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Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
7/3/25: Mehdi Releases Censored BBC Gaza Doc, Abrego Garcia Tortured In CECOT, Zohran Fires Back At Trump, Diddy Verdict
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Sagar Enjeti
Hey guys, Sagar and Kristal here.
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Kristal Ball
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
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Sagar Enjeti
This is the only place where you.
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Ryan Seacrest
Can find honest perspectives from the left.
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Sagar Enjeti
And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
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Kristal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
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Sagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com.
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Ryan Seacrest
For the past many months, the BBC has been embroiled in a controversy in which it has been refusing to air a documentary that kind of took on a life of its own inside the organization. As the journalists there have been demanding to know what happened to an investigation that the BBC had commissioned into Israel's war on the on medical professionals and the entire kind of medical community inside of Gaza. That controversy now resulted in the documentary being acquired by Mehdi Hassan and Sateo News for its worldwide distribution and by Channel 4 inside the UK for its UK distribution. So Mehdi is joining us now to talk about this documentary and also the the process that led up to it being censored and now being finally released last night. Mehdi, thanks so much for joining us.
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Meta Voice
Thanks for having me.
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Ryan Seacrest
And I wanted to start just by honoring several of the medical professionals who have been killed in this genocide. If we could put up, I believe it is C3 dropsite. Posted this yesterday. This is a, a picture from a graduation ceremony at the Faculty of Medicine in Gaza. Four of the people that you're looking at in this photo, Dr. Omar Farwana, who was the dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Adnan Al Birsch who was head of orthopedic surgery at Al Shifa Medical Complex, Dr. Rafat Lubad who was the head of internal medicine at Al Shifa. And also then this week was the killing of Dr. Marwan Al Sultan, who was the director of the Indonesian hospital and a cardiologist. So in that photo, four of them have been assassinated, several targeted at their homes, not collateral damage from attacks on fighters or caught in crossfire. But Mehdi, I want you to talk about the targeting of medical professionals because that is what I think people don't understand because it sounds so insane to say it out loud that it sounds.
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Meta Voice
Insane to say it out loud. I mean, two things, three things I think sound insane over the last 21 months, 22 months that we've normalized. One obviously is the deliberate killing of journalists, which a lot of journalists in the west have a lot of problem comprehending. The other is the deliberate killing of children, of course, gunshot wounds to the head, sniper shots, not collateral damage. And of course the third is the doctors. The killing of doctors, nurses, paramedics, the deliberate targeting and destruction of Gaza's health care. And that is what the premise that was the basis of this film is. And this film produced by award winning filmmakers at Basement Films in the uk, made over several months, went through rigorous checks, went through the BBC editorial process for much of it. Right of reply. Fantastic lead reporter Ramita Navai, award winning war correspondent. And they put together this film, this hour long film based on eyewitness testimony from Palestinian doctors and survivors as well as Dr. Adnan Albrush who you just mentioned he's in this film but he's since been killed in Israeli captivity, tortured and died in prison, killed in prison, as one of his colleagues says. So you've got eyewitness testimony from Palestinian doctors to what they have had to endure. We also have an Israeli medic, whistleblower in the film, who served at State Haman, the Israeli gulag. The prison, the black site, where they've taken Palestinian detainees to be tortured, raped, killed. So it's all there, put together in the film. And you mentioned, you know, the targeting of doctors, saying it out loud, perhaps the most powerful moment for me in the film. And we just. I would urge Breaking Point's viewers to go to the Zatteo Twitter feed or Zatteo Blue Sky. We actually put up a clip from the film last night separate to the trailer, which is one of the most powerful moments in the film from Dr. Khalid Hamouda, who was a surgeon, who is a surgeon in Gaza now in Egypt, who was bombed in his home with his family, a family of other Doctors. At first, 10 people killed. They then flee him, his wife, his child, and they go down the street. By the way, his house is blown up. Not the entire street, just his house. They then go down the street to take refuge, and a drone follows them down the street and attacks them again. And he wakes up in a hospital and sees a nurse carrying his child, his daughter, who's dead the next morning. His mother, his wife, the mother of his child is also dead, he's told killed.
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Sagar Enjeti
He.
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Meta Voice
He's the only survivor, or one of the only survivors, I believe, from that massacre. And she says, Ramita Navya, you were talking. Yes, drone came and targeted us. And this is what we heard from the World Central Kitchen folks when they were in the humanitarian convoy and they were targeted car to car to car. This is what we've heard from journalists, of course, and this is what we have to get our heads around, that the United States of America has been arming and funding a country that has systematically, this is a key word here, destroying the Gaza health care system, destroying doctors and medics. And the key point here, and it comes out in the film, you could rebuild hospitals. In years to come, Trump can turn Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle east and build as many hospitals as you like. You cannot rebuild that knowledge base. You cannot rebuild that human base. You cannot just get doctors back over Gazan society. Palestinians have spent years educating itself in this way, and the Israelis have deliberately targeted it.
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Sagar Enjeti
Well, let's take a look at the trailer. This is C1 to get a sample of what people can expect from the film.
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Ryan Seacrest
He got injured they shoot it at.
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Meta Voice
Us at the operative room.
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Kristal Ball
Israel has been killing the very people trying to keep the health care system alive, its doctors and medics. Despite hospitals and healthcare workers being protected under international law. As Israel has bombed Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian doctors and medics have refused to leave their hospitals.
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Ryan Seacrest
We are in the theater and operating room, full darkness, no water, no electricity.
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Meta Voice
But we have a hero surgeons in Gaza.
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Kristal Ball
Hundreds of medics have been killed, hundreds have been detained. Many of them have been forcibly disappeared. Our Palestinian team on the ground have gathered testimony from health workers and their families. And Israeli whistleblowers have told us they witnessed Palestinian prisoners being tortured and that some Israeli medics are complicit.
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Meta Voice
I don't even think that in the Israeli society there is a need for cover up these days you can do almost whatever you want when it comes to Gazans.
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Sagar Enjeti
One of the things people can see, Mehdi, is that this is a high production value film and the BBC funded this film. The BBC then refused to air it and was giving, quote, unquote, bullshit reasons, according to a source who told that to the Independent. And Matt, you have probably a lot of insight into this process of why the BBC, which had recently aired the Louis Thoreau documentary, I believe that was on BBC. What happened? What's your understanding of why they ended up getting rid of a film that they funded?
