7/21/25: Trump Admits He's In Epstein Files, Trump Sues WSJ, El Salvador Prison Swap, Israel Starves Gaza, Mehdi On Surrounded

25:43And, of course, Epstein would, you know, insinuate himself in sort of inside the Victoria's Secret modeling as well. But it was I mean, it was a disgusting world. And John Casablanca, I mean, he was openly living with Stephanie Seymour when she was 16 years old. And in the 70s, this was like all, you know, people just like, oh, that's just how it is. That's what he does. And he continued those activities. And Trump knew him, admired him, you know, after the sort of like, you know, after his fall from grace and the, you know, some of the other sort of like stalwarts of that modeling world after their time had sort of passed.

26:24That's when Trump model management and some of these other newer modeling agencies come into being. But, yeah, it was a sick and probably still is a sick world where young girls are routinely exploited. People unearthed this footage from the 90s of Trump judging what's called the Look of the Year contest. And this was for explicitly for the new young models trying to break into the industry. And so people were taking a look at this footage of him as a judge in this modeling contest in the early 90s. Let's go ahead and take a look at that. The 58 contestants participated in an exhaustive round of personal interviews designed to help our judges discover what makes each one special.

27:09Concentration was intense inside the judging room. What if they don't like you? Yes, you are. And out. I'm just so excited. Turn back one second. Emotions ran high as each judge expressed his or her opinion. One of, honestly, the most disturbing things to me is that he put his own daughter, Ivanka, into this world, signed her with elite model management. That is John Casablanca's outfit when she was 14, 15 years old. So in any case, you know, all of these things are sort of being resurfaced. The his involvement with the pageants, his owning of the model management company, you know, things like him judging this competition, his having this party where the only other for young girls were the only other guest.

27:55is Jeffrey Epstein. And, you know, it's the sort of thing where because Trump being just sort of like a lecherous person is kind of baked in, that I think a lot of this either didn't get reported out or people just, you know, sort of like shrugged their shoulders, just Trump. But then when you really connect it in with Epstein and all that that entails, well, then people are seeing it through a different lens. Virginia Jeffrey worked at Mar-a-Lago. Yeah. She literally was an employee of Mar-a-Lago when Ghislaine Maxwell essentially plucked her from Mar-a-Lago and brought her into Epstein world.

28:34So, yeah, there are many different ways this could go. I mean, obviously, one of the difficult things about the Epstein story is that the lives of the rich and the famous are often, like, disgusting. I shouldn't even say often. They're, like, disgusting. and they are people who like transform into these what like these Nietzsche and they see themselves as like Nietzsche and superhumans who can do whatever they want and they kind of get off on that and so some of this it's it's hard to disentangle normal awfulness from what goes to the next level with Jeffrey Epstein but that's what is being scrutinized right now with Donald Trump?

29:18Does it go from just this disgusting billionaire cad behavior to escalating into criminality? And I remember a lot of these videos actually from like the Republican primary early on. And like after he comes down the escalator, there was just people didn't take it seriously. And then when people started taking the campaign seriously, some of the stuff started really circulating from like Ted Cruz world, Marco Rubio world at the time, Jeb Bush world. And it's interesting, to your point, that when you connect it with the Epstein piece, it takes on a totally different— It's a little different. It's not surprising, of course, but it's back.

29:55Yeah. All right, let's take a look at how the mega base at this point is metabolizing all of this information and where they are. I've been using Alex Jones as my guidepost. Your Sherpa. Of where people are in this process. And he seems to have completely, you know, sort of come back into the fold. I love Trump. It's a Democrat hoax, et cetera. Here he was on with Steve Bannon talking about where he is and how he's thinking about all this. The PR handling of this now 12 days ago, when they slip out this memo to Axios, the globalist mouthpiece, none of this exists. This needs to go away. that's a 180 from everything that the record shows and what Trump and his surrogates have been saying that they were going to do.

30:44We know the Democrats have had this file. They're not going to leave stuff in there that incriminates them. And the whole history of it, it's 90 plus percent Democrats and globalists like Bill Gates that are heavily involved in the island and all the stuff that's going on. And so as soon as the FBI raided back in March, the New York FBI, when they wouldn't turn over the files. I believe that was a setup, and they dropped a dime on themselves and said, oh, there's 14 terabytes of all these kids being raped and Epstein raping them and all the rest of it. And then Pan Bondi gets it, gives it to the FBI, which I confirmed from sources.

31:18They sent it out to all the offices around the country to look at the file. They come back and say, oh, there's a bunch of FBI reports implicating people in the orbit of Trump with no real evidence. and then Trump went, what the hell, another Russiagate? And so he didn't clarify that the first few days. He just said, people need to basically shut this down. It's bull. And then he hasn't really clarified when he says it's a hoax. It's a Democrat hoax. He's not saying that the Epstein isn't a bad guy and that he wasn't involved in all this evil stuff with the deep state with no connections to Trump that are based in any reality.

31:56He just says, it's a hoax. People go, wait, Epstein's not a hoax because Lane was convicted of this very stuff, and he'd been charged with it and was convicted once 15, 16 years ago of lesser charges in Florida. So Trump, I think, needs to be very clear that, no, the Epstein case and the evil he did is very real, but they've been in control of this file, Brennan, Clapper, and all the rest of them. And it makes total sense that they falsified all these other records, the crossfire hurricane, the Steele dossier, all run by Obama. Do you need a special process to get to the core heart of it, of the conspiracy to remove Trump from office?

32:36So there you go. It was a PR screw up. And here's what Trump's really trying to say. That's kind of my favorite part is like he's not saying Epstein's not a bad guy and that there wasn't some stuff there. That's not what he means when he says it's all a hoax and tells us we're stupid and he doesn't even want our support if we keep talking about it. That's not what he means. But I think the Democrats there, it's really it's the Democrats' fault, Emily, ultimately. I really thought that's where this was all going as soon as the Wall Street Journal story came out and they didn't publish the picture.

33:01And so the Wall Street Journal story can be true and it can still be a mistake for them to have not published a copy of the image. It sounds like they don't actually have one and they were racing to publish because they kind of got scooped on their scoop. by Oliver Garcy. He was like, the journal's got something. Yeah. Well, clearly that was pressure from inside the journal to make sure they actually published it. Right. Because we know that there was pressure on them not to publish it. Actually, Trump just came out and said that. Normally, that would be something. Yeah. He's like, I told Rupert to get on this.

33:33And Rupert was like, I'll take care of it. Yeah. And he didn't take care of it. So another thing to point out, it's true that what Alex Jones says, it's true that Democrats did have the file and it's not impossible, that they would do whatever they could to ensure some of the incriminating information about, I don't know, Bill Clinton or any of their donors wasn't easily accessed or found or maybe just totally disappeared. But you know who had the file first? Bill Barr. Yeah. Like Bill Barr, CIA veteran Bill Barr when Jeffrey Epstein died in prison, when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested, interestingly enough.

34:15But when Jeffrey Epstein died in prison, Bill Barr was overseeing the file. And so there could have been all kinds of things. Whose daddy gave Jeffrey Epstein his first job at Dalton. I don't know. I mean, I don't know, Crystal. Lots of people in powerful positions have had access to this information over the years. So who knows what's been memory hold, honestly. I mean, I don't think it's a crazy point, but people, Republicans and Democrats, have had access to it by now. Yeah, true, true. Let's just take a look quickly here at the polling from Harry Enten. So no surprise, only 6 percent of the public are like, yeah, there's probably no cover up or no client list or nothing else to see here.

35:00Trump's probably right about that. And the other part that's noteworthy about this is the MAGA base. They're not moving off Trump whatsoever. This is, if anything, their support for him has gone up while this whole Epstein thing has been playing out. Let's go ahead and take a look at that. The American public does not trust what the government is selling them. What are we talking about here? Is the government hiding Epstein's alleged client list? Get this, 69 percent of Americans agree that the federal government is, in fact, hiding Epstein's alleged client list versus just six. Six percent who say that they are not.

35:32And get this, a majority of Republicans and Democrats do in fact agree on this issue. If we look at Republicans and independents who lean Republican, 43 % are dissatisfied with the amount of information released so far compared to, get this, just four. One, two, three, four percent of Republicans who are in fact satisfied with the amount of information released so far by the federal government. 60 % of Democrats and independent-leaning Democrats are in fact dissatisfied with the amount of information released so far. And get this, just one, two, three percent of Democrats are in fact satisfied so far with the amount of information released.

36:07How is it impacting President Trump's overall approval rating? Republicans who approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing. Get this, in our CNN SSRS poll, it was 86 percent prior to this whole Epstein saga. Now it's 88 percent. In fact, the percentage of Republicans who approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing has actually, if anything, climbed a little bit according to our CNN polling. How about Quinnipiac? 87 % before this whole Epstein saga started approved of the job that Donald Trump was doing among Republicans. Now it's 90%. So we see agreement between the CNN polling and the Quinnipiac polling.

36:40Yes, Republicans are not thrilled with how the government is responding to the Epstein case. But so far, they are, in fact, not taking it out on Donald Trump, at least when it comes to his overall approval rating. So there you go. Apparently he could traffic a 16-year-old Jeffrey Epstein on Fifth Avenue and not lose a supporter. You know, it's well said. It's an interesting thing to reconcile because on the one hand, Republicans and conservatives care about the Epstein files. On the other hand, they care. And I think probably this is true of most voters. They care more about other things. And so what this will probably be in soccer.

