creating terrible consequences on the ground
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 7: and people are dying, It didn't serve any strategic or
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 7: national security goals for Israel.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: The opposite.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 7: What Hamas started doing is that they saw where this
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 7: was going and they used it in order to turn
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 7: the world against Israel. And now Israel is being accused
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 7: of starvation and keeping food away from hungry children. And
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 7: this caused Hamas to harden its positions in the negotiations.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: They feel emboldened.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 7: And over the weekend, after... so many people warned and
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 7: so many people raised red flags, the Israeli government began
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 7: to change course again in kind of a panic mode,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 7: usual behavior for Netanyahu. And now they're trying to bring
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 7: more and more aid into Gaza, which is good. I mean,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 7: this is the right thing to do. But you ask yourself,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 7: what was it for this entire thing? What purpose did
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 7: it serve?
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: And look, I agree with you. There are these sort
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: of temporary ceasefires, not ceasefires in place.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: There's pauses in place in the fighting.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 7: Now they begin to do it like 10 hours a day.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 7: And again, you know, think about it from an Israeli perspective, Tommy.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 7: For 10 hours a day, we're stopping the fire in
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 7: large parts of Gaza, and it's not part of a
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 7: hostage release deal. This is like from the Israeli perspective,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 7: the ultimate failure, right? The whole argument was we'll renew
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 7: the war so we get back the hostages. And of course,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 7: it was a lie. The way to get back the
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 7: hostages was to continue the ceasefire from January. But look
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 7: what's happening now.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: And just to point out, like, look, I'm there. So
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: there's also the Israelis are allowing some airdropping of supplies,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: which is just completely insufficient, not going to work during.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: The Biden administration.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: It's a show.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: This doesn't solve anything. You need trucks. You need tons
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: of trucks.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 7: 10 airplanes is like one truck, just to give people
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 7: a perspective in terms of the amount of aid.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: Right. It's totally insufficient.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 4: And also, the time to prevent starvation is weeks ago.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: People are now at a state of such severe malnutrition
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 4: that it can be irreversible. And what it is going
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: to require is an exponential surge of aid. Because the
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 4: deaths we are starting to see are the weakest, the
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 4: most frail people, right? People who are sick or young
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: or elderly. And there is very likely to be a
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 4: wave of deaths next if there isn't a massive surge
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 4: of aid.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 7: This is true, but I don't want this to discourage
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 7: anybody with influence from pushing aid, because if you push
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 7: enough aid, you can still save a lot of people.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 7: And by the way, also from the Israeli perspective, flooding
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 7: Gaza with food and supplies is better than the rationing
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 7: that was created under GHF, because What Hamas is doing
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 7: when they steal some of the food and some of
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 7: the aid, they're selling it for a lot of money
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 7: on the black market in Gaza. And food is being
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 7: sold for ridiculous prices in Gaza. And then they use
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 7: that money to pay their fighters, their terrorists. If you
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 7: flooded Gaza with such amounts of food that the prices
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 7: would grow down, if you bring down the price of wheat,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 7: the price of bread, price of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, cigarettes, whatever,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 7: you bring it down by flooding the area. So Hamas,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 7: whatever they get their hands on, they wouldn't be able
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 7: to sell it for.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: So much money.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 7: So again, this is, you know, just, it's a stupid
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 7: policy and it created horrendous consequences on the ground and
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 7: we have to reverse it. We have to reverse it
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 7: and the time to do it, like you said, was
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 7: weeks ago, but now at least it's being done.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think both of us fully support flooding aid in. But,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 4: you know, longer term, I mean, look, you mentioned there
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 4: have been these two ceasefires. One ended in March after
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 4: Israel resumed military operations. You and I could get into
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: all the details of like, you know, sequencing of, you know,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: hostage releases versus prisoner releases and aid distribution and, you know,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 4: where both sides want the IDF to pull back to
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 4: in the process. But I really feel like, yeah, but
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 4: I really just feel like it boils down to one
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: massive difference that can feel unbridgeable, which is Hamas wants
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 4: to negotiate a permanent.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: End to the conflict in Bibi Netanyahu territory.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: Does not because he worries it would collapse his government,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 4: but also because I think a lot of Israelis, I
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: think understandably, would view that as a quote-unquote win for Hamas.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: Is that accurate? And if so, what is the pathway
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 4: to bridging that gap?
