Krystal and Saagar discuss US sending troops to region as Israel bombs Lebanon, Ryan Grim unloads on IDF Al Jazeera raid, Zelensky campaigns as Shapiro signs bombs.
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Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal.
Indeed, we do a lot of news that is breaking this morning, including chaos in the Middle East. You've got hundreds killed and thousands more injured by Israel in Lebanon, and the US sending additional troops to the regions. We're going to start the show with that. We also don't want to lose sight of what is going on in Ukraine. There are some important developments there, including Zelensky. Here in the US with Josh Shapiro.
Basically campaign it's not great.
It's not great at all.
Meanwhile, turning to domestic politics here, Nebraska made an extremely consequential decision with regard to the electoral College. It could actually be the thing that the election hinges on. So we'll break all of that down. We also are going to take a look at Trump doing far fewer rallies this time than in previous campaigns. What his campaign is saying about that, and also appearing to do a lot fewer fundraisers and certainly raising a lot less money than Kamala Harris is So what does it mean, if anything?
Will dig into that.
He's also got a very interesting new policy on capping credit card interest rates. It's actually very similar to a proposal that Bernie Sanders and AOC had floated before. Interesting critics Interesting Also, people had previously been melting down about Kamala Harris floating price controls quote unquote now silent when it comes to anyway, There's a lot that's interesting, heroent that we'll get into. We also have a journalist who is coming on to discuss why opium production in Afghanistan fell off a freaking cliff really after the US pulled out.
So we saw this chart come across both our radars and we.
Were like, huh, question Mark, And I mean turns out is actually literally writing a book on this topic.
Yeah, that's right. Set's been on the show before. Seth is awesome. We're excited to talk to them before we get to that. Thank you to all of our premium subscribers. A bunch of people took advantage yesterday. Like Crystal said, we're going to start with some foreign policy today, but we have a lot of exclusive election content that were dropping behind the scenes only for our premium subs. So if you want to be able to see that, you can go ahead and sign up at Breakingpoints dot com. But yeah, we've got a crazy situation going on Lebanon. We're on the brink of a full blown regional war which people assured us was not going to happen.
Yeah, that's all right.
I mean, this is a catastrophic failure of the Biden administration policy, which has explicitly stated from the beginning this was the outcome they wanted to avoid, and yet here we are, we can put this up on the screen. We have video of new bombings and strikes inside of southern Lebanon. Massive attack leading to roughly five hundred deaths, thousands injured, give you the latest count there the Lebanese officials saying that the majority of those were unarmed civilians, scores of children and women who were killed in this onslaught. And if we could go ahead and pull up this next tear sheet, you know, if we get to the US consequences here, immediate consequences. Pentagon has planning to send more US troops to the Middle East as quote tensions rise or its very passive language there. Major General Patrick Ryder, Pentagon Press secretary, declined to say exactly how many troops were deploying, citing operational security.
Worth noting, you.
Already have about forty thousand American troops stationed in this region on bases in a Rock, Syria and in the Persian Gulf countries. USS Abraham Lincoln is in the Gulf of Omont. A second aircraft carrier, the USS Harry Truman, left Norfolk, Virginia, on Monday for the Mediterranean Saga. They say is part of regular scheduled deployment. But my understanding is that it left in advance.
Yes, I left early, ahead of its deployment schedule. So we know at a minimum, and aircraft carrier is like roughly six thousand people. So at a minimum, we've got six thousand people going. I mean, we've got forty thousand troops in the region, more people who are headed there. We've got people all over Iraq and in Syria who are now potentially in danger. The aircraft carriers now possibly might have to get involved. I mean, I don't think we can stress just how dangerous this entire situation is now for us the Biden administration. You know what's so ironic, Joe Biden will take the stage today at the United States General Assembly or the UN General Assembly to declare the results of his foreign policy. How could we have such a better contrast of not only a failure. His signature foreign policy objective of the last years was to secure a ceasefire. They no longer even you know, think that that's possible. Second, now, was to prevent the explosion of full blown nuclear war or full blown regional war, hopefully not nuclear. It's September twenty fourth, we're weeks away from October seventh anniversary, and it just seems even more likely that that's the result. Five hundred people killed roughly in Lebanon in a single day, the biggest clash in two thousand and six. All of the reading and research that I've done so far, it is terrifying. What this war would look like would one hundred percent I want to be like very clear, the US establishment is one hundred committed percent committed. If this thing goes full on past two thousand and six levels, which current indications, if it does, that's what it would look like. We're in There's no getting around it. We have forty thousand people there. Our troops are going to be in trouble. The global economy. It will be a nightmare considering what's been happening with Yemen and a lot of the hoothies, it will be that times ten in Iran involvement. I mean, we've got this is a real catastrophic situation. This is probably the most dangerous the world has been since what happened in Ukraine. And if you see already America is addicted to Middle Eastern war. We cannot extricate ourselves in Israel is the primary culprit that is involved here there. What is the justification for this attack is that some Hezbola guys launched the missiles. No, it's just continue this to further BB's political ambitions. But really they seem to believe that they're in an endgame, like they're like, we need to take out all of our enemies all at the same time. It's very two thousand and three. They are repeating the exact same problems that happened to the United States, and it's overconfidence going into that war. So they've quote unquote accomplished wherever they wanted to in Gaza, and now with Lebanon, they're like, yeah, let's do this too. And you know, they have no idea what's coming for them, They really do. And they're they're generals, they're commanders, they know because they're the ones who are sounding the alarm behind the scenes with Gallant and others. But the political leadership is dedicated. They're like, they want this war. The key line is now escalation through de escalation, which America is such a coward. Were the only pushback that we have seen from the Biden administration so far is nowhere have we seen escalation through de escalation work. But it's a background quote attributed to some senior Pentagon official. Why should I care? The President of the United States has the possibility to put a stop to this and he just won't do it.
