C (4:12)

It's over.

A (4:13)

I mean, I don't think for Jeffries it is, unfortunately, lots of members of the House still sick and behind him. But if David Plouff is writing in the New York Times, Democrats abandoned ship on this leadership, at least rhetorically. Oh, buddy. I mean, buddy.

D (4:32)

Why do they think that they can just proceed or, like, be lead through failure after failure and continue leading the party? Like Pramila Jayapal, when she came on our show, said, like, you know, I feel some sense of obligation to respond to a loss with some sense of accountability at the top. And she's like a leader of a small caucus. The party leaders need to step down. In other countries, that's just something that happens.

A (5:00)

Parliamentary countries, if you lose an election, you have leadership changes almost certainly often.

D (5:06)

Look at how many people have led the Tories in the past five years.

A (5:09)

I know. Well, I mean, and even look at the Republicans and their leadership turnover. And that has not affected them electorally at all.

D (5:17)

It's good to do, actually.

A (5:19)

Yes.

D (5:19)

To get a new face in there that people don't hate, because guess what? The political system isn't delivering for people. So longevity is a bad thing if you're leading.

A (5:29)

And we're seeing a record number of people identifying as independent fleeing both the Democratic and Republican parties. But let's turn to Minnesota. Overnight, intense protests raged in Minneapolis. There was another ICE shooting. Thankfully, it appears like he is now in stable condition. But this was a Venezuelan immigrant. There was an interaction at a traffic stop with an ICE agent who shot him. The ICE agent is. And the Department of Homeland Security is claiming that he was swinging a shovel. We'll see what the evidence.

D (6:05)

I don't believe any of this. Yeah, it's almost like, you know, they're going to say a lot of things because they're defending murderers.

A (6:12)

And with all of this kind of community uprising and people in Minneapolis and Minnesota standing to protect their neighbors, the Trump administration is frothing at the mouth to try to get find a reason to invoke the Insurrection Act. Fascists need to exaggerate the scale of protests and drum up the fear in order to justify their repression. Trump's been doing this for years and throughout this entire second term, in particular, talking about how blue cities are war zones, playing up the threat so that he can crack down on these areas. And they're just begging, begging for a pretext to be able to do this. A reminder that the Insurrection act was last used I think in the early 90s by George H.W. bush in response to the riots after the police killing or beating of Rodney King. But it had also previously been used during the civil rights movement or during that era when it was Eisenhower and JFK trying to using the Insurrection act to enforce what the court's ordering desegregation of parts of the south, schools in the South. So normally the US Military is not supposed to be used on American citizens. That's the Posse Comitatus Act. But invoking the Insurrection act suspends that rule. And the Trump administration has been circling around this big red button to use the military against US Civilians for years at this point. And once again, he truthed it out last night. Here we go. If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don't obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the patriots of ICE were only trying to do their job, I will institute the Insurrection act, which many presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great state. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Why does he keep ending his truce with thank you for your attention to this matter? Like he's sending out an email blast at some sort of startup. But anyway, they're trying to create this pretext. They're trying to make it so that the Trump administration can use Minneapolis as a testing ground for further authoritarian actions. Because as our more progressive members like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar have been saying publicly, ICE is being used as an anti civilian force by the Trump administration. Immigrants are on the front lines. But it's not just immigrants, of course.

D (9:18)

Who just got shot in the face.

A (9:19)

Renee Goode. Renee Goode, shot in the face, murdered by ICE. And here's another example of ICE's abuses. This is a legal observer speaking about her experience. Less than a week after the killing of Renee Goode.

C (9:40)

They were.

A (9:42)

She, this legal observer and another individual were observing ice, which is a protected First Amendment action, and she held a press conference speaking about. Her name's Patty o'. Keefe. What happened when she was arrested and detained by ICE?

E (10:04)

My name is Patti O'. Keefe. On Sunday, this past Sunday, January 11th, myself and my. My good friend Brandon Siguenza were violently arrested and detained by ice. During that encounter, we had an ICE agent spray pepper spray into our windshield vent. They then broke our windows, dragged us out of our vehicles, handcuffed us, and put us in separate cars on the way over to the Whipple Detention Center. I was taunted, mocked. Also on that same ride, one of the agents said that, you guys got to stop obstructing us. That's why that lesbian is dead. Speaking about Renee Good, I think it's important, though, that people know that this is what agents are saying. When we got to the.

A (11:00)

Can you pause it for a sec? I just want to emphasize that point. I know that it's been something I've been pushing on the show here, but it's quite immensely clear that Jonathan Ross, the agent who murdered Renee Goode, was triggered and enraged by both the women that were speaking to him being outspoken, but the fact that they were clearly in a same sex relationship. And when you look at the characteristics of fascist movements, you see it's this promise of a national renewal, really, and pride in the face of humiliations that are brought by the hand of a marginalized group, usually minority groups, immigrants in this country. But also it branches off in a bunch of different directions. And fascism always, always has a misogynistic, hyper masculine undertone led by a strongman figurehead that channels that kind of energy. And you crack down on leftists, minority groups, but also women and their rights. And you see that this administration looks at Viktor Orban's model for governance as something that they seek to emulate. And his right wing vision very much includes a domesticated female barefoot in the kitchen. And that is what they're talking about here. So if there was a good faith reading of this murder, it would be investigated as a hate crime as well as manslaughter, second degree murder, basically. Keep going.

E (12:54)

Got to the detention center. We saw probably about 100 people in holding cells. We heard screaming, crying, just visceral agony from many of the people who were there. You know, someone saying, let me go, let me go, let me go, please let me go.

C (13:16)

Begging.

E (13:18)

We heard a child crying. My friend Brandon was brought into another room for questioning where he was offered money or legal protection for any undocumented family members that he might have in exchange for names of other undocumented people or names of protest organizers. A bribe exchange, essentially. And another person in his cell, a Hispanic man, was. Was offered that same deal. They both said no. Had a short conversation with a border patrol agent who, you know, was wondering why we were here, why we were so passionate about this. And at the end of it, he goes, you know, I think, you know, kind of just think that all you guys are. We thought all you guys are crazy, right? And so you have. You have people that are desensitized or okay. With dehumanization and also think that people that are out here trying to defend their neighbors are crazy. And that's a really dangerous combination. And I think that is coming across in the way that we see that ICE officers are conducting themselves with people across the city. So I am just one example of many. I luckily got to come home from that detention center, and most of the people there did not. This is craziness and it needs to come to an end.

A (14:45)

Go ahead, Matt.

D (14:46)

I don't know if it was Will or Felix from Chapo Chapos, but they called ICE agents a revolt of the unemployable against the unemployed. And that's the real issue there. When you hear her say that thing, we thought you were all crazy. These are scared men whose fathers failed. And the only thing that they understand how to give to the world is violence. That's. That's a broken man, every one of those guys. And that's.

F (15:12)

They're.

D (15:12)

They're organized now by the government.

A (15:15)

There have been some data leaks that I've seen media organizations slow. Being slow to verify. I think that there's a chill here, but unverified information here, but data leaks potentially showing that there are proud boys in these ranks, which is stuff that, of course, of course, we already knew, but I'm waiting for confirmation to fully confirm that.

D (15:38)

Of course, it's enough to me for Jonathan Ross to be arguing with his family about whether the proud boys were.

A (15:44)

Good or not and white supremacy more broadly on Facebook. That was the nature also of that debate.

D (15:52)

Same thing.

A (15:52)

The American Immigration Council put out a report just to speak to what she's saying about the detentions. And I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine what the conditions are like in there. But we know that there are reports of sexual abuse. We know that last year was the deadliest year for people in ICE detention. Over 50 people that we know of that have died in ICE detention. And this same report just has some of these staggering statistics here that the changes in federal law here and the arrest practices has resulted in a, per the American Immigration Council, a 2,450% increase in the number of people with no criminal record held in ICE detention on any given day. Also, when you look at the amount of money that's being shuttled over for ICE detention, you see that ICE has an average annual budget of around $15 billion of the next four years, over the next four years for detention alone. And when you look at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, their budget for the Entire federal prison system is $9 billion. ICE detention is dwarfing the entire federal prison system from a budgetary standpoint. And we're still being like, should we call these concentration camps?