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 7: I think in this war, you're not going to have,
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 7: at least in the Gaza theater, you're not going to
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 7: have a real winner because Israel lost so much on
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 7: October 7th. and the people of Gaza lost so much
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 7: since October 7, and both sides continue to lose so
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 7: much every day that this is just a disaster for everybody.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 7: You can argue that Israel won the war with Hezbollah
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 7: in the north. You can argue that Israel won the
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 7: war with Iran. And I think those are correct interpretations
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 7: of what happened in both theaters. I think there is
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 7: a tendency to exaggerate the magnitude of the victory. And
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 7: I am always on the side of caution and not
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 7: being arrogant and not underestimating the enemy and underestimating the
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 7: desire for revenge that comes after humiliation. But I do
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 7: think overall, you can say Israel won the Lebanon and
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 7: Iran fronts. I think the Gaza front, the promise of
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 7: victory over there is fantasy. And we are losing every day.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 7: because we're losing soldiers there, an entire generation of young Israelis.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 7: These are people who were kids, like 18, on the
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 7: verge of enlistment when October 7 happened. They're losing their
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 7: friends and so much over there, and we have the
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 7: hostages still not coming back. Our reputation as a country
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 7: is just destroyed as a result of the events of
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 7: the last few months. it's tearing our society apart. And
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 7: the moral consequences and the questions that rise from it,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 7: this is something that we will have to contend with
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 7: perhaps for years. At the same time, to say that
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 7: Hamas won anything, I mean, look what they brought upon Gaza.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 7: Look what entire cities have been erased because of what
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 7: they did on October 7th. So I don't think this
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 7: is a question of victory or loss. I think there's
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 7: a lot of politics involved here, but at the end
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 7: of the day, You need to make a deal. You
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 7: get all the hostages out, end the war, start rebuilding
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 7: the IDF because our military took a serious hit on
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 7: October 7. We lost a lot of soldiers since October
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 7: 7 to death and injury and PTSD. We have some
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 7: burning internal problems inside Israel that have to be fixed.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 7: One of them is the question of who serves in
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 7: the army, who is exempt from military service. This has
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 7: been a big political question here in Israel because certain
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 7: segments of Israeli society that have a lot of influence
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 7: in the Netanyahu government, are exempted from service, and it's
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 7: extremely unfair towards those who do serve. So we need
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 7: to focus on these issues instead of chasing the last
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 7: Hamas fighter and the last AK-47 and the last rocket
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 7: launcher in Gaza amid the rubble and the destruction there,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 7: and as we are destroying our own society and our
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 7: global reputation. And this is what's at hand here, and
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 7: I think most Israelis understand it. I think A lot
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 7: of Israelis who supported the war in the early months
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 7: of it, and I include myself in that group, today
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 7: they are convinced that we need to make a comprehensive
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 7: deal to finish it.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: The challenge remains, right, that Netanyahu maybe does not want
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 4: that deal, largely because he has this coalition... of far
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: right ministers and they could collapse his government, right?
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 7: I think it's important, Tommy, to explain in just a
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 7: minute or even 45 seconds that Israeli politics are very
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 7: different than American politics, right? In the US, the president
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 7: is directly elected. Esar, the senators, the members of Congress,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 7: you know, you choose a person for a job and
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 7: they have a term. In Israel, we have parliamentary politics,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 7: which means you vote for a party. And then from
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 7: those parties that make it into the parliament, you need
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 7: to build a ruling coalition. Because you never have a
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 7: scenario where one party actually has an outright majority. You
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 7: need different parties to cooperate. Netanyahu's governing coalition relies on far-right, messianic,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 7: fanatic elements that oppose ending the war, oppose the hostage deal.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 7: They almost resigned because of the previous hostage deal, even
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 7: though it was a temporary partial ceasefire. And they are
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 7: threatening to pull the plug and bring down his government
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 7: if he actually makes a comprehensive deal. And this is
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 7: a frustrating situation because most Israelis, in return for all
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 7: the hostages, will support ending the war. But this minority government,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 7: they're literally a minority government now because they don't even
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 7: have a majority anymore in the parliament. They lost it
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 7: because of other political issues that got in the way.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 7: They are dictating the continuation of this war. And the
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 7: daily grind and death of soldiers and suffering of the
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 7: hostages and the catastrophe in Gaza. And by the way,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 7: it's also impacting the border communities like my kibbutz. A
