← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
1/15/25: Gaza Ceasefire Terms Locked In, Pete Hegseth Hearing, LA Landlord Price Gouging & MORE!
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Emily
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Professor Goldstein
In front of me in the pharmacy line is halfway through an incredibly detailed 17 minute story about his gout. A story likely more painful than the gout itself.
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Ryan
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Sagar
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are.
- [01:36]
Ryan
So excited about what that means for.
- [01:38]
Sagar
The future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left.
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Ryan
And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every.
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Sagar
Morning in your inbox.
- [01:56]
Emily
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we.
- [01:59]
Sagar
Hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning and welcome to Counterpoints. Emily really big show today.
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Emily
Really big show. Also, we've had nothing but crazy news cycles for the past six plus months. This is one of the craziest news cycles. So many hearings just today. I mean Rubio, Pam Bondi, John Ratcliffe, Chris Wright, Sean Duffy. It's just absolutely stuffed you. Yesterday was Pete Heigseth. We had the TikTok band covering here on the show today. Huge news and you guys at Breaking Points had a great scoop on what's going on with the ceasefire negotiations.
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Sagar
Yeah, I was just thinking, I really do hope that Sager's alien invasion holds off because I want to see how the next four years plays out.
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Emily
You're curious.
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Sagar
I really am, yeah.
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Emily
And you can't read the last page of the book first.
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Sagar
That's probably life. No, it's going to be interesting. And I'm curious what would happen in the event of an alien invasion too, obviously. But we could get that later. Like I want to see this whole thing because to your point, the Donald Trump I was going to about say the Trump administration, but Donald Trump and his kind of real estate tycoon that he assigned to create a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is on the brink of pulling it off. We're going to talk to Jeremy Scahill in just a moment who's been in contact with a lot of people involved in this. So he's going to break down what the, the deal actually looks like and how we got to this place. But quite incredible. I still stand by my prediction that Netanyahu is going to drag this all the way out to the 19th to ink the like final details. Hope I'm wrong. But overnight, Israel was ramping up airstrikes all across Gaza. There was video that emerged from Yunuserawi of them blowing up a mosque in northern Gaza yesterday just kind of because they can. And there's a couple of days left until they sign the thing. But we're getting very close.
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Emily
So we're going to start with that news. We're going to run down the Hegseth hearing from yesterday. Do an Update on wild1. It was a wild one. Although by Trump era standard it seems sort of medium, medium insanity. We'll do an update on a crazy story about landlords in the Los Angeles area. We'll talk about the migration from TikTok to Rednote. And we actually have a Princeton professor of astrophysics joining the show today to talk about how Donald Trump could potentially set himself up for a Nobel Peace Prize.
- [04:19]
Sagar
Three Nobel Peace Prizes. He wrote this essay for Fox News before Trump kind of slammed a ceasefire on Israel, which frankly, in another kind of world could generate a Nobel Peace Prize for an American president. Donald Trump has a steeper hill to climb to win that prize because he's Donald Trump and it's ludicrous to consider him getting a Nobel Peace Prize. But he lays out how over the next four years he's actually set up to resolve three major sources of conflict and could legitimately deserve, if he pulled that off, three Nobel Peace Prizes and.
- [04:59]
Emily
Potentially take us a little bit further from the Brink to the extent that we possibly can be of.
- [05:04]
Sagar
I'd like to pull back from the brink.
- [05:06]
Emily
Yes, that sounds great to me. Iranian president is giving interviews to American media and BC News in particular. So we will have updates on all. As a reminder, breakingpoints.com that's where you can get a premium subscription. And Ryan, if you can't get a premium subscription, you can't afford it.
- [05:21]
Sagar
Just like and subscribe, you know, like and subscribe. Tell your friends, share it, it helps, you know, it helps clip it and put it on social because we don't really do that.
- [05:28]
Emily
Yeah, that's true. Shout out to Halal Flow, as always.
- [05:32]
Sagar
Yes, Halal Flow does that.
- [05:33]
Emily
I'm told we have Jeremy Scahoe, your colleague at Dropsite, on the Line here to help us break down the huge news about.
- [05:41]
Sagar
Let's bring Jeremy in. Jeremy, how you doing?
- [05:46]
Ryan
All right, you know, pins and needles hoping that this goes through.
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Sagar
Yeah. So let's actually, let's start back in May to bring people up to, up to speed here. So May, May of 2024, that was the, maybe the first time since the November 2023 exchange of, of prisoners between Israel and Hamas where there was that one week ceasefire. What happens in May and what has kind of changed since then that got us to this place?
- [06:17]
Ryan
Well, in May, Joe Biden comes out publicly and says that he's reached what he called a monumental point in the ceasefire negotiation and that he has gotten assurances from Israel that they'll move forward with a deal. And the basic outlines of it are almost identical to what is now being negotiated. That's the first thing that should, should just be put on the table. They move forward. Then they get the United Nations Security Council to officially endorse this, what they called the Biden framework. But actually, many of the tenets of it came from this sort of backdoor discussions between Anthony Blinken, Brett McGurk, Bill Burns, the director of the CIA, and the Israelis to make sure that when Biden goes out and says, hey, this thing is, man, monumental, that it wasn't going to like blow up in the White House's face. Well, lo and behold, then Hamas is presented with, with these terms. There's the back and forth that always happens in these, which is at the technical level. So when you hear people saying, oh, Israel accepted this, or Hamas accepted this, what they're talking about usually is they've accepted the broad framework. And then where the real, you know, sort of problems start to occur is when you start talking about technical details. For instance, you know, as of. Of this morning, there were still. There was still back and forth going on in Doha, number of technical issues. The Israelis didn't provide maps to the Palestinian side showing where their forces would be withdrawn from and where they would be repositioned. And the Palestinians are concerned that if they leave any vagueness, the Israelis are going to exploit it. So I just give that as, like, one example. So you have technical issues, and all indications are that, that these issues right now are being resolved. But going back to, over the summer, they then get to that phase of it where you normally would be discussing, like, implementation. And then the Israelis start to put in what Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad negotiators said, totally new terms that had to do with the Israelis wanting to remain in Rafah to keep control of the Philadelphia corridor, to keep control of the netsirene corridor. So Hamas is saying, wait a minute, we agreed to what Biden said was a monumental framework that the United nations endorsed. We now need more time. And then they start the narrative, oh, Hamas refuses to accept the deal. Well, then what happens is you have this back and forth where the Americans come back to the Arab mediators who say to Hamas, listen, would you accept this phrasing in the deal that the Americans have said Israel will accept? If you guys do, Hamas then deliberates on it. And then on July 2, Hamas officially informs the mediators from Qatar and Egypt, yes, we will accept the American amended ceasefire proposal. The Americans then go back to Israel and Netanyahu says, no, no, no, no, no, the circumstances have changed. And then what happens is you have this, you know, string of assassinations where Israel assassinates Ismail Haniyeh, the top negotiator for Hamas, and they do it in Tehran at a guest house that's controlled by the most elite military force in Iran. You then have the. The pager bomb plum, the pager bomb plot in Lebanon, the wiping out of not only the senior echelons of Hezbollah, but also Hassan N. Then you have the bombings of Iran, the Iranians attacking Israel, the fall of the regime in Syria, which Netanyahu took credit for. And so basically what happened then, Ryan, last summer was that Biden goes out in front of the world. He says, hey, we're on the brink of something here. The Israelis just shove it in his face, turn around, and then escalate the war even further. And Biden rewards them, not punishes them, rewards them by showering billions of dollars more in US Weapons on them and then openly endorsing the Israelis setting fire to the Middle East. And basically there's been no discussion of a ceasefire since then until Donald Trump. First of all, he campaigns, you know, sort of to the left of Kamala Harris. In some ways on this issue, it was a little bit contradictory. Cuz on the one hand you have, you know, Trump saying there's never been a more pro Israel president or candidate in American history and he wants Netanyahu to finish the job. On the other hand, he does what the Democrats were doing. He goes and he meets with a ton of, of Arab political and religious and civic leaders, including in Michigan, where you had this uncommitted movement where many logical Democratic voters were begging the Harris campaign to pay attention to them and many, many Arabs in the United States felt like they were just being kind of spat upon by the Democrats. And so whatever you think about Donald Trump's efforts, there was an actual effort there. Trump then wins the election and he starts saying things like, there's going to be hell to pay if there's not a deal. Now, much of the reporting on that was, you know, sort of spun as he's threatening Hamas that, that, that some, you know, unknown horror is going to, you know, befall Hamas. First of all, what worse could possibly happen to the Palestinian people of Gaza right now? I mean, this is a way of letting Joe Biden off the hook because this has been a scorched earth genocide. But if you really paid attention, what Trump was doing was saying not just to Hamas, this needs to get done, but also to Israel. And you know, there's a lot of people make fun of the people that Trump chooses for his positions, but you know, Trump is choosing people that he believes can, quote, unquote, make a deal. So he taps Steve Witkoff to be his special envoy to the Middle east, who is kind of a fellow real estate tycoon. And you know, by all accounts, what has occurred is that for his own reasons, Trump has made it very clear to the Israelis that a deal needs to be done in time for his inauguration. We can talk about what Trump's motivations might be here, but Trump is showing that the power of the office of the presidency is vast. And it exposes the fact that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris systematically refused to ever take any actions. And there are many they could have taken to force a ceasefire. The US has enormous power and influence over Israel and Joe Biden, partially for his own ideological support of Israel and partially because these guys just got Rickrolled by Netanyahu, just never did it.
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Emily
BB Rolled. So let's put up A one, because this obviously brings us to today, Israel and Hamas agree in principle, as CBS News puts it, to cease fire and hostage deal. You guys reported that at drop site as well. And this is what we're here to talk about. But if we move on to A2, Reuters fleshes out some of the bullet points of the cease fire deal in ways that I know Jeremy and Ryan both can help us break down a little bit. Troop withdrawal, increased aid, future governance of Gaza. So what can both of you. Hostage return obviously is part of that. So what can both of you tell us about sort of what's actually part of this tug of war, what's on the table right now and how could it go wrong in the same way that Jeremy we saw it, as you mentioned, go wrong back in the summer.
- [13:29]
Ryan
So, you know, this is structured as a three phase deal. Each of the phases are envisioned to be 42 days. The first phase of this, Emily, would be the exchange of 33 captives and hostages held in Gaza right now that are categorized as being in humanitarian releases. So this would be anyone under the age of 19, including, you know, there are, there are a couple of very small children that are still being held in Gaza. And we understand that the first three hostages that would be released in this exchange of captives would be the members of the Bibas family. People may remember that there was a nine month old baby, Kfir Bibas, who was taken from the kibbutz of near AZ on October 7, along with his brother Ariel and the mother and father. And so the mother and those two children are widely believed to, to be the first three people that are gonna be handed over. And then they've created a mathematical formula where for each Israeli civilian, a certain number of Palestinian prisoners or captives are going to be released. You know, Israel is still holding several hundred children, minors, in their custody. You know, we talk a lot about Israeli hostages. There are Palestinian hostages, you know, in the dozens and hundreds being held by Israel right now. Also there are gonna be there female Israeli soldiers that are being held in Gaza. And the numbers start to increase in terms of the number of Palestinians that will be freed from Israeli prisons in return for any military figures. So the first round would include only these five female Israeli hostages or prisoners. And then you have also older people or sick people. This first phase would have what's called a temporary cessation of hostilities, meaning that there would be a ceasing of fire. But this is not a permanent ceasefire. And two weeks into this exchange where you would have sort of in phases, Israelis and internationals being held in Gaza being released, and then Palestinians being released as well. Two weeks into it, you then start to have discussions about the mechanism for implementing the second phase. And the second phase would start to increase the number of captives that are exchanged between the two sides. And it's in this phase where the draft agreement calls for an actual ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces. In that first phase, you'll start to have some pullback of the Israelis. There's still debate over kind of what kind of buffer zone is going to exist. The Israeli game, though, seems to be, and this is certainly what people like Ben GVIR and Smotrich are openly saying, but it's also quite mainstream, is that the Israelis are approaching this from. Let's just view this as we're making a deal over phase one. Yes, Trump is telling us we need to have this more comprehensive agreement. But wink, wink, nod, nod, we know that it's very easy to say Hamas violated this, and we're back into the game. So the Palestinian negotiators I'm dealing with, they're very well aware of this. And this is part of why they're insisting on, like, really exact maps from the Israelis, really exact timelines, so that they can go back to the mediators and say, you know, this. This is a violation by Israel. And then the final phase has to do with reconstruction and who would govern Gaza. But a lot of people aren't even so focused on that right now. You know, for the Palestinian people of Gaza, they need this to stop. And, you know, we know that at least 46,000 Palestinians have been killed. Those numbers are almost certainly a massive undercount. So, you know, people are desperate. We're hearing this from our reporters on the ground inside of Gaza. It's a horror show that's happening. And Israel has a long history of really intensifying the attacks against Gaza before any kind of a deal is made. So that's sort of where things stand right now. But I don't think we can understate the role that Donald Trump's posture has played in the timing of this. If this gets pulled off, the timing will be almost entirely a result not of Joe Biden's supposed tireless work around the clock, but of Donald Trump basically saying it is over.
