1060: The Assassination of Charlie Kirk

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28:38All right, let's get to the right. You can imagine the reaction has also been fairly intense. One bright spot was Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican who actually has an initiative called Disagree Better. Quaint. I like it. Here's a sampling of what he said on Wednesday evening when the situation was still incredibly raw. Our nation is broken. We've had political assassinations recently in Minnesota.

29:12Jon Favreau:We had an attempted assassination on the governor of Pennsylvania. And we had an attempted assassination on a presidential candidate. We desperately need leaders in our country. But more than the leaders, we just need every single person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be. to ask ourselves, is this it? Is this what 250 years has wrought on us? Unfortunately for all of us, many of the most influential figures on the right have struck a much darker tone in their posts. Elon Musk posted, the left is the party of murder. Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik, this is war.

30:01Andrew Tate, civil war. Laura Loomer, it's time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, and prosecute every single leftist organization. The left is a national security threat. Mike Chernovich. Congressional hearings now, every billionaire funding, far left-wing extremism, Soros, Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, massive RICO investigations now. And Stephen Miller, who called the Democratic Party a, quote, domestic extremist organization, even before Kirk's shooting multiple times, added, quote, The fate of millions depends upon the defeat of this wicked ideology. What ideology? The one that, quote, hates everything that is good is at war with family and nature that looks upon the perfect family with bitter rage while embracing the serial criminal with tender warmth.

30:47OK, and things weren't much better off social media. Let's look. The Democrats just killed Charlie Kirk today. They're desperate. They're losing. They want to intimidate you and me and everybody else. Charlie Kirk's a casualty of war. We're in this country. When is the Democrats going to stand up and apologize for the hatred and the lies that they have fed their base that's led to these actions?

31:16Jon Favreau:They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. Luckily, all of this was moderated by the video message released on Wednesday night by our commander in chief, national leader, Donald Trump. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today. And it must stop right now. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.

32:14Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. When you clicked on that video, did you have even the smallest bit of naive hope that maybe he would try to be even somewhat presidential? I did not, John. Yeah. And it was actually worse than I thought. Me too. It just says so much about what low regard everyone in the country, Democrats, Republicans, Trump supporters, the media, has for Trump's humanity that no one, not a single person expected him to do what any other president would do at this time or frankly any other human would do, which is to try to unite the country.

33:00He could not admit to, as Spencer Cox very eloquently did, the fact that political violence is happening on both sides. That a Democratic legislator was murdered in her home just a few months ago. That someone tried to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan, tried to burn down the home of the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania. It's happening on both sides. And he can't say that because it doesn't fit his political narrative. And so he couldn't – like there are times when Trump has just simply failed because he lacks any sort of gene for empathy. But this was actually worse. He poured gas on the fire by using the term radical left.

33:41And it's just – Donald Trump enabled and then pardoned the perpetrators of the largest mass incident of political violence in recent American history. And because he has no capacity for introspection, he just glosses right over that. And it's just, it's very bad. It's very dangerous. And I left that feeling so dark and so frankly, so concerned about what comes next. I mean, he gave that speech with absolutely no knowledge. They didn't have a suspect. They don't have a motive. It seems like it was, for all we know right now, it was just one person, not a radical left, not organizations, not one person who shot Charlie Kirk, just like it was one person who killed Melissa Hortman and her husband and one person who went and beat the shit out of Paul Pelosi.

34:42And one person who tried to assassinate Donald Trump in Butler and another one in Florida. And this idea that there is an assassination attempt or an assassination and he doesn't even know who the person is. There's no suspect in custody. They don't have any leads that the president would know about last night because clearly we're recording this Thursday afternoon. We still don't know. And he would just give that speech at a time like that and then start to threaten left-wing organizations that funded him. What are you talking about? What is he accusing them of? Like, I thought, don't we all have the protections of free speech?

35:22Didn't he run to protect free speech? Wasn't that a big part of the movement? because free speech is protected unless you directly incite someone to do something urgently, right away. That is the standard for what is not protected under free speech. Other than that, free speech is protected. So is free speech protected for all of us? Or is free speech just protected for MAGA folks when they want to say stuff? But if anyone else says stuff, then we're going to find you and fire you and arrest you. And the State Department says they're not letting immigrants in who might have said something bad about Charlie Kirk's assassination on Twitter.

36:05Like what this goes back to my like, what are the standards here? Is it is free speech for everyone or is free speech just for the the regime in power? Well, that it's been very clear since the moment Trump took office that this whole idea of freedom of speech that they ran on this ending of cancel culture is bullshit. They just wanted to be the ones in power who could do the canceling, who could dictate the speech, who could police the speech. That is why they are. That's what's happening with the law firms. That's what's happening in universities. It is why the president directed his Department of Justice to investigate people who spoke out and said that the election was won legitimately in 2020.

36:45I mean, it's absurd, but this is what is happening. Everyone has such low expectations for Trump that he gets away with so much. This is a deeply dangerous, deeply irresponsible thing that he did last night. Like, you're right, he had no information, none. And you and I have been in meetings about when a president can speak and what we know and the dangers of going out before you know anything. And he did not wait, did not care, and just only did this in a way that advanced his chosen political narrative. that country be damned, more political violence be damned only to help himself and his political allies is what this was about.

