Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 5/5/26: Iran Hits Critical UAE Facility, Prof Pape On Iran Escalation, Trump Courts Fetterman, Voting Rights Act Debate

Transcript

5/5/26: Iran Hits Critical UAE Facility, Prof Pape On Iran Escalation, Trump Courts Fetterman, Voting Rights Act Debate · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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  Speaker 3: dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. I have an
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: amazing show for a buddy today, we'll we have Crystal.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Indeed we do so yesterday, right after our show concluded,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Ron struck the UAE. Are we headed back to full
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: on war. We will take a look at the indications. Also,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Professor Pape is going to join us. There's a press
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: conference that's expected this morning, so hopefully we'll have some
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: clips for him to react to and get his.
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: Thoughts as well.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Republicans are trying to woo John Fetterman to switch parties
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: complicating democratic math. This comes in the wake of this
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court decision which changes the nature of the Voting
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Rights Act and opens the ability for Republicans to eliminate
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of majority black districts in the South, also
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: making much more difficult for Democrats to achieve no majority.
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: In the House.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: New numbers about how almost everyone loses money on polymarket
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: and cal she do not delude yourself. Otherwise, a comprehensive
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: look at Trump corruption, something that has been sorely lacking
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: because it is just so overwhelming the number of schemes
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: and crimes being committed by this administration. And we also
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: going to take a look at a pretty stunning speech
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: that MTG gave at the raw Ron Paul Institute in
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Texas that is getting a lot of attention, where she
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: spills some tea about her breakup with President Trump.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, shout out to MTG.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: I also really excited for Isaac Old you know recently
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: met him at a conference. He's such an engining guy.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Really to go to good a job on this story.
• 1:57
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  Speaker 3: find the show. But let's go ahead and start with
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: what happened in the UAE. Let's go and start with
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: this video. We'll put it up here on the screen
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: so you can all see. This is in Fujaira. This
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: is a part of the UAE and oil terminal where
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: actually they are able to export oil by bypassing the
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: Strait of horror moves. It is the only oil terminal
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: now we do not know which is able to do
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: that within the UAE. We do not know the full
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: extent of the damage. However, you could see that fires
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: were raging and that there were smoke visible across the country.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: We also know.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Let's put a two up there on the screen. This
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: was from drop Side News. This has footage of the
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: alleged warning shots. This was released by the Iranian state media,
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: so you can all see that. A couple of interesting
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: and noteworthy parts. Whenever we start to break it down,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: let's move on to a three. Please, just so we
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: can see this the UAE Air defenses engage twelve ballistic missiles,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: three cruise missiles, and four drones. So this was not
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: a small attack. This was a serious attack by Iran
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: on the UAE. Twelve ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles, and
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: four drones. Obviously, I do think that it was a
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: dual purpose attack by Iran. Number one, they're showing that
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: not only do they still have ballistic and cruise missile
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: capacity mobile launchers that are able to evade US detection
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: UAE detection, but also they have the drone threat.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Now some of those were.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Able to collide obviously with the Fugeira planned and take
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: at least some of that production that was offline. This
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: was done in retaliation for the blockade by the United
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: States that's currently happening and the announcement that we covered
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: yesterday of Project Freedom. Project Freedom, as you will all recall, basically,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Crystal is a map to tankers saying here's where all
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: the minds are.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Just go through this way.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: We're not going to escort you, just please just go
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: ahead and go that way. And they're like, yeah, no,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: I think we're good. Actually, just in case that we
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: might get shot up by oh, I don't know, a
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: drone or an IRGC fast boat.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: So things went hot very very quick.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Trump is downplaying it for right now, but the attack
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: nonetheless is very very significant for proving their capacity and
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: willingness to engage. And obviously now the seasfire, so it's
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: kind of been fake, but now it's definitely fake.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Trump downplaying it is a significant development. He
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: got asked, you know, do you think the sea's fire
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: is violated? And he tried to, you know, get a
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: get out of saying directly that Iran had violated the
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: seas fire and that they were headed back to war.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: What does that mean? Who knows. Time will tell, I suppose,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: but these strikes obviously incredibly significant, and I think from
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: the Iranian perspective, they were trying to achieve a few things.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: First of all, they wanted to send a message to
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: the US of no, we're not just going to sit
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: here and take it and allow you to try to
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: create some phony impression of what's going on in the
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Strait of horror moves, or to violate our control of
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: the straight up WOMUS. It does appear that the US
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: was able to help assist two commercial vessels to get
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: through the straight now those are commercial vessels, so that
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: have sort of direct links to the US government. Outside
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: of those, we're going to play for Professor Pape, an
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Indian ship captain who's in the Region's like, oh, we're
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: not going to just try our luck with the straight
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: up womors. Our companies will not allow us to take
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: on that level of risk.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: That is not happening.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So in any case, Number one, they wanted to send
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: a message to the US. Number two in terms of
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: their choice of target. They increasingly view the UAE as
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: an extension of Israel. We previously brought you the reporting
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: that there are IDF soldiers which are stationed in the
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: UAE in An. In addition, Israel has provided them with
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: iron dome defenses and in fact reporting is and Israel
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: is claiming that it was those defenses provided by Israel
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: that engaged these missiles and these drones as they were
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: heading towards the UAE.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: So UAE is effectively.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Seen as like a you know, a mini Israel, and
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: it's a closer target, easier target for Iran to hit.
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: More, you know, it's very weak.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: There are some obviously strategic targets there at the Fujera
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: being a case in point.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: And then another goal here is to continue to.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Divide the Gulf Arab states Saudi from UAE in particular.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: But you know the fact that UEE has got all
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: in on this Greater Israel project effectively with Israel, it's
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: not something that's looked too kindly upon by some other
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: states in the region. So this serves that purpose as well.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: But the big picture here is Iran saying no, we're
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: not going to sit by and let you make some
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: big announcement to the world and try to change the
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: reality of our control of the over the trade of hormouse.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: If we need to engage militarily, we are not afraid
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: to do that. And your allies in the region continue
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: to have severe vulnerabilities.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, let's put a five up there on
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the screen.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of stuff that smells fishy, I think
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: here in the United States. So the commander of Sentcom,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Admiral Brad Cooper did a briefing with reporters yesterday where
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: he said more commercial ships are en route to travel,
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: but was not able to give any information on what
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: they were. As you said, two US flags were successfully
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: did travel.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Out of the Strait quote.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: When I asked how many ships had been hit by Iran,
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: he declined to give a number. Don't tell the enemy,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: you know what they've been able to achieve. Okay, anyway,
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: there's that we do know at least one of them.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: It was a South Korean ship. Let's put a six
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: up here on the screen.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: Ridiculous.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Here is from the president.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: This was immediately after the shots were fired on the
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: South Korean ship. Specifically, Trump has not really fully addressed
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: the UAE attack now. So far, he says Iran has
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: taken some shots at unrelated nations with respect to ship
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: movement Project Freedom, including a South Korean cargo ship. Perhaps
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: his time for South Korea to come and join the mission.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: We've shot down several seven small boats or as they
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: like to call them, fast boats. It's all they have left.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Other than the South Korean ship. There has been at
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: this moment no damage.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Going through the Strait.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: Secretary of warpete Hegset and Chairman of the Chiefs Well
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Joint Chiefs Stan Kane, will have a news conference tomorrow morning.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: That's right now and it's actually happening. I'm monitoring currently.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: We will have clips which will play later on for
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Professor Pape, I will just give you this gem, Pete Hegseth,
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: as a direct gift from the US to the world.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: We have established a powerful, red, white and blue dome
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: over the Strait.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, so yeah, I love Trump's truth there too. That's like,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: other than the damage that was done, there was no
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: damage that was done. So oh, I'm sure that'll make
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: people feel very confident, you know, transitting.
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: Through These are not These are not soldiers.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: We're talking about regular you know, working class people of
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: the world, truly, like from all over the world, and
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: you know, and backed by large conglomerates and having to deal.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: With insurance prices, et cetera.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I don't think they're going to be too eager to
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: risk their lives in a hot war zone when the
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: US is not committing any military assets to assisting with
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: those procels.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: So they can't really Let's put a seven up there
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: on the screen. By the way, the number was actually six,
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: not seven in terms. Yeah, see what I did there.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: Of the small Iranian boats, as Trump warns, regime could
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: be blown off the face of the earth.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: If you just want to add to the Iranians are
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: claiming these were civilian boats. I don't know the veracity
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: of what is the case, but in any case, that's
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: the claim that's being made.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: No one knows. I'm not sure I believe.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I think in this case, I actually don't believe the Iranians,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: just because that the fast boat is the primary reason
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: that they exist in the first place. In the Straits
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: of Horn Moves. Those fast boats built by the IRGC.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: They have videos that they released before the war. It's
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: honestly stunning, Like it's like huge tunnels and areas where
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: they're able to go directly from the tunnel into the strait,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: and they're extremely cheap, you know, basically just a.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Motor, a couple of guys.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: They could either have mines, they would have shoulder fired
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: missiles like all kinds of differ munitions or even small arms.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: And in some cases where they're just able to go out,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: I mean it's very very difficult to detect. They're obviously
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: moving rapidly. They can just go do a strike and
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: then they can come back. Also, it's only like two
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: people per two people per ship or per boat in
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: each of these cases, and so it's not a lot
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: of risk. Whenever you're sending out let's say six, you know,
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: seven if you will, of many of these boats that
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: are out there, and then they have literally hundreds, if
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: not thousands, that are in reserve the US.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Remember, while the war was the hot part of the war.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: Initially was going on, was pounding the coastline to trying
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: to take out a lot of these bunkers. But a
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: lot of them were concrete. They were said to have
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: been fortified. Obviously, they've also had a few weeks now
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: if they need to to try and dug dig some
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: of these out of the rubble, it just demonstrates the
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: asymmetric problem that we're dealing with here. We did have
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: Trump on the phone yesterday with Fox News. Is Trey Yanks.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to that, and.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: I spoke with President Trump for twenty minutes about the
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: situation with Iran. He talked about Project Freedom and the
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: US efforts to guide vessels through the straight up horror moves.
