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Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
9/22/25: Epstein Probe Blocked, Trump Demands AG Prosecute Opponents, US Allies Recognize Palestine
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- [00:00]
Asma Khalid
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Tristan Redman
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Asma Khalid
America is changing and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval, it's also.
- [01:44]
Tristan Redman
A symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
- [01:47]
Asma Khalid
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, dc. I'm Tristan Redman in London and this is the Global Story. Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:05]
Tristan Redman
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
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Asma Khalid
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.
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Tristan Redman
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
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Asma Khalid
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- [02:31]
Tristan Redman
We need your help to Build the future of independent news media. And we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com let's turn to Epstein. Just quickly want to make sure that we continue to track all of the turns of this investigation. So very recently you'll remember Alex Acosta, who was that, he was the labor secretary under Donald Trump in the first term. Prior to that though, he's the infamous special prosecutor. He's the prosecutor, the federal prosecutor, U.S. attorney who, who gave the sweetheart non prosecution agreement to EPSTEIN Back in 2007 where effectively the Palm Beach County PD was pursuing an investigation against Epstein. They said they didn't have the resources to be able to pursue it. They turned it over to the feds. The feds, some FBI agents and others said that they had a very clear cut case against Epstein. Alex Acosta basically takes over the case and strikes a non prosecution agreement with Epstein where he agrees to plead guilty to some very, very low level charges, register as a sex offender, he gets to serve his time basically in and out for work in the Palm Beach County Jail. And that non prosecution agreement eventually gets struck down in court in 2018 for violating the rights of the Epstein victims because they did not inform them of the sweetheart deal that they struck. Obviously there's been a lot of questions. Why did Alex Acosta even do this when he knew he would have violated the victim's rights, when he obviously, at least according to people who were involved in the case at the time, thought that they had a much more of a slam dunk case. There's been conspiracy, allegedly, there's that quote attributed to him, that quote, he belonged to intelligence. That's potentially one avenue for why things went down. The other is that the Bush administration, people like Kenneth Saar and others, or Alex Dershowitz, who was hired by Epstein's lawyers, basically put immense amount of pressure using money and special connections to convince it. But no matter what, we can all agree that deal was corrupt and it was ridiculous considering what they had, which the Department of Justice eventually said that Alex Acosta violated DOJ policy by pursuing that. Now potentially scapegoating here. Well, all of that being said, Alex Acosta now recently appeared before the House Oversight Committee behind closed doors to answer some questions. And some of the members talked about how he was evasive, how he denigrated some of the victims, and how in a lot of ways he still does not accept responsibility for giving him that sweetheart deal. So let's take a listen to one of the first quotes from a legislator who was able to question Alex Acosta. Congressman Dave Min out of California, 47. And before coming to Congress, I was a law professor at UC Irvine. And I'll tell you, after the first hour of sitting with Alex Acosta, I found him to be completely non credible as a witness. His answers were evasive, they obfuscated, and they were just not believable. Just to give you one example, we know that as chief federal prosecutor, in addition to bringing a long charging memo and a prosecution memo, had actually said that the computer evidence that was being withheld by the defense at that point in time, all these files, the surveillance videos, perhaps child pornography, they were not producing it. She said that that was a smoking gun that would put this whole thing to bed. When I asked Alex Acosta about this, his response was that he didn't actually review the evidence on this case and would have no input on this, which is just impossible to believe given the high profile nature of Jeffrey Epstein at the time. Given the fact that Alex Acosta was having meetings with the attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein contemporaneously with all this, completely non credible, I doubt we'll get a lot of honesty out of him today. But what we're hoping to get is a roadmap to the types of evidence that we can demand from as the oversight committee from the Epstein estate, a roadmap to that. And of course we're going to continue to get, I believe, a lack of remorse, a lot of obfuscation out of Alex Okaska. Very frustrating, but we are going to get answers. Evasive, didn't provide clear answers. I mean, this is a very important, high stakes interview because he's being transcribed under oath. He's going to be asked about intelligence. But a lot of the more important stuff is some of the background info of the basics of how he mishandled the case in the beginning. In fact, at some times claiming that he never even reviewed victim testimony before signing this deal. What does that tell you guys is that in my opinion, this is my pure speculation. Pressure from the top, get this to go away. That is frankly, like in what other trafficking investigation involving minors would you ever not review the testimony of victims?
