Why the Iran Talks Now Hang on Lebanon

Summary

Podcast Summary: Drop Site News – "Why the Iran Talks Now Hang on Lebanon"

Date: June 2, 2026
Host: Ryan Grim, with Mason Mustafa
Guests: Dr. Adam Hamway, Trita Parsi, Leila Yunus, Sean Victor
Theme:
A deep dive into how ongoing war and negotiations between Israel and Iran are now centered on Lebanon, with a focus on U.S. politics, humanitarian consequences, and the emerging movement in Congress to halt U.S. involvement.

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles the critical role Lebanon now plays in the delicate negotiations to end the war between Israel and Iran. The hosts and guests discuss the situation from multiple fronts: political shifts in the U.S., the volatile state of play between Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran, the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Lebanon, and efforts in Congress to force a change in U.S. policy. Congressional candidate Dr. Adam Hamway shares his experience as an anti-war candidate with direct experience in Gaza; Iran analyst Trita Parsi explains the high-stakes diplomacy and red lines for Iran; journalist Leila Yunus sheds light on ethnic cleansing and devastation in southern Lebanon; and Demand Progress’s Sean Victor addresses activism in Congress to end support for Israel’s war.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Adam Hamway’s Insurgent Campaign and Anti-War Platform

[00:55–17:39]

• Background: Hamway, a plastic surgeon and former Army combat medic, is running as a progressive in New Jersey’s machine-politics-dominated 12th district, focusing heavily on anti-war and pro-human rights stances and refusing corporate PAC money.
  • “You can get support from the people, you can get support from the community. People are thirsty for leaders who are bold enough to say what needs to be said in Washington.” – Dr. Adam Hamway [06:26]
  • Emphasizes his perspective having witnessed war and poverty firsthand: “It's made me appreciate what I have so much more...the horrors that happen...make my problems here feel minor.” [04:36]
• Campaign Experience:
  • Hamway’s experienced hostility and arm’s-length respect from party establishment because of his platform, especially as he calls Israel's actions in Gaza “genocide” and demands an end to U.S. weapons sales.
  • “Some definite AIPAC pro-Israel...members of the establishment have not seen my success so far to be a good thing. But that's not something unexpected.” [09:06]
• Constituent Concerns:
  • Affordability, housing, gas prices post-war escalation, and ICE abuses are top issues. Constituents are “sick of the corruption and economy that's not working for them.” [12:22]
  • Ongoing connection with colleagues in Gaza: “Everyone is actually excited to see this change...there is a possibility of change and that they are being seen and that they do have a voice.” [15:08]

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2. The State of Iran-Israel-Lebanon Negotiations

Trita Parsi interview [24:51–53:27]

Current Diplomatic Breakdown

• Israel’s Expansion in Lebanon:
  • Israel issuing evacuation orders and escalating its military campaign deep into Lebanon, signaling intent to occupy and redraw the border – “They grab this territory and...say it's a buffer zone. And then over the years, the buffer zone becomes cemented.” – Trita Parsi [32:41]
  • Iran sees continued attacks in Lebanon as a “red line,” threatening to walk away from negotiations unless Israel stops.
    • “If Israel continues to bomb Lebanon and Gaza, that regional instability will eventually spill over into an Israeli-Iranian war.” [30:06]
  • Trump reportedly put direct pressure on Netanyahu to halt further expansion (not for the first time), but the key question remains: will U.S. pressure be sustained?
    • “The problem has always been that he [Trump] doesn't sustain the pressure.” [26:43]
• Skepticism and Strategy:
  • U.S. negotiators claim to be “close” to a deal, but all sides (especially Iran) are deeply mistrustful, both of opponents’ intentions and of U.S. reliability.
  • Pro-Israel factions in the U.S. and Israel aim to avoid a deal, preferring to “wait Iran out” in hopes sanctions and internal strife will prompt regime change.
    • “Sanctions is that type of a low-grade destruction of a country over decades.” [39:58]
• Hezbollah’s Role:
  • Israel aims to establish permanent territorial gains, while Hezbollah and Iran seek to expel Israeli forces. Both sides’ positions are “unbridgeable through diplomacy” unless U.S. leverage constrains Israel. [32:22]

Regional Perspectives

• Gulf States’ Views:
  • Gulf states want to avoid war in Lebanon but are wary of Iran gaining regional prestige as “defenders of territorial integrity.” [35:42]

Iran’s Calculus

• Sanctions Relief as True Goal:
  • Without sanctions relief, there is no lasting deal for Iran; without a deal, Iran faces endless war and destabilization – a “security issue, not just an economic one.” [39:58]
  • Iranian paranoia is understandable (given U.S. track record), but missing opportunities could lead to “paralysis.” [47:34]
• China’s Cautious Posture:
  • China remains affected by oil crises, but is not yet pressuring Iran – “They don't want to do anything in which they will have to share the blame for what Trump has started here.” [51:40]

Notable Quote:

“This is either going to be resolved diplomatically with U.S. pressure on Israel, or there will be renewed warfare.” – Trita Parsi [32:41]

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3. On-the-Ground in Lebanon: Ethnic Cleansing and Humanitarian Crisis

Leila Yunus interview [54:23–69:37]

• Testimony from Ain Arab:
  • Israeli forces forcibly removed residents at gunpoint: “You leave right now or you die.” [55:14]
  • Example of systematic displacement and the destruction of dozens of villages south of the “yellow line.”
    • “They told people, you have two hours. But according to Nasreen, they didn’t even give them that.” [55:14]
  • Agricultural livelihoods wiped out, local harvests lost: “To say we are destroyed is an understatement.” [59:48]
• Wider Pattern:
  • Over 60 villages destroyed; attacks on infrastructure, hospitals, and crops.
  • Use of white phosphorus causing potential “eco-cide.”
  • Lebanon faces a “generational” reconstruction challenge with little hope of outside help. [65:21]
• Collective Trauma & Comparison with the Nakba:
  • For old-timers in the south, this is the worst displacement they’ve experienced. Mass psychological toll and political marginalization are high.
  • “There's almost no hope in these negotiations. It looks like political theater to a lot of people here.” [68:34]

Notable Quotes:

“It does seem to be a rarity, this level of door-to-door, at-gunpoint ethnic cleansing. However, it is emblematic of what Israel is doing in the south.” – Leila Yunus [55:14]
“The planting season is lost; the land is destroyed. For these families, to say we are destroyed is an understatement.” [59:48]

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4. War Powers Resolution: Congressional Resistance & Structural Challenges

Sean Victor interview [71:00–93:47]

• Overview:
  • Rep. Rashida Tlaib has introduced a Lebanon War Powers Resolution intended to halt U.S. support for Israel’s actions in Lebanon.
  • Congress’s structure allows any member to force a vote, but leadership often blocks these for political expediency.
    • “There is a lot of structure in Congress designed to shield, frankly, bad members of Congress.” – Sean Victor [71:38]
  • Leadership, especially "centrist" Democrats, work to suppress votes that would otherwise be popular.
  • Trump, unlike previous presidents, has tended to take war powers resolutions seriously, sometimes influencing policy even if Congress cannot override a veto.
• Why More Democrats Aren’t Leading Anti-War Pushes:
  • “There are clearly Democrats who do not believe that this moment is a critical moment for democracy. That's it.” [79:56]
  • Fear of vulnerable members being on record, despite broad public and intra-party support.
• Citizen Action:
  • Calls, protests, letters, and local organizing do have an impact.
  • “You’d be surprised how impactful those messages...are on the Hill.” [88:20]
• Broader Threats:
  • Surveillance expansions (FISA reauthorization, warrantless searches), with figures like Mark Warner cooperating with Trump/Republicans to extend executive power.
  • “This [surveillance bill] is basically a Trump-endorsed product that Mark Warner’s job is to get Democrats to support.” [90:18]

Notable Quotes:

“Democrats need to be the resistance party in this moment. They can’t be hiding their worst member...they need to provide the rest of the country with clear visibility who is leading.” [75:30]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Dr. Adam Hamway:

  • "People are thirsty for leaders who are bold enough to say what needs to be said in Washington." [06:26]
  • “We've shown that it's possible...this is where America is moving as a whole." [07:31]
  • “Everyone is actually excited to see this change...there is a possibility of change and that they are being seen and that they do have a voice.” [15:08]

• Trita Parsi:

  • “They grab this territory and they say it’s a buffer zone. And then over the years, the buffer zone becomes cemented.” [32:41]
  • “This is either going to be resolved diplomatically with U.S. pressure on Israel, or there will be renewed warfare.” [32:41]
  • “Sanctions is that type of a low-grade destruction of a country over decades.” [39:58]

• Leila Yunus:

  • "You leave right now or you die." [55:14]
  • “To say we are destroyed is an understatement.” [59:48]
  • “It looks like political theater to a lot of people here.” [68:34]

• Sean Victor:

  • “There is a lot of structure in Congress designed to shield, frankly, bad members of Congress.” [71:38]
  • “Democrats need to be the resistance party in this moment…they need to provide visibility who is leading, who is in the way.” [75:30]

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Key Timestamps

• [00:55] – [17:39]: Adam Hamway interview (campaign, New Jersey politics, anti-war movement)
• [24:51] – [53:27]: Trita Parsi on Iran-Israel-Lebanon negotiations and U.S. role
• [54:23] – [69:37]: Leila Yunus, southern Lebanon reporting (ethnic cleansing, destruction)
• [71:00] – [93:47]: Sean Victor, War Powers Resolution and Congressional machinery

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Takeaways

• U.S. support for Israel’s war in Lebanon is a central obstacle to peace, both diplomatically and politically.
• The humanitarian situation in southern Lebanon is dire, marked by forced displacement, destruction of villages, and devastated agriculture.
• Progressive, anti-war politics face resistance but are gaining ground within American political structures.
• Congressional leadership inertia and manipulation consistently hamper genuine anti-war efforts, but direct citizen engagement and activist pressure can help force war-related votes.
• The current moment is described by activists and analysts as pivotal for American democracy, policy toward war, and Middle East stability.

