7/16/26: Trump Eyes Ground Invasion, Minab Strike Coverup, Massie & Ro On Epstein Act 2, Dems Push Israel Cuts

24:35You know, I don't think anybody's going to ever be able to say what happened there. There are images from this site that show fragments that appear to be from U.S. Tomahawk missiles. Is it possible that old intelligence or a mistake during a very active time in the war led to this event? It is, but it's also possible that those images that you have are AI generated. Now, I know we're waiting for a conclusive report. I don't think there can be a conclusive report. Will you release the report when it is finished? I guess so. I mean, I have to ask the military people. There might be a reason why they can't.

25:08And I'll tell you what that is. That is the announcement of a planned cover-up Because we already have reporting about what happened here. It was not difficult to figure out. We can put, let's put the CNN report up on the screen. This is B3. They say that senior U.S. military commanders bypassed warnings in critical databases that intelligence about potential targets in Iran was severely out of date and approved some strikes, including one that hit a school, killing nearly 200 children and adults, according to three sources. Familiar messages indicating the intelligence was based on years-old intelligence that needed to be revetted were embedded in a system used for developing targets and required a senior officer to approve adding a site to the strike list.

25:51According to the sources, the decision by senior commanders to ignore the warnings was made for expediency, two of the sources said, in a rush to provide targets at the start of the war. It also directly contributed to the accidental strike on the school, according to those sources. In addition, they identify the fact that Hegseth has made drastic cuts almost to the point of eliminating the civilian harm mitigation and response programs, slashed their staff at military commands by more than 90 percent. That included removing civilian harm specialists from target development strike teams and reducing the team of 10 at central command to only one full time staffer, again, according to CNN.

26:31So you had two separate databases, one that's older, one that they're trying to use, you know, AI automated systems. Both of them had instructions in there that the intelligence on these particular type of targets was outdated. We know that the satellite imagery shows that there were clear changes to this site, transitioning it from part of a base to this girl's school. But because they just wanted to rush and have a massive list of targets, they decided not to go and check. And so you end up with the worst civilian death incident caused by the U.S. military that we know of since the first Gulf War.

27:09I mean, that's how serious and how severe it is. We have the investigation and now Trump is saying, oh, we may never know. And I'll have to talk to the generals about whether or not we're ever going to release it. I don't think that we understand how impactful this strike was in Iran. Like the Iranians call their delegation for negotiations the Minab 168. They have pictures printed out of the schoolgirls in their plane on the backs of the seats so they know who they're fighting for. Their soccer team did a tribute to them. Their soccer team did a tribute to the Minab 168. They have pins that they wear.

27:46One of the reasons they didn't want to shake JD's hand was because of the Minab incident in this negotiations. engineer. I don't think you can understand the psyche of Iran. Actually, maybe you can if you just maybe watch our show or not mainstream media, but look at the crowds for the Ayatollah who, by the way, they liked him, but a lot of people were very frustrated by his regime. Millions of people came out. A Sorob Amari member in the middle of the war came on our show and he said he was watching state TV. He's like, all they do is just worship martyrdom, not just of the Ayatollah, they're like, there was this janitor, he was killed in a strike, and he's a national hero now.

28:23In Iran, these people's names are, everybody knows them. In America, we all just kind of move on. But as you said, it's the worst civilian death incident since the Gulf War. By the way, that one was handled very differently. If you want to look at how the United States military reacted, I covered some horrible incidents. The Taliban, or the Kunduz Hospital incident. I was a Pentagon correspondent at that time. Dramatic difference in the way. The lies were the same, but the reaction from Congress and others was totally different. We have to apologize. We have to admit that this was a massive mistake and the generals who were involved, somebody has got to pay.

28:58This time around, Trump and the entire cover-up of it, not only does it give Iran really a moral high ground in some cases, like whenever they come at us for their strikes, but it also creates this culture of there will be no price paid. And that's exactly the opposite of what you want, not just in terms of the morality, but I just laid out how much of a disaster it was. Like the entire point was we want regime change. Let's murder 168 girls on day one of the entire war. You think that's going to engender the whole population to you? No, they hate us for this. Like those schoolgirls, like everyone will know about them 50 years from now, you know, inside of Iran.

29:39It's not hard actually to imagine. No. Because imagine that, you know, a foreign country bombed one of our girls' schools. I will. Think about. Unforgettable. Yeah, think about Sandy Hook. Horrifying. I still remember covering that like viscerally, how horrifying it is. It's still just like unconscionable to imagine. That was 20 children. We're talking about 168 little girls. And here's the other thing that I don't know if people realize, but because, you know, We've had various Iranian analysts and Iranians on the show to tell us from the Iranian perspective. They don't believe it was an accident.

30:15They think that it was an intentional—and, you know, I can't really blame them for this after seeing what we aided and embedded with Israel and Gaza. They believe it was an intentional effort to put pressure on some of the IRGC because a lot of their children were the ones that were going to this school. So they think that it was intentional. So, again, not that they would believe the report that we put out, but at least if you had some information out here about, look, guys, here's how we fucked up. We didn't actually mean to do this. Here's what happened. It was human error. It was incompetence.

