10/8/25: Soybean Farmers Screwed By Milei Bailout, Bibi Salivates Over Iran War, Candace Owens Kirk Texts Confirmed, Douglas Murray Caught Writing Draft For Israeli Official

29:49So I think the Iranian people had enough common sense to not be tricked by these accounts, which don't seem like they got a whole lot of attraction kind of internally. And so they did not rush to the prison and try to free everybody. But the danger here is it's probably and I'm curious for your take on this. My sense is it's less about they didn't really think they were going to do that. I think it's worth a shot trying to spark some sort of protest inside Iran. But what they're really trying to do is trick Western journalists and policy analysts into believing that that's the case and then produce that artificial narrative that then they hope somehow can then devolve into reality on the ground.

30:35What's your sense of what the mission here was? Absolutely. Let me give you another example, Ryan. They bombed the state TV as also a similar - Live on air, yes. Yes. And also hacked the state TV and put out similar messages on state TV, basically saying, don't you remember how bad your regime is? How repressive? Don't you remember the protests? Time to rise up. I think one parallel goal, which wasn't achieved by the Israeli campaigns or bombing, was that people will rise up as they have before and they will overthrow the regime. And I think that's something they probably privately have been selling.

31:14And that this would be the last sort of the regime is on its last leg and they just need the final kick to fall. And that also helps, you know, bringing the U.S., this bigger power into a war. If you show them that you own the Iranian skies, you own Iran all land, you can bomb them all you want. And the people are about to rise up and take over this regime. That's also been the rhetoric of sort of the radical opposition that we will overthrow this regime. We just need a little bit of help from the outsiders. That's also been the rhetoric of Reza Pali. We just need a little bit of support. South Africa wouldn't win without foreign support.

31:48Mandela wouldn't win without international support. And so there needs to be a little bit of international support, but Iranians will rise themselves. And we saw the exact opposite. The Israeli bombings, first of all, created a rally around the flag in Iran. And also not one person came to protest. And this is a government regime that's not very popular. We see protests after protests. But when your homes, when your schools, when your roads are being bombed by a foreign entity, that's really not the time to go on a street and protest. And that's exactly what we saw by Iranians. And one other thing the bombing also showed people is whoever wasn't clear eyed about whether Israel can have very targeted surgical attacks only on regime officials.

32:31I think now I understand that there is no such thing and that you're going to have over a thousand casualties, most of them civilians. Even the military casualties, a lot of them were young conscripts who were just serving a mandatory military service. It's like Guatemala in the 1950s, broadcasting stuff over the speakers. The revolution's happening. The revolution's happening. Yeah, just hoping to convince people that it's true. Yeah. Falling a little flat, though. Yeah. This is such helpful information. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. See you next time. Welcome to the A-Building.

33:09I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated, and Black America is at a breaking point. Rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

33:53This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week, we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers, we're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes.

34:32Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune. It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to my parents. I lied to police. I lied to everybody. There were years right where I could not say your name. I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, to interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened.

35:16Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend? They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of to come around here and my wife. Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The ugly fight over what Charlie Kirk said or did not say in the days, weeks, and months leading up to his assassination is raging on Candace Owens released more information from what she says are three sources who confirmed something important to her. Let's go ahead and roll the clip.

35:58three people told me off record, two people who have this in a written communication from Charlie, one who is a Turning Point USA donor, and I would say very much one of the white knights in this. The very day before Charlie Kirk died, he expressed that he thought he was going to be killed. He told these people, I think they're going to kill me. Okay. He had not expressed that to me. So I am telling you this based off the testimony of three people. And I am saying this because I hope that these people who I think are good will be inspired to come forward with that. Again, those conversations I had were off record.

36:40I honor that. If I say it's off record, it stays off record. But I'm hoping that watching what I am doing and feeling the energy that is rising across the world for people who want to know what the heck happened on 910, that they will be brave and they will say, yeah, Charlie did the day before he died think that he was going to be killed and maybe tell us who is they? For once and for all, who is they? Who is the they that he thought was going to kill him? Well, on the question of who that they is, and Ryan and I will break down a little bit what off the record should mean as well, but the they, InfoWars reporter Harrison Smith posted, I'm not going to name names, but I was told by someone close to Charlie Kirk that Charlie thinks Israel will kill him if he turns against them.