- [17:49]
Sagar
And you don't.
- [17:50]
Ryan
Maybe it's over for a few weeks, but it's gonna be over at some point, for some period of time. And it's largely gonna be because of Trump's intervention.
- [17:58]
Sagar
And you don't have to take that from Us. You can take that from Israeli media and Israeli politicians. And to your point about Ben gvir, we could put up a three here. There was this remarkable moment where on Monday the was Antony Blinken giving a speech saying that we're all just sitting around here waiting for Hamas to accept the deal after Hamas had publicly accepted the basically accepted the framework. Meanwhile, you've got Ben GVIR here, who on in a post and also in a speech that he posted to Twitter, said very openly and admitted that over the past year and a half, he and his political forces had scuttled, you know, many, many hostage deals by using their political power to block those deals. It was kind of a remarkable split screen where you, where you have Blinken just, you can't tell if he's just a kind of confused old man with dementia who's just kind of repeating what he's been saying. Historically, it was never true before when he was saying it, as you laid out, but it was so flagrantly a lie on Monday when you, to have the entire Israeli media on the right and people like Ben GVIR and Smotrich saying this is a horrible deal, it's being forced on us, while at the same time Blinken saying it's Hamas that won't take the deal. What do you draw? How would you characterize the kind of Israeli media response and what conclusions can you draw?
- [19:32]
Emily
And before, Jeremy, you answer that, let's roll this clip of Blinken. This is a lot of people can hear what he says.
- [19:38]
Ryan
We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost.
- [19:43]
Sagar
That is a recipe for an enduring.
- [19:45]
Ryan
Insurgency and perpetual war. The longer the war goes on, the worse the humanitarian situation gets in Gaza.
- [19:53]
Sagar
Right. And there's Blinken saying that they have not accomplished anything. Go ahead.
- [19:58]
Ryan
Yeah. I mean, first, just to take, you know, what Blinken just said there, and then I'll address the Ben GVIR part of this. You know, this is counterinsurgency. You know, history 101. I mean, if you put people in an open air prison camp, if you deprive them of the right to nonviolent resistance, if you deprive them of food and put them on a calorie restricted diet, which the Israelis have done, if you dehumanize them, kill their parents repeatedly, tell them that there's no such thing as a Palestinian, you're going to leave the only option available to people who believe in fighting for their dignity, to take up arms against their occupier or the colonial power that's invading them. So, you know, we could have told Antony Blinken that this would happen, happen on October 6th if they don't stop this policy that you're going. And it's. And by the way, it's not just that people are like, joining Hamas. What we're talking about here is people deciding that they're going to be part of the armed resistance against what they, what they very clearly view as a, a brutal, gratuitous, colonial occupying power backed by the United States and other major Western powers. So, you know, Antony Blinken is going to be like, for years to come, waking up in the morning, going to his mirror and saying it's up to Hamas now. I mean, he's got some weird tick where he's just constantly lying about that dimension of this. And we could talk about, you know, Blinken as, as a kind of Neo Kissinger at some point. But to get back to Ben gvir, you know, part of this is true that the fact that Netanyahu's political stability depended on building this coalition with Ben GVIR and Smotrich. But in recent weeks and months, he's been able to broaden his coalition out a little bit, so he doesn't actually need their votes in order to get this thing through. And I think part of this plays to Netanyahu's favor to sort of have these guys on his right flank making this kind of noise. I mean, Netanyahu is the one that sabotaged the deal, not Ben gvir. And it wasn't only because Smotrich and Ben GVIR were there. It was because Netanyahu knew he had the political support and it wasn't going to harm him politically to keep sabotaging these deals. But now you have a different equation where he doesn't so much need these guys. And, you know, Trump and company. I think part of this for Netanyahu is he's hoping that by working with Trump that Trump is going to help him politically as well. It's not entirely about the Gaza deal. You know, there are questions about what have Trump people offered Netanyahu in response. Certainly, one of the big prizes would be normalization with Saudi Arabia. That would be a huge victory for Netanyahu, especially if it doesn't include a very clear establishment of a Palestinian state. There's the belligerence toward Iran and the potential to start striking Iranian nuclear sites or down the line to try to enact regime change. Trump has been giving indications that may not be the full direction that he wants to go in. But let's just say it's out there, annexation of the west bank. These are all things that potentially are on the table. But Netanyahu primarily is concerned with Netanyahu. So let's keep that very clear. And I think that part of what's happening here is that there is some behind the scenes maneuvering between Netanyahu's camp and Trump's camp to look at. How can Netanyahu's neck be saved politically as part of this apparent capitulation on the Gaza ceasefire terms? The New year means new health goals not just for your body, but your finances too. But did you know financial health is directly related to identity protection? You need Lifelock because your personal info is in endless places that are outside of your control. It only takes one mistake, and not even your mistake to expose you to identity theft and lost funds. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points per second and alerts you to threats you could miss on your own. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock's US based restoration specialist will fix it, backed by the million dollar protection package. In fact, restoration is guaranteed or your subscription money back. Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans or other financial losses from identity theft alone. Resolve to make identity health and wealth part of your New year's goals with LifeLock. Visit lifelock.com iheart and save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% off@lifelock.com iheart terms apply.
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- [25:46]
Emily
When reports that won't help, we can put a 5 up. Include this one about Steve Witkoff basically calling Netanyahu's bluff about. I think this was from Harrat. And it makes me think, Jeremy, that the clip of Ben GVIR we already talked about instances like this. You know, a week from now, Donald Trump will be the president, United States. And I can only think that, unlike with Biden and Blinken, that telegraphing from people like Ben GVIR will infuriate a potential Trump administration.
- [26:22]
Sagar
Yeah. And before you answer, I just wanted to read for people what I think is the kind of choice that people in Washington would mock Trump for, but clearly panned out for him. And this is from Haaretz. They write Witkoff, and Witkoff is the guy who called up Netanyahu's aides. He said, we're going to meet on Saturday. Aides are like, well, that's the Sabbath. Bibi can't really meet. And Witkoff knows that Netanyahu, secular, doesn't care about. He's like, don't give me this crap. We're meeting on Saturday and they meet on Saturday. That gives him the kind of dominance in the meeting and he steamrolls Netanyahu. Haaretz writes Witkoff is a Jewish real estate investor and developer who is close to Trump. He doesn't have the background of the kind of people who usually fill diplomatic roles. Quote, Witkoff isn't a diplomat. He doesn't talk like a diplomat. He has no interest in diplomatic manners and diplomatic protocols, says a senior Israeli diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. He's a businessman who wants to reach a deal quickly and charges ahead unusually aggressively. So that kind of appointment is the kind that gets mocked here in D.C. but that does seem like the kind of guy you want to send into the meeting and tell Netanyahu. What part of this don't you understand?
- [27:36]
Emily
Well, there's a difference between Rex Tillerson and Steve Witkoff, as we're.
- [27:40]
Sagar
Exactly.
- [27:40]
Emily
Yes.
- [27:42]
Sagar
Right. So go. Yeah.
- [27:43]
Ryan
And I mean, the Rex Tillerson analogy, it's a really, it's actually a really good one. Because, you know, Tillerson and I think we're going to see some of this with, like, with little Marco Rubio as well, go down where, you know, the people that end up in Trump's orbit, that have been part of the machine or part of kind of the, you know, the elite inner circle, they always have kind of a split loyalty from Trump's perspective. They're not just loyal to Trump, they also are thinking about sort of the bigger picture of the American empire and American institutions. And so, you know, when Trump has, like, kind of his own people there, on the one hand, it causes like, you know, sort of the apocalypse has come to town among the blob. But on the other hand, I think if you're someone like Netanyahu and you've got like, you know, Steve Witkoff, someone none of these people had ever heard of before coming in, but, you know, he's there for Trump, it's like you're talking to Trump. Whereas if you have like an Anthony Blinken there, you can manage Antony Blinken, you can spin Antony Blinken, you can make an absolute fool of Anthony Blinken. But in this case, it's like Trump kind of mafia style. It's like, this is my consigliere that you're going to be talking to. And if you, what you say to him, you say to me, that can be very effective. Whatever we think about it, whatever norms it breaks, it can be very effective. I do want to caution here, one note of caution. While I do think that, you know, there are truths to all of this, and I've also heard it from the Palestinian side that they're saying, like, you know, somehow Trump's people have gotten, like, issue X to be a non issue now. So, like, there, I've heard tangible results have been achieved because of the shift in tactics. That's real. But I also think that Netanyahu and some of his people might be playing up some of this for their own reasons. It sends some of the fire toward Trump, who's enormously popular in Israel. This is by no means going to damage Trump's standing in Israel, no matter how many commentators whine about it on tv. So I would just be careful. I wouldn't oversell the idea that, like, Trump's people really put Netanyahu in a corner. I think there's truth to it, and I've heard it also from the Palestinian side. But I do think that there is some spin at play here, because in a way, it does benefit, benefit Netanyahu. And I think Netanyahu's prize, at the end of the day, is his own political and personal fate more than it is anything about Israel. And in that way, he and Trump have some great similarities.
- [29:59]
Emily
And Trump reposted that wild Jeffrey Sachs critique of Netanyahu on Truth Social the other day as well.
- [30:05]
Ryan
You know, if you talk to Palestinians, too many Palestinians who follow this stuff closely are aware also of a variety of things that happened during Trump's first term where Trump genuinely, for instance, seemed to like Mahmoud Abbas. You know, Trump really seemed to be interested in some form of a deal that would lead to Palestinian statehood, something that Netanyahu would never even consider under Joe Biden. You know, so there are wild cards here. And, you know, again, we've talked about this on the show before. Trump, at the end of the day, he's not like a normal, ordinary person, but he is not a creature of the Washington swamp. And that can be dangerous in some ways, but it also has its benefits. He really, really doesn't care about what the Henry Kissinger's of the world, or Antony Blinkens of the world, for that matter, believe should be the norm of America's standing in the world. It cuts both ways. But in this case, it could at least give some relief to the Palestinians of Gaza who are suffering under an unconscionable genocide that Joe Biden could have ended long ago.
- [31:11]
Sagar
And there's also been reporting over the last year that Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson's widow, I guess, offered something like $100 million to Trump's campaign, basically in exchange for a direct quid pro quo of allowing Israel to annex the West Bank. Talk a little bit about what's going on in the west bank the last few days, and what do you think the price might be for the west bank to, to get this cease fire?
- [31:38]
Emily
Well, and let's also note, Miriam Adelson is just announced yesterday co hosting an inaugural ball with Mark Zuckerberg on Trump's behalf. So still very much in the circle.
- [31:49]
Ryan
Wild bedfellows are emerging in this whole thing, you know, a whole other discussion. Look, it's a, it's an incendiary situation right now in the West Bank. I mean, we had just last night the Israelis did airstrikes in Jenin, killing, you know, a number of people. The Palestinian Authority itself, which is viewed by many Palestinians as kind of an extension or an agent of the Israeli occupation, has been waging a paramilitary campaign to go after armed resistance factions right before the Israelis actually did this.
- [32:23]
Sagar
People should read, by the way, Mariam Barghouti's piece in dropsite on the ground reporting about this PA led assault on fighters.
- [32:35]
Ryan
It's the most significant military operation that the Palestinian Authority has done under the areas of its nominal control in recent memory. And people in the West Bank, I think, are now living in a state of incredible uncertainty and danger. You have really empowered violent extremist settlers that are attacking Palestinians, stealing Palestinian land. They're being backed by the official forces of the Israeli state. You have Netanyahu and his government moving forward with trying to annex further territory, build more settlements. You then have the Palestinian Authority engaging in its paramilitary operations inside of the West Bank. And now Israel once again bombing in the West Bank. If there's a Gaza ceasefire deal, then I think you're going to see, and I'm hearing this from Palestinians on the ground, an intensification of Israeli operations in the west bank itself. So, you know, even though we may get a break from some of this, the overarching reality is that this is unresolved and the Palestinians as a people remain very much in danger. I also think, though, that it is evidence that if the Palestinians had not resisted Israel, they would have been erased a long time ago. And, you know, Hamas certainly is going to have to answer its own questions from its own people about decisions that it made over the course of the past 15 and 16 months. But at the end of the day, this is not a total victory for Netanyahu, the likes of which he claimed he was going to get. This deal doesn't say Hamas is gone. This deal doesn't say Hamas does not, is not allowed to participate in politics. And Antony Blinken put a very fine point on it, even in a discombobulated way. Resistance is growing in Gaza and the West Bank. It's not being stamped out. You can't kill your way to victory. This was what Bush and Cheney thought they could do with their neocon wars that many Democrats backed. History just shows it never works. Look at Afghanistan, Jeremy.
