GLOVES OFF: Mehdi Hasan deals MUST-SEE BLOW to Trump

0:00 I'm joined now by the founder of Zateo, Medi Hassan. Medie, thanks for joining me. >> Brian, good to be back. >> So, I want to start with some breaking news that we saw today, and that is that Donald Trump has allowed his FBI with the help of Cash Patel to now go after these Texas legislators who fled the state to go to Illinois. So, first and foremost, can I have your reaction to the fact that this is, you know, uh, despite what Cash Patel said in his confirmation hearing about not wanting to weaponize the Department of Justice, that's exactly what we're seeing right now? It was inevitable, Brian, that this was going to happen. This was the very reason that Cash Patel was picked, to be the yes man. Donald Trump has wanted Cash Patel in a position of national security intelligence for a while. You'll remember after the last election, he tried to make him deputy director of the CIA. Gina Haspel at the time, career

0:46 CIA official said she would quit if that happened. uh he bided his time, got convicted, got reelected, and brought back Cash Patel to a compliant Republican Senate that knew he wasn't qualified to be FBI director, knew he would be a yes man, knew he would politicize the bureau in a way that they've always accused Democrats of doing. And this is what he's doing. By the way, Brian, we're speaking on a day when actually Cash Patel was supposed to be at JD Vance's house today chatting about Epstein and then they that leaked out. So, they cancel the whole thing and Vance has been denying it in the Oval Office today that it was ever going to happen. But it's funny that they went straight from being one kind of politicized FBI director to be like, "All right, I'll do something else today political. I'll go after Democrats in Illinois." Like, that's what his day job is, to serve Trump. >> Mie, do you think that what we're seeing right now from some of the Democrats out there? There are a few governors who are

1:32 who are um vowing to fight back against what Texas Republicans are doing. We see Gavin Newsome, JB Pritsker. Uh, you know, we've seen to some degree Kathy Hokll in New York, although, you know, she's limited by what what New York's constitution allows them to do. Although, I would also make the argument that Republican states have been limited by what they're able to do, and they've done it anyway. We saw unconstitutional maps enacted in Louisiana and Alabama. Um, and and still they they did that at such a late time that even though the courts noted that they were unconstitutional gerrymanders, it was too close to the election for them to change it. They relied on the PCEL doctrine. So, I think if there was really uh a desire to get this stuff done, we don't have to look far to see what it looks like when those Republican governors get it done. But that notwithstanding, do you think that there that that we're seeing something of a

2:17 sea change among Democrats who have for so long been the party of strongly worded letters? >> I hope so. I'm going to reserve judgment till I see some actions back up those words. Uh Illinois Governor Pritska, New York Governor Hok California Governor News have all said the right things. Now they just got to do it. Um, as you say, there are some limitations, but these are the same limitations that Republicans overcome all the time. You and I at the Zateo event in LA talked at great length in front of the audience about the Senate parliamentarian and how Senate Democrats deferred to the parliamentarian said, "Well, she said we can't do a minimum wage increase." She said, "We can't put this in our bill." Republicans came along and they refused to even meet with the parliamentarian when they did their big ugly ass bill. So, that is the difference in the two parties. I hope, and I've said this before to you and to others, I hope

3:02 Democrats learn the right lessons from this period of opposition that when their opponents get into power, they're not limited by conventions or norms or all the other things that now seem so quaint and antiquated. And you can't play this whole moral high ground game. Well, you know, they're going to do this stuff, but we're going to stay pure. Doesn't work like that. You do that and you lose. And it's worse than just losing. You do that and you abandon your constituents who need you. Mandy, we we've spoken about this idea that what the future of the Democratic party is going to look like is not necessarily whether progressivism wins out or a more moderate posture wins out, but rather this idea of Democrats who are actually going to stand up and fight. Do you agree with that? Do you think that that the future of the Democratic party is not so much like the monolithic nature of of your political ideology, but

3:49 rather just your willingness to like go balls to the wall? >> Yeah, I've been saying that for a while. I said that when Democrats were in office as well. I think you know the left right dimension is still important in policy terms for sure but in terms of saving American democracy standing up to Republican party it's less relevant. It's about who actually has the balls the backbone the ability the desire uh the communication skills to actually take the fight uh to the other side and fight on their terrain not your own terrain. I would say someone like Zoran Mani who is the New York Democratic mayoral candidate is a perfect mix of those two things. He's shown that you can actually have progressive radical policies. You know, shake things up, tax the rich, uh look after your constituents, freeze the rents. You can have a uh Bernie-esque, if we want to call it that, agenda. But people forget he's also the guy who showed up at Albany to protest Tom Hman in person a