37:19And we're talking about this on Friday, too. this is a proxy issue. It's a vibes issue. It's an issue of great substance, and that's why we're covering it extensively. For most voters, they can agree with all of those points. And they're also like, my groceries are so, so expensive. And we've been talking about this story for 10 years now. And for Republicans, they're saying 100 ,000 bureaucrats have been fired, and we destroyed the nuclear facility in Iran and blah, blah, blah. So I think both things can be true. They can care about Epstein and they can care about other things more. And that's why I think the independents, Sagar was pointing this out, those people in the kind of middle who swung for Trump.

38:01Sagar interviewed Andrew Schultz, for example, and asked about the vibes. Those are the people who swung in Trump's direction who are now looking around and being like, what the hell? What the hell? This looks so shady. You said you were going to be super transparent, and now you're just saying nothing to see here. That's obviously a problem. Yes, yeah. Way more than Republicans. Yeah, that's right. And I recommend to people that interview that Sagar did with Schultz that's on our channel because he asked him some really interesting questions about like, hey, were you used here? Would you do anything differently?

38:35What about the vibes? Were you voting on vibes? Whatever. So really recommend that to people. All right. Let's go ahead and get Peace Goat in here so we can talk about some of the legal aspects of what is unfolding here. This is Matt Rogers from Las Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Las Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try on new food and suddenly it's like, wait. That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Kewpie mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before.

39:07And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Kewpie only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers. Some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never tried it? Grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store.

39:40Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. QP, the original Japanese mayonnaise. Shortly after I enrolled at Rasmussen, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was like a bomb had just been dropped in my life. I reached out to Rasmussen. They immediately were like, Rosa, take what time you need. You can come back when you're ready. We are cancer-free today. and I'm just so grateful for Rasmussen for all of their support throughout my journey and for my own village. Rasmussen University. Find your seat and start now at rasmussen.edu. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine, and the cool Bahamian breeze.

40:23Bahamar, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels, Over 45 fine dining and nightlife venues, John Batiste's all-new jazz club, the Caribbean's most luxurious casino, and one-of-a-kind experiences for the entire family. Like our 15-acre tropical water park, wildlife sanctuary, world-class golf course, and so much more. Visit Bahamar.com today. So to talk about some of the legal aspects of this developing story, we have Pisco, host of Pisco's Hour, and also co-host of the great Lib and Learn podcast, which I was honored to be a guest on. Great to see you, sir. Thank you so much for having me.

41:00Yeah, of course. So let's throw up the first element here. And I got a few different aspects I want you to dig into. But Trump, in trying to make this story go away, is saying now, OK, we're going to try to release the grand jury testimony. Guys, put B1 up on the screen and we can take a look at this. So this is Stormy Yashar Ali. He says the U.S. Department of Justice has filed two motions in federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts related to the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell. The DOJ says it will redact victim-related information and other personal identifying information. So, Pisco, what type of information would be contained here?

41:39Is this likely to actually happen? What could we actually learn from this? Yeah, so the grand jury materials that are likely to be contained there are like potentially interviews and testimonies given from potential victims and materials basically given to an impaneled grand jury for the purpose of, you know, seeking out an indictment or seeking out other materials related to their prosecution of Epstein and Maxwell. They're typically guarded under secrecy, under the rules of criminal procedure. But the Trump administration is desperate now to get to some kind of narrative to push off the pressure from the recent releases.

42:14And so they're trying to go with this narrative that unsealing this testimony, which it's pretty high standard to release some of its materials unless it's necessary for another prosecution. Congress has previously, in times past, tried to unseal grand jury materials for purposes of their congressional investigations. but it's not going to help Trump at all with respect to the story. They've already stated in the memorandum that you just showed that they're sticking to their position. Their position is that there's nothing to see here and that this material is just to like assuage fears, I guess.

42:42But the position of the administration has not fundamentally changed at all. And they're even stating in this memo that basically everything is as it was. OK, so what can we expect to see happen in the next couple of weeks, if anything? If people are following this closely, what would the next steps look like? I think the next step would be arguing that there's a sort of carve out of certain special exceptions when grand jury secrecy does not apply. And there are kind of some disputes within the court systems about when those exceptions are. Some relate to, of course, like let's say if you had a perjury charge, obviously you could unseal certain material for purposes of prosecuting that.

43:20But, you know, it will be up to the courts to determine whether these special and exceptional circumstances that some courts have recognized apply for just like the public interest in this case. And remember, the position of the administration is that there's nothing to see here. And so this would just be assuaging the public, I guess, who doesn't believe them on their memorandum, which, again, the administration is explicitly sticking by in this submission to the court. Yeah, so it feels like a way to sort of pretend like they want disclosure, kick the ball over the court system and, you know, expect either the courts are going to be like, no, we're not releasing that.

43:50And then they get, oh, that's the courts that are doing the cover up now. Or if something does come out, it's certainly not the totality of what people mean when they say Epstein files. Absolutely correct, Crystal. And like they already know this material and they came to the conclusion that they did, which is that there was no conspiracy that Epstein killed himself. like even though they obviously know it's in this material and you're what you said is absolutely correct that this isn't even one percent of the material that they have like the fbi will have in like their um you know their evidence containers and in their databases this is just the material that they presented to a grand jury and so everyone who's calling uh the administration on their bs here um is correct like this is not the the smoking gun proof that people are waiting for a lot of these allegations are probably uncorroborated or you know it doesn't pertain to third parties in the way that they want them to.

44:36So, yeah, this is not going to assuage the people. And frankly, I think it's just there for red meat to give a desperate media class something to cling to and to pretend basically the administration is listening to their concerns. Are there any moves that, say, victims or potentially like Ghislaine Maxwell could take, or Democrats even, congressional Democrats could take, that would force disclosure at all? I mean, there's so many different avenues legally here, but are there moves that could be taken legally to force any new information out into the public? Sure. I think a lot of this is up in the air, given the Supreme Court's recent rulings with respect to like the unitary executive theory and what, like the, whether or not the Congress can intrude on the core prerogatives of the presidency.

45:22And so I, you know, your mileage may vary, but if Congress passed a law that mandated disclosure, um, I don't see why that wouldn't be binding on the executive branch under normal circumstances, you know, assuming that the Trump administration would like follow the law. But of course, not to change the topic, but if you guys know about the TikTok law right now, which was enacted by a bipartisan Congress and, you know, approved by the Supreme Court, there's just no basis right now for them to prevent the execution of the TikTok ban, whether you agree with it or not. And the Trump administration notwithstanding that is not listening to it.

45:50And Pam Bonney released like a letter saying anything that relates to national security, like that is completely within the president's control. And so, yeah, I think that legally Congress could pass a law mandating disclosure, but it's up in the air whether the courts would force the president to execute it. Yeah. I mean, we had a law passed in the 90s mandating disclosure of JFK-related information that multiple administrations were just like, yeah, we're just not really going to totally do that. But the Trump administration has been particularly aggressive about just doing whatever the hell they want to do.

46:20At the same time, the Trump administration has now, Now we can put the second element up on the screen. Officially filed suit against the Wall Street Journal. This is a libel lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and reporters who wrote the story about a collection of letters gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, including a note bearing Trump's name and an outline of a naked woman. The lawsuit seeks at least$20 billion, and CNN describes it as an extraordinary escalation of Trump's ongoing legal campaign against media companies. he views as opponents. Just talk to us about the significance of this and also a little bit of how this process will unfold because I think it is highly unlikely the Wall Street Journal would publish this information because they would know that this would be a real issue for them if they didn't have it all completely locked in and complete and total confidence that this was legitimate material.

47:16So at some point, there's gonna be discovery in this. I mean, how does this all unfold? What do you think Trump's gambit is here? Yeah, so I think that this is in line with what Trump has been doing with other media organizations, even when he has like a kind of crappy case. So if you remember, he sued like CBS for how they edited the Kamala Harris interview and they settled. They sued CNN and other organizations for other statements they made where people were questioning the case there and actually criticizing the news organizations for settling. But there were kind of different practicalities at issue there.

47:45So we can talk about like the legal case and then why Trump is doing this. The reason why I think Trump is doing this is because this is his reflex. Whenever he's attacked publicly, you know, his reflex is to go to court and to sue people and to push, push, push and attack, attack, attack like Roy Cohn told him to. So it's not surprising to me at all that the president is suing. I think that's very much in his in keeping with his general strategy, regardless of the legal merits here. Here, though, you know, this seems like preposterous at the Wall Street Journal, which is owned, I want to add, by Rupert Murdoch, like an ally of the president in many other respects and owned by News Corp, that they would not adhere to pretty much a pretty wonderful track record in terms of the substance of their reporting.

48:30And also when the standard is so high for defamation cases involving public figures, you need to show what's known as actual malice. And that requires not just that you issued like a false statement that is defamatory in its nature, but that you did it knowingly or with reckless disregard. So you'd have to show that like the process of the Wall Street Journal, which, again, as you mentioned, probably has like lawyers and tons of people like looking at these documents over and over and over. and who is careful, if you read the actual article, they state plainly that we don't know how this, you know, what led to the creation of this document.

49:04So they disclaim specific knowledge about how the document was created. I had a hard time identifying a single statement in the lawsuit that the Trump team was arguing was false. Yeah, I read through the lawsuit this weekend and it was, it was, it was funny. Yeah, because to the point that you're making about having to prove actual malice, that's the most amusing part of the lawsuit, arguably them trying to say they know that there was a malicious intent on behalf of the Wall Street Journal, basically because Trump said that this was fake and told them that this was fake and they went with it anyway, which is not nearly enough, of course.

