7/10/26: Dems Scramble To Replace Platner, Iran Trump Assassination Claims From Israel

28:18And I think I'll post some stuff just about how volunteers are approaching who will be and the people that have dedicated the most time to this race are approaching who the next candidate will be. And Ryan and I have texted a bit about this already. But I think the other people that are... Oh, no. Is it going to be Ryan? No. It's him. Right? It's the next candidate. You know, actually the best candidate, I think, Miss Rachel is from Middiford, Maine. So, I wish she would run. But I think the other people that are potentially going to step in here, across the board, they all just lost their primaries.

28:59They all just lost. Right. They're all loose. I hate to say it. Literally. Yeah. Like they literally just lost. Due respect. Due respect. Yes. Um, but, and one of them, uh, there's a guy, Dan Kleban running who runs main beer company here. Fantastic beer, horrible candidate. Um, yeah. And he, uh, he ran for two days. He raised, I think$250 ,000 and then dropped out and gave it to Janet Mills. Cause Chuck Schumer said, Hey Dan, this is our girl. Like now you gotta go. And he's coming out and posting all this stuff of it's a genocide. I want Medicare for all. What are we talking about? You know, so it's all that sort of stuff too, where I take it, same with the Shaw stuff, take it with a grain of salt.

29:52These people all just lost their primary. They're unemployed politicians that want to now jump at the next race to run in. We have like one more minute. Shanna Bellows deserves a little time here because she's kind of popular across the board. She'd knock on her, if there is one, as she ran in 2014 against Susan Collins. So Collins has been there, done that. Now, she's much more a grown politician at this point. Now, she finished a tight, what, fourth? Third or fourth in the governor's race? Fourth, yeah. Fourth. But everybody was kind of lumped together. She was part of the trinity of Troy Jackson, Pingree, and Bellows.

30:37Quick thoughts on her. I mean, obviously she's not the anti-establishment firebrand, but she's pretty progressive and well-liked across the state. Yeah, she's good. She's the secretary of state right now. She blocked ICE from getting access to our license plate information. She's blocked Trump from getting our voter rolls. She's very pro-labor. The labor unions love her. She absolutely would be for Medicare for all. I would assume that she would call out the genocide in Gaza and be against forever wars. So she's a good option. And if if it's not Troy, I think depending on how these caucuses go and how this finest final county level delegate election system is decided, someone like her probably has the best chance.

31:27Right. Because the party likes her. People generally like her. And then I guess the last guy that's running is Jordan Wood. he lost his Senate race he then went and lost the Congressional District 2 race and now he's back in the Senate race running again his husband is with Mothership Strategies which is the email firm that pioneered the panic emails in your inbox that try to look like utility bills and the sky's falling if you don't give us$3 so he raises a lot of money but he spends it all on fundraising he doesn't use his husband's firm to his credit But there's a good drop site story on that, right, Ryan?

32:08Yeah. Yeah, he's raised, he switched races to CD2 just because he was losing in a hurry, raised, I think,$2 million in the Senate race, and then raised another several million dollars from doing the gun to my head, I'll vote for Democrats email headers. And to raise every one of those dollars, you have to spend like 95 cents. So it comes out in the FEC like, oh, look, I raised$4 million. It's like, yeah, but you've spent$3.8 million on Facebook and on email, like raising that. So it's not as impressive as it seems.

32:42Saagar Enjeti:Well, Nathan, thank you so much for joining us today and informing us from the trenches of Facebook. Please continue that reporting there for us because I'm certainly not on Facebook anymore and I'm sure there'll be more reporting from you for us to share in the future. where can people find you if they want to individually keep tracking your updates? I'll keep writing for DropSite on this. You know, Ryan and I are following the race. We've been at this for almost a year now. So DropSite, you can look for the written pieces and then Twitter, Nathan T. Bernard. You can follow me on there as well and I'll be posting stuff.

33:20But yeah, glad I could share. Inshall we trust with you all.

33:26Saagar Enjeti:That's the Shah of Maine, not Iran. All right. Thank you, Nathan. We'll see you later. That's it. All right. That's really good. The return of the shot. Listen, just when you thought he was out, they pull him back in. His mug just say, Inshallah, with a little music note. I'll treat it.

33:52Saagar Enjeti:Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the unhoused. Stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We the Unhoused is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator and host. And for years, I've created a space where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. We The In House is a two-time Webby and Signal Award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon.

34:34Saagar Enjeti:Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Jill Wittler, a street doctor turned influencer whose work with the Unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to We The In House on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Michael Rappaport and my podcast, the I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcast, is unlike anyone you've ever heard. We're a variety show and if you're looking for strong opinions, funny opinions about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture, and whatever else catches my attention, then subscribe now. This kid Jafar Jackson is as good as Rami Malek, as Freddie Mercury, and it's as good as Timothy Chamillai, as Bob Dylan.

35:24Saagar Enjeti:And I say that with love and respect for both of those actors. And I don't know how many Oscar nominations they give out. I don't know if it's five, six for best actor. 150 % this kid Jafar Jackson should absolutely positively get nominated for his portrayal as Michael Jackson. Listen to I Am Rapaport on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I Am Rapaport Podcast. What did Black music, food, and culture teach us about who we were becoming? 2016 was sort of that last era of monoculture, where we still consumed things in community. From Beyonce and Rihanna. Everybody wanted to be Beyonce.

36:09Saagar Enjeti:I don't think we'll ever see another Rihanna. To soul food, memory, identity, and the stories we carry through Black culture. What does it mean to be Black and eat in America? So we were this group of people who knew how to work the land, who knew how to live with the land. We make it do what it do. Therapy for Black Girls is bringing together the conversation shaping Black life right now. You will never make me feel bad for being a Black girl, for being a Black American girl, ever. Therapy for Black Girls is bringing it all to the mic. Listen to therapy for black girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

36:46Saagar Enjeti:Well, this leads us nicely to our Ron segment here. Dr. Trita Parsi from the Quincy Institute, welcome back to Breaking Points. Great to be with you guys. Where do we begin, Ryan? What do we want to start with here? um well trita we have the two major piece of news the bombing of the tracks and the other civilian infrastructure and then did you see uh trump talking about um arming protesters it jeremy seemed to think he was implying he was arming the mek i thought he was referring again to the kurds um did you see this i didn't see that part uh but i could i could i would not be surprised that they're taking a second look, if not at the Kurds, perhaps at some other groups, the Baluchis or others, because as you know, next week Netanyahu is coming, the Israelis have been very much pushing this narrative, that all of this could have worked out so well if just the Kurds had been armed, had it not been for that decision that had been pulled, mainly because Erdogan objected, but also because the Kurds objected, which is kind of lost in the story.

