A Democratic candidate in Maine apparently has a Nazi tattoo, but that s not stopping Bernie Sanders from endorsing him. Plus, Republicans finally dump Paul Gracia overboard, and we talk about the government shutdown and construction on the White House.
00:01:03.000It's a rallying cry against the cultural rot poisoning our society.
00:01:07.000Lions and scavengers tells the truth that the left refuses to confront.
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00:01:30.000Well, Democrats are in a tough position in the Senate races in 2026.
00:01:34.000There are not a lot of vulnerable seats for Republicans in 2026, but one of those vulnerable seats was supposed to be in Maine, where Susan Collins, who's a Republican senator from a very purple to blue state, she looked to be vulnerable against the Democrats.
00:01:47.000The Democrat chosen to run by the party was a person whose name is Graham Plattner.
00:01:53.000Graham Plattner is a Bernie Sanders acolyte.
00:02:22.000I know that I don't know where all of this sort of fondness for Nazis is coming from, but it seems like a bizarre number of people are kind of into the Nazis these days.
00:02:32.000So the reason this is coming up is because Graham Plattner apparently released a video, shirtless, drunk at some sort of event, a wedding or something, in which he has a Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest.
00:02:47.000Now, again, Plattner has the endorsement of Bernie Sanders as an anti-establishment outsider, according to Axios.
00:02:54.000But there have already been a series of minor scandals surrounding his candidacy, including resurfaced Reddit posts where he espoused offensive views about black people and assault victims.
00:03:07.000So apparently, in this video, he is singing shirtless and he has a skull tattoo on his chest.
00:03:14.000That is a totenkopf, which was a symbol used by Hitler's SS.
00:03:20.000You know, like the skull and crossbones used by the SS.
00:03:23.000Apparently, the move was intended to get ahead of OPO research, and the GOP Senate campaign arm seized on the images, accusing Plattner of having a Nazi tattoo, which is, of course, precisely what that is.
00:03:34.000Now, Plattner then decided to go on with the Pod Save America, bros, joining Tommy Viter, former van driver for Barack Obama.
00:03:42.000And he says that the video was from his brother's wedding.
00:03:47.000And first of all, when you have to say you're not a secret Nazi, never a great political sign.
00:03:52.000When you can put that on a bumper sticker or whatever, he said that he got the tattoo in Croatia while he was deployed and very inebriated, and that he and his fellow Marines chose, quote, a terrifying looking skull and crossbones.
00:04:32.000And at no point in this entire experience of my life did anybody ever once say, hey, you're a Nazi.
00:04:42.000It never came up until we got wind that in the opposition research, somebody was shopping the idea that I was a secret Nazi with a hidden Nazi tattoo.
00:04:53.000And I can honestly say that if I was trying to hide it, I've not been doing a very good job for the past 18 years.
00:05:01.000Okay, well, actually, it is not just a matter of people have not randomly accused him of being you have like literally an SS symbol tattooed on your chest.
00:05:15.000So, controversy has now broken out over whether he meant to have a Nazi symbol tattooed on your chest.
00:05:19.000Now, I don't know how many people accidentally have Nazi symbols tattooed on their chests.
00:05:23.000I feel like the number is relatively low.
00:05:26.000That's not like a thing that you just randomly stumble onto.
00:05:29.000You get drunk one night and you're like, hey, let me get that Nazi tattoo here on my chest.
00:05:34.000Like, I'm not sure how that happens, particularly.
00:05:36.000Apparently, some of his political friends and allies don't believe him either.
00:05:42.000According to Jewish Insider, a person who socialized with Plattner when he was living in Washington, D.C., more than a decade ago, says that Plattner had specifically acknowledged the tattoo was a totenkoff, the death head symbol adopted by the Nazi SS unit that guarded concentration camps in World War II.
00:05:57.000Apparently, he said, Oh, this is my totenkoff.
00:06:02.000That exchange occurred in 2012 at Toon Inn, a popular dive on Capitol Hill, where Plattner later worked as a bartender and was a frequent patron while he attended the George Washington University on the GI Bill.
00:06:12.000He would often take off his shirt, drinking with friends late at night at the bar, and on at least one occasion had stated he knew what the tattoo represented, according to the former acquaintance.
00:06:21.000So apparently, Plattner said at the time, at one point, that he was aware it was a toten cop when he'd gotten the tattoo.
00:06:29.000Another time he said that he didn't know.
00:06:32.000I mean, clearly he knew that is the reason why he's revealing the video now early in an attempt to get past it before the primary vote.
00:06:41.000Now he's trying to explain that we chose a terrifying looking skull and crossbones off the wall because we were Marines and skulls and crossbones are a pretty standard military thing.
00:06:49.000We got those tattoos and then we all moved on with our lives.
00:06:52.000And he says, it was not until I started hearing from reporters and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol.
00:06:59.000I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that.
