10/28/24: Michelle Obama Lectures Men To Vote Kamala, Bezos Nukes WAPO Endorsement, Israel Bombs Iran
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Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show.

Speaking of, I guess, expanding the map, Kamala Harris was down in Texas for a big rally with Beyonce and also with Michelle Obama trying to boost Colin Allred's chances in the Senate against Ted Cruz. Michelle Obama, kind of following in her husband's footsteps, had some very specific messaging towards men. Let's take a listen to a little bit of that. But to anyone out there thinking about sitting out this election or voting for Donald Trump or a third-party candidate in protest...

because you're fed up. Let me warn you, your rage does not exist in a vacuum. If we don't get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage. Are you as men prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children you love and tell them that you supported this assault on our safety?

And to the women listening, we have every right to demand that the men in our lives do better by us. We have to and how it will affect every single woman in your life. Your girlfriend could be the one in legal jeopardy if she needs a pill from out of state or overseas, or if she has to travel across state lines because the local clinic closed up.

Your wife or mother could be the ones at higher risk of dying from undiagnosed cervical cancer because they have no access to regular gynecological care. Your daughter could be the one too terrified to call the doctor if she's bleeding during an unexpected pregnancy. And this will not just affect women, it will affect you and your sons,

The devastating consequences of teen pregnancy won't just be borne by young girls, but also by the young men who are the fathers. They too will have their dreams of going to college. Their entire future is totally upended by an unwanted pregnancy. Her pressure dropping as she loses more and more blood or some unforeseen infection spreads and her doctors aren't sure if they can act.

You will be the one praying that it's not too late. You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody to do something. And then there is the tragic but very real possibility that in the worst case scenario, you just might be the one holding flowers at the funeral. You might be the one left to raise your children alone. We put our lives in the hands of politicians, mostly men.

who have no clue or do not care about what we as women are going through. So there were kind of two parts to that message. The first part where she's very like, you know, you have every reason, women, to expect your men to do better and men you need to do better. The second part, I think, much more effective where she's like personalizing it and talking about some of the most dire consequences of losing the right to abortion care. But, I mean, listen, I don't think that when you're out there talking

On this issue, we know that this is not the number one issue for men. Literally not the number one issue. And so I don't even know if this message really is for men, but it comes off...

It's similar to Obama's of like, you know, lecturing. Hectoring and lecturing. That's what these Obamas do best. Like you're thinking about this wrong, et cetera. And so, like I said, the second part of that I think is actually very effective. I think it's consistent with like the way Kamala Harris has talked about abortion, how some of the most effective surrogates have talked about the specific consequences which we have seen and the way that, yes, if you're a man, this could affect abortion.

somebody you love in your life, I think that's effective. I think anytime you go out on the direction of like, could even be construed as lecturing, I think you're on very shaky ground. - Yeah, and that's why I was like, I was honestly so pissed off by it because I just hate this hectoring and lecturing, specifically from the Obamas, where you have these people who are in charge of the country for eight years, and then this, you know, as the mail shift has happened, and there's a lot of reasons as to why,

abortion is a key reason why a lot of women are voting. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But this whole, like, we have reason to expect better from the men in our lives. And it's, you know, what does she say? The consequences of your rage. The thing is, and we just had a whole conversation about this with the Trump thing. Whenever people are mad, validating why they are angry, specifically in a small d democratic context, is really important. Dismissing and saying you're wrong

is quite literally one of the most least effective political strategies that is out there. So in general, being in the position of lecturing people, especially from the heights of people who are in charge of the country, just completely counterproductive. Now, the latter part of that message, I agree. I mean, that's one of those where the most effective abortion ads I've seen is when it's

couple and what was that I forget the people who spoke at the DNC and there was a man and a wife and she had she needed like an abortion or something and then the doctors denied her one she was left with consequences for that and he's up there I think that was a woman in Texas too yeah it was a Texas woman and he's

The husband's up there being like, my wife and I wanted more children. And this is a, I mean, that's a powerful ad. That's a family ad. That's one that looks at, you know, as a unit. This was very much like kind of both pitting men and women against each other. But more importantly, it was lecturing against the men. And so I think that the most effective is to message like to that unit as a family, specifically people who are in a marriage. And, you know, it really also celebrated family.

