IDF General Admits War Impossible Without US Support. Unprecedented Trump Aide Sentence Exposes Dangerous Establishment Lawfare. Josh Hawley’s Revealing Takedown of Biden Judicial Nominee, w/ Matt Stoller
TIMESTAMPS:
Intro (0:00)
No Aid Getting Into Gaza (7:01)
Israel Defies Biden’s Red Line (17:36)
Peter Navarro Sentenced (41:10)
Populist Energy in the Senate (53:48)
Interview with Matt Stoller (1:08:39)
Outro (1:33:39)
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern, exactly on the dot, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, Israel's war in Gaza, now in its sixth month, is still raging without any end in sight.
In the last week, several leading international aid organizations, as well as the World Bank, Documented that what they call a catastrophic famine among the 2.2 million people of Gaza is no longer merely probable.
But rather inevitable and imminent.
There are well-documented cases now of young Palestinian children, including babies, dying of hunger.
The single worst and most painful way for a human being to die.
At the start of the war back in October, Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Galant, vowed that Israel would block all food and water from entering Gaza, and they have obviously made very good on that war promise.
Now, people obviously have very different views on this war.
That is an obvious statement.
It is very polarizing.
But there is one point that is simply beyond dispute.
This is not Israel's war only, but also America's.
And in particular, it is Joe Biden's war.
Immediately after October 7th, Joe Biden flew to Israel to do what he has done so many times in his decades in Washington.
Namely, he promised Tel Aviv unlimited financing and arms from the American Treasury for their new war without any conditions.
Last November, an Israeli general admitted what many Israel supporters in the U.S.
often try to deny, namely that the only reason that Israel is capable of fighting this war for six months and destroying Gaza is because of the financial and military support for it provided by President Biden.
And conversely, that if Joe Biden cut off American aid to Israel, that Israel's ability to continue to bomb, occupy, and destroy Gaza would come to an end.
That admission has significant implications for American citizens and American policy and American values, and we will examine those tonight.
Then, one of Donald Trump's closest aides, Peter Navarro, went to prison today for four months.
His crime?
He refused to comply with a congressional subpoena that directed him to appear for a hearing of the January 6th Committee.
Navarro's argument for refusing to attend that hearing was that the information they sought was protected by executive privilege, and regardless of what one might think of that defense.
What matters here is that many top Washington officials over the years have been formally charged with contempt of a congressional subpoena by Congress.
But Navarro is the very first in American history to ever go to jail for this crime.
Over and over, American law is being weaponized and the criminal justice system politicized by the very people who claim that they are the only guardians of American democracy and norms.
We will take a look at this case to see yet again what pro-establishment, anti-Trump lawfare really looks like when it's in its most vivid form.
Last month, President Biden nominated a longtime corporate lawyer named Sparkle Sooknanan for a lifelong position on the federal court as a district court judge.
Today, Sooknanan appeared for her confirmation hearing in the Senate, and one of her most critical interrogators was Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri.
Hawley focused on the work she did for the large corporate law firm Jones Day, where she defended multiple hedge funds Who are trying to extract as much wealth as possible from Puerto Rico right after the island suffered a massive debt crisis.
Where Don't Stay and this Biden nominee attempted to leave ordinary people who are bondholders in Puerto Rico on the hook for that debt, while hedge funds created all sorts of innovative arguments to ensure that they were paid in full.
Senator Hawley's line of questioning for her reveals a great deal about the reality of both political parties when it comes to values and policies like corporatism and neoliberalism, and it also reveals a lot about the types of people whom the White House chooses to shape American law for decades to come through lifelong appointees to the federal bench.
We'll examine this genuinely interesting exchange that happened today in the Senate and highlight what it reveals.
And to help us explore that, we will speak to the good friend of our show, Matt Stoller, of the American Economics and Liberties Project, who is one of the country's leading antitrust experts and also a vocal critic of what is often called big law, namely the massive, sprawling corporate law firms that often lobby, defend the nation's centers sprawling corporate law firms that often lobby, defend the nation's centers of financial and political Matt has worked in almost every nook and cranny in Washington for years.
He understands it and critiques it as well as anyone, and he always has a lot of interesting things to say, and I'm sure that tonight will be no exception.
Before we get to all that, a few programming notes.
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For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update starting right now.
Ever since October 7th, Ever since October 7th, the topic we have covered more than any other by a decent distance on this show is the ongoing war that is carried out by Israel against a largely helpless population in Gaza. the topic we have covered more than any other by
Whatever you think of the original justification for the invasion and the attack itself, this is not really a war in any classical or traditional sense.
It's not a combat, any combat between two militaries, the way, say, is happening in Ukraine and happens in most combats and theaters that we refer to as a war.
This is really an attack by a country with one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world, backed by the world's largest superpower, Israel and the United States, That is bombing and invading and shooting and shelling and blockading a population that is almost entirely civilian and that has no real military to speak of.
They had very primitive rockets that they aimlessly have shot into Israel as a protest against the two decade blockade.
They obviously have some guns and some other small munitions, but they have no military to speak of.
And as a result, it's not any kind of a real war.
It's a massacre.
It's a very one-sided conflict.
And one of the things that happened very early on in the war was that the Israeli government at the highest level, in fact, its defense minister, Yoav Galant, said what Israel's plan would be for the war.
One of the weapons they intended to use against the Palestinian people, not against Hamas, but against all of Gaza, which was a full-scale blockade where they would deliberately exclude food, water, electricity, or fuel from entering Gaza.
They didn't say, we're not going to provide them with fuel and water.
and food.
They said, we're going to block all of Gaza from getting from any source, from other countries, from international aid organizations, food and water.
And he said it on video and everybody can listen to it.
And we're about to listen to it right now.
Here's the Israeli defense minister on October 9th, 2023, talking about what one of the tactics of their war would be.
I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip.
There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel.
Everything is closed. - We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.
So they made no secret of the fact that that was their goal, that that was their intention.
Now obviously after six months, when you have doctors and nurses from around the world, not just from Gaza,
But from Europe and North America and South America and Asia, having been based in Gaza, going to Gaza to try and provide health care, and they have firsthand accounts of babies and young children and adults dying of hunger, mass famine throughout Gaza, a population of 2.2 million people, half of whom are children.
That's 1.1 million children, people under the age of 18.
They have all kinds of Western health care providers and aid organizations documenting that in nurseries, the babies are too malnourished even to cry.
They often die immediately after birth or they die stillborn because they're not getting enough nutrition.
There are three and four and five year old children who are simply wasting away, who are completely emaciated and who are dying simply of hunger.
Because there is no way to get food into Gaza, even though many aid organizations and countries are trying.
And that's because, in large part, Israel is making good on what they said they would do, which was prevent food from getting into Gaza.
Here from The Guardian today, yet another report has been issued.
This one by the World Bank.
Quote, World Bank report finds imminent risk of catastrophic famine in the Gaza Strip.
Findings come as the UN General Secretary calls on Israel to give unconditional access to Gaza for aid relief.
Everyone all over the world knows exactly why there's famine in Gaza.
It's because the Israelis are blocking trucks from getting in.
You can interview the drivers of these trucks.
You can interview the organization sending them.
And they will say the Israelis keep them out for hours and days at a time.
What they do let in is a tiny little fraction of what's necessary.
For the sustenance of the population.
There's no doubt in anyone's mind except in the minds of a sector of Israel supporters in the United States who deny fault automatically in every instance when it comes to Israel why this is happening.
It's because Israel is using famine and war and hunger and starvation as a weapon of war.
Here from The Guardian, quote, "Half the population of the Gaza Strip is at imminent risk of famine as food shortages approach catastrophic levels for more than a million people," the World Bank has warned.