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: Is showing a new warning to the Iranian regime, saying
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: if the Iranians try to target US ships in this area,
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: they will be quote blown off the face of the earth. Remember,
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: this was a project implemented by the Americans overnight to
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: assist the hundreds of vessels that are currently trapped in
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: the Persian Gulf. We're talking about more than twenty thousand sailors,
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: and the President told Fox he's doing this for humanity.
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: Some of these sailors were running out of food and
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: supplies on these vessels due to the Iranian threats that
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: are ongoing in this area. And again the presidents saying
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: that if US ships in the region are targeted, the Iranians.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Will be blown off the face of the earth.
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: Now, I also ask President Trump about the possibility of
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: negotiations with Iran succeeding. He said the Iranians are being
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: far more malleable than they were being in the past,
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: showing flexibility given the US pressure that continues as part
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: of the American blockade of Iranian ports. President Trump called
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: that blockade the greatest military maneuver in history as it
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: relates to the combat preparations that continue across the region.
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: President and Trump understands there are two paths here. The
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: Iranians either make a good faith deal or ultimately combat
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: operations could resume, and President Trump told Fox News that
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: right now they have bases all over the world. There
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: are American preparations underway. He said, they're all stocked with equipment,
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: and we can use all of that stuff, and if he.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Needs it, he will use it. So there you go.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I will blow them off the face of the ear.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know how credible or all of
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: that to take it, but it is important. Nonetheless, I
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: will say that people, you know, the war drums are
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: beating hard again here in Washington. Let's put Lindsey Graham's
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: tweet up here on the screen spot on, mister President.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: The combination of Iran's attacks against euae's vital infrastructure and
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: the continued attacks on international shipping, including a South Korean
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: cargo ship, more than justifies a big, strong, short response
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: to inflict further damage on Iran's war machine. EUAE has
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: been a champion ally in this fight, doing everything that's
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: being asked to them, like what, by the way, you know,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: by buying our weapons or shooting the weapons that we
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: gave them already. I guess Iran's recent brazen attack against
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: the UEE tells me a lot about who's in charge
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: in Iran and the chance of a diplomatic solution at
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: any time. A forceful response on behalf of our ally.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: UAE will reinforce that America is back as a reliable ally,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: helping to further wash away the damage caused by the
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: Biden administration on this front. I will say I couple
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: this with a late night appearance by Lindsay last night
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: on Fox News where he actually seems to be backing
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: away from this. By the way, this would be a
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: humiliation for the Us' is like, oh, well, we can't respond,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: I'm saying in their framework.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: The General Kane this morning.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Just revealed that US has been attacked six to ten
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: times by the Iranians since the ceasefire, like directly by Iran.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: And then he said, but that's below the threshold to
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: resume major combat operations. So you know that these Hawks
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: when they hear something like that, are going to go
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: crazy because they go like, oh, we got to establish deterrence,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: which is what the Iranians are doing too. But last
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: night on Sean Hannity's show, he said there's no need
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: for boots on the ground and Iran. Instead, a Second
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: Amendment solution stands a real chance of giving the Iranian
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: people a genuine path back to freedom. So he's advocating
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: for the Libya Syria model, where he's like, he said,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: we already have thousands of boots on the ground.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: It's called the Iranian people. They just need guns.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: So he's like, let's flood the country with a bunch
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: of guns. I actually do wonder how much of a
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: talking point this will become as it's clear that the
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: direct engagement has totally failed, is that they will just
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: adopt a maximum pressure, sanctions, blockade strategy and try to
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: flood the country with as much weapons as possible. Now obviously,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: because the Iranian regime still has some power and firepower.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: They're not just gonna sit that take, you know, and
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: take it lightly.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like like Gaddafi or Assad did basically did, or
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: they just didn't have the capacity to They're much stronger
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: than they were. But I saw that, and I was like, huh,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: maybe that's the direction that things are going to go.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Very much in the Libya and the Syria vein where
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: they know that Trump doesn't have the appetite. You know,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journal has this every day. Trump is
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: oscillating should they attack, should it not attack. I don't
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: want to engage, but I also want to open the
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: straight He can see the gas coverage like anybody else.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: And you know, it's like, look, it's a problem of
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: his own creation. Yeah, you should have never done it
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: in the first place. But seeing this, I could see
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: it going down that road. But of course it still
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: has tremendous risk.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Well, and what they would do then is, you know,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: allow more pressure to build some other precipitating event.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: The next protest that you know.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Masade backed protest with our weapons that is brutally repressed,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: then it's going to be, oh, the regime is week again,
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: and we'll be back here, you know, back here down
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: the road. I think that's entirely possible also because I
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: mean the math in terms of interceptors, in terms of
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: our own stockpiles, continues to be reality. There's been nothing
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: in this brief quote unquote cease fire time that has
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: changed those dynamics, and so it's hard to see any
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: military solution that is going to fundamentally change the you know,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: the what both sides would bring to the bargaining table,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: and so it's kind of a matter of time.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: The thing on the other side of that is whether
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: the Iranians would accept that, because you know, they may
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: find that unacceptable they're anxious to secure the gains that
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: they have made through the war, you know, through some
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: sort of an actual peace deal so that they're not
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: continually threatened with war in the future.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: So you know, I don't know that.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: They would accept that new status quo that you know,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: the Lindsay Grams of the world, etc. May want to push,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: and you know it is We talked a little bit
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: to Treaty Parsi yesterday about FDD's involvement and how much
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: their reasoning and quote unquote analysis is apparently influential in
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: the White House. They are the ones that produce this
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: analysis that was like, oh, their oil wells are going
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: to explode, and all you need is, you know, fourteen
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: days of blockade to stop the spread or whatever. And
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: apparently this was bought by Trump because he's desperate. So
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: anything that he sees that even purports to give him
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: a way out, he's going to grab onto. Whether that
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: is pure fantasy, which in this case, it's already clear
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: that that was utter and pure fantasy that he's grabbing onto.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: But it's been a very dangerous situation when it's Lindsay Graham,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Mark Tiessen, who's a George W. Bush like died in
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: the wool, Nio Khon exactly the kind of guy that
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Trump would have claimed he'd have nothing to do with
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: in the past, him, Lindsay Graham and an FDD.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: And now you've got an FDD.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Guy who's on the negotiating team, which is insane. I mean,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: that's an incredibly dire development that not only do you
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: have Witcoff, who's an idiot, Kushner who's an Israeli asset,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: and then you've got this FDD guy who also would
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: be almost definitionally and you know, at least a neo
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: kod if not also an Israeli asset. So not looking
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: good in terms of where things are heading right now.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: No, yeah, I mean it's not just well, even when
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: we talk about negotiating team, negotiation team for what, there's
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: no negotiation.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Right that's currently well.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I mean in that part too, I always am Look,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: the Iranians keep trying to make clear that they are
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: trying to negotiate. So Arachi put out a statement yesterday
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: he said, as negotiations are progressing, but he said negotiations
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: with Pakistan and so I think this mediation continues, but
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: there's been formal response you know, they deliver to Pakistan.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Pakistan sense it to us at both sides are still
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: very very far apart.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Now, I don't know.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, maybe things will just try and continue in
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: this direction. But the war drums, as I said, they continue.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: Let's put a ten on the screen. Nov Tally Bennett,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: the United Arab Emirates. This is the former Israeli Prime
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: minister also running now in the current election. The United
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Arab Emirates, our strategic ally has just been attacked by Iran.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: This is in effect a declaration of the renewal of
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Iran's war against the allies of the United States and
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Israel across the region. This regional alliance is vital to
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: our security, into the security of moderate partners in the
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Gulf and the Middle East. Kran continues to try and
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: intimidate the region, imposes a threat to global security.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: We stand with our ally. Trita Parsi also made.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: The joke that many Iranian monarchists are now adding UAE
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: flags to their bios along with Israeli and so it's
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Israel America the monarchist flag and now the UAU flag.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, you see this, I did
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: initially think that immediately that Trump would have to respond
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: just because it's such a public thing, like this is
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: it's not just an attack on the UA. It is
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: an attack on their most vital oil infrastructure, like the
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: thing that is keeping them afloat at all in the country.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: And you're setting it on fire. And you're not just
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: sending one drone, You're sending all these ballistic cruise missiles drones.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: It's a serious thing.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Multiple I think South Asian laborers were actually injured as
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: a result of the attack. You even had some crazy
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: drone attack that hit a compartment complex in Oman yesterday.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: So at first you're like, wow, like how could they
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: possibly just sit there and take it? But I think
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Trump's response where he basically said it's not a violation
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: of the ceasefire effectively in one of these phone interviews
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: and this morning appears to directed the Chairman of the
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: Joint US the Staff to say directly that this does
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: not rise to the threshold of major combat operations. They're
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: afraid of having to go back to war. They're honestly
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: desperate to try to avoid it, but they're not desperate
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: enough to actually cut a deal. So that's where things
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: stand right now really does vindicate I think Professor Pape's
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: framework about how Iran has turned itself into a regional power.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: So with that, let's get to it.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Joining us now is Professor Robert Pape of the University
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: of Chicago. He also has the Escalation Trap substack where
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: he will be doing a live briefing on May tenth
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: at five pm Eastern Time with the Escalation Trap, which
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: we always look forward to linked down in the description
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: that you can go ahead and sign up for. Professor,
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us. As always, we
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: appreciate you.