D (17:21)

That was co. Signed by the Democrats last year. Chuck Schumer, thanks for passing that into law. And yeah, the logic about concentration camps is if you don't stop them, soon enough, they'll become death camps. And every one of these ICE agents will absolutely staff death camps, too. And if they decide we're not going after immigrants, but we're going after gay people now, they're all up for that, too. We're on the same planet that had the Nazis. We're in the same country that had Jim Crow for decades and decades and had a media that called itself free.

A (17:57)

That both sides did, and the. The same country that committed genocide against the Native Americans.

D (18:06)

The Whipple Detention center is on the same place of the. The concentration camp of the Dakota that I put on screen from.

A (18:13)

Is that the Fort Snelling one that I'm. That I was. Okay, so that's. That's relevant here because just this other horrifying facet to this story is that as ICE is terrorizing Minneapolis, there's now it's been confirmed by the Oglala Sioux tribe that at least three tribal members have been arrested in Minneapolis. Apparently, ICE rounded up some homeless men living under a bridge in Minneapolis, and they took three to four members of the Oglala Sioux tribe. There's around 50,000 indigenous Americans that live in Minneapolis. And to Matt's point, they're reportedly being detained at this ICE facility set up in Fort Snelling, South Dakota, which was the site of the concentration camp for indigenous people in the 1860s housing them there. The image that Matt has shown on screen a few times, here it is. All right, well, we'll show it in a second, but you can see how. There it is, this larger image. I mean, this is the model of concentration camps around the globe.

D (19:26)

If you've flown into Minneapolis airport and when you go over the water, that's the same. That's a Mississippi river right there.

A (19:34)

In the memoriam about this story sent to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the President, Frank Starr comes out, released a statement about basically the tribe members being snatched up by ice. In this memorandum, Star comes out, said that when tribal the nation reached out to the agency dhs, it was provided with only the first names of the men. Homeland Security refused to release more information unless the tribe, quote, entered into an immigration agreement with ice. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tuesday Evening Star comes out said the tribe has no plans to enter an agreement with ice. They're holding or attempting to hold multiple members of the Oglala Sioux tribe hostage unless the tribe agrees to participate in.

D (20:37)

ICE activities to accept that those men are or whoever's are illegal aliens despite being indigenous Americans.

A (20:46)

And. But they're indigenous. But that doesn't matter because this is not about. This is not about immigration. This is a white supremacist ethnic cleansing project. Let me repeat that. This is an ethnic cleansing project based on white supremacy. And this is abundantly clear in an experience from another indigenous American. This is a Red Lake descendant. Descendant. He's 20 years old, named Jose Roberto Ramirez. His mother is a Red Lake tribal member. And this is a short video here. So speaking about their experience in Native Americans being harassed and detained by ICE in and around Minneapolis.

G (21:36)

Just said, we are Native. We're Native American. We are U.S. citizens. And it just didn't matter.

A (21:43)

You help us. Where's Madison be?

D (21:47)

Get your id.

A (21:48)

Okay, stop. Get the fuck out of car.

D (21:54)

Okay, back out.

C (21:59)

Can you explain what happened last week?

H (22:01)

Yeah. This is literally just the day. Day before one of the Renee Goody got shot. I was like. I was just freaked out. Like, I just didn't want to. They don't want to stop nowhere where they. Where nobody was seeing them.

F (22:10)

It felt like I was getting kidnapped.

D (22:12)

Like they rushed me.

H (22:13)

Literally rushed me out my auntie's car and handcuffed me, threw me in their car and tried to keep me down. Put my hoodie up. And they don't even care if you got your identification. They'll take you. Like, they're just evil people. I didn't think I had nothing to worry about because I was a US Citizen, you know, I'm half Mexican, half native, you know, that didn't matter, though, to them.

C (22:28)

How does it feel to be stopped by federal immigration agents? As a Native American, we thought we were safe.

G (22:35)

You are from here.

H (22:36)

We are Native.

G (22:36)

We are the original. It's. Don't be scared. They can't do anything. Can't touch us. We are untouchable. Seeing what had happened to us and to my nephew, it's. We are a nobody to these agents. About a month prior, I was driving over here and I was coming up to a stop and I didn't know it was ICE agents and they were. And they started yelling, and I rolled my window a little and I said, what? And he said, coming for you. And I said, I'm Native American. And he says, yeah, you're next. Any immigrant, I can imagine the fear that they are living currently.

A (23:17)

I just wanted to get those two quotes. Kind of to be the pillars of our segment on this this morning Today is the gratuitous comment by the ICE agent about Renee Goode being a lesbian. And then the very telling comment recounted by that woman of the ICE agent saying, you're next to Native Americans. Because I think that colors things pretty clearly.

D (23:46)

I mean, it is frankly and straightforwardly and objectively a white supremacist, white nationalist movement. And that includes all the Latino guys that are doing it too. They're Nazis as well. Look at your history of South America. Like, some people seem confused by that. Like Steven Crowder, I think, got sued over something like that. Yeah, like Latino guys that join ice, they're Nazis too.

A (24:10)

In a moment, we'll be speaking to Ahmed Khan. A quick break and we will be right back with you. We are back and we are joined now by Ahmed Khan, human rights advocate, political activist, who through the Ahmed Khan foundation, has purchased and delivered emergency child nutrition throughout the genocide in Gaza. Ahmed, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

H (24:53)

Thanks so much, Emma. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.

A (24:56)

Of course. So a week or two ago, a few weeks ago, the Israeli government announced that they are banning dozens of international NGOs, aid groups from operating in Gaza, Gaza and the West Bank. It basically gives Israel broad authority to ban whatever organizations they say are affiliated with terrorists or sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. What have you just your reaction to that? Because we're also continuing to see horror stories on the ground of children freezing to death, for example, and there still being a complete lack of aid for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip despite this so called ceasefire.

H (25:41)

Yeah, I mean, the purpose is obviously, you've probably seen the names. I mean, it's basically the, you know, the gold standard of international NGOs. CARE, Save the Children, MSF. There are a variety of reasons for the ban. One of the main ones is they have asked all the NGOs to provide all details for all staff, which obviously is a dangerous thing given the number of humanitarian aid workers that have been killed over the last two and a half years. There are other reasons, of course, also. You know, the aid organizations don't advocate as they usually do. And the reason for that is they're worried about being banned. So if one aid organization makes a negative statement about something that is based in fact and is 100% true, they risk getting on the Israeli authorities, bad side and then losing the ability to operate. I mean there's two, there's two facets to this. There's the ability to bring stuff into Israel and then into Gaza, you know, sort of through Israel and then the ability to operate within Gaza itself. So you can lose the ability to bring stuff in, then you lose the ability to operate and then you really have, you know, it's. The people are the one that suffer.

A (27:00)

Can you explain on what that process is like? Because the underlying framework here, which I just, it's amazing to me that people don't think about this more is just like, how can Israel ban aid groups and aid from getting into Gaza and the West Bank? So perhaps people can go to that second place in their thought process and go. Because Israel controls the west bank in Gaza.

C (27:27)

Right.

A (27:27)

I mean, this is just important, I think, for, for people to ponder. But you know, the fact that you have to go through Israel is really important here. What is that process? Like, how do you even get into Gaza? And what is, I guess the framework for negotiating with the Israeli authorities to get in?

H (27:50)

You know, so there are a variety of procedures. This, you know, first and foremost, this is wholly unprecedented in the history of humanitarian assistance. For example, in Sudan and the war in the 90s, the Sudanese government never banned NGOs, you know, even though we're operating with the SPLA that were fighting against Sudan. So, you know, this is something that no one's ever seen. And you know, I've delivered, let's say pediatric ventilators to the frontline hospitals in Ukraine, 10 miles from the Russian border, no problem. You know, hospitals have been blown up now. So in Israel it's completely different. They control all borders, they control all access. So even if you were to purchase something in Egypt, for example, it would need to go through Israeli authority. Now the process for getting items approved is it goes through a system called UN 2720 and that's a United nations system. You submit your packing list, your invoice, the items, where the items are from, what the items are from, what the items are supposed to do and where they are going and where they're going is relevant with regard to the NGOs. So for example, today if I want to send something to msf, it's probably not going to happen. It's not going to be approved because they're, you know, they were somewhere into the 60 day process for NGOs complying or being banned. Right. So, you know, it's a multi pronged process. It's a Long process. You know, if you have four or five hours, I could run you through the whole process. And you know, I tell people sometimes that if I told people all my stories, they actually would never believe me.

A (29:33)

Well, how about one, how about one that stands out to you? I mean, just, they're, they're all insane.

