8/6/25: New Epstein House Pics, Trump Greenlights Gaza Conquest, Panic Over Jobs Report & MORE!

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – August 6, 2025: New Epstein House Pics, Trump Greenlights Gaza Conquest, Panic Over Jobs Report & MORE!

In this compelling episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosts Sagar Enjeti and Ryan Grim delve into a myriad of urgent and provocative topics shaping the political landscape. From explosive developments in the Jeffrey Epstein case to the contentious dynamics of U.S. aid in Gaza and the stirring primary race in Florida, this episode offers a thorough analysis of events that hold significant implications for the future of American politics and international relations.

---

1. Redistricting Face-Off: Texas vs. Other States

[02:32] Sagar Enjeti & Ryan Grim

The episode kicks off with a deep dive into the escalating redistricting battle spearheaded by Texas. Governor Greg Abbott has requested the FBI to arrest Democrats who have relocated to Illinois, though the specific federal crimes remain unclear. In a bold move, Texas is also challenging the legality of Democrats fleeing the state to avoid redistricting efforts, aiming to prevent Republicans from reshaping electoral maps prematurely.

Ryan Grim highlights the national ripple effect, noting, "California and New York are responding by saying, 'Well, if you're going to redistrict, then so are we.' That's basically what's going on."

This standoff underscores the broader national tensions over gerrymandering and partisan control of electoral boundaries.

---

2. Boeing Workers Strike: A Threat to Industry

[03:50] Sagar Enjeti & Ryan Grim

A significant development in labor relations is the commencement of a strike by 3,200 Boeing workers in St. Louis. The hosts express concern over the potential impact on the aviation industry and broader economic implications, emphasizing the importance of monitoring this situation closely.

---

3. Jeffrey Epstein Case: New Revelations

[05:05] Sagar Enjeti & Ryan Grim

The Epstein saga takes a dramatic turn as The New York Times releases shocking new images from his Manhattan townhouse. These photos feature Epstein alongside prominent figures such as Pope John Paul II, Fidel Castro, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson. Of particular intrigue is a disturbing image where Melania Trump is conspicuously absent.

Sagar Enjeti comments, "The image that you see is basically Epstein flaunting all of his famous, wealthy friendships with different people. It's extremely strange."

Additionally, the issue of whether Ghislaine Maxwell will release transcripts from her interactions with the Department of Justice remains unresolved, with Maxwell currently resisting transparency.

Ryan Grim adds, "Trump did a wild interview on CNBC yesterday and then wandered up to the roof of the White House. So we will break down his comments on the economy, on immigration, and we'll try to get to the bottom of why he was at the top of the White House."

---

4. Donald Trump’s CNBC Interview and White House Rooftop Appearance

[11:04] Sagar Enjeti & Ryan Grim

In a sensational CNBC interview, former President Donald Trump addressed various issues, including the economy and immigration. Highlights include:

• Economy Remarks: Trump questioned the integrity of job reports, suggesting manipulation of figures to present a more favorable economic outlook.

  "It's a big number. And obviously, the numbers were rigged. The numbers were rigged." [11:34] Ryan Grim

• Immigration Stance: Trump controversially defended exploitative labor practices, stating that migrant workers are irreplaceable in certain industries.

  "These people do it naturally." [50:35] Ryan Grim

• White House Rooftop Presence: Trump's unorthodox appearance on the White House roof sparked confusion and concern among the hosts.

  "Why are you on the roof? What are you doing?" [60:05] Sagar Enjeti

---

5. U.S. Aid in Gaza: Trump’s Controversial Involvement

[65:02] Ryan Grim & Sagar Enjeti

The discussion shifts to the United States' humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza. Reports from Axios reveal that Trump plans to take a more direct role in the aid distribution process, aiming to streamline operations amidst the ongoing conflict.

Ryan Grim explains, "Trump is set to make remarks at the White House tonight," indicating significant changes in how aid is managed and distributed.

The hosts critique the current approach, debating the efficacy and motivations behind Trump's intervention in the aid process.

---

6. Discrepancies in Epstein’s Prison Records with Martin Gottsfeld

[21:49] Sagar Enjeti & Ryan Grim

Martin Gottsfeld, a former inmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center where Epstein died, joins the conversation to analyze inconsistencies in the Inspector General’s (IG) report on prison conditions and camera footage. Gottsfeld identifies critical flaws in the IG’s documentation, suggesting possible cover-ups or mismanagement.

Martin Gottsfeld points out, “It's extremely unlikely SIS would go that long without reviewing footage.” [30:39]

This segment underscores the ongoing mystery surrounding Epstein's death and raises questions about the transparency of the investigation.

---

7. Primary Showdown: Randy Fine vs. Aaron Baker in Florida

[07:14] - [38:30] Sagar Enjeti, Ryan Grim & Aaron Baker

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the Republican primary race in Florida’s 6th district, where incumbent Representative Randy Fine faces challenger Aaron Baker. Baker, an emerging Republican congressman, criticizes Fine’s harsh stance on Palestinians and his lack of support for humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Aaron Baker asserts, “There's not one child in the world that should starve to death on America's watch.” [123:34]

Baker discusses his grassroots campaign, emphasizing his low cost-per-vote strategy and genuine connections with voters who are disillusioned with Fine’s rhetoric.

Ryan Grim notes, “A Trump endorsement could sway the race, but Baker’s passionate stance might resonate with voters seeking change.”

---

8. Fact-Checking Gaza Ministry of Health Casualty Figures

[81:23] Ryan Grim & Sagar Enjeti

Addressing skepticism around the Gaza Ministry of Health’s reported casualty numbers, the hosts reference a Sky News fact-check which validates the accuracy of these figures. They argue that despite political biases, the data stands up to scrutiny.

Sagar Enjeti remarks, “If you’re asking us to support numbers from Hamas. And obviously, I think Israel is the good guy here.” [91:23]

This segment emphasizes the importance of unbiased data in understanding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

---

9. Corey Mills Investigation

[111:38] Sagar Enjeti & Ryan Grim

The episode also covers ongoing investigations into Representative Corey Mills, a Republican candidate embroiled in allegations of domestic violence, ethical violations, and questionable business practices. The hosts highlight the troubling aspects of Mills’ behavior and financial dealings, questioning his integrity and suitability for office.

Sagar Enjeti states, “Corey Mills is a defense contractor, member of Congress, who's not divested from that business, being in this ostensibly two-timing relationship with somebody who works for an Iranian American activist group.” [117:30]

---

10. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[139:38] Ryan Grim & Sagar Enjeti

As the episode wraps up, the hosts reflect on the interconnectedness of the issues discussed and the broader implications for American politics and international relations. They stress the necessity of independent media in uncovering truths and holding power accountable.

Sagar Enjeti concludes, “As long as the money’s on his side, these primaries are really decided by money. And so if he’s not able to outraise significantly, it would be really difficult.” [136:00]

---

Notable Quotes:

• “These people do it naturally.” — Ryan Grim [50:35]
• “It's a big number. And obviously, the numbers were rigged.” — Ryan Grim [11:34]
• “There is no way that we should be paying for 70% of Israel's defense.” — Aaron Baker [125:32]
• “It's terrifying. We need your help to build the future of independent news media.” — Sagar Enjeti [02:02]

---

Final Thoughts:

This episode of Breaking Points serves as a critical lens on pressing political and social issues, blending investigative journalism with incisive commentary. From high-stakes political maneuvers and labor strikes to deep-seated international conflicts and primary election battles, Krystal and Saagar provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of events that are shaping the world today.

---

For those who missed the episode, "Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar" is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Crystal Ball]

Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense? That's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II when they tricked the literary world with their intentionally bad poetry, setting off a major scandal. We break down the truth, the lies, and the poetry in between on Hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan and me, Dana Schwartz. Every episode, Hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history. Listen to hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ryan Grim]

The Stuff youf Should Know guys have made their own summer playlists of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff youf Should Know Summer Movie Playlist. What screams summer more than a nice darkened air conditioned theater and a great movie playing right in front of you? Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even mov movies that change filmmaking and many more. Listen to the Stuff you should Know Summer Movie Playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Emily Jashinsky]

We're breaking down SummerSlam, the biggest party.

[Ryan Grim]

Of the summer on Wrestling With Freddy. From our bold picks to storyline breakdowns, we will discuss who walks out with gold, who shocks the night and which matches steal the show we call the winners, the upsets and the chaos to expect.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Plus we whatever swerves nobody saw coming.

[Ryan Grim]

Listen to Wrestling with Freddie as part of the My Kultura Podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.

[Crystal Ball]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So excited about what that means for.

[Crystal Ball]

The future of this show.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is the only place where you.

[Ryan Grim]

Can find honest perspectives from the left.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Crystal 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 un ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail].

[Ryan Grim]

All right. Good morning and welcome to Breaking Points. How you doing Emily?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Doing great. How was your family reunion?

[Ryan Grim]

It was lovely. Good time. Missed everybody here, all the grims in one place and I had a bunch of people Were like, is Ryan ever coming back? It's like, guys, it's one week. Come on.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, you were in Ireland.

[Ryan Grim]

People were probably like, that's true, I was in Ireland. Nevermind.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But here you are.

[Ryan Grim]

I'm back.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's back and better than ever.

[Ryan Grim]

A week and a half.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We'll see.

[Ryan Grim]

I'm back. We're not going to get a chance to cover the burgeoning back and forth over the redistricting, which if you want to check out the context of that, you can look at the segment that saga and I did yesterday. But essentially Texas is now asking the FBI to arrest the Democrats who have fled to Illinois. No reason why. Like, it's completely unclear what federal crime would be involved here. Meanwhile, Texas governor has gone to the Supreme Court to try to basically get the Democrats kicked out of elected office. They have left the state to deny a quorum so that Republicans can't use the quorum to redistrict the state in the middle of the 10 year period. California and New York are responding by saying, well, if you're going to redistrict, then so are we. That's basically what's going on.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, that's, it's a, it's another doom spiral, but not the first time this has happened. Before we get into the newsroom, I just have to say you took another trip to Club Slay.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, exactly. We were talking about this yesterday. Whenever you go on vacation with your daughters, you're probably going to come back with your nails done for free.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They get bored.

[Ryan Grim]

It's a real upside. Yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

Another thing we won't get to talk about real quickly, the strike, the Boeing strike begins today.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. 3,200 Boeing workers striking in St. Louis. So that's one to keep an eye on. And we will definitely be keeping an eye on it here. Some really big updates in the Epstein case. It feels like we say that every single day. But yesterday the New York Times published some absolutely wild pictures from inside Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan townhouse. We have details on Ghislaine Maxwell right now thinking about whether or not she wants that transcript that we know was or that recording that we know that the Department of Justice could easily release as a transcript and are debating whether or not to do so. Ghislaine Maxwell is saying no. So we will dive into all of that. We have new Trump comments on everything as well. And Ryan Martin Gottsfeld is back with us.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. He served in the same prison where Epstein died. He read through the entire IG report that looked into the prison conditions and the cameras and the layout. And he found a bunch of different things that he believes are significant discrepancies that an eyewitness could be helpful to shed light on. I also spoke to a prisoner or an inmate who served on the specific wing where Epstein was. So I'll talk about that with Godesfeld.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And important news because subpoenas were issued yesterday. We'll talk about this for some people who might know what happened with the prison investigation. Now, Trump did a wild interview on CNBC yesterday and then wandered up to the roof of the White House. So we will break down his comments on the economy, on immigration, and we'll try to get to the bottom of why he was at the top of the White House. Also, news about the US Aid plan in Gaza. Donald Trump says he just now wantsor reports suggest that he wants the United States basically to take over the aid process. So we will bring you updates on that. And Ryan has, Ryan and I both actually have little monologues to do on the politics of Israel.

[Ryan Grim]

Ryan's bringing back the radars.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, we're bringing back the radars. Ryan's is just stay tuned. It involves Cowes and Boris Johnson.

[Ryan Grim]

Mine's a wild ride.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it sure is. And then Ryan, more job site reporting. Cory Mills is a up and coming Republican congressman who may not be so up and coming anymore. Fascinating drop site report on new details in his down spiral.

[Ryan Grim]

So Roger Sullenberger has been investigating Mills and the first piece for drop site posted last night about actually just wait for it. It's incredible.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It is. It's really something. Ms. Ms. USA is involved in this.

[Ryan Grim]

You're like, I think that this guy's probably nuts. You're like, oh, I didn't know the half of it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Or like the quarter of it. It just keeps. Every time you think you have a complete picture, you don't.

[Ryan Grim]

No, you don't.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We don't. Right now.

[Ryan Grim]

Some people lead some interesting lives. One conclusion you will draw from this.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes. Now, finally, our guest, our second guest is going to be Aaron Baker who is Randy Fines, Republican primary opponent down in Florida. So that race has garnered a lot of attention, particularly online because Baker has come out against Fines. Really atrocious posturing on the war in Gaza. So Aaron Baker is going to join us to talk about the dynamics of that race and whether or not he can unstable seat. Randy Fine.

[Ryan Grim]

And he's also kind of a die hard Israel supporter too, which makes it interesting.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We'll get into that because even as we're teeing up this segment. His candidacy is so new, I think it's fair to say it's kind of an open question to the extent that he remains in the same type of pro Israel position a lot of Republicans were five years ago.