00:07:02.000And to insinuate that I did is disgusting.
00:07:04.000I'm already planning to get this removed.
00:07:09.000Apparently, Plattner's former political director, one Jean-Viev McDonald, who resigned from his campaign last week over her objection to other Reddit comments, which we'll get to in a moment, said in a Facebook post, well, Graham has an anti-Semitic tattoo on his chest.
00:07:27.000Maybe he didn't know when he got it that he got it years ago.
00:07:29.000He should have had it covered up because you know damn well what it means.
00:07:34.000So, yeah, this seems at the very least unpleasant.
00:07:39.000And again, not a gigantic shock coming from Graham Plattner because there were a bunch of Reddit posts that are pretty ugly as well.
00:07:48.000In one of them, he described himself openly as a communist.
00:07:51.000He called all cops bastards and he dismissed sexual assault in the military.
00:07:56.000Also, he defended a man with a Nazi SS lightning bolt tattoo who later admitted to impersonating a federal officer at a BLM protest in Las Vegas in 2020.
00:08:06.000Plattner said in a deleted Reddit post, quote, I will be sure to inform the black guys I know with Bolts that they're Nazis now and not U.S. Marine Corps scout snipers.
00:08:14.000Bolts were an SCI icon since the 80s, at least, if not longer.
00:08:17.000It was never official, but it sure as bleep was tattooed on almost every hog I knew between 2004 and 2012.
00:08:24.000He also drew scrutiny for appearing in a photo this summer with a white supremacist agitator in Maine, Richard Ward, who's running for a Banger City Council seat.
00:08:32.000Apparently, in the photo, Ward is pictured wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the number 88.
00:08:38.000Apparently, Graham, the spokesperson said, told this person to F off.
00:08:44.000Again, when you're in public situations and people are taking pictures of you, you can't necessarily vet every single person who shows up with any t-shirt.
00:08:50.000However, you can make a determination as to whether you would choose to have a Nazi tattoo.
00:08:56.000That one seems like it doesn't happen by total accident.
00:09:00.000Now, what's amazing about this, aside from the fact that Graham Plattner seems to be a bit of a scuzz bag.
00:09:06.000And here I say that he has comments on these Reddit posts asking why black people don't tip, suggesting that people concerned about being shouldn't be inebriated around people they don't feel comfortable with and all the rest.
00:09:18.000Now, this is the kind of stuff that would normally get you canceled, certainly from the Democratic Party, but he is a progressive, and that means that Bernie Sanders is going to defend him now.
00:09:26.000So the same people on the left who are demanding that every Republican in sight condemn every young Republican, even tangentially associated with an ugly text thread.
00:09:35.000All those same people are now out defending Graham Plattner today.
00:09:39.000So for example, John Lovett, another one of the Pods of America bros, he tweeted out: only perfect candidates off the Harvard law conveyor belt, please.
00:09:47.000Highly disciplined, all boxes checked, well-liked and humble, absolutely no spiritual connection to having a physical body except for severe IBS, volunteered at a soup kitchen in high school, signs, email cheers, et cetera.
00:09:57.000Okay, I think that there's a big gap between that and, you know, the drunken dude who is routinely spewing garbage and also has a Nazi tattoo on his chest.
00:10:08.000Also, John Lovitt routinely calls people Nazis.
00:10:11.000So just weird how that double standard immediately applies.
00:10:16.000Bernie Sanders, for his part, he says, I personally think that he is an excellent candidate.
00:10:21.000I'm going to support him and look forward to him becoming the next senator in the state of Maine.
00:10:26.000He said, there's a young man who served his country in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he went through some really difficult experiences seeing friends of his killed or whatever.
00:10:31.000And in spite of all that, he had the courage to run.
00:10:33.000I personally think he's an excellent candidate.
00:10:37.000Okay, but I don't think that you would be making the same excuses if the person were on the other side of the aisle, obviously.
00:10:44.000Asked about Plattner's comments about assault.
00:10:50.000Okay, so I do love Bernie Sanders pulling out the patriotic military service card after spending an entire career ripping on the American military industrial complex and America's foreign policy.
00:11:02.000But in the end, this is the Democratic Party.
00:11:06.000It is not about actual consistent argumentation.
00:11:09.000And they're perfectly happy to have a self-described commie with a Nazi tattoo on his chest running for Senate in Maine if it means the Republicans lose control of the Senate.
00:11:18.000That's what really matters to them in the end.
00:11:20.000All righty, coming up, Democrats are still having a tough time separating off from their radicals.
00:11:25.000Plus, we'll get to the government shutdown and all the rest first.
00:11:27.000It's often said freedom isn't free, which of course is true.
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00:13:44.000Well, it's not just Bernie Sanders endorsing Graham Plattner or the Pods of America bros endorsing Graham Plattner that is indicative of where the Democratic Party is.