37:29And it's just so deeply cynical and deeply dangerous that he, I just don't even know what to say about it so bad. And it was very planned, right? It wasn't one of his off the cuff comments either. And look, you read some of the coverage today and And Charlie Kirk was like, you know, family to the Trumps and a lot of people in the White House and that movement. And he was a very big deal in that movement. A lot of people were very J.D. Vance. They were very, very close to him. And you can imagine like I can imagine if if we were in the White House and someone like really close to us who we've been in politics with for a long time was assassinated like that, that I I could see myself saying something where I like flew off the handle and said something in public that I wish I could take back.

38:12So like this is not that right. I would give them the grace to say a few crazy things because they're angry. This is like a much more we're going to defund these organizations. We're going to go after them. We're going to prosecute. We're at war right now. It's a pretext. You don't want to sound like a fucking crazy person, but this is not what – a horrific assassination happens to someone that you're ostensibly close to and care about. And like the reaction is not even if the reaction is pure, we must avenge his killer. We must bring justice to this killer and bring this person to justice. You understand that.

38:50But like we're going to now go to war with the entire Democratic Party and the left, like millions and millions of Americans who just happen to believe differently than you do. And this idea that what they've been doing too is if you call them authoritarians, if you say that he's consolidating power like an authoritarian would or that it's a fascist regime or a totalitarian regime or any of this kind of stuff, then you can't do that because then you are inciting violence as well. Well, no. Because then that means that you can be an authoritarian regime and no one can oppose you. Because if they oppose you and call it out, then you can just say, no, you're inciting violence and you're dangerous.

39:32Like, that doesn't work. We all happen to believe that, yes, he is engaging in authoritarian consolidation right now. He's acting like an authoritarian. And the way to oppose that is not violence. It should not be violence. Not only is it morally repugnant, it's ineffective. So it's like, yes, we're going to be able to say that this administration, what he's doing is lawless. It is against the spirit of the Constitution, if not the letter of the Constitution. It looks like other authoritarian regimes in the past and that the way to oppose it is through electoral politics and peaceful, nonviolent protest.

40:09The – maybe you'll remember in 2024 after the – its first attempted assassination on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, there was this whole effort from the right, the Republican Party, the right-wing media to try to police everyone's language. If you correctly said that Trump wanted to be a dictator, you were inciting violence. If you correctly said that Trump wanted to use the government to go after his political opponents, you were inciting violence. And it's an attempt to cow Democrats into silence. to not make the case, to cow citizens into silence. What is different now is that they have the entire full force of the federal government to police language, right?

40:50They have the FBI and the Department of Justice to investigate the people they want to investigate. They have the IRS to go after these organizations. They have the bully pulpit of the White House to shape the narrative as they see fit. That's why this is so dangerous. It's a bunch of red-hand civility bullshit before, and it's up to Democrats to decide whether they're going to fall for that or not. But now it's real. And we have seen this ever since, basically ever since January 6th. You are looking in the prosecutions of Trump. You are Republicans, there are people on the right, many of whom now work in the White House, who are looking for a pretext to use the power of the government to shut down political opposition in this country, to lock in power.

41:32And that is the language that people are using right now. And that is something that Trump could have disabused if he was a different person in those remarks, and he did not. He actually enabled it. And I don't have the answers to what to do about this if this starts, but I would say that if you are someone who opposes Donald Trump and opposes his movement, and they go after someone, even if you don't agree with that person, even if it's some organization you haven't heard of, we all got to speak up and stand together on this because they have already been doing this. They are counting on, you know, picking on and targeting people who are unsympathetic characters, right?

42:10John Bolton. We've talked about this or some organization that people or or they'll go after pro-Palestinian protesters, right? So they're looking for to target people where there are wedges within the anti-Trump movement. And we can't let that happen. They go after someone. We all stand up for that person. That is that's that's the only piece of advice I have right now. I don't know if you have anything else. No, I agree that. And I think this is particularly true when it comes to the trans community. We've already seen in these first reports his attempt to turn this into yet another justification for government-wide discrimination and hatred towards trans people.

42:47And whether we have all these conversations about what role trans policies played in the election and all of that, the point is the President of the United States and his allies are trying to dehumanize American citizens. And we stand up for them, no matter what the poll says. And you do that because it's the trans community now, it's someone else next, right? And so it's absolutely essential.

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44:53Okay, best we can do for a lighter topic today is the deteriorating state of the economy and the impending government shutdown. I'll start with the former. On Thursday, we learned that consumer prices climbed higher than expected in August, raising inflation to 2.9%. The Labor Department also reported a surprise increase in weekly unemployment claims, the highest it's been since October 2021. Both pieces of data make the Fed's job harder, though reports suggest that they're still likely to announce an interest rate cut when they meet next week, though it's unclear how large it will be. Trump, of course, has made his position known through post threats in a scheme to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook and secure a Trump friendly majority on the Fed.