This like hyper individualism, which is connect, you know, that whole teen pregnancy message. I don't even necessarily disagree. It's more just like putting it in that way is I think quite gross. And it's like all of the- Which part? Just the part where it's like, oh, their lives will be ruined by having a baby. I just think that's-

I don't know. To me, that one, it reads wrong just because it very much looks at it as something that will, quote, ruin your life. And there are a lot of consequences, teen pregnancy, et cetera. But I just think talking about it in that way, very much like centering the teenager and the teenage girl and boy and their ability to go on and do whatever they want in this individualism, that kind of does validate some of the pro-life way that people criticize this. But

I don't know. The whole thing to me just read wrong. The best part of their message is just trying to message to people as a unit and why it's consequential for you. But outside of that, lecturing and putting people against each other I always think is the wrong move. Colin Harris actually did a very good job at the debate.

talking about this. And, you know, she had those specifics. I mean, one of the most effective ads we've ever seen on the topic of abortion was the young woman in Kentucky who had been raped repeatedly by her stepfather and who said, listen, I would not have had the ability to have choices if it was, you know, Daniel Cameron, who was the one who was running for governor. And you end up with a Democrat winning the state of Kentucky focused on an issue of abortion. So, yeah, that part of the message I do think is very effective. But the other part

not so much, the same time we got a little hot mic moment from Kamala Harris. She's at a bar with Gretchen Whitmer and seems to get caught saying something like, you know, we need to make up ground with male voters.

And then she says, like, oh, there's microphones around. Shit, LOL. Let's take a listen to how this all went down. So everyone's trying to get the microphone around. Yeah. Oh, we have microphones. Oh, hi. I didn't realize that. Okay. You'll bleed my F-words out. We just told all the family secrets. Shit. Anyway, it's good to see you.

Yeah, so the audio is muffled, but it's basically we need to move ground among men. Move ground among men. Okay, yeah. So anyway, some indication that they, which, I mean, we've seen. Actually, she's doing a podcast. It's not a secret. It's not a secret, yeah. But, I mean, to hear her acknowledge it, whatever, it's a thing, right? She got caught saying something she didn't mean to say publicly, so it's a thing. But, yeah, she's doing the Shannon Sharpe.

today. Club Shay Shay. Club Shay Shay. So we'll take a listen to that tonight and she's, you know, enlisted, I guess, Tim Walls was playing Madden football on Twitch. Yeah. Although that was a bomb. Only they didn't have that many streamers on it. I,

- Oh really? - This isn't like Tim Wall's derangement syndrome. - It was AOC and Tim Wall's playing that. - Objectively, it was like 10,000, which I mean, we get more on that than our live streams. - It's not impressive. Those are not impressive numbers. - It's not good numbers. - Anyway, she's made a number of concerted efforts to try to go into more male spaces and put out surrogates that she thinks will be effective, et cetera. So clearly they realize this is an area that they've gotta shore up in order to prevail on election day. - Yes, I wanna get to a clip too.

talking to somebody that I referenced earlier. Here is John Fetterman talking to a New York Times reporter on their podcast specifically about that cultural phenomenon I referenced earlier and explaining to her what truck nuts are. Let's take a listen. You know, I'll never forget. I live directly across the street from the steel mill, and we were doing an event there for Clinton.

And I asked the union president, I'm like, hey, where are we are on Trump? And he's like, yeah, probably half or 60 percent, two thirds are voting for him. And I was like, oh, that sucks. And then immediately there was a guy getting off and he had a truck and he had truck nuts on it. You know what truck nuts are?

Do I look like I know what truck nuts are? Yeah, it's balls hung on the hitch of a truck. And he honked and he was like, go Trump, as he drove by. And it's like, hey, we're in trouble. Yeah, it does not surprise me that the truck nuts guys are for Trump, though. I actually respect the fact that she was like, do I look like the kind of person who knows what truck nuts are?