- [06:54]
Asma Khalid
Right?
- [06:54]
Tristan Redman
How is that possible?
- [06:55]
Asma Khalid
So his cope is basically like, oh, well, I didn't think these victims would stand up to scrutiny and I was worried we wouldn't get a conviction at all. So it's like, okay, well then surely you closely reviewed the victim's testimony. Right?
- [07:08]
Tristan Redman
Yeah, exactly.
- [07:09]
Asma Khalid
No, Right. And this really is like, you know, this is sort of the core of where all the questions flow from about whether he's intelligent. What is it just that he was a rich guy and so he got this sweetheart deal? I mean that would be an important thing to know. But look, we're not gonna be Pollyanna about a two tier system of justice in this country, but rich people do go to jail here sometimes, like they do go to prison. They do, you know, have to like serve their time and justice is served in instances even where there are wealthy individuals involved. So was it really just that he was so rich and had such a high powered legal team or was there something else going on here? Because we're talking about dozens of girls who had come forward at great risk and in very difficult circumstances, many of them who had very traumatic backgrounds to begin with. And all of that gets swept aside and then, you know something that is undeniable is that this agreement, the sweetheart deal actively violated. I mean a judge said this was illegal. Actually it violated those victims rights.
- [08:11]
Tristan Redman
That's the only reason.
- [08:11]
Asma Khalid
Because it was all done in secrecy and the victims were not notified at all. They had no idea until Jeffrey Epstein is being escorted into the courthouse and this thing was done and dusted.
- [08:23]
Tristan Redman
It's totally crazy still in retrospect how it all happened, like really, there's Occam's raise. Actually no, not true. Because one of the allegation for why it didn't involve intelligence or gun government support is basically, yeah, he had really rich lawyers. I just don't accept that. If you talk to the FBI or if you look at the interviews with the FBI agents, the Palm beach county pd, the testimony that they had, it looked pretty damn clear. And remember they had an indictment prepared against him before the non prosecution agreement. Now Alex Acosta says we didn't think it would hold up in court. A lot of the FBI agents on the case disagree by the way. Still have never been able to review that indictment. So I have no idea. So I would love for that to be, I would love for that to be released. That would be part of the Epstein files. Number two is that there was a call from Main justice to make this go away. So let's explain. Alex Acosta US Attorney for Southern Florida well, the number two over at the DOJ who is amenable to pressure for the at the time Bush administration, you have Kenneth Starr, the famous lawyer, special prosecutor or whatever involved in the Clinton case, who is able to work the government. And then that's where the potential, you know, intelligence, potential intelligence connections. I'm gonna choose my words carefully could come into play where they call Acosta and they're like, listen, man, you need to make this shit just go away. And again, considering how the CIA and intelligence offices have done that before in pedophile related cases, it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility. It's just an empirical fact. They have used their pressure on the Justice Department to protect intelligence assets caught up in pedophilia because they don't want sources and methods to be revealed in open court. That's just the truth, you know, So I don't know, it could be a combination of all of the above. Right. But the point is that that's why this is a case that you must.
- [10:08]
Asma Khalid
Dig into the other possible. Like, I don't know if you'd call this an innocent explanation, but you have talked about how Epstein was in Israel while this was all being negotiated. And so possible that there was an implicit or explicit threat of like, if he doesn't get a deal, that he's not coming back willing to accept, he's just not coming back. And then you have this like global kerfuffle about this pedophile in isra. Israel's harboring him, and obviously we don't wanna upset that relationship. So they just decided, okay, well, let's give him the sweetheart deal that he'll agree to so he'll come back and at least serve some sort of time and we can just make all of this go away. That would be another sort of innocent explanation that doesn't require him to be directly Mossad or CIA for that threat of, like, I'm just gonna stay in Israel and you're not gonna be able to get me back whatsoever, and it's gonna be this big, messy international diplomatic fight if you do try to get me back.
