12/17/24: Eyewitness UFO Reports, Ro Khanna Debunks Dem Election Cope, CNN Admits Syria Viral Hoax
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State Farm, proud sponsor of My Cultura Podcast Network. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our

full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of interesting developments out there in the world. We are going to update you on the quote-unquote drone situation in New Jersey, and very excited to get to talk to Rich McHugh, who is a fantastic journalist. We've actually known him for

quite a while. He helped Ronan Farrow break the story about Harvey Weinstein. He is now over at News Nation and has been all over this drone story. He's probably done the best reporting on it. So he's going to join us for an update this morning. Really looking forward to that. We have Ro Khanna back in the studio to talk about the Democrats and whatever's going on with them. It looks like Pelosi was successful.

in blocking AOC from being chair of the Oversight Committee. There's a lot to talk to there. And Roe also had a fantastic op-ed that we want to get his reaction to about money in politics and how Democrats can move on from their big donor era.

We also have some updates for you on that very weird and very fake feeling CNN Syria prisoner rescue video. Um, we now know the identity of this individual, although a lot of questions remain about just what the hell was going on there. So we'll break that down for you. We also, um,

have a deeply troubling story out of California. An open AI whistleblower was found dead. We will tell you what he was saying, what he was warning about, and the circumstances surrounding his death. I'm taking a look at Bernie Sanders' warning about American oligarchy, and Sagar is talking about Japan. Yes. What reflections on your trip? Give us a little preview. Just why it's the greatest country in the world. Why it challenges all the foundational myths of the United States and what a real great society should look like. And-

and why we should aspire to be more like the Japanese and not reverse. Why do I have a feeling like I'm going to disagree? You've never been. How would you know? You have to see it to believe it. You have to understand what it's like to feel absolute physical peace in a major metropolitan area, something basically impossible in the United States of America and basically the entire Western world. So

Perhaps it's what we can see from them. And if you're interested in the obesity crisis, safety, public safety, American innovation, theories of capitalism. Don't they have like a massive birth rate crisis? Of course they do. Absolutely. A big problem over there. I think, you know what, as with all things throughout the centuries, they figured it out and I have faith in them. They should not listen to us. We should listen to them. All right. Well, I will listen with an open mind and we shall see.

It has universal health care. You should be happy about that. Okay, let's talk about the drones, shall we? We've got a little bit of an update here. President-elect Donald Trump is alleging a massive government cover-up. Let's take a listen. Can you comment on the drones that are flying around New Jersey ports? It seems like the American people have a big dis- The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from.

If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason, they don't want to comment. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy because if it was the enemy, they'd blast it out. Even if they were late, they'd blast it. Something strange is going on. For some reason, they don't want to tell the people. And they should because the people are really...

I mean, they happen to be over Bedminster. They're very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won't spend the weekend in Bedminster. I've decided to cancel my trip. Have you received an intelligence briefing on the drones? I don't want to comment on that. All right, so he doesn't want to comment on that? Yeah, that was actually a good follow-up from that reporter. That's a fantastic follow-up. Hey, you know, you get these intelligence briefings now. You want to share anything with us? No, I'm not going to comment.

Exactly right. Now, when he says a couple of things like, we know where the drones took off, we know what they are, et cetera, but they don't want to know, is he speaking from an informed position or not? Remember, as the president-elect of the United States, you get the full presidential daily briefing, the same one that Joe Biden would receive in the Oval Office. Could he be making stuff up? Maybe. I don't think so. He's probably just bullshitting. On this one, I mean, he's been specific about a couple of things. So recall the Ukraine casualty numbers. The Ukrainians freaked out about that.

because he was like, a million people have died. Meanwhile, Zelensky's like, oh, actually, it's 75,000 people have been killed. It's like maybe at a zero, and it's somewhere near the accurate number, so he's talked about that. He's talked previously about some previous military things and others, so I

I actually think this one might be with the intelligence figures. Well, then he's part of the cover-up. If he knows the answer and he's just not telling us because he got an intelligence briefing, then he's no part of the cover-up. Well, he's not the president yet, so maybe he doesn't have the authority. I don't know. He really holds to those rules and norms of the presidential transition. I have no idea. All I'm saying is I will take it seriously because he is the incoming president. He is very skilled at jumping on a...

public sentiment. And that's what I see in this. I kind of doubt that he got any special information in his briefing. Like I said, if he did, then okay, come out with it. Like, tell us what's going on. I think he's just like, sees this as a moment, sees this as a thing that's going on, and as he is very skilled at doing, sort of jumps on it and positions it

positions himself in an advantageous way. That's all I see going on here. Look, it definitely could be true. In fact, I kind of hope that's true because then he can get into office and he can tell us what's actually happening with it. But regardless, what we do know is that in New Jersey, people there are just fed up.

The governor is fed up. The state and local officials in terms of all the lies that are being propagated by the federal government. Just yesterday, we got another update on the lies from the White House, from the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Don't worry. And actually, Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, so clearly somebody at least with some authority, spoke out against this. Let's take a listen. You're a New Jersey resident. Have you seen any drones? Yeah. Yeah.