49:43Let's put this next element up on the screen, Crystal. I know we wanted to talk about this is a CNN article actually from 2020 B3. DOJ review finds Alex Acosta used, quote unquote, poor judgment in Jeffrey Epstein deal. This is going back to the sweetheart plea deal that was given to Jeffrey Epstein years and years ago. This was 2007. Many people are familiar with this. CNN wrote at the time, 2020, quote, Epstein avoided federal charges and served only 13 months in state prison for state prostitution charges concerning his sexual involvement with underage girls. The arrangement also protected, quote unquote, any potential co-conspirators of Epstein and specifically named four women whom victims alleged were involved in the sex trafficking scheme.

50:26And if you can help us understand basically in what ways this might be affecting our conversation or our ability to get more details now because of the magnitude of the deal or of the secrecy that was part of this deal, I think that would be really helpful. Yeah, 100%. So the deal was substantively, in my opinion, and in a lot of commentators' opinion, a great deal for Epstein. So he was potentially going to be on the hook for a bunch of really serious violations under the Mann Act and other statutes, which have like 20, 30 year maximums in terms of their penalty. And that's all listed out in the non-prosecution agreement.

51:08So substantively to have to only plead to those charges in Florida, the state charges there, and basically only have like a 12 month sentence or something approaching that where a lot of it was under better conditions than other defendants would have. and with like sort of nicer amenities, it's a really good deal for Epstein. The problem, I think, from the perspective of people who want like truth or whatever, is that it did kind of halt the investigation or aspects of the investigation at that time when it was made, like in 2007, 2008. And so from a substantive investigatory perspective, people were upset that it kind of halted any further investigation that was going on at the time.

51:45And then it included this odd like co-conspirator clause in part of it, which by its terms, right, The non-prosecution agreement literally only refers for Jeffrey Epstein's portion to potentially being charged again in the district. But the co-conspirator clause says that the government, the United States, promises not to prosecute not just the four named co-conspirators, but potentially other non-named co-conspirators. Now, the government now has a kind of different position on what the non-prosecution agreement means. They're like, oh, no, no, no, that, you know, that is meant to apply only as well, right, to the Southern District of Florida.

52:20And also we only included that portion there to protect like victims that could have been considered co-conspirators without naming them. So you can buy the government on that front. But it was like deemed even by this government, even by Trump right now, currently in litigation over the Maxwell case to the Supreme Court as a, quote, highly unusual provision of the deal. Yeah, and I think the reason this is important is because the nature of this deal was so extraordinary that it raised questions about what really the hell was going on here. You know, does his wealth, I guess, really explain the nature of how cushy of a deal he was able to secure here?

52:57Does the fact that he was able to get these high-powered lawyers, people like Alan Dershowitz, on his side, is that sufficient to explain how good this deal was? the, I mean, ultimately they were, you know, the deal was deemed to have violated victims' rights. Having this clause in here that, you know, I don't know if it's unprecedented, but certainly highly unusual to say, okay, not only are you done and we're not going to investigate anything, but anyone who was involved in this, they're off the hook as well. Do you think just like his wealth is enough to explain that? Because I do think this is the locus of where people start to go, okay, well then who else was involved who had something to lose here?

53:34Alex Acosta reportedly also said, I was told this was above my pay grade and that he was intel and I needed to leave it alone. So what do you sort of make of how out of the ordinary is this? Given that, of course, we all acknowledge that as much as we would like the justice system to be completely even and fair for everyone, there is a two-tier system of justice where if you can pay for better lawyers and if you can pay to harass victims and do these sorts of things, yeah, oftentimes you are not treated the same as your average run-of-the-mill criminal. First of all, I watched with great interest the argument that Michael Tracy had with Sagar with you.

54:13And I thought it was a great debate. And so I agree with aspects of what both of you guys said. So on the one hand, I do think that it is highly unusual and it feels weird, the nature of the deal. It doesn't seem weird to me at all that a rich guy had powerful lawyers that were able to get him a good deal. I mean, that just seems like the status quo in terms of the double standard that exists in the justice system in the United States today. But it does raise eyebrows. The comment attributed to a member of the administration who attributed to Acosta about being intelligence, you know, relations to intelligence services, that also raises eyebrows and it feels weird.

54:47And substantively here, like he was given a slap on the wrist for what could have been substantive charges ranging, again, from like life in prison, 10, 20, 30 years under the Mann Act and other statutes where he almost certainly would have been convicted for that stuff. So I totally buy and agree with the misgivings of individuals generally who are like, wait a second, something smells wrong about this. And then he was appointed to be like, you know, secretary of labor. So I get everyone who's like, this seems weird. We want more transparency. I want to say that there is no smoking gun proof for the other theories.

55:19And so even though it's possible that the only incentive here was the nature of the fact that they had high profile lawyers and maybe they were convinced by Dershowitz's arguments that the federal statutes didn't apply because of territoriality or something like that. But I just want to say that, like, I understand people and their misgivings, given how much smoke there is. I just caution them not to jump to conclusions right away. This is Matt Rogers from Las Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Las Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

55:54You know when people try on new food and suddenly it's like, wait. That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Kewpie mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake. Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Kewpie only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers.

56:28Some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never tried it? Grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. 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 just questioned me what I was going to do with this next chapter of my life.

57:00I immediately 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. it. Learn more at rasmussen.edu. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine, and the cool Bahamian breeze. Bahamar, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels, the richly refined Rosewood, the playfully hip SLS, and the stylishly modern Grand Hyatt. With over 45 restaurants, bars, and lounges, Baja Mar serves up delicious dining from world-renowned chefs like Daniel Bouloud and Marcus Samuelson, nightlife venues like the new Jean Batiste Jazz Club, and the Caribbean's most luxurious casino.

57:49At Baja Mar, you'll find every pleasure under the sun and one-of-a-kind experiences for the entire family, like Baja Bay, our 15-acre lush tropical water park, interactive wildlife experiences, including our daily flamingo parade, world-class golf, tennis, spa, and so much more. Visit Bahamar.com today and discover a vacation destination where memories are made for a lifetime. Bahamar, life spectacular. All right, let's go ahead and move on to the other story I wanted you to break down for us here at Pisco, which is we can put this next C1 element up on the screen here. This was a huge development.

58:27I'm honestly surprised it hasn't gotten more attention. But a prisoner swap has freed Americans in Venezuela for migrants in El Salvador. So the TLDR here is that all of these Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. who were shipped down using the Alien Enemies Act, no due process, to CICOT in El Salvador, where basically the expectation was they would never be released. CICOT, of course, notorious for human rights abuses, slave labor, and all the rest. They have most, if not all, have now been freed to Venezuela as part of this deal. So talk to us a little bit about just the details of what happened here.

59:08And I also think that it's important to get into. This really exposes the lie of what the Trump administration has been saying in court all along, which is that, oh, that's just in control. You know, El Salvador is controlled now. We have nothing to do with these prisoners. We can't possibly get them released, even if we wanted to. Yeah, that's the key component here. The Trump administration was engaged in like one of the most horrific abuses of due process in our country's history, really. Just picking people up and putting them on a plane without any notice or opportunity to be heard and chipping them off to a torture dungeon, a gulag, foreign gulag in Sikot.

59:43We're now we're getting information from Kilmar Arbega Garcia about like him being beaten, him being forced to defecate because he was like kneeling for so long and other outrageous accusations about the treatment there. You know, mass people in a cell without any opportunity, you know, really to contact lawyers or your family. So the conditions here are absolutely deplorable. And as a matter of policy, this administration sent these people to those camps without any due process whatsoever. And all the while they were disclaiming that they had any power to bring them back. They were doing this song and dance before Judge Bozberg, before the Supreme Court, even that potentially these people were outside of their command and control, outside of their ability that really, you know, in front of the Oval Office in that like horrific meeting with Bukele, pretending like it was under the sovereign power of El Salvador that these people were being held.

1:00:33And we knew all along this was a crooked deal that was sort of cooked up by the administration to pay the government of El Salvador to house these individuals. And so they were there at the discretion and urging of the United States government. And now this proves it, right? What you're pointing to, this deal between the government of Venezuela, who had kidnapped or held Americans or American legal permanent residents under their control, and to have that deal in exchange for some of these people who were sent to see caught in El Salvador shows that who's running the show here? The American government.

1:01:06They're the ones in control of these prisoners. And also we knew this because El Salvador had specifically stated so in front of the UN in the weeks before. This is like something that is not even like seriously contested, but we had to deal with really the fraudsters and the hacks from the magowing of the party and from the influencer class who were pretending that somehow Trump couldn't, if you wanted to, bring these people back either to this country or to some other country. Yeah. And if we take a look at the next couple of elements, there's some familiar names to people who followed this closely.

1:01:34So next one, this is Hersey Reyes. This is the case of the goalie that some people may remember. He was part of the deal here. And then if we go to the next element, Andre Hernandez Romero, he was the makeup artist who was imprisoned because of his tattoos, also part of the deal. So one of the things, and this is the final element, the Mother Jones story, C3, one of the things that's important legally here is that there are protections from leaving America, being sent from America to a prison where conditions, here Mother Jones reports that people say they were beaten every day, where the conditions are known to the United States government to be like this.

1:02:20So could you explain a little bit of what the, basically this is part of our legal system is you're not allowed to send people to foreign prisons where you know the conditions are going to be, and you can tell us particularly what it is, but like less than the standard of the United States. Is that the legal provision? So I think the three main things to look at here are asylum, withholding of removal, and the Convention Against Torture. And some of these are pursuant to international agreements. The Convention Against Torture is U.S. law, like incorporated by Congress. And it basically prevents deportations to locations where someone is likely to be tortured.

