← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
4/14/26: Trump Deletes Jesus Self Portait, Hungary PM Defeated, Sam Altman Home Attack, 9/11 Widow Speaks Out
01:15:23
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Saurabh Amari
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Hey, guys, Sager and Krystal here.
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Host 2
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Host 3
Donald Trump posted a truth social image that had Christians around the country furious yesterday. So this was posted, I think he actually posted it technically Sunday night, but he deleted this post that you see on the screen here portraying himself as arguably Jesus. A lot of Christians saw this and said, oh, he's clearly portraying himself as Jesus. And he's wearing, like, flowing white robes in a way that Jesus is often depicted he is. If you're listening to this, he has his right hand on the forehead of a sick man with light bursting out from his hand. And the man's forehead, he. He has an orb of light in his other hand. So clearly this is Trump with supernatural healing powers in a very Christ like depiction. There's no question about. There's a woman next to the sick man praying. So it's fairly reasonable that people would look at this image and say, that looks like Jesus. And I think that was. I mean, did you look at it and think that? Obviously, yes.
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Host 2
Okay, what are we doing here? It's obviously Jesus. I'm not even Christian, you tell me. Yeah, I mean, is any reasonable person supposed to deduce otherwise?
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Host 3
I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, it seems pretty obvious that's where this is going.
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Host 2
Those are his robes.
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Host 3
Yeah. Yes. In many depictions. In many depictions. And that's obviously where this is going. You have people in the sky. Like, clearly, it's a depiction of heaven over Trump and he's. Yes. So again, can we say with 100% certainty that Donald Trump was intentionally posting a picture of himself as Jesus? Maybe not 100%, but maybe 98%, maybe 99% certainty on that point. So Christians are furious about it and Trump actually deleted the image. Worth noting. He posted it on orthodox Easter, coming after his Easter. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards. Part post the week before and actually deleted this Sagar, which is for Trump, very unusual.
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Host 2
Remarkable.
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Host 3
He came out and I'm going to skip ahead here just so people have the table set for how he responded to this. So midday yesterday. So around 12:30pm he gets asked in front of the aforementioned door dash driver, did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ? And this is after he's already deleted it. Here's what Trump says. This is going to be C5.
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Host 1
Did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?
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Donald Trump
Well, it wasn't depicted. It was me. I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. And only the fake news could come up with that one. So I just heard about it and I said, how did they come up with that? It's supposed to be me as a doctor making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better. As an example, the 11,000. I understand your husband's going through treatment.
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Host 1
Yes, sir.
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Host 3
Yes, sir.
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Donald Trump
He's going through some very serious cancer Treatment. So.
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Host 2
Yes, sir.
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Donald Trump
This goes a long way.
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Host 3
Yes, sir, it sure does, Sager. Only the fake news could have come up with that one.
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Host 2
Only the fake news could have come up with the fact that he depicted himself as Jesus. So much so that he deleted it, by the way. So if he really believed that, he would have kept it up, I bet. If he really believed he was a healing doctor.
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Host 3
Part of me believes. Part of me thinks here that people in the White House were really upset with him.
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Host 2
Oh, really?
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Host 3
Yeah. Maybe it like, pushed him to be like, I think that's not unreasonable. That there are people inside of his own circles that were like, Mr. President, this one actually looks a lot like Jesus.
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Host 2
Maybe even people call. Maybe you're right. I don't know. But look, I mean, a lot of this, you know, kind of stems from. And I'm going to let you know, take over this part. But there has been a lot of idolatry over Donald Trump from a lot of his spiritual advisors, people like Paula White and others, which, you know, you can listen to Tucker about that one. I'm not an eschatological expert, but it is interesting to me, you know, in the way that they try to portray him or make him feel as if he is a messianic figure, which is why maybe that he's posting these types of images.
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Host 3
Yeah.
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Host 2
And it fits, you know, when we think back to Tucker's accusation that he didn't put his hand on the Bible whenever he took the oath of office and others. So I'm going to let you cook on that one because I know what I'm talking about.
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Host 3
Well, so the. Let's put C2 up on the screen. This was another part of the discourse. If you. It's actually very odd, I will admit. This is very odd. So in the original image, which was actually taken from Nick Adams like, a couple of years ago. So, you know, what Trump is doing is just probably scrolling through Truth Social, finding memes that he likes and reposting them or asking his staff to repost them. But what's really O is that the original image had been altered in one fascinating way. You can see this up on your screen, the soldiers in heaven over Donald Trump. Quite a sentence. In the image that was first posted by Nick Adams, it's soldiers in heaven in this, like, circle of light.
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Host 2
Right.
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Host 3
Beam of light. In the new image, it looks almost like some type of. They're not soldiers. The one in the middle is some type of, like, mythical creature that people were saying looks demonic. Demonic.
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Host 2
And, well, what do you think so? I'm. I'm.
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Host 1
I.
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Host 2
You know, I. Okay, let me put on my. My non. Thinking it's a demon brain. So I'm looking at soldiers which have just been photoshopped and changed.
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Host 3
Right.
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Host 2
I'm looking at what kind of looks maybe. Maybe like the Statue of Liberty with wings and two different arms. Yeah, that's about as far as I could get.
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Host 3
Yeah.
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Host 2
Which is not demonic. Now, instantly, if I look at that, that's demonic, right. Or it looks like some Lord of the Ring, like Sauron or something from the Lord of the Rings. So which I think is. Isn't Tolkien. He was super Christian. Right. So there you go. So Soren was supposed to be demon. So it all fits, right?
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Host 3
Yeah. They're in small circle. Yeah. Whistleblow. Something gets garbled in the AI. What, like, honestly, I want to know what. How we got from.
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Host 2
What are the input to the output? What's the instruction that you put in?
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Host 3
It's weird and nobody noticed it. And obviously, I mean, the story behind this is probably actually genuinely interesting, but nobody was wrong to look at this and be like, what on earth is the President doing in the middle of a war where there are eschatological fights from millenarians in all camps, actually. So that is just, I mean, well worth dwelling on for the people who did. So. The backlash we can put up on the screen. C3 started on truth Social right away. All kinds of people responding, you are sick. I've never regretted a vote more idolatry, pride and false worship. This is absolutely terrible. You are mocking Jesus, all caps. You think you're God, but the truth is you're possessed. Sacrilegious and preposterous. That's just a sample of the post from Truth Social that was also actually pulled by the Headquarters X account, which is the old Kamala Harris campaign account. But C4 is where it heads closer to home for Donald Trump. This is responses from prominent evangelical conservatives. So Ali Beth Stuckey says that image is what happens when Paula White is your personal pastor and people around you are continually comparing you to Christ. Trump desperately needs to understand the bad news that precedes the good news. You are a helpless sinner in desperate need of a savior, as we all once were. And Paul White has compared Trump to Jesus, that they both underwent suffering, et cetera. Just completely idolatrous and heretical type language. Megan Basham says, I don't know if the President thought he was being funny or if he is under the influence of some substance or what possible explanation he could have for this outrageous blasphemy, but he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God. Prominent Catholics were upset about this. We're going to get to that in a moment. Because Trump is also going after the Pope. He was fighting a war on multiple fronts yesterday, to say the very least, but he was getting it from not just evangelicals, Catholics as well. And I have to say, Sager, Donald Trump going Back to what, 2015. I remember at one point he talked about having his little wine and his little cracker. Like, he's been doing this for a decade. He's just. To me that there was shock, like moral shock in Christian circles was bizarre over Trump. Like, do I think it's good he took it down? Yeah, I think it's good he took it down. But these are my. My expectations for Donald Trump are not as though he's going to act like, as some type of paragon of Christian virtue on a daily basis at all. I mean, he clearly has a narcissistic complex. He barely goes to church. He's not like a practicing Christian. He says he doesn't ask God for forgiveness. He said at Charlie Kirk's funeral he actually hates his enemies. He said that multiple times. He did say that. I remember that. So again, like, I just. Of course he's doing this. Of course he's doing this.