I mean, I wear a suit every day. I know what truck nuts are. It's not that difficult, right? I mean, I guess I was raised in Texas, you know? I remember the first time I ever saw a pair. I don't know. I mean, to me, culturally, I think that was important. And look, you can give it to Fetterman. He did win the state by five. He says that they're in trouble. What else did he say? He said, he's like, the level of Trump support is astonishing. I believe that was the word that he used, specifically where he lives, you know, in Pittsburgh. So, or in that, in the Steele area, which,

is interesting. I'm curious, like there's been a, this is pure PA politics. Yeah.

Harris just recently released an ad centering herself around the city of Philadelphia. Yeah, I saw that. And it was celebrating Philly. It was like during an Eagles game or something. Exactly, during an Eagles game. But I was like, culturally, this is very interesting because there is such a massive cultural divide between Philly, the mainline suburbs. You've got the urban population. You've got the white college-educated, the celebration of the city of Philadelphia. And then you've got Pittsburgh and all the other areas around.

rural NPA that are much more like culturally conservative. So it does seem like they are picking sides. I'm not sure which way it's going to go.

Well, Pittsburgh is also quite democratic. Yeah, the city itself. The city itself and the surrounding suburbs are quite democratic in general. But yeah, I mean, between Philly and Pittsburgh, you have a lot of rural, very conservative areas. They call it like pencil tucking. And yeah, I remember after when Hillary was running in 2016, wasn't it Schumer that said that thing about like for every person we lose and –

rural Pennsylvania. We're going to pick up two in the suburbs. And it didn't work out for Hillary, but hey, it worked out for Joe Biden in 2020. It may well work out for Harris this time around. We'll see if that electoral calculation has blossomed for them. But yeah, I guess a real cultural divide on display there between the New York Times lady and John Fetterman. Absolutely. All right. Last part is Beyonce also was at that event. Let's take a listen to what she had to say. I'm not here as a politician. I'm here as a mother.

A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies. A world where we're not divided. Our past, our present, our future merge. And we need you. It's time to sing a new song. A song that began 248 years ago.

The old notes of downfall, discord, despair no longer resonate. Our generations of loved ones before us are whispering a prophecy, a quest, a calling, an anthem. I don't know. It makes me nervous. All the celebrity stuff makes me so nervous because it does remind me so much of Hillary 2016. Leo came out to endorse Kamala. Who? Leo DiCaprio. Oh.

Yeah, Kamala. Saw a lot of jokes about that. Who else? Yeah, right. First time he backed a woman who was over 25. No, it's, he saw 2024 and got confused. Anyway. Just a joke. Leo likes. Leo, I love you. Of age, but yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Um,

We'll see. It does seem very 2016-ish. You got the Springsteen rally with Obama, the exact same thing that happened in 2016. So I don't know. Going to Houston, I mean, both of these candidates now, it's like, Kamala, why are you in Houston? Trump, why are you going to New Mexico?

What's going on here? I mean, Texas makes a little bit of sense because of Colin Allred is one of their best chances to steal a seat from Republicans. And I think they also liked the backdrop of Texas has been the site of some of the most horrifying stories of women's health.

And so I think they liked that backdrop as well. But yeah, I mean, Kamala's not going to win Texas. Right, exactly. You know, every time somebody talks about the Senate races, I just always think, your job is not to get the Senate elected. Your job is to, you know, be president. So anyway, I don't know.

She probably, she maybe had some fundraiser. There's a lot of money there too. You could get some fundraisers there also. But it's like when Trump flies all the way to Montana to do a rally. I'm like, bro, it's fucking Montana. Like less than a million people live in Montana. What are you doing? You know, it's like, or Coachella in California. It's the same thing. Yeah. I mean, but you know, we just talked about the nationalization. That's certainly part of it.

Okay, we've talked way too much today, so we can't do Michigan today. We'll do it tomorrow. We'll do it tomorrow. I promise. I'm sorry, everybody. Don't freak out. Don't leave any crazy comments. What happened to Michigan? It's not being censored. Let's get to endorsement.

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Turning now to endorsements, huge story here in Washington. The Washington Post, the local hometown paper, has decided not to endorse in this year's presidential election. Let's put this up there on the screen. This decision was announced by the Post internally some, what, nine days before the election. The decision was made by this new editor. His name is Will Lewis, a former Rupert Murdoch employee from the UK.

calling back to the history of the Washington Post pre-1960, and they're not making presidential endorsements. Now, there has been quite a lot of discussion about this, certainly because you may have noticed, but at the very top of the Washington Post, there's a little line underneath it. It says, democracy dies in the darkness.

