← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
7/21/25: Trump Admits He's In Epstein Files, Trump Sues WSJ, El Salvador Prison Swap, Israel Starves Gaza, Mehdi On Surrounded
01:57:42
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- [00:00]
Ryan
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
Sagar
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Krystal
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Emily
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Krystal
Apply hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:37]
Ryan
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.
- [01:44]
Conor
This is the only place where you.
- [01:46]
Zoran Hamdani
Can find honest perspectives from the left.
- [01:47]
Ryan
And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:01]
Conor
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we.
- [02:04]
Krystal
Hope to see you@breakingpoints.com.
- [02:09]
Ryan
Good morning everybody. Happy Monday. Have a lot of things to talk about in the show today, Emily.
- [02:14]
Conor
I mean the Jubilee segment. Stay tuned because Mehdi had a ball.
- [02:20]
Ryan
You're most excited for that one.
- [02:21]
Conor
Can't wait.
- [02:21]
Ryan
I know you're an avid surrounded fan.
- [02:24]
Conor
It's amazing.
- [02:25]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [02:25]
Conor
What they do.
- [02:26]
Ryan
It's amazing how they find these people. Let's just say that.
- [02:29]
Conor
Yes. And they just keep them coming. There's just seemingly an endless supply.
- [02:33]
Ryan
Indeed. So in addition to that, we have some other things going on. A lot of new breaking news with regard to Epstein. We've got Trump kind of sort of admitting he's in the file. Some details of a disgusting party that he threw for himself. Jeffrey Epstein and a bunch of young girls get into all of that. Also some polling with regard to how the MAGA base is responding. A new clip from Alex Jones. I've been tracking his arc in particular, which has been interesting to me.
- [02:59]
Conor
He's. Well, I mean, he's a really important person watching this because he was one. I mean, he's someone who spent some of the most time on Epstein.
- [03:05]
Ryan
Yeah, he's the OG conspiracy guy.
- [03:07]
Conor
Yeah. So he's been very interesting the last couple of weeks.
- [03:09]
Ryan
Yeah, for sure. Pisco is going to join us to break down some of the legal aspects of this. You've got the Trump suit against the Wall Street Journal, so he'll tell us about that. You also have. I want him to take a look at that original sweetheart deal with Alex Acosta as well and help people understand just why that was so absolutely outrageous and extraordinary. He's going to stick with us to talk about some remark news coming out of El Salvador. Those men who were kidnapped and shipped into Sukat, they have been released into Venezuela. So there's a lot to break down there from a legal and moral perspective as well. We are hoping to have a guest join us from Gaza. Obviously that is always a little tenuous because of the intermittent blackouts and Internet issues there. But Palestinians in Gaza are starving. They are accelerating starvation deaths, especially among infants and children. At the same time, they're being massacred by the dozens when they seek aid. So we have someone who's involved in the aid effort there on the ground to hopefully be able to join and talk to us about that. At the same time, huge outrage from Catholics, Christians and just general people of decent moral standing around the world after Israel attacked a Catholic church. And there's some real fallout within even, you know, conservative circles here in the U.S. emily, that I'm interested to get your take on there, too.
- [04:27]
Conor
Yeah. And three Gazan Catholics died, so. So we'll break that down.
- [04:30]
Ryan
Including a priest.
- [04:31]
Conor
That's right.
- [04:31]
Ryan
Yeah. We have those aforementioned clips of Mehdi Hasan on Surrounded and we've got a report out of Southern Lebanon. This is courtesy of Drop Psych News. Very difficult to get on the ground there and see what is going on. So it'll be really interesting to see that as well. And for premium subscribers, we will have that AMA Live. If you want access to the AMA Lives, the full Friday show, this whole complete show with no ads in your inbox every day, Please subscribe@breakingpoints.com Sounds good, Crystal. All right, let's jump into the very latest with regard to Epstein. So as I said before, listen carefully to this short clip because it sure does sound like President Trump kind of sort of admits that he is actually in the Epstein files. Take a listen.
- [05:13]
Conor
If they were run by Chris Wray.
- [05:15]
Ryan
And they were run by Comey and.
- [05:18]
Conor
Because it was actually even before that.
- [05:20]
Ryan
Administration, they'd been running these files and.
- [05:23]
Emily
So much of the things that we found were fake with me. And so much of the things that we found were fake with me.
- [05:30]
Ryan
Obviously just they loop it at the end there so you can hear what he's saying. There's so many things they found were fake with me. And this tracks, of course, with his claim that, oh, Epstein is just a hoax, it's a Democrat run hoax, crooked Hillary and Obama and Comey and Brennan, et cetera. So it's increasingly seeming like, and we have more evidence to point in this direction that number one, the reason the files aren't being released is because Trump is in them and he anticipated that something would come out. We now have the Wall Street Journal infamous letter to Epstein that has come out that he would need to be able to explain away. And so his excuse is, oh, well, this was all fake and it's a hoax and it's created by the Democrats.
- [06:12]
Conor
Well, it's somewhat interesting because if he's saying what we found were fake, including me, in the wake of the Wall Street Journal story, one of the things getting overlooked in the Wall Street Journal story is that they attribute the sourcing to a file that the Department of Justice had on Epstein. So that does again make me wonder, and we talked about this on Friday show Sager and I did. Is this a Maureen Comey leak? Maureen Comey was the prosecutor in the Epstein Ghislaine Maxwell case. Trump starts talking about a week ago in terms of Comey and Obama and Biden framing him, started explicitly mentioning James Comey and Maureen Comey is fired on Tuesday. Wall Street Journal piece finally comes out Thursday night. It does actually I don't know this for sure. I doubt we'll ever be able to confirm if anything like this happened. But it does make it sound like this was something the Trump administration was aware of.
- [07:10]
Ryan
Yes, yes.
- [07:11]
Conor
Which is an interesting piece of the puzzle. If it's true. It's an interesting piece of the puzzle.
- [07:14]
Ryan
The other alternative theory that I know you and Sagra talked about is that this is coming directly from Ghislaine or Ghislaine's world. She would certainly be someone who. She was the person who collected all of these birthday letters, including one from Bill Clinton and other luminaries, you know, who are noteworthy in the context of all of this. But not as noteworthy as the current President of the United States, the vindicated.
- [07:33]
Conor
Alan Dershowitz, lest we forget.
- [07:35]
Ryan
Yeah, of course. Always. Always. Who's certainly cleared his name fully and completely and we no longer have any doubts about his good character. But in any case, the other theory is that it could have been Ghislaine herself who is looking for a pardon. I just saw, you know, a tabloid piece this morning. I think it was New York Post. So they're usually like somewhat credible saying that she telling everyone, hey, when Trump gets in there, it's gonna be totally different. I'm gonna get out of here, it's gonna be over. And we had her family submitted that letter public posted that letter that said Donald Trump, the federal government made a deal saying no co conspirators with Epstein would be charged. I know you want to honor that deal. Then you have this drop. And the theory there would be that this is kind of like a warning shot of this is where we start. But there's obviously more damage I could do. So let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen there, both from the Guardian and the New York Times about this party that was thrown for Jeffrey Epstein specifically in the 90s. So effectively, what happened here is Trump asked this guy whose name is Jorgenay, how could that be real? I don't know. But anyway, he ran this American Dream Calendar Girls beauty contest, and Trump asked him to fly in a bunch of the girls at Trump's expense to Mar a lago. Their ages 16 to 22. And the pretext here was, I'm going to gather all of these VIPs and elites from the modeling world. This will give these girls a chance to mingle with all of these wealthy individuals who can help make their careers. So this guy sets this up, flies these girls in, and lo and behold, the only guest at the party is Jeffrey Epstein. He is the only one who is there. So it's Trump, it's Epstein, and it's all of these girls aged 16 to 22. There were also allegations that surfaced from that night that Trump had sexually assaulted actually the guy who organized its girlfriend. And then there was also an allegation that he just plopped into bed next to a 22 year old who was there for this quote, unquote party. So effectively trafficking young girls directly to Jeffrey Epstein at Mar A Lago is what is being alleged in this Guardian and a New York Times story both.
- [09:59]
Mehdi Hasan
Yeah.
- [10:00]
Conor
And Crystal, I don't want to skip ahead too much, but I know we have an element from Julie K. Brown. This is a six something that's I think, worth pausing and thinking about. Julia K. Brown, obviously is one of the reporters who's been foremost out front on this for years. So Bryan Krassenstein said, I'm told that the Wall Street Journal article about the Trump letter to abstinence is just the tip of the iceberg. Quote, the dam is breaking. I would take that with the biggest grain of salt that you could find on planet Earth. But Julie K. Brown says she, quote, tweets this and says, I heard this too. And so Crystal, I took it a.
- [10:35]
Ryan
Lot more seriously when she said it.
- [10:37]
Conor
When he said it so much more seriously. Yes. And so that means this is kind of circulating in the world of people who do these reports. And so if the dam is breaking and the floodgates are opening up, that would probably indicate. I mean, I do doubt there are a lot of. I doubt with Trump. Again, it's just hard for me to believe that there's some type of smoking gun on Trump that's sitting around and hasn't been reported out. Something in the Justice Department files would be different, something that the FBI collected or something like that. But I mean, every reporter in the country has been working on Trump for 10 years now. I would expect a lot of them. This is why I skipped ahead to be sort of similar to this Guardian piece where it's sort of like, where there's a lot of smoke, is there going to be fire? So that's what the Guardian piece does seem to me to be a pattern of things we're going to see in the next couple of weeks is similar stories, anecdotes from the 80s and the 90s. It's like, man, this is who Donald Trump is.
- [11:39]
Ryan
Yeah, I mean, we're gonna find out because I'm sure MAGA is sort of hoping that the worst of it is.
- [11:45]
Conor
Past or that it's CAD type behavior like this. This Guardian story is disgusting. And it's the type of thing that conservatives were horrified by, many of them horrified by in 2015 when Donald Trump started to run against all of the other Republican candidates. And there were some stories like this that were published around that time. And then obviously there was the Access Hollywood tape. So that type of thing. I'm sure there are more stories like this lying around that have not broken through and probably will in the days and weeks to come. They were disgusting to Most conservatives in 2015. Most conservatives made their peace with Donald Trump after 2016. And it's a reminder of the character traits that always sort of horrified people.
- [12:35]
Ryan
You can just imagine what would be said if it was Bill Clinton who threw a party for 16 year old girls and invited only Jeffrey Epstein.
- [12:42]
Conor
Only Jeffrey Epstein.
- [12:43]
Ryan
And the presumptions that would be made too, by the way. Let's go ahead, this next piece, A three. So you have Democratic Senator Dick Durbin saying that according to information my office received, you as the Department of Justice pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel in their information management division, including the information dissemination section which handles all requests, blah, blah, blah, on 24 hour shifts, shifts to review approximately 10,000 Epstein related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on arbitrarily short deadline. This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14th through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York field office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise necessary. My office was told these personnel were instructed to flag any records in which President Trump was mentioned. So two really significant disclosures here, at least from Senator Durbin. Number one, that these people, personnel who were pulled specifically to go through Epstein related material, were told, hey, you got a flag. If Trump comes up, you got to flag it. So they were worried about this and had at least the expectation that he would be named in these files in various contexts, which again we know they were close associates for years and years. You know, Epstein says a decade, Trump says 15 years, et cetera. So wouldn't be surprising. We know Trump flew on the plane. We know there are pictures of videos together, apparently this party, all the rest and then the other piece. And Emily, the administration themselves had indicated this back in the days when they were pretending they were doing something, that they had actually pulled all of these personnel to go through the material. So what happened there? Like what is that material and why were all these people, if there's no there there, why were all these people pulled off their duties to go through a bunch of stuff and you really are gonna tell me that in all of that there were no significant revelations, nothing that can be disclosed to the public, no conclusions that were found other than, oh, nothing to see here, case closed, everybody move on or it's a Democrat hoax.