37:58Saagar Enjeti:But had that not happened, then everything would have been awesome. And, you know, this war would have been won in four days, which is complete nonsense. I think this is an Israeli effort to kind of give war another chance to stay in the country, to create a narrative that allows that. Griffin, let me play this. Let me play this Trump clip for Trita. Ready? Here we go. Immediately. And that's an edict. That's in writing. If they protest, if they go out in the streets, they will be immediately shot. They don't have guns. You know, we sent some guns, but the group that was supposed to give, which I said would happen to my people, I said it, I called it exactly.

38:37Saagar Enjeti:We sent guns, a lot of guns. They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back against the thugs. You know what happened? The people that they sent them to kept them because they said, what a beautiful gun, I think I'll keep it. So I'm very upset with a certain group of people, and they're going to pay a big price for that. Very poetic for it to be the wild, wild west underneath that clip. Ridiculous. What a ridiculous timeline we live in. So there are some who saw that clip and assumed that he was talking about the attempt to arm the Kurds, which there's been plenty of public reporting on.

39:14Others have seen it and said, no, looks like he's talking very specifically. He's talking about January, like we were arming the protesters, which would be somebody like the MEK some anti-government group and then they're saying that they kept the guns Trita, after seeing that your reaction to it but also what do we draw from the fact that he's still kind of blustering about their inability to kind of spark an uprising that is successful there?

39:47Saagar Enjeti:I do think he's talking about the Kurdish groups because there was an effort back then to give weapons to Kurdish groups that would then be part of the war effort, as well as Kurdish groups that actually were part of the violent elements of the protests back in December and January. There's a group called the PAK, which actually was trained by the United States back in 2014 to take on ISIS. Now, it was supposed to be an Iraqi Kurdish group, but it was an Iranian Kurdish group. I don't know if the U.S. didn't know that it was an Iranian Kurdish group. But nevertheless, they trained it and it's been a very violent group and it was using violence throughout the protest, even before the protest.

40:30Saagar Enjeti:So I suspect that there's some Kurdish groups that he's talking about and he's mentioned in other interviews that he's very upset with the Kurds. Now, they didn't do it because at the end of the day, the Turks intervened, but also some of the Kurdish leaders of the Kurdish government in northern Iraq were dead set against it because they knew that it would be a disaster. They knew that they would end up paying the price for it because it would be round in retaliation. The Israelis have very much pushed this narrative that everything would have been just amazing had this operation with the Kurds gone through.

40:59Saagar Enjeti:And I don't believe that for a second. I think it would have been a disaster in many different ways, but it's an Israeli effort to essentially give war another chance, to claim this narrative that everything would have worked out well had this just one thing been done correctly. And that way, go back and be able to say, we still can do war because we actually didn't really fully try regime change.

41:23And we were talking about what that might mean just in terms of going back to the beginning of the war. Netanyahu seemed to convince Trump that that was actually a great plan and obviously didn't work out the way that Netanyahu told the president that it would. And this time around, Trina, what could we see happen if that attempt at least is successful?

41:51Saagar Enjeti:You know, it's interesting. On the Iranian side, there's a lot of folks that are very worried that the whole MOU is just used to be able to, for the United States to be able to prepare itself for another round of war. And given how the U.S. under Trump has behaved, it's not necessarily surprising that they would think so. But when you take a look at the fundamentals of the situation, you're still seeing a scenario in which only a third or so of the traffic of the strait is actually up and running. We're not seeing the strategic reserve of oil actually being filled up in the manner that I think the administration was hoping for.

42:28Saagar Enjeti:The second and third level consequences of the previous oil shock is still being felt. Some of it has not even started yet. So to under these circumstances restart the war without having, at a minimum, a completely different approach or strategy, to me, does not seem to be something that possibly could work. If there's going to be another war, you're going to have to think it through very differently. And the circumstances are not such that there's been enough recuperation. And I don't have the data on what the levels of interceptors, et cetera, are, but it certainly doesn't look as if that in any way, shape, or form has managed to be restocked in order to have another war.

43:07What I think may be happening or ends up happening

43:11Saagar Enjeti:is that if the war is kept at this level in which it is below the threshold for the Iranians to close the Strait of Hormuz, then the U.S. may find a degree of benefit in the war because it is degrading the Iranians without paying the price that the U.S. and the world economy was paying when the war actually was fully in shape because that's when the strait was closed, the economies around the world were suffering tremendously. The Iranians are aware of this as well, but they're also looking at a different scenario, which is that even if the strait is not closed, this warfare is reducing the traffic already.

43:51Saagar Enjeti:And the reduction of that traffic combined with the very low inventory of oil, including in the Strategic Reserve of the United States, which is, by the way, is not supposed to be used in the manner that it's used, is enough for the U.S. to simply not have enough time to be able to conduct any of these military campaigns in a way that would strengthen its negotiating position if this is at the end of the day some sort of a negotiating strategy. If I can take it just a step back and say, this whole thing is just so idiotic. Because there was, I mean, look, this whole thing was about the fact that the MOU Article 5 has different interpretations.

44:29Saagar Enjeti:I personally don't find the Ivanian reading of MOU Article 5 to be convincing. But their view is that it essentially gives them control over the strait during this period until it is completely reopened and a final agreement has been signed. The GCC and the American interpretation is different in the sense that the CESD-Vanians are responsible for making sure that this is safe passage. But it doesn't mean that they're the only ones that are in charge. And as a result, the U.S. is using the southern corridor in the strait, which is in the Omani waters, to pass ship throughs. Now, the Iranians are saying, that's fine.

45:08Saagar Enjeti:They can go through there as long as they notify the Iranians. The Iranians want to make sure that all ships that are transiting the strait are notifying them because, according to the article, they are, even though it doesn't use the word, responsible. There's the key phrase. Exactly. Exactly. So as long as those ships actually do indicate to the Iranians that they're transiting, the Iranians are saying they're not having a problem. The US position and the GCC were like, well, hold on, that kind of gives you complete control. It's better to have a scenario in which if there is any type of notification, the notification should go both ways.