30:49Again, they may not believe that, but that would be important to put out to the world as at least saying we are different than Israel. We actually do take seriously civilian deaths and civilian casualties. But I do think because of the barbarism that Israel and Gaza has put on the table, it makes it very easy for Trump to just shrug his shoulders and say, yeah, we may never know what happened, you know, fog of war, et cetera, et cetera. I guess I'll talk to the generals. But anyway, it also could have been AI. So we're moving on. Really disgusting and really quite ominous for the future of warfare and the way that we conduct ourselves.

31:22And speaking of which, we had another horrifying situation here. I can put B4 up on the screen. U.S. missiles struck near a children's cancer hospital. There is a dispute over whether this was a direct hit or whether it was some nearby debris that caused this fire at the children's cancer hospital. They say this is the first U.S. strike on an Iranian hospital in months. Additional strikes also causing damage to residential homes. Trump talks openly about committing war crimes. This is just hitting civilian infrastructure. This is part of his plan that he announces brazenly and openly. We've sort of gotten used to it, I guess, already, again, because of Gaza and because of the way that Trump and Hegseth operate.

32:04But in any previous era, this would have been a horrifying scandal. You never would have admitted this publicly. You never would have celebrated or incorporated this as an explicit tactic. It's just become completely unhinged and insane. I know. And to your point, Professor Mirandi, let's put B5 up here on the screen. He says the Trump regime has just bombed a children's hospital in the city of Avaz. It is being evacuated. Again, nobody from the U.S. side is confirming can you even take any of it seriously. That's part of the problem and that's exactly what all of this demonstrates to us about the sheer dishonor really upon the American people, upon all of us.

32:42We paid for all of these bombs and we're going to have to live not just with the consequences of what they've done but just also with our government just casually saying that there's nothing wrong really with what they did. if the leader really the culpability lies with trump ordered a last you know a very harried u.s operation and then it comes down to hegseth and others saying we don't care dust off the plans from 15 years ago and go i also frankly you have to the pentagon you pay these guys all sorts of money there's an entire room that's bigger than this studio where all they do is just talk about iran war plans all day even when things were going well with iran nobody ever updated the target set I mean, that is the other thing that struck me, too, is how much money do we give you?

33:29Oh, my God. Like, what are you doing? Yeah. You know, you couldn't get anyone to go in and, hey, let's take a look at this. Let's go check the satellites and see if this intelligence is still, you know, still up to date. And they knew that it wasn't. And it still didn't. I mean, that is just insane. There are guys in the CIA. There's a whole room, like a tactical operations center and all this, where all they do is just look at it around all day and just update, you know, all these different target sets. But then, oh, somebody didn't tell DOD or they did tell DOD. DOD never updated the file. Nobody updated the package.

33:58Well, there was a situation like that where apparently someone had flagged that it appeared from the satellites that there had been changes to the site. But it was in a different system and it didn't map onto this system. And this system had the flag in it of, hey, you should check it out. But then when it was go time and it wasn't done, they're like, all right, we'll just do it anyway and hope for the best. Yeah, it's disgusting. And, you know, Hegseth, part of how he ended up in this job is because of his advocacy for war criminals who had been turned in by their own comrades in arms. And Trump admires him.

34:30But I talked about the fact that he appreciated that Hegseth was willing to go to bat for these convicted war criminals in the military. So it's no surprise that that is the culture that we have instilled here. And as I said before, also because of the bipartisan support for a literal genocide occurring before our eyes containing the worst, most unimaginable atrocities you could, you know, that really, truly were beyond belief, beyond what anyone could have possibly pictured. All right. We have Congressman Ro Khanna. We recorded already, but we're going to edit it in now. So let's throw to our interview with Congressman Ro Khanna and Congressman Thomas Massa.

35:06And now another appliance triumph from our friends at Grand Appliance. I love hosting summer parties, but dread reaching over a hot oven door to juggle appetizer trays. So I asked the experts at Grand Appliance for advice, and they recommended a Bosch wall oven with side swing doors for easier access. It's amazing. No reaching over the heat, and they installed it in no time. Host like a pro with expert advice from Grand Appliance. Shop grandappliance.com. He's dribbling the ball with everything on the line. He's driving down the pitch. He's facing price hikes and cuts past him. Carrier contracts tries to block him.

35:43Oh, he leaves him in the dust. He's at the edge of the box. He cuts past the nonstop group chat trash talk. He clears on goal. He shoots. No! Unlimited data for$25 a month forever. Visit your local Boost Mobile store today to get unlimited data with a price that never changes. Boost Mobile. After 30 GB, customers may experience lower speeds. Customers will pay$25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost$25 unlimited plan. Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now? Expense reports, receipt chasing, month-end close that takes weeks. You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building toward.

36:21Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. So we've got a special treat this morning in studio. Both congressmen, part of the Dream Team here, Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna. Great to see you both. Welcome. Good to see you, sir. So you guys have obviously teamed up on a number of initiatives, but you have a new one that you wanted to bring to us today, Congressman Massey, about the Epstein transparency.