1:02:53And that applies whether you were here illegally, that applies whether or not, you know, you entered without inspection and admission at the border. The United States has an active obligation not to send people to places where they're likely to receive torture with respect to asylum and withholding different standards in those cases, the legal nuances like beyond the scope of this, you know, this interview, but basically where you're going to be subject to persecution, limitations on the government's ability to, that's basically what Kilmar Brigadier was granted, withholding of removal because of the likelihood of persecution at the hands of the El Salvadorian government or at the hands of someone with which the El Salvadorian government doesn't have the authority or power or willingness to stop in the case of the gangs.

1:03:30So yeah, these are protections in our laws. And that's one of the reasons why now there's all this fur about the administration sending people to like South Sudan and places on the brink of civil war where they're also likely to be, you know, subject to inhumane treatment. So yeah, there are actual active obligations on America, like American law that we passed that we should follow that prevent us from doing these kinds of deportations to places where it's fundamentally unsafe or where people are fundamentally going to be subject to like deprivations of rights and persecution and torture. And I think it's worth noting, obviously, it's better that these men are not in Seacott given the record of abuses and what they themselves are saying now when journals are able to speak with them about what their treatment entailed.

1:04:14But in many instances, I mean, their rights were still violated here. In that Mother Jones article, they write, for some relatives, the news of the men's return to Venezuela evoked mixed feelings. Maria Quevedo, the mother of Eddie Adolfo Hurtado Quevedo, told Mother Jones she was feeling relieved but still scared. I'm happy because God gave me the gift of seeing my son free on my birthday. I'm scared because my son is going to Venezuela where he was threatened by a paramilitary group called collectivos. Many of these individuals actually had ongoing asylum claims that they were, you know, some of them would have been rejected and some of them potentially had, you know, a legitimate standing and may have succeeded here.

1:04:50So just speak a little bit about that aspect of it, Pisco. Yeah, something like 30 percent of asylum claims that are petitioned are meritorious. And so, you know, it's not this like five percent, six percent. It's a significant percentage of these claims, at least with respect to asylum, are granted meritorious asylum claims, even under the Trump administration, which oftentimes rolls back protections and rolls back different coverage of asylum provisions and changes the rules under the Department of Justice. So it absolutely is a concern. And think about what the implications would be if the Trump administration were successful in being able to make this kind of laundering scheme where you just send someone to an intermediary and then do some kind of crooked deal to send them back to the country where they were trying to flee for persecution.

1:05:33And that way, like get rid of their legal obligations under the asylum statutes, under the convention against torture and under the withholding statutes, it would be, it would be like a massive hole in our law. And obviously against the due process clause of the United States constitution, where unanimously, even this Supreme court, this Supreme court, which is basically walking over nails to give Trump the benefit of the doubt And every single case unanimously said, even illegally present aliens in this country have procedural due process rights before their deportations and renditions. And so this should concern everyone.

1:06:07It's not just a matter of like, yeah, some of these people probably did some crimes. Some of these people probably don't have meritorious claims. But it's the principle about letting the government make a road through due process and make an end run around U.S. statutory law that protects these people from these kinds of substantive provisions. Last question I have for you, Pisco, is, you know, what do you make of the fact, first of all, the administration has not gone forward with using Alien Enemies Act, as far as I know, for further deportations. They did ultimately have to bring Kilmarabrio Garcia back, even though they said explicitly he will never, under no circumstances will he ever come back to the U.S.

1:06:40Now you have this as well. I mean, Christine Oum had also represented that the expectation was that these men would be in CICOT for the rest of their lives. And now they're not. Now they're, you know, they're not back here, but they're in Venezuela. What do you sort of politically make of of those developments? Yeah, I think politically right now it's having an effect like some of these oversteps, alligator Alcatraz, some of what you saw with Kilmar, some of these stories are having an effect on his polling with respect to immigration. You're seeing that consistently that it's going down. This is the strongest issue.

1:07:12But taking the strategic position for a moment of getting to the head of the administration, I would caution people to look at why the administration is taking these kind of crazy roads in the first place from a good faith perspective and compare it similar to this defamation lawsuit against Epstein. Is the defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, is that about defamation law per se, or is it about sending a signal? Is it about sending a signal to other media organizations, other news organizations that if you publish damaging sources against the administration, we're going to make you hurt, and we're definitely going to bring you to court.

1:07:46And so if you take a look at the longer-term picture, what are these renditions using the Alien Enemies Act trying to do? They're trying to make people scared, make people scared to come to this country, make people scared to apply for asylum. Some of the stuff they know, it's illegal. They know it's against the law, but you should see it in the context of a signaling sort of debate and about showing people that the American government is not going to accept kind of like any immigration or they're going to be mean no matter what. And so viewed in that context, I can understand if you're a super anti-immigration person, why you'd be like, OK, all right, so a couple of people were illegally deported.

1:08:24But the broader message is the deportation or sorry, the border crossing numbers are down. And that's a result of this harsh policy. But I think that there's a danger of overstepping. And I think the administration will start to see that again with the polling numbers and with the midterms on the horizon. Yeah, I think they already have. And that's you know, they were really excited to use Guantanamo. and that became relatively limited, probably still on their radar to some extent. But I think we've seen that in the strategy. They ended up sending a few hundred people to see caught, which as a fairly conservative, someone with a fairly conservative perspective on immigration, the Bukali LARP was just insufferable.

1:09:00So I think they realized most people saw it that way too. What do you think, Emily? Do you support the administration's position on immigration? On immigration? Not what they're doing. I mean, the way that they've handled it now, I think they have to do significant numbers of deportations. Pisco loves to turn the tables. We're supposed to be asking you the questions here. I mean, I could do an hour on everything I think they've gotten wrong. When we're talking about CICOT and the Bucalli LARP, you're going to get me to say no because that was just embarrassing. What about Alligator Alcatraz? I don't have a hard position on Alligator Alcatraz.

1:09:32It feels weird. It also feels like another LARP, but I haven't thought too much about it. Also, there shouldn't be American citizens or minors in there. Like, that seems obviously weird. Pisco, we'll have to have you back so you and I can fight about Superman. Oh, yeah. He's uncharacteristically wrong in his analysis here. So we can. You don't think it's actually Israel-Palestine being reflected in this? I think that it's possibly like a combination of Israel-Palestine, Ukraine-Russia. What I don't think is I don't think that it's I don't think that it's this anti-Semitic movie. Like, oh, no, it's not anti-Semitic.

1:10:13Obviously, it's not that. No, but there was this person I was talking to. I don't know for people who are like very online. His name was Drew Pavlov. And he took the position that this was a Groyper movie that was basically literally depicting Benjamin Netanyahu. and that it was meant to like get everyone to cheer about a Zionist occupied government and how, you know, when Benjamin Netanyahu was killed, that people were supposed to cheer. And this was supposed to basically turn everyone anti-Semitic. And I don't go that far. I do think that there are obviously like historical illusions, but I think that people, it's a bit of a self report when a bunch of Israel supporters are like, Hey, this like very corrupt country that's working with Lex Luthor to destroy the world.

1:10:50When, when they say that must be Israel, I think that that's a little bit of a self-report. And I think there are many different historical allusions you can make. Yes, indeed. We just opened three cans of worms right at the end here. Seek God, Alcatraz, Superman. Anti-Semitism. Yeah, well, it's not an anti-Semitic movie, but I do think it is an anti-Israel movie, and I celebrate it for that. We'll have to talk about it. Yes. Everybody go subscribe to Peace Goes Hour and live and learn and check out what he's doing over there. Great to see you, my friend. Thank you guys so much. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East.

1:11:21us with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture Results with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, okay, hold on, I got a new favorite food. That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Kewpie mayo. Yeah, it's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it at the grocery store. And this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Kewpie only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, almost buttery. Once people try they start putting it on everything.

1:11:53Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise. I think something that makes me well-studded to be a nurse is my empathy. Growing up with a big family, I think I've always kind of been a caregiver. When you care give, you get to know the family and the patient and you get really close. And Rasmussen University, they did a very, very good job of giving us the resources that we need. So just being able to apply the knowledge that I've retained to my daily life has been so amazing.

1:12:29Learn more at rasmussen.edu. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine, and the cool Bahamian breeze. Bahamar, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels, over 45 fine dining and nightlife venues, John Batiste's all-new jazz club, the Caribbean's most luxurious casino, and one-of-a-kind experiences for the entire family, like our 15-acre tropical water park, wildlife sanctuary, world-class golf course, and so much more. Visit Bahamar.com today. So guys, the number of deaths from starvation at the hands of the Israeli government inside of Gaza are truly accelerating the situation, judging by what people on the ground.

1:13:18doctors relief organizations are saying is truly, truly dire and urgent. We had trouble connecting with Ayata Maui. He's a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee. He is inside of Gaza for a live interview, but he was able to record this video about what he is seeing on the ground. Let's take a listen to that. My friends, I can't imagine the tragedy that our children are still facing. Their bodies are emacinated and they're still suffering from the famine. no foods, no flowers, no waters. Really the situation here is more than we can describe multiple times to the media but in my notes I expected that our children will die group by group because the children they will not have any resilience in their bodies with the laws of nutrition and the water also.

1:14:16So the international community must do urgent intervention and open the humanitarian corridor that can let our children stay alive by some food supplement or any amount of foods. We cannot imagine until this moment we send thousands and thousands of humanitarian appeals to the world. No one do any tangible actions that can save our life. So I hope something will change soon after our speech and after all of the humanitarian appeals, especially with those children, our babies will lose their lives urgently after the Feminists completely destroy every resilience here. We cannot stand and complete our life with the circumstances here.