4:35 few months ago, right? He was there on the front lines. Like he didn't he didn't just write a sternly worded letter or say, "I'm going to do X and Y when I met." He turned up, put his body on the line, got grappled by police officers, and heckled. rightly so, the fascistic homeman, uh, the border chief. So, uh, I think I think Zoran Mani has walked a great line on this in terms of making sure he's standing up to Trump, standing up to Trumpism, calling out Republicans, but also doing what constituents and the Democratic base wants right now, which is more progressive policies, less corporate friendly policies, less uh, pro- richch policy. I think you can do both. One thing I would say about the governors so far is again, we need to say if the actions match the words, we need to see what they actually do. Um, and I think the the key when we get to 2028 is yes. Are you are you going to take on Trump

5:22 rhetorically or are you going to do it actually with uh actions, with policies, with positions? I'll give you one example. Cory Booker >> uh gave a 20 what is it 25 26 hour speech whatever it was broke broke the record for Senate speeches. I believe that speech is now a book and he's going to be doing a book tour. Uh he went straight to the top of the class in terms of opinion polls. You saw those polls, Brian. Suddenly he was like in the top three presidential candidates. People were saying to me, "Oh, Cory Booker is going to be a favorite." I was like, "Come on, we're three and a half years out from 2028. No polls now have any meaning. Let's see what happens going forward." Immediately his poll numbers dropped. Why? Because liberals were upset with him because he voted to confirm Charles Kushner, Jared's dad, as ambassador to France. I believe he was the only Senate Democrat who did that. And the left is really upset with him

6:08 because he then went and signed off on another set of weapon sales to Benjamin Netanyahu in the middle of an ongoing genocide. And now suddenly it's gone downhill. People don't like him so much anymore. So this thing, you know, between now and 208, you and I and many others are gonna have a lot of conversations about who's up, who's down, and ultimately it'll be it's not just who's saying the right thing, but who's doing the right thing. Okay. So we just we just spoke about how it's not necessarily progressive versus moderate. That's going to be the thing moving forward, but so much of the energy is in the progressive wing of the party. when you look at Bernie and AOC doing their tour, when you look at the success that uh Zoran Mdani has had in New York and so what what would be your advice I guess is the question to these more moderate members of the Democratic party. Um again knowing that like being

6:54 be representing a moderate district like Marie Galen Camp Perez or Jared Golden, we we want those people because the alternative to them is going to be you know some Republican. So when when we have these conservative Democrats, like part of being in a big tent is being in a big tent, right? It's being tolerant enough that even when there's somebody who's whose ideology doesn't comport 100% with with ours, uh that's okay because again, like part of being in a big tent is being tolerant of those people who have views that aren't directly ideologically aligned. What would your advice be to those folks to to get the same degree of I guess I guess passion or excitement behind them as we're seeing from these members of the progressive wing of the party. >> So again, I think it comes back to like what do we call left and what do we call right? I mean some of this stuff is just

7:41 uh I mean now we use the phrase populist standing up to the establishment which can be populist right, populist left. You mentioned Jared Golden. If memory says me correctly, Jared Golden supports Medicare for all. like he sees that as something that helps his constituents even though as you say he's in a very conservative frontliner district. I think Zepha Teachout did a quite good study of uh frontline Democrats who are in these swing seats and are seen as conservative or moderate or whatever it is. And actually a lot of them ran in 2024 uh in the congressional elections on a very populist platform. Anti- big business, anti-pric gouging, anti- big farmer. You can run in conservative districts on populist platforms cuz guess what? Conservatives don't like big farmer or big tech or big oil either, right? Republican voters tell pollsters every day they don't like rich people being too rich. They don't like corporations not paying tax. They don't

