7/7/25: NYT Smears Zohran, Rogan Shocked By Alligator Alcatraz, Gaza Aid Group Massacres

23:23Jeremy Scahill:So in any case, it's interesting to me, Emily, that, I mean, first of all, it's interesting to me that anyone was surprised by this direction from the Trump administration, given that you've got Stephen Miller running the show. And running the show and even more like I think he has completely taken over this portfolio in a way even beyond what was the case in the 2016 Trump. But given the first administration, given the rhetoric on the campaign trail and, you know, given the like explicit promises that were made that this was going to be a focus. I know Trump claimed that, oh, well, this will just be focused on.

23:58Jeremy Scahill:He didn't say just be focused on criminals, but he made it seem like the focus of the policy would be on a mass criminal illegal alien population. They said first over and over again. That's what we would do first. Definitely not the case. But also they projected, they made it seem like, you know, the vast majority of undocumented immigrants were in fact criminals, which is just not reality. So I think that's where, you know, they're running up against the difference between the projection of the Trump campaign and the way this was portrayed. And then the actual reality of seeing moms, dads, neighbors, people who have lived in this country and caused no problem, committed no crimes, done all the right things, even people who were actually following the process and trying to apply for asylum and showing up for their hearings and all of those things.

24:53Jeremy Scahill:This is the same thing that happened really in the first Trump administration as well, where mass immigration has never been more popular than it was during the first Trump administration. Which is why then you had every 2020 Democrat running on a very pro-immigration and a very relaxed border policy. And Biden particularly talked tough about border security and all of that. But they were telegraphing. The signaling over and over again was that this would be a much more lenient and welcoming administration. And so, yeah, I mean, we should roll this Rogan clip as well because it echoes Tim Dillon.

25:30I mean, to your point, Crystal, this is one of those political, I don't want to say conundrums, but it is kind of a conundrum for the GOP, which the Republican base is very different from the rest of the country. The Trump base, I should say, actually, is very different from the rest of the country on the question of mass deportation. So it polls very differently depending on what you're looking at. When you get it, and you've pointed this out a lot, when you get into the specifics of what, quote unquote, mass deportation looks like, people are less supportive than when you just use the phrase mass deportation.

26:03But this is really, really important to the Republican base. People like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller believe that you never have the same country again if there isn't a process of mass deportations over the course of the Trump administration. And their definition of mass deportation is really undoing the entire Biden era, which will involve basically if you wanted to take eight million, if you wanted to deport the eight million estimated people who came in at least during the Biden administration. First of all, that's not all illegal immigration. A lot of it was legalized by the Biden administration, which created the asylum process and will not create it, but expanded the asylum process and made it really easy.

26:43They did not detain people and let them into the interior of the country while their asylum hearings waited because there were so many people. And so to undo that, you're talking about tens of thousands of deportations a week. If you wanted to do it in a year, it would be like 20 ,000 deportations a day at least. So it's not going to – I think they always knew it wouldn't be what the public looked like. It wouldn't be congruent with the public's expectation when you hear mass deportations. and you see that juxtaposed with constant rhetoric about criminality and all of that, it's going to look different in practice.

27:16Jeremy Scahill:And they want to go further than just rolling back what happened during the Biden administration. I mean, you have a memo from the DOJ talking about let's prioritize denaturalizing U.S. citizens. I mean, that goes far beyond. You genuinely, I mean, Stephen Miller is a genuine ideologue who wants a white ethnostate. And anyone who doesn't fit his category of what an American should be, he thinks should be fair game. to get out of the country. And so that is, you know, the project that they're embarking on. And as aggressive as the raids have been so far, you now also have the one big beautiful bill that floods ICE with resources, where they're supposed to have 10 ,000 ICE agents, largest federal law enforcement agency, as I said before, larger than the military budget of places like Brazil and Israel.

