6/3/26: Iran Bombs Kuwait, Hezbollah Hits IDF In Lebanon, Elections In California

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. All right, good morning and welcome to Breaking Points. Emily, how you doing? Doing great, glad to be here. Yeah, big show today. We're gonna have three different guests coming through. Really huge show. We're gonna start the show talking about the Iranian attacks yesterday. Well, the U.S. attacks on an Iranian ship, Iranian retaliation across the region, but it seems to have calmed back down, but it's set a new status quo, I think which we'll talk about. We'll talk about the latest back and forth between Israel and Lebanon and Hezbollah. We're gonna be joined by Josh Paul, who has a new look at the way that the U.S. is helping. The Israelis use their antiquities laws to effectively annex the West Bank. Huge story, huge story. And then we're gonna do as much as we can on election results, California, because it is a failed state. Takes 10 days at least weeks to count its votes, but we do know enough that we can, I think, confidently forecast some significant results. I like that we agree on California's failure as a state. We talked yesterday with Sagar and I with Dave Dayan. I know Democrats wanna break it up so they can get more senators. I think they should just break it up because it's a failed experiment. And just start fresh. Start over. New rules, all those props that you passed, those are out the window. Direct democracy, man, it's got some problems. Do new props. Yeah, let's see what happens. Or don't do any props at all. Also, we have interesting, I agree with that, interesting election results outside of California too, some really interesting stuff in Iowa, interesting stuff, Ryan in New Jersey, where that's right. We interviewed him on last Friday's show, but he won last night. So we're gonna break down all of those election results as well. Yeah, Bill Pulte is like Marco Rubio adding a job. He is the head of the FHFA, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where as everybody knows, he sifted through loan documents to try to find Democrats who didn't fill their paperwork out right and then prosecuted them. They're putting him in charge of national intelligence. Why not? Why not? Yeah, this is a man you can trust. He's currently under investigation. That's gonna work out. For what he did at FHFA, which he's not leaving. Oh, he's gonna do both. He's gonna do both. That little detail I hadn't picked up on. Good, good. He'll have access to everything. The acting DNI we deserve. Yes, yes, yes indeed. Wallable Gay, who is running for Steny Hoyer's seat in Maryland's fifth district, which is Southern Maryland, taking a little co-host prerogative, that's my district. There you go. Went to college there and also got grad school at Maryland, which is also in that district. Steny Hoyer is trying to put an oracle lobbyist in the seat as he's stepping down. He's been in office since like 81 or something. Unbelievable. And he wants a Larry Ellison lobbyist to replace him. The absolute state of the Democratic Party. So, Wallable. And Pulte is the state of the Republican Party. And Wallable Gay and Harry Dunn are running against him, plus another dozen candidates. And then the other co-host prerogative, Oren Kass. That's right. Oren Kass, Fresh Off Interviewing Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant last night. He is going to be here. We're gonna talk a little bit about all of the chaos in New Jersey, outside of Delaney. But also how the right now with the powers in his hands is handling the issue of labor, migrant labor, as it attempts to chart a course for the future. Yeah, and we have not. In the shaky economy. And we have not covered the conditions and the protests at Delaney Hall enough at all. So I'm glad that we're doing this. Yeah, so lots to get to, as we said, big show. Big show. All right. Let's kick it off with Iran here. So the IRGC last night launched strikes on both Kuwait and Bahrain in response to an Iranian ship being targeted as it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The attack, and you're seeing some of them being intercepted here, the attacks were much more, I think severe than the US attack, the US expected. The US statement was, we intercepted everything. But they have previously said, there was this great statement that they put out. They were like, yeah, two MQ-9 Reaper drones were destroyed and five service members were injured as a result of an intercepted ballistic missile. It's like, I don't know if that's what intercepted me. You're not supposed to intercept it with the MQ-9s. With your base. You're supposed to intercept it in the air. Not when it hits the ground. That's not an interception. Doesn't count. So we have no idea because we can't, we will find out in days or weeks, how significant the damage was and what got through. Put up A2, this is what the Iranians were responding to, SENTCOM put out this footage. You're about to see a hellfire missile slam into the engine room of this ship. And it blows up, it blew the video into pixelated form. And so this is what the IRGC then responded to with its fuselage back at them. And the understanding that's coming out of, from Iran analysts, is that Iran is trying to say, we're not doing tit for tat stuff anymore. Like you do a tit, we're doing 10 tats. That they're trying to say, no, you're not gonna degrade us back into the pre-February status quo. We're trying to lock in the gains that we have established here and if you don't wanna reach a peace deal, we're going to make it painful, not just economically as fuel inventories are like, people are staring at the bottom of these barrels. We're also gonna make it more damaging for you militarily if you hit us. Yeah, I mean, this is all just totally unexpected because I was under the impression, two impressions first. We had a ceasefire. There is no war right now, there's a ceasefire. So everything is right by Congress. There was no need to actually get Congress's permission here, no ongoing need. And second, that the war is over because Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was testifying in front of the Senate yesterday and he told us the war is over. Let's watch A3. Iran has lost a substantial percentage of their missile launchers and their economy is far worse today. And I mean far worse today than it was six to nine months ago and they are looking at hundreds of billions of dollars of reconstruction costs just to get to where they were. Mr. Rubio, you keep telling us how we're winning this war. The president keeps saying- Well, the war is over. Completely annihilated. The war is not over. The war is over, you heard that. Straight from the Secretary of State testifying in front of Congress yesterday on the split screen basically with what we just showed you. The war very much not over. War is over if you want it. Yeah, that's right, it's a vision, it's a peaceful vision. He's vision casting. It's pretty incredible. So what are we talking about then? If the war is over, yeah, what? We just said the war is over. All right, let's just skip to the next segment. Yeah, yeah, we're done. This is good. So you will never hear us talk about Iran again, except in the context of peace. War is over. Our new peaceful ally. All right, well also, Rubio is getting tons of questions in front of the Senate yesterday on everything from where he was during negotiations to Cuba. Let's stick on Iran for the moment. This is A4. I was shocked to see that you were at a party with President Trump in Miami instead of accompanying Vice President Vance to Pakistan for negotiations. What party was I at? I was at a party? It's publicly reported and there's photos there. But what party? No, no, no, no, but you're gonna say that. I'm gonna answer it. I'm gonna answer that