8:27 like the fact they don't have healthare. >> You know, the push back the push back to that is going to be that people are going to say, okay, you say the Republicans say that they don't want all of these things, but they'll vote for a party that consistently heaps benefits, heaps subsidies onto fossil fuels, that continuously cut cuts taxes for millionaires and billionaires. And so the the difficult part for me is like >> when when you understand you understand this stuff and you understand what they have told pollsters and you look at the numbers and you know 90% of Americans want to to impose tax uh uh an additional tax burden on the wealthiest Americans but half of those people cons consistently vote for a party that that that does the complete opposite. >> Well, I'll say two things to that. Number one, it's because Republicans have now uh successfully reinvented themselves as this kind of fake populist

9:13 working party. So you can with a clear conscience as a workingclass American say, "Well, I'm voting for Republicans and Trump cuz they're sticking it to the man and they're giving me no taxes on tips and all that that's been sold to them as some kind of populist agenda." And you ignore the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. You ignore all the gifts to corporations and the deregulation, the Doge stuff. So that's one issue is that the Republicans have successfully done that. And the way they've been able to successfully do that, Brian, aside from just brazenly lying, is the Democrats left the space open for them. Let's just be very honest about that. The only way the Republicans were able to occupy that proworker uh anti-establishment platform that Donald Trump came up with in 2016, which he never believed in and never acted on, is because it would the space was left open. Nature abhors a vacuum, right? The Republicans could never have occupied that space had Democrats not vacated that space. And I think most Democrats would probably agree with that analysis

9:58 now. Maybe not 5 years ago, I think pretty much entire party leadership now accepts that is true. That's point number one. Point number two, the Republicans are very good. as you know better than me wrote an entire book. They're cynically switching attention, deflecting culture wars, right? So, they know, and this has been this has been the trick since Reagan and even before Reagan, Nixon, that they know they can't win on the economics. They know that the American public consistently for decades do not support uh uh wealthy people avoiding taxes. They do not support corporations getting away with murder. Um so, what they've done is they say, "Well, let's talk about abortion. Let's talk about DEI. Let's talk about trans kids. Let's talk about Mexican immigrants. Let's talk about Sharia law." Right? They have been the masters of switching, getting people to vote against their own material and economic interest because they think they're voting for some higher cause for God, for country, for morality. All

10:44 But they've successfully done that. They've raised the salience of culture war issues while, you know, uh ignoring or deflecting or sideplaying uh the economic stuff. And I think Democrats need to find a way. There's no simple solution to this. I'm not pretending it's easy, but they have to find a way to both a win the culture wars. Uh because I don't think you can run away from culture wars, but also b bring attention back in the way that AOC or Mumani in New York did or Harris did. Let's not forget Carl Harris in August of last year was leading in the polls. She had all the momentum. She was talking about price gouging and greedflation and all of that. And then after the DNC, she stopped talking about all of that. Some people say it's because her brother-in-law from Uber persuaded her not to. Who knows what happened behind the scenes, but we know the campaign marketkedly changed from going after uh those populist targets

11:31 and that didn't help her. >> Yeah. I I think also if you look at the massive advantage that Republicans and right-wingers have in the alternative media space, which is a space that you and I occupy, that allows them to drive the conversation. If we just simply do not have the the number of voices that they do, eventually they're going to win out. Eventually, if they just have more voices, they are louder. They are going to win out. And it doesn't help that they have unlimited funds that can put money behind that stuff. Um so that so that you know turning an entire election into a referendum on on transgender reassignment surgeries in prison becomes the issue when Kla Harris didn't even mention it one time in this entire campaign. >> Democrats but if Democrats to go back to your point at the beginning Brian had fighters. I agree you can't do anything about the media playing field. It is what it is. That is the way it is. They have an advantage. But it doesn't help

12:17 that not only do they have a advantage, they also are up against a party that is not ready for a fight, is not willing for a fight. So, you know, how many what how many members of the House are there? 200 How many Democratic members of the House? 200 something. >> 213 something like that. >> Yeah. Okay. Uh how many of you and I heard of? We do this for a living. >> I couldn't I couldn't name half of them. What are they doing? Where are they? They're not all over your TV screens. They're not all over your social media. They're not all over your town halls. Most of them are living a quiet life. Keep their head down. put their heads up for election time. To be fair to Republicans, as much as I loathe a lot of the people in the House right now, they're everywhere. You can't blink. There's some new some new provocative member of the House Pops. I could probably name to you more Republican House members than I could Democratic House members because they're all over everything. And that's because they want to have a fight, right? And by the way, they also have amazing message