45:35On Tuesday, a federal judge said Trump didn't have sufficient cause to fire Cook. The administration appealed that ruling on Thursday, asking the appellate court to remove Cook from the board by Monday. So we'll see. That's also the same day Senate Republicans are hoping to confirm Stephen Moran, one of Trump's top economic advisors to the Fed board. Moran said he plans to keep his White House job while serving as temporary Fed governor because we love and respect the Fed's independence in the White House, don't we? So my sense of this, we don't know what's going to happen with the rate cut, but my sense is that the political impact of a rate cut, even if it's a big one like Trump wants, is probably short lived or even non-existent.

46:13What do you think? I think that's probably right. The increase in interest rates was an under-discussed topic in the 2024 election. Because we talked a lot about inflation and food prices and gas prices and housing prices. That's all incredibly important. But higher interest rates lock people into their homes. It makes it hard for people to, if they bought their home, if they have a mortgage with a lower interest rate, they're not going to sell their home and get a new one. If the newest interest rate is going to be higher, it affects housing prices, it affects housing stock availability, it affects credit card payments.

46:42getting a new car, all of the above. Having said that, a small rate cut that is just sort of an isolated incident is going to be dwarfed by the rapidly increasing price of groceries in terms of political impact. And the bigger risk here is that Trump is going to get his rate cut against the better judgment of the Fed, which could lead to more inflation. So he would be much better off, because I know long-term thinking is his skill, to wait until inflation has come down more and then get a series of much larger rate cuts at subsequent meetings to really boost the economy. Instead, he's going to get this short-term thing he wants now, which could make it harder to get more rate cuts down the line.

47:26And by the way, this tends to be what happens in or what has happened in countries where the ruler decides to take over the Fed. This is why the Fed's supposed to be independent. This is why the Fed is independent, because when that happens, usually they are looking for short-term political gain, which a rate cut could get you, but then long-term you're fucked. And, um, you know, I saw, I saw our old colleague, Jason Furman react to some of the, the, uh, numbers today and say like, we are, we are heading into stagflation territory, which is, which is that's, you're going to get high unemployment and high inflation.

47:55So two great tastes that taste great together. Yes. Not good. One move that's also great for a deteriorating economy, uh, shutting down the government. Uh, we talked about this a bit on Tuesday's show, but I want to get your thoughts on the latest. Republicans seem to be coalescing around a short-term extension. So October 1 is the deadline, and they are thinking about trying to move a short-term extension that gives them time to figure out a budget sometime in November or December. Thune, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, has basically closed the door on including an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies in such a plan.

48:30Schumer told reporters this week, quote, what the Republicans have proposed is not good enough to get our votes, though not all Democrats are on board. John Fetterman, no surprise there, said shutdowns are wrong no matter who triggers them. And Tim Kaine said he's open to a short-term extension that lets them figure out the ACA subsidies by the end of the year. What do you think about the current state of things? And what's your take on Ezra Klein's piece, which is reportedly all the buzz among Senate Democrats, that Democrats should just refuse to fund what Ezra is calling Trump's authoritarian consolidation.

49:04So I want to say this unequivocally, morally, politically, strategically, I think Democrats cannot vote to fund Trump's authoritarian takeover of our government. I simply think you can't do it. If you believe, as all these Democrats claim to believe that Trump is gathering power. He is violating the people's freedoms. He's abridging the constitution. He's doing all the things. If you believe that, you cannot simply vote to keep his government going in the same way. You simply cannot do it. Politically, there are two reasons why you cannot do it. One is you're telling everyone that Trump is this huge threat to our democracy, that what he is doing is wrong, that our government is being corrupted, that our democracy is in danger, and your response is then just to do what you would normally do and just let the government keep going without a fight.

49:58The dissonance between those two positions is why people would fuel the distrust and anger at the Democratic Party. More importantly, we have been trying for nine months, the Democratic Party has been trying for nine months to grab the country by the lapels and say, here is what is happening. This is bad. there were masked ICE agents disappearing people off the streets. There are politically motivated investigations happening in the Department of Justice that Trump is violating court orders. These things are – we need people to understand why this is dangerous. And this is the one moment where he might possibly be able to grab the country's attention to make this case.

50:36And if you let that moment pass, there will not be another one between now and the midterms, maybe not until between now and 2028. And so I think you absolutely have to do it. I think there is. This is high risk. I listened to your guys' conversation on Tuesday where all of your feelings were on the table, right? And I get it. You and I had this conversation off mic last week. I wrestled a lot with I have a piece sitting in my inbox or sitting in my drafts folder very much like Ezra's, and I can't finish it because the hard part is what's the end game, right? What are you demanding? And I have all the same concerns you guys had about, I think that in Ezra's piece, he's perhaps a little naive about how the press would actually cover this.

51:20I think they would blame Democrats. I have real concerns about who our messengers are. Can the Senate Democrats and Senate Democratic leadership really go out there and make a compelling case to the country? And this could blow up in our face. But here's what I think is we are in a dangerous situation. And when you're in a situation like this, you have to be willing to take on high-risk strategies. So the choice is either just keep losing or to actually have a chance to win a fight. And if you don't have the fight, you don't have a chance. And so I get it. It could be very bad for us. And we should not – no one should dismiss the dangers of a shutdown, both to the economy and to the people who depend on government services.