question. But let me finish my statement. That's an absurd statement. I was not at a party. If I finish my paragraph, he can. He is the second in line of the presidency of the United States. He was president. Mr. Wittkopf is the president's envoy for negotiation for peace deals. Mr. Kushner is a private citizen that serves as an advisor on these functions. They were the team that we sent to Pakistan. I was not at a party. Where I was is next to the president. Because in the midst of those negotiations, I was in communications with them. And in fact, I think there is media reporting from that evening on how multiple occasions I went into a back room, I came back out and spoke to the president and was constantly updating him. On that evening, I spoke to Mr. Kushner and our negotiating team and Mr. Wittkopf on at least six occasions, including twice on a secure line from the phone they had access to over there. So you don't know what you're talking about. Well, let's just bring in his response on Cuba for good measure while we're on the secretary's testimony yesterday, A5. For the misunderstanding about Cuba, Cuba's actually not controlled by the government. Cuba's controlled by a military holding company named Gaysa. And Gaysa virtually owns anything and they're on the tourist sector, they own mining, they own the gas stations, they own everything. They generate about 70% of Cuba's GDP is under the control of this military company. And they're sitting on between 14 and $17 billion in assets. So you have people literally starving, people literally like power grid that hasn't been maintained in 10 years. And yet you have this holding military company sitting on these assets. And by the way, not a penny of the money in the military holding company translates over to the public treasury. So the fundamental challenge we have here is Cuba needs to be, in order for it not to continue to be a failed state, which poses a threat to the United States, they need systemic and serious reform. They need to have economic reforms. And the question is, can they possibly reform, given the people who are currently in charge, both of Gaysa and of their government? And I think the answer is they can. I really don't believe this system is capable of reform unless new people take over or a new mindset takes hold. Now we've engaged in conversations with them. We've offered them what I think needs to happen in order for their economy to recover. And that's the last point I would make is I think somebody raised this issue of oil blockade. Cuba was having blackouts well before January 3rd of this year. They were having blackouts for years. And they were having blackouts for two reasons. Number one, no one will give you free oil except Maduro. That's what's changed here. What's changed here is they're no longer getting free oil from Venezuela. What do you think, Ryan, reading the tea leaves there, are we closer to two pieces? All right, we've got two, some people may say we would have two wars, but there is no war in Iran, it's over. So maybe we'll also be closer now to a peaceful transition to Cuba. Yeah, it's so wild to hear him talk about Cuba. So, yeah, Gaysa, which New York Times has done a bunch of recent reporting on this, so people are hyped up. He's kind of cooking on Gaysa. So, okay, $14 billion. We have spent at least twice that in the last couple weeks attacking Iran. Like $14 billion does not really make the most threatening, intimidating kind of institution. Like this is, we're supposed to be scared of this. And yes, it is a communist government, and Gaysa is the kind of economic engine that the government uses to run its national economy. A huge swath of the economy is undernext. Yeah, and in the last several years, they also opened up private businesses. And so now there's this actual competition on the island between private businesses and public businesses. And a bunch of private ones are actually outperforming the public ones. And the public ones will then use like socialist, like anti-capitalist arguments to try to get people to come to them, even though the other ones are kind of outperforming them at times. But yes, like, okay, this guy, Aisa, is a thing. Rubio's point there that they only want free oil, that's all it's about. No, the US has blocked Cuba from getting any oil, even if they pay for it. I don't know why he keeps lying about that. Yeah, the pressure's Mexico, not to give Cuba oil. Right, it's sell even. If they have $14 billion, as he's saying, they can buy oil. And then, but we won't let them. It's such a flagrant lie that he just keeps telling it. It's so bizarre. And yes, like there were blackouts before January 2nd. Okay, that's true. We've had sanctions on them since the 1960s and we really tightened them in 2019. They've been poor stewards of their own economy and we may disagree on that in some ways, but the bottom line is, does a military intervention make that problem better? Does a military intervention make that problem worse? And that's the real question. And also poor stewards of... Or is it more? Poor stewards of the economy that have produced better education and health outcomes than the United States. Like over the, no, not recently, because now they're really getting smashed into the ground. But we should reflect on that. How is it that a communist government under these intense sanctions that Rubio says is horribly mismanaged, how are they outperforming the United States on health and education? It's a bit of a statement. Even under all of those conditions. It's a bit of a statement on our own management, of course, here in the United States of... And it might say something about the value of a robust public sector. On this point, Trump, actually, let's go back to Iran briefly, because we have Trump posting untrue socially yesterday. This is a seven. Speaking of what's true, what's false, Trump says fake news reports that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the USA stopped speaking a few days ago are false and erroneous. The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago and today, where they lead, one never knows. But as I told Iran, quote, it's time one way or another for you to make a deal. You've been doing this for 47 years and it cannot be allowed to go on any longer. He started speaking of the Cold War, starting the clock in 1979, it looks like, right? Yeah, yeah. Can we acknowledge that doesn't make any sense? No, it doesn't make any sense. From beginning to end, you have to make a deal, but this thing that you have, the Iranian government can't go on any longer, but if you make a deal that keeps you in power, then it can go on longer. So the point that they are still talking is an important one. Like it was overblown and at most, Iran threatened to suspend negotiations. Right. And then Trump responded by calling up Netanyahu and saying, don't bomb Beirut. According to Trump, they're back on. The one Rubio clip we didn't play, there was this hilarious moment where, I think it was Chris Van Hollen or somebody is complaining, maybe shots, complaining that the Strait of Hormuz is closed. And he's like, why does everybody keep blaming us for that? It's Iran that closed the Strait of Hormuz. And we have almost every country in the world signing a petition to the UN, complaining about Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz. There you go. And people are like, are you serious? Yeah, okay, maybe that's rude of them to do, but everyone predicted that they would do it. And then they did it. So, it's in their national interest. A little bit. Yes, this was a back and forth with Rubio in the Senate yesterday as well. It was just like, did you predict that the Strait of Hormuz, did you fail to predict that the Strait of Hormuz would be closed? But this is where, Ryan, again, you keep talking about war. Let's