"The bank's regular update found that of Gaza's population of 2.3 million, there were 1.1 million in the highest risk category, people in catastrophe, which meant risk of acute malnutrition or death." A further 854,000 people, 38% of the population were in the next category down, people in emergency, where immediate action is needed to save their lives.
The remaining 12% were in the third category, people in crisis.
Nobody in Gaza, not a single human being, was placed in the bottom two categories.
People merely stressed or people who are food insecure.
Quote, people who have food security.
Not one person in Gaza is in the two best categories.
Quote, household surveys reveal alarming trends with virtually all households skipping meals daily and a significant portion of children under two suffering from acute malnutrition, the report said.
The World Bank said the projected famine could happen at any time between now and late May and conditions were being exacerbated by a number of factors including relentless hostilities, meaning Israel's war in Gaza, Widespread damage to infrastructure and restricted humanitarian access hindering the delivery of essential supplies and services.
Now you notice that a lot of Western media accounts like The Guardian write these reports and so does the World Bank to exclude any active agent.
They say famine is happening.
Humanitarian aid is being blocked.
They write it on purpose to prevent affirmative declarative statements that Israel is deliberately causing it, but there's no question that that is what's happening.
First of all, Israel is the party that is in charge of all of Gaza.
Hamas does not govern Gaza and has not since October 8th when Israel started bombing and then Israel invaded.
Certainly hasn't for many months.
The governing body of Gaza is Israel.
It determines who and what gets in and out.
It determines who goes where and what goes where.
Obviously, there are still Hamas forces fighting against the invading Israeli army on their But what happens in Gaza is determined by the Israelis.
So if there's famine in Gaza, if there are blockades of convoys from getting in and out, it's only one reason.
It's only one party that governs Gaza.
It's not Hamas.
It's Israel.
Secondly, there was no mass famine in Gaza prior to the Israeli invasion.
So trying to blame Hamas For a famine that did not happen until the Israelis arrived is obviously irrational.
Thirdly, the Israelis have explicitly said that they intended to use that as a weapon of war.
And then fourth, there are endless reports of Israelis blocking aid to Gaza on the grounds that they want the population to starve.
Here is France 24 in February of 2024, just last month.
Here you see the headline, Israeli protesters block aid convoys bound for Gaza.
Quote, you might say it's not acceptable to block food and water going in, said one protester, David Rudman, at the Nissana border post between Israel and Egypt.
Quote, but given the situation we're in, it's acceptable, he argued, as the Gaza war, siege, and hostage crisis have continued into the fifth month.
Here from the Washington Post, also in February, quote, young Israelis block aid to Gaza while IDF soldiers stand and watch.
Quote, it's approaching 1 a.m.
Yosef Debrecer, 22, is in the thick of planning.
He taps out a WhatsApp message to rally more.
Quote, we sleep tonight in Karam Shalom and blockade and fuel to Hamas.
Do you want to sleep here with us?
Shuttles are running throughout the night and day.
Before Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th and the war that ensued, Karam Shalom was the main commercial crossing between Israel and Gaza.
Today, it's one of just two entry points for life-saving food and medicine to the besieged enclave, where aid agencies say civilians are on the brink of famine.
But de Bresser and his three companions, Israelis, are determined to keep any trucks from getting through.
And they aren't bothered if innocents suffer.
Quote, war is war, de Bresser shrugs.
The United States didn't care about civilians when it blew up Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Who gives his enemy aid?
Again, no one's asking these Israelis to give aid, food, water, electricity to the Palestinians.
The world is saying that Israel should stop blocking others from wanting to give them food and water.
And yet Israel is defying the entire world, as it often does, defying the United States, which is paying for its war, providing its weapons and arms that it uses to destroy Gaza, to the point that the United States now actually has to humiliate itself by trying to airdrop aid into Gaza through parachutes.
Because their allies, the Israelis, whose war the United States is paying for and arming, refuses to let even the United States, their main patron, bring aid into Gaza, into the population.
And the United States is reduced to airdropping aid to the Gazans because they're not allowed to bring aid in directly to Palestinians.
Now, one of the things that I think is so important to note, because I see all the time now, Democrats in the United States decrying what Israel is doing, denouncing what Israel is doing, calling Netanyahu all sorts of names, there's often an attempt, I see this all the time from especially more left liberal members of the Democratic Party, when they finally now are willing to denounce Israel, they try and turn it into a left-right issue by emphasizing
that this is the fault of the right-wing Israeli government, as though there's some sort of alternative waiting in the wings that would come in and end the war, when in reality virtually the entire Israeli population is united in support of this war.
There is no alternative, some nice center-left alternative to Netanyahu.
In fact, Netanyahu's primary opposition, the mainstream parties in Israel that are Netanyahu's opposition, joined his work cabinet and continued to remain there.
And what they're really doing when they say these things, oh, Netanyahu is evil, Netanyahu is bad, the far-right government of Israel, is they are deliberately obscuring the responsibility for this war that actually rests with the President of the United States, Joe Biden.
They're playing a sick political game, and that includes Democrats like Bernie Sanders and AOC.
Bernie Sanders actually, at the start of the war, defended Israel.
Went on Face the Nation and said, of course I'm opposed to a ceasefire.
How do you have a ceasefire when you have to destroy Hamas?
And AIPAC publicly thanked him for it.
And now they know that they need to assuage the angry left wing of their party, the people who are on the left but still vote for Democrats.
You can question whether they really are leftist or not, but the left wing of the Democratic Party that is angry about this war, they want to hear people like Bernie Sanders and AOC and other Democrats denouncing the war, even though when doing so, they don't actually put blame on the person who's responsible, which is Joe Biden.
And the fact that Joe Biden is responsible for the war in Israel is obviously demonstrated by the fact that the United States, under Biden's leadership, is paying for Israel's war, not just through the $4 billion a year that Israel gets every year in American aid.
As a result of an aid package that Barack Obama and Joe Biden negotiated and finalized with Benjamin Netanyahu as one of the last acts the Obama administration performed.
That was in September of 2016 when they agreed to a record-setting $38 billion deal for American taxpayers to transfer to Israel over 10 years.
Some of which, much of which, has to be spent by buying weapons from American arms dealers.
So American elites who own major stock in the arms industry also benefit.
But much of that money doesn't have to be spent on that at all.
It's just aid to Israel that they can spend how they want at a time when there are millions of Israelis with a higher standard of living than millions of Americans have.
But on top of that, $4 billion every year in aid, every time Israel has a new war with its neighbor, with one of its neighbors, it asks the United States to pay for it and to provide the bombs and the weapons to it that it wants to use to bomb their neighbors.
And the United States in each and every instance provides that.
Joe Biden ran to Benjamin Netanyahu almost immediately after October 7th.
And very consistent with Biden's decades long behavior as being one of Israel's most stalwart defenders, he promised that America would pay for Israel's war, would pay for it, would arm it above and beyond the $4 billion that we sent to them each year.
He immediately demanded $14 billion from Congress for war funding for Israel to pay for its war.
And Israeli military officials openly admit But the only reason they're able to carry out this war is because of Joe Biden, because Joe Biden's paying for it, because Joe Biden is arming it.
Without that, they would not be able to carry out this war.
Here from the Jewish News Syndicate in late November, the headline, Biden is the primary obstacle to Israeli victory.
They're essentially, they're saying that the That somehow Joe Biden is the obstacle to Israeli victory, and yet within the article it says this, quote, Israel's dependence on the United States was stated bluntly by retired IDF Major General Yitzhak Brick in an interview earlier this week.
This is what General Brick said, quote, all of our missiles, the ammunition, The precision-guided bombs, the airplanes and bombs, it's all from the United States.
Everything that the Israelis are using to bomb Gaza, to destroy civilian infrastructure, 70% of residential buildings in Gaza are either destroyed or crippled.