- [34:44]
Emily
I was gonna say the same thing. Blinken's point is actually so self defeating if you consider it in that context. And before we let you go, just wanna get your reaction to some of these mounting criticisms. I mean, they've been there all along, but especially pitched right now from hostage families. So this is a six. We could put this up. It's a vo. So you'll see on video hostage families is really hostage families saying that they have received threats, or families of the kidnapped have received threats that their loved ones would not appear on the returnee list if they continued to make noise and some of the families backed down because they felt threatened. That's the translation. And if we move on to a 7, you can actually see more of this. This is from we are all hostages. Who says Netanyahu's coalition members attack hostage families on a weekly basis because they despise them? Jeremy, what are the politics or how do these politics influence Netanyahu in the days ahead?
- [35:40]
Ryan
I mean, this is an utterly sickening dynamic. I mean, look at the way that the families of the Israelis being held in Gaza have been treated throughout the course of the past 15 months. I mean, Netanyahu and his supporters in the government have used the fact that there are Israeli captives, hostages in Gaza as a major political cudgel to defend Israel's genocide. And yet at every turn, when they could have returned them. I mean, how is it that they have not made a deal to get some of the elderly people out or children? You know, and I've been very clear from the beginning, no one ever should be taking children captive hostage, harming them in any way. Those people should have been released long ago. And yes, Hamas should answer questions for that. But also Israel is the main reason why they haven't been released. And those families deserve the support of the world when they're saying do anything to get our loved ones out of there. Because at the other end of that, that do anything means stop killing the children and the elderly and the sick of Gaza as well. I mean, they've been used as a political football. And to be told, if you don't shut up, we're gonna push your family members further down the the list and into the second phase or the third phase of this. I mean, this is just morally reprehensible behavior and unfortunately not shocking.
- [37:06]
Sagar
It's hostage taking, it's literally hostage taking. To say that we will keep your family member held hostage unless you do X, that is hostage taking. Even if you're outsourcing the hostage taking in that situation.
- [37:20]
Ryan
It's also Israel's policy on Palestinians in general, which is if you don't bend the knee and agree to subjugation and colonialism and to live as a second or third class citizen, if we even allow you to live, then you're gonna be subjected to economic, military and political warfare as long as you walk this earth. It's a microcosm of that broader mentality that leads to things like a war of annihilation against a overwhelmingly civilian population of Gaza.
- [37:48]
Sagar
Yeah. And last question for you from your sources. When are they expecting. When can we expect a kind of final announcement here?
- [37:57]
Ryan
You know, Ryan, I'd be an idiot if I answered that question, because when you. Well, I will give you guys one vignette. You know, a few days ago, I was talking to a negotiator from the Palestinian resistance. We all say Hamas, but there's multiple groups that are involved with the negotiation. It's not just Hamas. And they said that they had to affirm in. In no uncertain terms to the mediators that there would be no leaks about this. You know, they also want this deal to go through. So I had indications, oh, it looks like it's going to be, you know, today, but then you have these hiccups happen with technical discussions. So I think there's a high likelihood that it's going to happen before Trump's inauguration. But the devil is in the details, and Netanyahu has been known to pull 11th hour tricks, so. So, you know, I'm not so naive as to say, oh, Ryan. Well, my sources are telling me today it all depends on what happens with these remaining technical discussions, but there are indications that it should happen before Trump's inauguration.
- [39:00]
Sagar
All right, so up next, we're gonna talk about a new survey out that shows that among the people who voted for Biden in 2020 and then did not vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, Kamala refusing to break with Biden on Gaza is cited as the number one reason they decided not to vote. We'll talk about that in a second.
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Professor Goldstein
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Sagar
2025 is bound to be a fascinating year. It's going to be filled with money challenges and opportunities. I'm Joel.
- [39:58]
Professor Goldstein
Oh, And I am Matt.
- [39:59]
Sagar
And we're the hosts of How To Money. We want to be with you every step of the way in your financial journey this year, offering the information and insights you need to thrive financially. Yeah. Whether you find yourself up to your eyeballs in student loan debt or you've.
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Ryan
Got a sky high credit card balance because you went a little overboard with the holiday spending. Or maybe you're looking to optimize your retirement accounts so you can retire early.
- [40:23]
Sagar
Well, How To Money will help you to change your relationship with money so.
- [40:27]
Ryan
You can stress less and grow your net worth.
- [40:29]
Sagar
That's right. How to Money comes out three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. For money advice without the judgment and jargon, listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [40:42]
Ryan
I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the really no really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions, like why they refused to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer and you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us.
- [41:16]
Emily
How are you?
- [41:17]
Ryan
Hello, my friend Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to really no really Sir.
- [41:22]
Sagar
Bless you all.
- [41:23]
Ryan
Hello Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandela might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really? No really? Yeah, really?
- [41:31]
Sagar
No really.
- [41:31]
Ryan
Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition sign Jason Bobblehead. It's called really no really? And you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [41:49]
Sagar
From 2020 to 2024, Democrats saw a staggering drop off in support at the presidential level, with some 19 million people who voted for Joe staying home or not mailing in their ballots in 2024. A new survey conducted by YouGov suggests Biden's support for Israel's unrelenting assault on Gaza played a surprisingly large role in the decision making of those previous Biden supporters who didn't vote. The top reason those non voters cited above, the economy at 24% and immigration at 11%, was Gaza, which a full 29% cited as the top reason they didn't cast a vote in 2024. Looking narrowly at states that swung from Biden in 2020 to Trump in 2024, the number is smaller, but in those states, 20% still cited Gaza as the reason they didn't vote. Again, the poll was paid for by the Institute for Middle East Understanding, which has been an outspoken critic of Israel's assault on Gaza. Now, before firmly demonstrating that Gaza cost Democrats the election, a handful of caveats are important. So even if October 7 and the resulting genocide had never happened, it's fair to assume some number of those non voters still would not have voted and would have cited a different top reason for not voting. Citing a top reason for not voting is different than it being the only reason that you didn't vote. And because the turnout drop off was smaller in swing states, Gaza may not have been decisive on its own. Whenever surveys confirm views we already hold or tell us things we want to be true, it's worth approaching their findings with increased skepticism. Still, even the most biased poll can only manufacture so much of a response. Even if the true numbers aren't as stark as this survey found, the direction that it points in is clear. Biden's ruthless support for Israel's genocide and the refusal of Harris to break with him hurt her among voters who stayed home. A previous survey taken during the election by YouGov and similarly sponsored by IMEU found strong evidence that nominee Kamala Harris would be significantly boosted by breaking with Biden on Gaza and applying real pressure on Israel. Harris chose not to do so. Breaking with Biden on Gaza could have had knock on effects elsewhere, as Harris never successfully answered a question that dogged her throughout her campaign. What would she have done differently than Biden? Or what would she do differently than Biden in the future? Harris eventually settled on the unsatisfying answer. My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden's presidency. And like every new president that comes into office, I'll bring my life experiences something like that. You know, I'm my name's Kamala Harris. I'm not Joe Biden. Now, in one emblematic response, here she is at debate, for instance. Check this one out.
- [44:45]
Emily
Clearly, I am not Joe Biden and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a.
- [44:52]
Ryan
New generation of leadership for our country.
- [44:55]
Emily
One who believes in what is possible, one who brings a sense of optimism about what we can do.
- [45:03]
Sagar
Instead of always disparaging the American people.
- [45:07]
Ryan
I believe in what we can do.
- [45:09]
Emily
To strengthen our small businesses, which is.
- [45:13]
Ryan
Why I have a plan.
- [45:14]
Emily
Let's talk about our plans.
- [45:16]
Sagar
Yeah, okay, so that's not an answer, but breaking with Biden on Gaza, of course, that risked losing voters who supported his policy. But a close look at this survey shows that the risk was low compared to the reward from breaking with him. Voters who were with Biden in 2020 and stuck with Harris in 2024 were asked if breaking with him on Gaza would make them more or less enthusiastic about voting for Harris. And by a 35 to 5% margin, they said breaking with him would have made them more enthusiastic to vote for Kamala Harris, with the remainder saying it would have made no difference. Non voters said that if she had broken with Biden on Gaza, they'd have been more likely to vote for her by a 36 to 10 margin. Meanwhile. Meanwhile, Democrats unshakeable commitment to the war also blended with concerns that the party was not focused on issues that mattered to Americans. As I argued previously, the survey, meanwhile, showed that the issue was most salient among white voters, 34% of which said it was the top reason they didn't vote for Harris. And Hispanic voters at 27%, while less so with black voters at just. And so, Emily, like I was saying, you always have to take polls like this with a grain of salt, and you can prime a poll. You can. You know, if you're asking questions about Gaza, then maybe Gaza rises a little bit in your mind. If Gaza happens to be in the news when you pick up the phone. Pollsters have found that that heavily influences how much, you know, how much it comes up in an answer. If the news is talking about the deficit, constantly, you call somebody up and ask them if they're concerned about the deficit. People are like, yeah, but if the deficit's not in the news, then it completely vanishes from.
- [47:08]
Emily
Right. If you ask on October 8th about the deficit, you'll probably get different answers.
- [47:11]
Sagar
Yes. So, all that said, you can't manufacture a number that high if there isn't something real underneath it.
- [47:21]
Emily
Totally.
- [47:22]
Sagar
And I do think that it blended more generally with the problems that Democrats had. If you lose that many voters, 19 million and a third of them say that the top reason that they didn't vote for you was the way that you were because you didn't break with Biden on Gaza, you know, that's millions of people. Not every single one of them votes for you, but if some do, that matters.
- [47:51]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [47:51]
Emily
It reminds me of our DNC coverage, actually, sort of walking through the protests. It was smaller. The protests, the demonstrations at the DNC were smaller than a lot of people expected. And the media kind of used that as an opportunity to brush aside that narrative. But actually, this was always going to be a marginal election. It was always Going to be an election that came down to just a little sliver of a percentage in Michigan, Wisconsin, places like that. So it doesn't matter that the protest is smaller than people expected if it represents a small but significant chunk of the broader public. Like we were saying that this was going to be significant for a long time. And I wonder, Ryan, if when you look at those numbers, you see perhaps something specifically about college kids, you know, Michigan, Michigan, young people.
- [48:36]
Sagar
Yeah. And we can put some. We'll write about this at dropsite and put the link in the poll in there. Yes. Young people, certainly it's not. You can see the numbers like, which, like, for young people, it's a higher concern than it is for older people.
- [48:52]
Emily
I'm gonna say something that's gonna sound maybe a little crass, but I think for. If you're picking up on the vibes on TikTok and other places over the course of the last six months. Plus, it wasn't cool to go out and vote Kamala Harris and put your I voted sticker on. If you were on a campus, it was kind of cringe because. Specifically because of this issue. Because Democrats lost so much. Just moral credibility, I think, with a lot of young people because of this issue.
- [49:18]
Sagar
Right. And so I think that's a good way of putting it. So. And everybody probably experiences this in their own life. And actually, if you're watching this show, you might be the person in your social circle, or maybe several of you in your social circle watch this show and talk about it. And then you talk about what you watched here and what you read elsewhere to your friends. And so your friends then are kind of on the outer rung there. They're getting informed by you, and we are informing you. Like, that's kind of the direction that it goes. And so while you might love what Lina Khan is doing or might love what the NLRB is doing for workers around the country, you're less likely to share that with your friends if at the same time, they're facilitating a genocide. So, you know what? I'm glad that Lina Khan's doing good stuff, but I'm not going knocking on doors telling people about it while they're doing this other evil thing. And so I think you're right that it became, particularly on social media, where everybody's getting their news.
- [50:22]
Emily
Yeah.
- [50:24]
Sagar
It became very uncool and unpleasant to say nice things about people who were doing this blanket evil thing.
- [50:32]
Emily
I think that's exactly right. Like, it literally fell out of fashion. And I don't mean that again, in a pejorative sense. Sense, like politics for a lot of people. Like, if you're. If you're looking at popular culture and it just sort of like osmosis creeps into our world. It just. The vibes were sucked out of the Democratic Party with young people because of this.
- [50:52]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [50:52]
Sagar
And what worked for Biden in 2022 on that level was that Dark Brandon meme. Yeah.
- [50:57]
Emily
Even though he was old, like, people say, like, oh, Biden's so elderly. Nancy Pelosi so elderly. How could young people ever vote? Young people love Bernie Sanders. Love Bernie Sanders. Donald Trump just significantly improved his share of the youth vote. He's also oath.
- [51:10]
Sagar
Yeah. And think about why Dark Brandon worked for that to land and for people to be able to say Joe Biden is cool because, you know, Lina Khan is cool because NLRB is cool because he got out of Afghanistan. What people had to do is flip his entire identity and create a new identity for him.
