9/24/25: Trump's UN Speech, NY Spy Ring Found, Kimmel Returns, Kamala Book Tour, Argentina Bailout

26:42Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi.

27:16You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

27:32Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather, you know them. Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made?

28:05Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia A-O Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

28:44My first guest is Paris Houghton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited. On a bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to Sweet 305, where the group chat comes to life. What up, ****? It's like a way to say, hello, friend, hello, best friend, hello, sister. What up? Look, I've never heard of anyone. Except with my children. My children know. Yes. Sé mi amante. Punch. Que increíble. Ya, la telenovela. You're the only person I know that loves a yellow starburst. It's lemonade. No there's someone that's missing you. Like you say, I'd like to collaborate with this person.

29:29This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pons as part of my Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fortunate to be joined this morning by Anthony Lowenstein. He's an independent journalist and filmmaker's author of the Palestine Laboratory, which I highly suggest you guys check out, and also the creator of a new Al Jazeera documentary titled Germany's Israel Obsession. He joins us now to weigh in on Trump's UN comments with regard to Israel and a number of other relevant stories. It's great to see you, Anthony. Thanks so much for having me.

30:06Yeah, of course. So Emily and I were just talking about Trump's big UN speech. Within that speech, he made some comments about Palestinian state recognition. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. As everyone knows, I have also been deeply engaged in seeking a ceasefire in Gaza. Have to get that done. Have to get it done. Unfortunately, Hamas has repeatedly rejected reasonable offers to make peace. We can't forget October 7th, can we? now as if to encourage continued conflict some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state the rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists for their atrocities but instead of giving in to Hamas's ransom demands those who want peace should be united with one message, release the hostages now.

31:01Just release the hostages now. But after almost two years of war, what is the result? Once again, they killed the top leaders of Hamas. It works. This is a great achievement. But at the same time, you have as many Hamas fighters as you had the first day. So it doesn't work to dismantle the Hamas. Well, I have to say that I'm on the side of Israel. I've been on the side of Israel really my whole life. And we are going to get a solution. And it's going to be a solution, hopefully, that's good for everybody. But it's time to stop. So a lot that was interesting there, Antony, what did you make of President Trump's comments with regard to Palestinian state recognition?

31:44This, of course, comes after UK, Canada, Australia, and other countries have announced they are going to recognize a Palestinian state. And I think there's a bit of a divide, at least on the left, of how significant this is, whether this is just like in basically an ass covering move that makes it seem like you're doing something without actually doing the hard things of like arms embargo or, you know, sanctions or cutting trade ties, those sorts of things. So what did you make of the president's comments? And what do you make of the reality of Palestinian state recognition? Look, in some ways, what Trump is saying is reiterating what the US has felt for a long time.

32:17I mean, yes, Biden, at least on paper, supported a two state solution, whereas Trump and his administration do not, which mirrors what Netanyahu and his government believes, which is no two-state solution, no Palestinian state. But at the same time, I'm very much in the camp of saying that all these Western states that have recognized Palestine this week and have done so in some ways for years in the past, to say it's symbolic, I think, would be too kind. You cannot, on the one hand, talk about recognizing Palestine as a state and the belief that you should acknowledge that Palestinians have a right to self-determination while at the same time still funding and backing and arming the oppressor, Israel, which the UK does and France does and Australia does and Canada does.

33:00They are still sending weapons and weapons parts to Israel two years into this genocide. And one of the conditions that President Macron of France said in the last 24 hours around Palestine was I think two things mainly. One, Hamas can't be part of any future government and two, it must be demilitarized and I do not know any state in recent history the two most recent states that have existed and been born was South Sudan in 2011 and East Timor in about 20 years ago 23 years ago now the idea that you would say to those states you can be demilitarized you must be demilitarized is a non-starter I mean it's an absurd situation because if you're demilitarized What that means is, in this case, Israel would control your land, sea and air borders.

33:48The occupation therefore continues in a different form. And secondly, this is no love for Hamas, but the idea that you are telling Palestinians that essentially you cannot vote for this party, you have to vote for who? The corrupt Palestinian Authority? Who are Palestinians supposed to vote for? Is it up to them or is it up to outsiders? So most Palestinians I know in Gaza, the West Bank and in the diaspora are saying, yes we welcome that the west sees us as humans i guess but after as i think many people have said what are you recognizing are you recognizing a mahmoud abbas the late 80s corrupt dictator of the palestinian authority as the leader of this future palestine who by the way he celebrated in the last 24 hours is happening stuck in ramallah because the u.s weren't giving him a visa almost comically really but ultimately it comes to the same point that what have what is there a palestine to recognize gaza no longer exists it is gone and the west bank i fear is going in the same way so unless unless and until western states including the u.s but the u.s arguably is too far gone on this question the uk and others europe australia my country want to actually see a resolution of this conflict you cannot do so by simply issuing a speech at the UN we are so far beyond that and it's finally on this point I think it's worth saying that western states routinely bring up a two-state solution when there is a so-called problem in the Israel-Palestine conflict when there is a perceived need to announce something different to sort of break the algorithm so to speak and yes obviously what's happened in Gaza in the last two years is an unprecedented scale, far greater than anything in Palestine's history.

35:39But I don't think Keir Starmer or Mark Carney or Australian Prime Minister Raunton Albanese actually thinks that by announcing recognition, it's going to change anything on the ground because they're not willing to take any steps to make it happen. It's lip service at best. And that's being polite. So obviously, Obviously, Israel understands the stakes are high going into the UN this week with Macron and others pushing as they are. So I want to get your take on this story in The New York Times. This is A6. A lot of theories here as to what's going on, but the headline is cache of devices capable of crashing cell network is found near UN.

36:19Just from the lead, I'm going to read, quote, The Secret Service found and seized an illicit network of sophisticated equipment in the New York region that was capable of shutting down the cellular network as foreign leaders prepared to gather nearby for the annual U.N. General Assembly. The agency announced on Tuesday, officials said the anonymous communications network, which included more than 100 ,000 SIM cards and 300 servers, could interfere with emergency response services and could be used to conduct encrypted communication. One official said the network was capable of sending 30 million text messages per minute anonymously.

36:50The official said the agency had never been seen before, had never before seen such an extensive operation. There's no specific info that the network posed a threat to the conference itself. They go on to say, so this obviously has sparked many, many theories. And particularly people are pointing to Israel being behind this operation. What do you make of this story? I mean, that's sort of one of the things people should know about what you've done with the Palestine Laboratory is that this is something you've studied. And you've studied how Israel has studied the attack capabilities in places like this or in ways like this.

37:30So what did you make of the story? I think there's two ways to see this. One, the only likely states who would be doing this, in my view and experience, is Israel or maybe China. I don't think it's necessarily Israel. I mean, it may well be, and there's a history, including in the last 10 years, of a lot of evidence of Israel bugging, for example, Boris Johnson's residence. He's talked about this in his autobiography, the former British prime minister. During the first Trump administration, there was likely evidence, well, not likely, there was evidence that Israel was potentially bugging the Trump White House when Netanyahu had visited the White House.

38:06And one thing that people often don't understand about the US-Israel relationship is that actually, yes, they're seen as best of friends, but they actually also don't trust each other. And what I mean by that is that both countries have literally hundreds and hundreds of intelligence officers every day spying on the other, listening to communication. I mean, this has been known for years and Bella gets talked about in the press, but it's a statement of fact. So, yes, and in fact, one of the interesting revelations of Edward Snowden's documents when he released those in 2013 was that he showed that we often are told in the West that our greatest enemies are Russia and China, and yes, they spy on America, to be sure, but one of the greatest threats that is perceived by the American intelligence agencies was Israel because they were so obsessed with spying on every detail.

38:57And, of course, the Americans know this and the Israelis know this. So look, this latest event, Emily, I don't know who it is, of course, beyond what the story in the New York Times said and obviously what information the authorities wanted to release. But the likely culprits to me are Israel or China. China has a reason to do so as well. Of course, they have a long history of spying and bugging in the US, but so does Israel. And I would say, as I said, that the US-Israel relationship is BFFs on paper, but actually profoundly dysfunctional behind the scenes. And there's a lot of paranoia right now, I think, on the Israeli side about how much support they have in the Trump administration.

39:34Definitely. Yeah. There's a lot of paranoia. On the one hand, you could say it's bizarre that there is that paranoia because they clearly are getting everything they wanted, as was happening under Biden. But Israel and Israeli, I guess, spokespeople in the US, they see what is happening within the Republican Party, put aside the Democrats. The Democrats obviously are increasingly, at least in the base, very much against Israel, where the leadership is still very much seemingly in support of Israel in general. It's not quite as black and white as that, as you guys know well. But on the Republican side, yes, Trump and Marco Rubio and everything are 110 % behind Israel, so we're told.

40:09But clearly, in the Republican right and the MAGA right, there is a growing split. It's hard to see how that plays out politically yet at this point, but it is clearly happening. And that does worry, rightly, the Israelis. So, yes, that would have definite cause to do this. But, of course, if it was found out to be Israel, what would the so-called punishment be? Is Netanyahu likely to lose his access to the en suite bathroom at the White House? No. I mean, this is the reality, right? This is the relationship. It's dysfunctional. And if Netanyahu one day no longer is Prime Minister of Israel, which will happen, the likely successors to him in Israel, well, Naftali Bennett or Yaya Lapid or Benny Gantz, someone like that.

40:55And a lot of these issues, believe me, are not much different to Netanyahu. Yeah, that's something we've tried to highlight as well, because there's, I think, a lot of wish casting from American politics, especially American liberals, that it's just Netanyahu, we've just got to get him out of there and then everything will be fine and different, et cetera, and there's just no evidence for that. I wanted to talk to you too about this documentary that you just made for Al Jazeera, we can put the thumbnail up on the screen here. And I found this absolutely fascinating. The topic is fascinating. You are Australian, but your family's originally from Germany.