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Meta Voice
So the BBC put out a very long statement, a bullshit statement, I would argue as well. Their argument was that they had this other documentary that they aired on Gaza which became super controversial, I would argue, for unnecessary reasons. It was narrated by a child in Gaza surviving the war. And it turns out the child was the son of a deputy agriculture minister in the Gaza government, some technocrat who was then labeled, of course, as just Hamas. And there was a huge furore in the UK that the BBC had put out a film from the child of a Hamas minister, even though again, it was a well sourced, well made, high production value film. The child had not decided the editorial agenda. But while they were quote, unquote, investigating how that happened, they decided to park this film, which, as you say, they'd spent a lot of money on, spent many months making with basement films, who we at Zateo know well, because they made a film for us last year called Israel's Real Extremism, which I came on the show to talk about, if memory serves me correctly then. And the fundamental argument for the BBC was, well, basement films went out and talked about the process while we were still trying to get everything approved. They then put out Basement were frustrated, of course. My friend Ben De Pair, who's the executive producer, former head of Channel 4 News, Very respected award winning journalist, he went out at the Sheffield Documentary Festival and said, come on, this is ridiculous. We've got doctors in the film waiting for this film to come out. We're showing disrespect to people who risk their lives to talk to us, sources, whistleblowers, you know, survivors of massacres. The BBC put out a statement, say, well, if we put it out now, there will be the perception of partiality. And the BBC can't have the perception of partiality. The great irony being, of course, that their decision not to air this film that they commissioned, that ran through their checks, that is the greatest perception of partiality. It's partiality towards Israel. They have now run one Gaza dock and and then pulled it. It's nowhere to be seen because apparently it was the child of a Hamas minister. Bullshit argument. And now they didn't even air the other Gaza documentary. And then add that to all of the rest of the coverage of the BBC of Gaza over the last 21, 22 months, which has been abysmal, which has caused multiple internal backlashes, protests from BBC staff who are frustrated at what their broadcaster has done. This is a BBC that has been cowed, intimidated, pressured, bullied. This is a BBC. I used to work at the BBC. I used to defend the BBC when I worked in the UK from right wing bullshit attacks. But I think I've never seen in my entire lifetime. I'm about to turn 46 years old in my entire lifetime of watching the BBC. I've been watching the BBC since children's cartoons on a Saturday morning. And I can honestly say it's never taken a beating like this. I never had such a depressing, disappointing view of the national broadcast in the UK that I've had since October 2023. I know many other people who stopped watching the BBC, stopped appearing on the BBC because their coverage has been so shameful. Not just in the documentary space, but in the news space, the online space, the ridiculous headlines. There was a study by the center for Media Monitoring recently which said they give 33 times as much coverage per Israeli casualty as they do per Palestinian casualty. So there's not a perception of partiality, there's a well documented evidence of partiality towards Israel.
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Ryan Seacrest
And I want to linger on that, on that point and connect it to the point that you made about the original controversy that then put this documentary on ice. Trying to imagine a world in which a documentary was made about the difficulties faced by Israeli children in the war, which are non trivial, often headed to bomb shelters, which is absolutely. Even if nothing happens, it's traumatizing for a child to have to hide somewhere with their family in the dark, worried that they might get hit by a bomb like that alone is traumatizing. So let's say that the BBC commissioned a documentary focused on the way that the war was affecting children. And then it turned out that the boy's father worked for the Ministry of Agriculture in Israel. And they pulled the documentary and apologized and investigated never would happen and investigated how that could happen. How could you possibly have aired the thoughts of a child whose father works for the Ministry of Agriculture in Israel? That, to me, kind of tells you everything you need to know about the way that the BBC approached this. So how difficult was it to kind of pry this out of the BBC? Or were they like, thank you, Mehdi, like, we are so glad to be done with this controversy.
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Meta Voice
So the heavy lifting was done by Ben de Pereira at Basement Films, who spent, who made this film, kind of, you know, Sweat and Blood in this film spent a long time in back and forths with the BBC. And, you know, he runs an independent production company. It's very risky for him to pick a fight with one of the biggest broadcasters in the world, which commissioned his staff. So props to my friend Ben, really for believing in this film and saying, look, I want it out there. It doesn't matter if I screw up my relationship with people, doesn't matter if I lose money on this. I want it out there. And the BBC did sit on it for a while and weren't going to release it as far as I'm aware. And eventually they did release it, partly because of Ben's cajoling, partly because I think they just wanted to be done with it. And then US and Channel 4 were able to come in and say, well, we're going to give it a platform. I knew from the moment they benched it if this, if this film becomes available, I was messaging Ben saying, we want a platform. This is what Zetteo was created for, right? To give these voices to the world, to try and platform these voices. We know, Ryan, you and I, that the right have been arguing about Cancel Culture for decades. And yet the single biggest victims of Cancel Culture are Palestinians and supporters of the Palestinian movement and journalism about Palestine and academia about Palestine. And that has been a fundamental issue. We've seen that in this conflict. And I think that was a frustrating issue where the BBC, we're not airing it and we're not releasing it. And the moment they released it, we moved fast. And props to Channel 4 broadcaster in the UK for running it. Because again, Ryan, you say Hamas and everything shuts down. All critical faculty shut down, even amongst smart liberal, progressive folks. And if you're able to say anything's Hamas, then that's what you're able to throw at it. And I'm sure people will throw that at this film as well. One thing I took great pride in doing was the BBC put out a statement saying this is not our film anymore. That's true. It's not their film anymore. We made a few changes.
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Sagar Enjeti
We.
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Meta Voice
One of the changes we made is we took out all references to the Hamas run health Ministry. We call it the Gaza Ministry of Health in this film. That in itself is a propagandistic and loaded phrase, as you well know, because it allows people to then cast doubt on the deaths and torture Palestine. And we have eyewitness accounts of this film from people who have nothing to do with Hamas about that suffering. Just one quick story that your viewers might be interested in that I heard recently from someone else. You talk about kind of imagine if this were the other way around. A production company, I'm told, went to a major American broadcaster at the start of this conflict, at the start of the genocide and had a story about a Palestinian family, just kind of followed them around and the suffering they were going through and the number of members of the family had been killed. And the American broadcaster said, we'll run it, but first go and find, first let us go and find an Israeli family so we can balance it and we'll run both stories. A few weeks later they came back to the production company and said, well, we can't find an Israeli family that suffered like the Palestinian family showed us. Therefore we're not running your story. Not we'll just run yours, but we won't run anything now because we can't do this fake, bullshit balance.
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Ryan Seacrest
Right. And it would have looked worse if you tried to do the balance because you'd see.
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Meta Voice
So they just dropped the whole thing.
- [17:15]
Ryan Seacrest
Right.
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Meta Voice
This is what happens if Palestinian voices are silenced.
- [17:18]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah.
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Sagar Enjeti
The other interesting thing about the BBC's position here is they're not disputing any facts in the film or any of the journalism. Right, Mehdi? They aren't disputing the quality of the journalism. They're not even that it didn't meet their editorial standards, which is a pretty usual excuse.
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Meta Voice
Yep, not at all. And I think they're hiding behind this bullshit phrase perception of partiality. So it's only. And by the way, Emily, they're not even saying it's a biased film. They're saying we run it. Now people will say that we are biased to one side and we are scared of people, people being the pro Israel lobby and therefore we're not going to put it out. I mean, look, the people who've made this film have won Oscars and Emmys. The reporter, Ramita Nevai is of Iranian descent, has been, has done films all about Iran's human rights abuses. She's traveled around the world. The credibility of these people cannot be questioned. I'm sure it will be questioned by bad faith actors. And yet this is where we've reached now. In the name of protecting Israel, wittingly or unwittingly, we've burned down international law and we've burned down journalistic credibility. We've burned down so many institutions which will not survive the last 22 months.
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Ryan Seacrest
So, Mehdi, where can people go to find this?
