Iowa Caucus Kicks Off Primary Season—w/ Michael Tracey LIVE from Iowa. The Revealing Case of Rep. Paul Findley (R-IL)—War Powers Resolution Author. Palestine Activist Criminally Investigated in England
Watch full episodes on Rumble, streamed LIVE 7pm ET: https://rumble.com/c/GGreenwald
Become part of our Locals community: https://greenwald.locals.com/
- - -
Follow Glenn:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glenn.11.greenwald/
Follow System Update:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SystemUpdate_
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/systemupdate__/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@systemupdate__
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/systemupdate.tv/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/systemupdate/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, the first actual votes in the 2024 presidential race will be officially counted as Iowa holds Republican caucuses all around the state.
That means that the all-out establishment war to prevent Donald Trump from being re-elected President of the United States officially begins tonight.
For now, the principal establishment weapon against him is the campaign of Nikki Haley, who more and more Democrats are now openly and enthusiastically, out of desperation, supporting.
Not on the ground that she would be the weakest opponent for Joe Biden, that at least would be strategic, but rather on the ground, the very earnest one, that she's so clearly the superior candidate in the Republican race that, for the good of the country, as liberals and their neocon allies see it, Americans are duty-bound to vote for her.
The war to destroy Trump obviously extends far beyond Nikki Haley.
It includes four separate criminal proceedings to try to render him a felon and imprison him, and more than a dozen legal processes to ban him from appearing on the ballot altogether, and then dispensing entirely with the need to persuade Americans not to vote for him.
But for tonight, the establishment hope is that it has breathed enough life and enough cash into Nikki Haley's campaign that she will leave Iowa and head to New Hampshire as the clear and sole Republican alternative to the orange Hitler.
Now one of the best decisions we ever made as a program was reading weather reports last week that warned that one of the most severe blizzards and cold spells ever would descend upon Iowa.
And thereafter, we called up the intrepid independent journalist Michael Tracy and asked him to go travel to Iowa to cover that caucus for us.
Michael joined us on Friday night from Des Moines and is still suffering intensely under an ongoing cold spell.
And beyond that entertaining spectacle of watching him suffer that way and hearing about it, he'll also join us tonight to tell us the latest on what he's seen and heard over the past few days going around to different rallies and what it presages for tonight.
Then we take a look back at the fascinating and very revealing career of a Republican congressman forgotten to history.
First elected in 1960 to represent a moderate district in Illinois, he became one of the earliest opponents of U.S.
intervention in Vietnam, warning that it would lead to exactly what it led to, which was an endless war without a clear exit.
As a result, he authored the War Powers Resolution, the bill that curbs the ability of the President to deploy the U.S.
military to fight wars without congressional approval, a law that really was mandated by the Constitution and was systematically ignored, and was much discussed last week after Joe Biden ordered the bombing of Yemen without so much as a congressional notification, let alone a debate or a vote.
What makes this Congressman, Paul Findlay, particularly interesting and notable is not just how he spent his career, but also how it was destroyed.
Finley not only opposed U.S.
intervention in general before doing so was really mainstream, but was a very specific and increasingly vehement opponent of U.S.
funding of Israel and U.S.
support for its various wars.
For that crime, he was accused by AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League and other vehement defenders of Israel and the United States as being, you'll never guess, anti-Semitic, and he was targeted by the pro-Israel lobby with defeat because of it.
In 1982, after he had served in Congress for 22 years, AIPAC recruited and then funded a young Democrat who, unlike Finley, was highly supportive of Israel and believed that the U.S.
should finance that foreign country.
His name was Dick Durbin, and he went on to become one of the Democratic Party's most senior and most powerful American senators, and one of the most reliable supporters of U.S.
funding of Israel.
The case of Paul Finlay was one of the first, but by no means the last, that sent a clear signal to American lawmakers that they either unquestioningly support Israel and vote for U.S.
funding of it or face likely destruction of their career.
It's a fascinating case because of the War Powers Act authorship as well as this aspect of his career.
So we're going to look back at that.
And then finally, the Metropolitan Police of London issued a chilling statement on Saturday, one that could only be found by definition in an authoritarian country.
It announced the commencement of a criminal investigation due to a speech, a political speech that someone gave at a very peaceful anti-war protest in London on Saturday.
That speech, like the protest itself, was aimed at denouncing the now 100 day old Israeli destruction of Gaza.
Now, many claim that this speech was intended to express support for the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas and to urge future attacks like it.
Now, the speech plainly did not do that, as we'll show you.
The person who delivered the speech vehemently denied that that was his intent or that he believes that.
But even if it had been, free speech clearly entails the right to defend violence.
That's why people can freely urge that Iran be bombed off the map or that Yemen be attacked by US aircraft or that Gaza be flattened and turned into a parking lot by Israel.
All things we've heard said by prominent people in the West over the last several months and obviously they didn't get criminally investigated or arrested because no matter how repellent that view might be, It's encompassed by and protected by the free speech guarantee that all free countries have.
Yet, because the target of criticism here was Israel, not Iran or Yemen or Gaza, many people demanded, including prominent members of the British Parliament, that the police arrest this speaker.
Yet again, we see a severe and rapid erosion of core free speech rights in the West, all in order to protect this foreign country.
No matter what your view is of this world, Israel That should be deeply disturbing.
Before we get to our episode, a few programming notes.
We are encouraging our viewers to download the Rumble app, which works both on your smart TV and your telephone.
And if you do so, you can follow the programs you most love to watch on Rumble.
That begins with system update, but probably includes other shows as well.
And if you activate your notifications feature, It means that as soon as our show or any other program begins broadcasting live on the platform, you'll be immediately notified by email or by text, however you want, so that you don't have to wait around in the case that those other shows might be a few minutes late, or you don't have to try and remember when every program begins.
You'll just be immediately notified.
It really helps the live audience for the show, which we're trying to increase in 2024 for the platform, and it helps Rumble's free speech crusade as well.
As another reminder, System Update is also available in podcast form.
You can listen to every episode in podcast version 12 hours after their first broadcast live here on Rumble on Spotify, Apple, and all other major podcasting platforms.
If you rate, review, and follow the show on those platforms, it really helps spread the visibility of the program.
As a final reminder, every Tuesday and Thursday night, once we're done with our live show here on Rumble, we move to Locals, which is part of the Rumble platform, where we have a live interactive after show with our audience, where we take your questions, respond to your feedback, hear your critiques and ideas for future guests and future topics.
That program is available solely to members of the Locals community, and if you want to become a member of the Locals community, Which gives you access not only to those twice-a-week aftershows, but also to the daily transcripts we publish of every show we do here.
It's published in professionalized versions so you can read it and have it permanently.
It also is where we publish our original journalism.
We do a lot of interaction with our readers there.
And it's really the way that we help support the independent journalism that we're trying to do here.
Simply click the Join button right below the video player on the Rumble page, and it will take you to that community.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
It really seems like the 2020 election was just yesterday, But one of the realities of living in the United States is that the United States political climate is a climate of more or less permanent elections.
In other countries, elections are defined for only a three-month period.
In other countries, elections are defined for only a three-month period.
And even though people implicitly campaign before that, the actual campaign itself is confined only to three months.
So you leave the other three and a half years to at least a pretense of governing.
But not here in the United States.
There's a constant, endless cycle of campaigns.
The presidential campaigns are two years officially, and they really begin the minute the last election ends.
And then you have the midterms actually two years after that election.
So it seems like there's a constant election.
We try really hard not to do punditry or horse race analysis on this show and we're certainly going to avoid that even though the first votes are being counted tonight.
We'll probably be off the air live before real meaningful results start coming in.
The caucuses start at 8 o'clock Eastern and there really aren't going to be Meaningful results even Iowa officials predict until something like 9 30 p.m.
Eastern, but we do have Michael Tracy on the ground and we're gonna get to him in just a few minutes But I did want to take a step back and examine Where we are in this race and what the dynamic of it is and obviously the entire contest from the perspective of the political establishment and that absolutely includes the establishment wings of all parties has one objective and one objective only To ensure that Donald Trump is not reelected President of the United States.