H (29:38)

They're all insane. You know, sort of. I've told this story about medicines, you know, pediatric medicines that are for children that have been suffering for two years. And you, you apply, you submit the applications. This is before anything enters the country. So you first you have to buy the items because the vendor generally can't prepare a packing list without you buying it. So you've bought it, but you don't have any guarantee that it's actually going to be approved. So you may have bought it and then you're just sitting on it. And that's a process that's very, you know, for me it's okay because it's, you know, my money. So I don't mind that process. Of course it's, it's horrible. But nonprofits, international nonprofits can't explain that to their donors or their board that we've purchased all these medicines and now we're sitting on, they're sitting in warehouses. It's, you know, it belies any sort of sane procedure. So ultimately what we're saying is there really is no system. Like it doesn't exist. You purchase it. If you get approval, you then arrange shipping. You enter if you're flying, it's to Ben Guri and in Tel Aviv, if you're shipping by ship, it's Ashdod Port in Israel. Then again, customs will come through and look through the stuff. You'll go through a scanner again and that could be seven days, 10 days. Then you arrange transport, transport to the border in, through Kerem Shalom. Then you actually have to offload the truck. Then you have to put it through a tunnel that gets onto the Palestinian side. Then you have to unload the truck and then you wait for a green light to move. And obviously during the ceasefire, or the so called ceasefire, it's gotten a bit easier than when they were actually bombing the trucks. But it's still a misery.

A (31:31)

And you mentioned Egypt there, the process for getting aid through the Rafah crossing, the southern border of the Gaza Strip, that borders Egypt. Is that a separate process or still we're looking at Israel.

H (31:48)

Everything runs through Israel. So there's no Rafah. Egypt into Gaza, that doesn't exist. They blew that up. And you know, there's been talk about it reopening for people on a one way trip, exiting, you know, which is ultimately, since October 8th, the end game of this process has been the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And when I would tell people this October 15th or October 16th, they looked at me like I was from the moon. And I think maybe now they're coming around to that realization. I don't know how it's taken so long because the Israelis basically say this on a daily basis. You know, I don't know why we wouldn't just listen to them.

A (32:24)

Yes, it was Quite clear on October 8th to your point. And now it's in many ways too late for so many people. Just the scale. Then if you could talk a little bit about what you saw there and what maybe isn't reported in western news about what it even is like to see this, this, the toll of this, the totality of this destruction still I believe gets underplayed quite a bit here in the United States.

H (33:00)

Well, of course, since day one, they banned international journalists, right? Like there's not one international journalist that's been into Gaza on their own, talking to people, talking to children, talking to the elderly. Tell me about your life for the two years. They did a wonderful job of dehumanizing Palestinians. They also killed Palestinian journalists. So they've either dehumanized the Palestinians so no one ever believes them, even though there are thousands of hours of video of this very thing. So every aspect of it is underplayed. You can't get your head around. It's actually beyond human comprehension. There are 2.2 million people that suffered like no people on earth have ever suffered. And certainly I've seen suffering all over the world. But there is no place that has F15s, F16s, F35s, Apache attack helicopters, unlimited drones, tanks, artillery, snipers, firing 24, 7 in all directions. And every single person has lost an immediate family member. Every single person has lost people they know for years. And so there is, you are living in constant fear. And that fear hasn't gone away with the ceasefire because you know from time to time there will be an airstrike. And almost every day people die, innocent people, and many of them are children. So to capture that trauma, to live through that, it's really impossible to get your head around. And I've only spent a few nights in Gaza during the genocide. But I can tell you each night, I remember every aspect of each night. Because when they drop 500 pound bombs, it's called the GBU 39 or the GBU 54, the American bombs, Everything shakes, including your bolts, and, you know, another one's coming, and you're just. And you're hearing screaming in the distance, and you can sort of. I've been around this stuff a lot, and so I know the distances, and you just can't get your head around that. This is what they're putting people through. And it's overnight. Generally. They drop the big bombs overnight. So maybe you just fell asleep, and maybe you're in that sort of like, starting to dream, and all of a sudden they start dropping. You know, in the morning, they. When they come to you, they said, did you enjoy the music last night? That's our night. And you can't get your head around people living through that for two years with nowhere to go, no safe place, and not to mention the weather, the rain. You're not in your home because all your homes are destroyed. You're in a tent with how many people in a tent, and the tent stinks and, you know, no water, sanitation, nothing. Nothing. It's so every aspect of it is. If you can figure out what's the worst thing a human being can go through, then that's it.

A (35:49)

You have a background in Democratic politics, and I'm wondering if you could expand on that a little bit, because obviously this, your work and what the Biden administration engaged in in midwifing, this genocide, being as complicit as the Trump administration, if not more, if not more, must have been quite like a. I guess, an enlightening moment for you as somebody who has done this kind of humanitarian work. Speak a little bit about your process of kind of speaking out publicly against the Biden administration and distancing yourself from that, despite your past donations to the campaign.

H (36:41)

It's obviously, they were horrible, and it was very, very clear. I actually was invited to a donor meeting, I suppose, October 16th or 17th that occurred, you know, in the Old Executive Office Building and the bowling alley with donors, and there were senior White House officials there. And I spoke once, because I'd actually just returned from Rafah, and I just said what I saw, and I said, I want. I hope everyone will remember that there are 1.2 million children there. They didn't vote for Hamas in 2005 because they weren't alive. And they. In the process, if what the Israelis are trying to do is get Hamas, what I've seen in the six days so far is not it. And I hope someone will get some sense or bring some sense into this, and within another week or Two. Well, it was clear to me that day it wasn't going to happen. And, you know, so another week or two, and then I was done with them. I was just like, look, these guys are genocidal maniacs. I want no part of it. I mean, I've never been a fan of Democratic American foreign policy. I mean, these people are all horrible failures, right? Like, the Obama administration was horrible. And all these people just, like, they don't get new jobs, they don't go anywhere else. They just work for Democratic foreign policy. They never bring in any new people, and they're always terrible, and they sort of fail up. And you can't figure out how these people keep getting promoted. And so, you know, that that's, that was foreign policy was never the reason that I was ever supportive of, like any Democrats, because they're just not good at it, right? Like, just, they just literally have no idea what they're doing.

A (38:23)

And the, the. Did you get any reaction from certain members of the Biden team that struck you?

H (38:34)

No, it was all, like, talking points. We care. We're doing everything we can. We're working hard to bring peace. We want peace. It's all nonsense. They're just blowing smoke. And you knew it. I mean, I knew it. I've been around. It was obvious. I mean, I knew they weren't up to the task to begin with, but as an eternal optimist, there's always hope. But I was done within a couple weeks. And no, it was always nonsense. And a lot of the other donors were like, you know, we still like him. I was, like, I said very clearly, all the fellow donors, and I know, I mean, they all know that I told them this, like, he's not gonna win. My opinion is he's not gonna win because of this people. Maybe they won't vote for Trump, but they're not gonna vote. And that was just my opinion. That's literally November, December of 23. And they're like, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm like, okay, we'll see.

A (39:30)

We unfortunately have seen, you know, the recent news, too. I'm wondering if you could give your perspective on this, like, the yellow line right now where Israel has basically taken control of more than 50% of the Gaza Strip in terms of, like, that, the ethnic cleansing campaign there. They're concentrating the Palestinians closer and closer to the sea. In smaller and smaller parts of the land, people are, again, children are freezing to death in tents due to the intensity of the rains in the winter. And Israel as you mentioned, keeps bombing the tents despite the ceasefire. They violated the ceasefire over a thousand times since it was so implemented. They're doing the same thing, of course, in Lebanon. But just what that's like to have all of these people continue to be concentrated in smaller, smaller parcels. As somebody who's been to Gaza a few times, what does that look like?

H (40:44)

It's a horror. Gaza is the size of Las Vegas or Philadelphia, has a very, you know, 2.2 million people. That's a serious population density. Now, if you take 50, 60%, 70% of that land out of the picture, it's just people on top of each other, people.

A (40:59)

We should say that maybe, you know, there's a lot, hundreds of thousands are unaccounted for as well. So there's also that population decrease.

H (41:07)

Yeah, sadly, there are less people. You know, there are not 2.2 or 2.3 million people there anymore, that's for sure. But, you know, the reality is you see rubble all day. A striking thing to me was Ukraine is. The front line of Ukraine is 800 miles long. It's a country that's bigger than Texas. But there's more rubble in Gaza than there is in Ukraine. Basically you have medium sized apartment buildings and they're all flat.