- [11:02]
Tristan Redman
Yeah, that's a good point. It's true. I mean, even his timeline in Israel is very unclear. It was reported by Vicki Ward. The rumor was that he had fled to Israel with all of his assets. He called her and he was like, actually, I'm back in New York. Would you want to live in Israel? Kind of talking back. We know from Palm Beach Post local media that he arrived back in the United States from Israel around the time of all of this. So it's true, he was there. We know that for sure. Whether those threats and all that were made, we don't know. I've talked about here with the Alexandrovich case about how extradition basically doesn't exist between the US And Israel for any Jewish American, you can just flee there. And I mean, you know, it took there was a recent case. It took a decade to bring some guy back and there's actually some pedophiles from the 1980s who are living there with total impunity and have faced no justice and no extradition whatsoever. So yeah, you're right. It definitely could be. Last thing that we wanted to show everybody here is just from, from, from the lawmakers themselves about his evasiveness. Let's take a listen. Can you share what you've learned from Alex Acosta so far? I just stepped out of the transcribed.
- [12:17]
Asma Khalid
Interview with Alex Acosta.
- [12:18]
Tristan Redman
We'll be heading back in.
- [12:20]
Asma Khalid
We've had several hours of questioning where primarily we are trying to first of.
- [12:24]
Tristan Redman
All understand why Alex Acosta struck such.
- [12:28]
Asma Khalid
A sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein, why he helped Jeffrey Epstein evade the law.
- [12:34]
Tristan Redman
And I'm going to be quite honest with you.
- [12:36]
Asma Khalid
Thus far, Alex Acosta does not seem to be a credible witness. To me he is extremely evasive, very difficult to get straightforward answers out of.
- [12:46]
Tristan Redman
Him regarding what happened during this time.
- [12:50]
Asma Khalid
What he knew of the relationship between Donald Trump, Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, why he only focused on a single state prosecution did not charge Jeffrey Epstein for federal crimes.
- [13:02]
Tristan Redman
So very important, you know, from the testimony of the legislators and others hoping the transcript and all of that is made available very quickly.
- [13:12]
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- [14:13]
Tristan Redman
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- [14:41]
Asma Khalid
America is changing and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just.
- [14:47]
Tristan Redman
A cause of global upheaval.
- [14:49]
Asma Khalid
It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington D.C. i'm Tristan Redman in London.
- [14:57]
Tristan Redman
And this is the global story.
- [14:59]
Asma Khalid
Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [15:12]
Tristan Redman
Why don't we get to Bondi?
- [15:13]
Asma Khalid
Yeah. So this is an extraordinary development. Trump posted something on True Social that appeared to be intended as a dm. I'm curious what you think about this. We can put this up on the screen and it's a sort of, you know, direct pressure on Pam Bondi over the prosecutions of his political opponents that he wants to see go forward. So he posted the Pam. I have reviewed over 30 statements in post saying that essentially same old story as last time. All talk, no action, nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam, Shifty, Schiff, Leticia? They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. attorney in Virginia with a really bad Republican past. A woke RINO who was never gonna do his job. That's why two of the worst Dem senators pushed him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit and that we had no case. No, I fired him and there is a great case and many lay and legal pundits said so. Lindsay is a really good lawyer. This is the person he's replacing, this other prosecutor he's complaining about with and likes you a lot. We can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation credibility. They impeached me twice and indicted me five times, exclamation point over nothing. All caps. Justice must be served now. President DJT so the thought is that this was meant to be sent privately. I don't know if it was or not or if this was, you know, like an accident intentionally onto the main True Social. It is wild if this is like how he sends messages. Cuz it's in the exact same cadence as his public post with the weird capitalizations and the overhyping and the exclamation points or whatever. But the more important point here is what is he talking about? There wasn't in in particular an effort to charge Letitia James, who is the Attorney General in New York who Trump hates because she went after him for his overinflating of his real Estate assets and lying about his net worth and blah, blah, blah, in order to secure loans at favor. So he's mad at her for going after him in this prosecution. There were threats made directly to her from Ed Martin telling her she should resign her position as a gesture of goodwill. She of course did not do that. And so instead they were trying to get her on alleged mortgage fraud, with the allegation being that she had presented two separate residences as her primary residence, when in reality, obviously only one of your things can be a primary residence. The. Without going into all of the details, there was no there, there. There was one paper that was filed that was incorrect, but then she wrote back and said, no, no, no, this isn't my primary residence, just to be clear. So there was nothing that they could charge. This is also a tactic that they've used multiple times. This is the same thing that they tried to do with the Fed board. One of the governors on the Fed board who they tried to push out under the same, like, very sketchy, over got a claim you did mortgage fraud thing. And there was one other that I'm blanking on that they tried to do the same thing. It's all coming from the same guy within the Trump administration who's trying to go after these opponents. So this prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, very important court, handles a lot of the, like, national security, high profile terrorism cases. It's right across the river here in Alexandria. This prosecutor was like, I can't, like, there's no there there. I'm not going to, you know, charge a case where there is nothing to be charged. And so he's being pushed out. And now Trump is exerting this pressure on Pam Bondi of like, you need to make up something against these people. Historically, there was always a separation and an attempt to make sure there was an appearance of total separation between the President and the doj. So there's a sense at least that there's like, you know, neutral justice and it's not being politicized. That obviously with this president is completely out the window.