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 7: lot of families are not coming back, not going back
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 7: to live in the kibbutz until the war ends. People
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 7: don't want to bring their children back into a war zone.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 7: So this is creating so much frustration and it is
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 7: driven mostly by... political interests of one man who wants
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 7: to remain in power.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 4: And so, look, there's a question, I think, in the U.S.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 4: of how to bring about political pressure on Netanyahu to
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 4: force him to change. Because when Biden was in charge,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: there was this mantra from the White House you hear
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 4: all the time that you need to hug Bibi to
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 4: get him to do what you want. And that meant
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: never disagreeing with Netanyahu publicly, giving Netanyahu political cover at
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 4: the U.N., funneling weapons to the Israeli government. And look,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 4: full disclosure, that kind of hug BB shit drove me crazy.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 4: I thought it was a terrible approach then. I think
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 4: it's a terrible approach now. Now Trump is in charge
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 4: of the relationship. I would argue that Gaza had a
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: huge impact on the 2024 election. Now Trump, interestingly, has
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 4: been more willing to break with Netanyahu on certain issues
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 4: like the Houthi rebels.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: We don't have to get into all the details. Syria, yeah.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 4: Of been willing to give Netanyahu the Heisman on certain issues.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 4: Gaza has not really been one of them, with the
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 4: exception of that first ceasefire. But let's say that Trump
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 4: or the next president or the US Congress, they really
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 4: wanted to pressure Netanyahu. What steps could the US government
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 4: take that would actually matter?
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 7: I want to say something specifically about Trump. President Trump
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 7: is very popular in Israel because of the attacks in
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 7: Iran that he conducted, which were viewed by most Israelis
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 7: as something that significantly improves the national security of Israel.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 7: Because of some things he did in his first term
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 7: as president, when he moved the embassy to Jerusalem and
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 7: recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel and things
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 7: like that, Abraham Accords. And also because of that first
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 7: ceasefire deal in January, because President Biden tried for many,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 7: many months to reach that ceasefire and bring back those hostages.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 7: And I want to give credit to President Biden for
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 7: the first ceasefire and hostage release deal, which happened in
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 7: November 2023. That deal brought us back 100 living hostages
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 7: from Gaza. Because remember, on October 7, Hamas kidnapped 250 people,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 7: including women and children and agricultural workers from Thailand who
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 7: are not even Israeli. And so Biden's deal brought us
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 7: back 100. But then the January deal, I gave a
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 7: lot of credit to President Trump for reaching it. Because
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 7: after that first agreement, Biden failed to get another deal
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 7: for 14 months until Trump came in and boom, it happened.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 7: And that also gave him a lot of popularity. President
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 7: Trump could easily use that popularity among the Israeli public
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 7: to go out and say, it's time to end the
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 7: war in Gaza. It's time to make a comprehensive ceasefire deal.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 7: Enough with this, excuse my French, but bullshit of temporary deals,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 7: partial deals, five hostages today, five hostages two weeks from now,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 7: two hostages 50 days from now. We'll discuss the end
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 7: of the war during the negotiations later.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 7: Why does it have to be so complicated? Because that's
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 7: what Netanyahu and Ron Dermer want. If Trump came out
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 7: and said it's time for a comprehensive agreement, end the
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 7: war in Gaza, release all the hostages in one, you know,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 7: put them all on one bus, okay? 20 of them,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 7: including my friend Omri Miran, are alive. Put them all
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 7: on one bus. 30 are assumed to be dead. Put
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 7: all their caskets on another bus and bring them to
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 7: Israel and finish this nightmare. And have a plan for
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 7: the day after in Gaza. Hamas will have to give
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 7: up the governing powers. There will have to be a
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 7: different Palestinian government there. You have an Egyptian, Saudi, Emirati
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 7: plan just on this issue that with some tweaks and
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 7: corrections can be accepted by Israel and can be a
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 7: good solution and can create better security. Trump can get
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 7: it done just by the fact that he's so popular
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 7: in Israel that it would be difficult for Netanyahu to
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 7: face up and confront him over this. But he refuses
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 7: to do it. And instead what he's doing, he's adopting
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 7: Netanyahu and Dermer's temporary partial ceasefire plan. You know, this
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 7: idea of a 60-day ceasefire. Several hostages will be released
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 7: in the beginning. Another few hostages will be released after
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 7: 50 days. The rest of the hostages will wait for
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 7: the 60-day mark and you will have negotiations in between.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 7: And Netanyahu is even insisting in the negotiations that the