F (41:34)

And.

H (41:37)

The aspects of this are beyond belief. The toxins in the groundwater, the toxins in the air from destroyed buildings, you know, sort of the stuff that comes out of the cement when they're blown up, the toxins from the munitions, nobody even knows. The bombs, some of these bombs that they're dropping and what, what happens, there's unexploded ordinances. So you are people that are maybe 15 in a tent, maybe a bunch of kids. Like orphanages operate in tents. What is that? It's, it's just absolute misery getting worse and worse. And it's literally just, it's a plan. They're very good at it. They know what they're doing. Just make life as miserable and miserable, as miserable as possible. And then one day they open the door and, you know, only the, maybe the very elderly don't want to leave. And that's fine with them because they're not going to really bother them and they clear the place out. And that's been the plan from day one. And they've had to modify, they've had to work around. Sometimes, like once in a, every three or four months, the Biden administration would like wake up and say we're facilitating a genocide, maybe we shouldn't. And you know, it's my Belief that President Trump himself probably put an end to the nonstop airstrikes because he didn't like the images of little kids being blown apart. And there was no stopping that. There's no way you could stop the video of that. It was always going to come out no matter what, by whatever means. So, you know, it basically was a fast genocide and now it's a slow genocide, Right? So they're killing people slowly. They're people, they're in a real world. If you had a ceasefire, you would surge medical, you would surge building materials to get the hospitals back up and running. You would surge the medicines that are needed. There are people with cancer. There are no cancer drugs. There are people, kids who need prosthetics, there are no prosthetics. On and on and on. All those things are the things that you would do. Day one of a ceasefire hasn't happened. Sure, they probably can point to numbers that are higher than, you know, during the active genocide before the ceasefire, but it's really a drop in the bucket. And I, I know what I send and I feel what I send is a drop in the bucket, because I know, I speak with all the hospitals, et cetera, and I know what they have and they don't have. And you go to your local hospital in whatever town you live in, and you walk through the hospital and you see all sorts of equipment, right? If you go to a hospital in Gaza, you literally find nothing. You find babies there and they can barely breathe because they were born into this situation. Who knows what their mother was exposed to. And there's no pediatric ventilator, there's no pediatric monitor. There are none of the things that they had before that they need now and they need more than ever. Right. And so, you know, other people involved are really care about people, I guess, when it comes down to it, like, do they really care about the people? It's all like optics and maybe, you know, sort of press releases and statements and we're working and it's, it's, it's really beyond belief.

A (44:50)

Lastly, I know that you were an executive producer on the film the Voice of Hind Rajab, and you were involved in helping Hind's mother and family evacuate from Gaza. Can you just speak a little bit about that film, how people can support it, how people can support your work. And then if you have any message, perhaps that Hin's family would like to relay, given how her. The murder of her has kind of been a rallying cry for Palestinian support throughout the world.

H (45:29)

Hint's mom, Wesam is great. She's so strong and I talk to her almost every day. Her message essentially is, my daughter wasn't the only one. For me, it's very painful. We happen to have the recordings of my daughter, so many other children. The recordings aren't there. Nobody came for hind. What kind of world is this? It's not too late to come and be present and be there for the remaining 1 million, 1.1 million, 1.2 million children. That's what she tries and stress. And I tell her to, you know, take it easy, but she takes it it very, very seriously that she feels that she's been given a platform. The film itself, I thought it was important to be involved with because this is the sort of thing I do. I kind of go and try to rescue children, right, like from dangerous places. And I wasn't there then. And the people who are heroes, who tried to be there were killed. So then in terms of the evacuation, a friend of mine sent me something from social media. Brad Pitt is one of the executive producers and says, why doesn't Brad Pitt fly his plane to Gaza and evacuate the family? And someone said to me, well, you know, you're sort of like the real life guy, so you should go evacuate them. And that was a long, very long process. The Israelis didn't make it easy at all. And actually we had an assist from the White House, of all places. So it keeps my hope alive that individuals do care about individuals and that really, they actually helped bring it to the finish line. In terms of the evacuation, when we got the family out, there were nine members of the family, including our mother. And I would just say to people, just keep engaged and keep fighting, and our representation sucks, right? There's almost nobody that speaks to what we need and what has to happen. And I think the only way to do that is increase our engagement with our elected representatives. And I think they, you know, most of them need to go. And we need to find people willing to take up the mantle to speak to what's important. Why can't we just care about, you know, children being safe? Why is that? How is that political? Like, and you know what, and the lies, you know, we. We need to be. We need to find people who are willing to stand up to the lies. I remember somebody texted me that they're using children as human shields. I said, I don't know what you're. I really don't know who sent you those talking points, but I'm there. There's no such thing. There's no mother who's handing over her kids to stand in front of, you know, some Hamas rocket or something that doesn't exist. There's no such thing. You so you believe in this dehumanization, that you think some mother would do that? So I could go on and on, but I think we just have to be out there and more effective. For me, I know what I'm doing and I get the stuff done. I think people can support any of the big NGOs. They're all doing as well as they possibly can do. But it's not about the NGOs. It's really about getting the people of Gaza what they need. So whatever it takes, that's really the purpose of everything all of us do. And I'm sure any of the NGOs would happily be banned if there was someone else or some organ, other organization to deliver to the people what they need. I mean, there's so many heroes in Gaza. Everybody, the truck drivers, every single truck driver, every time they get behind the wheel, they're taking their life in their own hands. But they have a mission to deliver from point A to point B and all the people that unload the trucks and then get the thing and distributions, the doctors, nurses, it's quite amazing. It blows me away. I don't know in America how we would respond to something like this, but the people in Gaza sure are heroes.

A (49:35)

Well, Ahmed Khan, really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. And we will put a link to the relevant links that you sent over to us in our episode and YouTube descriptions. Appreciate your time today. Thanks so much.

H (49:51)

Thanks so much, Emma. Talk to you soon.

A (49:52)

Bye. Quick break and when we come back, we'll be joined by Molly White of the excellent newsletter Citation Needed to talk about the rise of technologarchy. Getting it, getting close, figuring it out, figuring out how to say it. Be right back. It. We are back and we are joined once again by friend of the show, Molly White, software engineer, technology researcher, cryptocurrency critic, whose awesome newsletter is called Citation Needed. You should check it out. Molly, thanks so much for coming on the show.

C (50:59)

Thanks for having me back.

A (51:00)

Of course. It's great to see you. And I really, really enjoyed your recent piece. Kind of of like almost like a looking back at the rise of cryptocurrency and the economy that came with it over the past four or five years. It's called the Year of Technologarchy. I just, I did it. I nailed it this time, which is, I mean, a great way to refer to it as, but you go start you kind of track from 2021 to 2025. You say the year of 2021 is the year of hype, with all the NFTs and the bored apes and stuff like that. Then the collapse, you got Sam Bankman fried, the FTX falling apart, you got the cleanup, that's 2023. And then grievance 2024 when they poured all this money into super PACs and we're trying to legitimize cryptocurrency. And then last year, technologarchy trump kind of cementing that. So I guess just explain your kind of thesis about this overall and how things have tracked from 2021 to the year of technologarchy 2025.

C (52:12)

Yeah, I mean, around the new year I was sort of reflecting on the time that I've been writing about cryptocurrency, which has been since 2021, and the fact that every year seems to be totally different. At first it was a lot of writing about Web3 and these really overblown promises and the, you know, issues with the technology and the poor coverage of it. And then the next year it was all following bankruptcy cases and, you know, watching as these companies exploded. You know, then I was again, you know, steeped in legal documents, watching the bankruptcies play out over the next year. And I was watching criminal cases against Sam Bankman fried. I was watching regulatory cases against a ton of different crypto companies. And you know, that was, I think, the year where people were like, crypto is dead. You know, we've stopped seeing all these ads, we've stopped, you know, seeing people, you know, celebrities with NFT profile pictures. There's not many people talking about crypto anymore. It's become kind of cringe, especially the NFTs. And you know, I think that was a mistake to view crypto as dead because what happened is they sort of retrenched during that time period even as crypto prices were down. And they formed this political machine, raising, you know, almost $200 million in 2024 for these crypto focused super PACs that, you know, their only goal was to support candidates who would sign on to the crypto agenda in terms of, you know, which was really focused on deregulation, changing how crypto is regulated, which regulators are in charge of, and then, you know, installing politicians who are willing to make it their focus to promote crypto and really bolster the industry. And I think 2025 was the result of that. We saw this enormous amount of pressure and influence on Congress on the Presidents on regulators. Thanks to all of this political spending and the political clout that these companies had established. We had people like David Sacks installed at the White House. These people who were very much part of this industry, investing in this industry, still invested in this industry, in many cases now, writing the rules for this industry. And so I think that we've seen the US Government essentially become beholden to these incredibly wealthy tech oligarchs. And I think a lot of what we are watching happen now and what we saw happening last year is really directly attributable to that influence and the project that these people are really trying to advance.