- [18:58]
Tristan Redman
Yeah. I think what is, what has happened with the mortgage one is like with Lisa Cook in particular and Letitia James. Yeah, it's just obviously a pretext. I mean, whatever.
- [19:11]
Asma Khalid
They're doing the same thing with shift, right?
- [19:12]
Tristan Redman
Oh, shift. That's what it is.
- [19:13]
Asma Khalid
Mortgage fraud.
- [19:14]
Tristan Redman
Yeah. But is mortgage fraud that common? You know, I mean, that's one thing I kind of learned from the Wire season one is that apparently mortgage fraud is practiced by a lot of people. But My major question around this with the pretext for Lisa Cook and all of that is how do they get, how do they expect that to stand up in court if you're going to use it against three separate obvious political opponents and say that it is in no way, quote, not a political persecution? That's why I was like, come on, are we not getting more creative here in terms of mortgage fraud? It's one of those where what you have watched this happen is it's the same Jeff Sessions. I was just looking it up. July of 20, 2017 is the first time Trump attacks Jeff Sessions when he's mad at him for recusing himself on the Russia investigation. Exact same playbook here with what's happening with Pam Bondi is if you don't do. Trump genuinely believes the DOJ is his personal lawyer. That's his view as basically from day one with Jeff Sessions. Well, with Bondi and all of them, because they actually have to be bring a case against them. They're sometimes like, yeah, we can't do this because we'll, we'll lose in court or double jeopardy or something like that, would we to take it to trial. And he just will not accept that. And so that's the fundamental tension why anybody who took the AG job, idiot, in my opinion, like, why you would ever want to be the AG for Donald Trump after what happened with Sessions and then the next. I don't even remember his name before Bill Maher, the act. Whitaker. That was his name. No, Whitaker.
- [20:50]
Asma Khalid
Bill Barr.
- [20:51]
Tristan Redman
Bill Barr. Yeah.
- [20:52]
Asma Khalid
Not Bill Barr. Bill Maher. Yeah, that would be interesting.
- [20:56]
Tristan Redman
That would be a disaster. Yeah.
- [20:58]
Asma Khalid
Well, and just so you know. Well, your point is an interesting one because I was thinking about this with Bondi, right? Like, Bondi is a longtime Trump sycophant. She like, let, didn't he. She let him onto some charges on Trump University or whatever. Like, she knows where a bread is butter. She's there because he knows she's going to do whatever it is that, you know, he wants her to do as long as she can figure out a way to do it, which she just can't even figure out how to do in this instance. But it's not like she's being beloved by the MAGA base. She's also like a scapegoat for when she came out and said that thing last week about like, free speech and hate speech are two different things. And there were a bunch of people on the right who were like, look at Pam Bonney and how could she do this? Candace was saying Stuff. I don't know who else, but a bunch of people on the right were upset about that. Trump says the same. Like, this obviously came from Trump. Right. This comes directly from Trump. Trump says the same shit. They don't get upset with him. She takes all the incoming on any sort of free speech stuff that they're unhappy with. So you get to be in this position of being under Trump's thumb and just being a sycophant and having to go out there and do basically humiliation rituals routinely. And then it's not like you're even getting love from the MAGA beast, because they hate you, too, and they feel like you messed up the Epstein thing, even though you're doing that for Trump's bidding. They feel like they don't like what you said on hate. Hate speech, whatever. So doesn't seem like a great gig in my personal view.
- [22:18]
Tristan Redman
Why would it be? You're either the whipping boy for his idiocy, or you're the whipping boy for not acting on his idiocy.
- [22:24]
Asma Khalid
Exactly.
- [22:24]
Tristan Redman
Terrible job.