Two mornings ago over my house at 6:15 in the morning, saw them myself, so did my wife. And so yeah, they're there and I've been traveling around New Jersey as I normally do all week. And I can't tell you the number of people who have come up to me concerned about it. And that's- But is this a mass hysteria of some sort? Well, here's why, George.

Because of answers like the secretary just gave, they're not answering the questions. Well, he said that he said they're monitoring it. They haven't seen any unusual activity and they need more authority. Let me say something. I agree that they need more authority.

But to say this is not unusual activity, it's just wrong. I lived in New Jersey my whole life. This is the first time that I've noticed drones over my house. And I was in a restaurant in Monmouth County on Friday night, had people at the bar coming up to me and saying, Governor Murphy won't tell me anything. The president won't tell me anything. Do you know? Like, well, I don't know, but I will tell you this.

I think this is what happens in our society now, George, because we're used to having things so rapidly. If you don't fill that vacuum, then all the conspiracy theories get filled in there. So you've got people like Congressman Jeff Van Drew saying there's an Iranian mothership off the coast of New Jersey. Absolutely not true. There you go. He's actually said it well, which is that in our

current environment where you have videos going around, where you have multiple news reports. We're going to talk to Rich just here in a little bit. He himself witnessed many of the drones. By the way, the drone situation has now gone across the entire country, actually even global. Germany is now reporting drone problems. We talked about Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

which was just closed yesterday. The audio of that confirms their own freak out for what's happening. There have been multiple other incidents across the entire East Coast. And yet, despite this, the NSC spokesperson, John Kirby, let's put this up there on the screen, he says and continues to say, oh,

all of these, just don't worry about it. It's commercial drones, it's hobby drones, it's law enforcement drones, it's planes, it's helicopters, it's stars that people have mistook for drones. Now, look, is it true that some people have mistaken these? Absolutely. You know, you had, what was it, the governor, uh,

Larry Hogan, is that his name? Who mistook the stars for drones. It's like, okay, not spending a lot of time stargazing. It's planes or it's hobbyist drones. But, you know, whenever it comes to the hobby, the commercial drones and others, it doesn't make any sense for them to be flying at night specifically because that's not how, first of all, they're not allowed to, but also there's some various different ways to enforce that.

In terms of the law enforcement drones, well, maybe, but if you listen to the law enforcement people themselves, they say every time our drones get close to one of these so-called drones, those drones are able to go away. They don't have a heat signature. They're able to, quote, unquote, go dark, as the governor said. Planes, I mean, as I said literally yesterday, it's very easy to say what is a plane and what's not that's up in the sky. Any one of us can open a FlightAware or any of these other apps and look up

immediately and identify what a plane is, its tail, its file, et cetera, for its route, where it's going. So their explanations just continue to not make any sense, and they continue to obfuscate whatever the truth is. But the more that this continues, the more full-blown cover-up that it continues to look like. Yeah, I mean, they continue to be very evasive,

in their answers. And obviously the sightings continue and the questions remain. So one thing that I had seen is what New Jersey just like loosen up their policy allowing civilian drone usage. Yes. That's one sort of innocuous explanation that's been put out there. Yes. So, I mean, I do think that's part of what's going on is some of the things that people are saying are like commercial aircraft and drones

civilian drones and they just now are paying attention and this drone usage rule has been loosened up, whatever. But there have been enough people with some credibility and knowledge that have seen things that I'm convinced that's not the whole of what's going on. Exactly. So with that being said, let's speak to one of those people who I consider to be quite credible. Rich McHugh is an incredible reporter and journalist, as I said before. And, you know, it's demonstrated a lot of, I would say, courage in the field of journalism as

taken on stories even when it was uncomfortable and inconvenient in mainstream press. He's now a reporter for News Nation. He's been on the ground in New Jersey reporting out. He had his own sighting of, what, dozens of these drones while he was there reporting. He spoke to local law enforcement as well. We played some of this on the show yesterday, so let's go ahead and get to that.

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Joining us now is investigative correspondent for News Nation, Rich McHugh, highly respected journalist. It's great to see you, sir. Thank you for joining us. Great to see you both. Good to be back here with you. Absolutely. All right. So, Rich, you did a report that we played on our show yesterday where you were credulous of these drone sightings. You said to yourself that you were skeptical going in. Why don't you just break down a little bit of what you saw and some of the further reporting that you've done since you did that segment?

Sure. So I was absolutely skeptical before starting on this. Like I kind of didn't even pay attention to the story because I thought it was just a bunch of wingnuts in New Jersey with drones stirring up something. Then I started looking at it and I talked to I interviewed the sheriff of Ocean County and his drone team and talked to them about what they saw. Talk to the drone operator about what he saw when they put a drone up there.