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Meta Voice
So they can go to find this@gaza doctors.film. that's the website we set up for this film specifically or zatteo.com it is available to paid subscribers. For now. People will say, well, why not put it out for free to the world? Well, because the people behind this film spent a lot of time and money making this film. And I just want to remind people that a free press isn't free. High quality journalism requires investment. If you really want documentaries that are going to win awards and report on the ground and break stories, then we really have to support it financially. I'm proud that Zatteo is financially supporting this film. It costs a lot of money. Ryan. Emily, as you know, documentaries cost a lot and therefore we are airing it to our paid subscribers. I urge people to become a paid subscriber, to become a monthly subscriber. It's less than the cost to go into the movie theater to watch a film. And this film is more important than any other film you're going to see this year, including the F1 movie, which I loved. But this movie is more important.
- [19:22]
Ryan Seacrest
It is true. Journalism is expensive and documentaries are particularly so. The travel, the sophistication that goes into it.
- [19:31]
Meta Voice
The Legaling.
- [19:31]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah, the Legaling. Oh my God, don't even get me started on the Legaling. Well, Mehdi, thank you so much for joining us and congrats on this acquisition. I'm glad that it's getting out there. Finally.
- [19:44]
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- [22:16]
Ryan Seacrest
A new legal filing from attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia alleges that he was tortured while in seacot custody in El Salvador. We can put up this first element up on the screen. Abrego Garcia was. Has become the detainee who has captured the most attention. And it could have gone a lot of different ways. It could have been the makeup artist who was still facing these brutal conditions in El Salvador. It could have been the Venezuelan soccer player who had absolutely no connection to Tornado and yet remains down there. Abrego Garcia has become the one that Democrats kind of focus their attention on. He was returned from El Salvador, surprisingly, by the administration to face charges for human trafficking in Nashville, in the Nashville area, charges which are now faced kind of crumbling under scrutiny. This, this new allegation serves as a part of these ongoing proceedings. And we're still joined by Zateo's Manihasan to talk through some of this. Manny, thank you for sticking around. We appreciate it.
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Meta Voice
It's a horrific story, Ryan.
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Ryan Seacrest
It really is. They talk about. And he says that he walked into cecot and one of the guards said to him and was saying to everybody who was coming in, welcome to cecot. Those who enter never leave. And Abrego Garcia is one of the only cases that I think we even know of, whether in El Salvador or anywhere else, of somebody leaving seacot alive soon after getting there. It seems like they had them all kneel for 24 hours, which Mehdi and I are old men at this point. If we kneel for two minutes, we're struggling hard. And then they were beaten. If they collapsed. And the filing says that he soiled himself while they were being forced to kneel kind of overnight, among a bunch of the other abuses. Do you think that this is the reason why the Trump administration was initially so reluctant to, and is still reluctant to return anybody from the detention center because they can then talk about what happened down there?
- [24:51]
Meta Voice
I think it's part of the reason. I don't think it's the whole reason. I think even if they weren't being tortured there, it's a point of principle right for the bullies not to give in. And they don't want to say that, oh, the liberal media and the Democrats made. And the human rights actors made us bring people back. You remember that the ridiculous cosplaying. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem went in front of Congress and said, I guarantee you he's never coming back. Well, he did Come back but for this bullshit Tennessee indictment for human trafficking, Human smuggling. Yeah, I think it's part of the reason. It's not the only reason. And Human Rights Watch have documented that this is a prison where people never leave from. And yes, they are just literally disappeared inside of there. It's a horrific gulag in El Salvador created by a kind of autocrat, President Bukele, Trump's ally. People are treated horrifically. He was threatened with being put into cells with gang members where he would be killed. He was told by the guards he had his head shaved forcibly with a zero razor. He was beaten with wooden batons. He was punched in the head. He was, as you say, forced to kneel all night long. Kicked and beaten if they weren't able to kneel all night long. Soiled himself, deprived of food, malnutrition, lost dozens of pounds. You'll remember that photo that the Trump administration released with him and Chris Van Hollen having margaritas, which, as the senator from Maryland pointed out, they didn't order. It was placed in the picture by the El Salvadorans to make it look like they were having this great time. He was not having a great time. And we can only dread to imagine what is happening to some of the other innocent people who have been sent there. The, the gay barber who was sent there, the guy with the autism tattoos who was looking after his brother. So many cases. There was a case just this week I read of where the Trump administration have admitted for once that they sent someone who shouldn't have been sent elsewhere, but they can't find him anymore. I tweeted this yesterday and I stand by this. You said you and I are old men because we can't kneel. We're also old men who remember 2001, 2002, 2003. I think this is as big a scandal, if not bigger scandal than Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. This is happening in plain sight. At least we could argue in 2001, 2, 3. We didn't know till much later. We didn't know till Senator Dianne Feinstein's report. We didn't know till Seymour Hersh is reporting in the New Yorker. This is happening in plain sight. We have known since day one. We didn't even need Kilmar Abrego Garcia's report. We saw the video that the Trump administration put out. Remember, they put out a video to music showing off their torture and beating. Enforceable shavings of innocent men sent to seek out. Now we have this 40 page amendment with the details in It I think history will judge what those of us who know about it and saw did in this moment. This is a scandal that Democrats in Congress should be screaming about from the rooftops, which every Democrat who wants to be president in 2028 should be talking about. The Trump administration took a bunch of people in the United States, including possibly illegal residents. We don't know because they haven't told us who went and sent them to a foreign gulag to be tortured and refused to bring them back, including when the court said send them back. That is a crime. That is a scandal. And I think Americans need to stop thinking it can't happen here. We're not like those other countries. The descriptions in this report, in this amendment are the kind of descriptions you would read about from a North Korean prison, an Iranian prison, a Russian prison. Let's stop pretending we don't do what everyone else does.
- [28:02]
Sagar Enjeti
So this is something that Ryan and I actually debated a little bit yesterday. And we can put D2. This is a VO of Alex alligator Alcatraz flooding on the screen. So this engineering marvel that was constructed very quickly in the middle of the Everglades is already flooding. Probably no surprise to anybody who would conceive of what it might look like after you throw up a massive 3,000 bed facility in the Everglades in like a week's time. And Ryan raised the point that hurricane season could be especially devastating to people who are kept there in the future. So 3,000 beds, they want to increase that to 5,000 beds. And they just got an infusion of funding for immigration enforcement. But Mehdi, I think the public hates the seekot stuff. I think most of the public hates the seekot stuff because it feels profoundly un American. I think it's a blind spot for the Trump administration that gets very online and sort of falls for the appeal of the memes on these types of things. I think the Trump administration has sort of understood that, which is why they didn't send another group of people to seekot, at least not yet on the political front. So I guess I'm curious what you make of Alligator Alcatraz, which you mentioned. Kristi Noem like cosplaying. Honestly, I feel like I think we need to take it seriously. I do feel like the Trump administration likes to larp as bukele. I don't think it's popular, but I don't foresee Alligator Alcatraz looking like Scott. That doesn't mean I don't think we should take the threat of that seriously. But I'm Curious what you expect to see from the facility in the next several months as they start filling it.