- [51:30]
Emily
It was ironic.
- [51:31]
Sagar
Yeah. It's like, okay, yeah, we acknowledge that Joe Biden sucks. We don't support Joe Biden. We support Dark Brandon, his alter ego. His alter ego who is doing these cool things. And we're like, all right, you know what? We can't get much in the US we'll take that. That works for us. And it legitimately helped to boost the vibes, and it worked. You're not doing a dark brand in me with the lasers coming out of the eyes when he's vaporizing children on.
- [52:02]
Emily
A daily basis or with Kamala Harris. You can't keep brat sticking.
- [52:07]
Sagar
Right.
- [52:07]
Emily
Like, brat stuck for a few weeks. And then after it, it just became impossible. It became extremely cringe because I think young people were so. And if you're not on TikTok, I'm not on TikTok, honestly. But I try to pay attention, as much attention as I can.
- [52:20]
Sagar
I joined just the other day. I saw it so I could get in right before they ban it.
- [52:24]
Emily
Amazing stuff coming out of Ryan's learning process, which he's broadcasting on Access. He's like, trying step by step through TikTok. It's great. But if you were paying attention to that, it was so, so clear. And this is again why a lot of hawks want to just ban TikTok because the propaganda was not working on this particular issue. This was a huge top line problem for young people towards the Biden administration that Kamala Harris represented.
- [52:52]
Sagar
Yeah. It just. So it's not Gaza alone, but Gaza prevented Harris from getting any momentum with people who would have then been interested in talking about the other things. Meanwhile, she wouldn't even support Lina Khan.
- [53:07]
Emily
Right.
- [53:08]
Sagar
She wouldn't even publicly come out and say that she would reappoint Lina Khan.
- [53:11]
Emily
No. She'd send Mark Cuban out to say.
- [53:13]
Sagar
That they're not going to. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, maybe it was, you know, maybe she never had a shot, but I don't know.
- [53:22]
Emily
Well, you. You crunched some numbers. People can go back and look in 2020 about Joe Biden, who I think is actually a weaker candidate on, in some levels than Kamala Harris and how young voters in Pennsylvania probably put him over the edge. So, yeah, that's real.
- [53:35]
Sagar
Absolutely. 2025 is bound to be a fascinating year. It's going to be filled with money challenges and opportunities. I'm Joel.
- [53:44]
Professor Goldstein
Oh, and I am Matt.
- [53:45]
Sagar
And we're the hosts of how to Money. We want to be with you every step of the way in your financial journey this year, offering the information and insights you need to thrive financially. Yeah. Whether you find yourself up to your eyeballs in student loan debt or you've.
- [53:59]
Ryan
Got a sky high credit card balance because you went a little overboard with the holiday spending, or maybe you're looking to optimize your retirement accounts so. So you can retire early.
- [54:09]
Sagar
Well, how to Money will help you to change your relationship with money so.
- [54:13]
Ryan
You can stress less and grow your net worth.
- [54:15]
Sagar
That's right. How to Money comes out three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. For money advice without the judgment and jargon, listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
- [54:27]
Ryan
You get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the really Know really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life. Life's baffling questions, like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cruz Branson is with us.
- [55:02]
Sagar
How are you?
- [55:03]
Ryan
Hello. My friend Wayne Knight. About Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to really? Not really, sir.
- [55:08]
Sagar
Bless you all.
- [55:09]
Ryan
Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging.
- [55:14]
Sagar
Really?
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Ryan
That's the opening? Really? No. Really?
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Sagar
Yeah, really no, really.
- [55:18]
Ryan
Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win 500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign Jason Bobblehead. It's called really? No, really. And you can find it on the I Heart Radio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Jon Stewart is back at the Daily show and he's bringing his signature wit and insight straight to your ears with the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Dive into John's unique take on the biggest topics in politics, entertainment, sports and more. Joined by the sharp voices of the show's correspondents and contributors. And with extended interviews and and exclusive weekly headline roundups, this podcast gives you content you won't find anywhere else. Ready to laugh and stay informed. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [56:13]
Emily
All right, let's move on to Pete Hegseth's wild confirmation hearing yesterday. Ryan, you said that it was a wild one. I said it was sort of by Trump era standards, a medium one, which means it's still pretty wild.
- [56:23]
Sagar
The sex and the partying and, and.
- [56:26]
Emily
The like drag queens, drunk senators. So this is like Stephan, like this. The Heath hearing had everything.
- [56:32]
Sagar
It very much did.
- [56:34]
Emily
All right, well, let's take a look here at the opening statement that Pete Hygseth came out with when he was speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday and went for almost four and a half hours. It was really long. They did not go to a second round of questioning, interestingly enough, but it was over four hours. So there was plenty of time to question Pete Heath. Here's how he started, though. This is B1.
- [56:57]
Ryan
Thank you for figuratively and literally having my back. You are misogynist. Not only that, you are as Christian clients and support the war in Gaza by the. I want to thank the authorities for their swift reaction to that outburst.
- [57:25]
Emily
Ryan said that was a Democratic senator while our mics were off from the back of the room. If you were listening to this and.
- [57:30]
Sagar
Didn'T see him, basically that was a Democratic senator.
- [57:32]
Emily
It was actually like an old ponytail haired hippie, but, you know, same thing actually in some cases. But anyway, so that's what happened. There were three disruptions, I think like during his opening statement. It got off to a rocky start. He was able to finish. And let's just run through some of the most contentious exchanges. Let's go here to Senator Tim Kaine, who of the many people that brought up predictably the character questions related to Pete Hagseth reports about infidelity reports about assault, reports about intoxication at work. Tim Kaine had the most explosive exchange with Pete Hegseth. So let's roll this.
- [58:12]
Ryan
That occurred in Monterey, California in October 2017. At that time you were still married.
- [58:16]
Sagar
To your second wife, correct?
- [58:17]
Emily
Correct.
- [58:20]
Ryan
I believe so. And you had just fathered a child.
- [58:23]
Sagar
By a woman who would later become.
- [58:25]
Ryan
Your third wife, correct?
- [58:26]
Emily
Senator, I was falsely charged, fully investigated and completely cleared.
- [58:32]
Ryan
So you think you are completely cleared.
- [58:35]
Professor Goldstein
Because you committed no crime.
- [58:36]
Ryan
That's your definition of cleared.
- [58:38]
Sagar
You had just fathered a child two.
- [58:40]
Ryan
Months before by a woman that was not your wife.
- [58:43]
Sagar
I am shocked that you would stand.
- [58:45]
Ryan
Here and say you're completely cleared. Can you so casually cheat on a second wife and cheat on the mother.
- [58:53]
Sagar
Of a child that had been born.
- [58:54]
Ryan
Two months before and you tell us you are completely cleared. How is that a complete clear.
- [58:59]
Emily
And it actually even got, I think that kept going. The level of intensity with Tim Kaine kept going.
- [59:06]
Sagar
Later, he's like, we have an on the record source who says that like you got wasted at a strip club and and tried to get up on stage and dance with the dancers and had a sexual harassment claim filed against you. Shouldn't that be disqualifying? Like the charge that the dude is a dog, I think sticks like the guy's a dog.
- [59:26]
Emily
So let's go then to Sen.
- [59:28]
Sagar
The question is whether how relevant that is.
- [59:29]
Emily
Yeah. And the question of whether it sticks actually, I think is a really important one because here comes Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, Republican of Oklahoma, who went in on Tim Kaine, the rest of the.
- [59:42]
Ryan
Dogs, but you so quickly forget about that. And then Senator Kaine, or I guess I better use the senator from Virginia.
- [59:49]
Sagar
Starts bringing up the fact that what.
- [59:51]
Ryan
If you showed up drunk to your job? How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night?
- [60:00]
Sagar
Have any of you guys asked them.
- [60:01]
Ryan
To step down and resign for their job? And don't tell me you haven't seen it, because I know you have. And then how many senators do you.
- [60:09]
Sagar
Know have got a divorce before cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to step down?
- [60:15]
Ryan
No, but it's for show. You guys make sure you make a.
- [60:19]
Sagar
Big show and point out the hypocrisy because a man's made a mistake and you want to sit there and say that he's not qualified. Give me a joke.
- [60:29]
Ryan
It is so ridiculous that you guys.
- [60:31]
Sagar
Hold yourself as this higher standard and.
- [60:33]
Ryan
You forget you got a big plank in your eye.
- [60:36]
Sagar
We've all made mistakes.
- [60:38]
Ryan
I've made mistakes.
- [60:39]
Sagar
And Jennifer, thank you for loving him through that mistake.
- [60:42]
Ryan
Because the only reason why I'm here and not in prison is because my.
- [60:46]
Sagar
Wife loved me too.
- [60:51]
Ryan
I have changed, but I'm not perfect. But I found somebody that thought I was perfect. And for whatever reason, you love Pete.
- [60:59]
Emily
And I don't know why many such cases.
- [61:02]
Sagar
It's true.
- [61:04]
Emily
So my take on this is actually that this is why the charges that Pete Hegseth was a dog seem very obviously to be correct, do not stick, because that's going to be bouncing around the Internet. And Mark Wayne Mullen, regardless of whatever his motivations are there, former MMA fighter. By the way, he is absolutely correct that it looks awfully ridiculous for any member of the Senate to get all sanctimonious about people showing up drunk to work and cheating on their spouses.
- [61:33]
Sagar
It does, though, Hags this dog behavior is like 0.1% level. Like, you know, as Cain laid out, fathering a kid with, oh, yeah, cheating on your wife, having a fathering child and then cheating on that person.
- [61:50]
Emily
But Congress, Congress is generally like in that 1%, maybe not 0.1%, but Congress does occupy a unique slice there. Anyway, all that is to say, I actually wrote a piece about this yesterday because. And we'll see this more and more. Like, I actually think there are very serious questions about whether Pete Hikeseth, even if you share his ideology, his worldview, like, is there a better person than Pete Hegseth to be this nominee? I think that's a serious conversation to be had on the right.
- [62:17]
Sagar
Right. Because this derailed, for the most part, any kind of sophisticated conversation about what the U.S. what the Pentagon's role is in the world.
- [62:27]
Emily
100%. Yeah. Those serious questions were drowned out by the less serious one. So, yeah, ish. But even that, I think again, it was this breathless defense of the Pentagon as an institution. Even if it didn't, even if they didn't mean it to come across that way with. Some of them obviously did, but even if they didn't mean it to come across that way, it came across as like a defense of the status quo, which is really tone deaf right now. And even if people are concerned about Hegseth, they're willing to err on the side of the disruptor instead of the side of the status quo. So let's take a look here at Duckworth. Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a veteran herself, questioning Pete Hegseth.
- [63:07]
Sagar
What is the highest level of international negotiations that you have engaged in, that you've led in because the Secretary of.
- [63:13]
Emily
Defense does lead international security negotiations. There are three main ones that the.
- [63:17]
Sagar
Secretary of Defense leads and signs.
- [63:19]
Emily
Can you name at least one of them? Could you repeat the question, Senator? Sure.
- [63:23]
Sagar
What is the highest level of international security agreement that you have led and can you name some that the Secretary of Defense would lead?
- [63:32]
Ryan
There's three main ones. I have not been involved in international security arrangements because I have not been.
- [63:38]
Emily
In government other than serving in the military.
- [63:40]
Ryan
So my job has been.
- [63:41]
Sagar
So no, the answer is, can you name one of the three main ones.
- [63:44]
Ryan
That the talking about defense arrangements. I mean, NATO might be one of.
- [63:48]
Emily
One that you're referring to. Status of Forces Agreement would be one of them. Status of Forces Agreement.
- [63:53]
Ryan
I've been a part of teaching about status of Forces Agreements.
- [63:57]
Emily
But you don't remember to mention it. You're not qualified, Mr. Hecseth.
- [64:02]
Ryan
You're not qualified. You talk about repairing our defense industrial complex.
- [64:06]
Emily
You're not qualified to that. You could do acquisition and cross servicing.
- [64:09]
Sagar
Agreements, which essentially are security agreements.
- [64:11]
Ryan
You can't even mention that.
- [64:13]
Sagar
She also had a brutal exchange where she asked him to name any of the countries in the ASEAN who were in the like Southeast Asian. Our trade compact. Trade and military compact. And he was like, Australia, Japan. She's like, no, that's East Asia and Australia's a different continent.
- [64:35]
Emily
Talking about Southeast Asia, that's an economic alliance, right?
- [64:38]
Sagar
It is, but the Pentagon is involved in it. And if you like, if you're involved in this stuff, that comes up a lot, it was kind of surprising that what they used to do with confirmation hearings is they would murder board people. Like you were stuck in a room for like 18 hours for like weeks on end with these people kind of grilling you.
- [65:02]
Emily
Grilling? Yep.
- [65:03]
Sagar
And you had notes to take home and study and memorize. And it doesn't mean that you got better nominees as a result of that. Just cause they did a crash course and memorized, you know, the 10 ASEAN countries.
