← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
4/3/26: Iran Shoots Down US Jet, Trump Purges Military, CNN Loses It On Hasan
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- [00:00]
Emily
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Emily Jashinsky
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- [02:51]
Emily Jashinsky
Hey, guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [02:52]
Emily
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
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Emily Jashinsky
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
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Emily
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 morning in your inbox.
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Emily Jashinsky
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we
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Ryan Grim
hope to see you at Breaking points.
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Com.
- [03:21]
Emily Jashinsky
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Breaking Points. We have some breaking news actually to get to in just one moment. And it's a heavy news cycle. I mean, Pam Bondi was fired yesterday as well. So there's a lot for us to get to. Let's start, though, just by welcoming Ryan and Griffin. How you guys doing today?
- [03:40]
Ryan Grim
Doing good. Got a giant purge of the military underway just as there's a search and rescue operation going on in southern Iran. So not great timing for that, but, you know, never great timing for a purge, I guess.
- [03:54]
Griffin Davis
I think we can say we're all flying high.
- [03:57]
Emily Jashinsky
This is, this is me. Let me, I'm just going to share this clip for everyone.
- [04:01]
Ryan Grim
I'm just chilling in Cedar Rapids.
- [04:04]
Emily Jashinsky
This is my life right now. I'm not even in Cedar. I'm not even in Cedar Rapids. I'm in Cedar Falls, outside of Cedar Rapids. So that's, that's where I'm coming to everyone from today. And it is, it's dreary, but the news cycle is dreary. So fittingly dreary. Now, Ryan, you were just mentioning before we went to aehr, which, as a reminder, the second half of the Friday show is paywalled for premium subscribers. We have a lot of new premium subscribers, a lot of new people joining us on those premium subscriptions. And the second half of the show is for premium subscribers. So you can head over to breakingpoints.com, grab a premium subscription, help us keep doing this independent journalism. That's the best way to do it. If you can. You can't. No problem. Go ahead. Like the video subscribe. That helps us so much as well. But, Ryan, we were talking, speaking of independent Journalism just before we went to air here. You think, Jeremy, Jeremy Scahel, your colleague over at Dropsite might have been the first to get some of this, at least in the Western press, get some of what's happening right now in Iran.
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Ryan Grim
Yeah. So this morning an Iranian official told Jeremy that an F15E was shot down over southern Iran and that there was a search and rescue operation underway from the, from the United States. The, some of the Iran. You know, the state affiliated Forest News Agency had already reported some of this. I think Jeremy might have been the first to confirm it in the Western media many hours later. The Israeli press has since, has since confirmed it. Clearly the Israelis were briefed on, on what's going on here and so are now, you know, sharing, sharing details as well. I, I believe the American media outside of Dropsite is now finally starting to follow it. This comes after, you know, within 24 hours of another kind of video that surfaced of a plane that looked to be getting shot down and headed towards the sea. But there was then a lot of pushback around that one saying that no, the fighter actually, fighter pilot actually evaded it and was able to, you know, make it back safely. So we don't, we still don't know much about that. There was another, you know, it also raises questions about, you know, previous, about previous claims that the US had denied saying no, no, no, we, this, this actually has not happened because this one clearly has happened. F15Es have two pilots in them. They're. And so we know for sure that there are rescue operations underway here. I can share. So on Iranian telegram. Let me see if I can get these going Stars. A lot of videos reporting this as well circulating. This is, this is a refueling jet flying at a extremely low altitude. That, and then there were, there are also some footage of Apache helicopter, American Apache helicopters. This is the refueling jet as well. You're, you're seeing. Let me see what else we got here. So, okay, so these are the. Apparently, you know what my understanding is that these are the kind of rare earth stealth Blackhawk helicopters that have been dispatched to, you know, for this search and rescue operation. Doing so in broad daylight is extraordinarily dangerous. Of course there's a lot of, I think intentional misinformation flying around at this point. There's some reporting out of the Iranian media that the, a lot of people have probably seen by now the kind of image of the, the pilot's chair that that is taken in the southern, the desert in southern Iran with, with a parachute next to it. There's, there's now Iranian reporting claiming that that was posted to lure the US Into a search and rescue operation and that there, and there are further reports that the Iranians already have the pilots, though there's, the status of how they're doing is unknown. But that also might be misinformation. Like you can't really believe anything coming out of either the US Israel or Iran right now. Although we do know for sure that this jet was shot down. Like that part is all sides confirming. Yeah, there you have.
- [08:30]
Emily Jashinsky
What's, what's up on the screen is just within the last half an hour. U.S. officials have confirmed this to the New York Times.
- [08:36]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, right. So this is ahead of a potential ground operation. This is not even part of the kind of boots on the ground operation that Trump may or may not be planning. But it certainly doesn't bode well for, especially given that Hegseth has repeatedly said that the US has complete air superiority.
- [08:59]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, and this is exactly, I mean, I don't mean this in a Papian sense, but this is exactly why when you, even with the best of intentions say we're doing a two week bombing run, this is a limited airstrike campaign. This is a Middle Eastern version of the Maduro raid. As much as you can want that to be the case when events like this happen, it's the escalation trap. Again, not in a Papian sense, but in the sense that this is how you end up getting trapped in escalation against your intentions, which is that now you have potentially an on the ground search and rescue mission, which can potentially wrap in even more lives. But it's on the ground. And on top of that, you now have the, the, what's the right word for this? The, I don't want to say the pride, but I think that's probably how Donald Trump and Pete Higseth will see it. The, the pride of the States on the line where a fighter jet has been shot down by enemies and potentially more American deaths. So if we don't think this is going to lead to escalation that could draw us into a ground campaign. I mean, this is exactly, I was saying yesterday on SiriusXM, like this is how we don't know. Trump gives a speech and says two to three more weeks of bombing, bombing back to the Stone Age. But exactly historically, the way that these things can grow and grow and grow and metastasize into conflicts that are bigger than people expect is just by steps like this on the ladder. This is exactly what people were warning about.