[Ryan Grim]

Be such a shame if Randy Fine was shown the door, wouldn't it?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Shown the door? Yeah, if he could get through it. Oh, should I not have said that? Ouch. Okay, maybe cut that one. All right, dive in, Ryan. The New York Times published a hell of an Epstein story yesterday with images from inside his Manhattan townhouse and also a letter from the one and only Woody Allen that was very bizarre. Compiled as this is. So the director, Woody Allen, the New York Times writes, described how the dinners at Epstein's house. This is a book for his 63rd birthday or a collection of letters that people sent in for his 63rd birthday, according to the New York Times. You know what they say about the 63rd birthday? It's a letter birthday. Yeah. All your friends send you letters, even though they did that for your 50th birthday. So Alan described how dinners at Epstein's place reminded him of Dracula's castle, quote, where Lugosi has three young female vampires who service the place. He goes on. And this is again in a letter to Epstein on the occasion of his 63rd birthday to describe one of the just most bizarre settings that you can imagine, where there's Chinese food buffets. Did you read this letter, Ryan?

[Ryan Grim]

I did not read the whole Woody Allen letter.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's written. I mean, there's nothing like huge in it. It's just him talking about the meager portion sizes in the Dracula castle in a very coy Woody Allen way. But the Times, of course, included, in addition to this letter for Epstein's 63rd birthday, pictures from his credenza showing him with Pope John Paul ii, Fidel Castro, Donald Trump, and a picture actually with Trump where Melania is cropped out. Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Elon Musk, Richard Branson. So the image that you see is basically Epstein flaunting all of his famous, wealthy friendships with different people. There's a picture with Epstein not in it. All of the pictures mostly are Epstein himself. He's included in most of them, except for one that appears to be just Steve Bannon and Woody Allen. It's extremely strange. Other pictures of Epstein's upstairs residence. You see surveillance cameras peeking down at the bed. Surveillance.

[Ryan Grim]

First edition of Lolita.

[Sagar Enjeti]

First edition of Lolita on display.

[Ryan Grim]

Not really doing much at all to try to hide his predilections not at all. No. To advertise them, flaunting them in front.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Of Woody Allen, by the way, who has his own questions of herself.

[Ryan Grim]

Whatever you think about what Woody Allen did, the public perception of Woody Allen is settled.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right, Right. Extremely weird stuff. Stuffed tiger. Also in the pictures, just a really unsettling story from the New York Times. They're being very cagey about their sourcing on it. They won't say how they got these images or even when they got the images or where they' that Woody Allen letter is from the 63rd birthday collection. But it's sort of an interesting image. Dump Ryan to come out of nowhere.

[Ryan Grim]

And the Times had a line that I liked that underlines why this is such a story that won't go away, which was, nobody's been able to explain how he made his nine figure income. There's no one else that I know of who has a nine figure net worth where you cannot begin to explain it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No.

[Ryan Grim]

And so when people are like, well, I think that he may have had some connections to intel into the intel world, because how else do you accidentally land on a nine figure wealth and build a mansion with a bunch of cameras everywhere and then invite a bunch of powerful people over to do compromising things? Like, give me something more logical, more obvious than that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it's interesting.

[Ryan Grim]

And then we'll entertain something else. Yes, then we'll entertain the other theory. Give me something. Where do you get the money?

[Sagar Enjeti]

The real conspiracy theory is that Les Wexner was having expert money management services from Jeffrey Epstein.

[Ryan Grim]

From this high school teacher.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. But has, of course, never addressed that or anything at all. Yes, absolutely. Well, we also have Donald Trump responding to some questions here yesterday on Epstein. We can go ahead and roll a three.

[Ryan Grim]

And I think he probably wants to make sure that, you know, people that should not be involved or aren't involved are not hurt by something that would be very, very unfortunate, very unfair to a lot of people.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Were you aware of and did you personally approve the prison transfer for Ghislaine Maxwell that your Justice Department.

[Ryan Grim]

I didn't know about it at all. No, I read about it just like you did.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And do you believe that she is.

[Ryan Grim]

Not a very uncommon thing?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Do, do you think that she's credible to be listening to? Your deputy attorney general sat down with her recently.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, he's. Let me tell you, he's a very talented man. His name is Todd Blanche. He's a very legitimate person, very high, just a very highly thought of person, respected by everybody.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay. So that's Trump referring obviously to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who conducted those interviews with Ghislaine Maxwell over a two day period where she was seen hauling a box away from the discussions back into her prison. She in a lower security prison in Texas, which has been covered on the show as well. So Trump is saying, Ryan, that Blanche and I think we actually all understand that this is true. There are, it's obviously going to be the case that in the, quote, Epstein files, whatever form they are, there will be names of people who are not implicated in child sex trafficking.

[Ryan Grim]

He had one name in particular on his tongue.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Can you imagine Trump? Yeah, can you imagine?

[Ryan Grim]

We don't want people like Donald Trump, whose name might be in there, being unfairly tarred by what we might release. So let's go ahead and not release anything.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And we know that his name was among a group of names that was being sort of actively redacted by Justice Department lawyers who were working around the clock apparently in the last several months to try to release something because Pam Bond sort of realized this was part of her portfolio, she would have to do something on it. But there were a lot of redactions being made. The problem is, Ryan, we don't have, we have so little information from the government that we can't trust that the government is redacting the names. And that's the most obvious point. I mean, when can you ever trust that they're redacting names of people who are just innocent.

[Ryan Grim]

Just innocent.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. So that's a little bit of the issue is, you know, if you're asking for that benefit of the doubt, I don't think anybody's really in the mood to give it to you.

[Ryan Grim]

No, but if you're the president, then you can do everything you can to withhold this stuff as long as you possibly can. And so the DOJ did, under pressure, meet with Ghislaine Maxwell to hear her out. They're just negotiating over obviously better prison conditions and a better prison, you know, what she can get and what she can give. That conversation was recorded, put up a four. There's now conversation about whether or not the Trump administration will release transcript of this hearing, which or this meeting, which as you said Maxwell is objecting to, you can put up a five saying no way, do not want to see this happen. Interesting. If they're already going to be at odds with Maxwell.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, very, very interesting. And also interesting, I mean, obviously that they are, according to cnn, debating whether or not to release this. So this is from CNN's reporting the administration's handling of the Epstein case, as well as the need to craft a unified response is expected to be a main focus of the dinner. Three sources familiar with the meeting told cnn. So this is apparently a meeting that's happening tonight at the vice president's mansion in D.C. so at the. Was it the Naval.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, Naval Observatory.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The Naval Observatory. That's right. In Washington. And they're going to be. So this is CNN says with the exception of Vance, the White House considers those officials the leaders of the administration's ongoing strategy regarding the Epstein files, two of the sources said. So we can expect Susie Wiles, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel and Todd Blanche himself to be at this meeting. And CNN reports there have also been internal discussions about Blanche holding a press conference or doing a high profile interview, possibly with popular podcaster Joe Rogan because that went so well for Cash Patel. This is what's happening right now and is being debated behind the scenes. The justice department, according to CNN's reporting, is digitizing, transcribing and redacting the interview materials. Those are related to Ghislaine Maxwell and they're actually debating whether or not to publicly release information from the max interview. There's over 10 hours of audio according to a senior administration officials and quote, portions of that transcript could reveal sensitive details like like victim names would also have to be redacted, according to one of the officials. Just a little additional tidbit here from cnn. They say one official told them these are all unnamed officials. Of course that some of the conversation within the White House is focused on whether making the deals the details from the interview public would bring the Epstein controversy back to the surface. Many officials close to Trump believe the story has largely died down. What world are they living in, Ryan, where the story has largely died down. And you have both coverage in conservative media and the New York Times running, for example, new details and new images. It's kind of still across the board.

[Ryan Grim]

And new polling out shows Trump down to 39% among men, which is rock bottom maybe ever for him among men. And so the entire Bari Weiss kind of universe has been out saying don't believe the podcast bros when they tell you that people care about Epstein, that it's fine, Trump can weather this storm. Nobody actually cares about Epstein. What's he down at? 39% over. I mean obviously there's a lot of other problems that Trump is facing right now, headwinds all over the place. But this is to say that he's at rock bottom among men while this has been the dominant story in the media that men listen to for the last month in young men is absurd.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, I think it's true that some of the Russia collusion details have sucked up some oxygen. And I mean, that's exactly, I mean, Trump at one point said it was just two weeks ago. The witch hunt you should be looking at when he was asked about Epstein is what happened to me during the Russia collusion investigation. Of course, both these things can be true at the same time, but they're not wrong. Some of the oxygen has been sucked out of the room in conservative media. And I think, you know, in some cases these stories are very important to cover. But that doesn't mean the story has faded to the, the background at all. I mean, you still see it, people are still talking about it, it's still high profile. And it would be a mistake, I think, probably to assume that it's over and that it's, you know, this is the end of the line for Epstein. We can all just move on if they don't talk about it.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Good luck with that, Ryan. We have Martin Gottsfeld.

[Aaron Baker]

Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So we can bring him in.

[Ryan Grim]

Former inmate who served in the McCarthy where Epstein also serves. And we're going to run through the IG report that was originally put out, which was published before we had the footage of the cameras in the mcc. So we're going to compare Martin's experience in there with the cameras with the IG report.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Let's get into it.

[Josh]

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? WashablesOfAs.com has your back. Featuring the Annabe Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out. Where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anna Bay sofa backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back Upgrade [e-mail] Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Crystal Ball]

Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense. Well, that's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II when they pulled off what was either a bold literary hoax or a grand poetic experiment, publishing over a dozen intentionally bad but highly acclaimed works of expressionist poetry under the name Ern Malley. In an incident that caused a media firestorm and even a criminal trial, the Ern Malley episode made fools of believers and critics alike and still fascinates poetry lovers to this day. We break down the truth, the lies, and the poetry in between on Hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan, and me, Dana Schwartz. Every episode, Hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history, from forged artworks to the original fake news. To try and answer why we believe, listen to Hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ryan Grim]

The Stuff you SHOULD Know guys have made their own summer playlists of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff youf Should Know Summer Movie Playlist. What screams summer more than a nice darkened air conditioned theater and a great movie playing right in front of you? Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking and many more. Listen to the Stuff youf Should Know Summer Movie Playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or where you listen to podcasts. Joining us back on the program is Martin Gottesfeld, activist, journalist, and a former inmate at Metropolitan Correctional center, which is the prison where Jeffrey Epstein infamously famously met his end. Marty, thanks for coming back.

[Josh]

No problem.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Thanks for having me.

[Ryan Grim]

And so we wanted to have you back on because you were able to go through the full IG report and some of the subsequent media reporting about the IG report that looked into the layout of MCC and the camera situation, which is quite crucial. Like, if you talk to anybody who kind of casually follows this story, you know, they're familiar with this, the camera, the famous camera shot of the Epstein's door. And then this also this like little still footage of the desk where the officers sit and then this controversy around this, you know, missing three minutes at midnight or whenever they kind of reset the camera. But what you seem to have observed here is that in fact, based on what you know about the layout of the prison and comparing it to what they have published here, there were potentially two ways to get directly to Epstein's cell that would not have been covered by Any recording cameras. And so the three minute thing is actually kind of a distraction. Is that a fair summary? And then we can get into the details?

[Emily Jashinsky]

I don't know that the three minutes is necessarily a distraction. I think it's potentially a red herring. That's fair to say, but yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

All right, so let's start actually with one of the ones you found here. It's labeled 9th Floor South. And so we'll put this up on the screen. What do you see here in this layout? So Epstein's cell is at one point, and then 9th floor south in yellow is highlighted.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Okay, so this one actually, the IG was just wrong. And CBS ran with this one as if it were correct, published it as if it were correct, and they took it out of the IG's report and just put it out there. That's not actually the ninth floor layout in the lower right portion.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. So how do we know that?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Right, Because I've been there. That's the 10th floor layout. So that's the 10th floor Sam's unit. And you can see the little curved desk there. That's where the monitors for the cameras are. And I used to get walked through here because there's a medical evaluation room in that unit. And I was on a hunger strike and the nine south shu. And rather than bring me down to like, the fourth, fifth, fourth floor or fifth floor, or wherever the normal medical exam rooms were, they were lazy. And they just brought me up the shoe to the 10th floor medical exam room. And so I used to walk by this desk and I saw the cameras working on this desk. And then you see the four little rooms there just to the stacked in a vertical row just to the left of the yellow area. Those are the attorney visiting rooms from the 10 south unit. And the ninth floor layout does not look like that. And those. That area in yellow, that's not even elevators in real life.

[Ryan Grim]

What is that? Do you remember?

[Emily Jashinsky]

No, it's some kind of, like, staff offices, or it might even be the medical exam room. But I want to say the medical examiner was further, further down the hall. It was a longer, longer walk. But the big thing is that if you look at this diagram and you assume there actually is a camera recording there and that those are actually elevators, then you're left with an impression, or you're likely left with the impression that an approach to Epstein's cell through the elevators would be covered by that camera. And the Justice Department has said that it has footage from this camera, but it has not released the footage from this camera. But because this is the 10th floor layout and the 9th floor layout is materially different. That's an incorrect impression.