And the fact that polls show that he's highly likely to be the Republican nominee.
He's expected to win Iowa tonight by a very comfortable margin.
We'll see how big it is.
The only real question is what will that margin be.
The only other question is who will come in second.
Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis or perhaps Vivek Ramaswamy will have a very surprised result.
And for me, it'll be interesting to see how Vivek does as well.
But the clear dynamic of the race is that the elites in Washington and the political media class are desperate to do anything to stop Donald Trump, just like they were desperate to sabotage his presidency.
And they will, I believe, do anything, anything.
To prevent him from returning to power.
It's not very daring of a prediction given that they are already prosecuting him criminally in four separate jurisdictions trying to imprison him.
They've already succeeded in two different states for now of getting him off the ballot, the Republican ballot.
The Supreme Court will decide shortly whether or not he can be kept off the ballot.
My strong guess is they will decide that he cannot be kept off the ballot, that he has to be on the ballot.
But this is why they are melting down in a real panic.
And knowing That they are held in such low esteem by the Republican Party voting base, liberals are nonetheless out of desperation.
All but coming out and saying, please, please do your civic duty and vote for Nikki Haley.
The New York Times editorial board, always with their finger on the pulse of right-wing politics and Republican Party populism, has an official editorial from the editorial board, the entire board, unsigned, out today, that's titled, The Responsibility of Republican Voters.
It is the New York Times coming to Republican voters and saying, we're now going to give you a lecture on what your civic duty is as a Republican.
And basically it has only one message.
Your highest patriotic duty is to do everything possible to ensure that Donald Trump is not your party's nominee.
And this is their argument.
Quote, Trump has said that if elected he will behave like a dictator on day one and that he will direct the Justice Department to investigate his political rivals and his critics in the media.
Now let me just, if we can get the I really just want to break that down quickly because I find it genuinely fascinating.
So I think I've said before that one of the things that first alerted me to what a complete fraud and a joke Russiagate was, was when Trump stood in front of cameras and proclaimed after he was asked about the Russians and whether they were interfering in the election.
And he said, Russia, if you're listening, maybe you can find Hillary Clinton's missing emails.
And it was so obviously a joke, a very Trump-like joke, he decided to take a question asked of him and mock Hillary Clinton by saying, hey, well, if Russia is really all as powerful as you say, and they have all these hackers, maybe they could help us out and find those missing emails that she had.
And the media decided to pretend that what they believed he was doing was issuing a genuine, earnest request to the Russians, to his allies in the Kremlin, To go and find Hillary Clinton's emails by hacking into her server and getting those missing emails, the ones that had been deleted.
Now, you have to be the most imbecilic moron possible to believe that that was what Trump was doing, that if Trump were going to submit an illegal or improper request to the Russians
To go and hack information about his opponent that he would choose to do it in front of five dozen cameras and in front of the entire world and all of the journalist corps that followed him around, as opposed to secretly meeting with a Russian representative in the parking lot and whispering to them that that's what he wanted.
I mean, it was just so obviously a joke.
And yet they decided to take that seriously, like that was really proof That he was aligned with the Russians because look, now he was requesting that their hackers go and get information that he wanted.
And I just, I mean, I don't have very high regard for the intellect of the corporate press, and I never did, but no one is that stupid to actually believe that.
They obviously thought the public was stupid enough to believe it, but the fact that they were willing to pretend that what was so obviously meant as a very standard Trump joke was a serious request that was a smoking gun alerted me to just how broken their brains had become.
And this is what they're doing now too.
That Trump said that if elected he will behave like a dictator on day one.
What they're referring to there, and this is the first Thing they're saying, in the way of convincing Republicans they have the civic overarching duty not to allow Trump back into office, is he was on the Sean Hannity Show.
Sean Hannity said to him, who's a good friend of his, hey, Mr. Trump, people are saying that you're going to get to be, you're going to act like a dictator if you get back into office.
And Trump said, only on the first day.
Now after that I'll be fine.
He was obviously joking.
Why would he?
Go and say that he's going to be a dictator, but only on the first day if he actually intends to go and be a dictator.
And then he made clear what he actually meant.
He said I'm going to issue executive orders for drilling.
And those sorts of things.
And he was saying, oh, it's going to be like a dictator.
I'm not going to wait for Congress.
I'm going to use my power as the executive, as under executive orders to do that.
And then the media decided to pretend that Trump was promising to be a dictator.
This now leads their case that it's too dangerous to let Trump back into the White House because even Trump has said he's going to be a dictator.
This is how moronic these people are.
And they just don't stop.
I mean, you can make a case against Trump.
I could.
That's like serious and based on his policy failures, or the people that he hired, or the misalignment between what he promised he would do and what he actually did, or his COVID management.
You could make a lot of critiques of Trump.
But to pretend that he had said that he's going to be a dictator?
And then of course, the next one is the most ironic.
And this one I actually think that they mean.
The other reason why we can't let Trump back near power is because he has said that he will direct the Justice Department to investigate his political rivals.
Now, how is it possible that the New York Times, which knows that it is cheering the attempt to put Trump into prison using the Biden Justice Department, a special prosecutor appointed by the Biden Justice Department who is overseeing his work, Jack Smith, has brought two separate cases charging Trump with felonies, one for the documents case of Mar-a-Lago, the other for his conduct after the 2020 election.
The Democrats are actually trying to weaponize the Justice Department to put Donald Trump in prison, not just to investigate his political rivals, but to imprison them.
It was just like in 2016 when they made such a big deal that Trump said, oh, we're going to investigate Hillary.
We're going to put Hillary in prison.
And then he was president for four years and never did that.
The ones who actually are doing that are the Democrats, supported by the New York Times-led part of the media.
And then they turn around and say, the reason we can't have Trump in power is because he's going to weaponize the Justice Department to investigate his political rivals.
It then goes on, declaring that the greatest danger to the nation comes, quote, not from abroad, but from within.
Now that view, that the greatest danger to the nation comes not from abroad, but from within, is the current official position of the U.S.
security state, that the greatest threat to American national security is not from Iran or China or Russia or Al-Qaeda or ISIS or Hezbollah or Hamas or the Houthis or the North Koreans.
Instead, the greatest threat is from domestic extremists, right-wing domestic extremists.
That is the official position of the U.S.
security state.
Everything they're accusing Trump of doing as reason, as proof, that he's such a dangerous tyrant are the things they are actually doing and have been doing for quite some time.
Quote, after leaving the White House, Mr. Trump refused repeated demands, including a grand jury subpoena to return classified materials to the government.
As the government investigated, Mr. Trump called on Congress to defund the FBI and the Justice Department until they come to their senses.
Oh no, not defund the FBI.
Every good liberal knows that that is something that only people who hate America would do because the FBI is such a patriotic agency.
Mr. Trump is now distinguished from the rest of the Republican candidates primarily by his contempt for the rule of law.
The sooner he is rejected, the sooner the Republican Party can return to the difficult but necessary task of working within the system to achieve its goals.
Now obviously they have no desire that Ron DeSantis be the Not many in the party either.
And I promise you, if he were, this rhetoric would not go away.
They would still warn that the Republican Party is fascist and white nationalist and dictatorial.
The only way that the Republican Party, in the eyes of the liberal establishment, can return to being a responsible party that works within the system, is if they do what they're told to nominate Nikki Haley.
Because Nikki Haley and Joe Biden basically have no differences.
They have trivial differences on the culture war, I mean, they have meaningful differences, but at the end of the day, looking at the power of the president when it comes to the culture war and the impact the presidency has on the culture war, these differences are, in the scheme of things, in terms of how power is dispersed, the thing they want you to focus on, they want you to think that everything is about the culture war, because there is a difference between even Republicans like Nikki Haley and Democrats like Joe Biden, so it creates the illusion That there are differences.
They have some differences about when the abortion rights should be cut off or LGBT rights on the margins, although I don't even think Nikki Haley and Joe Biden have differences on LGBT issues.
So these are minor differences, but on foreign policy, Nikki Haley is a gigantic and vocal supporter of Biden's war in Ukraine, his war in Israel, his bombing of Yemen, his antagonism toward Beijing, the military encirclement of the Chinese with bases all over the place in their region.