28:07Jeremy Scahill:Just a huge influx of resources, not to mention an extraordinary flooding of money to private prison contractors who will be setting up these mass detention centers. So in any case, you've already got the Tim Dillons and the Joe Rogans of the world somewhat uncomfortable with what's going on. Let's go ahead and roll what Joe Rogan had to say about this D2. We were told there would be no, well, there's two things that are insane. One is the targeting of migrant workers, not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers, just construction workers showing up in construction sites, raiding them, gardeners.

28:52Yeah. Like, really? Or Palestinian students on college campuses. or not like there's a turkey did you see this video of this uh turkish students at tufts university that wrote an essay and then uh there's a video of like ice agents like is that the woman yeah yeah yeah what was her essay about it was just critical of israel right yeah i mean and that's enough to get you kicked out of the country there's a there's a long history of of of anti-colonial activism in u.s colleges you know that led to to you know south africa changing and all of that. And I think this is a continuation of that.

29:30Jeremy Scahill:And Emily, it seems to me like there have been a few things that have really touched a nerve for people in the Trump 2.0 era with regard to the immigration policy. Number one is the, what they were talking about there, the kidnapping of Ramesa Ozturk, which happened on camera. You have these masked ICE agents. I think they were ICE agents. I don't even know what federal agency they came from, who came multiple of them, grabbed her off the street. And then lo and behold, we learn. What did she do? She wrote an op-ed for the student newspaper calling for the university to divest from Israel, like the most basic First Amendment protected call to activism, you know, and she, I think the visual.

30:11Jeremy Scahill:And not anti-American at all. No, no. And I think the visual of seeing her snatched off the street for that, I think that was really searing for people. Totally agree. I I think Kilmar Abrago Garcia and what happened there, he really became, you know, as you had him and hundreds of others, swept up no due process. And the Trump administration admits that this was they shouldn't have done this, that this was a wrongful deportation. And yet they're so committed to keeping him in this horrific slave labor camp dungeon in El Salvador. You know, I think that you can see in the poll numbers that the favorability of Trump on immigration really begins to decline there.

30:51Jeremy Scahill:And then the other thing that really touched a nerve for some reason was these Home Depot raids. And you have a moment with, you know, reportedly Stephen Miller goes to ICE and yells at them and says, why are you focusing on the criminals? I want to see you go to the 7-Elevens. I want to see you. He name checks at Home Depot specifically. And then you see an escalation in the tactics. That's what also leads to the anti-ice protests in places like L.A. But something about picking up the Home Depot day laborers really struck guys like Joe Rogan, guys like Tim Dillon, because I think it feels so familiar.

31:26Jeremy Scahill:These are not like, you know, the scary theoretical gang members who are out there terrorizing community. It's like, you know, Rogan has probably been to that L.A. Home Depot where that raid happened. He may have used some of those day laborers for some project around his house or something like. It just feels so suburban and so familiar that it's impossible to caricature these guys as some nasty menace to society in the way that the Stephen Millers and the Trumps of the world want to. Well, I was going to say, and this is another example of where that gulf is significant, because Rogan and Tim Dillon are wealthy independents.

32:00You talk to the kind of red meat Trump base, they are going to be all for Home Depot raids in the Stephen Miller. and Donald Trump is not quite on board with the Home Depot raids, by the way, because he's clearly been curing from the hospitality industry, construction industry, and is himself not sold on what we saw from, it was like Vallejo, where you had workers running through the fields when ICE was trying to make arrests. And that gulf is, I mean, it's not going anywhere because you have Stephen Miller making this his single priority. This is Bannon's, like, if Bannon is ranking his priorities, this is probably the literal top one because they actually believe that this is like the Jenga block that once it's pulled, everything crumbles.

33:01They really see it that way. And because of that, Donald Trump can say we're going to be lenient with hospitality workers and agricultural workers as much as he wants. But if they're going to be funding a bunch more detention centers like Alligator Alcatraz hasn't taken any money from FEMA so far, which is interesting because DeSantis did it on his own. Now ICE has all of this money and is going to be building more detention facilities. And most of those migrants who came in during the course of the Biden administration, if they are, quote, unquote, criminal, it's because they crossed the border twice, for example.