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Host 2
Yeah. So that's why. I mean, I find their freak out very bizarre. I also think there is a certain type of person out there who is more upset about this image than they were about him saying that he was going to wipe out an entire civilization overnight.
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Host 3
Or they camped about the civilization.
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Host 2
Yeah. And they were like, oh, well, that one's fine. You know? Or they say it too. What do they say? They'll say stuff like, what was it? Oh, that's just how he talks. I'm like, okay, well, same thing. I'm like, you guys made a deal with a completely irreligious. I don't even think that's a wrong bet. It was probably the right bet. Whenever it comes to, like, what they wanted ultimately out of the government, which was Roe versus Wade, you won. So what are you complaining about? Right. And I think that's what Trump and then would say to them, too. Maybe it's just mockery, like the fact that, you know, like the literal, like, mockery, as in, I'm bigger than all of you. Yeah. And he's making it a little bit too overt with the Easter message and with this. And if you think those two things together, I could see, like, why now might be kind of a breaking point, you know, if you will. But I found the, you know, upset about it. Very bizarre in that it's okay. Like, we're about to talk about the Pope. I can't believe Trump is fighting with the Pope. Been around so long. I remember when he fought with the last Pope.
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Host 3
Do you remember?
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Host 2
I literally remember that. Yeah.
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Host 3
Do you remember when he Photoshopped himself into the Pope? He posted a Photoshop of himself into the Pope. This was last year.
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Host 2
I know. I. Exactly. That's why I'm like, so this, like, why now? Is this supposed to be, like, a great big thing over Trump and Jesus? I mean, maybe again, it's on the eve of the Easter message, which a lot of people were. Or after the Easter message, which a lot of people were upset about that. Like, people were genuinely sure they should have been. Yeah, I agree they should have been upset. But again, if, you know, if you're a religious person, there's mountains of stuff that he's done before.
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Host 3
Yeah.
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Host 2
Which rates at the same level, if you ask me, which was always like, oh, he's joking and all. Look, you know, who am I to talk? You know, I also had my guy. You come to your own realization, like, at different points, and that's fine. But, yeah, I did find it kind of interesting.
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Host 3
Well, for the last 10 years, there's been this evangelical idea that Trump is Cyrus the Great, that he is, or that he is this flawed figure that can still bring about good, that he is this man of history. You constantly hear that being tossed around. Who is ultimately, though he's flawed and though he is maybe not an actual Christian is going to help Christians the plan, the bigger picture. So that depends not on him being good, though. Right. Like, that's not him being like, those moral paragons. So there still shouldn't be shock. I mean, I'm all for people holding Trump to account. Like, I think Ali Beth's tweet was fantastic. If, though you were still surprised and shocked by this, which I think that's those reactions. I was like, what are we doing? Like, he has been like this forever. But to your point about Tucker, that is really important that are there Christians who have had a moral reckoning in the last couple of months, let alone the last several years? Yes, there are. How significant of a portion of the Republican electorate is that? That's probably more significant among swing voters, but it's not an insignificant amount of Republicans either. That are starting to. I wrote about this last week with Tucker. He was questioning really the entire Post World War II quote, Christian west order that has allowed for, under the name of benevolence and civilization, a lot of destruction and moral horror. And once that seal breaks, you will have movement. And again, I'm not saying it's going to be everyone, but I do think part of it saga probably is because some evangelicals right now are in the midst of feeling like they have been abused by leaders who've led them down this primrose path path. And they look at what's happened through the United States wars to civilians, or they look at Cuba and they say,
- [15:19]
Host 2
I really do feel like Israel was a big break. It totally was. Yeah, it really was.
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Host 3
Yeah.
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Host 2
Because you could hear what's a woman's name? What's her name? Carrie. Carrie Priest. Yeah.
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Host 3
Right.
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Host 2
Like that was obviously like she was deeply affected by that. Yeah, she's very Catholic, but she was kicked off of the Religious Liberty Commission as a result of it. I do think. Yeah. I mean, it is fascinating to me. Again, I'm an outside observer, I have no idea. But it does seem, from what I understand, that very similar of the Gen Z millennial split from boomers on Israel. Totally. It's the same thing in the evangelical community. Even for people who are very religious evangelicals, they feel like the Mike Huckabee thing is a total heresy. They're like completely against all this dispensationalism. And again, these are people who are. Which was not the same very Christian
- [16:03]
Host 3
in the 1990s and early 2000s. That was not the same.
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Host 2
Right.
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Host 3
And now younger evangelicals aren't really dispensationalists. And so they look at kind of boomer dispensationalists and they're like, what the hell are the political ramifications of this? And are finally questioning like the foundations of it. So just last point is, after the Cold War, the anti communist center in the west of the right and the left coalesced around opposing communism, literally under the banner of opposing communism. And I think that prevented a lot of people from asking sort of first principle types of questions because it was much more obvious then when you have kids diving under their desks during nuclear deal drills to the American public, they felt much more comfortable about good and bad. And that papered over a lot of bad from the west in recent decades. That's now sort of, I think people are reckoning with.
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Host 2
There you go. All right. We have Sora Bamari standing by he's going to talk to us about the Pope. Let's get to it.
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Host 3
This is Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes
- [17:04]
Host 2
from the Amy TJ podcast.
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Saurabh Amari
And there is so much news, information, commentary coming at you all day and from all over the place, what's fact,
- [17:13]
Host 2
what's fake and sometimes what the f.
- [17:16]
Saurabh Amari
So let's cut the crap, okay? Follow The Amy TJ podcast, a one stop news and pop culture shop to get you caught up on and on with your day.
- [17:25]
Host 2
And listen to Amy and TJ on
- [17:27]
Host 1
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
- [17:30]
Host 3
you listen to podcasts.
- [17:32]
Saurabh Amari
Our nation has always counted on us
- [17:35]
Host 2
to win, to fight for what better
- [17:37]
Saurabh Amari
could be to secure our future together.
- [17:43]
Host 2
We are Marines.
- [17:45]
Saurabh Amari
We were made for this.
- [17:48]
Host 1
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Host 1
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- [18:12]
Host 3
Okay, I got this.
- [18:14]
Host 1
Silk protein, feel planty good.
- [18:17]
Host 2
Joining us now is friend of the show Saurabh Amari. He is the US editor of UnHerd. Saurabh, it's good to see you again. Thanks for joining us.
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Saurabh Amari
Good to be with you guys.
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Host 2
All right, so Saurabh, you are a resident Catholic who we turn to for Catholic expertise here. And of course, we had to call you in for this one, not only for Hungary. Let's put this up here on the screen here. We had a truth social post from the president. Pope Leo is weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy. He talks about the fear of the Trump administration but doesn't mention the fear that the Catholic Church and all Christian organizations had during COVID He goes on for quite some time. He says, I don't want a pope who thinks it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don't want a pope who thinks it's terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a country that's sending massive amounts of drugs to the US and on and on. Quite a bit of criticism here from the president to the Pope. You know what do, can you, can you maybe break this down in terms of historical context? How common is it here for the Vatican and for the president, especially a Vatican being led by an American citizen to be openly in a feud with the president of the United States?
- [19:24]
Saurabh Amari
Well, look, in the 19th century, this country had a Tradition of anti Catholicism where it was quite routine. You know, you look at the letters of various Jacksonians and Jackson himself and it was just common to speak ill of all things Romish and papist. But in the modern era, this is unprecedented. And Even in the 19th century century it didn't have this kind of deranged aspect that this truth Social post had. A lot of people focused on this line and I can't help but want to talk about it as well, which is the opening where he said the first thing he says is Pope Leo is weak on crime.