[Ryan Grim]

Right, so let's. Yeah, so let's move to the ninth floor layout, which appears elsewhere in your piece here. And we put the image up that has the kind of yellow area that's suggesting like where the camera footage would be with Epstein's cell kind of off to the side of it. What's important to you about that layout?

[Emily Jashinsky]

So the IG provided the original for this diagram, but what they did not do was block out the main elevators versus the visitors elevators. And it's not inherently obvious that underneath, if you look above the main elevators is that little camera, non recording camera that's covering a door symbol. So that's actually like the main entrance to the shoe or the one of the first of the two main entrances to the shoe. And then you go in past the shoe laundry office and then there's another door actually before you get to the main area of the shoe. And that's where they have written America's strongest shoe. That's where you see it. But you could follow this path, right, and then up the stairs to Epstein's tier. And the way they rendered the staircases here is also really misleading. You would think that the staircase on the left, you see how there's kind of two staircases leading up to like M tier. Really leading down to M tier.

[Ryan Grim]

Pause one second for this. Let's put up the one that you labeled here. Streaming but not recording camera. And where you've drawn these kind of red lines.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, so the way they've drawn these staircases is really misleading here. I corrected it in one of my diagrams, but it was a good amount of work to figure out the angles and everything. The left hand staircase there looks like it's the one that leads up. It's actually leading down, that goes to the lower tier, M tier. And it's the right hand staircase that actually leads up to L tier to where they say Epstein was. And so the camera has fairly good coverage of the left staircase that does not lead to Epstein, but it does not have good coverage of the right hand staircase, which did.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So let's also then talk about this other discrepancy you point out at these other two discrepancies you point out that are important. There's number four in your article, no showers on shower day. And then number five is incorrect plumbing, which may sound to people like, oh, it's, you know, a small thing. They just got a little minor Detail of the physical space. Incorrect. But you say no. These are hugely significant discrepancies. Tell us why.

[Emily Jashinsky]

So in terms of the no showers thing, it ties into the so called orange shape that ascends the stairs. And what we see, that the shoe workers doing the Aug. 9, the date of the footage or the date the footage starts, right? It goes from the 9th into the 10th. Right. The night of the 9th into the 10th, August 9th was a Friday. Okay? If you're in a federal shoe, you only get three showers a week, okay? And in most of those shoes, you get those showers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Okay. And on those shower days you get a change of clothes, right? That's the only change of clothes you get. So. So according to the IG's report, there were 72 prisoners in the shoe on that day. That's 72 sets of boxers, 72 sets of pants, 72 towels, 72 T shirts. Right? It's a full change of 72 things for 72 guys. And so if you look back at one of the other diagrams, we were just looking at where I show the shoe laundry office, right? And you examine the video like I did. I went in detail through this video. I played it all. I played it at a slightly accelerated rate, but I played it on and I took notes. A shoe worker goes off frame really near the beginning of that video and heads towards that shoe laundry office. And because it was shower day, right? They've got 72 sets of things to wash and dry. And I don't remember for sure if the washing machines are actually on this floor if they send the laundry down. But there's presumably also 72 sets of clean laundry, laundry coming in that need to be folded and sorted and put on the shelf. Right? And so this guy, he leaves the frame early in the night. And it is entirely plausible to me that he would still be doing his job, that he would be out of his cell working, that they would just ghost him during the count. So they would count him as if he was in his cell, even though he's in this laundry area. And that to me seems the most likely explanation for the orange blur.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So it would be an inmate doing the laundry.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Inmate doing the laundry goes back to his cell at 10:42, the officer goes up the stairs, which we kind of see locks him into his cell at night and then comes back down the stairs, which we also see. It makes more sense than the IG's explanation that an officer was carrying clothing. I agree with the video expert CBS had, it wouldn't look like that. That's most likely a person walking up there. But there's a very mundane reason for it. And this is something CBS would have known had they bothered to actually interview anyone who's been in federal prison, been in a shoe in federal prison, or you know, better yet, interviewed someone who's actually been in this particular shoe in federal prison, who knows where the laundry.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Area is or something. The Inspector General, if they were truly interested in an accurate report.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Oh, it's not even. It's not even in my top five of problems with the Inspector General.

[Ryan Grim]

And so then the question then becomes, you know, if. And also, let's get to the L tier. Since you were on here last, I spoke with another inmate who actually served specifically on the L tier and said that, yes, that's the only one that didn't have cameras in the cells.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, I didn't know that. I mean, I was all over that shoe, but not on ltr, so it was news to me. But it jives with the pictures we have of Epstein's cell because I went looking through those pictures, I know where the camera would be, and it's not there.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. So that means that they chose to put their most high profile inmate in a cell without a camera and also in a cell that could be approached in apparently multiple directions by somebody who would not be recorded. Which itself is an interesting question. And then you also get in your piece too, the notion of the cameras not recording. They say that they were streaming but not recording. And they didn't realize that until right before this situation lay out. Why it sounds to you to be implausible that they'd go for this long without realizing the cameras were recording.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah. So According to the IG, it took NCC 10 days to discover the the cameras weren't recording. Okay. This facility houses at capacity, 400 something federal prisoners. Okay. Every federal facility, including this one, has a department called the Special Investigative Supervisors, sis. Okay? They're like prison intelligence. It's like a twice the oxymoron of military intelligence. But they take their jobs very seriously. And their primary tasks are internal investigations. Handling snitches, managing gangs, interdicting controversial band. Okay? And in a facility the size of the mcc, they get a steady stream of kites. They're called like flying a kite. It's a term for when an inmate drops a note, like ratting out a staff member or ratting out another prisoner. Okay? There's going to be a steady stream of them in a facility this size. And no self respecting SIS department could possibly go 8 days or 10 days without reviewing recent camera footage. Because when they get one of these kites, right, it's going to include like a date and a time and a place for SIS to go check out so that they can build a case or bus somebody or whatever it is. So in a facility that size, I just. It's very, very unlikely SIS would go that long without reviewing footage. And then when they do discover the cameras aren't recording, which is two days, I think, before the night in question, they did something odd. They didn't do something. You know, I was in eight jails and prisons, okay, across my seven and a half years as a, quote, unquote, political prisoner. It was one bid, right? But I got transferred all over the place because no one likes a guy who has media connections and litigates and, you know, all that. So I got sent all over the place. And every time I was in a facility where they had a significant camera issue, not just like one camera out, but like a systematic thing, even for maintenance, right? They lock down the whole facility. It's just too much of a liability. They can't have people walking around. We were locked down for like two or three days in Terre Haute, Indiana, when it was like 100 degrees out for camera work, just to give you anything that was planned, right? So they find out the cameras are down and they don't lock down the prison. And we know the prison's not locked down because we see in the video, we see shoe workers outside their cells just, like, going about their days. Right? And like, that wouldn't happen during a camera lockdown.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right. Okay, now, news today. This is a seven. Is that just yesterday, House Republicans, James Comer, subpoenaed Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, but also, interestingly, Bill Barr, so some former Republicans, actually even Alberto Gonzalez, who was Attorney General when the sweetheart deal was struck with Epstein back during the Bush administration, and Attorney General Jackson Sessions. So, Martin, do you have questions? I mean, Barr, I think, would be the big one. Obviously, he was Attorney General when everything that we're discussing right now happened and would have been privy to all kinds of information about what happened with Xu. So are there questions that you think Bill Barr might have the answer to? Like, are there particular things that you would recommend he be asked?

[Emily Jashinsky]

I'm trying to remember if Barr was on record saying that he had personally reviewed the video? I think that he was. And assuming that he was on record saying he had personally reviewed the video, he went forward with this same narrative that there was no way anyone could have gotten to Epstein's cell. And there's just no way reviewing that video for someone to stake that kind of a claim. So I would certainly ask him about that. And then I'm not sure how familiar you guys are with the Dalton School and the connection through Barr's family with the Dalton School, but I think that bears some scrutiny as well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And just sticking on that, your point about the video? He described it as like a perfect storm of screw ups that had happened. He said, I can understand people who immediately whose minds went to the sort of worst case scenario because it was a perfect storm of screw ups. Those were his comments to the Associated Press back in November of 2019. So I guess on the. And if he's saying that all of this was basically just accidental that led to Epstein's death, this is all just happenstance. It just was this perfect storm of screw ups. What's your perspective as somebody who's been there and sort of knows all of these things would have had to have been. If that's true, tell us what that means. Like the odds of all of these screw ups happening, quote, unquote, screw ups.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I think the odds are fairly low. The problem is Bill Barr's personal knowledge. He can claim that he doesn't have intimate understanding of the running of these facilities, that when he was Attorney General, that he had a director of the Bureau of Prisons to whom he entrusted these matters and that these things generally didn't rise to his level. So I don't know what in particular you could ask him, except again, if he's on the record saying that he watched the video and putting forth that narrative that this video is conclusive. I think he's got a real problem.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

All right, well, Marty, thanks so much. We'll continue to follow your reporting on this. Appreciate you joining us here.

[Emily Jashinsky]

No problem. Ryan, thanks again for having me.

[Ryan Grim]

And your substack, martyg.substack substack.com yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And if you want to study these diagrams closer, go over to martyg.substack.com and.

[Ryan Grim]

We'Ll put your piece in the show notes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Oh, thank you.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Thanks so much.

[Ryan Grim]

Take it easy.

[Josh]

There's nothing like sinking into luxury. @washablesofas.com you'll find the Annabe sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom starting at only $699. The stain resistant performance fabric slipcover and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop now at washablesofas.com add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Crystal Ball]

Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense? Well, that's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II when they pulled off what was either a bold literary hoax or a grand poetic experiment, publishing over a dozen intentionally bad but highly acclaimed works of expressionist poetry under the name Ern Malley. In an incident that caused a media firestorm and even a criminal trial, the Ern Malley episode made fools of believers and critics alike and still fascinates poetry lovers to this day. We break down the truth, the lies, and the poetry in between on Hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan and me, Dana Schwarzenegger. Every episode, Hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history, from forged artworks to the original fake news. To try and answer why we believe, listen to Hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ryan Grim]

The Stuff youf Should Know guys have made their own summer playlists of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff youf Should Know Summer Movie Playlist list. What screams summer more than a nice darkened air conditioned theater and a great movie playing right in front of you? Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking, and many more. Listen to the Stuff you should Know Summer Movie Playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Sagar Enjeti]

President Trump called into CNBC yesterday talking to a pretty friendly audience. At least they expected to be a friendly audience, but got some interesting moments of pushb because Ryan, he was on a tear yesterday. He was on one, some just, I was gonna say bizarre.

[Ryan Grim]

Sort of stocked up the Sudafed at the beginning of the month so he's gonna be riding high for like another week.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Let's without further ado, roll B1.

[Ryan Grim]

Where do you get the notion that it's rigged or do you have any evidence there? It is antiquated, but it's also very political. And, you know, I had an election recently where I did very well, won every swing state, won the popular vote, won everything. All right. Days before the election, they put out numbers that it was like the country was on fire, was doing so well. And then they did a revision about two weeks later and the revision was down by almost 900,000 jobs. You remember that those were benchmark numbers, though. That happens. They do that. They do that twice a year, year. And it reconciles the monthly figures with, like the overall numbers. And it was a big number. And obviously the numbers were rigged. The numbers were rigged. Biden wasn't doing well. He was doing poorly, perhaps with the tariffs. Some businesses delayed some, some spending. Some consumers may have been less certain about the future. So maybe we're seeing a slight slowdown in labor, but you're going to get exactly what you want want based on these numbers. Which ones do you believe? Do you not believe the revised numbers either? It's not what I want. I don't want that. I wanted it a year ago. I wanted it a long time ago. Jay Powell is highly political and I think, you know, I call him Too Late, Jerome, Too Late Powell. He's too late. He's too late always. He always has been.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So that's obviously with, again, pretty friendly audience and Joe Kernan still getting pushback. Right.

[Ryan Grim]

And I think the friendliness has limits when it comes to Wall street here, because the United States reputation for accurate financial data is central to its role as the dominant financial services sector industry in the world. We don't make anything, really. And because we're able to move money around, we skim off the top. Like, that's basically what our economy does right now. We can do that because we have a military and because we have a trusted financial system. If you are an oligarch anywhere in the world and you put your money with Goldman or with JP Morgan, you expect that that money is going to be there. And that if they tell you that CDs are paying 4.1%, CDs are paying 4.1%. And that if the economic forecasts are said by the United States government to be this, that they are that, that if job losses are this, that is their best estimate. And their debt, the United States debt is what they say it is. Argentina for many years, for instance, Greece, a bunch of other countries when they got into trouble, they would fudge their numbers. Greece, Argentina was just straight up lying and hiding debt. And so then people stopped trusting the numbers that were coming out of Argentina. And so then it would cost Argentina more to borrow. So Wall street actually deeply cares about this and does not want Donald Trump to play around with this.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's a great point.