00:13:52.000Again, the Democratic Party continues to simply endorse people who say and do quite terrible things.
00:13:57.000Abigail Spanberger is running for governor of Virginia, of course, and she has been plagued by the issue of Attorney General candidate Jay Jones.
00:14:05.000Jay Jones, of course, texted a Republican that he wished to kill the Speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia and then called that Speaker's children small fascists, even though he apparently knew the kids.
00:14:16.000Abigail Spanberger is now saying that, you know, those texts were just a poor choice.
00:14:47.000Because taking ownership usually means consequences.
00:14:50.000But again, that doesn't seem to apply in politics anymore on any side of the aisle, as we'll get to in a moment.
00:14:55.000Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren continues to prop up the ghost of Ed Markey, the senator from Massachusetts in the face of Seth Moulton, a much younger Democrat who's running against him.
00:15:04.000Moulton is considered sometimes to be a more moderate Democrat than Ed Markey.
00:15:07.000He's trying to sort of make more progressive signaling toward the bays.
00:15:12.000But here's Elizabeth Warren, who would rather have the very, very old Democrat in the Senate, the more radical Democrat in the Senate, because this is who the Democrats are.
00:15:20.000They are embracing the radicalism full scale.
00:15:24.000I've endorsed my partner in the Senate, Ed Markey.
00:16:00.000So forget about the next generation of Democrats.
00:16:03.000The next generation of Democrats will either be insane progressives or they will be, you know, just old people.
00:16:08.000Meanwhile, I've been talking about this for a while.
00:16:11.000If you're going to condemn extremism, if you're going to condemn radicalism, if you're going to condemn structures that promote violence, then you really should do that on all the different sides.
00:16:20.000This should not be particularly difficult.
00:16:21.000And the fact that people have a tough time with it is bewildering to me in the extreme.
00:16:26.000And this is why it is worth talking about that apparently, according to CBS News, a pardon Capitol rioter was arrested last weekend for allegedly threatening to kill a House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries.
00:16:34.000Court documents obtained by CBS News said that this person was arrested Sunday after saying in text messages he planned to eliminate Jeffries when that top House Democrat spoke at an event in New York City on Monday.
00:16:45.000He was arraigned on Tuesday, entered a plea of not guilty.
00:16:48.000He said, I cannot allow this terrorist to live.
00:16:51.000Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated.
00:17:03.000Christopher Moynihan texted threats, terroristic threats, they say, against Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, texting, quote, even if I am hated, he must be eliminated.
00:17:14.000I will kill him for the future about Jeffries.
00:17:17.000Allegedly, Moynihan not only texted that, but knew that Jeffries was to appear yesterday at an event at the Economic Club of New York and noted that date and that event in the text thread.
00:17:30.000Jeffries put out a statement in which he said that threats of violence will not stop us from showing up, standing up and speaking up for the American people.
00:17:36.000Now, again, I think that the people who make violent threats are responsible for their own actions.
00:17:42.000People who promote conspiratorial nonsense that ups the ante on violence, those are people who ought to be called out as well, because that is in and of itself a bad thing.
00:17:52.000That is why it is quite a good thing that Paul Ingracia has now apparently withdrawn his nomination.
00:18:01.000He was the person chosen to lead the office of special counsel, but he had a long history of truly awful decision-making with regard to his own personal politics.
00:18:11.000Ingracia's move came after Republican senators voiced opposition to the nomination.
00:18:14.000It became clear President Trump's pick to lead the Office of Special Counsel had no path to confirmation.
00:18:21.000Senators James Lankford of Oklahoma, Rick Scott of Florida, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said on Monday they opposed Ingracia's confirmation.
00:18:28.000Political had reported on Monday, as we talked about, that Ingracia had used an Italian slur for black people and also written, quote, I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time.
00:18:38.000He, of course, is a big supporter of Andrew Tate, among others.
00:18:41.000Why he was picked in the first place remains a bewildering decision.
00:18:45.000But yes, there should, in fact, be some self-policing by the parties because here's the deal: either you end up self-policing or somebody else ends up policing you.
00:18:56.000And when it comes to condemnations of immoral behavior and terrible opinions, that seems to me like a baseline moral standard as a general rule.
00:19:06.000Okay, meanwhile, in terms of actual violence action and incentivization of violent action, again, back on the left, yesterday, a U.S. Marshal and an illegal immigrant were shot in Los Angeles when federal officers opened fire as a migrant weaponized his vehicle and tried to flee a traffic stop, according to the New York Post.
00:19:23.000The 44-year-old suspect who'd reportedly escaped from custody on a previous occasion allegedly rammed his Toyota Camry into federal vehicles, prompting agents to surround and box in the immigrant's car, according to DHS Assistant Secretary Trisha McLaughlin.
00:19:37.000The illegal alien then weaponized his vehicle and began ramming the law enforcement vehicle in an attempt to flee.