- [14:52]
Conor
Well, if there were no significant revelations, then they should have no problem releasing more information. I mean, that's actually even more argument, more for the argument that they would have been served much better by just disclosing things. And from a, again, even cynical perspective, they could have redacted the hell out of all of these documents. And they already have a archive of documents that are redacted to hell. They could have done so many different things with this, but they chose basically a complete cover up as of right now, saying case closed, no further disclosures warranted. And that post that we just looked at, according to Dick Durbin's office, actually it's a quote, tweet of a post from the Senate Judiciary Democrats Pam Bondi, Cash Patel and Dan Pagino, they say, have made a mess of the Epstein files. It's time to clear it up once and for all for the American people. Wow. Amazing. I agree. Let's do it. I mean, the momentum that they have, that has been invited by Pam Bondi to keep the scrutiny on these files, that was squarely because of the decisions that she made. And I think we should all be cheering it, as cynical as it is. I'm all for it. Let's go.
- [16:03]
Ryan
Yeah, let's see it. There was some report too, like Trump's getting frustrated with Pam Bonney. It's like, bro, this is your show. If she's handling it in a way that you don't want, then you should say that. But we know he went to the mat for her. He went to bat for her, tripled down, called Charlie Kirk, said, shut up about Pam Bondi. I'm sticking with her, et cetera. Yeah. So, you know, obviously the buck ultimately stops with Trump. Let's put the next piece up on the screen. This was some additional reporting from the New York Times. And the way they frame this is an accuser story, suggests how Trump may appear in the Epstein files. This is with regard to Maria Farmer. If you've watched the Netflix documentary, Maria and her sister, her younger sister, both feature quite prominently. And they've been some of the more significant and earliest actually accusers of Jeffrey Epstein. Maria, an artist, a painter, and Jeffrey Epstein sort of swept in and, oh, we're gonna make your career. We're gonna support you, we're gonna help you and next thing you know, they're also sweeping into this network her younger sister, who was a teenager at the time. Both of them beautiful girls. And, you know, they apparently, you know, Epstein and Maxwell stole these pictures she had in a locked box that had. She paints nude figures that had her sisters, like, partially clothed or fully unclothed. And she, you know, and Maxwell and Epstein, she accused them of sexually assaulting her. Her sister made similar allegations again when she was a teenager. And Maria Farmer went to the FBI. She did the thing that she was supposed to do. She had faith that this system would actually work to serve justice. And she went to them in two separate occasions when there was sort of a flare up in, you know, in interest. She was one of the first, like I said before, to really go to the FBI. And by the way, the, you know, the case notes all reflect this. I think she went to the nyp, and then they sort of said, okay, well, we need to put this. Take this to the federal level. And she says that in both instances, she said, hey, like, I had direct personal experience with Jeffrey Epstein, but you also need to look into some of these powerful people that he associates with. And she named Bill Clinton, and she named, in Both instances in 96 and 2006, Donald Trump. Now, her interaction with Trump, which was weird but not criminal, is she was called in to a meeting with Epstein, you know, sort of spur of the moment. She shows up in her jogging shorts, and Trump is there ogling her. And she says specifically, like, looking up and down her, like, bare legs as she's in these running shorts. And Epstein said something to him to the effect of, no, no, this one's not for you. And that was what really raised significant questions in her mind about the nature of their relationship and his involvement. So in any. That's, you know, that is the revelation here from the New York Times that, hey, you know, was there. Okay, when she brought this to the FBI, did they look into Trump? Was there some sort of an investigation? Is there any information there that might be important? Could that be part of what is, you know, about Trump in the Epstein files?
- [19:16]
Conor
And to be honest.
- [19:16]
Ryan
Go ahead.
- [19:17]
Conor
Did they look into Bill Clinton either? I mean, like, these are questions that. This is the reason that the right wanted information on it, whether it was Bill Clinton or anybody else. And there are some perfectly good faith people on the right who have been critical of the Trump administration since. But this is one of the reasons, because there were so. It seems to be. There's so many threads that haven't been pulled on. And so if you have a young woman victimized and saying, look into Donald Trump, look into Bill Clinton, the FBI, the Department of Justice should have records about whether they did that, what they found, and if there was nothing to find, then they should be able to show their work and explain that. Now, I don't doubt that there are some false accusations of the many, many women who have come forward about Jeffrey Epstein over the years and Ghislaine Maxwell over the years. I don't doubt that there are some cases of accidental identification and it would be terrible for somebody who is accidentally identified to have their name out there. But then we should know that the Department of Justice looked into them and the FBI looked into them and cleared them. And the FBI and the Department of Justice should be able to show their work and say exactly how they got to that conclusion or didn't get to that conclusion. Or they can release the files in a way that doesn't implicate anybody who shouldn't be implicated, while not also protecting people who should be implicated because they're powerful and their name is Bill Clinton or Donald Trump. And so there is a way to do this. Nobody is saying that even with Donald Trump, he's such a high profile, polarizing person. And it's not impossible that there are some fake stories about Donald Trump in the mix of these files. That's your job. If you're the Department of Justice and the FBI, your job is to let us as taxpayers know what you're doing, what's happening. And it doesn't mean that you have to tell us literally everything at every given moment. But at this point, people obviously have spoken, want disclosure. So your job is to provide the disclosure, not to continue to hide it. So they have to find out a way to do it. Because people want answers.
- [21:18]
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- [23:50]
Ryan
Maria Farmer has been speaking to some reporters as well about, you know, that Trump friendship and what she knows there. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of that.
- [24:00]
Jeremy Lofredo
Ivana Trump was like her best friend. So at the time Ivana had, she was doing qvc, selling jewelry and Donald Trump was always hanging out with Epstein and Ivana was always hanging out with Ghislaine, right? And Ivana would, she would, she would say we're gonna go get pick up Ivana or Ivana's gonna come and we'd ride in in the car with her. And I remember one occasion where Ghislaine's like I have to get out right now. And she went and got a number from a child everybody knew what they were doing.
- [24:31]
Conor
Every.
- [24:31]
Jeremy Lofredo
Everybody who surrounded them knew exactly what they were doing.
- [24:35]
Ryan
Did you go for rides often with her and Ivana? Yes.
- [24:39]
Mehdi Hasan
And would she, would she pick up.
- [24:42]
Sagar
Girls all the time?
- [24:43]
Conor
Yeah.
- [24:44]
Jeremy Lofredo
She didn't bring them in the car. She would get their phone numbers.
- [24:47]
Mohammed Kleit
Right.
- [24:48]
Conor
But she would drive by schools.
- [24:51]
Mohammed Kleit
Right.
- [24:51]
Sagar
So as they got out, so would she.
- [24:55]
Ryan
And what's Ivana doing at this point?
- [24:58]
Conor
You know, what is sitting in the car?
- [25:00]
Jeremy Lofredo
And I'll never forget because they went one day I was really weirded out.
- [25:04]
Ryan
By what had happened.
- [25:05]
Jeremy Lofredo
Galanda shut me up, gave me one of those cheap bracelets Ivana was selling on QVC and said, ivana wants you to have this.
- [25:13]
Ryan
So there are some of the details there. And Emily, I was telling you, I've been digging into this world like the underbelly of these model management agencies of which Trump owned one. Trump Model Management, I can't believe that existed. It is, I mean, it was a hotbed of exploitation of young, vulnerable girls, especially after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, was girls from Eastern Europe who would be effectively trafficked in. And one of the most notorious pedophiles in that world was this guy, John Casablancas, who ran Elite Model Management. Jean Luc Brunel, another close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, who also killed himself in prison under. Oh, and the cameras weren't working there either. Isn't that weird? Who also allegedly trafficked two 12 year old girls to Jeffrey Epstein. Of course Epstein would, you know, insinuate himself in sort of Inside the Victoria's Secret modeling as well. But it was, I mean, it was a disgusting world. And John Casablancas, I mean he was openly living with Stephanie Seymour when she was 16 years old. And in the 70s, this was like all, you know, people just, oh, that's just how it is. That's what he does. And he continued those activities. And Trump knew him, admired him, you know, after the sort of like, you know, after his fall from grace and the, you know, some of the other sort of like stalwarts of that modeling world after their time had sort of passed. That's when Trump Model Management and some of these other newer modeling agencies come into being. But yeah, it was a sick and probably still is a sick world where young girls are routinely exploited. People unearthed this footage from the 90s of Trump judging what's called the look of the Year contest. And this was for explicitly for the new young models trying to break into the industry. And so people were taking a look at this footage of him as a judge in this modeling Contest in the early 90s. Let's go ahead and take a look at that.
- [27:21]
Mohammed Kleit
The 58 contestants participated in an exhaustive.
- [27:25]
Conor
Round of personal interviews designed to help.
- [27:27]
Krystal
Our judges discover what makes each one.
- [27:30]
Ryan
Concentration was intense inside the judging room.
- [27:36]
Mehdi Hasan
And out.
- [27:42]
Conor
Emotions ran high.
- [27:47]
Ryan
One of honestly, the most disturbing things to me is that he put his own daughter Ivanka into this world, signed her with Elite Model Management, that is John Casablanca's outfit, when she was 14, 15 years old. So in any case, you know, all of these things are sort of being resurfaced. His involvement with the pageants, his owning of the model management company, you know, things like him judging this competition, his having this party where the only other for young girls, where the only other guest is Jeffrey Epstein. And it's the sort of thing where, because Trump being just sort of like a lecherous person, is kind of baked in, that I think a lot of this either didn't get reported out or people just sort of like, shrugged their shoulders, just Trump. But then when you really connect it in with Epstein and all that that entails, well, then people are seeing it through a different lens.
- [28:43]
Conor
Virginia Giuffre worked at Mar A Lago. Yeah, like, she literally was an employee of Mar A Lago.
- [28:48]
Ryan
That's right.
- [28:49]
Conor
When Ghislaine Maxwell essentially plucked her from Mar A Lago and brought her into Epstein world. So, yeah, there are many different ways this could go. I mean, obviously one of the difficult things about the Epstein story is that that the lives of the rich and the famous are often, like, disgusting. I shouldn't even say often. They're, like, disgusting. And they are people who, like, transform into these Nietzsche. They see themselves as these Nietzschean superhumans who can do whatever they want, and they kind of get off on that. And so some of this, it's hard to disentangle normal awfulness from what goes to the next level with Jeffrey Epstein. But that's what is being scrutinized right now with Donald Trump. Does it go from just this disgusting billionaire cad behavior to escalating into criminality? And I remember a lot of these videos actually from, like the Republican primary early on and like, after he comes down the escalator, there was just people didn't take it seriously. And then when people started taking the campaign seriously, some of this stuff started really circulating from, like, Ted Cruz world, Marco Rubio world at the time, Jeb Bush world. And it's interesting to your point that when you connect it with the Epstein piece, it takes on a totally different. It's not surprising, of course, but it's back.
- [30:17]
Ryan
Yeah. All right, let's take a look at how the MAGA base at this point is metabolizing all of this information and where they are. I've been using Alex Jones as my guidepost.
- [30:28]
Conor
You're Sherpa.
- [30:29]
Ryan
Of where people are in this process. And he seems to have completely sort of come back into the fold. I love Trump. It's a Democrat hoax, et cetera. Here he was on with Steve Bannon talking about where he is and how.
- [30:44]
Emily
He'S thinking about all this, the PR handling of this. Now, 12 days ago, when they slip out this memo to Axios, the globalist mouthpiece, none of this exists. This needs to go away. That's a 180 from everything that the record shows and what Trump and his surrogates have been saying that they were gonna do. We know the Democrats have had this file. They're not gonna leave stuff in there that incriminates them and the whole history of it. It's 90 plus percent democrats and globalists like Bill Gates, you know, that are heavily involved in the island and all the stuff that's going on. And so as soon as the FBI raided back in March, the New York, when they wouldn't turn over the files, I believe that was a setup. And they dropped a dime on themselves and said, oh, there's 14 terabytes of all these kids being raped and Epstein raping them and all the rest of it. And then Pam Bondi gets it, gives it to the FBI, which I confirmed from sources. They sent it out to all the offices around the country to look at the file. They come back and say, oh, there's a bunch of FBI reports and implicating, you know, people in the orbit of Trump with no real evidence. And then Trump went, what the hell? Another Russiagate. So he didn't clarify that the first few days. He just said, people need to basically shut this down. It's bull. And then he hasn't really clarified when he says it's a hoax, it's a Democrat hoax. He's not saying that the Epstein isn't a bad guy and that he wasn't involved in all this evil stuff with the deep state with no connections to Trump that are based in any reality. He just says it's a hoax. People go, well, wait, Epstein's not a hoax. His Lane was convicted of this very stuff, and he'd been charged with it and was convicted once 15, 16 years ago of lesser charges in Florida. So Trump, I think, needs to be very Clear that, no, the Epstein case and the evil he did is very real. But they've been in control of this file, Brennan, Clapper and all the rest of them. And it makes total sense that they falsified all these other records. The Crossfire, Hurricane, the Steele dossier, all run by Obama.