put up the last element on the screen. The White House posted this yesterday, and I failed to understand why this isn't working, Ryan, on you at least. Trust in Trump, all caps. Just sit back and relax. It will all work out well in the end. It always does, President Donald J. Trump. Chill out, man. Yeah, and Tucker famously said that right before the Iran War, he was like, I, truckers, like, I really think this is a mistake. I really think this is gonna blow up in your face. And Trump told him, I know you do, I appreciate it, but don't worry, it'll work out. And Tucker said, why? And he's like, because it always does. It's so beautiful. Yeah. What's amazing is that he's still using the line after it so plainly did not work out. Like, what about this worked out? If the war is over, as Rubio says, it very much did not work out. These two things are not true at the same time. Right, what didn't work out? Like, all of our bases are in ashes. Yeah. Iran controls the trade-off from us. Yes, gas is over $4. Iran still has all this nuclear dust. Yes. It's approaching $5 a gallon. Yeah. Who was it? Chevron or somebody said they're looking at $150 to $60 a barrel in the next couple of weeks if nothing changes. All of the kind of Goldman and J.P. Morgan analysis that was propping up the markets, assumed that by July, straight up from who's it be, wide open. I got a calendar on my laptop here. It's getting close. Clock's ticking. Clock is ticking. The whole time, I'm like reading these and out, and I'm like, I don't know about this, Goldman. Like, are we sure? Like, why? Right. And Trump's like, well, it's all gonna work out. What's extra sad is that some of this we know from that Big New York Times report with Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman on the byline, we know that it was Rubio and others inside of the administration, predicting some of this would happen. Everybody could have predicted some of this would happen and we're lukewarm on Trump's decision to launch the February 28th strikes, partially because of what they're now defending as this successful war that's now over. Yeah, Rubio called the Israeli arguments BS in that meeting. Right. Trump's like, oh, well, it's fine, let's do it anyway. Yeah. We can move to Israel. We had this news earlier this week that there was this tense call between Netanyahu and Trump. Joe Biden, oh, Trump. Yeah, I think a lot of people have a very hard time hearing a word about angry phone calls between an American president and Israeli prime minister because nothing seems to ever change. Even though they almost certainly, this is part of what's so pathetic about it. The reports I actually think are very credible, whether it's Barack Reveed 10 different times on Joe Biden being mad at Netanyahu when he was awake or now Donald Trump, that's what's so pathetic about this. I think they actually are frustrated with Netanyahu and then continue to make decisions in his benefit. And Trump does flex his muscles on Netanyahu, sometimes famously, remember he made Netanyahu apologize to the Emir of Qatar when he bombed the Hamas building in Doha. Netanyahu then denied it and then the White House produced a photo of Netanyahu reading the apology onto the phone, remember that? Yeah, it was humiliating. But also kind of for us too. So these things do happen, but then that's the end of it. Netanyahu knows like, okay, I'm gonna like take a little spanking here, but then he's gonna back off me and I'm gonna be able to do whatever I want. So it's a Mar-Bengavir, I guess we could put this, put B1 up on the screen here, posted, Mr. Prime Minister, you said that a strong PM tells the President of the United States, yes, when possible and no, when necessary. This is the time to tell our friend, President Trump, no. Now is the time to do what is required and necessary to strike Hezbollah, to unleash the hands of our fighters and to restore security to the North. You put up B2, this is Ben Gavir, this is, he goes and visits the settlement and says, in all honesty, the suburbs of Beirut need to be flattened. They need to be flattened. I opposed the previous ceasefire and today I'm also saying the suburbs must be flattened. So this is the kind of range of debate going on within Israel right now. It's the Defense Minister. The National Security, National Security Advisor, yeah. And Lebanon is the sticking point in a war between Iran and the United States where we're trying to reach a deal. The sticking point is Israel wanting to go to war with Lebanon. Right. And you at Dropsite, you all at Dropsite, Jeremy, and your whole team has been reporting on how this is factoring in as into the negotiations as a sticking point. So what we're seeing play out right here in Israel and in Lebanon is really critical to when the war may actually end contra the claims of Secretary Rubin that it's already over. Yeah. And we put up B3. This is also a VO. Here's this is footage from Courtney Bono, courageous reporter in Southern Lebanon who's been reporting on the like endless violence and an ethic cleansing going on there. And you're at the site of a hospital, Obida, which has been attacked several times by Israel. Talk to us about what the scene is like there. That's right. This is the third time that there has been a strike in the vicinity of Jabal Amel Hospital. The doctors and medical workers here are describing them as proximity strikes. The hospital is here. You see the facade of the hospital has been heavily damaged. We were able to go inside the ICU, as well as the critical care unit and several of the other floors. It's been significantly damaged inside. Some of the operating rooms are not usable. Some of the treatment rooms are no longer usable. A lot of damage to the equipment. We met a mother who had an infant child in the premature care unit, prenatal birth care unit. And she actually came to the hospital after the strike. She was happy to find that her baby was alive, but a lot of damage around the place that the baby was too close for comfort for her. You see this extensive damage all throughout this neighborhood. This is the parking lot. And so meanwhile, the Israeli military conquered the Beaufort Castle. This is a crusader castle that was, we can put up this VO here before. It's a crusader castle that was very important in the 12th century. And we can talk about the last time the Israelis captured it. Immediately after capturing it, they put up a celebratory video with a bunch of IDF soldiers showing off that they took this crusader castle. Hezbollah then watched that video, saw where the Israeli troops were, and immediately launched a drone swarm at them. And at least three IDF soldiers were fatal casualties. Others injured. A tank was destroyed, I think two ATCs were destroyed. And so I don't know if you saw this, but the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations went to the UN and delivered what is to me one of the most eyebrow-raising. I don't even know what to say. It's like, it was kind of speechless at it. Let's roll this. This is an example of a drone used by Hezbollah. This is what we are dealing with. Now Hezbollah are using different kinds of drones. Few of them with fiber optic. These drones weigh less than two kilograms. It flies low. It is very difficult to detect. And by the time you hear it above your head, it's too late. It can fly undetected for tens of miles. And all of a sudden you see it above your head. A thin cable is what makes this drone different. It does not rely on a radio signal. It cannot be easily jammed, unfortunately. It gives the operator a live video feed and direct control until impact. This is a modern warfare, cheap, precise, deadly. Yeah, so Emily, what you just saw there was the representative of an invading army, invading an occupying army, complaining that the people he's invading, of