41:30So you have close personal ties to the country. And I'm not sure I really internalized how much the ethos of never again and the knowledge that the German people had perpetrated the Holocaust, how much that is a cornerstone of sort of like modern German identity. And then your documentary talks about the way that this has been bastardized in order to effectively criminalize any sort of pro-Palestinian support, which obviously is ironic because now, because there's such desperation about avoiding charges of anti-Semitism in Germany, you have the German government, you know, complicit in another genocide here with regard to Palestine.

42:15So talk a little bit about what drew you to the topic and the way that this cultural identity has played out within Germany. One thing that most people maybe don't realize is that Germany is the second biggest provider of weapons to Israel after the US. The US is number one, to be sure, under Biden or Trump. But Germany is second, and that accelerated after October 7. So you're right that there is this sense within Germany, which didn't exist straight after World War II, but certainly in the last 30, 40 years, that we as a German people need to commemorate and atone, essentially, for the crimes of our ancestors.

42:51And I, on paper, have no problem with that. I mean, Germany committed one of the ultimate crimes, the genocide, of course, of Jews and millions and millions of others, of course. But the way that manifests itself today, and this was beginning long before October 7, but it's accelerated since, is this belief amongst the vast bulk of the German political elite and media elite and a sizable proportion of the German public, both in the East, former East Germany and the West, that they have a historical responsibility to support Israel no matter what. Now, this was a view, as I said, long before October 7, but it's got stronger since.

43:29So what that means practically, believing that, for example, pro-Palestine protests have to be crushed hugely violently. People who say from the river to the sea Palestine should be free are literally charged and brought before court. If an individual tries to make a comparison between the Nazi Holocaust and what Israel is doing in Gaza, you are apparently disparaging their so-called original Holocaust and therefore you might be charged. there have been huge amounts of Palestinians who have been deported, and Arabs for that matter, who have not been violent, who are not terrorists, who are simply expressing a critical view of Israel.

44:05And the impact of that practically on arguably the most powerful country in Europe, the most powerful economy, which has been for years, although it's in a bit of a bad shape these days economically, is to actually empower the far right, the AFD, which is now the largest opposition party in the country. and you have someone in the film iris heffetz who's a jewish israeli born german citizen who basically says i'm paraphrasing what she says that israel has become the washing machine for the far right and what that means is which is happening in the us across europe as well it's not unique to germany but it's happening is that when someone in the far right says i love israel or i love jews you can't accuse me of anti-semitism i love the only the world's only jewish state and the afd in germany is doing that very successfully and whitewashing their own record which historically has been often tied to neo-nazism and today they are supported according to the polls by around 25 of the german population now they're not in government yes but potentially in years to come they will be and i guess part of the reason to make this film i made it with the the british filmmaker dan davies who i also made the palestine laboratory with al-Jazeera earlier this year was in some ways most people I spoke to about this question had no idea of what was happening in Germany we're very well aware of the massive repression particularly since Trump has returned to the White House of crushing pro-Palestine speech trying to deport people Mahmoud Khalil amongst many many others but what's happening in Germany the heart of Europe is actually remarkably similar it's remarkably similar different but similar and i am born in australia but i'm a german citizen so i wouldn't say i feel particularly german per se but i at the same time feel the reason i got a passport 15 or so years ago was for those who aren't aware after the war world war ii germany allowed jews whose citizenship was removed because the nazis didn't recognized Jews as citizens could have it reinstated essentially and many many Jews for about half a century mostly refused to do that including my parents basically saying why would I want to be a German citizen after what Germany did to us which I understood but in the last 20-25 years many Jews around the world have changed their opinion and have now because they want to have an EU passport for whatever reason may be but the idea somehow that Germany says they are doing this in the name of me as a Jew to support Israel and critically apparently makes Germany a good global citizen despite the fact as you said that they are now backing arming a genocide an Israeli state that is proudly I would argue genocidal so the film I suppose tries to uncover that investigate that and it came out about two weeks ago just had an amazing global response I I think because most people just don't know what is happening in a country which is in the centre of Europe with huge amounts of influence.

47:09And what's happening in Germany is happening elsewhere, US, growing parts of Europe, France, England. I mean, I'll finish on this point. We talk about at the end of the film that what's happening in Germany is mirrored elsewhere. Just this year the UK has prescribed as a terrorist organisation a group called Palestine Action, which is a non-violent group trying to stop Israel's genocide, but also the complicity of Israeli arms companies in the Israeli occupation. The idea that that is a terrorist organization is absurd. And yet Keir Starmer's government has prescribed that as a terrorist organization, meaning that if you are in London, for example, or Birmingham, wherever you may be, and you hold a sign and you say, I support Palestine action, you will be arrested and charged.

47:57And so this obsessive desire in so many Western countries to protect Israel at the expense of their own country's democracy should really disturb us all a lot. And a point that you're making here is it can also massively backfire. Well, massively backfire to those I think who are sane. I guess it depends backfire for whom, right i mean in germany for example we have some people talking about this idea that we're you know as a journalist one doesn't want to predict the future because we're often wrong but the direction that germany appears to be heading on at the moment is moving towards a far more anti-islam anti-immigration anti-multiculturalism blindly pro-israel direction and whether that is the afd being in power in the coming years or someone like the AFD.

48:48I mean, it's worth saying, as some viewers of Breaking Points, of course, will know, is that Elon Musk is a massive fan of the AFD during the German election earlier this year. He was very keen to support the AFD. I think he said, and I'm paraphrasing here, something like only AFD can save Germany. Now, his focus wasn't, I think, so much on Israel. It was more the fact that the AFD is talking about, is basically urging or encouraging the idea or would force, exactly, immigrants who have arrived to be sent back to their supposed at-home countries. And that's, of course, what's happening in the US and certain other Western states.

49:27So I would argue it's massively backfiring on Germany because German identity, you would think historically, correctly, is based on both a combination of guilt, acknowledgement, learning from that history. And I still say to this day that Germany, unlike virtually any other European nation, who are often very complicit with Nazis, collaborated with them, has done a lot of atoning. And I welcome that. But the question is, in what service? For whom? And when Germany is supporting an Israeli state uncritically, when they are committing genocide, I say you are learning little to nothing from history.

50:08And that's a pretty worrying conclusion. Antony, my last question for you is we actually see Israel dividing the right in the US, especially among young people. You mentioned some of this before. I know you're familiar with the polls and those dynamics as well. Dividing the far right. If you look at Stephen Miller, very pro-Israel. If you look at a Nick Fuentes, very anti-Israel. Are those dynamics playing out in Germany as well with the AFD? Largely not yet. And in short, there is, I mean, the irony, of course, with all this is that those on the far right don't like Jews. They've never liked Jews.

50:49They still don't like Jews. So yes, the AFD, I'm not saying everyone who supports the AFD is racist. That would not be true. but there is a deep antipathy within I think the AFD and much of the German far right and frankly right wing in idealizing Israel this is something I've talked about for a long time that for many people on the right and the far right I understand there's a split in parts of the US and in some ways I welcome that but for many on the right and the far right Israel is their model it's their ethno-nationalist wet dream that is the nation they want to be like not Jewish of course but christian a christian nationalist fundamentalist state one only has to look at for example a lot of the language around the charlie kirk funeral a few days ago that was a hard line christian nationalist agenda petrifying to someone like me who's a secular atheist dude to put it mildly and i see in germany a real almost a combination of growing numbers of young germans resent the fact that they're told they should be feeling guilty for their past, for what their ancestors did in World War II.

51:59And that manifests itself now in a hardline, far-right, anti-immigration, anti-Islam, pro-Israel agenda. Despite the fact that many of those people don't like Jews, both can exist. You can be an anti-Semite and love Israel. And what's so disturbing about that is Israel itself is welcoming that support. You've had in the last year alone, the Israeli government since the genocide began, organising far-right conferences in Jerusalem for some of these European far-right leaders. You've had Israeli government ministers going to these far-right conferences in Europe. Now, if you're a sane Jew, sane person, you don't welcome the love of the far-right because historically you know they don't like us for a range of reasons.

52:48So the idea that Israel as a increasingly theocratic far-right nation welcomes and embraces a far-right agenda, both within its own borders and elsewhere, says all you need to know, I think, about where Israel as a country is going, which is, in my view, increasingly likely to be theocratic, proudly theocratic. Anthony, tell people where they can watch this documentary. so germany's israel obsession is on youtube you just put that in google it is on uh on the other zero website if you google that you'll find lots of entries it's available go watch it it's it'll hopefully shock you in a good way and about it'll shock you in a way that makes you open your eyes yeah it illuminates things in a way that's important i certainly got a lot on watching it and and highly recommend thank you thank you so much for your work and it's great to see as always Thank you so much, guys.

53:44Both of you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

54:13The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

54:48Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather, you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made?

55:21Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. Are you fully improvised? Not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia A-O Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

55:59My first guest is Paris Hilton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited. On a bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to Suite 305, where the group chat comes to life. What up, f***? Es como que una forma de decir como, hola amiga, hola mejor amiga, hola hermana, what up? Mira, nunca lo había hablado con nadie. except with my children. My children know. Yes. I'm my lover. Uf. Uf. That's incredible. The movie. You're the only person I know that loves the yellow starburst. It's glamorous. There's no one missing you. Like you say, I'd like to collaborate with this person.

56:45This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pons as part of my Cultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Jimmy Kimmel was back last night after being pulled from the air by Disney under pressure from the Trump administration. At least he was back on most ABC broadcasts around the country. Nextar and Sinclair did decide to continue to preempt his program, and we'll get to that in a minute. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say about his suspension. We supported our show, cared enough to do something about it to make your voices heard so that mine can be heard, I will never forget it.

57:27And maybe, really, maybe most of all, I want to thank the people who don't support my show and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway. I've been hearing a lot about what I need to say and do tonight. And the truth is, I don't think what I have to say is going to make much of a difference. If you like me, you like me. If you don't, you don't. I have no illusions about changing anyone's mind. But I do want to make something clear because it's important to me as a human. And that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.