- [32:52]
Sagar
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- [32:53]
Mehdi Hasan
Get to the core heart of it.
- [32:55]
Ryan
Of the conspiracy to remove Trump from office? So there you go. It was a PR screw up. And here's what Trump's really trying to say. That's kind of my favorite part is like, he's not saying Epstein's not a bad guy and that there wasn't some stuff there. That's not what he means when he says it's all a hoax and tells us we're stupid and he doesn't even want our support if we keep talking about. That's not what he means. But I think the Democrats there. It's really. It's the Democrats fault, Emily.
- [33:17]
Conor
Ultimately, I really thought that's where this was all going as soon as the Wall Street Journal story came out and they didn't publish the picture. And so the Wall Street Journal story can be true and it can still be a mistake for them to have not published a copy of the image or it sounds like they don't actually have one. And they were racing to publish because they kind of got scooped on their. Scooped by their scoop by Oliver Garcia, who was like, the Journal's got something.
- [33:42]
Ryan
Well, clearly that was pressure from inside the Journal to make sure they actually published it.
- [33:45]
Conor
It. Right. Because we know that there was pressure on them not to publish it. Actually, Trump just came out and said that normally that would be something.
- [33:52]
Ryan
Yeah. He's like, I told Rupert to get on this. And Rupert was like, I'll take care of it.
- [33:56]
Conor
Yeah.
- [33:57]
Ryan
And he didn't take care of it.
- [33:59]
Conor
So another thing to point out, it's true that what Alex Jones says, it's true that Democrats did have the file and it's not impossible that they would do whatever they could to ensure some of the incriminating information about, I don't know, Bill Clinton or any of their donors wasn't easily accessed or found or maybe just totally disappeared. But you know who had the file first? Bill Barr. Yeah, like Bill Barr. CIA veteran Bill Barr. When Jeffrey Epstein died in prison. When Jeffrey Epstein was arrested, interestingly enough. But when Jeffrey Epstein died in prison, Bill Barr was overseeing the file. And so there could have been all kinds of things.
- [34:43]
Ryan
Whose daddy gave Jeffrey Epstein his first job at Dalton? I don't know.
- [34:49]
Conor
I mean, I don't know. Crystal. Lots of people in powerful positions have had access to this information over the years. So who knows what's been memory hold. Honestly? I mean, I don't think it's a crazy point, but people who Republicans and Democrats have had access to it by now.
- [35:08]
Ryan
Yeah, true, true. Let's just take a look quickly here at the polling from Harry Entin. So no surprise, only 6% of the public are like, yeah, there's probably no cover up or no client list or nothing else to see here. Trump's probably right about that. And the other part that's noteworthy about this is the MAGA base. They're not moving off Trump whatsoever. This is, if anything, their support for him has gone up while this whole Epstein thing has been playing out. Let's go ahead and take a look at that.
- [35:36]
Mehdi Hasan
The American public does not trust what the government is selling them. What are we talking about here? Is the government hiding Epstein's alleged client? Let's get this, 69% of Americans agree that the federal government is in fact hiding Epstein's alleged client list versus just 6, 6% who say that they are not. And get this, a majority of Republicans and Democrats do in fact agree on this issue. If we look at Republicans and independents who lean Republicans, 43% are dissatisfied with the amount of information released so far compared to. Get this, just four 1, 2, 3 4% of Republicans who are in fact satisfied with the amount of information released so far by the federal government. When 60% of Democrats and independent leaning Democrats are in fact dissatisfied with the amount of information released so far. And get this, just 12 3% of Democrats are in fact satisfied so far with the amount of information released. How has it impacted President Trump's overall approval rating? Republicans who approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing. Get this. In our CNN SSRS poll, it was 86% prior to this whole Epstein saga. Now it's 88%. In fact, the percentage of Republicans who approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing has actually, if anything, climbed a little bit according to our CNN polling. How about Quinnipiac? 87% before this whole Epstein saga started, approved of the job that Donald Trump was doing among Republicans. Now it's 90%. So we see agreement between the CNN polling and the Quinnipiac polling. Yes, Republicans are not thrilled with how the government is responding to the Epstein case, but so far they are in fact not taking it out on Donald Trump, at least when it comes to his overall approval rating.
- [37:12]
Ryan
So there you Go. Apparently he could traffic a 16 year old Jeffrey Epstein on Fifth Avenue and not lose a supporter.
- [37:19]
Conor
You know, it's well said. It's an interesting thing to reconcile because. Because on the one hand, Republicans and conservatives care about the Epstein files. On the other hand, they care. And I think probably this is true of most voters. They care more about other things. And so what? This will probably be in. Stocker and I were talking about this on Friday too. This is a proxy issue. It's a Vibes issue. It's an issue of great substance and that's why we're covering it extensively for, for most voters, they can agree with all of those points and they're also like, my groceries are so, so expensive. And we've been talking about this story for 10 years now. And for Republicans, they're saying 100,000 bureaucrats have been fired and we destroyed the nuclear facility in Iran and blah, blah, blah. So I think both things can be true. They can care about Epstein, they can care about other things more. And that's why I think the independents. Sager was pointing this out. Those people in the kind of middle who swung for Trump. Sager interviewed Andrew Schultz, for example, and asked about the vibes. Those are the people who swung in Trump's direction who are now looking around being like, what the hell, what the hell? This looks so shady. You said you were gonna be super transparent and now you're just saying nothing to see here. That's obviously a problem.
- [38:45]
Ryan
Yes. Yeah.
- [38:46]
Conor
Way more than Republicans.
- [38:47]
Ryan
Yeah, that's right. And I recommend to people that interview that Sager did with Schultz that's on our channel because he asked him some really interesting questions about like, hey, were you, you know, were you used here? Would you do anything differently? What about the vibes? Were you voting on vibes? Whatever. So really recommend that to people. All right, let's go ahead and get Pisco in here so we can talk about some of the legal aspects of what is unfolding here.
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- [41:42]
Ryan
So to talk about some of the legal aspects of this developing story, we have Pisco, host of Pisco's Hour and also co host of the Great Lib and Learn podcast which I was honored to be a guest on. Great to see you sir.
- [41:55]
Zoran Hamdani
Thank you so much for having me.
- [41:56]
Ryan
Yeah, of course. So let's throw up the first element here and I got a few different aspects I want you to dig into. But Trump, in trying to make this story Go away is saying, now, okay, we're going to try to release the grand jury testimony. Guys, put B1 up on the screen and we can take a look at this. So this is Swami Yashar Ali. He says the U.S. department of justice has filed two motions in federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts related to the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell. The DOJ says it will redact victim related information and other personal identifying information. So, Pisco, what type of information would be contained here? Is this likely to actually happen? What could we actually learn from this?
- [42:38]
Zoran Hamdani
Yeah, so the grand jury materials that are likely to be contained there are like potentially interviews and testimonies given from potential victims and materials basically given to an empaneled grand jury for the purpose of, you know, seeking out an indictment or seeking out other materials related to their prosecution of Epstein and Maxwell. They're typically, you know, guarded under secrecy under the rules of criminal procedure. But, you know, the Trump administration is desperate now to get to some kind of narrative to push off the pressure from the recent releases. And so they're trying to go with this narrative that, you know, unsealing this testimony, which, you know, it's pretty high standard to release some of this materials unless it's, like, necessary for another prosecution. Congress has previously in times past, tried to unseal grand jury materials for purposes of their congressional investigations, but it's not going to help Trump at all. With respect to the story, they've already stated in the memorandum that you just showed that they're sticking to their position. Their position is that there's nothing to see here and that this material is just to assuage fears, I guess. But the position of the administration has not fundamentally changed at all. And they're even stating in this memo that basically everything is as it was.
- [43:47]
Conor
Okay, so what can we expect to see happen in the next couple of weeks, if anything, like, if any, if people are following this closely, what would the next steps look like?
- [43:57]
Zoran Hamdani
I think the next step would be arguing that there's a sort of carve out of certain special exceptions when grand jury secrecy does not apply. And there are kind of some disputes within the court systems about when those exceptions are. Some relate to a court, let's say, if you had a perjury charge, obviously you could unseal certain material for purposes of prosecuting that. But, you know, it will be up to the courts to determine whether these special and exceptional circumstances that some courts have recognized apply for, just like the public interest in this case. And remember, the position of the administration is that there's nothing to see here. And so this would just be assuaging the public, I guess, who doesn't believe them on their memorandum, which, again, the administration is explicitly sticking by in this submission to the court.
- [44:37]
Ryan
Yeah, so it feels like a way to sort of pretend like they want disclosure, kick the ball over the court system and, you know, expect either the courts are gonna be like, no, we're not releasing that. And then they could, oh, that's courts that are doing the COVID up now. Or if something does come out, it's certainly not the totality of what people mean when they say Epstein files.
- [44:55]
Zoran Hamdani
Absolutely correct, Crystal. And like, they already know this material and they came to the conclusion that they did, which is that there was no conspiracy, that Epstein killed himself. Like, even though they obviously know what's in this material and what you said is absolutely correct, that this isn't even 1% of the material that they have, like the FBI will have in, like, their evidence containers and in their databases. This is just the material that they presented to a grand jury. And so everyone who's calling the administration on their BS here is correct. Like, this is not the smoking gun proof that people are waiting for. A lot of these allegations are probably uncorroborated or, you know, it doesn't pertain to third parties in the way that they want them to. So, yeah, this is not going to assuage the people. And frankly, I think it's just there for red meat to give a desperate media class something to cling to and to pretend basically the administration is listening to their concerns.
- [45:44]
Conor
Are there any moves that, say, victims or potentially like Ghislaine Maxwell could take, or Democrats, even congressional Democrats could take, that would force disclosure at all? I mean, there's so many different avenues legally here, but are there moves that could be taken legally to force any new information out into the public?
- [46:07]
Zoran Hamdani
Sure. I think a lot of this is up in the air given the Supreme Court's recent rulings with respect to like, like the unitary executive theory and whether or not the Congress can intrude on the core prerogatives of the presidency. And so your mileage may vary, but if Congress passed a law that mandated disclosure, I don't see why that wouldn't be binding on the executive branch under normal circumstances, assuming that the Trump administration would follow the law. But of course, not to change the topic, but if you guys know about the TikTok law right now, which was enacted by bipartisan Congress and approved by the Supreme Court, there's just no basis right now for them to prevent the execution of the TikTok ban, whether you agree with it or not. And the Trump administration, notwithstanding that, is not listening to it. And Pam Bonney released, like, a letter saying anything that relates to national security like that is completely within the president's control. And so, yeah, I think that legally, Congress could pass a law mandating disclosure, but, you know, it's up in the air whether the courts would force the president to execute it.
- [47:00]
Ryan
Yeah, I mean, we had a law passed in the 90s mandating disclosure of JFK related information that multiple administrations were just like, yeah, we're just not really gonna totally do. So. But the Trump administration has been particularly aggressive about just doing whatever the hell they want to do. At the same time, the Trump administration has. Now, you can put the second element up on the screen. Officially filed suit against the Wall Street Journal. This is a libel lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and reporters who wrote the story about a collection of letters gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, including a note bearing Trump's name and an outline of a naked woman. The lawsuit seeks at least $20 billion and. And describes it as an extraordinary escalation of Trump's ongoing legal campaign against media companies he views as opponents. Just talk to us about the significance of this and also a little bit of how this process will unfold, because I think it is highly unlikely the Wall Street Journal would publish this information because they would know that this would be a real issue for them if they didn't have it all completely locked in and complete and total confidence that this was legitimate material. So at some point, there's gonna be discovery in this. I mean, how does this all unfold? What do you think Trump's gambit is here?