And I seem to recall, you know, millions of dollars and lots of people here in D.C. signing up for The Washington Post for Democracy Dies in the Darkness and lots of resistance liberalism and columnists there who signed up for that vision under Jeff Bezos. And then Bezos himself deciding nine days before the election, like, yeah,

but we're not gonna endorse here. So there's quite a lot to say about it. I think it really just comes down to the capriciousness of billionaire-owned media. And you know, a lot of people, I don't know, tell me if you agree with me. There's been a big thing online about people who are canceling the Washington Post. And journalists and others, their subscriptions, are like, "Please don't cancel the Washington Post. "It hurts journalists." And I'm gonna go, "You know what?

But let me defend these folks. These people signed up for freaking democracy dies in the darkness. Their resistance lives. These are the people who made millions selling an annotated copy of the Mueller report, okay? Some people, Pepperidge Farm remembers. So when those same people don't...

don't see a Kamala endorsement, what do you think is going to happen? You took their money gladly when it was anti-Trump. I agree with you. You know, sorry. You can't have it both ways. Also, like, it's owned by a billionaire. Yeah, that's right. If he wants to kick in some more money, it will be nothing. He lost $100 million last year on the post. He's not going to chap his ass to lose 4,000 subscribers. Sure. Yeah. So, like, if he wants to fill in that gap, then that's on him. That's not on, you know, the people who are disgusted with this decision. And,

And I don't care how you feel about Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. You should be disgusted with this decision because it's pretty clear. The Washington Post reported that the decision did come directly from Jeff Bezos. And we all know why. He's a big government contractor. Blue Origin has massive contracts with the federal government. And Trump did cancel some of his contracts last time around, too. So he's looking at this.

And he's putting his own class capitalist interests ahead of the journalistic integrity of the Post. That's what's going on here. And by the way, we can put E2 up on the screen.

Friday's announcement, they write at The Guardian, didn't mention Amazon and didn't mention Blue Origin, but within hours, high-ranking officials of Blue Origin met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas.

As the Republican nominee seeks a second presidency, Trump met with Blue Origin CEO and Vice President of Government Relations. That means lobbying, according to the AP. Meanwhile, CNN reported that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had also recently reached out to speak with the former president by phone. Those reported overtures were eviscerated by Washington Post editor-at-large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, which TLDR, he calls it a clear quid pro quo. And I think that's

fairly obvious, right? Bezos doesn't want to have his government contracts canceled again. He doesn't want to be crosswise with Trump. He wants to make nice with him because he thinks Trump may well be back in the White House. And he knows there'll be no punishment from the Kamala Harris people if they win. They're not going to go out for quote unquote retribution. So yeah, that's what's going on. And again, like I said,

This is not to try to make a partisan point. This is to say you should be very, very leery of billionaire influence in politics, billionaire influence in media, billionaire ownership. And I will also say when Bernie Sanders made this point back in 2020 about how the Bezos Washington Post maybe wasn't too friendly towards him because of his class politics, he

was smeared as a conspiracy theorist by the same people who now, like, you should be, you owe Bernie Sanders an apology because obviously he was right. I did so many monologues. Some of my most viral monologues initially over at Rising were specifically about this, about billionaire ownership of the Washington Post. Yeah, that's right. I remember when Bloomberg was in the race. Oh, yeah. And then Bloomberg News was like, we're still objective. I go, yeah, you're definitely still objective. Whenever the guy...

of your namesake is in the goddamn race. - That's right. - Sure. - That's right. - And by the way, the guy justifying that, Micklethwaite, is the same British moron who was on stage with Trump talking about tariffs, just so people know, for who exactly are like the most corrupt people in this country. And that's the point. The point though, and the irony, is when democracy dies in the darkness, these people didn't give a damn about billionaire ownership because it was fine for them.

And yet now it's, oh, my God, you know, he's he's like playing with our lives and giving up on our values. And look, I have some sympathy because Jennifer Rubin, right? I mean, these brain dead resistance people, to be fair, they were courted on this basis.