which they have killed 3,000 civilians in recent months, that they're fighting back. And the 3,000 is since the war broke out? Since the ceasefire. Right, unbelievable. And they want the UN to condemn that Hezbollah is fighting back? Yeah, of course. It's a very strange, like how do you, like, trying to get my, I feel like that is, it's so divorced from reality. Meanwhile, the effort to annex this greater Israel, particularly when it comes to the West Bank, continues at pace. And so let's bring in Josh Paul to talk about the legal mechanisms underway there. The Israeli government has been using antiquities laws for quite some time now to try to seize an annex West Bank territory, as well as Gaza territory at some point. But now the US is getting involved in a more direct way to help us kind of unpack what's going on here. Josh Paul from a new policy is here to walk us through some of what he's discovered. And we'll also talk about this new development where the Israelis are responding to pressure on the US to cut military support, military spending to boost the Israelis by saying, well, how about we just integrate with the Pentagon? Make it all one thing. So we'll talk about that on the back end of this, on the front end of this. First of all, thank you for joining us. And congrats. I know you guys supported Adam Hamoui last night. Your colleague was up in Trenton, New Jersey. Yeah, thank you. Adam is a great candidate. Actually about 90% of the candidates we endorsed yesterday won their races or moved on to the next round. I think it's a sign that America is really shifting and the politics are finally beginning to catch up. People may remember Josh from you, long time State Department official who resided protest over the Israeli genocide in Gaza. So what is the American Heritage Commission? Like tell us the story of this. Sure. This is a, we can put this first element up on the screen. This is a crazy story. It is an absolutely crazy story. And for us, it began by reading the Annual Appropriations Act that provides funding for US foreign policy, which is moving through Congress right now and buried deep in the text of this, several hundred page bill is a line that endorses the work of the US Commission for the Protection of the Heritage of American Citizens Overseas or Broad and endorses in particular, its work in East Jerusalem and its support to the Israeli City of David project. And that called all right because the Israeli City of David project is, as you said, ethnic cleansing undercover of archeology. It's a project that has so far displaced over a thousand, over 1500 actually Palestinians in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem has demolished over a hundred Palestinian homes in the name of an archeological dig. And so we said, well, wait a second, what is this US Commission and what is its involvement here? So we did the research and the US Commission was created actually in 1985 in the Cold War. If you remember, this was the time of Pope John Paul II, the Catholic Pope from Poland, the time of Anatoly Sharan's ski, the Jewish dissident from Moscow. And so religion was front and center and this commission was created, I think as a part of that struggle with a particular focus on American heritage in Central and East Europe in those parts that were then under Soviet influence. Today, the heritage commission, that remains its remit. That's supposed to be the left and right limits. And yet starting a few years ago, it has been increasingly involved in backing Israel's ethnic cleansing and its archeological, you quote unquote digs, particularly in East Jerusalem. And if you look at the heritage commission, that's actually not that surprising because of who it is made up by. So right now the chair of the commission is a lady called Leslie Weiss. She was the US envoy to the International Holocaust Remembrance Assembly, the organization that came out with that now infamous definition that says criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism. Which the US then codified into law. Which the US continues to try to advance and apply to shut down debate and academia. Also on the commission's board is Herbert Block, who is president of the American Zionist movement. And most interestingly, a guy, a New York investor, Dweck, Joseph Dweck, who actually appeared on essentially a spin-off of a fake version of Shark Tank that was created specifically for Israeli settlers to pitch their ideas for illegal Israeli settlers. So- That sounds like something someone would come up with on a fake Shark Tank, like SNL Shark Tank. It's another version of Shark Tank, but it's for settlers. And this is the guy who's now driving US policy and now bringing Congress behind to support ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Can you tell us a bit or go ahead? Let's actually play a little bit of the Shark Tank first. Yeah, let's roll this. One of the main goals of the farm is protecting the lands of the state of Israel. By being here, that's actually what we're doing. Giving Jewish presence to these lands that were deserted. Our Farm Project Initiative comes to unite and bring together 42 farms of Judah and Samaria. 60,000 acres is the amount of land that our farmers protect in Judah and Samaria. So tell us a bit about why they say what they're doing is important. So we've talked a bit about the outcome, but what do they say the stakes are for their ability to do what they wanna do? So interestingly, if you look at the commission website, it actually doesn't make any mention of their work in Jerusalem or in Palestine, probably because it's well outside of their actual mandate. They are given $770,000 in taxpayer money each year. This is a commission that meets twice a year. So how they're spending $770,000, I think is a pretty opaque question it needs to be looked into. They refer on their website to their work in Europe. They make reference to one project they have in Armenia, but nothing on this. So I don't think that beyond, they've done a couple of public statements and public engagements with an organization called Elad. This is another interesting thread to pull. This is an Israeli nonprofit that is backing these archeological digs. It in turn is funded by Russian oligarch, now sanctioned Russian oligarch, Robin Abramovich. So you have this US commission working with an organization backed by a sanctioned Russian oligarch to pursue ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem. The only real recent reference to that beyond their public statements over five years ago is now in this congressional text in which Republicans in Congress are essentially backing the work of the commission in East Jerusalem specifically and trying to pursue funding for this city of David ethnic cleansing project. And correct me if I'm wrong, the 2021 war in Gaza was sparked by this precise project. This is the Sheikh Jarrah ethnic cleansing. Hamas said, stop evicting Palestinians from this neighborhood or we're going to fire. They went forward and continued to ethnically cleanse the area. Hamas fired Israel attacks Gaza back. Yeah, and Jerusalem is a particular flashpoint. We've just seen in the last few weeks, claims that some within the Israeli government are looking to shift what they call the status quo on the Haram al-Sharif or Temple Mount to expand Israel's presence. And that is such a tense area that drives, I think, a lot of instability, not only in Jerusalem and Gaza and Palestine, but across the Middle East. But it is also an agenda that fits very nicely into what some are pursuing through what they call Christian Zionism, which is essentially not only supporting Israel's objective, but using this essentially as a means to lead to that ultimate battle that Christian Zionists believe will bring back Jesus and lead to the end times. So I