36:59Tell us what you're pushing forward now. Well, yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the introduction of the Epstein False Transparency Act that Ro Khanna and I wrote. And we thought it was time to do a sequel because the first bill has been very successful. We've got three million documents released. But there have been some dragging of feet by the attorney general and the acting attorney general. And so, you know, this is to spur the next level. Specifically, the main thing that this new bill does that we've introduced is forces the U.S. Attorney General to cooperate with state attorneys general that want to prosecute Epstein co-conspirators under state law.

37:42And it turns out in New Mexico, that's where the Zorro Ranch was. You hear a lot about Epstein Island. You hear almost nothing about Zorro Ranch. But it was expansive. It was massive. People were going there all the time. Crimes were committed there. and some of those aren't barred by statute of limitations. And so the attorney general in New Mexico would like to prosecute those crimes. And so we're making it easier with this bill. That's one of the things it does. What's really interesting about this is that it did create a political crisis for the Trump administration. The vice president, J.D.

38:14Vance, actually was on the Joe Rogan podcast just yesterday. I do want, curious for both of your response, Congressman Connolly, you can start. The vice president said that it was, quote, nonsense that the president was forced to sign the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He said that he did it completely of his own volition, that the idea that the two of you kind of dragged them to it was ridiculous because nobody controls Donald Trump. I'm curious for both of your reaction. Congressman Connolly, you could start. When the history of the Trump administration is written, what Massey and I did will be seen as the most decisive blow to Trump that began the unraveling of his presidency.

38:52I mean, no one had stood up to Donald Trump before effectively. And Trump tried everything from including intimidating Thomas's colleagues, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Some of them he brought into the situation room to get them not to support this. They adjourned Congress. They didn't swear in Adelita Grijalva. They tried everything. Then what happened? Not only did they realize that we were going to pass the act, Donald Trump realized that he was going to get probably 80 to 90 Republicans to be willing to overturn his veto. Right. And that's when he signed the act and he told J.D.

39:35Vance to go into the situation room and start the cover up. But what this did, it's not just about justice for survivors, which is important. After this, now there are, what, 100 discharge petitions? Now suddenly everyone is willing to defy Donald Trump. And we changed the entire culture in the Congress. Do you agree with that, Congressman? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we dragged him kicking and screaming to signing this. I asked to be invited to the bill signing. I think I'm the first congressman who's ever got a bill passed that wasn't invited to the bill signing. That's true. I didn't get the big fat Sharpie.

40:10And they did it in secret, like in a room with no cameras. You never see that happen. And at one point, the White House said that it would be a hostile act toward the president for any Republican to co-sign the discharge petition. And you had Jeff Freeland, who's the legislative affairs director for the president on Capitol Hill. I saw him going up and down the street and through the halls, running around trying to get people's names off of this bill, trying to keep people from sponsoring it. There's no way they wanted this to happen. And then what was the fallout? I mean, Howard Blutnick, we found out that the guy who's behind Donald Trump on Air Force One and behind the Resolute Desk, the guy who's always standing there, that guy took his family to Epstein Island for a little picnic.

40:55After claiming on TV that he had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein, the man was so disgusting, he would have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. do with him. And, you know, but what we need right now is accountability. And that's what this bill gets to. There's a couple other things the bill does that I'd love to explain. So, you know, in the hearings we saw yesterday, what was with Todd Blanche, with his nomination, what was painfully obvious is he's ignoring the victims and they can't even get their own files. He's still withholding files, the testimony that the victims gave to the FBI, and we know it exists on 302 forms, the victims, the survivors, the ones who are still alive, they know it's there and they can't get it.

41:37So our bill gives those victims standing in the U.S. court to sue the attorney general to get their own files. That's really important. The other thing it does is the DOJ, this hasn't been widely reported, but twice they've told us in Congress in like these little notes or memos to Congress that we're using deliberative process privilege in order not to give you some of these documents. And our bill, our original bill said, you've got to tell us about your decisions on whether to prosecute or not prosecute, but they're withholding all those files. That's the nub of this is why didn't they prosecute people like Leslie Wexner, Leon Black, Jess Staley, people who in their own files showed that they had information on enough that at one point that, Leslie Wexner was listed on an FBI document as a co-conspirator in a child sex trafficking ring.

42:28So was Leslie Groff, Epstein's main assistant, who helped traffic the women. So what this will do is it takes away unambiguously. We believe our first bill did anyway, but unambiguously it says you don't have these special privileges that you can exert to withhold files. And finally, it gives Roe and I standing to go to a court, get in front of a judge and have a judge have the third branch of government adjudicate whether the executive branch is complying with the law that the legislative branch wrote and the president signed. And Congressman Massey, you know, you were successfully defeated in your primary.

43:06Thank you. Successfully defeated. What is that? It's like a jumbo shrimp. From there. Yeah. By the way, if Trump wanted to voluntarily sign this, he should have been endorsing Massey, not campaigning. Yeah, he was. And that's the point is, you know, you cross Trump and you cross the Israel lobby. They dumped, what,$30 million against you. Their effort from their perspective was successful in getting you out. But I am curious if you agree with Congressman Conor that your efforts on Epstein were a blow to the Trump administration. And I don't think that that was, you know, your goal. That's not the way you have framed it.