- [22:25]
Asma Khalid
Exactly. Yeah. And one last thing. Just about this person that was forced down who was the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and that Trump is talking about here, it's not like this guy was some lib. He was a former D.C. police officer, joined the Eastern District of Virginia back in 2010, was nominated for the role by Trump this year. So this was like the guy Trump put in literally this year, but since he wouldn't gin up some fake charges against Letitia James, he's being, you know, he was forced down. The new person they're putting in is a senior White House aide, Lindsey Halligan. Apparently has no. No experience really in this realm of law whatsoever. I think she was like insurance law or something like that coming into. But I guess they feel confident that she'll be the one that will make up these charges and figure it out in the way that Trump wants to. So we will see. But just one more quite extraordinary instance of the way Trump approaches government, his weaponization of government, just making it abundantly explicit that he wants to use the DOJ to find some way to criminalize his political opponents. And we have to say, like, if this was any other president and this came, you know, this is out there in the public record. He posted it himself. There would be talk of impeachment. Right. This would be a huge, huge national scandal. And it's getting media coverage. It is the scandal. But with Trump, it's like there's so many other things going on that this will by next week we'll be talking about something else, right?
- [23:53]
Tristan Redman
Yeah, that's true. Look, he's broken that since 2017. He's always hated his attorney generals, which what does he say? Like my generals, my lawyers. That's the kind of language that he uses here. I do think it is interesting that even Bondi and them are not bringing cases just just to show you. I mean, they'll bring the case against the sandwich guy and lose and get humiliated in court. So just, you know, it's not exactly like these people aren't willing to go the extra mile. So I think that's probably a lesson. That's usually what ends up happening with Trump. But no, I mean, look, it's crazy. There's no getting around it.
- [24:25]
Asma Khalid
It's nuts.
- [24:28]
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Tristan Redman
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Asma Khalid
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Tristan Redman
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Asma Khalid
America is changing and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just.
- [26:05]
Tristan Redman
A cause of global upheaval.
- [26:07]
Asma Khalid
It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
- [26:13]
Tristan Redman
Tristan Redman in London and this is the Global Story.
- [26:17]
Asma Khalid
Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go ahead and get to the latest with Israel. We've got a number of updates we wanted to get to here. First of all, I'll save my opinion on this for a moment, but a number of states, specifically uk, Australia and Canada have all coordinated coming out and saying we are now going to recognize a Palestinian state. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
- [26:48]
Tristan Redman
Australia will recognise the state of Palestine. Canada intends to recognize the state of Palestine. The Israeli government's relentless and increasing bombardment of Gaza, the offensive of recent weeks, the starvation and devastation are utterly intolerable. We call again on the Israeli government to lift the unacceptable restrictions at the border, stop these cruel tactics and let the aid surge in. With the actions of Hamas, the Israeli government escalating the conflict and settlement building being accelerated in the west bank, the hope of a two state solution is fading that the United Kingdom formally recognizes the state of Palestine. Today we join over 150 countries who recognize a Palestinian state also.
- [27:53]
Asma Khalid
So it's a sign certainly of how untenable Israel's position is globally. But it's also, you know, it's really incredibly ineffectual from these nations as well. You know, now that Palestinian state has been destroyed, the west bank has been all but annexed, Gaza is being leveled as we speak. Now you're going to recognize a Palestinian state but you're not going to do any of the things that would actually hurt Israel. Right? You're not going to like sanction them or cut off trade or do any of the sorts of things that could actually tighten the grip on them economically, which would be far more painful than just some theoretical recognition that okay, I guess it's better than nothing, but it seems calibrated to like signal to their population that they hear them and they're concerned and they're doing a thing without actually doing any of the things that would be more difficult, I don't know.