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you very much for having me.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Thank well, let's go ahead and start, sir, with all
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: of these developments in the Straits of Horne moves. Initially,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: we have this announcement from the Secretary of Defense this
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: morning or sorry, Secretary of War this morning, Pete Hegseath
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: about Operation Freedom to try and to guide ships out
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: of the Straits of Hormones, not to get them back in,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: but at the very least in the initial time out here,
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: his announcement about a red, white, and blue dome.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
• 21:14
  Speaker 7: As a direct gift from the United States to the world,
• 21:18
  Speaker 7: we have established a powerful red white and blue dome
• 21:21
  Speaker 7: over the street. American destroyers are on stations, supported by
• 21:25
  Speaker 7: hundreds of fighter jets, helicopters, drones, and surveillance aircraft, providing
• 21:30
  Speaker 7: twenty four to seven overwatch for peaceful commercial vessels except Iran's,
• 21:37
  Speaker 7: of course, which is why our ironclad blockade remains in
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: full effect as well. In fact, six ships tried to
• 21:45
  Speaker 7: run the blockade out of Iranian ports as Project Freedom commenced,
• 21:49
  Speaker 7: and they were all turned around.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: What do you make of this Project Freedom, sir, of
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: this red, white and blue dome and this rhetoric now
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: coming from the Pentagon.
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: This is a high risk bet that the Trump administration
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: is making, and it's a bet they really cannot afford
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: to lose. The goal here is fairly straightforward. What you
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: were seeing is an effort by the United States to
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: run the blockade. They're trying to break Iran's grip on
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: the straight of Horn moves by literally running ships through
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: the blockade. And then the bet is and this is
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: the risk, the gamble. The bet is that Iran will
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: not fight back, that Iran will not shoot back. That's
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: the issue here. There's a certain lane. That lane is identified,
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: and what you are already seeing is that Iran yesterday
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: signaled quite clearly with essentially demonstration shots and even warning
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: shots across the bow of our US Navy ships, that
• 22:55
  Speaker 6: it is going to fight back. So the Trump administration
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: has not lost the bet yet, but it is right
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: on the edge of that. And if, in fact, as
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: we're hearing from secretary headsets this morning, we're going to
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: run that blockade, there is an extremely good chance that
• 23:15
  Speaker 6: Iran is going to respond. And then this will mean
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: if they hit just one ship, one US vessel, I
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: don't mean the South Korean I don't mean the UAE.
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: If they hit a US vessel here, that is probably
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: going to trigger what you are hearing Secretary head seth
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: with all of that other force, the spiral man of escalation,
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: And that's really what we're on the precipice of here
• 23:42
  Speaker 6: this week. It's I'm sorry to say that this is
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: what the escalation trap looks like. It's not, folks, linear.
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: So a lot of people think that it should be
• 23:53
  Speaker 6: happening day by day and just simply progressing day by
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: day history. We need to understand we're watching history in
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: motion now, and when we read about history in the past,
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: of the past events that kind of smooths out the
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: lumpiness of history.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: That's true.
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: History is lumpier, and that's why it feels lumpier, you know,
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: not linear. But the truth is when we write about
• 24:19
  Speaker 6: these events, it's going to seem pretty linear. Yeah.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to get your reaction to another clip
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: from that press conference, this one from General Kin, because
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: to your point, yesterday after our show, we were watching
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: these strikes from run on the UAE, the damage to
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: the South Korean ship, and we were saying, oh boy,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: this maybe we may be looking at, you know.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: Back to total war.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Trump administration seems to have taken the decision to downplay
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: the significance of those attacks. That trend continued with General Kin.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Here.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to that.
• 24:49
  Speaker 8: The map shows the examples and samples of Iranian attacks
• 24:52
  Speaker 8: against commercial vessels in the Strait as well as the
• 24:56
  Speaker 8: Gulf of Aman end up in the Arabian and Arabian Golf.
• 25:00
  Speaker 8: Since the ceasefire was announced, Iran has fired at commercial
• 25:04
  Speaker 8: vessels nine times and seized two container ships, and they've
• 25:09
  Speaker 8: attacked US forces more than ten times, all below the
• 25:12
  Speaker 8: threshold of restarting major combat operations. At this point, you
• 25:18
  Speaker 8: can also see the group of tankers and cargo vessels
• 25:21
  Speaker 8: in the US blockade line. As I mentioned, as a
• 25:24
  Speaker 8: result of Iran's indiscriminate attacks across the region, there are
• 25:28
  Speaker 8: currently two twenty two thousand, five hundred mariners embarked on
• 25:33
  Speaker 8: more than one thousand, five hundred and fifty commercial vessels
• 25:37
  Speaker 8: trapped in the Arambian Gulf unable to transit.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: So the key line, Mary says all of those attacks
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: were quot below the threshold of restarting major combat operations
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: at this point, what do you make of this type
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: of language?
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: So this is what I was anticipating when I said
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: an attack on a US Navy ship, and also this
• 25:57
  Speaker 6: is what I published yesterday morning on the sub stack
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: before all this really unfolded. Is the key threshold here
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: for the Trump administration is likely going to be Aroun
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: attacking US Navy ships directly hitting one of those ships. Now,
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: of course they're not oblivious to the attack on the UAE,
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: and they're not going to be oblivious to attack on
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: the tankers. But in order for this to go forward,
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: if we're really going to have this operation run, the
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: United States can accept damage to the ships and can
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: accept damage to our allies. Where this will get America's
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: attention for real is when those sailors are killed, the
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: first time those ships are hit, the first time there's
• 26:43
  Speaker 6: a fire on those ships, the first time there's actually
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: dead sailers on those ships. This is going to be
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: as much as we're paying attention to this now you
• 26:52
  Speaker 6: maybe have special sessions here at breaking points, this is
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: going to create a lot more consternation inside of America.
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: And so that's why I was specific about the threshold
• 27:03
  Speaker 6: in general. Kane I. You know he said it today,
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: but it's not a surprise that a military, US military,
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: the leading officer would have the number one threshold be
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: don't attack my troops.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Right, And yet you know he did say that they
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: had been attacked. It's just that you know, thankfully they
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: haven't been killed.
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: That's right. It's really about that breaking through Iran for it.
• 27:25
  Speaker 6: What it said was it didn't it was a warning
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: set of shots. It fired yesterday. Now we don't really know.
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: We're not in Iran's head in the in the decision loop,
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: so we don't know if they meant to hit a
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: US ship and miss or if it was a warning shot.
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: But this is going to become clearer in the in
• 27:42
  Speaker 6: the next day or two or this week, very very likely.
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: It really is the case. The Trump administration has effective.
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: If you play chess, what they've done is they've put
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: upon in the middle of the board and they've dared
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: the other player to take it. When the other player
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: has a lot of piece is to go and take it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: And if it doesn't take that pun then more is coming.
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: You see what I mean. That's the kind of gambit
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: that is that's going on. But it's a very high
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: risk gambit, and it's risky for US troops and it's
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: really going to be risky for the world's economy because
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: the kind of damage coming is going to be much
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: more longer term damage. Right.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: Sticking to that, sir. After the announcement of Project Freedom
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: and Range, a ship captain, an Indian ship captain who
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: is trapped in the Straits of Hormuz reacted and said,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: there's no way that I'm still going to be going
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: through this.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to that. We'll get your reaction.
• 28:38
  Speaker 9: My ship is strended here in Push and Gold Babble.
• 28:40
  Speaker 10: Since the wall started, So so far we are safe.
• 28:44
  Speaker 10: And you know, yes we have witness us variousness size
• 28:50
  Speaker 10: or explosions, and we heard so many attacks on merchant ships.
• 28:55
  Speaker 9: Thankfully our ship is keeping safe.