33:37Like they got deported and then recrossed or they didn't go to an asylum or whatever it is. Like that's what hasn't been followed. And for the average American, they're not going to like seeing those people rounded up and put in detention camps, let alone like shoddy ones that were constructed in a week. But the Trump base both demands it and loves it. And that's a huge political problem.

34:00Jeremy Scahill:Well, here's what I would say. Yes, the Trump base, they are not going to complain. They're going to delight in the, you know, alligator Alcatraz and the Home Depot raids and the, you know, whatever Trump does, they're going to be on board with. But whatever Trump does, they're going to be on board with. So if he wanted to moderate this policy at this point, he could. And I don't think he'd face any significant backlash from the base. There's no indication that there has ever been any significant backlash from the base over any Trump policy. You know, so I don't see him as they are beholden to him.

34:35Jeremy Scahill:He's not beholden to them at this point. And maybe there was a different point where that was the case. But I mean, the same as like I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. It's true. It's true. His base is with him. They will justify anything. We talked about the Epstein thing, even though there's been all this online, oh, my God, the Epstein and Trump's going to reveal it and blah, blah, blah. Him turning on a dime and being like, ah, no client list, nothing to see here. They're going to find a way to justify it. So I don't think he's really held hostage by the base. I think he has. I think. Well, he's held hostage to the extent that Stephen Miller is very powerful in the administration and Stephen Miller wants to do it.

35:09Jeremy Scahill:That's the point is I think he has outsourced this to Stephen Miller and Stephen Miller. and other things as well, by the way. And Stephen Miller's running it, and he's not really concerning himself too much with the details. And, you know, feels like, okay, I ran on mass deportation, and, you know, the only time he cares is when, yeah, some rich business owner calls him and is like, my farm workers are getting rounded up or I don't have my seasonal hospitality workers or whatever. And he'll express some concern. But then, you know, days later he'll go back on it and Stephen Miller's still doing his thing.

35:42Yeah, I think Stephen Miller is obsessed with the details of the policy, but not at all concerned about the politics of it because they see this, at least most of them, see this as a one-term administration. No, he is a true ideologue. Yeah, they see this as the second term. Trump doesn't have to run again and that this is their last chance to walk a lot of this back, walk what happened back during the Biden administration. And just as we were talking, Crystal, Tom Homan did a gaggle at the White House. And he said that deporting 3 ,000 people a day is, quote, not enough and said, for those that say 3 ,000 a day is too much, we have to arrest 7 ,000 every single day for the remainder of this administration just to catch the ones Biden released into the nation.

36:25And as we were just saying, I'm sure that math actually adds up because it was a really significant wave of immigration, the most significant since Ellis Island, as David Leonard had written for The New York Times not too long ago. So, yeah, I think those numbers add up. But the only people that really, really is going to relish seeing that is the slice of the country, this hardcore, diehard MAGA. And the rest of the country, it's not as though they're just going to be like whatever. However, they are going to be revolted by it and is going to be a huge shot in the arm for the Democratic Party and the left as they try to mobilize an opposition to Trump 2.0.

37:00But Stephen Miller understands that that's a risk that they, from his perspective, have to take for like to have the policy outcome that he and Tom Homan want. Yeah. The political risks, they believe, are well worth taking.

37:13Jeremy Scahill:Well, and Stephen Miller was going to be an anti-immigrant zealot, regardless of what happened during the Biden administration, how many immigrants came in, because he thinks it should be a white ethnostate. And he believes in that. He does. He believes. I mean, even Trump, I think, has acknowledged that Stephen Miller only wants white people here. Like, that is his policy. And you increasingly have people like Charlie Kirk who are out now admitting, like, we need to have zero immigration from the, what do you call it, the third world. which again is just like we don't want brown people here. So the mask is kind of off for some of these guys.

37:44Jeremy Scahill:And he is in control. It is ultimately his policy and he is running it. In terms of the political fallout, the last point I'll make on this is it's not just horror at what is being done to other people. It's also that when you have any federal law enforcement agency with this large of a budget, who are doing things like snatching people off the street because they wrote an op-ed, and who are saying they're going to prioritize denaturalizing American citizens, you very quickly realize that this thing does not stay confined, even among the immigrant population, even among the naturalized citizen population.