The water system, the sewer system are irreparably damaged, if not destroyed.
Even when, at some point when the war ends, there's, as Jared Kushner said this week, When asked whether or not he thinks that what would happen once the war ends, he basically said, yeah, who cares?
You can move the Palestinians out of Gaza.
You can build really expensive real estate on the sea with really nice water views.
He's like, but it really doesn't matter if you let the Palestinians go back or not, because there's basically nothing of Gaza left.
And at least about that, Jared Kushner is right.
The Israelis, with the aid of the United States, the crucial aid of the United States, have destroyed Gaza, but all of the weapons that they've used have been provided by the United States.
The General went on, quote, the minute they turn off the tap, you can't keep fighting.
You have no capability.
Everyone understands that we can't fight this war without the United States, period.
Now, In the United States, a lot of Democrats will understand that Joe Biden's support for the war in Gaza is a real political risk for him.
Try and convince Americans that actually he's doing so much to pressure Netanyahu.
He's doing so much to restrain the Israelis.
They constantly leak to Politico and places like it, to rags that are like Politico that just anonymously quote any White House official that wants to be quoted anonymously.
Oh, Biden is fed up with Netanyahu.
He's so frustrated with Netanyahu.
He's so angry with him.
And of course, The leverage rests entirely with Joe Biden in the United States because without the United States providing weapons and money, this war could not be fought.
And that's not my saying that, that's a top level retired IDF general saying that.
In fact, he said the minute they turn off the tap, meaning the minute the United States says we're not going to keep paying for your war, you can't keep fighting.
We have no capability.
Everyone understands that we can't fight this war without the United States.
Everyone understands that we can't fight this war without the United States.
I think when he says everyone understands, he doesn't realize that there are a lot of Israel supporters in the United States.
I don't think he realizes how propagandized they are, who believe, oh, Joe Biden's not really doing anything for Israel.
Israel could easily fight this war on its own.
They could not fight this war on their own.
They don't have the capabilities to fight the war on their own.
They need the United States to do so.
And the only reason it's going on for six months is because you have the United States, the richest and most powerful country in the world, standing behind Israel, continuously saying up to today that not only will the U.S.
continue to finance and arm Israel's war, but will do so with no conditions of any kind.
Now, the White House did get to a certain point where it seemed like they were at least pretending to impose a condition on Israel.
They were drawing what was called a red line.
Namely that The Biden White House was supposedly telling Israel that it was not going to tolerate Israel invading and bombing the refugee camp in Rafah, which is where more than a million Palestinians have now congregated.
One of the only places in Gaza that they can be safe, although the Israelis have attacked that refugee camp several times before.
And here in Politico on March 10th, The headline was, Biden warns of a red line for Israel over Rafa.
So it seemed like, at least in terms of what the Biden White House wanted the media to convey to Americans, that Joe Biden was finally setting a condition On what the Israelis could do, namely this safe space for Palestinian civilians.
The only place they can be in this refugee camp is a bridge too far for us.
We will not let you go there and invade there because it will kill far too many Palestinian civilians.
On top of the Palestinian civilians, the massive tragic number you've already killed And then under that it says, Cyprus aid ship gets ready to open humanitarian sea corridor to Gaza.
And here was the news report from Politico last month, or just 10 days ago.
Quote, U.S.
President Joe Biden warned the Israeli government against a further intensification of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip as worries grow over the humanitarian disaster in the enclave.
Quote, we cannot have another 30,000 more Palestinians dead, Biden said in an interview with MSNBC on Saturday.
Asked whether an invasion of Rafa in the south of Gaza on the border with Egypt was a red line.
Biden replied in the affirmative.
It is a red line.
It's a red line.
Now that is presidential talk for, this isn't something that we're just against.
This is something we will not allow.
We will not tolerate.
We will not permit.
So Biden called that a red line, meaning this is something that the Israelis cannot cross.
One of the things that Barack Obama did that provoked the most criticism from the Iraqi media was when he declared what he called a red line for Bashar al-Assad in Syria, which was the use of chemical weapons.
And when the media began reporting that Bashar al-Assad had in fact used chemical weapons against various factions in Syria against whom he was fighting, Meaning he had crossed the red line that President Obama set.
There's a lot of people in dispute whether those reports are actually valid, but the White House, the Obama White House, accepted that the Assad government had used chemical weapons as part of that war that the United States was involved with.
Even though President Obama has said that's a red line, he did essentially nothing once They accepted the reports that the Syrians had used chemical weapons.
But in general, it's considered a major blow to presidential credibility for the president or the White House to declare that something is a red line and then have a country cross it with absolutely no consequences.
And yet, unsurprisingly, I think, we learned that the Netanyahu government is being very clear that they have absolutely no intention of observing Biden's quote red line.
They don't care in the slightest.
Just like they won't allow the United States to bring in humanitarian aid through American trucks and force the Americans in front of the world to suffer one of the gravest humiliations the American government has had to suffer in airdropping aid to a group of people because their own ally refuses to allow them in to provide aid.
Now the Netanyahu government is very ready to humiliate the Biden White House again by saying we don't care about the American red line.
Even though the United States is paying for our war and arming us, and even though it will continue to do so, we're not going to limit ourselves to what the Biden administration tells us we can and can't do.
Here from Politico, Netanyahu vows to defy Biden's red line on Rafa.
Israeli Prime Minister insists his priority is to prevent another terror attack like the October 7 Hamas raid.
The article states, quote, when asked Sunday whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah, Netanyahu replied, quote, we'll go there.
We're not going to leave them.
You know, I have a red line.
You know what the red line is?
That October 7th doesn't happen again.
Never happens again.
So Netanyahu recognizes that Biden set a red line and he said, I don't care what the red line is.
We're going to go there.
We're going to go do exactly what Joe Biden said we can't do.
I have my own red line, which matters more.
Now, if it were the case that the Israelis were fighting this war independently, that if they weren't a dependent on the United States and the American people, if the American people weren't forced to pay for their war and pay for their weapons, there would still be international conventions and institutions to which the Israelis would be accountable.
There's things like the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war that were implemented after World War Two to prevent things like the Holocaust and war crimes and collective punishment from happening again.
But at least you can make the case that there's no reason why the Israeli government should take orders from the United States.
It's their war and they ought to fight it how they choose to fight it.
The problem is that's not the reality.
Israel is anything but independent.
Israel is completely dependent.
on the United States for fighting this war.
And so if the United States says, this is a red line for us strategically, because we believe that if you do this, you'll create huge amounts of problems for our national security, or this is a red line for us ethically or morally that we will not support and don't want to be associated with in front of the world.
The killing of thousands more Palestinian civilians, children and women and innocent men.
And the Israelis just turn around and say, we don't give the slightest concern for what your red lines are.
Any country with dignity, any political leader with any dignity, would have to then follow through and say, well, if you're going to cross our red line, we're not going to pay for your war anymore.
This is so basic.
If your child is financially dependent on you, it means you get to set the rules.
Once they're financially dependent and can live on their own and support themselves as adults, then they can make their own rules about how they live their lives.
But until that happens, when you're still paying their bills as a parent, you have the right to set rules for what you want to support.
And the United States has every right, in fact, every obligation If it's paying for Israel's war and arming Israel's war to say there are certain things with which we don't want to be associated.
And the Biden administration said that.
The White House said that.
Invading the Rafah refugee camp is a red line for us.
And now you have the Israelis saying, we don't care about your red lines.
Netanyahu saying, we're going to ignore your red line.
So the only solution is an obvious one, which is that the United States would have to say to the Israelis, that comes next.
We're not going to pay for your war anymore then.
We're not going to arm your war anymore.
You think that's what Joe Biden is doing?
Here's what he's doing instead from the New York Times on March 12th.