[Ryan Grim]

It's core to their whole thing. Doug Henwood, your buddy, talked to him yesterday, actually. There you go. He's a friend of mine. Marxist economist, terrific left wing economist. He posted the other day chiding the left. He said with Trump about to try to fake economic stats, it's not very helpful for leftists to say they were already cooked. They're not. I follow this stuff very closely and have for years. They're very good and assembled by civil servants who take their jobs very seriously. So they, that goes to Trump's point that it's very political. It's not. Anybody watching this show knows I don't have a lot good to say about the United States or the United States government. Right. Is that fair?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, that's fair.

[Ryan Grim]

That's fair.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That might be our primary source of disagreement.

[Ryan Grim]

Our bureaucrats in the civil service take their jobs very seriously. Whether you're, whether Trump is in the White House or whether a Democrat is in the White House, they are doing their very best to put out the numbers. Now, what could have happened in the last six months that might make it more difficult for civil servants to have done a perfect job? Can you think of anything?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Not off the top of my head, Ryan.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, if you're spending two of your days writing an email about what you did, five days. If a bunch of people in your office are taking buyouts from Doge, a bunch of people who are on probation for whatever reason because they just moved there, they just got hired, they just filled a spot. If they got fired, well, now you don't have them. And if you had a hiring freeze and now you can't, you know, it's tough to hire going into the election, then you have a hiring freeze that's running basically till now, that could perhaps make it a little bit trickier to do your job. I mean, let's just be honest. Of course it would. Is that why they had a large fluctuation in the numbers and this significant correction? Probably not. I think what your buddy over at CNBC was saying has something to do with it. Trump is throwing the economy into chaos. In order for these month to month numbers to be as accurate as possible, they get survey data in they are obviously not counting everything in the country. Think about it. Think about how you get these numbers. It's surveys. You talk to 0.00% of businesses to try to get an idea of where things are heading. And then you compare that to your projections and to what's been happening in the past. But if tariffs are going wild and if you're striking deals and then breaking deals, then what good are your projections and your past results? Now you have to just kind of go off your surveys. If you have fewer civil servants to collect surveys and to input the data, then you have less data. And if businesses are consumed by trying to figure out how they're going to weather this upcoming crisis created by this completely unpredictable economic environment, they're going to be less likely to return their surveys on time.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Like, this is all just common sense. Nowhere in that. Also think about this. Donald Trump is saying that this Biden appointed civil servant who got like 96 votes in the Senate or whatever, falsely claimed that the economy was doing better after Trump's tariff rollout and then only later revised it downward. So why would a Biden person, let's say they want to hurt Trump, why would they falsely elevate the numbers for Trump after his tariff rollout?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right, Right.

[Ryan Grim]

If they were a Biden person trying to hurt Trump, they would lower the numbers, not increase the numbers. Right. Unless they were. Unless it was this 3D chess where they know that Trump is actually going to destroy the country with these tariffs and didn't want him to see the damage that he was already doing, so they wanted to bait him all the way in. That's the only remotely plausible theory you could have here. And if that's the case, then Trump would have to be like, oh, maybe this whole thing is actually is a bad idea. So anyway, that's why Wall street is upset, because this is their bread and butter. Their bread is buttered by accurate data that people trust around the world.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's their literal product.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's like actually what they're.

[Ryan Grim]

And it's all they have. Think that guy has anything else he can do? No.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Joe Kernan.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. No way.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, he can talk. He can talk on tv. Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

He can go work for the NFL owned espn.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, yes, that's right. That broke yesterday, didn't.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. The NFL's gonna own 10% of ESPN, including some media outlets.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Sounds fun. So I'm actually gonna skip ahead one element because just to make Ryan's point about Trump and Wall street, like the limits of Wall Street's favorability towards Trump. It's interesting because Trump's position on migrants, and maybe I'm even going to read too much into whatever he says here and you can listen to it, But Trump's position on immigration seems to also depend on who's calling up and saying that too many of their workers and industry are getting deported. So this is B3, but we're taking.

[Ryan Grim]

Care of our farmers. We can't let our farmers not have anybody. You know, these are very, these people, you can't replace them very easily. You know, people that live in the inner city are not doing that work. They're just not doing that work. And they've tried, we've tried, everybody tried. They don't do it. These people do it naturally. Naturally. I said, what happens if they get it to a farmer the other day? What happens if they get a bad back? He said, they don't get a bad back, sir, because if they get a bad back, they die. I said, that's interesting.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What do you make of that, Ryan?

[Ryan Grim]

Insanely racist and gross and weird.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Very weird.

[Ryan Grim]

And it always amuses me that in Trump's imagination, everyone always calls him sir. Cause his dad wanted people to call him sir.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, is that a thing?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And so everybody who walks up to Trump, according to Trump, says sir. So anyway, that's why he thanks them.

[Sagar Enjeti]

For their attention to any given matter.

[Ryan Grim]

It undermines the. The right often says that right often rightly criticizes liberals when they defend immigration by saying, who do you think cleans the toilets and cuts the lawn and picks the fruit? As if that is a defense of a multi tier hierarchical system in which some people have no rights and are underpaid and exploited. And this completely undermines that attempt to criticize that rightful criticism of liberals to say that, well, actually we need some easily exploitable rules. We need people.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Because if people debate, paid in cash.

[Ryan Grim]

No rules whatsoever, so if they get hurt, they just die. So that's what we need. And that is certainly one way to run an economy. And it's kind of the way that we've been running it for a very long time. But that doesn't make it right. In fact, it's quite obviously, when put in those stark terms, so wrong.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And this is not the first time he's rolled out that argument. Obviously. There's been reporting for the last several months that Brooke Rollins, Secretary Agricultural Secretary, had been getting calls from business owners and corporations.

[Ryan Grim]

Steven Miller's just playing whack a mole with these farmers, basically.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And Stephen Miller is his Entire position on immigration. He's from the Los Angeles area, was very much forged in that kind of class cauldron of, you know, went to fancy private school and everything. And that was essential. If you see the kind of origin story of Stephen Miller from California as being important, which I think it is, he says he saw that up close and personal and saw the way people are exploited up close and personal, and it's undermined that entire. If that's the predicate of your immigration policy, that this is the sort of elites relying on and under the. That is not the only predicate for Stephen Miller's immigration policy, to be clear.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's not what I'm saying, but it's part of it. Part of it is that part of the argument that people on the right make all the time, and I think it's a correct argument, is that this is sort of elite elites who want to rely on an underpaid, easily exploitable workforce. That's not an argument against immigration altogether. You know, if we were to debate the topic more deeply, but it is an argument against the system of immigration that we have. And so Donald Trump repeatedly, Brooke Rollins, apparently, as well, making these arguments and making these carve outs. I mean, the average sort of MAGA voter is way more in the substance on this with Stephen Miller than they are with, let's have carve outs for people in hospitality, because Donald Trump knows that industry really well. And you think about all of the objections in the right to this system, they involve people, for example, stealing Social Security numbers, which is a real thing. A lot of immigrant laborers have stolen Social Security numbers and thrust people whose Social Security numbers are stolen, whose identity is stolen, and to complete uncertainty because cartels sell those numbers. If you are against all of those different downstream consequences of our current system, Donald Trump is making an argument that those downstream consequences are fine because the cost benefit analysis of what would happen to these industries works out in favor of the rich business owners. So it just. I think everyone who watches this show knows that the right makes these arguments all of the time. Sager is someone who makes these arguments very articulately. And it's just like Trump is when it's not favorable, not on board with those like, sort of central tenets of the post 2016 Republican Party's approach to immigration.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. Yeah. Trump just wants to live in a land of rhetoric, not actually doing. He's a construction guy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He wants to be popular with people. He wants to be popular with.

[Ryan Grim]

And he wants to. Yeah, he wants to demonize people. And murderers and rapists. But he doesn't actually want to do the thing. Stephen Miller wants to do the thing. And that's where the conflict comes in.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, that's right.

[Ryan Grim]

Because they're also. They're not designing anything new to replace it. Because he's right that if you go and arrest everybody and throw them out, you actually do not have enough labor in the country. Absent. You just don't have enough labor in the country to do the things that we need done. Like that is true. So that's a structural question.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, and not right now, but Stephen Miller and I mean, many people would respond by saying that's exactly why you need to have this process of job openings. And like there was a Wall Street Journal article that a lot of people on the right were passing around a couple of weeks ago about deportations out of Nebraska. I wanna say it was a meatpacking plant had happened and the waiting room to apply for the job was full of residents of Nebraska after people were deported. And there are gonna be pockets where we see examples like that, but it's not going to be evenly spread out. And that's what Trump is doing is not so anyway, and that's good because.

[Ryan Grim]

Like throughout American history, bosses have used migrant labor both internally inside the United States States and also internationally to undermine labor unions and worker power. Like that's a thing.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Cesar Chavez was completely against it for that reason. Could talk about the evolution over time on Chavez on that. But it was not uncommon as a position at all in the 60s for the Pro worker left and Bernie Sanders up to what, 15 years ago somewhere around there on illegal immigration as well. So yeah, I think we will absolutely see pockets of examples like that Nebraska meatpacking factory. And to the extent that helps people in the community.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And if Democrats would just make their immigration focused bosses who exploit workers, they would. Then they'd be able to use those Nebraska examples to their credit. Be like, look, see, we told you, it's these greedy bosses.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Exactly. And don't think that those bosses aren't complicit in the system. Don't think that those bosses aren't helping people find different ways to get around the citizenship. Or maybe they use e verifier, whatever.

[Ryan Grim]

It is to drive them in.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, yeah, of course. And don't think that. Yeah, they're not advertising in different ways. And also don't think that the people who are going to get those jobs at a Nebraska meat packing plant are all going to be white. They're not. There will also probably be a lot of black Americans, Hispanic Americans who were born here or legal residents here, or citizens, I should say, who get those jobs, too. So, Ryan, it is interesting because what you were saying about Trump and the data and how Wall street has some of the red lines, what he chooses, the battles that he chooses are kind of interesting.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And unpredictable.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So let's actually go ahead and put. Speaking of Trump being unpredictable, this for some reason that I still have actually not gotten to the bottom of. Maybe it was to look at the new Rose Garden construction or the new White House patio construction. Donald Trump went to the roof of the White House yesterday, capping what was a strange. What Morning, early afternoon. And took questions. Let's roll B2 here. Mr. President. What are you doing up there?

[Ryan Grim]

Taking a little walk.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Come down and talk to us.

[Ryan Grim]

Your help. Are you sure? Hello, Peter. You're looking good, Peter. Are you going to build up Hydra something beautiful?

[Sagar Enjeti]

What does that mean?

[Ryan Grim]

What do you. More ways to spend money. Money.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Can you give us another pen?

[Ryan Grim]

We'll. We'll show you. It's just another way to spend my money for the country.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Are you sitting around?

[Ryan Grim]

Anything I do is financed by me.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay, if you were listening to that, what you missed is at one point, he does the contours of something with his hands. He, like, sort of makes a. I don't even know how you would describe it. Looks like he makes a. Like an what, a circular.

[Ryan Grim]

An orb?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it's with his hands. So. So I guess, Ryan, our best assumption is that he is looking at more construction based on that. By the way, it is just such an undignified position for the reporters to be in, shouting up at the president, why are you on the roof? What are you doing? Are you considering more construction? Come down and talk to us. But that is where the pool found themselves yesterday, as Donald Trump took a trip up to the roof. Would not say why, and proceeded to compliment. Could have been Peter Alexander. I'm assuming it was Peter Doocy when he said, looking good, Peter. Looking good. And that was how Donald Trump's Spencer's Tuesday.

[Ryan Grim]

And as he continues to flirt with ways to serve out additional terms, I find it a little extra discomforting the extent to which he's taking an interest in renovations to the White House. Like he looks like he's planning on staying.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He wants to stay. That's actually a good point because he did. He made comments about that again yesterday. Right. That he said something to the extent of like he probably won't run for a third term, so we'll have to find that quote. But yeah, that's. I hadn't thought about that. They did that.

[Ryan Grim]

He's settling in.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They did the patio pretty quickly. I can't say you can make it an agent.

[Ryan Grim]

Place everything on the first floor.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes. The last thing I'll say about that clip is when so I was in the pool the day he toured the Fed and I have this video of him descending the stairs, the temporary stairs that the construction workers put up. And he pauses and spends time like on a catwalk, just surveying. You can see his like wheels turning in his head surveying the construction itself. And like this is what he loves more than anything. Like shouldn't he just appoint himself like the national like head of the Capitol Architecture Group or whatever it is? Like that would probably be more fun for him as president than president.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, it's what he wants to do. Be a figurehead. Like a royal figure, basically is the head of state, but doesn't really have to be calling Randy Fine to get.

[Sagar Enjeti]

His vote on Speaking of undignified, that's an undignified position to find yourself in.