13:04 discipline, right? Once the once the dictat has come down from Trump or Bannon or whoever it is, Miller, that's it. They all go, "This week is DEI week. This week we're only going to talk about trans, right? Democrats don't have that. We know that you and I banged our head against walls saying, "Where is it?" When there's a like today, I'll give you one example. This morning I wake up to the NPR story that Donald Trump put a man from the January 6th riots who said, "Kill cops on camera." He said, "We should kill cops at January 6th." He's now an official at the Department of Justice. Not only did Trump pardon him, he gave him a job at the Justice Department. Now, a few years back, Black Lives Matter protest. Some random people, not associated with the BLM leadership said, uh, pigs in a blanket, fry them, some line about the police. >> Yeah. Republicans ran endlessly on that

13:49 one quote. It became a household quote in every Fox watching household. Every Republican's a Democrat to pro killing the police. Black Lives Matter must be disowned. And by the way, Democrats went along with it and said, "Yeah, yeah, we disown all this." Are we going to see, Brian, you answer the question for me? Are we going to see Democrats do that with this NPR story this morning? Yes or no? >> No. >> It'll be gone by tomorrow. >> Yeah. Well, and and look, like I think you can go all the way up to today. I mean, you have uh you have even the Sydney Sweeney thing. I mean, like you have a few the the the right right-wing media ecosystem is so coordinated that you have a few accounts on Tik Tok and Instagram who have spoken about this issue that no national Democrats have weighed in on. And and it goes all the way up to the president of the United States because they know that if you can traffic in these culture wars, that's going to be better terrain for them. And

14:35 so even if they have to pick some anecdotal thing from some random person on TikTok who is not an elected official, they'll do it because it helps them and they understand that. >> Um to that point, I want to move over to to an issue that has broken through on on culture and that is the Epstein issue. And and you and I spend so much of our time trying to get an otherwise pretty apathetic population to pay attention to politics to understand why this stuff is so important. And every once in a while, an issue like Epstein rolls around where it it actually breaks through in a way that you'll never have for a discussion on Medicaid or food assistance or or the intricacies of our gun laws or whatever it may be, even though those things are much more important. Um, but but on this issue of Epstein, I'm curious your thoughts here because we've seen it break through because we've seen Shane Gillis talk about this at the SBS and we've seen all

15:22 of these podcasters talk about it and my friends and families who are not political, uh, they talk, they understand what's going on. Do you think that this has staying power or I mean we we still are in a news cycle that moves very quickly? >> Yes, >> this has been a month-long story. Is this going to be the kind of thing that sticks around or that will eventually dissipate like everything else does? >> Uh the cynic in me says the latter. It will eventually dissipate. I hope I'm wrong. Um this is the first Trump scandal which was driven by Trump voters, not by Democrats. It's so funny when you see Trump in the Oval Office saying was it yesterday? today. I've lost track of days where he was asked by a reporter about um uh Epstein and he says uh oh this is just a Democratic hoax. This is pushed by the Democrats. I wish Democrats have come very late to the party. They're rightly being accused of hypocrisy by Republicans who are like they you know I see Democratic members talk about Epste and then some

16:09 Republican the reply says you never said anything about Epstein till 2025. It's like probably true but I'm glad they're saying it now. At least they realize the salience of this issue. But look this was driven by Republicans. uh Trump cynically, you know, Trump, Vance and Co, they cynically use this to get their base out, to get their base worked up and enraged. Um and uh now they can't deliver on it or they won't deliver on it. And I don't know. I mean, I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, there's enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that parts of the base are still furious about this, are still angry at Trump, have not let it go. But then the polling shows Trump hasn't really taken a dent at all in his approval ratings uh from his base. So, I don't know. And you see people like Charlie Kirk, and I see you've been mocking him online, uh, being a very good boy and telling Donald Trump that I I'll do, you know, I I trust Trump. He told me not to talk about it, so I'm not talking about it.