That's right, I'm my god, you know.
And now you know what our people are going to get killed again for all of this. If Israel and Lebanon wanted to handle it, fine, but you know what, there's no way in the current US political establishment that that's a possibility. We will bear the product, we will bear the cost. I have no doubt about it.
It's I was reading all the like New York Times coverage of They have a whole article that's, oh, how we got here, which conveniently does not mention a single time the fact that the core reason why Heswela has been firing missiles into Israel is because of Israel's onslaught in Dasa.
And then if you had a ceasefire.
In fact, when you did have a temporary ceasefire, those rocket launches stopped. The Biden administration has now given up on a ceasefire because they can't just like, you know, sort of like hand ring their way into talking Bibi into actually committing to any sort of a ceasefire.
They've just given up.
Rather than doing the very obvious thing of saying, Okay, you want to fight your word, good luck to you.
You're not going to do it with our weapons. That simple.
And there was recent polling that came out that is a popular position, so on the American strategic interest, the choice is clear.
On the moral imperative.
The choice is exceptionally clear, and even on the political imperative, the choice is clear. No secret that Bibe would rather have Trump in the White House, no accident that this comes, you know, heading into October, nice little Bibi Netana, the most predictable October surprise of all time.
And yet the Biden administration.
I mean, these are either the dumbest people on the planet or the most dishonest people on the planet. Because how many times have we seen the background quotes, Oh, we're upset about this, and we're telling them that we disagree with the strategy, blah blah blah. At a certain point you just go, I don't believe you, because you can't possibly be so stupid as to think that these little background quotes and a little tough you know, on the sidelines conversations are having any impact whatsoever.
You mentioned two thousand and six.
This is already the deadliest day in Lebanon since two thousand and six. And I know it gets tiresome to say these sorts of things, but I want you to imagine if Hesbela had successfully pulled off these level of attacks in Israel and killed a majority civilians, including scores of women and children. I want you to imagine what the news coverage would be like. I want you to imagine how the moral equation would be laid out here versus how it's described in mainstream publications. At this point, let's put a too B up on the screen. We've got the This is the latest death toll as best as we know. Lebanon says that four hundred and ninety two people have been killed and Israeli strikes, including thirty five children. The Lebanese people are panicked. They are fleeing to Beirut, hoping that that would be safe. They're fleeing north into the mountains, hoping that that would be safe. But the truth of the matter is very hard to say where it's actually safe. And I'm going to get in a moment, very eerie echoes from bb NEAT and Yahoo and other officials sounding exactly like they sounded before the genocidal onslaught into Gaza, sounding very similar notes. And so this, as we come up on the one year anniversary of October seventh, is terrifying, chilling, and deeply disturbing, and Isaiah said, just the manifest failures of the Biden administration here could not possibly be more clear. You'll recall last week we covered that Israel had launched what I think is accurately and Leon Panetta, former CIA director, agrees with me, described as a terrorist attack where they managed to blow up the pagers of HESBLA operatives and walkie talkies. They did so indiscriminately. You know, you had children killed in that attack as well. People were in busy markets, on streets and public places around their family, et cetera, et cetera. And it's interesting to note that former CIA director Leon Panetta agrees with them with us that that was in fact terrorism and is deeply disturbed by what it could mean for the future of warfare.
Let's take a listen to that.
The ability to be able to place an explosive in technology that is very prevalent these days and turn it into a war of terror, really war of terror. This is something new?
Is it terrorism?
I don't think there's any question that it's a form of terrorism.
Former Defense Secretary and former director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, at least in no words in describing what he fears maybe the result of letting this particular genie out of the buck.