45:46Saagar Enjeti:So there should be some entity on the GCC side that also gets the notifications and someone on the divine side. And the two sides were converging towards disagreement. But then diplomacy was paused because of the funeral of the supreme leader. And during the funeral, Saudi and Qatari and I think one other ship was trying to transit through the southern part having its transponders off, which is not permitted apparently. And this caused this big conflict now because the Iranians saw that as a confrontation, as a provocation, something that was being used while the Iranian attention was on the funeral.

46:30Saagar Enjeti:And they eventually shot at these ships. And this is what apparently caused Trump to really get infuriated. And now this whole thing started. And it really doesn't matter because at the end of the day, this is just for about another 10 days. Out of the 30 days in which this was supposed to be more or less resolved, It's not entire the MOU. It was just like 10 days left. And now we're seeing the entire MOU and everything coming crashing down, frankly, because both sides are overreacting. I think the Iranians were overreacting in terms of using force against these ships, even though they didn't sink any of them.

47:04Saagar Enjeti:And I think the US is completely overreacting by restarting the war over this issue. Something else crossed our desks that I would love you to react to. This is from CNN, which says that Israel shared intelligence with the U.S. that Iran had devised a new plan to assassinate President Donald Trump. Two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. And how are we supposed to consume this news? You know, it's been used in the past, assassination attempts on Trump as one of the reasons that we have to go to war with Iran. What do you know about this alleged new assassination? attempt? Obviously, I have no idea what they're talking about.

47:49Saagar Enjeti:But let me put it this way. Someone should do a graph of looking at the moments in which the Israelis are releasing this type of intelligence and how it coincides with massive Israeli campaigns to get the war restarted. I think the Israelis are very astute at playing Trump's psychology. They see that he is right now in a very bad space in general. He seems to have been very upset having to spend the last week with a bunch of EU leaders in NATO that he hates. And on top of that, the Iranians are shooting at ships and Ukraine, Russia is not going well. So he just seems to be in a terrible, terrible position.

48:26Entry to the funeral, probably the funeral clips, they were all, my assumption is that those were all over Fox News where they were saying, assassinate Trump, death to America, that sort of thing. So he probably realizes a ripe environment.

48:39Saagar Enjeti:Certainly, yeah. But also I think the size of those crowds may have made Trump a little bit jealous. It may not have played very well with him either. But you're right. There were slogans, et cetera, during the funerals calling for revenge against Trump, undoubtedly. What was important to notice is that it was never any senior or even mid-level official of the government that was issuing any of those different threats. And that difference is, of course, important. But personally, we've seen it before that they have tried to say that there's these assassination attempts and perhaps there are. When Trump wanted to go towards diplomacy he completely ignored it.

49:19Saagar Enjeti:When he wanted to go towards a military confrontation then he apparently was impacted by it. Are there any attempts? I have no idea but I think if there were I would suspect that the US intelligence would know more about it than the Israelis do. You got something Ryan? Well, yeah, I wanted to ask you about the strikes themselves. It appears like the U.S. is attacking a lot of civilian infrastructure in Iran, particularly bridges and train tracks leading to the latest site of the Ayatollah's funeral. And what do we know about what damage Iran has done to Bahrain, Kuwait, and facilities there? And then there were also these reports that somebody was attacking Iran back from Bahrain and Kuwait and it may actually have been Bahrain and Kuwait themselves.

50:09What do we know about the specifics of the fighting? Sure.

50:14Saagar Enjeti:So first of all, let's remind ourselves, attacking those railways, bridges, etc., these are war crimes. Not that that's something new, but unfortunately it's continuing. Those specific railways were repatched and fixed within 24 hours. So the damage was not long-lasting. That's different if the US, if the Trump administration targets bridges, etc., that's going to be much more difficult to rebuild. But the reason why those were very important was because they had really gained significance during the period in which the U.S. was blockading the Persian Gulf. It turned out that the Iranians started to shift a significant amount of trade and export of oil through the rail oil system that had been built.

50:58Saagar Enjeti:It was not fully operational. It's not been used to its full capacity. It started to be used to its full capacity. So I think the Iranians probably are viewing this as a signal from the Trump administration that if war goes back on, not only will the U.S. close the Persian Gulf again with its blockade of the blockade, but it will take out Iran's alternative paths to export oil or to import different things. So I think it was more of a warning, particularly mindful of the fact that the Iranians could rebuild it in 24 hours. Clearly it was not aimed at doing long-lasting damage. When it comes to the idea that the Bahrainis and the Kuwaitis are striking at the Iranians, this information came from Israeli media.

51:43Saagar Enjeti:Doesn't mean that it's false. But I personally doubt very much that the Kuwaitis and the Bahrainis would do that on their own. Because that would really invite a completely different type of an attack. What the Iranians have done so far is they're going after the U.S. bases. And their argument is that if there weren't U.S. soldiers there and there weren't any U.S. bases, then they wouldn't be attacking them. If Bahrain and Kuwait themselves are attacking, it's a completely different story. Then the set of legitimate targets from the Iranian perspective will, of course, grow significantly, including military targets that are owned by the Kuwaitis and the Bahrainis.

52:20Saagar Enjeti:So I'm skeptical at this point. We'll have to wait to see. But this is part of the imbalance that exists. Whenever something happens in Iran, we get images out of it because the Iranians are not censoring people using their cell phones to film the damage. Whereas that is taking place throughout the entire GCC states at this point, certainly in Dubai and of course in Israel, in which we hardly have any images coming out of what is happening there, particularly during the exchange of fire between Iran and Israel just a couple of weeks ago. And I think folks should go back and just do searches on videos from October and April 24 to June 2025, the amount of images that came out of Israel of ordinary people just filming it, to the essentially zero videos coming out right now.

53:09Saagar Enjeti:That is because of military censorship. That is not because damages are not done. That's not because the missiles are not hitting. It's because there's a near total censorship that does not allow us to see what actually is happening. Well, you mentioned earlier the crowds for the funeral blanketing Fox News. Now, Fox News has also recently Brian Kilmeade was on a Fox News segment saying he's not really sure if Whitcoff and Kushner are the men for the job. Let's take a listen for your reaction. Also, don't think that Whitcoff and Kushner should be the ones doing this. They're business guys. They have not been effective in Ukraine, not been effective in Gaza.

53:49Saagar Enjeti:They have not been effective in this. They can't have three portfolios to begin with. We have a State Department for a reason. Marco Rubio, even Democrats admit, has looked at as a genius internationally. He is the guy that most people would want, even if you gave truth to the Democrats. He should take the lead on this because you can't do this like a business deal. You have to understand the history of the region and how distrustful the Iranians have been. They will only make a decision if they have no other choice. I like that of all of those. Well, I like that of all of Brian Kilmeade's reasons, the fact that they're massively corrupt and like financially tethered to the people they're negotiating with didn't come up.