38:26Jeremy Scahill:You are constructing a mass surveillance state, a mass police state. And that will have reverberating impacts for everyone. We already have seen American citizens who got picked up and detained for hours and hours because they, you know, had the wrong, were in the wrong place and had the wrong, wrong level of melanin in their skin and look like they might be an immigrant. And even if they had their papers, they weren't believed or they weren't listened to and were detained. But this, the increase in the ICE budget means those things are going to be happening more and more regularly. Palantir wants to build their big database of absolutely everyone.

39:04Jeremy Scahill:I mean, this is a mass operation that if the Stephen Millers of the world get their way, like I said, it's not just going to be about the way it impacts immigrants, although that part is important as we, you know, are all human beings and deserve some level of human rights and dignity. It's also going to impact everyone in this country. So I think, we're kind of on the cusp of seeing that. And I think the best hope is just that there's a tremendous level of incompetence and they're not actually able to marshal the level of resources, the flooding of resources that they're being given. I mean, that's a pretty decent bet.

39:41Jeremy Scahill:That is a strong possibility of that. We've never seen a deportation effort on the scale in modern history. I mean, 7 ,000 a day per Tom Homan's point. Yes, they have a lot of money, But they also only have, what, three and a half years at this point to do it. It won't be popular with the public. So it's an uphill climb for them to be sure. That much we know. All right. Let's go ahead and get to Jeremy Scahill on Trump's meeting with Netanyahu this week. What it sounds like when you road trip to the iHeartRadio Music Festival in the all-new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid. Wow, this is really nice inside.

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42:10Thanks for having me back.

42:11Jeremy Scahill:So let me just start with that question. What do you think is the consequence? What sort of things are going to be discussed at this meeting with Netanyahu and Trump? Well, you know, of course, Donald Trump has said this is the final proposal for a Gaza ceasefire. And what we've seen over the past week or so is a process where the Israelis have essentially been negotiating with themselves within Netanyahu's power structure on what positions they want to stake out. The proposal that Trump put forward was drafted in consultation with the Israelis, with primarily Ron Dermer, who is Netanyahu's lead official dealing with these negotiations.

42:47And Hamas, for its side, didn't do much in terms of revising the document, but they did zero in on three key things that they wanted changed. And basically, one of them is they want a bit stronger language from Donald Trump confirming that he will continue to force Israel to hold its fire beyond an initial 60-day period so that a permanent ceasefire can be declared. Israel has pushed back very hard on that. They want to be able to resume the military assault on Gaza after two months if Netanyahu decides that's what he wants to do. The second is that they wanted to have a reversion to the original ceasefire agreements map positions for Israeli forces to withdraw from Gaza.

43:29Netanyahu has been saying that he wants to stay in the south of Gaza, that they want to create a zone along the Egypt border and try to force all of the Palestinians, two million plus Palestinians, into this small sliver of the Gaza Strip. And then presumably they think that they would then fight a guerrilla war against Hamas fighters in the rest of the Gaza Strip. And then the final term that Hamas wanted changed had to do, and this is the one that I'm told this morning by Hamas officials, is most central right now in the negotiations. Hamas wants unrestricted aid to flow into Gaza, and they don't want this deadly aid scheme, cynically known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, to be in any way involved with the distribution of aid.

44:13So you have a delegation right now that Netanyahu grudgingly sent to Doha, Qatar. And I was told by a Hamas official this morning, there's been absolutely zero progress in those talks. Another Palestinian close to the negotiations said that if Netanyahu insists on Israel controlling the aid, that it could be a deal breaker. But all parties involved, including Hamas, know that it's irrelevant what's happening right now in Doha. All that matters is what happens between Netanyahu and Trump. If Trump decides he wants a deal, he's the only person in the world that can force Netanyahu to accept terms that he doesn't want to accept.