58:02I don't think there's anything funny about it. I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family and asking for compassion. And I meant it. I still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you're upset. If the situation was reversed, there's a good chance I'd have felt the same way.

58:41This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this. So you hear his voice quavering with emotion there where he's talking about, you know, he never intended to make light of the killing of Charlie Kirk. I think a lot, I don't want to speak for the right now. I'll let you say what you made of it, Emily. I think there was skepticism about the sincerity of this sort of pseudo-apology. But, you know, it would I'm sure this was all a very upsetting and traumatic event for Jimmy Kimmel. And I think we've seen the way that even people who don't like Charlie Kirk really disagree with Charlie Kirk, but who are in the public eye were somewhat traumatized by his violent murder, you know, effectively live streamed murder.

59:31Because Kimmel talks about how he faces threats as well. So you can't help but think about your own mortality and the reality of the dangerous situation that you yourself may be in as well. It was interesting that Kimmel was emotional and not completely doing a sort of smug victory lap, which he's wont to do. I think he probably handled it as best he could, walking the line between keeping the sort of left happy, keeping middle America happy and trying to throw a bone to the right without looking like, from his perspective, he folded entirely to the administration because obviously that's not in any way what he wants to do.

1:00:20I think Kimball is such a frustrating case. I mean, he did not apologize for this is where, for example, Turning Point USA, Andrew Colbert came out and said not good enough. Didn't apologize for fundamentally saying something that was incorrect. And there are polls that show a lot of people think, for example, Tyler Robinson was a griper, was a far right type of guy. And so I fully understand why many of my friends on the right are furious about somebody who has a public good like the airwaves making a quip that implies this was a Trump supporter who killed Charlie Kirk. But Kimmel is sort of he's frustrating.

1:01:05He's he's become like this performative and sort of self-satisfied type of anti-Trump comedian in a way that's like hurt his comedy and like softened his edges and gets cringy sometimes. He also was like happy about Roseanne firing, whatever else. But that's where we should bring in Nexstar, Sinclair, and then Joe Rogan. So we can put B2 on the screen. Nexstar and Sinclair did not air this, as Crystal mentioned earlier. So that's a good chunk of affiliates around the country who have more probably my assumption would be in many cases more pro Kirk audience audiences in some of these local networks or these communities who have some of their own pressures to deal with.

1:01:55And obviously, Nextar, we would be remiss if we didn't mention that they have a merger they're trying to get through with Tegna that's going to come in front of Brendan Carr's FCC in the not-too-distant future. So let's roll how Joe Rogan reacted to the pressures that befell ABC from the Trump administration, B3. First of all, I definitely don't think that the government should be involved ever in dictating what a comedian can or cannot say in a monologue. That's fucking crazy. It's crazy. Now, if the problem is the companies, if they're being pressured by the government, so if that's real and if people on the right are like, yeah, go get them.

1:02:41Oh, my God, you're crazy. You're crazy for supporting this because this will be used on you. You don't think that the fucking globalist lizard people who run the world are sitting here going, great, what do we got, three years? We'll wake this out. We'll wake this out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let them say the government should be involved in censoring people's speech. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let them support that. Let these fucking dumbasses, because Jimmy Kimmel's a leftist, let these dumbasses think it's a good idea and we should celebrate. So, Crystal, the reason I wanted to toss to that just now is I obviously completely agree that the government shouldn't be in a position at all to say what's in a community's monologue.

1:03:22That's obviously the way the FCC is set up. And Brendan Carr told me not too long ago that he thinks it's possible the entire law should just be changed. I think it's, you know, I'm sympathetic to the argument that you just abolish the FCC, but that's a more radical proposal. So what's interesting about what Rogan just said is I can hear my friends on the right in their head saying, yeah, OK, what is the FCC going to do, cancel a conservative late night host? there's not a single conservative late night house. What are they going to do to the right that could possibly make these networks more biased in, or what are they going to do to the right given how these networks are already so biased against the left?

1:04:10And I - They're coming for Sidney Sweeney, Emily. They're coming for Sidney Sweeney. Obviously, I just have this like gross. I feel gross anytime the government is threatening journalists and comedians. So I'm not, I can't get on that bandwagon, though most of my friends on the right are on that bandwagon. They're like, well, what the, okay, great. Yeah. What do you mean they're going to, like, we're not afraid of the FCC because all of these networks are already downplaying conservative voices. That's a taste of what people would say in response to Rogan there. Well, the thing is, like, the FCC is not really the thing here, because this is coming down from Trump himself, who threatened Kimmel after Colbert got fired, who I think we do we have Trump's truth be six we can put up on the screen where he's continuing to threaten Kimmel and say he should still be canceled.

1:05:02And so it's not like, you know, it'd be one thing if this was some narrow FCC, like we're going to apply the law differently, which of course they are, you know, Brennan Carr is threatening that as well. But what you're talking about with the Trump administration is a whole of government weaponization. And, you know, as you mentioned before, Nextar and Sinclair, which also preempted Kimmel shows, they both are lobbying the government for different things. You know, they both are lobbying to get their business needs met. And in Nextar's case, this merger approved. Disney also has business before the government.

1:05:41So, you know, from a dollars and cents perspective, I think the reason Jimmy Kimmel is back on air is because there was enough of a public and artist backlash that they decided that as a business decision, it was more risky to keep him off than to bring him back on, come what may, from the Trump administration. So, you know, I don't think this was like a principle decision. I don't think that, you know, I don't think these capitalist organizations make principle decisions. They make decisions based on what they perceive at least their bottom line to be. And there was enough of an outcry and enough people who canceled their Disney Plus subscriptions that they thought, oh, we got a bit of a problem here.

1:06:24We better bring him back. So, you know, to your point about, oh, well, what could the liberals do to us if they got back in power? I think it is where I disagree with Rogan's point is I don't know if we're going to get any sort of Democrat who would be aggressive enough to do this sort of retaliation. I also don't think that the Supreme Court would go along with the same things from a Democratic president that they go along with from a Republican president. But if you did have someone, what's that? They rejected Murthy v. Missouri, which was the challenge on Biden-era pressure on social media companies.

1:07:04I'm speaking more broadly, though. I mean, first of all, that was a different situation because you didn't have such a direct and overt threat. It was implicit. But I'm speaking of the shadow docket, basically the Trump administration this time around has gotten everything they want from this court. And I don't think that it's based on principle. I think it's based on like, number one, they want to avoid a direct conflict with, you know, with Trump, who has made it pretty plain that he's open to just ignoring Supreme Court decisions. They don't want to destroy the court. And number two, you know, to a certain extent, they're just like on board with the agenda.

1:07:37So I don't know that a Democratic president would likely weaponize the whole of federal government the way that Trump has been willing to. But yeah, I guess it's good for the right to be afraid that that would be one of the things that would happen. Well, if they did, I mean, listen, Fox News is the thing that exists. It is the largest cable news network. It is extraordinarily powerful in terms of its, you know, its reach and its influence on on the overall national conversation. They can really set the agenda in a lot of ways. And there's a lot of connectivity between Fox News and the rest of the conservative media apparatus.

1:08:11Since this isn't really about the FCC because it's cable versus broadcast, of course, there's ways that, you know, future Democratic administration could go after Fox News and try to make them pay for supporting a Republican agenda. You know, I don't think that that's the direction that the country should go in. And the fact that Trump immediately just like comes out and threatens Kimmel again is basically an admission that this was not about Disney making a business decision. This was them caving to the authoritarian demands of the Trump administration. And the only reason he's back is because of the level of pushback that they received.

1:08:50I was also going to say the potential CBS Free Press merger, that's clearly like a downstream consequence of the broader vibe shift narrative where you have some of these. I was talking about this in the context of Kimmel last week. It's like the market is catching up to Kimmel and Colbert to some extent. Like there are structural conversations to be had about people who are making shows that are getting just a fraction of the viewership they used to get with a lot of the same overhead. So Kimmel mentioned there are hundreds of people that work on these shows between him, Colbert. Like that's hundreds of jobs.

1:09:29Yeah, man, that's hundreds of jobs. That's a lot of money. and it's not quite trickling into social media in ways that are super profitable for these companies as linear television starts to decline. So in some sense, yes, the market is catching up with these guys in a business sense, but also in a content sense that what they're offering. I mean, these late night hosts are having like Gavin Newsom and Adam Schiff on. It's this like super niche content for, as I always describe it, resistance wine moms. And there's like not the same amount of money in that as there was, you know, hate him or love him, Jay Leno in 1996.

1:10:11It's just totally different games. So in some sense, the market is catching up with them. And in some sense, these companies are starting to realize that they've maybe ignored a swath of the country and that they could make money off that swath of the country. And, Crystal, if there is a CBS Free Press merger and you start to see some more right-leaning content at a place like CBS, then, yeah, actually, there could be potential for a Dem who—we'll talk about this later in the show, to your point— if they have the sort of stones. But if a Dem wanted to mess with them, I mean, maybe that's coming for Sherry Redstone.

1:10:52Yeah, it's possible. It's possible. I'll believe it. I'll believe the Dem with the stones when I see it. They have not emerged yet. But yeah, I mean, you have that. You have the Ellison family also potentially buying CNN and HBO and Comedy Central. You've got obviously TikTok coming under the, you know, already has an IDF sensor involved and is likely to be also, you know, Ellison family plus Fox News. So you've got Twitter, obviously already owned by Elon Musk. So there's a lot of conservative media apparatus that is already out there. And that is, you know, going to that Trump is trying to consolidate right now as we speak.

1:11:38And so the goal, the overall plan is, okay, I'm going to consolidate ownership of as many media properties in my allies hands, which is a large chunk of the media space. And the fact that you've had so much consolidation in media makes this much easier for an authoritarian like Trump to be able to effectuate. So you've got a large chunk in the hands of his allies, effectively him. And then you have another chunk that you are using the, you're weaponizing the government to try to coerce and keep them in line. Now, Kimmel has been brought back, but a message has been sent. And we covered how last week the view, which was, you know, set in the sights of Brennan Carr called them explicitly as an ex-target, how they were too cowardly to say anything about this in the first days after Kimmel was taken off the air.