37:23That was over the summer. I think it was actually even before he was killed. Yeah, it was before Charlie Kirk was killed, which I probably wouldn't normally bring that up. Because again, even with Candace in this case, there's no clear sourcing. It's not as though, you know, even in like new independent media, we do more, I would say, vetting of claims than that. But when you start to see more and more people saying stuff like this, it starts to sound like it actually really was the scuttlebutt in the circles around Charlie Kirk, Brian. Which helps explain kind of some of the reaction in real time.

37:59Now, I just want to be totally clear here. Let's say that it's true that Charlie Kirk did think that. That does not lead logically then to the claim that they did it. Right, right. Those are kind of disconnected things. But it's important for understanding his legacy and the moment that we're in. What was happening behind the scenes. Yes. Right. And I just, this is E8. So this is one of Charlie's close friends, Andrew Colvett, who's been continuing to hold down the fort over at the Charlie Kirk show and talking a lot about trying to debunk some rumors and confirm other claims. he went through these text messages that Candace Owens released that showed Charlie Kirk basically doing the I've had it up to here with these conservative Zionists argument.

38:50He didn't say it that way, but you can see pretty clearly from the text that Candace released, which people were immediately saying, there's no way these are real, there's no way these are real, showing Kirk's exasperation, utter exasperation with being told what he can and cannot say about Israel. These are within 48 hours of him being assassinated. So let's roll E8. To address some of the things that have been going around on public, namely about a text, a group text chain that has been made known and released by Candace Owens. And I just want to address it head on because, you know, that was a text grab, a screen grab that I had shared with people.

39:30So it is authentic. Take a look. So Charlie writes in this group chat, just lost another huge Jewish donor, 2 million a year because we won't cancel Tucker. I'm thinking of inviting Candace. Somebody writes, oh. Charlie writes, Jewish donors play into all of the stereotypes. I cannot and will not be bullied like this, leaving me no choice but to leave the pro-Israel cause. And somebody writes, a donor writes, please do not invite Candace. That might feel good short term, but it's not good long term. In my opinion, like all groups, you're going to get a wide variety of opinions. That nasty free will thing that God bestowed on us makes life frustrating at times after the dust settles a bit, maybe.

40:17So again, this is 48 hours before Charles was assassinated. He was very clear and he was very explicit. So the Candace part came first and then Colvette confirmed, as you saw in that clip, those were indeed real text messages. He said that's a screenshot actually that he had shared. And so these things - 24 hours before he was killed roughly. Within 48. Yeah. So clearly these things are pinging around because there were a lot of conversations in group chats. And it's so ugly to even have to talk about this because Charlie Kirk is not here to explain. I mean, in group chats, there's sarcasm. It's all virtual.

40:52It's sarcasm. You say different things. It's easy to imagine how things can get taken out of context. I would say that's a pretty clear statement from Charlie Kirk, but he's obviously not here to explain. He did have that long interview with Megyn Kelly where he put a lot of this in his own words. You don't even need to be taking things from group chats necessarily to know that he was deeply, deeply exasperated. And it seems that donor reference is to Robert Shulman, who the reporting from Max Blumenthal has been confirmed about him publicly revoking that money from Turning Point USA, a falling out with Charlie who considered him or they considered one another to be very close, almost a mentor-mentee relationship.

41:31So this was clearly getting very nasty. And it shows the dynamic that we've seen over and over where he says, quote, just lost another huge Jewish donor,$2 million a year, and that's Shillman,$2 million a year because we won't cancel Tucker. I'm thinking of inviting Candace. That's the dynamic that we see so often. Megyn Kelly's betraying a little bit of it lately where it's like, and she'll say this out loud, if you try to tell me what I can and can't do, I'm going to go the opposite direction. You don't want me to have Tucker? Oh yeah? How about Candace too? Just to like draw boundaries. Be like, no, this is my conference.