- [29:44]
Meta Voice
Just on the LARPing point. I should also point out that when the history books are written about this period and about the torture in El Salvador, you will have a series of Republican members of Congress who went to El Salvador stood outside prison cells, said, what a great place this is. Christi Noemi, Christi Noem. Kristi Noem led the charge. She stood in front of a cell full of dozens and dozens of men with shaved heads lined up for a photo op. Many of those men who have been tortured, as we now know. And this is what the American government was part of, which is. I'm saying it's worse in many ways than Abu Ghraib because the Bush administration, Cheney and Ashcroft didn't go and do photo ops at Abu Ghraib. They tried to keep it hidden. And this administration, as usual, the cruelty is the point, to borrow Adam Sava's line. So, yes, and I think, look, whether you call it Alligator Alcatraz, whatever stupid name these people give to their concentration camps, even already ICE detention facilities were overcrowded. We were hearing reports about abuse. We're hearing stories about people not eating for days, not having bed, sleeping on the floor, no blankets, all sorts of abuse. 911 calls from ICE detention centers with people collapsing, that we had a death, I believe, of a Cuban American man this week or a Cuban man this week. I don't know what his status was. I can't remember. Who knows with this administration what the state is of any.
- [30:55]
Ryan Seacrest
Just to underline that because I was just in Miami and they were talking about this down there a lot. He was a 75 year old man who had been in the United States since 1965, since the age of 15. So he fled what they will call in Miami the Castro dictatorship, which, I mean, kind of was dictator.
- [31:16]
Meta Voice
Yeah.
- [31:18]
Sagar Enjeti
Glad to have you guys on the record. Here we go.
- [31:20]
Ryan Seacrest
That. So he'd been here for 60 years. Now, a lot of people in Miami because its cultural nature, like maybe he never became a citizen. I don't know. Like, it's quite possible he didn't. He easily could have. If you've been here since 1965 as a Cuban, you could have become a citizen. But just in Miami, like a lot of people didn't. He died in ICE detention. And Tom Homan responded, well, you know, bad things happen.
- [31:47]
Meta Voice
People die in every prison, people die.
- [31:48]
Ryan Seacrest
People die in every prison. But we're saving so many lives with ICE anyway.
- [31:51]
Meta Voice
So I just wanted to ice prisons in particular are overcrowded. We know now we have this new budget. We have this budget bill that's gone through giving them more money than most, than a lot of foreign militaries, as a lot of people have pointed out. I believe they're going to be. I believe they're going to have half the levels of personnel as the United States Marine Corps when all is said and done if this bill goes through. So they're getting lots of money for fancy new centers and troops. But what I would say is, even already the overcrowding is insane. The conditions are horrific. You mentioned the elderly Cuban man. There was an Iranian woman who's been here 50 years. She came in 1979. Her family and her came to visit the United States and the revolution happened and they stayed and she never got citizenship and they are now deported. I think they got her in her front yard while she was gardening, this dangerous threat, this elderly Iranian woman. So these are kind of ridiculous stories coming out from the ICE detentions, but the conditions, to go back to Emily's question, are horrific. I don't think even if they get $37 billion from this bill that they're somehow going to build nicer facilities. It's not about lack of resources. The reason people are being abused in detention is not because they lack resources. That's part of it. But it's also because the cruelty is the point. They don't see these people as fully human beings. They don't see these people as deserving of rights. You've heard United States senators have gone on live television and said, no, foreigners don't get due process. Foreigners aren't covered by the Constitution. This is the kind of ridiculous shit that is said by people with law degrees serving in the United States Senate, which is obviously nonsense. Everyone gets due process. So that is the fundamental problem. It's not about resources. It's not about where you locate your concentration camp. It's about. About the fundamental mindset of Tom Homan and Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, which is that these people are not fully human. These people are not people deserving of rights. These people need to be punished to send a message, and these people need to be out of here. And I think that is the key point that Ryan mentioned. Miami, bunch of Republicans in Florida, members of the House are saying, well, come on, can you tone it down a bit? Because they're feeling some backlash from their constituent who are like, you know, the leopardy, what's the face? The face eating leopard party meme. Like, I didn't know they'd come for my friends.
- [33:50]
Sagar Enjeti
Mehdi, I know you have to run, so thank you so much for sticking around for a second segment. We appreciate it.
- [33:55]
Meta Voice
Thank you guys.
- [33:56]
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- [34:29]
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- [35:28]
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- [35:53]
Ryan Seacrest
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Ryan Seacrest
Hey Meta.
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- [36:05]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [36:08]
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- [36:31]
Ryan Seacrest
Zoran Mamdani held a press conference to respond to President Trump's threat that he was going to do all sorts of things to him, including round him up, deport him, jail him, et cetera.
- [36:41]
Megyn Kelly
Here's Mamdani Yesterday, Donald Trump said that I should be arrested. He said that I should be deported. He said that I should be denaturalized. And he said those things about me. Someone who stands to be the first immigrant mayor of this city and generation. Someone who would also be the first Muslim and the first South Asian mayor in this city's history. Less so because of who I am, because of where I come from, because of how I look or how I speak, and more so because he wants to distract from what I fight for. I fight for working people. I fight for the very people that have been priced out of this city. And I fight for the same people that he said he was fighting for. This is the same president who ran on a campaign of cheaper groceries, who ran on a campaign about easing a suffocating cost of living crisis. And ultimately, it is easier for him to fan the flames of division than to acknowledge the ways in which he has betrayed those working class Americans, not just in the city, but across this country, and the ways in which he continues to betray them. Because we know that he would rather speak about me than speak about the legislation that he is shepherding through Washington, D.C. legislation that will quite literally take health care away from Americans, legislation that will steal food from the hungry, legislation that looks to build upon one of the largest transfers of wealth we've seen in recent history in his first administration, and do it once again for the very Americans who, who already have enough. We should be fighting for those that do not have what they need to live a dignified life. That is what I will do. And I am thankful to have the protection and to have the support of so many New Yorkers who have stood up and said how unacceptable this is, including our governor, including members of the labor movement. And ultimately, what I fear for is that if this is what Donald Trump and his administration feel comfortable about saying about the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City, imagine what they feel comfortable saying and doing about immigrants whose names they don't even know.
- [38:44]
Ryan Seacrest
So also yesterday, and we can put up this element here. President Trump's Homeland Security Advisory Council, which is a group that includes such luminaries as Bo Dietle, who is the founder of Bikers for Trump, and Rudy Giuliani, who's, believe it or not, the former mayor of New York once in his life, as well as some other folks they met. And they quickly decided that the main thing the Homeland Security Advisory Council needed to focus its meeting on was what they are going to do about Zoran Mamdani and talking about the Homeland Security Department having authorities that haven't been used in the past that maybe need to look into that. So before we get into the actual threats on Mamdani, Emily and I wanted to talk about his response to it, because I think we both think that this is an expression of a populist Democratic Party that could exist, that does not exist. But these are the kind of green shoots of it popping up. And that if it did exist, it would represent a genuinely interesting development on the scene and would be a party that was actually worth working people respecting and voting for, which is stunning because it's happening at a time when the Democratic Party could not be at its lowest.