[Josh]

Let's be real life happens, kids spill, pets shed and accidents are inevitable. Find a sofa that can can keep [e-mail] Starting at just $699, our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out, so you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry free living. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, they're kid proof, pet friendly and built for everyday life. Plus changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment. Plus, they're earth friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers. It's time to upgrade to a stress free mess proof sofa. Visit washablesofas.com today and save that's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Crystal Ball]

Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense? Sense well, that's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II when they pulled off what was either a bold literary hoax or a grand poetic experiment, publishing over a dozen intentionally bad but highly acclaimed works of expressionist poetry under the name Ern Malley. In an incident that caused a media firestorm and even a criminal trial, the Ern Malley episode made fools of believers and critics alike and still fascinates poetry lovers to this day. We break down the truth, the lies and the poetry in between on Hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan and me, Dana Schwartz. Every episode, Hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history, from forged artworks to the original fake news. To try and answer why we believe, listen to hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Ryan Grim]

The Stuff youf Should Know guys have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff youf Should Know Summer Movie Playlist. What screams summer more than a nice darkened air conditioned theater and a great movie playing right in front of you? Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking and many more. Listen to the stuff you should know summer movie Playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And speaking of Randy Fine, let's get into new updates from the Trump administration on their plans for aid distribution in Gaza. This is a report from Axios that Trump now plans to, quote, unquote, take over the Gaza aid expert do the Gaza aid effort, according to U.S. officials. This is the Barack Ravid story. Also, Mark Caputo is on it, who has sources in Trump world, good sources in Trump world. And Access reports that Steve Witkoff and Trump discuss plans for the US to significantly increase its role in providing humanitarian aid to Gaza in a meeting Monday evening at the White House. According to two officials and an Israeli official with knowledge of the issue, Trump is set to make remarks. I believe he's set to make remarks at the White House tonight, Brian. So I expect, I think it's probably fair to expect that that's what this will be in relation to.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, and we've got a little bit of Trump teasing where he is on this. Now. If we Want to roll C2, would you support Israel reoccupying all of Gaza as has been suggested by some Israeli officials? Well, I don't know what the suggestion is.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I know that we are, we are.

[Ryan Grim]

There now trying to get people fed. As you know, $60 million was given by the United States fairly recently to supply food and a lot of, lot.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Of food, frankly, for the people of.

[Ryan Grim]

Gaza that are obviously not doing too well with the food. And I know Israel is going to help us with that in terms of distribution and also money. We also have the Arab states are going to help us with that in terms of the money and possibly distribution. So that's what I'm focused on. As far as the rest of it, I really, I really can say that's going to be pretty much up to Israel. Yeah. And the mechanism of aid distribution is a central sticking point in negotiations which are now stalled between Hamas and Israel, with Hamas insisting that the previous aid distribution system run by the UN and a cohort of international aid organizations which have 400 pre existing aid sites around Gaza, be re implemented. And their argument is that, that if you are concerned about the trucks getting looted as they come in, then you need to send in more than five or ten trucks a day because these crowds just swarm. If they know there's only five trucks, it's just a game theory situation. If you know there's only five trucks coming in for the entire day for 2 million people, then it's worth it to you to risk your life to try to be right next to the truck so that you can pull whatever you can off of it. But if you know that there are a thousand trucks getting in a day and they're at these 400 different sites, then you're just going to go to the site where you're assigned to and you're going to get the rations that you're entitled to. Like that's, that's, that's why we did not see these violent scenes. And we can roll now. C3, this VO. That's why we did not see violent scenes like this up until Israel took over aid distribution. This is a compilation just from yesterday with another massacre outside of an aid site. You can hear the gunshots in the background. You can see this man kind of taking his final breaths and you have this kind of inchoate vision. If you're watching this, there's the crystal blue water in the background of this gorgeous Mediterranean scene surrounded by absolute apocalypse. And it's person after person, we're trying to get aid. And then it finishes with the man who was filming. It realizes that he's filming his cut cousin and he starts calling out his cousin's name at the very end there. So this is the aid distribution system that Israel is defending in its negotiations with Hamas and that Trump says that we are going to continue to fund and become involved with just to not go back to the original system. Alon Levy, who used to be the Israel's spokesperson before he was fired for getting in a fight with like a UN diplomat.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This was after October 7th.

[Ryan Grim]

After October 7th. And then, yeah, yeah. Just this morning posted something I want to share and maybe we can add this in post. He shared a. Andrew Fox, a reporter, they brought him to an aid distribution site and Elon is sharing his. Andrew Fox's report. Elon writes. Just think about this for a second. This is what Elon says as his own. He thinks this makes Israel sound good. He says IDF uses warning shots to control crowds outside, that is firing over people's heads or at open ground to deter stampedes. Andrew Fox says he is, quote, deeply uncomfortable with live fire for crowd control, but there are, quote, few alternatives. Crowds are unruly, potentially infiltrated by Hamas. So according to Israel's own propaganda, they are firing live rounds over people's heads or at open ground to, quote, deter stampedes, which is. Have you ever heard of shooting at a crowd to deter a stampede? Separately, they're saying that their crowds are, quote, potentially infiltrated by Hamas. What on earth could that possibly mean? Yeah, so you are shooting into a crowd of unarmed Palestinians or, sorry, over them and into the ground. You accidentally just keep killing them every single day by the dozens. But you say you're not. They're just warning shots, but you're doing it because they're, quote, potentially infiltrated by Hamas. This is shared by Elon Levy. Yeah, potentially infiltrated. What are you talking about?

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's just dishonest because the only correct approach then would be to do no aid. And that's what a lot of people. That's what a lot of Israeli officials would prefer. We are going to talk later.

[Ryan Grim]

That's basically what this ends up being.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We are going to talk later about Randy Fine, for example, as just someone who, who is in lockstep with Netanyahu, essentially saying Israel has no obligation to provide humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza, children, women, civilians in Gaza. And that is, I think, the much more honest position, as gross as it is. It is the honest position saying that these crowds may be infiltrated by Hamas renders. Because anything could be infiltrated by Hamas. It is the government of that land.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Why do we bomb that school? Well, could have been infiltrated by Hamas. Why'd you bomb the hospital? Could have been infiltrated by Hamas.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And it's true. And I mean, so David Petraeus had a piece, he's talked about this on and off for the last couple of years, that there are different ways to isolate military and civilian populations. When you go in, he talks about strategies that the US used during the surge in Iraq that he sees as having been very successful, where you isolate the military, the military threats in particular areas. And then you can go and do humanitarian assistance to people outside of like high security compounds in, for example, Gaza. But the point is, if you want to still provide humanitarian aid because you think it helps your position in the world or because you think it's the right thing to do because children are starving, then saying that it might be infiltrated by Hamas completely renders it impossible. So the only honest thing then to say is we're just not doing it. We have no obligation to do it. Let the kids starve.

[Ryan Grim]

And there's a new Sky News fact check of the Ministry of Health casualty figures that we were going to talk about now, but I actually think it would be better to talk about it after your monologue because it relates to it and to some of the pushback that you got. So let's move to to your piece next.

[Sagar Enjeti]

All right. Join me on a hypothetical journey. The year is 2014 and you're at one of the conservative movement's many annual conferences. The rubber chicken has been served at a dinner honoring some think tanks aging Cold War veteran. As coffee is poured, conversation at your table turns to maybe President Obama's latest dust up with Benjamin Netanyahu. Everyone agrees Obama is undermining a key ally, but you, a mainstream Hannity watching conservative, disagree. What has been happening to innocent people and children in Gaza is horrific. You contend the United States should not be involved in fighting nuclear armed Israel's war with Iran. So that would go over about as well as a call for 35% tariffs on Canada back in 2014. There's a reason that Pat Buchanan was not invited to this dinner and Ron Paul has been mocked at as a crank during the keynote. You'd probably already be in the parking lot or in a shouting match by the time your table mates tucked into their slices of mediocre cheesecake. Both quotes, though, are sourced directly from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's X account. This summer, as the war Gaza approaches its two year mark and quote, food supplies in Gaza have dwindled per a headline in the Wall Street Journal. Now this is all part of what I wrote for Unherd this week and had some interesting responses. The piece was headlined that ISRA Israel is losing US Support. Israel is losing the US Front is I believe, what the specific headline was, but wanted to go through a little bit of it here because some of the numbers that we're getting from polling combined with new comments from Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon and others I think really signal that we've reached a turning point on the right, and it might not show up in polling overall yet, and we're going to explain why. But. But it's coming for the Republican establishment. So Green, who is one of Donald Trump's staunchest supporters in Congress, absolutely shattered another Republican taboo on Monday by describing Israel's treatment of Palestinians as a, quote, unquote genocide. And Green is not alone. Steve Bannon, who is of course one of the most popular right wing podcast hosts in America, recently argued, quote, netanyahu's government is out of control. On Bannon's show, this was very interesting. Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince accused the Israeli military of intentionally targeting a Catholic church in Gaza. We covered that here. And Prince declared, quote, the time of subsidizing the IDF as the American taxpayer must end. So after that church was hit, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles we covered it here, lamented, quote, 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. At Turning Point USA's Summer Student Conference, the group hosted a debate on the subject between Dave Smith and Josh Hammer that exposed the conservative movement's new divide. This is new. Smith, who has called Ron Paul, for example, the greatest living American hero, was greeted with cheers from many attendees for criticisms of Israel that would have fallen on deaf ears, if not hostile ears, before the October 7th attack. Randy Fine, perhaps Israel's most aggressive defender in the House of Representatives, to say the least, has a GOP primary challenger. And Aaron Baker, who's on the show today and who's been eagerly hammering Fein for his comments on Gazans and his backing from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, aipac, quote, I do not support starving children, baker posted, adding, I do not support punishing citizens for having the worst government in existence. Tucker Carlson, another of the country's most popular broadcasters, released an episode of his podcast last Wednesday with John Mearsheimer that was titled the Palestinian Genocide and How the west has Been Deceived into Supporting It. Carlson and his guests have been consistently critical of Netanyahu's government for months. That isn't even to address the outright anti Semitism of other fringe voices with significant but not quite mainstream social media followings on the right as well. Well, so of course the horror in Gaza right now is not an apples to apples comparison with the 2014 war, but that's kind of the point here. Speaking of 2014, the Obama Veterans over at Pod Save America are issuing their own mea culpas from the Left. Barack Obama signed a 10 year memorandum of understanding for 3.3 billion a year. So we are part of the problem here. Let's correct it. That was Tommy Veder talking last week on the show. He was under Obama as national security spokesman and he went on to say, when the war ends, we are not going back to the pre October 7th status quo. He was then challenged on X by a critic who accused Veter of exacting a grudge against Netanyahu from the Obama years. But Veeder replied by saying, or stay with me here. The entire world is horrified by what we're witnessing in Gaza, which is why this conversation is happening now and not back in 2015, for example. Or basically, to put that shorter, things have changed now. You may or may not disagree with it, but it's obviously the perception of wider and many people on the right as well, in addition to the sort of establishment left. There's little insight to be gleaned about the right itself from Pod Save America. But in this case, wider is correct. That revulsion at the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is just no longer limited to progressives. This movement is nationwide and it's so sweeping that it's dragging people on the right away from Israel. Even as conservatives triple down on the support for the war, the rights divide is sharpening. But what's eroded since October 7th is basically the stigma of criticizing Israel. Gallup has been tracking public opinion on the Gaza war since its earliest weeks. On Tuesday, the firm released stark new findings. Quote, this is last Tuesday. Americans approval of Israel's military action in Gaza has fallen 10 percentage points since the prior measurement in September, and it is now at 32%, the lowest reading since Gallup first asked the question in November 2023. Disapproval of the military action has now reached 60%. That's from the report. Gallup survey found a stunning gulf between Democrats and independents on one side and Republicans on the other. Get this, 71% of Republicans still approve of Israel's military action in Gaza. That number is only 25% among independents and 8% among Democrats. For what it's worth, the same poll found that Trump's approval rating has declined 17 points among independents since the start of his second term, and only 27% of his handlingapprove right now of his handling of the conflict. That number means less to Republicans in red states in primary elections, but in swing districts, battleground states and nationwide races, it's hugely significant. Independents split evenly between Trump and Harris last November, and that itself was actually a gain for Trump because he erased Democrats nine point advantage with independence in the 2020 election election. Back in 2022, before the war, independents fell at 71% when it came to favorability for Israel, squarely between Republicans at 81% and Democrats at 63%. It's true that even in 2024, Israel ranked low among voters priorities when choosing between candidates. But it's also true that Republicans counted for years on the reflexive support for the Israeli government, or they counted on receiving reflexive support for the Israeli government from moderates and from GOP face folds. Now the incentive structure has been transformed and I think that's the most important point here. For the gop, this fissure looks poised to get much worse. A Pew survey this spring found that Republicans under 50 are about as likely to have a negative view of Israel as a positive one, that is 50% to 48% in 2022, though they were much more likely, Pew says, to see Israel positively than negatively. 63 versus 35% that is a shocking change, especially as younger generations begin to comprise more and more of the electorate. Bannon himself put it best when he told Politico last week, quote, it seems that for the under 30 year old MAGA base, Israel has almost no support, he observed. Bannon further believes it's not just young maga, but that Netanyahu's attempt to save himself politically by dragging America in deeper to another Middle east war has turned off a large swath of older MAGA diehards. Ryan, there are a couple of reasons. I mean there are obvious reasons for this, one of which is that the level, the scale of devastation and destruction in Gaza is different than what we saw in 2014. As horrible as it was before. This is a different scale. I think that's obviously the most important reason, but also the erosion of the power of gatekeepers. I was going through hypothetically yesterday actually with Doug Henwood thinking in 2014, would Marjorie Taylor Greene say that this is a genocide when it would absolutely black out her media mentions everywhere? She would never get on Fox again. She would be treated as a pariah. Now she can go on a war room, she can go on Newsmax, she can go on social media and still get a huge response for saying that even if people don't agree with it, whatever that would have in 2014 the incentive structure to come out and say that didn't exist, you would have been blacked out everywhere. So I think the erosion of the gatekeepers is a big one. And also so Gen Z younger millennials not really remembering the time before 911 and just remembering the stalemates of the global war on terror after 911 coming up in that era. Those are the three big factors that I think right now go into it.