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Transcript

[Ryan Grim]

All right. Good morning and welcome to our Tuesday morning live stream. We're starting it a little bit later than usual, as you may have noticed. I've filled in for Crystal this morning on Breaking Points. Jeremy Sharif and Murtaza are traveling for some reporting and some meetings overseas. And we'll get an update from them when they, when they get back. And be joined today by my colleague Mason Mustafa on the, later in this program, we're going to be joined by Iran analyst Trita Parsi to talk through where we are currently in the state of the negotiations to bring an end to this war, to see it kick back up. A lot of this revolves around Lebanon. We're going to be joined by job site contributor Leila Yunus from Lebanon, as well as Sean Ditka, who's the head of the Washington based organization Demand Progress, which is lobbying for a key war powers resolution vote this week in the House of Representatives pushed by Rashida Tlaib to bring an end to the war 11 and this is a crucial piece of legislation. For some reason, Donald Trump does actually take these war powers resolutions seriously. To begin the program, we're going to be joined by Dr. Adam Hammaway, who was running for Congress in New Jersey. I believe it's the 11th district. It might be the 12th. I can't keep these, these districts together. I believe Trenton and areas around it. So let's, let's bring in Dr. Dr. Hanway. Did I get the number? I got it wrong because I said 11 or 12. Which, which district is it?

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

Good morning. It's the 12th district. So Central Jersey does cover Trenton, but it's number 12.

[Ryan Grim]

Excellent. So really appreciate you joining us here on a very busy day. We reached out to, to Altman, who's one of your opponents. She may be able to come by later in the program. It's unclear at this point. So, you know, you launched this campaign as, as kind of a long shot, a political outsider, not, not somebody who kind of came up through the normal New Jersey political ranks, which is, which is how things are done in New Jersey. It's a very kind of party and machine dominated state, state. Bonnie Watson Coleman vacated the seat. You had coincidentally been her guest at the State of the State of the Union because she wanted to highlight the work that you had done as a volunteer doctor in Gaza. First, I wanted to just ask you, since it's election day, what is election day like for you? Are you, are you hitting doors? Are you just like we've done all we can and now it's election Day what, like, what has the day been like for you so far? And what's the rest of it look like?

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

So this morning, woke up at dawn, 5 o' clock in the morning, and at 6 o' clock, we were at the first polling station and we've already hit six of them so far. So we've been going from one part of the district to the other, seen voters coming in and casting their ballots, and some people not understanding all the choices yet. So helping them make their decision, if they're still confused about what's going on, especially with many people still thinking that there's a county line and expecting to go in there, and then they're going to get surprised with 12 people on about. So we're just taking a look.

[Ryan Grim]

One other question. Yeah, yeah, one question I had. Mesa you jump in? I, I've been curious. You, you've spent your life, you know, eight years in with the US army as a combat surgeon, volunteer work in Bosnia or Rwanda. Or you, you tell me we're all throughout the world, 30 years. What has it been like going to these conflict zones and then coming back to your life here in the United States? Like, how have you been able to just merge that together and kind of stay in one piece? Because you're a plastic surgeon here in New Jersey. So I would imagine the discrepancy between kind of what you see here in the US and what you see often because of the US Overseas is stark enough that it could break, break somebody's brain. So how, how has that not happened to you yet?

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

Well, the, the most. I think the most important thing for me is it's made me appreciate what I have so much more because I see, you know, how people live elsewhere, the horrors that happen, whether it's from natural disasters or war, you know, the lack of resources, the poverty. And then I come back here and all the problems that I think that I have are minor. They just kind of disappear. And it makes me also look at. Because we are blessed so much. Did I lose you guys?

[Ryan Grim]

Good. Just putting more of the focus on you, it sounds like from the control room.

[Leila Yunus]

All right.

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

Sorry you all disappeared. So, yes, appreciate my, my blessings even more and wants me to make things even better because I do see that as, you know, as the most powerful and the richest country in the whole world, we have so much potential to do good, you know, and make our lives even better here at home as well as the lives of, you know, people all over the world, that we should be stepping into this role and being leaders with the appreciation of what we have. And I think this is. This is how I kept my perspective is going there and taking what I've witnessed and learned and bringing it back here and trying to make myself better because I'm blessed with what I have.

[Mason Mustafa]

What do you think? I guess, regardless of the results tonight, what do you think your campaign and you as a candidate, what message do you think it's going to give to future candidates? Who do you kind of hope to inspire or what? What do you think you accomplished? Regardless of what happens tonight, I hope

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

to inspire a whole new generation of candidates coming up that are. That know that they could take a strong stance for justice both here at home and around the world, that you don't have to submit yourself to the party politics and the same usual, you know, lines that have been used for decades now to be able to advance. You can get support from the people, you can get support from the community. People are thirsty for leaders who are bold enough to say what needs to be said in Washington as well as here in the state and local governments. And so whether we succeed or lose, we've shown that it's possible. And again, with races around the country that are, you know, have been happening and with what was able to do earlier this year, at the end of last year, we see that this is, you know, it's not a long shot. This is not, you know, a

[Sean Victor]

an

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

outlier, that this is where America is moving as a whole. And so hopefully more people step into these races and run on a platform that is for working people and for Americans in our community to help them rather than the corporations and the corrupt interests that have run us in the past.

[Ryan Grim]

And I'm curious now that it's election day, maybe you can talk a little bit more openly about it. But I'm curious, you've run a kind of populist insurgent campaign. No corporate PAC money, supporting a broad sort of Bernie Sanders kind of AOC agenda, which runs up against the. The New Jersey party establishment, while at the same time, you know, saying what. What is. Israel is committing a genocide and we need to, you know, block, you know, we need to block weapon sales to them. That kind of campaign would often be met with, like, fury from the party establishment. You have this unusual amount of credibility, having served in the army, having been to Gaza, you know, recently, having served in Congress, you know, war zones around the world. Curious what your private, if you can tell us anything about what your private interactions with the kind of party establishment have been either in New Jersey or Washington as they've sort of kind of come to terms with the possibility that you might soon be one of their colleagues, that they, that they may not be able to kind of stop you or has has there been any kind of interaction

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

so far? It's been, you know, cordial, you know, at an arm's distance, understanding that, you know, that I do have a possibility of winning. I haven't, you know, I've had, I guess, nods, nods towards that. They see that I am, I have a good possibility of winning and that I might be a future colleague. And so they are, I guess, maneuvering to not close doors right away. I would say, for most of the establishments. I do have some, some definite apac pro Israel, you know, members of the establishment that have not seen my success so far to be a good thing. But that's not something unexpected and not surprising.

[Trita Parsi]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. Josh gottheimer in particular, who's a New Jersey, you know, incumbent, has, you know, put has really kind of pushed some of the smears where we talked about this earlier last week, where they're accusing you of being linked to Al Qaeda and like, like over the top, like complete insane things and got him are kind of pushing that forward, although he's kind of a bit of an exception within even the New Jersey delegation. But I'm wondering how you think of interactions then as the establishment reach out, reaches out, going to a new institution, you're going to be surrounded by people that you're going to want to, that you're going to need to work with. At the same time, you kind of have run against what they've been doing for so long. So how do you think about the possibility of transitioning to an institution that has been responsible for so much of what you're kind of running against.

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

Goal is to, you know, bring a message with my success, hopefully, is that America is moving in another direction. America is moving towards really examining our role here in our communities and your role around the world and that the traditional party politics isn't what they want. And so should I succeed tonight, which I expect, you know, I expect, I hope it will. I think the establishment, they're going to reach out because they see that for them to succeed in the future, that they're going to have to start adopting some of these policies and stances if they want to win votes. So if you want to continue in your seat in New Jersey, if you want to continue in the seat anywhere around the country and the population and especially the Democratic Party is moving in a direction, you Better move in that direction, whether you believe it or not, if you want to stay in office. And so I expect that my victory will signal that to many who are currently in that position.

[Mason Mustafa]

Dr. I mean, I feel like we've seen in the last few years that Americans really do are voting with Gaza in mind. But what are some other things that you found were really prevalent when you were talking to your constituents? What are some of the day to day issues that you heard repeatedly?

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

Well, the day to day issues is affordability. I mean, this is not just in our communities here, but really across the country, people are struggling despite doing everything right, whether it's groceries or now gas prices. Since this new war popped up, it's just skyrocketed. Housing is an issue. So this is something that Americans are feeling all over the country. And, you know, New Jersey's not the exception. And looking and seeing that Wall street seems to be doing great. You got the S and P popping up. You got the billionaires all profiting. They are sick of the corruption and this economy that's not working for them. And then another thing that's prevalent that people are, are really sick and tired. It's really come to focus over the last few weeks. Again, is, is, you know, ICE and the, the transgressions that have been happening, you know, more and more across the country where, you know, we have these detention centers with, you know, horrible conditions, with illegal detention of prisoners and detainees. There we have people getting kidnapped in our streets, in our neighborhoods and people getting killed in America in broad daylight. This is, people are sick of that. And people are rising up and speaking up and want to make sure that this does not continue. Because what we see is our democracy disappearing and this, this rogue police force that, you know, has been, you know, unbound and let loose on the streets is not something that Americans want to see.