- [40:01]
Sagar Enjeti
We saw, when we were here yesterday, we saw a preview of Mamdani's strategy towards this when he just first put out his statement after Trump made his comments and pivoted. And we talked about that yesterday, how he pivoted to basically class warfare, did the same thing right here. He pivoted not to. I shouldn't say class warfare, because I think that diminishes it. He pivoted to affordability. And it's like, this is what you do if you realize your average voter isn't Liz Cheney. This is how you run a campaign where you're going after Trump, but you're not fully taking Trump's bait. And I think it's genuinely a pretty interesting development for Democrats that they now have a kind of textbook example of how to do the thing right.
- [40:44]
Ryan Seacrest
It's not backing down on the initial charge. It's not apologizing for any of the culture war stuff Trump is doing here. It's pushing back on that. But then it's moving and saying the reason you're doing this is because you're a billionaire that doesn't care about people, and you just want to distract from the fact that you're stealing everybody's Medicaid and that you promised to run on making groceries cheaper and you're not doing it. It's really interesting because the 2017, the first term version of Democrats against Trump would have just fully seized on the, the culture war aspect of it and said, Donald Trump is a bigot. He's a xenophobe, we are a nation of immigrants. And he doesn't back away from all of that rhetoric. Like he believes all of those things, but that's not really where he puts his energy in response.
- [41:34]
Sagar Enjeti
And what you're saying is that 2017, because I think this is so true and easily forgotten, I feel like that's really what everyone would have done. Like, the conventional wisdom is that maybe you throw in a couple of lines about grocery prices and Medicaid and snap, but actually you spend the bulk of your response talking about how you are going to be the first Muslim mayor of New York City and how that's what scares Donald Trump. He's scared of brown people, he's scared of change. I think that's totally true. If we put that in the time machine, if we put Moudani in a time machine and say he was running in 2017, maybe he would have been smarter about it. But the strategists on the left would not have.
- [42:16]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah, they would not have. And I think it's probably, it's tied up in the intra Democratic fight that happened at the time where Bernie Sanders had, you know, just come off this very bitter primary where a lot of Hillary Clinton supporters were still even blaming Bernie Sanders for the fact that Trump was in at all. And anybody who said that Donald Trump supporters had, quote, unquote, economic anxiety.
- [42:41]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes, yes.
- [42:42]
Ryan Seacrest
Was that was said to be code for the real reason that they supported Trump, which is their racism and their homophobia and their bigotry and on and on. And so because that was the case, if Democrats shied away from talking about economic anxiety because they were afraid that they would then like, oh, look at you, you racist much? Mamdani instead takes Trump at his word and says, if you notice in that clip, he says Trump ran on these things, people voted for him. The point he's making is people voted for Trump because he promised he was gonna lower grocery prices, he was gonna make the city more affordable and fill their lives with some dignity, make their lives better. That's what Trump said he was going to do. And he's talking to Trump supporters and saying he's not doing that. What is he doing? He's getting you all riled up about me when all I'm trying to do is lower grocery prices.
- [43:41]
Sagar Enjeti
I revisited this last week when we talked to Zoran in. What was that? December?
- [43:50]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah. Something like that.
- [43:51]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, it was November or December. Actually, you know what? I think it was November because he was gonna say told the.
- [43:57]
Ryan Seacrest
He was interviewing the Trump people.
- [43:58]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, yeah, he did. He sort of followed Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's lead and went out into, I think told us to the Bronx. And he was in Queens, he was interviewing people, talking to them, trying to pitch himself to Trump voters. And he said the number one thing they were concerned about was the price of groceries. They feel like they have less in their bank accounts than they used to. And that's again, it's so obvious. But circa 2017, you just couldn't make that argument, period.
- [44:28]
Ryan Seacrest
Which is weird because of course you could, but like you could. The just the structures of the Democratic Party at the time were just not allowing the party to resign. And also they were so thoroughly rewarded by the media for leaning into the culture war.
- [44:44]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes, yes.
- [44:45]
Ryan Seacrest
And rewarded by a significant chunk of their voters. Doesn't mean those voters wouldn't also have been with them on other stuff. Now, inflation was not what it was in 2017.
- [44:57]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [44:57]
Ryan Seacrest
Like we had, you know, 1% inflation since basically the financial crisis.
- [45:03]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [45:03]
Ryan Seacrest
So, you know, the, the context is actually different now. The economy stunk and that's why Trump won I think in 2016. But it wasn't exactly prices, it was wages and joblessness which was slowly get, you know, had, had gradually come back from the financial crisis, but not, but took so long and people were mired in debt and student debt and so on.
- [45:23]
Sagar Enjeti
So opioid crisis had plenty of crisis had wrecked local economies. Yeah.
- [45:27]
Ryan Seacrest
So I think Democratic in there for it. But Democrats didn't need to go there because they would get donations, they'd get crowds and they would get fawning media coverage for pointing out what a bigot Trump was. And so they didn't need to go and be like, look, he actually said he was gonna run on all these things to make your life better and he's not doing that.
- [45:49]
Sagar Enjeti
They didn't want to take that, they.
- [45:49]
Ryan Seacrest
Didn'T wanna take seriously. They didn't wanna take seriously the idea that he actually ran on that stuff.
- [45:54]
Sagar Enjeti
Cuz they thought that the silver bullet was their own cultural arguments against Trump. And it wasn't. That wasn persuade voters who have always baked into their calculation. And this is what the media doesn't understand because the media is pretty friendly with a lot of politicians. Other voters understand that politicians are probably bad people.
- [46:13]
Ryan Seacrest
Right.
- [46:13]
Sagar Enjeti
Like they know that you're not convincing people to stop supporting Trump by saying he's a bad guy. That's not like a slam dunk own on a Trump supporter. They actually are making a calculated decision that he was going to disrupt the system. And if you're not competing on that field, you're not competing at all. You're arguing totally past what they're. What you could possibly persuade people on.
- [46:38]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah. And I think also the party's donors are ambivalent about any class first messaging.
- [46:43]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, yeah, of course.
- [46:45]
Ryan Seacrest
That they're like, like, can we do some of the other stuff?
- [46:50]
Sagar Enjeti
Were you at huffbuds?
- [46:52]
Ryan Seacrest
All are welcome.
- [46:53]
Sagar Enjeti
When they did the asterisk after every mention of Trump.
- [46:56]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:57]
Sagar Enjeti
I look back in that and I remember it said like, Donald Trump is a racist, xenophobic, homophobic bigot. Something like that. And every mention of Trumpet had an asterisk and said that. I was like, I mean, many people believe all of that is true. I mean, you can make arguments about all of that, but it's not persuasive. It actually distracts. I don't know. We don't have to relitigate that. But it was a good example of the approach at the time.
- [47:18]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah. I mean, and I think if we went back and looked at it, it didn't. I don't think it had any class messaging in it because like you could have led with Donald Trump as a billionaire, blah, blah.
- [47:32]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [47:33]
Ryan Seacrest
But I think the only way.
- [47:34]
Sagar Enjeti
Union busting.