They were employed on the very, like, real idea. Even Robert Kagan, right? Okay, so for people who don't know, Robert Kagan is literally one of the chief voices for war in Iraq, neoconservative, unreconstructed, married to Victoria Nuland, who is one of the most psychotic former members of the State Department, of NATO expansion, etc. I have nothing nice to say about these people.

But they were hired on the basis of being anti-Trump for these quote-unquote like principal reasons. So even though I disagree with them, it's not like they don't have a coherent worldview. And so for Bezos to just change the rules of the game, which he can, is deeply disingenuous to his readers and to his employees. And that's the problem is that when it's capricious and it's totally up to him, it's just a ludicrous position that puts, you know,

It just tells us what the whole game is about. - Yeah. - And I want everybody to know that, and also why nobody, billionaire or whatever, owns a slice of this company, and the only people who control it are the vast majority of our previous subscribers. - It is also, I mean, it is also like capitulation in advance because they do know that Trump will look to punish his political enemies 'cause he's done it in the past. And there's more reporting from The Washington Post this morning, I'm just reading Jeff Stein tweeted this out. Some billionaires who Trump targeted are now hedging their bets

As the president, former president, vows retribution against enemies if elected. Bezos blocks WAPO endorsement. Zuckerberg is promising neutrality. Warren Buffett is staying out. The Google chief reportedly called Trump to praise his McDonald's stuff. CEOs rushing to back channel to Team Trump. Quote, Trump has no had no issue calling out political enemies by name, threatening to use the force of government for retribution. Apparently, that is intimidating. A lot of wealthy targets is a very scary sign that government intimidation works.

is the take of one individual. So, you know, I do think this is part of a pattern of people who fear that Trump is going to end up back in the White House and don't want to be on his bad side because they want their companies to continue to flourish. They don't want to be made, you know, an example of by Trump, even by just turning them into a partisan name, et cetera. So that's part of what you see going on. Lumped into this conversation, potentially unfairly, was the LA Times, which also decided that

not to endorse in this race. I think you could similarly make a point about like, you know, it's the billionaire owner of the LA Times who was also making the decisions for the newsroom about not endorsing, but seems to have a more principled reason for doing so. We can put this up on the screen with regards to LA Times. So their billionaire owner says that they are protesting Kamala's support of Israel's war in Gaza. This is according to his daughter,

a 31-year-old political activist who has been, they've been consistently anti-genocide in terms of the Israeli assault on Gaza, anti-apartheid. She's been a consistent activist on the pro-Palestine side of this equation. So she said, quote, our family made the joint decision not to endorse a presidential candidate. This was the first and only time I've been involved in the process and points to Kamala's support for Israel's war in Gaza. So,

You know, like I said, more principled, certainly, you know, a direction I support a lot more in terms of the rationale behind it. Although you still have to say, like, you know, the billionaire influence part, even if it is a cause that I support, it's still a troubling direction. Well, and this look, the whole point is, to me, this just goes against the idea of the news business in the first place. Like, like these endorsements and specifically in the more partisan age, they're not swaying anybody. They're

purely cultural signifiers. And I think that's fundamentally wrong with the way that this all should be in the first place. Like notice, nobody's been endorsing anybody over here. I did a whole monologue where I said how you should vote. And specifically it was like how you should think about voting based on the issues that are important to you because you're the one who should make that decision. Outsourcing your thinking to somebody else is frankly ridiculous.

But that is a mainstay of a lot of current Republican outlets and a lot of these Democratic ones. So there's a meta conversation, I guess, to be had. But broadly, what I really come back to is these journalists who are constantly tut-tutting everybody who's canceling their Washington Post subscription. I'll be like, hey, I hate to break it to you. The people who subscribe to it, they didn't do it for the news. They did it for this democracy dies in the darkness Mueller shit. And so you can't.

cannot be mad at them when they cancel because you reneged on the vision that they sold. That's the whole point. Bezos has, in general, even just from a business, has been a horrendous owner of the Post. They have been bleeding subscribers for a while now. New York Times has been able to very successfully