The White House denies that Joe Biden has ever set any quote red lines for the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The Biden administration repeated its warning that Israel should not attack the city of Rafa.
The southernmost city in the Enclave without protections for more than a million people there.
Quote, the president didn't make any declarations or pronouncements or announcements, said Jake Sullivan, the president's national security advisor, referring to an interview Mr. Biden gave over the weekend in which he was asked whether he had a red line Israel should not cross in its prosecution of the war.
Now, we just showed you that on that MSNBC interview, Biden was asked Is this a red line for the United States that Israel can't enter the Rafah camp?
And Biden said, absolutely, it's a red line.
There you see it.
Asked whether an invasion of Rafah in the south of Gaza on the border with Egypt was a red line.
Biden replied in the affirmative.
It's a red line.
And now you have the New York Times.
White House denies that Biden has set a red line.
So this happens all the time.
Joe Biden goes on television.
He makes some kind of a statement.
Maybe he doesn't intend to.
Maybe he doesn't know what he's saying.
And then the White House has to pretend that he never said it, because obviously Joe Biden is not setting White House policy.
This is proof of that.
But what it's also proof of is the country that's really in charge, even though you would think the United States being a much bigger country, a much larger country, a much more powerful country, a much richer country, a country that funds Israel, Fund its military, fund its wars.
You would think the United States would be the country in charge, so that if the United States says this is a red line you cannot cross, Israel wouldn't be able to cross it, at least not without consequences.
And yet, everybody knows that's not how things work when it comes to the United States and Israel.
The country that dictates how things work is the dependent country, which is Israel.
And Netanyahu has been heard on tape talking before about how easy it is to provoke the American public to side with this foreign country, Israel, over their own country, over their own government.
And they believe, with good reason, that the American public will, at least the parts that wield a lot of power, political and financial power in Washington,
We'll be on the side of Israel over the United States including a lot of people who define themselves as being America first but who believe that for some reason the money that the United States has that American taxpayers generate should not be used at home but should instead be sent to Israel to pay for their war and their military instead of being used at home to improve the lives of American citizens and so you have this bizarre situation.
Where Joe Biden has now set a red line that the Netanyahu government has mocked and laughed at.
And instead of doing anything about it, Joe Biden is now denying that they ever set it.
The White House is now denying that Joe Biden ever set a red line.
And so not only will Israel be able to continue to block food from entering Gaza, not only will they be able to continue and expand the mass famine, the world will stand by and watch not hundreds or thousands, but tens of thousands of Palestinians die of famine.
Obviously children who suffer malnutrition on this level of severity and duration never really recover.
Their growth is interrupted, their development is impeded in ways that are irrevocable.
This ain't nothing of the psychological destruction of having the entire society in which you live completely destroyed by the most powerful bombs that the world knows.
But now the one place in Gaza where refugees are huddled is about to be invaded.
Very shortly after the Biden White House said this is a red line that is off limits and whatever else you want to say about the war and obviously we have made our own perspective of this very clear over many months and we know there are people in our audience who don't see it that way.
The key point that has to be understood that has to be acknowledged is that this is an American war.
This is Joe Biden's war and whatever happens in Israel Or more accurately, in Gaza, by Israel, over the last six months, and however many months more this lasts.
It's something that goes directly on Joe Biden's ledger, on his legacy.
As the Israeli general said, the minute they cut us off, the war ends.
We can only fight this war because the Biden administration is giving us the money and the weapons to do so.
And that has all kinds of moral and ethical implications, but it has great strategic implications for the United States as well, because obviously, if the Israelis know that and the Palestinians know that, the entire world understands, and I promise you they do, That what is happening in Gaza is not only an Israeli war, but it's an American war.
And it's crucial to understand that it's Joe Biden's war as well.
As we have talked about before, this platform, Rumble, is a free speech platform that has proven the authenticity of its mission.
They have been willing to lose access to entire countries like France and Brazil if those countries insist upon censorship of the kind that Rumble simply isn't willing to endure.
And Rumble really is devoted to a mission of allowing every view, right, left, everything in between, anti-establishment, dissidents, all kinds of views, to be aired freely And as a result, Rumble has been under a lot of attack from the media, from campaign efforts to try and drive advertisers away.
And one of the responses that Rumble has embraced is the idea that they can start to partner with companies to sell products as long as they're good products, products that are high quality.
We've talked before about Rumble's cloud services, and we've talked to about 1775 Coffee.
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We're independent of the rumble issue simply because a lot of people drink coffee that's not very good.
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And if you go to 1775coffee.com slash Glenn and use the promo code Glenn, it means you get 10% off of your first order.
As we said, we'll never ask you to just start buying products associated with Rumble simply because they're associated with Rumble.
But what we at least hope you will do is keep an open mind and try those products.
Keep an open mind and try those products.
And if you like them, only then continue to consume them because at the end of the day, I think even though our audience has a lot of different views, one thing that we do all agree on, I think by definition of watching the show or being part of the show, is that there are a few causes as important as preserving free speech online.
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Peter Navarro is a very close aide of Donald Trump.
He was somebody who, particularly after the 2020 election, stood by Trump's side, played a major role in advising Donald Trump about how to navigate the post-2020 election.
As a result, he was someone who became high up on the public enemies list of the political establishment
In Washington, he was blamed in a lot of ways as being one of Trump's aides who encouraged him to persist in his view that the 2020 election was the byproduct of election fraud, and as well as somebody who was blamed for agitating and stirring people up in a way that led to the riot on January 6 and to the violence on January 6.
Now, as a result, Peter Navarro is somebody who, if you're an American liberal, if you're in the American political establishment, you absolutely dislike.
And that shouldn't matter for this story that we're about to tell you about, but it absolutely and obviously does.
Which is that Peter Navarro is on his way to prison.
To prison.
Where he will serve a real sentence and a real prison of four months because he was found guilty of being in contempt of a congressional subpoena.
Oftentimes Congress orders people to appear before it to testify about certain matters that Congress wants to know about.
The January 6th Committee issued a subpoena directing Peter Navarro to appear before it to answer certain questions.
Navarro refused to appear, arguing that the information that the committee was seeking was protected by the executive privilege because he was an advisor to President Trump and was speaking to President Trump in that capacity.
And instead of going there and raising their privilege, he simply didn't show up.
The Congress found him in contempt of Congress, and he is now on his way to prison.
Now, you may think that that's not a big deal.
It's only a four-month prison term.
He actually did ignore a congressional subpoena.
The important thing to know is that never in the history of our country has anyone gone to prison for contempt of a congressional subpoena until today.
When Donald Trump's close political advisor, Peter Navarro, obviously hated by the establishment for the reasons I just said, went to prison, becoming the first ever person to do so, despite the fact that many top officials in Washington, including President Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder, were also found by Congress to be guilty of contempt of a congressional subpoena by failing to comply.
Needless to say, they never got anywhere near a prison.
This is something reserved exclusively for Peter Navarro.
Here's how CNN decided to frame the story.
Ex-Trump aide Peter Navarro begins serving prison sentence after historic contempt prosecution.
And it is historic.
Historic because people don't go to prison for defying a congressional subpoena until Now, and unless you are an advisor to Donald Trump, who the establishment blames for his post-2020 election conduct.
But that can't be how justice is meted out, and yet it is.
Quote, Peter Navarro, an ex-White House aide to former President Donald Trump, has reported to a federal prison in Miami, making history as the first former White House official to be imprisoned for a contempt of Congress conviction.
Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison For his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 U.S.
Capitol attack for decades, the two branches of government have engaged in a game of chicken over the protections that surround the presidency and how Congress can enforce his subpoena.
There have been incentives on both sides to negotiate toward a deal rather than test in court the monumental questions of executive privilege and immunity in court.