54:30But yes, your reaction, Trita. Your business, guys.

54:32Saagar Enjeti:I think this is actually a very important clip because the fact that he is very explicitly saying that this file should go to Rubio and the State Department tells you something about what's going on here. because you do have a split in the administration in which you have a camp that is favoring the negotiations and the one that is much more skeptical of it. And he's essentially saying, take the negotiations out of the hands of those people who believe in negotiations and put it in the hands of those who never have believed in negotiations with any of these people, with any of these different countries.

55:05Saagar Enjeti:And that tells you something about, you know, what they're really looking for. But it also makes me wonder, I mean, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that it was Hexet and Rubio that went in and informed Trump of the fact that the Iranians were starting to shoot at some of these ships again for going through the Southern Corridor without coordinating with them. And that that prompted this whole beginning of him deciding to take military action, etc. It does not appear, at least from the Wall Street Journal reporting, that the actual negotiators, the ones that are in charge of the file, were particularly participants in, at least in the initial discussions in which this was done.

55:43Saagar Enjeti:And I think it adds to the picture in which we have seen in the past week or so, Rubio, after the MOU was negotiated, suddenly emerging into the scene here, both in Lebanon and in the GCC, despite the fact that prior to that, he spent most of his time focusing on Venezuela and Cuba. But now suddenly he showed up. He mediated a deal between Israel and Lebanon that completely contradicts the MOU, and it appears to me at least to be an effort to sabotage the MOU. He went to the GCC states and got them to sign this public statement that completely closes the path towards one option of resolving the issue over the Strait of Hormuz.

56:27Saagar Enjeti:So both of those, to me, seemed as an effort of undermining the negotiations. And now you have Fox News saying actually put the negotiations entirely into the hands of the person who was opposed to these talks from the outset.

56:41Trita, we appreciate your time. I know you had to get out of here pretty sharply, but always helpful to have you on. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Have a great weekend. Check out Trita Substack as well.

56:58Saagar Enjeti:Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the unhoused. Stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We the Unhoused is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator and host. And for years, I've created a space where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQIA plus community and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. We do unhoused as a two time Webby and Signal Award winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon.

57:41Saagar Enjeti:Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Jill Wittler, a street doctor turned influencer whose work with the Unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to We The Unhoused on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Michael Rappaport, and my podcast, the I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcast, is unlike anyone you've ever heard. We're a variety show, and if you're looking for strong opinions, funny opinions about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture, and whatever else catches my attention, then subscribe now. This kid, Jafar Jackson, is as good as Rami Malek, as Freddie Mercury, and it's as good as Timothee Chalamet, as Bob Dylan.

58:31Saagar Enjeti:And I say that with love and respect for both of those actors. And I don't know how many Oscar nominations they give out. I don't know if it's five, six for best actor. 150 % this kid Jafar Jackson should absolutely positively get nominated for his portrayal as Michael Jackson. Listen to I Am Rappaport on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I Am Rappaport Podcast. What did Black music, food, and culture teach us about who we were becoming? 2016 was sort of that last era of monoculture, where we still consumed things in community. From Beyonce and Rihanna. Everybody wanted to be Beyonce.

59:16Saagar Enjeti:I don't think we'll ever see another Rihanna. To soul food, memory, identity, and the stories we carry through Black culture. What does it mean to be Black and eat in America? So we were this group of people who knew how to work the land, who knew how to live with the land. We make it do what it do. Therapy for Black Girls is bringing together the conversation shaping Black life right now. You will never make me feel bad for being a Black girl, for being a Black American girl, ever. Therapy for Black Girls is bringing it all to the mic. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

59:52All right, I've got something pretty fascinating for you guys that really isn't getting enough attention. Let me put this up on the screen here. So, as a bunch of people probably already realize, Germany's auto manufacturing capacity is collapsing amid basically twin pressures. One, their energy costs have skyrocketed because somebody blew up a pipeline that was supplying them with all of their cheap energy from Russia. And so as a result, they can't compete like they used to be able to. And secondly, Chinese electric vehicles are just, as Emily, you saw it, just dominating the global market. You were recently in Brazil.

1:00:32Can you tell us real quickly about the BYDs? I was all up in those BYDs. How are they? I've never seen one with my own naked eyes. Yeah, no, I was actually really excited. I would say, you know, at least in Brasilia, probably half the time, if you're getting an Uber, you're getting a BYD. There's a big BYD dealership right outside of the Brasilia airport. They're everywhere. They're obviously very, very slick and a huge competitor to Tesla. So that's definitely a major, they're obviously now a major player in the global EV marketplace. And you can totally understand why. I'm not an EV person in general, but they're slick.

1:01:14And so Germany sees the writing on the wall. And what they're doing is they're saying, okay, well, if we can't compete when it comes to auto manufacturing, we do need a lot of drones because we live in fear of a Russian invasion. And so let's convert a significant amount of our industrial automaking capacity into drone making capacity. But there's an interesting hitch that just arose, not just drone-making capacity, but all kind of defense capacity, Iron Dome, et cetera. Yeah, so let me put up this Jerusalem Post article. So the headline here, Qatar vetoes Volkswagen deal with Israeli defense company Raphael in Germany.

1:01:59So in other words, the Germans were trying to convert a Volkswagen plant into an Iron Dome manufacturing plant. And they're like, solves all of our problems. Except, oh, wait a minute. Qatar is a Gulf country that was just bombed by Israel like back in 2024 and considers them to be a geopolitical rival. And they're the ones that have an enormous amount of investment in Germany. And so you've got the Israeli technology, but you've got the Qatari money. And so the Germans are kind of caught between the two of them. So now this effort to kind of rehab this Oznabrook plant into a weapons maker is now stalled because of that.

1:02:50It's an interesting window into the way that all of these kind of conflicting structural forces that we're watching play out on a daily basis are colliding with each other in what seems like a really unsustainable way. That's crazy. And for the record, Ryan surprised us with this story and what I did not expect him to say. None of this was on my bingo card. When he opened up by talking about the German Volkswagen plant, I was floored, Ryan. Didn't think it was going to Doha and Jerusalem. I didn't. Yeah, so no, just wanted to share that with the audience. No huge deeper thoughts, but like, this is fascinating.