[Ryan Grim]

And the audience may or may not know this. You and I first interact and first got to meet back when you were doing one rotation in a hospital in Gaza and Israel had kind of locked the physicians who were there and the nurses who were there from leaving and blocked the new group from coming in and became kind of an international story. And you said, well, I'm not leaving until kind of the new wave of people is able to come in, because if we leave, then it leaves, it leaves this hospital vulnerable. And this is what we heard from a lot of Palestinian nurses and doctors that they felt that the Western doctors at least offered some level of protection, not perfect protection, but something, some sense that the hospital was less likely to get raided or attacked. I'm curious if you've been able to, as these hospitals have been raided and attacked and the personnel scattered, have you been able to keep in touch with many of your Palestinian colleagues from that time period and if so, like what they think of this crazy notion that now you may be joining kind of the House of Representatives, possibly. What do they think of that?

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

I have kept in touch. We are on WhatsApp groups with many of the doctors who have been there and going, and many that are still on the ground, that are Palestinians. And everyone is actually excited to see this change. That even the possibility that I am running and that I, you know, a doctor who's actually been to Gaza and has, has shared that experience with them could even run and, and have a chance of winning, has brought some hope and that, you know, there is a possibility of change and that they are being seen and that they do have a voice. So, you know, it's, it was one of the reasons that prompted me in the first place to start going to Washington. My experience, my, you know, I guess my testimony about what's happening. There's so few people that have been on the ground and felt that and seen what's happening and seeing the actual genocide and taking care of the victims coming back. It wasn't enough to be a doctor, and I had to start going to Washington and telling everyone this is what we're doing with our tax dollars. And many doors were closed and should I get elected into Congress, you know, you have no choice but to listen to what I'm saying and you might not agree or not. I'm not telling everyone. You have to agree, but you have to hear what's happening in Gazelle as well as what's happening here in our country, in our communities here at home every single day. And we need that voice that stands for the people, for humanity, and for human rights here and around the world.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, I know you've got to get. Miss, if you, do you have anything

[Mason Mustafa]

else, otherwise, I mean, any, any last, any last thoughts before let you get

[Ryan Grim]

back on the trail?

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

Yeah, you know, I'm hoping for good news later tonight. You know, if anyone watching this lives in New Jersey, in a district, please get out and vote. Get your friends out. If you live elsewhere, tell everyone this is, this is the way we make change. When we give up and we say that we can't make a difference as individuals, then we've already surrendered. So get out to vote. Call your friends. We have phone banking still going on all day today. So if you go to my website, hamly4nj.com you could sign up and help us through the day to make sure that we have a good turnout and that we could hopefully declare victory later this evening.

[Ryan Grim]

All right. Well, Dr. Adam Hamway, congressional colleague in New Jersey's 12th district, central New Jersey, really appreciate you being here. Good luck the rest of the day out on the, out on the campaign trail. And we'll be watching the returns as they come in tonight. I believe Mesa might even be there with Julie with our congressional colleague Julian. And if you do make it down to Congress, Julian will be harassing you every day in the hallways and outside, making sure.

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

I look forward to it. Yeah, you got to hold me to account like you hold everybody else.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, yes, indeed. We look forward to doing that. All right, Mesa, we're going to have tried to joining in a few moments, but I wanted to, you know, have some time to talk about some of the rest of the races throughout the country. This morning on Breaking Points, we had Dave Dayan from the American Prospect on who lives in Los Angeles. And so he kind of ran us through the, you know, his, his kind of on the ground take on the Los Angeles mayors race, which is a wild one in the California governor's race, which is also, you know, fascinating. If we have time, we can talk about some of those. But just to run through some of the, the other races that are, that are happening throughout the country. So it's not just New Jersey, it's also New Mexico, South Dakota, Montana and California. Montana has an interesting race. I think AOC has endorsed Sam Forstag, but there are a number of progressives in this, in this House race. I think the DCCC is endorsed somebody else. And from what I'm hearing like four stag is probably a serious underdog going in today. That's one we'll keep an eye on. Won't get results of these until extremely late tonight. And then in California we won't get results for weeks because of their combination of their mail in ballot system and some other inability to count votes which I have never been able to completely kind of understand because in Brazil they know within like a half an hour like what the, what the vote tally is. California allows this mail in, you know, has this very, you know, proud tradition of this mail in system this year. And if you're in California, you should know this if, if you don't already this year the Supreme Court has said this whole idea of having your ballot stamped by on election day and Counting when it comes in, which to me sounds completely reasonable because you gave it to the government on election day and they, they put a stamp on it saying it was election day. They're saying, no, that doesn't count if it comes in after. So if you're voting today with your mail in ballot, you have to take it to a voting center, you have to, you have to hand deliver it to one of the official places or it's not going to count. This is a new rule. So this could, this could really kind of shake up the race. Dan was telling us that ballots went out about a month ago, but Democrats in particular because the race and for governor was such a mess. Eric Swalwell was the front runner. Then he, he collapses and people are like, well, maybe Katie Porter will come back. Nope, she didn't. Then there's this like completely fake social media surge around Becerra. But the, it faked it till it made it. And so now he's, you know, you know, significantly, you know, has a good chance of being in the top two. Billionaire Tom Steyer, who has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money to run for president and fund a lot of progressive organizations. He funded a bunch of influencers who then said good things about Tom Steyer. But he's running as this kind of populist class trader who's going to say, I don't need the big money, I don't need the corporate money because I have my own. So that's going to make it so that I speak for you as kind of an old school, kind of right wing populist tradition, actually that you'll have a, like a Berlusconi type who's like, I'm not corrupt because I'm so rich. He ended up being one of the most corrupt, like corrupt even for Italy kind of politician. And then you, Steve Hilton, who is the Republican hoping to crack into the top two. But you also have San Francisco race.

[Mason Mustafa]

We covered that this weekend. Do you wanna, there have been some, we've seen some discourse since that, that article was published. Do you kind of want to iron out what, what people have been saying?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And our headline was. And you could pull it up if you have it handy. The headline was, was basically that APAC has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to a super PAC network that is backing Connie Chan. Connie Chan is a supervisor who has the support of Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, but also a number of kind of grassroots progressive groups. And since Pelosi offered her endorsement A bunch of this super PAC money has come in. It has since been. The super PAC network has confirmed that they do move money between these different packs. And that, and it is 100 true that APAC, APAC super PAC which is called United Democracy Project, made a $250,000 contribution to this super PAC, EDW Action Fund, which is affiliated with Pro Choice Majority Pack, which is spending on behalf of Connie Chan. And, and the spokesperson for EDW Action Fund has said, yes, we do. You know, it's the same, you know, the same leadership and we do move money between these PACs. When asked if the APAC contribution came with any strings attached about who could be supported or what their positions on Israel would have to be, he has declined to comment on that question. And so now the question, of course is, does that mean that Connie Chan is pro Israel? No, it doesn't. If this is what was happening, it would suggest that the establishment believes that she would be easier to beat for Scott Wiener, who will have endless amounts of money in the general election, whereas she has struggled to raise money. And Shoikat Chakrabarti, who's the co founder of Justice Democrats, the former AOC chief of staff is a centimillionaire himself and has pledged to spend enormous amounts of money. He was like the second engineer at Stripe and so he's just awash in cash that he's willing to spend. We'll talk more tonight, I think if we can, if you guys are able to get a live stream up, we'll talk more about the rest of the races in California and we'll be covering them as we go forward. I see, I see Trita is, is here. So while we've, while we've got him, let's, let's check. Yeah. How's it, how's the audio and everything? Trita, how you doing?

[Trita Parsi]

I'm doing well. How are you guys doing?

[Ryan Grim]

You sound good. You've met Mesa before, right?

[Mason Mustafa]

No, this is our first time.

[Trita Parsi]

I think it is the first time. How are you doing?

[Mason Mustafa]

Doing good. Good to meet you. I've seen you everywhere in the last few months.

[Trita Parsi]

Thank you. It was great to meet you as well.

[Ryan Grim]

Usually not a good sign when, when treated as everywhere.

[Dr. Adam Hamway]

Yeah.

[Trita Parsi]

Markets crash.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. All right, so some, some genuinely fascinating developments over the past couple, over the past couple of days. You had, you have Israel ramping up their assault on Lebanon and we're going to have Layla Unison later to talk about what that looks like kind of on, on the ground there and then issuing an evacuation order for like half of Beirut, suggesting that they're going to launch another, you know, brutal campaign there. Iran responds by saying, all right, we're done with this. Like, we're, we're out of here. Like, we're not talking to the mediators anymore. Like, we have been very clear that ending the war in Lebanon is part of this. And you seem deeply unserious about doing that. They previously had said, put a leash on your dog immediately. Trump calls Netanyahu. Netanyahu calls off the attack on Beirut. We've then had some developments, some claims and counterclaims about what has been agreed to since then. But, so I wanted to get from you, like, like, where, where do you see us? Where do you see us now? What do you think is the most credible analysis of the current state of the agreement among all of the different players? Great.