43:38But it does seem like it created a fracture in the base and was kind of, you know, the start of his approval rating really beginning to fall off. Well, I think it was self-inflicted by the president. He went on TV and said, if you think there's any there there in these Epstein files, you are no longer a supporter of mine. I don't want your support. He told MAGA, you're no friend of mine if you still want to pursue this promise that I made. Right. So he basically fractured right in half MAGA. And he lost Marjorie Taylor Greene on this. I mean, this was he called her a traitor for for pursuing the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

44:13Right. Like I might have had other infractions like voting against the big, beautiful bill or not voting for Mike Johnson. But Marjorie Taylor Greene had been loyal to the president. And the only place that she deviated was on the Epstein files. He told her on the phone and she related this to me immediately when it happened that you're going to hurt my friends if you persist in getting these files released. And so it was I wouldn't I don't. Roe gives us too much credit for inflicting this damage. At MIT, we call this ballistic podiatry, which is shooting yourself in the foot. Try to translate that.

44:51The original cause. Right. We gave him the opportunity. Yes. But also, I really think the credit goes to the survivors. And it was Roe who invited them for the first time to be heard on the steps of the Capitol, right there in front of the Capitol. We gave them a voice. There were people who had never been public before. It wasn't worth the risk to them. They came out, said that they had been victims, were survivors, and told their stories. And I think that's what motivated our colleagues eventually to vote nearly unanimously to pass this. You know, one thing I haven't said, one of the reasons the partnership with Massey and I works, Thomas is an MIT guy.

45:36He knows all the details. You know, you want to understand discharge petition, this rule, that rule. Thomas knows all of that. And you need to know all of that to achieve what we did. I helped bring the survivors and organized that press conference twice in front of the Capitol. And that changed public opinion. And that helped make sure that we could pass it. And it was the teamwork with different complementary skills, not just across the aisle, that allowed us to get the Epstein files passed. One more thing. If the president is so gung ho to get these files out, why are they still dragging their feet and exerting every privilege they can to redact anything they can?

46:16Well, to both of your point, you know, you met Crystal mentioned the Israel lobby. There's been a lot of speculation about Jeffrey Epstein, his connection to Israel. The administration has officially denied it, I believe, Todd Blanche, in his interview with Ghislaine Maxwell. And yet the vice president, again yesterday on the Joe Rogan experience, said it is clear that Jeffrey Epstein had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence and Israeli intelligence. Let's take a listen, and we'll get both of your reactions. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence.

46:45He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence. In fact, one of the interesting things the Epstein saga reveals about – and I try to make this point. One of the reasons why I'm always careful and I say there are some elements within the Israeli government who don't like our peace process because there are a lot of elements within the Israeli government that actually do like our peace process. They recognize that this indefinite campaign is not good for them either. And the Epstein thing is interesting because as much as I know Prime Minister Netanyahu, not a particularly popular person in the United States of America right now, Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of center.

47:29Like I've always found that fascinating. It wasn't like he was super connected to the right of center of Israeli politics. So an interesting clip there. You know, both confer, well, at least, you know, he's the highest, a fewest official on record to say had connections to the U.S. intelligence and to Israeli intelligence. Never been confirmed before either by the most, actually been denied by Mossad and definitely also been denied by the U.S. intelligence. But he also seems to try and to separate Epstein from the current coalition government, including Israel. Congressman Conor, I'm just curious for your reaction, considering, you know, these comments from the vice president.

48:03First of all, he's not a pundit. He's the sitting vice president. He could release the remaining files. He could declassify the documents and explain to the American public what exactly happened with Epstein, who he was. He should, if he believes this, he has an obligation to release the files and have a report on Epstein's tie to intelligence. And this is a standard line where he politicizes everything. Oh, they were connected to the left, not the right. But the relevant point is, OK, why isn't he taking action? Instead, he was in the situation room covering up at every step of the way the release of the files and transparency.

48:44And to some degree, he's just admitting or curating what's in the files. Right. We got an audio tape now of Ehud Barak asking Jeffrey Epstein, while Ehud Barak was still the defense minister for Israel, how am I going to make money? What's my grift going to be on the outside once I'm no longer a public official? And you get Epstein telling him, well, think of everybody who owes you something because of your public position and leverage that. Told him to get on the board of Palantir, right? So and that's all audio. So for the vice president to admit that is no big revelation. I think it's a political admission on his part that it's he's being tainted.

49:22It's toxic, his association with the president and this administration that's trying to cover these things up. So he's giving you something that's already known. And also, Epstein was, he met with Obama's CIA director, you know, acting CIA director. Can't remember his name right now. Yeah, that's right. So obviously he was tied to the highest levels. That stuff needs to come out. I just think, man, seriously, not much more concerned. Massey is going to be the nominee on the other side. I mean, look, Vance was tainted with Epstein. He's literally running the cover up for Epstein. He's been tainted on this war in Iran.

50:01He's literally now cheerleading and he's been tainted on Israel, as even he knows. So he's going out, well, no, no, no, I'm not terrible on Epstein. No, no, no, I'm not terrible on Israel. But, you know, it's actually a contradiction to some of the things he said before he had to do Donald Trump's bidding. No question. Congressman, I'm curious, Congressman Massey, I'm curious if what you learned in the Epstein files changed your worldview at all. Because, you know, as a leftist, I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh, a bunch of billionaires showing a lot of class solidarity here. Very much comports with my view, although it was much more explicit than perhaps I even had imagined.