This has gone right into the supply chain, right into the supply chain, and when you have terror going into the supply chain, it makes people ask the question, what the hell is next?
It sounds like you're genuinely worried.
I am, I am. This is a tactic that has repercussions, and we really don't know what those repercussions are going to be.
So he said Zager, I don't think there's any question that this is a form of terrorism. What did you make of him making those comments?
I think this is somebody who was once in the room that pulled the trigger on Osama bin Laden, and then we should take it. Look, I always find a difficult former national security officials and all that. I think most of the time they're full of it. I don't really like to listen to them. So I'm not saying that these people have a ton of credibility. But I would take his fear seriously in that this was the type of person who probably had to green light or say no to the very similar types of operations, and obviously also sat across the table from Mosat and many of the other international intelligence agencies and probably himself had to grapple with these very same questions. So his fear about the supply chain is warranted. And this is what I want to bring to which right now, you know, this isn't getting a ton of attention because this the whole thing is weird. But according to the FBI, there's been some weird Iranian hack of the Trump campaign that lasted up until last week. I mean, listen, is Iran like a joke economy? Yeah, but clearly they have some cybersecurity like sophistication. And if we get into a full blown war in Lebanon or with Iran or whatever against Hesbola, what you think we're not going to be subject to things like this. One of our major presidential campaigns has been hacked apparently for months, and so that's the same. And then what are they going to do. They're like, well, your client state Israel, blew up a bunch of our people. So if we do the same to you, don't complain. Yeah, what are we going to say?
By the way, separate note, but it's crazy that journalists are not reporting on.
The contents of the leak.
A whole lot that hack.
It is weird complete, I mean, the complete opposite of how they handled the Hillary twenty sixteen situation. They came under, you know, criticism from liberals. Those liberals were wrong, the journalists were correct. If you have information that is newsworthy, it doesn't matter if it's a sketchy or motivated source, of course you take that into account. But if the information is accurate and valid, you report it period, end of story. But that's another matter for another day. But it is outrageous the totally different ways that they handled those two those two hacks. You know, going back to what I was saying about the deeply chilling echoes of the type of language that was used from the Israeli government before they began their complete annihilation of Gaza, and we showed you some of that yesterday. The new language that they're using with regard to Lebanon, which again echoes what was said about Gaza. Here is Prime Minister Bibi Natanyahu saying, I'm talking like some of the exact same phrases that he said in advance of their onslaught and Gaza.
Let's take a listen to it.
I have a message for the people of Lebanon. Israel's war is not with you, it's with Habala. For too long, Hasbala has been using you as humans? She fields it placed rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage. Those rockets and missiles are aimed directly at our cities, directly at our citizens. To defend our people against Riballa strikes, we must take out those weapons now, starting this morning. The IDF has warned you to get out of harm's way. I urge you take this warning seriously. Don't let his blain danger your lives and the lives of your loved ones. Don't let his ballin danger.
Lebanon so very predictably using the same language about human shields to justify bombing and destroying any civilian to Tarium again, this sounds just like the case that they built up in Gaza, and the case that they have used for time immemorial to justify assaults on civilian infrastructure. Says they placed rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage. Ie, We're going to blow up a bunch of houses, and we're going to justify it as a legitimate military target.
And that's how you.
Already end up with what appears to be a high civilian death count. Similarly, let's put this up on the screen. You have an Israeli minister, tell me if this sounds familiar claiming Lebanon can't be defined as a state. Oh, really interesting. You also have them saying that the IDEAF should establish a buffer zone inside of Lebanon. Again identical to the language with which they describe Gaza, which is, you know, part of Palestine, and identical to you know, their justification they've said for a while now they're creating this buffer zone in Goz. Of course, it looks like the assault in Gaza is never going to end. Buffer zone or no buffer zone, et cetera. So really really similar and deeply disturbing language coming from these Israeli ministers.
Yeah, I mean, we have to spend a lot of time here because this is just this is the most precarious that that region has now been, honestly since October seventh. And worse, really, what it tells us is that the US commitment to full blown war is one hundred percent. We have a sleep at the wheel literally present. I mean, the difference between his public rhetoric and then the actual actions could not be crazier I just I really can't believe that he has the gall or his people at the gall whatever to put him on the UNBAA stage today and say that his foreign policy has had results and that there's peace around the world, Like, how could you possibly the worst war in Europe since World War Two that you are fueling, by the way, and now we have possibly, you know, an explosion of a war in the Middle East which would bring the United States back in. Don't forget two thousand and six was not that long ago. Israel, it was a big problem and this is already looking way worse for them. Also, Lebanon is very different than Gaza. There is no you know, argument about the you know, like you were just talking about nineteen sixty eight borders and all that.
This is left.