16:56 And Desh Duza and a bunch of others, right-wing influencers, we trust the White House. Time to move on. Now, whether the base moves on as well, I don't know. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Green is is one person who has refused to move on, is is still causing a bit of a stir on some of this stuff. But I think in general, like if I believe the Trump movement, the MAGA movement is a cult, which I do believe, then I have to also believe that they will fall along with this. I mean, I interviewed Mick Mulvaney recently. He did make a good point that look, Donald Trump came out and said publicly a couple months back, MAGA is what I say it is, right? And the Epstein story is a test of that claim, right? Because if he's right, then they will move on and Epstein is no longer a issue for the MAGA base. If he's wrong, then MAGA is beyond Trump. But they say, "No, no, no. Epstein and pedophile scandals and Qanon is key to who we are. Um I do think again Democrats have to keep pushing this. The media still have

17:43 to start asking questions. What the left and liberals don't seem to understand which the right understands is these scandals, these controversies. This is not organic. This doesn't just happen spontaneously. You need people to be pushing it. Right. Especially for the media. We often say you and I will rightly say, "Oh, New York Times isn't covering the story. It's not on its front page." But to be fair to New York Times, the New York Times needs kind of quote unquote permission to do that. And the way they get permission to do that in our system is they need a senior Democratic politician to hold a press conference and ask question or hold a hearing in Congress. Then >> I mean you look look at how Jim Jordan and James Comr they give they give endless supply endless oxygen to their insane operating. >> Yeah. Fox doesn't operate in isolation. It's all coordinated and the Democrats don't understand that. But I see a lot of especially on the blue skies a lot, you know, liberal Democratic parties

18:29 say, "Oh, the media is just ignoring the story." And I'm not defending the media. I'm the last person to defend mainstream media. But you also have to ask questions about the Democratic party. If the leadership of the party is not pushing this at the same time, it allows the media to move on. So you do need your Chris Murphy's and your Brian shots and others to keep bringing this stuff up. Not just Epstein, but the multiple other scandals that are going on, right? You know, take one other scandal. You know, the plane from Qatar that he's now spending a billion secret dollars that they put in a budget when no one was looking to retrofit this plane that he's going to take with him into his private life. like that. Again, if the media doesn't cover that going forward, you still have to again, I'm sorry, blame politicians. We need Democratic Party politicians talking about this all the time in every media hit they do, bringing up Trump's corruption, bringing up the examples of corruption, saying, "Let's not move on." I can't believe we've moved on from January the 6th. That that kills me. That should be the

19:15 center of every every Democrat who goes on television should bring begin every interview saying Donald Trump pardoned 1600 criminals, 1600 riers, 600 of whom attacked police officers. That should just be something you say at the beginning of every interview. >> There is something we can learn from Donald Trump in terms of repetition of his message over and over and over again until it's seared in the cerebral cortexes of everybody who is listening. And he repeats this stuff so frequently that it has to be in the news because that's what he's spoken about that day. Um I I think there's this sense of like, okay, I want to treat my audience, you know, speak to my audience at the height of their intelligence and and not repeat something I've already said to them. But the reality is that first of all, most people aren't listening. And second of all, you have the ability to drive the conversation. And so use every opportunity, limited though they may be

20:01 to drive the conversation driven. Um, and you're exactly right. This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's not just going to I I think there's this sense that like we can all wait for this to just stay in the news, but >> Exactly. >> We have agency here. We we're we're in charge of making sure that it stays in the news. >> Um, so by the way, Peter, quick point. Peter Mandlesson, who was Tony Blair's main spin doctor, main adviser, helped create new labor, the three election victories in the '9s and 2000s. He had a line which I put in my book about debate. Uh he talked about repetition. You as a politician, if you only when you get bored yourself of saying your message, are you even halfway towards where you need to be in >> Yeah. Yeah. That's it's and it's a great point. I mean, how many times has Trump said, "Build the wall. Lock her up. Make America great again." There's a reason that we remember all of this stuff.

20:46 There's a reason that people, even the people who have been duped, who have who have been gullible enough to fall for his bill of goods, that they think that's what he stands for, is because he says it so many times. >> Um, on the point of the media, uh, we have seen, to switch topics here, we've seen uh, Benjamin Netanyahu uh, suggest that he's going to uh, look into waging a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times for reporting about starvation in Gaza. Can I have your reaction to that? >> Good luck is what I would say. Good luck with that. It's an insane position. Um, it's interesting how many foreign politicians are now coming to sue people in the US. I know the Macrons are suing Candace Owens. The US famously was the place where you couldn't sue people, right? The first amendment. I come from the UK, which is liable tourism home, right? That's where you go to sue people is the UK because the courts are very