• 28:57
  Speaker 10: We have a clear written instruction from our company office
• 29:01
  Speaker 10: do not pass the Strait of Hormos. My company would
• 29:05
  Speaker 10: never take this decision at the moment until unless everyone
• 29:09
  Speaker 10: assessed the situation, they know that it is.
• 29:11
  Speaker 9: Clearly safe to transit the Strait of Hormos.
• 29:15
  Speaker 10: At the moment, there is no concrete information regarding the
• 29:19
  Speaker 10: safe passage through Strait of Hormos. None of the ships will,
• 29:23
  Speaker 10: you know, try to become hero and they will show
• 29:27
  Speaker 10: their courage to pass through Strait of.
• 29:28
  Speaker 9: Homos until unless it is.
• 29:31
  Speaker 10: Declared officially that it is safe to transit. So yes,
• 29:36
  Speaker 10: it is going to take time. So nobody would dare
• 29:39
  Speaker 10: at the moment pass through straight up Hormones.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: So the captain, they're saying that he would not go
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: through until hostilities are over, so not really reacting positively
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: or to the reaction.
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: That's right, This is completely to be expected. And you've
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: heard me talk about this earlier. So civilians here are
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: not signing up as soldiers in a war to be
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: ordered by Donald Trump to take the risk of death
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: for whatever project President Trump comes up with. Now, the
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: military is a different story. They have to obey those orders.
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: But civilians, both the United States and around the world,
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: they just simply don't. And by the way they have
• 30:22
  Speaker 6: they have they have other reasons. This is not simply
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: I don't think it's quite right to call them all
• 30:27
  Speaker 6: cowards the way President Trump does. I mean, the fact
• 30:30
  Speaker 6: of the matter is he did not. He dodged the
• 30:34
  Speaker 6: draft during the Vietnam War, So this is not simply
• 30:38
  Speaker 6: a matter of I just don't think this is right.
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: People who are civilians have not signed up here, they're
• 30:44
  Speaker 6: not conscripted, and they have families, they have other people
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: that depend on them. So if they die, there's consequences
• 30:52
  Speaker 6: to this. And what you're seeing with that captain here
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: is they're they're just simply not going to do it.
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: I think even if their companies order them to do it,
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: they may just simply not obey those orders. This is
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: a lot to ask people to die to get oil
• 31:06
  Speaker 6: through a strait in the world. This is that's that's
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: a lot to die that I mean, that's not really
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: a goal worth anybody.
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: Dying for Yeah, agreed.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the companies are not going to be anxious
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: to risk their assets there, which are incredibly expensive, these massive,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: massive ships, massive tankers. What do you see as the
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: pressures that are likely to build over the coming days
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: that could lead to the next step in this conflict?
• 31:33
  Speaker 6: Uh? Yeah, So I think you're already have saw the
• 31:37
  Speaker 6: pressures last week. We talked a bit about this on
• 31:40
  Speaker 6: On the Breaking Points last week that I was on
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: I published again I'm I'm, I'm I'm traveling a lot
• 31:45
  Speaker 6: on these airplanes now to do all these megap podcasts,
• 31:48
  Speaker 6: which gives you lots of time, I believe it or not.
• 31:52
  Speaker 6: And so I was explaining and amplifying what I said
• 31:55
  Speaker 6: on the on the Breaking Points podcast. So, if you
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: look at the pressures on Dom Trump, it's not just
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: the pressure of what's happening in the Strait of Horror moves.
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: You see the disintegration of NATO right in front of
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: our eyes. This is what we were talking about last
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: week with Chancellor Merits, the leader of Germany, embarrassing the
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: United States on the world stage in his comments. These
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: are quite embarrassing to President Trump here, and then you
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: see Iran is disrespecting President Trump. Iran went to Pakistan
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: to negotiate, but not with Americans. In fact, the Iranian
• 32:31
  Speaker 6: negotiators left to go to Russia before Trump could even
• 32:34
  Speaker 6: get his people there. So this is another big sign
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: of disrespect. And then on May fourteenth, in just about
• 32:41
  Speaker 6: ten days, you're going to see President Trump is supposed
• 32:44
  Speaker 6: to be meeting with President She. Well, my goodness, gracious,
• 32:47
  Speaker 6: the amount of embarrassment here where Trump is a failed
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: war going to President she almost on bended knee. Please
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: do anything to help me a little bit. What do
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: you want from time? What could I give you? I mean,
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: this is not this is not what we would expect
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: out of America presidency. We're supposed to be the strongest
• 33:08
  Speaker 6: country in the world, the richest country in the world.
• 33:10
  Speaker 6: We're not supposed to be in this groveling position here.
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: And this is I'm sure President Trump, this must be
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: personally driving him, you know, tearing him apart inside here.
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: But it's it's also that any president would be facing this,
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: even a new president would not enjoy this by any stretch.
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: So these are really I think what was underneath why
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: Trump forced the issue, why he started notice it was
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: last Thursday that he had the meeting for the new options.
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: This is after the disrespectful Iranian behavior, disrespectful German behavior
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: you're seeing around the world, America's position in the world disintegrating,
• 33:53
  Speaker 6: and that is happening in real time on your show.
• 33:56
  Speaker 6: I've said NATO is dead. We're just writing it's obituary,
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: and we're just adding paragraphs to that obituary week by week.
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: And look, I'm just calling it as I'm seeing it.
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: And this helps us to understand why the trap I
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: talk about is so gripping. I'm not saying Trump prefers war,
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: That's not what's going on. He just prefers losing less.
• 34:20
  Speaker 6: That's the problem here. And by the way, Iran is
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: also stuck in this trap. The idea that Iran is
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: going to lose this new found superpower of controlling the
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: straight of horror moves without threatening to kill an American.
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: I mean, seriously, I think this is just not right.
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: They're both trapped in the escalation trap both sides. And
• 34:41
  Speaker 6: what is unfortunate here, that's it's worse. It's a tragedy.
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: Really is the gas price for Americans. It's gas prices.
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: We're going to blow through five dollars gas here in Chicago.
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: It's already four ninety nine here where I got my gas.
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: This is going to be six dollars here in a month.
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: I mean, we're blowing through this and it's going to
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: have dramatically big consequences as we go forward inside of
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: our country, and this could lead to violence in the fall.
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: This is not a good situation we're in. But this
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: is the problem. The President will not accept that, big
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: l Yeah.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Well, and we've obviously found your framework to be incredibly
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: useful and very predictive, which is why we continue to
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: have you back to help us understand.
• 35:25
  Speaker 6: You know, I really appreciate it, you more than anybody else.
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: It's really been a real honor here because you allow
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: and I get all these emails here from people they
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: really appreciate these, like weekly updates, you see what I mean,
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: because that's what we're able to do and that helps
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: them to make to make real sense of it. I wish,
• 35:44
  Speaker 6: you know, I'm hoping we'll have some updates and then
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: you'll probably stop bringing me on. But that's okay with that.
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: In the future. But I'm just about your work on
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: political violence.
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: Also here and I hope that could happen.
• 35:58
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Well, so let me ask what would be some events
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: that could occur that you think would falsify your framework,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: where if such and such were to happen, you'd look
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: at it and say, I got to go back to
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: the drawing.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: I know something here. There was some flaw in my analysis.
• 36:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Absolutely, And so I've said this before. It's like
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: the inverse of my indicator. So I keep telling people
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: that the key thing to do is try to ignore
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: the rhetoric and look at the behavior of states. And
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: one of the things that would be a thing that
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: would be going in the other direction would be if
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: President Trump were to withdraw, say all the carriers. So
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: let's just start with the carriers. We now have three carriers.
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: One of the three was supposed to be there to
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: help rotate the other two. Well, that hasn't happened yet.
• 36:42
  Speaker 6: But still, let's say that he pulls back the three
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: carriers here and says he's going to go do Cuba
• 36:49
  Speaker 6: or something. Well, that would be that would mean we're
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: not going into the escalation trap. He's marching out. If
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: he would also move out hundreds of the aircraft that
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: he has stayed in the region. That would mean we're
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: marching out if he would withdraw troops the marine. So
• 37:07
  Speaker 6: we've famously moved ten thousand marines. So if we withdraw
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: those marines, and I mean put them back at Camp
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: Pendleton or back in Japan, I don't just mean we
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: declare they're going, I mean they physically moves. Those are
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: really key indicators and that would tell me we're on
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: the track of de escalation, not stuck in the escalation trap.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: All right, well, Professor Pape, As always, we appreciate your analysis. Everybody,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: go check out the escalation trap substack and that would
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: enable you to get access to that live briefing this Sunday.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Great to see against arth.
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: Thank you very much. And also I love the tough
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: questions here. This is the way we should be doing this,
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: and I really appreciate your and keep them coming. We
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: need to have serious conversations here. Thank you.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I agree our pleasure very much, sir, appreciate you.
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: Okay, bye bye.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: So we wanted to cover a few developments over on
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: the democratic side of the isle, starting with this one.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: John Fetterman, who of course is increasingly a thorn inside
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: of Democrats and all decent people of all political stripes
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: is apparently being actively courted by the Republican Party to
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: flip him from being a Democrat to being a Republican.