00:19:43.000Officers followed their training and fired defensive shots.
00:19:45.000Apparently, the suspect then spun in a way that could kick up smoke and debris at the federal agents.
00:19:54.000The car started to fishtail, and they moved to subdue him by smashing in the driver's side window.
00:19:59.000He pressed on until an agent opened fire.
00:20:01.000An illegal immigrant was shot in the elbow.
00:20:03.000The U.S. Marshal was struck in the hand by a ricochet bullet.
00:20:07.000Again, why in the hell we should consider this the fault of federal agents as opposed to the people who continue to incentivize illegal immigration, including criminal illegal immigration in the United States, is beyond me.
00:20:20.000And yes, people are more likely to attack ICE agents if they know that there is sympathy to them doing so.
00:20:39.000It has been repeatedly reconstructed since then.
00:20:41.000It was really expanded pretty massively by FDR in 1942.
00:20:45.000It is not one of the older parts of the White House.
00:20:48.000The President of the United States has ordered parts of the East Wing to be demolished, and then the East Wing will be rebuilt as a giant ballroom, which is fine.
00:20:58.000I'm just telling you, it's a bunch of offices.
00:21:00.000It is not in any way comparable to the West Wing.
00:21:04.000A Treasury official apparently wrote on Monday evening in an email to department employees: quote, as construction proceeds on the White House grounds, employees should refrain from taking and sharing photographs of the grounds to include the East Wing without prior approval from the Office of Public Affairs.
00:21:19.000Supposedly, this is because it could reveal sensitive items, including security features or confidential structural details.
00:21:25.000More likely, just on a skeptical level, it's because the images of gigantic cranes and wrecking balls taking down parts of the White House have become a talking point for many, many Democrats.
00:21:38.000During an event at the White House earlier on Monday, President Trump described the ballroom as a grand entertaining space for visiting dignitaries, and he said it would be funded by private donations.
00:21:48.000The ballroom will be at least 90,000 square feet with the capacity for more than 650 seats.
00:21:53.000The East Room currently has enough space for about 200 seats.
00:22:00.000The main footprint of the White House, not including the East and West Wing, is approximately 55,000 square feet.
00:22:05.000And President Trump said for more than 150 years, every president has dreamt about having a ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, state visits, etc.
00:22:13.000I'm honored to be the first president to finally get this much-needed project underway.
00:22:18.000This, of course, prompted Democrats to freak out.
00:22:20.000Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota wrote, Seeing the White House torn apart is really emblematic of the times we're in.
00:22:28.000Here's President Trump talking lightheartedly about the reconstruction effort.
00:22:33.000If I do this again, I'm going to get a ballroom built and we're putting up our own money with the government just paying for nothing.
00:22:40.000You probably hear the beautiful sound of construction to the back.
00:23:03.000I mean, again, the fact that people are trying to make a big deal out of this is totally insane.
00:23:06.000So I've asked my sponsors at Comet, a new web browser by Perplexity, to list the major construction projects that have occurred at the White House since 1900.
00:23:15.0001902 renovation by Theodore Roosevelt, which included removal of Victorian conservatories, construction of the West Wing for executive offices, upgrade of interior finishes, state dining room renovation.
00:23:26.000There's another expansion by William Howard Kaft in 1909, which established the first oval office.
00:23:32.000There's the Rose Garden modernization, 1913.
00:23:38.000The attic and upper floor renovations in 1927, West Wing repairs and remodeling 1929 to 1930.
00:23:43.000There were a bunch of expansions under FDR, including adding a second floor and larger basement to the West Wing and construction of the East Wing to house offices for staff and secure wartime communications.
00:23:53.000There's a major reconstruction under the Truman administration because there was a risk of collapse.
00:23:57.000That included new foundations, steel and concrete structure, modern plumbing, wiring, heating, and cooling, and rebuilt interiors.
00:24:03.000There are a bunch of restorations under Jackie Kennedy.
00:24:06.000And then, of course, there were renovations to the Rose Garden by the Trump administration in 2020.
00:24:12.000And in 2025, construction of the White House ballroom.
00:24:15.000And pretty much everybody made significant upgrades, including, for example, the addition of the Truman balcony.
00:24:22.000So the White House has always been a building that is under construction.
00:24:25.000All right, coming up more on the government shutdown plus the latest on the negotiations over the Gaza Strip.
00:24:30.000The vice president is visiting Israel.
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00:27:10.000Meanwhile, the government shutdown continues to pace Democrats.
00:27:13.000Again, they're struggling for a narrative.
00:27:15.000Tearing down the White House is not really a narrative.
00:27:18.000I do not think that most Americans are going to sleep tonight enraged by the idea that President Trump is constructing a ballroom at the White House.
00:27:26.000The government shutdown continues to be a Democratic-driven policy.
00:27:31.000So much so that rational Democrats like John Fetterman, senator from Pennsylvania, he's like, you know what?