[Ryan Grim]

And the politico social gatekeepers still remain in effect. And I'm curious for the response that you've gotten to this piece since it was published in Unherd. I think it's a good piece and it lays out the situation quite well. But to me it's straightforward, it's mild, it's not offensive, it's politics. It's like these are the facts, these are what the polls say, this is how people are responding to this. And yet it seems like you're still getting blowback for it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Can you talk a little bit about what the reaction's been like?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Like people probably saw this play out in X. But yeah, there's.

[Ryan Grim]

But probably not because we don't like if you're not in particular ecosystems on Twitter, you just don't even see what's going on.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. I mean, if you follow me closely for whatever reason, first of all, that's your mistake. Second of all, yeah, there was a little bit, I had a little bit of back and forth with a fair, close former colleague. It sucks. I mean, you've gone through this on the left with some of your own people. It's never fun. But what's sad for me, and we've been really open about it here and I feel like transparent. At least I've tried to be transparent as my own views on this have evolved. A lot of people who I trust and listen to, I started basically on the other side of this. You know, it started changing before October 7, but afterwards a lot of people just, I listened to everything that they said and read everything they wrote and there's just nothing that's persuasive to me anymore. That we should be sort of reflexively supportive of Netanyahu and his decisions about how to prosecute this war. So it's just frustrating because you just keep hitting a brick wall.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That it's, you're spending too much time with Ryan Grim or whatever. And it's like, well, one of the.

[Ryan Grim]

Things you cited in the piece, and as soon as I saw it, I knew you'd get some backlash for it was data from the Gaza Ministry of Health. And you didn't call it the Hamas run Ministry of Health.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

Which I'm sure will make people angry.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

But for people who are earnestly confused about this question and wonder like what they can trust and should they believe the numbers coming out of the Ministry of Health. We do have something for you here. So Sky News, which is as pro Israel a British news outlet as you could possibly find, set out to fact check the Ministry of Health's data. And I don't know what they expected they would find. Maybe they went into it in an unbiased way. Doesn't matter. Because to their credit, they published the results of their investigation. And what they did was smart. They took one day of deaths reported by the Ministry of Health and they were. Was it 400, 404. Roughly more than 400465 deaths reported for March 18th.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right, right.

[Ryan Grim]

Brutal day. So they went and found that they found obituaries by friends or family for 404 of those. So 92%, they found one of those 465 people listed with an invalid ID, and they found 26 with the wrong date of death. So they were able to confirm that those people had in fact died, but they had died on a different day.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay.

[Ryan Grim]

And so Sky News then concludes, quote, these numbers are real. Anyone's still saying otherwise is not serious. And so you could do the same thing with any other day and you would find the same thing. And it was a smart project by Sky News because.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Or not. Because your theory is that they'd probably set out to debunk, right?

[Ryan Grim]

Maybe they did. Yeah, they might have an editor might have been like, we're gonna prove that these numbers are wrong, but if somebody dies on this planet, people loved that person. Somebody loved that person, or somebody's. And because we live in a world of social media, they're going to share something about their memory and the life that they lived and their life that was cut short. And so it stands to reason that if the Ministry of Health is announcing that these people died, that you would be able to find some public record somewhere if you look hard enough. And Sky News was able to find it back in. We can put up C5 as well. Back in October 2023 at the Intercept, where I was at the time, we did a similar thing where I had been talking to a Palestinian who lives in Texas. And he had told me in the first couple weeks of the attack that he had lost dozens of family members. And he started giving me names of the people in his family who had died. And then afterwards, the Ministry of Health. Health published a list of 6,000 plus people who had been killed in the first several weeks. And so what we were able to do is take those names and those ages and compare them to the Ministry of Health. And we found almost all of them on the list. And so what we were able to conclude there is that if this was just a list of fabricated names, which is what the accusation from Joe Biden basically was at the time, that, okay, this is a PDF with names on it, that doesn't prove anything statistically, it's impossible that Hamas would have added names that this person in Texas had given me also separately. So from very early on it was clear that. And also the US State Department and others and UN have been using, relying on this Ministry of Health, which is jointly run by the way way by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. It's the only ministry in Gaza that is jointly run by the pa. Nobody ever New York Times never says, or BBC never says the PA run Health ministry, which would be just as accurate. Right. But the PA is basically a subcontractor to Israel. And so saying that the PA jointly runs it undermines what is the attempt there, which is to, to cast doubt on the numbers. So if you're curious if these numbers can be trusted, the answer is that they can.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And one final thing I didn't even cite in the piece, just the piece was a little different than the monologue. I didn't even cite just the Gaza Health Ministry numbers. I cited a Washington Post analysis of the Gaza Health Ministry numbers that was setting out to verify names and ages and sort by names and ages. It is stunning and sweeping.

[Ryan Grim]

And just looking at the children killing, oh my.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's horrific. If you haven't scrolled through it, I think it's worth it. But that's actually what I cited. So I cited American media analyzing the Gaza health industry numbers, not even just the numbers itself, numbers themselves. And so the last thing I just want to say on this is it's one of those issues where I think because of tribalism and partisanship, whatever you want to call it, we end up reflexively saying, oh, okay, so Hamas is the government in Gaza, Hamas is evil, don't trust Hamas. So these numbers can't be right. Like you're asking me to support numbers from Hamas. And obviously I think Israel is the good guy here. And I'm not going to. If Israel is saying those numbers are overstating it and Hamas is telling me the numbers are undercounting it, I'm going to go with Israel. That's how a lot of people would approach this on the right. And then when you start peeling at the layers and you start poking them and, you know, looking more deeply you realize actually there are ways to test the accuracy of the numbers and when you do, doesn't look good for people who claim that the Gaza Health Ministry is making it all up. In fact, there have been academic studies that show it may be an undercount.

[Ryan Grim]

Wow. No doubt it is. You're right, because these are people that have shown up up in medical stations like hospitals or clinics or otherwise. The number of people under rubble, etc. Is countless at this point. Literally.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, yep, absolutely. So Ryan, get some biblical knowledge from Ryan Grimm. All right, Bible Hour with Ryan Grimm.

[Ryan Grim]

Do a little red heifer apocalypse talk and Emily can fact check it all. All right, stick around for that.

[Josh]

There's nothing like sinking into luxury. @washablesofas.com you'll find the Annabe sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom. Starting at only $699, the stain resistant performance fabric, slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off storewide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop [e-mail] Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Crystal Ball]

In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more extraordinary than the magazine articles claim was the identity of the man man who wrote the article. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The man who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the man who invented literature's most brilliant detective was fooled by two girls into thinking fairies were real. How did they do it? And why does it seem like so many smart people keep falling for outlandish tricks? These are the questions we explore in Hoax, a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood, and me, Lizzy Logan. Every episode we'll explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history, from the fake Shakespeares to balloon boys, and try to answer the question of why we believe what we believe. Listen to Hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Ryan Grim]

The stuff you should know guys have made their own summer playlists of their must Listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff youf Should Know Summer Movie Playlist. What screams summer more than a nice darkened air conditioned theater and a great movie playing right in front of you? Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking and many more. Listen to the Stuff you Should Know Summer Movie Playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Mike Johnson became the first House speaker to visit the occupied west bank this week with a trip that has attracted intense scrutiny. While there, he said that the mountains of Judea and Samaria, the settler's name for the west bank, belonged to Israel, quote by right, which not only contradicts international law but also official U.S. policy. But behind the provocative rhetoric, the media so far has missed what appears to be the fundamentally biblical nature of the trip. So the story behind the trip involves a rabbi named Yitzhak Mamo, a Texas Christian named Byron Stinson, Five Red Heifers and the Apocalypse Now. In September of 2022, Stinson shipped Five Red Heifers to Tel Aviv from Texas. The cattle are part of End Times prophecy and are required to be sacrificed to help usher in the apocalypse. Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaidah, in marking the hundredth day of the war that began on October 7, even made reference to the red heifers as a provocation to be condemned, since part of the End Times prophecy involves destroying the Al Aqsa mosque and rebuilding the Jewish temple that was destroyed 2,000 years ago. On February 1, 2023, Mike Johnson, according to a source with knowledge of the matter, invited Rabbi Mamo to Congress to speak to a group of evangelical Republicans about the heifers. Boris Johnson also happened to be there. And Johnson. That's Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson introduced the rabbi who regaled the gathering with tales of the prophesied heifers. So the meeting was held on the same day as that year's National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance, a high profile evangelical convening in Washington that Mike Johnson is heavily involved with. The next year, in 2024, both Stinson and Rabbi Mamo spoke at the gathering, telling their story again where Johnson was a central figure.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So Father, we bless you for granting.

[Ryan Grim]

Us the ability to have the office.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Of the Consolidator in Chief represented by your man servant, Speaker Johnson to be with us today and your different servants representing the entire Earth for a Cry of repentance.

[Ryan Grim]

So here's Byron Stinson at that event. You're going to be extremely excited. What you're about to hear now as we go into this portion on Israel. Israel. I have two good friends out here with me, Byron Stinson and Rabbi Isaac Mamo. And I'm going to have him start immediately by telling the story of the red heifers. These are the men who are at the epicenter of what's happening with the red heifers. So, Byron, let's have. Shall we start with you, this story? Byron is an Evangelical Christian from Texas. Saky Mama is an Orthodox Jew from Jerusalem. Byron, do we start with you?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, sir.

[Ryan Grim]

Okay, go ahead. Hello, everybody. How are you? I have really good news today, and I'm so happy to be here. Can I have that first slide, please? Yep. If we go on to the next slide, what we see here are the red heifers. Let's go back one. Are the red heifers necessary for the Messiah to come? Well, let me ask you something. When Israel was scattered for 2000 years in the land, was it necessary that Israel, Judah, the tribe of Judah the lion, would return to the land? Was that necessary? Is it necessary that on the temple mountain of God that there be a temple, that we worship him there? As it says in Micah 4, is that necessary that we build the land? So the first step on the red heifers is that we are going to move towards building that temple. This is the first step, and it has to happen. But, my friends, I want to tell you, all of you in the nations, you need to know something. God had a plan. He put his people, Judah, into the nations to suffer because they didn't obey Him. Here we are today. We're seeing. Today we're doing the same thing. But thankfully, we have leaders in Judah that love us. They've reached across to us and they want to help lead us. And they're reading their word and they're reading their Bible. And in the Bible it says says, find a red heifer. So they called me, and I didn't go get find a red heifer for me. I found the red heifer for every one of you because the fathers of faith said, speak to the children in the lands and bring us a red heifer so that we might do this ceremony. So just to underscore this is the crew here that Mike Johnson brought to the Capitol. Now here's Rabbi Matt. This part that has not been discussed publicly in any venue, we have to have land. And that Land has to be at a certain elevation and a certain location. And what is that by numbers 19 again, we have to read the Bible, we have to read the Torah. And to see it's written that it had to be at the front of the holy of the holy. So at the tabernacle ten times Moses, it was easy for him. He had the tent and he just find the door. Today, as I mentioned before, we know where is the place of the holy of the Holy is on the Dome of the Rock. Okay? This is the view from Mount of Olive. Okay? A big cemetery. Jewish cemetery. By the tradition, who buried in Mount of Olive will be the first one that will be waking up up at the redemption time. But you can see the Dome of the Rock. So we have to be in a place that we can see the Holy of the holy. And actually it had to be the same heights that we can be at the same level of the temple. However, buying land there is impossible because if an Arab Muslim sells to a Jewish, he or she gets killed. So that's hardly an option. But somehow God supernaturally helped you by what piece of land? Don't ask me why, don't ask me how. And specific. Don't ask me why I succeed, I don't know. But with a lot of I just say a miracle, okay? Not any other explanation. Actually, 12 years ago you said maybe we built a Red Angus steakhouse up there when we were getting it. Remember that? So we succeed to buy a little piece of land. One dunam, which mean quarter of quarter of an acre. Acre. And it's as you can see here. This is a photo from the mountain. Okay? So it's at the same level of the temple as the front of the holy of the holy place. So we have the cows, we have the land. We are ready. The Israeli government approved you to bring your five pets, which you never kept in your front yard like most people do. So as he says, they're in Shiloh. So what biblical town in the west bank did Mike Johnson visit? Well, let's take a look. Who is that American tourist in the blue shirt and the khakis there? Well, there he is. Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Where is Mike Johnson? Where is that crowd? Shiloh. Checking out the heifers. Gotta look at the heifers, gotta check out.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He expects them.

[Ryan Grim]

When he said you're probably pets, by the way, when he said they allowed you to bring your pets. There is an export ban on cattle from the United States to Israel. So what they did is they said they're pets. They classified them as pets.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They flew them on a Boeing 777.