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: This is from Johnson Martin.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: He says, inside the quiet Republican effort to flip John Fetterman,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: I'll read you a little bit of the beginning here.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: It says, it's a few days after the election this November.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: The results have become clear. Democrats have netted the four
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: seats they need to claim a majority. But then there's
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: a disturbance in the force. Senate Republicans and President Trump
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: persuade John Fetterman to switch parties or at least become
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: an independent to ensure Republicans retain power in the Chamber.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: It's a scenario that's becoming less fantastical by the day.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: The political environment is curdling for Republicans, and the quiet
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: campaign to lure Fetterman across the isle is underway. Trump
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: has made the cell offering his patented Total and co
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Fleet endorsement, plus a financial windfall to the Pennsylvanian. A
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: handful of Senate Republicans are also gently feeling out betterment
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: and responding to his concerns over the prospect of defecting
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: from the Democratic Party, multiple high level GOP officials tell me,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: and goes into talking about some of his close relationships
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: with David McCormick, who who's his fellow Republican senator from Pennsylvania.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Katie Britt also and her husband have become apparently very
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: close to John Fetterman and his wife Giselle. He hangs
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: out not in the Senate Democratic cloak room. He hangs
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: out into the Republican one, which is which they're telling Yeah, yeah.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Should we explain that, because go ahead, yeah, really, So
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: the cloak rooms are these offshoots where only the senators
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: are allowed. They have phone, boots and couches. It's like
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: literally only senators and I like a few senior staff.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: It's kind of a way they use it to hide
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: from the press and or to hide from their own staff.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Sometimes allegedly many older ones are known to take naps
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: in the quote room, just saying or sleep off something
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: certain substance that you may drink. So anyway, that's the
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: long storied history of the cloakroom. But it's pretty crazy
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: to go I mean, it's not unheard of to go
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: into the opposing party's cloak room for negotiations if you're
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: Senator Schumer or something like that, but to hang out
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: exclusively in the other side's cloak room is beyond crazy.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Like I've not heard of anything. Like it's a very
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: inside baseball thing. But to you know, for those in
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the know, you're like, oh wow, Like I did not
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: know that that.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: He's hanging out mostly in there, which probably shows a
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: couple of things. The enmity with his fellow Democratic colleagues
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: are treating him while he's in the cloakroom, and also
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: the extent to which he feels comfortable in the Republican
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: cloak room. So that's very very interesting.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, it's inside baseball, but it is meaningful in
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: terms of where his mind is. And I mean, apparently
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: it's not like his Democratic colleagues have been mean to him,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: but they just don't really want to hang out with him.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: You know that they're more he described them as being
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: more standoffish, which makes because you know, listen, I think
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: when he's up for reelection, the guy doesn't have a
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: prayer of winning in a Democratic primary. He's far more
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: popular with Republicans in a state than he is with Democrats.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Connor Lamb is thinking of challenging him. There are other
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: noteworthy Pennsylvania figures or a thing of challenging him in
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: the Democratic primary. Again, I don't think he has a
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: chance in hell of getting re elected as a Democrat.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: I think he knows that Republicans certainly know that Trump
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: sees that they all can see the way that he
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: has completely torched his image with his utter commitment to
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: a genocide.
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: And also he just loves.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: To go on Fox News and hey, he's back in
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Trump's frigging ballroom, like any of these sort of like
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: things that are important to Trump. He accused his party
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: having trumped Arrangement Center. He loves to go on Fox
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: News and do these things. So even though he'll say, oh,
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: but I have a ninety three percent voting record with
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: the Democrats on the things that are most public and visible,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: you can see the way that he has rhetorically aligned
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: himself with the Republicans on key issues that have made
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: them very happy and have made the Democratic base very unhappy.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: So then the question is, okay, well, does he completely
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: change his political stripes and run in a Republican primary
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: in the future.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: That also is not a given that he.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: Would succeed there either, because while they may love him
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: at the moment when they see him go on TV
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: and say like, oh that my party has Trump's arrangement syndrome,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: when he is actually a Republican and they're having to
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: deal with the fouh. You know, he supports gay marriage,
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: and he supports some like liberal cultural things. He's pro choice.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Are Republican voters really going to back him as their
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: pick to be their nominee either? And then that leaves
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: open the path of like running as an independent where effectively,
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: you know, then you're just serving as a spoiler probably
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: honestly for the Republicans at that point, because he's more
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: popular with Republicans than he is with Democrats.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: So in any case, he's you know.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: He's created a difficult political landscape for himself.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: But one thing kind of made a good point in
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: his own interview about himself to your point, he said,
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: I'd make a shitty Republican. How would they accept somebody
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: who supports abortion, game rights, legalizing marijuana, and pro labor.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: He flies the Pride flag out of his centime here.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: I do remember he was pretty into the trance stuff
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: like back in twenty twenty two.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that would be kind.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm not you know, I don't I'm
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: not truly familiar with Pennsylvania GOP, but they seem pretty
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: hardcore Trump, like they nominated. There was that bitter primary
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: with doctor Oz and Dave McCormick. By the way, what
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: was Dave McCormick's victory margin. I don't remember it being.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: All that good.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: No, it was. It was very cool.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: It was forty eight point eight, Bob casey forty eight
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: point six.
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was very wow.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: I did not realize that.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: So he only beat him by zero point two percent
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: of the vote. In how much should Trump beat Kamala,
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: BI and PA. Probably a point maybe a point of
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: two maybe something, So just to show you how Dave
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: McCormick actually ran and behind him, McCormick, by the way,
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: is like some Bush era you know, Hedge fund multi gazillion.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: Are Trump beater by one point seven percent, which.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Is actually pretty good in Pennsylvania. It's the most ever
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: win is a win.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: And so yeah, I mean one point seven compared to
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: point two in terms of his victory margin. I don't
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: think that Fetterman necessarily has a chance, but does he care.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's one of the presumptions here is what
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: if he switched parties and then just declined to run
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: for reelection. I mean, you and I both know, Kirsten Cinema.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, you could be.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: A very rich He was already rich. Now he can
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: be a lot richer.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: Turned his little Pittsburgh you know haven into even bigger
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: of a garage or something or whatever.
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: Avania.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: I believe it is that what he he like lives
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: in some converted because I was like, where are you?
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: He's like, this is my house, isn't it great?
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: You know soccer.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: I was thinking back when we interviewed him, and it
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: was in the middle of like all to stop the
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: steal nonsense.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: It was also a pre stroke and he was yeah.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: But I was just thinking back on that and how
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: different he. I mean, he really was like a different person.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: He's like a pol liberal.
• 45:01
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: I mean we interviewed him because he was the most
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: aggressive Democrat practically in the country, going after Trump for
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: all his stop the steel delusions, and Trump was going
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: after him. They were warring on Twitter. I mean, that's
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: what his brand was. That's obviously not his brand anymore
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: so anyway, I don't know, he seems to relish the
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: possibility of very likely if even if he doesn't flip parties,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: he is going to be in a position to play
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: the Joe Mansion or Kirsten Cinema role where if Democrats
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: want to get something past, they're going to have to
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: go to John Fetterman and they're going to have to
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: give him what he wants and cater to his ego.
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: Blah blah blah. What's that?
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Just makes me think he won't switch because.
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: Because you think he'll like that role too much.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: Those people, the McCain's, the Mansions, the swing vote, they
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: are the biggest ego maniacal most like they relish when
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: all the reporters camp out and they go, oh, this
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: one's not acceptable to me, and everyone has to you know,
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: you do like cremlinology on Joe Manchin.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Remember I remember we lived on that boat and they're like,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: who was on the boat last?
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: Susan Collins spotted on in the houseboat or something like that,
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: So I mean Cinema. She was very much the same
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: the level of egomaniacal narcissism that those swing vote people
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: have like the centrist corporate swing boat.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Also they love they get dined out all over town.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: They could go to.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: Any restaurant in the country that they want to. The
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: ultra rich will all flock to them. This I'm talking
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: myself into it. He's not gonna switch.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: He will love that.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think he will. I think you're probably
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: right he will relish.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Think about it.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, otherwise you work for John Thune, like who
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: wants to do that? Or for Trump like fuck that?
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Well, that is part of what he told j Martin
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: this piece is he's like they didn't even let like
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Tom Tillis stay in the party. Is like you think
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: that I'm gonna that it's gonna work out for me
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: as a Republican. I mean the other possibilities that he
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: just completely changes more of his positions, which is also
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: not something I haven't put off the table. But I
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: think you're right that he's looking forward to being playing
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: that role of the rotating villain, you know, the one
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: that everybody has to kautoo to and everybody has to
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: like find out what you want and massage your ego
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: and all that sort of stuff. Because if Democrats take
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: the Senate, which is still a tall order by the way,
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: but they have I mean, now they really have a
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: fighting chance at it. Between I saw polling for in
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Alaska where Mary Peltola, who is the Democrat running there,
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: is up, Shared Brown is up in Ohio. You know,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: then you've got North Carolina. I think it's pretty much
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: a lot for Roy Cooper. Frankly, You've got Maine with
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: grim Plattner looking very good that Susan Collins won't be able.