44:49Yeah, as it's always been. Yeah. And you broke this down in your drop site report, which folks just saw up on the screen and can read and go into great depth and detail on Jeremy. So could you also flesh out for us what some of that stronger language might look like? Because I think when I hear that, at least, I think stronger language. But what is like, does the stronger language still leave wiggle room for Netanyahu? And would that be part of something that Trump sort of comes to the table and says, you got to have the stronger language, we'll agree to the stronger language, but wink, wink, that's a stronger language.

45:24It's language at the end of the day. So can you tell us a little bit more about what Hamas is looking for when it comes to the language? I mean, this is a really important question. I think it bears repeating that Israel has constantly violated ceasefire agreements, including the agreement that Donald Trump and Joe Biden pushed through. That original January agreement wouldn't have happened without Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff. And Israel killed more than 160 Palestinians during the ceasefire. Then it unilaterally abandoned it and resumed the military assault on Gaza on March 18th. And so as the discussions have happened, Emily, over the past couple of months since that ceasefire was blown up, Hamas has been pushing U.S.

46:05mediators. And there have been some direct talks between the United States and Hamas, something that Joe Biden wouldn't do, Trump has done. And during those talks, the Palestinians have said, you know, we hear what Donald Trump says, that he wants to end this war and he wants it to be definitively ended. But we need to have Israel bound to that agreement. And so, you know, it may seem like it's splitting hairs, but what Hamas wants is for very clear language that states that the United States, Egypt and Qatar, Egypt and Qatar are the regional mediators dealing with this ceasefire negotiation process, that they want them to guarantee that while Hamas and Israel negotiate a final resolution to the Gaza war, that the terms of the 60-day initial truce are going to apply, meaning Israel will not put a blockade on aid, and meaning that Israel is not going to violate the ceasefire.

46:55Hamas knows that Israel will likely violate any agreement that it signs. So they're sort of struggling to find what is the best that we can get in this situation. And they believe that by having Trump publicly state that he is going to keep Israel in check because he wants a permanent end to the war. Now, we can talk about Trump's agenda and what he wants to see happen as a result of it. But there are indications that Trump actually does want this resolved. He also likely wants to expand the so-called Abraham Accords. He may want to make a deal with the decrepit, corrupt, unpopular leader of the Palestinian authority.

47:29Whatever happens next, Hamas understands that it really only matters what Donald Trump wants and is willing to do right now. So that's why you see what appear to be kind of minor language changes actually meaning something to Hamas. And look, if you put the two versions next to each other, there is a big difference because they took out hedge language. They took out vague phrases like if necessary. They removed just Egypt and Qatar being the guarantors of that and reinserted the United States. It's possible that Trump is going to grant some concessions on this. The bigger issue really is going to be where do Israeli troops withdraw to if a ceasefire is signed?

48:06Because Netanyahu is saying they're going to remain there no matter what. And then this other issue of the aid, I mean, it's an unspeakable situation right now in Gaza. And I'm told that that is actually the main issue that is being debated and discussed right now.

48:18Jeremy Scahill:So let's actually skip forward to talk more about that aid situation, the quote-unquote Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that has been running these aid traps and, you know, corresponding massacres. There's an interview recently with the head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Now, this is the guy who replaced the original guy who stepped away after saying, well, I don't think that this is a good idea anymore. This is E3, guys. Let's go ahead and play a little bit of this interview and then I want to get Jeremy's reaction on the other side. We have spoken to doctors, British doctors, Western doctors, eyewitnesses on the scene who tell us that almost every day they are coming under fire from Israeli forces trying to get to the aid point just before and as they leave.

49:04They are being fired on. What are you doing to ensure their safety? I don't think anybody knows entirely what's happened in the Gaza Strip. From our point of view, based upon our experience on the ground, we don't see the evidence of this degree of mass casualties directly related to people seeking aid. Because you have absolutely zero way of verifying who's taken that aid. While we can't verify that every individual pack of flour, for instance, isn't somehow ending up in some place that it wasn't intended, what we can absolutely verify is that there is no mass diversion issue. Based on what? Because you're not verifying the people who collect the food.