1:12:30They did break their silence. I think again, because the audience was like, what the hell is like, how cowardly are you? Like what? You're not going to say anything. Now they claimed, oh, we're waiting to see if Jimmy Kimmel was going to say anything. Bull, they were just afraid. And then when they saw the backlash, they realized they couldn't get away with not saying anything. But anyway, the point, the point I'm trying to make here is that many people, whether they realize it or not, journalists, comedians, podcasters, whoever, they will think about this episode when they're writing their monologues or crafting their commentary or riffing on cable news networks.

1:13:09They will think about what happened here. They will, again, could be without even realizing it, they'll trim their sails a little bit to not provoke the ire of Trump world and create a big problem for themselves and their employers because no one should have any confidence that their employers are going to stand up for them in this fight with the Trump administration. They're not. Your best hope is, you know, the like the grassroots backlash is kind of your best hope. But you have to be a Jimmy Kimmel level national figure, prominent national figure to expect that that is going to be there for you as well.

1:13:46So in any case, even with Kimmel, at least for now, back in the air, again, you still have this, you know, this conflict between ABC and Disney and now these affiliates, Nexstar and Sinclair. So it's not like the problem has completely gone away. But even with him back on the air, a message has been sent and, you know, a chilling effect when you add this to the previous actions taken by the Trump administration as well. Kimmel rounded out his response with a bit where Robert De Niro is the new FCC commissioner. And what's a couple of takeaways for that? I mean, first of all, you could have read Trump's true social like in the voice of Roy Cohn and actually believe that Roy Cohn wrote it.

1:14:31That's what it sounded like. He says, last time I went after them, they gave me 16 million dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative, a true bunch of losers. you could absolutely do that and you'd be like oh yes this is a mafia boss but it's of course the president of the United States and so on the one hand they're also going to like Kimmel didn't really pull any punches I don't think Kimmel or Colbert will really pull any punches as long as Colbert's on the air I don't think Seth Meyers gonna pull any punches and so if what they think about going forward is like jokes that are based on false information that are going to needlessly inflame a big portion of the country, then I think that's a good thing.

1:15:18If it does end up censoring any like just left of center criticism of Donald Trump, that's a bad thing. So it's just one of these, I don't know, it's one of these stories that is, I don't know about you, Crystal, just for me, it's so annoying. Again, we were talking about this with the UN where it's like Trump has, as someone on the right, oh, sorry, I just touched my microphone, but as somebody on the right, Trump often will have this directionally correct approach to, for example, the problems at the UN. And then he just like talks like he's a mafia boss, like he's Robert De Niro in a mafia movie or literally like he's Roy Cohn.

1:15:59And you're like, oh, my gosh. Do you have to do it this way? But he does. I mean, I don't think there's anything directionally correct, though, about like censoring comedians monologue. And well, about pushing back on what Kimmel said at a like about that potentially being a MAGA shooter after it was sure. Take issue with it. I mean, I personally, I don't have a problem with what Kimmel said, because I think the point he was trying to make is they're like doing everything to make it like this had nothing to do with us. Right. And that's true. Like everybody was doing that. You know, Ryan admitted openly that he's like hoping that it wasn't a left wing.

1:16:33Well, it turned out that, you know, based on what we know and Tyler seems like he was motivated by LGBTQ issues in particular, again, at least based on what we know at this point. But like that wasn't even the major crux of the joke. The major crux of the joke was poking fun at Trump because he didn't give a shit that Charlie Kirk died, like that Charlie Kirk was murdered. He gets asked about it and he's like, oh, yeah, I'm doing great. Take a look at my construction. Like that was actually like the real joke that was going on here. So personally, I would have loved to see Jimmy Kimmel more defiant versus emotional.

1:17:06And the reporting is that that was his original instinct in the face of the backlash. And that was part of what made ABC Disney feel like, OK, well, we have the president coming after us. with the FCC commissioner coming after us. And Jimmy is unrepentant, repentant and not willing to go out here and grovel. So I guess we're gonna have to pull him off the air. Um, so in any case, like, you know, Trump, he, he literally said that people should not be allowed to criticize him. Like that is his view. His genuine view is that the media should genuflect that they should be just like his cabinet and constantly praise his greatness.

1:17:41And that anything outside of that should be basically illegal and barred and taken off the air. So, you know, while there are other areas where I agree with you, Trump will be, like on tariffs, right? Trump will be directionally correct about or make some point about the way the previous system has failed and then come up with a scheme that makes everything way worse. On this one, I don't see that. I don't, there's nothing about this to me that is directionally correct whatsoever. And, you know, if Jimmy Kimmel sucks so bad and his ratings are so bad and it's so expensive and whatever. Guess what?

1:18:15You don't have to do anything. Like that business decision is going to be made at some point. I mean, you're right. These are dinosaur business models. There's no world in which 200 people working on a single show, which I think is the number that I heard for Jimmy Kimmel is going to sustain long into the future. That's just not the world we live in now with totally fragmented media diets. So, So, you know, if you hate Jimmy Kimmel, that problem was going to solve itself ultimately. The president of the United States did not need to weigh in. It's the exact same thing with Colbert. And weighing in changes the news cycle in a way where it's like, you know, people are like, oh, Trump got Colbert canceled.

1:18:56Like, actually, probably Colbert got Colbert canceled by making millions of dollars a year. But obviously now these companies can use their decisions as opportunities to, like, suck up to the administration and be like, hey, we – because Trump in his post – we'll move on after this. but in his post, he said that ABC told the White House. This is actually very interesting. He said ABC told the White House that Kimmel had been canceled. He says something happened. The White House was told by ABC that his show was canceled. Now, that might be a lie. Trump does make shit up. So I don't know. Totally.

1:19:26Or someone lied to him. Someone misheard it on the phone call. And because it sounds like they told, quote, the White House, not him. So he then posted in the UK taking this victory lap about the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel and the firing of Jimmy Kimmel. And that was never the case. It was always that it was an indefinite suspension after the news broke. But that's actually pretty interesting and does speak to how these companies are probably using their business decisions in conversations with the administration to say, hey, we're getting rid of Colbert. We're getting rid of Kimmel. Like, we're doing the thing.

1:19:57So nothing to ignore on that front. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is just like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline.

1:20:31And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:21:01Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather, you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made?

1:21:34Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia Ayo Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:22:13My first guest is Paris Hilton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited. On the bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to Sweet 305, where the group chat comes to life. What up? It's like a way to say, hello, friend, hello, best friend, hello, sister. What up? Look, I've never heard of anyone. Except with my children. My children know. Yes. Be my love. Uff. Yeah. Punch. That's incredible. The movie. You're the only person I know that loves the yellow starburst. No. There's no one who you need to say, I'd like to collaborate with this person. This is Sweet 305.

1:23:00Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pons as part of my Cultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go ahead and move on to Kamala Harris's book tour. Crystal, I can't believe I'm saying those words in September of 2025, let alone showing the clips that we are about to show because Kamala Harris fully unreconstructed. Is that fair to say, Crystal? It seems fair. I would say so. It seems fair. The book is called 107 Days. She has been on Good Morning America, The View, and Rachel Maddow to sell this book, which came out yesterday. And it's going exactly how you would expect.

1:23:46So let's roll C1. My concern about him running for reelection was completely separate from my admiration and knowledge about his capacity to serve as president of the United States, which was consistent and never wavered. Well, when we sit here, as we sit here today, do you think he would have been up for running the country for four more years? Here's the distinction that I make. And having had the experience myself, it is one thing to have the capacity to govern. It is another thing to go through an election for president of the United States. And by the way, another piece of what is unprecedented and a bit historical about that race, it is the closest presidential race in the 21st century in terms of the outcome.

1:24:35Wow. You know, say that again, because he likes to say over and over again, he's got a mandate. And that's part of why I wrote this book, because history will talk about this race. It is part of American history. I didn't fully appreciate how much people wanted to know there was a difference between me and President Biden. I thought it was obvious. And I didn't want to offer a difference in a way that would be received or suggested to be a criticism. And in, during your appearance, and you write about it, you say, everything about my appearance on The View was going well until it wasn't. And if you recall, you were here 28 days before the election.

1:25:27And I asked you if there was anything you would have done differently than President Biden during the past four years. And you said, quote, there is not a thing that comes to mind. Yeah. End quote. You write you had no idea, you just pulled the pin on a hand grenade. In the moment, I knew. The Trump campaign weaponized your answer against you, my question. And some, including James Carville and Jake Tapper, point to that answer as a turning point in your candidacy. Do you think that moment tipped the election? No. Good, because Sonny doesn't want to take the blame.

1:26:08I'm so excited to get your response to Kamala Harris answering some pretty softball questions, if I may say so, about why she let Joe Biden run and how she ended up kind of, well, not that it was her choice to let Joe Biden run, but why she covered for Joe Biden and how she responded to that in the book and then how she ultimately ended up losing to Donald Trump. I haven't read the book, full disclosure. I'm shocked. But I mean, I might, right? It does seem like there's some somewhat interesting stuff in there. To be honest with you, the book is a little bit more candid than I expected it to be.

1:26:47But then in these public media appearances, she's doing the same old, same old, like, let me try to split the difference. Let me try to make everybody happy, which just ends up making literally no one happy. The choice of venue is also worth noting. like if you want to be new and improved Kamala Harris improved to the world you're a different candidate than you're a different person than they thought that you were don't just do the view and Rachel Maddow like go into the lion's den take some risks like go go on with Joe imagine she did the Joe Rogan podcast at long last you know after so much discussion about that that would be interesting right but it's just I mean in a sense I sort of feel bad for her because I I feel like, I don't know, she walks herself into this life where she's questing after ambition and power.