Nikki Haley approves of all of that.
There'd be almost no debate to have.
Here from NBC News, fears grow that Trump will use the military in quote dictatorial ways if he returns to the White House.
Now obviously this is what you do if you know that you're losing debates on the merits, if nobody likes Joe Biden, if nobody feels like his policies are helping their lives.
You try and scare people deeply about what will happen if Trump returns.
And again, I said that this is a typical tactic.
The problem is Trump was already president for four years.
And whatever people dislike about him, I mean people who aren't going to vote Democrat no matter what, people dislike about him, it's not because they think he was Hitler during the four years that he was in power.
Here's what NBC says, quote, now bracing for Trump's potential return, a loose knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers is quietly devising plans to try to foil any efforts to expand presidential power, which could include pressuring the military to cater to his political needs.
Those taking part in the effort told NBC News that they are studying Trump's past actions and 2024 policy positions and that they will be ready if he wins November.
That involves preparing to take legal action and send letters to Trump appointees spelling out consequences they face if they undermine constitutional norms.
They quote this establishment Republican, William Cohen, is saying he's a clear and present danger to our democracy.
He was the Clinton administration's defense secretary.
You see what kind of Republican he is.
What they're essentially saying is that the establishment is trying in advance to ensure that the agencies and the executive branch don't follow Trump or his orders if he wins and gets into the presidency.
They actually did that during his first term as well.
They frequently celebrated the people they called the adults in the room, like John Kelly and General Mattis and H.R.
McMaster.
Who they believe should be celebrated because these are people undermining and subverting Trump's orders, like removing troops from Syria, constantly trying to thwart what Trump was doing with the right and power he won as president by virtue of being elected by the American people.
They were proud of the fact that they were trying to get even the people who work for Trump inside the government to impede his orders and ignore them often and countervail them, as that is the definition of a deep state, just by the way.
is a permanent power faction in Washington that rules no matter the outcome of elections and is there to backstop whatever values are most sacred to the establishment by not allowing even the elected president to issue orders that undermine them.
That's what these people did and now they're turning around and depicting themselves as the supreme guardians of American democracy.
Here is an article in CNN that really illustrates the point to me.
It's by John Avalon, who's one of those people who work at CNN.
He's been around the media establishment forever.
He and his wife once featured their $16.4 million townhouse in lower Manhattan in the New York Times real estate section.
And he's one of those guys who always prided himself on being a centrist, but like so many of them, is now singularly and monomaniacally defined by the attempt to ensure that Donald Trump cannot return to power.
And here is John Avalon in CNN arguing why Trump singularly is beyond the pale.
This is what he says, quote, this is a time for choosing, as Ronald Reagan famously said, and the stakes have never been higher.
It's always the case that the next election is the most important election ever.
The stakes have never been higher.
You must go and vote as the establishment tells you.
In the nearly 250 year history of the United States, we've never had a major political party at high risk of choosing a nominee like this.
Someone who, number one, routinely praises foreign dictators.
At number two is running on a frankly authoritarian platform.
Never in our history have we had a president who praises dictators.
Praising foreign dictators is the linchpin of American foreign policy in the wake of World War II.
The strategy of American foreign policy in both parties since the end of World War II has been to go around the world and supporting and propping up dictators that are favorable to the United States in countries where public opinion opposes the American interest.
That's why we have all these dictators in the Middle East who we love.
Like in Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, and Bahrain, and Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
These are all dictators that the United States supports, and loves, and praises.
There are close allies and partners.
Whenever you hear people saying there are close allies and partners in the Middle East, or even Arab countries, want this or say this, they're talking about the dictators the United States has propped up.
All those coups that we know about through the Cold War and then after, are all instances where the United States is trying to install More pro-American figures than the figures that the people of the country democratically elected.
That's what happened in Ukraine in 2014.
The president that was elected became too friendly toward Moscow and too antagonistic to the EU in the eyes of the West.
And so there was a coup that removed him from power prior to the expiration of his term under the Constitution.
He was replaced by a much more pro-Western leader.
We all heard the videotape of Victoria Nuland and the Ukrainian ambassador plotting how that was going to be done, picking the different leaders that they wanted, the ones who ended up in power.
To claim that Trump is the only American president or nominee of a major party to ever praise dictators is such a childlike revision of American history, such a blatant rewriting of the core reality of American politics that you have to be a sixth grader to believe in that.
And then the second sentence, of course, is he's running on a frankly authoritarian platform.
These are the same people who have installed a system of censoring the Internet and purging it of dissent, who the United States Court of Appeals just four months ago ruled were guilty of one of the gravest attacks on the First Amendment, right to free speech, by coercing and threatening big tech companies to ban and punish Any expression of dissent to their most sacred foreign policy orthodoxies?
And these are the people who are trying to imprison their political leader, the one who's leading the polls to become president, trying to ban him from the ballot.
And now they're saying, we've never had before a nominee of any party who ran on a frankly authoritarian platform.
Now, as I said, there are a bunch of liberals like Bill Kristol and others.
He's a neocon, which is now functionally the equivalent of a liberal, who are coming out and just saying they support Nikki Haley.
We played you last week the snippet of Chris Hayes, the MSNBC host, praising Brian Boitler for writing an article saying Nikki Haley is the best choice for Republicans.
Here's Bill Kristol just last week posting the following, quote, I'm an ex-Republican.
But if I were an Iowan, I'd be crossing back over to vote for Nikki Haley on Monday.
Voting against Trump in Republican caucuses and primaries is the most effective way, and a legal and legitimate way, to oppose Trump this winter and spring.
Now that is what they think of Nikki Haley.
So if you were a Republican voter, especially one who has voted for Trump, to overthrow establishment doctrine in the Republican Party for a more populist view of the world, as he promised in 2016.
Whether he carried through on that or not is a separate question.
That was the core promise that caused people to vote for him and make him the nominee.
Why would you then listen to the people whose broad views are completely anathema to yours that you harbor the most contempt for and go and vote for the candidate they're telling you is the best one to vote for, Nikki Haley?
Here, let us give you somebody who's a perfect embodiment of Mitt Romney, John McCain, Republican Party that you rebelled against and decided you no longer wanted in your life.
But this is a desperate political elite talking.
And the First Order business is trying to prevent Trump from becoming the Republican nominee by using this attempt to breathe life into the corpse called Nikki Haley.
She has tens of millions of dollars of actual big donor funds on top of all sorts of free media.
And we'll see over the next couple of weeks how this little plot works out.
All right, we have some more to do on this to kind of delve a little bit more deeply into the dynamics of the race, but we have Michael on the phone.
I think we tried to get him on the phone and ask him to report On what's happening there outside so that our viewers can see Iowa and get a sense for it.
I think we didn't get ahold of him or we asked him and he said it was too cold for him to do that, but he's still in Iowa.
He's still very cold and we want to get a sense for what he's been up to since Friday when he reported on our show and what we can look forward tonight.
Michael, good evening.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.
Hello Glenn.
In the electric atmosphere of a Frozen tundra sites in Dallas County, Iowa where they're holding a caucus.
So everybody here is really overjoyed and there's a festive spirit in the air.
I mean, obviously, you know, speaking of festive spirits, we have taken a great deal of joy in watching you suffer in this extreme cold weather.
But beyond our enjoyment, it actually might have an actual effect on at least the number of people who participate in the caucus.
Like, give us a sense of Who might participate?
How represented they are in the population?
What are the numbers there?
Normally, what might they be because of this extreme cold?
Yes, I'm literally in a caucus site as we speak, and it's still about 25 minutes or so before the caucus actually begins.
My understanding is you have to actually be here by 7 o'clock on the dot.
And right now, in a caucus site, I would say there's, you know, 50, 60 people here.
And you have like 25 minutes to go, right?
It's 6.34 in Iowa?
Yeah.
Right.
Right, right.
So I'm expecting more people to show up, but the campaigns have been emphasizing that you're supposed to arrive early, just to ensure, you know, your spot and whatnot.