42:11This is my organization. I'm going to make the decisions. And also, I'm going to make the decisions, and this is what he was saying to Netanyahu and others, I'm going to make decisions that I actually think are better for Israel. Like he thought it was better for Israel to have this aired out in public. Right. To sharpen your counterpoints against the narratives that exist. Rather than trying to suppress them and pretend they don't exist. And that is what he said. He tried to explain to Netanyahu in the letter. He said this is, the suppression is like absolute, the appearance of speech suppression, the existence of speech suppression is bad for you.

42:49Right. Right. You're not going to win this way. Right. It was his argument. And so, yeah, it has been fascinating to see this be the debate rather than what I thought right afterwards when they found out that the alleged shooter's partner was a trans person. I'm like, oh, well, we're going to get a month or six weeks, months, months, months of like, you know, trans hate. And instead, this has been more the conversation. It's so ugly. I mean, it's just, it's the amount of, I mean, if you think about the amount of digital evidence of your thought process that you leave now in 2025, if you're somebody who works in politics and you're working this stuff out in, you know, he was clearly trying to keep everybody happy.

43:39I think that's the big takeaway is that he was trying to tell supporters of Israel he was still on their side and give them tough love. But then he was also expressing privately how incredibly exasperated he was by all of this. He did it publicly, too, again, on the Megyn Kelly interview. So it just. Right. And you can imagine a guy who made his entire career starting from when he was 18. Yeah. About debate. Yeah. And all of these people, he has$150 million organization that people are funding based on his career as somebody who wants to air different sides. Right, right. It'd be one thing if he ran APAC and invited Tucker Carlson to the conference.

44:23Right, right. Then I think if you're an APAC donor, you're like, no, absolutely not. Get out of here. Like he does not toe our line. Right. And that's fine. You're an advocacy organization. For AIPAC. No Tucker Carlson. Totally fair. But Turning Point USA, it's built on the idea of debate. And so the idea that you can't have this debate, which is tearing the conservative movement apart, is just anathema to his very being. And then, as he explained on Megyn Kelly, to then layer on top of that a personal insult that you actually are anti-Semitic. Right. was clearly driving him nuts. Despite all the time he has spent advocating for Israel.

45:10The fact that people are still, right now, treating his feelings like they were in some way illegitimate or flirting with anti-Semitism is so, so disgusting. And it's just ugly, again, that his digital footprint is being torn apart like this. I mean, he put this stuff pretty clearly in public at the time, too, but sad, sad, sad. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated, and Black America was at a breaking point. Rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's Alma Mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest.

46:00It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution, I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. and it will blow your mind. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast.

46:45Each week, we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers, We're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune.

47:22It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. So no, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to my parents, I lied to police, I lied to everybody. There were years, Ryder, where I could not say your name. I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can, to try to find out what actually happened. Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend? They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of bitches to come around here and my wife.

47:58Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We have a new report over at DropSite News that finds that David Frum, Douglas Murray, Seth Mandel, and Pamela Gross, who is a CNN producer, all in various ways were working directly with the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations while also engaging journalistically with that same ambassador. From in particular, while serving as an editor at The Atlantic and a writer at The Atlantic, where he still is, sent an email two days apart to Ron Prozer, who was the Israeli ambassador, one asking him, and we can put this element up on the screen here, Can I interview you for a short profile in The Atlantic about what it's like to be Israeli ambassador at UN?

48:55That is a perfectly normal email for a journalist to send to a subject or a source. I'd like to write a profile for you for The Atlantic, the journalistic news outlet where I write. Would you be willing to participate in this interview? Wonderful stuff. less usual is the a separate email uh that he sent we can put this one up on the screen uh this is i can't even believe it this is from saying that it's believable though saying that he and seth mandel a lot going on here you might want to pause it and read this if you want but that he and seth mandel who writes for commentary um have been working on the draft for a speech for the israeli ambassador this he says this version was drafted by seth mandel of commentary with whom I've been working.