1:03:33Yeah, this will have implications for the U.S. too, because in order, you know, so in the U.S., you're going to have a bunch of weapons makers who are going to want to team up with the Israeli military, which they're trying to fuse with ours. Elbit Systems, in fact, which is the number one military contractor in Israel, is in the lead to get the American howitzer contract. So this is a multi-billion dollar contract for an Israeli company to be making howitzers, like iconic American weapon system. Which we also just authorized patriots in Ukraine, right, this week? Right, authorized. Right, they're like, oh, go ahead and make your own.

1:04:17Because Ukraine is complaining that we're wasting all of our patriots in this unnecessary war with Iran. And meanwhile, the last ballistic missile strike from Russia on Kyiv, every single ballistic missile went through and something like 32 people were killed. So they're starting to take significant casualties in these ballistic missile attacks from Russia because their stockpile of interceptors is basically exhausted. And so the U.S. solution was, well, here's a license you can make your own. It's like, bro, we're getting bombed today. like so like and you know if they try to build a factory in ukraine right now russia will bomb that so ukraine has moved most of its defense technology and drone technology into poland and germany and elsewhere and the russians have said you know if that's what you're doing maybe we need maybe we're then justified in hitting poland and germany so yeah they have a license but like a License doesn't do much for you when the missiles are flying, like right now.

1:05:21See the defense stocks up on the screen here. Pretty much everybody down, except for Northrop Grumman. How are they losing money? How do you lose money? In this environment. Right now.

1:05:33Saagar Enjeti:So if I'm going to understand this correctly, Ryan, due to Trump's war in Iran, it has slowed down Germany's ability to turn a car company into a drone warfare company. Is that what I'm supposed to get? In this case, Iron Dome. But yeah, their broad strategy is to stop, you know, move away from some of their concentration in vehicles, which is sad. Those were cool cars. I guess that was a short-lived thing. I call the VW bug the Iron Dome. Always have. We'll have Mercedes drones. But if Qatar has anything to say about it, it's not going to be done in coordination with Israel. And Israel helped develop the Iron Dome with the United States, which they love to remind us of.

1:06:20So they have some purchase to make these objections.

1:06:27Saagar Enjeti:Well, Trump is slowing down the German war machine with his own war. I think that's eligible for another peace prize. Put it on the board for him there. but why don't we end why don't we end with another story let's get back home for a sec to New York City where Zoran Mamdani is enraging enraging people with a new map of immigrants or immigrant locations immigrant areas of the city enclaves which has angered one Rudy Giuliani let's look at that and many more There is an army of Rudy Giuliani's that are angry at Zoron over this. We are Rudy. Rudy says, Mamdani's decision to leave out Little Italy on his map of enclaves within New York is beyond shameful.

1:07:17Saagar Enjeti:Italian-Americans contribute so much, not just in New York City, but the entire nation. He also left out Irish and Jewish enclaves. We all know what's going on here. And here we've got a map that they put out here. We've got all sorts of places. We've got little India, little Egypt. We've got a little Palestine, little Odessa. There's a little Ukraine. Don't worry, Ukraine. We got you. Ecuador, you know, all sorts of stuff here. But no little Italy on this map. And of course, our friends at the Free Press had to dig into this and speak to local little Italians about this. little italians let's let's see i love little italy this is one of my favorite restaurants right here let's take a listen hey mondami i give you a year you are not a new yorker i'm it's la reggie and today we are here in little italy asking the locals how they feel about one of the oldest immigrant communities little italy not being included on mayor mom donnie's immigrant enclave map i don't consider you to be my mayor i think it's just great before he's going.

1:08:27Saagar Enjeti:He's got to be fair to everybody, and he's not fair to everybody. He's not fair to the Jewish people, which he makes everybody notice he's not fair to the Jewish people. He's not fair to the Irish people. And now he hates the Italians. For what reason? What do we do to him that he should hate us? They always sort of push us to the side. I got it. But literally, we get their own problems. And we're always pushed aside. And I think it's about time that you have to be firm about this. Otherwise, we'll totally be forgotten. If you understand what took place here over 100 years ago, between 1880 and 1920, when the mass migration of Italian immigrants first came, this was the stepping stone for the Italians.

1:09:10Well, the Bari family came here 120 years ago from Sicily. They were immigrants. They landed down in what's known as the Five Points. Grandma started the San Gennaro Festival. That right up there, that is Grandma. That is Grandma. Grandma from the Bari family. Okay? I see as a heart and soul of this neighborhood.

1:09:25Saagar Enjeti:My grandfather was on the Society of San Gennaro, which happens to be this year, 100 years. So it means a lot to me, little, little, you know? There's no such thing as left or right down here. Both sides of the street are beautiful. And what makes New York City such a special place is a collage of many different cultures. People from all over the world come here and settle. And they need to be recognized for the contributions that they've brought to this wonderful country. All right. I stand with them completely, honestly, and I think this is an inexplicable decision. That's actually sort of beautiful.

1:09:59Yeah, there we go. Why did he leave that off, honestly? Yeah, they brought us pizza. They brought us the mob. They brought us anarchism. I mean, what more could you ask for? But actual question, why were they not on the map? I don't know how they left out all this. It's absurd. Maybe like somebody read like how the Italians and Irish became white and they're like, well, they don't count anymore as immigrants. They've got a little Ukraine. Well, they put a little more recent little Ukraine. I don't know. Put out a new map. Come on. Yeah. Take the L and put out a new map. Breaking point stands for a new map.

1:10:40Saagar Enjeti:We absolutely need a new map. This is the most atrocious thing that he has done in office. Anti-Italian discrimination. It's bad politics, though. Like, it's actually bad politics. Momdani misstep. Huge Momdani misstep here. We call balls and strikes, and that most definitely was a strike. That was a wild, wild pitch outside. And, yeah, I mean, listen, I think we're all going to be pouring out a Negroni in honor of the little Italy, which is incredible. everyone should go get a slice sit on the street in honor of the italian influence in new york every time i go i was surprised that there was uh there was a lot of you know clearly he he this one italian owner also felt that way about uh his handling of israel and and jewish uh nature stuff so seems like the free press will be up and down how did the irish catch a stray there was there a Ryan every time he's in New York City.

1:11:43Yeah, that's right. Michael Scott outside Sbarro. My favorite pizza plot.