49:56There is no system. Their names are not anywhere. There's no ID. And also, we have filmed your food being sold at astronomical prices on the black market. I just have a question for you, Debra. Do you have anything positive to say whatsoever about what we're doing? We've made a decision. And the decision is that it's worth operating in a war zone with all the complexity and all the risk, as deadly as it is, because Gazans deserve food. And that is laudable. So my challenge to you is take us in. Let me come and see it for myself and report the good and the bad. Because if there is nothing to hide, and this process is exactly how you're explaining and you're saying it's a good process, then let us film it.

50:45Be transparent. That's not a decision I can make alone. I mean, there are lots of different aspects to that, including the diversion of resources solely dedicated to the people of Gaza. I would like to see from a few people in the press a little less cynicism.

51:03Jeremy Scahill:A little less cynicism from us, Jeremy. So that was Reverend Johnny Moore, who is an evangelical leader and is now the new head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, saying there are no mass casualty events, but also you can't come and see and verify for yourself. Yeah, I mean, a couple of things. First of all, we have to understand this not as an independent entity, but as an agent of the Israeli state. That's how Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have spoken about it. And mainstream major news organizations, including NPR, the BBC, The Washington Post, have recently done exposés where American mercenaries who went to Gaza as part of this AIDS scam actually describe the lethal actions of their own operatives.

51:48We have Palestinians that have filmed the aftermath of these shootings. We have doctors, including international doctors in Gaza, that have described the sorts of wounds and fatal wounds that they have treated in the aftermath of people desperately trying to go and get what is actually a pittance of aid. While this clip sort of went viral and it was sort of portrayed as a gotcha moment, the journalist actually engaged in what I think is a bit of journalistic malpractice. She started questioning him about Hamas diverting the aid. Senior U.S. officials, including the head humanitarian officer from the Biden era, have said that there's no evidence of any significant theft of aid by Hamas.

52:25But just this morning and over the past few days, Yasser Abu Shabab, who is the head of an Israeli and Palestinian authority-backed militia in Gaza, has openly said in Hebrew-language media interviews that his forces have stolen aid to then distribute it to people that they want to give it to. So, you know, yes, there were really important things that came out of that interview, but also the journalist wasted so much time in her questioning based on an entirely false premise. The reality is, and I don't think anyone can dispute this, Israel has used food as a weapon of war. And the Israeli cabinet over the weekend voted to intensify the use of food as a weapon of war.

53:06and they're rejecting putting in charge a neutral, independent body that had a very effective system for distributing aid and it was not being stolen by Hamas. That's just the fact. So, Jeremy, I have to get your take on this Wall Street Journal piece from Elliot Kaufman that published over the last couple of days. This is E2. We can put it up on the screen. I mean, just fascinating for a lot of reasons, especially from somebody who follows this, even just as a student of the media coverage, like yourself, Jeremy. So, a new Palestinian offer for peace with Israel. Hebron Sheik's proposed to leave the Palestinian Authority and join the Abraham Accords.

53:44The reaction to this peace from people in the region, Jeremy, was really fascinating. Could you tell us, first of all, what you make of the journal dropping the story a couple of days before Netanyahu's visit, and basically some of the reaction that has poured out since it was published. I mean, throughout the history of Israel's occupation, you've always had small clusters of Palestinians that have sort of appeared to be more pro-Israeli or maybe for their own reasons want to try to cut a deal. I mean, the reality is this is a tiny fraction of the Palestinian population that is making this offer.

54:21And it's not even clear that they speak for the entire community of Hebron. You know, often when these stories come up that appear to be presenting an alternative to established Palestinian political figures or movements that are about Palestinian liberation, they get an enormous amount of attention in the West. The reality is that this is basically a non-story on the ground in Palestine. People are concerned about the genocide in Gaza, and they're concerned about the largest forced displacement campaign in the occupied West Bank since 1967. Fifteen members of Netanyahu's party, the Likud party, over the weekend wrote a letter to Netanyahu saying, now is the time to seize, to formally annex the entire territory of the occupied West Bank.