21:31 friendly uh to the plaintiffs, not to the defendants. In the US, it's supposed to defend a free press. Let's see. Obviously, we've been seeing a very authoritarian attack on our free speech and on the First Amendment. Um, look, he's doing this to distract from what everyone knows, which is that the Israeli government is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. Uh, we just published a poll today, Brian, from Data for Progress, which shows that Americans by a 14point margin say what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. This is no longer a debate. The American public believes it's a genocide. The top genocide scholars in the world believe it's a genocide. The International Court of Justice continues to investigate Israel for a genocide. And the Israelis keep saying genocidal things. So, good luck Benjamin Netanyahu suing the New York Times. That would be a great bit of discovery that goes on there. Although I would say they don't need to do any discovery. What's hidden in Netanyahu's emails that they haven't said publicly.

22:16 Every member of the Israeli government has said something genocidal at some point or another over the last year and a half. Uh that the the heritage minister, Brian, said last week that we're going to we're going to take over Gaza and make it Jewish again. These are the words of the heritage minister last week. Uh the settlements minister said, "We don't care about the hostages. Not about the hostages. It's about taking back Gaza." Uh Benjamin Netanyahu himself has talked about the Palestinians being AMLC, which is biblical code for kill everyone, including the donkeys and the children. So the stuff from the Israeli government has been horrific. It is one of the great tragedies in American history and one of the great stains on both our political parties that two presidents, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, gave Benjamin Netanyahu pretty much everything he wanted. And Biden did that disastrous hug him close strategy. We hug BB and then he'll do what he we want him to do. He did not. In fact, Benjamin

23:03 Netanyahu used Biden, got everything he wanted out of Biden, $17 billion of weapons, and then he openly just wait, counted down the clock to get Trump so he'd get even more from Trump. And by the way, Donald Trump was asked yesterday, "What do you make of Benjamin Daniel's plan to take over the entire Gaza Strip?" And he said, "Well, it's up to Israel to do what they want to do." No, it's not. We fund Israel. We fund Israel. We have a right to say no. you know, that that strategy of of hugging these politicians in hopes that they'll reciprocate this goodwill is is a recurring theme in the Democratic party. I mean, it's it's what we so often do to to confer goodwill onto the other side and maybe maybe they'll reciprocate. I'm curious what your reaction was um to, you know, the the Bernie Sanders amendment uh blocking arm sales uh to Israel garnered, I think, record among

23:49 the Democratic caucus in the Senate. uh still obviously not enough to to pass, but some of these even longtime pro-Israel hawks uh decided to vote in favor of that amendment. Can I have your reaction to that? >> I was stunned. I was actually in a debate which our mutual friend Tommy Peter was moderating on Crooked with Jeremy Benami, the head of J Street, the Liberal Zionist group, and Jeremy was saying, "Look, look, Democrats are shifting." And I was like, "There's not going to be a majority." And he said, "Yes, they will." And to be fair to Jeremy, uh they did get a majority of Senate Democrats for one or two of the bills. Remember, there were two votes, Brian. One was on offensive weapons and bombs. The other one was on assault rifles and some people at Osaf I think voted on rifles. Yes, but not on bombs. But anyways, it was symbolically an important vote. Uh, is it as many as I would like to see? No. By the way, we should remind everyone every single Republican voter who was there. Every single Republican senator present voted

24:35 to send arms to Israel. I have been very critical of the Democratic party's record on Gaza, on Israel, on Netanyahu. You heard me just criticize Joe Biden. Having said that, never forget the Republicans are worse. And we see that in these votes. uh at least some Democrats in the House and Senate are willing to take a stand for human rights uh for justice for American law. Brian, I should remind everyone sending arms to Israel right now is a violation of two separate US laws. The Lehey law uh which Senator the former senator from Vermont Patrick Lehey passed which means you can't send weapons, American weapons to a military that's clearly involved in human rights abuses. That's the Lehey law. The other law is the Foreign Assistance Act which says you can't send weapons to a country that is blocking American aid which again Israel is doing in Gaza. I would like to see every Senate Democrat come out and vote against these weapons. Sadly, the likes of Cory Booker just won't do it. John

25:20 Fetman has become this kind of progenocide ghoul who some of us are counting down the clock to be primar. Sadly, he's got a lot more years in the Senate. Never has there been a bigger bait and switch, a bigger fraud, a bigger liar in the Democratic party than John Federman. I'm ashamed to say I supported John Fedman's Senate candidacy and Senate run. I defended him against Republican attacks on his health after he was elected to the Senate and here he is cheering on a genocide happily every day. Uh so I think there are a lot of Senate Democrats who still behave in a shameful way. But I'm glad many of them are following Bernie's lead and Bern credit to Bernie Sanders for leading on this issue for the last decade. Uh but not a single Republican, not a single in in the House, Thomas Massie, yes, Marjorie Taylor Green amazingly came out on the right side of something for once. Um but in the Senate, not a single one.