This is the internationally recognized country, all right, not disputing Yeah, it's not just like there's no there's nothing in the what is it the from the river to the sea or whatever that applies. As far as I know, I'm sure there's some biblical scholar that I could disagree. My point is just that in the region as well, this would significantly I think ramp up tensions the golf Arab States and others have always kind of had a weird relationship with Palestine. Recently there's mostly just didn't care that much about the Palestinian issue.
But with Lebanon, that's not the same thing. I mean, this is a country that they know, they have relations with Iran in particular. I think this is one where this would be everyone always liked to say, like, oh Hamas in Iran. I mean, this is Lebanon. Though this is a majority and Hezbola role, or at least Hesbola country with a large Shia population. I'm not so sure that they would respond in the same way to October seventh or that they did with Hamas that they would with Hesbola. I mean, they consider themselves like blood brothers and allies. And if you have mass civilian death in the city of Beirut, I mean just the possibility of mass explosion cannot be discounted. And the fact is is that the containment strategy has not worked ailed completely from the Biden administration. All we get our background quotes, everything that they tell us is well, we hope that Hezbola doesn't respond. What is hope? I mean, what are we doing here? Are we a superpower? Or are we not? And I mean the crazy part is that we are one, and we are you know, dispatching the firepower of the US Empire to a region which is not all that strategically important to defend the country that is not all that important to US interests in a war where frankly, like, what do we have to gain out of all this? So it's a real lesson in the failures of the Biden administration. Their foreign policy people will be writing about this and talking about it decades. But I'm scared, I really am. I have absolute confidence in the worst way that the US political establishment is committed to war, to this war in particular. Already we see republican politicians and democratic policy like Israel, US has the right to defend itself. It's like a chant, you know, It's like a mantra that you asked.
It's it's almost religious.
It's like a religious shibboleth that you must say before you're able to and to the temple of the US Congress.
Yeah, there's a few mac Producer Hack points out about the BB commentary there too. Message to the Lebanese people in English. Yeah, okay, obviously this is meant to justify this onslaught to the American people and provide, you know, this bullshit rationale and pretend like, oh, we're really protecting Lebanese civilians, which we already see is not true. The other thing that's really significant to note is that I think there's a very good possibility that part of the intent here by BB is to draw Iran war directly into this and provoke them. I mean, listen, there've already been exchanges of Israel that Israel provoked from Iran. Their retaliation has been largely relatively constrained intentionally so and frankly coordinated with the US. After the last provocation of assassinating Ismael Hania in Tehran on the eve of the new president's inauguration, they actually did not end up responding, which was showed incredible restraint at that point, given that brazen attack on their own soil. And so I think part of the intent here may be to try to provoke Iran into direct conflicts so that then they have the excuse and maybe can get his fondest wish of many years, which is dragging the US into that conflict with Israel on the side of Israel versus Iran. And I think they're also may be an intent here with the escalation in the West Bank, where they have stopped providing West Bank with the tax revenues that they are due, so they're squeezing them financially. Palestonians in the West Bank are no longer able to go and work jobs in Israel, so there's a financial a deep financial pressure. But being put on the West Bank. You've had a massive uptick in state sanctioned settler violence, and then you've also had this invasion of the IDF in the West Bank, and I think it's entirely possible that there's also a desire to provoke some sort of you know, a mass uprising like another into Fada in the West Bank to also justify and you know Gaza style assault there as well. So that's what I see as a likely strategic.
Goals of BB dot Yahoo.
And if the Biden administration has any problems with any of this, it's sure as hell doesn't seem like it from the way that they've approached the situation. Let's move on to the next part showing Yeah, so as part of you know, one of the only democracy in the Middle East, one of their latest actions was to raid the Al Jazeera headquarters in the West Bank and sees cameras equipment, shut it down, et cetera.
They sent an IDF soldiers to do this.
Our own Ryan Graham has actually been in Doha at a conference there.
I think he's back now. He's just arriving. Said the jet lag was pretty terrible.
But while he was there, he appeared on Al Jazeera to talk about this situation.
Let's take less and what.
He joining us on set is Ryan Grum, co founder of drop Side News and the host of the show Counterpoints. Thanks very much for joining us, Ryan. This attempt to silence the media, is it a disparate attempt by a government that's increasingly under pressure.
I don't know how desperate an attempt it is, or if it's a pressage for you know, a ramping up of the assault on the West Bank that we're seeing. I'm not sure I would characterize it necessarily as desperation.
It is.
It is certainly a lashing out and a flailing but you know, this is of a pattern that we have seen consistently, as you just laid out, and you say that it.
Would potentially be a ramping up of military operations in the West Bank. So it's logical to conclude Israel wouldn't then want an international audience to see exactly what he is had happening there.