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Ryan Grim
And Trump himself is out with a new statement on Truth Social that will do nothing to calm anybody's fears. He says with a little more time we can easily open the Hormuz Strait, take the oil and make a fortune. It would be a gusher for the world. But then. Question mark. Sorry. It would be a gusher for the world. Question three, question marks.
- [11:03]
Griffin Davis
Okay.
- [11:04]
Ryan Grim
I don't, I don't know why the question marks. So by the way, he's posting this and these President Donald J. Trump, he's posting this after he must have been briefed that he'd lost, that we'd lost an F15E.
- [11:21]
Emily Jashinsky
And his response, it's in the New York Times. He's been briefed.
- [11:25]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. So this is, he posted this at 8:20 this morning. He says two hours. Yeah, he'd been briefed on this. Yeah. When did, when did Jeremy post his. Yeah, Jeremy posted his at 3:09am so, so Jeremy post. So Jeremy posted 3:09am Let me put this up here. And I just think this is remarkable about who this guy is. So, so here's, so here's Jeremy's post. At 3am this morning,
- [11:57]
Griffin Davis
Trump's normal working
- [11:58]
Ryan Grim
hours warplane hit by Iran went down over southern Tehran province. Officials said that because of the nature of the strike, the pilot could not evacuate before crashing intense fire the scene. No remains have been found. Five hours later, Trump is tweeting about how we're going to make a fortune. It's going to be a gusher for the world. Like this is a crazy person.
- [12:21]
Emily Jashinsky
That's a really good point, Ryan. Like he's just been briefed on two missing likely. I mean, I don't know, I shouldn't say likely. But potentially deceased service members in a war that he decided to start and
- [12:35]
Ryan Grim
they clearly have some intel that they might be alive because they've launched this massive search and rescue operation. Right. So amid that he tweets this is going to be a gusher for the world.
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Griffin Davis
The world, question mark. Yeah, for the world.
- [12:49]
Emily Jashinsky
It was a question mark. I guess to be fair, he's just
- [12:53]
Griffin Davis
throwing it out there. He's just, just asking questions. I also wanted to flag. CNN reported last night from their sources that over half of Iran's missiles launchers remain intact as well as a ton of one way attack drones.
- [13:11]
Emily Jashinsky
So interesting B lines on the story. Griffin, I'm glad you brought up because I have it right in front of me and let me just share the screen. It's in Natasha Bertrand, Jim Scudo story. And Ryan, you could probably tell us more about Jim Shuto because you covered the Obama administration, but he was working at, it was State, right? He was working at State during the Obama administration.
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Ryan Grim
Did he work for the State Department or covering State Department?
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Emily Jashinsky
No, he, he was, he worked for the Obama administration. He was, he was in the administration. But anyway, all that is to say the sourcing is somewhat interesting. Natasha Bur Bertrand I take everything she says with a heaping grain of salt because I assume that it's genuinely generally often coming from the CIA. But the lead of the story is that doesn't mean it's always wrong that's coming from the CIA, but it does mean it's probably trying to manipulate you in one direction or the other. Roughly half of Iran's missile launchers are still intact and thousands of one way attack drones remain in Iran's arsenal despite the daily pounding by U.S. and Israeli strikes against military targets over the past five weeks, according to recent U.S. intel assessments. Three sources familiar with the intel told CNN, quote, they are still very much poised to wreak absolute havoc throughout the entire region, end quote. One of the sources said of Iran. And finally the US intel assessment total may include launchers that are currently inaccessible, such as those buried underground by strikes but not destroyed. What did you make of this one? Ryan?
- [14:37]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, I mean I think what, what we don't seem to understand is that we are at war with a real country like we, we are used to. We have spent the last 20 years fighting insurgents and insurgent groups and the Taliban around, around the world. What we have now confronted in the case of Iran is a government that has spent nearly 50 years kind of preparing for a defensive war. It spent the first 10 years of its existence in actual war against Iraq, armed heavily by the US and Israel ironically. But it spent the time after that believing that it was likely that at some point the US and Israel collectively were going to attack them and try to overthrow the regime. Iran has is one of the most kind of just geographically naturally fortified countries you could think of, just, just surrounded by mountains. And so they've spent decades, you know, building these kind of missile cities deep under that mountainous terrain such that they are trying to make it so that even a tactical nuclear weapon wouldn't be able to hit them. Now there are a lot of videos that have been circulating of kind of, you know, explosions and then secondary explosions and particularly in Isfahan. And it, it seems like they're hitting a lot of ammo storage and a lot of ammo dump. The the, that kind of ammo is what the Iranians would use to repel a 1980s style, you know, Iraq invasion. Like you said, it would send in a bunch of tanks and troops. Then you'd shoot the, you know, 155 millimeter shells at them. Those, that's not the artillery, artillery that you're going to be firing at Israel or at Kuwait or the, you know, any of the Gulf states. Those are the ballistic missiles which are buried much deeper in, in the mountains and which they've been developing methods of launching that that would be able to continue in a lack of air superiority. This is, and they've been planning it for a very, very long time. So they had the time, they had, they had the resources, they, despite the sanctions, oil producing country and they had the motivation and the capacity to do it. They did it. And now we're shocked that we're not just bumping them off like it's Al Shabaab or something.
- [17:12]
Emily Jashinsky
And we should also mention looking at the New York Times live blog right now, their update scroll is overwhelming. This is just as of two hours ago, more infrastructure sites in Gulf countries came under attack. So this is about that, that Kuwait, the Kuwaiti desalination plant. Desalination plant, yep. Absolutely. And then the bridge, was it yesterday, the highway bridge near Tehran that was damaged in a US Strike that President Trump celebrated on Thursday? According to the Times, the attack on the B1 bridge killed eight people and wounded 95, according to a local official cited in state media.