You know, he was saying things like this thing that with this drone that we encountered was much bigger than ours. And they have like an industrial grade drone. And it had it didn't have a heat signature. I didn't know what a heat signature was, but apparently that's a thing. So like they can track drones with like, you know, heat. And so he was emphatic that this thing did not have the normal kind of was not giving off the normal heat.

So there's all these things. Then there's all these sightings in the communities, Monmouth County, Ocean County. Residents I talked to were saying, look, we're seeing these things overhead, like no doubt about it. One resident told me he looked up and he saw something

like 80 to 100 feet above his house. He said it was so close, he said, I screamed at it, get the heck out of here. There's mayors all throughout this state that are saying, look, pay attention to us. They just had a meeting yesterday with the White House.

saying, look, enough of the gaslighting. So from my own personal perspective, normally you don't see stuff around here. Last Thursday night, after I'd met with the Ocean County sheriffs, my cameraman and I, we got reports that there was all sorts of sightings in Monmouth County. So we raced to Monmouth County. There was sightings in Red Bank, like these look like these things were low flying over the city.

and over east by Earl and in Middletown. And so we started seeing this and, you know, I was like, I'm used to flight patterns. I'm used to like, I know where this area and I know what's what and what normally flies overhead. These look like a mix between helicopters and something else because they were flying so low. And so we started filming them.

You know, to be honest, we I've kicked the tires on our reporting and I've asked CIA, former CIA drone specialist. I've asked the CEO of a drone company, currently respected person. I've asked an aviation expert of 43 years military. You flew in the military and it was a commercial pilot.

I asked all of them. Former CIA drone specialist said, I think they're drones. The drone CEO said, they're not drones. You're filming planes. I think those are planes. And the aviation expert, the pilot of 43 years, says, I think they're drones.

So the bottom line is we don't know. Reporting this is like we really don't know. And reporting this is the experience I equate to is like reporting in a funhouse. It's like you look over here and there's a little bit of truth here and a little bit of truth there. But like you're trying to make sense of it all. You know, I think when you boil it down, I think there's room for both. I think there's a lot of stuff actually happening. I think there's real drone activity happening in New Jersey and these other states as evidenced

by the reports you're getting out of these military installations. There's incredible people on these bases at Earl here nearby and Picatinny are saying, we are seeing these. And so that is the real issue. And the fact that the federal government up until

you know, three, a couple of days ago was saying, you know, there's really no credible, you know, credible instances of drones flying over these airspaces. Well, now they're kind of, they're kind of backpedaling on that and saying, well, there, there, there are, but you know, they're, they're not, they're not really something we're concerned about. And that doesn't make sense to me as a reporter. It's like, if you get anywhere near these military installations, you're,

You can't, you know? Most sensitive thing ever. So there's a disconnect from the messaging that is coming from the federal level, and that's what's alarming. Can you tell me a little bit more about how local law enforcement is thinking about this?

Are they fearful? Are they nervous? Are they, like, what's the energy? And do they have any theories about what is going on? Do they have any advice for residents about how to think about what is happening?

I talked to Sean Golden. He's the mayor or the sheriff of Monmouth County yesterday. I went in. He is the one who's kind of like, I don't want to say like you've been at the forefront of this, but he has since the end of November. And now he has a heat map on in kind of like the brain room inside of his office.

Sheriff's Office. And there's thousands of sightings since December 2nd, and it's pretty wild to see it. So he's tracking them. He's logging everything. He's directing everybody to the federal government. He is actually calling for...

laws to be enacted, which I believe is smart. He says, look, with planes, you have the FAA and we can see on these open sourced websites, you can track them, you know, like on flight aware or whatever. You can see every plane that's going there with drones. We don't have that. And there should be a requirement that,

that you can, through GPS, track at least where the controller of the drone is. So we can weed out bad actors and then try and figure out what's going on. Because right now, it's just an unregulated Wild West. The sheriff of Ocean County I talked to, and he has the drone team, they're actively looking for this stuff. This is the sheriff who told me this story about

A police officer in their district was on the beach and called 911, which is something remarkable in itself, a police officer calling 911. But, you know, seeing 50 of these things come off the ocean. And I heard that and I was like, come on, like 50 of these things come off the ocean. And he's she's a sworn officer. They put out the drone to go look for this.

They called the FBI. They called the Coast Guard. They say the Coast Guard put out their boat and they reported back that 13 of these things followed their boat in. So I can't imagine a sheriff and Coast Guard are making that kind of claim up. It's unbelievable.

So how are they going about it? I think they're just saying be vigilant. You know, try not if you see one of these things, don't necessarily call 911. If you see something and you're convinced of it, then then, you know, take action. Here's where you can call. Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah, Rich, last question for you is just in terms of what does your gut feeling think in terms of all of the theories that are out there? Of course, we were talking a little bit before. There's UFO theories that are around this. There's a viral, quote-unquote, nuclear theory. In terms of your reporting, there's just what you said, is that a lot of these, is they loosened up some of their drone regulations and people are just having some fun. Having, you know, you said kicked the tires of those. What do you think?