00:27:37.000Like, seriously, reopen the government, nuke the filibuster.
00:27:39.000Now, Republicans are hesitant to do this because once you break that glass of nuking the filibuster, then presumably if Democrats ever get control of the Senate again, they could do the same thing.
00:28:32.000Hey, he, again, remains maybe the only sane Democrat in the Senate at this point.
00:28:37.000Meanwhile, President Trump says the Democrats should stop the madness and just reopen the government.
00:28:41.000This thing is probably going to go on for a couple more weeks, it seems like.
00:28:46.000But today I'm calling on every Senate Democrat to stop the madness to let our country get back in the greatest moment in the history of our country in terms of wealth, in terms of job creation, and in terms of investment coming in, these guys go on strike.
00:29:27.000He called them Tea Party terrorists, actually.
00:29:29.000But here is President Trump basically turned about his fair play, which may be the slogan of the Trump administration, honestly.
00:29:38.000Unfortunately, in a craven and pointless act of partisan spite, Chuck Schumer, who have known for a long time in the radical left Democrats, are holding the entire federal government hostage to appease the extremists in their party.
00:29:58.000And Senator Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, he says that he hopes Democrats will come to their senses and actually just reopen the government at this point.
00:30:07.000So we're hopeful that this will be the week when we break out of this and the Democrats come to their senses and decide to open up the government.
00:30:14.000We're going to give them several opportunities, as you know, to do that.
00:30:16.000We'll have another vote on the continuing resolution tomorrow, which is sitting at the desk of the Senate.
00:30:21.000Could be sent down here to the White House, sign into law.
00:30:23.000The government would open up immediately.
00:30:27.000Well, meanwhile, the Democrats are claiming that the government must remain shut down no matter what, because healthcare is a ticking time bomb, which is hilarious.
00:30:34.000I'm old enough to remember when Obamacare was passed and it was supposed to bend the cost curve and solve the problem of health care premiums.
00:30:42.000Here's Senator Chris Van Hollen, a clinical moron, talking about this.
00:30:49.000Well, Chris, I don't want to see the shutdown go on.
00:30:53.000And that's why I, together with my Democratic colleagues in the Senate, have voted seven times now to reopen the government, but without giving Donald Trump that blank check.
00:31:03.000He was doing a whole lot of damage to federal employees in the country even before the shutdown.
00:31:09.000I mean, remember Elon Musk and his chainsaw, and they did a huge amount of damage in their so-called big, beautiful bill, which was beautiful for billionaires, but not for others.
00:31:20.000And when they extended the tax cuts for billionaires, the one tax cut that they did not extend was that that helps middle-class Americans afford their health care.
00:31:29.000They've left this ticking time bomb, and we want to defuse it.
00:31:32.000And that's what I'm hearing from my constituents as well.
00:31:36.000I mean, again, why was that time bomb ticking?
00:31:38.000I mean, you guys radically expanded Obamacare subsidies in 2021 under the guise of the pandemic, which by that point was already waning.
00:31:46.000But I thought that Obamacare was supposed to solve this, didn't it?
00:31:49.000I mean, are you admitting that Obamacare is basically a giant fail that has constructed enormous government-based subsidies and has not really lowered the cost curve in a gigantic way?
00:32:00.000The real reason here is because Democrats are hoping that this will somehow spur them to the polls.
00:32:04.000Hakeem Jeffries, this is actually really funny.
00:32:06.000Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, he says that the government shutdown is hurting Republicans so much so that Democrats will win in New Jersey and Virginia.
00:32:16.000It is at this point that I should remind Hakeem Jeffries that New Jersey is a very blue state and Virginia is a very blue slash purple state.
00:32:24.000Like if your big triumph is that you somehow regain the governor's mansion in Virginia and that you win in New Jersey, I got to say, you guys are playing defense an awful lot.
00:32:36.000We're going to win in New Jersey because the American people are fed up that Republicans would rather spend time on vacation on the golf course, give $40 billion to a foreign entity and can't find resources to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits days away from November 1st and the open enrollment.
00:33:02.000Okay, well, meanwhile, the Republicans continue to play turnabout is fair play.
00:33:07.000According to the Federalists, the House Judiciary Committee has now referred former CIA Director John Brennan to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution over allegations he knowingly made false statements to Congress about his role in the Russia collusion hoax.
00:33:19.000In a letter to the Attorney General Pam Bondi, obtained by the Federalist Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, argued that Brennan made numerous willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact contradicted by the record established by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as the CIA.
00:33:32.000The referral highlights numerous instances in which Brennan allegedly issued untrue remarks when testifying before the Judiciary Committee in May of 2023.
00:33:41.000And again, this is a fairly well-predicated ask by the Judiciary Committee.
00:33:48.000The reality is that Brennan did at the very best fib.