- [17:50]
Griffin Davis
We've also got Trump's tweet here of the video he decided to tweet out. He says the biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again. Much more to follow. It is time for Iran to make a deal before it is too late and there's nothing left of what still could become a great country. So this is like a major attack on a civilian site. There's also some reports that it was a double tap. Ryan, did you hear this?
- [18:15]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. Yes. That rescue crews were hit.
- [18:18]
Griffin Davis
Yes.
- [18:19]
Ryan Grim
So not only a civilian brain, but yeah.
- [18:22]
Griffin Davis
Well, we're here. It's unconfirmed, but we've been hearing it and so yes. Do we think that these civilian attacks are just retribution for our asses getting kicked and that we're going to keep ramping that stuff up?
- [18:39]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, it seems like it's going to ramp up.
- [18:41]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. It fits with the kind of Israeli strategy of we're going to degrade Iran as much as possible, you know, in the time that we're able to continue waging this just, you know, blowing up the pharmaceutical industry, blowing up the steel industry, going after medical sites. This can only be aimed at like the total destruction of their society absent being able to do a regime change. And again, by the way, which I not that anybody cares, but you know, obvious war crimes.
- [19:18]
Emily Jashinsky
When you have then two service members missing on the ground as of right now, when you have that situation unfolding as well, it just all of this creates, at least in the minds of wartime leaders, more of a permission structure for escalation. And that's this. Waking up this morning to this particular slate of news is very bleak.
- [19:44]
Public Ad Announcer
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- [20:45]
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- [22:22]
Ryan Grim
not obvious how this gets out of this mess?
- [22:26]
Griffin Davis
Yes, not at all. Well, it remains to be seen how this will be a gusher for the world. But why don't we get into some of the strategic firings happening behind the scenes. There's been a big clearing of house on Trump and Hegseth's end. Hegseth, I believe, has removed three top generals. And yeah, you can throw those up if you have a memory.
- [22:54]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah.
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Griffin Davis
And also.
- [22:56]
Emily Jashinsky
Go ahead.
- [22:57]
Ryan Grim
Oh, yeah.
- [22:57]
Griffin Davis
And also, Trump has released Pam Bondi into the private sector. But first, why don't we start with the Hegset.
- [23:07]
Emily Jashinsky
Pam Bondi has been traded ahead of the deadline. I had another trade deadline to the private sector. And it's a swap that everyone's really pleased with. But no, in all seriousness, obviously, the big news yesterday, I have to say it surprised me, was that Pam Bondi, Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had just been with Donald Trump at the Supreme Court the day earlier and who has known Trump for many, many years, is out. So Todd Blanche, who was deputy ag, you may remember, Todd Blanche is the person who conducted that Ghislaine Maxwell interview, is now stepping in as attorney general. Remains to be seen whether Trump there. I will note one interesting angle of this that's a little softer, but it is. I find it interesting you had Kristi Noeman, Pam Bondi, both of whom were put in those roles, at least in part because Donald Trump thought they were strong communicators, that they were strong on television, and that they would take this sort of generational political opportunity as people on the right saw it, when with with Noam, it was immigration crackdown, with Bondi, it was retribution and communicate it, convey it in a way to the public that mitigate any fallout and the like. They have both been replaced by men, at least so far and not, you know, your typical, like, I guess Mark Wayne Mullen counts as somebody who Trump thinks is, is good on media and is, is more telegenic. But I don't know that you could necessarily say that of Todd Blanche. Let's, let's read a little bit because Politico's reporting here, I think it is. This is roughly what I'm hearing as well. Quote, Pam Bondi did almost everything Donald Trump asked. It wasn't enough. Bondi's ouster is AG Thursday continuing to string of unceremonious departures for occupants of Trump's most perilous cabinet post. All have one commonality, failure in Trump's eyes to sufficiently use the Justice Department as a shield from legal scrutiny and a sword against his political enemies. He is now looking at potentially Lee Zeldin, who is EPA administrator but was looking into, as Politico says, the, quote, cascade of criminal prosecutions. Trump has long demanded against his enemies that truth social post he accidentally made made public. Does everyone remember this?
- [25:23]
Ryan Grim
Yes.
- [25:23]
Emily Jashinsky
He accidentally posted a DM, which is interesting because it means Trump is DMing his own cabinet officials on social media. Right. And that the account is so casually used by the president that you could, it's, it's conceivable to accidentally post something with implications. I mean, he does foreign policy and truth social implications for the world. So just another interesting part of that. But he was asking her basically get tougher. And it looks like from all of the reporting, this had nothing to do with Epstein. Unless, you know that that's not a precipitating factor in this. What Trump wanted from Pam Bondi was more prosecutions of his political enemies, basically. And we should add, no tears for Pam Bondi who brought the swamp into the Justice Department. Not for the first time. It's obviously very routine, but they oversaw this horrible corrupt process at the FTC that was allowing mergers to go through, cash being like, exchanged and just yucking it up. Now, not like back alley deals, but like typical lobbyist type exchanges which, you know, again, Trump administration welcomes Gail Slater and says she's gonna crack down on big tech. And then Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche and Chad Mizell and others say, sorry, swamp's more powerful here. Basically, Pam Bondi came in, Pambani was a lobbyist. She was, she was a pretty successful lobbyist. So perhaps that's where she's going back to.
- [27:01]
Griffin Davis
And then we have, you know, Trump Here saying a farewell to Pam Bondi. He says, Pam Bondi is a great American patriot and a loyal friend who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year. Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in CR across our country, with murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900. Very interesting. We love Pam, and she'll be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector. And, yeah, I guess we. There's a lot of other findings to get to, but my final question for both of you is, didn't Pam Bondi kind of do a great job? I mean, she had two jobs, right? Cover up the Epstein files and go after political enemies, which. The Epstein files thing.
- [27:50]
Ryan Grim
She did a terrible job covering up the Epstein files.