- [48:19]
Zoran Hamdani
Yeah, so I think that this is in line with what Trump has been doing with other media organizations, even when he has, like, a kind of crappy case. So if you remember, he sued, like, CBS for how they edited the Kamala Harris interview, and they settled. They sued CNN and other organizations for other statements they made where. Where people were questioning the case there and actually criticizing the news organizations for settling. But there were kind of different practicalities at issue there. So we can talk about, like, the legal case and then why Trump is doing this. The reason why I think Trump is doing this is because this is his reflex whenever he's attacked publicly. You know, his reflex is to go to court and to sue people and to push, push, push, and attack, attack, attack. Like Roy Cohn told them to. So it's not surprising to me at all that the President is suing. I think that's very much in keeping with his general strategy. Regardless of the legal merits. Here, here though, you know, this seems like preposterous that the Wall Street Journal, which is owned, I want to add, by Rupert Murdoch, like an ally of the President in many other respects and owned by News Corp, that they would not adhere to, pretty much a pretty wonderful track record in terms of the substance of their, of their reporting. And also when the standard is so high for defamation cases involving public figures, you need to show what's known as actual malice. And that requires not just that you issued like a false statement that is defamatory in its nature, but that you did it knowingly or with reckless disregard. So you'd have to show that like the process of the Wall Street Journal, which again, as you mentioned, probably has like lawyers and tons of people like looking at these documents over and over and over. And who is careful if you read the actual article, they state plainly that we don't know how this, you know, what led to the creation of this document. So they disclaim specific knowledge about how the document was created. I had a hard time identifying a single statement in the lawsuit that the Trump team was arguing was false.
- [50:11]
Conor
Yeah, I read through the lawsuit this weekend and it was a lot of bluster. It was funny. Yeah, because to the point that you're making about having to prove actual malice, that's the most amusing part of the lawsuit. I can't believe them trying to say they know that there was a malicious intent on behalf of the Wall Street Journal, basically because Trump said that this was fake and told them that this was fake and they went with it anyway, which is not nearly enough, of course. Let's put this next element up on the screen. Crystal, I know we wanted to talk about. This is a CNN article actually from 2023. DOJ review finds Alex Acosta used, quote, unquote, poor judgment in Jeffrey Epstein deal. This is going back to the sweetheart plea deal that was given to Jeffrey Epstein years and years ago. This was 2007. Many people are familiar with this. CNN wrote at the time 2020, quote, Epstein avoided federal charges and served only 13 months in state prison for state prostitution charges concerning his sexual involvement with underage girls. The arrangement also protected, quote, unquote, any potential co conspirators of Epstein and specifically named four women whom victims alleged were involved in the sexual sex trafficking scheme. And if you can help us understand basically what in what ways this might be affecting our conversation or our ability to get more details. Now, because of the magnitude of the deal or of the secrecy that was part of this deal, I think that would be really helpful.
- [51:43]
Zoran Hamdani
Yeah, 100%. So the deal was substantively, in my opinion and in a lot of commentators opinion, a great deal for Epstein. So he was potentially going to be on the hook for a bunch of really serious violations under the Mann act and other statutes which have like 20, 30 year maximums in terms of their penalty. And that's all listed out in the non prosecution agreement. So substantively, to have to only plead to those charges in Florida, the state charges there and basically only have like a 12 month sentence or something approaching that, where a lot of it was under better conditions than other defendants would have and with like sort of nicer amenities, it's a really good deal for Epstein. The problem, I think from the perspective of people who want like truth or whatever, is that it did kind of halt the investigation or aspects of the investigation at that time when it was made like in 2007, 2008. And so from a substantive investigatory perspective, people were upset that it kind of halted any further investigation that was going on at the time. And then it included this odd like co conspirator clause in part of it, which by its terms, right, the non prosecution agreement literally only refers for Jeffrey Epstein's portion to potentially being charged again in the District. But the co conspirator clause says that the government, the United States, promises not to prosecute not just the four named co conspirators, but potentially other non named co conspirators. Now the government now has a kind of different position on what the non prosecution agreement means. They're like, oh, no, no, no, that, you know, that is meant to apply only as well, right. To the Southern District, Florida. And also we only included that portion there to protect like victims that could have been considered co conspirators without naming them. So you can buy the government on that front. But it was like deemed even by this government, even by Trump right now currently in litigation over the Maxwell case of the Supreme Court as a, quote, highly unusual provision of the deal.
- [53:35]
Ryan
Yeah. And I think the reason this is important is because the nature of this deal was so extraordinary that it raised questions about what really the hell was going on here. Does his wealth, I guess, really explain the nature of how cushy of a deal he was able to secure here? Does the fact that he was able to get these high powered lawyers, people like Alan Dershowitz on his side, is that sufficient to explain how good this deal was? I mean, ultimately they were. The deal was deemed to have violated victims rights. Having this clause in here that I don't know if it's unprecedented, but certainly highly unusual to say, okay, not only are are you done? And we're not gonna investigate any, but anyone who was involved in this, they're off the hook as well. Do you think just like his wealth is enough to explain that? Because I do think this is the locus of where people start to go, okay, well then who else was involved who had something to lose here? Alex Acosta reportedly also said, I was told this was above my pay grade and that he was intel and I needed to leave it alone. So what do you sort of make of how out of the ordinary is this? Given that, of course we all acknowledge that as much as we would like the justice system to be completely even and fair for everyone, there is a two tier system of justice where if you can pay for better lawyers and if you can pay to harass victims and do these sorts of things. Yeah, oftentimes you are not treated the same as your average run of the mill criminal.
- [55:03]
Zoran Hamdani
First of all, I watched with great interest the argument that Michael Tracy had with Sager with you, and I thought it was a great, great debate. And so I agree with aspects of what both of you guys said. So on the one hand, I do think that it is highly unusual and it feels weird the nature of the deal. It doesn't seem weird to me at all that a rich guy had powerful lawyers that were able to get him a good deal. I mean, that just seems like the status quo in terms of the double standard that exists in the justice system in the United States today. But it does raise eyebrows. The comment attributed to a member of the administration who attributes it to Acosta about being intelligence, you know, relations to intelligence services. That also raises eyebrows. And it feels weird and substantively here, like he was given a slap on the wrist for what could have been substantive charges ranging again from like life in prison, 10, 20, 30 years under the Man act and other statutes where he almost certainly would have been convicted for that stuff. So I totally buy and agree with the misgivings of individuals generally who are like, wait a second, something smells wrong about this. And then he was appointed to be like, you know, Secretary of Labor. So I get everyone who's like, this seems weird. We want more transparent. I want to do like, I want to say that there is no smoking gun proof for the other theories and so even though, you know it's possible, right, that the only incentive here was the nature of the fact that they had high profile lawyers and maybe they were convinced by Dershowitz's arguments that the federal statutes didn't apply because of like territoriality or something like that. But I just want to say that like I understand people and their misgivings, given how much smoke there is is I just would caution them not to, you know, jump to conclusions right away.
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- [59:17]
Ryan
All right, let's go ahead and move on to the other story I wanted you to break down for us here at Peace Go, which is we can put this next C1 element up on the screen here. This was a huge development. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't gotten more attention. But a prisoner swap has freed Americans in Venezuela for migrants in El Salvador. So the TLDR here is that all of these Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. who were shipped out using the Alien Enemies act, no due process to sicat in El Salvador, where basically the expectation was they would never be released. Sicot, of course, notorious for human rights abuses, slave labor and all the rest. They have most, if not all, have now been freed to Venezuela as part of this deal. So talk to us a little bit about just the details of what happened here. And I also think that it's important to get into this really exposes the lie of what the Trump administration has been saying in court all along, which is that, oh, that's just in control. You know, El Salvador is controlled now. We have nothing to do with these prisoners. We can't possibly get them released even if we wanted to.
- [60:25]
Zoran Hamdani
Yeah, that's the key component here. The Trump administration was engaged in, like, one of the most horrific abuses of due process in our country's history. Really just picking people up and putting them on a plane without any notice or opportunity to be heard and chipping them off to a torture dungeon, a gulag, foreign gulag in Sikat, where now we're getting information from Kilmar Abrego Garcia about him being beaten, him being forced to defecate because he was kneeling for so long, and other outrageous accusations about the treatment there mass people in a cell without any opportunity, you know, really, to contact lawyers or your family. So the conditions here are absolutely deplorable. And as a matter of policy, this administration sent these people to those camps without any due process whatsoever. And all the while they were disclaiming that they had any power to bring them back. They were doing this song and dance before Judge Boasberg, before the Supreme Court, even, that potentially these people were outside of their command and control, outside of their ability that really, you know, in front of the Oval Office, in of front in that horrific meeting with Bukele, pretending like it was under the sovereign power of El Salvador that these people were being held. And we knew all along this was a crooked deal that was sort of cooked up by the administration to pay the government of El Salvador to house these individuals. And so they were there at the discretion and urging of the United States government. And now this proves it, right? What you're pointing to this deal between the government of Venezuela who has had kidnapped or held Americans or American legal permanent residents under their control. And to have that deal in exchange for some of these people who were sent to sicot in El Salvador shows that who's running the show here? The American government. They're the ones in control of these prisoners. And also we knew this because El Salvador had specifically stated so in front of the UN in the weeks before. This is something that is not even seriously contested. But we had to deal with really the fraudsters and the hacks from the MAGA wing of the the party and from the influencer class who are pretending that somehow Trump couldn't if he wanted to bring these people back either to this country or to some other country.
- [62:30]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [62:30]
Conor
And if we take a look at the next couple of elements, there's some familiar names to people who followed this closely. So next one. This is Reyes, he's the, this is the case of the goalie that some people may remember. He was part of the deal here. And then if we go to the next element, Andre Hernandez Romero, he was the makeup artist who was imprisoned because of his tattoos, also part of the deal. So one of the things, and this is the final element, the Mother Jones story C3 one of the things that's important legally here is that there is there are protections from leaving, being sent from America to a prison where conditions here Mother Jones reports that people were say they were beaten every day where the conditions are known to the United States government to be like this. So could you explain a little bit of what the basically this is part of our legal system is you're not allowed to send people to foreign prisons where you know the conditions are going to be. And you can tell us particularly what it is. But like less than the standard of the United States is that the legal provision.
- [63:38]
Zoran Hamdani
So I think the three main things to look at here are asylum, withholding of removal and the Convention Against Torture Torture. And some of these are pursuant to international agreements, Convention Against Torture is US Law like, incorporated by Congress. And it basically prevents deportations to locations where someone is likely to be tortured. And that applies whether you were here illegally. That applies whether or not you entered without inspection and admission at the border. The United States has an active obligation not to send people to places where they're likely to receive torture with respect to asylum and withholding different standards in those cases. The legal nuances are beyond the scope of, of this, you know, this interview, but basically where you're going to be subject to persecution, limitations on the government's ability to. That's basically what Kilmar Berger Rosier was granted. Withholding of removal because of the likelihood of persecution at the hands of the El Salvadorian government or at the hands of someone which the El Salvadorian government doesn't have the authority or power or willingness to stop in the case of the gangs. So, yeah, these are protections in our laws. And that's one of the reasons why now that there's all this fur about, about the administration sending people to like, South Sudan and places on the brink of civil war where they're also likely to be subject to inhumane treatment. So, yeah, there are actual active obligations on America, like American law that we pass that we should follow that prevent us from doing these kinds of deportations to places where it's fundamentally unsafe or where people are fundamentally going to be subject to like, deprivations of rights and persecution and torture.
- [65:01]
Ryan
And I think it's worth noting, obviously, it's better that these men are not in seekot given the record of abuses and what they themselves are saying now, when journalists are able to speak with them about what their treatment entailed. But in many instances, I mean, their rights were still violated here in that Mother Jones article they write. For some relatives, the news of the men's return to Venezuela evoked mixed feelings. Maria Quevedo, the mother of Eddie Adolfo Hurtado Quevedo, told Mother Joan she was feeling relieved but still scared. I'm happy because God gave me the gift of seeing my son free on my birthday. I'm scared because my son is going to Venezuela where he was threatened by a paramilitary group called Colectivos. Many of these individuals actually had ongoing asylum claims that they were, you know, some of them would have been rejected and some of them potentially had, you know, a legitimate standing and may have succeeded here. So just speak a little bit about that aspect of it. Pisco.