- [28:44]
Tristan Redman
Because at the same time like state recognition is a huge thing that comes with UN privileges. These are nuclear armed states. In some cases they're members of NATO, of five eyes, the Anglosphere. Like that is a statement in and of itself. Like, look, I think nothing will ever please a lot of the liberals who are like all. It's like, look, we live in political reality like an arms embargo from the west is not going to happen. But a statement of recognition for Palestine is still something because what it means is that if Israel were to completely annex all of what is recognized as Palestine, that does leave the door open to at least saying, like, no, we're not gonna recognize this. There will be punishment for it. There will be the same, like, international norms violation for them. You know, if you put it in the same context of Russia and in Ukraine, it gives them a consistency to say, like, we don't support, you know, going past these types of borders. So it's not inconsequential. It's still a big deal. I mean, I get it. I know everybody's like, oh, we want an international arms embargo. Listen, it's not happening. Like, it's one of those where, you know, in the context of the US is the global superpower the guarantor of security. And who do you think makes all those weapons? As long as America's gonna go along with this? This is frankly, like, even in terms of a diplomatic break is pretty extraordinary. Like, this is the special relationship. The uk, Canada, Australia, these are some of the closest, closest allies the US Has. For them to break with us, especially after a state visit by Trump, who was just there yesterday, in the uk, that's a huge deal.
- [30:12]
Asma Khalid
All right, well, I'll take it then. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Trump's reaction to the state recognition.
- [30:18]
Tristan Redman
Is there any use at all in pressuring Israel now to come to some.
- [30:22]
Asma Khalid
Sort of longer term solution? Well, you could make the case that you're rewarding people that, you know, you're rewarding Hamas, Hamas, if you do that. And I don't think they should be rewarded. So I'm not in that camp, to be honest. We'll let you know where we are, but I am not in that camp.
- [30:39]
Tristan Redman
Mr. President, because if you do that, you really are rewarding Hamas.
- [30:43]
Asma Khalid
And I don't know about you, Sagar, but it seems like, if anything, his position in the past several weeks has become even more hardened. Like he used to say things like, you know, call for the end of the starvation. Even if he wasn't willing to act, he's been spewing some of the most insane atrocity lies. Like 10-7- atrocity lies in propaganda in recent weeks. And then you have this where he's like, this is a reward for terrorism, a reward to Hamas, et cetera. So it seems like he's become increasingly locked in, in an absolutist position. I guess he smells that real Estate development money or whatever, but I don't know if you've noted that same.
- [31:23]
Tristan Redman
I don't think so.
- [31:24]
Asma Khalid
You don't think what?
- [31:26]
Tristan Redman
I think it's personal. He believes this for some reason. Don't ask me why. I have no idea.
- [31:30]
Asma Khalid
We can speculate. Yeah.
- [31:32]
Tristan Redman
I have theories personally.
- [31:33]
Asma Khalid
Let the audience speculate.
- [31:37]
Tristan Redman
It baffles people around him, I can tell you that with confidence. It baffles a lot of the people who work for him. I know that for a fact. Nobody knows. It's like a personal thing. And he believes this stuff to his core. Whether it's my speculation is that the circumvention of the traditional process where critics and all those others can get into his ear is that in Mar a Lago, in his social circle and everywhere else, there's never a price to be paid for not being pro Israel enough. There's endless amounts of money, there's endless amounts of social acclamation. Mariam Adelson, all of his people at Mar A Lago, bb, you know, cbs, Larry Ellison, Murdoch. What's the price to be paid?
- [32:19]
Asma Khalid
Right.
- [32:19]
Tristan Redman
So why not just go with it? That's my. That's an innocent explanation. That's what I will say. There are a lot more nefarious ones out there that people believe, which I'm not quite there yet.