[Trita Parsi]

Great to be with you. Ryan had conversations with folk on the U. On the US Side, and their sense is that they are close. I know it sounds strange because we keep on hearing that and a lot of challenges. Yeah, eventually it will be true. And of course, when it comes to the Iranians cutting it off, I saw the Washington Post report that is not corresponding with what I was hearing from the Iranian side, in which essentially they said that they had issued a threat to close off or suspend negotiations, but hadn't actually suspended. And it's also very important to understand the choice of the word suspend. It does mean that it's a temporary pause. It does not mean that they're cutting off negotiations altogether. It would mean that they're change, you know, they're pausing it until circumstances change back to where they want it to be. But even that, as I understand, has not happened, but rather it is more of a threat, a threat that seems to have worked because we saw. I know there's going to be a lot of question marks as to whether the axis story is entirely true. And I think there's good reasons for people to be quite skeptical about a lot of these different things. It is particularly important to be skeptical about it. Mindful of the fact of how the Biden administration kept on saying that they were really tough on Netanyahu behind the scenes, whereas. But in front of the cameras, they kept the united front. I just put up something on my substack that doesn't in any way shape or form say that, look, what Axel said here with Trump, actually, it happened exactly the way they said. But I did point out that there is a history, counterpoints to that Biden pattern in which Trump actually has lashed out very aggressively and very openly against Netanyahu at specific moments and has put pressure on them. The problem has always been that he doesn't sustain the pressure. But the fact that there's been these moments, I think we have a couple of quite important examples of everything from what we saw last summer when the ceasefire had been reached between Israel and Iran, and then the Israelis began to violate it, and Trump had a bit of a meltdown almost on the White House lawn, and he dropped the F bomb as well and said that he's very unhappy with the Israelis. He had issues, those tweets ordering the Israeli jets to return. And then, of course, what we saw happen after the Israelis had struck Doha, in which a group of regional countries came together and pressed Trump, and he forced Netanyahu to apologize to the Emirates. And once the story broke that he had apologized, Netanyahu denied the apology. And then the White House responded by publishing the picture of him reading an apology from a piece of paper while holding the phone. So we have seen that type of a public pressure from Trump on the Israelis before. What we have not seen is for it to be sustained. And, of course, it's too short of a time now to judge as to whether that will happen with. With Trump. But I think it was the reaction by the White House was the right one, because for the Iranians, making sure that this regional ceasefire holds, that is region wide, is not just limited to Iran is a red line. They're not going to compromise on this. And it's not because they're trying to be sympathetic to the Lebanese people. That's an element of it. There is a narrative that the Iranians abandoned Lebanon in 2024.

[Leila Yunus]

They.

[Trita Parsi]

They definitely want to make sure that that is not fueled or validated by this agreement. But it's also because they recognize one, if Israel continues to bomb Lebanon and Gaza, that regional, that instability will eventually spill over into an Israeli Iranian war. It already has, twice. And if you're trying to get a deal that actually holds, particularly if you're asked to give irreversible nuclear concessions that you will not get back if the war restarts, then it's really critical to make sure that the peace actually holds and that cannot tolerate the Israelis continuing that warfare. And secondly, because this is a way of testing whether Trump is serious, as you mentioned, leash your dog. If Trump is unwilling or incapable of holding the Israelis back, then what is the value of a deal with the United States? This is the questions the Iranians are asking themselves. That's why I think that the Lebanese red Line is very, very serious. And I think the American side took it very seriously. But again, as in the past, the question is not whether Trump lashes out. The question is if the pressure is sustained. And I wrote on myself second, another plan that I think the Iranians may use. In the scenario in which there is an agreement, the Israelis do honor the ceasefire, but within a week or two, they start to wiggle out, because that's another scenario that the Iranians are very worried about and in some ways is more tricky than the current one.

[Ryan Grim]

And by the way, the substack is called tree to Parsi. I highly recommend people check that out and subscribe to it. It's very much worth it just to follow up on that. It seems like the Israelis are intent on staying or keeping as much of territory inside Lebanon as they can, and that they're trying to work out a ceasefire agreement that is similar to Gaza in the sense that they just then draw a yellow line and say, okay, this is where we are. And they start building forts and they, they build a new reality on, on the ground. How does, how does Hezbollah counteract that? Like the. How, like, how do you see that?

[Trita Parsi]

This.

[Ryan Grim]

It feels like an unbridgeable. It seems like diplomacy is. It would be very hard for diplomacy to bridge these two positions. That feels like they want the territory and Hezbollah wants the territory, that they got to fight it out. So how do you see that wrapping up?

[Trita Parsi]

First of all, what you're saying is absolutely true. And the Israelis are not even hiding it. This is completely transparent about their objectives, and they have a playbook. They have a blueprint on how to do this. They grab this territory and they say it's a buffer zone. And then over the years, the buffer zone becomes essentially cemented. And eventually Western countries recognize it as they did with the Golan Heights. And now Israel needs a buffer zone to protect the Golan Heights. So the buffer zone needs another buffer zone and another buffer zone. And this is how you expand the territory. This is how you establish that greater Israel and military dominance, that the Israelis, again, are actually quite transparent about talking. It's not a mystery. It's not a conspiracy. And if that is the approach that they're taking, then there is going to be more warfare unless the United States pressures the Israelis and tell them that this is not acceptable. Because without the US's support, whether it is financial, whether it is military, whether it is political and diplomatic support, the Israelis cannot do this. Even the annexation of the Golan was never recognized until the Abraham Accords. Only then did it end up becoming recognized by the U.S. of course, it's not recognized by a large number of other countries, but the US Is one that essentially moves the goalpost on behalf of Israel. So if it stops doing that, and I know it's asking for a lot, but bottom line is it's either that or there's going to be renewed warfare. Hezbollah did kick out the Israelis from Lebanon with the withdrawal that eventually did occur when Ariel Sharon withdrew. Sorry, when the Israelis eventually withdrew from southern Lebanon. And that was because the cost of sustaining that occupation just ended up becoming too high. So the Israelis have been there before. They know it's very difficult now. They have confidence in their technology. But now, just in the last couple of weeks, we've seen that how the technology of Hezbollah is also turning the winds of the wars of fortune around in Hezbollah's favor because they're using these fiber optic drones that the Israelis had no preparation for, and it's causing a lot of casualties on the Israeli side. It's part of the reason why Netanyahu is under so much domestic pressure to do something to turn the Lebanese front into a win, given the fact that the Israelis had such a high expectation that it would be not just a win, but an easy win because they had drunk their own Kool Aid thinking that Hezbollah had been just more or less devastated following the pager attacks back in September 2024.

[Mason Mustafa]

Trita, can you give us some context on where the Gulf is right now in the conversation? We've seen some back and forth over the last week. Kuwait was hit a couple of times. What are their opinions on Lebanon's, you know, place in the deal? Are they, as they're in a complicated position where, of course, they do send out a lot of condemnations to Israel. But is it the same behind the scenes as well? Do you think it's.

[Trita Parsi]

I think that they're tilting obviously, in favor of making sure that it is included, because they also recognize that if it isn't included, it does bring about the risk of renewed warfare. And they're far more vulnerable to this warfare than many of the other states are. I mean, their economy is based on the idea that they're an island of stability over there. And we've seen that just not a little stability, but just the element of instability in the Persian Gulf has a dramatic and very negative effect for many of these different countries. But I think there's also another concern that some of them at least had, which is that this has enabled the Iranians to really present themselves as the defender not of Hezbollah, but of Lebanon's territorial integrity and independence. And this is not something that necessarily goes down particularly well in many of the GCC capitals. They don't want to see the Iranians be able to essentially have that reputation or that standing as being the one country that stood up to Israel and actually managed to push back the Israelis. Given the fact that the GCC countries have really not really tried. And to the extent that they have, they clearly have not succeeded. And this again is giving the Iranians, we've already seen that as a result of this war, a different standing in the Arab streets than they had before. They had a very strong standing 20 or so years ago. But then, of course, because of Iran's involvement in Syria, it really damaged Iran's reputation dramatically. Now we're seeing that they're finding a way of rebuilding it, and particularly if they make sure that their own results in the war with the US And Israel also translates into positive developments for other countries in the region, particularly those who have been on the receiving end of Israel. That will definitely be something that strengthens their standing in the region amongst the populations, but that is going to be seen as at least to a certain extent, problematic by many of the other GCC states.

[Ryan Grim]

So the, the new kind of strategy that I am picking up from some pro Israel advocates, I want to lay it out and tell me if you think that I'm picking up on something accurate or that is, like, that has some real kind of weight behind it. It seems like what I'm. What I'm seeing a lot is people saying, all right, if we admit defeat now, if we reach a deal, we have, we have lost, we have empowered Iran. They, they remain in control of the Strait of Hormuz. They will be able to cut multilateral deals with other governments. Their ballistic missile production capacity has maybe has been set back a little bit. But, you know, this is just, you know, steel and labor, they can put this stuff back together. So therefore, we cannot do that. What we can do is just nothing and just bide our time and hope that the increasing kind of economic precarity of people's lives inside Iran leads somehow to some uprising, like the uprising that they hope to get before. It seems like they were chastened several weeks ago and kind of have backed off this idea that people were going to rise up and overthrow the government. But. But now it seems like there's. They're. They're clinging to that hope again and they're saying like. And I think I saw it was Mark Dubowitz of the head of FDD saying maybe it'll take two and a half years. And I guess from very precise, right from Israel's perspective, their economy is not getting hit as bad as some other economies around the world or as bad as ours will get hit soon. And so the cost of that strategy may be less than reaching a deal at this point. So is that the new kind of FTD approved approach? Just don't do a deal, just wait them out, keep the blockade going. And is that physically possible for the US to maintain with oil inventories reaching the bottom of the barrel?