Oh, they've rolled it up. Their business, yeah, and they have all these different vertical, the cooking and the sports and the games and all this stuff that's very popular that isn't just reliant on opposition to this one political figure. But I'm sure the Post is going to be fine because, like I said, they've got a billionaire owner who to make up that lost thousands of subscriptions is absolutely nothing. But I saw some of

tweet this, and I think this is probably correct, that there will likely be a lot less. I think these are indications that there will be a lot less institutional resistance to Trump this time around. That more the MO is, let's try to be neutral, let's try to placate him, let's try not to earn his ire, let's try not to, you know, tank, like, have our government contracts canceled, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, we had already seen this in terms of, well,

Street and finance warming up to Trump, the number of donors that he's getting from the institutional finance much larger than they were back in 2016 or even in 2020. He has gone out of his way to make explicit promises to billionaires. The country obviously is backed by the wealthiest person on the planet. But I do think that this is an indication that the strategy of lockstep institutional resistance to Trump is

has basically disintegrated into, no, we're gonna try to appease him, try to go along to get along so that we don't end up in his targets. - Yeah, and I also just think there's like a cultural difference at this point. Trump has been around for a long time. Like the shock of his win in 2016 and that level of like employee walkout, outran, I mean, this stuff is good.

gone at this point. And I don't see it coming back in that way. Whatever resistance to Trump, what form that will take, it will not be the cringe 2017 version. I would hope it's much more of a deep, like actual assessment within the party about like, hey, why didn't we have a primary? Why did we prop up Biden for such a long... Actually, I'm curious what you think. Do you think that'll happen or do you think they're gonna go Russiagate again? Or like some similar like cope? What do you think the cope will be? It's gonna be cope, of course. Just racism?

I think probably they'll blame like it depends on how the election results go down but it's certainly possible they'll blame people who voted for Jill Stein or sat out because they were disgusted with the support for genocide. Yeah. I think that's you know that's a pretty clear trajectory. You already see the

ads that are against Jill Stein, you see those efforts underway. So that will be a big part of it. But I think also secretly they'll just decide like, oh, it's sexism and we could just never run a woman again.

which is so dumb. Again, like Gretchen Whitmer would be way more competitive in this race. But don't you think that's true? If Hillary and Kamala both lose to Trump, the secret assessment, the public assessment will be, you know, the public's too racist, I mean, sexist, blah, blah, blah. And the secret assessment will be like, that's why we must only run...

from year on out. I think it won't be an elite assessment. Unfortunately, I think a lot of it will come to voters. Democratic voters care a lot about winning and they're less ideological in terms of they're willing to go along with a lot and they want to win. And so if that is the assessment from elite media and others that is kind of pumped out there, then they may internalize it. Again, I think that's totally incorrect. I mean, she's not that far away from it. She's doing way better than the old white guy was. Way better than Biden. Yeah, exactly. So I'm like, well, kind of a dumb thesis, but I could see it. I don't know. I really do hope

When Biden is gone and we can all talk honestly, then we'll just talk about how insane it was to prop him up for as long as we did. How insane it was not to have him back. That's not going to happen. That's not going to happen. Because they're all complicit in it. You know, so they can't. It can't be that. I mean, yeah. In fact, actually, actually, it's much more likely the conversation you get is we should have stuck with Biden. Oh, is Biden cut at one?

I'm telling you, I already see people on Twitter who are like, I'm not convinced that she's better than mine. It's like, you are insane. You are in, like, go back and watch that debate and tell me that this was the guy that Democrats should have run. No, obviously, the much better direction would have been to actually have a primary process where voters actually got to vet these candidates where, you know, even if it doesn't end up being Kamala Harris at the end of the day, she has to go through the rigors of that and is strengthened by that process.

So that's clear, like very obvious take. And then there's, you know, I'm sure there'll also be, if she loses Pennsylvania, there'll be that she should have picked Josh Shapiro. Oh yeah. Right. That'll be a big one as well. So it just all depends on the flavor of what goes down. But I think you are much more likely to see the, we should have stuck with Biden than the, we should have actually had a democratic process. Yeah. Very possible. All right, guys, we got Treat to Parsi standing by. Let's get to it.