52:05Like there's very real things here. But having – but just like that is real. But if you think that things are going the way we think they are, then you have to be willing to have a fight, even if you might lose that fight. I do think you're right. I've been thinking about this, too, about the way the press will cover this. Because I think if I was Trump, what Trump will do is, especially if there's any kind of rate cut next week, then he'll be like, you know, everything was going great, finally got the rate cut. And now the economy is doing bad because the Democrats have shut down the government.

52:36And that's his message. and the Democrats are ruining everything and they're radical left and they're committing all this violence and now they're shutting down the government and you can see the political press, you know, just going along with that one. Here's the good news, Sean. Yeah. No one reads it. I mean, that's one thing we learned towards the way we're election. It's not the problem we thought it was. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. I do think you're right. It's about, I mean, it's about people in the party going out and communicating a forceful message and locking arms and making sure they're all, you know, not saying the same thing so they sound like robots with talking points, but like basically on the same page and being forceful about it and creative and how they break through.

53:21And I do worry about that. I do worry about that. And what are you asking for? I do think that is a, that's kind of a baseline you have to - This is where I've had the most struggle because there are lots of things you could ask for. All of them individually seem small to your complaints, where you're like, we're doing this because democracy is in peril, because there's authority to take over. And the response to that is, we need additional premium support for the Affordable Care Act, which is a very important thing. That is a very, like, that is in a - 18-month extension. Yeah. In a normal, I think you very accurately in the Tuesday pod described how this could play itself out.

54:03And in a normal world where you're having a typical budget fight, then that's a great thing to ask for, right? It's the – I mean, the Republican – this was dumb and they paid a huge, steep political price. But Republicans shut down that on the government because they wanted to defund the Affordable Care Act. They weren't going to vote to fund it. And so this is sort of the inverse, like a small board inverse of that. I think I can't come up with a single thing that is worthy of it. So I think you can come up with 10 things. Have a long list of things that you want. Yeah. And it should be everything from restoring USAID to the ACA to reopening the Department of Education.

54:39Like have a bunch of – use your demand list as a way to communicate what's happening, right? A new set of due process for ICE or whatever. Like you're not going to get all of it. You may only get one of those things. But it makes it easier to at least – I think that is one way to solve the problem of every individual thing feels small in this moment, which is where I've sort of been really struggling for weeks on this. Yeah. No, I think that's probably right. Okay. When we come back from the break, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Senator Van Hollen about the assassination, his visit to Gaza, his fight for Kilmar Obrego Garcia, and lots more.

55:18Before we get to that, there is a new episode of Polar Coaster out, Dan. What did you guys talk about? Well, we recorded this on Tuesday of this past week. And Caroline and I talked about the new polls that came out over the weekend that show that Trump's political position is actually quite poor. When you really look at these polls, it makes you wonder why so many people are preemptively surrendering to Trump. He is in a very historically poor position. His approval rating is down. His ratings on the economy are putrid. Two-thirds of the country think he is raising their grocery prices. and they are rejecting his views on sending the National Guard places and vaccine policy.

55:55And so we really dug into that. We also talked about the new polling in the New York City mayoral race and why it helps explain why Donald Trump is doing so much to help Andrew Cuomo in that race. All right. If you want to hear the full conversation or ask Dan a question yourself, subscribe to Crooked Subscription now on Substack, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or visit crooked.com slash friends to learn more.

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58:35Jon Favreau:I'm excited to welcome to the show Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen. Senator, thank you for joining us today. Tommy, it's good to be with you. So I know you just recently got back from a trip to Jerusalem and the West Bank. I'm very excited to talk with you about what you saw. But I did have to ask you first about a couple of breaking news stories. We're talking at 2.40 p.m. Pacific time on Wednesday. We just learned that TPUSA founder and conservative activist Charlie Kirk was murdered at his own event in Utah. this is obviously horrific, unjustifiable, it's an evil act. As of this recording, the shooter is still on the loose.

59:12Jon Favreau:We don't know who it was. We don't know their motive. But a lot of people are worried, myself very much included, that this is just the latest example of what feels like a constant escalating political violence. And so my question is, how do you think we can calm things down? And how do we keep this evil from spreading? Well, it is another horrible moment for the country, and this really is evil. And we have to get back to the place where we as a country can have robust disagreements on political issues without violence. I mean, violence is just unacceptable. It's never the answer. And all of us, no matter where we are on the political spectrum, need to make clear that vigorous debate is one thing.

1:00:00Violence is unacceptable, period. And all of us have a role to play in making it clear that it's unacceptable. Yeah.

1:00:10Jon Favreau:And also, I think I would add dehumanization to that list, you know, because I think it's really easy to demonize your opponents, to call them names. And look, I'm talking to myself here too, but God, then you see a picture of Charlie Kirk with his two little kids. And it's hard not to imagine yourself in his shoes and the impact on that family and kind of what this will mean for them going forward. Well, look, that's exactly right. At the end of the day, all of us are peoples and all of us need to make sure that we remember our common humanity. And in the midst of political battle, I agree, It's too easy to demonize people.