[Trita Parsi]

So the first part of the question, yes, absolutely. This is, I think, very important to also for some of the folks on the Iranian side who are resisting a deal to understand, which is if Iran has managed to advance its position as a result of the way this war has ended, at the end of the day, that doesn't really count for much. Unless you negotiate and you get a new acceptance of an uncontested order in the region in which you get your sanctions relief and all of these other things, you're not going to get sanctions relief on the battlefield. You will only get that at the negotiating table. And only through that will you also be able to get a new accepted order in the region. If you don't, that will then become a new, a new normal, a new stabilizing point. In the absence of that, then you are still in a very dynamic situation, a very fluid situation in which whatever gains the Iranians have made in the short term now could easily be lost one way or another over the course of the next couple of months and years. And this is what the FTD and that crowd is really looking at, making sure that the Iranians do not manage to consolidate their gains from through a deal. But rather if there is no consolidation, then you do have the opportunity of being able to reverse it. Now, whether they can, whether it's going to be easy, whether it's going to be within two and a half years, et cetera, that's a different story. The key thing is to make sure do not allow the Iranians to consolidate their gains by striking a deal with the United States. And particularly mindful of the fact that there is no deal that the Iranians can strike that they can agree to, that does not entail a significant amount of sanctions relief. And sanctions relief is really the utter red line of the Israelis. War was a very nice to have thing because it's something that degrades Iran in the short term. But for a very long period of time, it does so. But even short of war, which is high cost, it's high risk, it carries all kinds of challenges which they're now faced with. Sanctions is that type of a low grade destruction of a country over decades. And as long as that remains in place, the Israelis will still have the success of having these shackles on the Iranian economy. That does significantly limit Iran's ability to live up to its full potential. You get a deal as a result of this war that lifts the sanctions. Not only do you not have war any longer, now you actually have sanctions relief as well. That will fundamentally change the situation to the detriment of Israel, at least from the perspective of the current leaders of Israel. So they will do everything they can in preventing that. And it's particularly important right now because this is not a negotiation that starts off in the same manner that we saw in 2012, 2013, in which the Obama administration recognized that sanctions were not going to be able to cripple Iran's economy faster than Iran's nuclear program could, could grow. Now, the starting point of the negotiation is that the American military option has been tried and it has failed. So the Iranians are in a historically much stronger position relative to the United States in striking a strong bargain for themselves. So this is the worst moment from FTD and that cross perspective for negotiations to take place. They would oppose negotiations under any circumstances, but this is the worst possible moment. And what's so striking is that on the Iranian side you have hardliners. And I know these terms are becoming a little bit tired, but there are elements there, perhaps we shouldn't put a label on it, that are so suspicious of the United States, that are so fearing that this negotiation is just aimed at winning time and that the US and Israel will attack them again in six to 12 months. And that if you believe that war is going to come regardless because you don't trust this deal, and the question is, are you better off having that confrontation now or are you better off having it later? And they're tilting towards the direction that if there is going to be a confrontation, have it now under these current circumstances, than to have it a year later in which the US And Israel will be able to recuperate faster than the Iranians will be able to recuperate. But that is all premised on the idea that there is no deal, that the deal is inevitably going to be betrayed by the US and to be frank, it's understandable that the Iranians have that perspective or at least some of them do. But if that is the perspective, then it means there never will be a deal. And then Iran will have to accept being in a permanent state of warfare, an endless war. And I don't see that being an attractive option whatsoever for them. Because without sanctions relief, how are they going to rebuild their economy? And if they can't rebuild their economy, how are they going to face future wars? Sanctions relief is not an economic issue. It's a security issue. Without it, they will not be able to rebuild themselves in order to deter future attacks.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, maybe. To add to that, the American public wants a deal, and the American public wants this war over. The American public does not want to restart the war and is increasingly resentful of the relationship that we have with Israel, where the American public feels like we got into this for Israel, and I understand why. From the Iranian perspective, they don't care. And they think that there is no connection between the will, the democratic will of the American public and the decisions made by the American government. But there is some tether still left between the public and our government. And our government. And we're going to have elections. Like, even though Democrats were saying 2024 is the last election ever, turns out here we are, 2026, it's election day, we're casting votes again. We'll see what happens in the midterms. But then there's another presidential election. So it is not as if Trump and Netanyahu are going to be in office forever. So that. So getting a deal. It doesn't mean that for decades, there's a constant risk of the US doing that if the American people can kind of enact their will through some type of pressure on politicians. And we're seeing it a little, we're seeing it, but there's enormous amount of pushback as well.

[Trita Parsi]

By the way, clearly the Iranians are seeing it as well. They may not believe their eyes, but if you take a look at the premise of most of these AI videos that are being produced that have, you know, been so successful, that is the premise. They are pushing these buttons that have created that distinction, that distance between the American public and Israel, whether it's the Epstein or whether the way Netanyahu has pushed the US into these wars. So clearly they see something, because they wouldn't be doing all of these AI videos pushing those buttons if those buttons did not exist.

[Ryan Grim]

What would you tell them about that question? The question of can they trust the United States? To what level can they trust the United States and will this kind of newfound position of the American people, which was reflected in the 2024 election, but then betrayed. Like how much faith should they put in that, if any?

[Trita Parsi]

So I wouldn't advise either side to necessarily put any trust onto the other. I think trust is something that is built up over time as a deal ends up becoming successful and the pattern of interaction between the two states starts to become predictable. It isn't at this point the only prediction is that they will do the opposite of what they say, or whatever the deal they sign, they will betray. I think that is something we have to put aside till later on. What I would ask them is to trust is their own analysis of how the world looks like and where the likely trends are. There is an absolute risk of Iran and the United States coming into blows again, even if there is a deal. There is no denying of that. The question is, how is Iran going to position itself to make sure that on the one hand you minimize that risk and on the other hand you maximize your preparation in case that minimization of that risk doesn't pay off. And I just don't see a scenario in which not having a deal puts the Iranians in a better position or puts the US In a better position, both in terms of minimizing the risk, but also as a result of the sanctions relief being able to build the economy, which also is not only important from the standpoint of them being able to rebuild their deterrence and their defenses, but ultimately the Iranian government has to really ask itself how come the Mossad was so successful in getting so many recruits inside of Iran that ended up working with the Israelis against their own country as people who had been recruited by the Israeli intelligence service. That game of flipping people is a numbers game. It all depends on how many prospects you have. And when you have a government that has mistreated its own people as severely as the Iranian government has, it produces a large number of prospects. So it should see its own repression against the population as a national security threat. And in order to overcome that, again, all comes down to the economics. They need to have sanctions relief in order to be able to build a society that doesn't have these problems. It doesn't mean that the political repression goes away automatically. That has to be dealt with, of course, in and of itself. But the economic misfortune, which is a combination of sanctions, mismanagement and corruption, is a critical element in the sense of being able to bring about instability or getting outside players to be able to foment instability inside the country. So if you take A look at, in my view, from a more holistic perspective, I just don't see why an absence of a deal would pay off better for the Iranians. I fully understand their mistrust. Their experience certainly legitimizes a significant degree of paranoia, and I'm not using that word in a negative sense, but there's also a point in which that paranoia becomes paralyzing and you miss the opportunities that actually exist in front of you that are good, that are not bad opportunities, or you misperceive everything as a bad thing. So, for instance, the Iranians have at times become very suspicious of the fact that Trump has been flexible on numerous issues in the negotiations. And they're wondering, why is he being so flexible? There must be something suspicious about that. And when he's not being flexible and is driving a maximalist bargain, then they point to that as something being very suspicious that indicates that he's not serious. So once you've end up in that type of a mentality in which whatever the other side does, you're suspicious of it, then I think the paranoia has gone into the territory of paralysis that ultimately is detrimental to your own self interest.

[Ryan Grim]

Last thing for me, I know you got to run in a second and I don't know if base has anything else quickly, like, what is China up to lately? I know you've been watching. They're watching them. Watch this, like, what is, what is the latest on kind of their posture?

[Trita Parsi]

My understanding, and we've had a team from Quincy that recently just got back from China and had conversations about this and other issues, is that at the end outset they were very worried about the war and the impact of it. They are still not happy about it. They need the blockade to be lifted. They need to be able to buy their oil. Now they're in a much more protected or insulated situation compared to many other states. A lot of countries in Asia are really suffering. They didn't have deep reserves, they were very vulnerable to fuel exports going down, etc. And of course the price of energy is very, very detrimental to them. The Chinese were better insulated, but they're nevertheless affected by the manner in which all of the other economies around them are now affected so negatively. But they're not in a dire situation. They're not in the situation that the Trump administration apparently seemed to have hoped in which they would be so pressed by this economic problems that they would be willing to put pressure on the Iranians. I do think that the Chinese at specific moments are willing to put pressure on Tehran. But that's when there is some sort of a reasonable proposal on the table that they think that the Iranians should accept. I'm not so sure that they are quite yet in that type of or that they're perceiving the situation that way quite yet. And as a result, they're staying out of this. They don't want to have their name on this. They don't want to be they don't want to do anything in which they will have to share the blame for what Trump has started here.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, treat of Parsi and analysts with the Quincy Institute and the author of the the must read Trita Parsi substack. Always, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for thanks so

[Trita Parsi]

much for having me. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, you got it. And so as Trita was saying, you know, central to the inability of the US And Iran to reach an agreement to end this war is Israel's insistence on continuing to pummel Lebanon. There's pushback on that in Congress this week. And we're going to be joined in a moment by Sean Vicker, who's executive director of Demand Progress, which is lobbying on this war powers resolution that is pushing to put a halt to US Support for Israel's war in Lebanon. But first, we're going to be joined by Leila Yunus, dropsite contributor and author of a piece that is not, I don't think it's quite up yet. Let me see if I can, well, let me see if I can put it up here. Layla, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate you being here.

[Leila Yunus]

Yeah, thanks for having me.

[Ryan Grim]

And so the headline might change before it's published, but current, current headline, this is our little snapshot of our preview backend. You either leave right now or you die. Israel's ethnic cleansing of Ayn Arab Israeli soldiers went door to door in the border village, forcing residents from their homes at gunpoint as part of a systematic campaign to empty large swaths of southern Lebanon. And I think this is instructive of what is going on more broadly across southern Lebanon. But can you tell us what you found and how it sits in the context of Israel's campaign, which I should add comes amidst technically a ceasefire. All of this is happening amidst a ceasefire, which as hard as that may be to believe.