- [65:54]
Zoran Hamdani
Yeah, something like 30% of asylum. Some claims that are petitioned are meritorious. And so it's not this, like 5%, 6%. It's a significant percentage of these claims, at least with respect to asylum, are granted meritorious asylum claims, even under the Trump administration, which oftentimes rolls back protections and rolls back different coverage of asylum provisions and changes the rules under the Department of Justice. So it absolutely is a concern. And think about what the implications would be if the Trump administration were successful in being able to make this kind of laundering scheme where you just send someone to an intermediary and then do some kind of crooked deal to send them back to the country where they were trying to flee for persecution, and that way get rid of their legal obligations under the asylum statutes, under the Convention Against Torture, and under the withholding statutes, it would be like a massive hole in our law and obviously against the due process clause of the United States Constitution, where, where unanimously, even this Supreme Court, this Supreme Court, which is basically walking over nails to give Trump the benefit of the doubt in every single case, unanimously said, even illegally present aliens in this country have procedural due process rights before their deportations and renditions. And so this should concern everyone. It's not just a matter of, like, yeah, some of these people probably did some crimes, some of these people probably don't have meritorious claims, but it's the principle about letting the government make a road through due process and make an end run around US statutory law that protects these people from these kinds of subsidy provisions.
- [67:22]
Ryan
Last question I have for you, Pisco, is what do you make of the fact, first of all, the administration has not gone forward with using Alien Enemies act, as far as I know, for further deportations. They did ultimately have to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back, even though they said explicitly he will never, under no circumstances will he ever come back to the US now you have this as well. I mean, Kristi OEM had also represented that the expectation was that these men would be in CCOP for the rest of their lives. And now they're not. Now they're, you know, they're not back here, but they're in Venezuela. What do you sort of politically make of those developments?
- [67:57]
Zoran Hamdani
Yeah, I think politically right now it's having an effect like some of these oversteps, Alligator Alcatraz, some of what you saw with Kilmar, some of these stories are having an effect on his polling with respect to immigration. You're seeing that consistently that it's going down, which is his strongest issue. But taking the strategic position for a moment.
- [68:15]
Ryan
Moment.
- [68:15]
Zoran Hamdani
Of getting to the head of the administration, I would caution people to, like, look at why the Administration is taking these kind of crazy roads in the first place from a good faith perspective and compare it similar to this defamation lawsuit against Epstein. Like, is the defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, Is that about defamation law per se, or is it about sending a signal? Is it about sending a signal to other media organizations, other news organizations that if you publish damaging soreness against the administration, we're gonna make you hurt and we're definitely gonna bring you to court. And so if you take a look at the longer term picture, what are these renditions using the Alien Enemies act trying to do? They're trying to make people scared, make people scared to come to this country, make people scared to apply for asylum. Some of the stuff, they know it's illegal, they know it's against the law. But you should see it in the context of a signaling sort of debate and about showing people that the American government is not going to accept kind of like any immigration or they're gonna be mean no matter what. And so viewed in that context, I can understand if you're a super anti immigration person, why you'd be like, okay, all right, so a couple people were illegally deported. But the broader message is the deportation or, sorry, the border crossing numbers are down. And that's a result of this harsh policy. But I think that there's a danger of overstepping and I think the administration will start to see the. That again with the polling numbers and with the midterms on the horizon.
- [69:37]
Conor
Yeah, I think they already have. And they were really excited to use Guantanamo. And that became relatively limited, probably still on their radar to some extent. But I think we've seen that in the strategy. They ended up sending a few hundred people to seekat, which as a fairly conservative. Someone with a fairly conservative perspective on immigration. The Bukele LARP was just insufferable. So I think they realized most people saw it that way too.
- [70:04]
Zoran Hamdani
What do you think, Emily? Do you support the administration's position on immigration?
- [70:07]
Conor
On immigration, not what they're doing. I mean, the way that they've handled it now, I think they have to do significant numbers of deportations.
- [70:15]
Ryan
Peace. Go loves to turn the tables. We're supposed to be asking you the questions here.
- [70:20]
Conor
I could do an hour on everything. I think they've gotten wrong. When we're talking about CCOT and the Bukele larp, you're going to get me to say no because that was just embarrassing.
- [70:29]
Zoran Hamdani
What about Alligator Alcatraz?
- [70:31]
Conor
I don't have a hard position on Alligator Alcatraz. It feels Weird. It also feels like another larp, but I haven't.
- [70:36]
Zoran Hamdani
Fair enough.
- [70:37]
Conor
Thought too much about it. Also, there shouldn't be American citizens or minors in there. Like, that's obvious. Seems obviously weird.
- [70:43]
Ryan
So, Pisco, we'll have to have you back so you and I can fight about Superman since he's uncharacteristically wrong in his analysis here. So we can there. He doesn't. You don't, you don't think it's actually Israel, Palestine being reflected in this?
- [71:00]
Zoran Hamdani
I think that it's possibly like a combination of Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia. What I don't think is. I don't think that it's. I don't think that it's this anti Semitic movie.
- [71:11]
Ryan
Like what was anti Semitic? Obviously it's not that.
- [71:15]
Zoran Hamdani
No, but there was this person I was talking to. I don't know for people who are like very online. His name was Drew Pavlov and he took the position that this was a groiper movie that was basically, literally depicting Benjamin Netanyahu and that it was meant to like get everyone to cheer about a Zionist occupied government and how, you know, when Benjamin Netanyahu was killed, that people were supposed to cheer and this was supposed to basically turn everyone anti Semitic. And I don't go that far. I do think that there are obviously like historical illusions, but I think that people. It's a bit of a self report when a bunch of Israel supporters are like, like, hey, this like very corrupt country that's working with Lex Luthor to destroy the world. When they say that must be Israel. I think that that's a little bit of a self report and I think there are many different historical allusions you can make.
- [71:57]
Ryan
Yes, indeed.
- [71:58]
Conor
We just opened three cans of worms, like right at the end here.
- [72:02]
Ryan
Last three seconds. Alcatraz, Superman, Antisemitism. Yeah, well, it's not an anti Semitic movie, but I do think it is an anti Israel movie and I celebrate it for that.
- [72:11]
Zoran Hamdani
We'll have to talk about it.
- [72:12]
Ryan
Yes, everybody go subscribe to Peace goes hour and live and learn and check out what he's doing over there. Great to see you, my friend.
- [72:18]
Zoran Hamdani
Friend. Thank you guys so much.
- [72:20]
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- [74:55]
Ryan
So guys, the number of deaths from starvation at the hands of the Israeli government inside of Gaza are truly accelerating the situation judging by what people on the ground, doctors, relief organizations are saying is truly, truly dire and urgent. We had trouble connecting with a ADA Maui He's a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee. He is inside of Gaza for a live interview but he was able to record this video about what he is seeing on the ground. Let's take a listen to that.
- [75:24]
Mohammed Kleit
My friends, I can't imagine the tragedy that our children is still facing. Their bodies is machinated and they still suffering from the famine. No foods, no flowers, no waters. Really the situation here is more than we can describe multiple times to the media. But in my notes I expected that our children will die group by group because the children, they will not have any resilience in their bodies with the loss of the nutrition and the water also. So the international community must do urgent intervention and open the humanitarian corridor that can let our children stay alive by some food supplement or any amount of foods we cannot imagine until this moment. We send thousands and thousands of humanitarian appeals to the world. No one do any tangible actions that can save our lives. So I hope something will change soon after our speech and after all of the humanitarian appeals, especially with those children, our babies will lose their lives urgently after the famine is completely destroy every resilience here. We can't stand and complete our life with the circumstances here.
- [77:00]
Ryan
So as I was saying and as Ayad was saying, the reports on the ground are truly, truly dire. We can put this up on the screen. This is just prepare yourself guys. Trigger warning. This is a three month old baby who is now dead from starvation. They have blocked any aid from entering the Gaza Strip, but including formula. The mothers are too malnourished themselves to be able to breastfeed. So for babies to be able to live, they require formula, they require milk. And this is far from the only dire case, far from the only death that has been experienced. I think the number that I saw was, you know, you're up now in the dozens of starvation deaths. It's mostly young children, infants. I've also seen horrifying videos of some elderly individuals who are just collapsing. I could put D2 up on the screen. Heretz has report about Gaza medical officials saying that people are arriving with severe hunger symptoms, including children and infants. Director of the Field Hospital in Al Masi warned of an impending wave of deaths due to organ failure among displaced individuals. They say the cases reaching us are of people who collapsed in the streets from lack of nutrition. All of them need food even before medicine. According to the Health Ministry In Gaza, about 17,000 children in the Strip are suffering from severe malnutrition. The death toll from starvation overall has risen to 620, including at least 69 children. I've seen warnings, Emily, that the level of famine they've reached already is, you know, there will be. Even if the floodgates opened and the Gaza Strip was, you know, aid, the thousands of trucks of aid that are lined up outside were allowed in at this point. For some people, it has gone too far and too long and there will be continued death and, you know, lasting developmental issues, lasting health issues and consequences even if the siege ended today. And there is no indication that the siege will end today.
- [79:12]
Conor
So the question for Likud and Netanyahu and the Israeli government right now is whether that is, is constructive for the case of peace. Right. Are they creating conditions that will make their own people just by their, let's take their argument at face value. Are they creating conditions right now that will, in the long run make their own people safer and more prosperous with the situation that they have created in Gaza? And the answer is obviously absolutely not. Because people have watched this happen for years. They're watching it happen right now. And if this doesn't radicalize you in that position, I mean, of course it's going to radicalize many, many people who are watching this happen to them.
- [79:58]
Ryan
I mean, I just, I did not know that we lived in a world where we could watch 2 million people be starved to death and that would just happen. Like, I didn't know we lived in that world. We apparently live in that world because, I mean, the media is covering it the tiniest bit. There was an analysis. They covered Zoran's reaction to the comment globalized Intifada in the New York Times like 37 times. And it barely covered this whatsoever. I mean, these images of these skeletal 3 year olds, 2 year olds, infants, they're out there for, it's not a secret. Like they announced they're, you know, blocking the aid trucks from coming in. We all know we could put D3 up on the screen. This quote, unquote, Gaza Humanitarian foundation is nothing but a cruel joke. The latest indicate you had at least 73 people who were murdered by Israel while they were seeking aid. So it's this absolute dystopian horror where you're starving everybody. The only access to food is through ghf if you can brave the sniper fire and the, you know, at one point they have like the Navy firing on starving people who are seeking aid. It just could not be more grave and more dire. We're kind of, you know, joking around with Pisco about the Superman movie and whatever. And I said this when we covered it, to be honest with you like, what Israel is doing is even more cartoonishly villainous than the cartoon version of Israel as an evil country that is portrayed in Superman. It's just, I don't know how. I don't know how humanity comes back from such a thing of just knowing this is happening. It's an announced government policy. The world superpower is involved. It's apparently supportive, and it's all unfolding before our eyes. And like no power in the world with the power to stop it is doing anything.
- [81:59]
Conor
Let's look at, let's look at D4 here, because this is the choice to the point Crystal was just making that people are facing, which is whether to go seek aid. So this is reportedly US mercenaries who are, as Suleiman Ahmed puts it here, he says, quote, U.S. mercenaries assault starving civilians and pepper spray them as they wait for aid at the JHF center in Gaza. So, Crystal, that sets up the reality is the decision, go seek this aid, go try to get food, or continue trying to survive on what you don't have. Yeah.
- [82:39]
Ryan
And it's cruelty and horror with a specific end goal in mind. And we can put this up on the screen because our country is being enlisted to help to create this end goal. Israel seeking the US Help on deals to move Palestinians out of Gaza. That is ethnic cleansing to third countries. And the idea here is that you make conditions so unlivable inside of Gaza that people are desperate to go anywhere just to have a chance to live. And at the same time, you know, they've increased the evacuation zones so that they are literally concentrating the population of Gaza into small camps and concentrating the population so that they can ultimately continue applying this pressure of wanton massacre plus starvation, plus, you know, complete intentional destruction of all civilian life, including, by the way, I mean, we've talked a lot about the infrastructure and the buildings. I mean, they've intentionally destroyed farmland, destroyed, you know, aquifers, they've greenhouses, anything that would allow Palestinians to be able to care for themselves and grow their own food, they have systematically destroyed that as well. And so, I mean, that's the ultimate plan. It's not hidden, it's announced. Our government is being asked to cooperate. Our government is already cooperating it. And, you know, that is the. That's where we are. The world is standing by as a genocide, ethnic cleansing, and mass starvation campaign unfolds before our eyes. And I just. I don't even know what to say about it anymore.