In this case, The Justice Department, the Biden Justice Department, took the uncommon step, the unprecedented step, of prosecuting a former White House advisor for blowing off a congressional subpoena at Congress' prompting after holding Navarro in criminal contempt and referring him to the Department of Justice.
Now remember, Democrats, since 2016, have depicted themselves as the defender and guardians of American political norms and traditions.
The defenders of an apolitical justice system and of an independent department of justice.
And yet, over and over, what we see is the application of novel legal theories to punish Donald Trump's followers, as happened all throughout January 6 and those prosecutions, when they found ways to convert Non-violent political protest, which according to the government was true for the vast majority of people prosecuting in connection with January 6th, that they did not use violence.
They found a way to convert that into a felony using never before highly innovative precedents and interpretations of law that are now actually starting to be weakened by courts the more they look at them.
But obviously it extends as well to the fact that Donald Trump, if the Democrats get their way, will be the first ever American president to see the inside of a jail cell.
They tried to strike him from the ballot.
This is all what is called lawfare, the abuse of the legal system, of the judicial system, to punish people for political ends.
Now, Here from the Hill in June of 2022 was an article by Jonathan Turley called Subpoena Wars.
Washington is on a path to mutually assured destruction.
And here is...
Jonathan Charlie's argument that he made in 2022 about all this, quote, Attorney General Merrick Garland is well on his way to setting a record for the prosecution of congressional contempt.
The Justice Department has consistently refused to submit congressional contempt cases to grand juries, including a flagrant act of contempt by Obama era Attorney General Eric Holder.
There is ample basis for this charge as well.
It is not the substance, but the selectivity and speed of the charges that is notable.
Navarro was only held in contempt in April and is now being prosecuted by a department long known as the place where contempt sanctions go to die.
Now, there are important reasons why it is highly unusual, in fact, unprecedented for officials of the executive branch who work for the president Not to be put into prison for defying congressional subpoenas.
There are obvious issues of checks and balances and the always ongoing quest for power between the various branches of government.
If you're an ordinary citizen and you defy a congressional subpoena, then you very well may end up in prison.
That has happened before.
People who lie to Congress, people who defy Congress, might end up in prison.
But when you have members of the executive branch who are being told by members of Congress that they're forced to do something or go to prison, that creates all kinds of separation of power issues about what the ability of Congress is to force members of the executive branch, an Article 1 body in Congress telling an Article 2 body in the executive branch that they have to comply with congressional subpoenas or go to prison.
And that's why in Washington, the norm has always been That even if a member of the executive branch refuses or fails to comply with a congressional subpoena, they do not go to prison because the Justice Department never wanted to test this.
All of this is brand new.
It's newly minted for Donald Trump and his advisors, yet again.
If there had been a history of executive branch officials who were found to be in contempt of Congress going to prison, and then Peter Navarro was sent to prison in accordance with that precedent, I would have nothing to say about this case.
But it's the fact that, as always, there's a complete deviation from principles and tradition and precedent to politicize the justice system, to warp and weaponize it in service of the attempt by the Washington establishment, including members of both political parties, to keep out of power any political movement that threatens its orthodoxies.
Hear from CNN in February of 2008.
Attorney General declines to investigate Bush advisors.
U.S.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey Friday said he will not ask the federal grand jury to investigate whether two top Bush administration officials should be prosecuted for contempt of Congress.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday asked Mukasey to look into whether White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolton and former White House Counsel Harriet Myers committed contempt of Congress in the investigation of the 2006 firing of several U.S.
attorneys.
Earlier this month, the House voted to find Bolton and Myers in contempt of Congress and pursue charges against them.
The White House argues that forcing the aides to testify would violate the Constitution's separation of powers.
So that was the Bush administration.
Refusing to make available top White House officials to Congress in response to a subpoena, the Congress found them in contempt of the subpoena.
And the Justice Department said, we're not going to prosecute because it raises separation of powers issues.
Here from CNN in July 2012, that was the Obama administration, no criminal prosecution of Eric Holder for contempt.
Quote, legal experts noted this week in the run up to Thursday's House vote that President Barack Obama's assertion of executive privilege in the case would prevent a criminal prosecution under a practice dating to the Reagan administration.
Obama asserted executive privilege on some documents sought by Congressman Darrell Issa's committee in its investigation of Operation Fast and Furious.
The executive privilege assertion prevented the documents from being turned over on the grounds that they include internal deliberations traditionally protected from outside eyes.
This is what I think is the key point about everything that's been happening in the Trump era, which obviously is something that continues to today.
The establishment forces in Washington united to warn that Donald Trump presents a wide range of dangers to American democracy.
And yet, so often, those dangers have been ushered in, not by Donald Trump and his movement, But by the union of establishment forces that have united in the name of protecting American norms.
They're the ones who destroy American norms.
They're the ones who weaponize the justice system.
These are the people who keep saying earnestly by looking into the camera with a straight face, we have to imprison Donald Trump before the election because if we don't, he may win and then weaponize the Justice Department against his political enemies.
And they have no conception of the obvious internal contradiction within that decree.
And here you have a tradition that has been maintained throughout administrations, presidents of both parties, under the control of both parties in Congress, which is that executive branch officials don't go to prison, don't get prosecuted for condemnative court, a precedent, a tradition, a norm that has been destroyed
Out of an eagerness to send to prison one of Donald Trump's aides, Peter Navarro, for doing something contempt of a congressional subpoena that in Washington has been regarded as not even a prosecutable offense, let alone one warranting prison for decades.
And all of that yet again gets tossed away in the name of stopping Donald Trump.
And that, more than anything, is the prevailing ethos in Washington, which is that there are no Rules of ethics in journalism or politics that are no tradition or norms that are worth preserving.
Everything is justified if the ultimate goal is weakening or punishing or stopping the Trump movement.
And for that reason, the real dangers come not from the Trump movement, but from the array of establishment forces aligned against him.
So earlier today there was a Senate hearing that was designed to examine the possible confirmation of several different nominees of Joe Biden's to go to the federal bench.
These nominees to the judiciary, which is the Article 3 branch of government under the Constitution, Article 2 is the executive branch, Article 1 is the Congress, as we were just saying, are lifelong appointments.
When you get appointed as a federal judge, as a federal district court judge, federal appellate judge, or to the Supreme Court, those are lifetime appointments.
You have life tenure.
You don't have to be reelected.
You don't have to be reappointed.
You get to have that power for life.
And only under the narrowest circumstances can you be impeached or removed from that office.
So obviously, these are very serious appointments.
And while the president has the right to nominate who he wants to the president, to the judiciary, it's the duty of the Senate under the Constitution to advise and consent.
And so they have hearings where they get to ask the questions, whatever they want, of the nominees to explore their record.
And earlier today, Josh Hawley had an extremely interesting exchange With a Biden nominee to the court who has spent eight years working at the law firm Jones Day, or actually six years working at Jones Day.
And this exchange is very interesting.
Her name is Sparkle Sukkinen.
A name you can't forget.
I don't know why it just slipped my mind.
But anyway, it's Sparkle Sukkinen.
And Senator Hawley was asking about her work That she did while at this huge corporate law firm, in particular, in defense of certain hedge funds.
Now, in general, I think it's an important principle, and she's going to invoke this principle, that lawyers not only have a right but the duty to defend whatever clients they have with zealousness, to do everything you can within the limits of what the law permits to advance your client's interests.
And nobody denies that.
But there are a lot of different ways that you can Use your legal skills and talents.
A lot of different agendas you can choose to advance, a lot of different people for whom you can work.
And so even though it's true that once you decide to take on a client, you're legally duty-bound to advance the client's interests and not morally judge it, the clients you decide to take on, the places you decide to work, say a lot about your character and your values.
No one is forced to go work at a large law firm.
After I graduated from law school, I went to work for a very large Wall Street law firm, and it's a very lucrative job.