49:43The top half is identical to what you read previously. The bottom half is much less pointed about U.S. policy. Is this more in line with your thinking? That's July 31st, 2014. This is right after the 2014 Gaza War. And so it has then, it includes a couple different versions of the speech. Later, Prozer responds, and put this next element up there. Thank you, David. I will look at it and get back to you. So the target audience here is UN Security Council. You can look and see whether or not you think Frum's speech writing along with Mandel's is up to snuff. Frum, as you may or may not know, was a speech writer for George W.

50:28Bush before becoming the kind of anti-Trump resistance guy. He famously or infamously, depending on your perspective, although there's not many who take the former anymore, came up with the phrase axis of evil. That's what he was known for, axis of evil, which somehow included Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, none of which had anything to do with each other. Our last segment, to the point of manufacturing consent for the Iraq War. Right. And then the Iraq War brought in a Shia majority that linked up the country with Iran, but whatever. So that's him. We've also got Mr. Doug Murray, Douglas Murray.

51:10He writes to Ron Prozer as well. Roughly, like actually the same day, they're competing to write this speech. Very good to speak earlier. I am passing in here my first draft ideas. It's probably slightly long and it's possible I have put in some more diplomatic things than needed, but I think I have got in all the points discussed to be worked on doubtless. Can we do this in a British accent? We should, right? But let me know what your thoughts are and I will give all the time I can to helping to get it right. All very best wishes as ever. Douglas, Ron's Ron Prosor speech draft. I don't think I've ever heard you do a British accent.

51:49I don't think I could actually do. I'm so grateful that you haven't heard. I could do a very good one. So Murray, it gets worse. Like, okay, this is pretty bad. Journalists who are, at the one hand, covering Israel-Palestine. There's a giant war that just happened. At the same time, they're secretly writing drafts of speeches for the Israeli pastor. That's pretty bad. And were they taking money for it, do we know? I highly doubt it. Okay. Volunteer. I would suspect that this is volunteer work. We could find out, but like, Frum doesn't need the money. I don't know about Murray. This feels more like work of conscience.

52:26Yes. So this is from the Dropside article. At the time, Murray was also providing other services in support of Israel and its military efforts. In November of that year, he wrote to Prozer to inform him that he had hosted an event that raised over one million pounds for an organization called the Association for the Wellbeing of Israeli Soldiers. That organization had been created to provide funds, quote, directly to IDF soldiers and IDF units created in 1942 before the creation by David Ben-Gurion. In 2015, AWIS merged with another organization now called the Association for Israel's Soldiers.

53:05And so Douglas Murray wrote to him about how happy he was about how well the fundraiser had gone, how much money that they had been able to raise for the Israeli military. Now, Murray has never made a secret of his support for Israel. Right. But I don't think he's ever mentioned that that is up to and including writing speeches and raising money for the military.

53:33We can get into Pamela Gross in a moment and Seth Mandel. But what was your reaction as you were reading through some of this stuff? And do we have the, have you been? Have you been? Do we have that side? Have you been to the crossing points? No. When were you last there at all? I've never been. You've never been? Well, am I not allowed to talk about it now? You've never been. You know, these are people who are critical of a lot of media ethics when it comes to coverage of Israel. And that's what I think is particularly frustrating to me. This is a fairly easy thing to disclose. And actually, if you were...

54:21I don't know how easy that would be. But if you're honest about it, people... In the profile? Well, in the profile, yeah, is another question. But people know that you're completely... Like he wrote that profile. That wasn't just an idea. Like he wrote and published a glowing profile. I have it up on my browser right now. I've checked Wayback Machine and the archive. There's absolutely no disclosure in it. Not even now. So to do that, if you're David Frum and not disclose that you helped with this speech is completely bananas. And for both of them, they are openly massive supporters of Israel.

54:54That's like to go further as somebody who's in the media and actually work on a draft of a government speech and not disclose it. and then ever lecture anybody else about journalistic ethics and coverage of Israel. I just think that is tough to... None of this is surprising. It's just a tough pill to swallow. And I would imagine The Atlantic, though it's edited by former IDF soldier right now, Jeffrey Goldberg. Prison guard. Prison guard. Right, who we called Goldberg. Left a voicemail, a text message. He did not get back. from... Nobody gave you a comment on this. From referred questions to the Atlantic's PR department, which has not gotten back to us.