- [84:17]
Conor
Well, Crystal, again, the Israeli military may have done something from the pure perspective of public relations. As they incorporate into, we know their strategy as they see it as a very important part of their strategy. They may have done something that was counterproductive. When a Catholic church in Gaza was hit and it drew the attention of many conservatives to what was happening. This was a raging debate on acts over the weekend among different conservatives. So we can put D6 on the screen. This is a tweet from Joel Berry of the Babylon Bee who says, quote, this won't be easy for people to hear, but there are only about 200 professed Catholics still living in Gaza and they all support Hamas.
- [85:01]
Ryan
I just want to read managing editor of the Babylon Bee. So not some low level rando.
- [85:06]
Conor
Yeah. And some of my friends on the like. Right, right. Came out and said we're never dealing with Babylon B again. Like it's. This is the final straw after that happened. And we're going to get into more of this. But I want to read just on that point as a response, this post from former Congressman Justin Amash. Former Republican Congressman Justin Amash. He's a libertarian. He's Palestinian. He says, quote, the claim that Orthodox and Catholic Christians in Palestinian communities aren't, quote, unquote, true Christians is reprehensible. An attempt to erase the identity of a people living in the Levant since ancient times and alienate Christianity from its ancestral home, the place of Jesus Christ. Amen. Justin Amash, I think he absolutely nailed that response to Joel. But Crystal, this debate is now not going anywhere. For the people who are the most supportive defensive of the Israeli government at every step of the way. Here is Michael Knowles, who is a Catholic, reacting on his daily wire show to news of the church that was hit in Gaza. We can roll D7.
- [86:14]
Mehdi Hasan
As I've mentioned before, everyone seems to hate the state of Israel these days, mostly coming from the left, but some people on the right have joined. And I've been broadly supportive of the state of Israel, not really as an ideological matter, but as a matter of prudence. And you're losing me. You're losing me. When you strike churches, the only church in Gaza, even if accidentally, but especially if not accidentally, you're losing me. If you're losing Mike Huckabee. The Israeli government is really screwing up, is really not playing its cards right. I agree with the Holy Father, I agree with the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and I agree especially with the Holy Father on most matters. The war needs to come to an end. There need to be political consequences for this action, and the war needs to come to an end. How long is the War gonna go on. I know what the answer is. The answer is, well, until the hostages come home. Okay, well, how about we redouble our efforts to get the hostages home if that's the impediment to peace? Because it seems like there have been a lot of side quests and side missions. The war has been going on for almost two years. When's it gonna end? Just what's the end of it? Can anyone tell me that? When the hostages are released. Well, then focus on getting the hostages released. Well, no, when Hamas is totally destroyed. Okay, well, when's that gonna be? When Iran is no longer funding terrorism. When's that gonna be? When Syria is made safe for democracy? Give me an answer. Because the war cannot just go on indefinitely. Adjust work and not just go on indefinitely.
- [87:53]
Conor
Okay. Crystal reaction to Michael Knowles reaction. And let's just also now, since the church was hit, it's the only Catholic church in Gaza, as he mentioned. Pope Leo has come out and condemned what happened, obviously. And even Mike Huckabee, to what Michael Knowles just mentioned has been up in arms. We covered this a little bit last week. He visited the Christian town in the west bank over the weekend, so on Saturday. And also condemned that called for, quote, harsh consequences. So this is a real break. The question is, there were plenty of real breaks on the left during the Biden administration. The question is whether that actually trickles into the policy level. And that's much less clear.
- [88:42]
Ryan
You're right.
- [88:43]
Conor
But as we have covered for a long time, the sort of mainstream average right has a very different position. Same thing on the left as the policymakers on this issue.
- [88:54]
Ryan
Yeah, well, not the boomers, but. Right. The young. Right. Yeah. And I think that's. I don't expect there to be a policy consequence. You know, Mike Huckabee has expressed his upset. They'll work out whatever their visa issue is and he'll move on with his lockstep support, as will Donald Trump. But I guess what bothers me is it just. It seems like it took a fellow Catholic getting killed before he saw anybody as, like, human beings who were there. And I think it really reveals how much Islamophobic Islamophobia and anti Arab bigotry allows this situation to persist. They've just been so thoroughly dehumanized that, I mean, think of how much death and destruction and intentional starvation, all of the money, mosques that have been destroyed and the schools and the refugee camps and the doctors and the hospitals and the, you know, ground plowed up so they can't grow food, and they're barred from even fishing off their own coast. I mean, just the utter horror, death, disease, starvation, destruction that has been going on now, to his point, for almost two years. And so, I mean, I'm glad that finally you have a recognition of like, oh, holy shit, these are actually human beings. Maybe I. Maybe this is wrong. But it does bother me that you didn't see any of the rest of the people who were being murdered as human beings. So that's one of the things that jumped down at me, is I do think it really underscores how much this whole project is dependent on a thorough dehumanization of the Palestinian people. And the moment you have some Palestinians who Michael Knowles and Mike Huckabee can recognize as actual human beings, then it becomes pretty clear how horrifying and outrageous the entire project is.
- [90:44]
Conor
Well, here's what I think is interesting and maybe it's worth even talking to Michael about. He is a very staunch defender of like, the west, the broader West. And that's what I think is particularly compelling about his argument is we hear constantly. And he says he's supported Israel generally as a matter of prudence, because for many people on the right, they see Israel as a bastion of Western values versus anti Western values. People who actually do not believe in liberal democracy as the west sees it. And that juxtaposition has always been really powerful on the right. That purported juxtaposition has always been really powerful on the right. And, and what I hear from Michael is when you look at conduct like this, that's a cracking facade. The idea that Israel is upholding the values of the west in.
- [91:40]
Ryan
I mean, it's frankly an insane idea at this point.
- [91:44]
Conor
It's definitely like to see that reaction. I find that really, really interesting because that's the foundational piece of support that keeps even good faith conservatives sort of intellectually behind Israel. And that is what falls apart fairly easily, especially since October 7th. I think that's why this post October 7th period has been really important. Let's put up. A lot of Catholics were sharing these images of Cardinal Pizzabolla. So this is D8. We can start rolling this. He actually went and visited. He went off and visited the church on Saturday. So clearly putting himself on the line here and going into a war zone and touring the destruction.
- [92:35]
Ryan
And this was. Guy. Emily, am I correct that the right really was hoping to see as Pope? Yes. And so the fact he's the one that goes, I think gives it added significance.
- [92:45]
Conor
Yeah. The best way to explain it would Be. If you were watching Conclave, he would be sort of one of the conservatives right in the conservative faction. That's a very rough approximation and I'm not Catholic, but that's the best way that you can kind of. I can kind of explain it. He was on the list of people the right wanted to see potentially step into Francis shoes because of his reputation as one of the more conservatives. So this is. I think this was a really powerful moment. And this is D9. You can see him posing with kids. Look at that. This is so such a beautiful sign of resilience.
- [93:26]
Ryan
And just to go back to this Joel Berry creed.
- [93:29]
Conor
Yeah, let's.
- [93:30]
Ryan
This is who he's saying is Hamas. This is who right here. Look at this little girl taking communion, this little boy looking over her. That's who he is. Justifying their murder. Harder. Let's be really clear by saying these. They all. Let's be honest, they all support Hamas. That's what he's doing. And the number of tweets and commentators and arguments that I've seen made exactly like this, by the way, applied to the entire population, I can't possibly keep track at this point. But for him to put it out there so clearly about Christians in particular, this is the first I saw huge a significant backlash from the right of like, wait, these little kids. You're saying these little kids who are here with, you know, with this cardinal taking. You think they are Hamas and deserve to be murdered?
- [94:21]
Conor
Yeah, well, there's a. There's a Catholic Protestant third rail, particularly on the right, because the right is still more. I think that the sort of professional right, the conservative movement is knitted together by religious fabric in a way that the left really isn't anymore. And so the of kind Catholic Protestant third rail, when that gets touched, it can flare up. But one of the interesting things I saw is a lot of my fellow evangelicals were wildly offended by what Joel said and were saying. So this was completely wrong. And that is something that you don't often see, to be honest. A bunch of evangelicals rallying behind Arab Catholics in Gaza because someone dared to, you know, affiliate them with Hamas. These are children. Children. Three people died. Nine were injured. A priest was injured. The church was damaged. Many churches have been damaged over the course of this. And we mentioned earlier, Huckabee was out in the west bank and like the remaining Christian village, mostly Christian village in the West Bank. And Krystal, I totally understand your point about people waking up to this because Christians are under attack, sort of human nature. To it sort of hits home for you when it's people with whom you identify. And so, yeah, I absolutely hear what you're saying. This, though, the amount of piling on Joel, that happened over the weekend, this really feels like the chapter being turned, like something happened over the weekend.
- [96:11]
Ryan
Was there some other. Just real quick, was there some other precipitating? Because I saw people like Babylon bees, anti Catholic bias. But there were other things that happened.
- [96:19]
Conor
So Joel has been out at the forefront with James Lindsay and some others condemning Tucker Carlson and Daryl Cooper and the quote, unquote, woke racing, which I think there's something to the quote, unquote woke right. Construction. If you're talking about like Nick Fuentes, if you're talking about Tucker Carlson. No, you're talking about this narrow slice of people who are very identitarian, like Nick Fuentes, who are open racists as he identified himself on Candace Owens show, then, yeah, you could call him like neo woke, like identitarian, white nationalist. Yes.
- [96:53]
Ryan
But they think that woke up is a worse pejorative than like Nazi.
- [96:59]
Conor
So Joel and others have been lumping, I would say, people who are not.
- [97:04]
Ryan
At all like Dave Smith, let's say there is what I think we could safely say.
- [97:09]
Conor
Right. And particularly because of their positions on Israel. And so that's where this has gotten. That's the precipitating factor here that people were already primed to build. Like, dude, you are being, if anything, you are the one being woke. You're the one sort of engaging in this cancel culture of anyone who dares to question the Israeli government, not even Israel, but like the Israeli government. So that was already.
- [97:36]
Ryan
That had sort of been percolating, that was bubbling. Okay.
- [97:38]
Conor
Yeah. And a lot of people do perceive that as Catholic because a lot of anti Catholic, because a lot of Catholics tend to be more in that camp than Protestant evangelicals. Because Protestant evangelicals have this very, you know, many people are dispensationalists. Evangelicals are dispensationalists. And they have this idea of the nation of Israel and the state of Israel being involved in prophecy and all of that. So it does touch on that third rail. So it was. Joel really stepped into. He stepped into the minefield. Yeah.
- [98:16]
Ryan
I could tell when I was reading the replies that I was like coming in halfway through the conversation. I missed some things. I could tell people are mad, but I definitely missed some things that happened before this. Yeah. Thank you for explaining that.
- [98:27]
Conor
There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on.
- [98:29]
Ryan
Yes. Speaking of a lot going on. Let's go ahead and get to medi on surrounded time for a sofa upgrade.
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- [101:08]
Ryan
All right, guys, so some pretty interesting moments as Mehdi Hasan went on Jubilee. Their show called Surrounded. The title here on YouTube is one progressive versus 20 far wrong right conservatives featuring Mehdi Hassan and far right, certainly. I don't even think that does justice to the ideology that some of these people espoused. Case in point, this dude right here. Let's take a listen.
- [101:33]
Joel Berry
How would Conor's America look? What would it look like?
- [101:35]
Mehdi Hasan
Well, quite frankly, I think we would deport people who shouldn't be here.
- [101:38]
Joel Berry
I didn't ask about deporting. What does the government look like?
- [101:40]
Mehdi Hasan
What does the government look like? I would say, quite frankly, it's under.
- [101:43]
Ryan
A sort of benevolent leader such as Francois.
- [101:47]
Mehdi Hasan
It could be a kind of aristocratic class.
- [101:49]
Zoran Hamdani
Could be someone who picks the autocrat, frankly, the people.
- [101:52]
Krystal
I mean, we could hold a vote on it.
- [101:54]
Mehdi Hasan
Kings.
- [101:54]
Joel Berry
Isn't that democracy?
- [101:55]
Krystal
Well, sure, you can have a vote.
- [101:57]
Joel Berry
To get to that and then no more votes afterwards.