- [65:15]
Emily
Right.
- [65:16]
Sagar
But it is kind of odd that you wouldn't do the basic stuff there. Now me, I think, you know, the more incompetent the head of the Defense Department is, then the more likely it is to like run the American war machine into the ground, the better. So you got a guy who is drunk by noon and like, doesn't really kind of know the basics of this. Now, from the other perspective, the status quo also prefers somebody who doesn't know what they're doing.
- [65:53]
Emily
Yeah, they want to manipulate them because.
- [65:54]
Sagar
They think they can then run them Right over.
- [65:56]
Emily
Right. And I think that Hegseth is right on that line for them of somebody who's easily treated as a puppet and manipulated and somebody who may not know the ins and outs of the outs of the Pentagon, but we'll hire the people who do and who actually do want to disrupt the status quo. And I think maybe part of this is they're sussing that out. Let's take a listen to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and then we will hear a little bit from Tom Cotton. Here's Senator Gillibrand.
- [66:22]
Ryan
Standards have been changed inside infantry training units, Ranger school, infantry battalions to ensure that. Give me one example. Please give me an example. I guess you're making these commanders meet quotas to have a certain number of female infantry officers or infantry enlisted, and that disparages those women. Commanders do not have to be quotas for the infantry. Commanders do not have to have a quota for women in the infantry. That does not exist. It does not exist. And your statements are creating the impression that these exist because they do not. There are not quotas. We want the most lethal force. But I'm telling you, having been here for 15 years listening to testimony about men and women in combat and the type of operations that were successful in Afghanistan and in Iraq, women were essential for many of those units. When Ranger units went in to find where the terrorists hiding in Afghanistan or in Iraq, if they had a woman in the unit, they could go in, talk to the women in a village, say, where are the terrorists hiding? Where are the weapons hiding? And get crucial information to make sure that we can win that battle.
- [67:32]
Emily
So just.
- [67:33]
Ryan
You cannot denigrate women in general, and.
- [67:35]
Emily
Your statements do that.
- [67:37]
Ryan
We don't want women in the military, especially in combat. What a terrible statement. So please do not deny that you've made those statements.
- [67:44]
Sagar
You have.
- [67:45]
Emily
So I definitely enjoyed the memes. Ryan, one in particular that clipped together. I might get you in trouble with this one that clipped together all of the Senate Dem women on the committee yelling at him and sending this is actually worse than combat. Because they really were yelling at him, specifically on this line about women serving in combat.
- [68:03]
Sagar
He's moved off a lot of his more extreme positions, which initially were no women at all. How would you characterize his previous positions when it came to women serving?
- [68:13]
Emily
He literally said on Sean Ryan, quote, I'm straight up saying that women shouldn't be able to serve in combat. And that's what Elizabeth Warren said. I've never seen a conversion. What did she say? A confirmation conversion. Something like that she also had a moment where she was questioning him about whether he would hold to the standard he demands generals should be held to, which is that you don't leave the Pentagon and then go work for, I think it's defense contractors was the specific thing they were talking about for 10 years. And he was like, I'm not a general. So there were some exchanges. I thought heand people were laughing at that. I think there were some exchanges that were better for him, actually, than obviously others.
- [68:51]
Sagar
If he would agree to that, though, right?
- [68:53]
Emily
Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
- [68:54]
Sagar
But he wouldn't agree to it.
- [68:55]
Emily
No, he just said, I'm not a general.
- [68:57]
Sagar
I mean, go back to Fox and make a lot of money.
- [68:59]
Emily
But yeah. And so maybe that's. I don't know. But he had some moments, actually, where I think even to the questioning from Duckworth, I didn't think he handled it that poorly. I don't think he handled Tim Kaine's questioning that poorly. I don't think he handled Gillibrand's questioning that poorly. Whether those are legitimate issues is different than whether he sounded all right. I don't think he flamed out. And we've seen that already in senators like Joni Ernst coming out and saying, you know, if he had flamed out, there would be hesitation, more hesitation right now, at least projected publicly, like, well, I'm gonna have to talk to him about X, Y and Z. Like Deb Fisher told him, you might want to go study up on this nuclear triad thing in a massive kind of important stuff.
- [69:40]
Sagar
Yeah, well.
- [69:40]
Emily
Well, it's to your point about how it used to be done in a way that's behind closed doors, more substantive than the four hours of theater that you get on television. Kirsten Gillibrand, I think, is a great example of how you're getting some theater on television. And so is Tom cotton. Let's roll B6 here. Of just some of the Republican questioning of Pete Hegseth, I want to give.
- [70:01]
Ryan
You a chance to respond to what.
- [70:02]
Sagar
They said about you.
- [70:02]
Ryan
I think the first one accused you of being a Christian Zionist. I'm not really sure why that is. Is a bad thing. I'm a Christian. I'm a Zionist. Zionism is that the Jewish people deserve a homeland in the ancient Holy Land.
- [70:19]
Sagar
Where they've lived since the dawn of history. Do you consider yourself a Christian Zionist, Senator?
- [70:24]
Ryan
I support.
- [70:24]
Emily
I am a Christian, and I robustly support the state of Israel and its existential defense. And the way America comes alongside them.
- [70:32]
Ryan
Is a great honor. Thank you. Because Another protester, and I think this one was a member of CodePink, which by the way, is a Chinese communist.
- [70:39]
Sagar
Front group these days, said that you.
- [70:42]
Ryan
Support Israel's war in Gaza. I support Israel's existential war in Gaza.
- [70:48]
Sagar
I assume, like me and President Trump, you support that war as well, don't you, Senator?
- [70:52]
Ryan
I do. I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas.
- [70:58]
Emily
So that's Tom Cotton and Pete Hagseth. There's a lot of Mark Wade Mullen was a good example to the sort of dramatic pumping him up. Did you catch Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana literally asking how many push ups can you do?
- [71:11]
Sagar
Oh, no, I missed. I saw him ask how many genders are there.
- [71:15]
Emily
Yeah.
- [71:16]
Sagar
And then he told his classic Sheehy joke.
- [71:18]
Emily
Yes.
- [71:19]
Sagar
See, Senator Sheehy.
- [71:20]
Emily
Yeah. I mean, always a winner.
- [71:22]
Sagar
Can you imagine being his staff? So sick of that. Like, you hear that joke probably ten times a day.
- [71:26]
Emily
Yeah. So anyway, I think, you know, he'll probably survive this confirmation battle. He was probably always gonna survive the confirmation battle. But if he had really flamed out, out yesterday, there would have been Gates level. Not quite Gates level, but Gates type hesitation from people like Joni Ernst or people indeed like Roger Wicker, and that we're not seeing that reaction. They eventually would have been pushed by Trump to come around, but we're just not seeing that type of reaction. So I think he'll survive this one, Ryan.
- [71:57]
Sagar
He probably will. And I think if he represented a more fundamental threat to the establishment at the Pentagon. The establishment at the Pentagon is very well represented on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And you would have seen much more hostility to him from Republicans because there is a kind of uni party when it comes to support for the Pentagon and the military industrial complex. So y'all do what you want, but, you know, if I were running maga, I think I would want a guy that was a bit more of a bureaucratic killer and had more of an instinct and understanding for how you're gonna actually do this. This feels like a guy who was. He was as shocked as the rest of the world was when Trump picked him to be Pentagon secretary.
- [72:47]
Emily
Yeah, probably.
- [72:48]
Sagar
He's like, whoa, does he know what this confirmation hearing is gonna be like?
- [72:52]
Emily
Yeah, yeah.
- [72:53]
Sagar
Trump's like, I don't know there picking Matt Gates.
- [72:56]
Emily
I just think, honestly, for most of the public, there's been a lot of hand wringing in circles, like in the Atlantic, about him not agreeing to stand by the Geneva Conventions. It just reminds me of all of the moral panic over Trump and NATO. Right. It's, oh, my, how dare. This is beyond the pale. And so it was beyond the pale in Washington. But when the rest of the country sees you fuming over someone's skepticism about NATO or the Geneva Conventions, you're the one who's on the, like, on the political end of that, Like, PR end of that. You're the one who looks like you're out of touch.
- [73:31]
Sagar
And I would say from a separate perspective there or from a different perspective there. So this was an exchange Angus King had with Hegseth where he said, would you respect the Geneva Convention's ban on torture? And he said, I'm not going to let the international community tell me, tell me what to do. And, you know, whenever I see somebody who says that they won't condemn the Geneva Conventions on torture, I'm gonna go right for those pearls. But then immediately I'm like, wait a minute. This is the same Democrats and this is the same Atlantic Monthly that wants to sanction the UN for trying to prosecute war crimes in Gaza. You want to destroy the icj. You want to destroy the ICC because it is following the law and indicting Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for their crimes against humanity. And then you want to hold up the Geneva Conventions.
- [74:27]
Emily
That's the point.
- [74:28]
Sagar
Then I'm like, get out of here.
- [74:30]
Emily
That's the point.
- [74:30]
Sagar
But I can clutch my pearls because you can. I support the ICC and the ICJ and the Geneva Convention. You can. It's called consistency. You can consistently can clutch my pearls.
- [74:40]
Emily
Senate Dems on armed services cannot.
- [74:42]
Sagar
That's right.
- [74:42]
Emily
Yeah.
- [74:43]
Sagar
2025 is bound to be a fascinating year. It's going to be filled with money challenges and opportunities. I'm Joel.
- [74:51]
Professor Goldstein
Oh, and I am Matt.
- [74:52]
Sagar
And we're the hosts of how to Money. We want to be with you every step of the way in your financial journey this year, offering the information and insights you need to thrive financially. Yeah.
- [75:02]
Ryan
Whether you find yourself yourself up to.
- [75:03]
Sagar
Your eyeballs in student loan debt or you've got a sky high credit card balance because you went a little overboard.
- [75:09]
Ryan
With the holiday spending, or maybe you're looking to optimize your retirement accounts so you can retire early.
- [75:15]
Sagar
Well, how to Money will help you to change your relationship with money so.
- [75:19]
Ryan
You can stress less and grow your net worth.
- [75:22]
Sagar
That's right. How to Money comes out three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. For money advice without the judgment and judge jargon, listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [75:35]
Ryan
I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the really Know really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions, like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We just talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us.
- [76:08]
Emily
How are you?
- [76:09]
Sagar
Hello.
- [76:09]
Ryan
My friend Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to really no really, sir.
- [76:14]
Sagar
Bless you all.
- [76:15]
Ryan
Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about about judging.
- [76:20]
Sagar
Really?
- [76:21]
Ryan
That's the opening. Really? No, really? Yeah, really?
- [76:23]
Sagar
No really.
- [76:24]
Ryan
Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win 500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign Jason Bobblehead. It's called really no really? And you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Jon Stewart is back at the Daily show, and he's bringing his signature wit and insight straight to your ears with the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Dive into John's unique take on the biggest topics in politics, entertainment, sports, and more. Joined by the sharp voices of the show's correspondence and contributors. And with extended interviews and exclusive weekly headline roundups, this podcast gives you content you won't find anywhere else. Ready to laugh and stay informed? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [77:20]
Emily
All right, let's move on to some of this is an awful story out of Los Angeles. We're going to roll right in here into some reports that we're getting from or about, I should say, landlords in the LA area as the community continues to be on edge and devastated by wildfire. So this is, as more Perfect Union puts it, celebrity realtor Jason Ott Oppenheim of selling Sunset. He's talking a little bit about price gouging here. Let's roll the clip.
- [77:47]
Sagar
This is something that I want to discuss because I think it should be exposed, but we're having landlords taking advantage of the situation. I had a client. We sent him to a house that was asking $13,000 a month. He offered $20,000 a month. And he offered to pay six months upfront and the landlord said, no, I want $23,000 a month. You know, there are price gouging logs in California that are just being ignored right now. And this isn't the time to be taking advantage of situations. And it's also illegal to take advantage of a natural disaster.
- [78:19]
Emily
So do you think that landlords might.
- [78:20]
Ryan
Be not just profiting during this emergency.
- [78:23]
Emily
But actually breaking the law?
- [78:25]
Sagar
Absolutely they are. I mean I researched the law last night. You cannot charge more than 10% above market, you know, pre disaster market rates.
- [78:34]
Emily
All right, so let's actually take a look at this Google Docs spreadsheet. This is the next element. Put it up on the screen. Tracking. So this is a spreadsheet of landlords price gouging rent during the LA fires. This post on X says, and if you go and click on it, the.
- [78:47]
Sagar
Rents were public before and now they're public now and you can see the doubling and worse.
- [78:53]
Emily
Yep. And Judd Legum actually went through and put some of these from Zillow on C3. Yeah, this is C3. Judd Leggum is pulling out things on Zillow. You can compare this. It's publicly accessible information. Absolutely against the law, Ryan.