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Good to be with you guys again. Yeah, of course. So let's put this Wall Street Journal article up on the screen. You know, I referred to these in shorthand as retaliatory attacks. Of course, we know that that's not exactly accurate since this is just retaliation to the latest Iranian attacks, which were retaliation for Israeli attacks. But in any case, we've got a Wall Street Journal article here arguing that Biden pushed Israel to limit their attacks on Iran, yet still inflict a heavy blow. You know, based on what we know about

the sites that Israel did strike. What can we say about the level of these attacks and the potential response? Well, the interesting thing is we actually cannot say that much. Clearly, the Israelis struck. Clearly, they were successful in striking at least 20 sites. They left about five people killed. That number may increase. There's definitely been some damage. The extent to which that damage has occurred, however, is unclear.

The Israelis are saying that they've essentially taken out all of Iran's long-range anti-defense missiles and systems. The Iranians, of course, downplaying it. I think the Israelis are exaggerating. The truth may be somewhere in between, but we frankly just don't know quite yet. Mm-hmm.

But this is very important because if the Israeli narrative turns out to be true, and I'm personally skeptical, part of the reason I'm skeptical is because it actually serves the interests of those in Israel who are in power who want to see further escalation. Because the argument they're essentially making is, see, Iran no longer has long range control.

anti-defense missiles. As a result, it is going to be relatively easy now to strike the nuclear program. What are we waiting for? Let's just go for it. And then hoping that either the Biden administration or the Trump administration would go along with it. I'm very skeptical of

this for several reasons. A, because we don't know quite yet the extent of the damage. We don't know how long it will take the Iranians to recuperate from whatever that damage is. But also, no one thought that the danger with striking Iran's nuclear program was Iran's anti-defense missile. That has not been the reason as to why the strikes have not taken place. The reason why the strikes hasn't taken place is because it's quite clear, if the nuclear sites are struck,

the Iranians will weaponize their program, they will leave the NPT. And given how deeply much of the program is underground, the U.S. itself has made the assessment that with or without anti-defense missiles in place,

the ability to actually take out the facilities underground is very, very limited. If the U.S. has that calculation, rest assured, the Israelis simply cannot do it. So there's a lot of fog and a lot of smoke right now, and it is all about establishing various narratives. And from the Israeli side, of course, the narrative they want is, see, this was easy. The Iranians couldn't do that much about it. What are we waiting for? Unleash us and allow us to take out everything.

Yeah. So Dr. Parsi, in terms of the Iranian regime and just the way they have reacted to this, what does it tell us? Is it similar to last time around where we consider the matter closed? How is the message that is currently coming out of media and others in response to this?

So initially, almost even before any real assessment could be made of what the damage was, they were downplaying it, which sent a clear signal they don't want to see further escalation. They're not the ones who started this exchange of direct fire between Israel and Iran. That's what the Israelis started on April 1st when they struck the Iranian consular section of the embassy in Damascus.

But as time has passed, and as we have seen, most importantly, that there has been casualties, you are seeing things happening in the Iranian debate in which there is a lot of anger and a lot of belief that not responding may actually be a mistake. What they don't want to see is the idea of striking Tehran becoming normalized in the same way that striking Damascus or striking Beirut has become normalized for the Israelis. They do it regularly.

It's hardly news any longer, certainly not in the mainstream American media. They almost never report on those things. The Iranians don't want to end up in that situation in which Israel striking Tehran would become a normalized issue. And that is one of the pressures internally for them to do something. The question, of course, is

What could they do without sparking the larger war that the Israelis want and the Iranians do not want? Interesting. Yeah, that's such a great point I hadn't thought about, about the normalization of those Israeli attacks on Beirut and on Damascus. I wanted to ask you what you made of this reporting inside of the Wall Street Journal piece we just had up there.

They say that the White House used Israel's request for a THAAD anti-missile battery as leverage after the Pentagon indicated Israel wanted the system to bolster its defenses against Iran. Tony Blinken recommended at a meeting with Biden the U.S. agreed to send it only if Israel promised to strike only military sites. What do you make of that assertion of the use of the THAAD anti-missile battery basically to sort of coerce the Israelis into not striking nuclear sites?