50:36You're giving the examples of like, hey, let's connect you with Palantir. Here's, you know, a country's resources you can go and exploit, et cetera. But I wonder as a libertarian, And if it shifted your view or if it changed your perspective at all, looking at some of the revelations here? Well, I joke, I tell people I'm more of a conspiracy theorist than I was before I got elected. Now that they let me in the skiff and I can hear the top secret stuff, I'm like, yeah, well, that was true. But my opinion on the Epstein thing definitely has shifted over time. Look, I, you know, in Congress, people want you to solve health care.

51:10They want you to take care of taxes, national defense, all of this stuff. And so I didn't give it enough attention for the first several years. It was one of those things to me on the Internet. Maybe it's a conspiracy. Then as I started paying attention and then particularly when I saw that Pam Bondi did sort of this spoof, almost a caricature of releasing these binders. And then I personally asked Pam Bondi to her face at a dinner, when are you going to release the rest of the Epstein files? And I looked her in the face, and her answer to me was, oh, there's nothing left but child sexual exploitation material, and you'd be a pervert if you'd want to see any of that stuff.

51:49And she tried to shut me down that way, and I thought, all right, there's there there, right? That's what raised my suspicion. And then in the last summer, they said, closing the case. No prosecutions. There's nothing here. It's done. And that's when Roe and I said, no, it's not done. And we filed the bill. And but that moment, that audio tape of Epstein talking to Ehud Barak, it gave me some insight into Jeffrey Epstein. That's when I decided he probably didn't kill himself. Like he had so much leverage. I believe he thought his time in the prison was temporary. Either he had enough blackmail material or he was friends with enough people.

52:32If he just sat there and didn't say too much, that they would eventually get him out. And so that's the one thing that also transitioned in my mind. I went from, okay, maybe this is a conspiracy that he was killed or he's still alive or whatever to, no, that's probably true. He was probably killed or somehow sprung from the jail because he had that much leverage over these powerful people. Yeah, interesting. So one of the things you mentioned there is blackmail. The vice president also addressing a claim that the president is being blackmailed. Obviously, this connects to the war in Iran, which you're both against as well.

53:06Let's take a listen to that. We'll get your reaction. What I have seen and I've looked at most of the files is that there just wasn't dispositive evidence. And if that dispositive evidence ever existed, it was probably destroyed after 2006, 2007. Now, again, in our defense, yes, was there some bitching and moaning and was there some back and forth? Yes, but we eventually collected six million documents as part of the effort. The president – people say the president was forced into releasing the documents. Like again, the idea that Donald Trump could not have killed that legislation, especially with the United States Senate, is a joke.

53:48He absolutely could have killed it. What did he do? He actually said, no, we're going to release these files. He thought – he was annoyed by the story. He was annoyed by the Democrats accusing him of doing things bad. By the way, like do I think there is any – I've never seen a single piece of credible evidence that the president of the United States engaged in wrongdoing with minors ever. So that was the claim there about blackmail. It is later connected also to the war with Iran. I'm curious for both of your reactions because the Epstein files transparency act becomes a political crisis and of course the war gets launched with Iran.

54:20It's impossible not to at least look at that and be like is there some connection? Like what exactly? is happening. Congressman Khanna, here's your reaction. Well, I think they both are terrible decisions. Do I believe that he went into Iran to distract from the Epstein? No, I don't think it was that. But I think he broke a fundamental pledge of not getting into foreign wars. He got talked into conquest. And he saw what happened in Venezuela. And he said, OK, I can turn around the regime in Venezuela. I was opposed to what he did in Venezuela. And he thought he could just march into Iran and ultimately betrayed his fundamental promise to the country of not getting into foreign wars.

55:01I know it's easy to pick apart something like a Joe Rogan interview, but I have to take issue with the fact that he said they found six million files. Why have they released only three million? And then also the vice president says he's read or seen most of them. I don't believe that. I've spent hours at the DOJ and I've barely just like scratching the surface. Three million files is hard to consume. And then to connect all the dots. So that on its face, the claim that he makes there and then also the ridiculous claim that the president, this was something the president wanted to do or wanted to do is false.

55:36If he still wanted to do it, he would direct his attorney general and acting attorney general to just go ahead and release all this stuff. Right. And now another appliance triumph from our friends at Grand Appliance. I love hosting summer parties, but dread reaching over a hot oven door to juggle appetizer trays. So I asked the experts at Grand Appliance for advice, and they recommended a Bosch wall oven with side swing doors for easier access. It's amazing. No reaching over the heat, and they installed it in no time. Host like a pro with expert advice from Grand Appliance. Shop GrandAppliance.com.

56:16The official language of football is trash talk. late night group chats, memes, and unbelievable highlight clips. That's why Boost Mobile brings you our new global connection plan. The first plan ever made for WhatsApp. Get unlimited data, talk and text, international roaming, and calls to over 100 countries for just$40 a month. $40 price includes$5 a month auto pay discount. After 40 gigabytes of premium high-speed data, speeds will be lowered. Coverage not available everywhere. Visit store or boostmobile.com for details. Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now?