- [27:53]
Griffin Davis
Yeah, well, here's the. Well, here's the thing, Ryan. I mean, listen, they're not all released. You still don't have all the files. So that's one point for Pam, right?
- [28:01]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, but he had to go to war to stop, like, the news cycle around it. So that's. That's a loss when it comes to your PR management if you have to actually launch a world war to, like, distract from, like, the, you know, what. He didn't want to happen at all, then. Yeah, that's. That's an L. Well, there was a
- [28:23]
Griffin Davis
period where she was the center of it, in a sense, where she was taking all the blame for it in a way that kind of helped Trump, because then everyone could say, oh, it's actually Pam Bondi who is befuddling this and. And messing this up. She did the influencer photos, and she, you know, she did a few other embarrassing, you know, public speeches about it. And then people were able to kind of direct attention away from Trump and onto her and kind of blame it on her, which is kind of what he's looking for. Right? Yeah.
- [28:57]
Ryan Grim
That was bad, right, Emily? Like, that was terrible. Like, the way that she. I mean, no, it was. No, it did not help him.
- [29:03]
Griffin Davis
Like, it did not happen.
- [29:04]
Ryan Grim
There was no reason for her to say that she had thousands of hours of, like, pedophile stuff, that she had all of this stuff on her desk. There was no reason for her to give empty binders and humiliate all of those, like, allies of the White House. That was all own goals. None of that was unforced. That was. Those were. Those were unforced errors.
- [29:29]
Emily Jashinsky
She made the situation 200 times worse in her efforts to, like, circle the wagons around the President and protect him, which is extra pathetic now. I'M reading from the Federalist right now. Obviously, I used to work there. The Federalist is like the, if you're, if you're looking for coverage on the right of, like, where they would be looking to see or looking for the rights perspective on the kind of retribution, the legal retribution in the Trump administration, this would be the place. And just to characterize some of the conservative backlash to Pam Bondi, they're basically saying the coverage here from Matt Kittle, who's intervened, Mike Howell of the Oversight Project, which I think is connected to the Heritage foundation, but they're looking for a, quote, vicious operator. The headline is Trump needs a quote, vicious operator to bring the Justice Department to bring justice back to the Justice Department. It cites particularly the Biden auto pen scandal, which is really big on the right, that, like, Bondi was not able to, like, actually get prosecutions in the autopen scandal, which we know Trump is obsessed with. And that's kind of a proxy. It's not, it's not just about, you know, oh, none of the auto pen people got locked up or there's been no justice. It's more saying, like, if you can't prosecute the autopen stuff with the president, which the president is obsessed with, then what aren't you doing? That should be going, like, remember when Tulsi Gabbard went, I was the new media seat at this briefing. It just happened that way where she comes up and talks about this investigation, sprawling investigation into Obama and John Brennan that the White House and the Justice Department is looking into. Well, conservatives are getting impatient and saying, where are the actual charges? Like, why have no charges been brought? So I think that's where Trump probably is personally just obsessed with the auto pen scandal. The auto pen prosecutions, they're looking for more heads to roll, basically.
- [31:38]
Griffin Davis
And then Trump set her off on James Comey and she, she sent something off for that. It just was like, kind of made up.
- [31:46]
Ryan Grim
Right.
- [31:47]
Emily Jashinsky
Comey. Well, it's a whole. That's a. Such a mess. It was, I don't want to say necessarily thin, but there was a whole thing with the statute of limitations and it was, if I'm remembering the details correctly, essentially like a perjury charge. So, yeah, that's a, maybe also a good example of a prosecution being bungled by Trump's perspective, because that was a hot mess. But I don't know to what extent that was Pam Bondi's fault. I mean, obviously she's the head of the Justice Department, but it's, it just, it sounds like you know, Vicious Operator. I don't know who's going to fit that bill. I don't know if it's Lee Zelda, and I don't think Lee Zeldin, Vicious Operator. So we'll see. Maybe Matt Gaetz comes out of retirement.
- [32:31]
Griffin Davis
Oh, that'd be cool. Ryan, though, there are more heads potentially to roll. Trump is not just considering or has not just fired Bondi, but is considering firing others. Who else is on this hit list?
- [32:44]
Ryan Grim
Well, the, the Pentagon stuff is like, it's extremely intense, like, fact that we're doing this, like, right in the middle of this war. So, so he has pushed out General Randy George and I'm told this is basically a clash between Hegseth and Driscoll, the army secretary and ultimately will kind of evolve into a, a Heg Seth versus J.D. vance clash. I don't know if you've heard anything about that, Emily, but this weirdly, like, I know a lot of people on the left are like, worried that this is like Hegseth, like consolidating power and that Trump's going to do some coup or something. It feels like it's actually more related to like, Hegseth's hostility to dei and he's gone after a bunch of other. He's, he's tried to block a bunch of promotions of women and minorities and Driscoll has pushed back against him. And this is Hegseth kind of company firing back around that. The Washington Post reporting, you know, two other army generals were removed along with George. They are General David Hodney, who became the head of the service's training and Transformation command in October, and Maj. Gen. William Greene Jr. Senior, the chief of Army Chaplains. So it's like, but like, what, what is this, what is this guy doing here?
- [34:24]
Griffin Davis
So, Ryan, are you saying the strait of Hormuz is not open yet because of woke? Is that essentially the administration's plan here?
- [34:32]
Emily Jashinsky
They've been way too focused on the gaze of Hormuz and. No, like, this is the problem with DEI is that it's all about the gay of Hormuz and not about the straight of Hormuz.
- [34:42]
Griffin Davis
Gotta focus on the straits.
- [34:44]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. And so Hegseth has been trying, has been consolidating power from the beginning. You know, they, they've fired a whole ton of people, it looks like. Here's again from the post with George's aler, Hegseth has remade nearly the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, the only ones remaining from when Hegseth took office just over a year ago. Are General Eric Smith of the Marine Corps and General Chance Saltzman, head of the Space Force. Everybody else. And the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been. Has been replaced. Like, extremely unusual.