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: To hang on this time.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: Texas the polling has been pretty good for Talla Rico
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: there as well. So in any case, they have a path.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: But even if they win, it's going to be narrow.
• 47:50
  Speaker 9: You know.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: The most you could see is they have a two
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: seat marchin and that would be extraordinary if they were
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: able to get that, that would be like the biggest.
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: Landslide that we've had going back to the Tea Party era.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: But you know, this time for Democrats, that would be
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: those sorts of numbers. So even in that situation, you know,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: in Fetterman teams up with whoever though the next most
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: conservative Democratic senator is to cause problems, you.
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: Can easily see it. And yeah, he would relish that role.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: There's another well Pennsylvania scandal developing here which is actually
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: very interesting. So Joshapiro, who is the governor obviously, and
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: you guys will remember, was a top contender to be
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris's vice presidential pick, basically came down to like
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: him and Tim Walls.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: Kamala seems to have.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Felt like, and I think she's kind of indicated in
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: this now that this guy was just too full of himself,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: that he wasn't really a team player, and so that
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: was the reason why she was more comfortable with Tim Walls. Well,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: apparently Shapiro behind the scenes went to a top union
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: leader and pushed them to back a Republican for state
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: treasurer in twenty twenty four because he was mad that
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: the Democratic nominee had said some thing negative about Shapiro
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: in the context of the weepsticks. So the Democratic nominee
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: for state chargurer criticized him and said she actually said, oh,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: I would rather have Roy Cooper. And so Shapiro apparently
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: then went and tried to boost her Republican opponent, which obviously,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: you know, as a guy who portrays himselves as the
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: ultimate you know, dem and we're going to help the party.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: We got to fight Trump, etc.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: To be working mind the scenes to help Republicans is
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: not exactly going to endear you to Democratic primary voters
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: were you to, I don't know, run for president in
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight. So the way that this came out
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: is because Bob Brooks, who is this union leader who's
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: now running for Congress by the way, got asked a
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: question about it and he spilled the tea that Hey,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: actually Shapiro is the one that pushed our union to
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: back the Republican candidate. This was a scoop from Axios.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and listen to that audio, slick, You
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: and your union had supportive candidates such as Stacy Gaerty.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about that, because that
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: seems to go against kind of what you're talking about
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: here today.
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: So it's.
• 50:02
  Speaker 9: Cool, fun, But that was a request by Ron Click from.
• 50:07
  Speaker 11: Governor Josh Shapier because Aaron McClellan was running against her.
• 50:12
  Speaker 9: We had actually supported a guy by named Ryan Misorrow.
• 50:16
  Speaker 11: So it wasn't me, it was my union, right and
• 50:20
  Speaker 11: I'm one vote on board mon. But anyways, Josh Shapiro
• 50:24
  Speaker 11: had requested me because Stacy Sapira, he Aaron mcclell came
• 50:28
  Speaker 11: out hard about something on Josh Shapiro, and really the
• 50:31
  Speaker 11: Democratic already as a whole turned on Aaron mccull and
• 50:37
  Speaker 11: he said, I would like you.
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: Guys say endorsed Stacy Garrett. So we went with Stacey Garrity.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: So he says, there, this is the Firefighters Union. He says,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: there Josh Shapiro had requested because Stacy or Aaron McClelland
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: came out hard about something on Josh Shapiro, and really
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party as a whole turned on Aaron McClelland,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: and he said, I would like you guys to endorse
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: Stacey Garrity. That was the Republican pick. So as clear
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: as it could possibly be, according to Bob Brooks, this
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: you know firefighter Union leader that it was Shapiro who
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: specifically asked them, Hey, you guys should back the Republican
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: in this. I will say also, I don't know if
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: this is related or not, but apparently the there was
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: a put the next tweet up on the screen. One
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: of the dividing issues in this in this election between
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: the Republican and the Democrat was whether or not they
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: were going to invest in Israel bonds, and the Democratic
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: candidate said that she did not think it was a
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: good investment, that she didn't think it was a good
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: use of taxpayer dollars, and she was not going to
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: be investing in those Israel bonds. And the Republican was
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: very much in support of investing in the Israel bonds.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: And given that Shapiro is, you know, very committed Zionist,
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: one wonders if that also factored into his enmity against
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: the Democratic candidate here.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: In the state of Pennsylvania as well possible.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Pa and Illinois and all this. It's
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: very interesting to me because you have these demo credit states.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: I just saw today some quote from Pritzker. He's like,
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: you can hate Natan Yahoo, but don't take it out
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: on Israel.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, what's it? Like? What is this?
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: This this like centrism because these are deep I mean,
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: not pick Pa because Pa is a genuine swing state,
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: but at the state level they seem relatively committed, you know,
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: to Shapiro.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: He's a very popular governor.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: He was elected i think with twelve percent of vote margin.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: Branded he was running against Mastriano, but he remains, I
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: mean honestly pretty popular in the state. Every time you
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: see his social media presence, by the way, is actually
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: like shockingly good.
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: Oh really, I don't follow my you know.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: Sister in laws sends me the all of Shapiro's tiktoks
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: where he like sit as his desk and plays game
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: apparently go viral.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: That's what I know.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: And so I mean, I don't know, like he seems
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: to have like a lock on this. But at a
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: national level, I think that's the real interesting part is
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: it's going to be very similar to many of the
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: fights in the Republican era, where you would have these
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: individually popular Republican governors, even in swing states. But that
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: doesn't fit necessarily the national mood of the entire base,
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: which actually makes a lot of sense. Like Illinois, it's
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: a machine state. Producing Pritzker is like a no brainer.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: But you know, copy pasting that into a national primary,
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: and especially in a lot of these primary states where
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: you're going to have a base which is very very activated,
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's necessarily one to one. That's why
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, I still put my money. You know, the
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: national polls, the people getting the real attention. It's people
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: like Gavin Kamalan Ford.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Hate to say it, but she still.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: Continues to lead like a lot of these polls, which
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: is crazy. People all need to you know, I don't
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: know what's going on with that one.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: AOC.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: If Platner gets elected, he'll have some profile, you know,
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: he'll be a media guy.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: He could definitely do something with it.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: Newsome I still, you know, still very I'm not taking
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: my money off of him yet because his level of
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: name idy is so crazy. So that's why, you know,
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: these things are very interesting to me. But at a
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: national level, that's the disconnect that I see.
• 54:00
  Speaker 8: Part of the.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: Problem for Shapiro too, is one of the knocks on
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: him is that he's like petty and vindictive and kind.
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: Of a track seems to prove that point.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, you're telling me a gubernatorial candidate who is very
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: popular is egomaniac.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Oh shocking.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, if that's the number one lesson I've learned
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: about these you can't under I mean everything about him,
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: the Obama affect, the basketball, the TikTok and the you
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: know everything. Look, at the end of the day, as
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: I've now learned, the hard way, like all of these
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: people are insincere.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: It is what it is.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: It's really about more what they're going to do for us.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: But from him, there's something. But when you can smell
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: it on a person, it's just distasteful.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Well, you know again that's me. A lot of people
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: like it, a lot of other people.
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: I've got a hard line against the Obama mets, and
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: he is one of the worst in terms of copying
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: Obama's cadence and style.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: And it just irritates the shit.
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: Remember John Favreau even said that Obama's former speech writer.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: He was like, Yo, this is wild. So don't take
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: it from us, take it.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: From even tries to do some of the like same mannerisms.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Try not like you're a grown man, have your own personality,
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: Like this is so weird. I mean, this is decades
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: ago now that Obama was on the right.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Anyway, guys a little bit.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: I'm sure you and I subconsciously will copy people like
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: in the way that we.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: Like grew up with. But yeah, at a certain point
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: you need to come into your grow up.
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you need to. You need to come into
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: your own have your own style.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: In any case, but I think all of this is
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: moot because Democrats have a stunning new twenty twenty eight
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: contender who seems to be, you know, really on the rise.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and take a listen to C four.
• 55:36
  Speaker 12: As we succeeded in bringing the mainstream of the left
• 55:41
  Speaker 12: into a concern with inequality, we also enabled people who
• 55:48
  Speaker 12: wanted to use that as a platform for a wide
• 55:52
  Speaker 12: range of social and cultural changes, some of which have
• 55:56
  Speaker 12: publicly's been ready for people agree with them. I think
• 56:01
  Speaker 12: they make a mistake by taking the most controversial parts
• 56:08
  Speaker 12: of the agenda and turning them into limpus set for example,
• 56:13
  Speaker 12: the same sex marriage. Obviously, I've been working for gay
• 56:16
  Speaker 12: Rights Southern in nineteen seventy two, went in found the bill,
• 56:21
  Speaker 12: and we in the movement to estavage fatage for gay
• 56:26
  Speaker 12: and lesbian bisexual people. We picked to work on those
• 56:31
  Speaker 12: issues which were more accepted. We didn't get the marriage
• 56:35
  Speaker 12: until after these other things had been resound and that's
• 56:39
  Speaker 12: the suggestion that we do today. The analog is male
• 56:44
  Speaker 12: to female transsexual playing sports delire for.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Women, so that for those not e an O is
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: former Congressman Barney Frank He is himself a gay man,
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: as was indicated there was really on the front lines
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: of pushing for gay marriage equality. He had him a
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: scandal back in the day that was pretty wild at
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: the time, where he'd hired like a male.