- [102:00]
Mehdi Hasan
Absolutely. 100.
- [102:02]
Mohammed Kleit
Wow.
- [102:02]
Joel Berry
And if that autocrat kills you and your family, you're fine with that?
- [102:05]
Mehdi Hasan
Well, I'm not. I'm not going to be a part of the group that he kills because that's the whole thing.
- [102:10]
Joel Berry
How do you know? Autocrats tend to kill Everyone makes this point very well.
- [102:14]
Mehdi Hasan
In his work, it's the friend enemy distinction.
- [102:16]
Conor
Right.
- [102:16]
Joel Berry
You the Nazi theoretician?
- [102:19]
Zoran Hamdani
Absolutely.
- [102:19]
Mehdi Hasan
I don't care.
- [102:20]
Joel Berry
Are you fan of the Nazis?
- [102:22]
Mehdi Hasan
I don't. I frankly don't care. Being called the Nazi?
- [102:25]
Joel Berry
I didn't say that. I didn't say that. I said, are you a fan of the Nazis?
- [102:28]
Mehdi Hasan
Well, they persecuted the church a little bit.
- [102:30]
Zoran Hamdani
I'm not a fan of that.
- [102:31]
Joel Berry
But what about the persecution of the Jews?
- [102:33]
Mehdi Hasan
Well, I mean, I certainly don't support anyone's human dignity being assaulted. I'm a Catholic.
- [102:37]
Joel Berry
But you don't condemn Nazi persecution of the Jews.
- [102:41]
Mehdi Hasan
I think that there was a little bit of persecution.
- [102:44]
Joel Berry
We rename the show because you're a little bit more than a far right Republican.
- [102:48]
Mohammed Kleit
Hey, what can I say?
- [102:50]
Joel Berry
I think you say I'm a fascist.
- [102:52]
Zoran Hamdani
Yeah, I am.
- [102:57]
Mehdi Hasan
Absolutely.
- [102:57]
Joel Berry
I'm just checking who's clapping just to get my set of where everyone is on this.
- [103:01]
Ryan
Yeah. So where do they find these people? I don't know. I mean, and some of them you'll recognize from other episodes, like this blonde chick I've definitely seen before in other episodes as well. But I mean, I watched the whole thing that's crazy. You really did not enjoy it.
- [103:21]
Conor
Yeah, I was gonna say.
- [103:22]
Ryan
I mean, Mehdi did a great job. And there were some weird moments too, where, like, some of these people would come up, especially on Gaza actually, and they would be like, I don't even disagree with you. It's like, what are we doing here? And then other ones would just be like, yeah, I'm a fascist, and I think you die. And it's like, what are we doing here? You know, it's just like.
- [103:40]
Conor
Yeah.
- [103:41]
Ryan
So my question for you. Oh, boy. I mean, this guy, People online or apparently has an online Persona. They're saying, like, he's a groper, meaning he's like a fan or follower of Nick Fuentes, obviously, you know, happy to be called a Nazi or fascist or whatever, doesn't care and follows, like, Nazi thinkers and whatever. Like.
- [103:59]
Conor
Right.
- [104:00]
Ryan
How significant is this strain with young Republicans in particular?
- [104:06]
Conor
It's a good question. I mean, I think this is. It's not representative of like, an average kid by any means, or an average, like, 20 something by any means. It is something that for people who spend a lot of time in, like, the online fever swamps. The way that I think about it is there's now this almost like, architecture, like, there's this mental architecture, like him. Him invoking Carl Schmidt out of basically nowhere in that conversation with Mehdi. It's such a tell that he's part of the.
- [104:42]
Ryan
That he wants to say that he was dying for Mehdi to be like, you're a Nazi.
- [104:47]
Conor
Yeah.
- [104:47]
Ryan
Cause he's like, I don't care if you call me a Nazi message. I didn't even say that. I said, are you a fan of the Nazis?
- [104:53]
Conor
Right.
- [104:53]
Ryan
He was dying to. He was so happy to have his little moment where like, yeah, you can call me a fat. And thinks it's like, hilarious. And everyone in the room is laughing and applauding that.
- [105:01]
Conor
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there's always going to be a component of the right that's like, fascy. There's always gonna be a component of it. There's always going to be, like, mouth breathing, fringe, conspiracy theory, addled weirdos, like, that's always gonna be a part of basically any political movement. And on the right, it tends in the direction of, like, ultra reactionary fascism. So the question that I have, and I don't have a perfect answer to it, but the question I have is, is it growing or is it just that they now have this kind of mental architecture where they can. They have, like, Carl Schmidt and They're ready to say friend, enemy, distinction, because they've read all of the viral threads and there are people who are sort of thought leaders because the Internet, you don't have to like gather in some type of like weird bar after closing and have these meetings of fringe weirdos. You can do it on the Internet now. And there are people who are national, like Nick Fuentes of somebody who talks about this type of stuff. And so there's just a more is more obvious and more visible. I definitely worry that our elites are leading us into a position where more and more people are tempted by fascism or anarchism or any fringe, like frankly, communism, because people are so desperate and upset. This kid, though, he looks like a normal middle class dude who just is.
- [106:34]
Ryan
Like, yeah, like, what's your excuse, buddy?
- [106:37]
Conor
Yeah, but it's, you know, as much as I wanna trash Jubilee or whatever the hell it's called, Surrounded, whatever it.
- [106:44]
Ryan
Is, yeah, the channel is Jubilee. This show is surrounded.
- [106:47]
Conor
Something interesting about it is that it does force them to play out this experiment in the real world instead of on the Internet. And like, yes, I get that it's being broadcast on the Internet in a kind of meta sense, but to have the conversation in person with somebody who disagrees with you, your thoughts are tested in real time. And you just saw that he obviously hasn't considered whether he will be put into one of his little camps, right? And he thinks, oh no, I'll be okay. I'll be okay.
- [107:15]
Ryan
Fun little thought experiment.
- [107:16]
Conor
Many people have thought that they would not end up in the camp. Camp, sir, that's the story of the last century.
- [107:22]
Ryan
I've got more for you. So this is in the immigration portion and just, you know, background knowledge here. Mehdi is an American citizen. He is a naturalized American citizen. And one of the Jubilee guys is like, you need to get the hell out. Let's take a listen.
- [107:35]
Mehdi Hasan
You're tightening the supply and labor to.
- [107:37]
Joel Berry
Basic understanding of economics because you're.
- [107:38]
Conor
I can't explain I'm wrong.
- [107:38]
Joel Berry
I'm telling you how you're wrong because you're ignoring the fact that when immigrants come into an area, they spend money, they create jobs, about one fifth of.
- [107:46]
Zoran Hamdani
Their monthly income leaves.
- [107:47]
Joel Berry
They spend. That's a good thing. Also because you don't like US aid, foreign aid. So this is the point. They create dollars. I came into this country. So far, every one of my assumptions about you has been correct. But listen to me, I am an immigrant. I'm speaking from first experience. I don't even like, I Should get the hell out.
- [108:01]
Ryan
Yes. Why?
- [108:02]
Zoran Hamdani
I don't want you here. Why? Because you come here and say all this bullshit about how Americans are lazy. You push your left one.
- [108:06]
Joel Berry
I never said Americans.
- [108:07]
Conor
I don't know why you say this.
- [108:08]
Joel Berry
I never said Americans are lazy coming.
- [108:11]
Zoran Hamdani
To this country so they can do.
- [108:12]
Joel Berry
Job jobs that we don't want to do. When did I say it? Guys watching on YouTube, rewind to the time where I said immigrants are doing jobs we don't want to do. When did I say those words?
- [108:22]
Zoran Hamdani
Okay, so why do we want to bring in immigrants? Why do we have to bring in.
- [108:25]
Mehdi Hasan
Immigrants to the country if we have.
- [108:26]
Zoran Hamdani
People who are going to do the jobs?
- [108:27]
Conor
Pause.
- [108:28]
Ryan
You've been voted out.
- [108:28]
Zoran Hamdani
It's nice talking to you.
- [108:29]
Joel Berry
Nice talking to you.
- [108:30]
Zoran Hamdani
You're gonna have to go.
- [108:31]
Joel Berry
Nice talking to you. You're gonna have to go, bro. Is what he said as I left to an American citizen. Good, Good.
- [108:39]
Ryan
And yet, to your point, Emily, this sort of validates the worst caricature of what Democrats or liberals or leftists or whoever would say about the right of like, you're pretending you just want secure borders, really. You just want a white ethno state and you hate brown people, and you think even a naturalized citizen like Mehdi Hasan should go, bro. And this guy's like, yes. And I think that's. That's what's very different about today, is that you can go on Twitter and see this sentiment expressed routinely out in the open with support with prominent online media figures who will bolster the case with these pseudo intellectual arguments that are being made, whether it's the Curtis Yarvins of the world or whoever. And I think Richard Henania himself, he claims former eugenicists would say the. There's still some questions there, which I asked him about. In any case, I think he actually explained it well, as he called it like the based loop or something like that, where it's like you just keep going further and further and the test is saying the most outrageous things and not getting offended by it. And whoever can sort of survive that test gets the most clout credence countercultural vibes on the Internet.
- [109:57]
Conor
Well, there's a very obvious, I think, and sad reality to that, which is social media has completely gamified our politics and our culture, literally. These. Twitter was designed like a casino. And so when we are communicating, whether as journalists or as politicians or as members of the public sort of engaging in civic debate, quote, unquote, it's all like gamified in a way that is playing on our neurological structures. It's actually incredibly, incredibly messed up how little we think about what this has done to us. Because posting is. You're posting about your personal life, you're posting about politics, you're posting about another human being. We could have an entire conversation about the Coldplay concert when it comes to all of this, but you're maximizing retweets and likes. That's literally casino behavior for politics and culture. And of course, it was inevitably going to change the way that we talk to each other in real life. It doesn't just stay on the Internet. And so I actually think this is answering the question that we were just talking about a little bit, is whether this is getting better or worse or whether it's staying the same, whether we have the same number of fringe people or whether it's getting worse. I think probably it is getting worse to some extent. And what I saw in that conversation was a little bit different than white ethnopolitics. To me, that was this new argument that you hear from Trump World. You bring in a bunch of people from different countries, like Europe, places where hatred of America or mockery of America is common.
- [111:41]
Ryan
Mehdi's from the U.K. right.
- [111:42]
Conor
Right. But that's the new. Like, that's J.D. vance going to Europe and saying, this is the way that you guys have your free speech. And obviously, it's hypocritical coming from JD Vance, but. But that's what I saw in that argument was this idea that it doesn't behoove America to bring people in who hate America. But it's just like, he didn't have Mehdi saying that he hated America. He was just assuming Mehdi thought Americans were lazy because he had different positions on immigration.
- [112:12]
Ryan
Yeah, well, right. And that's where the fundamental hypocrisy of the J.D. vance thing, like, connecting it to this, is like, I'm sure this guy may also be. Oh, I believe in free speech. It's like, yeah, but you decided that Mehdi should be denaturalized and deported because he has differing political views than you. Like, literally just on the basis of this, he's like, you come in and spout this garbage. It's like he. And then he makes up things that Mehdi didn't even say in the context.
- [112:39]
Conor
Of this debate, because it's the Internet straw man. And this is what it does to our brains. And this is why it's really frustrating sometimes, the feedback that we get on this show especially, and I'm sure you get it from the left, I get it from the right. But the feedback we get sometimes, to me, it's frustrating because people who don't do what we do all of the time, where we're talking to each other literally every day on things that we disagree with on, have these, I think, straw man ideas that social media encourages us to construct of people who disagree with us. And unless you are putting in a lot of time, which is hard to do, but unless you are putting in a lot of time, we're lucky. That's why I consider myself lucky to be able to do this.
- [113:16]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [113:18]
Conor
Those start to crumble when you have actual conversations. And so I guess, good on.
- [113:24]
Ryan
Or you have this where the caricature is completely validated and they're like, yes, I am that Internet Nazi fascist, but it's who I am.
- [113:31]
Conor
But his caricature of Mehdi was. Was incorrect.
- [113:34]
Ryan
Right.