think it's a very dangerous project. How does this antiquities law play out in the West Bank? And particularly the one that the Knesset is now pushing an even more aggressive one. Yeah, so in the West Bank, there are a number of sites where Israel is now trying to exert. So right now Israel's occupation in the West Bank is by and large a military occupation. They are trying to create a new civilian archeological authority to take control of certain West Bank sites that they call heritage sites. This would be essentially a de facto annexation. Once you start saying this is no longer a military occupation, this is now under civilian governance, civilian rule, it's part of Israel. And so that's just another example of how Israel is trying to use archeology as a pretext for ethnic cleansing and for annexation. Well, what's interesting is what you said that it seems like it's maybe a thin pretense here as well and that if they're not even boasting about their archeological progress or ambitions in this area, mentioned they talked about Armenia and other places on their website, it seems like that's a rather thin pretext in this case if they don't have specifics they're pointing to. Well, I think it's a thin pretext for the Heritage Commission because again, this is way outside of the mandate. Israel has made a great show of its archeological findings. Although several of those who've come into question in recent years, there was a famous case just in the last year where a coin that was found was found then later to be fraudulently created. So, and even to the extent, I mean, clearly there's a lot of important history in Israel, in Palestine that deserves attention, but there's no reason that that history can't be that of a shared history or shared heritage and understood research developed in coordination and cooperation with the Palestinians rather than destroying their homes and displacing them from their historic land in order to promote a narrative ultimately. Well, let's put up B6. So, people may have seen this news that under pressure from J Street, AOC, like the increasing democratic opposition to continuing to fund the Israeli military, which even Netanyahu has said, we wanna phase it out. Like we're done with this, these American subsidies. Section 224 of the NDAA tell us what it's doing. Like it's described as effectively blending together the Israeli military and the Pentagon in a way that would make it basically impossible for critics to come in and say, we want this stopped. How would this, as somebody from the State Department who's job it was to oversee this relation or not oversee the relationship but heavily involved in relationship, what is the difference in this approach versus what we have had up until now? Yeah, thanks, Ryan. So first, let's start by taking a step back and realizing, I think one fact, everyone, I think at this point can acknowledge, APEC are losing. The American people have had a transformation of opinion, public opinion when it comes to Palestine and to Israel. If we look at the current election cycle that you've been discussing, we see that there is very clearly an advance for those who stand up who are willing to call a genocide, a genocide. And in that context, what APEC are trying to do and Israel and their allies is essentially lock in the current relationship because they realize that these midterms might bring a shift in the House or in the Senate or in both. And it's just going to get continually harder and harder for them over time. Right now, we give Israel $3.8 billion of American taxpayer money every year for their military. In fact, in some years, significantly more than that. And that's just not going to be sustainable. I don't think anyone looking at current American politics, looking ahead five, 10 years, imagines that members of Congress are going to be okay with continuing that funding. So if you're them, what do you do? How do you lock in the current relationship and get around the, you know... Democracy. Democracy, right. Exactly. The public opinion and Congress is increasing unwillingness to just sort of hand out American funds. And the way you do that is by entrenching the US-Israel defense relationship so deep in the machinery of the Pentagon and in the production of America's industrial base that it becomes impossible to root out. And that's what this section of Law, Section 224, is trying to do. This is part of something called the National Defense Authorization Act. It's an annual so-called must pass bill. And it's going through the House Armed Services Committee tomorrow, Thursday, 4th of June. And this is in the base text. This has been put there by the chairman of the committee, Chairman Rogers. So it is going to be very hard to root out. I think we will have a shot tomorrow. Representative Rokana is going to introduce an amendment to try and strip it out. If that fails, Republican Representative Thomas Massey has said he's going to try to pull it out on the floor. And if that fails, then we still have a battle to fight in the Senate. And again, when the two bills come together during what they call conference in November, December. But look, this is in some ways the bull game. Once this language is in there, it first of all tells DOD that it has to do everything it can to integrate Israeli technology into American weapons platforms. It identifies a series of areas for US and Israel to cooperate and research together, including the most sensitive technologies you can imagine, biological technologies, quantum technologies, AI. And it creates an executive agent at the Pentagon whose job is to move this program forward. That's an executive agent who would be able to essentially overrule the people in charge of defense technology security at the Pentagon, the policy people, any of this. So once the ball starts rolling, it becomes very difficult to pull out. You see corporate contracts, government to government contracts, academic contracts being signed that are hard to unwind. And I think one of the worst aspects here, the final thing, is that it really flips the script on leverage. If you think about the US-Israel relationship right now, we have the leverage, we don't use it. Right, we should. But it exists. But it exists. We can cut the funding, we can cut the weapons. Once you make American arms supply and the American war fighters advantage dependent on the Israeli supply chain, they can do that. They can say, well, we're not going to provide this technology anymore that enables your fighter jets, your electronic systems, whatever it might be. So it really puts us under their thumb. And their specialty is cyber weapons and cyber surveillance. American or multinational tech companies have already absorbed enormous numbers of Israeli startups that are involved in the cyber space. And so there's already a ton of that in there, but that's technically largely private companies, even though they're very much linked up with the UNIDD 800 and others, other elements of the national security apparatus. But so if they are in the factories and their specialization is cyber weapons and cyber side, would that mean they basically have, or could have kill switches and tracking on basically our entire industrial base and military industrial base? Yeah, well, first of all, let's recognize why Israel's cybersecurity and cyber surveillance ecosystem is so capable. It's very much the same way that America's pharmaceutical industry became so capable in the 60s and 70s with experiments that they could conduct on unwitting populations in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Today, Israel's cybersecurity industry can carry out experiments essentially on the unwitting Palestinian population. And that's what they've done. And then they take that technology that they've developed on Palestinians and sell it