55:09So, you know, these kinds of stories, you know, may be appealing to an op-ed writer in the Wall Street Journal or sort of fun for coffee talk among people that delude themselves into believing that somehow you can co-opt the Palestinian liberation struggle. But at the end of the day, the vast majority of Palestinians in poll after poll support the idea that they need an independent homeland, that it needs to be a unified one that connects both Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. So, you know, I think that we have to look at this through the lens of who's really promoting this story because it really we're talking about a teeny tiny fraction of the Palestinian population that is advocating for this solution.

55:49Jeremy Scahill:Lastly, Jeremy, just to circle back to the meeting today with Trump and Netanyahu, they'll obviously also be discussing Iran. Tucker Carlson just dropped his interview with the president of Iran. I haven't had a chance to watch it, but I'm seeing some of the clips floating around. Apparently, he got asked about the supposed Iranian sleeper cells in the U.S. He denies that and says this is just being used basically to scare Americans. He also apparently revealed, claimed that Israel had tried to assassinate him, which I don't think would be a big surprise to anyone. In any case, what is your understanding of what Israel's interest is with regard to Iran, what they would like to do, and what we would like to, what they would like us to do on their behalf, and what the, what Trump himself's orientation towards Iran is at this point?

56:36Well, I mean, I think it's pretty clear that Netanyahu wants full-scale regime change in Iran. And to his credit, even though there was a lot of speculation that Trump was going to go forward and actually assassinate the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and bankroll and arm Israel as it actually enacted regime change in Iran, it doesn't seem to be, as of now, the direction that the United States wants to go in. But I think it's very likely that we will again see bombing of Iran, whether it's only Israel or Israel in the United States, remains to be seen. But Iran, time and again, has defied people's declarations that the end of the government is just on the horizon.

57:20And it really speaks to the bankrupt nature of the political media in the United States that it's left to Tucker Carlson to do interviews, not just with the president of Iran, but with other figures that the United States has designated as official enemies. Anytime you get to hear the perspective of the people on the other side of American missiles, it helps to inform a society that purports to be democratic. So, you know, we should have more hearing from people that live on the other side of American missiles. And at the end of the day, whether you're a conservative or a liberal or you're a political radical of some sort, more information means a better ability to make decisions.

58:01And I think there is a fundamental question that shouldn't only belong to the MAGA movement, and that is what is fundamentally in the U.S. interest. I would argue that none of these wars are in the U.S. interest. And I know that there's a minority section of Trump world that also, for their own reasons, believe that same thing. We can't continue this bankrupt neocon view of the world that the United States can be a hammer in search of nails. And we certainly shouldn't be doing Israel's agenda because what Netanyahu wants, and clearly he has a lot of support for this in Israel, is to continue setting that region on fire.

58:36What may seem to be tactical victories right now in the short term could well produce a generation of people that seek to oppose the United States and Israel that are far more radical than any of the forces that we now see in the region. It's born of an idea called blowback. And I think that, you know, Netanyahu can try to do his victory dance being, you know, the only leader that's been invited three times to see Trump. But Americans should really be asking. And I see increasingly conservatives asking this question. Major media figures in the conservative ecosystem are asking these questions.

59:11And I think it's important. Why is the United States doing the bidding of this rogue regime in Israel? That's a serious question that should be on the table right now for all Americans.

59:22Jeremy Scahill:Jeremy Scahill, well said as always, and great to see you, sir. Thank you so much for your reporting. Thank you both. All right, guys, that does it for us here today. I will be back for Breaking Points tomorrow, and then we'll have actually Sagar in for Emily on Wednesday and whatever. We're switching it. Yeah, absolutely. We'll just keep you guys guessing out there. Thank you guys again so much for your support. We're going to go ahead and do that AMA Live now for premium subscribers. If you are not a premium subscriber, you can become one at breakingpoints.com. In any case, hope you guys have a great day and I will see you back here tomorrow.

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