- [113:35]
Conor
And that's like, Yeah, I mean, Mehdi is somebody who, if we didn't do this show, I would probably have a caricature of. But we had Mehdi on a couple of weeks ago, and. And it's hard to maintain those caricatures when you're doing it every single day and you're actually talking to people and having reasonable conversations. And so I think that's one of the problems with the online discourse, is that the algorithms force us into caricaturing and straw Manning because that validates our priors. It's the confirmation bias that makes virality possible. And when you have to actually have these conversations in real life, it's a lot harder, even for him. The first Nazi boy talking about Carl Schmidt was a lot harder for him to even maintain his own argument, the caricature of himself, because he would end up in a damn camp.
- [114:24]
Ryan
Right, right.
- [114:25]
Conor
Someone's going to the camps. Doesn't matter how much Carl Schmidt they've read.
- [114:28]
Ryan
So one of the assertions that Mehdi, you have to come in with, like, these are my claims. You know, one of the claims Mehdi made in the context of this debate was that Trump's plan for Gaza is ethnic cleansing. And this was one of the ones where actually a number of the people who came up and wanted to debate with him did not actually disagree with him, which was also kind of interesting. And you're like, okay, why? Like, why?
- [114:52]
Conor
Well, Trump used the word clean.
- [114:54]
Ryan
I mean, it's just like, it's sort of impossible to argue, number one. But number two is also indicative perhaps of some of the ways that the young right is different on this issue. And views it different than others. But they did have one guy who came in and was making some not great points about how basically everyone in Gaza is Hamas and they all deserve to die. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
- [115:18]
Mehdi Hasan
You got to let me finish.
- [115:19]
Joel Berry
No, you got to answer the question. Fourth time when Israeli snipers Palestinian children in the head. We're running out of time. I need to know what you think about innocent children. What you said was pretty outrageous. You said I innocent Palestinians for the fifth time when Palestinian children are shot in the head by Israeli snipers not the fault of Israel.
- [115:36]
Mohammed Kleit
What did the children do?
- [115:37]
Joel Berry
What did they tell me? Did the children deserve to be shot in there?
- [115:40]
Mehdi Hasan
Because the problem is millions of people are watching.
- [115:43]
Conor
You say they start brainwashing children.
- [115:45]
Mehdi Hasan
They start brainwashing children at a very long age.
- [115:48]
Joel Berry
So you support sniping children in Gaza. Look, do other people here support sniping children in Gaza? Is that a conservative position now?
- [115:56]
Conor
What if they're wearing a suicide vest?
- [115:57]
Joel Berry
They weren't.
- [115:58]
Mehdi Hasan
But what if they are?
- [115:59]
Joel Berry
They're not though. I have friends who went. Their doctors went to American doctors. They came back as we have multiple children.
- [116:05]
Mehdi Hasan
What if they're, what if they're helping.
- [116:09]
Conor
Killing you and your family, A ten.
- [116:10]
Joel Berry
Year old child, an eight year old child, a six year old child.
- [116:13]
Conor
Because.
- [116:14]
Joel Berry
Because you're sitting on their brainwashing television. There are millions of people are going to see your neighbors, your friends, the killing of children.
- [116:21]
Conor
Millions of people don't know what's going on.
- [116:23]
Joel Berry
Even your fellow right wingers are saying don't go this far. Like genocide, sure, but don't millions of.
- [116:29]
Mehdi Hasan
People don't understand the brainwashing that is going on in Islamic Republic and in.
- [116:34]
Krystal
Palestine to create this hatred.
- [116:35]
Joel Berry
You're disrespect with Iran so much that you're supporting the killing of Palestinian children who never harmed you or any other Israeli. That's insane.
- [116:42]
Ryan
And that guy himself is Iranian. And so which, you know, I guess helps inform what he's thinking about in this debate.
- [116:50]
Conor
But you said he was Zorro.
- [116:54]
Ryan
That part's unconfirmed. I don't want to speculate, but I think to your point about if you have to exist in any sort of reality and you're still trying to toe the line for everything Israel does is totally and completely justified, you're going to end up looking like a genocidal maniac as this fool ultimately ends up looking at the hands of.
- [117:15]
Conor
You know, one of the things I think bothers me about the format here is that they do kind of mimic social media in a sense, with the red flags, like you've been voted out, whatever. It's gamified in and of itself. Because I was thinking during that conversation how much more interesting it would have been without the chaos of like the flags waving and people jeering. Because you could really see how Mehdi was working through the debate. I mean, he literally wrote a book about how to win arguments. Right. Mehdi wrote a book about how to win arguments years ago.
- [117:44]
Ryan
I don't care how you feel about Mehdi. Mehdi is a very smart and very skilled presenter, debater, interviewer. I think he is truly one of the most talented, like, people in that genre out there.
- [117:56]
Conor
He's good at what he does. And so going on an episode of Surrounded with Mehdi is going to be a mistake. If you are just like an Internet troll, you might think you're going to win.
- [118:08]
Ryan
That's it.
- [118:09]
Conor
You're not gonna win this one. It's not gonna go well for you.
- [118:12]
Ryan
Well, I believe 20, what do they call them, Far right conservatives found that out in real time.
- [118:17]
Conor
And Mehdi said. Cuz someone quote, tweeted, said Jubilee invited a bunch of Nazis. And Mehdi Hassan went, yeah, sure, I'm gonna go debate them. And Mehdi said, to be fair to me, that's not how the debate was sold to me. You can see my shock when they start expressing their views openly. Something similar happened. I'm trying to remember who it was. Oh, it was Jordan Peterson. Remember they sold the debaters as a Christian versus atheist and Jordan Peterson's not a Christian. This happened like a month ago.
- [118:43]
Ryan
Right. They had to change the YouTube title because it was supposed to be one Christian versus 20 atheists.
- [118:49]
Conor
Right.
- [118:49]
Ryan
And then he's immediately like, they're like, wait, he wouldn't say he's a Christian. No, I mean, this is the thing he does. He like won't actually say what he believes and be direct about it.
- [119:00]
Conor
Right. Because he doesn't know what he believes.
- [119:01]
Ryan
It was a mess.
- [119:02]
Conor
Yeah. Cause he doesn't know. So anyway, what an experience those young kids had with many. And Zorro.
- [119:12]
Ryan
Yeah. Friends were made, enemies were made.
- [119:18]
Conor
The friend enemy distinction was made. Yeah.
- [119:21]
Ryan
It all happened.
- [119:23]
Conor
Yeah. So I think answering the question we started with, I do think some of the fringe stuff is getting worse. I think there are probably more people that are interested in a version of. Of like, for example, there are probably people who are attracted to Zoram Hamdani's ideas in ways that I think would probably Go in a frightening direction. Were they tested out? I don't think that's representative of the Zoram Hamdani movement in any way whatsoever. I think that's representative of people being desperate and our elites being terrible now on the right.
- [119:55]
Ryan
I just. I just. I'm not saying you're necessarily. But I just want to make the distinction. I don't think there is anything.
- [120:01]
Conor
There's no equivalent.
- [120:01]
Ryan
Equivalent?
- [120:02]
Conor
No, no, no.
- [120:02]
Ryan
Between surround, like, let's have free buses, and this guy being like, I'm a Nazi.
- [120:06]
Conor
Of course not. No. I'm just trying to say I think there are people being. People are being pulled in populist directions. And sometimes when people are pulled in a populist direction, it goes really, really wrong. And people get. Because people are being pulled in populist directions in good ways. Like, the media is awful. You're being lied to. That opens up space for people who say correctly, everyone is lying to you. Listen to me. And those people will often lie to you. And so I think that it actually is really dangerous. And I think it's one of the most frustrating things about the obsession with just recycling, like Andrew Cuomo or Republicans, like, having no answer to Donald Trump, other than we're all MAGA Republicans now, as they say. Like, that is really dangerous because. Because you're not actually answering anybody's problems. You're not actually solving anybody's problems. You're just putting a sort of charismatic person in front of them. And again, I'm not drawing an equivalence between Zoran and Donald Trump. I'm just saying that's what happens when you don't answer populism. It ends up making people more and more desperate. And as people get more and more desperate, they say insane things like this. But one of the weird things, not weird, predictable things. These people all seem perfectly like they should be well adjusted. Right? And that's like we're being poisoned by social media and these algorithms and really, what a time to be alive.
- [121:33]
Ryan
Indeed. All right, speaking of what a time to be alive, Israel routinely violating a ceasefire in southern Lebanon barely makes news because of so many other things that are going on with even Israel specifically. But Dropside has a great report for us. Let's go. Go ahead and get to that. We have an important report courtesy of our friends over at Dropsite. So, despite agreeing to a ceasefire with Hezbollah in November 2024, Israel has repeatedly violated the terms of that agreement. News coverage has focused a lot on Israel, strikes on Syria and Iran and starvation of Gaza, understandably. But the conflict in Lebanon is also still ongoing. In the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah agreed to withdraw north of the Litany river in southern Lebanon and Israel agreed to withdraw their forces. Now Israel has not actually withdrawn all their forces and they have continued bombing Lebanon on a semi regular basis. Last month, Dropsite sent journalist Jeremy Lofredo to southern Lebanon to report on the status of the ceasefire there. Now you might remember Jeremy, he's the American freelance journalist who was arrested and jailed by Israel for reporting on Iran strikes there. On the ground, he continues to face charges inside of Israel. It is exceedingly difficult for journalists to be able to reach southern Lebanon at this point, but Jeremy was actually able to get access and he filed this report from Aida Al Shab. A southern Lebanese town reduced to rubble and forcibly emptied by Israeli strikes and systemic demolitions not during the conflict but following the supposed ceasefire. As Jeremy demonstrates with this report, less than 1,000 yards away from Aida Al Shah job, Israeli forces still occupy mountaintop positions inside of Lebanon, surveilling that town and firing on anything that resembles reconstruction. Here is Jeremy's report from Ida where he is in conversation with a Lebanese journalist named Mohammed Kleit who helped him to be able to get there.
- [123:46]
Mohammed Kleit
So this is Ayta Shab. It's a bordering town between northern occupied Palestine and Lebanon. It's like one country kilometer away from the nearest Israeli outpost. Israel insisted on totally destroying this town and making it uninhabitable in 2006. This town and the people who were fighting in it, they stood steady to resist the Israeli occupation and any Israeli advancement to towards the town. It took the spotlight during the 2006 war and as you can see there's nothing left. The houses are either totally destroyed or partially destroyed. Lower the camera. There's a military checkpoint. They entered it, they occupied it, they were targeting, targeting it with, with bombardment, with, with earth strikes, with shelling like tank shells. And when they occupied the land on foot, they made sure like during the ceasefire to destroy everything. They, they planted bombs inside the houses like those houses you see on the hilltop there. They also appear in the videos of the Israeli military when they are like drone footed, when they are explo blowing up the, the entire neighborhood. As I remember this excavator was targeted on the first few days when people returned. They were trying to remove the rubble but then it was target. It's part of the Israeli policy not to allow any type of construction or reconstruction in the town. So you could find like excavators and trucks just parked on the side of the road left alone even like the houses like small houses that are portable houses. They were also targeted by Israel. No one is allowed to come back. When people came back here they found a lot of Hezbollah fighters under the rubble. They kept on digging. Every time like they reached a house they started digging. They would find one or two Hezbollah fighters. Like that sign says on the right that we're present in every area and we won't leave our we.
- [126:58]
Conor
It.
- [127:29]
Ryan
Up.
- [127:29]
Mohammed Kleit
There on the tail. I think that's the new one.
- [127:41]
Conor
I.
- [127:41]
Mohammed Kleit
Think that's another one front you see it so it's pretty close.
- [128:14]
Conor
It'll now nice.
- [128:46]
Mohammed Kleit
Security forces jacket.
- [128:52]
Zoran Hamdani
Nice.
- [128:54]
Mohammed Kleit
Good job. Yeah.
- [129:59]
Ryan
Haita.
- [130:24]
Mohammed Kleit
When Alamo kill.
- [131:47]
Ryan
All right guys thank you so much for watching today. Ryan will actually be in tomorrow and hopefully Sagar will be back. He's his family is sick baby. Everybody they're going through it, baby.
- [131:57]
Conor
Bug. That's right.
- [131:58]
Ryan
No fun. No fun. In any case, thank you so much for watching and we will see you soon.
- [132:02]
Sagar
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Emily
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- [134:01]
Conor
This is an iheart podcast.