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 7: aid into Gaza will keep running through GHF, this organization.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 7: And you know, I ask a simple question, Tommy. Are
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 7: we getting everything mixed up? I thought, based on what
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 7: Netanyahu said, that the purpose of GHF was to pressure
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 7: Hamas to compromise in the hostage negotiations because they will
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 7: not have access to the.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: Aid or whatever.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 7: Why are we instead pushing off the hostage deal in
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 7: order to keep in place GHF. That's just twisted logic.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 7: Trump could cut that entire kind of Gordian knot in
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 7: a second. He just needs to decide that he wants
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 7: to do it. And he will get a lot of
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 7: credit for it internationally. And I believe also in the
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 7: United States, I think most Americans, as far as they
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 7: follow this war, they just want it to end because
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 7: they think it's tragic and heartbreaking.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 7: And he will also get a lot of credit for
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 7: it in Israel. But he needs to decide that he
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 7: wants to do it. As long as he keeps allowing
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 7: Netanyahu and Dermer to set the terms of the negotiations,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 7: everything is going to remain stuck.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 4: Well, and also I would say, you tell me if
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 4: I'm wrong, he didn't really help matters by promoting this
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 4: plan for the full ethnic cleansing of Gaza and turning
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 4: it into a resort town, which is just ludicrous on
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 4: its face and a war crime and crime against humanity.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 4: but it's also normalized that position in the government.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 7: That plan is not going to be helpful because now
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 7: you have the far right in Israel say, well, why
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 7: should we make a hostage deal if we can get
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 7: this plan from Trump? And the military in Israel says,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 7: this plan is a fantasy that is never going to
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 7: be executed. And then the ministers in government tell the generals, no,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 7: you just lack imagination. And it's become a sticking point
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 7: that is getting everything again stuck in place. And Trump, again,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 7: you know, he has the leverage to put an end
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 7: to this nightmare.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: He really does.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 7: But he needs to decide that he wants to do it.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 4: And one other challenge here, which is that, you know,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 4: Prime Minister Netanyahu is on trial for all kinds of corruption,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 4: accepting gifts, giving favors to, you know, powerful people for
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 4: media coverage.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 7: Bribery, fraud, breach of trust. That's basically the allegations.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 4: And the gist is, for folks listening, he needs to
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 4: stay in power, he thinks, to keep himself out of prison.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 4: And so that keeps his lock on the government even more,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 4: you know, white-knuckled.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 7: It's helpful as a defendant to have the schedule of
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 7: a prime minister, and he's been using it to avoid
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 7: the trial almost on a weekly basis. I have to
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 7: go to Washington. I have an urgent phone call. I
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 7: have urgent business related to the war. And he skips
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 7: testimony after testimony. And that's a big part of it.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 4: So, you know, as you mentioned, Amir, like the world is,
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 4: global opinion has shifted enormously, you know, against Israel, just
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 4: given the scenes we're seeing and the stories and just
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 4: the horrific death toll in Gaza. And one recent example is,
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 4: you know, French President Emmanuel Macron recently announced his plan
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 4: to recognize Palestine as a state. France is the first
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 4: G7 country to recognize Palestine.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: Now, in practice.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 4: This doesn't magically create a Palestinian state, but it could
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 4: lead to more countries following France's lead. It puts diplomatic
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 4: pressure on Israel. What is the reaction to this move
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 4: by the French bin in Israel?
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 7: Of course, the government is against it and also most
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 7: of the opposition, because once another country takes a diplomatic
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 7: initiative against your country, and that's how it's perceived by
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 7: most Israelis, everybody comes out against it. But also, at
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 7: the same time, This is more of a symbolic move.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 7: I think the real problem for Israel is the shift
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 7: in public opinion that legitimizes a move like this. There's
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 7: a reason why France decided to do it now and
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 7: why Britain is considering to do it. And there's been
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 7: talk about Canada, Australia, other countries. There is a shift
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 7: against us in global public opinion. Everybody knows it. Everybody
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 7: feels it here in Israel. And this is the big problem.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 7: The step that Macron took is a reflection of the problem,
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 7: more than, or you can say a phenomenon of the
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 7: problem for Israel, more than significantly in itself changing so
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 7: much in reality. And this is another reason, I wouldn't
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 7: make it the first or even the second or the
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 7: third reason, but it's another reason to strive to end
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 7: the war because we are losing very bad, we're bleeding
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 7: in terms of the country's reputation every day that this continues.