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Host 3
And it doesn't.
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Saurabh Amari
Is he supposed to be a tough on crime Pope? Like, you know, and I think it's kind of, it is indicative, I think of a kind of dementia because I think the President has this grab bag of insults and he kind of gets confused about which ones to fling at which target, polemical target. So weak on crime. Ed Koch is weak on crime. Like remember something from the 80s, you know, where it was like Dave Dinkins is weak on crime. And he said, no, no, no, it's foreign policy. Pope is weak on foreign policy. Barack Hussein Obama, you know, but in all serious, it sets up such a sharp contrast between, you know, if you look at the statements of the Holy See in general and the Holy Father himself, speaking from within this tradition, whether you agree with the theologically or not about just war and when is it appropriate to go to war and what sorts of statesman statements are appropriate in wartime versus this kind of lashing out which I think is happening. Really, it's not about the Pope, it's about the war. The war is going badly. President is still in Iran's vice grip, I think. And so he's lashing out at whoever he can, you know, he can get his hands on kind of and just sort of randomly throwing out these kinds of statements. But it's really, really damaging, obviously. It's very damaging because the Pope is a very overwhelmingly popular figure. I, Harry Anton on cnn put up the spreads. He's like, the Pope is at plus 34. The President is at like negative whatever 12.
- [21:50]
Host 3
So.
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Saurabh Amari
And outside this core MAGA, including Catholics who will just go along with whatever the President says. There are lots and lots of, you know, working and middle class Americans who are Catholic from places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, you know, places that matter in election time, who would be offended by insults to the Pope, even if they themselves might not agree with everything the Pope says.
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Host 3
Yeah. And so Trump doubled down on this yesterday. So let's go ahead and roll the Tape. We'll get your reaction on the other side. So, Rob, this is C7.
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Host 1
Baron supports you and your policies. He praises you for defending religious freedom. He now says you owe Pope Leo an apology. Will you apologize?
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Donald Trump
No, I don't. Because Pope Leo said things that are wrong. He was very much against what I'm doing with. With regard to Iran. And you cannot have a nuclear Iran. Pope Leo would not be happy with the end result. You have hundreds of millions of people dead, and it's not going to happen. So I can't. I think he's very weak on crime and other things. So I'm not. I mean, he. He went public. I'm just responding to Pope Leo. And, you know, his brother is a big MAGA person, and he's a great guy. Louis. And I said, I like Louis better than I like the Pope. Now you have to have law and order in our country, and that's what we have now. We have the lowest crime numbers we've had in a long time. We believe strongly in law and order, and he. He seemed to have a problem with that. So there's nothing to apologize for. He's wrong. The other thing is he didn't like what we're doing with respect to Iran. But Iran is a. Wants to be a nuclear nation so they can exterminate the world. Not going to happen.
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Host 3
Something else. So just to quickly ask.
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Saurabh Amari
Yeah.
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Host 3
One question on this.
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Saurabh Amari
How is the.
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Host 2
Go ahead, go ahead.
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Saurabh Amari
Well, how is the Pope against law and order? I don't even understand that. It's a bizarre.
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Host 3
He's probably talking about immigration, right?
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Host 2
Yeah. I was assuming this is about immigration. And actually, that was what I was going to follow up to you is, you know, I mean, how should we feel like, you know, the Pope has a view on immigration. He's the Pope, that's fine. But we have an American system. We're supposed to have separation of church and state. And you also have some Catholics here who are actually defending the President over the Pope. What do you make of that whole dynamic, especially considering it is a genuine domestic political issue.
- [24:12]
Host 3
Yeah.
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Saurabh Amari
So I think on immigration, it's odd to frame it as he's weak on crime. Okay. The Church teaches that obviously all people, including people who are choosing to move across borders, deserve basic human dignity and how they're treated. At the same time, the Church does always say that countries have a right to control their borders. I will say, and I've written this for unheard, that this is an issue. This immigration issue is one in which it would Be useful for the Church to offer a deeper theology of migration that is fit for the 21st century, when lots and lots of people are on the move. The Church is true, emphasizes the common good, but sometimes, listening to some bishops, you would think that the common good is completely just the same thing as the rights of migrants. And it doesn't quite take into account the Church, I think, as much the right of people in recipient countries, people in the global north, especially working lower middle class people whose access to public services is strained by uncontrolled migration, whose jobs and wages are threatened by that. Sometimes it's true. When you listen to the Church, it seems like they only see it from the migrant's point of view. And I get that. I mean, so because it's the Church that looks out for the weak and for the migrant. And I get that. But I think in this scenario, you also have people who are dispossessed and weak, namely working class people in recipient countries who have to be in the calculus of the common good as well. And so that's an issue where I think there should be a kind of dialogue, I would hope, between the Trump administration and the Holy See. But that dialogue is not advanced by posts like that. Right? I mean, the Church is also a political institution. It's a state that has a certain dignity. And of course, it's, you know, the figure of the Pope is seen as the successor of St Peter, as the person who holds the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, and who can forgive sins on earth or bind them, you know, or who can. Who can bind or loose sins on earth, and that will be reflected in heaven. That's a stature that requires, if you want dialogue, not ranting against the figure of the Pope. I think that doesn't advance the kind of dialogue which. You're right, Segar. I think we need that. Mm.
- [26:40]
Host 2
Let's get to Hungary then, which we also wanted to talk to you about. I know that you have tracked things there closely. The vice president, J.D. vance, he flew halfway across the world in the middle of a war just to campaign for Viktor Orban, who did end up losing the election. Let's take a listen to what the vice president said there. Will you stand against the bureaucrats in Brussels? Will you stand for sovereignty and democracy? Will you stand for Western civilization? Will you stand for freedom, for truth and for the God of our fathers? Then, my friends go to the polls in the weekend, stand with Viktor Orban because he stands for you and he stands for all these things. God bless Hungary and God Bless the United States of America. Thank you. So that was an impassioned plea from the vice president. However, it didn't really work. Let's put D3 up there on the screen. Peter Magyar has won the election. Viktor Orban has conceded. It does look like it was, you know, 16 year end to power there for Orban. And it also appears to have been a pretty resounding victory for the opposition party. You know, Saurabh, you have watched this pretty closely or at least a lot closer than me. And so tell us a little about the dynamics here. Whether Vance's visit hurt helped what happened.
- [28:09]
Saurabh Amari
I can't assess what J.D. vance's speech had. I mean, I think it was a very much a base speech, as you heard there. There's a Fidesz, that's the former ruling party, the party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. It has its base, it has certain themes of against Europe's vision of heavy migration or uncontrolled migration for cultural conservatism. And he delivered a base speech. I think the real dynamic here is that after 16 years with any democratic ruler, voters are bound to get tired, even if they have mixed feelings about the ruler in question and appreciate certain things about it. After 16 years, it's hard to get reelected. I just think that's the fundamental dynamic here. And I think it's very telling and important to note that Viktor Orban was repeatedly cast as this authoritarian figure. And there were some things that troubled me about his rule. The way that the kind of nexus between government and friendly oligarchs and the media, the kind of control, but it wasn't extraordinarily out of the norm. I think you have a, a country, a democratically elected government will try to entrench itself, including by exerting control over media. So that's still within the bounds of democracy. And you see it from all sorts
- [29:31]
Host 3
of things labor does in the UK
- [29:32]
Host 2
and he did concede at the end
- [29:34]
Saurabh Amari
of the day and that's what I was going to get to when time came, he was like, well, the voters didn't give me a mandate. Goodbye. Contrary to what some of the fears that were being generated online in terms of his opposition, where they were saying he's about to, even if he loses, he, he won't give up power or anything like that. He did. So I think it's an end of an era though, of Hungary, this small landlocked country of 10 million people, which isn't in the grand scheme of things. It's not an important country, but had Taken on this outsized role in the imagination of conservatives around the world, especially in the Anglo American sphere of a government who was popular, a government that was popular, that was anti immigration, culturally conservative and quite effective at making, in a nimble way navigating its relationship with America where it allied itself with Maga, even as at the same time it was more open to China than many other European countries. Right. So it kind of created this equidistant relationship between Washington and Beijing, resisted America's tendency to create east and west blocs, even as it was, you know, culturally and rhetorically so aligned with Trump and Maga. I mean they were pretty smart, the Fides people and they, you know, they, they held on. They did some things that were good. I think a lot of the family support programs could be a model for the United States. They did push Total fertility up from when Orban came back in 2010 to now. It became, it went from like under one or maybe just that one child to 1.6, 1.5, 1.6. But we should stop this kind of imagining Hungary, this right wing utopia. And I think it's just a small central European country.