- [35:24]
Griffin Davis
Has there been this kind of a head change in past wars, like with Iraq, Afghanistan at the beginning? Was there a big period?
- [35:31]
Ryan Grim
Not in peacetime or the purges. Hmm. Purges are not really a thing in kind of US Military history.
- [35:40]
Emily Jashinsky
Like, which, by the way, is the
- [35:42]
Ryan Grim
flip side Civil War, when Lincoln's like, pissed off at all generals. We can get Sagar on here to run through it, but, like, it's not a thing. Like, it's a much more routinized, methodical, hierarchical, like, orderly system than. Than even in. In Trump 1. But Trump is clearly bringing Trump energy to the. To the Pentagon.
- [36:05]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, this is the. The flip side of it is that the Pentagon is a bureaucratic knot of people who are way too comfortable and probably should be purged. I don't know. The. It would be very difficult for me to say the particulars of, like, who should go, who's worthy and who's unworthy. But that's obviously, I think it's very clearly, I think, a problem at Pentagon. And then if you don't come up with a sane solution to the problem, you end up getting people who just go and take Leo DiCaprio's blowtorch at the end of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to the entire operation in wartime. So the General Ryan pointed this out as we were opening the show, George is ousted. We don't know the exact timeline yet, but basically, as we have fighter pilots missing or killed in action over Iran, like, these things are unfolding simultaneously. And that's a horrible look. And we're like, this is. This is pretty new news. This is, like, fairly recent development. So we'll learn more about what was happening behind the scenes. But that's a. They have a lot to answer for, probably, when it comes to exactly what was happening behind the scenes.
- [37:23]
Ryan Grim
Yep. And I think, Griffin, you were referring to Trump apparently polling his advisors on whether he should fire Tulsi Gabbard Numbered. Yes.
- [37:32]
Griffin Davis
DNI or do not invite is as they call her, I believe.
- [37:37]
Ryan Grim
If. If Tulsi. Yeah.
- [37:39]
Emily Jashinsky
No, they're also.
- [37:42]
Ryan Grim
Go ahead, Emily.
- [37:43]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, I was gonna say they're also apparently, according to Playbook, he's, quote, expressed frustrations with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez de Reamer. Lori Chavez de Rimmer has been drowning in scandals over the last. Last so many months. So that's one that you could, that's a head you could easily see rolling. Quote, rumors also continue circling around FBI.
- [38:05]
Griffin Davis
What's her major scandal? Emily, I forget.
- [38:08]
Ryan Grim
Oh no, not like her husband doing a bunch of stuff, right?
- [38:12]
Emily
Yeah.
- [38:12]
Emily Jashinsky
Her husband kicked out. Well, her too. It's, it's like pretty typical DC type stuff like misuse of public resources and her husband has a little bit of a, a problem. Like they're not even letting him back into the labor building because.
- [38:24]
Ryan Grim
Because wasn't he like assaulting people or like.
- [38:28]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah. Also apparently Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. So in addition to Tulsi and Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem, it's, it's beginning to be Trump 1 ish. And covering Trump 1, it was just Jeff Sessions and James like it was just this constant switching of personnel, top key personnel, personnel. And that was one of the big differences between Trump 1 and Trump 2 is that he came in with this sort of well considered slate, meaning they had thought long and hard about the strategy of who they were putting where and who could get Senate confirmed and the like. And now a year in, it's starting to feel a little bit much sort of shakier on the palace intrigue front. And that was always seen as like a good, A lot of conservatives saw that as like this was the Trump 2.0 new and improved proved.
- [39:27]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. And it, and it looks like Tulsi, you know, is going to just let herself get fired. It's in just so embarrassing. You know, her friend Joe Kent went out on top. Like he went out viral post he did the circuit. And so now they're gunning for Tulsi because they know that she kind of agrees with him, but she doesn't have have the stones to just like say it. And what, like what is she staying for it? It's election interference to get fired than to quit over principal. But okay, whatever. Meanwhile, Trump is asking the Congress for $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon, which.
- [40:12]
Griffin Davis
And for ships.
- [40:14]
Ryan Grim
Like a doubling. It's a, that's like a doubling of the budget over the last couple of years. It included yeah, 41 warships when, when our.
- [40:24]
Griffin Davis
Which we're having some issues with when
- [40:25]
Ryan Grim
you get anywhere near Iran.
- [40:28]
Griffin Davis
Well that's, that's to fix the laundry rooms on all the future ships so they don't catch on fire. Ryan. But, but the one way drone attacks, we're still gonna have issues with that. How many drones could you buy with 1.5 trillion you could buy.
- [40:41]
Ryan Grim
Yes, all the drones.
- [40:43]
Emily Jashinsky
All the drones.
- [40:44]
Ryan Grim
All the drones. Yeah. It's crazy. Like, these ships are. These ships cost billions and they can't even get close to Iran because of these $20,000 Shahed drones. And so now we're gonna go build a whole bunch more of them while cutting spending on, you know, healthcare, education, infrastructure, like, things that the American people need here at home. Home. Like, he's, he's now consciously and explicitly linking, like we saw. He's like making campaign ads against himself on a regular basis.
- [41:21]
Emily Jashinsky
Oh, my gosh. The Social Security thing or the.
- [41:24]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, you saw, we, we can't do daycare. We can't do all, we can't do Medicaid, Medicare. We can't do all of these things. We got to do war. Let the states do those. And then, you know, they can raise their taxes. States can raise their taxes.