1:27:33And she clearly doesn't really care about any particular issues in a way that's like motivating for her. Is deeply uncomfortable in these situations. Constantly trying to find the right answer, like the correct answer versus what she actually thinks. And then you just end up with this pathetic display where you have to say you didn't realize people wanted you to be different than Joe Biden and you thought it would be obvious, which to me is like a to me, that's a gesture towards her identity. Yes. That she just thought like, well, I'm a black woman. Of course, I'm different from Joe Biden. It's like, no, that's not what we're talking about here.

1:28:11Like, you are his vice president. You have stood there and backed his every decision. People wanted to know they're not happy with how things are going. Yes, they want to know how you're different, what you think went wrong, why they should put their trust in you to create a different outcome than what they're experiencing right now. And then, you know, I've also seen some of the discussion around what she had to say about Gaza. Allegedly, privately, she was urging Biden to be more compassionate, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, OK, but when it actually mattered, when you were in a position of power, you did nothing to change anything.

1:28:51Right. And now we're supposed to believe after the fact that, oh, you were genuine, you were being courageous behind the scenes. Like, I'm sorry. No one should buy that. No one should believe that whatsoever. She is the I feel like the physical embodiment of a lot of the Democratic Party's problems. Like it's illustrated in this one woman so perfectly. Let's get more into the identity conversation because she one of the big revelations in the book is that she her first choice to add to vice president, the vice presidential ticket was actually Pete Buttigieg and not Tim Walz. But she believed that as a black woman married to a Jewish man, adding a gay vice presidential candidate to the ticket would have been too much of a risk.

1:29:37Now, Rachel Maddow confronted her about this. It was maybe the most uncomfortable moment in a pretty, I don't know, friendly interview. Let's go ahead and roll C3. If his reaction to that, since this part of the book has come out, if you've had any reflection on that or I guess I guess I'd ask you to just elaborate on that a little bit. It's hard to hear with you running as you know, you're the first woman elected vice president. You're a black woman and a South Asian woman elected that high office, very nearly elected president to say that he couldn't be on the ticket effectively because he was gay.

1:30:14It's hard to hear. No, no, no. That's not what I said. that he couldn't be on the ticket because he is gay. My point, as I write in the book, is that I was clear that in 107 days, in one of the most hotly contested elections for president of the United States, against someone like Donald Trump, who knows no floor, to be a black woman running for president of the United States and as a vice presidential running mate, a gay man, with the stakes being so high, it made me very sad, but I also realized it would be a real risk. No matter how, you know, I've been an advocate and an ally of the LGBT community my entire life, so it wasn't about any prejudice on my part, But we had such a short period of time.

1:31:22And the stakes were so high. I think Pete is a phenomenal, phenomenal public servant. And I think America is and would be ready for that. But when I had to make that decision with two weeks to go, You know, and maybe I was being too cautious. You know, I'll let our friends, we should all talk about that. Maybe I was. But that's the decision I made. I like how powerful she thought it was that she was saying she believes Pete Buttigieg is a phenomenal public servant, as though that's some really important line coming from her Kamala Harris. I mean, where do you start with this? Like, on one level, it gives me flashbacks to the Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, you're a secret sexist because you told me like women can't be president or something like that conversation, which, you know, it appears what Bernie was actually saying was like, listen, sexism is a real thing.

1:32:32Trump will try to weaponize it. Not like I think I'm sexist and I don't think he should be president. And so Maddow being, you know, high dungeon about an analysis of listen, it's so, you know, it's a lot to have a black woman and a gay guy on the ticket. And we know what Trump will do with that and whatever is annoying to me. Then it's annoying to me that Kamala doesn't stand on business. Like if that's what you thought, and that was your analysis, like girl, you put it in the book, this is actually, I'm sure you've had this experience too, where authors will say something provocative and then you go to interview about them about it and they add like a thousand caveats and you're like, dude, you wrote it, like say it with your chest, explain why you felt that way rather than trying to like run away from it and be all scared where it just comes off as weakness.

1:33:19So that's number two. Number three, the problem with Pete Buttigieg is not that it's, he's gay. It's that he sucks. It's that he's a neoliberal shill who stands for nothing, who black people can't stand. Right. Like that's the problem with Pete Buttigieg. Okay. Now she doesn't have that problem with him, but that's the actual issue with him. Number four, uh, I think Pete should feel lucky that he dodged this bullet of being, not being, having to be associated with this, you know, terrible campaign, which ended in disaster in my opinion, for the country in the world. So there's that as well. So there's just there's a lot of different layers going on here with this Pete Buttigieg commentary.

1:34:01And, you know, the last piece, well, there's two other pieces on the question of is the country ready for like a black woman and a gay man? Would that have been too much to ask to ask the country to endure? Listen, I'm not one who says that sexism didn't play any role in this campaign. I think it did. I think that that was part of Trump ran this very campy man campaign. Remember the way that the Madison Square Garden rally was like he leaned into this kind of gender divide. And Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt at the RNC. Exactly. So that was that was there. Right. And I think there's a lot of hostility towards women right now in general.

1:34:40I genuinely feel that coming from like, you know, the red pill and the manosphere and whatever, like guys can't get ahead. And it's because of these damn women who We're keeping them down and nagging them and they need to be put in their place. Like there is an energy of that right now. You should stop doing that though, Crystal. You should stop nagging them. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to work on myself, Emily, like the self-hating thing. But anyway, I'll get there. But imagine how powerful Sagar could be without you nagging him. I'm sure he feels that way. Some days he definitely feels that way.

1:35:12In any case, so that was definitely an energy. I think that was, you know, I think that played into her loss. I'm not going to say it's the only fact, but I definitely think that was a factor in her loss as well. There may have been an argument for actually sort of leaning into that, like heightening the contradictions. I think it was maybe, who was it? Somebody was arguing for putting another woman on the ticket, like a Gretchen Whitmer or something like that, and actually leaning into it. Yep. And making the contrast, explicit not being afraid of it, not trying to do you're like, I'm actually the one who prosecuted transnational gangs is going to be bigger and badder and tougher than you are because no one was going to buy that.

1:35:50So, you know, I'm not saying a gay man is equivalent to a woman. But if you're like doing the whole we're going to be historic. I don't think that him being a gay man was really the challenge here. And then, yeah, I'll just I'll just leave it there. There's other things I could say, but, um, you know, the, the bottom line is that Kamala is still this person who doesn't really believe anything. Isn't really ready to stand on business on literally anything wilts under the slightest criticism is constantly trying to please absolutely everyone in a way that it's just going to please absolutely no one.

1:36:26So I'm shocked to hear you say that because if we put C4 on the screen, the book actually opens with a Kendrick Lamar quote that I feel really captures the energy of Kamala Harris. I got loyalty, got royalty inside my DNA. I was born like this. That is actually at the intro of the book. So Crystal, I'm confused to hear you say that she's not standing on business and that she's timid and seems ambivalent on some of the key issues because she was born like this and royalty is in her DNA and she listens to rap music. So I assume she's a very badass woman, despite the actually, no, because of the pantsuits.

1:37:10Well, you know, I've I've said this very after I did my my feminist tirade, I'll say the very unfeminist thing of like this lady loves cooking like she should do a cooking show. She'd be so much happier. She's so much more like when you see her in the kitchen doing her thing. She's in her element. So the headline of the segment is, I believe Kamala Harris should be back in the kitchen. Crystal ball. Kamala should come back to the, that's the headline. Literally that is the headline. We'll see. I hope that is literally the headline. Now, Josh Shapiro is obviously getting in on the fun. So here's C5.

1:37:45We'll put this on the screen. Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania seemed more interested in defining the role for himself than helping her win. And Kamala Harris recounted how Shapiro was questioning an aide about the pieces of art he could use to decorate the vice president's residence. I believe this about him, by the way. I think this is true. Catching some strays in the otherwise very, I don't know, gentle memoir might be one way to put it. Let's go ahead and listen to Shapiro responding C6. I mean, look, I haven't read the former vice president's book and she's going to have to, she's going to have to answer to how she was in the room and yet never said anything publicly.

1:38:23I can tell you that I wasn't in the room. But when I was confronted with engagement with the former president, in looking at it simply from the perspective of how's he doing in Pennsylvania? Could he win Pennsylvania? Because I think, Stephen, you understand if you can't win Pennsylvania, it's pretty darn hard to win the national election. And I was very vocal with him privately and extremely vocal with his staff about my concerns about his fitness to be able to run for another term. I was direct with them. I told them my concerns. I told them my worries. I told them what I was seeing in the polls.

1:39:01I think it seemed to me that maybe his staff wasn't counseling him with all the information that we knew on the ground here in Pennsylvania that, you know, frankly, they should have shared with the president. Convincing, Crystal? You ready to vote for Shapiro? I mean, I'm not a Shapiro fan. I believe the anecdote that he was, there was some reporting to this effect at the time that he was very entitled and more like asking Kamala, like asserting what he wanted the role to be and assuming he had the job before even, you know, going through the auditions. Then there was a bit of a like personality clash between them.

1:39:39And that's why she ultimately goes with Tim Walz. Like, I think that that is probably accurate based on my vibes of Josh Shapiro. And, you know, I am incredibly biased against anyone who does the fake Obama impression when they're giving public speeches of which he is certainly guilty. But just to wrap it all up in this Kamala book thing, you know, one of the things that she keeps going back to, and again, having not read the book, but judging by the title and the excerpts that I've seen and analysis that I've seen and Kamala herself and how she's representing it, her big overarching excuse is just like look y 'all we just didn't have that much time we didn't have enough time if we'd had more time i could have made the case better i could have done this i could have done that it would have somehow magically made the situation better it's unknowable but based on what we actually saw and experienced she was doing better earlier in the campaign yes when there was just excitement about someone different when she was leaning more into some of the populist elements like the price gouging when they were letting tim walls be more like do his weird critique which seemed to land better than the more grandiose like he's a fascist critique even though he is a fascist but the you know the like these guys are weirdos and they're freaks and like fringe characters actually seem to land better with the the public so i don't see any evidence that more time would have benefited kamala harris if anything what we've seen from Kamala Harris political career is actually the more that people have a chance to sit with the reality of her versus the idea of her or the resume of her, the more they're like, not sure that this is the direction that they want to go in, that they want to go in politically.