- [32:27]
Asma Khalid
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's worth even speculating about what's driving. He's like, the net effect is the same, but I mean, it does make somewhat of a theoretical difference. We were thinking going into this administration that, look, Trump's transactional. If someone can offer him something on the other side, or he thinks it makes him look good to effectuate some sort of a peace deal, maybe there's more of a possibility there than there was with Biden, who was a dyed in the wool ideological Zionist. So to your point, maybe you're right, maybe it is more ideological for him than we thought it was. My theory is less some sort of actual ideological commitment to Zionism and more just like the Trumpian worldview of who's with me and who's against me. We know that he barked at Charlie Kirk when Kirk came in and was posing the Iran strike. And so he may feel like all these people are pain in the ass, they're criticizing me, like they're undermining my foreign policy. And that has made him more hardened at this point in his just like absolute support for Israel, no matter what. I think it's still a very live possibility, though, because we See, the way he operates in other spheres of foreign policy, his self interest obviously does drive a lot of what he does and a lot of the decisions that he makes. So if he's looking at this as a real estate deal and a great opportunity for him and Kushner and his family, that would certainly be a motivating factor as well and could be a mix of all of these things. Certainly at the same time, we don't want to lose sight of what's happening on the ground in Gaza right now. Gaza City, we can put this up on the screen, is being absolutely leveled. This was a massive apartment building, 15 story apartment building that was just blown to bits and leveled down to the ground. You can see people fleeing as the, you know, as the dust and all the debris flies. Gaza City, you know, the ground invasion has begun. It's quite clear they want to make it unlivable. This was the major city in Gaza. They want to make it unlivable so no one can ever come back. And so that then you're forced into this. Okay, well, Gaza's unlivable. So you're going to stay here or you're going to go to whatever country they figure out that is willing to take some significant number of Palestinians. And that really is the plan. There was another piece of political news here in the US that is pretty significant. Put E4 up on the screen. You have the entirety of the Congressional Progressive caucus. That's over 100 Democratic members of Congress who have now backed the Block the Bombs Act. And this would prohibit any money going to offensive weapons for Israel. They still make this, I think, stupid, arbitrary distinction between offensive and defensive weapons. Basically like, okay, we could still fund the Iron Dome, but we're going to block any other offensive weapons shipments to Israel. And you know, it is compared to past orientation of the both parties, but Democratic Party in particular, vis a vis Israel. To have now over 100 members of the House saying we stand in opposition to any offensive weapons going is quite a significant. Like that is a pretty landmark shift in terms of the orientation of the Democratic Party towards this nation state.
- [35:41]
Tristan Redman
Yeah, but my question is how much that will pervade, like how much that will be taken seriously by whoever runs for president. And I think that's still a live question. It's one of those where I know that the Democratic base is where it is.
- [35:54]
Asma Khalid
Yeah.
- [35:55]
Tristan Redman
The question is where does it rank and to what ends and how. If you were a Trumpian style figure, what you would do is rhetorically kind of please all sides of the Debate, which I still think is kind of possible. If you look at it in terms of how you would operationalize it against Israel, you could say the right words, but you may not. You could also keep the right people in action. If there's no organized force, and then as long as you center it around anti Trump, then a lot of this is most likely not gonna. I don't think it would win out just because if you think about the amount of power that you would have to take on for this to become the mainstream position, it's crazy, right? So that's just where I'm. I continue to wonder, like, where this will head in a political direction. I don't deny its political constituency, the level of passion people have around it, but I just know how these people operate. And I've watched it with many of my own issues get shuttled to the side in a political coalition. When you're up against real power, even if what you think is popular, like Ukraine or something like that, well, Trump is president, it goes out the window. So I really wonder how it will come in the next administration.
- [37:00]
Asma Khalid
I think we'll get a little bit of a sense in the midterms because you have a lot of candidates that have been sort of like, tracking on the side who are entering into primaries against AIPAC Democrats who are, you know, are going for open seats or going up against Republicans who are explicitly anti genocide, anti aipac, putting that at the center of their politics. And, you know, if you have a real sort of like, Tea Party wave for Democrats in 2026, where the operating issue, like one of the animating issues is opposition to genocide, that is gonna send a message to a lot of people, cynical operators for 2028, about where the winds are blowing and where they need to be. So I do think we'll get some. You know, Graham Platner is a perfect example in Maine, probably going to be up against Janet Mills, who is the sitting governor of the state. Platner has made no bones about him being opposed to genocide, wants to stop all weapons from going. Very outspoken, you know, for him to win, he comes out of nowhere. If he were to beat the sitting governor of Maine to win the Senate nomination there, like, that would be extraordinary. You've got Abdul Al said, obviously we're tracking Zoran as well, but there are a lot of congressional candidates that aren't even on people's radars. And so I think we'll get a sense of how that storyline is developed.
- [38:15]
Tristan Redman
For me, Zoron would be less important. I get it, you know, the Jewish city, biggest Jewish city outside of Tilapia. But it still lib central Maine and Michigan is a whole other story. That's where it's like that's a flashing red light. If you think back to it, it's kind of like Jim Webb who won in 2006 on the Anti Iraq war position and that was a beating. Or there were others. I forget. Exactly. There were a lot of anti war Democrats who were elected in 06 primary in like deep red states. And that's what made a lot of the Republicans and others be like, oh shit, like we're done with Iraq at this point. And so that's what needs to happen. Like you need to send a signal that in the heartland and in swing districts, if that's a winning message, that's how you kill something. True.