- [79:11]
Sagar
Yeah. And so a couple things here, and I'm sure people will have a fun debate about this down in the comments section, but to me, I get a little frustrated whenever the public is excited for socialism and government regulation. Only when there's a crisis. Yeah, like if you're, if you're against this, then you need to join me in being for tough rent control and being for enormous investments in public housing. And not the kind of public housing that is completely restricted, but public investments in housing for people along with real curbs on turning housing into just a free flowing commodity. Like you can't, to me, you can't have it both ways. That you want the market when everything's cool, but then the second things go sideways you're like, oh wait, there's this law in the books here. And like, I mean maybe you can have it both ways because you will have a lot of politicians who are willing to crack down on this. But I'm saying if you like this idea that greed should not dictate everything, then come on over to this side here and let's try to live that all the time.
- [80:30]
Emily
Yeah, but see on the other side of that, literally on the right side of that, I don't mean the correct side, but on the right side of.
- [80:37]
Sagar
That, the wrong side of That I.
- [80:39]
Emily
Don'T really think the government like, I don't also trust the government to be dictating these prices either. I don't feel like that's right.
- [80:45]
Sagar
But what they're saying here is that there ought to be a law or there is a law.
- [80:49]
Emily
There is.
- [80:49]
Sagar
That's gonna come in and the government is gonna tell them, them, you know, what they, what they can charge in these, in these moments. And I'm, I'm cool with that. But I'm, my point is that you're saying that should be the case all the time.
- [81:01]
Emily
So the law according to Ligam is that you can't increase rental prices by more than 10% for 30 days after a state of emergency is declared. You're saying this should apply not just in a state of emergency, that it just. But that's, I guess that's a separate.
- [81:13]
Sagar
Yeah. Because the free market in real estate, such as it is, is, you know, controlled by these landlords. Has created an emergency where people can't afford housing around the country.
- [81:24]
Emily
I am not a necessarily like yimby person, but they would say that it also was.
- [81:30]
Sagar
Sure. The government for more buildings too. Yeah, yeah. Build more too.
- [81:33]
Emily
So, okay, so this is a happy medium. But Lecom found this was up on the screen for a while but he found a five bedroom house in Manhattan beach that was like eight, it was 8,750 per month on December 31st. And you can see on Zillow that is now going for $19,750 a month and that's 125% increase. So clearly against the law.
- [81:56]
Sagar
Yeah. And you know this, it reminds me of that very viral post by the grandson of one of Hollywood's founders where he posted does anybody have contact info for private firefighters? Do you remember seeing that?
- [82:15]
Ryan
Yes.
- [82:16]
Sagar
He eventually he deleted it. But it is this idea that, you know, everything belongs to the highest bidder.
- [82:26]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [82:28]
Sagar
Which maybe is fair in a world where people amass their money in some type of a fair way. This is like a third generation Hollywood guy who's just living off of his grandfather's hard work. And what was so perfect about that story? I forget the, I forget who the grandfather was, but the grandfather was known as somebody who came up from nothing, worked alongside all of his other workers, was well liked by those kinds of people. It was very, very classic. Up from your bootstraps and first generation wealth thing down to two generations later. Guy's never done anything but has a huge bank account and wants to hire private firemen. To come to his house.
- [83:11]
Emily
My soft theory is that you will always see price gouging or people attempting to take advantage of horrible situations. We've seen it many times in the past. We've seen it really bad in the past and Gilded Age and all of that feels like we've returned to. But I also think right now it's somehow worse. Like there's a level of shamelessness that exists right now. And just going through that spreadsheet and looking at all of the Ls, people are quite literally posting to Zillow. Maybe they didn't know it was against the law to have such. That's what it suggests to me is people don't even know that it's illegal. But you should just morally be disgusted with yourself. And we should have a society where people are horrified at the prospect of publicly, let alone privately posting shit like that.
- [83:52]
Sagar
And what's incredible is that some of those houses that they're doubling the price of are going to burn down. Like this fire is still raging. The two biggest ones, Palisades and Eaton. And the Latest reporting has 18% and 35% contained respectively. With the Santa Ana winds still ripping through this dry area, we're not. This is not remotely over. And I think that's one of the things that is most offensive to people, that you have people, you know, capitalizing on this before the city is even remotely out of danger.
- [84:31]
Emily
The latest update on the death toll according to the medical examiners within the last six hours or so is that there have not been 25 fire related deaths. And the extreme fire danger remains high right now. So we think we've seen the worst of it, but it's still incredibly vulnerable.
- [84:49]
Sagar
Yeah, it's absolutely brutal. With just four days until the TikTok ban is officially supposed to take effect if the Supreme Court doesn't grant some stay of execution to the Chinese company or run app. Millions and millions of people, when you put this element up on the screen here in America are flocking over to RedNote and what's including me, I'm over on RedNote. People are like, what's your.
- [85:16]
Emily
Are you really?
- [85:17]
Sagar
What's your handle? Yeah.
- [85:18]
Emily
So you got on TikTok and then immediately got on RedNote too.
- [85:20]
Sagar
I got a red note before TikTok.
- [85:22]
Emily
I think, wow, that's so perfect.
- [85:24]
Sagar
So I'm not even a refugee. I think my just search Ryan Grimm on there maybe. I don't know. I haven't posted anything on RedNote but RedNote is actually kind of cool. But what's amazing about this kind of own goal from the US is that TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is a Chinese company. RedNote is owned by the Chinese government. There's not even a layer between there. Now. It is the number one app in the store right now. I think Lemonade, which is also owned by ByteDance, is number two. Now, according to the law that bans TikTok, both RedNote and Bite and Lemonade would also be banned because it says basically, if there's X number of million users and it's a Chinese app, app, it's banned. So you're out of the frying pan into the fryer. You're still kind of gonna get screwed. But it's amazing to watch what's unfolding over there. You can put up this second element up there. The cultural exchanges between the Americans and the Chinese are just absolutely delightful. This one has been going viral. Chinese user telling the Americans, look, you guys don't need a new app. You guys need a revolution. And you can go back and be like, all right, we'll get a revolution. But it's so. By the way, it's so easy to get banned from RedNote. So you're having a bunch of Chinese.
- [86:55]
Emily
What kind of revolution would you like us to have, sir?
- [86:58]
Sagar
The censorship on RedNote is much more severe than on TikTok or American apps.
- [87:04]
Emily
Well, so Douyin is Chinese. They're probably both equally censored. Douyin and RedNote.
- [87:09]
Sagar
So you've got a bunch of Chinese users. There's like, basically giving cheat codes to the Americans. Like, here are the things you can't do if you want to not get banned anyway. So you're not on RedNote.
- [87:23]
Emily
Not on RedNote. But you know who's all over RedNote. We can put up the next element. Luigi. Luigi is beloved on RedNote. According to people who have been. Have you seen this, Ryan?
- [87:34]
Sagar
Yes. I saw somebody say, like, why are the Chinese users love support Luigi so much? And somebody said something like, that's the next element. He who carries the water for the community must be supported. Or something like that. That's delightful. Yeah.
- [87:54]
Emily
This is the next element. We can put it up on the screen. It's someone on X posting screenshots of the Luigi love on Red Note. Saying Red Note is effing insane.
- [88:06]
Sagar
Oh, there it is. The person who carries firewood for the mask should not be left to freeze in the wind and snow. That's much better than the one I said.
- [88:15]
Emily
And meanwhile, here's the next element. As well, you had Mr. Beast yesterday pretty openly. Actually, this was later on Monday night, pretty openly saying, okay, I'll. Fine, fine, I'll buy TikTok so it doesn't get banned unironically. I've had so many billionaires reach out to me since I tweeted this. Let's see if we can pull it off. He posted. That's Mr. Beast saying that as reports in the New York Times and other places yesterday said Elon Musk was being considered by Chinese officials, this is who the New York Times sourced their report to for purchasing TikTok in the United States ahead of the ban. Which is interesting because to the extent that I have seen. We haven't seen that floated in American media. So TikTok totally denied that. But TikTok. TikTok itself is mostly separate from China. The sort of allegation is that TikTok is based here in the U.S. but the allegation is accurate, that ByteDance, while it's the parent company, does still have access to all of the data because of the way the Chinese government controls corporations that they would have to hand over data if the Chinese government asked that. There are many members actually of the Chinese Communist Party who work for ByteDance and ByteDance Beijing headquarters. Forbes has covered this really extensively, that there has been intentional censorship of journalists from ByteDance's headquarters, censorship of different political topics from the same places. Those are all pretty well fleshed out by reporting in Forbes and elsewhere. But it is true that there's at least a little bit of a firewall between the US operations that are. Are of TikTok, which is literally based here, and ByteDance, which operates the Chinese version of TikTok. And Lemonade, which is also now apparently gaining in popularity. That does make it different than RedNote. RedNote is, to your point, more heavily censored than the US version of TikTok. I think what hawks would say, and I probably agree with this point, is that the potential for censorship on TikTok by China does still exist.
- [90:18]
Sagar
And. Yeah, and it's. I think it's more about the national security apparatus in the US Concerned that China can push the algorithm around.
- [90:29]
Emily
They're jealous of that control. They want it for themselves. And does this with Facebook and X and YouTube.
- [90:34]
Sagar
Yes, and it's so hard for American policymakers to just think that, for instance, young people don't like the genocide in Gaza. They have to be like, well, they don't like the genocide in Gaza because this Chinese app is tricking them, or this Chinese app is Letting people see what's going on in Gaza, which they kind of under pressure, moved away from it showed they can be pushed around just like us big tech firms can be. Elon Musk, let's be clear, has enormous investments in China.
- [91:11]
Emily
Yes.
- [91:11]
Sagar
So the idea that selling it to him does anything about Chinese control over the app is kind of ridiculous. And also you would hope that FTC would be like, wait a minute, you can't own both Twitter and TikTok. That's crazy.
- [91:26]
Emily
Yes, you would think. It's like completely to your point. Like the Starlink operations in Ukraine, actually in Israel and Gaza, he's involved significantly as a defense contract tractor, but also as the owner of Starlink in conflicts around the world. There's also Space X. I mean, it's just to applaud this from populist right wing perspective is completely bananas and act like this is a power that should exist. And I mean, even X, I think is too much power for one billionaire to own.
- [91:58]
Sagar
Sure.
- [91:58]
Emily
So yeah, well definitely agree on that. But it's to an extent, I mean, I was thinking about this today. It's this Red Note stuff. The memes are really funny. But whether or not we agree with the policies of the military industrial complex and the Pentagon, we could not in the distant future find ourselves in a situation where China is literally trying to kill American soldiers and vice versa. And this will get a lot less funny at that point.
- [92:28]
Sagar
Yes, but I would hope that cultural exchanges like this would make a war less likely as the working people in the United States realize they have more in common with the working people in China than they do with their billionaire owners. As Mac pointed out on Twitter. I think that the culture exchange is great. And there has been this interesting.
- [92:50]
Emily
This is the blue jean theory.
- [92:52]
Sagar
Well, there's the blue jean theory, but also because of the way that China has its firewalled Internet, the rest of the Internet, the US kind of run Internet, has existed for the most part without the billion plus people in China. Like there hasn't been a whole lot of exchange there.
- [93:10]
Emily
That's true.
- [93:11]
Sagar
And I've heard people say that it's good that that's not the case because if it was, every single thing on the Internet would devolve, including like the comment section on this video would devolve into just flame wars in the post between, between Indian and Chinese people and it would just completely dominate and wash everything else away. But otherwise people are, I think, loving having these exchanges with regular Chinese people.
- [93:42]
Emily
Well, I was gonna say to the.
- [93:43]
Sagar
Extent, like you've had Americans helping Chinese people with their English homework. And if you can psyop Americans into doing homework, that's a win.
- [93:53]
Emily
Well, to the extent that government, which we know for a fact exerted control over X over the course of the pandemic, Google as well, to the extent that the two governments don't, you know, try to escalate rather than diffuse tensions via these apps, they don't use them as propaganda channels to sort of pump up hostilities, then I think, you know, diffusing tension. I'm all for diffusing tension with cultural exchange. I'm just highly skeptical that these are channels to do that, given how much control our government, governments will exert, do exert over them. And in the case of TikTok, Elon Musk is perhaps the best friend of the incoming president. He's.
- [94:31]
Sagar
And Chairman Xi, yes, he's in a.
- [94:34]
Emily
Unique position which, again, we could be looking at 10, 20, 100 years from now and saying, wow, that was really helpful. That really spared us some unnecessary conflict, but very much yet to be determined.
- [94:48]
Sagar
Ultimately a complete and total humiliation for Silicon Valley that Americans being told that they're going to lose access to TikTok are not flocking to Instagram or threads or Facebook or whatever other bile that Silicon Valley has puked up over the last 10, 15 years. And they're like, what else does Chairman Xi got going for us? Let's take a look. They're learning, like, Mandarin and how to type in Chinese characters because it's easier to use the app that way that you love to see.