00:33:51.000When asked about whether he was involved in analyzing the so-called steel dossier, Brennan claimed, no, I was not involved in analyzing the dossier at all.
00:33:59.000He said, were you aware of the FBI's involvement with the dossier?
00:34:01.000Matt Gates, who was then in Congress, asked Brennan, and Brennan said, yes, because there's an annex in the ICA that the Bureau asked to be included there.
00:34:07.000It was their purview, their area, not ours at all.
00:34:10.000But apparently, Brennan overrode the objections of CIA officials concerned about the steel dossier's inclusion in the assessment at all and simply included it.
00:34:19.000So, again, this is not just turnabout as fair play.
00:34:23.000Now, in the turnabout is fair play category is a report that I think this is foolhardy.
00:34:29.000Again, I think that the Republicans, you always got to be careful of overconfidence, sort of leading you down the primrose path into defeat.
00:34:37.000Apparently, according to the New York Times, President Trump is demanding the Justice Department pay him $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit.
00:34:53.000So this is certainly an ethics conflict because many of the people in the Justice Department were appointed by the president, who is now asking them to apparently reimburse him for legal fees during the course of the last several years.
00:35:07.000Those legal fees, by the way, are not paid by the lawyers.
00:35:10.000If you wanted to go ahead and sue the lawyers or go after the lawyers, that makes sense.
00:35:15.000If he wants to make the American people pay the legal bills, that seems to be a bit of a different story.
00:35:20.000Apparently, President Trump submitted complaints through an administrative claim process that is often the precursor to lawsuits.
00:35:26.000The first claim lodged in late 2023 seeks damages for a number of purported violations of his rights, including the FBI and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 campaign.
00:35:39.000President Trump did say that he would give any of that money to charity.
00:35:44.000He said, I'm the one that makes the decision.
00:35:45.000That decision would have to go across my desk.
00:35:47.000It's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself.
00:35:52.000I mean, I don't even understand how this would work, frankly, on a sort of practical level.
00:37:16.000Again, that's cars with, okay, if that car is just sitting out front like rusting, why don't you just give it to Cars for Kids and actually do something good with it and get the tax write-off and all the extra benefits?
00:38:16.000Okay, well, you know, the question is how that happened, because the only force that was actively attempting to destroy Hamas has now been essentially barred from doing so by the so-called ceasefire deal.
00:38:28.000Now, the reality is that the way this is likely to go is that the area outside the so-called yellow line, which is the sort of current border between Israeli-held territory and Hamas-controlled territory, that area is likely to become not just a buffer zone, but actually a fairly populous and peaceful zone.
00:38:48.000Essentially, the Gaza Strip is going to be partitioned.
00:38:51.000That seems to be the most likely scenario here.
00:38:53.000Jared Kushner, special advisor to the president on these matters, he says that rehab funds are not going to pour into the Gaza Strip, at least the part controlled by Hamas, but rebuilding will commence immediately in the safer part of the strip.
00:39:04.000That would be the part currently controlled by the Israeli military, and that will eventually be handed over to some sort of security force, an international stabilization force, they call it the ISF.
00:39:17.000No reconstruction, no reconstruction funds will be going into areas that Hamas still controls.
00:39:22.000And as far as the demilitarization goes, once the ISF is up, there needs to be a security force that they can feel safe from in order for it to be the transition to be complete.
00:39:38.000What this means is that if there is no force in the Hamas-controlled parts of the Gaza Strip, that is Israeli, and there needs to be some other international force willing to actually do the hard work of getting rid of Hamas.
00:39:49.000In all likelihood, is that going to happen?
00:39:51.000I remain skeptical that the Arab nations are going to put their soldiers on the ground in Gaza in order to get rid of Hamas.
00:39:58.000And there are serious open questions as to which countries would be sponsoring that.
00:40:03.000As an American, I do not trust Qatar or Turkey to do that, considering they're the funding mechanisms for Hamas for the past 20 years.
00:40:09.000It's a different thing if it's the Saudis, the UAE, maybe even Egypt, none of whom like the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas.
00:40:16.000Meanwhile, Israel has released footage of Hamas torturing and murdering people in the remaining parts of the Gaza Strip.
00:40:21.000Remember, all the people who are very, very concerned about Palestinian civil rights and human rights and who are claiming that there was a genocide.
00:40:26.000Spoiler alert, there was not a genocide in the Gaza Strip.
00:40:29.00026,000 Gazan high schoolers actually graduated from high school the other day.
00:40:33.000You know, like they actually went to school in the middle of the war.
00:40:36.000Not only that, there's brand new data that is out demonstrating full scale how ridiculous the claim of a starvation campaign was.
00:40:46.000According to a brand new IPC analysis, the IPC declared a famine on August 22nd through the ceasefire on October 10th.
00:40:58.000If there was in fact a famine, there should have been 10,000 starvation deaths.