1:00:54And when you demonize them in different ways, then it becomes too quick a road, I think, to the dehumanization that you've talked about and from dehumanization to the kind of awful killing we just saw. Yeah.

1:01:12Jon Favreau:Yeah. Well, you know, I just think about his family right now. And of course, we'll keep covering the story as we learn more. I also wanted to ask you about, you know, there's this incident overnight on Tuesday night where more than a dozen Russian drones entered Polish airspace. I believe NATO had to scramble a number of air assets to shoot them down. There was this reaction from Trump on Truth Social that was kind of odd, like a passive voice observation. He wrote, what's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go! Exclamation point. Do you think this was a deliberate provocation by the Russians?

1:01:47Jon Favreau:And if so, what do you think happens next when it comes to the NATO response? Well, I know they're claiming that it wasn't deliberate, but they lie through their teeth all the time. And so I think this is a consequence of the fact that they don't see the U.S. response as credible any longer with respect to protecting and supporting the people of Ukraine, right? We've made it clear from the beginning, we're not going, we, the United States, we're not going to put our own boots on the ground. I agree we should not. But we have had this commitment to provide them with military support and economic support as a country that's under attack, whose freedom is under attack, whose democracy is under attack.

1:02:31And from the very beginning of this administration, from the Trump administration, he has thrown the Ukrainian people under the bus. He's codicied it up to Putin. And let's just be real. I mean, Putin has played him like a fiddle. Putin got the meeting, summit meeting in Alaska. And instead of calming things down and making progress or opening up a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, we've seen increased aggression, increased Russian attacks inside of Ukraine. And now we see this. So this is an unfortunate result of the fact that Putin has no respect for the president of the United States, despite the fact that he he says otherwise.

1:03:17Yeah.

1:03:18Jon Favreau:Also on Tuesday, the Israeli government conducted airstrikes. I've seen reports of 10 different airstrikes on a gathering of Hamas leaders in Qatar that were meeting. They were there to discuss Trump's latest ceasefire proposal, hoping to begin a process to end the war in Gaza. There's some debate over what the Trump administration knew or maybe when they were notified. I was wondering what your reaction was to seeing this. Well, my reaction is that if you're taking out the folks that are gathered to review the latest proposal to release the hostages and enter into a ceasefire, clearly you're not interested in achieving a ceasefire or the release of the hostages.

1:04:01And the Netanyahu government has not really been interested in ending the war. And I met recently with hostage families, actually, who said the same thing, that Netanyahu has prioritized his own political survival over the survival of their loved ones. This was, as we've seen, one case where I don't know what the backstory is, but at least the Trump administration, you know, said publicly that, you know, it's a very bad idea, Netanyahu, to attack Hamas on the soil of Qatar because they are the mediators in this negotiation, as well as, you know, being a country that hosts lots of American military folks.

1:04:47Yeah, up to 10 ,000. Yes, up to 10 ,000. So, look, this was an action that again demonstrates that Netanyahu has no interest in ending the war in Gaza and is only putting his own political survival first. And not the people of Israel or the people of Gaza or anybody else. It's only Netanyahu. Yeah.

1:05:12Jon Favreau:Last question before we get to your trip. So the administration, as you know, has moved a lot of military assets to the Caribbean. I've seen reports that there are now eight destroyers there. Ten F-35s were moved to the region, thousands of Marines, thousands of sailors. There's reports that a submarine was moved to the Caribbean. The Trump administration claims this is about drug interdiction, but that's a lot of firepower to take out a speedboat, right? And so I'm just wondering, do you worry that this presages something larger, like a direct conflict with Venezuela? Well, with Secretary Marco Rubio, it's very possible.

1:05:53This is part of a long-term plan to get us into a much bigger conflict with Venezuela, including armed conflicts. Whether that's the goal or not, the fact that they simply shot this boat out of the water, you know, thousands of miles from the United States, 11 people killed. This is an extrajudicial killing. I mean, this is an illegal action. The Trump administration has not yet put forward their legal justification. But beyond that, if you're really interested in interdicting drugs, what you do is you stop the boat, you board the boat, and you try to follow upstream, right? You try to find the big fish, not the little fish on the boat.

1:06:39Jon Favreau:El Chapo is not usually on the drug runner boat, right? You know, exactly. And, you know, I think people should know that this administration's also proposed very deep cuts to the funding for the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, as well as other counter-narcotic efforts, efforts to go after some of the true ringleaders. So they're cutting that budget. They're reducing those resources while engaging in this extrajudicial killing. Yeah, it's pretty horrifying. Okay, so you visited the West Bank in Jerusalem. I know you tried to get into Gaza, but were denied access by the Israeli government. I think you and Senator Merkley even tried to just fly over Gaza in an airplane doing airdrops of assistance and were denied access.