1:11:48Saagar Enjeti:Sbarro. That would be the ultimate humiliation. Mom Donnie's next video is a Sbarro. Wow. Sbarro's not bad. I'm not going to lie. It's an institution. Well, that's going to do it for all of our important news segments for this Friday. But why don't we get into a little bit of supercast AMA questions for our members to round out this episode. All right. And it's time for some AMA questions. If you join at breakingpoints.com, you too can submit an incredible written question that we will read on the Friday shows. This is my favorite part of the show. And sorry, sometimes if that runs short. But let's start with Amy Sinise, who asks, there's a big call on the left for media outlets like Breaking Points to interview Kishama Sawant.

1:12:40Saagar Enjeti:I'm sorry if I don't know if that's how I say her name, about her independent run for Congress against Adam Smith, one of the architects of the attempt to merge the Israeli military with the U.S. military. I think you all should interview her. It would be weird to only interview Democratic candidates running against these incumbents backed by the Israeli lobby. As a leftist in Michigan, I have largely abandoned the Democratic Party except for a very few local candidates like Abdul, who I'm willing to vote for but ultimately do not trust to be better than AOC. It would also be nice to hear from people like Breonna Joy Gray on some of these electoral issues.

1:13:09Saagar Enjeti:She offers a leftist perspective that Crystal and Ryan don't often get into. Your response? Oh, yeah. So on on Kashama Sawant. So the way that we think about what having candidates on is basically two things. One, there has to be let's say there's something very interesting going on in in their race. Like we have some news on the race. There's some particular influence in the race. There's a particular issue that that this candidate relates to, even if that candidate isn't like neck and neck with the other opponent, with their opponent like that. That could be a reason to get onto the to do an interview with someone who we don't necessarily think even has a shot of winning, but they're very interesting and newsworthy in their own right.

1:13:58And then the second is if they have a realistic shot of winning and represent some newsworthy kind of movement in our politics. And, you know, we're happy to have people from all spectrums like on. It's not just the lefties or not just the, you know, mega types. Happy to have these thousand folks on to like go back and forth with them and, you know, pressure test their own arguments. So those are the two buckets that they fit into.

1:14:32Sawant doesn't quite fit the first one. You could cover Adam Smith and his role in fusing the military without needing to talk to the opponent. And maybe fits into the second, but we would need some evidence of it. I was actually talking to Sabby Sabs just about this yesterday, and I was asking her. She was saying, hey, why don't you guys have Kashama Swanton? And I was like, do you have any evidence that this is a real race? Because what we don't want to do is tell our audience, this is a serious candidate who is in this election. And then election day comes and they get 7 % of the vote. Because then the audience is like, you guys have no idea what you're talking about.

1:15:22Next time you tell me that this is a serious challenge, I'm not going to believe you. So there's a threshold factor there.

1:15:32Saagar Enjeti:But we had a point not to interrupt to that point. You know, some people would then say, but wait a second. You had Zoran on when he was at like 1 % in the polls. Like, how do you make the delineation there? And also some people also feel like a lot of people also feel like when people request us to have candidates on, they're like, that would be the thing that changes everything. If they get that breaking points interview, that's going to create a big avalanche that's going to change an entire race and boost a candidate for obscurity to the mainstream. It's an interesting dynamic because it does have this reverse chicken and egg type of feel to it.

1:16:10Like the same way that candidates have a hard time raising money if they're not considered to be viable, but they can't be considered to be viable until they've raised money. It's the same problem that kids often confront right out of college. Like, well, we'd like to hire you, but you don't have any experience. Well, how can I get experience if you won't hire me? So there has to be an art to it as well to say, you know what, for a variety of reasons, we think this particular candidate, if given a little bit of attention, actually will catch fire. Mamdani fit that bucket, but Mamdani also fit the bucket that he was doing something that was interesting on its own.

1:16:51He was out in the street interviewing Trump voters about why they voted for Trump in New York. That was the hook, right. And he was incorporating that into his message. So even if he flamed out in his election, like that was interesting in its own right. In 2018, when I decided to kind of go all in on covering AOC's primary, I didn't suspect that she would beat him. I thought it would be more competitive than people thought. But Joe Crowley was in line to be the Speaker of the House, might even have challenged Pelosi or Pelosi may even have stepped down at that point. and so I saw it as a vehicle to tell people who Joe Crowley was because at the time he had a national name id of like five percent like he had a he had a dc name id of a hundred percent he was extremely powerful but nobody nationally knew who he was so I was thinking like hey this is a way to like just let people know who Joe Crowley is through covering this election but then as we covered the election she starts to catch fire yeah he was way high up in the Pelosi chain of succession yeah so that so the short answer to that is it's about um it's an art it's guessing we had chuck park on in in new york city he ended up running a very close race people didn't get behind him if they had he probably wins and people regret i think at this point not getting behind him he'll probably he'll probably run again um so what i said to savvy sebs was there any polling and she said, I don't know about it, but there's, you know, she's raised like$400 ,000.

1:18:26That's a lot of money. Um, you know, she's going to be facing millions if she gets serious. So if there's polling, this is what I would say to, to the Sawant campaign. If there's polling that shows that this is a serious race, then, you know, we're, then we're interested in covering it. Absolutely. Uh, if she raised$400 ,000, you know, a poll is only five or 10 grand nowadays. Like they're, they're much cheaper. You can go ahead and run a poll. Savvy was like, I know you guys have beefed in the past. I was like, actually, we haven't beefed. It's been a one-way beef. She's dumped on me a ton. I don't have any problem with her at all.

1:19:09And that's fine. That's also not how,

1:19:11Saagar Enjeti:it's okay to, we would still have them on if they have beef. The whole world at some point or other has dunked on me at one point or another. It's fine. That's what I'm here for. have at it. We're absolutely fine to have people on who dunked on me two years ago or today. It's fine. Neera Tannen, come on the show. Neera Tannen. Neera Tannen is welcome today on the show. That'd be a lit Friday. Yeah. This morning I was saying that she should apologize and resign for her comment that she's talking about Abdul El-Sayed. Welcome to come on. Anyway, and she's retweeted somebody calling me a scumbag.

1:19:56She's still welcome to come on. Yeah, I retweeted that. I'm here. Shama. Exactly. Griffin liked it. He thought his like was secret. I have a special access to likes. So anyway, so that's what I would say. Bring us some data that shows us that this is a serious race, and then we'll talk.