56:51Expense reports, receipt chasing, month-end close that takes weeks. You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building toward. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. Wanted to transition to talk about this amendment that was a big vote in the House yesterday. Congressman Massey, you offered this amendment. We can put D1 up on the screen here. Ultimately, it failed, but created quite a lot of intrigue in the Democratic caucus in particular.

57:34You were the only Republican that voted yes on this amendment, which cut all funding for Israel. You actually had a narrow majority of Democrats who did vote for the proposal, which is just such a sea change in the positioning of the Democratic Party. I mean, previously, the relationship with Israel was really lockstep across the board. So I'm curious for your reaction to how this vote broke down. And if you're surprised that none of your colleagues are where you are right now on this issue. Well, the reason I was able to get this vote on the floor of the House, I sincerely wanted to vote. I offered three amendments to defund foreign aid to Egypt, foreign aid to Jordan and foreign aid to Israel.

58:14And the Republican leadership, to my surprise, allowed me to get the vote on Israel. But I think that's because they made a political calculation. I believe it's a miscalculation, but they made a political calculation that this would be a hard vote for Democrats. And it did turn out to be a hard vote for Democrats. It should have been a hard vote for Republicans because now they've all locked into this idea that American taxpayers should give weapons and billions of dollars. I pointed out in my floor speech, we spend more on offensive weapons to Israel than we do on homeless veterans in the United States.

58:48And so every Republican has voted to send offensive weapons to Israel,$3.3 billion. The vote was successful, though. So my litmus test, you know, we've had votes like this in the past. You get maybe six or 10 people to vote for amendments like this. In fact, my vote to defund Jordan got six votes. OK, but this was different. This moment in time is different because you can't objectively look at what's happening in Gaza and say that there's no moral hazard here for American taxpayers. 70 ,000 people have died in a country of two million people. I mean, it's it's incredible. It's horrific. And so but the fact that I thought, let me just say, my own secret number in my head was people were like, how many votes are you going to get?

59:38I would say dozens because I thought I would get 24 votes. And 60, if I got 60, I would have considered it a success. And 100 was beyond what I imagined we could get. But eventually, Nancy Pelosi endorsed the amendment. That was a shocker. I can only say that because I lost my primary. I think part of the reason I lost my primary is Ro Khanna. Don't blame me. But, you know, Nancy Pelosi came out for it. The minority whip came out for it. But the minority leader came out against it. So it really did split the Democrats. I think in time, for the 103 Democrats and myself who voted not to send this money to Israel, As time goes on, there's going to be a better and better vote.

1:00:32And the people that were on the other side of that, including all of my conference except for me, are going to regret this vote. Congressman Connolly, yeah, I'm curious for your reaction. This was a major intrademocratic war. You had the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, who voted for you, the majority, WIPP, who then, of course, said that they would cut to vote eight. I'm curious for your reaction here about this split within the Democratic caucus. You were an original leader on a movement like this to watch a significant portion of your Democratic colleagues eventually come to your position.

1:01:03What does that foretell for the future of the Democratic Party? I was joking with Thomas that we had more caucus meetings discussing his amendment than any Democratic legislation. Wow, that's crazy, actually. They had like Sunday afternoon calls to discuss the Massey amendment than caucus meetings. But this should have been such a simple vote. I mean, we have to go beyond this, but obviously we shouldn't be giving them U.S. tax dollar aid for military weapons. In my view, we shouldn't be giving them military weapons to be killing civilians. And we need to be sanctioning the banks and government officials who are engaged in the settlement and work on recognizing a Palestinian state.

1:01:44But in my view, you had 103 folks and the new Congress you're going to have even more and that it's going to become a very, very small minority eventually that is going to be saying, let's just have continued aid to Israel. It's pretty wild to see Nancy Pelosi vote for it and Hakeem Jeffries vote against it. Yeah. And Pelosi, people are sharing all kinds of clips of her now saying, like, if the Capitol were to crumble, the one thing that would remain is our solidarity with Israel. And now here she is on her way out. She's like, yeah, we'll vote to defund this. And I think she sees the writing on the wall.

1:02:18She's a very savvy political operator of where things are going. I cannot for the life of me really understand Hakeem Jeffries calculus here. Because while there is such a split in the House Democratic caucus, there is not a split among the Democratic base. Overwhelmingly, you know, it is now a small minority that want to maintain the status quo with regard to our relationship with Israel. So, you know, what were those internal conversations like to the extent that you can share some of the details? Because it's just very hard for me to understand why any cynical politician would look at this landscape on the Democratic side at this point and say, I want to stay with this position that has like 15 % support among my own voters at this point.

1:03:03Well, people were saying, oh, you're going to cut the Middle East diplomacy program. I said, by definition, that's probably one of the programs that should be cut or something. Hasn't worked. You want to look at government programs that don't work or something. But beyond that, OK, fine, you want to have those programs. That was less than 1 percent of the aid. And you could have voted for Massey's bill and then still said an amendment saying, well, we want to keep the program for a Middle East peace. But I do think it's a mistake for anyone who voted this way morally, but also politically. If you look at Claire Valdez, you look at Brad Lander, you look at Millat, you look at Anna Lilia, you look at Adam Hamawi, you look at the Plattener before the scandals, Abdul.