1:07:21Jon Favreau:Again, I'd love to hear why that access was denied. But just big picture, I mean, What did you learn on this trip about what's happening in Gaza that you didn't know before? Well, you're absolutely right. Senator Merkley and I went. We went to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt. Overall goal to really take a close look, as close as we could get, to this horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And really what the trip came away with was a lot of factual information supporting, unfortunately, what we now realize is going on in Gaza, which is that the Netanyahu government, as one of its war aims, wants to displace 2 million people in Gaza, some of them within Gaza right now.

1:08:09But their ultimate goal, and they've been very open about this, is really to remove all Palestinians from Gaza, which is ethnic cleansing. And what we did was went to various sites and witnessed firsthand the restrictions on allowing delivery of life-saving food and other humanitarian supplies in the Gaza. We went to the Rafa on the Egyptian side of the border. And as you know, on the Gaza side of the border, there used to be a city of Rafa. In fact, when I was there back in January 2024, that was a vibrant city of about 215 ,000 people. When we went up to a high point on the Egyptian side of the border and looked in?

1:08:53Rubble. Just rubble, right? Remember that during the Biden administration, their red line was Rafa. Don't go into Rafa. Don't go too fast. It's gone. That city is gone. And so - You're saying the entire city has been flattened based on what you said.

1:09:12Jon Favreau:Yeah. I mean, if you look with your naked eye, it really is rubble. And you've probably seen some of the satellite photos before and after, and it's flattened. And it's just one example of what's happening inside of Gaza in terms of just the destruction, the level of destruction of civilian infrastructure, houses, schools, and of course, now over 60 ,000 people dead, half of the women and children. And so on top of that, though, you have this effort to really prevent life-saving humanitarian assistance from getting to starving people. Well, yeah, I want to ask you about that because Senator Merkley, who is with you on this trip, posted a video where he said the two of you received a briefing about aid reaching Gaza that he said just didn't reflect reality at all.

1:10:06Jon Favreau:I think Senator Merkley called it pure propaganda. Who gave you that briefing and what was the line they were trying to sell and what's the reality as far as you can tell? Sure. That was really a joint briefing at a place called Kerem Shalom, which is down in, you know, it's in sort of southern Israel, close to the Egyptian-Gaza-Israeli border. It's one of the two main crossing points now from Israel into Egypt. It's where you've seen trucks having a very difficult time, in so many cases, getting stuff through, things being rejected by Kogat, including maternity kits because they have these teeny little scissors in them.

1:10:48So the briefing was from Kogat. These are sort of the Israeli authorities that are in charge of controlling the delivery of food and other humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The other was GHF, the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This is the organization that has led to, you know, people having to storm just a very few sites for food and really become a death drought. And so the stories that they provided, for example, you know, GHF essentially denied that they had become a place for killing fields. Even though we later in our trip, Tommy, met with some doctors who'd been on the ground close by who reported that every time GHF opened these four sites or one of the four sites, they would prepare the bounty bags.

1:11:44because as people, desperate, hungry people, starving people, flood to try to get some food for themselves or their family, they were in many cases shot and killed. The estimate's over 1 ,000 people. And GHF essentially said they weren't in any way responsible for any of this happening. But when you set up four sites after about a 75-day total blockade of food, four sites for 2 million people to get food, it's perfectly predictable that starving people will rush those sites. What's not predictable is that so many would be shot and killed, including by the IDF.

1:12:30Jon Favreau:Yeah, I mean, there are some really awful stories coming about about sniper teams just sort of indiscriminately shooting people, taking up bodies. There's a BBC report about like a biker gang that's been doing security. I mean, just the reporting is awful. I mean, I think part of what we're getting at here is people who care deeply about what's happening in Gaza who want to end the war. I think a lot of them feel despondent because, look, when October 7th happened, I watched it and I thought this is evil. This is like an indefensible act of terror. But I also thought to myself, this is going to unleash hell on the civilian population in Gaza, many of whom probably hate Hamas with every fiber of their being, right?

1:13:13Jon Favreau:But even knowing that, even knowing how brutal that response is going to be, I'm still stunned by where we're at almost nearly two years later, right? It just seems like the situation on the ground is getting worse every day. It's not just the bombardment anymore. It's this constant on and off switch of starvation. And I feel like I just, I no longer know. It's like, you can't scream loud enough. No one is listening. You cannot make this war end. I'm just wondering what your advice is to people who feel that way and who just feel like the world is just watching as, you know, this horror is inflicted on people in Gaza and also the United States is completely complicit in it.

1:13:50Well, we are. So first of all, you know, people need to keep screaming about this, right? We cannot be silent in the face of what's happening right now in Gaza. Senator Merkley and I have both said many times that Israel was perfectly within its rights to go after Hamas after the horrific October 7th massacres that took place in Israel. In fact, they had a duty to do so. But what has happened has gone way beyond the Netanyahu government targeting Hamas to imposing collective punishment on the Palestinian people. And that is where you see this awful level of destruction. And what really hurts from the perspective of the U.S.