to, for example, ICE to use on Americans. But it's very clear that that ecosystem cannot be trusted. There's been a number of lawsuits, public lawsuits, for example, Meta has sued an organization called NSO Group, an Israeli spyware manufacturer. Which makes Pegasus. Which makes Pegasus. Apple has sued them too. There's an ongoing suit from- Isn't Pegasus even banned by the US? So, good question. Pegasus has been sanctioned by the US, along with a number of other companies that specialize in cyber intrusions and revealing the information. And in part because Pegasus software was used to target American civilians and officials. Jamal Khashoggi. Jamal Khashoggi and others. So we're going to absorb a sanctioned entity and bring it into our own. So first of all, there's warning signs that those sanctions may be going away. There is movement right now within the State Department to try and repeal those limitations around the NSO Group. But the NSO Group is just the tip of the iceberg. As you noted, all of these organizations have deep, deep ties, personnel funding to Israel's unit 8200, their equivalent of our national security agency. And Israel has shown no compunction whatsoever. And its willingness to steal American technology, to steal American secrets, right? Jonathan Pollard, one of the most famous spies who stole American nuclear technology, is now in the Israeli Kameh Set. And this is the ecosystem that we're going to be bringing into our most sensitive military technology. It just is absolutely insane. Desperation. Yeah, so where are the leverage points? So you've got Kana and Massey, for people who are watching this and aren't all the way black-pilled. I can imagine a bunch of people just turn it off and like, all right, we're cooked. Maybe the leverage points are that lobby from Apple and Metta. Yeah, so the ones for people still watching, who haven't completely given up hope. Yeah. Who do people talk to? So first of all, this isn't law yet. It's going through the committee, through the services committee in the house tomorrow, but you can call your representatives today and ask them whether they're on the committee or no people on the committee not to support this, to support Congressman Kana's attempt to pull it out, to support Congressman Massey's attempt to pull it out on the floor if it comes to that. They should also be calling their senators to not put it into the Senate version of this bill. I think the more people are speaking about this, the more people are aware of it. They're feeling the pressure. So Mike Rogers. I could see it becoming a litmus test vote. I think it will be. There's a lot of things that are going to be a part of this year's NDA process. The president is seeking an incredible increase in military funding, but I think this is going to be very much a test, including for Republicans, because the Republican base doesn't like this either. And I think they don't want to see their members voting to integrate our defense system, our most sensitive technologies with a foreign country who can then use that as leverage. That's not America first. Now I was saying, Emily, you correct me. I'm wrong, you know this Republican conference better. They believe right now, as long as they have Trump's endorsement, they're safe. Trump will not be here forever. In not next cycle, but the one after. He'll be here forever. If they, he might be here forever. He's the devil. Yeah, easy. He could last a long time. He's a human form, he's immortal. But let's say he isn't here forever. And let's say his influence over our political system fades. How dangerous do you think it could be to have this vote on your record in a Republican primary in a world in which there are open primaries because Trump is not able to just shut them off by endorsing people? Well, and this isn't really even just a Trump issue. This is a broader America first issue. And so I don't necessarily know that Trump is going to wait into primaries to defend people on a vote like this. But what I could see is people entering primaries because they now have this powerful tool to say, you voted for the most America last thing I could possibly think of. To let a foreign government into our military. Right, so that was just, I think that's just powerful on its own, not necessarily, just in a sort of declining boomer power structure Republican party that I think is powerful on its own. But it's the NDAA, that's the thing, that's why they're putting it in the NDAA because it makes it impossible for many people to vote against. That's why they're putting it there because they can say, oh, you didn't vote for national defense. That's what they're doing. But there are plenty of opportunities along the way. And it's certainly not impossible, although it's certainly gonna be difficult for a future Congress and a future administration to rescind this legislation. But the sooner, if this makes it into law, the sooner that's done, the better, because the longer it is there, the harder it will be. Yeah, that's right. Well, Josh Paul from A New Policy. Thanks so much for keeping us updated, really appreciate it. Thank you. Up next, election updates. We're of course coming to you on Wednesday morning. And as of right now, we're looking at the latest, we can put this first element up on the screen. We have 63% of the vote in Los Angeles mayoral election. And Karen Bass has 34.8% of the vote. Spencer Pratt has 30.4% of the vote. Nithya Raman all the way down at 22.3% of the vote. But as Ryan and I were talking earlier in the show, actually it's not impossible for Nithya Raman to pull this out based on the way that ballots are counted in Los Angeles. So Ryan, I would say it's unlikely at this point that she's able to make up that eight points. But after early ballot dumps in the Caruso race, he fell seven points. And that's what happened when the last drops of ballots were counted. So it's possible, unlikely, but possible still that Nithya Raman could pull this off. And I, no offense to LA, I don't have a dog in this fight. And so just objectively speaking, I think I'd rather be Nithya actually right now. Like if I were Spencer Pratt, I would not feel that that was enough of a lead because as Dayan was talking about on the program yesterday, usually Democrats get their ballots in earlier, but because the gubernatorial race with Swalwell getting thrown out and like had nobody having any idea kind of how to vote. And because the top two thing makes you, it makes your voting decision making that much more complicated yet because you have to think strategically. Why rank choice voting is so much better? Because then you just, I don't have to like strategically game theory out how my other fellow citizens are gonna vote, I can just say. You still kind of do that with rank choice, but yeah. But you can say one, two, three, four, five. Yeah, there's some strategy, but it's a little less. It's more like my favorite person is this person. Second favorite is this one. With this, when you're like, well, I like Karen Bass, but I'd rather vote for Nithya because I don't want Pratt to be in or now Nithya's rising, so I'm gonna vote for, it's like. Yeah. So because you have to spend so much time thinking about it, you need the most information. And so therefore Democrats waited until the last, right up until election day for the most part to vote. A lot of them did. So that means there's many, many Democratic votes still out there compared to Republicans. So I'd be very nervous if I were Pratt. Well, he was not nervous even going into the race. So let's roll it, let's see two here, Spencer Pratt. He said he would be over 50%. Take a look. Somebody gets 50% plus one tomorrow. Race is over. How do you see this going? I believe I'm winning tomorrow night outright. I think there's a tsunami of votes coming from all the people that are done with politics as usual. They want an outsider, they want a disruptor. There's no polls that show it anywhere close to being 50% for you. What do you say to that? I would say to all those people that I have, they're not talking to pollsters. They're moms trying to dodge naked zombies with a stroller. There are people walking their dogs to the park, making sure their dog doesn't step on a fentanyl needle or sniff some fentanyl or walk over human poop to get a matcha. Those people don't have time to talk to a pollster. Let's go, let's go. All right, Ryan, you said he may not have enough of a lead to feel comfortable. I would counter that by saying it's also possible there's the sort of shy prat vote that might come into the last minute. It does not look good. They were trying to sneak in when they saw them. Well, let's take a look at the gubernatorial results because it's not looking great for Steve Hilton in that race because as of right now, we can put it up on the screen. 