- [31:23]
Host 3
Right. And Fidesz definitely advanced themselves as like this post liberal laboratory of the potential future. And I want to put these next elements up on the screen. It's unclear actually how much of that is going to be changed by Magyar. And this is where Hillary Clinton and Anne Applebaum's posts about Farewell to Orban were interesting because Magyar came out of Fidesz. This is from Martin Versovsky who says Magyar is not the anti Orban. He is running on a platform that is Orban without the corruption as Orban. Magyar opposes the EU migration pact. He voted against the loan to Ukraine. He wants strong borders and has no plans to reverse Hungary's energy ties with Russia before 2035. On every substantive question that defines the European left right divide, Magyar sits exactly where Orban sits and, and that stands up. He also says Peter Magyar succeeding Orban is not as if Kamala Harris beat Trump as the left believes, but as if Ron Desantis beat Trump. Saurabh, do you think that's a fairly accurate assessment of what just happened in Hungary?
- [32:30]
Saurabh Amari
Yeah, I think there's, it's a decent analogy. I'll question it in one second. But the big kind of. I think Ron DeSantis versus Trump is kind of a decent analogy. It's very, very, it's very clear. You know, Peter Magyar, by the way, what a name. You know As a Peter the Hungarian. Right. It's like Emily the American, if your name, if your last name was American, that, you know, he, he was a fidess aparachic and felt as I understand it, that the jam post, like the kind of favorable job that they'd given him didn't match his ambition. And so, and there's a kind of complicated because he was used to be married to the, to the, the former Fidesz Justice Minister. They had a very, very ugly separation and out of his frustrations as a man on every level, he launched a political career and now he's the Prime Minister of a whole country. It's a fascinating story, but he's like deeply within the Fidesz structures, I will say there is some disagreement between Orban and Peter Magyar on other elements of the eu. Not that sort of migration question, but in terms of European integration more generally, the idea of how much say Europe should have versus national sort of sovereignty, the tension between those two forces. You heard Vance allude to that. I think Magyar, broadly speaking, is slightly more integrationist, which is why the European establishment, the center right, center left establishment in Brussels and so on, embraced him even though in individual discrete questions he sits exactly where Orban sits. In terms of the division of power between Brussels and Budapest, I think Magyar sits a little bit more comfortably with having greater European Union, say and integration.
- [34:24]
Host 2
Yeah, I think what's fascinating is the corruption point and really just the kind of fatigue that you're making. I was thinking of, let's say the Modi election. If you think about the so called populist wave 2014, 2015, these people come in, they're enormously popular, they win stunning reelection. However, once you're in power for a certain period of time, people are going to be fed up basically with anybody who is in office. And we saw that. He didn't lose, to be clear, but he didn't win nearly as much in the more recent election in India than they had expected. Here with Orban, it's not like the ideas themselves become unpopular. It's about entrenched government. And like you said, there are genuine questions there about business interests. And you know, when I visited Hungary, even our tour guide was like, oh, look at this, this great palace that Orban had built himself. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. So it's like there was enough dissent I think on the street there for something like this to take hold, even if the ideas themselves were there. Do you have any other big picture takeaways from it or should we just say it's a small country, it's not all that important? It's kind of interesting. A lot of conservatives really fell in love with it and maybe they should check themselves. That's my takeaway.
- [35:31]
Saurabh Amari
Yeah, it's basically right. I'm not shocked by the patronage structures, you know, the spoil system, you know, the first populist president of the United States. I love to come back, go back to Jackson, as you can tell, but he created the spoil system, you know, and that's what they had, maybe, I think if I were to critique them. A lot of the messaging as far as I saw was so civilizational. It was all about, you know, culture war and western civilization and this and that. Meanwhile, you had a country that was, you know, facing big inflation. It was basically those same pocketbook issues that face a lot of voters across the developed world. I don't think you heard as much about that and some of them feed us messaging in this time around than you did before. And I think that may be another factor as well. But anyway, bottom line, small central European country, interesting experiments that conservatives and populists should learn from, but also don't make it into the be all, end all of what it means to be on the right and this kind of utopia, right wing utopia vision, you know, it's
- [36:37]
Host 3
just the country also corruption can undermine populist projects. Yeah.
- [36:42]
Host 2
Something people selling pardons should think about that.
- [36:44]
Host 3
Yes.
- [36:44]
Host 2
All right, thank you very much, Saurabh, we appreciate your time.
- [36:49]
Host 3
Well, we have some big updates in the case of the Molotov cocktail that was lobbed at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's house just days ago. So first we can put this element up on the screen. This was from April 10th, the headline, man arrested for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman San Francisco home. You may have heard about this several days ago when it happened. A 20 year old man was arrested on Friday, quote, on suspicion of throwing a Molotov cocktail at Altman San Francisco home and making threats also at the company's headquarters. This was according to the NBC Bay Area report. Now, yesterday the FBI, this is the next element, raided the home that was connected to the suspect actually who's from Texas in the Molotov cocktail attack. So a little bit here from the local Fox affiliate says the FBI on Monday raided a home in Spring, Texas connected to the suspect accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at Altman's house in San Francisco. Video of the scene showed a large law enforcement presence in a residential neighborhood on Monday the home is connected to 20 year old Daniel Alejandro Morena Gama. So 20 year old gen Z male, presumably in this case we should add. So after the suspect, quote, according to the Fox affiliate, threw the Molotov cocktail at the home and fled, officers responded a short while later to a business. This was the site of OpenAI's headquarters. Now Moreno Gama is identified as the same individual who was involved in the arson attack and the headquarters attack. So both of those connected. According to officials, he traveled from Texas. The sources close to the investigation told Fox that he was quote driven by his anti AI views and was also carrying a manifesto when he was arrested in San Francisco. That manifesto has been described as a quote three part series and included a list of quote, other AI executives and investors along with their names and addresses. So Sager echoes of Luigi in this case already.
- [39:04]
Host 2
Yeah. So Daniel Moreno, we don't know a ton about this guy. We know that he was indicted yesterday by attempted murder charges. That was from the San Francisco da. DOJ is going to file federal charges against him. He was charged with attempting firebomb and attempt of murder on his life. Now the complaint, as you said, says that he drove all the way from Texas. But I think for our purposes the bigger kind of societal question is about this type of violence and like why it's happening. Okay, this is in no way an endorsement of a celebrant. Just like when we covered Luigi. Assassinating somebody in cold blood is disgusting. It's crime should be prosecuted. But if you kind of zoom out and think about the great displacements of American workers or even global. This is not a dissimilar phenomenon. So I was thinking, you know, to a couple of things actually same conversation I had with Luigi and actually very Luigi like, like for example a bunch of people were posting. We have E3. A lot of people were openly like outwardly celebrating, you know, this attack. And I mean like with Luigi we. This is a. No, I mean I think this is really gross behavior. Shouldn't do this about anybody. Charlie Kirk or you know, healthcare executive or you know, anyone else who is killed who might be unsympathetic on your side. Again, you know, as political analysts or whatever, we have to be like okay, so what's going on here? And it does kind of remind me if you guys are watching the show the Gilded Age. It's on hbo. We actually have somebody in the third. Spoiler alert. Sorry, it's been out for a while though is the oligarch who's depicted in the show gets Shot. Right. Well, when the Luigi case happened and I talked about this is Luigi spent a lot of time in Japan and he became like really obsessed with Japanese culture. And I was like, wow. I mean, I don't know.