1:03:52The driving line in these issues is the funding on Israel and Gaza. And the Democrats want to kind of whitewash that part. Oh, Zoran or these candidates won because of affordability. They won because they wanted free child care, freeze the rent or Medicare for all, although it matters. But the first point of the animating difference that is motivating these candidates and the energy is Israel. I mean, Milat would have been no shot to be to get to get was good on all the issues. She was for Medicare for all living wage. Why did she lose? She lost on this issue. And I just think that the political leadership hasn't grappled with that reality.

1:04:33Congressman Matt, yeah, I was coming to you because you were the only Republican who voted for it. I know you speak to many of your colleagues. You and I both know you're not the only person who thinks something like this. So why do they all, but why do they still see political utility in supporting Israel? Because I just lost my election. I mean,$30 million and 98 % of that came from AIPAC or Republican Jewish Coalition or Miriam Adelson. It was all the race against me was fueled and funded by the Israeli lobby. And they made an example out of me and it worked. I mean, you're getting senators who are changing their positions.

1:05:10You're getting House representatives, folks who are just going underground on the Republican side, not saying anything about it. But the one thing I want to talk about, two things. They're trying to they realize this is a political liability, the Israeli lobby. So they're trying to take away the transparency of this money that's being spent and they're trying to integrate it into our military budget. So it won't be a line item that Congress votes on. It'll be inside of one of these giant military omnibus type programs. And we won't even know because we'll just instead of giving them gift certificates for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, we'll give them the bombs from Raytheon.

1:05:46And they would develop them with us. Right. It's almost integrated. Well, that's the second part is that Section 219 of the NDAA is now it's very toxic. And I'm trying to get a vote on that to strip that. Section 219 is, I think, what Rose was alluding to, which is integration of our intelligence and military with supply chains, supply lines and technology with Israel. It's a country of 10 million people. Right. Like it's not even like NATO where they're at least the third of the size of us and there might be some reciprocal arrangement that could help in a world war. That's not going to help.

1:06:25You know, with Israel can't help us in a war of a scale where our sovereignty is affected. It's only going to hurt us. Anyways, I'm trying to get an amendment in order to strip 219 from the NDAA. And if I can't get that done or they don't allow us to have that vote, I think they're jeopardizing the NDAA. That stands for National Defense Authorization Act. It's one of the must-pass pieces of legislation, like a farm bill or a highway bill that passes every year. Right. Congressman Massey, I wanted to ask you some about that, that money that was spent against you. And I think you're right. They definitely wanted to make an example of you.

1:07:00A lot of that money came from the Israel lobby. They're now trying to do a similar thing with Abdul Syed in the Michigan primary on the Democratic side. I think$50 million have come in. And, again, the ads have nothing to do with Israel. They're claiming he's a sexist because he one time mildly criticized Michelle Obama. I mean, this is the sort of stuff that they're going with here. And I do wonder, you know, again, from your perspective as a libertarian, if that changes any of your view of the ability for democracy to coexist with billionaires, the impact of money in politics. You know, what are your your views there?

1:07:34Has that shaped your philosophy or thinking about how we handle this flood of money, which is not just Israel. I was big pharma. It's big oil. It's the banks. It's all sorts of interests. Are you asking that? Did the ass whipping I took from the billionaires change my perspective? I should have asked it that way. It was a beat down. How are you feeling about billionaires these days? Well, you know, we were able to raise 20 million. And so we had enough money. It's just they played dirtier than we were willing to play. They made artificial intelligence ads that showed me in a three-way relationship with AOC and Ilhan Omar.

1:08:13And, you know, people fell for those ads. They thought they were real. So, again, there's another libertarian conundrum that I have in addition to campaign finance, which I do equate with speech. But also here's another example of speech. Should they be able to make AI ads and run them with my image in it? You have to think very carefully about the legislative solutions that you don't make the situation worse. I think I could be OK with campaign finance that said if you're running a congressional race, only the money – the only people who can donate are the people who can vote in your district.

1:08:50Now, Miriam Adelson may have moved to Kentucky. She was running. She'll build a casino on top of your house just to make an example of it. I think that is interesting because I know in the past you've pushed for transparency, which I think is an important first step. But, you know, at this point, there's a lot of mass education about who AIPAC is and what they are, etc. It's not that transparency, you know, isn't there necessarily. But the problem is that just when you have so much money, of course, it's going to impact outcomes. And we can see it, you know, in this vote from yesterday, too. So many of your colleagues take money from AIPAC or other similar groups.

1:09:26so many of the Democratic caucus. It should be based on the Democratic base. It should be overwhelming and not a problem for Democratic congressmen to vote for an amendment like that. So you can see the impact of this money in the legislative process, not just electorally. Well, ultimately, there was a win in my loss, which is I knew they would have to spend insane amounts of money. This is the most expensive congressional primary in the history of the United States. And I knew that if they would have to spend insane amounts of money, and if they did and I lost, it would sort of prove the point that they have too much influence in our own government that the Israeli lobby does.