55:42Adam Johnson pointed out on Twitter that the same day, or maybe it was a week later. Oh no, it was the same day. A week before this, From had accused the New York Times of putting a fake photo of bloodied Palestinians on their news coverage of of the Gaza war. A week later, the same day that he was writing the Israeli ambassador, a draft of sending him the draft of the speech, he apologized. These images do appear authentic, he said, and I should not have cast doubt on them. I apologize especially to Sergey Ponomerov of the New York Times, whose work I impugned. So he apologized to the photographer, not to these bloodied subjects of the photograph whose suffering he called into doubt.

56:34still from, this is the New York Times, still from defending his initial skepticism, arguing that, quote, there was a long history in the Middle East of the use of faked or misattributed photographs as tools of propaganda, using that old line of, isn't it interesting that I got fooled by this?

56:52Do you want to do the Pamela Gross ones too? Or anything else you want to add to that before we go to Mandel? And Mandel, he's a hardcore supporter. I was like, okay. Finding Mandel in the composer's emails was not very surprising. I don't think any of it's particularly like shocking, but it is, I guess, surprising just from the perspective that, again, like as an opinion journalist, they're opinion journalists. They don't pretend to be like sort of Shula, the reporters who are just, although sometimes I think the rhetoric goes in that direction because Murray famously was lecturing Dave Smith for not going to Israel, which was a question of ethics.

57:25He was saying, as somebody who talks about this, kind of implying that Smith was acting in the capacity of a journalist or media person, then you should go to the place that you're talking about. So as opinion journalists, I feel like it's really, and I don't know if you've dealt with this before, but it's like a really, it's easy to be like, well, I'm open about what I think about this. So, oh, of course I can take this money and do this thing. But I learned from Tim Carney when I was young, he has like a full disclosure on Medium every year of places that he takes money from. I do the same thing.

57:55If it's like a conservative group that you give a speech for. Helping the government. That's one thing. And most people don't even disclose that, even though I think they should. But that's one thing. Helping the fucking government of another country. Stick government. That's who you're covering. Holy shit. Yeah, you can't do that. That is like even that, even by the standards of like where journalism and opinion journalism, that is surprising. Yes. And everybody has seen the Douglas Murray clip in his debate with Dave Smith on Joe Rogan, where he says, you haven't been talking about the crossings.

58:31This puts that whole thing in a whole new light because Douglas Murray then says, I have a journalistic rule that I do not talk about a place, even in passing, unless I have visited it. That's his journalistic rule. A much more basic journalistic rule is that you avoid conflicts of interest and that if some exist, you disclose them. So when Murray's talking about having been to these crossings, he went with the IDF. He put on a jacket that said press. Yes. Which suggests that you are then baked in the ethics of that craft, which means that you are objective and independent. If the IDF wants to send an IDF spokesperson to the crossing, they can do that.

59:19He also had himself photographed in the chair where Yaya Sinwar was killed, wearing his press jacket. He did not disclose that he had raised money for the IDF and that he had written speeches. And that's just what we know about. This is activism, by the way. Like raising money for the IDF is you're an activist on behalf of the cause and then helping the government. I mean, that actually, even if it's volunteer, makes you sort of an agent of the government. So I would say you don't actually get to claim that you journalistically followed a journalistic rule. That's not journalism. That is a thing that you're doing.

59:56It is collaboration with the Israeli government. Like if you are drafting speeches for the ambassador, raising money for them, and then getting taken on escorted trips to the crossings, you don't get to then denounce somebody else who hasn't done the same thing. Like he was trying to say that he is a superior journalist and his opinions should be taken more seriously because he had been to this crossing. But now we know the full context of what brought him to that crossing. Secretly doing work for the government and then going escorted by the government. Just because you put on a flak jacket that says press doesn't make you press.