Well, they very conspicuously prevented international journalists from entering Gaza after October seventh, and also, as you mentioned, have killed more than one hundred journalists on the ground there. So the number of working journalists in Gaza now is dwindling into the dozens, and so it does raise It would raise alarms for me if I lived anywhere near there that step one would be the silencing of the media before step two are ramping up of the assault.
Israel is under an increasing amount of pressure, especially internationally. We've seen the TI turn in terms of what is acceptable. We've seen accusations, heard, accusations of violating international law. Meanwhile Israel calls itself the only democracy in the Middle East. Actions like this against a free press, is it not then counterproductive? It doesn't help their case at all, does it?
No?
But I don't think that they have much credibility on the international stage left to lose. I think that going into their calculations here, they are already saying that we have lost this mantle of the most moral army, the only democracy in the Middle East. Those have become punchlines internationally rather than rather than talking points that anybody takes seriously anymore. And so this feels like a gloves off situation because sending in armed troops to you know, drag journalists out of their headquarters is you know, creates the kind of images that would make any country calling itself a democracy ashamed. The fact that not only were they willing to do this, but it appears did so partly for the production of those images suggests that they are beyond that the realm of worrying about the pr of how it looks.
I think that last point from Ryan is such an important one that they're not even trying anymore. And of course, you know, for liberal Zionists inside of Israel, and many liberal Zionists who defend all Israeli actions, here comes very difficult because that key talking all the only democracy in the Middle East becomes very difficult to say with the straight face when they're taking such actions that are brazen against a free press. And he's also a right to point out, you know, it was very intentional that post October seventh The only Western journalists who were allowed in were like, you know, if they went on a hand selected IDF ride along a friendly outlet like CNN, Okay, we'll take you along, We'll show you what we want to show you. And even within those narrow confines that still sometimes led to the exposing of, you know, horrific war crimes. Jeremy Diamond was able to expose some horrific war crimes, assaults on cemeteries and gaza and things of the sort, and some debunking of IDF lies and propaganda as well, even within those narrow confines. So the assault on journalism has been long standing, but as Ryan says, there is now just completely gloves off, as they don't even try to maintain a fig leaf of credibility because internationally it's already preposterous, it's already a joke. Let me just put up Al Jazeerra's reporting on what exactly happened here, so I can give you some more of the details they write. Israeli soldiers have rated AlJazeera's bureau and Romala in the occupied West Bank, ordered the Doha based news network to shut down operations amid a widening Israeli cracked down on media freedom. Heavily armed and mass is Raeli soldiers forcefully entered the building housing Al Jazeera's bureau handed the forty five day closure order to the network's West Bank bureau chief. That bureau chief said that Israeli military's closure order accused the network of incitement to and support of terrorism. Al Jazeera also said that Israeli forces used tear gas in the vicinity of the bureau and in that area in the heart of the occupied West Bank city. She added, Israeli soldiers confiscated their cameras, and she feared the military might try to destroy Al Jazeera's archives, which are also stored in the office.
You saw some of the footwat. We can put this back up on the screen.
When Ryan was talking of the assault on Al Jazeera's headquarters. I think we have some vo that we can play here as well, of these masked IDF soldiers coming in holding weapons and what appeared actually to be cameras and raiding this office with very little notice. So yeah, so that's the reality in this great democratic ally.
Of our Middle East.
Good to see Ryan in a different setting. It's definitely fun.
Good to see him in Field zero ruving counterpoints internationally.
I love that Baldazier actually for saying counterpoints. How hosts of that show, the details of it are honestly crazy. I mean, the more I read about it, I was like, okay, Like what's the justification? It says the initial order is closed for forty five days, it was renewed. Al Jazeer journalists are not allowed to report from inside the country after the raid. The bureau chief says, what are they doing to our office? The government media in a government media office in Gaza of still you know, has maintained its own problems. The Secretary General of the Palestinian Initiatives that Israel quote had no right legally speaking to even close any office in Ramala, which just kind of highlights the entire insanity of the legal regime and how this entire thing works. So the whole thing is nuts. And it's one of those where I could just say, in the region, you know, at this moment, this is all being taken notice of. And yes, nothing exploded luckily post October seventh. Yet you know, in other places Jordan, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, But all of these places they have their own populations, their own populations who Al Jazeer's their number one news source, and they see things like this and the level of anger gets ramped up. A conflagration in Lebanon would be just what they need for there to be some sort of global, you know, conflagration in the entire region. And that's probably what I worry about the most.
Al Jazeera is the only large network that has been able to maintain coverage in Gaza at all, and in West Bank. I mean a lot of the more professional images and understanding of this conflict that we've been able to attend to obtain our courtesy of their genuinely brave journalists. And remember that quite a number of journalists, I think one hundred journalists have been killed by Israel since October seventh, and some of those have been al just you're a journalist, so you know. Now they're just they don't want any sunlight whatsoever. They don't want people to know, they don't want those images coming out, and so they're making the show of force and shutting Al Jazera down entirely.