But, you know, it really is, people might not appreciate what A relatively unrepresentative sample of the population it actually is that participates in these caucuses.
Like just on my own I've been asking people at, you know, retail stores or gas stations or rest stops if they're going to participate.
And I've heard from several people, three or four now, even just today, who said that although they might potentially be inclined to participate, they just can't do it because they can't get off work tonight.
So it's one thing to fix it on the weather, and that seems to be a factor, but another thing is just kind of inherent to the caucus system itself, which is that if you can't be here physically at 7pm on a Monday night, then you're screwed.
So it's mostly going to be, you know, probably retirement age people, people with spare time, relatively more affluent people who can have more latitude in their personal schedules.
And that's actually reflected now, just my anecdotal gazing at the crowd here.
That's probably roughly the demographic that has showed up so far.
You know, it's interesting having someone, being someone who has lived in Brazil now for close to two decades and doing a lot of reporting on their politics, obviously following elections very closely, you start to see actually there are alternative ways to hold elections.
I'm always amazed that Brazil, which is not exactly known for its digital and technological sophistication, nor for its organizational prowess, are able to hold an election.
The entire country votes.
It's a population reasonably similar to the United States, a little bit smaller, but in the same range.
And within four hours of the polls closing, they have every vote counted, and there's more or less confidence in its reliability.
But the other thing they do is they hold the election on Sunday.
And it's all day long and it's mandatory but even leaving that aside and people can go and vote but just say no Canada but they do have to go and they get a very small fine if they don't but the fact that it's on Sunday means very very few relatively much fewer far fewer people are impeded from the work obligation to be able to go vote obviously an election a primary at least is all day people can try and arrange it but even there it's hard for people who are voting on a Tuesday to go but for a caucus you as you said you have to be there
Do you have a good sense for the percentages of people in Iowa who typically go and participate in caucuses as opposed to the ones that vote in elections on election day?
Yeah, it's a fraction of people who participate in the election overall.
I think in 2016, which was a record-breaking caucus turnout for the Republicans, even then it was still less than a third of registered Republicans in the state who actually went to caucus.
So you're talking about the most motivated of the most motivated of the voters, and probably even more so this year because of the weather, because of other factors.
And so the campaigns have had last-minute get-out-the-vote type events, and just earlier today I was in a place called Fort Dodge, Iowa, which I'm sure you would just love, Gwen.
I mean, you might even want to move there, potentially, I could imagine.
I love rural America a lot more than you might think, but go ahead.
I actually do.
I know you're being sarcastic, but I genuinely do.
Right, so I'm shocked that you wouldn't have joined me this afternoon then.
But you had, Jim Jordan was there, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nat Gates, some of the more hardcore Trump-supporting members of Congress were there.
And just to give you an example of what I'm talking about, I mean, the restaurant slash brewery that hosted this event where a bunch of members of Congress spoke.
Also, Glenn Jacobs, the mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, who was formerly the WWF wrestler, Kane, he was there, too.
But the manager of this establishment who was hosting this event was telling me that he's an independent, he's Republican-leaning, which means he could vote in the caucus if he wanted to, because you have the opportunity to come and register on site if you're not already.
But he just wasn't going to come because he had to work.
I mean, it really is kind of insane.
And the Brazil example is apt because, I don't know, I'm not an expert on Brazilian politics, but it's hard to imagine that something equivalent to the caucus system being held in Rio, where you have to not just come out on Monday night, you have to devote your entire evening to this.
I mean, people are going to be here for a number of hours, most likely.
And there's also people who come and speak and give their case for why the people who are here should support their candidate.
Byron Donalds, another congressman who was there in Fort Dodge today, who I spoke to, he told me that he was actually going to be at this very caucus site, which is part of the reason why I came, just to see what he's... He might be the only black guy in the room, but, you know, that's good for him.
Yeah, we're going to play in just a second a couple of the interviews that you've done, including with members of Congress.
And it is interesting, by the way, what you're saying, that the caucuses almost resemble this sort of debate.
It's a very kind of idealized way of understanding politics.
You have citizens standing up and making their case for their candidate.
And a lot of times people do start abandoning the candidate for whom they went to caucus and joining other candidates as a result of hearing their neighbor's arguments in favor of some other candidate.
Now, let me ask you, before we get to that, when we spoke to you on Friday, you had gone to Nikki Haley's campaign rally.
You had gone to our DeSantis one.
And we talked about the difference, the principal one being that Haley's was so regimented that you actually got threatened with the rest if you didn't leave.
Whereas DeSantis was much more free-flowing.
You got to ask him a question that he spent a good amount of time thoughtfully answering.
Now that you've attended some Trump rallies, what are the differences between the Trump rallies and the other candidates' rallies that you've seen in terms of size, intensity, excitement, energy, those sorts of things? - Yes.
Well, before I get to the Trump rallies, I actually attempted to attend another Nikki Haley event yesterday.
It was actually her final event of the day in Iowa yesterday.
And I mean, it was almost comically treacherous getting there.
I mean, you have to go, you had to go through like this backwoods area.
On a winding country road that was frozen over with a solid sheet of snow and ice.
So actually, on my first attempt to scale this hill to get there, I actually had to stop my car and turn around because I was sliding off.
I mean, it was actually insane.
But I made it there eventually, and what happened was I didn't – it wasn't as onerous as the first time around, just in the sense that a cop didn't throw me out.
But her campaign operatives were given such stringent orders to be monitoring anybody in attendance who was unsanctioned media that one of them made a beeline for me, asked me if I was media.
I guess I had to admit that I was, even though it was kind of a shameful designation, and said that because I wasn't pre-authorized with the campaign, I had to leave.
So I left, and I just – I was actually – I didn't even get close to having an opportunity to question Haley.
So that seems to be the trend with her campaign.
And in terms of the Trump campaign events, yeah, yesterday there was a fairly big one in this place called Indianola, Iowa, at a college, Simpson College, which is like a Methodist college.
So you actually had a fair amount of younger people who were supportive of Trump who were there volunteering or whatnot.
And it was much bigger than any other event that I've seen for any other candidate, which is consistent with what you might expect the results to be in the caucus.
what you might expect the results to be in the caucus.
I mean, Trump is probably – I mean, if the polls are at all accurate, Trump is on track for a historically large win in any competitive Iowa caucus.
I mean, Trump is probably, I mean, if the polls are at all accurate, Trump is on track for a historically large win in any competitive Iowa caucus.
And that was borne out by this event yesterday where he gave one of his traditionally, you know, large rallies.
And there was a big overflow room.
And I was talking to Trump precinct captains.
They walk around these white hats with gold lettering that garishly announced that there are these Trump precinct captains.
A couple of them here at the caucus said, I wish I was able to show you on video, Glenn, because you would probably swoon with delight just seeing it.
And yeah, I talked to a bunch of them.
It's an interesting cross-section of people who are supporting Trump.
Because remember, in 2016, Trump did really not have as much of a grip on conservative Christian voters as he does this time around.
Right, he didn't even win Iowa.
In 2016, Ted Cruz won.
Right, exactly.
Yeah, Ted Cruz won Iowa in 2016 because Cruz tapped into this network of organized Christian conservative voters where, you know, pastors and so forth can mobilize their congregations to vote and actually serve as organizers for the campaign.
And Trump didn't do as well with them.
The Trump supporter in 2016 was more of like the irreligious conservatives or the left faithful, you know, Christian, cultural Christians more than religious Christians.
And that's, that's flipped now to a large extent because, you know, Trump is seen by a lot of conservative Christians as genuinely like some kind of biblical figure who has this holy mandate to, you know, defend Christian America.
And not only that, he obviously appointed three conservative justices who were integral in overturning Grover v. Wade.
So I talked to a guy at the Trump event who is a member of the largest family in Iowa.
And he goes around evangelizing, literally.
So he's a literal evangelist Christian, not just evangelical in some kind of colloquial sense.
And he's been doing nuts and bolts organizing for Trump.
And he was a precinct captain.
And he actually directly acknowledged to me that the DeSantis campaign organization is more formidable than the Trump one.