You get paid an enormous amount of money.
The law firm I went to is the one where a lot of people in Washington previously worked, including Bill Clinton's White House counsel, Bernie Nussbaum.
It's where Kellyanne Conway's husband, George Conway, was a partner when I was there, walked Ellipton.
I went there and I saw that the work that I would do included things like defending insurance companies and hedge funds and Goldman Sachs and just trying to maximize the profit of major corporatist and neoliberal institutions.
And I just knew that wasn't the work that I wanted to do.
And so I left after 18 months to go do other things.
I could have stayed, could have become very rich doing it, but it was soul-deadening work and it wasn't the kind of work that aligned with my values.
So it's true that when I was there, I did everything I could to do the best job I could, but I left after a very short time because I knew that wasn't the work I wanted to do.
So this traditional nominee, like so many, come from these large law firms, and Josh Hawley was trying to highlight What the values are in these places, the kind of work that they end up doing, the kind of clients they end up representing, and the values that then end up shaping the federal judiciary.
So here's this exchange that happened between the Missouri Senator and this judicial nominee that we're going to have Matt Stoller on after we look at this to talk about it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congratulations to the nominees.
Thank you for being here.
Congratulations to your families.
Ms.
Signan, if I could start with you.
I think we've established from The recent lines of questioning that you worked at Jones Day, you were a partner at Jones Day, is that right?
That's correct, Senator.
And you had, how long were you at Jones Day?
I was at the firm for six years, Senator.
Okay.
You had a series of clients in that time, I imagine.
Is that fair to say?
That's correct.
That included a series of hedge funds, global hedge funds, is that right?
Yes, Senator.
Funds like Altair Global, Claren Road Asset Management, Glendon Capital Management, Nakoda Capital, Oak Tree Capital Management, Ochre Rose, and Centerbridge Partners.
Does that sound right?
That sounds right.
And you represented these hedge funds in particular during a debt crisis that Puerto Rico had in 2017.
Do you remember that?
Yes, Senator.
So Puerto Rico had a debt crisis in 2017.
Your clients had bought a series of bonds and held quite a lot of money in bonds, if I'm correct.
And it's $1.4 billion.
Does that sound right?
Yes, Senator.
Of course, other people had bought bonds, too.
Normal people, everyday people had bought bonds.
And when the debt crisis kicked off, the courts froze all of the assets, all of Puerto Rico's assets, to make sure that everybody got their fair share.
It's paid out in accordance with the law and the normal people who bought bonds would get their fair share, right?
Have I got it right so far?
Yes, Senator.
So, you, however, you, on behalf of your clients, you invented a novel claim.
You filed a lawsuit under the Takings Clause.
Is that right?
That's correct, Senator.
So you argued that the government was stealing from the hedge funds by freezing all of the funds, and if they pursued that course of action and didn't give your clients all of their money first, then they would have violated the U.S.
Constitution.
Is that right?
That's not quite correct, Senator.
Why was it a good idea?
Why represent all of these hedge funds trying to get billions of dollars out of Puerto Rico when other everyday bondholders are left to pick up the slack?
You dragged this thing out for years.
I mean, you went back and forth to the circuit court.
Other hedge funds then followed your lead.
They thought that that was terrific.
Terrific arguments.
Super inventive.
So then they did the same thing.
So then other hedge funds piled in.
The bankruptcy went on and on.
Puerto Rico was forced to institute serious austerity measures, much to the detriment of their citizens, average people who don't have money for hedge funds.
Why is it a good idea to go to Puerto Rico and to try to get your rich clients prioritized over normal people in a way that seriously impoverished, if I might say, the citizens of the island?
Senator, the legal profession is bound by a code of ethics that I think is incredibly important and that I am proud to adhere to in every case.
My clients in that case— Take from the rich?
Or take from the poor to give to the rich?
Is that the code of ethics?
Senator, Jones Day was retained in that case to represent a group of clients.
Along with my colleagues, I made the best possible arguments— Wait, wait, wait.
Are you saying it wasn't voluntary?
You represented them, right?
You were lead counsel, I thought.
Were you lead counsel?
Senator, I was not lead counsel.
I was one of many lawyers who handled that litigation.
And it was involuntary?
You were assigned or you chose to do it?
You did it voluntarily, didn't you?
Senator, those hedge funds were a client of the firm.
I was asked to join the team and work on that matter.
You did, okay.
My question is why?
Why is that a good idea?
I mean, you can say no.
Senator, my colleagues and I at Jones Day in that case made the best possible argument.
Well, I know.
Listen, I don't doubt... I'm not questioning your talent.
I understand why they wanted to hire you.
Your talent's considerable.
I'm just wondering why you thought it was important to deploy it on behalf of these hedge funds to the detriment of everyday citizens who were bearing the cost.
And you invented a very novel... I mean, it was very novel.
Listen, I give you credit.
And everybody else thought so, too.
That's why all the other Rich players got in and said, we want to do that, we want to do that, and drug it out for years.
I'm just wondering why you thought that was a good idea.
Senator, Jones Day was routine to represent those clients.
I heard that the first time.
I'm just wondering why you thought it was a good idea.
You could use your considerable talents in any number of cases and ways, means, and methods.
You could have said no to representing these clients.
You didn't, obviously.
In fact, you vigorously defended them.
To the point of inventing this novel theory, which was quite successful for your very lucrative clients.
I'm just wondering why?
Senator, I have represented a number of clients over the course of my career.
I have represented the government.
I have represented clients.
You don't have any problem with this?
You think this is a good idea?
You stand by it?
Senator, my job in that representation was to vigorously represent my clients, which I did.
Sure, but we'd established, I think, a second ago, I thought you told Senator Kennedy that you resigned from Jones Day over a client that the firm was representing who you didn't like.
Senator, that is not at all what I said.
You didn't resign from Jones Day?
Senator, I did not resign from Jones Day because of any particular representation.
Alright, so there's a lot going on here and I know Matt Stoller, who's about to join us, posted this change earlier today and I was seeing some of the commentary around it.
And I think in particular, actually, a lot of Republicans have this sense like, well, she didn't do anything wrong.
She represented people who are rich people.
There's nothing wrong with rich people.
She worked to try and make them a little richer.
And it is true that in conservative, traditional Republican Party politics, certainly going back to the Reagan era, there would never be any criticism, a breath of criticism within the Republican Party about people representing Or working for very rich people trying to make them richer.
In some ways this is like the pinnacle of capitalism, of the values of capitalism.
But the reason I think there's a lot going on here is because there is actually factions in the Republican Party.
There are factions that now do question, not the legality of any of this, but what kind of, what does this say about what we value as a society?
Are these actually good actors, corporate hedge funds and the like?
Do they do anything positive for the American people?
Do they actually harm them by doing things like sucking The lifeblood out of states and countries, all kinds of money, leaving everybody else with the debt.
Obviously, there was a much bigger debt crisis in the United States in 2008, the Wall Street crash that saw the Obama administration and all the people who surrounded him and all those corporate lawyers doing everything possible and succeeded in ensuring that the people who thrived the most were the people who caused it, the wealthiest and powerful, while ordinary Americans suffered, suffered massive foreclosures and the like.
So one question is just like, what are these people's values?
Who end up getting onto the federal judiciary?
Who actually runs Washington?
And then what do the parties now think about these kind of neoliberal and corporatist sections, centers of economic power?
Who is opposed to it?
Is the Democratic Party the party that's now supposed to stand against these kinds of hedge funds and vulture capital funds?
Is it the populist wing of the Republican Party?
That's one question we want to ask and talk to Matt Stoller about.
But the other aspect to it is that because of the way that we choose federal judges, and as I said, they have life tenure, so it matters a lot.
This is a young woman.