1:41:13So I, from that perspective, it seems to me that the central premise and framing of the book, that it was too short a time period to succeed is false or at least unsupported. This is incontrovertible based on the polling data. If you believe it, this is incontrovertible. Kamala Harris enters the 2020 primary with a lot of money and very splashy media coverage and declines to the point where she can't make it to the Iowa caucuses. drops out literally before 2020 in December of 2019 because the more people see of Kamala Harris, the less people are interested in actually voting for Kamala Harris.

1:41:50She becomes vice president and has a very steadily, historically negative favorability rating. You could go ahead and look at RealClearPolitics' average of her. When she hits the campaign trail after taking the torch from Biden, she does get a very real honeymoon period where her popularity reverses again. And then around late September, October, it just crashes and has been going in the opposite direction ever since. So what Crystal just said is completely supported by the data when it comes to Kamala Harris, which should throw a real wrench into whatever political future she thinks she has. She might have been butted off as a long-term California senator.

1:42:31Speaking of California, though. Let's wrap up the segment with C7. This is Gavin Newsom. This is apparently Kamala Harris wrote that she called Gavin Newsom for an endorsement after Biden's exit, but he brushed her off with a short text that read, quote, hiking will call back. And that was it. Never heard anything else from Gavin Newsom, which is, Crystal, hiking will call back. That is how I plan to respond when you guys ask me to do something that I don't want to do in the future. Hiking we'll call back hey can you fill in for me oh sorry hiking get back to you hiking well it's like the mark sanford excuse he was he was hiking the appalachian trail he's actually yep yeah um well i i mean i'm sure someone who's steeped in california politics could tell us more about the gavin kamala likely like rivalry they probably like low-key hate each other more than they even hate republicans or whatever if i had to guess and so gavin also is a finger in the wind kind of a die so if it was you know at that moment it was unclear what was going to happen you had probably maybe Pelosi in his ear who wanted to have a different process play out and actually have some sort of a you know like short primary or DNC convention floor fight or something else play out um and so he just decided like I'm gonna absent myself from this because there's no place that I deem to be politically safe yes uh to land here ultimately it's like Taylor Swift like I very much like to be excluded from this narrative.

1:44:02We're running long in today's show, so make sure you subscribe over at breakingpoints.com and watch the Friday show. We're going to talk about AOC and more on Gavin Newsom, actually a potential team up in the works with AOC and Gavin Newsom. And numbers looking really great for AOC if she wanted to make her own presidential run in 2028. So we're going to do that in the Friday show. Make sure to tune in then and you can get the full version of it over at breakingpoints.com. Let's go ahead, Crystal, and move on to Argentina and bring in our guest, Juan David Rojas. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

1:44:37Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week.

1:45:09Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout-outs to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:45:35Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather, you know them. Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made?

1:46:08Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life, guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia Ayo Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:46:46My first guest is Paris Hilton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited. On a bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to Sweet 305, where the group chat comes to life. What up,. It's like a way to say, Hello, friend. Hello, best friend. Hello, sister. What up,. Look, I've never talked to anyone. Except with my children. My children know. Yes. I'm my love. Oh, fuck.

1:47:20You're the only person I know that loves a yellow starburst. It's lemonade. There's no one that you need, like you say, I'd like to collaborate with this person. This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pons as part of my Cultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It looks like the United States is going to bail out Javier Millet and the Argentinian economy amid a slump in their markets. So Juan David Rojas, a writer at Compact, who has a new story on this, a great new story on this, with the headline, Trouble in Libertarian Paradise over at Compact, joins us now.

1:48:05Juan, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me on, guys. Yeah, so there's a little bit of news, actually, on this front. Just before we were recording with you, Juan, this morning, we heard more from Scott Besant about what this potential bailout, we can put the first tear sheet up on the screen, that's been publicly in the works that we've been brought in on over the last couple of days, what that's actually going to look like. This is a great Financial Times rundown of what actually happened. It starts by saying, quote, less than six months ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was in Buenos Aires congratulating President Javier Millet for bringing America, Argentina back from the precipice as a libertarian secured more than$40 billion in loans from the IMF and multilateral lenders to bolster his government.

1:48:48Now, with political and economic missteps sparking panic in Argentina's markets, the South American nation is once again on the brink and the Trump administration is preparing to bail out its ideological ally. So Juan, tell us what we learned this morning from Scott Besant about what that bailout is going to look like. Yeah, Besant announced this morning that the Treasury is going to provide a$20 billion swap line to Argentina's central bank. Basically, Argentina's central bank will get a loan in dollars that they will have to pay back to the United States, which is extremely important because last week they spent over a billion of the 20 billion they have left in their foreign reserves defending the peso because it lost like a third of its value in the past month.

1:49:37So let's actually back up on that note and explain what is the crisis that they're facing right now and what triggered this moment where they're in need potentially of a U.S. bailout. Yeah, so over the past 50 years, really, the one constant of all of Argentina's economic problems is the dollar. For our purposes, specifically the fact that the peso, Argentina's currency, is pegged to the dollar. What that means is that the government sets a margin within which the peso will float relative to the dollar around like a thousand something pesos for every dollar. And the problem with this is that you become completely beholden to the whims of investors.

1:50:15that can be extremely fickle and also the amount of dollars that your central bank has in its foreign reserves, because that's how you maintain that conversion between those two currencies. And if there's some kind of panic, like what just happened, you need to spend all of your foreign reserves in order to keep that value of the peso. And so Millet, when he came in, said, OK, I'm going to fix this. Through libertarianism, I'm going to get government out of the way. I'm going to get rid of this peg and everything is going to be great. So he took office in December of 2023 and did exactly that.

1:50:51He'd massively devalue the pace. So it lost like 50 % of its value overnight. And this caused inflation to skyrocket, went from like 150 % to like 300%. This makes perfect sense because if your currency loses a ton of its buying power overnight, well, then prices are going to shoot up. And so he said, whoops, OK, what do I do now? People elected me to control inflation. Okay, so he did exactly what his predecessors were doing. He restored the peg to the peso, and this worked. The peso over the course of the next few months in 2024 recovered and even exceeded its previous peak. See, the problem with pegging your currency to the dollar in the case of a country like Argentina, where your currency has zero credibility, is that it's just extremely overvalued relative to its actual worth and the broader value of your economy.

1:51:46So anyway, you know, Millet, inflation started to go down, and Millet says, oh, see, this is because libertarianism works. We can talk about that. There's some details, whether or not some of what he's done austerity-wise would have been worth it in the long run. But anyway, inflation by the end of 2024 fell from, yeah, like 300 % to around 30%. Then in 2025, he started to have a couple of setbacks. There was this big corruption scandal with his sister, who's also his chief of staff. There were recordings suggesting that she was taking bribes. The Congress passed some spending increases that he vetoed, and then Congress overrode his veto.

1:52:29And then what really set things off was that a week ago, Buenos Aires, the country's most important province, held provincial elections where Milley's party got destroyed, lost by like 13 points, something like that. And this really caused investors to panic because they saw it as a sign that the opposition Peronists that are left wing were going to take control of the Congress next month in midterm elections. And so this caused, in Millet's words, a full market panic. And the peso, yeah, like I said, lost like a third of its value. The central bank spent a billion dollars in just three days. And it purportedly only has$20 billion left in reserve, which is really the exact amount that the IMF gave Argentina in January.

1:53:14Argentina is the single largest recipient of IMF loans in history. I saw something that in the past 30 years of the$200 billion that the IMF has given out, Argentina has gotten a third of that. So it's really crazy. Wow. Let's take a listen. I want to get your reaction to this, actually. One, two, what Donald Trump said about Millet while he was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. And to the people of Argentina, we're backing him 100%. We think he's done a fantastic job. And he, like us, inherited a mess. And what he's done to fix it is good. And Scott is working with their country so that they can get good debt and all of the things that you need to make Argentina great against.

1:54:00So it's an honor for me to endorse the president and the future president of Argentina. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So he's sitting astride, Millet, there alongside Scott Bessent and Marco Rubio. Now, Juan, an interesting question based on everything you've just said is to what extent the uncertainty that Millet has faced in 2025 is downstream of some of the uncertainty that Donald Trump has injected into the global economy from his economic policies. Is there a kind of circular way that Trump is bailing out Millet from a situation that he in some sense stoked in the Argentinian economy?

1:54:43Am I sounding crazy? Is there a connection there at all? You know what? I hadn't thought about that. It's a good question. I guess, yeah, maybe investors are a bit more skittish than they would be otherwise. But I would say that generally that's not the case. There is one thing that did like when Milay took power in 2023. One thing is that that's when the Fed raised interest rates. And Argentina has, unfortunately, way too much of its debt in dollars. Again, there's this circular problem with the dollar. And so when interest rates go up, well, interest payments on your debt also go up. And that caused Argentina's debt to skyrocket.

1:55:25So and that, honestly, I would say is a big part of what got Milay elected. Interesting. Could you tell me a little bit more? First of all, I wanted to opine on how the support of Malay just reveals how content free Trumpism is, because it's not like allegedly they are not ideologically the same. But since Malay will be a good little boy and do whatever the U.S. wants him to, then he gets favored status regardless of his – because I think there's a lazy assumption that they're sort of like closely ideologically aligned. And on some levels, yes, but I'm sure you could lay out even better than I could like on a lot of levels, no.

1:56:03But I was also curious what did happen in that Buenos Aires election. Was it surprising that his party suffered such a defeat? What are people reading into like the message that is being sent by voters and what are they unhappy with, you know, under Millay? Sorry, remind me the first part of the question. Just you can just weigh in on the second part. The first part was how Trump and Millay are not. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. The second part is just about the Buenos Aires elections. Yeah. Right, right, right. So, yeah, I mean, Trump really, what Trump is, is like a Gilded Age Republican, kind of.