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: Sex worker and it was a whole thing.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: In any case, it should be sorry that was not
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: homophobic any politicians hiring hookers, no matter ray of the gender.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm sorry.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: He's run on a platform of doing an ethics investigation
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: to literally every member of Congression because I feel like
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: that's necessary that at this point, at any at any rate,
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: he is dying, and he's decided as his like last act,
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: he penned a book that is all about like how
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: the you know, progressives are getting it all wrong and
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: is doing this appearance with Jake Tapper. And the other
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: thing that you should know about Barney Frank and his
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: track record and his contribution to the Democratic Party is
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: that his most famous piece of legislation was the DoD
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: Frank financial Reform. So after the financial crash, there was
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: a big effort to break up the banks, to separate
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: the sort of you know, high flying investing part that's
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: very dangerous and casino like from the staid, normal commercial
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: banking which is the way things used to be. But
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: instead we got this very watered down reform called Dodd
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: Frank and so he was the author of that. And then
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: lo and behold, when he retires from Congress, what does
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: he go into it?
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: He becomes a bank lobbyist.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: So you know, to take advice from this guy on anything,
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: let alone the fact that look this advice at this
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: point that okay, yeah, we get we get it, like
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: the transsports thing is not a not a compelling or
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: popular issue.
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, we understand that.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know that we needed like a dying former
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: bank lobbyist.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: Do we understand that? Though now I'm gonna challenge this,
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's true. Do you think that we
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: understand that like Libs still go really hard on transports?
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: They do. I mean, I've seen it rejected.
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: As lit we Well, I think they blasted Seth Moulton
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: in the opening days of the twenty twenty five whenever
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: he was like why would we die on this hill? Yeah,
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: because I would really disagree with you.
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: Well, what I would.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: Say is, for me, the idea that that is the
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: main and primary problem with the Democratic Party is ridiculous.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: The people who tend to bring this up the most
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: are Republicans. You're talking about a small pool of people,
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: and I think you would agree with me that this
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: advice is hardly unique in being offered by Barney Frank
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: and very much ignores, very much ignores again the incredibly
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: damaging role he himself played in helping to turn the
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party into a party of elites that are more
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: obsessed with cultural issues than they are with You know
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: that in their opposed to delivering for working.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: Class I didn't expect to be defending Barney Frank, but
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: I mean he did.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: You know, he was one of the people who.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: Was the major champion of gay right now, I would
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: tell you that he I mean, look, it's funny, I
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: almost forgot his record. This is the guy caught with
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: a male hooker in nineteen eighty five who became the
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: face of gay marriage.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's really interesting.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: Also was one of the first sponsors of legal gambling
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: in the United States. He b then did dog Frank,
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: which are we all better off financially? So yeah, I mean,
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: I'm with you, a poster boy for turning America to
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: a libertine, degenerate place. Now that said, if you were
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: to say like, oh, okay, Barney as an activist can
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: give advice on this, I'd be like, all right, I'll
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: cut him a brake. But yeah, I see what you're saying,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: which is that this is definitely look, I mean, I
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: do think and this is where with Barney Frank everyone
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: talks about him like some gay rights hero. Again, like, okay,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: considering the track record of how all that went down,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: like in terms of everything that he did while he
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: was in Congress, and nobody ever puts any scrutiny. But
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: in general, though, these politicians from the mid two thousands
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: and others should be treated with the same contempt that
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: we would, let's say, when the Republicans did whenever they
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: were doing their reform in twenty sixteen under Trump or
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: obviously we thought that's what we were doing with the
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: Bush here, never thought Mark Tison'd be.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: Back in the White House here we are, ye.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: But the point remains that, like, who's some two thousand
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: politician I'm trying to who's the equivalent on the Republican side,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: Jeff Flake?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe, I mean, I'm sorry, like I don't give.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: A shit with Jeff Flake has to say about the
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: current Republican Party like period, literally a liberty Lindsay Graham. Yeah,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: but he's still in office, people of.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: South Carolina, he is, unfortunately I'm talking about he's still
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: got some of these people around.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: I'm just thinking of like some mid two thousands. I
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: don't know who was the vice president, Dan Quayle. I'm like, sorry,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: don't care, I don't care what you have to say, Quail. Yeah,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: it's your time has come and gone. I mean, it's
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: interesting in the context of like him ending his life
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: and like no disrespect to the man, like he's obviously
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: in hospice, like you know, I hope you know, it's
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: a horrible situation. But it's more about Yeah, I just
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: wish that there was more grappling with some of those things.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing is true.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: In the Jake Yapper world or the CNN world, nobody
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: would be like, hey, so, how did God Frank work out?
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 9: Buddy?
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: You know, like how why does nobody ask that question? Yeah?
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Why does somebody ask about the gambling thing?
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: It's like, you were literally one of the top gambling
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: proponents in the United States, So what happened there?
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Barney? Yeah, you know, we're living in your world. Brother.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: I think he used to say, you can correct me
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: from I think he used to serve on the board
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: or as of this, like like pro gay bank. We're
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: just like yeah, I mean as an emblem of his politics.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: Anyway, we also want.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: To make sure that we also wanted to make sure
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: that we cover this Supreme Court decision, which I think
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: could be very significant. Let's put this up on the screen.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: So this is a real curtailing of some aspects of
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: the Voting Rights Act, in particular the drawing of these
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: majority minority districts to make sure there is black representations,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: most significant in the South, and the Supreme Court kind
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: of split the different or they try to sort of
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: split the difference in terms of their decision, but it
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: still looks like the outcome is going to be fairly
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: significant in the ability of states, and it was Louisiana's
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: a map that was being challenged in particular and the
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: ability of Southern states to redraw their maps and eliminate
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: their majority already minority districts. So the Cook Political Report
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: analyze what the impact would be along with Larry Sabato's
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: Crystal bal which is published by University of Virginia Center
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: for Politics, and they both estimated that this could result
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: in roughly seven House seats shifting to the GOP. So
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: you know, the redistricting wars are fully on, launched of
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: course by Trump. Originally you've had California and Virginia, I
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: think a couple other blue states that are redrawing their
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: maps to optimize for Democrats. There are some other states,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: like Illinois is one that hasn't gone yet that could
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: do that. Apparently, you know, there's possible New York Jerrymander.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: So there are some compensating moves that Democrats could make.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: But obviously this is a significant win for Republicans in
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: terms of trying to redraw the maps to be more
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: favorable to them.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: And it also, I mean in.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: A lot of these states will effectively cement like one
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: party control a lot of these states. The only district
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: that Democrats win are these majority minority districts that have
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: been you know, have been protected.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: By about it because on the merits, it's a ridiculous policy,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: because the policy stems from the Voting Rights Act of
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: nineteen sixty five. And not to get too granular, because
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: I spent a lot of time actually reading about this
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: voting rights provision when I was doing a lot of
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: research on affirmative action. The principle of American jurisprudence is
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: that you have to prove intent. Now, this Voting Rights
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: Act actually obfuscates the proven racial discrimination and assumes racial
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: discrimination on the basis of something called dilution. Dilution says
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: that the mere presence of minority populations there without representation
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: is evidence of discrimination itself, not that you have to
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: prove said discrimination. Now, if I put myself in the
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: minds of a lawmaker eighty one years ago, literally when
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: the law was passed, I could understand that era of
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: Jim Crow. But eighty one years later here in twenty
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: twenty six, or sorry, sixty one years I don't know
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: why I said, eighty one years sixty one years later.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, Like that is a ludicrous proposition. Like it
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: is a total violation, in my opinion, of the Equal
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: Protection Clause. And I would give you know, for all
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: the liberals whore hyperventilating about this, I live in Virginia,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: which is what fifty four forty five in terms of Trump,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: What did Virginia just do to our maps? They just
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: nuked all conservative representations. They're gonna be a ten to
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: one in terms of Democrat to Republican. I don't hear
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: you crowing about my minority rights, of the viability to
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: represent myself, or the dilutive effect of me living in
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: a d what plus eighty, you know city, Like I
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: just think it's Look, I'm not trying to be glib,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: but it's pretty obvious this is a black carve out
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: from nineteen sixty five, which, in my opinion, totally violates
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: the spirit of the Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: Justice Alito, you should read his decision. What he said
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: was that you have to prove racial discrimination, and you
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: can't assume murder. You can't assume a tent in anything
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: in American law except here in the South, which again
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: I accept that we needed some sort of post civil
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: rights settlement to force Jim Crow States to basically not
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: discriminate against black people. But I'm living in a world
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: where Georgia has two Democratic senators after our Democratic president
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: just said that there were enacting new Jim Crow as
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: of twenty twenty two, which obviously is a bullshit and incendiary.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: So I don't know like, look, maybe a lot of
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: liberals will get mad at me, but like the spirit of.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: The law, it's just not right.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: And especially whenever you're looking at what Virginia just did,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: you're all celebrating over that one you care.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: About minority represents the Virginia. The Virginia is direct retaliation time.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: But that's what I'm saying is that everybody nobody gives
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: a shit about minority representation whenever it comes to their side.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: It's only here because they're like, oh, because of a
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: historic black population.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: But well, and I mean, if you can't prove explicit