- [47:35]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah, right. The only rips off everyone who's ever worked for him. I think the only way HuffPost was able to get away with that. And yeah, I was, I was there and involved with it at the time, like journalistically was because would feel more partisan if it was class in a way, because what it was doing was pointing to their universal American values, which are, you know, equality, justice. We treat all people with dignity.
- [48:08]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [48:09]
Ryan Seacrest
Civil rights, like at least at that time.
- [48:12]
Sagar Enjeti
Aspirational.
- [48:12]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah. Everyone believed in the civil rights movement, like left to far right, like that the silver not far right, but left to right. Civil rights movement was seen as like a very good thing that was brought to people who fought for justice, brought by people who were.
- [48:27]
Sagar Enjeti
Charlie Kirk had not yet discovered Martin.
- [48:29]
Ryan Seacrest
Luther King Jr. Yeah, yeah, right. They hadn't gone down different rabbit holes and come up with theories. And so it appealed to these universal values. Whereas if you say he's a billionaire who wants to rip people off, like that feels that's us against them. That's, that's, that's more partisan in, in not in a party sense, but in a. We are there's just fundamental disagreements here that we're not going to win by persuasion. We're going to just have to beat the 1%.
- [49:05]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [49:05]
Ryan Seacrest
We're just like. Or the 1% is gonna have to beat us. Like, this is a fight over something.
- [49:10]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, that makes sense.
- [49:11]
Ryan Seacrest
And so then as journalists, that. That feels like you're now engaging in the. You're in. In that fight in a way where if you're just upholding universal values, like when the Washington Post says democracy dies in darkness, like, they can say that and not feel partisan because. Yep, of course, we're all for democracy and we're all for transparency. We're all against dark.
- [49:36]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes.
- [49:37]
Ryan Seacrest
When you say, you know, the 1% are ripping us all off.
- [49:43]
Sagar Enjeti
I don't think your owners love it.
- [49:48]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah. And the 0.1% are ripping the 1% off. Yeah.
- [49:51]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [49:52]
Ryan Seacrest
Then that feels. Now you're tangling, which is also the.
- [49:56]
Sagar Enjeti
Massive, like, unanswered question. To the extent that Democrats are able to replicate if they want to win, if they put power above everything else. And that's not all of them. You know, some, like, some Republicans have genuine ideological values that they want to advance, but if they just want to win, do they replicate the Maidani campaign in congressional races, in the midterms, for example, in gubernatorial races where you learn from him.
- [50:22]
Ryan Seacrest
Imagine if Democrats made affordability the thing that was associated with them.
- [50:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Right. But they're already getting hammered for. There are already Republicans running ads comparing, like random Dem candidates. I forget who the first one I saw was, but like random Dem candidates to Mamdani. I think Glenn Youngkin said it. About the Dem gubernatorial nominee in Virginia.
- [50:43]
Ryan Seacrest
Right.
- [50:43]
Sagar Enjeti
Spanberger.
- [50:43]
Ryan Seacrest
Right, Exactly. Exactly. Abigail Spanberger, real mom. Donnie. It's suicidal on the part of Democrats because the question is how do you define what he stands for to the national public before you're then linked with him?
- [50:59]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [50:59]
Ryan Seacrest
And so if the national public is like, oh, yeah, Mamdani, this guy who like ran to make groceries cheaper in New York, then when Republicans are like, spam burger is nothing but another Mamdani, people are like, oh, cool, so she's also gonna make groceries cheaper in Virginia. But if Republicans are all saying that he's a Sharia law loving jihadist, and then Democrats are also saying that they have deep concerns about his use of the word global jihad. And then she. And then Kirsten Gillibrand apologizes because he never said that. But like, that they have all these concerns about him.
- [51:33]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [51:34]
Ryan Seacrest
So all the leading Democrats have still not endorsed him. Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Gillibrand and Swozzi just put Tom Swozzi from Long island just had a op ed in the New York Times about how bad he is. And so if Republicans are saying he's really awful and like the worst and basically a terrorist.
- [51:55]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [51:56]
Ryan Seacrest
And Democrats are saying, leading Democrats are saying, yeah, he's kind of, he's kind of bad. He's not that bad. Like, Republicans are over the top and then bigoted in the way they're talking about him. But I do have a lot of concerns about him. Then nationally, if you're a voter, you're like, oh, this guy seems pretty concerning. You have to actually like engage with him or media that covers him honestly to get the accurate impression. And there aren't enough people that do that.
- [52:22]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, this is from just a purely cynical perspective, but Republicans were basically able to do this with Nancy Pelosi back in 2010. Socialist Nancy Pelosi back in 2010. When they put enough money behind it and enough like, what's the right word for it, craft into like Carvillian public relations efforts into it. You can sort of the scary things about politics, media in general, but you can in a red state, pretty easily capitalize on a Mamdani narrative. It doesn't mean that Mamdani is in any way a net drag on the Democratic Party, but I think it'll probably work for them in red states. Not so much of Virginia though.
- [53:03]
Ryan Seacrest
But yeah, I think if Democrats wanted to like avoid this problem, they would say, of course I support Mamdani and his call to make groceries cheaper.
- [53:14]
Sagar Enjeti
Yep.
- [53:15]
Ryan Seacrest
But they just can't do that.
- [53:16]
Sagar Enjeti
Just say the guy wants to make. I don't agree with him on everything, but I sure as hell agree with him making groceries cheaper. Free advice here. I mean, we're always just giving it out.
- [53:25]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah, nobody takes it.
- [53:27]
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- [53:59]
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- [54:59]
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- [55:22]
Ryan Seacrest
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Ryan Seacrest
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- [56:01]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, Ryan, let's move on to the Diddy trial.
- [56:03]
Ryan Seacrest
Yes, so Sean Diddy Combs is not walking out of the courthouse of Freeman, but he thought he might for a second. So he was acquitted. We could put this first element up on the screen. He was acquitted on the most serious charges, the racketeering charge and the sex trafficking charges. But he did get found guilty on two counts of transporting prostitutes. He was not. He did not get hit with any domestic violence charges because they were outside the statute of limitations. Yeah, and so Diddy collapsed to the Floor and like praying. Do we have that, do we have that image of him, like praying?
- [56:42]
Sagar Enjeti
There he is.
- [56:42]
Ryan Seacrest
Seat there. Yeah. Thank you. Thanked the jurors. And then it did, it did seem like he felt like he was about to get out. And the judge said no.
- [56:50]
Sagar Enjeti
Yep.
- [56:50]
Ryan Seacrest
Interestingly cited the domestic violence that was in the case as a reason why she was not giving bail before sentencing. Or he.
- [57:00]
Sagar Enjeti
She.
- [57:00]
Ryan Seacrest
Or he. The judge.
- [57:03]
Sagar Enjeti
The judge.
- [57:03]
Ryan Seacrest
I didn't watch enough of this great question. Which is interesting because clearly he was guilty. It's on video. But he was not tried for it.
- [57:12]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [57:13]
Ryan Seacrest
So it's this gray area where bail and accusations can have an interplay that leads to you being behind chart, behind bars. But clearly the jury felt that it was not a conspiracy.