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 7: That plays into the hands of Hamas and all of
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 7: our other enemies. We have enemies. Israel is not Switzerland.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 7: It's surrounded by people who don't like our country. Right
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 7: now we're playing into their hands because we are every
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 7: day losing more and more support. This is one example
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 7: of it.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 4: I fear that this war is just a driver of
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 4: global antisemitism, which is obviously a centuries-old problem.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: It's not just the Holocaust. It dates back farther.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 7: Antisemitism never needs reasons, but I do think that on
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 7: a generational level, this war is going to cause problems
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 7: for Israel and for Israelis. And tragically, also for Israelis
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 7: who are not supportive of this government, who are not
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 7: supportive of its actions, but for someone who's stupid and hateful,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 7: you know, will become immediately affiliated, just like, right, not
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 7: every American necessarily supports everything that the Trump administration is doing.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 7: But this is something, this is going to be a
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 7: problem for a long time. This, again, another reason to
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 7: put an end to it.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and unfortunately, I think potentially a problem for America
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 4: and Americans, because we are rightly seen as Israel's, you know,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 4: full-throated partner in this war.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: Makes sense, yes.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 4: So finally, Amir, anyone listening to us, it is easy
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 4: to feel hopeless about you know, not just what's happening
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 4: in Gaza. You know, it's, I think as a parent,
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 4: it's hard not to see those images and just imagine
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 4: what it would be like to be a mom or
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 4: dad and not be able to protect your kids.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 4: It like, it breaks you, uh, in a way. And
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 4: it's also, it's hard not to feel hopeless about, uh,
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 4: the hope for a that Israelis and Palestinians could live
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 4: side by side in peace. Your government is run by
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 4: terrible people. My government is run by terrible people. Is
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 4: there anything you are seeing as someone on the ground
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 4: in Israel who is coming at this from far left
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 4: in Israel?
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: Humanistic perspective.
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, one of the horrible, irony is the wrong word,
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 4: I don't know, one of the horrific things that happened
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 4: on October 7th was a lot of people.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: Who lived on- So many peace activists were murdered. Yes. Yes.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 4: People most committed to peace were many of the ones
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 4: targeted on Kibbutz.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 4: So again, another reason to feel hopeless. Is there anything
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 4: you are seeing that gives you some sort of hope?
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 7: I think, well, you know, right now it's, I agree
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 7: with you, man. It's really hard to find hope. And,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 7: and the situation is really, you know, just kind of despairing,
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 7: but I, I'm very close to some of the families
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 7: of the hostages and, and including the family of my
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 7: friend Omri, but also other families that I know from
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 7: different circumstances, their struggle, including, for example, the struggle of
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 7: John and Rachel Goldberg-Paulin, who lost their son, Hirsch. He
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 7: was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, and he was
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 7: murdered last summer when Israeli troops got close to the
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 7: tunnel where Hamas was holding him, together with five other hostages,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 7: and they were executed so that the soldiers wouldn't get them.
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 7: The struggle of those families that they've been leading for
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 7: now 662 days to end the war, save their loved
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 7: ones and stop all the killing.
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: To me, it's a source of inspiration.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 7: I don't know how they find the strength to get
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 7: out of bed and continue fighting, whether it's families that
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 7: still have a loved one held by Hamas or people
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 7: like John and Rachel who lost their son, but they
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 7: continue to fight for others. But when I see them
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 7: doing it every day, I tell myself, OK, I can't quit.
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 7: I have to keep speaking up and writing and saying
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 7: and talking to anybody who would give me a platform,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 7: including yourself, to advocate for this. Because if they have
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 7: the strength to do it, who am I to sit
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 7: on the sidelines?
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well said.
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 4: Well, Amir, thank you for doing the show. Everyone should
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 4: read Haaretz. I'm told I always say it wrong, but I'm.
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: Doing my best every year. You got it right this time.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: And also by the Gates of Gaza, a.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 4: Story of betrayal, survival, and hope in Israel's borderlands. Just
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 4: a truly unbelievable story about, Everyone just buy it and
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 4: read the book.
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: And thank you for doing the show. Thank you, Tommy.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: And let's hope for good news. That's our show for today.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Amir T. Bone for coming on. Dan and
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: I will be back with a new show on Friday.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: Talk to everybody then. If you want to listen to
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: Pod community at cricket.com slash friends. or subscribe on Apple
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, please
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: consider leaving us a review to help boost this episode
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo,
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: Emma Illich-Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari.
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics.
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellevive,
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.