26:06 They're all pro genocide in the Republican Senate. >> It's it's clear where Joe Biden stood on this issue. And so Democrats don't have a ton of political capital here. Prior to the 2024 election, there was this or during the 2024 election, there was this sea change, especially among uh um Muslim Americans who had voted, you know, historically Democratic who moved over to Donald Trump um because of because of uh as a response to to the way that Joe Biden comported himself uh with Benjamin Netanyahu. I'm curious how how how like where do we stand right now? Because obviously obviously Biden didn't build up any political capital with that community. What Trump is doing, I think we can all see is is to the nth degree falling off the cliff worse. And so where is this is this a

26:54 community without a home. like h how are you thinking about this in light of in light of the the move for that community in the 2024 election and then this this these new developments which are just so I mean you know this this uh relative to the Biden administration you know this this is a whole different animal here >> it's a good question um we should just be clear that it was the Muslim community it was young Jewish anti-ionists it was progressives it was people of color it was black pastors in Georgia, hundreds of whom wrote to Biden saying, "We can't get our congregations to vote for Democratic Party if you carry on this genocide." Um, it was a bunch of different people across the board who came out and said, "We cannot do this. We can't we we can't hold our nose and vote for a party that supports

27:39 genocide." And that was a completely understandable position. I I made that argument. You and I discussed it before the election. I said it very clearly. I said, "I think Trump is worse than Harris, but I totally understand. And I would never buret someone saying, "Well, somebody in Michigan who's lost 20 members of their family in Lebanon or Palestine, say, well, you got to vote for the party that just helped Israel do that." Yeah, I totally understand why people stayed at home or held their noses or voted for Jill Stone or even voted for Trump. Trump, I think, got one in four Muslim votes or more depending on which poll you look at. It's funny you mentioned historically Democratic because if you go back to 2000, Brian, in 2000, George W. Bush won a majority of the Muslim vote, right? And then Iraq happened and 9/11 happened and the Democrats never looked back. Sorry. The Muslims never looked back. Muslim Americans all went to the Democratic party. 80/20. It switched from 8020 Republican Democrat to 8020 uh Democrat Republican. And now I worry that the

28:25 Gaza issue, Biden handled it so badly and Harris refused to disown Biden, refused to distance herself. She could she had so much goodwill uh from that community and then refused to budge an inch on Gaza policy. Um and I think I I hope it's not a long-term sea change effect. I do hope that people can see what's happening to Trump. What Trump is doing is a complete betrayal of everything. He went to Dearbornne, Michigan, the home of Arab America, Trump. And he said, "I am peace. Carmela votes with Liz Cheney. She's campaigning with his Cheney. She'll take you into endless wars. I'll bring back our troops." And then what did Donald Trump do? He became the first American president to bomb Iran on behalf of Benjamin Netanyahu. Something even George Bush didn't do. Uh he's obviously given Benjamin Netanyahu can't bl ethnically cleanse Gaza. He's precided over the worst famine we've seen. So clearly he was not better for Palestinian. So I hope people can see

29:12 that. But look, people are not stupid anymore. Whether you're Muslim, Jewish, Christian, atheist, whatever, whatever background you are, people to go back to the start of our conversation about, you know, Mandani types, walking the both line, people want delivery. People want to see that you're acting on your words. You're not just making promises in the air. We can have lots of Democrats say all sorts of things now about, oh, we support this and we support that. What are you going to do when you have power? when you get back control of the Senate or House, when you get back control of the White, is the next presidential candidate going to say that, you know what, no more forever wars in the Middle East, I'm going to take that line back from the Republican party that stole it and never meant it. Are they going to say, uh, no blank checks for Benjamin Netanyahu and his fascists in Israel? That's going to be a question in 2028. People like Ro Kana are almost certainly going to run for president and they're