And it's a loss for all.
Of us that we won't have access to the same level of reporting that we did previously.
Yeah, all I want is the ability to see all size. You know, it's totally fine. Is really want to put your stuff out, Okay, cool, but just let people in. That's it. You know, let a lot of people into report and I think it's telling.
You're fighting such a moral war you should want to show us.
Yeah, exactly, you shouldn't have it. I mean hate America, but they were literally journalists on the front lines of the of Iraq, in the front convoy. You know, some of the best one of my favorite books, Generation Kill, was literally from a guy there. It's like, with this level of press access, it's like zero, it's absolutely ridiculous. Yep, let's move on to Ukraine. This is just I mean, this is this is an insane situation. It's that President Zelenski is here in the United States, not just in the United States, in a battleground state, flown there on a US Air Force jet so that him and the Governor of Pennsylvania can have a grotesque signing of bombs that are being manufactured to be shipped into war. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Governor Shapiro met President Zelenski on the tarmac. They appeared together. That's Bob Casey, by the way, right there, the Senator also from Pennsylvania, shaking Zelenski's hands, and they're like gleefully in this factory signing bombs that are being manufactured in Scranton, Pennsylvania, manufactured, by the way, with our tax dollars, and then being shipped abroad to fund the war in Ukraine. And he says, you know, we must all do our part for the fight for freedom, the workers in Scranton, the arsenal of democracy. This is all just World War two nostalgia bs and the details of it show anything. But I mean, for example, let's put this up there, my friend Dan Caldwell flag this you could see right here. Zelensky was flown to Pennsylvania on a US Air Force C seventeen. The quote the Biden Harris administration is using military assets to fly a foreign leader into a battleground state to undermine their political opponents. And if you think he's exaggerating, at the very same time that this was all happening, he literally gave an interview to The New Yorker where he was denouncing any of the Trump vance or I guess vance in particular, statements saying that the war in Ukraine needs to come to an end. And of course, as always with Zelensky's visits to America to beg for weapons, there's a split screen as to how the rest of the world is allowed to have like a very rational conversation in America, just like with Israel. If you're like bow down before Ukraine, be like, no, please take all the money and weapons who could possibly give you. Put this on the screen, for example. You can't accuse this guy of being a Russian shill. Ukraine quote needs to be realistic about its goals. This is from the President of the Czech Republic, present President Petra pavel A quote. Former NATO general who has been vocal in his support for Ukraine, said Kiev needed to accept that some territory could remain under Russian control quote, at least temporarily. He said that Ukraine needs to be realistic. The most probable outcome of the war, he says, will be that the part of Ukrainian territory will be under Russian occupation temporarily. But add to that temporary thing could last four years. And I mean it just it's almost noteworthy to me. Crystil that the most obvious thing in the world to any casual observer is anathema in diplomatic and US foreign policy circles. If you utter that very basic sentiment, you're accused of being a Russian sympathizer. You know, no one is saying that this is a good outcome. It is just the realistic outcome without further escalating the war. And of course Zelenski's chief aim from everything I've seen so far, is to prosecute a case in the media and on the Biden administration at the United Nations to force the United States to allow him to use long range missiles and strike inside of Russia. That's what this is all about. This whole little campaign stop and everything is about further escalating the war. And you know, we just talked about Lebanon. How many wars were supposed to be funding here. You know, at what point does it end? What does America have at stake allowing long range missiles to be fired inside of Russia where their president, Vladimir Putin take him, at least somewhat seriously, says that would be an official declaration of war by NATO. Okay, I mean, the guy has nuclear weapons. You have to take it seriously. You don't have to like the guy. You have to take it.
So can we put b one back up on this? I want to dwell on this for a moment. First of all, I have a question for you, Sager, which is is this thing of signing missiles?
Is this like a long standing thing?
Because there were there were so many politicians who did this in Israel, which is to jury Seinfeld did this in Israel and bombs that were going to like murder, you know, Palasidian children. It is a grotesque practice to be like delightedly signing weapons of war that are going to be used to kill human beings. And I think that this should not be normal. I don't think it should be normalized to the extend it already is that is deeply disturbing. The other thing, and you mentioned the language about the quote arsenal of democracy. This is language that Biden himself unveiled a number of months back, and then he sent out a bunch of and miserable to the extent that he does anything or directs anything from his White House at this point, sent out some of his administration officials to circulate a talking point in Congress that providing military aid is quote unquote good for American jobs. And this is a part of the story of why we have these, you know, continually expanding military budgets, endlessly expanding military budgets. It's part of the story of why we end up getting ourselves entangled in one, two, three wars at a time and never are never able to extricate ourselves from them.