I think it's a combination. I think it's complicated. I think it's a combination of things. I think, number one, there is something going on here with drones. No doubt about it. People are seeing it. Mayors are seeing it. Like the sheriff's office are seeing it. Military installations, they're seeing it. I think in talking to Sean Golden, the sheriff, he's like, look, I believe a lot of these sightings are

probably are planes that people are now staring up and looking at the sky and maybe mischaracterizing. So there's some of that going on. I think that the narrative coming out of the government is helping fuel that because people don't have answers anymore.

If I had to guess after talking to these sheriffs and seeing the messaging coming out of the White House and federal officials, I think they know far more than they're letting on. I think if I'm going to be a betting person, the government knows exactly what this is. These are our own-- these are not foreign bad actors.

because I truly believe that if they were foreign bad actors, we'd be stopping it. Instead, the messaging is like,

We acknowledge that this is happening, but it's not a harm to you people. Well, it's like that's an irresponsible statement to put out unless you know something more. Correct. Yeah. Absolutely. Very true. Well, Rich, it's always great to see you. You're like the Forrest Gump of reporting. You always get on these incredible stories, important historical moments, et cetera. So we're really grateful for your time this morning. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good to see you both. Yeah, same to you.

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So we are fortunate to be joined this morning by Congressman Ro Khanna here in the studio. Always great to see you in person, sir. Always love coming in. Lots of interesting Democratic Party news going on that we wanted to pick your brains on. So, guys, if you could put B4 up on the screen here, we'll start with this. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been trying to become ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, which is a significant role and important.

one that she seemingly, based on her past work, would be relatively well-suited for. Reporting is that Nancy Pelosi decided she would rather have Jerry Connolly, who is relatively aged and also suffering from cancer, in that position. Yesterday in the steering committee, he was able to win that vote. Now, typically, my understanding, you can correct me if I'm wrong, is usually the way the steering committee votes is

is the way that the whole caucus votes. So this is likely a defeat for AOC. Do you think that she still has a chance to get this position? What do you make of this sort of backroom dealing to block one of the young, rising members of Congress for an older, more establishment figure?

Well, I don't agree with that. Right after this, I'm going to vote in the House caucus. I'll be voting for AOC for a couple reasons. One, she was the vice chair. She's done the work. She comes very well prepared. Two, the whole committee in the minority is about getting out in the media and being an effective communicator. That's true. We don't have that many effective communicators right now in Congress in these leadership positions.

But she's gonna be an underdog. I don't understand why the steering and policy committee's recommendation has so much weight. And then someone explained it to me. Everyone wants to get on their committees and the steering and policy committee basically determines what committees you go on. - So if you go against them, you may be screwing yourself for your committee position. - And one of the biggest complaints I heard about

AOC secondhand was that she had endorsed in primary challenges. You know, God forbid you endorse against an incumbent in our party. And I've said, you know, we should have competition just because you're an incumbent doesn't mean that you're guaranteed that seat.

But this is where you're seeing that those who are willing to question the system, shake things up, that that doesn't go well when you want to try to be in leadership. I'm glad you brought that up because there was actually reporting that as part of her attempt to become ranking member of House Oversight, she was willing to agree not to back Oversight.

primary challengers against incumbent Democrats, which I think is, you know, I mean, I think it's extraordinary to begin with because as you point out, it's important to have that Democratic choice. I think it's been part of her brand. Obviously she came in challenging a long time entrenched Democratic incumbent, Joe Crowley. You also came in in a Democratic primary challenge. And so I thought it was extraordinary that she was willing to give that up. But I also thought it was extraordinary that she was willing to give that up and they still were like, not good enough. We still want our guy, Jerry Connolly.

Yeah, I don't think we should give that up. Let's say someone was challenging a member of Congress on the Iraq war. That's how I started. I lost that race. But wouldn't you want to have incumbents challenged if they voted for the Iraq war? Yes, of course. And this is where the lesson for progressives is we're not going to build power

just by making compromises. We've got to get more of our folks elected. Now, the fact that she got to 27 is pretty remarkable, but we'll see what happens in the House caucus. So the reason you're here is in this context of like the future of the Democratic Party. What is this all about? So we have a hilarious element here. Can we put, what is it, B1, please, up on the screen from The Atlantic? They write, maybe Democrats didn't do so badly after all. The party's debate about reinventing itself after the election has gotten

more complicated. They talk about some of these retcon positions and others. You've been a part of this conversation. So we're curious for your reaction to that and whether, is this how your colleagues feel and generally about this theory of change and where things go from here under a second Trump administration? What do you make of an argument like this?

I think we have to make a distinction between could we have won this election by a couple of points or can we win back 26 or 28? Of course we can, versus a long-term problem for the Democratic Party. Let me talk about that long-term problem. We've been losing working class votes, white working class votes.