1:15:11So as I was saying, and as Ayad was saying, the reports on the ground are truly, truly dire. We can put this up on the screen. This is just, prepare yourself, guys, trigger warning. This is a three-month-old baby who is now dead from starvation. They have blocked any aid from entering the Gaza Strip, but including formula. The mothers are to malnourish themselves to be able to breastfeed. So for babies to be able to live, they require formula. They require milk. And this is far from the only dire case, far from the only death that has been experienced. I think the number that I saw was, you know, you're up now in the dozens of starvation deaths.

1:15:55It's mostly young children, infants. I've also seen horrifying videos of some elderly individuals who are just collapsing. I could put D2 up on the screen. Haratz has a report about Gaza medical officials saying that people are arriving with severe hunger symptoms, including children and infants. Director of the field hospital in Al-Muassi warned of an impending wave of deaths due to organ failure among displaced individuals. They say the cases reaching us are of people who collapsed in the streets from lack of nutrition. All of them need food, even before medicine. According to the health ministry in Gaza, about 17 ,000 children in the Strip are suffering from severe malnutrition.

1:16:39The death toll from starvation overall has risen to 620, including at least 69 children. I've seen warnings, Emily, that the level of famine they've reached already is, you know, there will be, even if the floodgates opened and the Gaza Strip was, you know, aid, the thousands of trucks of aid that are lined up outside were allowed in. At this point, for some people, it has gone too far and too long and there will be continued death and, you know, lasting developmental issues, lasting health issues and consequences, even if the siege ended today and there is no indication that the siege will end today.

1:17:22So the question for Likud and Netanyahu and the Israeli government right now is whether that is constructive for the case of peace, right? Are they creating conditions that will make their own people just by their let's take their argument at face value. Are they creating conditions right now that will in the long run make their own people safer and more prosperous with the situation that they have created in Gaza? And the answer is obviously absolutely not. Because people have watched this happen for years. They're watching it happen right now. And if this doesn't radicalize you in that position, I mean, of course it's going to radicalize many, many people who are watching this happen to them.

1:18:09I mean, I just I did not know that we lived in a world where we could watch two million people be starved to death and that would just happen. Like, I didn't know we lived in that world. We apparently live in that world because, I mean, the media is covering it the tiniest bit. There was an analysis. They covered Zoran's reaction to the comet, globalized the intifada in the New York Times like 37 times, and it barely covered this whatsoever. I mean, these images of these skeletal three-year-olds, two-year-olds, infants, they're out there for—it's not a secret. Like, they announced they're, you know, blocking the aid trucks from coming in.

1:18:50We all know we can put D3 up on the screen. This, quote-unquote, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is nothing but a cruel joke. The latest indicate you had at least 73 people who were murdered by Israel while they were seeking aid. So it's this absolute dystopian horror where you're starving everybody. The only access to food is through GHF. If you can, you know, brave the sniper fire and the, you know, at one point they have like the Navy firing on starving people who are seeking aid. It just could not be more grave and more dire. We're kind of, you know, joking around with Pisco about the Superman movie and whatever.

1:19:36And I said this when we covered it. To be honest with you, like what Israel is doing is even more cartoonishly villain, villainous than the cartoon version of Israel as an evil country that is portrayed in Superman. It's just, I don't know. I don't know how humanity comes back from such a thing of just knowing this is happening. It's an announced government policy. The world superpower is involved. It's apparently supportive. And it's all unfolding before our eyes and like no power in the world with the power to stop it is doing anything. Let's look at D4 here because this is the choice to the point Crystal was just making that people are facing.

1:20:19which is whether to go seek aid. So this is reportedly U.S. mercenaries who are, as Suleiman Ahmed puts it here, he says, quote, U.S. mercenaries assault starving civilians and pepper spray them as they wait for aid at the GHF center in Gaza. So, Crystal, that sets up the reality, the decision, go seek this aid, go try to get food or continue trying to survive on what you don't have. Yeah. And it's cruelty and horror with a specific end goal in mind. We can put this up on the screen because our country is being enlisted to help to create this end goal. Israel is seeking the U.S. help on deals to move Palestinians out of Gaza, i.e.

1:21:05ethnic cleansing, to third countries. And the idea here is that you make conditions so unlivable inside of Gaza that people are desperate to go anywhere just to have a chance to live. And at the same time, you know, they've increased the evacuation zones so that they are literally concentrating the population of Gaza into small camps and concentrating the population so that they can ultimately continue applying this pressure of wanton massacres plus starvation plus, you know, complete intentional destruction of all civilian life, including, by the way, I mean, we've talked a lot about the infrastructure and the buildings.

1:21:49I mean, they've intentionally destroyed farmland, destroyed, you know, aquifers, greenhouses, anything that would allow Palestinians to be able to care for themselves and grow their own food. They have systematically destroyed that as well. And so, I mean, that's the ultimate plan. It's not hidden. It's announced. Our government is being asked to cooperate. Our government is already cooperating it. And, you know, that is the, that's where we are. The world is standing by as a genocide, ethnic cleansing, and mass starvation campaign unfolds before our eyes. And I just, I don't even know what to say about it anymore.

1:22:28Well, Crystal, again, the Israeli military may have done something from the pure perspective of public relations as they incorporate into, we know, their strategy as they see it as a very important part of their strategy. They may have done something that was counterproductive when a Catholic church in Gaza was hit, and it drew the attention of many conservatives to what was happening. This was a raging debate on X over the weekend among different conservatives. So we can put D6 on the screen. This is a tweet from Joel Berry of the Babylon Bee who says, quote, This won't be easy for people to hear, but there are only about 200 professed Catholics still living in Gaza, and they all support Hamas.

1:23:12I just want to read. Managing editor of the Babylon Bee. So not some low level rando. Yeah. And some of my friends on the right, right, came out and said, we're never dealing with Babylon Bee again. This is the final straw after that happened. And we're going to get into more of this, but I want to read just on that point as a response. This post from former Congressman Justin Amash, former Republican Congressman Justin Amash, he's a libertarian, he's Palestinian. He says, quote, the claim that Orthodox and Catholic Christians in Palestinian communities aren't, quote unquote, true Christians is reprehensible.

1:23:48An attempt to erase the identity of a people living in the Levant since ancient times and alienate Christianity from its ancestral home, the place of Jesus Christ. Amen. Justin Amash. I think he absolutely nailed that response to Joel. But, Crystal, this debate is now not going anywhere for the people who are the most supportive, defensive of the Israeli government at every step of the way. Here is Michael Knowles, who is a Catholic, reacting on his Daily Wire show to news of the church that was hitting Gaza. We can roll D7. As I've mentioned before, everyone seems to hate the state of Israel these days, mostly coming from the left, but some people on the right have joined.

1:24:31And I've been broadly supportive of the state of Israel, not really as an ideological matter, but as a matter of prudence. And you're losing me. You're losing me. When you strike churches, the only church in Gaza, even if accidentally, but especially if not accidentally, you're losing me. If you're losing Mike Huckabee, the Israeli government is really screwing up, is really not playing its cards right. I agree with the Holy Father. I agree with the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and I agree especially with the Holy Father on most matters. The war needs to come to an end. There need to be political consequences for this action, and the war needs to come to an end.

1:25:17How long is the war going to go on? I know what the answer is. The answer is, well, until the hostages come home. Okay, well, well, how about we redouble our efforts to get the hostages home, if that's the impediment to peace? Because it seems like there have been a lot of side quests and side missions. The war has been going on for almost two years. When's it going to end? Just what's the end of it? Can anyone tell me that when the hostages are released? Well, then focus on getting the hostages released. Well, no, when Hamas is totally destroyed. Okay, well, when's that going to be? When Iran is no longer funding terrorism?

1:25:52When's that going to be? When Syria is made safe for democracy? Give me an answer. Because the war cannot just go on indefinitely. A just war cannot just go on indefinitely. Okay, Crystal, reaction to Michael Knowles' reaction, and let's just also, now, since the church was hit, the only Catholic church in Gaza, as he mentioned, Pope Leo has come out and condemned what happened, obviously. And even Mike Huckabee, to what Michael Knowles just mentioned, has been up in arms. We covered this a little bit last week. He visited the Christian town in the West Bank over the weekend, so on Saturday, and also condemned that, called for, quote, harsh consequences.

1:26:40So this is a real break. The question is, there were plenty of real breaks on the left during the Biden administration. The question is whether that actually trickles into the policy level, and that's much less clear. You're right. But as we have covered for a long time, the sort of mainstream average right has a very different position. Same thing on the left as the policymakers on this issue. Yeah. Well, not the boomers, but right. Right. The young right. Yeah. And I think that's I don't expect there to be a policy consequence. You know, Mike Huckabee is expressed as upset. They'll work out whatever their visa issue is and he'll move on with his lockstep support, as will Donald Trump.

1:27:22But I guess what bothers me is it just it seems like it took a fellow Catholic getting killed before he saw anybody as like human beings who were there. And I think it really reveals how much Islamophobia and anti-Arab bigotry allows this situation to persist. They've just been so thoroughly dehumanized that, I mean, think of how much death and destruction and intentional starvation and all of the mosques that have been destroyed and the schools and the refugee camps and the doctors and the hospitals and the ground plowed up so they can't grow food. And they're barred from even fishing off their own coast.