A (55:10)

Yeah, the 2024 election being dominated by crypto is. That's not an exaggeration to say that you write about how Kamala Harris added that, like late, last minute crypto nod to her plot in her platform about what was it about creating more black wealth or something like that.

C (55:31)

Yeah, it was about supporting black men who invest in crypto. I guess it was really bizarre.

A (55:39)

Supporting humanity. Everybody would mean the elimination of this industry. But yes, it was just. I mean, I can't. We can't get back into that. But probably even more importantly than that, that very stupid thing was how the money was poured into all of these races. Like, you know, you saw it successfully take out Sherrod Brown in Ohio, that crypto money. And then you also saw Democrats like Jon Ossoff sign on to pro crypto legislation as a way to stave off the war chest of the cryptocurrency. Super PACs expand a little bit about on that. And how the crypto industry was able to so thoroughly corrupt our elections last cycle successfully.

C (56:27)

Yeah, I mean, I think it was sort of a double edged approach where first of all, they obviously had a ton of money. There was $200 million that they were sitting on, just sort of holding over people's heads saying, you better get on board because we've got all of this money. We will use it to either primary, you know, or support your opponent in the general election if you don't get on board with our agenda. There was also this huge PR campaign that was really targeted not only at the public, but at members of Congress and their campaigns to really emphasize the power of the crypto industry in terms of, you know, essentially being kingmakers in politics, but also to advance this idea that there was this huge block of American people who were essentially single issue crypto voters, and that if you were willing to embrace crypto and to sort of add a policy plank about how you were going to support innovation. And there were all these ways that they were framing it. Then there would be all of these people who might not otherwise vote for you, who would suddenly pour in to support you, even if maybe they were otherwise, you know, not interested in your politics, or if they disagreed with you on other points, or maybe even if they were a member of a different party. There was this idea that there were just so many people who cared so much about crypto that they would, you know, support any candidate who, who got on board. This wasn't really borne out by the data, but it was something that they were very heavily pushing. We saw, you know, all of these quotes from, for example, Coinbase claiming that millions and millions of Americans hold crypto and therefore care de deeply about it from a political standpoint. They were running their own polls where even the data that didn't support their theory was sort of massaged into these presentations that were then given to campaigns very directly saying, look at all these voters who care so much about crypto. And I think it was fairly successful in, you know, making candidates very concerned that if they were outspoken against crypto or even just didn't take a pro crypto stance, they could be at risk in terms of reelection or election for the first time if they were a new candidate. And so we saw a lot of candidates on both sides of the aisle sign on to this crypto agenda, you know, essentially by, you know, they often tried to present it in ways that were a little bit more ambiguous about, you know, embracing technological innovation and clarifying the regulations and things like that. But, you know, it was pretty clear what was going on, which was that these were people who were saying, okay, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to get on board. And you know, they were suddenly enjoying millions of dollars in campaign support. And so I think, you know, that was a really significant factor in the elections last time around.

A (59:25)

Yeah, and we've talked about this at length, but in part how lawmakers get hooked on money like this and Israel money is a, is a great kind of parallel here, which is just like, especially if you're a member of the House, you're up for election every two years. And the amount of calls that you have to do to fundraise from small dollar donors or even like moderately wealthy people in your district or something like that, going directly to people as opposed to these big money interests. It just, if you can get that infusion of cash, it saves you a lot of time. And that's how easy it is. And you Just sell yourself kind of piece by piece. But I guess let's now turn to the year of Technologarchy 2025. You connect the imperial ambitions of Donald Trump in a place like. Well, I would say when even talking about his policy towards Ukraine and being more conciliatory towards Vladimir Putin. But I'd also argue his fixation on Greenland is a part of this as well. This. This crypto, almost imperialism that has become embedded in the administration. This fixation on rare earth, rare earth minerals and things like that. How much of that do you see as informing Trump's foreign policy agenda?

C (60:50)

I think it's a huge factor. I mean, we have seen how much his foreign policy approach, approach has been influenced by his ambitions to essentially enrich his allies, whether that is oil companies in Venezuela, for example, whether it is tech companies that need access to rare earth minerals, you know, whether it is crypto, which means access to massive amounts of electricity. You know, in that piece, I. I point to a claim by Putin that, you know, Trump was essentially interested in over a nuclear power plant that is in Ukraine, but is controlled by Russia. And the idea is that Russia and the US Would jointly manage this Ukrainian power plant, and the US Would set up crypto mining nearby. Now, of course, this is coming from Putin, so grain of salt, but that is very aligned with Trump's general goal, which seems to be to seize land, assets, territory, whatever it may be, and then funnel them either to himself. You know, he obviously has massive crypto interests of its own. His own. His family is involved in crypto mining, or to his very wealthy oligarch allies in, you know, oil, crypto, tech, AI, whatever sector it may be. And, you know, I think this is part of what the tech industry paid for in 2024 was to receive these benefits, you know, these sort of the imperial conquest, or whether it was regulatory relief, where, you know, after Trump was elected, we saw many, many, many cases against crypto companies suddenly dropped by regulators. We saw pardons of cryptocurrency executives. I think this is all very much linked.

A (62:52)

And how linked is it to AI? When, you know, when I. It seems like almost the crypto currency corruption infrastructure has become the AI corruption infrastructure, too. There. It's basically the same players, same infrastructure. Right?

C (63:12)

I mean, a lot of the major players who funded the 2024 crypto political machine are, you know, Andreessen Horowitz, for example, which has broad interests across not only cryptocurrency, but AI. A lot of cryptocurrency companies have sort of expanded into AI to varying degrees. And now we're also seeing the AI sector look at what crypto did in 2024 with their very focused super PACs, and directly follow that playbook. So, you know, 2024, we had fair Shake. It was the name of this independent super PAC that was specifically supporting crypto interests. We have now going into 2026, a super PAC called Leading the Future, which it has allegedly $100 million committed to it from AI interests. And it's the same tactic of essentially saying we're going to support candidates who are going to advocate to deregulate AI and otherwise benefit AI interests. And so I think in 2026, we're going to be contending not only with the cryptocurrency super pacs, which are already as well funded as they were in 2024 and ready to deploy that money, but we're also going to be dealing with another $100 million on coming from AI and probably far more as they continue to fundraise.

A (64:35)

And the parallels don't really end there in that both of these technologies are very energy intensive.

C (64:46)

Right.

A (64:47)

And are accelerating the worst effects of climate change. And that I, I think, can't be. It needs to be emphasized more, really, because they're, they are rapacious and not. And the. For cryptocurrency, we're talking just pure speculation. AI has value, but the value is incredibly overstated and not matching the share of our economy, let alone what we are sacrificing from an environmental standpoint to justify it.

C (65:25)

Right. And I think, you know, with AI, you're also facing the fact that we're watching an authoritarian regime take advantage of AI to advance their abuses of the American public. I mean, we see reporting after reporting after reporting about how ICE is used, using AI to try to target immigrant communities. We're seeing how it's being used for essentially mass surveillance. I mean, you know, these are the people who are benefiting from government contracts and looking to limit the degree to which there can be anyone watching over how this technology is deployed. So I think it's something we really need to care about.

A (66:06)

Yes, to your point. I had forgotten to headline this at the start of the show because there's just so much news. But NBC News had reporting from last night about how ICE was using artificial intelligence to rush to add 10,000 new officers to their force. And an AI error created some sort of issue with how the applications were processed and sent many new recruits into field offices without pressing proper training. This is what law enforcement, what ICE is Telling to NBC News because there was this reporting, I know I'm a little bit afield of what we want to discuss. But from, from Slate, where a reporter was approved to be an ICE agent without filling out domestic violence paperwork, without filling out background checks. So like, yeah, it could be AI or they're using AI as an excuse. I'm not sure necessarily, necessarily if it matters. But it is amazing how like even when we go back and look at Doge, you wrote about that a little bit too, how we still had don't even have a full accounting of how much information Elon Musk scraped personal private data from every American. Sensitive things like bank information, your Social Security number. With Doge going all and ransacking the federal government like that was very much him trying to get ahead, it appeared of his competitors in the AI race.