Is because, first of all, you have a.
Lot of you know, people like Josh Shapiro on both sides of the aisle, who are like, do see it as a jobs program and do see it is like good for them politically to have these weapons makers in their state and production ramping up to be able to, you know, send bombs to the frontline in Ukraine, send bombs to our great democratic allies in Israel, and obviously said tongue in cheek and so. And obviously the people that own those factories and the large weapons makers, like they're the ones who really benefit from this. So the fact that this had become such an important component of the American economy, and that it has become such an important part of the personal financial bottom lines of so many people who are within a thirty mile radius of where we sit right now. That is an understated part of why we find ourselves in these situations over and over and over again, in spite of the fact that, you know, if you ask the American people, hey, you know, especially with regard to to Israel and Palisa and getting dragged into a broader Middle East war, the views are more divided with regard to Ukraine as roughly I think fifty to fifty split in terms of the approach there. But if you ask about hey, you want to go fight a war with Israel against Iran, I guarantee you you all majorities across the board that say AB's African lutely not. And yet here we are getting pulled back into the Middle East.
We just addressed that too. About the Ukraine, I mean, this idea that it inject sells cash flow into the US is bullshit. The top few US defense contractors are raking in record profits and are redistributing those profits not to workers through share buybacks, to their investors. It's not just the US. Ukraine has been the greatest gift in the history in modern history since Iraq, to the modern defense industry. They're printing money. And here's the thing. They're not even that good at what they do, that arms factory and all that. We're spending more to manufacture arms than we did in the nineteen nineties for something per capita basis, which is way more expensive. They're not even good at their jobs. That's the ironic part of all of this. It's not particularly that great for the US economy. It's only good for a bunch of defense contract shareholders and investors. Now, let's continue on this whole like, what are we doing here exactly? Shall we? Let's see, let's put this on the screen financial times. Russia overwhelms Ukrainian forces on the Eastern front. Quote, Moscow is taking advantage of Kiev's redeployment into the cursed region. Remember when Ukraine and Russia and everyone's like, wow, what a genius move. Well, their own commanders are now saying quote commanders and soldiers see this as the cost of the Kursk defensive and a poor trade off. Kurs was a good idea. It exposed Russia as being weaker than many people believed. But we are paying the price of it with more of our own land. And in fact, they talk about how Russian forces have captured several towns in the Donetsk region. It says Ukraine quote had hoped its audacious operation would force the Kremlin to redeploy resources from Dunats, but that has not happened, and instead they have had several towns now fall to Russian forces. Russia is now facing calls inwardly actually to increased the amount of soldiers and for conscription purposes. They have no signs their economy is a full on war economy now at this point, I mean, they had no current signs of turning back. Every single thing that the Ukrainians have done to try and escalate has been good for headlines, but the actual ground situation has changed nothing, not gained any more territory, especially of their own territory they allegedly, you know, is so sacred and that we're supposed to like, you know, bend over backwards to keep for them. At every level. It's not working. Even their long range missile strikes and all that. It's like, well, okay, they can't even make a case. How many square miles of territory are you going to get back if that were allowed to happen? And is that worth the risk?
No?
Because when you start talking this way, they can't do it. The whole argument falls apart, and instead Zelenski is in the page of The New Yorker going after our presidential candidates on US soil interesting and also basically saying that it's a ridiculous proposition that they could give up a single ounce of territory. This is when you know, a sizeable portion of his own population wants to just end the war. The ones who are left, not the ones who are you know, filthy, rich and fled who are all over Central Europe. But that's a whole other situation.
And you know, I largely don't blame Zelenski, but in one way I think he is very culpable for the current situation, which is that he has painted a you know, I would say overly Rosie is like sort of too kind. He's just lied about how the war alonggoing with his own population. And so even in spite of that overwhelming propaganda campaign not unusual in war time, but in spite of that propaganda campaign, you have increasing numbers who are saying, listen, guys, we're gonna have to give.
Up some of our territory.