- [38:58]
Asma Khalid
And then you have Obama win in 2008 Bingo. Because of in part because of his anti Iraq war position and Hillary Clinton's complicity. Two more cultural elements that are just interesting to track here. With regard to Israel. Put this up on the screen. There is an effort to prevent a Tuesday vote on expelling the country from this European soccer league. The Union of European Football association, UEFA. I'm sure there's some way people pronounce that, but I don't know how. Anyway, apparently there's an effort to have a vote around expelling them and their teams from this league. They say the Israel Football association was working around the clock in recruiting allies and friends of Israel in the sports and diplomatic worlds to work to prevent that vote, they said. We are working it on all fronts, the report added. Officials in Jerusalem believe friendly countries like Germany and Hungary will fight for the vote not to be held. But the outlet said that Qatari. Qatari pressure campaign that began following the Israeli strike on Hamas leaders in Doha earlier this month appears to have failed to kill the terror chiefs. So halting Qatar's mediated talks on a ceasefire in Gaza. But that's when the pressure started is after those attacks on Doha. So now there are a number of countries trying to get them kicked out of this European soccer league. And then we have one more thing. There's a question of whether Israel will be allowed to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest as well. This was interesting reporting from Sky News about pressure here. Countries including Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands are already threatened to withdraw from the event if Israel is included. Worth noting, Russia got kicked out after they invaded Ukraine. So it's not like there's no precedent for entire countries to be barred from the competition. And I didn't really know much about Eurovision, to be honest with you guys, but apparently some. Spain's opposition and their commitment to withdrawing is particularly noteworthy because they are one of five countries that provide most of the funding for Eurovision. So they hold a lot of. So it's seen as significant that Spain is involved in these boycott efforts. So we will see what happened there. Last year, Israel got second in the competition.
- [41:10]
Tristan Redman
What?
- [41:10]
Asma Khalid
And there was kind of a freak out, I think it. I don't know how many Eurovision.
- [41:15]
Tristan Redman
I don't get it.
- [41:16]
Asma Khalid
That's a great question. I'm not equipped to answer it.
- [41:19]
Tristan Redman
You look at a map.
- [41:20]
Asma Khalid
What are they talking about? There's also allegations. I don't know exactly how the judging works. I think there's a public component and then there's a judging component.
- [41:27]
Tristan Redman
That's right.
- [41:28]
Asma Khalid
And there were a lot of allegations that they were using bots and kind of rigging the public component and that's why they scored so high. But I don't know whether that's true or not. I have not analyzed the veracity of these claims, but there was a real freak out because whoever wins then hosts the competition the next year. So if Israel won, then the competition would be in Israel and you can imagine there would have been all sorts, like even more countries that were boycotting and artists that didn't want to participate, et cetera. So, anyway, some cultural pressure that is being brought to bear here.
- [41:58]
Tristan Redman
So apparently it's that the European Broadcasting Union, not the European Union, is the one who puts on Eurovision. Israel's national broadcaster is a full member of the ebu. Membership is open to broadcasters from countries that are, quote, within the European broadcast unless area as defined by the International Telecommunication Union. Other non European participants include Morocco, Australia. Okay. I don't know. I mean, maybe it's just me. Eurovision, kick out. Morocco, Australia and Israel. Like, what are we doing here? It's nuts. It's like, Australia can have its own Australia's voice.
- [42:32]
Asma Khalid
Israel, that's.
- [42:33]
Tristan Redman
No, I mean, Morocco is not in Europe. The whole foundation of Europe is that Morocco's not in Europe. That's the whole point. What are we doing here?
- [42:41]
Asma Khalid
That's the whole point.
- [42:42]
Tristan Redman
It's gonna drive me nuts. Yeah. Oh, my God. All right, there's some Spaniard who defeated the Moors is turning over in his grave at that idea. All right, whatever. Okay. We'll have a great show for everybody tomorrow. Chris Lee will be out, but I'll be in with Ryan.
- [42:58]
Asma Khalid
I will be out on Wednesday.
- [43:00]
Tristan Redman
I'LL be out later in the week. I'm going home to Texas. But anyway, yeah, Ghislaine. By the way, anybody who works down in Bryan at the facility, contact me. I would love to make contact. All right, we'll see you guys later.
- [43:24]
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Asma Khalid
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Asma Khalid
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This is an iHeart podcast.