DeSantis has basically put all his eggs in the basket since the campaign.
They've gotten more endorsement.
Officials are endorsing him, Kim Reynolds, and also DeSantis has tried to court some of those same Evangelical, organized Evangelical networks that endorsed Bruce in 2016.
But the difference in 2024 is that Trump has such a, such a, Michael, I need to interrupt you because the quality of your connection is a little bit poor right now.
We haven't been able to hear you all that well for the last 30 seconds.
So I'm going to try and go ahead and play this interview and maybe once we play this and actually the quality is not great on these either.
So I hope the audience will bear with us in terms of the quality.
I did want to just say, but before I play this, this is one that you did with Congressman Andrew Clyde, who I believe you took this one yesterday, you conducted this interview yesterday.
Before we get to that, you know, it is this interesting thing, I think, you know, a lot of liberals love to mock the idea that The truly religious evangelical Christians have found as their favorite politicians somebody whose life and lifestyle has not exactly been one that's been this model of piety to put that mildly.
He's on his third wife and you know he's not he's been a billionaire in Manhattan and he's very much lived that life but I think You know, evangelical voters are looking a lot more practically than they're often given credit for, and they're seeing that whatever Trump's private life might be, at the end of the day, he has done a lot for their agenda.
And it seems like a very rational thing to do.
There's a politician who's paying attention to your constituency and caring about what you're saying and giving you what you want, then I think it makes sense to prioritize that in terms of deciding how you're going to vote more so than, say, your attempt to assess what's in the heart of somebody religiously or morally or whatever.
All right.
Here is an interview that you conducted with Congressman Andrew Clyde.
We're going to try and go ahead and see how the quality of this audio is, see if we can make out enough to make this worthwhile.
How to kind of define America First in 2024.
Obviously Israel's been a huge issue.
Yeah, it has been.
You can make an argument, I've heard people make this argument, even if they're overall supportive of President Trump, they wonder whether it makes sense to put so much of a premium on supporting Israel unflinchingly.
Is that consistent with the America First philosophy?
I think so.
So this is a question that we've obviously been focused on on this show.
This is something that I had been focused on actually prior to October 7th is that people weren't paying much attention to Israel and Palestine, but had a lot of America First.
I have supporters on my show, members of Congress, pundits, journalists, and the like, and I would often ask them that.
They would say things like they were opposed to the U.S.
funding of the war in Ukraine, and they would say things like the reason is that the United States is too enmeshed in debt.
We can't afford to go around financing other countries' wars.
They would say Ukraine is not the 51st American state.
It's not our responsibility.
That is a war on the other side of the world that doesn't affect us.
And I would often say, well, does that rationale apply as well to Israel?
And they would kind of start stammering and finding reasons to try and claim that Israel was different, that it actually was consistent with the American first ideology to finance Israel's military and Israel's war, even though millions of Israelis live better lives than millions of Americans.
So, and that was the topic of the recent article we published on the Locals platform as well from last week, trying to examine these, what seemed to me like a lot of inconsistencies.
So that was Michael's question to Congressman Clyde, was you're an America First adherent?
You have been going around arguing against these foreign policy adventures.
Does that worldview, is it consistent with supporting, unflinchingly, everything that Israel wants in terms of paying for the war?
And this is what Congressman Clyde said.
America first philosophy.
I think so.
It's also a biblical philosophy.
He who blesses Israel will be blessed.
He who curses Israel will be cursed.
Right.
Do you think there's a prophecy that's at work here?
Who created the world?
God did.
Of course there's a prophecy.
I mean, all of life is in some way, shape, or form a prophecy from God's Word.
And what's the prophecy as it relates to Israel?
I'm not a prophet.
Well, what I just told you.
Yeah.
What I just told you.
He who blesses Israel will be blessed.
He who curses Israel will be cursed.
That's... That applies to the modern nation state of Israel.
That applies to... Rather than the ancient Israelites.
Absolutely.
Same people.
Same people.
You know?
I believe in Revelation.
It talks about the reconstituting of the nation of Israel.
That's a prophecy fulfilled right there with the State of Israel in 1948.
Do you know, does President Trump believe in that as far as you know?
Have you ever spoken to him about it?
No, I have not.
But Israel is our greatest ally in the Middle East.
And we need to support our greatest ally in the Middle East.
They experienced the most horrific terrorist act Since the Holocaust.
I was there.
My word.
You were there?
Not during the attack.
I went a little afterwards.
Okay.
Met with some members of the Knesset and so forth.
Uh-huh.
Well, did you see some things that you wish you could unsee?
Yeah.
Yeah, it was pretty bad.
There you go.
That needs to never happen again.
Right.
All right.
Thanks.
All right, Michael, so I think we lost you for a second.
I believe you're now back.
We'll see how the quality of your audio is.
But, you know, the second half of that answer was pretty stock.
You know, it was basically, look, you know, Israel is our greatest geopolitical ally.
We have to support our ally.
Again, Ukraine is an American ally as well.
They do the United States bidding.
We helped install that government and remove the prior government from power in 2014.
We did that because of how important they are in Washington's view to serving as kind of a pushback or buffer against Russia.
So it's hard to say.
We have to support our allies, but then justify why that means financing Israel's wars, but not Ukraine's.
But in any event, he made at least a reasonable political case.
But the first part of the answer, the first thing he said to you was, the reason I believe in U.S.
funding of Israel is because it's prophesied in the Bible that he who supports Israel shall be blessed, he who opposes Israel shall be cursed.
Is that, from what you can tell, a pretty common sentiment among this wing of the Republican Party, either in Iowa or generally, as far as why so many people who say their worldview is America first want to finance the wars of this foreign country?
Well, bear in mind that Congressman Clyde is, as we speak, at a caucus site serving as a surrogate for the Trump campaign.
So he's one of the people standing up before the Crowd and making an argument for why they should caucus for Trump.
And actually, I see Byron Donald entering the room right now as well in my particular caucus site.
But, you know, I actually should correct you, Glenn.
Israel and Ukraine are only, quote, allies of the United States in a colloquial or informal sense.
Neither are actual treaty allies.
And that does make a difference legally in terms of there being no treaty that the Senate's ever ratified.
that formally establishes Ukraine and Israel as allies of the U.S., that the U.S. is treaty-bound to defend.
So both Ukraine and Israel have their own special little relationships with the United States that have been erected through avenues other than actually formalizing them as treaty allies, which is just something to take note of.
And for Congressman Clyde to note that he regards the difference between Israel and any other country in terms of its need to be supported by the U.S. as deriving from some biblical writ, I think it's notable and does get to the mindset of a lot of, especially Republicans, Christian conservatives who do have this undying support for Israel.
And Trump, even though he's probably not a full-fledged believer himself in that regard, he's viewed by them as somebody who will be a vehicle to actualizing that kind of more Dewey-inspired view of Israel and so forth.
Yeah, you know, Lee Fong interviewed I think four or five members of the Republican caucus who are vehement supporters of Israel, all of whom cite the Bible as the reason for their position.
But I do want to say as well, well, two things.
One is, there was a time in early 2016 when Trump first began talking about Israel and Palestine, when he was running on this America First platform, that he said of the U.S.
relationship to Israel, he criticized the U.S.
for having been too Pro-Israel and having lost the credibility to negotiate a peace deal which he said was vital to the region that he intended to facilitate and he said I would be more of a quote neutral guy when it comes to Israel and Palestine.
That was one of the first times he really got attacked even by Republicans for suggesting that his America First ideology should mean that he's not so pro-Israel.
He quickly then reversed himself and Gave one of the most pro-Israel speeches to AIPAC, basically put Jared Kushner in charge of the Middle East and was one of the most pro-Israel presidents in a long time.
But I just want to say, like, you weren't really correcting me.
I mean, I think the congressman and I, when we say ally, weren't meaning a treaty ally.
We were saying a country that helps promote and advance American interest in their region.
And I think you can actually make a case, a greater case, that Ukraine is an American ally more than Israel.
Because many times Israel gives the middle finger to the United States when the U.S. says, we wish you would stop doing this because it's harming our interest.