1:28:06I mean, just the utter horror, death, disease, starvation, destruction that has been going on now to his point for almost two years. And so, I mean, I'm glad that finally you have a recognition of like, oh, holy shit, these are actually human beings. Maybe this is wrong. But it does bother me that you didn't see any of the rest of the people who were being murdered as human beings. So that's, you know, one of the things that jumped down at me is I do think it really underscores how much this whole project is dependent on a thorough dehumanization of the Palestinian people. And the moment you have some Palestinians who Michael Knowles and Mike Huckabee can recognize as actual human beings, then it becomes pretty clear how horrifying and outrageous the entire project is.

1:28:55Well, here's what I think is interesting, and maybe it's worth even talking to Michael about. He is a very staunch defender of the West, the broader West. And that's what I think is particularly compelling about his argument is we hear constantly, and he says he's supported Israel generally as a matter of prudence because for many people on the right, they see Israel as a bastion of Western values versus anti-Western values. people who actually do not believe in liberal democracy as the West sees it. And that juxtaposition has always been really powerful on the right. That purported juxtaposition has always been really powerful on the right.

1:29:38And what I hear from Michael is when you look at conduct like this, that's a cracking facade. The idea that Israel is upholding the values of the West in... I mean, it's frankly an insane idea at this point. It's definitely like to see that reaction, I find that really, really interesting because that's the foundational piece of support that keeps even good faith conservatives sort of intellectually behind Israel. And that is what falls apart fairly easily, especially since October 7th. I think that's why this post-October 7th period has been really important. Let's put up a lot of Catholics were sharing these images of Cardinal Pizzaballa.

1:30:28So this is D8. We can start rolling this. He actually went and visited Gaza. He went off and visited the church on Saturday. So clearly putting himself on the line here and going into a war zone and touring the destruction. And this was a guy, Emily, am I correct, that the right really was hoping to see as Pope? Yes. And so the fact it's he's the one that goes, I think, gives it added significance. Yeah. The best way to explain it would be if you were watching Conclave, he would be sort of one of the conservatives, right? In the conservative faction. That's a very rough approximation. And I'm not Catholic, but that that's the best way that you can kind of I can kind of explain it.

1:31:14He was on the list of people the right wanted to see potentially step into. Francis's shoes, because of his reputation as one of the more conservatives. So this is, I think this was a really powerful moment. And this is D9. You can see him posing with kids. Look at that. This is such a beautiful sign of resilience. And just to go back to this Joel Berry. Yeah, let's be sure. This is who he's saying is Hamas. This is who, right here, look at this little girl taking communion, this little boy looking over her. That's who he is justifying their murder. Let's be really clear by saying, let's be honest, they all support Hamas.

1:31:58That's what he's doing. And the number of tweets and commentators and arguments that I've seen made exactly like this, by the way, applied to the entire population. I can't possibly keep track at this point. But for him to put it out there so clearly about Christians in particular, you know, this is the first, you know, I saw a significant backlash from the right of like, wait, these little kids? You're saying these little kids who are here with, you know, with this cardinal, you think they are Hamas and deserve to be murdered? Yeah. Well, there's a Catholic Protestant third rail, particularly on the right, because the right is still more, I think that the sort of professional right, the conservative movement is knitted together by religious fabric in a way that the left really isn't anymore.

1:32:46And so the Catholic Protestant third rail, when that gets touched, it can flare up. But one of the interesting things I saw is a lot of my like fellow evangelicals were like wildly offended by what Joel said and were saying so. Like, this was completely wrong. And that is something that you don't often see, to be honest. A bunch of evangelicals rallying behind Arab Catholics in Gaza because someone dared to, you know, affiliate them with Hamas. These are children. Children. Three people died. Nine were injured. A priest was injured. The church was damaged. Many churches have been damaged over the course of this.

1:33:35And we mentioned earlier Huckabee was out in the West Bank and like the remaining Christian village, mostly Christian village in the West Bank. And, you know, Chris, I totally understand your point about people waking up to this because Christians are under attack. sort of human nature to, you know, it sort of hits home for you when it's people with whom you identify. And so, yeah, I absolutely hear what you're saying. This, though, the amount of piling on Joel that happened over the weekend. Yeah. This really feels like the chapter being turned. Like something happened over the weekend. Was there some other, just real quick, was there some other precipitating?

1:34:25Because I saw people like Babylon B's anti-Catholic vibe. There were other things that happened. So Joel has been out at the forefront with James Lindsay and some others condemning Tucker Carlson and Daryl Cooper and the quote-unquote woke right, which I think there's something to the quote-unquote woke right construction if you're talking about like Nick Fuentes. If you're talking about Tucker Carlson, no. If you're talking about this narrow slice of people who are very identitarian, like Nick Fuentes, who are open racists, as he identified himself on Candace Owens' show, then yeah, you could call him like neo-woke, like identitarian, white nationalist.

1:35:04Yes. They think that woke is a worse pejorative than like Nazi. Yeah. So Joel and others have been lumping, I would say, people who are not at all identitarian. Well, like Dave Smith, let's say there, is what I think we could safely say. Right. And particularly because of their positions on Israel. And so that's where this has gotten, that's the precipitating factor here, that people were already primed to be like, dude, you are being, if anything, you are the one being woke. You're the one sort of engaging in this cancel culture of anyone who dares to question the Israeli government. Not even Israel, but like the Israeli government.

1:35:45So that was already, that had sort of been percolating. That was bubbling. Okay. Yeah. And a lot of people do perceive that as Catholic because a lot of, anti-Catholic, because a lot of Catholics tend to be more in that camp than Protestant evangelicals because because Protestant evangelicals have this very, you know, many people are dispensationalists. Evangelicals are dispensationalists, and they have this idea of the nation of Israel and the state of Israel being involved in prophecy and all of that. So it does touch on that third rail. So it was, Joel really stepped into, he stepped into the minefield.

1:36:27Yeah, I could tell when I was reading the replies that I was like coming in halfway through the conversation. Yes, yes. Like, I miss some things. I can tell people are mad, but I definitely miss some things that happened before this. Yeah. Thank you for explaining that to me. There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. Yes. Speaking of a lot going on, let's go ahead and get to Medi on Surrounded. This is Matt Rogers from Las Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Las Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try on new food and suddenly it's like, wait.

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1:39:05Visit BajaMar.com today and discover a vacation destination where memories are made for a lifetime. Baja Mar, life spectacular. All right, guys. So some pretty interesting moments as Mehdi Hassan went on Jubilee, their show called Surrounded. The title here on YouTube is one progressive versus 20 far-right conservatives featuring Mehdi Hassan. And far-right, certainly, I don't even think that does justice to the ideology that some of these people espoused. Case in point, this dude right here. Let's take a listen. How would Conor's America look? What would it look like? Well, Well, quite frankly, I think we would deport people who shouldn't be here.

1:39:45I didn't ask about deporting. What does the government look like? What does the government look like? Yeah. I would say, quite frankly, it's under a sort of benevolent leader, such as Franco. Where does he come from? It could be a kind of aristocratic class. Could be someone who... Who picks the autocrat? Frankly, the people. I mean, we could hold a vote on it. Kings were paid. So isn't that democracy? Well, sure. You can have a vote to get to that state. And then no more votes afterwards. Absolutely. Wow. 100%. Wow. And if that autocrat kills you and your family, you're fine with that? well i'm not i'm not going to be a part of the group that he kills because that's a whole thing how do you know carl schmidt tend to kill everyone even though it makes this point very well in his work it's the friend enemy distinction right you call schmidt the nazi theoretician absolutely i don't care are you a fan of the nazis i don't i frankly don't care being called the nazi i didn't say that i didn't actually say that i said are you a fan of the nazis well they persecuted the church a little bit i'm not a fan of that but what about the persecution of the jews well i mean i I certainly don't support anyone's human dignity being assaulted.

1:40:43I'm a Catholic. But you don't condemn Nazi persecution of the Jews? I think that there was a little bit of persecution. We may have to rename this show because you're a little bit more than a far-right Republican. Hey, what can I say? I think you can say I'm a fascist. Yeah, I am.

1:41:03Absolutely. I'm just checking who's clapping just to get my set of where everyone is on this. Yeah, so that happens. Where do they find these people? I don't know. I mean, and some of them you'll recognize from other episodes, like this blonde chick I've definitely seen before in other episodes as well. But, I mean, I watched the whole thing. That's crazy. You really got through it. I did not enjoy it. I mean, Maddie did a great job. And there were some weird moments, too, where, like, some of these people would come up, especially on Gaza, actually, and they would be like, I don't even disagree with you.

1:41:39It's like, what are we doing here? And then other ones would just be like, yeah, I'm a fascist and I think you should die. And it's like, what are we doing here? You know, it's just like. Yeah. So my question for you is this guy, I mean, this guy, people online or apparently as an online persona, they're saying like he's a griper, meaning he's like a fan or follower of Nick Fuentes, obviously, you know, happy to be called a Nazi or fascist or whatever, doesn't care. Right. And follows like Nazi thinkers and whatever. Right. Right. How significant is this strain with with young Republicans in particular?

1:42:12It's a good question. I mean, I think this is. It's not representative of like an average kid by any means or an average like 20 something by any means. It is something that if for people who spend a lot of time in like the online fever swamps, the way that I think about it is there's now this almost like architecture. like there's this um mental architecture like him invoking carl schmidt out of basically nowhere in that conversation with meddy it's such a tell that he's part of the like he wants to say that he was dying from meddy to be like you're a nazi yeah because he's like i don't care if you call me a nazi meddy's like i didn't even say that i said are you a fan of the nazis right he was dying to he was so happy to have his little moment where like yeah you can call me a fascist and thinks it's like hilarious and everyone in the room is laughing and applauding that.