1:00:36So yes, was he physically there? Yes. Should we credit anything that he says? No. Right. We can put up F6. So Pamela Gross is an interesting character. She's no longer with CNN, but she was a CNN booker producer. And also, let's do our disclosure here. Married to Jimmy Finkelstein, who used to be the owner of The Hill. and The Hill owned Rising while Emily and I were co-hosts on Rising. So Jimmy was, we weren't getting paychecks because we were independent contractors, but he was signing our checks. He was trying to hire us too. Trying to hire us. And then he sold the thing before that even happened one way or the other.

1:01:27And so Pamela Gross, so dear Ambassador, so wonderful to see you this 4th of July. Thank you for joining us. clearly Iron Dome is doing the trick and saving lives. Please, dear friend, let's get it finished. So she then enters into this long conversation, and we can put up F7 as well, with Ron Prozer about how she's going to raise money for the Iron Dome. He writes, dear Pamela, thank you and Jimmy for a magical evening. You both are the perfect hosts. You and Jimmy are true assets to the state of Israel, which if you're a journalist, whether you're Israeli or American, an Israeli journalist would not want to hear that from an Israeli ambassador.

1:02:20You do not want to be told as a journalist that you are a, quote, true asset to the state of Israel. You really don't. that's not what you want to hear. No, no, no. I'm an objective journalist here. So it's okay. So maybe she's just Jimmy Finkelstein's wife and has some fake job at CNN. No, not at all. In the emails, go read the full story if you want all of Pamela's crazy emails back and forth with Ron Prozer here. But F10, this is an email where she is reaching out to book him, which is her job, on CNN. Makes it easier, actually. To discuss, right, yeah. I mean, hey, I'm raising money for your military.

1:03:08Yeah, come on the show. Come on the show. It's just, it's too much. And it's one of these stories to me that manages to both be utterly shocking and deeply unsurprising at the exact same time. Like, it really is in the sweet spot of hitting both of those emotions. Right. Like, I'm still, I'm shocked at this, and yet utterly unsurprised. Yeah. It's shocking and not shocking simultaneously. Yeah. I mean, again. Maybe in post we'll put a little have you been clip. You've never been. This is the, one of the biggest problems in journalism right now. You are free. Most journalists cannot truly shelve their opinions.

1:03:59I know a few who genuinely can do it. Maybe they're just politically ambivalent. They definitely don't care one direction or the other. It's just so few people that can actually do that. And yet most journalists still pretend that that's what they're doing. And even if you're in the opinion side, like Frum and Murray, fine. But actually acting, or gross, who I guess she wasn't on the opinion side. She was just doing booking for CNN. But, you know, it's just so obviously over the line. Like, so obviously over the line. And the audacity then to criticize other people's journalistic ethics tells you a lot.

1:04:37Yeah, truly incredible. That's why I like this show. Like, we've got our opinions. I think my opinions are facts. Yes. I think they're correct. But you know where I am. But I'm not writing speeches for anybody. No. Also, where do these guys get the time? Seriously. My first response was, no, I don't have time to write your speech. You write a speech, don't you have a whole office? Why were Fromm and Murray both drafting the same speech? I don't understand that. Were they having them compete against each other? Was he just seeking everyone's advice? Yeah. So one thing that politicians do, and they do this a lot with donors, but they'll do it too with journalists, is pretend that they're interested in their ideas.

1:05:20Like, what do you think the effect of the economy is going to be on the midterms? And then the journalist or the donor or whoever they're talking to feels valued. Like, the thing that they're saying, wow, I'm speaking to this powerful person. Right. And so it changes the power dynamic. Totally. So you can imagine this is just on steroids. Yeah, yep. Where pros are like, you guys are just such brilliant wordsmiths. Could you draft some speeches for me? But that's when it really crosses the line. And then they both should have been like, well, no, of course I can't do that. Unless I'm open about it.