[Ryan Grim]

And it landed and they got them there. So this is the speaker of the House of Representatives intimately involved in this red heifer prophecy. What are we even supposed to do with this? It's supposed to be a news show, but this is crazy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, no, I mean, this is important because it gets to exactly what the motivations are. And it's where, of course, there is a kind of overlap in the Venn diagram between some. Some Orthodox Jews and some evangelical Christians. We've talked about this a little bit over the years. I'm an evangelical Christian. This is what you call premillennial dispensationalism. If you're an evangelical Christian. It's, you know, if you remember, if.

[Ryan Grim]

You'Re my age, Huckabee is one of these. The ambassador.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They all play, you know, it's interesting. So Huckabee has played really careful with it. You can kind of read into what he said, and it's the same thing with Mike Johnson. You can kind of read into the groups of. That he speaks to the people that he speaks to and the way that he talks about having a biblical mandate, you know, that God will bless those who bless the nation of Israel. I think that's a direct quote that Mike Johnson has recited before.

[Ryan Grim]

And this is new reporting that it was Mike Johnson that introduced this rabbi at this private event.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes. So the significance of that seems to be that, yes, Mike Johnson is one of. What I would say in the US Is a dwindling number of evangelical Christians who are dispensationalists. It was really popular, actually, around the time of the Millennial. No surprise. And the Left behind books for your My age, you'll remember, those were out at the time. But Ryan, when you played that video of hamas on the 100 day, Johnson.

[Ryan Grim]

By the way, was not speaker yet when he invited, when he first invited these two figures to the Capitol, Stinson and Mamo, which I think is important.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's extremely important.

[Ryan Grim]

But he was when they came back for that gathering. Anyway. Go ahead. You were talking about the Abu Ubaidah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, yeah. So that video is really, really important because whether or not you take Hamas at their word, what is true is that provocations, which is. I know that the connotation of that is pejorative, but provocations at Al Aqsa, Dome of the Rock, Temple Mount from some Israeli officials and with the sort of sanctioning of some major people in this space, you're not supposed to pray. There's a huge debate as to whether you're supposed to pray when you go up there. You're not supposed to. And a lot of people say that it's actually sacrilegious and everything. But there are others who push to be able to do it. And, and that is part of. I mean, The Hamas called October 7th Al Aqsa flood right after the mosque Al Aqsa on the Temple Mount. And so sighting of the heifers, as they call it, a provocation. I think what we're seeing, whether or not you believe that this is the end times. The Third Temple movement among Jews is meant to follow biblical mandates to bring about the Messiah. The Third Temple movement among evangelical Christians is because they believe that this will, this invites in the end of days, that this creates room for Christ to return and conquer evil. And so setting the stage in very specific ways. I mean, I recommend people go to the Temple Institute's website and see the preparations beyond the red heifers, the preparations for various specific things that need to happen from their perspective in order to usher in this period. I mean, this is. If you go to their website, you can see like just the menorah.

[Ryan Grim]

How do we find that?

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think it's just Google Temple Institute and click on their website. It's really like you saw numbers 19 illuminated behind some of those speakers. You can go and you can read numbers 19. That is the specific version that talks about the specification of the red heifers. The red heifer story is fascinating because.

[Ryan Grim]

Some of those heifers have already been ruled out, apparently.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes. Because they can't have like a white hair.

[Ryan Grim]

No white hairs.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. I mean, so this is why I think they're actually even sending frozen embryos. Someone would have to like fact check that. But so that you always have on hand. No, I'm serious. I'm serious. But this is the politics of this. Think about that. If you're putting all of the effort into the heifers. Oh, yeah, Obviously you know this. Cause you just reported this out. But it's like incredibly consequential that you have this. Mike Johnson is one of dwindling number of evangelicals, as I said, in the United States, that are sort of premillennial dispensationalists. But in Israel, this is growing. This is a movement that's getting bigger and bigger, according to the reporting. So things are heating up.

[Ryan Grim]

The heifers can never have been under the yoke, according to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, never under the yoke. They have to have a chill life.

[Ryan Grim]

Does an embryo inside a fridge count as being under. Is that a yoke? I don't know. I think those embryos don't count.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, my gosh.

[Ryan Grim]

So if y' all do this whole thing and the Messiah doesn't come, it's because the embryo was actually under the yoke?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, just the final. No, but then it's disqualified. Well, I guess that's what you're saying. The sacrificing of the heifers.

[Ryan Grim]

The Lord is the judge.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right. So you have to.

[Ryan Grim]

They've actually already guessing it would. What his requirements are based on Numbers 19.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, in Numbers 19, it's God saying this to Moses and Aaron. But.

[Ryan Grim]

But God left a little room for interpretation.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, we didn't know where the yoke would go technologically. But basically, the point here is that if you believe, like, after. What was it, the 1967 war, there was an opportunity to blow up the temple, and Israel decided. I'm sorry. To blow up Al Aqsa and rebuild the Third Temple. Blow up Domilib and rebuild the Third Temple. They did not do that. So the politics of this are really important because if this is a growing constituency in political Israel, then you may be approaching a point where there is destruction of a sacred site for Muslims which was built on the single most important site in all of Judaism. So that's basically. I mean, everybody knows this, but that is the heart of the conflict between the two parties here is this contested territory because it is very important in Islam as well. It's where they believe that Muhammad went on his ascension to heaven. And obviously, in a lot of different strains of. Or a lot of different strains of thought in Islam, Jerusalem is important for their own eschatology. So if you then have a growing constituency for just actually physically fighting over. Over the Temple itself, over the Temple Mount itself, over that land itself, and a rebuilding of a Third Temple, the consequences of that are enormous.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And I just want to underscore the speaker of the House of Representatives is at the center of this.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Ryan Grim]

Anyway.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Although, again, he's, like, very Gen X evangelical. You know, there's still people who think like this, but it's definitely. It was much bigger in, like, the 90s than it is now, if that's any comfort.

[Ryan Grim]

Okay, take that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

All right. Well, thanks, Ryan. This has been your Ryan Grimm Bible Hour.

[Ryan Grim]

There we go. All right. So speaking of devout, Corey Mills.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Let's do it.

[Josh]

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? Washablesofas.com has your back back featuring the Annabe collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needed fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your annabe sofa backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return, shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back Upgrade [e-mail] offered are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Crystal Ball]

Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense? Well, that's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II when they pulled off what was either a bold literary hoax or a grand poetic experiment, publishing over a dozen intentionally bad but highly acclaimed works of expressionist poetry under the name Ern Malley. In an incident that caused a media firestorm and even a criminal trial, the Ern Malley episode made fools of believers and critics alike and still fascinates poetry lovers to this day. We break down the truth, the lies, and the poetry in between on Hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzy Logan and me, Dana Schwartz. Every episode, Hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history, from forged artworks to the original fake news. To try and answer why we believe, listen to hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ryan Grim]

The stuff you should know Guys have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff youf Should Know Summer Movie Playlist. What screams summer more than a nice darkened air conditioner theater and a great movie playing right in front of you? Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking and many more. Listen to the Stuff you should know Summer Movie Playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. We have new reporting over at Dropsite News by Roger Sullenberger on Representative Corey Mills. We can put this first element up on the screen. Stahlenberger has been investigating Mills for quite some time. And this is the first in a series of pieces that we're going to be seeing. But this one broke because Ms. United States filed a restraining order yesterday against Mills. Now, the backstory here involves a story that you may remember from previously. If you recall, there was a Republican congressman and it was Mills who was accused by his live in girlfriend in Southwest Washington, D.C. of domestic violence. She filed a police report. She later, as often happens in cases like this, recanted. And it was very convoluted story about how she had bruises, but it wasn't his fault, and on and on. So if you remember that story, the fallout from that in Miles Mills personal life, according to Lindsay Langston, was that she discovered that he had a girlfriend in Washington, D.C. she was his girlfriend in Smyrna Beach.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's one way to find out.

[Ryan Grim]

At the time, she asked Corey Mills about this relationship. And Mills, according to Langston, said, and a lot of this reporting from Sullenberger is based on text messages and videos that he sent to her. So we don't just have to go by her word here. By the way, she is a Florida Republican State Committee woman, as well as being the reigning Miss usa. He told her the news made the whole thing up, that he never had a girlfriend there, that this was a completely fabricated event. Not just that he didn't hit her, but that the whole thing doesn't exist. Exist. She then, not being a moron, finds a bunch of social media posts with this woman and him. There's like, okay, this is clearly seems to be the case. This happened like you're lying here. So then they break up. And that's where it gets really bad. And Corey Mills sends her an intense number of, of threats, which she then reported to the police. So there's a police report that she filed in July, followed by this restraining order. And according to the police report, and according to Rogers reporting, she shared these, she shared text messages of all of these threats, threatening her, threatening anybody that she may date in the future. If you want the sort of detail, I recommend you go read the drop site piece. But I think what you'll come away with and what I came away with from it was I understood Corey Mills to be quite something, to put it delicately. I was stunned. I was like, this guy's beyond what your baseline assumed level of crazy. Crazy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, it's a. I mean, on top of all of what you just explained, Cory Mills, it should be noted, was at least previously seen as a real up and coming star among Bette and. Yeah, right. Republican House of Representative, the conference, he was seen as like a big deal, somebody who would have a big future in Republican politics. And so this is, this is a fairly significant development because I think a lot of the buzz around him since Sullenberger started doing his reporting on Mills has dissipated. This has been a saga that's played out over months now with the reporting. But Ryan, the other thing that's worth mentioning is I believe the girlfriend who filed, then retracted her comments, who made and then retracted her comments about being abused, is Iranian American.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And works with an Iranian activist group. Mills is an arms dealer. Right. He's also not fully divested, if I'm remembering this correctly. He is not fully divested from his defense contracting work, right?

[Ryan Grim]

No, not at all.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

He's still, he's still heavily invested in arms dealing.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So on top of this being clearly an affair, and I think the abuse allegations being very credible, the she did retract them. I mean, I've covered a lot of cases like this. I can't say for sure what happened. It looks to me more likely than not that they're accurate. But of course can't say that because. Can't say that with certainty because she's taken them away.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. She said she got the bruises days earlier, someone fell at the airport or like just stuff that wasn't even trying to be credible.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right. It didn't check out. So. And again, she made genuinely just be sincerely dedicated to the cause that she's advocating for. But when you put all of these different parts together with him being a defense contractor, member of Congress, who's not divested from that business, being in this ostensibly two timing relationship with somebody who works for an Iranian American activist group, those things are likely not a coincidence. There's something happening behind the scenes.

[Ryan Grim]

And in the restraining order, her, you know, she says like she blocked him all over the place on Instagram, blocked his number. He would call from the Capitol. Presumably it was him calling from the Capitol. She didn't pick up the phone, but she showed a screenshot of the, of the call from the Capitol. He would create new Instagram accounts to message her with, with these, with these various, with these various threats.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

And Roger has also spoken with a Number of other 3 Other Former romantic partners who shared anecdotes very similar to the ones that have been public, which, like I said, family program, we don't need to get into any of it now. And so there's a lot more to this story and to Congressman Mills. Well, and we look forward to rolling that out in the not too distant future.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, a lot more. So the Blaze has already picked up your story, it looks like. But so the Blaze has done a lot of reporting. I don't know if they'll give you credit or not or if they got this individually, but the Blaze has done a lot of reporting from the right on Corey Mills, which is quite interesting. COREY mills, WIFE so by the way, he's married. He's been separated from his wife since I believe, what, 2022. And on top of that, his wife is, I believe, Iraqi. I think she's actually from Iraq. So there's just so much strange stuff happening in this story that could be like compliment reading Roger Stahlenberger's piece in Dropsite with the reporting in the Blaze because there's a lot of it. They had a really long story a few months back that was was fascinating on this question. So there's definitely something more happening, wouldn't you say, Ryan? I mean, you've reported on this type of thing way more than I have. It just seems like there are a lot of unanswered questions about what maybe is behind the even behind the things that have been disclosed publicly.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, yes, yes. There's a lot more to this. The arms trafficking, the, the business relationships, the. Yes, there's a lot going on here.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is the lead of a Blaze story from earlier this summer. Corey Mills, the Florida Republican who has in recent months faced allegations of stolen valor, undergoing a secret Islamic conversion, holding weapons contracts with the federal government when serving in Congress. And domestic violence appears to have leapfrogged into yet another scandal, this time over a luxury apartment in Washington, D.C. and they are citing the Sullenberger reporting here.

[Ryan Grim]

So just like he didn't pay rent for like $80,000 worth of rent and like he has millions of dollars of corporate debt tied to this arms trafficking. And he's actively voting one of the key swing votes in a divided Congress on matters directly that directly implicate his arms business.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Great point. So good reporting and thanks for bringing this story to us.

[Ryan Grim]

We're going to have more.

[Sagar Enjeti]

All right, let's move on to Aaron Baker, speaking of Florida. Speaking of Florida men, we're going to talk a little bit about Randy Fine with his Republican primary opponent, Aaron Baker. The primary is coming up in over a year at this point, but Baker is gaining traction online by speaking out against Randy Fine's odious comments on Palestinian people, people in Gaza. So let's Bring in Aaron now. We are joined now by Aaron Baker. He is a candidate for Florida's 6th district in the primary race against Representative Republican Representative Randy Fine. Aaron, thank you for being here.