- [57:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [57:27]
Ryan Seacrest
And what Diddy had argued, or Diddy's lawyers had argued is that yes, there was a plan to have these freak offs.
- [57:36]
Sagar Enjeti
Yep.
- [57:37]
Ryan Seacrest
And they were organized. And in that sense there was a conspiracy because he would tell, hey, you do the drugs, you do the baby oil, you bring the women. And he had an overarching kind of leverage campaign that he would use with women where some would have be getting 10,000amonth in child support, others would have an emotional connection. There's different, various ways that he got them involved. Plus according to them and seems credible, fear of violence. So there are all these pieces, but they made this kind of loophole argument almost that the other people were not partners in a conspiracy.
- [58:21]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [58:21]
Ryan Seacrest
They were just his flunkies who he paid to do work. And that if you could use RICO for this, you could use RICO for anything where you didn't single handedly carry out every aspect of the crime. Like, you know, if you go and buy a handgun and then commit a crime with it, like, and it was just a business transaction with the gun owner. Like, did you conspire with the gun owner?
- [58:50]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [58:51]
Ryan Seacrest
Even if the gun owner knew what you were going to do, that would be a. And the point is that would be a different crime.
- [58:55]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [58:56]
Ryan Seacrest
Like that's the underlying crime.
- [58:58]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [58:59]
Ryan Seacrest
But layering conspiracy on top of it doesn't get you there. That, that is my guess at trying to get into the juror's mindset. What did you think of the response?
- [59:09]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, I think that's.
- [59:10]
Ryan Seacrest
And what's your response to the jury's response?
- [59:12]
Sagar Enjeti
No, I think that's right. I think the RICO is starting to look like an over prosecution. Bundling everything into a RICO is starting to look like a real mistake. And you will be shocked to learn that One of the leading prosecutors on this case is Maureen Comey, who's James Comey's daughter.
- [59:29]
Ryan Seacrest
Amazing.
- [59:30]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, it's just wild stuff. But it looks like a really overconfident prosecution team. To be clear, he could end up with 20 years in prison. So he was denied bail. He has to stay in prison until his sentencing, which is on October 3rd. So he's still got a ways to go, but he could still also get 20 years.
- [59:53]
Ryan Seacrest
It's highly probably unlikely. Right. So each, there are two charges and they're 10 years maximum. Right. So if they were served one after the other and both the maximum, then he could get 20 years.
- [60:04]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [60:05]
Ryan Seacrest
But this is when sentencing guidelines come in and you, you have to kind of set aside who he is and what we know about the case and pretty sure he's a first time offender. Does he have any other charges from before?
- [60:19]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [60:20]
Ryan Seacrest
Does he?
- [60:20]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [60:21]
Ryan Seacrest
What does he have?
- [60:22]
Sagar Enjeti
He was, I mean he's been involved in so many things.
- [60:25]
Ryan Seacrest
I mean he's got a bunch of lawsuits.
- [60:28]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, there was the, I'm trying to remember whether he got charged for it, but there was J. Lo.
- [60:33]
Ryan Seacrest
Mac is already screened.
- [60:34]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, Mac. Yeah, send this to us. Producer back. But there was the JLO shooting. There was the nightclub like fire that people died in that he was implicated in.
- [60:44]
Ryan Seacrest
Right. Did he catch charges on any of that though?
- [60:46]
Sagar Enjeti
Right, That's a good question. He's, by the way, he is 55. So if he gets 20 years and serves out 20 years, he'll be an old man before he gets out of prison. But.
- [60:54]
Ryan Seacrest
Right. And my guess is that he definitely.
- [60:56]
Sagar Enjeti
Will not serve all 20 years.
- [60:59]
Ryan Seacrest
I don't think even close. Even now there's some indication from the fact that he was denied bail here that the judge is going to go as hard as they feel like they can get away with. But I'd be very surprised.
- [61:14]
Sagar Enjeti
I think he was acquitted of murder in the first. I think there was like a big, if I'm remembering correctly, there was a big case in the nightclub murder situation. This would have been around 2000 and I want to say he was acquitted of that actually. Let's take a listen to Megyn Kelly's reaction. Followed the case very closely and had some legal experts on when the news came down. And go ahead and take a look at this next clip.
- [61:41]
Kristal Ball
Combs shook his head vigorously and put his hands together in prayer. Oh, it's all just so chummy inside the courtroom for this disgusting pervert female abuser who I can't believe is about Jerome Our streets. Again, I'm sorry. I'm disgusted by this verdict. This is fucking ridiculous. I just find it absolutely outrageous the amount of crime that this guy just got away with. I believe he committed arson. He definitely battered Cassie. He battered Jane, too. The statute of limitations for battery in Los Angeles, California, is one year. One year. So if they didn't charge him for battery within one year, and they couldn't, because he bought the tape and it remained hidden thanks to those security guards out there, then they could never charge him with that again. There's no question he dragged her back into that hotel room. Why wasn't that kidnapping? They only talked about the kidnapping of Capricorn Clark, who was his sort of main assistant, because she said he grabbed her and made her go with him over to Kid Cudi's house. There's no question he broke into Kid Cudi's house, in my view, and that he opened up the Christmas presents and locked the door in and made a threat. There's no question in my mind he was behind the arson of Kid Cudi's car. And there was proof, plenty of proof to prove that. No. Okay. There was female fingerprints they found on that, the firebomb that was left there, the Molotov cocktail. And the prosecution said there's no question he didn't do it himself. But he said, I'm going to bomb Kid Cudi's car. It's in writing. Cassie Ventura emailed her mother saying, my God, he's threatening to bomb his car. And two weeks later, it got bombed. Oh, gee. It was just some third party who also had. It's just like the proof was there, the beatings, the threats, that if they didn't go back into those room and get off with these male escorts, that they were gonna get beaten. The testimony from that Daniel Phillip, who was the male escort who heard Combs abusing Cassie behind the door, and she was screaming, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, as he heard him slapping her. Get back out there. She came back out. She was shaking. She got back into the escort's lap, physically shaking. She was so scared to the point where that guy couldn't perform sexually because this was so horrifying to him.
- [63:50]
Megyn Kelly
What?
- [63:50]
Kristal Ball
What in the actual F went on in there?
- [63:54]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. So I feel like that's probably the general public's reaction. It's just baffling. And it seems, Ryan, like, the prosecution just. I mean, in that clip, at least one of the legal experts goes on to kind of blame the jury. But I would think that the Onus for the failure here has to lie with the prosecution.
- [64:14]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah, sure. I mean they, they, it's very hard to lose a federal case.
- [64:17]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [64:18]
Ryan Seacrest
Like it's like they've, their conviction rate is absolutely through the roof. And so yeah, they, they clearly own the blame for this. You know, we didn't cover this trial a whole bunch, but whenever we did and I would look into it, I remember, you know, I would think like they're really leaning into the emotional aspect of this. You know, how, how poorly he treated Cassie and these other women and how just what an absolutely like repulsive lifestyle he was leading. Using violence and emotional manipulation to, you know, pull these multi day freak offs off. And but I remember thinking every time like okay, but what are the crimes here?
- [65:05]
Sagar Enjeti
The Cassie one was obvious.