1:56:43Like, it's protectionism abroad and free marketerism at home. And Millet is just the free marketerism everywhere. So Trump is a huge protectionist, you know, the tariffs, all that. Millet hates tariffs. So in that way, they're extremely different. but uh yeah as far as like doge and you know the deregulation all of that uh yeah they're pretty simpatico um and uh really i actually do see a lot of this well you know on the one hand trump uh he really just loves anyone who says good things about him but on the other hand uh geopolitically and it's not really that argentina like actually offers any like i call and moral support.

1:57:22Milley really has prostrated himself before Washington, and he supports all of our foreign wars, Ukraine, Israel, and also what we're doing now in Venezuela and the sanctions regime against Cuba, Nicaragua, et cetera. As far as that election in Buenos Aires, to be fair, Buenos Aires is a bastion of Peronism, the opposition. And so he was expected to lose there, but not by as much as he did, lost by like 13 points. And the polls showed him as being more competitive. And now he started to slide in these midterm elections. His party has a minority in both chambers of Congress, though there's like a couple of other parties that have kind of allied with him.

1:58:07But yeah, the fear, like I said now, is that the Peronists will be able to take back control. As far as what the broader population thinks, all things considered, Millet's approval rating is still pretty good, though his disapproval has gone up a lot. And the thing is, his austerity regime has caused this horrible economic depression in the country. Something like 40 percent of the country is living in poverty. On the other hand, you can make the case that he has managed to bring down some of Argentina's debt, which was really out of control before he took office. So I'm not sympathetic to Millet or libertarianism, but I'm trying to give you the other side.

1:58:49But people are just kind of saying it's like, OK, inflation has come down some, although it's misleading how the financial press reports this, because they've liked to cite the monthly figure of inflation that's gone down to like 2 percent and stagnated at 2 percent for a while now. And the thing is, for instance, here in the U.S., when we talk about monthly inflation, we're still talking about monthly inflation with respect to the annual figure. So if you look at annual inflation in Argentina, it's still at like 30 percent, which is what it was in like 2021 under the previous government. And it's still pretty bad.

1:59:22So people want to see results. They still kind of give them the benefit of the doubt because they were promised like a V-shaped recovery that things would get worse and then get better. And the opposition is kind of a similar situation here with the Democrats. They're soul searching. There's like different wings that are like fighting each other. And we could talk about that. It's interesting. Well, last question for me, actually, is just what might this do to the situation in Argentina? Sort of like the obvious question on the table is how does a U.S. bailout? It's sort of funny to talk about a libertarian experiment being bailed out by the United States.

1:59:54I mean, it's obviously not funny. And the IMF. Yeah, and the IMF. Yes, I was thinking that, too. So it's just amusing. But what could we see in the months to come with this bailout as it will influence the Argentinian economy? So it seems that it will keep them afloat. Markets have rallied. And, yeah, those dollars really will be vital for the central bank and also paying back Argentina's debts. There's a broader conversation, like if we go back further, because they first started pegging the dollar to the peso. So in the 90s and Argentina just has these recurring crises. If we go back further, the issue is also that they take on too much debt in dollars.

2:00:39And that's a huge problem. If you borrow in your own currency, you can get way more in debt than otherwise. Just look at us. We have this huge national debt, but thankfully it's in our own currency, which also happens to be the world's reserve currency, which means that countries like Argentina need it to stay afloat. But so Argentina, they amass so much debt in dollars, they're just hostage to what the Fed does. If they raise interest rates, their debt explodes. If investors pull their money, they have a currency crisis. And they end up just kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul. They'll get one IMF loan to pay back another IMF loan.

2:01:16They'll get a billion dollars from Qatar to pay back the IMF. They'll get$20 billion from Trump to pay back the IMF. So it's – I mean, yeah, probably we'll eventually see some sort of collapse, but this really was vital. Like there was – it's not even that there was a risk. The country was going to spiral into an inflationary chaos again if Trump had an enemy. Well, we definitely recommend everyone go and read your piece over at Compaq Mag. We'll put the link in the description. And as always, Juan, great to have your insights. Really useful. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Yeah, our pleasure. What's up, fam?

2:01:57I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week.

2:02:30Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout outs to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

2:03:20Lowering the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. I thought you were all going to write a song.

2:03:52I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia A-O Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

2:04:07My first guest is Paris Hilton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited. On a bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to Sweet 305, where the group chat comes to life. What up, ****? It's like a way to say, Hello, friend. Hello, best friend. Hello, sister. What up, ****? Look, I've never talked to anyone. Except with my children. Because my children know. Yes. Sé mi amante. Uf. Punch. Qué increíble. Ya, la telenovela. You're the only person I know that loves a yellow starburst. It's glamorous. No hay alguien que te falta. Como que tú dices, me gustaría colaborar con esta persona.

2:04:53This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pons as part of my Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're continuing to learn more about what may have gone on behind the scenes with Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk, in addition to the group's donors or potential donors, hopeful donors, in the background when it came to Charlie Kirk bringing people like Tucker Carlson and Dave Smith into some events, speaking out more publicly about the crackdown on free speech when it came to discussing matters related to Israel, because one of Charlie's closest friends, Andrew Colvett, executive producer of his show, high up at Turning Point USA, went on Alex Clark's program, Culture Apothecary, yesterday to go into some of the background information and try to debunk some conspiracy theories, tell the truth about what was happening in this conversation with Alex.

2:05:58And he did get into what was happening. And I just want to say before we roll the clip, F3, this is the tear sheet from the gray zone. This is the gray zone story that was trying to say people close to Charlie Kirk were, people close to Charlie Kirk heard that a top pro-Israel Turning Point USA donor, as the Grey Zone piece puts it, quote, terminated support for the group in the days before his death. So with that in mind, this is a story that came out in recent days. Here's how Colvette addressed questions about potential pressure from donors, F1. Charlie's position on Israel was very clear. I like them more than I like Hamas.

2:06:48I just wish I was free to criticize Israel and not be labeled an anti-Semite because I can criticize my own government and not be called anti-American. Right. But why do I have more freedom to do that and not criticize a foreign government? And he was really upset that there was this sort of clampdown on the freedom of expression, the freedom of ideas, free speech, when it came to a foreign government with Tucker, for example. Yeah. I mean, we took some pushback, we lost some donors. And what's interesting is, is it wasn't necessarily Jewish donors, although there was, because that's a misconception about turning points funding base, by the way, is, you know, it's not a whole lot of Jewish donors.

2:07:32It's just not, we never, we, you know, there was always, I saw the comments online, like, oh, the Jewish shekels or something like, I mean, it's all this gross stuff. It just wasn't true. And it isn't true, but we did lose, you know, one in particular towards the end that was frustrating. Charlie was a friend of the Jewish people and a friend of Israel. Did he have opinions about the prosecution of the war, about he thought their PR was abysmal, thought they were doing more harm than good in many ways for their own cause. So all of those things were true. And he was upset that he couldn't express those things freely without all of this pressure coming down on the organization.

2:08:12He has a lot of great Jewish friends and, you know, and some people that maybe some not so good ones. Right. But I think there's just it's just a nuanced thing. Was Charlie offered one hundred and fifty million dollars from Israel? As far as I know, no. I had never heard anything like that. Everyone I've asked has said the same thing. And by the way, just for what it's worth, it doesn't matter the amount that would have been coming down. We would have said no. And there's evidence that that is true. Because Turning Point does not. Charlie would not accept foreign money. Exactly. We only took American money.

2:08:43Yeah. There was money sent to us, like practically in multiple instances. They're trying to cram it down our bank account. And we said, no, we canceled like money wires and things on foreign money. I have I remember moments we'd be at like an event, you know, and some foreign people would come up and like demand a meeting or try and get a meeting with Charlie and Charlie would look at me and go deal with them, get rid of them. And Crystal, basically he says in that clip everyone just heard, one in particular, referring to one donor in particular. And the Grey Zone story is about a particular donor.

2:09:18It's about Robert Shillman, who was super supportive of Charlie Kirk for a long time. And I would guess that's who Colvett was alluding to in his conversation with Alex Clark. It certainly sounds like it. But whether or not it's Shulman, it confirms the thrust of what's been reported in recent days, what people have said they've heard. Just that Kirk was under enormous pressure for, as Colvett says there, speaking out against the public relations that Israel had and the free speech crackdown that Israel had. He said he had opinions on, quote, the prosecution of the war. Heard a little bit about that from Kirk towards the end of his life.

2:10:02Certainly nothing that was a criticism as harsh as you would hear from Tucker Carlson, for example. But this is basically a confirmation, which we almost don't even know. We almost don't even need because Charlie had that appearance with Megyn Kelly. I think this was in early August where he was openly talking about the pressures he was under and the pressures that he was facing. But now I think we can say confidently that Turning Point USA did actually lose a donor, a big donor over this. Yeah. And according to Colvett, you know, that one, he said one in particular that was very frustrating. But he did say originally, you know, after that, there were donors that they lost over having Tucker and having Dave Smith, et cetera.

2:10:50And it's also this is a small point. But I mean, it's also interesting his note of like, hey, we don't actually it wasn't actually a lot of Jewish donors, Which is why, you know, I think it's very important people be precise in their language how they speak about these things. Because actually the strongest pro-Zionist constituency in the U.S. is not Jewish people. It's evangelical Christians. So it would be no surprise to me that some of the people who pulled support over just the platforming of Tucker Carlson were not Jewish. Very possible that they were, you know, evangelical Christians or others who just are, you know, closely trump-aligned, et cetera.

2:11:26That's why, you know, I like framing this story as everybody versus the Jews is actually anti-Semitic and is also not accurate in terms of the reality of the political dynamics that play out here with regard to the U.S.'s unequivocal and constant support for for Israel. But, you know, in a lot of ways, he did confirm at least this report from from the Gray Zone and Max Blumenthal. And as you said, it also confirms what was already leaking out to the public. No one should be under the illusion that Charlie Kirk was anything but relatively and consistently pro-Israel. But I also get the sense, and Emily, you probably track this more closely than I have.