C (67:34)

Right? Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, that's a really important thing to, to highlight is the extent to which AI is also being used as a way to sort of dodge accountability. You know, we see this very often if something goes wrong, it's oh, it was an AI mistake and then who do you blame? You know, you just arrest a computer, you fire a computer, like that's not going to happen. And so it's a very convenient way to say, well, oops, you know, we made a mistake, but we just got, you know, have to move on, we'll fix the AI, whatever it might be. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, we're watching these AI companies, you know, funneling money towards various Congress people, towards the President in order to advance their interests. And then, you know, on the other hand, they are reaping the benefits, whether it's government contracts going to Xai. You know, we're seeing Palantir, obviously very heavily connected and you know, they're very much using this influence that they have purchased in order to benefit themselves, their companies, you know, their, their bottom line.

A (68:43)

You also write a little bit about these prediction markets, so called prediction markets. This is becoming really concerning. You have CNN entering into partnership with Kalshi to use gambling on politics and integrating that into their news coverage on polymarket. You can bet on the amount of people that die in Gaza or when the ceasefire is was going to happen back in the day. I don't even know. I'm sure I could do a deep dive and find even more disgusting and brutal things that people are currently betting on. We also see insider trading that's clearly happening. You saw somebody make hundreds of thousands of dollars after they placed a bet on when Trump was going to bomb Venezuela. And that was obviously inside information. For example, talk about these emerging markets, who the players are behind, particularly Polymarket and Kalshi, and what your view is of how they're getting integrated into other established businesses in this country.

C (69:57)

Yeah, I mean, this has been a huge part of what we've watched happening over 2025 is the emergence of these prediction markets and their sudden ubiquity where people are betting on elections and sports and you know, anything you can imagine. You know, these used to be very tightly regulated. There were a limited number of them. They were essentially academic experiments to study whether or not market forces essentially created more accurate predictions. But over the past couple of years, thanks to some very aggressive legal action and lobbying, certainly they have dramatically expanded what they've been able to do. And now there's this huge retail push to bring in gamblers essentially to bet on these prediction markets. A lot of this was really thanks to the CFTC over the past year, which has taken a dramatically different approach to these markets. They used to essentially take the stance that these are, you know, these types of markets are not allowed, that you're not allowed to have gambling on elections essentially under these regulations. That has dramatically shifted over the past year as the regulator has been dismantled, essentially. I mean, there's currently one CFTC commissioner, the, the new, the newest chair of the cftc, Mike Selig, who has very little regulatory experience and is the sole commissioner on what is supposed to be a bipartisan five person commission. And the stance of the CFTC has essentially been, you know, they've done a complete 180. They've said now, you know, this is innovation. We need to promote innovation by allowing these predictions markets and really furthering these prediction markets. And it really needs to be underscored that Donald Trump Jr. Sits on the board of Kalshee and Polymarket.

A (71:56)

Both.

C (71:57)

Both, yeah, you would think that would be a crazy conflict of interest. They're, they're total competitors and yet he is. That is somehow happening. I guess they are just so interested in having a member of the Trump family on the board that they're willing to overlook that.

A (72:12)

Molly, it's his expertise. It's his expertise. Okay, Right, right.

C (72:17)

And you know, and his, his VC company is invested, you know, and there are other members of the administration who have been very closely tied to these prediction markets. I mean, the, the original nominee for the CFTC chair was on the board of Kalshi. And so, you know, this is a huge push by these companies to do essentially what crypto has done and take control of the regulator in order to allow these companies to become a huge part of our day to day lives. And so, you know, as you mentioned, now we're seeing these predictions, quote unquote, integrated into news reporting. We're seeing reporters really treating them as though they're not wagers, but as though they are actual odds of an event happening. And then we're seeing all of this, you know, very likely malfeasance, which is essentially going completely unaddressed because the CFTC does not really have, I mean, first of all they don't have resources, but second of all, they really don't police insider trading in the way that you would think they might in the way that the SEC does on, you know, in the stock market, for example, or in the way that gambling regulators try to ensure that people who are able to influence the outcome of a wager are not allowed to bet on that market. And so, you know, not only are we seeing these things sort of infiltrating American life, but we're also seeing the actual people who are being encouraged to place bets on these markets being put at a complete disadvantage because, you know, they're betting against people who have superior information. And so they're getting taken for a ride in that sense as well.

A (74:05)

And perhaps they think like insider trading happens all the time and like big banks get tip tips, tip offs before, say retail investors do on, you know, certain changes or sell offs or things like that in the market. And probably the justification is like, well, that is kind of legitimized in our more formal casino. Why can't we do it in our new casino?

C (74:38)

Right, right, yeah, I mean, there's certainly, I think, some degree of that. But you know, you see all of these really wild statements from these companies about how insider trading is good actually, you know, they've actually come out and said that you get more accurate predictions if insiders are allowed to bet on these markets. And therefore that's a good thing because.

A (74:57)

They know what's going to happen. Yeah, that's why it's more accurate.

C (75:01)

Well, you know, there, when it suits them, they essentially make the argument that, well, our goal is to have the most accurate predictions. And so therefore it doesn't matter if all of these betters are getting totally fleeced by people who have better access to information. But then on the other hand, they're essentially marketing. You know, they sort of turn around and market these platforms as ways for people to make money, everyday people to come in and bet on, you know, sports games or politics or whatever it may be. They sort of want to have it both ways where, where, you know, on the one hand they're like, well, it's the best source of information. On the other hand it's a way for retail investors to make money. And you know, both can't really be true. You know, people don't tend to want to place bets on rigged platforms. Essentially it's very much a dissuading force.

A (75:53)

Well, I mean, I'm actually curious about the mechanics about this because say, you know, lines, if you're sports betting lines can move based on how much money is placed on one side of things. Right. So I don't know exactly. I know that you're not betting against the casino with PolymarketCalsh, you're betting against your other betters. But what would happen if say somebody had significant insider information about an action? Would they be able to sway the odds in their favor so that like, oh, there's a bunch of money on this outcome. So that would incentivize people to take the plus money. Right. The less likely one if they think so, even if the insider information has, has it already locked down, it makes the alternative look more attractive, I would imagine, because the odds are better if you're betting against the outcome but you don't have the insider information.

C (76:45)

Yeah, I mean, and I think that's also something that is sort of going unaddressed here is the way in which the odds, you know, so called odds can be manipulated. You know, for one, you're right that there is this sort of monetary incentive that comes into play if someone has this significant insider information. But one thing I've been thinking about a lot quite recently is these partnerships with news platforms and the fact that they are essentially in their own way moving these markets. Because the more they are reporting on these types of topics markets, you know, the more they emphasize one set of, you know, one one side of the information compared to another, the more that the people watching these markets are going to take that side. I mean, people are working with the information that's in front of them. And now we have direct partnerships with news platforms that are supposedly providing information and these prediction markets where people are profiting off of public perception. And it's a crazy partnership for any outlet that is claiming to be providing high quality information, you know, accurate, unbiased news, when, you know, the incentive now is to essentially present the side of the story that, you know, moves these markets. And so I think we're going to see a lot more of these scandals where, you know, people are manipulating public perception, where they are manipulating the markets themselves, themselves in order to make the news. That's another, I think, big factor. We saw this to some extent during the 2024 election where huge bets were being placed on polymarket, and then suddenly there'd be this whole news cycle about how, oh, maybe the odds are actually different from what the polls are saying, and maybe you should reconsider your political activities based on these poly market odds that are so different. And I think that that's, you know, the. The public perception goes both ways, where the perception influences the markets and the markets influence perception.

A (78:50)

Yeah. Lastly on this, Molly, I guess the question is, who gives a crap if their predictions are good or not? Like, except for their investors. Why is that? The state. They're like, insider trading is good because it makes our prediction, our prediction markets better. That's what they claim. All right, let's take that at face value. Sure. Why do I give a shit?

C (79:17)

Well, they. It's a part of the push to integrate these markets into the news. You know, the idea is that if we have really accurate predictions, we can report more accurately on what's happening, what's going to happen.