- [41:37]
Emily Jashinsky
It's like I was listening to Sohrab. Sarah Bamari was on Megan Kelly yesterday. I was listening to it. And he saying like, that is. This is a great point. He was like, that is the one. One of the hardest red line differences that Trump drew intentionally, strategically between himself and the old Republican Party was he said over and over again because he understood the GOP base better than the GOP politicians, we are not touching your entitlements. He didn't use the word entitlement, but he said, we are not touching this and we're not going to do stupid wars. We're gonna new stupid wars. We're gonna focus here at home. And when you combine those two things, the politics of it is like, to your point, Ryan, about Trump posting on Truth Social, while he's clearly been briefed on two fighter pilots missing in action in Iran. Like, he's always had a screw or 20 loose, but he's. There's an ungluing happening right now. The great unglue gluing.
- [42:39]
Ryan Grim
Right. So Donald Trump is trying to destroy the American empire, destroy the fossil fuel industry and destroy the Republican Party. And somehow people are on the left are mad at him about that. That's the part I don't understand. Like, this is the, like, greatest revolutionary figure the left has ever kind of put into power.
- [42:58]
Griffin Davis
Well, it's almost like the Democrats. Any lessons? Yeah, the Democrats won't have to learn a single lesson. They're so excited about this that
- [43:07]
Emily Jashinsky
this is a vindication of Susan Sarandon, who went on Chris Hayes and she said something along the lines, this was like 2016 of she was being challenged on Bernie stuff at the time by Chris Hayes. And he was like, so are you saying that you maybe Trump will be better, you know, for like revolutionary purposes. Like, and I think she said something to, along the lines of like heightening the contradictions. Like, and he's. Do you mean that in like a. Or she said he might bring the revolution faster. That was the quote. He said, Chris Hayes goes. Do you mean that in like a Leninist way? And she was like, yeah, yeah.
- [43:43]
Ryan Grim
Well, he's doing it. Speaking of which, it was a huge controversy.
- [43:47]
Emily Jashinsky
They tried to cancel her.
- [43:48]
Ryan Grim
Yes, yes, yes.
- [43:49]
Griffin Davis
Sorry to cut you off, Emily. We do have a guest coming in right now. And just a flag. This is a long Easter weekend, so we probably expect a lot more excursions and events to occur over this long weekend because I believe markets are not open on Monday if I'm. If I'm correct. So expect quite a lot more action.
- [44:08]
Ryan Grim
Close today, right?
- [44:10]
Griffin Davis
Are they close today? Oh, you're right, because it's Good Friday. All right. Well, on that note, we do have a candidate joining us. Why don't we get to her
- [44:20]
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Special.
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- [47:30]
Ryan Grim
Well, we're joined now by Effie Phillips Staley, candidate for Congress in New York 17th district. This is running against Mike Lawler. And kind of like that, that area like upstate just north of Manhattan, Manhattan sometimes referred to as a little bedroom community for people up there. Effie, thanks so much for joining us here.
- [47:51]
Emily
Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be on.
- [47:54]
Ryan Grim
Of course. We wanted to start with a little bit of the kind of Hassan mania that is kind of gripping CNN and the Democratic establishment. Although I repeat myself. Griffin, do you have, do you have this latest, latest clip from Jake Tapper where they, they kind of allow their kind of mental illness to be on kind of full display this when it comes to their kind of Hasan derangement syndrome.
- [48:23]
Emily
Boy.
- [48:24]
Griffin Davis
Yes, apologies, Effie. I'm sure you've already gotten enough of these clips, but this is a collab. Also, this is a Third Way tweet who's been making quite a lot of noise about Hasan specifically that's been there in a time of the Iran war, massive economic job loss. They're decided to focus on Hasan Piker. They say left wing anti Semitism is often savvier than the brash neo Nazi rhetoric of the right. Their attacks are loaded with words taught in social justice seminars and are often less blatant. They replace the word Jew with Zionist while pushing age old tropes about Jewish wealth and influence. Let's take a listen to Jake Tapper
- [49:04]
Ryan Grim
here for a second that I talked about the think tank Third Way. They wrote we're all for a big tent. The Democratic Party needs to draw a line in this pan. Hassan Piker and his fellow Jew haters belong on the other side. Toni o' Sullivan asked Piker. A lot of people of his ilk do is they try to inoculate themselves against claims of Jew hatred by pointing it out in places that aren't them. He's been very clear pointing things out on the right. Oh that, that's anti Semitism. These are the tropes they used. And then he'll use the exact same tropes and just sub Jew for Israel, which is the place where all Jews collectively have a connection to and is the homeland where more than 50% of Jews on planet earth live. So it's not, you would never say Jews control the media, but Israel controls the media. And you know, the, the Jews didn't pull us into the war with Iran and control the American government, but Israel. Yeah, just so real curious for your your reaction to this because Effie, you've been getting criticism as well for doing, campaigning with or maybe did an interview with Hassan, something along those lines. First of all, just as a fact check for viewers, Marco Rubio himself said that it was Israel that initiated the attack on Iran and that we went because Israel had done that. I don't believe Hasan Piker has ever said that Israel controls the American media. That's just completely bizarre thing to say. And relatedly, on the day that this segment was aired, the Israeli kness had passed a death penalty law that would apply only to Palestinians. And his suggestion there is that anybody who criticized that that must be smuggling in Jew hatred and couldn't possibly have actual genuine criticism of this law that Knesset had just put into place, which I don't believe was covered at all on that program. So Effie, why are people coming after you about Hasan Piker? What's going on in this race.
- [51:11]
Emily
I think you just described the frame that we're in perfectly. It's like the, the Democratic establishment hasn't learned the lesson of say, the election of Mamdani. We saw all that was thrown at him by Cuomo and his race and what that did was further alienate all of the young people, all of the people who had previously felt disenfranchised from, from, from politics. And you know, it's like it baffles me that we want to sacrifice, you know, the participation of all of those young people, so many people who mistrust the party and pursue this bizarre framing, that third way is doing it. I'm, to be honest with you, I'm at a complete loss loss why we would sabotage our own party in this way and allow this type of violent framing of antisemitism of people who in many ways are on the right side of history. I mean, we could all speculate here, but to what end? For me as a candidate, what I see are thousands and thousands of young people who mistrust the Democratic Party party because they do not see the violence that the state of Israel is perpetrating and that there are. It is like the Vietnam of this generation. And I don't know, I mean, like, I just feel like our party is blowing itself up over this when it could actually be creating a human rights centered and people centered agenda that our nation wants and frankly the world wants.