And Israel says, I don't care what you think, we're going to do it anyway.
Whereas Ukraine basically never does that.
They follow and snap into line whenever the U.S.
issues orders because they're a much more dependent country and a much weaker country vis-a-vis American power, and they need Washington to keep that funnel on of cash, whereas the Israelis feel like they can always appeal to the American public.
All right, let's... Hey Glenn, I'm standing right near Congressman Byron Donalds.
If you maybe want to see if I can get a quick word from him just about the caucus?
Yeah, go ahead and do that.
I'd love to hear from him.
Okay.
Hey, Congressman Donalds.
Hey, how are you?
We spoke earlier.
I'm actually live on Rumble right now.
Maybe you want to give us a quick rundown.
You're live on Rumble?
Yeah, yeah, right now.
A quick rundown of what you're going to be doing here or what it's all about.
Oh, you want me to talk this way?
Yeah, yeah, just talk over the phone.
Okay.
Well, listen, we're here.
We're here.
Right now, people are still filing in.
Good crowd tonight.
It's going to get bigger because I saw the crowd coming in.
People are still driving in, so that's a good sign.
And look, I'm going to make a clear argument for President Trump.
And while the people here in Grimes should stand behind President Trump and support him and his caucus event.
If somebody's still undecided between DeSantis and Trump, even at this late hour, how would you summarize your argument to them?
Well, two things.
One, Donald Trump has done this job.
Ron DeSantis has not.
And there's a big difference between the Florida legislature, where I did serve, and Congress.
It's a whole different animal.
So that's number one.
Number two, just being blunt, Ron DeSantis is not even going to win Florida.
He's not going to win Florida.
Let's just call it what it is.
That hurts.
I know the state.
It's not going to happen.
That's a big blow.
Unless something monumental changes, I don't see that occurring.
In terms of, quickly on foreign policy, is there any substantive difference between the two that you can identify, Israel or Ukraine or anything else?
I don't really think so.
But I think what is significantly different are the global relationships, especially with where the country is right now from a geopolitical standpoint.
Russia is on the move.
China's on the move.
The Iranians are saber rattling, obviously.
You need somebody who can go in there day one and put a stop to that.
Donald Trump can do that because he had the Iranians in the box.
Vladimir Putin didn't move a muscle during his four years as president.
And Xi Jinping, he's always had his designs, but they were mostly muted.
If you have somebody become president in this current environment, because of how disastrous Joe Biden has been, they have to go build those relationships with these world leaders.
Donald Trump doesn't have to do that.
You can step right in and say, you guys had your fun, but enough's enough.
Time to get back to business.
Hey, Michael, can you ask the congressman just one last question?
I don't know if you can hear me, but... Hey, I hear you.
Congressman, it's Glenn Greenwald.
Thanks for joining us.
I just have one question for you.
The media establishment, even a lot of Democrats, are now openly urging their voters and even Republican voters to cross over and vote for Nikki Haley.
Why do you think she's become the preferred candidate of the establishment?
- I have a question for you.
- Hold on, hold on a second, man.
I'm talking to the caucus captain. - - - He's talking to, yeah, he's talking to the caucus captain.
He just scolded you, Glenn.
Yeah.
Oh, he said, tell Glenn to hold on a second.
I'm talking to the caucus captain.
He said, tell Glenn to shut up.
All right.
Well, Michael, why don't we move on then?
I don't know if you're going to be able to get him again.
He's talking to the caucus captain.
I would not want to interrupt that.
Why don't we play your... - It's an important business, Glenn.
Don't be sad, it's very important business.
- No, the caucus captain is in extremely important positions.
That's what I'm saying.
I would not want to interrupt this conversation with the caucus captain.
Let me play your interview that you conducted with Ronny Jackson, who I believe is also a Trump supporting member of Congress, from the weekend.
- The America first philosophy as you see it, how do you reconcile that with all the support that's been going to Israel?
So, okay, Congressman, can you hear me? - I can hear you.
Sorry for interrupting your conversation with the caucus captain.
I did want to just ask you quickly, thanks for taking the time.
The media establishment, even a lot of Democratic Party supporters have been very open about their desire to see Democratic voters cross over and vote for Nikki Haley.
Why do you think she's become the preferred candidate of the D.C.
establishment?
Because the D.C.
establishment just wants to continue business as usual.
Out there right now, if you do something like, say, let's cut $10 billion out of a $6 trillion federal spend, they lose their minds and act like the world is going to end.
These guys are chicken little.
You have staff that don't want to do their job to cut spending.
You have members who run scared whenever anybody tells them they might lose their seat so they don't want to cut spending.
And if you want all the contracts to continue, then yeah, that's what the D.C.
establishment wants.
You gotta have somebody in there who is not afraid of these guys, who's gonna look them in the eye and say, this is what you're gonna do, and we're not accepting anything else.
Because $34 trillion in debt now, $2 trillion annual deficits, we don't have time for business as usual in Washington, D.C.
We can't have it anymore.
We're done.
All right, Congressman, thanks so much.
Good luck in your speech tonight.
We'd love to have you on our show sometime soon.
Thanks so much.
Listen, reach out to me, Glenn.
Man, I love you, man.
I think you do good work.
I'd love to come on.
Thanks so much.
Have a great evening.
Yeah, he's being honest, Michael.
Take a compliment.
Hey, no, I respect that.
All right.
Thanks so much.
Michael, you don't have to be bitter just because you didn't get a compliment, and I did.
All right.
I mean, whatever I hear, if I hear a member of Congress kissing your ass, you know I'm just going to recoil in horror.
It doesn't happen often, so let's just accept it when it does.
Alright, I want to play your interview with Congressman Jackson because it's similar to the one that you had with the prior one that we just played, so let's play this.
Israel is on the tip of the sphere in the Middle East.
How do you reconcile that with all the support that's been going to Israel?
So Israel is obviously a close ally of the United States, but it's still a separate country and some people question maybe.
Israel is very different.
Yeah.
Israel is on the tip of the spear in the Middle East, the only democracy in the Middle East.
And if Israel doesn't stand its ground and if Israel doesn't survive and then be able to, you know, to maintain the influence that they have in the Middle East, then we are going to be trapped in the Middle East in another war.
It won't happen.
So we need to do everything we can to prop Israel up.
We had a great name going.
We had the Abraham Accords going.
We had Saudi Arabia.
Alright Michael, we couldn't hear that very well.
Do you want to summarize his answer?
You asked him basically the same question.
So the future was right in the Middle East because of Donald Trump and because of Israel.
All right, Michael, we couldn't hear that very well.
Do you want to summarize his answer?
You asked him basically the same question.
I think the caucus is starting, so maybe this has to be the last question.
Yeah, the caucus is about to start.
Ronny Jackson actually gave a slightly different answer than Andrew Clyde, just in that Ronny Jackson was insistent that although he recognizes that a lot of people, especially evangelical Christians or whatnot, view their support for Israel as motivated by some kind of religious conviction.
He was emphasizing that he believes that Israel is the tip of the spear, which is actually a religious phraseology, but he thinks it's the tip of the spear just from a pure secular national security perspective.
And he was making the argument that if the United States does not back Israel to the hilt, then it's going to end up at war with Iran.
Now, I don't know that that makes a whole lot of sense, because it seems like if there is going to be a war with Iran, probably the U.S. military and financial support for Israel will be something that precipitates that.
But in his view, there's this whole geopolitical construct whereby the U.S. needs to support Israel.
Otherwise, Iran will be so massively emboldened that it will attack the United States or whatever.
So that was his basic point.
And he also said that he had never— One thing I tried to ask some of these people is, since they're Trump surrogates, do they have a good sense of what Trump's views are on this, with any degree of specificity, not just getting into some of the more platitudes that might be voiced around the issue, Uh, but do they have a idea of, like, what specific policy approach he might take to Israel?
Because he has had some feuding recently with Netanyahu, so maybe there might be some departure with his administration's posture from 2017 and 2021.
Although, Who knows?
And Ronny Jackson said he doesn't talk to Trump about that.