A (79:31)

But that's what reporters are supposed to ask insiders in the government to do, like reporting about what the government's doing. That's, you know, just. Just throwing that out there. But let's outsource it to the casino.

C (79:45)

I mean.

F (79:45)

Yeah.

C (79:45)

Essentially, you know, the idea is that the best source of. It's a very sort of like, libertarian free market type of thing, which is like the most pure source of information about the future comes from these financial markets. And therefore they have inherent value as a source of truth, a source of information. Whether or not that is really borne out by the research, I think really remains to be seen because there has been research on the accuracy of prediction markets. Like I said, that was largely why prediction markets were even allowed to operate in the first place, was to study this kind of thing. But it was under very, very different circumstances where these were tightly limited academic projects. You could not go and bet a million dollars. You could only bet very minimal amounts of money. You were limited in who could do those bets and to what extent. And so now they're essentially extrapolating that research to these markets where now there's all of this financial maneuvering happening, where public perception is being manipulated through these markets, where there are all these incentives for people to make trades that don't necessarily reflect their position on what is actually going to happen but instead is just a way for them to make money in the interim. And you know, they're saying yeah, this research still holds out and I really don't think that is a safe thing to say.

A (81:07)

Well, I appreciate it Molly. I just, I can't get over the circular logic and how that it's so self serving. It's unbelievable.

D (81:16)

And all their pockets are being lied.

A (81:18)

Right, right.

C (81:19)

Oh absolutely, yeah.

D (81:20)

Yeah.

A (81:22)

Well thanks so much. Can't recommend citation needed enough. You can. All of your work there is free. But if people have like some extra change lying around to support your work, you do accept donations and subscriptions. But just like the fact that all this is available to people, it's a great service you're doing. Thanks so much. Molly White, appreciate your time today.

C (81:43)

Thanks so much.

A (81:45)

All right. With that we're going to wrap up the free part of this program and head into the fun half, so called fun half where we will take your calls, maybe we'll read your IMs for sure. And we will do some clips. Absolutely.

D (82:00)

Yeah. Just to, just to underline the sort of sink into dystopia that we are viewing here for my entire, all of our entire lives the employment of journalists has been cratering. Fewer and fewer journalists compared to like the 80s mainly because of advertising. And so to replace that what we're getting is cable television TikTok and and our news programs are going to rely on betting markets to what make their predictions better again for what? Like why do I care if they're even good? What does that mean for me?

A (82:37)

That's the point is like that's what I just couldn't. That broke my brain slightly is the circular self serving logic of it. They're like we need to, you need to allow us to do something that should definitely be illegal because if you don't let us do it the predictions will be worse.

D (82:52)

Who gives a shit? Why do I care if the bookies don't know if the Giants are gonna beat the Jets? Like I don't care.

A (82:58)

Right.

D (82:59)

And meanwhile China has connected all of their major cities with high speed rail.

A (83:04)

Yeah.

D (83:04)

Like so they let's look at the present instead of trying to guess the fucking future. Because some speculators, some parasites, everyone. I mean I have this clip, I went to Cal State, I went to our sound polls. Okay, let's bring Brandon in here too. But I, this is this clip that Emma was referring to and it's like people, they just need. And I would like, like journalists like Molly o' Shea to like get a little bit wiser about this. And she asked a good question, so I don't want to be too much on her, but I mean, just generally speaking, tech journalists is these people. It's funny, Molly brought up Web three. Like, remember that?

C (83:36)

Yeah.

D (83:36)

Remember how crypto was gonna help, like people in poor countries, like, blah, blah, blah. They will just say shit about how this is going to make the world better. Because that's what you need to do while you're waiting for the money to come in.

A (83:47)

You know who did that? Tech. The entire tech industry. The entire industry, the entire Obama years. And then a lot of liberals fell for it.

D (83:56)

Mark Zuckerberg to help with connectivity as he's making a surveillance state. But here's, here's this clip of, of.

A (84:03)

The call she got.

D (84:05)

Just like, listen to this bullshit again. This is just what you need to say as you're waiting for passive income to come in because you own society.

C (84:13)

Multiple times that you think prediction markets.

A (84:15)

Will be bigger than the stock market. What is, what is it going to take to become a trillion dollar asset class?

I (84:21)

It's pretty much already like a close to 100 billion a year of asset class. Right. Like, it's pretty easy to imagine. Imagine a 10x from here. Like we haven't even started. It's been a year. I think a very large number of people care. Much larger than traditional markets. And I think retail as a pie has just been growing.

D (84:40)

Traditional markets where they're like buying and selling actual commodities, not just bets on the future.

A (84:46)

Did they mean, does he mean though, traditional. The traditional stock market?

D (84:49)

Yeah, but at least you're buying like.

A (84:50)

Well, that's the point is like, yeah, it's like we're, we're, we're really predatory. Okay. Just want to put that out there. So, like, for people that are not less intimidated by the stock market market, we can let you bet on like very straightforward outcomes and you can buy in with even less oversight than the actual stock.

D (85:09)

And just to remind everyone, the reason we allow the stock market to have such a prominence in our society is because it's supposed to be the best way for allocating funds. But really all that's really looked at by people who invest in it is a big way to make free money.

F (85:22)

Well, I mean, also just, just no, just to say as well, the only reason that the stock market exists because it's heavily regulated, because there was a huge crash where tons of people lost everything, including their lives as a result. And so for order, in order for There to be a stock market, it had to be regulated. People forgot those lessons now because they have been like you know, propagandized to toward by you know, buy crypto types or scammers to delegitimize regulation sec. But those regulations like saved the stock market and you know, if these things, they made them legitimate and if these things are going to stick around, they're going to need to be regulated. But the whole predictions market thing is so dystopian. It's like the kind of thing that if you were writing like anti capitalist propaganda about America, you would add in there, you'd be like, oh yeah, and in America everything is commodified. You bet on everything. People have so few opportunities, they have to bet on every single aspect of life.

A (86:21)

Yeah, he makes this case positively here in just a second.

D (86:24)

Yeah, here's the actual bullshit we tuned.

I (86:26)

In for to financialize everything and create a tradable asset going outside of stock market. The long term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion. And I think if you do build a general purpose exchange that can resolve differences of opinions on anything. Like the TAM is quite massive, quite a bit bigger than the current TAM of the stock market.

D (86:44)

TAM is total accessible market, meaning we can get a bunch of dumb people to bet on. You know, how many people died in Gaza?

I (86:50)

I think putting aside sort of the retail trading and the institutional trading product, like there's sort of this, this separate product which is like we are living in a world where like we, we have an abundance of information but there's a lot of noise and like we don't really understand what's real from what's not. And prediction markets are an antidote to that. They do a very, very good job at distilling information and surfacing truth to people. And you're seeing this sort of massive.

A (87:11)

Shift where like all right, just like the idea that we should, maybe we should regulate the, I don't know, the disinformation in tech and instead of, you know, creating a casino to, to monetize the dysfunction that we've all experienced for.

J (87:27)

The thing, the thing is like hello guys. The thing is by, you know, prediction markets, it's funny because unless there is a, a specific prediction, you're betting on where the, the information is knowable by an inside source. They aren't better at guessing anything. For example, during the New York City mayoral primary where people actually have to vote and no one has an inside track like they do at a company on who's going to win or what product's going to come out or something like that. The prediction markets had Cuomo in the lead for the entire time until election day, if I recall correctly, where it was clear that Mamdani was winning. And then it switched before the election results were finally called because it was clear he was going to win and because it switched at the last minute. Everyone who loves these prediction markets claim that, oh, the prediction market called saw reality and what was going on for like, actually. And it swapped who it was predicting. It was good, like, was winning. It was ludicrous.

D (88:36)

I mean, the logic here is just stupid. The feedback problem is issue. Caroline Levitt left the podium in the White House about 45 seconds before the bet on how long she was going to address. The press was like, the entire thing becomes just an insider's game to traffic on their information. And the whole retail thing that this parasite from Kalsh she's talking about, that's just to get more money into the pot so those insiders can collect more when they eventually use their insider information to say, like, oh, I guess what, we are going to kidnap Maduro.

A (89:11)

Yep.