2:12:07Like I can just imagine Charlie Kirk became this activist at a very young age. And his role was backing up the administration, providing the talking points that would back up the administration's line, backing up Trump, whatever. and now he's a 31 year old man and perhaps he didn't want that relationship just to be okay whatever trump says i'm gonna back up he wanted he maybe was chafing at that role a bit we know the reporting about how he obviously publicly was opposing a strike on iran and that he tried to raise those concerns with trump and was really you know berated for that in particular and so i don't think it would be a surprise that at this age and at his level of maturity as like a full-grown man with kids and a family and a wife and all of those sorts of things that he would be starting to sort of chafe in this role and asking questions about like okay well I can criticize the U.S.

2:13:05but I can't criticize Israel and by the way Israelis can criticize Israel but I can't you know don't have the same freedom here and come under all this insane pressure if I don't even say anything I just have someone on stage who says something they disagree with. I don't think that's a surprising development that he was starting to feel very restricted and constrained in that role. No, because again, he's a member of the younger cohort of conservatives where we've seen significant shifts in polling. And if you grew up after the, or in the time of the global war on terror post 9-11, you probably do have a very different opinion.

2:13:45Your opinion on the country has been forged at a time where if you were previously supportive and then start asking questions, and I'm speaking this as somebody who was sort of on a similar arc with Charlie, and I mentioned this on the show with Ryan last week, but for all of the differences that Charlie and I had over the years, after he started speaking out about the free speech stuff in particular, I had meant to send him a note and I was going to send him a note and I was trying to be sort of like trying to not make it look like it was fake or anything like that because I genuinely appreciated what he was doing and obviously never got the chance to do that because there are so many of us that have just you know with I think especially some of it is the fracturing in media and everyone's kind of media bubbles pop I've talked a lot about this on the show and my own experience going along that arc, but I think a lot of people are in a similar position.

2:14:40And then being told you can't even ask questions, which is what he did at Turning Point when he hosted a debate between his friend, Josh Hammer, and Dave Smith. I mean, it's just insane that you get heat for hosting a debate and remaining consistent on the question of free speech. And I just want to read one more portion here from the gray zone story, because it's remarkable. Like for me, as somebody in conservative movement world goes to a lot of these chicken dinners. They report, and some of this is sourced to a TPUSA insider, but they report the Grayzone was informed that Shulman announced his termination of contributions to TPUSA during a private dinner of another organization he funds, the American Freedom Alliance, according to an attendee of the event, which was held in LA on September 6th.

2:15:26So not back in the summer, September 6th. Shulman stated that he would be ending his donations to Kirk, diverting them instead to reliably pro-Likud, anti-Islam groups like the AFA, so the American Freedom Alliance. That is remarkable. I have never seen anything like that at a conservative movement event. I've never seen anything like a donor coming out at a dinner, a banquet, and publicly announcing that they are routing money they put into another organization that they enthusiastically supported for years, making a public announcement like that. Yes, it's a private dinner, but you're doing it in front of people in the public sphere, right?

2:16:09You're out in Los Angeles at a banquet. That is remarkable. That is unheard of as far as I'm concerned. I've been around a lot of these events. I've never, ever heard of anything like that happening. So these pressures were not just in the background. This is some serious, serious stuff. And something Alex Clark mentioned during the podcast conversation, which I listened to all of, it was very interesting, is that she had recently, Charlie had recently told her, wow, this infighting on the right over Israel, this is real. These are real divisions, right? This is a real problem. And they didn't get to continue the conversation, but basically they had that discussion that Charlie didn't think it was sort of a sideshow, but that this was genuinely a problem facing the right.

2:16:52And you can see why when you have a like a longtime donor talking trash about your organization because of it's hosting a debate on Israel. I mean, this is like this is crazy, crazy stuff. Well, in the context there that you're gesturing towards is that everyone else in the room would have already been read in on this controversy, would have been aware of it, would have been applauding, like, yes, you should be pulling your funding from TPUSA. How brave of you. Thank you for funneling your dollars into consistently pro-Lakud outfits, et cetera. So this wasn't, as you said, something that was on the back burner.

2:17:32This was very much foreground for this group, at least of, you know, significant Republican donors who all would have been aware of this controversy and aware of the ways that Charlie Kirk had apparently strayed from the pro-Israel, just like pro-Netanyahu, no matter what line. And I do think it's just worth noting, like Colvatt said, Charlie, if you listen to him, he was very pro-Israel, right? He said things that about, I mean, he supported the genocide. Like he said things I found to be morally outrageous about all of this. And yet the very fact that he would even have someone with a different view at the conference was like, they just, they, they are so sensitive to any break from the 100 % we're on board with everyone, everything.

2:18:24We will never breathe a voice of criticism. Yes. Our enemies all need to be crushed and never heard from again. If you deviate even one inch from that, even if you're Charlie Kirk, they will threaten you. They'll pull your your funding, you know, and and like make an example of all of those sorts of things. And so I think it's a really important glimpse of the pressures that are brought to bear on all sorts of people, especially I think right now people on the right. I think they feel like the Democrats, you know, the activists in the Democratic Party are kind of by and large lost, although I think at the elite at the politician level, that sort of pressure is still applied.

2:19:01But it's just an interesting autopsy of what it looks like to be inside the belly of the beast and the way that they bring pressure to bear on you that may not be obvious if you're just looking at it from the outside. The last thing we wanted to highlight here was just a kind of eyebrow-raising comment that was also made by Colvette about how they were able to work with their tech partners to identify hundreds of thousands of cell phones that came to attend Charlie Kirk's memorial service. Let's go out and take a listen to this. And by the way, I'm going to break a little bit of news on your program, Jesse.

2:19:39our partners that do sort of geotagging with devices, they told us that they tracked over 277 ,000 devices in the vicinity of State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Wow. 277 ,000. That's unbelievable. So that just gives you an idea of the scale of humanity. I would like to know more about that, Emily. I am curious. There are places that you can go to get that information. I mean, that is an insane turnout. Like just we're talking like Billy Graham level event, if not if not more that happened in Arizona on Sunday. So I get why that is a stunning number. I am curious where that number comes from.

2:20:26Who are the tech who are the tech partners? Let's know more about what you're doing with that information. I mean, it's also just a commentary on how comfy he thinks society is at this point with just this kind of surveillance tech being used all the time by private actors, by the government, et cetera, that this is something to brag about on Fox News. Well, and I mean, I'm sure that they're like mostly interested in getting the number out there. But this was a thing about January 6th. If you remember, Crystal, Google basically turned over. I mean, a lot of data was turned over to track. And the right was really upset about this.

2:21:00And I think understandably so. And some actually civil libertarians more on the left were upset about it too because the way without warrants, through various loopholes, the government was able to get this information on everybody who was near the Capitol was insane. And so, yeah, there are all kinds of ways to do this. Two really quick points just to wrap this all up. One, the people who are closest to Trump know that Trump respects you more if you when you are sort of honest, meaning like you're not pulling your punches in public. He loves the sort of fealty and loyalty that he gets from his cabinet, of course, because he knows that they have to support him at every step of the way.

2:21:48But he doesn't respect the people who act as Pravda. He's nice to them, right? But he doesn't respect them. But the people who are closest to Donald Trump know that it's OK to, like, come and do what Tucker and Charlie apparently did, which was ahead of the Iran strike, go and say, hey, here's what I'm thinking. I don't know about this. That's that's, I think, reflective, indicative of Charlie Kirk being someone who is really in the Trump inner circle. And secondly, one of the other things Colbert said on that podcast is that Charlie had started to get bored with politics and was more interested in ideas.

2:22:24Yeah, I took note of that, too. Yes, very interesting because I think he was leaning into this media role as someone who is a commentator, not quite a journalist, but somebody who is a broadcaster. And, you know, like one of his heroes, a Dennis Prager or a Rush Limbaugh, who's like talking through the news instead of kind of doing organizing and activism. And I think, you know, we may have seen a very different direction or more of this from Charlie Kirk. Now, Crystal, Joe Rogan went into some of the theories about what may have happened with the assassin. I don't think there's any evidence of while we're talking about Israel.

2:23:06Obviously, people have tied this into the various conspiracy theories about this assassination having still some big questions that are unanswered. I'm not on the Israel did a bandwagon. But it's also worth talking about what was happening behind the scenes with donors because it tells us so much, as you said, about what's happening inside of the right right now. Yeah, it does. And also when Netanyahu immediately comes out and inserts himself into our politics and claims Charlie as his own, I think that's something that needs to be discussed. And it fits with my view that is, I guess, somewhat controversial that it's important if you have a public figure who's killed or who dies to try to assess accurately who they were, what they stood for, what they believed, what they said, even when those things are uncomfortable.

2:23:59So there's a lot of reasons, I think, to be interested in the story and to find it very important for American politics outside of a conspiracy that Israel had a motive and Israel did it. Did Israel have a motive? I don't know, maybe. But did they do it? At this point, there's no evidence to support that. Right. Well, we were, or as this is a girl show, everybody knows we went long. We could have gone longer. We even cut a segment that we moved to the Friday show because as Crystal said during one of the breaks, quote, women be talking. it's not exactly what you said but yeah that's uh that's the sanitized version of what i said yes that's right um well it's always fun to hang out with you emily and um i enjoyed it very much tomorrow like i said it'll be me and ryan for the commie takeover so all sorts of flavors of show going on this week love it it's like baskin robbins 32 flavors uh great stuff well thanks everyone for tuning in thank you crystal for joining us this wednesday i'm looking forward to the Kami Takeover.

2:25:00Maybe you guys will get it in under time. I don't know. We'll see. I'll be watching. I'll be timing you guys with my stopwatch. Ryan can low-key be a talker too. Oh my gosh. But in the most... When he gets going. But you don't want him to stop, right? Like he's... No, I'm not complaining. I'm just saying a fact. All right. Well, looking forward to that tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Crystal and Ryan, we'll see you in just a bit on Thursday.

2:25:56We'll see you next time. all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song. Well, I thought you were all gonna write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia, AAO Rewatch, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together.

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