1:20:19Saagar Enjeti:Absolutely. All right. I think that was a great insight in how we make all of these decisions. And then also, you know, there are other candidates that, you know, we might find sort of interesting, but don't really have like a big hook that the audience cares about sometimes. I'm not saying that about Kashama, but, you know, for, you know, for opening up the kimono or parting it for a second, you know, we probably get like 20 requests a day. Right. Different candidates and different stuff. And if it was just candidates for two hours every single day, people would watch that. Yeah, it would be tough.

1:20:56Saagar Enjeti:So we try to wrap it into a story that people care about. So that's another. So the pitch was Zoran literally was he had just been out in. I think it was Queens. I remember. Yeah, he had just been out that weekend after Trump won talking to Trump voters. And so that's where we're like, oh, this would be super interesting to talk to him. And it was a, I don't remember if they pitched it or if we just knew that that was happening, but that's how the segment was booked. And I guess our instincts were right on that one. All right. This next one is from Brent Combs. Ryan, appreciate your courage to have hard conversations and report on sensitive topics.

1:21:33Saagar Enjeti:I'm sorry for all the misguided hate and commentary you're getting lately from reporting on the Plattner story and such. How do you deal with this kind of stress and what motivates you to keep going? You are one of my heroes, man. Keep up the great work. Oh, I appreciate that. That's awesome. Well, you motivate me. We talked briefly about this on the show yesterday. We have a independent source of support and revenue here at Breaking Points and also at DropSite just from regular people. And as a result, we don't have bosses who wear suits and down the hall who tell us what we can say. We don't have corporate or other sponsors that can threaten to like withhold money.

1:22:22And that gives us a unique ability to just say what we believe, to search out the truth and report the truth. and very few people have that opportunity to do that most people most reporters have to go through layers of complications to get from the gathering of news to the reporting of news because we don't have to do that i i just feel this like moral obligation to do it especially when it's uncomfortable because the audience has put so much the audience has built this because they want us to do that so if they've built that and then we shrink from it all we're doing is grifting all we're doing is like producing some entertaining content and and cashing people's checks who believe that they're funding something that is going to have the courage and the strength to stand up when it's difficult, but actually doesn't do it when the chips are down.

1:23:31So that's why I feel like an extra obligation to do it, even if it's not terribly pleasant. What would the process have been like, or how would it maybe have been different reporting out that Politico story if you were still at Intercept or HuffPost or other places that you've worked right? Intercept probably would have been fine. Probably could have done that just the same at the intercept because, you know, then, you know, when we left, it was because we felt like that might be changing. But during the time that we were there, I don't think I would have had a problem. And I did a bunch of stories at the time that were, you know, controversial and we published them proudly.

1:24:15The Huffington Post, it was interesting, like that kind of stuff didn't really come up in the same way. At the time, right. Yeah, I had full free reign of the Washington Bureau. Ariana had just delegated complete authority. So I could have done it, but it was a different time. And you just didn't have stories like that, really, that came up. Yeah, makes sense. Now, today, it would be completely different at what remains, I think, of the Huffington Post. um yeah so i mean that's that's basically uh that's basically how i how i see that that like because we've been given this opportunity by the audience we have we have to deliver on it or we're or we're basically ripping them off and defrauding them

1:25:09Saagar Enjeti:and that's what i've told everyone on blue sky um so can i say i'm the off blue sky So my first, so when I was a college student, I was doing at the time, and Griffin, you're the same age as me, so you'll remember this, and Ryan will remember it well. It was the era of the rape culture discourse. And so my first journalism work is when I was a college student reporting out some what we would now call Me Too stories, but at the time were kind of rape culture stories. And then went on to do a lot of media criticism of Me Too and have reported out some of the stuff in the past. And I just think it's a non-traversy, the criticism that Ryan and, to some extent, Sager got this week for including a perfectly relevant detail because people read into it, projected onto it their own position on X, Y, or Z.

1:26:04So I wasn't on this week except for Monday. So I just wanted to put that out there too. Yeah. And for people who missed that, we reported that Politico was aware that Jenny Rascott had texted Graham Plattner that evening about saying, I need a glute massage. And he's like, I'll come right over. And then she says, she said, no, no, no, don't come over. and Politico reported it as they exchanged text messages and she told him not to come over. Our point is that those are different scenarios. The Politico version supports a breaking and entering. The one that Jenny told truthfully and transparently supports possibly believing he saw that text message, he jumped in the car, he came over and didn't see the follow-up text messages And we don't know the wording of those follow-up text messages either.

1:27:04So if you're going to try an allegation in the court of public opinion, then you put forward as many facts as you have for the public. And the reason I'm not too bothered by the criticism is that anybody who looks at this reasonably agrees with that. It's relevant context. and you don't have to believe it's relevant context to believe it should still be shared because you're not the only person in a democracy. A democracy includes all of us. And it is unquestionably the fact that many people do believe it is relevant. And so it's for them then. It's not for you. If we were just a dictatorship and there's just one person making the decision and it's you who's offended by the inclusion of this detail, then okay fine but that's not what we are we are a democracy goes to the credibility of of rassacot as well that she was willing to say that to politico that's a good point politico ironed it out so like if if she was like yeah right she it shows a level of confidence in her own yeah rendition of the events that she was willing to include that and it shows something else on politico's part to withhold it yeah yeah our final question so yeah Yeah.

1:28:24Saagar Enjeti:Our final question comes from MMC, Ari Plattner. I took one look at this guy's Wikipedia, which I had not read before this morning, with the trust fund background, the being kicked out of Hotchkiss, the dropping out of GW, the bartending at the tune-in, the getting the job farming oysters due to his mother's fancy food connections. Who in God's name thought this person was a reliable person to put forward as a paragon of progressivism or as a person we thought was capable of completing any kind of structured process. There is no evidence this person has ever completed anything of substance ever.

1:28:56Saagar Enjeti:What were we thinking? And I guess if you're saying weed, does that mean you live in Maine? Because the Mainers, they didn't really care about any of that. I mean, this guy got the most votes in any primary in Maine in history. And it does seem Trumpy in the sense that I see so many centrist liberals trying to nail people like Emma Vigeland and other people who are supporting Plattner on this and being like, oh, well, the Mainers liked him just because he had a deep voice and because of all of his personal bona fides. But it seemed like it was more Trumpy and they're like, yeah, I don't like everything about this guy, but I like the policies that he is so loudly you know, pushing.