- [95:22]
Emily
We'll see where it goes. All right. This is actually a great lead in to our next block, Ryan. About how Donald Trump could potentially, in the strangest way possible, Sort of the theme of today's show, that all of the unorthodox either baggage or advantages Donald Trump comes into office with could potentially lead us on a path towards peace because he's not stuck in the kind of Cold War inertia Russia that most official Washington is. So let's go ahead and have that debate.
- [95:48]
Sagar
Princeton astrophysicist Robert Godson has floated the idea that Trump could actually get three Nobel prizes.
- [95:54]
Emily
We'll see.
- [95:56]
Sagar
2025 is bound to be a fascinating year. It's going to be filled with money challenges and opportunities. I'm Joel.
- [96:03]
Emily
Ooh.
- [96:03]
Professor Goldstein
And I am Matt.
- [96:04]
Sagar
And we're the hosts of how to Money. We want to be with you every step of the way in your financial journey this year, offering the information and insights you need to thrive financially.
- [96:14]
Ryan
Yeah. Whether you find yourself up to your.
- [96:16]
Sagar
Eyeballs in student loan debt. Or you've got a sky high credit card balance because you went a little.
- [96:21]
Ryan
Overboard with the holiday spending. Or maybe you're looking to optimize your retirement accounts so you can retire early. Well, how to Money will help you.
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Sagar
To change your relationship with money so you can stress less and and grow your net worth. That's right. How to Money comes out three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. For money advice without the judgment and jargon, listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [96:47]
Ryan
I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the really Know really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions, like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer, and you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us.
- [97:21]
Emily
How are you?
- [97:21]
Ryan
Hello, my friend Wayne Knight About Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to really, Sir.
- [97:27]
Sagar
Bless you, you all.
- [97:28]
Ryan
Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging.
- [97:32]
Sagar
Really?
- [97:33]
Ryan
That's the opening. Really? Not really. Yeah, really?
- [97:35]
Sagar
No really.
- [97:36]
Ryan
Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign. Jason Bobblehead. It's called really?
- [97:44]
Sagar
No, really?
- [97:45]
Ryan
And you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Jon Stewart is back at the Daily show, and he's bringing his signature wit and insight straight to your ears with the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Dive into John's unique take on the biggest topics in politics, entertainment, sports and more. Joined by the sharp voices of the show's correspondents and contributors, and with extended interviews and exclusive weekly headline roundups, this podcast gives you content you won't find anywhere else. Ready to laugh and stay informed, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [98:31]
Sagar
Incoming President Donald Trump seems on the brink of inking a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas could be Nobel Peace Prize worthy, according to Professor Robert Goldstein. Astrophysicist Adam at Princeton University, who earlier this week had a really provocative and fascinating column over at Fox News called we can put this element up on screen here called How Donald Trump can Make history and win three Nobel Peace Prizes. And now, to be clear, Professor Goldstein was not saying that simply getting a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel would make him eligible for that peace prize. There's more that he would have to do on that, that. But I think it's interesting to walk through the three different Nobel Peace Prizes that you believe he could actually legitimately be in line for because of the historical conditions in which he's coming into office and also the through line between all three of them. So let's start with the one in the Mideast, since that's the one that approximately is going on right now. Were you surprised that he was able to get this breakthrough over the last couple of days? And then what steps have to happen after this to make it enduring enough for the Nobel Committee to say, you know what, this guy, who they probably all despise just from a cultural perspective, deserves a Nobel Peace Prize?
- [100:05]
Professor Goldstein
Well, so all indications are that President Elect Trump, I guess we should say in this context, put some pressure on Netanyahu to agree to some of the last bits of this deal. And, you know, his, I think general philosophy is peace through strength. And, you know, his claim that all hell will pay seems to have, so to speak, paid off. But if you, but, you know, there's two more stages in this deal that's going to have to be gone through. A, let's, let's hope by the time this is broadcast the, the first stage has been signed off. So there's more to be done. And then ultimately the real big issue is the situation in Iran, that Iran is right on the brink of nuclear weapons. So we need a new comprehensive deal that pulls Iran back from the brink, which we think we could do. I think we could do if we make an arrangement with them where they can make enriched uranium for their reactors, but they never go above, say, 4 or 5% enrichment. So it's just not usable for a bomb. That puts them in a situation where they get what they've explicitly said they wanted and they don't get what they had said they don't want, which is a bomb. We can put verification measures in. I've actually done some of the research on this, but me and many others. But you can, you can put verification measures in place to be sure that they're just making uranium for their reactors. Then you say, what's the deal on the other side. And it's clear that if we're going to move forward, these Abraham Accords, we need to have a plan for a demilitarized Palestinian state. But that has to go through stages, and that has to get strong verification, strong controls that it, that it stays demilitarized. And that would be a deal that would settle the Middle East. You wouldn't have the threat of the Iranian nuclear weapons, and you wouldn't have this continuous problem. Hamas, you know, wanted to take over all of Israel, and some of the right wingers in Israel would like to expel the Arabs. And so, you know, nobody's going to get everything they want. But we could have a situation where maybe even Iran joins the Abraham Accords. This, I think, gets, gets President Trump a Nobel Prize.
- [102:51]
Sagar
And before, before you go to that, just, just want to be clear to the audience that there's kind of not like a random science putting out political ideas. Like your entire career has been in the field of kind of nuclear policy and nuclear proliferation. And so, like you were saying, you've done a lot of the research on how it is now possible for countries to verify in a serious way, you know, what, whether other countries are living up to the deals that they strike without also then giving away nuclear information back to their adversaries. And that is a through line for all three of these. But go ahead. You were saying.
- [103:33]
Emily
Well, professor, yeah, just in the last 24 hours, we have actually an interview with the president of Iran and Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News. We have a clip of that. We want to roll now. Let's go ahead and play this one.
- [103:46]
Ryan
Potential threat to diplomacy could be seen as what the US Believes with Iran's plan to assassinate Donald Trump. Was there such a plan? All the assassinations and acts of terror that we see happening in Europe and.
- [104:06]
Emily
Elsewhere, can we see the footsteps of.
- [104:10]
Ryan
Iranian nationals or other foreign nationals? Have there been any links between those.
- [104:16]
Professor Goldstein
Terrorist assassinations and Iran?
- [104:17]
Ryan
Iran has never been in pursuit of assassination and acts of terror. You're saying there was never an Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump? Never.
- [104:30]
Emily
By no means are you willing to.
- [104:32]
Ryan
Promise that there will be no attempt on the life of Donald Trump.
- [104:36]
Emily
Ever since the beginning, we never intended to do that.
- [104:40]
Sagar
Okay, so not the most persuasive.
- [104:42]
Emily
Yes, he promised to Lester Holt. So, Professor.
- [104:47]
Professor Goldstein
I won't promise. I have technology, or we in the United States have technology to assure that they won't do that.
- [104:54]
Emily
Right. So it would be enormously provocative for him to go on NBC Nightly News and just say, hell, yeah, we want to kill the guy. That would be absurd and never happen. On the other hand, Donald Trump doesn't want to look like he's making a deal with people who want to kill him. And when I think about the way Donald Trump approaches some of this, even just seeing how the ceasefire negotiations are transpiring right now, he doesn't want to be humiliated. He doesn't want America to be humiliated. He doesn't want to be personally humiliated. Could you talk to us just a little bit about even the psychology or the politics of a negotiation with Donald Trump, whether it's Iran or Israel or Gaza, on these three potential Nobel Peace Prizes, which we all sort of psychologically know would be very appealing to him indeed. What is the leverage if you're Iran? What is the leverage if you're on the other side of the table from Donald Trump in any of these three scenarios?
- [105:51]
Professor Goldstein
Well, I think right now, Iran is at a low point in its strength and in its influence in that area. You know, with what happened with Hezbollah, what happened with Hamas, what will probably eventually happen with the Houthis, the Iranians are facing a situation where they are weak and Donald Trump has an air force that can destroy their nuclear program. That's my sense, is that Donald Trump likes to negotiate from strength and he likes to actually, in a way, not make clear what he's doing, which is an interesting approach and seems to have worked.
- [106:33]
Ryan
Right?
- [106:33]
Professor Goldstein
We at least hopefully seems to have worked with the Israelis, Hamas. So I think it puts him in a not bad position to say, you know, here's a deal that gets you what you want and prevents you from getting a bomb, which you said you don't want, and if you don't take it, they'll be held to pay.
- [106:55]
Sagar
And so let's go to the second one, then. And actually, which one would you call a second, you know, Europe or the Comprehensive Deal? I'd say Europe is kind of makes the most sense to talk about next.
- [107:07]
Professor Goldstein
Yeah, I think so. Then we go to the biggest picture.
- [107:11]
Sagar
So where do you see the possibility of a Nobel Peace Prize in Europe and Ukraine?
- [107:18]
Professor Goldstein
Obviously, there's been horrible death going on in Ukraine, actually, on both sides. And it's crazy. Where it comes from ultimately, is that if Ukraine were to join NATO and NATO were to station missiles in Ukraine, then there'd be a situation where Ukraine or NATO from Ukraine could mount a decapitating, they call it nuclear strike on Moscow and just take out Moscow's leadership with a missile that would take less than 10 minutes, minutes to arrive.
- [107:57]
Sagar
So and do they not have that, does NATO not have that capacity currently?
- [108:03]
Professor Goldstein
Well, it's an interesting story, but yes, at this point we do not. It's, it's got to be a much more, a much longer distance attack so that, so that there is a chance for decision making in Moscow for people to get into a protected position, stuff like that. So that currently we don't have that decapitating strike, that very quick decapitating strike capability. But if nuclear missiles got located in Ukraine, then that would be a big problem. I mean, that was the sort of, there was a whole lot of dressing around this. You know, Ukraine has historical ties to Russia and so forth and so on. But the, but the strategic issue was really the expansion of nat and the problem with the expansion of NATO if they can put missiles in Europe is this decapitating strike. And there isn't an equivalent thing that Russia can do to us. Right. So there's no balance there. So the smart thing to do at this point, in my opinion, is to make a deal where there are no US Or Russian missiles anywhere between Iceland on the one hand, and the Ural Mountains, which are far to the east of Moscow. So that if there are no nuclear weapons in that area, you lose the whole hair trigger situation of sudden strikes and you also lose this problem of Ukraine. Now the problem in Ukraine loses its strategic salience and you've got a possibility again, I think probably arguing from a position of strength. You know, I sense that Donald Trump doesn't like to say, you know, I'll put NATO troops into Ukraine, be specific, but there's a situation on the battlefield that maybe a deal could be made, but it needs that broader context.
- [110:05]
Sagar
Right. And so the, then the third Nobel Peace Prize you talked about is something that you don't hear talked about in the news, which is a more global nuclear treaty between the three major nuclear powers, China, Russia and the United States. Can you talk a little bit about the technical innovations that have led us to a place where some of the previous agreements are either obsolete or actually dangerous at this moment?
- [110:35]
Professor Goldstein
Well, yeah, sure. What's happened is that we are pushing forward with missile defenses that mostly scientists think can't really stop an attack from Russia or China. We have, you know, 44 missiles and they have hundreds and hundreds of missiles. So there's no way that we can stop even a large fraction of them even with a miraculously good missile defense. But we do need those missile defenses to be sure that if a rogue state like North Korea or God forbid, Iran gets a nuclear weapon that they can't attack us. So we need to make an arrangement where we can verifiably show that we have a certain number of launchers that can, that can take out ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, so that you don't need these crazy responses that the Russians and the Chinese are coming up with. The Russians are coming up with nuclear powered cruise missiles that can go around over the South Pole and attack us and with this gigantic torpedo that can run across the ocean and destroy a city like Washington. Washington. So you need, you need to make.
- [111:59]
Sagar
Just on that point so we would not be able to detect it underwater. Is that the.
- [112:03]
Professor Goldstein
Well, that's a, that's the sort of question if I answered it, you know, you'd have to shoot me, right? Or something. Maybe we don't want to.
- [112:14]
Sagar
But that's the, but that's the idea.
- [112:16]
Professor Goldstein
Oh no, the idea would be that, that they have, they have submarines. These are, these are very big torpedoes. And there would have to be an inspection protocol just the way there'd have to be an inspection protocol to show that we didn't have too many launchers. And in that situation you can get to a point where you could start bringing down some of the, some of the things that are already there. We currently have about 400 missiles on hair trigger alert in silos that you can find on Google Maps and that the Russians obviously can find on Google Maps. The Chinese have, are now building up a similar capability. The Russians have about the same capability. And these are just crazy items because you have very little time to decide to use them. And then you also worry that if a significant part of your arsenal is vulnerable, then you're more worried about a first strike and the Chinese could be more worried about a first strike. And so then that puts everything right on a hair trigger. And these aren't war fighting things. You're going to have to use them as soon as a war starts, otherwise they'll get destroyed. So there's a deal that could be made pretty quickly that would bring down about 400 warheads from both sides. And then it's an interesting thing if you have three countries competing and I think it's a good idea for us to, to try to decouple Russia and Moscow, Russia and China as best we can. Then you have a situation where if I take away one warhead and the deal is that each of China and Russia takes away a warhead, that's a pretty good deal. I've got two less facing me for one that I've Got less that I've shot off. So I think there's a possibility, if you really work on it, and if you look at the sort of root cause problem of these missile defenses that they worry might work and we worry won't work, there's a way to get down to much lower numbers with both sides.