1:05:57I'm happy to have a dinner with you and we can talk about how awful Hamas is and how the world is all against Israel. Yeah. but I'm not going to draft a speech for you. Like that's crossing lines that even I'm not willing to do. Well, at the very least, I mean, so again, like you shouldn't do it, period. If you're going to do it, you should then tell your audience and your readers that you did it. Yeah, and then let people say, okay, you know what? This guy wrote speeches for the ambassador that he's now profiling, but I know that he's supportive of Israel. And so I already knew that anyway, so I'm going to read the profile anyway.

1:06:32And yeah, then you've got the full knowledge of it. It would have been even funnier if he was like, the main thing people say about Prozer is his rhetorical flair and his speech-making ability is unparalleled. Almost reminiscent of some of George W. Bush's best speeches. Positively from Ian. People call him from Ian. Yeah, many people are saying. Oh, goodness. All right, Ryan. Amazing, amazing reporting there. Now, we should mention before we wrap for the day that Donald Trump has, since we started taping, actually put out a truth social post calling for Brandon Johnson and Governor J.B. Pritzker, two Democrats obviously in Illinois, to, quote, be in jail for failing to protect ICE officers.

1:07:22as a guy on a bar stool, that's one thing. As the president of the United States, that is a very different thing. This is the man with the powers of law enforcement saying that Brandon Johnson and J.B. Pritzker should be in jail for, quote, failing to protect ICE officers. So also, can we poke at the logic train there for a minute? According to Trump, Chicago police are incapable of protecting the citizens of Chicago, which necessitates sending in the National Guard, all these federal agents. So now Trump wants them to protect the citizens of Chicago and also all these helpless federal agents that he's throwing into Chicago.

1:08:07Isn't the whole purpose of sending in the feds that they're going to protect the Chicago police, who he said just can't handle it? Mm-hmm. Also, ICE is out here, has been out here, like, making a bunch of basically prank calls to 911. Have you seen this reporting? No, not yet. That they keep calling 911 saying, somebody's scaling this fence, somebody's doing this and that. And then they look at body cam footage, and the same with the woman that they arrested and accused of ramming them. Turned out it was the other way around. Like, ICE keeps making stuff up. And so I think at some level, the Chicago police are like fed up with these clowns.

1:08:46Well, also worth noting the politics of this, Donald Trump is transforming J.B. Pritzker, of all people, into a resistance hero. The more he talks about it like this, the more that he talks about the situation like this, he's giving J.B. Pritzker, maybe he's actually trying to do it because he understands that J.B. Pritzker is a poor resistance hero for Dems. I don't think it's that 4D chess. I think he just is saying things like J.B. Pritzker should be in jail. I can't fathom even what the charge that they cook up would look like in this case, failing to protect ICE as governor and as mayor. I don't even know what that would potentially be.

1:09:24I can't think of it. Maybe we'll ask Grok. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I will block you if you do that. This is a warning to everybody following me. If you ask dumb questions to Grok. Ask stupid questions to Grok underneath my posts. You're blocked. You're blocked. You're blocked. Well, that happened while we were taping. Trump called for them to be imprisoned. So I'm sure Sagar and Crystal will have more on the story tomorrow. But we wanted to make sure to bring everyone that news as soon as we could because, boy, is it wild. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for supporting us over at breakingpoints.com.

1:10:01Also, if you can't get a premium sub for liking, commenting, subscribing on YouTube, wherever you're getting your podcasts, it helps us so much. We appreciate it. makes that second half of the Friday show, by the way, if you're a premium sub, possible. We're having a lot of fun on those paywall halves. We'll probably talk about Janet Mills on Friday. She's apparently getting into the main election. If she won, if she beat Susan Collins, she'd be a 79-year-old freshman senator. Good Lord. Good Lord. Democrats have maybe finally cracked the code. Maybe we'll cover Katie Porter on Friday, too. The senators were too young when they were getting sworn in, what the Democrats included.

1:10:33Yeah. All right. See you later. We'll see everyone on Friday. Have a great day.

1:11:06comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo. The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Adventures of Curiosity Cove podcast, what if there's more to the story than we've been told? This Black History Month, Adventures of Curiosity Cove invites families into a playful mystery that blends history, science, and imagination.

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