They only talk about, I guess, Trump's health regimen, because Ronny Jackson was Trump's personal physician in the White House.
So that was basically the answer for Ronny Jackson.
Right.
And I think, like, the general posture of Trump is, whenever asked about these kind of conflicts, is to say, well, basically what Congressman Douglas just said, which is, look, when Trump's in charge, people know he means business, he projects strength, and therefore these wars never happen.
Whereas when Biden's in office, no one respects him, there's weakness, and that's when these wars begin.
Michael, we're going to let you go in part because it's hard to hear with the background noise, but also I want you to pay attention so that we can talk to you tomorrow about not just the results, but what you witnessed as well.
I'm actually very interested to hear a kind of blow-by-blow of this caucus.
There seems to be a lot of interesting people there.
Thank you, Michael.
Stay warm.
I don't actually mean that.
I want you to be cold, but I also want you to focus, and we'll have you back on the show tomorrow night.
You're cold-hearted.
You're cold-hearted.
Alright, Michael.
Thank you.
Have a good evening.
Enjoy the caucus.
Alright, bye.
Okay, bye-bye.
All right, so that was actually very interesting in terms of what we were able to ask Congressman Douglas, who is an interesting figure in the Congress.
I would like to have him on the show.
I don't think we ever asked before, but going to definitely take him up on his suggestion that we reach out to him to get him on the show.
He is a Trump supporter, but he's also somebody whose views don't fully align with the MAGA movement a lot of the time.
So I want to kind of explore some of that.
I think he's somebody who probably has a bright political future.
He's a likable politician.
He presents himself in a way that I think attracts people.
He never gives off this kind of radical vibe of the kind that can alienate.
So I think he's a skilled politician who's positioning himself quite well.
Alright, just to close this point about the dynamic of the race and the fact that the establishment in Washington is so clearly enthusiastically supportive of Nikki Haley.
And when I asked Congressman Douglas that, I think he gave an interesting answer, which is Absolutely right.
That she represents business as usual.
That there will be very little change to the way things are done in Washington if she's elected or if Joe Biden is re-elected.
That's what they look for more than anything.
That's the reason they found Trump so threatening.
Not because of any one particular The view he expressed or policy he advocated, although I think secondarily it became about that as well, I just think in general he represented this threat to continuity, this just subversive energy that threatened to shake up their very comfortable game.
Where their power and wealth comes from.
They're very, very protective of that.
And the person who sits nominally at least at the top of that pyramid, who doles out enormous amounts of opportunities and contracts, for that person to be overtly hostile to sectors of the establishment is their biggest fear.
Way more than which party wins or loses, which ideology prevails.
And Trump was such an outsider in terms of Washington.
He had never occupied political office before.
They just feared the fact that he didn't rely on their standard group of lobbyists.
They saw the writing on the wall that their normal consultants and others who were careerists would be out of power.
It was the only time Trump's election was In the last 25 years that Victoria Nuland did not occupy some important and influential foreign policy position.
She was there in the Clinton administration.
She then served as Dick Cheney's top foreign policy advisor throughout the Bush administration.
She then became the ambassador to NATO when NATO was recklessly expanding eastward in a way that was threatening Russia.
She then began running important parts of the State Department under Hillary Clinton and then was put in charge of Ukraine under John Kerry.
Only when Trump was president for four years, she was out.
Biden gets re-elected.
She's right back in.
Now she's been promoted once again to the highest level of the State Department.
So just in Victoria Nuland, you see the point I'm emphasizing, which is that these people Thrive and prosper and maintain power no matter the outcome of political elections as long as both parties nominate somebody who plays the game.
And Nikki Haley is clearly somebody who, as much as any politician I've ever seen, is more than willing to play whatever game she's told to play in order to benefit herself.
She's an absolute empty vessel, a puppet who believes in nothing but her own aggrandizement in a very Petty way, not even a Machiavellian way, not an unusual way, a very banal way.
And that's why they're so desperate to ensure she's there because you have a Haley Biden race and everyone in power, financial power, political power, sits back and breathes easily because they know they're going to be fine no matter the outcome.
That's why they're so desperate to make sure Haley is the winner because the The way that elections work from the perspective of elite Americans from the centers of American power is that the important thing is to diminish as much as possible the difference in the two candidates so that there's really no interruption to their continuity no matter who wins.
That's what figures like Mitt Romney, John McCain, and George Bush, and Al Gore, and Barack Obama, that's what they were all for.
That's what they did so well.
Even if that weren't their inclination, They understood that faced against this array of real power and the weapon that they could turn the media into, they were more than willing to be subservient to establishment power in a way that Donald Trump, just because of how he's constituted, Wouldn't, and that's the thing they fear more than any specific policy, is the fact that he is a disruptive force in Washington.
That's what a lot of people, I think, at the end of the day, like most about him.
Now, here's the Des Moines Register in their final poll that found Trump has, as Michael said, a historic lead.
If Trump wins by more than 20 points, it'll be a historic victory.
The media won't talk about it that way.
They've tried to make it like Trump's victory is inevitable and doesn't matter, so that they can pump up Haley if she comes in second.
And yet, one of the components of this poll that it revealed, there you see the headline on the screen, more Nikki Haley supporters would vote for Joe Biden over Trump in November, the Iowa poll finds.
Just 23% of Nikki Haley supporters say they would vote for Donald Trump in a rematch with Joe Biden, a new Des Moines Register NBC News Iowa poll shows right before the caucus.
Just 23%.
More Nikki Haley voters would vote for Joe Biden than for Donald Trump.
And here is this tweet.
I think we referenced it right before we spoke to Michael.
It's the Bill Kristol tweet.
Can somebody pull that up, please?
Yeah, we read this.
We're Bill Kristol saying, I'm an ex-Republican, but if I were an Iowan, I'd be crossing back over to vote for Haley on Monday.
Voting against Trump is the most effective way to oppose Trump this winter and spring.
So, that is the view of the Washington establishment and of the liberal establishment as well.
Nikki Haley is their weapon to use against Donald Trump.
Now, earlier today, Bernie Sanders was on CNN with Jake Tapper and there has been a lot of talk
Among American progressives and young liberal voters claiming that they are so angry at Joe Biden for his unstinting and unlimited support for Israel and its destruction of Gaza that for them that is just a red line that will cause them to refrain from voting for Joe Biden no matter what, no matter who he's running against.
And they have said this over and over, and it's not just progressive voters and younger voters, but also Muslim and Arab voters who are particularly important in several swing states, most importantly Michigan, where if they really did refrain in large numbers from voting for Biden due to their anger over Biden's support for Israel and its war against Gaza, that could actually make the difference, not just in Michigan, but in the election.
And so Bernie Sanders was asked whether or not that is a serious threat, that progressives would actually do that, would actually refrain from voting for Biden, even if his opponent were Trump.
And this is what Bernie Sanders said in response to Jake Tapper.
President Biden has caught a lot of criticism from the left on his support for Israel amid this war.
You're a leader on the progressive left, the movement that you helped create in your presidential campaigns.
Do you think that young progressives in the United States will ultimately rally behind Joe Biden in November, or has he seriously damaged his standing?
Look, I think we will see what happens in November because the choice is pretty clear.
Running against Donald Trump, who I suspect will be the Republican candidate, is one of the most dangerous political figures in modern American history.
So I think people will end up rallying around Biden.
But there is no question, it is very hard for young people, I think for most Americans.
To be excited about what is going on right now.
President has got to change course.
He has been very clear.
He has expressed his concern about quote-unquote indiscriminate bombing.
He has asked Netanyahu over and over again to change course.
Netanyahu just yesterday said, no, we're going to continue doing what we are doing.
Unacceptable.
You cannot give billions of dollars to a country that ignores your wishes, violates international law.
So I would hope that the President follows through on his concerns and says to Netanyahu, this is unacceptable, you're not getting a nickel more from the United States unless you radically change course.
We're not going to see hundreds and hundreds of thousands of children starve to death.
Now this is such classic Bernie Sanders because for the first two or three months of the campaign, Of the war, rather.
Bernie Sanders was vehemently supportive of the Israeli war in Gaza.