- [40:53]
Host 3
Many such cases.
- [40:54]
Host 2
Yes, many such cases. I don't know if Luigi was all that well read or not. But one of the things that was the hallmark of the imperial Japanese age, especially the hyper nationalistic age, is that there were these assassinations of business leaders who were seen as undermining the state. And so for it was called gikokujo, which like roughly translates from like from the bottom to the top, which is like you try to kill people type assassinations to like bubble up your grievances. And so there would be all these crazy ass assassinations and then the government was. Would basically like forgive the assassins because they'd be so popular with the people because they wanted to make it seem they wanted to punish them, but they didn't want to punish them too much because the assassins were seen as acting on behalf of the people. And it kind of led to like a madness, like a government of assassination basically where people thought, as long as I assassinate and it's in the public interest, then the people will have my back and the government won't punish me. It created a really vicious feedback loop. But a lot of oligarchs and business leaders were included in that. In America in the anarchist age, attacks on the like oligarchs or the hyper capitalists were. It happened all the time, especially in Europe, in Russia. Right. You know, assassination by anarchists and others was long time, you know, something not only just against the royal family and the czars, but specifically like economic ministers and others were targeted. So. So it's not like this hasn't happened many times in history. And I think for me it's about displacement. So like if we were to look at the Luigi killing, he targets a healthcare executive. It is a bit bizarre, right? I mean from what we know he had some sort of healthcare, he had a health problem. But from what we know he was never a United Health customer. Right. It's not like he had been specifically denied. Maybe he became obsessed with it and targeted. Who knows what happened to him him mentally. But I think just generally like when you have large amounts of displacement, economic displacement, fearfulness. Also specifically this guy's only 20. Who knows what's going on in his life. We've seen this many times with some of the. Remember the guy who killed the illegal immigrants at the ICE facility? Yes, right. You Know, same thing.
- [43:07]
Host 3
Weeds in Dallas.
- [43:09]
Host 2
Yeah. So somebody who's, you know, a loser, going crazy and just ironically wanted to kill people.
- [43:15]
Host 1
Right.
- [43:15]
Host 2
And so I do think that this is a societal affliction. And it does say something bigger. Both the reaction also the attempted assassination itself, which is scary for most people who live in the country.
- [43:26]
Host 3
Yeah. And we never learn from history. There are all kinds of quotes from our own Gilded Age about, from, like, powerful people and mostly towards the end of the Gilded Age, but about how the people who will undermine capitalism the most will be the capitalists. The people who will hurt that cause the most will be the ones who are abusing at the very top, who are abusing it and are causing such profound distrust and dissatisfaction and hopelessness. So we can put E3 on the screen. This is reactions.
- [43:58]
Host 2
Oh, we put. Yeah, I put it on.
- [43:59]
Host 3
Oh, you put it on. Yeah. So, but one of the reactions that I just wanted to highlight here is from. Well, actually the person who posted it who said, quote, I didn't realize how bad it was until I saw this comment section on Instagram. So this, as Sagar mentioned, and you have some people saying, for example, this should be a nightly occurrence. One ain't gonna cut it. I love how collectively fed up the working class is. The people are tired. And again, this is historically not unfamiliar. Just to keep in mind that point, like, when you read those quotes, it feels ripped out of the Gilded Age. Like, just directly ripped out of the Gilded Age. And one of the things that people need to be paying very close attention to is that, first of all, you have two things that are showing up more and more in polling. One, people are feeling like they have less agency. They're feeling powerless. And two, I mean, I'm reading here from the Harvard Institute of Politics on their own polling. This is just from last year. Most young Americans reject political violence, but a meaningful minority express conditional tolerance, driven less by ideology and more by, quote, financial strain, institutional distrust, and social alienation. And so this is not going to be. I mean, sadly, Sagar, we see this happen every couple of months now. And it's not going to be just a short trend. This is something that's probably going to be with us for a long time. Let's put E4 up on the screen. This is Pew polling about data centers coming to rural areas. Virginia, Texas and Georgia lead the country in planned data centers. So Virginia has the highest number of currently operating ones and the highest number of planned. But then after that, it goes to Texas, California, Illinois, Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, New York, Oregon and on and on. A lot of rural states on those or on that list. And you can see I'm going to put this up next. This is going to be a video speaking of things that are ripped straight out of history. This is like ripped straight out of Eddington. Not to spoil Eddington, but it's also been out for a while.
- [46:08]
Host 2
It's been out for a while.
- [46:08]
Host 3
If you. If you haven't seen Eddington, you need to see it. But this is like ripped straight from Eddington. This is actually somebody posted. This is from NJ.com on TikTok. This is what it sounds like to live next to a data center. Meet your new neighbor. A giant data center is how it was Originally posted on TikTok. The sound here. If you're listening to this, the sound here, the video is just from a person's porch. And you see woods in the background. Just looks like a normal house. You see woods in the background. And so the sound is what you really want to pay attention to. So you're just on your porch trying to enjoy an evening or your morning coffee, and that's what you hear blaring in the background. So again, none of this is in any way to excuse political violence. It is to explain why it feels like we are just on the cusp of something that's about to actually get worse.
- [47:08]
Host 2
Yeah, there's a lot of tension in the country. People are very upset. There's a lot of job displacement, there's economic displacement, high interest rates. Don't have to explain it to anybody who's watching the show. And I do think often back to the Revolutions of 1848 allowed. You sure do.
- [47:21]
Host 3
You sure do.
- [47:22]
Host 2
So let's think about what happened. Right. And this, I'm borrowing a lot of this from a lot of, like, British history that I have read, is that there were these great displacement on the continent. And what happened is that the British ruling class effectively realized that they were gonna have to give up a lot of power that they held among the aristocracy in order to maintain some legitimacy with the people. And that doing that would be economically and socially extremely painful. But ultimately, it would be the only way that they would survive. And then after the First World War, their experiment is very obviously proven correct, is that the only society which effectively stripped the monarch of all power and actually gave some, again, not nearly enough, but some power to its people was the only one where the monarchy was able to live. So Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary. Right. The Ottoman Empire, all of these other empires and monarchies fall completely, you Know, they become irrelevant, like, you know, last names. In Europe, there's only one monarch that
- [48:25]
Host 3
as technology is bringing their substitution.
- [48:27]
Host 2
Technology and war.
- [48:28]
Host 1
Telegram. Right.
- [48:29]
Host 2
And I think that, like, you have to find some sort of a balance. So we have this extraordinarily rich country where the vast majority of the wealth is concentrated at the top. That is the new modern American aristocracy. So they basically have to make the same bargain is you can have short term riches that. But, yes, we'll continue to go up, but in the long run, we know how this is gonna end. You're probably gonna lose it in some sort of violent revolution or who knows, you know, crazy government takeover, or you can voluntarily support more transitionary measures to try and, like, stem the tide of a lot of this angst and its anger. And yeah, this is our time for choosing, you know, the Gilded Age. It was very violent. It also was very, you know, think about.
- [49:07]
Host 3
Andrew Carnegie was basically shamed into being charitable.