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: racial discrimination, like you can't just assume it.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: It's very difficult, I think, to prove explicit discrimination, which
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: is why this is crafted the way that it was.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think you and I probably have a
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: different view of how prominent and significant racism against black
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: Americans in particular still continues to be, and especially in
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: the South, which is probably why we come down in
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: a different place.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: I see your point, though.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: I Mean, one thing I will say is that the
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: way that these districts operate is you end up with
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: these very like machine, you know, black politicians that are
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: very you know, the Jim Clyburns of the war that
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: are very like dedicated to the party apparatus another step
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: outside of that, intend to be some of the most
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: significant enforcers of like the pro corporate status quo.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: And the Democratic is going to be my next in the.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: Democratic Caucus, which is very unfortunately. I will say though
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: that you know, I think too, to wipe out effectively
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: all black representation in the South is like, yes, I
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: oppose that, and I think that that is I think
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: that is a setback.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: Can you support their Virginia thing? You just wiped out
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: Republican support in Virginia. We literally live in an occupied state.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Now if you have like it's true, I mean, we're
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: going to California.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: There is no doubt about Republicans in County.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: There is no doubt that we are in like just
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: a total race to the bottom in terms. And that
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: was kicked off by Trump. I mean, that was look
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: escalated by Trump. I shouldn't say it's kicked off by Trump.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 11: Now.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: I will also say Democrats have offered a nationwide anti
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: jerrymandering law that Republicans are opposed to, So you know,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: happy to pass that legislation and have fair districts drawn
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: across the country, and I absolutely think that would be
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: a better result overall and guarantee that you know that
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: all groups receive the level of representation that they should have.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: But no, I mean, on the merits, do I think
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: this was a positive decision in terms of demo small
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: indeed democratic representation in the country.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: No, I do not.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: But see that's where I have to disagree, Like the
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: idea of dilution in and of itself that some one district,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: just because they are black, they deserve a special carve out.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: It doesn't apply to anybody else in the whole nation.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: It's an explos because they're eym.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: Because we have an explicit history in the country that
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: continues to loom large over our politics, and.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: Whyting to support afirmative action. It's been sixty one years.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: We don't have these explicit racial carve outs anymore. We
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: are trying to have live up to the spirit of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: equal protection. This is explicitly created and directed at the South,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: which again I totally get back in nineteen sixty five,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: but it's twenty twenty six. If you want to live
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: in a country where you have equal protection and application
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: of said law for all racial groups. Then this directly
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: violates that because now they, like everybody else, have to
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: prove the intention of discrimination. And in the same spirit,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: like can I prove that Democrats wanted to disenfranchise all
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: the Republicans in Virginia?
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, probably, But.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: They don't they care that, Like that's what I'm saying.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: They don't care at all, So like don't come crime. Like, look,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: you're looking at it in the in the in the
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: what is it the in the interim, like this race
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: in terms of like this particular race. In the long run,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: I think I think it's a better off decision because
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: it creates the legal justification that anybody, when you have
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: to prove discrimination, you have to explicit be able to
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: prove it. You and I benefit from this when it
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: comes to defamation law. All Americans benefit from this. Whenever
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: it comes to I'm trying to think, like anytime you're
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: criminally accused or of anything, even whenever it comes to
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: like you know, really not from heinous crime to the
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: presumption of innocence. It's like a basic bedrock of American society. Now,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: as I've said, I totally understand why in the era
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: of Jim crow that you would want to put something
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: like this in place. But when Georgia is a swing state,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: I'm starr, which was the capital like the beating heart
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: of Confederate, the Confederate, like, you know, what's the lost
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: cause ideology and center Richard Russell who was the chief opponent,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: and when his predecessors are now literal, one of whom
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: was a black Democrat, I just don't buy it anymore,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: Like I just think it's a long relic.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: And my final point was on the machine thing.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: And I got into my argument with the father in
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: law over this because he was talking explicitly about representation
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: like the skin color of the person who was represented,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: and I was trying to make this point. I said,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: you know, the Congressional Black Caucus is one of the
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: most machine captured and pro corporate lobbies in all of Washington.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: This is a well known fact.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: And it's like, has it really worked out necessarily to
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: the benefit? I mean, I understand this, like I don't
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: need an Indian person to represent my interest my interests
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: in my interests, but I.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: Would say they are much better than a Republican in
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: the same district. Okay, on the merits in terms of
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: what they will vote for. And at the risk of
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: like repeating myself, I just think our difference comes down to,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: you know, you say, you can understand why this was
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: put in place when it was given the level of racism,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: et cetera. And I just continue to see a level
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: of racism that continues to justify this level of protection
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: and see it as a loss that black voters throughound
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: the South, Black voters around the South are basically going
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: to lose, you know, their congressional representation.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: And you know they're going me living off redlining until
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: two thousand and two hundred. You know, It's just it's
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: one of those where like, look, we live in an
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: evolving society, which everybody can understand whenever it comes to
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: social justice, but apparently like the sins of a hundred
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: years ago, but it's never ever.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: The sins of one hundred years ago. I mean, we've
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: had you know, six years, but I think you have
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: to acknowledge, like racism is still a real matter. You
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: can look at wealth disparities, you can look at outcome disparities,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: you know, you can.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: Look at health disparities.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: Basically anywhere you look in terms of Ameragine breaks down
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: some of it is class based, but some of it
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: is also over racial discrimination, and we have a long
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: history of that, and that doesn't get you know, it
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: doesn't just vanish over, you know, truly in terms of
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: the grand scheme of time, like a few decades is
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: a very short period of time. Just the decade before
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: I was born was all the debates about bussing, and
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: like that's when desegregation was. This is very recent in
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: terms of a historical scale, and the legacy still continues,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: in my opinion.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: So I can understand that view, and I get how
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: it's a you know, liberal headline like Voting Rights Act
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: struck down. But like I beg, you grapple with the
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: points that I made because I don't really see I
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: see people hyperventilating about it, but absolute refusal to apply
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: it to literally any other group, which again, you don't
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: care at all at all about minority representation, especially in
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: the wake of Virginia. You happen to care whenever you
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: can dress it up as some sort of like civil
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: rights era cause. But that's not how the US jurisprudence works.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: Like the law explicitly says that we should not be
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: discriminated based upon our race and to have explicit racial
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: carve outs is just not really something that we should
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: have anymore in the year twenty twenty six.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: Why I support the Mississippi and other Southern states literally
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: still celebrate a Confederate Memorial Day. So that's where we
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: still are, Okay, So I mean, I don't it's a
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: good thing, I know.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: But I'm just saying the no show these are all colorblind.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: Your job is, Like, I just think that that is
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: defies the reality of what it is like.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: And most of these.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: Deeply I was raising the South, so first of all,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: in literally a Confederate state, So like it's not like
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: I'm not exactly familiar with Confederate or Lost Cause ideology. However,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: I've also watched my state go from nineteen nineties, Like
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: you know, we're probably where something like that could have happened.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: Where now, as you just said, James Tallerico is pulling
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: in a place where he could win the entire state.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: So right, Texas is a little bit different than like Mississippi, Alabama,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: just in terms of both the demographic makeup and also
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: the massive influx of like Californian and so I've moved.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: To that's fair.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know what I mean.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: Georgia also is that has been a beacon for people
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: moving in from out of state.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: Maybe there's really change the character.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: You're right, which is maybe that's the fault of Mississippi
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: and Alabama for not becoming a more attractive place.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: I'm joking, Okay. So it's one of those where.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day, what I think is
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: equal application of the law is not based on your skin,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: is the most important bedrock principle I think when it
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: comes to affirmative action, and I think it whenever it
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: comes to Voting Rights Act.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, it will. It will an immediate term.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: It will affect my you know, so called minority representation
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: in these states. But we don't do that in literally
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: any other case, and we should make it so that
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: that is what you strive for across the board, including yes, jerrymandering,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: which obviously many Republicans in these states thought would use
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: to their advantage.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: I actually still don't really fully buy.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: Not to just drag this out too much, but I
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: still don't fully buy that the jerrymandering, even with these
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: seven steats that will go up, will still net out
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: in some sort of Republican favor.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: Because I think it's still very much. It's hard to say.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: Because I was looking, you know, at approval ratings. You know,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: Clinton had like a fifty percent approval rating and also
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: lost like fifty two seats in nineteen ninety four. Yeah,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: Trump is it at all time low bottom. So even
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: in a Gerrymanderd world.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think Democrats are still going to take the House.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: I just think it will be a smaller mom.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, I see where said, yeah, all right.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: Anyway, i'd seen people be like, oh my god, we're
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: not even gonna win.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm like, really, like, I just don't think you're
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: really I.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: Think it's going to be too big to rig Sager,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: That's what I think.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: You know, you might be right,