F (89:11)

You know, I mean, a lot of people got hip to crypto as like a game, a shell game that funnels money from outsiders to insiders. And a lot of people are already addicted to sports gambling. And so this sort of predictions market types of betting, it feels a lot more accessible than crypto. It feels a lot more like sports gambling. And for insiders, it has the, you know, the same ability to help funnel money from rubes into your pocket. And for the news, it gets people excited about the news. Look at all of the advertisements you'll see on sports news from, like, from the DraftKings or whatever sports betting websites. This is just the regular news version of that because now you can bet on the events of the regular news too. And so, like, there's a monetary incentive in getting people invested in like the regular news as well. It's really disgusting. It's, it's, it is like beyond dystopian.

J (90:05)

Like the, the cryptocurrency people who. The cryptocurrency skeptics who were calling this stuff out were saying years ago that Web3 and NFTs and all that is just the first moves of the tech industry to financialize everything. Like it was being said years ago. It's just that they thought the way to financialize everything would be to make a digital version of all products. But it turns out that the real way to financialize everything is to just gamify it all. People love to play games, love to bet and guess and do like that, love to go to their casino. So that's the way they'll financialize everything.

F (90:45)

Some people don't like sport, some people don't like. Or some people don't understand crypto. Some people are intimidated by the stock market. Everyone can bet on whether it's going to rain tomorrow. You know, everyone. Everyone gets that. So the total addressable market is a lot higher than any of those other things because it's not as alienating in principle because it has. It requires no special knowledge. But if you happen to have special insider knowledge, it benefits you, obviously.

A (91:12)

All right.

D (91:12)

Also, everyone will have gambling addictions. But let's go to the fun half.

A (91:14)

Yeah, let's go to the fun half. Quickly, you guys, what's happening on your shows? And don't speak at the same time. Okay. I wanted to see who would go first. Sorry. Go. Wanna play a little game? Brandon, what's happening?

J (91:30)

Put it on the betting markets. Who's gonna speak first in the majority board today?

A (91:36)

Brandon, what's going on?

F (91:36)

Okay, I'm gonna go first. Well, today. And I'll have this clip for you all by tomorrow. We took a turn on the wild side with Candace, whose newest theory posits that that Charlie Kirk was a time traveler.

C (91:53)

Do we have that for today?

D (91:55)

Time, Charlie?

C (91:56)

We do.

A (91:56)

All right.

F (91:57)

Kind of time traveler. We don't know yet. So both to find out today on the Majority Report as well. So there's that. And so, yeah, check out the discourse. Monday through Friday, 9am to 12pm Eastern. We are almost at 15,000 on YouTube and we are at over 5,000 on Twitch. We have a big crowd. Big crowd.

A (92:17)

All right, time traveler, what's happening on. There was that movie the Time Traveler's Wife I keep thinking about from.

F (92:31)

That's what I thought of too.

A (92:33)

Yes.

F (92:33)

That's the first thing I thought of.

A (92:35)

Candace, is the time traveler's wife in this way. Binder, what's happening on your shows?

J (92:41)

So I'm still recovering from CES last week and the holiday season before that. So this is actually the first stream I'm doing of the year so far. But I'll be doing my second stream of the year tonight, 8:30pm Eastern time at YouTube.com mattbinder for Leftist Mafia.

A (93:01)

And Matt Lech, what's happening with you tomorrow morning?

D (93:04)

Jacobin Show, Neila Tabrizi talking about Iran and maybe another guest. And yeah, so check that out. 10:00am Eastern Time. Subscribe to Jack Ben YouTube channel.

A (93:16)

And I was just reminded, thinking about left reckoning that I want to reveal. And we'll put this in the link down below that David Griscomb's book the Myth of Red Texas is now available for pre order. We'll put a link to that below. But he included my blurb, which I was very happy to see because I was like, oddly, it's the first blurb I've ever written for someone's book. I was like, God, I hope I don't sound like an idiot.

D (93:45)

There it is, right at the top.

A (93:46)

Yep, it's right at the top. So I'm pumped. I'm gonna be moderating his book talk and I guess, like opening kind of Q and A thing in late February. We've promoted that before on the show, but I'm sure we'll put a link down below to that. It'll be in New York City. I think it's February 25th, but I.

D (94:07)

Don'T want to Late February, definitely Pre order now 15% off from or books. So you can get either the. It's very good Kindle ebook or a print ebook, definitely. If you know somebody in Texas, pick them up a copy for this.

A (94:23)

It's very good. And it's very, you know, it's. It reclaims the myths, not to use from the book title, but like, of rugged individualism and like an almost like kind of cowboy ethos that has papered over class struggle and racial struggle in the south and particularly in Texas. And David, kind of like painstakingly, but with beautiful writing, goes through these examples.

D (94:52)

I mean, the modern conservative control of Texas, it's a disgrace to Texas. The bootlicking sort of servility of all the people that support Abbott and Patrick and all those losers. There's an actual lineage there that's to be respected. That is the real sort of Texas freedom representative.

A (95:12)

And speaking of Texas, we're getting word and maybe we'll cover this friend of the show, Greg Stoker is running for Congress and Texas is 31st. Whoo. We'll check that out soon, but appreciate you all. See you in the fun half.

H (95:30)

Okay, Emma, please.

A (95:31)

Well, I just. I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report.

B (95:35)

Wait, look, Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World, so. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show.

A (95:44)

It is Thursday.

D (95:46)

Yeah, thank you. Need to take over for Sam Desp.

H (95:48)

No, no, no. I'm.

C (95:49)

I'm.

B (95:49)

I'm going to pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this, and I'll tell you why. Who was offered a tour, sushi and poker with boys? Tour, sushi and poker with boys. Who was offered a tour, sushi, and poker with the boys?

A (96:06)

What?

B (96:07)

Twerk sushi and poker.

A (96:09)

Tim's upset.

B (96:10)

Twerk, sushi and poker with two boys.

G (96:13)

It's a.

B (96:13)

Offered a twerk sushi, and that's what we call biz. Twerk, sushi, and bulker. Or two boys.

A (96:20)

Right.

B (96:20)

Twerk sushi and we're gonna get demonetized. I just think that what you did to Tim pool was mean.

A (96:28)

Free speech.

B (96:29)

That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about it because I think you're responsible.

A (96:35)

I probably am in a certain way. But let's get to the meltdown here.

B (96:40)

Sushi and poker with the boys.

A (96:42)

Oh, my God.

B (96:43)

Wow. Sushi.

F (96:44)

I'm sorry.

B (96:45)

I'm losing my mind. Someone's offered a tour, sushi and poker with the boys. Logic. Sushi and poker. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a kid. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. Add this debate 7,000 times my mind. So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but, like, I absolutely think the US should be providing me with a wife and kids.

A (97:15)

That's not what we're talking about here, all right?

B (97:19)

It's not a fun job.

H (97:20)

Twerk.

B (97:21)

That's a real thing. That's real thing. Willy wonk. That's a real thing. That's got real. That's a real thing. Real sick, that. That's a real thing. Offered to twerk. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Rogan has done it again. Offered to twerk. That's a real thing. That's poker with.

F (97:40)

I think he might be blowing it out of proportion.

B (97:42)

Real thing. That's poker with the boys. Offered. That's a real thing. That's poker. Let's go, Joe. Sushi and poker.

D (97:51)

Take it easy.

B (97:52)

Sushi and poker. Things have really gotten out of hand, you know? Sushi and poker with the boys. Sushi. You don't have a clue as to what's going on. Live YouTube.

H (98:04)

The weight of the world on his shoulders.

A (98:06)

Want to do this show anymore?

H (98:08)

Anymore?

A (98:09)

It was so much easier when the majority report was just you.

B (98:14)

Let's change the subject.

J (98:16)

Rangers and Knicks are doing great.

B (98:17)

Now shut up.

A (98:18)

Don't want people saying reckless things on your program. Now, the most difficult parts about this show. This is a pro killing podcast.

B (98:25)

I'm thinking maybe it's time we bury the hatchet.

A (98:27)

Left his best violet twerk.

H (98:30)

Don't be foolish and don't tweet at me. And don't. The way Emma has all of these people love it.

C (98:36)

That's where my heart is.

A (98:37)

So I wrote my honors thesis about it.

B (98:41)

She wrote an honest thesis.

H (98:44)

I guess I should hand the main.

F (98:46)

Mic to you now.

B (98:47)

You are to the right of me on foreign policy.

A (98:49)

We already fund Israel. Dude. Are you against us?

B (98:51)

That's a tougher question I haven't answered.

H (98:58)

Incredible.

I (98:59)

Theme song.

A (99:00)

Hi, bumbler.

H (99:00)

Emma Viglen. Absolutely one of my favorite people, actually. Not just in the game, like, period.