- [65:08]
Ryan Seacrest
Yes. The violence.
- [65:09]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [65:10]
Ryan Seacrest
But then that's out of the statute of limitations.
- [65:11]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [65:12]
Ryan Seacrest
The drugs, no charge.
- [65:13]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [65:15]
Ryan Seacrest
Prostitution, convicted. But like beyond that, like where's the. And trafficking is an interesting like concept and charge.
- [65:27]
Sagar Enjeti
It's like, it's an interesting way to get them.
- [65:28]
Ryan Seacrest
You pay someone. If you could pay a prostitute to get in a car.
- [65:31]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [65:32]
Ryan Seacrest
And then go to a hotel for a free cough. Did you traffic them there?
- [65:36]
Sagar Enjeti
Right, right.
- [65:37]
Ryan Seacrest
And it's like what does that mean?
- [65:40]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, no, I mean that's a really good point. And so I guess partially another thing is it's not that it was.
- [65:44]
Ryan Seacrest
So the jury was like, that's not trafficking, that's paying a prostitute.
- [65:48]
Sagar Enjeti
And it's not necessarily easy for the prosecution then to build a case based on all. And I think a lot of it also is him. So he's alleged to have drugged people.
- [65:56]
Ryan Seacrest
Many, many times, which would be a crime if they didn't charge that.
- [65:59]
Sagar Enjeti
Right. And I think because it looks like they were overconfident and started bundling things into the RICO case thinking that they had him get the rights on racketeering because they could.
- [66:09]
Ryan Seacrest
He clearly conspired to organize these freak offs. But the jury was like not really illegal.
- [66:16]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [66:16]
Ryan Seacrest
Except that most of the pieces within it are actually illegal.
- [66:19]
Sagar Enjeti
Right? Within it, yes. And so yeah, we were just looking up his criminal history. He has been charged many, many times.
- [66:27]
Ryan Seacrest
He was, he never got charged for the nine people dying. He should have been charged with some type of negligence there. It's a pretty, everybody probably knows about this case. There was a stampede at a, at a event that he put on. It's like 1992 where he knew 90, I've got it here December 91st where he knew that too many people were There didn't care. Wanted too many people to be there for the spectacle. Nine people end up dying. Doesn't get charged for that. He got convicted 1996, convicted of criminal mischief for threatening a photographer with a gun. So that's a conviction.
- [67:03]
Sagar Enjeti
Yep.
- [67:03]
Ryan Seacrest
That's something that the judge can point to.
- [67:05]
Sagar Enjeti
That's where he. That's. That's a pretty easy denial of bail. Predicate. Right.
- [67:10]
Ryan Seacrest
And then in 99, Combs and his bodyguards are charged with attacking. This is PBS I'm reading from. Attacking Interscope Records Music Music executive over dispute over music video. He was sentenced to anger. An anger management course. Didn't work. But that's. At least that's something on the record that the judge can then point to. December 99, he's arrested on gun possession charges for that nightclub shooting that you mentioned.
- [67:40]
Sagar Enjeti
Yep.
- [67:41]
Ryan Seacrest
Where Jennifer, you know, Lopez.
- [67:45]
Sagar Enjeti
Was in the car.
- [67:46]
Ryan Seacrest
Three people got wounded.
- [67:47]
Sagar Enjeti
A woman still says that Diddy is the one who shot her in the face. Yeah.
- [67:50]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah. There are people that say that he was shooting and that some. That he shot her. He was later charged with offering his driver 50 grand to claim ownership of the nine millimeter that was found in the car. We know from this trial that him offering to pay people to get out of trouble is something that he does. So that's a quite credible charge there. However, he was then acquitted of all charges. Old Shine took the fall for that. So the judge can point to the arrest, but you're not supposed. If you're arrested and convicted, that's not really supposed to factor into your sentencing because you're supposed to have been found. Like innocent is supposed to mean. Innocent doesn't always mean that, but that's how. That's what it's supposed to mean. Then he got arrested in 2015. He looks like he got in a fight at a UCLA game where his son was playing football, but the charges were dropped.
- [68:53]
Sagar Enjeti
This is why 50 Cent referred to him yesterday as the gay John Gotti.
- [68:56]
Ryan Seacrest
Nothing's sticking to him. Teflon. Teflon Diddy.
- [69:00]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [69:01]
Ryan Seacrest
I mean, that baby oil, it's.
- [69:03]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, he's slippery.
- [69:04]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah. Slip right off. Yeah. And then. And then these charges. So.
- [69:09]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes.
- [69:10]
Ryan Seacrest
So he has not zero criminal record. He has a very long criminal record, most of it ending with acquittals or like misdemeanor stuff. So that's why it's going to be a real stretch for the judge to hit him with. That's the maximum. And even if she does, he'll appeal this. So I expect he'll Be walking free in a matter of several years. Like five, ten max.
- [69:36]
Sagar Enjeti
Unbelievable. Well, on that note, Ryan and a.
- [69:39]
Ryan Seacrest
Lot of people took a lot of risks coming forward. Come forward that they are suffering greatly right now.
- [69:47]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. The trial was just awful. It was one of those ones that was just hard to follow because Cassie was testifying about all of this while she was pregnant. It was just a really, really, really dark trial. And I forget. I want to say this was on Hulu. Someone did a fantastic documentary into the sort of influences emotionally on that sort of forged Diddy. Like, how did he become who he became? And it is just incredibly sad and dark. So hope that there's at least some closure for people who suffered from this.
- [70:20]
Ryan Seacrest
And I was saying yesterday, I actually liked doing the show without the laptop here because fewer distractions. On the other hand, when it comes to something I really don't remember, which is like Diddy's criminal record, it's actually helpful.
- [70:33]
Sagar Enjeti
It's not at the top of your.
- [70:34]
Ryan Seacrest
Mind to have it here. Yeah. I knew he'd been in and out of trouble, but. Yeah. So my memory actually served mostly correct that he's basically gotten out of all the jams that he's been in. Yeah.
- [70:46]
Sagar Enjeti
But there's so many of them. I mean, I think that's. When you look it up, you're just like, holy smokes. It is. It's gaudy. Esque. Yes, it is.
- [70:53]
Ryan Seacrest
So no Friday show. It's July 4th. We will be independent of our laptops in the morning. Happy Independence Day to everybody. I hope you enjoy the fireworks or a barbecue or whatever you're up to. Yeah, we'll be back on. Somebody will be back on Monday.
- [71:07]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, I think crystal and soccer are back on Monday. There you go. So great news.
- [71:10]
Ryan Seacrest
Yes.
- [71:11]
Sagar Enjeti
You get rid of us.
- [71:12]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah. We promise they'll be here.
- [71:13]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. Well, no, we don't. Can't make promise.
- [71:16]
Ryan Seacrest
They're going to try very hard.
- [71:17]
Sagar Enjeti
They will be. Yeah. Well, maybe they'll get caught up in the system like we did.
- [71:21]
Ryan Seacrest
There you go.
- [71:21]
Sagar Enjeti
All right.
- [71:22]
Ryan Seacrest
All right, See you guys then.
- [71:37]
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