African American working class votes, Latino working class votes. You've gone on Ohio from President Obama carrying it by five points to carrying it by three points to us losing it by eight points and losing it by 11 points. Anyone looking at the data has to say, okay, even if we can win in 2026 because Trump does something really dumb, this is not what the Democratic Party coalition. And we've got to, in my view, get back to the FDR coalition on, uh,

economic populism, economic liberalism, whatever you want to call it. I call it a new economic deal which says we're going to raise Americans' wages, we're going to guarantee people health care when they're really upset that health care is being denied, we're going to bring business leaders, labor leaders all together to industrialize America and left out places and be the party of economic renewal. It seems that we have the elements in our different parts of our party, but we've got to be bold with standing up for these policies.

Just to follow up on that, we can put, I believe it's B1B, this New York Times tear sheet up on the screen, which has some of the specific quotes here. It's the New York Times version of the same sentiment. Democrats argue that the 2024 election actually had its bright spots. And I'll quote a little bit. They say, you hear some party leaders and their allies talk. Democrats had plenty of November victories to

be proud of, Jamie Harrison, chair of the DNC, wrote a memo to party members last week pointing to down ballot triumphs, declared Democrats beat back global headwinds that could have turned this squeaker into a landslide. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, wrote in a statement recently that his caucus had, quote, defied political gravity.

So when you're in these internal House Democratic caucus meetings, is this the sentiment you're getting? Or is there a sense of we have to do some significant reforms and changes? Is it divided? What does that breakdown look like? It's not that. I mean, this is PR. I understand, you know, if you're leading and you have a

bad result, you're obviously going to look for the bright spots. But the reality is people know that we've got to have a much stronger economic message, that we've got to channel anger of people. That doesn't mean, OK, let's just invent villains in a caricature way. It means, why are people upset? Why are they upset that jobs have gone offshore? Why are they upset that corporate greed and insurance companies are denying insurance claims? Why are they upset that

that billionaires are determining political elections and speak honestly about it. You can speak honestly about it in a suit, you can speak honestly about it in a hoodie, you can speak honestly about it in eloquent language or cursing. That's not the point, it's not stylistic, it's substantive. Are you willing to speak truth

about the condition most people find themselves in. So you've talked about PAC. That's one of the reasons you wanted to come on here, to talk about not taking PAC money and others. You're trying to project a new vision of what that party could look like. So what is that in your view? Well, the DNC should make some very basic commitments. No super PAC money in Democratic primaries. If there is a super PAC clearly affiliated with a candidate, the DNC and elected official leaders should endorse against the candidate affiliated with a super PAC.

Let's not take corporate PAC money in the DNC. That's just getting back to what we had in 2008 under Obama when he ran saying, I'm not going to take PAC money or lobbyist money. Let's get behind the Maine initiative that passed in Maine 70 percent regulating the amount people can give to super PAC. So you couldn't get Elon Musk or Bill Gates giving 50 million dollars to a super PAC.

You can only give $3,300. That passed with 70% of the vote. Why isn't the Democratic Party saying we're going to have a 50-state strategy? We're going to run the main ballot initiative in every state. We're going to run- Well, answer that question. Well, they make a lot of money, don't they? Because there's a lot of people.

- There's a lot of super PAC money on the Democratic side. - Yeah, more. - Yeah, yeah, that's right, a lot. - And as you know, Congressman, a lot of what the party selects for at this juncture is not necessarily political skill or aptitude or a vision, it's who can raise the dollars. That has become an important, maybe the central litmus test for aspiring Democratic candidates. So for people who've come up in that system, that's their primary skill, are they gonna be willing to go in this direction?

Well, if they want to win, they will. And it's not just a matter of winning. It's a matter of can we actually govern, right? 70% of people in this country want fundamental economic transformation. Only 20% trust the federal government to do that. Why is that? Because they see politicians spending most of their time raising money. They see these elections being dominated by super PACs.

And they don't think that people in the government, in Congress have a vision looking out for them. So if our party doesn't reform these basic things, we're never gonna earn the trust of the American people to actually get our agenda through. And you're absolutely right though, but the first question when someone's running for Congress that people ask,

is how much can they raise? Yeah, I know. I ran for Congress. That was the first question I got. It's probably gotten worse since then, too. Absolutely. And now it's how much can you raise and who are your key super PAC allies? Not what is your platform? Are you for increasing the minimum wage? Where do you stand on Medicare? What do you think are the big issues? No.

I mean, those are the issues that matter to voters. But we're just selecting a terrible criteria in what it takes to get to elective office. Which means that you're going to end up primarily with people who come from wealth or are connected to wealth, and it creates very little class diversity in the Congress. Absolutely. What is the Democratic theory that you're hearing about how to act politically?

under the Trump administration. So the first time around, the theory was Trump is an illegitimate president, we're just gonna treat him as like resistance, et cetera. Kinda worked, 2020. This time around, it's different popular vote mandate. This was just general exhaustion with a lot of this. So what are the fights inside? Like, what are the fights that you're going to pick with Donald Trump and the incoming administration to position yourself, not you yourself, but the party, for 26 and for 28?