- [53:06]
Emily Jashinsky
You know, it's so interesting because I think of this in this almost like media historic framing where what Hasan Piker does is sit in front of a computer to the point where it would be impossible for him to lie or be inauthentic about what he's feeling because he has a camera on him like he's on Big Brother or you know, the real world back in the day at all times. And like this is the streaming economy. And I'm just curious as a candidate if you think that's kind of, of a lot of people see some of this and, and actually even Israel policy itself as kind of a proxy for whether you are being honest and, and like real, to paraphrase the the Real World tagline with voters. Like, there's just this expectation that you have to be more kind of like. I hate the word authentic, but there is something to that, like raw almost.
- [54:00]
Emily
I think that, you know, and I'm speaking as a person who as Gen X, right. Like, so this Big Brother sort of world of showing authenticity is entirely new to me. And I can tell you it is entirely new to the Democratic chairs who came after me, was on Hasan Piker. I think that they. We joke internally because it's like. It's like they hit a hornet's nest the size of a house. And they had no idea, because they had no idea of Hasan Piker. They perceive him to just be a person, not a media outlet. He is both. And that media is taking this form now of this authenticity to the degree where you see all the warts, all the misstatements, all the angry things that people would typically blip out, that people would screen. And so it's almost like there's a generational difference in the reaction action, right? And so. And so, for example, all of the young people on my team and all of the young people who they talk to, they all follow Hasan Piker. They all thought it was extraordinary that I was on Hasan Piker. They were. One of them actually asked if they could come along, and he did, because he wanted to meet Hassan Piker versus establishment, which is like, you know, I mean, they literally had no idea that the. The AI generated complaints that they wrote, which is, frankly, what it looks like would be viewed and interrogated by millions and millions of people. And maybe this is part of the problem that they don't see the opportunity to speak to the very people at every indivisible protest. I go to. To where they say, where are the young people? Where are the young people? Well, I'll tell you where they are. They're on Hassan Piker. That's why I went on the. That's why I went on the stream there.
- [56:00]
Ryan Grim
Since then, there's been this kind of weird, contradictory, bifurcated response. So David From. I think it was David from said he asked an AI agent to tell him, yes, it was David Hasan Piker and his audience, and that the AI agent told him that Piker has 20,000 to 30,000 concurrent viewers. You know, he streams for eight to 12 hours a day. And then David Frum looked up the number of viewers that, like, you know, MSNBC has in primetime or something, and I think was very confused about the way that viewership stats are analyzed and understood. And so was his agent. He posted something, and then that became like, a thing that, well, actually, Hasan Piker doesn't have an audience. It's just a. It's just a tiny little rounding error. So. So you're then left with the question of, well, then why is every. Why are you freaking out, right? Like, why is this multimillion dollar Schumer connected, You know, Think tank doing op eds and an entire campaign around a guy who. That nobody watches. But I'm curious, from your perspective, what was the fallout? Well, not the fallout. What was the kind of reaction to you going on? How did it, how did it affect your campaign or not affect your campaign? Cause if it did, if, if it's true that nobody actually watches this program, then. Well, first of all, you wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be talking about it. But second of all, then it would be no effect. What was the effect?
- [57:30]
Emily
The effect. There were two sides of it. The first was the immediate and frankly, I think surprising response by the chairs of the Democratic committees of New York 17 district. It was within an hour that this response, response that they put out was generated. And I will say that the very first thing they quoted as evidence against Hasan Piker was Fox news. And that just blew my mind because to complain about, you know, all the things that people are saying about Hasan Piker in this moment from a news organization that, you know, you know, like, has advanced some of the most hateful rhetoric about immigrants, about Hispanics, about Muslims, about Jews, without any way of, you know, without looking at that critically in relation to what they were saying to me, which is to say that they were flamed. They were flamed. Like ratioed is the word that Mia's genic has just burned. And, and I don't know that they actually expected that. I don't know that they expected so many people to see their statement as evidence of bias within the Democratic party, as evidence of the kind of attacks that we're seeing right now from third wave. And that further disenfranchises people. So the effect has been thousands of new followers, so many comments, a major uptick in contributions, and people saying to me what they often say to me because I've been very transparent about my position on Israel and Palestine, like, keep going, like, don't stop. Like you are saying the things that people want to hear. And what I hope in the end, because I'm a Democrat, I'm a progressive Democrat, is that the party learns the lesson. Lesson, right. That our job is to listen to the public, listen to the public, hear what they're saying, represent the positions through a moral lens. And when I say a moral lens, that means we have to fight anti Semitism, which is on the rise. We have to fight Islamophobia, which is on the rise. My goodness, when you think about the kind of violence that's happening in our country with eyes, the kinds of discrimination, the bias all these things, like, these are the things that we have to fight. And frankly, when people reach out to me and they say, keep going, this is what they're saying, and the party need to hear it. They seem to be very far from it at this point right now, though, which is very baffling.
- [60:15]
Griffin Davis
Yeah. And it seems like the big thing from the 2024 election was that or the modicum was we need a bigger tent for the Democratic Party. We need to bring in young people or what have you. And I just wanted to pull up this article from the Bulwark where they interviewed Josh Jonathan Cohen, who's the founder of Third Way, and he says, if people are really arguing that the price of winning is becoming like a bigoted misogynist like Hasan Piker, then I'll take not winning. So it seems the. The Third Way position is actually to lose with grace. Now, what. What do you make of that? It seems like they're upset about Israel, but he says misogynist there as well. Is there other reasons that they could potentially be trying to sequester or demean Hasan? Because Hasan has been going around and I think he's spoken to, interviewed about 20 different Democratic candidates across the country. And some people accuse him of being a purity test, litmus test, wants to wreck the Democratic Party, doesn't want it to win. Yet we see him on the road with candidates all over the country. What do you make of this big tent strategy?