[Leila Yunus]

Right. Well, we know how Israel typically runs ceasefires these days. But so what I learned about Ainadab is just to set the scene a little bit. This is is a village located in the, in the plains in the southern part of the country near the border, near the southern border. It's a small agricultural community, really just a small collection of houses. So during the escalated fighting after March 2, the residents of that village fled, many of them to the B valley. And then when the ceasefire was announced in mid April, they went home. That very same day, Israeli soldiers strode into their village from the south, which is actually from the direction of the Wazen and also near the village of where you, you know, people following might have heard a lot of fighting that happened around there. So village is very close to that village. And so they strode into the village and they told everyone, you shouldn't be here, there's a curfew, don't go outside your homes after dark. And they left. Life kind of goes back to semi normal. Bombing in the distance, but people go back to their agricultural work. Prepare the spring harvest. Twelve days later, my main source, Nasreen Abdullah, she's at her family's little corner store behind the counter and she sees a large armored bulldozer coming down the road towards her and behind it a large number of Israeli military vehicles. Her estimation is over 100 soldiers in total. Kind of flood into the village and immediately tell people, you leave right now or you die. They pointed, they went home door to door, pointed their guns at residents. They told them, you have two hours. But according to Nassideen, they didn't even give them that. And additional testimonies that I was able to verify from other residents, people didn't even have time, some of them, to lock their doors behind them. Nasreen had run into her house to try to at least get her family's passports and a couple belongings. And she had put her kids in the pickup truck and went back to the house to get stuff. And she just hears the pickup trunks, horn honking. She runs outside. There's an Israeli soldier who's basically opened the door of her vehicle while her kids are in it and is honking the horn and tells her, you get in the car, you drive right now, you drive away right now or we shoot you. And so that is how the village of Aina Arab was basically ethnically cleansed. Neither the human rights advocates I've spoken to about the story, nor the residents that I spoke to, you know, could tell me about this situation happening really anywhere else in the south. It is, it does seem to be a rarity, this level of kind of door to door at gunpoint ethnic cleansing. However, you know, I do see it as emblematic of kind of where, what Israel is doing in the south, right, we're talking about dozens and dozens of villages that have been, you know, swallowed into this quote, unquote, yellow line that Israel declared on April 19 saying no one will be allowed to, you know, re enter these villages. There's an estimated 60 villages that have been completely destroyed south of this yellow line. And now obviously, they are moving further north and exacting widespread destruction on the city of Sword, which I wrote about for my last story for drop site, as well as now in the story today, we talk about the city of Novatiye, which is experiencing very heavy airstrikes. And so casualties mounting, even as, of course, all the diplomatic parties attempt to reach some sort of a ceasefire in southern Lebanon.

[Ryan Grim]

And this is kind of a trivial question in the context of everything that's going on, but it's such a horrifying scene. Like, what. Was she able to get her wallet and her identification papers, like a passport? Like, was she able to get back in it, or was it just.

[Leila Yunus]

No, she told me that she was able to grab her passport and nothing else, and then she left her house. Others weren't even able to. To grab that. And remember, this is, you know, an agricultural community. So they live, They're. They survive off of this land. So their spring harvest is effectively destroyed after, you know, just to remind people who don't know, one of the worst droughts that Lebanon has seen in decades and years of war and displacement. So, you know, she told me, I think the quote from the article is to say we are destroyed is an understatement.

[Ryan Grim]

What is. And then, Mason, you jump in. But what is the. What is the planting season? There is like a bay. Are they planting, harvesting, like, what's. What are the crops there?

[Leila Yunus]

So people from these types of villages, they're really harvesting what they eat. So watermelons are. It's the harvest of the watermelon right now. They're also, you know, planting cucumbers, tomatoes, the kinds of things. I mean, there are the larger cash crops, and tobacco is the main one. Obviously, the olive season, that's in the fall. But right now, you know, they're planting. They're planting for food for their families, and they're not. They're not getting adequate amounts of that at the shelter, which is deeply underfunded. Yeah.

[Mason Mustafa]

I mean, before I do, I. We need to talk about sur. But I think whenever you look at the story, it's hard not to envision the same stories that you hear about the NECBA, right. In 48. And I think something about the south that a lot of people don't realize is whenever you look at Israel's strategy with Palestine, you have Gaza, who they know Israel from here, you have the west bank, who knows Israel from here. South is they know both in both strategies, right? What, like, what are people saying? Do they feel, do they feel like this is the peak of the ethnic cleansing? You know this. The southern Lebanese have been face to face with Israelis multiple times. What, how is this different for them? Whenever you're speaking to the elders, does it feel different?

[Leila Yunus]

People have told me that this is the worst that they've experienced. I think just the extent of the destruction also the speed by which it's happening. The story that's about to come out. Also you know where I quoted an amnesty, a new amnesty report that's coming out tomorrow where they basically compared this war even to the last one in 2024. And even in, you know, those two situations, this one is much, much more intense just in terms of the, the evacuation orders are more sweeping. They're delivered in kind of FL flurries in a very confusing manner. I mean, just yesterday the Israelis say, everybody, we're about to start bombing, you know, Dahia, the southern suburbs. And then by the evening they weren't anymore. But by that point you had already displaced, you know, hundreds of thousands of people who you've already displaced so many times before. So it's just like the psychological toll. And then obviously if you look at the southern border villages, right? I mean, southerners, as you said, they're not strangers to occupation and engage incursions and invasions. That was the 90s, right? It was just repeated operations. Operation Grapes of Wrath, of course is the most famous, which ended in the, in the Anna massacre. Just kind of seared into the collective consciousness of southern Lebanese. But you know, this is repeating at a rate, at a, at a, at a kind of scope that is very shocking. And you know, for people like those of Vine Arab, it's also just the, the, the, the back to back, you know, displacement. What, actually what's interesting about that village is that they, you know, left, they fled. And then they looked at the map and they said, hey listen, we're actually not even within this yellow line. They got, I think their hopes maybe came up for a second. They said, oh, we're not even in the yellow line. So they dispatched their, their mayor to the Lebanese army office in Marjayun and they presented him with the map and they said, hey listen, we're not in this yellow line. Can you asked the United nations mechanism in southern Lebanon to advocate for us so we can go back to our homes and finish the planting season. Until now, they haven't heard back from the army and they haven't been able to. They haven't been guaranteed that safe return. So it just shows you that even these, this yellow line and these designations are completely arbitrary. They're changing rapidly. There isn't any sort of discernible calculus here besides mass destruction, mass and mass, you know, instability really, and mass punishment of a people.

[Ryan Grim]

And as you know, this latest round began with the Israelis claiming that Hezbollah was like kind of pretending to be journalists and medics. And then what followed was a kind of mass murder spree of journalists and then also of, of medics in the region. Attacks on hospitals in a way that felt, you know, quite sophisticated and deliberate in destroying the kind of means to sustain just basic life. You need schools, you need hospitals, you need medical workers, like, and in order to get rid of all that, you get rid of the journalists ahead of time. When, when you, what with your understanding of what has been done to southern Lebanon in the past several months, what are, what are we looking at it when it comes to reconstruction? You know, I know, and I believe you've written about this as well. You know, people, you know, pulling together money to buy satellite photos to try to figure out if their home has been destroyed or not. What, what if, if magically today, every single Israeli soldier walked south back to Israel across the border. Like, what, what are we looking at? What are we looking at?

[Leila Yunus]

I mean, some, some sources have used the word herbicide, definitely comparisons to Gaza level destruction just in terms of complete flattening of earth. We have to remember as well that they've gone back to using white phosphorus, which burns the land in an area where people live off the land. And so then you look at also the more densely populated areas. You look at Sur, for example. Just yesterday they bombed right next to Jabal Amel Hospital, a major hospital in Sur.

[Mason Mustafa]

The.

[Leila Yunus]

I mean, you know, you see four people killed, over 120 injured, right? And when we say injured, I think that that's just a word that's often kind of thrown out as the injury cutting on people maimed, disabled times permanently disabled individuals here. So that's going to create a massive strain on the hospital sector. Lebanon doesn't have a lot of inputs in terms of, you know, where it's getting its medications from abroad. So just like the last war, we're already seeing massive shortages of essential medications, you know, essential tools that are needed to kind of do these types of emergency Surgeries that are required in a war zone. And then when we talk about infrastructure, you know, they've. They've even been threatening the Araon Dam, which would, you know, be quite a project to destroy. But if they actually went through with that project, we're talking about massive downstream flooding and agricultural fields. I mean, that, that could amount, you know, could amount to something in the form of an eco side. Right. So the three threats and the, the destruction of roads, bridges, hospitals, schools. We have to remember, this is not the equation of. This is not post 2006 July war anymore. The geopolitics of the region have changed after 2006. You know, you had Gulf countries step in and offer funding to help rebuild the South. Let's remember, they offered Syria to help rebuild Syria. No one's rebuilding Syria. Why? Because. Because those countries have just come out of a war that might not even be over. So the calculus has completely changed. And it really does seem like no one's gonna come to Lebanon's rescue. Obviously, Iran is also economically devastated, and that has its own infrastructural devastation after the war with Israel. So I think we're looking at a generational, maybe even multi generational period of reconstruction, highly dependent on the Diaspora to step in and offer funds and help. We've seen, you know, the people of Dearborn, Michigan, already offered to rebuild their village. Vintage bid. You know, I think that we're going to have to see a lot more of that. Although right now, of course, the destruction is ongoing. And I think that's the. You said what if the Israelis pull out tomorrow? It doesn't look like they will be. It looks like this destruction could go on for a while. We've.

[Mason Mustafa]

Oh, sorry, Ryan. Do you want to go first? Go ahead.

[Ryan Grim]

No, just if you have one more thing, I'll. And we'll bring in Sean, but go ahead. A few.