29:58 going to put this issue on the table. Even if the other even if the nuisomes and pritskas and uh Whitmer want to run away from this issue and be like we want to talk about kitchen table issues, there are going to be people bringing this issue up. Let's just be very clear about that. Gaza will not disappear come 2028. It's just too major an issue. And I just think Democrats are going to have to think long and hard, not just about reckoning with Biden's awful record, but what they do now going forward, what promises and pledges and action plans they can make to change our horrific foreign policy, which most Americans don't support, whether they're on the right or the left. Let's finish off with this. uh in light of what we're seeing at the hands of Trump's FCC, at the hands of Trump himself as it relates to all of these media companies, the way that he's leaned on ABC News to see them capitulate, leaned on Paramount and CBS to see them capitulate, leaned on the

30:43 Washington Post, the LA Times. I mean, outlet after outlet after outlet, all of whom had said, you know, been been so quick to to hide behind these slogans of democracy dies in darkness when it wasn't challenged. But the moment that it does get challenged, they all fall immediately and start heaping millions of dollars to Donald Trump, heaping him positive coverage, uh, uh, whatever it may be. And so, how are you looking at Zateo's, um, place in this ecosystem in light of what we're now seeing is a pretty feckless, uh, a pretty castrated media ecosystem uh, uh, from all of these legacy outlets. >> To borrow a line, if Zateo didn't exist, we'd have to invent it. I mean, I'm thinking back now. I I created this company over a year ago, but let's say I hadn't. I'd be creating it right now because because I may have created it a

31:29 year ago, but never have we needed independent journalism, not just a table, what you do, what others do. We need this more than ever before because in the last few months we have seen the American media and I didn't think it was possible to be even more craven, even more of a letdown, even more of a rollover, even more complicit in authoritarianism than we the last six months have been a horror show for our I mean we're speaking Brian on the week where the CEO of one of the world's most powerful tech companies went into the White House with a 24 karat gold gift for Donald Trump >> and then gave a speech in which he bathed Trump with sickopantic praise. Tim Cook of Apple, the man whose name Trump can't even remember, called him Tim Apple. Tim Cook went into the White

32:19 House and this billionaire CEO of Apple stood in front of the cameras and assembled some weird plaque or prize for Trump and then gave it to the president. This is where we are now. This is North Korea style moment that we're in. And I just think to myself, Apple and Bezos and the Washington Post and all of these now now uh David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison, who was part of all the uh election denial meetings in the White House with Donald Trump back in 2020, allegedly David Ellison is now owning CBS and Paramount. Like this is where we are now. We always talk about corporateowned media, but this is worse than just corporateowned media. This is corporateowned media where the corporations are run by complete weaklings or cowards or proTrump fascists. And this is the world we're in right now. So yes, we do need independent journalism. I would urge

33:05 everyone watching to get behind independent media because unfortunately our corporate owned media has let us down far too much in recent months. I >> mean, you even look at the Smithsonian, which was which was literally rewriting history in deference to Trump. All of these once revered institutions are actually just betraying how how weak and willing to capitulate they really are. >> But the annoying thing, Brian, is like the Smithsonian, you can even make a case for like, okay, it is weak, right? It is scared of the government. There will be consequences if they try and stand up to Trump. In a sense, as much as they are cowards, I kind of get the cowardice. What I can't forgive is the cooks and basoses of this world. Like, what is >> people have all who have all the money in the world? All the >> as the phrase goes, as the phrase goes, Brian, what is the point of having you money if you don't say you, right? Why be a billionaire? Why be the

33:50 second richest man in the history of the world, Jeff Bezos, but run to the inauguration and stand and heat praise on Trump and wreck the Washington Post, which you know, you it's just so depressing to watch and so infuriating and so unforgivable. >> Well, look, you you have been uh I think there's nobody who who doubts the fact that you have been absolutely fearless in speaking out. Uh, highly recommend for everybody who's watching right now, if you're watching on YouTube, please make sure to go subscribe to Zato's YouTube channel. I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description. If you're listening on the podcast, it'll be in the show notes. Please help support build up independent progressive media. Very important. Does not cost anything to go subscribe to the YouTube channel, but it helps elevate voices like Medy's, which are so needed right now. Medie, as always, I appreciate the time. >> Thanks, Brian.