1:43:07Yeah. And so it's, there's always going to be a component that of like, of the right, that's like fashy. There's always going to be a component of it. There's always going to be like mouth breathing, fringe, conspiracy theory, addled weirdos. Like that's always going to be a part of basically any political movement. And on the right, it tends in the direction of like ultra reactionary fascism. So the question that I have, and I don't have a perfect answer to it, but the question I have is, is it growing or is it just that they now have this kind of mental architecture where they can, they have like Carl Schmitt and they're ready to say friend enemy distinction because they've read all of the viral threads.

1:43:50And there are people who are sort of thought leaders because the internet, you don't have to like gather in some type of like weird bar after closing and have these like meetings of like fringe weirdos you can do it on the internet now and there are people who are like national like Nick Fonta's example of somebody who talks about this type of stuff and so there's just a more is more obvious and more visible I definitely worry that our elites are leading us into a position where more and more people are tempted by fascism or anarchism or any fringe, like, frankly, communism, because people are so desperate and upset.

1:44:36This kid, though, he looks like a normal middle class dude who just is like... Yeah, like, what's your excuse, buddy? Yeah, but it's, you know, as much as I want to trash Jubilee or whatever the hell it's called, Surrounded, whatever it is. Yeah, so it's the channel is Jubilee, this show is Surrounded. Something interesting about it is that it does force them to play out this experiment in the real world instead of on the internet. And, like, yes, I get that it's being broadcast on the internet in a kind of meta sense. But to have the conversation in person with somebody who disagrees with you, your thoughts are tested in real time.

1:45:12And you just saw that. He obviously hasn't considered whether he will be put into it one of his little camps. Right. And he thinks, oh, no, I'll be okay, I'll be okay. It's a fun little thought experiment. Many people have thought that they would not end up in the camp, sir. That's the story of the last century. I've got more for you. So this is in the immigration portion. And just, you know, background knowledge here. Mehdi is an American citizen. He is a naturalized American citizen. And one of the Jubilee guys is like, you need to get the hell out. Let's take a listen. This is a very simplistic understanding of economics.

1:45:44Okay, explain them wrong. Tell you how you're wrong. Because you're ignoring the fact that when immigrants come into an area, they spend money. They create jobs. about one fifth of their monthly income leaves the country they spend they that's a good thing also because you don't like usa foreign aid so this is the point they create jobs i came into this country so far every one of my assumptions about you has been correct but listen to me i am an immigrant i'm speaking for personal experience i don't even like i should get the hell out yes why i don't want you here why because you come here and say all this bullshit about how americans are lazy you push your left i never said americans i don't know why you say this i never said americans yes you are you're saying immigrants have to come into this country so they can do jobs that we don't want to do.

1:46:19That's exactly what you said. When did I say it? When did I say it? We're on YouTube. Guys watching on YouTube, rewind to the time where I said, immigrants are doing jobs, we don't want to do. When did I say those words? Words that came out of my mouth. Okay, so why do we have to bring in immigrants to the country if we have people who are going to do the jobs? Pause. Pause. You've been voted out. Nice talking to you. Nice talking to you. You're going to have to go, bro, is what he said as I left to an American citizen. Good to know. And yeah, to your point, Emily, you know, this sort of validates like the worst caricature of what Democrats or liberals or leftists or whoever would say about the right of like, oh, you're pretending you just want secure borders.

1:47:00Really, you just want a white ethno state and you hate brown people and you think even a naturalized citizen like Mehdi Hassan should be should go bro. And this guy's like, yes. And I think that's what's very different about today is that like you can go on Twitter and see this sentiment expressed like routinely out in the open with support with you know prominent online media figures who will bolster the case with these like pseudo intellectual arguments that are being made whether it's the curtis yarvins of the world or whoever um and i think richard hanania himself a he claims former eugenicists i would say there's still some questions there in any case i think he actually explained it well as he called it like the the based loop or something like that, where it's like, you just keep going further and further.

1:47:49And the test is saying the most outrageous things and not getting offended by it. And, you know, whoever can sort of like survive that test gets the most cloud credence, like countercultural vibes on the internet. Well, there's a very obvious, I think, and sad reality to that, which is social media has completely gamified our politics and our culture. Literally, Twitter was designed like a casino. And so when we are communicating, whether it's journalists or as politicians or as members of the public sort of engaging in civic debate, quote unquote, it's all gamified in a way that is playing on our neurological structures.

1:48:38It's actually incredibly messed up how little we think about what this has done to us because posting is – you're posting about your personal life. You're posting about politics. You're posting about another human being. We could have an entire conversation about the Coldplay concert when it comes to all of this. But you're maximizing retweets and likes. That's literally like casino behavior for politics and culture. And of course, it was inevitably going to change the way that we talk to each other in real life. It doesn't just stay on the Internet. And so I actually think this is answering the question that we were just talking about a little bit, is whether this is getting better or worse or whether it's staying the same, whether we have the same number of fringe people or whether it's getting worse.

1:49:24I think probably it is getting worse to some extent. And what I saw in that conversation was a little bit different than white ethnopolitics. To me, that was this new argument that you hear from Trump world. When you bring in a bunch of people from different countries like Europe, places where hatred of America or mockery of America is common. Medes from the UK. Right, right. But that's that's the new like that's J.D. Vance going to Europe and saying like this is the way that you guys have your free speech. And obviously it's hypocritical coming from J.D. Vance. But that's what I saw in that argument was this idea that like it doesn't behoove America to bring people in who hate America.

1:50:09But it's just like he didn't have Mehdi saying that he hated America. He was just assuming Mehdi thought Americans were lazy because he had different positions on immigration. Well, right. And that's where the fundamental hypocrisy of the J.D. Vance thing, like connecting it to this is like, you know, I'm sure this guy may also be, oh, I believe in free speech. It's just like, yeah, but you decided that Mehdi should be denaturalized and deported because he has differing political views than you. Like literally just on the basis of this. He's like, you come in and spout this garbage. It's like he and then make and then he makes up things that Mehdi didn't even say in the context of this debate.

1:50:46Because it's a straw. It's the Internet straw man. And this is what it does to our brains. And this is why it's really frustrating. Sometimes the feedback that we get on this show, especially and I'm sure you get it from the left. I get it from the right. But like the feedback we get sometimes to me, it's frustrating because people who don't do what we do all the time where we're talking to each other literally every day on things that we disagree with on have these, I think, straw man ideas that social media encourages us to construct of people who disagree with us. And unless you are putting in a lot of time, which is hard to do, but like unless you are putting a lot of time, we're lucky.

1:51:20Like I, that's why I consider myself lucky to be able to do this. Yeah. It's those start to crumble when you have actual conversations. And so I guess good on this where the exactly caricature is completely validated. And they're like, yes, I am that Internet Nazi fascist. But his caricature of Medi was was incorrect. Right. And that's like, yeah, I mean, Medi is somebody who if we didn't do this show, I would probably have a caricature of, but we had many on a couple of weeks ago. And it's hard to maintain those caricatures when you're doing it every single day and you're actually talking to people and having reasonable conversations.

1:51:58And so I think that's one of the problems with the online discourse is that the algorithms force us into caricaturing and strawmanning because that validates our priors. It's the confirmation bias that makes virality possible. And when you have to actually have these conversations in real life, it's a lot harder, even for him. The first Nazi boy talking about Carl Schmitt, it was a lot harder for him to even maintain his own argument, the caricature of himself, because he would end up in a damn camp. Right. Someone's going to the camps. Doesn't matter how much Carl Schmitt they've read. So one of the assertions that Mehdi, you have to come in with like, these are my claims, One of the claims Mehdi made in the context of this debate was that Trump's plan for Gaza is ethnic cleansing.

1:52:48And this was one of the ones where actually a number of the people who came up and wanted to debate with him did not actually disagree with him, which was also kind of interesting. And you're like, OK, why? Well, Trump used the word clean. I mean, it's just like it's sort of impossible to argue, number one. But number two is also indicative, perhaps, of some of the ways that the young right is different on this issue and views it different than others. But they did have one guy who came in and was, you know, making some not great points about how basically everyone in Gaza is Hamas and they all deserve to die.

1:53:24Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. You got to let me finish. No, you got to answer the question. Fourth time. When Israeli snipers shoot Palestinian children in the head. We're running out of time. I need to know what you think about innocent children. Because what you said was pretty outrageous. You said so-called innocent Palestinians. For the fifth time, when Palestinian children are shot in the head by Israeli snipers. Is that not the fault of Israeli snipers? What did those children do? You tell me that the children deserve to be shot in the head. Because the problem is over there.

1:53:48You know millions of people are watching you say. They start brainwashing children. They start brainwashing children at a very young age. So you support sniping children in Gaza. Do other people here support sniping children in Gaza? Is that a conservative position now? What if they're wearing a suicide vest? They weren't. But what if they are? They're not though. Dozens of children. I have friends who went there. Doctors went together. American doctors. They came back as we were multiple children. What if they're hell-bent? What if they're hell-bent on killing you and your family? A 10-year-old child.

1:54:18An 8-year-old child. A 6-year-old child. Because, like I said. This is bad for you. You're sitting on live television. Millions of people are going to see your neighbors, your friends. Millions of people don't know what's going on. Even your fellow right-wingers are saying, don't go this far. Like genocide, sure, but don't advocate killing kids. Millions of people don't understand the brainwashing that is going on in Islamic Republic and in Palestine to create this hatred. You're obsessed with Iran so much that you're supporting the killing of Palestinian children who never harmed you or any other Israeli.