Well, there are two different schools of thought. One is we've got to revitalize the resistance. There are some people who say, look, we've got to resist more. We've got to resist stronger. And the other school of thought is we've got to focus more on what we need to do, how the Democrats are going to govern, what we are going to do on economic issues, on different issues around the country. I'm in the second camp. That doesn't mean you don't push back. I mean, Trump is invariably pushing.

going to betray certain promises. I think the time to push back is with specifics. Why aren't you raising the minimum wage? Why are you giving corporate tax cuts to have more offshoring of jobs when they have the tax bill? Are you really going to give these tax cuts to the very, very wealthy? But if we just say blanket resistance, we're not going to connect with people on actual things that affect their lives.

Congressman, you were one of the first, I think, politicians to, of course, condemn murder of Brian Thompson, the health care CEO, but also say, you know, there's a reason why people are reacting the way they are and why they are so disgusted with the health care, if you can call it that system that we have.

Obviously, we don't have the majorities for Medicare for all, what you and I would both like to see as the system in this country. But are there areas where you think that we could bite off some chunk of improvement in the health care system that would make it less cruel, fewer bankruptcies and less deadly?

Well, you can have two different thoughts simultaneously. Murder is unconditionally wrong and the health care system is irredivably broken. Yeah. And those are both what we're seeing happening. You know, I'll just give you one statistic. If you have cancer and many people know someone who's had cancer, the average 42 percent of cancer patients within two years have lost their entire life savings. Oh.

And so many people have denial after denial. And you know what they do? Many times they just don't take the medicine or they don't get the procedure. So one of the simple things we can do is to say, if a doctor prescribes a medicine,

And if Medicare would cover it, then the insurance, private insurance companies should cover it. But just on the front page today of the New York Times is the corruption of the system. If you look at it, it says that private insurance companies

colluded with PBMs to basically get Americans addicted to Oxycontin. And they were paying PBMs to say, fill more of the Oxycontin prescriptions. It is a corrupt system. And all you have to do is look at the front page of the New York Times. Medicare for all is the answer. I'm tired of people saying it's not politically possible. If there is

ever a moment that we should be pushing that, it is right now. But how do you square that with what you just said? Only 20% of people say the federal government can solve their problems. How are you going to convince them that? Well, Medicare is one of the places where people do like, right? I mean, and so- Yeah, they like when they pay their bills, but they don't like when being told what to do or rationing care, et cetera, right? Well, Medicare doesn't cover rationing the care. I mean, I think when it, look, there's certain things

When it comes to job creation, creating high paying jobs, I do think we need to have a whole society approach. You need to get business leaders. You need to get technology leaders. You need labor. One of the great things about FDR is he was basically a conductor. He had all the talent and the politician was just saying, OK, I'm going to mobilize that. But when it comes to Medicare for all, for public health, for people's health care, I think people realize that shouldn't have a for profit motive that having the Medicare system

pay for the coverage makes sense. And then you can have your private doctor, you can have your private nurses, you can have your private hospitals. It's important to let people know that those are gonna be private. Many people don't even know Medicare is a federal program. And they'll say, yeah, I like Medicare, but I don't like the federal government at the same time. Yeah. That's true. No, that's a great point. Well, Congressman, we always appreciate your time. Thank you so much for coming. I appreciate it. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to you too. Good to see you. Yes.

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We have an update for you on the CNN situation. They are now admitting that their segment, at least in part, was a complete lie that we showed all of you on Thursday, where you had this miraculous freeing of a prisoner who had allegedly been in the cell for months on end. And even though he'd been there for months, there was no waste in the cell, and his nails were perfectly manicured, and he actually looked fine, and he wasn't pale, or didn't show signs of acute malnutrition, or of a

hunger or of lacking water for several days. Well, it just turns out that at the very least, the name that he gave them is totally wrong. Let's put this up there on the screen. According to CNN themselves, they tracked down some of the people who knew him and they say a man who was filmed by CNN, note the passive language,

being released by rebels from a Damascus jail was a former intelligence officer with the deposed Syrian regime, according to local residents, not an ordinary citizen who had been imprisoned as he had claimed. CNN initially found the man while pursuing leads, uh,

In a video report, Clarissa Ward and her team, accompanied by a rebel guard, came across a cell in Damascus that was padlocked. The guard blew off the lock and the man was found alone inside the cell. When he emerged, he appeared bewildered. Questioned by the rebel fighter who freed him, he identified himself as Adel Gurbal from the central Syrian city of Homs. He claimed he'd been kept in the cell for three months. However...

His real identity is said to be a lieutenant in the Assad regime Air Force Intelligence Directorate Salama Mohammed Salama, a resident of Bayada neighborhood in Homs, gave CNN a photograph said to be of the same man while he was on duty in what appears to be a government office. Facial recognition then matched him to that role

And it appears that he was actually in prison as of a month ago because he had been extorting and shaking people down for, quote, profit sharing from extorted funds with a higher ranking officer. So, OK, at the very least, the story is bullshit, right? Three months in jail. Nope, he was in prison less than a month ago.