And he adamantly refused when asked if he would support a ceasefire.
He continuously said, absolutely not.
A ceasefire will help Hamas.
And so when it mattered, Bernie Sanders stood up and defended Joe Biden's support for Israel.
He defended what the Israelis were doing.
And the fact that arguably the most influential voice in the progressive left Was defending Joe Biden's Israel policy and his support for an arming of Israel made a big difference in terms of the posture of the Democratic Party that said even if Bernie Sanders is unwilling to criticize Biden for doing this, well that gives us all the space in the world that we need to also support Joe Biden.
Now, as it increasingly doesn't matter because the Israelis have made very clear that they don't care what the Biden administration says at this point, They extracted and Biden willingly gave the commitment that the United States is going to fund and arm Israel no matter what it does.
There are no red lines the Israelis can cross that could jeopardize the funding that the United States is providing them or the weapons that the United States is providing them to fight this war.
So obviously, if you're Israel and you hear from Joe Biden, as they've repeatedly heard, look, we may criticize you, but don't worry.
We're going to give you all the money in the arms that you need.
Obviously, if you're the Israeli, you're going to ignore what Biden and his officials are saying, because it doesn't matter if they criticize you, since the support is inevitable and unconditional.
And that's what Bernie helped create.
Now they have a political problem.
The political problem is that The younger voters, the more left-wing voters, the Muslim and Arab voters have become enraged by Biden's support for Israel and have repeatedly said that they would not vote for Biden as a result of this anger.
And so they need to give away, and as this war keeps going on and Biden's still a patron of this war, obviously that anger builds and builds, so they need some way to try and tell these leftists who are threatening not to vote for Biden, oh look, there's still a place for you in the Democratic Party.
So now you have Bernie Sanders coming out, when it really doesn't matter, saying Israel's war is illegal and immoral, and the United States should no longer support it, knowing full well that it's not going to have any impact on what Joe Biden does.
But he's creating this illusion for the left that, look, there's still a space for you in the Democratic Party.
Even though I'm independent, technically, I support the Democratic Party.
I support Joe Biden.
And I'm as angry as you are about what Israel is doing.
So we're still allies.
You and I, we think just exactly alike.
And the reason Bernie's doing that is so that he can maintain this channel to continue to speak with those people with credibility to say, look, I know we're angry at what Biden is doing in Israel.
It's wrong.
I agree with you that it's wrong.
But at the end of the day, we still have to vote for Biden.
That's Bernie's role.
That's the role of AOC and Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party.
They create the illusion that if you're disaffected, if you're angry at Joe Biden, if you're angry at the Democratic Party, if you dislike the Democratic Party, there's still space for you in the Democratic Party because there are people who think like you do.
Bernie and AOC.
And they're going to tell you.
They're going to validate your anger.
They're going to validate your emotions.
They don't ever affect anything, but they are there to make you feel like, even if you're an angry, rebellious liberal or leftist, You still find like-minded people in the Democratic Party, and those are the people who are going to tell you that no matter how angry you are, it is still your overarching moral duty to go and vote for Joe Biden, because of how uniquely dangerous and threatening Donald Trump is.
So that is what Jake Tapper is asking Bernie to do.
He's not really asking, what is your prediction?
He's really saying, this is your time to speak to those people and tell them they still have to vote for Biden.
And Bernie performed his function as he always does, very loyally.
He said, I'm angry at Biden, another nickel for Israel!
But the real point of this message, the only thing that actually matters in what Bernie's saying is Even though I'm angry with you, we still have to vote for Joe Biden.
And what Bernie is saying is like, of course these people who are throwing a fit and pretending that they're not going to vote for Biden, we're going to scare them about Trump.
We're going to keep telling them Trump is Hitler.
Trump is coming to take away the rights of their trans friends and Trump is going to create camps for dissidents.
All the stuff that the New York Times was previewing, that Trump is going to be a dictator, that Trump is going to be a fascist.
And Bernie's laughing at the idea that these progressives and leftists will maintain any amount of independence and won't do what they're told at the end of the day because he's right to think that because in this country there's a kind of hard left That always maintains its independence of the Democratic Party.
They won't vote Democrat.
They vote for Jill Stein or they vote for Ralph Nader.
They were preparing to vote for Cornel West if he were going to be on the ballot.
And they're always the people who follow their convictions and don't vote for Democrats, but they're a very small number, the people who don't vote Democrat who are leftist.
The people you need to keep in line in captivity are liberals and leftists, and that's what Bernie's there to do.
And he's laughing at the idea that they won't vote for Democrats, because they always vote for Democrats, because it always works to scare them.
To say, oh look, the Republican is worse, no matter how angry you are at the Democrats.
And that's why Bernie says, of course they're going to snap into line at the end.
They always do, these people.
We just play with them like marionettes.
They're our little puppets.
We let them be angry for a little while and then we're like, okay, get into the voting booth and do your job and vote for Biden and then go out.
Now, the irony of this is that Bernie is recognizing the obvious truth that if Biden tells Netanyahu, you're going to get our weapons, you're going to get our money no matter what you do, then Netanyahu's going to ignore Biden.
And all of his requests to be more civilian friendly and how he carries out this war because once you pledge unconditional support to somebody, they no longer rationally care about your grievances.
Everyone who ever sat down at a negotiating table knows that what leverage is, is you have to have a credible threat to walk away.
If someone knows that you're desperate to do a deal and that you'll take whatever you can get, they're never going to give you Anything more than what they want to give you because they know at the end of the day you're too scared to get up and leave.
You're going to stay there and you're going to sign what they tell you to sign no matter what.
So they're going to only give you what you want.
You have no leverage.
You've lost your leverage because you've pledged that you're not going to walk away.
Conservatives are very good at this.
The Republican Party fears conservative voters because conservative voters say, I only will vote for Republican Party leaders if we get what we want.
And actually the centrists in the Democratic Party are very good at this too.
They won't give their votes unless they get what they want.
The people who are the worst at this are liberals and leftists.
So they can recognize, in the case of Israel, that Joe Biden's pledge of unconditional support for Israel makes Joe Biden's grievances irrelevant.
But somehow they can't recognize that their pledge of unconditional loyalty to and support for the Democratic Party makes their grievances irrelevant.
And Bernie Sanders is laughing at them and mocking them, knowing that these are the people who are the most easily manipulated, the most easily put in captivity, and who always run to vote for Democrats every two years, because all you have to do is tell them that Republicans are scarier.
And that's what Bernie is saying is going to work in this case as well, like it always has before.
We'll see if he's right.
I think the level of intensity and anger at Joe Biden for supporting the Israeli war in Gaza, now going on to its fourth month, is more intense and greater than I've seen among American leftists and liberals, the kind who vote for Democrats.
But I also share Bernie's skepticism that they're going to maintain that.
I think this onslaught of propaganda that Trump is this dictator, that a fascist, he's a singular evil in American political life, no one's ever been like Trump, is going to scare enough leftists and liberals, even the ones now pledging they won't vote for Joe Biden, that they will snap into line like they always do and go be good Democrats and vote for Biden.
But that is what Bernie's role is.
NAOC's role is to tell them, we're like you, we share your anger, but at the end of the day, you're going to vote Democrat.
All right.
All right, so we had a couple stories planned for you.
One was to review the incredibly interesting and revealing career of Paul Finley, who's the author of the War Powers Resolution that we spent a lot of last week discussing because it's what limits, in addition to the Constitution, the ability of President Biden to do things like start a new war in Yemen without congressional approval.
And he was also one of the most principled and vocal opponents of The military-industrial complex and endless war, that's why he authored the War Powers Resolution, but he was also a vehement opponent of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians.
He did that from the Republican Party, and it finally cost him a seat because AIPAC did to him what they're now threatening to do to Thomas Massey in Kentucky, namely remove him from Congress as punishment for opposing Israel.
So given the time, how much time we spent with Michael, the time we spent in Iowa, and it's obviously an important story, we're going to go ahead and postpone that as well as our story about political censorship taking place in the UK.
We have them prepared for you.
We're going to walk you through that, I also think, because it's a holiday.