1:14:36citizen is, number one, the sheer inhumanity of all of it, but that we are complicit in this. And so what can we do? I mean, many of us have been trying to cut off U.S. taxpayer-funded military assistance to Netanyahu government, that it's for use in Gaza. I mean, we held a vote in the United States Senate in the middle of the total blockade, the total blockade on food into Gaza, and said we should not be providing 2 ,000-pound bombs. In the middle of this blockade, people are starving. And, you know, unfortunately, we had no Republicans. We also didn't have, on that vote, very many Democrats.

1:15:17Now, I think people are hopefully finally waking up. But this has been a problem that, you know, we had during the Biden administration. I mean, they were feckless when it came to stopping what's happening. And now you have a complete blank check with, you know. So I know I'm restating the frustration and the problem. I think we all of us collectively as Americans need to recognize that we are complicit in this and we need to call upon our government to stop.

1:15:48Jon Favreau:Yeah, I mean, look, as a party, look, I mean, you've been working on this a long time. I've been following these issues for a long time. Like 27 U.S. senators voting to cut off weapons shipments to Israel would be unthinkable five years ago. Right. It's a sea change, relatively speaking. But at the same time, I still feel strongly that elected officials in the party are way, way, way behind, not the base, but like the majority of Democratic Party voters. And I'm wondering why you think there's still that disparity. But also, I mean, I feel like the United States is way behind most other countries, right?

1:16:22Jon Favreau:I mean, we are still funneling weapons to the Netanyahu government. Meanwhile, the prime minister of Spain just outlined nine steps to stop what he calls the genocide in Gaza that includes the permanent ban on arms sales to Israel and a ban on the use of Spanish ports or airspace to transport fuel or weapons to Israel. I feel like that position is like quickly becoming the norm internationally. Well, the United States clearly has the leverage to change the behavior of the Netanyahu government in Gaza. And we just have refused to exercise our leverage and our influence, whether it comes to weapons that are being used in Gaza to the U.N.

1:17:04Security Council, where like we're always the loner out there. You know, people saying stop the, you know, star nation, stop. We vote otherwise. I think it is really a bad reflection on the Democratic Party in Congress that we don't have more of our colleagues stepping forward. You asked what the cause is. I think there are many causes. One of them is that many members, and this is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, really listen to what AIPAC does. And AIPAC, in my view, has become a very destructive force in American politics. I don't think they're good for Israel. I don't think they're good for the United States.

1:17:50But they have a lot of influence here on Capitol Hill and in political campaigns. And so I think it's really important for the Democratic Party to begin to call out AIPAC and make it clear that AIPAC's continued attacks on anybody who speaks out against what the Netanyahu government is doing is unacceptable.

1:18:14Jon Favreau:Yeah. Do you think Democrats should stop taking money from AIPAC? I do. I think that, you know, APAC has got not only its regular contributions, but they've actually gotten into the business of being a super PAC lately. And so I do think it's important that Democratic parties around the country begin to deal with super PACs broadly. I mean, AIPAC's one of them, but deal with other super PACs as well in terms of candidates making it clear they won't accept super PAC money. Obviously, they don't have total control over that, but I think we need a much bigger deterrent within our party to having this super PAC money coming in.

1:18:56In the case of AIPAC, you're talking about a lot of Republican contributions coming into Democratic primaries, for example. You know, AIPAC has run ads against me because of my position on the situation in Gaza. So I think it's really important that Democrats wake up on this issue.

1:19:19Jon Favreau:Yeah, or at least be clear-eyed. I think AIPAC, as you said, they attack any Democrat that disagrees with Netanyahu. They repeatedly interfere in Democratic primary campaigns, usually by running ads through sort of affiliated PACs that have nothing to do with Israel. It's like random other issues that they think will be damaging. AIPAC has endorsed election deniers and insurrectionists. And it's just so obvious to me that their preferred candidate is Donald Trump in the Republican Party. And I just think we should all just be honest about that. Well, that's absolutely right. I mean, they are essentially a rubber stamp for Netanyahu, who now has been in power in Israel for a very long time, a couple timeouts.

1:19:59But for the most part, the leader of Israel. And AIPAC has essentially been the amen chorus for Netanyahu and his policies, both in Gaza now, but also on the West Bank, where we've seen an increase in settler violence, an effort to push more and more Palestinians off of their land, and an open declaration of war against a future two-state solution possibility, which, as you know, by the day, is becoming more and more remote as a possibility.

1:20:33Jon Favreau:Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because I know you're just in the West Bank. I mean, as we've discussed, the West Bank has been carved up already by Israeli settlements. The Israeli government just approved another settlement block that's called E1. I won't get into all the details, but just the gist is it would, if constructed, would divide the West Bank into four parts, essentially, that are disconnected and make it impossible for the West Bank to constitute a contiguous Palestinian state in any real sense. Given those facts on the ground, given sort of sentiment in Israel right now, given the hopelessness that Palestinians feel about the political process and their political leadership, isn't the two-state solution kind of dead or at least like a thing you can say you're for to avoid talking about kind of the harder reality?