They said he was some heartbroken rebel prisoner. No, it turns out he was an Assad intelligence thug who had been imprisoned for shaking people down, maybe, right, according to them. And then his current whereabouts, completely unknown. So this raises all kinds of questions, and it's a total joke and terrible look.

for CNN because they just broadcast this stuff without a single, they don't check anything, they don't ask anything, they broadcast it live, everybody's reacting to it. Crystal, I'm sure you saw, this is one of the most extraordinary moments in American television that I've ever seen. - I did see it. - Normal people are like, this is bullshit, okay? I didn't come out and say it 100% 'cause you know, you never know, Ryan and I, but we were like, well,

It looks fake. You guys are very diplomatic. I watched your section and you're very diplomatic. You've got to leave a possibility open. Internally, I was just like, yeah. Well, just for people who didn't see your original segment and maybe haven't seen this original CNN segment, let's relive and just in your mind, like imagine if you were, the story they're selling here is that this man has been in prison for at least three months, that he's gone days and days without bail.

I mean, you can only go a short period of time before you die without water, and that he's been hiding under this blanket the whole time, yet he's, you know, he's like, his haircut looks pretty fresh.

The jacket he's wearing is really clean. Like, there's still a lot of questions. So let's go ahead and relive this CNN segment, and then I can tell you a little bit more about what we know on the other side. I'm a civilian, he says. I'm a civilian. Okay, you're okay. You're okay. You're okay. You're okay. Okay, it's water. It's water.

After three months in a windowless cell, he can finally see the sky.

So, you know, it went on from there. He sees the sky. Yeah, and there's a whole emotional scene, etc. In any case, let's go ahead and put up on the screen. CNN was not the outlet that first tracked down who this individual actually was. It was this organization, which calls itself like a Syrian fact checker. The headline here updated to CNN fabricate the story of, quote, freeing a Syrian detainee from a secret prison.

prison, they are the ones who tracked down the actual identity of this individual and talked to local residents and got the story from them. And according to local residents, he was imprisoned, as you said, Sagar, less than a month. It was due to a dispute over profit sharing from extorted funds with a higher ranking officer. So it was the Assad government itself who had imprisoned their own guy, right? Right.

And then he also was known, allegedly, again, according to local residents, as someone who had murdered and tortured civilians. So not exactly the heartwarming tale that CNN wants you to take away from their original reporting. But the other thing is, so many questions still remain. Because even now that we know the apparent identity of this man and the reason that he was apparently imprisoned...

The whole setup still seems really fake. The whole idea that he was in prison for so long, they had no food and water, that they just stumbled upon him and miraculously rescued him, etc., etc. It raises a lot of questions. And it's also just incredible. I don't...

Clarissa Ward, she's a longtime foreign correspondent. She's been in war zones. This is not someone who is just naively showing up. Certainly she's been in a lot of dicey situations with a lot of people who want to propagandize you and convince you and trick you, etc.,

So the fact that this was just accepted at face value is really quite wild to me. Oh, absolutely. She should know better than anybody else. But Ryan was bringing this up, and I think it's actually the most important. These journalists, they're not neutral people.

As in, Clarissa Ward admitted to sending an email to Ben Rhodes, who was the national security deputy under Barack Obama, and was like, I hope that you're happy with yourself because she was upset with him for not bombing the Assad regime in 2013. She admitted on the stage to all of this. She literally said on this issue, I'm an activist. And so what happens? We all get carried away. You know, I'm particularly aggravated by –

this entire situation because you would think that these Al-Qaeda guys are the greatest heroes on earth. And listen, I'm fine with value neutral analysis. I'm openly was fine, not fine, but I said, well, it's preferable to leave Afghanistan and let the Taliban take over. I know the Taliban is bad. I know a lot of people will suffer.

I just don't think we should have anything to do with it. But you basically have two regimes that are now effectively the same. Look at the media treatment of the way that the US pullout from Afghanistan was happening, and look at these people. They're like heroes, you know? And, you know, let's check in five, six years from now. Let's see how it works out for the Alawite Christians or for the Druze population.

or the Shia or any of these other religious minorities, let's see. Everybody said, oh, Afghanistan's gonna be a harbor of terrorism and all this stuff. Why don't they say the same stuff about Syria? Like somehow they've decided that Assad was worse. And look, he's not a good guy, but you don't have a lot of good options to choose from here.