And if you can imagine if you had a leader who was more honest about the trade offs and what a realistic pathward looked like. Then you might have an even greater consensus within Ukrainian society in favor of all right, we got it. At some point, we have to get to the negotiating tai and we have to make some sort of a deal. My point for a long time has just been this, like, tell me what the endgame is, tell me what your plan is, Tell me how this ends, Tell me how it ends well for Ukraine, Tell me how it ends well for us? Like how much what's the is there a dollar figure on is it a timeline on it? Is there a plan? Is there a strategy? And effectively, since that was it the spring offensive that you know, was hyped up and ultimately you know, didn't result in the massive gains that were predicted or hoped for, expected or whatever, that was the last time that there was any sort of US strategy with regard to this conflict that was at all comprehensible to me. And at this point they're just on autopilot. They just want to like keep the sort of rhetoric that like, you know, human rights rhetoric, which is obviously incredibly hypocritical when you see what we're funding in Israel and Palestine. They just want to keep that flowing and kind of keep it on the back burner, keep it out of the front, out of the headlines in the news, so that we can muddle through. And they're locked into kind of indefinite war mode, like low burner, in definite war mode. And it's disgusting because again, you're talking about actual human beings who are being slaughtered. You're talking about real cities that had, you know, vibrant lives and communities and history to them that are being flattened and you know will be will never be the same again. And but you know, there's no ability to have a serious conversation about trade ufs, about what the plan is, about what the strategy is, and so you just end up in this muddle. You know, with regard to the politics of this, it's pretty split fifty to fifty who people think would do a better job, and I think it's pretty split in general fifty to fifty and how people want to approach the Ukraine war. Can put this up on the screen after the last debate, this was pulling that came out that showed which candidate would be better on the issue. Forty nine percent say Trump would do a better job with regard to the rush of Ukraine war. Forty seven percent say Kamala Harris, so pretty split. I also think we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that this is a primary issue that people are voting on at this point, not to say that there's no one that cares about it, and it's certainly not to say that it's not important, but oftentimes foreign affairs doesn't end up being the top issue that people are voting on, especially when you don't have direct American boots on the ground. But nevertheless, regardless of where the political standing is, you know, the Biden Harrison mishtation, ohs the American people an explanation, and Trump, by the way, ohs American people an explanation of because he just uses this than oh, it never would have happened in the war. But you know, specifics are important here. What does that mean exactly? And because they have komalas subjected herself to basically no adversarial interviews. Trump has done very few adversarial interviews. We only had this one debate. This is the sort of thing that neither one of them has really truly been pressed on.
And this is, you know, a good show at the top because what people, I know, everybody wants about inflation and all that. That truth is the president and their ability to influence inflation, macroeconomic events and in general that's really going to touch your like economic life. It's pretty low. But in war it's actually they have total discretion to be able to do whatever they want. The Imperial American president has one hundred percent ability to get the United States into a full on nuclear Not enough people ever really grapple with that. Only when tensions are very high or two thousand was two thousand and four after the Iraq War. Prior to that and the Soviet Union times things, it was more elevated because people had the specter of nuclear annihilation on their minds at all time. But that's mostly gone away. But if you look at the most consequential acts in the last twenty five years, all of them come back to terrible foreign policy mishaps. War in Iraq ended up costing like six trillion, War in Afghanistan cost two trillion, tens of thousands of dead. The downstream effects of that on global trade, on US position on American superpower status, on Chinese competition. All of it is a disaster. If you look right now at Lebanon, and that's situe also Russia and Ukraine. The consequences of each of these individual decisions are going to be tenfold to whatever tax legislation that you pass in the immediate term. And the problem is the tail end effective It is just so high, and people don't really think that way. They think very They have a lot of recency bias, and most people are not paying attention. And that's fine, it really is, but you know, you just shouldn't be surprised then when something flares up and then your son ends up having to get deployed, or you end up paying more for a gallon of gas, or you know, your favorite company or whatever camp and ship you anything, because the straits are completely closed from uh from from warfare, and that's a very likely possibility. And in both of these cases, we're looking at a very very unstable world of which we are the primary bankroller of both. And that's what I think just underscores it really for me, these wars, we have nothing really at stake for real, like what does America care? What do you care if you live in whatever, Scranton, Pennsylvania, the square mile territory, control of the Dnetsk region of Ukraine. Same with Israel and with Lebanon. Why should we be funding this? Nobody will give you a real straight an. It's always in a democracy, American jobs, but this fake is like a couple hundred jobs in Scranted.
It's also like, I mean, it's also deeply sick to just like structure such a large part of your economy, you know, around weapons of war meant to destroy human beings. But even if there is you know, some truth to like, oh this is creating jobs in Scriant, in Pennsylvania or whatever. It's a deeply, deeply sick and deprived way to structure and think.
About your economy.
But yeah, I mean the other thing is the whole thing just seems so so listless, so directionless. Yeah, like the American super is just being buffeted around by world events and you know, doing whatever Zelenski wants us to do, doing whatever bb netnya who wants to do and with Netanyahu and Biden, like you know, this guy is a political adversary, you know what he's all about. And yet you still can't bring yourself to, you know, break from the mass, overwhelming, bipartisan consensus that we just got to do whatever Israel wants us to do in perpetuity, no matter the consequences to our own strategic interest, and no matter certainly the consequences to human life in the region. So very dark developments, very dark developments, on both fronts.