1:10:04Now, they'll argue these are American citizens or dual citizens who are donating the money, but I would still say they're operating on behalf of a foreign country, and so they are foreign agents. I think they should have to register as such. But there was a victory in it. It's really, there was a big waking up. I don't think we would have gotten as many votes on my amendment if people hadn't watched me lose because there was$30 million of Israeli lobby money poured into a little Kentucky race. But yeah, I don't know what the solution is. And then also on these AI ads, this fall is going to be the wild west.

1:10:40Like I got a taste of it in my own race. And you don't, these weren't online ads. These were like local, you you know, Fox cable affiliates running these ads. So not a lot of people saw what's happening. But this November, both parties are going to run the most ridiculous AI ads. And if you write a piece of legislation that says you have to put a disclaimer on there, it doesn't help. That gives them a safe harbor to do anything. They could show you doing anything and say, by the way, this was made with artificial intelligence. And people are still going to believe it because people watch videos and they don't read the little stuff at the bottom.

1:11:14Yeah. Yeah. My last question for you, sir, I know we're running a bit short on time, is about Senator Mitch McConnell. Do you believe the proof of life photo? And do you there's a lot of speculation that they're continuing to keep him in his Senate seat in order to prevent you from being able to run in a or in a special primary or special election in the state. Your reaction? Well, the special term would be less than six months now. And I'm not interested in that. I just broke news, I guess, to tell people. So you did. Yeah. Now they can come clean about Mitch McConnell. Yeah. So Mitch, tell us what's going on.

1:11:48I mean, I think the public does deserve to see somebody walk up to a podium and say something. Now, whether we can believe that in this day and age is also another question. You could have AI doing it. Yeah. Right. But, you know, I've said I'm going to introduce term limit legislation called three strokes and you're out because we we've seen this in the House. We saw one of our colleagues disappear for four months. By the way, he won his primary and I lost mine. Maybe that was the answer. And he was depressed, right? Depressed, which is a catch-all. It could mean, I mean, what do you do when you're depressed?

1:12:24Maybe you drink. Maybe you're doing something. I'm not saying that he did. And then we had Kay Granger, who basically had dementia and was still a congressperson for many months. Is she the one who was in a memory care facility? Yes. Yes. I remember that. I remember that. That's insane. You know, we had yesterday we marked up a bill in judiciary called the National Fossils Act. And I asked them if this was about senators. This is what happens when you don't have to run for real action anymore. That is actually my last question. It's kind of for both of you. You know, we get every time we do an AMA, we get a question.

1:13:05Do you think that Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna could run for president together and have some bipartisan kumbaya? I've been skeptical of that because I know you guys collaborate on a lot, but I also know there are a lot of ideological differences there would be hard to sort out. But what are you thinking about your future? Is politics still in your future? Senate run, presidential run. What are the sorts of things that you're – podcast. What are the sorts of things you're considering? Please don't do the lie. Well, I'm not going to rule anything out. How about that? But the political terrain right now in Republican primaries is uphill for me.

1:13:36Yeah. The war in Iran. This doesn't get reported enough. Is 70 percent popular among Republicans. So, yeah, still is. And, you know, that's in Kentucky where you have Rand Paul and Thomas Massey in Oklahoma, where you don't have us. It's 80 percent popular, according to the pollster that I used. So, you know, there's still and then you saw the vote on Israel sending the foreign aid people. Republicans say they're conservative. They want to send money overseas. But then they have a little asterisk and they say, except we'll give Israel as much money as they need, you know, and we'll empty our coffers for that.

1:14:09So I do have a few political positions that I think are going to be right in four years, eight years. Maybe it only takes two years. But right now I'm against the grain of where you can win certain races. So I'm going to watch for the terrain, see if it changes. is do I eventually get the high ground or not? But in the meantime, I am just so happy to have my life back. I should send Miriam Adelson a thank you card. Sometimes these things work out in a way that you don't expect. So appreciate both of you guys for coming in. We've been wanting to have you here. We have Ro all the time. We always appreciate your time, too.

1:14:52But to have you both together, we really are grateful. Sir, exit interview before you go? You'll come back here? Yes. And Ro and I have decided to run against each other. I thought you were going to endorse my re-election. You did that for me. We'll see what that happens. The dynamic duo themselves. Thank you both seriously so much for your time. Yeah, love for you to come back so I can fight with you more about libertarianism. Okay, yeah, we'll do it.

1:15:32And now, another appliance triumph from our friends at Grand Appliance. With three kids, I'm always cramming the washer full. So when we needed a new laundry set, I asked the experts at Grand Appliance for a big capacity washer with a dryer that could keep up. They recommended Electrolux, and we love it. Advanced cleaning features with a massive dryer that gets everything dried the first time? Yes, please! Sounds like another perfect match from the Grand team. Team ShopGrandAppliance.com Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now? Expense reports, receipt chasing, month-end close that takes weeks.

1:16:10You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building toward. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. 16 years ago, I started working as a CNA in the hospital. I loved it. On the day I decided to enroll in the nursing program at Rasmussen University, it was afternoon, my 35th birthday. I was hanging out with a friend, and they had just questioned me what I was going to do with this next chapter of my life.

1:16:47I immediately had said, I want to go to nursing school. So I actually had contact information from an advisor at Rasmussen, contacted her, and actually ended up starting like three weeks later. My name is Cherish Adams, and I'm a Rasmussen University graduate. Learn more at rasmussen.edu. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.