1:54:48That's insane. And that guy himself is Iranian. And so, which, you know, I guess helps inform what he's thinking about in this debate. You said he was Zorro. That part's not confirmed. I don't want to speculate. But I think to your point about, you know, if you have to exist in any sort of reality and you're still trying to toe the line for everything Israel does is totally and completely justified, you're going to end up looking like a genocidal maniac as this fool ultimately ends up looking at the hands of Benny. You know, one of the things I think bothers me about the format here is that they do kind of mimic social media in a sense with the red flags.

1:55:29Like you've been voted out or whatever. It's gamified in and of itself because I was thinking during that conversation how much more interesting it would have been without the chaos of like the flags waving and people gearing. Because you could really see how Mady was working through the debate. I mean he literally wrote a book about how to win arguments, right? right? Medhi wrote a book about how to win arguments a couple of years ago. I don't care how you feel about Medhi. Medhi is a very smart and very skilled presenter, debater, interviewer. I think he is truly one of the most talented people in that genre out there.

1:56:03He's good at what he does. And so going on an episode of Surrounded with Medhi is going to be a mistake if you are just like an internet troll. You might think you're going to win. You're not going to win. That's what it's not going to go well for you. Well, I believe 20, what do they call them, far-right conservatives found that out in real time. And Medi said, because someone quote tweeted and said, Jubilee invited a bunch of Nazis, and Medi Hassel went, yeah, sure, I'm going to go debate them. And Medi said, to be fair to me, that's not how the debate was sold to me. You can see my shock when they start expressing their views openly.

1:56:36And something similar happened. I'm trying to remember who it was. Oh, it was Jordan Peterson. Remember, they sold the debaters as a Christian versus atheists? And Jordan Peterson's not a Christian. This happened like a month ago. Right. They had to change the YouTube title because it was supposed to be one Christian versus 20 atheists. Right. And then he's immediately like, they're like, wait, he wouldn't say he's a Christian. No, he never does. I mean, this is the thing he does. He like won't actually say what he believes and be direct about it. Right. Because he doesn't know what he believes.

1:57:08It was a mess. Yeah. Because he doesn't know. Um, so anyway, what a, what a experience those, uh, those young kids had with Maddie and Zorro.

1:57:22Friends were made. Enemies were made. The friend-enemy distinction was made. It all happened. Yeah. So I think answering the question we started with, I do think some of the fringe stuff is getting worse. I think there are probably more people that are interested in a version of, like, for example, there are probably people who are attracted to Zoran Mamdani's ideas in ways that I think would probably go in a frightening direction where they test it out. I don't think that's representative of the Zoran Mamdani movement in any way whatsoever. I think that's representative of people being desperate and our elites being terrible.

1:58:00Now, on the right. I just, I just, I'm not saying you're necessarily, but I just want to make the distinction. I don't think there is anything. There's no equivalent. Equivalent. No, no, no. Between Zoran being like, let's have free buses and this guy being like, I'm a Nazi. Of course not. No, I'm just trying to say, I think there are people being, people are being pulled in like populous directions. And sometimes when people are pulled in a populous direction, it goes really, really wrong. And people get, because people are being pulled in populous directions in good ways. Like the media is awful.

1:58:31you're being lied to, that opens up space for people who say correctly, everyone is lying to you. Listen to me. And those people will often lie to you. And so I think that it actually is really dangerous. And I think it's one of the most frustrating things about the obsession with just recycling like Andrew Cuomo or Republicans, like having no answer to Donald Trump other than we're all MAGA Republicans now, as they say. Like, that is really dangerous because you're not actually answering anybody's problems. You're not actually solving anybody's problems. You're just putting a sort of charismatic person in front of them.

1:59:11And again, I'm not drawing an equivalence between Zoran and Donald Trump. I'm just saying that's what happens when you don't answer populism. It ends up, like, making people more and more desperate. And as people get more and more desperate, they say insane things like this. But one of the weird things, not weird, predictable things, these people all seem perfectly like they should be well adjusted. Right. And that's like, that's we're being poisoned by social media and these algorithms. And it's really what a time to be alive. Indeed. All right. Speaking of what a time to be alive, Israel routinely violating ceasefire in southern Lebanon barely makes news because of so many other things that are going on with even Israel specifically, but DropSite has a great report for us.

1:59:53Let's go ahead and get to that. We have an important report courtesy of our friends over at DropSite. So despite agreeing to a ceasefire with Hezbollah in November, 2024, Israel has repeatedly violated the terms of that agreement. News coverage has focused a lot on Israel's strikes on Syria and Iran and starvation of Gaza, understandably, but the conflict in Lebanon is also still ongoing. In the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah agreed to withdraw north of the Latani River in southern Lebanon, and Israel agreed to withdraw their forces. Now, Israel has not actually withdrawn all their forces, and they have continued bombing Lebanon on a semi-regular basis.

2:00:30Last month, DropSite sent journalist Jeremy Lafredo to southern Lebanon to report on the status of the ceasefire there. Now, you might remember Jeremy. He's the American freelance journalist who was arrested and jailed by Israel for reporting on Iran's strikes there on the ground, he continues to face charges inside of Israel. It is exceedingly difficult for journalists to be able to reach southern Lebanon at this point, but Jeremy was actually able to get access, and he filed this report from Ida al-Shaab, a southern Lebanese town reduced to rubble and forcibly emptied by Israeli strikes and systemic demolitions, not during the conflict, but following the supposed ceasefire.

2:01:09As Jeremy demonstrates with this report, less than 1 ,000 yards away from Aida al-Shaab, Israeli forces still occupy mountaintop positions inside of Lebanon, surveilling that town and firing on anything that resembles reconstruction. Here is Jeremy's report from Aida, where he is in conversation with a Lebanese journalist named Mohamed Klaite, who helped him to be able to get there.

2:01:51So this is Aita Shab. It's a bordering town between northern Occupy Palestine and Lebanon. It's like one kilometer away from the nearest Israeli outpost. Israel insisted on totally destroying this town and making it unhabitable. In 2006, this town and the people who were fighting in it, they stood steady to resist the Israeli occupation and any Israeli advancement towards the town. It took the spotlight during the 2006 war. and as you can see there's nothing left the houses are either totally destroyed or partially destroyed

2:02:48lower the camera there's a military checkpoint

2:03:00They entered it, they occupied it, they were targeting it with bombardment, with airstrikes, with shelling, like tank shells. And when they occupied the land on foot, they made sure, like during the ceasefire, to destroy everything. They planted bombs inside the houses like those houses you see on the hilltop there. They also appear in the videos of the Israeli military when they are like drone footage when they are blowing up the entire neighborhood. As I remember this excavator was targeted on the first few days when people returned. They were trying to remove the rubble, but then it was started.

2:03:53It's part of the Israeli policy not to allow any type of construction or reconstruction in the town. So you could find like excavators and trucks just parked on the side of the road, left alone. Even like the houses, like small houses, like portable houses, they were also targeted by Israel. No one is allowed to come back.

2:04:34When people came back here, they found a lot of dead Hezbollah fighters under the rubble. They kept on digging. Every time they reached a house and started digging, they would find one or two Hezbollah fighters. That sign says on the right that we're present in every area and we won't leave our weapon.

2:05:39I think that's the new one.

2:05:47I think that's another one, see it?

2:05:56so it's very close

2:06:28mom work

2:06:43No Oh wow. Nice.

2:06:52Security forces jacket. Oh, the remiss. Nice. Good job, Pat.

2:07:18I'm Mohammed Ibrahim Nassir from the village of the family. The situation of the life is difficult. The situation of the life and the economic situation is difficult. If we are like this, we live under the roof and we sleep on the ground and we don't have any time. The situation of the life is difficult. You come back to clean the buildings, like here in the city, in the kitchen. We are going to get the life of the spiritual life. If we want to get back to our country, we'll keep going. We'll be able to get back. No, the opposite is normal. We're going to be able to get back. The Israelis need to work together.

2:07:52They're a new region, and they know what they're aware of. They want to protect the land that's the most vulnerable. We live here and we'll keep going. This is our land, the most famous, especially in the dead of the people. We don't have to leave it. It was a year since 2006, when it was a year ago, it was a famous day. and I returned to the city of Nassar in 2024 and now I'm still there.

2:08:24My name is Ali Ibrahim At-Hinay from the village of the Genovian. Where are we now? We are now in the village called Kura Heworks how small history of emissions Furthermore, someone is so Hafened Albert Post marshabIP He dramatically lost the world It was also aiert He might put the earth in this moment. diesem вид their agency isn't OK But when the theories happen that they'd make it so we can turn to the world Fear the את Izzi across terrorism! It was goal to destroy the world soon and in a moment. On a very long days, before the chapter of terror, we attempted no existence. The impact from prisoners quiiloqued its destruction was…

2:09:18Israel's perdre was decisive of their Terrace to take over all the MO. We must have aありがとうございました, But we certainly don't, we're going to face them. and we have to take care of everything.

2:09:53All right guys, thank you so much for watching today. Ryan will actually be in tomorrow and hopefully Sagar will be back. His family is sick. Baby, everybody, they're going through it. Baby bug. That's right. No fun. No fun. In any case, thank you so much for watching and we will see you soon. This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Hosted by Katie Milkman, an award-winning behavioral scientist and author of the best-selling book, How to Change. choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions hear true stories from nobel laureates authors athletes and everyday people about why we make the choices we do and how to make better ones to help avoid costly mistakes listen to choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen some people use chat gpt to answer questions others use it to get real work done.

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