57.5% of the vote is in Hilton's at 27.8%, Javier Becerra is at 25.4% or as Joe Biden would say, Bakaria 25.4% and Tom Steyer is at 19.6%. So again, with the way that California results are counted, if this next ballot drop goes the way people expect it to go, you may see Javier Becerra and Tom Steyer. Yeah, yeah, again, I wouldn't want to be Hilton. That's, he's gonna be, yeah, he, yeah. I think he might not make the top two. Yeah, it's so crazy to think. If you look at that and you're like, oh, he's first, he's gonna be fine. Like, well, there's a lot more than, there's not more votes than the numbers that you saw on that. Which again, break California up. Like, what are you doing? No other state or country has a problem like this. One of the reasons I'm a bit skeptical that ramen and I don't know, it's a little different than gubernatorial race, but in ramen's situation in particular, their perhaps candidacy is predicated on the idea of bringing in people perhaps from the left or center left. So it doesn't seem impossible to me that he's different than a Rick Caruso. I don't know about Steve Hilton. I think Steve Hilton, that's a different question, but it is possible that it's not going to be exactly like other races where the late ballot drops were way more favorable to the left. We could see a more similar margin, just solidifying. It's true. If, and yeah, if there's a whole bunch of Karen Bass votes that don't go to Anithia, or if Becerra gets a ton of the Democratic votes that are outstanding, rather than them being split between him and Steyer, then yeah, so the Republicans are in the race. It's still possible for them. Unbelievable. We'll tell you in about a month when they're done counting. Yeah, we'll get back to probably around the 4th of July. Unbelievable routing, that's not getting talked about enough for Katie Porter. She's at 4.6% of all. 230,000 votes right now. Unbelievable routing of Katie Porter. Some good news. Yeah, somebody like Katie Porter, you see this in politicians where it's like, she was a house member on the Financial Services Committee. She was extremely good at that. She deeply understands finance and its predatory nature. And she was able to use the position that she had to advance the agenda that she has. And she just kept hunting for other positions. And I've seen it so many times in politics. It's like, just stop, you're good. Like Nancy Mace, I was like, this lady's gonna flame out somehow, and she runs for governor for why? Why not? You can have that house seat. You can probably have that house seat forever, despite all of the shenanigans going on in your office and in your personal life. But then they go for something else that they're just not, you just know, you're not gonna reach it. And so this is Katie Porter, but she went for the Senate, right? She went for this. Yeah. Flopping each time. And now that position that she had, where she was able to really punish these bank. And CEOs, she doesn't have any more. And so crypto wins, Wall Street wins. And she loses and the public loses. Cause I think she was like a genuinely useful weapon to have in the house of representatives. If you're progressive, it's certainly fair to see it that way. And yeah. And I think even, like if you're anybody that wants to see bankers, progressive or not, if you want to see bankers squirm in their seats, and who doesn't want to see bankers squirm in their seats. But anyway, so nobody takes my advice. Let's head to New Jersey, Ryan. So Adam Hamelwe. So this is the doctor who the New York Post and Jewish Insider were accusing of having al-Qaeda links. Actually, I just saw Mike Lawler. Let me see if I still have this up. This is Mike Lawler. He tweeted out, how in the hell, this is the New York 17, like Republican member of Congress who's always palling around with Josh Godheimer. He says, how in the hell has a defense witness in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing with ties to al-Qaeda been nominated by the Democrats to serve in Congress? That's almost, that's very similar to the subhead on the New York Times article about his victory. You know, he also served eight years in the military. He was a combat surgeon. The al-Qaeda thing in 1994. We talked about this in the program. In 1994, he volunteered with an organization that a decade later was rated as a front for al-Qaeda. Also, 1994, the only people that knew who al-Qaeda was was basically the CIA. It was probably funding them. Like, no people, unless you fought in Afghanistan, like knew who al-Qaeda even was. It was 1998 when they hit the call and the embassy that they become like a thing that people know about. So, retconning, yes, retconning that to say he's therefore is al-Qaeda, has Lawler served in, did Lawler serve in Iraq? I don't think so. Like, it's, yeah, it's, you wanna criticize him for knowing the blind shake and getting called to testify in that trial? Go ahead, whatever. I think there's fair, I think there's pretty fair criticisms of Hamawi's prior associations, but we asked them, people can go watch it. We asked them all these questions. And his answer was like, look, the Muslim community is extremely small. Everybody knew everybody. I knew that guy. Yeah. Which is maybe not the best defense, but actually people can, the people of New Jersey had their opportunity to listen and hear out the arguments and they went with them. Yeah, and so he won. So, the thing he's known for most recently is doing multiple rotations as a volunteer doctor in hospitals in Gaza. And we reported on him at the time, two years ago, where the Israelis had surrounded the hospital that he was in, cut off the water supply. The Western doctors inside the hospital, some of them were on like IV drips because of the Israeli siege of the hospital. They were trying to get the Western doctors to leave and not be replaced by another rotation of Western doctors. So then they could then raid the hospital. And he refused. And even when some in his rotation left, he and two others stayed saying, we're not leaving until another rotation of Western doctors comes in. And under massive international pressure, particularly it came from Tammy Duckworth, whose life he saved as a combat surgeon in Iraq, the Israelis buckled and allowed another wave of Western doctors to come in and replace him. So then he went back out. And now he's going to Congress. And Mike Lawler can sit and spin. Yeah, they are going to have a lot to feast on. Then the next, how long is this gonna be? It's like the, how? Well, it's a very blue seat too. Yeah, that's it. So he's gonna win. But they're gonna try to, I think he'll try to use him in other races. That would be my assumption. Go ahead, go ahead, go for it. And then in Iowa, this race has been moved by the Cook Political Report to toss up because of who Democrats nominated for their