[Aaron Baker]

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay, so Randy Fine was elected in April. Your primary is about a year away. Still. Randy Fine obviously has a big cash advantage. You ran against him earlier this year, and he had lots of money and basically ended up with, I think, like 83% of the vote in the primary, something to that level in a red district. So can you tell us a little bit about why you initially decided to run for that seat that Fine ended up winning earlier this year, and then why you're getting back in and running again?

[Aaron Baker]

I had a group of Republicans from the 6th district approach me and explained to me that we had to have someone that has morals run in the Florida 6th congressional district. There is a very big contingent of people that do not agree with the rhetoric, do not agree with the basic principles that Mr. Fine represents. And I certainly don't believe that he represents this congressional district very well, if at all.

[Ryan Grim]

All, let's do play a little flavor. If people are somehow living under a rock and haven't had the joy of being confronted by Randy Fines rhetoric, let's put F1. Just roll that one. It is not Israel's job to feed and clothe and bathe and arm the Gazans until they're strong enough to conduct another October 7th. So that's my simple point. There are people starving in Gaza. Gaza, it's called the hostages that are still alive. And they need to be released. And they need to be released. Now. We can put up F2 where he said, release the hostages. Until then starve away. And then the weird parenthetical that actually they're not starving, but they should any day of the week, any hour of the day, pretty much. You can find Randy Fine posting something diabolically genocidal on his account.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And he's in Israel right now.

[Ryan Grim]

We should say he's in Israel as we speak. Can you talk a little bit more about what the reaction has been in his district? And I mean, isn't this kind of what people expected? Like, this is who he was before? Like, why now? Is it going to be a problem? Problem.

[Aaron Baker]

We knew this. This was exactly what we were going to get with Representative Fine. And I mean, you know, you can't change the spots on a leopard. It's exactly. We knew exactly what we were going to get. That's why I ran against him in the first place. In the last couple of days, last week or so, I think I've come out as the number one opponent because I will speak out against genocide and I will speak out against starvation. There's not one child in the world that should starve to death on America's watch.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So, like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, it's your position that what's happening right now in Gaza is a genocide. And can you tell us a little bit about. Based on what you just said, and can you tell us a little bit about how you arrived at that conclusion? It's my understanding that you're. You have been a fairly pro Israel Republican. So do you still see yourself that way? How does this fit into your sort of broader outlook on the nation of Israel?

[Aaron Baker]

So I support the defense of Israel, but let me explain the defense that I support. I support us helping with the Iron Dome system. I do not in any way, shape or form support any offensive weapons. And there's no way that we should be paying for 70% of Israel's defense. I think even at this point, the crowd on J Street has come to the same conclusion that I have, that this is genocide, that this is starvation. There's no two ways around it.

[Ryan Grim]

What have you been hearing from Republican primary voters on that question that they're.

[Aaron Baker]

Absolutely appalled by every single moment that Representative Fine opens his mouth? They're absolutely apparent, Paul.

[Ryan Grim]

And what about when you say, I think we should not send offensive weapons to Israel? Like, how do I agree? Yeah, great.

[Aaron Baker]

I mean, this is a Trump +30 district. That's the only way that Representative Fine got elected in the first place. This is common sense. This is America first, America second, America third, America fourth, America fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth. Americans do not want to be involved in endless wars. We need to help the people here. I hear about issues on the ground. Infrastructure, the economy, flooding. That's what we're concerned about in the 6th Congressional District. And I understand that as a United States representative, you're in charge of, you know, helping the rest of the United States States, but you're in charge of helping the rest of the United States. You're not in charge of protecting the entire world. We're talking about a representative who has zero respect at all for freedom or the rights of everyday Americans. We're talking about a genocidal, literally genocidal representative, member of Congress versus someone, me, that will speak up and say, this is not right. I do not support genocide halfway around the world.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And tell us a little bit more about how you ended up getting involved in politics, your background. Because I think the question of what actually how we define America first on the right, what that looks like in practice is sort of still being hashed out. But my assumption, based on what I've read about your background, is that Trump himself and the moniker America, America first was something that sort of drew you to get more and more involved. Because like a lot of people, you heard that and said, yes, this is exactly what I feel after watching what's happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria, Libya, and we could go on and on down the list. So tell us a little bit about how you got involved and what that means to you.

[Aaron Baker]

So I got involved with early vote action in Pennsylvania during the 24 presidential election election because I never bought into the narrative that Florida was a purple state. Florida is not a purple state. Florida is bright red state. That is not going to change anytime soon. But I'm a numbers guy. So I kept looking at, okay, how do we get to 270? How do we get to 270? And it seemed to me like the number one way to get there was through Pennsylvania. Penny, we didn't have, you know, we didn't have a crystal ball to say that Trump's going to win every single swing state. So I said, okay, I have family in Maryland. What can I do from Florida to be involved and to make sure that President Trump gets reelected? So I would fly back and forth from Orlando to Baltimore on my favorite Spirit Airlines, my Florida based airline. And it was cheap. I have a place to stay there. I could drive from, from the Baltimore area up to Pennsylvania. Made a lot of good friends up there. And whether it was handing out signs, whether it was standing on the side of the road and we encountered people up there that would, you know, spit at you, throw water bottles at you, curse at you. It's a completely different world than Florida. But I just tried to do everything in my power to make sure that President Trump was elected in 24. And after that, I came home and I thought, okay, back to work. I'm a general contractor, or I'm business partners with a general contractor. And, you know, I just thought, back to work. And then after Congressman Waltz was appointed as National Security Advisor, then the group of Republicans approached me and said, we need someone with common sense to be able to go to Washington and say, okay, I am not going to take AIPAC money. I believe AIPAC should be registered as a foreign lobbyist. They lobby for a foreign country, I'll do it. Sign me up.

[Ryan Grim]

And the special election only had something like 50,000 people turn out. You know, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me. Randy fine got like 30,000. You got what, 5,000 or so. So it's a small, you know, it's a small subset of the electorate, but it was a wide margin thanks to Trump's intervention and endorsement of Randy Fine. What are you going to do? You expect him to get Trump's endorsement again? And if he does, how do you still have a path?

[Aaron Baker]

No way. If you go back and look, my cost per vote was $6. That's unheard of because I get out there every single day. During the special election, I went to 68 different events. I crossed paths with Mr. Fine three times. Three. That's it. It's a mail in election. Who can send out the most bright, shiny palm cards. And, you know, I don't have millions of dollars. I have thousands of dollars. So I ran a congressional race on $30,000, and he ran a congressional race on a zillion dollars. So cost per vote, $6 versus cost per vote. And I'm only speaking in the primary, the general, it was off the charts. Cost per vote, $100 for Mr. Fine. So I don't need the money that he has. I will get out there and I go to all these events over the weekend. I was set up in Flagler County, I'll be in St. John's County. I live in Lake County. So I actually live in the district where Mr. Fine lives, 100 miles south and thinks that he lives 6,500 miles to the west, or to the east, rather well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay, so last question for me, Erin, is I think in the past you've suggested on this note that it's Susie Wiles that contributed to the endorsement of, of Randy Fine. Suzy Welles, obviously has had a career as a lobbyist, is very well connected in establishment Republican circles down in Florida by you. Have you learned any more on that since making that point? I imagine you've heard from people who didn't like it, but maybe you've gotten more information on that as well. Is that still your understanding of how Randy Fine originally got the Trump endorsement and maybe would get another Trump endorsement?

[Aaron Baker]

Well, the first, the first Trump endorsement was a return favor for, we can say, for raising money during the special or during President Trump's election for President Trump's legal fund. We can say that it's because Congressman Fine was the first in Florida to switch sides from DeSantis to President Trump. I mean, we can say whatever we want. I've been told, and I hate to be told things because I love freedom and I love to be able to speak my mind. And there's a lot to unpack. But I've been told to lay off Susie walls, but that's the problem. I don't have any way to slice it, dice it. That's number one. That's why we're in this situation. If she had not picked Congressman Fine, the 6th district of Florida would not be embarrassed. I hear from people all across the state, and they're like, aaron, we are so embarrassed that this is our congressman. He supports genocide. You don't, you know, feed the children. I didn't know that feed the children is going to be a campaign slogan, but it seems to be.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, it's genuinely embarrassing, I got to say, deeply, deeply. And it's like, no offense, but to be an embarrassment in central Florida, like this guy's around the bend, it's just utterly incredible.

[Aaron Baker]

It's. It's hard to do. But we knew. We knew what was going to happen. We knew the ethics complaints in the past. We knew the outstanding court cases. We knew the anger management that he. The court ordered anger management that he still hasn't completed. We knew all of this going in, and we tried to stop it. And the powers that be said, you are the anointed one.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, we'll see. It's going to be an interesting race, and we'll keep a close eye on it for sure.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And keep us updated, Aaron, because we're going to be covering it for sure. So we appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on.

[Aaron Baker]

I appreciate being here. Thank you very much. God bless you both.

[Sagar Enjeti]

God bless.

[Ryan Grim]

Emily, what did you think of Mr. Baker?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I thought he was super.

[Ryan Grim]

Is he a real challenge, you think?

[Sagar Enjeti]

There's over a year to go. Randy Fine had a lot of money in the last primary. If he maintains the support of people like Susie Wiles and others, I think as long as the money's on his side. These primaries really are decided by money. In the presidential election.

[Ryan Grim]

And a Trump endorsement.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, and the Trump endorsement. The presidential elections, you start, you see money mattering less and less, to be honest, because it gets to the point where it's so even. And when it's Trump, he gets so much earned media, like, he doesn't even need to buy commercials. But in these little primary elections, money makes a huge difference. And so if he's not able to outraise significantly Brandy Fine, who's the incumbent, this would be really difficult.

[Ryan Grim]

But then again, what if the Breaking points. Audience sends him a million bucks.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That could do it. But I was gonna say that again, this issue is for maga. So MAGA is the primary electorate and the primary electorate in Florida is going to want to see, I'm sure is going to be pretty divided over this question. So I definitely think he has a chance and will certainly follow the campaign.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What did you make of it? He also didn't go full like bear.

[Ryan Grim]

Hug on Israel in the past. He's been pretty standard supporter of Israel.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. He said he supports the defense of Israel.

[Ryan Grim]

Right, right. And I think, you know, partly it's him drawing a contrast with Randy Fine to come out and say only a second high profile Republican to say that they're carrying out a genocide. But I think he wouldn't do that in a Republican primary if he thought that it would make him unviable. So clearly his finger on the pulse of the Republican electorate is that you can be a bold critic of Israel and still get through a Republican primary.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And we'll see if he turns out. So much will depend on whether Trump re endorses is fine. And I think on the one hand Trump could because he's Fine's been loyal to him.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

But on the other hand, guy like Aaron said is a complete embarrassment.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He is. And it's starting to become, I mean he's trying to outflank literally every Republican on the question of hugging Netanyahu. Tighter and tighter and tighter to the point of ridiculousness, to the point where even AIPAC tried to to distance themselves from Randy Fine recently, as you mentioned Ryan. So you could see Trump really going either way on this. On the one hand, this is just a sloppy and embarrassing political strategy from Randy Fine that is unbecoming from the perspective of Trump, unbecoming of somebody in this position. On the other hand, you could just say, look, he's loyal. We don't want to take an L on this. We were the ones who backed him in the first place. So we'll see. But at some point, if the public sentiment starts to shift enough that can force the hand.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, we'll see.

[Sagar Enjeti]

All right, well, that does it for us on today's edition of Breaking Points. Ryan, you going to be around for the Friday show?

[Ryan Grim]

I'll be here.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Ok, cool. All right.

[Ryan Grim]

We've been there for a while, so I'm looking forward to it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes. There's something a little bit more chill about the Fridays. I mean, I guess we're on.

[Ryan Grim]

I think I missed three in a row.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, you might have. Well, no, no. We missed you.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, that's right. Exactly. Wasn't the show didn't even happen if I wasn't there.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Oh. If. If Ryan Grim. If a show airs without Ryan Grim in a forest. Is anyone there to.

[Ryan Grim]

These are the questions. All right, I'll see you then.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Sounds good. See you all.

[Josh]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Ugh. Come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

[Ryan Grim]

Still using yesterday's tech upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 carbon ultralight. Ultra powerful and built for serious productivity with Intel Core Ultra processors. Blazing speed and AI powered performance that keeps up with your business, not the other way around.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Whoa. This thing moves.

[Ryan Grim]

Stop hitting snooze on new tech.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Win the tech [e-mail] Lenovo Lenovo unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon.

[Ryan Grim]

Powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device. Nourishes like a smoothie and sizzles like a Smash burger.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Easy to pick up and hard to put down.

[Ryan Grim]

Made from plants and grills like beef.

[Sagar Enjeti]

See, it's not.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Or it's.

[Ryan Grim]

And. And that's what I love about impossible. Just this weekend, a couple impossible burgers. Put them on the grill. Boom. Felt like I was having a cheat meal without the feeling of the guilt of a cheat meal.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's not just burgers.

[Ryan Grim]

They got hot dogs, chicken. Everything you need for your summer menu. Look for the impossible red packaging at your local grocery store today.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is an iHeart podcast.