- [49:10]
Host 2
Absolutely. All of those labor disputes, I mean, remember, like union strikers, they were killed in the streets. Like, it was bad for a long time. A lot of those people died for some of the worker protections that even people enjoy today. So that did not happen. That happened at the tip of a gun and with violence a lot of the times. And we, you know, one of the reasons why it ultimately abated was because of economic changes that we made in our own society. So I hope for all of our sakes so that we do that sometime soon so we don't see any more of this. All right, we've got Kristin Breitweiser standing by. Let's get to it. Joining us now is Kristin Breitweiser. She is a 911 widow and she is an advocate on behalf of all 911 families. Kristen, we're very honored to have you join us. Thank you so much for giving us your time.
- [49:58]
Host 1
Good morning. Thanks for having me.
- [50:00]
Host 2
Absolutely. So, Kristen, you reached out to us about a very troubling story here in which you and other 911 widows feel as if both the funds that were allocated both to you as victims of terrorism have not been properly dispersed, but also that you have been unable to get into contact with Secretary Howard Lutnick, who himself was at Cantor Fitzgerald on 9 11. And you're saying that he has not adequately advocated on your and other widows behalf to secure a meeting with President Trump. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about that and I'll give Secretary Ludnick's response.
- [50:31]
Host 1
Sure. First off, I'm not a Cantor widow. I'm just a widow that has fought for truth, transparency, accountability and justice for the last 24 years, fighting for the rights of the widows and children, the widows and children of those murdered on the day of 9 11. So I just want to say that at the outset, however, you know, in our community and many of my friends are Cantor widows, we have made several efforts over the last year to get in touch with Howard and his sister Edie, because we know that Howard is very close with the president. You read articles that they talk to each other every night on the phone before going to sleep. Howard is in the Cabinet. You see him routinely in the Oval Office. And so given the facts and the history and the data about how the 911 widows and children have been treated and our failure to be compensated properly in alignment with the law for the murder of our husbands on 9 11, we wanted to reach out to Howard to see if he could facilitate a meeting between us and the president. And all of those efforts at outreach have been rebuffed. He's not willing to help us as far as we understand. And we've tried through several different avenues to get in touch with him. And that's really disappointing. After 9 11, one of the widows whose husband was actually very close with Howard, made some very good trades and work for Howard. The firm did very well, thanks to his efforts, was murdered on September 11. And his widow said to me, you know, Howard, after 9 11, told us constantly we were family. We were family. He was always going to be there for us. And, well, if you had a family member in the cabinet of the Trump administration, do you think you'd be struggling to get a meeting? It's not like we are some group without credible grievances and a credible issue. We are 3911 widows and children who are seeking just the fair and just compensation that we're owed under the law. That has not happened. President Trump, prior to being elected president, both times talked about releasing documents, talked about holding people accountable, talked about taking care of the families. That's just not happened. And we have a conduit through Howard. We reached out to him several times, and he's just failed to help us.
- [52:51]
Host 2
Right. So we did get this response from Secretary Lott. Nichols put it up there on the screen. I'm gonna read it in full. As I told his team I would. Secretary Lutnick lost his brother and his best friend on September 11. He then spent years fighting for the families of the 658 canor Fitzgerald employees, distributing more than 180 million out of his own firm. The idea he is indifferent to 911 families is not serious. That was in response, Kristen, to a series of questions that we sent over to the Commerce Department asking specifically about this meeting that you would want to facilitate with President Trump before we know. First of all, you're happy to include your own response to Secretary Lutnick if you would like. But let's clarify, what are you trying to meet with President Trump about?
- [53:34]
Host 1
So many of the widows feel that the president has not been fully briefed on the way the 911 widows and children have been treated in the last 24 years. We don't think that he's aware of the disparate treatment that we've received not only from prior presidents and the Department of Justice, but also the Department of Justice in this government fund that is supposed to treat all American victims fairly. And so when you look at the history of the September 11th attacks, what you find is that 3,000 people were murdered in broad daylight in lower Manhattan. 3,000 unsolved murders happened. And 24 years later, there has been no accountability, there has been no successful prosecutions by the Department of Justice. We have Guantanamo, which is still in its pre trial phase. And then you have our litigation against the defendants, the certain state sponsors of terrorism, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sudan. And what you learn when you look at those cases that are still in the Pre trial phase 24 years after the murder of 3,000 people, you learn that the government has not cooperated in sharing evidence and information that we know that they have have you learn that the government has in fact stonewalled and obfuscated information has made our ability to hold anyone accountable impossible. You look at Guantanamo, the reason why it's in the pre trial phase and why we're not able to hold anyone accountable down there is because the CIA tortured the detainees that are remaining there. And we will never be able to hold them accountable. We will never see them stand trial in a military tribunal. That wasn't our choice. The government threw that at us and forced us to take that that scenario. Additionally, 10 days after the 911 attacks, the government ex post facto took away our rights to hold anyone accountable. They capped liability levels. They made it impossible for us to hold anyone accountable. We weren't allowed to sue the airlines because if we sued the airlines, the government told us the entire US Economy would collapse. And so what we were told was it was the only game in town. They literally used that phrase and that we had to go into this compensation fund. The compensation fund did not compensate us for the murder of our loved ones in alignment with the law. Howard Lutnick is a businessman. He knows full well what happened to us in that victim's compensation fund program. He knows that it was unlawful, that it was nowhere near the compensation that we're owed under the law, which is the lost wages of our husbands that were murdered in any case, in this country, whether you are fired wrongfully, whether you are discriminated against, whether you are injured in the workplace, if you break a leg and you work in an Amazon warehouse, you are paid your lost wages as a result of that injury. Yet 3,000 people were murdered in broad daylight. 3,000 people were killed unnecessarily. Because I know as someone who fought for the 911 Commission, that the 911 attacks, 100% could have and should have been prevented. And so knowing those facts, I look to my government, my Department of Justice, and every president since President Bush to say, why weren't we compensated in alignment with the law? Why wasn't the law followed? Why were our rights to hold anyone accountable for the murder, the massacre of our loved ones? Why was the law not followed? Why were we robbed of our rights by our own government? And we don't get any answers. And president after president, it is not a Democrat or Republican issue. They refuse to reconcile our questions, our demand to get restitution that were owed under the law. And so we had looked to Howard. He's in the Cabinet. He's a businessman. He lost 700 of the guys that worked for him. He has profited off 9 11. You look at the money that that firm made in the wake of the 911 attacks, they did quite well. Many people did business with Howard because they wanted to make sure that the widows and children were taken care of. And unlike the widows and children who were barred from holding anyone accountable, you know, the city of New York, the Port Authority of New York, the building, the leaseholders, all the companies themselves for not, you know, my husband's company, told my husband to stay at his desk, don't run out of the building. Ron, stay at your desk.
- [57:53]
Host 3
The second tower, right, Kristen?
- [57:55]
Host 1
He was in the second tower. In my opinion, after all the work I've done with the 911 Commission, I can tell you this. Let me just qualify that I don't agree with the 911 Commission Report. It was a whitewash. So just. I want to be clear with that. But what I did learn in the process was that no One in Tower 2 should have died. Yet all of those people perished senselessly. And yet we're not allowed to hold anyone accountable for that. We're not allowed to hold the Port Authority, the businesses, et cetera, because the government took away our right to do that. And so when I looked at Howard and Cantor was allowed to sue, they recovered quite a bit of money. And some widows, Cantor widows, have asked if Howard had key man insurance on the men that were killed that day. I don't have the answer to that. That's something that we certainly would like to get some answers on. And so we're only asking for fairness and we're asking to be compensated in alignment with the laws of this country, which in the past 24 years has not happened. And yet when I look at other groups of victims, in fact, military victims, foreign service victims, in fact, they shouldn't even be called victims. What they should be called as casualties or injuries, battlefield injuries, those groups have been compensated well beyond the base $250,000 that they're supposed to receive when they're injured on the battlefield or in combat. Yet it's like upside down world. We find that the military casualties and injuries that are suffered overseas, either in the war in Iraq or at certain embassies like the Beirut bombing, the Khobar Tower bombing, the East African Embassy bombing, the USS Cole bombing. We see that these casualties and injuries in the military and foreign service are paid millions of dollars in a government fund, while the civilian widows and children are undercompensated and mistreated. And these are the types of things that we want to bring to Howard's attention because there's no way he knows it and that we want to bring to the President's attention.