[Mason Mustafa]

I mean, yeah, just before we go into. We'll be talking to Sean, who will be talking about Rashida Tlib's recent push for the War Powers resolution. What? You know, and we. We talked also to Trita recently about Lebanon's role in the negotiations. Right. Do people in Lebanon, the conversations you're having, do they see. Do they see that they have an important role in the negotiations, or do they see the war as some. As something that's actually separate? As we've said, Israel doesn't really abide by these ceasefires. Whenever it comes to Palestine and Lebanon, do they have any hope in this deal?

[Leila Yunus]

The people that I am speaking to are not very hopeful about the prospect of these negotiations. I think for the very simple reason that Lebanon isn't exactly going to the negotiating table with the Americans with any real cars, any real leverage. You know, the government obviously hasn't been able to disarm Hezbollah. You know, the Americans want to basically force the government to disarm Hezbollah by force. And we know that, you know, the government's not going to do that. That would potentially lead to massive internal strife. This is a country that's been through a civil war before. And I think that what, what we saw yesterday was pretty clear. It's really the Iranians that kind of put their foot down and said negotiations are going to get derailed if the Israelis Bombay route. And so that led to, you know, the, the flurry of diplomatic activity and so on. And so, you know, I think it, it, it looks like political theater to a lot of people here. It looks like a hedge, a gamble and not necessarily, and one that really threatens to alienate large swaths of the Lebanese public.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, I don't know if you can stick around or not. I think you might be interested in hearing what's going on in Washington, whether or how much it relates to whether anything is actually going to change. But bring in Sean Victor now who's the executive director of the organization Demand Progress, which, which worth works with both kind of Democrats and Republicans on, on Capitol Hill. I guess Massey's still there, so, you know, even though he lost his primary, still, still a member of Congress. And so. Yes. So Rashida Tlaib has introduced a, a Lebanon War Powers Resolution. And the way that these work, a, a rank and file member of Congress can, can introduce these and they can, they have a privileged status on, on the floor. Now there's some things the leadership can do to, to monkey with that and prevent a vote. And I don't quite understand why, but for some reason President Trump has always given weight to these resolutions. They, they influences policy making in ways that other votes or resolutions in Congress don't. He's willing to ignore some things. These he seems to pay attention to. So, Sean, first of all, thanks for joining us here.

[Sean Victor]

Thanks for having me.

[Ryan Grim]

And so, yeah, can you set the stage for us? Like what, what is this? Like where are we in the, in the resolution process and where is the kind of, where the Democratic and Republican leadership when it comes to how to push their members on this?

[Sean Victor]

Well, you know, Dropsite did some of the best work on this in recent history when I think it was Julian was challenging or somebody else on your team was challenging Representative Meeks. You know, there's a.

[Ryan Grim]

There's a Lily, our intern. Lillian. Lillian Franks. That's right. Yeah.

[Sean Victor]

It was excellent. And there's a layer under.

[Ryan Grim]

Under Julian's tutelage.

[Sean Victor]

Excellent. That sounds like a great internship. There is a layer of a congressional structure. Weeds. If we have time, I'm happy to get into more of them. But the short form is that there is a lot of structure in Congress designed to shield, frankly, bad members of Congress. And so what we saw then was Representative Meeks refusing to force forward a vote. So, Ryan, you described it correctly. There is the power for even rank and file members, anybody, in theory, to force a vote on specifically war powers resolutions. It's one of the reasons why it's the most. One of the most important tools that Congress has to address these things. What we see from Democratic leadership all too often is avoiding pushing those questions. Calling the question, meanwhile, is critical for accountability. It's not until you have, you know, the public attention on Representative Meeks holding a winnable vote before a long recess, at which point, you know, Congress has the ability to step in, step up and say, donald Trump, we are asserting our power to rein this in, or just waiting for, you know, a few weeks to see what happens. That was unacceptable. However, there have been, you know, more war powers resolutions advanced. Obviously, we need such votes around Lebanon. Obviously they should pass. Obviously, Congress has the power to declare war. And obviously this administration is absolutely misusing its executive power to just start whatever war it wants. So what we have now is obviously Representative Talib leading further efforts. Democratic leadership should get behind it. The truth of the matter is these should be coming from the top of the Democratic Party. And, you know, I'll let you guide the conversation, but, you know, broadly speaking, I think it's time for the Democratic Party and everybody who supports them to ask some really hard questions about who is leading on foreign policy, on war, on surveillance, on civil liberties, on, frankly, the protection of our democracy in the Democratic Party, because a number of the people who should be leading this forward, like Representative Meeks, are failing us in a critical moment and maybe a last gasp of the United States that we have known our entire lives.

[Ryan Grim]

You make a really interesting point there where just from a crass kind of political perspective, the war is extraordinarily unpopular, and Trump and the Republican Party are very unpopular because of the war and because of what the war is doing. And as we just heard from Lila, there is a scorched earth Israeli campaign going on in southern Lebanon. Which is from a. Objectionable, deeply objectionable from a moral standpoint, but also it is the thing that is preventing the United States from reaching a deal with the Iranians. So given all of those facts, one would expect that in a rational system in which Democrats just cynically want to attain power for themselves, they would be championing from the leadership level this war powers resolution to say this war in Lebanon must stop and we need to end the war between the US And Iran so we can just, so we can get gas prices down. Let's say you don't care about any of the destruction anywhere else and all the people being killed and maimed. The fact that it has to be Rashida Tlaib to lead this good, given all of those facts, be shocking. So what is it that is preventing, besides the obvious, I guess. Is there anything besides the obvious that is presenting, preventing democratic leadership from seizing this moment to their own benefit?

[Sean Victor]

I think this is where we need to do some dissection of how politics works in practice. I mean, this process is much more kinetic behind the scenes than I think most people would expect. During the FISA fight, a spying debate, we it was reported that Representative Meeks was at the behest of the intelligence top intelligence Democrat Jim Himes, wielding his seniority in the Congressional Black Caucus to stop the CBC from endorsing surveillance protections. Very similar dynamics happen across, frankly, every issue, but certainly in national security related issues. And I think it's, you know, of course it's easy to understand how people lose hope in this system. It's almost hard to have hope in this system. At the same time, the way Congress operates is designed to obscure who is really in the way. And so when it comes to wars, when it comes to foreign policy generally, when it comes to, you know, surveillance activities, which of course are directly related to all things national security, what we see over and over again is the same political axis of people who pretend to be centrist but are actually pushing the least popular policy on the table, but they're doing it behind closed scenes or behind closed doors. There are really practical ways this manifests. For instance, you might have two committees that have a say jurisdictionally in Congress. Let's say one of them wants to do the right thing and one of them wants to do the bad thing. And let's just imagine that the right thing is not have war. And let's imagine that's more popular, which it is. The other person leading the other committee can totally derail that. And they can do it secretly. They can do it in a caucus conversation or in a backroom discussion with Leader Jeffries or Leader Schumer and basically find a way to excuse themselves from a debate that they are single handedly torpedoing. And what I think is really interesting about this is we can win a lot of these votes. A lot of these votes represent the overwhelming popular opinion of Americans. But because certain members of Democratic leadership don't want to put, you know, Jared Goldin or Marie Guzenkamp Perez in an awkward spot of endorsing Trump's, you know, 8 millionth war and mass domestic surveillance and a litany of other things that are wildly unpopular, they will just stop the vote from occurring at all. And on one side, I think it's reasonable to be like, well, that's a mess and whatever, but this is the last hope for democracy. I mean, there's no, no doubt about it, right? The Democrats need to be the resistance party in this moment. They can't be hiding their worst member because that is just one vote that they're worried about making look bad. What they need to do is provide the rest of the country with clear visibility who is leading, you know, who is our champion for stopping this war, for stopping genocide, and who is in the way. And until they force the votes, we are ultimately playing a shadow boxing game. It's a shell game. It's the spoiler system there. You can have 99% of Democrats on any given issue. And on something like war and fisa, we can make up that difference with Republicans. There are Republicans who agree with us in Congress. But most Americans would never expect that this is an area of, like, principled, frankly, you know, opposed to the administration, bipartisanship. But they don't know it because Democratic leadership won't risk, you know, look, making one of their members look bad even when they're doing bad things. And that's unacceptable.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, Jared golden isn't even running for reelection. I mean, people kick him around as like a forced replacement for Graham Platner if they can, you know, find, you know, publishes text messages with the girls or like push him out of the race, whatever. But other than that, he's retiring. Like, he's not even running for reelection. So, like, what is he, what is the concern about putting somebody like him on the record?

[Sean Victor]

I think that's where there's, I think that's the other, the other shoe in the equation, if you will.

[Leila Yunus]

The.

[Sean Victor]

There are clearly Democrats who do not believe that this moment is a critical moment for democracy. That's it. You know, and I put Mark Warner right now at the top of that list, for instance, they would prefer this war.

[Ryan Grim]

Go on, you mean?

[Sean Victor]

Well, I think across these national security issues, you know, generally he's on the wrong side. He's enabling. I mean like right now, today, Mark Warner's job in his mind is to help the Republican leader John Thune pass a mass warrantless surveillance power, an extension through the rest of Donald Trump's term. At the same day that Trump names Bill Pulte, who has already is currently under investigation for misusing his access to sensitive government data, namely the loan applications from Letitia James and Lisa Cook, somebody who has put overt absolutely inappropriate political pressure on Jerome Powell. And nonetheless, nonetheless, Mark Warner minutes ago is providing quotes to reporters that's talking about how, oh, this makes reauthorizing domestic surveillance harder. Senator Warner, your job is just all of this.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. People, people who aren't following this, just so they're clear. So Bill Pulte, he was the head of the, or he is maybe still the head of the fha.

[Sean Victor]

He's going to be doing both jobs.