So that's why I'm just infuriated by people like her and all these other Western journalists who selectively decide who the good guy is and who the bad guy is. And it doesn't even make any sense. Its internal logic is completely contradictory. It's totally ridiculous. Yeah, I think when we had Jeremy Scahill on, I thought...

think he said it well, which is that, of course, there are very good reasons why many Syrians are celebrating these developments. And that means something. And, you know, I'm not I'm not Syrian. And like they deserve to get a chance to run their own country and to have a representative government and to shape their own destiny. And at the same time, while you're holding that thought in your head, you also have to recognize that

The peril is great based on who we know the new government is comprised of, their track record, and also what we've learned through the Arab Spring, what we learned through our intervention, our disastrous intervention in Libya and other brutal events.

misadventures. So, you know, I hope that the story turns out differently this time, but I'm jaded enough to be not too optimistic about that. As you should be. And also, you know, for everybody, oh, let the Syrians decide. We decided to be...

that's different a long time ago. Syrians didn't get to play a role in any of this. Qatar, UAE, the United States, Iran, Hezbollah, Israel, dare I say. Turkey. Turkey. It could go on forever. It's turned into a complete regional proxy. It's like Ukraine. The

They themselves, they never had a chance to determine their own future from day one. It became a foreign playground. And they're, of course, the ones who paid with it with their lives. So I feel terrible for them. But now at this point, I mean, yeah, I literally am looking at a thing right now, a prerecorded video from the new leader of Syria, al-Jilani. When we build the Islamic caliphate, Christians will pay the jizya under Islamic sharia. Okay.

Okay? If you don't know what that is, it's a tax. So that's what ISIS did too, by the way, whenever they imprisoned sex slaves in Syria. This is what I'm talking about. And these people act like they're heroes. Yes. Like, has he changed his tune? I hope so, you know, for the people of Syria. But you can't preemptively be giving these people the benefit of the doubt. So I don't know.

I just think willful tools of propaganda are ridiculous. They did this with Egypt. They did this with Libya. They're doing it now with Syria. The track record is bad. So, yes, I'm hopeful for the people of Syria. I actually wish for them they actually got to decide their own fate. But let's not be naive. Let's not be naive about this conflict. Yeah, that's exactly right. 14 years now this has been going on.

I think in this situation with this CNN report, I mean, the simplest and most obvious explanation is Clarissa Ward, who should know better because she is an experienced reporter, has been to many war zones, has been in these sorts of situations.

that she allowed her ideology to blind her to the fact that she was being taken for a ride. Exactly. I actually think that's the most charitable explanation of what unfolded here. Let's hope that that's the case. But then you also have to think, you know, it's not just her because she records this and then there's a chain of producers who edit it and executive producers who okay it and, you know, on-air hosts, I believe it was presented originally with Anderson Cooper, who accepted as...

credible when i mean the vast majority of people when they saw this immediately were like this is yeah so somehow got through all of those chains and made it to air without any major like caveats of we may we don't really know what unfolded here but we're going to show you the story okay that's one thing like but it was presented as if

they felt confident that the story they were being fed was the real and accurate truths. Yeah, and last thing on this, there's often a feeling in the U.S. that, oh, I can't believe how bad things have gotten. No, no, no, no. It's always been this way. As in this 10, 15 years ago, this Clarissa Ward segment, there's no internet, all right? Like there's no Twitter or anything for those people. Like this is BS. And I was reminded actually of the Dan Rather thing

The Dan Rather incident, do you remember this? Where he was fired from CBS News after they were found manufacturing a story. And if you think about it, like that was right at the beginning of the blogosphere. Is that about George W. Bush? This was about Bush. His National Guard service or whatever it was that. Yeah. My point though is that it –

Dan Rather was a household name in this country, right? He was like Walter Cronkite 2.0 and all of this. And it took the blogosphere to be like, hey, this is BS. Now rewind to Vietnam. So all of the people who have all this nostalgic feeling, I have this Cronkite book behind me, all right? People should go and read it because the news has always been fake. It's just that now you know it's fake.

And we have this theory about, oh, things have gotten worse. It's like, no, no, no, no. For the very first time, you actually have and can see behind the curtain. Well, Brian Williams. Oh, yeah. Ducking in a helicopter. Coming under fire while he was in a military helicopter in Iraq or something like that.

Something like that. And yeah, it took years for that to ultimately emerge that he just completely made that up. And I think there were several other instances of, we'll call it, fabulism. Of course. From him. There's so many of them. That led to his ultimate, to his downfall, although he was resurrected, brought back into NBC, but that's not true.

Yeah, they put him in at 11 p.m. But yeah, that's the other thing. You lie, oh, it's fine, no worries. But I just wanted to put that out there because I see way too many people thinking, how could CNN ever be like this? And it's like, well, let's rewind to 03 in the Iraq War. How many of these things were you guys seeing out there? Like, oh, we've been welcomed as liberators and all that. We just didn't have Twitter to be like, this is bullshit for people in Iraq to be like, no, actually, this is entirely staged by the Pentagon. And a whole ecosystem.

of independent journalists like this Syrian group that are able to actually track it down. Glenn is the OG of this. He was the first person on the blogosphere with others talking about how the anthrax story was fake, Iraq was fake, but he was a lone wolf at that time. So God bless Glenn. Shout out to him.

because he set the stage for all of us. But anyway, it's just a reminder. It's like all this nostalgia about things were in the past. You just didn't know. This was half the stuff that was coming out. Yeah, that's a great point. ♪

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