- [59:56]
Host 2
Emily has a question for you.
- [59:57]
Host 3
Well, I was gonna say this brings us back to Lutnick. I mean, normal people watching this might say you're asking for a meeting, you're asking for a meeting, and you're not.
- [60:05]
Host 1
But apparently, according to Mr. Lutnick's spokesperson, that's not serious. Yes, I don't, you know, we're asking for, you know, 30 minutes of the President's time. I am very well plugged in. I see the people that the President meets with routinely and regularly. I've been to the White House. We met with the Trump National Security Council members last summer. We briefed them thoroughly about the hedge funds that are profiting from murder and terrorism in this government run fund. And we gave them all of the evidence, SEC documents, we gave them data, we gave them everything. And then we never heard back from them. And they told us that they were outraged. They told us that they were interested. They followed up with questions asking for evidence of criminal fraud. And we've never heard back from them.
- [60:50]
Host 2
Yeah, and we also reached out on your behalf, Kristen, to the U.S. department of justice, the U.S. victims of State sponsored Terrorism fund, based on the documents that you sent us. We sent them a list of the questions that you're alleging and they did not respond to any request for comment that we sent them. And we sent it almost two weeks ago. Just to be clear for that.
- [61:07]
Host 3
I want to add to this, Kristen, because I know you have thoughts. You know, it's my understanding you've been involved in this since you lost your husband. It's my understanding that Howard Lutnan, when he was at Cantor, they were involved in a lawsuit against the Saudis. It's worth noting that Jared Kushner has huge investment in his own fund from mbs from the Saudis. So as you look at the situation and try to understand why it is that they may not even want to have a meeting with you, why Howard Lutnick of all people may not even want to facilitate a meeting, why you're not hearing back from him, what explanation can you possibly come to for that?
- [61:44]
Host 1
Look, it's politically inconvenient and it's also financially inconvenient. There are plenty of people in this administration and quite frankly, full transparency, every prior administration that makes an awful lot of money through several of the monarchies in the Middle east and through our relationship with Israel. And so, you know, compensating widows and children and holding anyone accountable for the September 11 attacks is apparently politically inconvenient. But the reality is we're American citizens. We have a constitution in this country. We're based upon a rule of law. And when you look at the, you know, the effects of 9 11, and you look at how the United States government and every president in Congress has reacted in response to the 911 attacks, what you see, in my opinion, is an abortion of the rule of law. And I know that those are strong terms to say, but those are the facts. If you look at what has happened, how the thousands of widows and children have been treated, how 9 11, the attacks have been used to undermine the Constitution, to start wars based on lies, to roll back privacy rights, surveillance, wiretapping, to grossly over expand executive branch power, what you find is that the various administrations and Congresses in the last 24 years are happy to use 911 for whatever means that they think is necessary for their foreign policy agenda, for they themselves to profit on war and you know, murder. But yet when it comes to the widows and children simply asking for the restitution that we are owed under the law, and when someone is murdered in broad daylight, they want nothing to do with it. The reality is Howard is the Commerce Secretary. We have questions. He would be okay with hedge funds in the Cayman Islands profiting from murder and terrorism at the expense of this country's widows and children from this nation's worst terrorist attack in all its history.
- [63:44]
Host 2
Right.
- [63:44]
Host 1
And again, I want to reiterate, we are civilian victims, widows and children who, you know, watch their husbands who went to work get murdered on live worldwide television. We are owed what we are entitled to under the law. And I'd really like to know why President Trump wouldn't want to meet with us. Some of the Canter widows have said there's no way President Trump knows this information because he would never let it happen. He would be outraged to find out that Cayman island hedge funds are profiting from murder and terrorism at the expense of widows and children. And so that's simply what we asked Secretary Lutnick. We asked for a meeting. We asked his sister to help facilitate the meeting if Howard couldn't do it. And, you know, as I said, we've been unsuccessful. I do think some of it is involved with the geopolitics in the region, whether it's Israel, whether it's Saudi, whether it's the Emirates, whether it's Qataris. I don't know who it is, but we're just asking for a meeting. I think the President could find time in his very busy schedule to meet with us, especially considering the other groups that the President has met with that I've seen at least, you know, in the media.
- [64:52]
Host 2
I think that is an extremely fair point. My last question for you, Kristen, you referenced there the. You referenced all the ramifications of 9 11, which result not just of a big event for the country, but for you personally. You went to watch your husband murdered on live television and, you know, if this is too far, please let me know. But I'm curious, you know, when you're watching the Iran war happen and we're watching all of this death, do you worry about more blowback here in the United States and similar types of incidents? I just want to give you the opportunity, if you feel comfortable, 100%.
- [65:26]
Host 1
Listen, like I said, I worked to fight to get the creation of the 911 Commission. I testified before the joining query of Congress on the intelligence failures early on. We knew immediately that there was a parlay going on with regard to the government wanting to, you know, lie to the American people and say that Iraq did 9 11, you can go back and pull any kind of footage of me in the media. Iraq had nothing to do with 9 11. We tried as best as we could to get that information out. We were completely, you know, droned out by the administration, the Bush administration at the time, particularly Vice President Cheney, who's now deceased. Wolfowitz, Pearl, all those guys, unfortunately they took us to war in Iraq. 911 had nothing to do with Iraq. We went into Afghanistan. They let Bin Laden get away in Tora Bora. And what I do know and what I can speak to firsthand is that the data is there. I'm a very empirical person. I look at the facts, I look at the history and I look at the data. Data driven evidence shows that when you go overseas and you start preemptive wars, it makes the country less safe. And in fact, what scares me and upsets me and saddens me is that I know that innocent civilian widow and children will suffer the way the 911 widows and kids suffered because there will be blowback and there will be repercussions for what we are doing today overseas in the decades to come. And so when I look at the writings of Bin Laden and I hear why he attacked us, I know that it was because of our military bases in Saudi, the Holy Land. And I know it was because of our support of Israel. And so what I take particular umbrage with is that when I see that we're spending, I think the estimate now is like up to 75 billion in the Iran war. And I know over the last 24 years our support, our foreign aid to Israel has been around informally and formally combined, I think $175 billion. And so I take umbrage when someone like Senator Chuck Schumer tells me or his staff tells me that widows and children can't be treated fairly in a Department of justice government fund that is supposed to treat all American victims of state sponsored terrorism fairly. We can't treat you fairly, Kristen, because there's just too many of you. There's just too many widows and children to treat you fairly. We don't have the money. And I look at the budget that we have spent on the war in Iran and I look at the budget that has given foreign aid to Israel and the reason my husband was murdered, according to the man who murdered him, Bin Laden, was because of our support of Israel. And all I'm saying is, could you take some of that foreign aid that you're using in the war in Iran and the foreign aid to Israel and use it to compensate fairly and fully the 3,000 estates of those senselessly, needlessly, murdered 24 and a half years ago, that's all we're asking for. Could you take that budget and use it to compensate us under the law? That's all. We're not asking for special treatment. We're not asking to be enriched. We are just asking for the base level of compensation that we're owed under the law. And yet apparently from Senator Schumer on down up to the White House, there's just too many of you. There's too many of you to fairly compensate you under the laws of the United States of America. And what I want to say is the problem with that that guys, is that it doesn't set a deterrent factor. So when you get away with 3,000 people being murdered in broad daylight in lower Manhattan and no one is held accountable and no one has to literally pay the price for that. And in fact, they take that and they manipulate