00:41:01.000The Hamas and the UN counted 192, virtually all of whom had pre-existing conditions.
00:41:07.000So that is not even remotely a starvation campaign.
00:41:12.000It is a feeding campaign considering how much material was shipped in.
00:41:16.000In any case, all the people who are yelling about Israel seem to have no problem with Hamas reconstructing military centers under hospitals and schools and murdering Gazans in the streets.
00:41:39.000And this sort of stuff is happening in the Gaza Strip right now, the parts that Israel no longer controls.
00:41:45.000This person would eventually be shot to death.
00:41:47.000So well done, members of the international left who said that Israel was really the problem in the Gaza Strip as opposed to Hamas.
00:41:54.000Meanwhile, the vice president of the United States, J.D. Vance, headed over to Israel to try to oversee the implementation of some sort of phase two or negotiation over phase two, which would involve making quiescent the Hamas-controlled part of the Gaza Strip.
00:42:07.000Here was Vice President Vance with Prime Minister Benjamin Tanya who in Israel yesterday.
00:42:12.000We have a very, very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas, but rebuild Gaza to make life better for the people in Gaza, but also to ensure that Hamas is no longer a threat to our friends in Israel.
00:42:25.000I think the Prime Minister knows that as well as anybody, but it's something that we're committed to in the Trump administration.
00:42:32.000Hey, the vice president also said that if Hamas does not cooperate, then Hamas will be obliterated.
00:42:37.000That, of course, is the position of the president as well.
00:42:41.000Right now, where I stand, I feel confident that we're going to be in a place where this peace lasts, where it's durable.
00:42:47.000And if Hamas doesn't cooperate, then as the President of the United States has said, Hamas is going to be obliterated.
00:42:54.000Now, again, how that happens, that's still an open question.
00:42:56.000The vice president said that both Arabs and Israelis are showing some impatience with Hamas's unwillingness to disarm itself, which, of course, is not a giant shock.
00:43:07.000I think what you're seeing from our Gulf Arab friends, certainly from our Israeli friends, is a certain amount of impatience with Hamas.
00:43:14.000But we're going to keep on working at this process and we're going to keep on trying to bring the deceased hostages home, but also make sure that all Gazans are able to live in a prosperous and safe place.
00:43:25.000Now, hilariously enough, actually, people on the left have been ripping into Vance for this trip, which again is a fairly traditional foreign policy trip.
00:43:36.000Jen Saki over at MSNBC stepped in it yesterday.
00:43:40.000She suggested that JD Vance is so scary that Usha Vance might want a divorce.
00:44:23.000Okay, well, we've already gotten started with the JD is scarier than Trump routine, which is, of course, true of literally every Republican in my lifetime.
00:44:30.000Oh, man, that last guy, we hated him so much, but the new guy is so much worse.
00:44:34.000They've been saying this about every Republican literally ever.
00:45:08.000So, Ellie, your book is astonishing, obviously.
00:45:11.000For those who haven't read it, why don't you give us the brief story of what happened to you on October 7th, where you were taken, and what happened next?
00:45:19.000We were in our house in kibbutz, Bay Rey, me, my wife, my two daughters.
00:45:24.000Um, on October 7th in the morning, we had alarm in the kibbutz, and uh, we've been in a safe room.
00:45:32.000Four hours later, um, 10 terrorists from Hamas arrived to our house, uh, invaded to our house, and uh, kidnapped me and murdered my wife and my two daughters.
00:45:47.000They're British citizens, and murdered them with their British passport in their hands.
00:45:53.000And I was kidnapped to Gaza and I've been there for 491 days, most of them, 440 days from them.
00:46:03.000I've been in Hamas tunnels, 50 meters underground.
00:46:07.000So, you know, what happened to your wife and your daughter is, as you write about in the book, you did not know that on October 7th.
00:46:12.000On October 7th, you assumed that because they were British citizens, that Hamas wouldn't harm them, that Hamas would attempt to kidnap them instead.
00:46:17.000And you only found out on your release, which happened in February of this year, what had happened to your family.
00:46:24.000During that entire time, you talk about in the book, your hope that they were alive and waiting for you.
00:46:29.000What was it like to obviously come out of the tunnels, be released, and immediately find out what had happened to your family?
00:47:02.000And of course, she didn't need to tell me anything because I understood the worst case, the worst scenario happened for me.
00:47:12.000And since then, you know, this loss and the grief, they are with me every moment of my day.
00:47:22.000But I decided it would be the alongside of my life and not instead of my life.
00:47:27.000So you were taken into Gaza, as you talk about in the book.
00:47:30.000You were initially housed in an apartment building.
00:47:33.000You were chained in a room, essentially, for a few months, and then you were moved into the tunnels.
00:47:38.000What is it that people in the West do not understand about Hamas that you think leads them to protest against the IDF's actions in the Gaza Strip in favor of Hamas, in favor of the narratives that Hamas is telling?