1:21:18I think that's very fair. And I think it's increasingly the case. I've been somebody who's not only held out hope for a two-state solution because it's the one approach that assures both self-determination and security and dignity to Israelis and Palestinians alike. But it has more and more become sort of a convenient way to deflect the conversation over bigger issues. If we don't have a two-state solution, what does that mean? Are you going to give Palestinians rights? Are they going to get to vote? Are they treated equally under the law in one state? These are questions that too many people want to avoid.

1:21:57Now, people like Smotrich, who's, you know, is part of the Netanyahu government, are very clear. We will not, they will not have rights, period. And their idea is to essentially put them into a little, the Palestinians, the little enclaves, Bantu stands, and have two different legal regimes. I mean, that is the definition of our apartheid. And people don't want to go down the road to that conversation. And I understand it. A two-state solution would avoid that. But those are kind of the difficult conversations that are being put off. And I think, especially given what you just said about this E1 block, which would totally sever the ability of Palestinians to move from north to south within the West Bank, and what's happening right now with more settler outposts going up and more illegal outposts, even illegal under Israeli law being legalized, it's becoming more and more untenable.

1:22:55I think, you know, between now and the end of the year, we will have a final verdict on whether there's any chance left. Yeah.

1:23:03Jon Favreau:One other question about your trip. I mean, I know you met with families of American citizens who have been killed by settlers in the West Bank. I know you raised the issue of Mohammed Zahir Ibrahim, who's a 16-year-old American citizen who has been rotting in an Israeli detention center since I believe February for the crime of allegedly throwing rocks on an empty street. So I know you raised that with, I think, the Israeli government and I think maybe Ambassador Huckabee or his team. Just wondering if there's any progress, as far as you know, on getting Mohammed out, if there's anything you think listeners could do to push the issue.

1:23:36Jon Favreau:And just generally speaking, like, how is there not outrage that an American kid is rotting in an Israeli prison? Like, why aren't there 535 statements from Congress a day? Well, it is an outrage. And we did raise it with Israeli government officials. And we raised it with the American embassy folks there. And we are continuing to push because, as you say, this is a kid who was accused, I believe, of throwing stones. They deny it. But even if you're talking about throwing stones, you know, this guy is locked up, cannot, you know, pretrial detention. And unfortunately, this is the sad reality for Palestinians every day.

1:24:23And I often make the point, Tommy, that if you can't get justice for an American citizen, then imagine the situation and the impunity with which, you know, Palestinians are treated. And this is an issue I've raised repeatedly. Look, I've been front and center when you've got Israeli-Americans who are being mistreated or killed, and in the case of October 7th by Hamas, or taken hostage. But here we have a government, an Israeli government, that's supposed to be our great ally. And yet we've had American citizens detained, but also five American citizens killed, murdered by either settlers or killed by the IDF and no accountability.

1:25:13It's like, okay, we're looking into it, and it never materializes. And, you know, this includes like a, I think it was a 14, 15-year-old kid who ended up with like 40 bullets through his body because he was in an olive grove, which, by the way, was in the Palestinian area. In any event, it is outrageous that the United States government has not done more to get justice for its own citizens. We say that our number one priority is to protect Americans overseas. And yet, when it comes to the government of Israel, we're not getting any accountability.

1:25:56Jon Favreau:Yeah, and by the way, this is not just a critique of Donald Trump. I mean, Shireen Abu Akhla was one of the most famous journalists in the Arab world, is an Al Jazeera journalist for 25 years, I believe. An American citizen was shot by an Israeli sniper while covering events in the West Bank. And as far as I could tell, the Biden administration did nothing to get answers or get justice. The Biden administration was totally hapless on this. Secretary Blinken said at the time he would have an independent investigation. We never got an independent investigation. There was an American report done by General Fenzel that got classified.

1:26:34I've been trying to get it unclassified because at the very least, people need to know the truth about the very loose, what people call rules of engagement. I mean, that means, you know, what your rules are for when you shoot people without thinking first or without checking first. And there's no doubt that because we haven't pursued accountability in the case of Shireen Abu Akleh and demanded that the government of Israel change its rules of engagement, I should back up. We did demand it, but we never actually followed through. And the result is more people are getting killed, including more American citizens.

1:27:15Jon Favreau:Yeah, it's just impunity. Well, Senator, look, I just want to say thank you for your moral leadership on this issue, for your political courage on this issue. I know that not a lot of political careers are built on the back of calling out AIPAC by name and criticizing the Israeli government. And also, you know, for your trip to El Salvador back in April and helping to secure the release of Kilmar Obrego Garcia. I feel like this is a moment when Democrats in this country are pretty demoralized and we're all looking around to see who is showing leadership and doing things that feel inspiring and important.

1:27:50Jon Favreau:And you've been a big part of a lot of that work. And I just want to say thank you for that and and keep it up. And, you know, we're grateful. Thank you for your strong voice, your moral voice on all these issues. Because I do think people are really sick and tired of what they perceive as too much finger in the wind and not enough clarity of purpose. And so I think all of us as Americans and certainly members of the Democratic Party need to really focus on our core values and not create these double standards that we sometimes apply. Well said. Well, thank you, Senator. Appreciate it. Thank you.

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1:29:26Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellaviv, David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.