[Ryan Grim]

The federal, this is a federal housing agency and he illegally used that, that access that he has to mortgage records and, and housing records to go in and try to find Democrats who had, you know, done their paperwork wrong. And they found, you know, Tish James, she bought this place in Georgia. It was listed as a primary residence, a non rental residence. And so they like indict her for it. It's thrown out because it turns out it was like everything was accurate and it was, and it was fine. Like she was her like nephew was house sitting it or something like that. So it was, the whole thing was legitimate. But the point was this guy Pulte was willing to break all the rules around privacy when it comes to the data that FHA has. And now Trump is going to make him Director of National Intelligence. Like this is what he was doing with housing data, which is feeble compared to what he would have as, as dni. And Mark Warner is saying, let's go ahead and give him all the spying authorities that he needs. And these are the, and these are the types of Democrats who are then holding back the ability to get yemen, I mean a 11 on war powers Resolution through. Is that what you're saying?

[Sean Victor]

It, it's the same axis of, of you know, quote unquote, centrist, quote unquote very serious people whose job it is to spoil. I mean there is, I think the spoiler system is, is visible in some form sometimes, you know, more publicly. Right it's like a couple, the Kirsten cinema model, right? You can see that bow, you can see that person's not doing it. But there's an entire, much more powerful apparatus that happens before that, during that and after that. And it looks, I mean, you know, I, Mark Warner is just a perfect example for this. A month ago he, he, he joined with Senator Cotton and told then Dni Gabbard, hey, we need this, this FISA court opinion declassified. This is a big deal because the FISA court opinion reveals abuses that the public doesn't know about. And it's about legislation that, that the Senate says they're going to vote on as soon as Thursday. But in any event, they said, you know, we need this opinion in 15 days and there was time to do it. So you know, please give us this information. And unfortunately Tulsi Gabbard did not release that information, did not declassify the opinion. We're still flying blind about how the current administration is currently misusing this surveillance power. But Mark Warner didn't say a whole lot when that deadline was missed. And he's not as far as we can tell, holding it against the administration. When the administration asks his very critical to the Trump agenda for surveillance help passing this extension. And it's even worse than you described it very well. But it's even worse in two respects. One, this is not a guy who's trying to find a compromise middle ground. He's trying to do what he's doing because he doesn't want to risk privacy protections getting a vote at all because he's pretty confident that we would win on requiring warrants before the government searches for Americans information in warrantlessly acquired FISA communications. That, that's a problem. That is not how democracy is supposed to work. I see you come back, so I'll turn back to you.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, so what? When, when do we expect a potential vote on this Lebanon War Powers resolution? And for people who care about it one way or the other, what, like what can they do?

[Sean Victor]

I mean everybody should be calling their members of Congress. I know that this is hard and a long slog. Honestly there is a clear ladder up system. If I can spend a moment on that. I'm just going to try to scattershot this because I mean I work directly with constituents. My mom calls her member of Congress all the time and is constantly looking for more ways to do things. Things like letters to the editor help. Things like comments on their Facebook and on Twitter help. There are people whose job it is to monitor those voices Vibes, for lack of a better word. But nobody's stuck doing that, right? At a certain point, they should or they have the option. Any constituent who doesn't think that there is enough leadership on this, and clearly there is not, you know, can go to their member and if they get the answer that if they don't get an answer they want, right, which includes no answer and it includes an answer that's an equivocation, it's anything other than a full throated yes, we are behind you. We are going to join this and we are going to help force this forward. You know, they can also organize an action. People protested Representative Jim Himes, the top intelligence Democrat we've seen people protest Representative Meeks for his failures to advance the war powers resolution. That pressure really counts. It isn't suddenly you do that and step two is we have affected change. But I'd like to provide an example from the first Trump administration where the Congress passed. Ryan, you were talking about this before. These things do have teeth, even when they don't become law. In the last Trump administration, the United States was refueling Saudi bombers and facilitating a famine in Yemen, an atrocity. And Congress ended up passing. Extremely rare that both chambers actually end up advancing the war prize resolution. But it happened here despite opposition from the administration, which speaks to our ability to get things done even when Trump is in power, by the way. And while Trump vetoed it, he also stopped refueling those planes. And that's frankly what change looks like Now, Representative Talib, ultimately, the person who brings forth a War powers resolution, has the power to force it after a certain timeline. And ultimately, frankly, there are strategy questions that show up there. It speaks to the criticality of having principled leaders, including representative to lead, or maybe especially representative to lead, who can do the math in a second and say, well, I could force the vote now and smoke out all the Democrats who don't like this. I think that we're like three votes away and I want to give it one more day to see if we can convince them. But one of the nice things about war powers resolutions is you can introduce more, you can keep forcing votes. And frankly, obviously the conflict in Iran, what's happening in Lebanon, these are horrifically not short term events. And so Democratic leadership here would look like forcing these votes a lot, making sure that everybody can see who is in the way. That's true whether they're a Democrat or Republican. And yes, it might put somebody like one or two members of the Democratic Party in an awkward position, but that's what Democracy looks like

[Mason Mustafa]

we also, I mean, just to wrap things up, I don't want, we don't want to keep you on too long, but what are some key races that you're going to be looking at today in relation to, you know, the future of the Democratic Party? Are there any things that you think could be, like, symbolic of what's to come? Any key races?

[Sean Victor]

I have to be careful about talking about primaries because we're not an electoral entity. But what I would say is that we are. It is clear that there isn't, you know, a surge. I don't want to I almost hesitate to use that word because it makes it sound temporal, but maybe a groundswell of support around, you know, DSA candidates, around working family party candidates. These, these move mountains. I, I was on a call with a number of very senior Democratic staffers, and I was reminded, and I hate to say this, but I'm often reminded of this. Senators, it's really rare for them to understand details. Sometimes it's because they're impossibly old, sometimes it's because they just don't care. Sometimes it's both, and sometimes it's a litany of other factors. Something that really resonates is watching somebody who takes their positions lose a race. And so, you know, I think the best thing I can say here is that I'm very eager to see what these, what the turnout looks like. I'm very eager to see just how much this can continue to materialize. I think that, you know, with the election of somebody like Mamdani, we've, we've got clear demonstrations of how that effort can succeed. But what I, what I'd hope to take away or what I'd hope to highlight for everybody watching is you'd be very surprised, I think, how impactful those messages in that format, which is ultimately all about, you know, you voters as individuals, how much that moves the needle on the Hill. And you can see that kind of, you know, less tangible political shift. You can see a lot of it happening, including around Mamdani and on the

[Ryan Grim]

FISA surveillance front, like, what's the next, like, you know, what's the next moment like? What should people be watching as that kind of, as Warner tries to work that, work this through with Republicans.

[Sean Victor]

Yeah. So they are, like, imminently going to unveil a bill. Thune, the Senate majority leader, has announced that he wants to force a vote to, to advance to that bill by the end of this week. That's Thursday or Friday, if he does, which would look like text drops today, then that would set up a vote for Monday or Tuesday of next week. The entirety of this depends on Whether or not 41 Democrats hold and say, actually we think the Trump administration, maybe this guy Bill Pulte should get a warrant from an independent body before conducting surveillance on Americans. Unfortunately, and this is important for me to flag what we understand about the bill. We're calling it the Trump Warner bill. I mean, that's basically what it is. It is a Trump endorsed product that Mark Warner's job, again, he thinks is to get Democrats to support. And we know that it does not have warrant protections. We know that the things it claims to reform does a bad job at reforming it. It is designed to be an excuse, a get out of jail card for, you know, in this case, Democrats who want to be able to say, well, we reformed it or not. But the news today, this, this idea that somebody who is currently under investigation for misusing access to sensitive government data, it makes this, frankly, I, I think the biggest threat to democracy as we know it in this country currently in view. And that's a pretty big claim. I know that there's a lot to say about the elections, obviously, as another vector for this threat, but I want everybody to take for a second the reality that Bill Pulte, again, a guy who used his access to loan applications to facilitate wrongful criminal prosecutions of political opponents of Donald Trump. This is a guy who is about to, or I guess now does have the ability to declassify information. So imagine exactly what he did over at fhfa, but he's releasing surveillance material, warrantlessly acquired surveillance on people in the United States that is theoretically under his purview. And when we, you know, as we start to put together the dots as to what does a proper authoritarian takeover of this country look like, let's say beyond wherever we are now, it very clearly would involve that.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, it's, it's completely absurd. I can't think of a more inappropriate person to put in charge of it. Like if you, what, 350 million people in the country.

[Sean Victor]

Yeah, like, and 5 million who have security clearances too, by the way, which I'd be stunned if Bill Pulte had a security clearance. But before, wherever he's, yeah, I'd be surprised if he, if he clears it. But you're going to hear Democrats say he's got to go through a, through a, you know, clearance process. Sure, that's going to solve the problem. No, we, we need to stop this person from having the abilities to destroy our democracy.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, Any. Any clearance process that cleared a guy who used his access to loan documents to go after political opponents. Any process to clear him is a broken process to begin with. So not very helpful. Well, well, Sean. Sean Victor, executive director of Demand Progress, thank you so much for joining us here. Appreciate it.

[Sean Victor]

Thank you both so much.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, you got it. All right, Mesa, that will do it for us today. Thank you for being here as well. Much appreciated. She was, she was muted, but I think probably not the most important comment that we got throughout the day. I think we can skip that one over. Thanks again to Mesa and thanks to, you know, everyone who was able to join us today. And thank you to you for watching and also to those of you who support our work. We are, you know, we're funded by our readers and our viewers. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can become a member there, or you can go to dropsitenews.com sign up for free for our newsletter there, or become a paid subscriber, become a donor. It's really what powers the work that we do here. On behalf of all of my colleagues here at Dropsite, thank you, and I'll see you soon.