She's probably just by appearance in her late 30s, mid 30s maybe, early 40s.
Because she is a woman of color, she is likely a very probable candidate to be promoted to the appellate court.
Maybe even to the Supreme Court.
When I started as a young lawyer in New York, Sonia Sotomayor was a federal district court judge before whom I appeared in several matters.
And before you knew it, she was on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
And then very quickly after that, President Obama chose her to put her on the Supreme Court.
And she has now been on the Supreme Court for 15 years or so.
Probably will be on there for a good while longer.
She's probably met people who are going to have a lot of impact on our On our government, the judicial branch is obviously a very important part of how our government functions.
And when presidents pick nominees to serve as judges, federal judges, they rely on their And usually those people come from one of two worlds, either from the world of prosecutors, where they work for state prosecutors, the Justice Department, or they come from big, massive corporate law firms, big conglomerates, massive law firms like Jones Day that has not just hundreds, but thousands of lawyers and offices all over the world.
And they're all kind of molded to think like she thinks, which is just kind of just over and over say, I did my job.
I did my job.
No.
analysis whatsoever of the impact of her work doesn't even recognize the possibility that she could have chose to do other things and that what she chose to do instead reflects on her character and values.
And almost entirely this is where people come from when they get appointed the federal bench.
It's all people like Sparkle Subnanan here from the Atlantic in August of 2019.
Not exactly a left-wing or populist right-wing outlet to put that mildly.
They had an article entitled, No More Corporate Lawyers on the Federal Bench.
The Next Democratic President Should Try Nominating Judges Who Haven't Been Partners at Big Law Firms.
And the argument was, quote, today the federal bench is wildly unrepresentative of the legal profession as a whole.
our organization Demand Justice has analyzed the professional backgrounds of all 175 circuit court judges who sit at the level just below the Supreme Court.
It found that nearly 60% were once corporate law partners.
So the sparkles of the world are the people who compose overwhelmingly that branch of our government.
And so for that reason alone, I thought that exchange was so worthwhile.
But there's a lot of other interesting aspects of that as well to help us explore that.
We have on our show, we are delighted to talk to Matt Stoller, who is with the American Economics Liberty Project.
He is a frequent guest on our show.
I think one of the country's preeminent experts on things like big tech and antitrust.
But he also loves to rant about the evils of big law.
And so in so many ways, this is a perfect intersection of so many of his passions and interest.
And we are very happy to see you, Matt, and to talk to you.
Thanks for coming on.
Hey, thanks for having me.
All right, so let's start with the political aspect of all of this, given what a Washington rat you have been for so long and understand kind of the political dynamics in Washington as well as anybody.
Obviously, I saw a lot of the commentary in response to this video that you posted and my commentary on it from a lot of conservatives and a lot of Republicans kind of saying, well, I don't get it.
What is Josh Hawley angry about?
She didn't do anything wrong.
Why is this even worth any negative attention?
She represented some rich people.
She did her job as a lawyer, making them even richer.
So what if the people who were too poor to hire Jones Day ended up getting stuck with the debt and these very wealthy people ended up sucking all this wealth out of Puerto Rico at a time of massive debt?
That's just the way capitalism works.
And it is true that it would be very rare going back decades in Republican Party politics to hear anyone, let alone a United States senator, raising this as an issue that merits critical attention.
And here you have Josh Hawley, very popular among conservatives.
And I think there are other senators who are similarly oriented.
Probably J.D.
Vance is an example, the Republican senator from Ohio.
And What they're essentially doing is criticizing the Democratic president for picking a corporatist, somebody with corporatist or neoliberal values, and putting them on the federal judiciary.
What do you make about that in terms of what it says about the political dynamic?
I know you, I don't want to overstate it.
Obviously, there are a lot of Republican senators who I'm sure have similar reactions, like she did nothing wrong.
In fact, this is one of the better people to come on the federal bench.
But does it tell us anything about the political dynamic of the two parties?
I think it does.
I mean, what you've seen since the this is the way I look at it is this is the long delayed reaction to the financial crisis.
So everybody noticed the financial crisis of 2008 happened and then the banks got bailed out and people got foreclosed on.
And it turns out that you just had to wait for a younger generation on both sides to come to power.
And I think what you're seeing on the Republican side, it's not just that you have politicians who are more populist, you have younger politicians who are more populist.
Josh Hawley and JD Vance and Matt Gaetz are post-financial crisis Republicans, and I think they've seen the devastating effect that corporate power and financial concentration has on their communities, and they're responding to that.
So I know in the past, whenever I pointed out this presence of this more populist economics within Republican Party politics, I had Tucker Carlson on my show about six weeks ago or eight weeks ago, and he talked about how he thought what he called libertarian economics, but I think what he really meant was and he talked about how he thought what he called libertarian economics, but I think what he really meant was corporatist economic policies, this kind of siding with hedge funds and vulture capital
And he used to do segments on his show as well, and that I think represents this trend as well.
A lot of people say, look, these people like Josh Hawley, they don't really mean it.
It's always confined to rhetoric.
They haven't actually done anything or said anything that would show that this rhetoric has any actual substance to it beyond just appealing to people in a politically populist way.
Is that true?
Has Josh Hawley done stuff that is reflective of an authentic belief in this kind of populism?
Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of legislation that he has authored and co-sponsored and voted on.
He actually voted for the Federal Trade Commission Chair, Lena Kahn, who has brought multiple antitrust suits against big tech firms.
And he voted for Jonathan Cantor, who was the antitrust division chief at the Department of Justice, who has also brought multiple big tech antitrust lawsuits.
And he's done a number of things on, you know, in a bunch of areas of corporate America, which people don't really pay that much attention to, but like the nooks and crannies of pharmaceutical markets.
And, you know, if you don't pay attention to these hearings, You would, you know, you don't, you don't necessarily know that.
But one of the things about Senator Hawley, and this is true with Senator Vance as well, is that in hearings where people aren't paying attention, they are doing the populist thing where it could cost them.
So I saw some random hearing with the president of Microsoft and all the senators were slobbering over him.
And then it was about China.
And then Josh Hawley gets up and said, Hey, don't you have a lot of like, Employees in China don't you have a bunch of don't you have a lot of like investment in China?
What are you doing?
And no one paid attention to it.
And it's like that's when you know when the light when no one's looking.
That's when you can tell what someone's values are.
And he made someone who's in control of hundreds of billions of dollars of capital very angry that day.
And I've just seen this over and over and over.
So it's not fake.
It's real.
Yeah, I think the only reason why anybody even saw this hearing was because you put it online and then, you know, I kind of talked about it as well.
We're talking about it now.
But it's not something that, you know, Senator Hawley would have expected, that it would have gotten a lot of attention.
This is like a very ordinary hearing.
So, you know, it's not really something that he would be doing if he didn't really mean it.
I think one of the things that people have just, it's amazing, Matt, that this episode has been almost completely forgotten.
that in the transition between the Trump and Biden administrations after Biden won the 2020 election, there was the COVID relief package that they had enacted, but had no payments to the American people.
And so the two senators who stood side by side and said, we're going to block this until there's payments were Bernie Sanders and Josh Hawley.
I just want to play a one-minute video of what happened here, because I want to ask you about that.
I can't believe I forgot that.
I just can't believe it.
Don't worry.
I'm here to back you up and correct all your errors.
Don't worry about it.
That's what I'm for.
So here's what happened.
That they need.
So we are working on bipartisan legislation, and Senator Hawley has done a very, very good job on this, and proud to yield the floor to him.
Senator from Missouri.
I'm delighted to join with Senator Sanders in this important legislation.
It's very simple legislation, and this is, to my mind, a very simple proposition.
Here's the proposition.
that when it comes to COVID relief in the midst of this crisis, working families in the midst of this crisis, working families, not last, Now I've heard some of my colleagues say that there just isn't enough left for working families.