00:48:40.000And after they finish with the Israelis and the Jews, they come to Britain and France and Germany and the US because for them, all the world should be Muslims.
00:48:52.000And there's only one religion in the world.
00:48:57.000You mentioned it briefly there in the tunnels, because obviously there was a difference between being kept overground and being kept underground.
00:49:04.000People in Israel knew that these terror tunnels existed for legitimately decades, actually.
00:49:09.000And so when they moved you from the apartment that you were being held in by civilians, I understand, correct?
00:49:15.000Some of the people who were holding you were civilians, so they were all members of Hamas.
00:49:19.000When you were moved into the tunnels, two questions.
00:49:21.000One, were there civilians who knew that you were there?
00:49:25.000And two, when you were moved into the tunnels, what was the experience of the tunnels?
00:49:31.000So first of all, nobody tried to help us, not civilians and not Hamas people anyway.
00:49:40.000Even more than that, Hamas, you know, terrorists actually afraid, were afraid all the time from the civilians from outside that would hear us in this apartment and they will come in and they will lynch us and they will kill them as well.
00:50:00.000The conditions in the Hamas tunnels 50 meters underground, most of the time it's dark.
00:50:12.000There's no running water, no soap, no toothpaste.
00:50:18.000You wash yourself every six weeks with half a bucket of cold water and worms all over the place, rats and roaches.
00:50:30.000And from them, of course, as I said, as I mentioned before, humiliations and violence and the starvation was the worst thing ever.
00:50:44.000So as a human being, how do you even survive that?
00:50:46.000You were held down in the tunnels with, from time to time, a few other Israelis.
00:50:52.000I think that the people who you were down there shifted over the course of time a little bit, but you were down there with a few other Israelis virtually all the time, as you talk about in the book.
00:51:02.000How do you actually get yourself through the day, not knowing what is coming next?
00:51:06.000And also, what was Hamas saying to you about what Israel was doing and the response of the world?
00:51:13.000So you understand it is you cannot wake up every morning and expect to go home today.
00:51:22.000So you have to have a routine that the time will pass without to get insane.
00:51:55.000And that's how you, you know, trying that the day will pass until someone will come and tell you that you're going home.
00:52:07.000From Hamas, we just, you know, they try to say to us that there's no Israel anymore and everybody sent missiles to Israel and almost destroy Israel.
00:52:21.000And the Israeli government and the Israeli civilians forgot all about us.
00:52:27.000And that's what they've tried to do all the time.
00:52:30.000So, Ellie, you speak Arabic, so you're able to talk with your captors in their language.
00:52:36.000And you've mentioned some of the things they were talking about.
00:52:38.000One of the things you talk about in the book is that they would tell you how divided the West was.
00:52:43.000They would tell you how divided Israelis were, that they would champion that.
00:52:46.000They would talk about how the West was essentially crumbling because of the sort of propaganda work that they were doing.
00:52:51.000Talk about what they saw as victories for them.
00:52:55.000What were the things that gave them hope that they would eventually win, even though obviously the IDF was pounding Gaza at the time?
00:53:01.000Yes, they were really, really proud that we are dividing in Israel.
00:53:07.000And they said the protest is against Netanyahu and all the Israelis doesn't want Netanyahu to be the prime minister.
00:53:17.000And for them, it was a victory, you know, that we are dividing and we are not united.
00:53:24.000So because of that, after my release, most of my, when I speak to people, I mention how much it's important to be united and to show all the world that we are one nation.
00:53:38.000And this is the only way that we can defeat our enemies.
00:53:42.000So Ali, President Trump and the Trump administration have now brokered this deal.
00:53:48.000They came out a couple of weeks ago, a week and a half ago.
00:53:51.000That obviously was a moment of triumph for Israel.
00:53:54.000The president essentially declared that Israel had won.
00:53:56.000Realistically, Israel has pulled back to what they're now calling the yellow line, which is about 53% of the Gaza Strip inside the rest of that 53%, that 47%.
00:54:05.000That area is Hamas seems to be consolidating control.
00:54:09.000They're killing people in the streets.
00:54:11.000They're renewing bases inside schools and hospitals and all the rest.
00:54:15.000What is it actually going to take, practically speaking, to extirpate Hamas?
00:54:45.000We really, really just happy that, first of all, all their life hostages came back to their families and they're with the families now and they can recover.
00:54:56.000And we are happy that it's a kind of a peace process or agreements in the area.
00:55:05.000Two years of war didn't do anything good for Israel or for Israelis.
00:55:15.000Since October 7th, all the Israelis in trauma.
00:55:19.000And I think after two years, they can start to heal a little bit from this day and from all these two years with missiles all over the place from Iran, from Hezbollah, from Gaza, and from Dekhut in Yemen.
00:55:36.000So we are happy for now, for the like for the quiet time now, as much as we can get.