- [61:36]
Emily
You know, it's a great question. What I think is, and I believe firmly, is that Hasan Piker speaks for the young people who have been disenfranchised. Right. And in a way, what we're seeing between Midway and their framing, which I think is awful, and Hasan Paik, you know, and the people who follow him is like a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party in the way that I see that the fight between Cuomo and Mamdani in New York City was a battle sort of for the soul of the Democratic Party. What young people want is authenticity. They want people to recognize that our tax dollars are going to fund military aid for the very nation that created this horrendous tremendous death penalty in an apartheid form. There is no escaping that. And frankly, a lot of people who I speak to or question me, I get emails every day questioning me, saying, I agree with you on the Palestine issue, but why Hasan Piker? Right. And in that respect, they agree with Hasan Piker on the Palestine issue. And what I am furious about with the Democratic Party is that we actually have a capacity to build consensus around this. And yet the framing that Third way puts out and focusing on misogyny, the way Cuomo's team focused on antisemitism when dealing with Mamdani is completely blowing up our party. To what end? You know, that's the answer that I don't. I can speculate, but I don't yet have. But we're doing it again. We're handing it over to the Republicans. And it is completely, it is completely appalling and it's outrageous. But what I'm hopeful for is that young people, people under 44 is really what I say and people see through it and they're going to come out and they're going to vote, they're going to vote, they're conscious. And so we'll see. In New York, 17 is supposedly a purple district. I've taken a very. What I hope that people perceive to be an authentic and progressive human rights focused platform. And we're going to test it here, too. You know, I'm making it on the ballot where, you know, we're going to take it to the primary. We're going to debate with the other candidates who take no position at all, all on this and are very quiet about a lot of things like ice, like what our tax system should be, how to make it more fair by taxing the ultra wealthy, all of these things. So, you know. Yeah. Why they. Yeah, what can I say? It's frustrating.
- [64:31]
Griffin Davis
There's almost been a louder. Yeah, there's been a louder retribution against Assange from Democrats than the Iran war. People are being louder about a streamer than this disastrous war that's putting our global economy into peril. Any final questions? Ryan and Emily. Ryan, I think you're muted. Ryan.
- [64:55]
Ryan Grim
No, Effie, that does it for me. Really appreciate you joining. Must have been an interesting ride. Imagine that. You didn't quite expect. You didn't quite know what you were getting into, or at least you wouldn't have before.
- [65:10]
Emily
I wouldn't have.
- [65:11]
Ryan Grim
As a fellow Gen Xer, we don't know what Twitch is. It's just a fact.
- [65:16]
Emily
I'm trying to keep up because Gen X, you know, we think we're the coolest in the room, but no, no, we're not.
- [65:23]
Ryan Grim
For a long time.
- [65:26]
Emily
Yeah. I mean, thank you for all you do and your time. You know, it's. I did expect this to a degree. Degree. You know, because I've seen the way the, the left is starting to be framed in this way as, as advancing in anti. But I want to say This, I think it's really important. When I was in Israel, what I learned was that so many people, so many Israelis, this was my time in Israel, and, and the occupied west bank are fighting so hard for justice because they recognize that their own government is becoming what they describe in their words, as a fascist government. And the government that can do the most horrendous things like this, like this death penalty, that's within an apartheid frame. I mean, that is staggering. And Israelis are fighting hard against this in partnership with Palestinians. And to me, that gives me an immense amount of hope. Because as dark and awful as the trajectory of this nation, there are lots of people out there who understand that the key is that we have to stop attacking each other. We have to come together around our shared values, which is people deserve justice and they deserve the opportunity to thrive. And through all of this, this, and despite of some of the very awful things Hasan Piker has said in the past in my meeting with him, I believe that that is what he wants. And I think that his millions of followers believe that that is what he wants and that is the direction that our nation needs to be going in, not the further splitting accusations, attacks, and own goals. As I see that we see coming from Midway and this appalling campaign that they're putting forward, it's staggeringly dist. So thank you.
- [67:26]
Griffin Davis
Third way, I believe. I don't know if Midway is catching strays there or if that's. Is it the same thing, Ryan?
- [67:32]
Emily
Third way, I meant to say third
- [67:33]
Griffin Davis
way for everyone's happening Midway, Same thing. Yeah, yeah, Mid. Okay, Effie, you mentioned Zoron. Can you give us a quick, just quick bullet point list of some proposals or policies you want to bring to your district? And where can people find and support your campaign if they so choose?
- [67:52]
Emily
So thank you so much. So the most critical things I think In New York 17 are housing. So housing affordability, like increasing the number of housing in the district by 66,000 at least, is critical. Medicare for all. We have to just get this done. Too many people are suffering. And in a nation as wealthy as ours, we can do it. Universal childcare. The state of Arizona has already done it. These are critical things to the people of New York 17. Of course, just immigration reform. We have to stop giving governments like our current one an opportunity to weaponize immigrants for their political gain. We need a clear, fair immigration system. And my goodness, it just keeps going on. And this is of course, the one that I hear about the most. Justice at home and justice abroad, abroad. Right we have to take care of the problem with ice. We have to take care of human rights within our nation. And we cannot fund nations that violate human rights, particularly against our own laws and against international laws. That absolutely has to stop.
- [69:06]
Griffin Davis
All right, Effie, where can people find you?
- [69:08]
Emily
You can find me@effieforcongress.com e f f I E F O R Congress and on Instagram all the places that'll do it.
- [69:18]
Griffin Davis
For this half. We'll do some fun stories, a quick little ama in the second half if you want to get access to that breakingpoints.com and we'll see you there.
- [69:27]
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