it and use it for 24 years to go to war, to drone strike, to torture, to roll up the rights under the Constitution, to expand executive branch power so that you don't even need Congress to go to war. When all of those things happen, what is the message that is sent to those in government? It's that you can do whatever you want to do. You can act with impunity, you can massacre and watch 3,000 people get murdered in broad daylight and nobody can do anything about it. And what I care about is making sure that there's a deterrent factor. And if you make them pay, they're going to think next time they're going to say, gee, maybe we should roll that California and detain those guys. Maybe when Sudan offers up in before 9:98, we should arrest him and prosecute him. Maybe we should flying from Afghanistan to set up, you know, Prepare for the 911 attacks. Maybe when there's a meeting in Malaysia, we should roll up that meeting and arrest everyone there and not just watch them continue to fly around the globe and murder 17 sailors in Yemen. Maybe those things will happen better next time and there won't be a widow like me spending 24 years of my life fighting to get basic questions answered and have people held accountable. If the government had held George Tenet accountable for his failures on 9 11, we would not have had the WMD lies to take us to Iraq. It if Mueller was held accountable for his lies to Congress Regarding the failure to prevent the 9, 11 attacks, we might have not had the wreckage caused by Mueller years later. These are simple things. And when our government and Congress refuse to hold anyone accountable and they allow certain individuals to act with impunity, innocent people like my husband get murdered and my life gets wrecked. And it's just. It's so un American. It is so unpatriotic to not recognize that and demand that things be done better, that lives can be saved the next time. I hope that answers the question. I'm sorry, I'm, you know, certainly does. To watch this war in Iran, to watch the president make the decisions that he's making, to not have an end game, to not have goals clarified, is no different than the last 20 years with the quote, unquote, war on terror. That was never defined, that was never, you know, explained with these goals that were never set out. Do you know how many soldiers were killed? Do you know how many lives were ruined? The wreckage overseas, it's gotta stop. And I don't know how it's gonna stop because the American people are so disengaged from it, they don't know how to get it to stop. And we've got members of Congress that literally do nothing. I mean, President Trump went to war in Iran and Congress went on break. I'm sorry. Like, that is not acceptable. I think every single member of Congress, with the exception of a handful, should be run out of town because people are dying. And I'm here to tell you, I am walking proof that when you start preemptive wars based on bullshit, people die, Americans die. You are not making this country safer. You are making us less safe. And you are alienating us from our allies overseas. That's just a reality. And someone, some adult needs to be in the room and start assessing and asking these questions and demanding answers. And if the American public doesn't get the answers, well, then we need to rise up and we need to change this government and we need to fix these problems. And the first way to do that is to hold everyone accountable who is responsible for the wreckage of the last 24 years. And I don't know what convening body is able to do that. And that's the other problem in this country. We have no convening authority that can come in and hold these people accountable. Who's going to do it? You think the federal judges are going to do it? Who do you think puts federal judges in place?
- [73:14]
Host 2
I think you should do it.
- [73:15]
Host 1
I think you should run for guilty.
- [73:17]
Host 2
What I think you should run for Congress.
- [73:19]
Host 1
No, thank you. You know what? I'm a, I, I, I'm a solutions person. I get things done. And I don't know any member of Congress who does anything to help.
- [73:30]
Host 2
Yeah, but you had me fired up. You had me fired up on that speech. You, you know what?
- [73:35]
Host 1
Because I've lived it honestly. I've spent 24 years of my life simply asking. I'm an attorney. I just want my husband's murder to be recognized and I want what I'm owed under the law. And I watch Congress after Congress, administration after administration. I see it. And once you know what's going on, you cannot unsee it. And then I look at the American public and I look at how we're suffering, and I look how farmers in the Midwest are struggling to survive. And I look at young mothers who live in cities that just want their kids to be safe and to go to school. School. And then I look at the billions and trillions of dollars that we have spent overseas fighting wars that do not make us safer. The only thing that those wars do is make the military industrial complex more wealthy and, you know, profit on murder. It's, it's despicable. And it's all there for anyone to see. But unfortunately, regular people are just struggling to get through the day and they don't have the bandwidth to do the work and to see what's really going on. And they also don't know how to stop it because the system is broken and regular people do not have a voice. You can't go to Washington and get a meeting. Do you know how hard it is to get a meeting with your congressman?
- [74:52]
Host 2
I do.
- [74:52]
Host 1
Congressman. To care. These congressmen don't even write the bills that they're getting people to vote for. How many meetings I've had with legal staff of big time congressmen and senators, and I asked them about a line and a legislation that they've written. I'm like, yeah, what does that mean? Could you give me the definition of repurpose? They're like, what do you mean? I'm like, oh, you know, page three, line 13. Like, what does repurpose mean? Where are you sending that money? They don't even know what's in their own bill. Did I? Oh, I didn't know that was in there. I'm like, well, who wrote your bill? And I'm telling you, I could tell you who wrote the bill because I know, because they admitted it. And I'm not going to say it here because it'll start up. I don't even know what. But our own congressmen and senators are not writing their legislation. Other lawyers and lobbyists from various groups with special interests are writing the legislation. And I'll tell you something, and if I'm an American, I got a problem with that. I want my senators and congressmen to be writing legislation that's in my interests. And I'm here to tell you, 24 years, walking the halls of Congress, meeting everyone from the president on down, they are not writing legislation for you and me. They are writing it so that they themselves and their special interest groups that give them boatloads of money can all do well while the rest of us suffer. And it's got to stop. I don't know how it's going to stop. But if you can think of the way, you guys are both very smart, you have a platform. I pray to God that you do it, because we are at the tipping point at this point. And if this stuff continues, there's no coming back. There's no saving this country. I simply want this country to be the country my husband believed. It was on the morning of September 11th when he took a ferry across to lower Manhattan to go to work. And he called me before the plane hit his building in the first building and said, good morning, Sweets. Like, how's your day? What are you guys up to today? That's the country I want back. And I don't think it's that hard to do. We just need to fix some of these problems and get some of these corrupt people out of our government. So I'm sorry, let's end it there.
- [76:49]
Host 2
Kristen, that's a really good. No, it's good. It's nothing compared to the struggle that you've lived. And we just want to thank you for taking the time and especially for reaching out to us. We were happy to advocate on your behalf asking these questions to the government. So at least you know, that they were aware at the very least as we reached out. So, Kristen, thank you very, very much. Yeah.
- [77:10]
Host 1
And if I could just say one last thing, I hope you guys will have us back on. You know, we are going to make a big push in the next couple of months before the anniversary. And so we have a lot of information that we want to share. And so I hope we can come back on as we get closer to the anniversary date so that we can discuss some of these things. We have got two white papers, one from a very large law firm in Washington, D.C. and another from an economic firm. So we've got expert reports to back up everything that we're talking about. And I do hope that you would have us back on.
- [77:42]
Host 2
Absolutely. No question. You have my number. You know where to find me. All right. Thank you very much, Kristen.
- [77:46]
Host 3
Thank you, Kristin. All right.
- [77:47]
Host 1
Bye. Bye.
- [77:48]
Host 2
Thank you guys so much for watching.
- [77:50]
Host 3
Wasn't she amazing?
- [77:51]
Host 2
She's incredible.
- [77:51]
Host 3
Yeah. Absolutely.
- [77:52]
Host 2
Yeah. I love her. All right. And we will definitely have her back. Don't you guys worry. We'll see you guys. We went long, obviously. So we'll push jma, I think, to tomorrow. Emily and I are back on. Then we'll see you then.
- [78:18]
Host 1
This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.