- [114:23]
Emily
And let's talk about China, because Ryan and I, Ryan and I were just discussing, you know, how we could look back 100 years from now and as gross as the conflict of interest between Elon Musk, Tesla and the Chinese government looks right now and could bear some really toxic fruit, it's possible that you look back 100 years from now and say this was a huge contributor to diffusing tensions and spared conflict and was helpful in negotiating with the Chinese government. So talk a little bit about why you see this as an especially ripe moment when it comes to China as well.
- [114:59]
Professor Goldstein
Well, I think the story is China is just now doing a buildup. If we don't do a buildup, it'll save us about a trillion dollars, which is a noticeable amount of money and part of of Donald Trump's goals. And it would also save them a lot of money.
- [115:17]
Sagar
Did you hear that, Elon Musk? $1 trillion.
- [115:21]
Professor Goldstein
Here it is.
- [115:21]
Sagar
Well, you can go after Medicaid all you want. You're not going to find a trillion dollars. Go ahead.
- [115:27]
Professor Goldstein
So if you can cut back this huge expansion, in particular these missiles I was telling you about, we're planning on renewing all of them, basically replacing all of them, them and their control structures and everything. If you could, if you could back down on that stuff, it would reduce the tensions with China. Now, I think you have to be worried about Taiwan, of course, so you need to have ships that can help defend Taiwan. But you could put this back on the track that we were on before. You know, it seems to me a lot of the inflation we've had is because we're not getting these cheap things from China. So there's a complicated situation there that could be diffused. I think one thing we have to recognize is their economy is about the same size as ours. And so sort of trying to make them be a third class, a second class player is not practical.
- [116:26]
Sagar
It's interesting. One of the reasons that is taken as kind of the conventional wisdom for why the Soviet Union imploded was that they tried to keep up this arms race with us. And because we had a bigger and faster growing economy, they increasingly ate into their domestic capacity to grow their economy and distribute the goodies to the Soviet people and helped lead to collapse. Perhaps if the Chinese economy is growing significantly faster than ours and we are spending a trillion plus dollars building things that we hope we're never going to use, at best building things that we never use, at worst building things that we use and destroy ourselves. So just siphoning money out of the economy and it going to nothing other than boosting kind of Northern Virginia real estate prices. Do we face some of the same risk as the Soviet Union that in this blind competition with China, if they grow faster than us and we continue to spend a trillion dollars on this nuclear capacity, could that end up kind of bankrupting us?
- [117:50]
Professor Goldstein
Well, I don't think we're in quite the situation, of course that Russia was in. The, you know, people were saying they were spending 8% of their GDP on defense. It was crazy. But of course they weren't spending much more than we.
- [118:05]
Sagar
Right. We're at, we're at What? We're at 5%. I don't know. People could google that. It's a lot though, right? I mean if we have a 14, 15, what's our GDP? Something like 15 trillion. We're up to 18 now. Emily's gonna google this.
- [118:19]
Emily
Fact checking.
- [118:20]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [118:20]
Professor Goldstein
Cause and it's the better. And our defense budget is the better part of a trillion dollars.
- [118:24]
Emily
Yeah, 27 trillion.
- [118:25]
Sagar
Oh, we're at 27 trillion now. Okay, so 130 or 3% anyway. Go ahead.
- [118:33]
Professor Goldstein
So I mean we're not in the situation that we have a non functioning economy and we've got a population that's a third the size of the other guy. I guess actually our population is quite a bit lower, but our GDP is way higher. Higher than Russia's. So people used to say Russia is spending much more a fraction of their economy on weapons, but in fact they were at a much smaller economy. So I don't quite see. Maybe if you talk 100 years it's a different story, but I don't see in the next decade or two that we'll get bankrupted. It's just that the national debt is a big problem and it's certainly going to hurt us to spend this money.
- [119:17]
Emily
Q4, by the way, has our GDP at 29 trillion.
- [119:20]
Sagar
Okay, well there we go. But yeah, I don't mean the next 10 years. China thinks in terms of 50 and 100 years they're happy to wait us out.
- [119:29]
Professor Goldstein
Oh yeah, well certainly you want to get this path, you want to get this on a path towards eventually eliminating nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan even said that so you want to get to that place and going up isn't necessarily the right way to get to go to eventually come down.
- [119:49]
Sagar
Yeah. And the last point, I think the thing that makes your case more plausible is that you pointed out in your piece, Donald Trump hasn't cared about a whole lot consistently throughout his life, but one of the things he has cared about, curiously, has been nuclear war. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [120:10]
Professor Goldstein
Well, so I shouldn't say Reagan. It's true of Reagan too, in a way. But Donald Trump has spoken from his first, apparently was a Playboy interview.
- [120:23]
Emily
Where else?
- [120:25]
Professor Goldstein
Well, you know, they talked about other things too, but he focused on the fact that, that the, the nuclear situation is really, really dangerous. And he used the metaphor that it's like being ignorant of the fact that you could get sick and so you don't even pay any attention to your health and then you get sick and you're surprised by it. You, you shouldn't be in that situation with nuclear weapons. And he, he has repeated that. It's clear that it's something that is a high priority to him and is certainly a high priority to the Noble Bill Committee. So if they could, if there's going to have to be some sweet talking to get China to the table, clearly they have to be brought to the table as an equal because they have the capability to build up to being an equal and they're sort of on that path and they have an economy that's like ours, not like Russia's. So I think you need, you need to have a situation where all three of you are kind of sitting on the same side of the table trying to solve this problem, that you're all threatening each other. That's going to then put you on this path. So that out in the long term, frankly, out in the long term, there is a long term, Right.
- [121:41]
Sagar
Yeah.
- [121:42]
Professor Goldstein
We use all these weapons. There is no long term. There's no hundred years from now where there's any civilizations to speak of.
- [121:48]
Sagar
Left, right. So Israel, Palestine, an Iran deal and the Ukraine war and then world power piece. I'd give them those Nobels.
- [121:56]
Emily
There you go.
- [121:57]
Professor Goldstein
They may be ashamed that they didn't give Ronald Reagan the Nobel Prize when they gave it to Gorbachev. So maybe they'll pay attention.
- [122:03]
Sagar
That's right.
- [122:03]
Emily
That's right. Yeah. It'll be like a makeup call.
- [122:05]
Sagar
Yeah.
- [122:06]
Emily
From the refs. Thank you so much, Professor. This was fascinating. We really appreciate you coming on.
- [122:12]
Professor Goldstein
Great. I enjoyed it very much.
- [122:15]
Sagar
Well, that's fascinating to talk through. And I hope that, you know, Trump does have, even though he pretends he doesn't, an interest in validation from those types of people. And if somebody can float in front of him that, look, these accolades are available to you if you do these things, I think he already leans in that direction. He loves the art of the deal. What bigger deal can you get than ending the ceasefire, Ukraine, Iran deal, and then a nuclear treaty between Russia, China and the U.S. i mean, somebody should do it. Why not Trump?
- [122:55]
Emily
And he's also so completely right about Reagan. Something that gets completely forgotten about Reagan is that he disrupted the Cold War inertia that we were in in the 1980s, although I think rhetorically it was a little bit different. But just by his negotiations back channel, if you read his diary with Soviets, he immediately was shocked into realizing how dire the situation was, how dramatic the the situation was, and started to talk less like a cold warrior from the 1960s and started to make inroads. And I think Trump, in an interesting way, is like that level of unorthodox on a bigger scale. He doesn't feel beholden to the Cold War inertia. He never has. He doesn't play by those rules. He actually despises that status quo. So there's some real potential here. It just speaks to how, how easily we lose sight of nuclear politics, that this gets tossed to the side and this isn't a bigger conversation.
- [123:50]
Sagar
And speaking of which, and we didn't get a chance to talk about this in the show, there was interesting news yesterday from the Biden administration, which announced that it was taking Cuba off of the state sponsor of terrorism list. We've covered this before, and it'll be interesting to see how the Trump administration responds to this, this Obama normalized relations with Cuba. Trump then came in at the very end of his term, put Cuba on the state sponsor of terrorism list, which is a more effective and more devious kind of embargo. Because what it does is it says that what it does is it blocks companies from around the world from doing any business with Cuban companies. It's really insidious. And the US Will say, not that.
- [124:37]
Emily
That fully happens, but yeah, although.
- [124:39]
Sagar
So we have a great piece. I can put it in the note down here from Ed Augustine, a reporter who writes for us from down in Havana, who talked to a bunch of Cuban businesses and right after they got put on that list, European banks, European companies just stopped. They'd say, look, the US Says maybe we can do this. Our lawyers aren't sure. It's just, you're not a big enough market market. It's just easier for us to say, you know what, we don't do business in Cuba anymore. And if you're an island that hurts. It was expected and Biden was pressured to. And Biden campaigned saying that he thought what Trump did was wrong.
- [125:17]
Emily
Yep.
- [125:18]
Sagar
Biden was expected to come in and take Cuba off the state sponsor of terrorism list immediately. Instead he did it yesterday and he did it after something like a third of the population has left Cuba. Enormous numbers of those by the way flew to Nicaragua, then came up to the US border sparking this migration crisis. I remember talking to somebody in Cuba a couple months ago who she's in her 20s and she said I don't have a single friend left in Cuba. They have all left. And it was because Biden took four years till to lift take them off of this list. Why he people, people have lost like significant amounts of weight. Like the like absolute misery, you know, island wide blackouts. Like what, what he put people on Cuba through for four years to then at the very end say oh nevermind is just infuriating.
- [126:20]
Emily
So you will see how Trump handles the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, obviously hardcore. Yes. Keep it hold to the point that Trump is stuck in the Cold War inertia. It's on issues that his sort of people in the cabinet and even middle range folks dictate the policy. Trump sort of exports it or outsources it. It's like it's not his top concern. So he lets little Marco handle Venezuela, Cuba, Central America.
- [126:48]
Sagar
We'll see if he does or not.
- [126:49]
Emily
Yeah, right. But to the point that Professor Gold is making, there's an argument to be made to Donald Trump that breaking that pattern could, could actually really help his image historically or his legacy I guess going forward. So we'll see.
- [127:04]
Sagar
But yeah, but the fact that at the very end of his term he threw Cuba under the bus last time doesn't really bode well this time. Yeah, the fact that he named Marco Rubio as Secretary of State doesn't bode well either. We'll see.
- [127:16]
Emily
Reporting right now, Marco Rubio is literally about to begin his confirmation hearing as we are recording this. And the report is that he is coming out swinging against the foreign policy consensus.
- [127:25]
Sagar
So going after the globalists and it.
- [127:27]
Emily
Sounds like it's at least rhetorically a very populist opening statement.
- [127:31]
Sagar
And that again Breitbart had it last night. I think I saw you sharing it.
- [127:34]
Emily
Yeah, that's right. Matt will got it. So it doesn't mean that's going to translate into policy, but it's an interesting start, so we'll certainly be following it throughout the entire ride. We'll be here. You can go to breakingpoints.com for a premium subscription if you want to be here for the ride with us. And make sure if you if you can't if you can't subscribe, make sure to like and subscribe here. If you can't subscribe premium, make sure to like and subscribe here on the channel.
- [127:56]
Sagar
Yep, do that.
- [127:57]
Emily
Sounds great.
- [127:58]
Sagar
All right, see y'all.
- [128:10]
Ryan
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- [128:42]
Sagar
Blast, but the financial hangover?
- [128:45]
Ryan
That can be a huge bummer.
- [128:46]
Sagar
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- [128:55]
Ryan
And I am Matt and we're from.
- [128:56]
Sagar
The how to Money podcast. Our show is all about helping you make sense of your personal personal finances so you can ditch your pesky credit card debt once and for all, make real progress on other crucial financial goals that you've got, and just feel more in control of your money in general.
- [129:11]
Ryan
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- [129:11]
Sagar
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- [129:15]
Ryan
The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
- [129:18]
Sagar
You get your podcasts.
- [129:21]
Ryan
Catch Jon Stewart back in action on the Daily show and in your ears with the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. From his hilarious satirical takes on today's politics and entertainment to the unique voices of correspondents and contributors, it's your perfect companion to stay on top of what's happening now. Plus, you'll get special content just for podcast listeners, like in depth interviews and a roundup of the week's top headlines. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.