1:29:44Saagar Enjeti:So that seems to me to be what the majority of Mainers felt about Platner. I don't know if you guys have anything else to add. There was an Axios article dunking on some progressive media. I've seen this in other quarters as well, including us. I don't know if we were mentioned in the Axios story, but I know, Brian, you've probably gotten some of this over the course of the week. It's an interesting criticism. He did complete four combat tours of duty, which is what actually turned some of the hard left against Graham Plattner. And it's one of those things also where if you're going to criticize a guy for not having true working class bona fides, I think it's fair to say, to give scrutiny of where that loan actually came from.

1:30:35Looks like it was from his dad, like$200 ,000 from his dad. I think it's perfectly fair to be to scrutinize his record. I think it's fair to say he went to Hodgkiss, even though, as he explained to us, he dropped out because he didn't like it. But all of those things, totally relevant context that the voters of Maine had in front of them, and so did the progressive journalists and the independent media outlets that were covering the guy. I just think when you serve for combat tours of duty in those wars, for better or worse, and I really mean that, it can give you a totally, I mean, you can't define that as blue collar or white collar, but I can tell you that's not white collar, right?

1:31:16That's an enormous physical sacrifice, human sacrifice, tragically in many cases. And it just does give you a perspective on these things that is absolutely worthwhile. It doesn't mean it's the only qualification anybody should have, but I do think it was a major source of, and he talked about it constantly. He talked about foreign policy constantly. I think it was a major source of people's attraction to him, to be honest. And I don't I consistently think when you have D.C. journalists being like he went to Hotchkiss or OK, like he went to Hotchkiss or his grandfather was a famous architect. I get it.

1:31:56I do think that's relevant. But he served for combat tours of duty in the Middle East. That does completely change the story. If you just want to say he's some little hotchkiss dropout, rich little hotchkiss dropout who had his mom's, you know, restaurant to serve with the oyster farm. Do I think that his consultants and probably him played also him played into building a character? Yes, of course. That's politics. And so if some people were overly credulous about it, I hear the criticism. But also, again, like he had that chunk of what was it, Ryan, like 15 years of his life dedicated to that.

1:32:37That's a significant wrinkle in the story that he's just some rich kid. Right. Plus bartending. Plus the oystering, which people say, oh, this is just a hobby. Like he's been doing it for five or six years. um you know i grew up on the eastern shore which is you know has a very hot strong waterman economy um i went out with my buddy one of my best friends was a crabber um a couple times and 20 years later i still remember how hard that work was like you're waking up at 3 a.m um you're you're out on the water before the sun rises uh you're you're you're pulling out of the water like extraordinarily heavy um you know this was trot lining um it's dangerous like the whole thing is dangerous um and then but you're sometimes done you know for at least crabbing you can be done by like 9 or 10 a.m um you just completely wrecked for the rest of the day and this is the eastern shore of maryland he's up in maine where it's like absolutely freezing he is every single day going out on the water before the sun rises, pulling up, you know, 50, 60 pound, you know, like gigantic oyster crates, um, and doing that for hours, uh, in frigid, miserable conditions for years.

1:34:07Like you can call it like people have hobbies. Like, does that sound like something you're doing for fun? he was also in the infantry by the way that's also worth mentioning it's not like he was he was in the infantry he was not jd vance as a who's like a spokesperson for like stars and stripes or whatever what what was his job i mean i'm not gonna die great going to a war zone pete buddha judge who like just went to cobble for like you know five months and didn't anywhere that had wi-fi all right uh and and you know to talk about how hard it is to fish them

1:34:42Saagar Enjeti:Then you got to shuck them, which is equally hard. If anyone's ever tried to shuck an oyster, also incredibly dangerous. And respect. When did you shuck an oyster? I worked in restaurants for a long time. I was a dish pit guy. But you were shucking oysters? Not in the dish pit. I got behind the counter for a little bit. I've shucked my fair share of oysters. Think about that. Griffin remembers viscerally the difficulty and the danger of that. And he's maybe done it, you know, days or weeks. He's doing it for like five, six years. Like, that's not nothing. And I think people just don't really think.

1:35:23That's what I think. I just remember getting yelled at by the oysterman at Sager's wedding for briefly putting my drink on the table where he was shucking his oysters. Oh, you were going to get some oyster guts in your drink there. He was looking out for you. probably fair.

1:35:44Saagar Enjeti:All right. And we'll end with Sabas 101 saying, for wonderful BP, given the betrayals of Platner and Fetterman, should progressives avoid ogre-looking candidates for a while. To me, he looks a little bit more like the Lorax. Yep. But. Yep. Shrek is out. Shrek is out. Yeah, that's got to be an implication. That's for sure. Yeah. Yes. It really is. It's not just Maine. That's going to have a ripple effect for all of these indie startup candidates. Okay. Well, with that, we are going to end the Friday show here. Thank you all so much for supporting us at breakingpoints.com and enjoying the newsletter.

1:36:29Saagar Enjeti:If you are somehow listening to this but not getting your newsletter email still, please check your spam folder or promotions folder or your filters for breaking points because I do have stats on the background that say that 99.78 % of the emails are hitting the inboxes. That little tiny rounding error amount is because someone input their email incorrectly. If you're still having issues, please reach out to help at kit.com. And that'll do it for us today. Check out Drop Site News with Ryan. Check out After Party with Emily Jashinsky. and we've got Sagar back next week. We've got Crystal back next week from vacation.

1:37:17Saagar Enjeti:Lots more to cover and we'll see you then. Hey, this is Chuck from Stuff You Should Know and we're submitting our most science-y episodes for your peer review with our new Stuff You Should Know doing science playlist. Out now. You want to know about Occam's Razor? Simplest explanation is usually the right one. We got you covered. Wondered what chaos theory is ever since the first time you saw Jurassic Park? Well, come on down. So distill a nice pot of tea, everybody, turn down the gas on your Bunsen burner and slip into your most comfortable lab coat and listen to the Stuff You Should Know doing science playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:37:57Saagar Enjeti:For years, the UnHouse has been presented as a monolith in mainstream media. Weedy UnHouse is a podcast that's changing the narrative. I'm Theo Henderson, and I created the show while I was unhoused on the streets of Los Angeles. We've grown into a two-time Webby Award-winning podcast, the only podcast that shares unhoused stories and news from the unhoused perspective. Listen to We The Unhoused on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is.

1:38:35Saagar Enjeti:Getting a new one put up in its place. I'm Akilah Hughes, and Rebel Spirit Season 2 is about both of those things. As I was watching these statues come down, I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority Black city, in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslaved people. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.