I think this whole thing is a bit of a fallacy. I don't doubt that the story is true and I wouldn't doubt that Blinken would have agreed to the THAADs even if he got nothing from the Israelis. The bottom line is the fact that they didn't strike the nuclear facilities may not be that relevant if this continues to escalate and there's much to indicate that even though the Iranians may not respond quickly, that this is not the end of this story. This may be the end of one chapter but unfortunately

As long as the United States helps Israel reduce the cost of its own escalations by rushing in and protecting it every time it happens, and every time the Israelis want to escalate, instead of saying, no, we don't want a war in the region that can drag us in, instead we say, well, just strike here, just strike there, and we'll give you more missiles so you don't have to pay the cost of it. If that is our approach, all we're doing is that we're ensuring escalation. We're just ensuring it at a slower pace than if we didn't

provide those if we didn't push back against those initial targets. This may very well end up

with strikes against the nuclear sites and a complete war. So just slowing it down, which is what the Biden administration at best have done, is simply not good enough if we believe that the US's interest in all of this is for us not to get dragged into another war in the future. Which I think we all do at least here. And that's my question. My last question really is how do you think that the Israelis will calibrate and will they escalate if Donald Trump does win the election in eight days?

I think there's a degree of nervousness in Israel. Israelis I've spoken to, they're not saying that they don't prefer Trump, but there is a degree of nervousness because they know very well that if Trump changes his mind and doesn't want to see this continue, there's going to be a high cost for the Israelis to do to Trump what they have done to Biden. They have disregarded almost every red line that Biden has put forward. Biden himself has clearly not been serious about those different things. But

But the Israelis have taken pleasure in humiliating Biden publicly. I don't think the Israelis would do that easily with Trump. They know that the reactions can be quite unpredictable. I think it's also very interesting that as much as the Trump administration is saying things such as, you know, you got to do what you got to do, go do the job, etc. They're not saying anything about what the U.S. would do in terms of supporting Israel.

And one line that I think is coming out of the Trump camp is we don't want to restrain the Israelis, but we also don't want to help them do what they're doing because we don't want to get into a war. J.D. Vance himself said in an interview that it's a clear interest of the U.S. not to get into a war with Iran. So I think you may end up seeing a policy in which the pretense of restrictions that I think the Biden administration has put forward will simply not be there. There may even be active encouragement.

but perhaps without a very large part, if not all, of the material support that the Biden administration has provided these rapists. How does that square with some of the significant interest groups on the Republican side, not only, you know, the evangelical base, which has been Trump's

largest, you know, most core supporters, highest level of support who actually they have a higher favorability rating for Bibi Netanyahu than American Jews do. Miriam Adelson being one of his largest donors, you know, a commitment to Israel being her largest issue. Reporting suggests that, you know, one of the things that she wants out of Trump is for him to allow Israel to annex the West Bank, you know, officially.

Within the Republican Party you have, versus the Democratic Party, a much stronger support for Israel, for shipping weapons to Israel, much more hawkish views vis-a-vis Iran. So how does that Trump assessment square with some of those critical interest groups and donors on the Republican side?

You're absolutely right, Crystal, that that is a critical element within the Trump camp as well, that you have those who not only want to continue to do this, but also want to see even greater American support for it. And I don't think that the battle within the Trump administration has been entirely squared out when it comes to this. I'm just judging it based on what Trump himself has said so far, which is going quite far out there in terms of expressing support for Israel.

but saying very little about what the U.S. role would be. And then you listen to J.D. Vance, and there you have a bit more detail in terms of even being more in favor of not putting restrictions on Israel, but also even more clear about the U.S. not necessarily being part of it and not getting involved in a war. I think at the end of the day, we have to be very frank. We do not know what the Trump administration would do because it is quite unpredictable, particularly mindful of the very elements that you mentioned.

And this is going back to Stargardt's question.

part of the reason why there's a degree of nervousness in Israel about Trump as well. They know that in many ways, it may actually be much better for them, but they also know that if Trump were to change his mind and decide to go on a path that they're not happy with, he probably cannot do too much about it. Very interesting. Dr. Parsi, always great to have your analysis. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it's our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you. Thanks to all our premium subscribers, breakingpoints.com if you want to become one. Otherwise, we'll see you all tomorrow.

We'll be right back.

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