gubernatorial pick, Josh Turrick. Yeah, Schumer dropped $9 million to boost Turrick here. Looks like it worked. It certainly worked. So he beat Zach Walls by almost what, 25 points there. And yeah, he's the Paralympian. Yeah, kind of populist as well, right? Yeah, he won a, we talked about this, I think his record was in slightly fudged about the district that he won. But it is true to say that the district that he represents in the House went for Trump. It's also, it's Council Bluffs, which is a kind of a suburb of Omaha. It does have some, you know, conservative, serious conservatives streak to it. They do have a history of nominating Democrats at the state level or electing Democrats at the state level. But yeah, we'll see. In a wave year, with I think what, Henson, Representative Henson is the Republican nominee. Just kind of a corporate Republican. In a blue wave year, certainly this Iowa is on the map. Yeah, hugely on the map. We should also, and I wanted to mention another Iowa race. This is, we can put up on the screen the next element. This is the MAHA backed candidate, Zach Lane, beats Randy Feinstra. This is Trump's endorsement in Iowa for the gubernatorial primary. Trump's first loss, Feinstra got a last minute endorsement from Trump. Zach Lane is a MAHA farmer guy. He has worked for, like he worked for a Tea Party group in 2014, 2015. We kind of get Zach Lane on. He's an interesting candidate. So interesting. Yeah, he's been pounding the glyphosate stuff. MAHA is really, really optimistic about what they just saw. And actually he's kind of using it as, to take a little victory lap and say, the grassroots is MAHA and the grassroots is going to, you can't take for granted the grassroots support that you get from MAHA as a Republican MAGA candidate. And Feinstra, this did not work for him. Zach Lane was also endorsed by Turning Point Action, I think it was. And this all worked out great for Zach Lane, who despite the last minute intervention of Donald Trump, Lane's seen as kind of more MAGA, like seen as more hard line. Feinstra's seen a bit as more establishment. So, man, quite an interesting outcome. Trump's first loss, we were talking about last week, he had all these screenshots up on his true social about how he was the undefeated king of this primary cycle. 100% of his picks down the line, totally true. He didn't really do much in the Iowa race. He just tossed out an endorsement early on Friday. Well, it wasn't much. He wasn't trying to sway this result in one way or the other for the most part. But the endorsement itself didn't work. And so that's. Usually that endorsement's enough. He's now at 99%. Usually just a tweet, does it? You'd think, but yeah, Lane had a lot of support. So that's definitely, you're right, we should get him on the show. That's one to follow. Montana had some interesting results as well, Ryan. Yes, this kind of union smoke jumper, Sam Forstag, who burning AOC back to MAOC had a rally for him. I said yesterday, the progressive vote between him and Cleveland would probably be split too much for him to win, shows what I know. Forstag, well, we'll see. This progressive vote is split here, but he's currently up by 3000 votes and four points. NBC calling it too close to call, but you'd rather be Forstag right there. That would be a win for kind of the AOC, particularly going into Montana. And making the case that this is not just a Bronx and Queens populism that it can work around the country, Aaron Flint is the Republican nominee who replaces Ryan Zinke. So it's a Republican leaning seat, but it's a competitive seat. And in a blue wave year, you could imagine this being a flip. DC Democrats wanted, Ryan Busey, like the more corporate Democrat. So it's nice when Democrats or voters have this opportunity to say, no, no, no, actually running a populist is a better tactical move. There's one thing to say, okay, I like them better. I like their policies better. It's another thing to be able to demonstrate. No, this is actually the way to win as well. With Turk, I think there's a good example too. Let's go back to California. We're gonna do, Viegas met Sui and Gonzalez. So let's start with Viegas, Ryan. What are you taking a look at here? Yeah, we had Randy Viegas on a week and a half ago or so. He's the community college professor and the auto shop owner from Bakersfield. DCCC endorsed against him, endorsed Jasmine Baines. Democratic majority for Israel came in big for Baines, spent millions like the attack ads on Viegas were just absolutely relentless. And it's not over yet, but we're looking at, he's up 2000 votes. He's in second place behind David Volato, the Republican, but he's on track to make the top two, we'll see. All right, let's go to California seven, Ryan. What are we looking at here in the Doris Matsui results? People may remember May Vang, who was on the show recently, she's challenging Doris Matsui and come a Democrat in her eighties, long time support from APAC and from corporate PACs. Like if it was very standard kind of corporate Democrat, she and her husband have held this seat, I think for like 40 plus years collectively. Doris Matsui took out a bunch of money and helped in her backers put together a super PAC that supported this guy, Zach Wooden. He was like a Republican college student because they were trying to get him into the top two. And so right now you've got Doris Matsui at 32,000 votes, May Vang at 26,000 and Zach Wooden, the college kid at 25,000. So May Vang is ahead of Wooden by 0.8, but as we were saying earlier, there's so many Democratic votes out compared to Republican votes that he would have to be kind of way ahead to survive the wave that's coming in. Now, and so Matsui and May Vang will make the top two. Matsui went all out to try to keep May Vang out of the general because I believe that her team is convinced that May Vang will beat her in the general, that there's a lot of incumbent resentment there. Also the local papers have been turning on Matsui. They did good, it shows the value of good journalism. Like they exposed that it was Matsui and her backers that were boosting this Republican college kid. Very interesting. And so that matters. And a lot of congressional districts, that media infrastructure just doesn't exist anymore. This is Sacramento and there's a Sacramento Bee and other outlets. And then... California 34. Yeah, Jimmy Gomez, another kind of corporate APEC backed incumbent. They APEC bailed him out big time in a previous, in I think it was a 2024 race. Justice Democrats ran Angela Gonzalez-Torres against him and she's losing by 20, but it's enough that she's gonna make the general election. So we'll get back in November. Actually it'll be December by the time we know California's November. Yeah, and Gomez is under the 50% mark as of now with 60% of the votes in. So if he crosses that threshold, good for him. If not, it'll be the two of them. Well, even in the house, right? You don't, even in the house, if you win 51% you still have to go to the general. But either way... It's the nearest race that you get, you win out, right? That's right, yeah. But either way, he doesn't have over the 50% threshold, meaning that there's room for Gonzalez-Torres to make up a lot. It's a tough coalition, because you would need Republicans who don't like Gomez. But they won't vote. Or, right, if there's top two, if the top two in the governor's race are Democrats, then yes, the Republican turnout's gonna be low, which will be very good by the way, as we were talking about yesterday, for the billionaire tax. So if you can get two Democrats in the governor's race, keep the Republicans on the couch, then the billionaire tax has more chance of going through. Man, some interesting stuff. We'll keep our eye on all of these races going forward. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.