That once we take care of our other priorities and COVID relief, there just isn't enough left to give direct assistance to individuals.
I want to respectfully suggest that those priorities are exactly reversed.
We should begin with the working people of this country.
And of course, Matt, what happened was they succeeded in getting $600 payments, although they wanted more.
And then Trump vetoed it and said, I'm not going to sign it unless it has $2,000 payments.
And I believe they ended up boosting it up to $2,000.
So it does seem like there is this sort of shift in Republican Party politics.
Now when it comes to Democratic Party politics, obviously the Democratic Party used to pride itself on being the party of labor unions, on opposing Wall Street, on opposing corporatists, and that I think change you can kind of mark Bill Clinton as the beginning change of that.
But what does it say about, let's look at the Democratic Party side of this equation, like what does it say about them that so many of their judicial nominees are people with this kind of background?
Yeah, I think it says, you know, if you want to be, if you want to characterize it in particular, I mean, it says bad things.
It says it's not the party of the people.
I mean, I'm more optimistic, you know, at the same time as they nominated this, this woman, they also confirmed the general counsel of a major labor union to be a circuit court judge.
And so that indicates like a mixed record.
But to go back to pessimism, of the circuit court nominees has been about 40.
10% of them haven't just come from big law, but 10% of them came from a single law firm, Skadden Arps, right?
That's crazy.
And it shows that big law in this kind of elitist attitude is pervasive at the upper strata.
I think it's fair to say of both parties, there are significant exceptions.
And both parties, I think, are moving away from it.
But it's kind of a race.
Like, is either party going to get there?
Which party is going to get there first?
And every other day, I think it's the Republicans or the Democrats, because you have, you know, someone nominate someone like Sparkle Sukhnanan or you and Josh Hawley does something, or you get something that's happening on the other side.
So this is like a really exciting moment where I think you're seeing the anger from the public at these kinds of events when they can see it, like when you can post it online and people can actually see what's going on.
So, one of the things that was interesting was usually, you know, Democrats in the House and Senate line up unanimously behind any of the President's judicial nominees.
You almost never get any opposition of any kind.
And yet, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, has long represented this district in New York.
Posted on Twitter today the following, quote, as a lawyer, Sparkle Sukunan worked for multiple hedge funds that were squeezing money from Puerto Rico during its debt crisis.
Her nomination to the D.C.
District Court is an insult to the people of Puerto Rico.
Can you just talk a little bit, Matt, about what exactly happened with the debt crisis in Puerto Rico and what role she and these hedge fund clients of hers played in trying to extract wealth out of the island?
Yeah, sure.
So for a variety of reasons, Puerto Rico has had economic troubles that kind of got really bad during the financial crisis of 2008.
And they were bad before that, but they got really bad then.
And unlike most of the country, which sort of quasi recovered from the financial crisis, Puerto Rico just didn't.
And it got worse and worse and worse.
And ultimately they couldn't pay their debts.
And the problem is because it's a territory, there's no bankruptcy regime for it.
So Congress had to kind of figure out what to do.
Like they're not a city, they're not a state.
Like what does it actually look like when a territory actually needs to declare bankruptcy de facto?
And the thing is, is you add a bunch of hedge funds who would come in and they specialize in buying bonds of distressed companies, distressed nations and distressed municipalities, and then squeezing them through aggressive legal tactics, aggressive lobbying, basically sharp elbowed politics.
And they came in, bought a bunch of these bonds, lobbied aggressively to make To make, you know, squeeze more blood from a stone.
And then the Obama administration, Republicans and Democrats passed a bill called PROMESA that would have a quasi-bankruptcy process for Puerto Rico.
But it's kind of like dragged on since then and hasn't gotten resolved.
And it's because you have all of these like vulture fund guys who are just litigating everything to death instead of, you know, cutting some debt and putting it all behind them and letting Puerto Rico just move forward as a as a reasonable territory.
And that's that, you know, what this lawyer did was participate in that process and make a bunch of money from it.
And that's not, you know, it's not totally it doesn't make her not a lawyer.
It's not illegal, but it does sort of have doubt on what to be a judge.
I think that's a fair.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I do think there's always an interesting identity politics component to this, which is a lot of times you see these institutions.
The CIA does this.
The NSA and the FBI do it.
Obviously, Wall Street does it where they Silicon Valley is increasingly doing it as well.
Obviously, the Democratic Party loves this where they pick.
People who are from marginalized groups they call them women of color and they automatically it's kind of like assumed that these are people who are there to fight for marginalized groups when in fact their entire careers are monuments to servitude to the most powerful institutions in the society I mean there's Not much you could do more antithetical to that image than extracting a bunch of wealth out of the island of Puerto Rico and make sure it goes into the pockets of the hedge funds who are paying Jones Day an enormous amount of money.
So I think there's always this component of the way in which identity politics is so often exploited to give cover for a lot of this stuff.
And I want to ask you about her in particular in this issue of whether she told the truth about how she left Jones Day.
But before I get to that, Matt, you know, it always has been so interesting to me, like, we, you know, people constantly talk about Big Pharma, people talk about Wall Street and Silicon Valley, people are very, the military-industrial complex, but Big Law, as you call it, and I think it's appropriately called that way, is an incredibly powerful influence in Washington.
Like I said, I don't know if you heard, but when I went to walk down Lipton, You know, multiple people who were there at the time, who were partners or who were about to become partners, ended up with major jobs in Washington.
It's like a feeder, not only to great wealth in Wall Street, but also to very high legal positions in the Department of Justice and the White House.
That's true for a lot of these firms that are even bigger.
As you said, Skadden Arps produces like 10% of the appellate court judges on the bench.
When you talk about Big Pharma or Wall Street or Silicon Valley, people understand the values that we're talking there.
What is the role of big law?
What would you describe as big law being and the kind of values that it represents and the role that it plays?
It's very simple.
It's a shadow government.
That's what they are.
If they are, they work when you're out of office, when your party is out of office, you sit in these shadow governing in these big law firms, and you are a regulatory lawyer or, you know, whatever it is, you're lobbying, you're litigating, you're, you're influence peddling.
And then when your team comes back into power, that's when you go back into the administration, and you work with your, you know, your big law friends.
And so these, These law firms actually put out press releases, and Jones Day did in 2014.
They said, "We got seven Supreme Court justices, or sorry, seven Supreme Court clerks in our incoming class." And they made a big deal of it because the clients want that.
And then when their alumni go into the judiciary, they use that in their marketing materials.
They say, we have X number of people on the bench, right?
Or in the cabinet or whatever it is.
And it's like, it is a recognized way of doing business where when you hire one of these firms, you're not just hiring them, you're hiring all of their influence to their alumni network.
And that functions as A shadow government.
And let's be clear, when you are an aggressive government attorney that's trying to take on corporate power, these guys will threaten you.
They will say, you aren't going to get a job in this town if you go after XYZ bad guy.
So it functions as a, I mean, it's, it's really dirty.
And it is really the beating heart of, of sort of what everybody calls the swamp.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I went there after law school because it was the thing you do.
They throw huge amounts of money at you.
But, you know, also I wanted to kind of see this world and have it demystified.
And I, you know, ran out after 18 months because I wanted to throw rocks at that those institutions not work and serve them and get rich doing so.
But it does amaze me how crucial they are, how central they are to the way that power centers function and they get so little attention.
I think in part because people look at the law and it's purposely designed to be obscure, to be obfuscated with a lot of jargon, with a lot of specialized knowledge and so people kind of just stay away from it.
And yet, as you say, especially in Washington, this, when you talk about K Street and lobbyists and the swamp and the revolving door, you're basically talking almost entirely about what you refer to as big law.
As you say, especially in Washington, when you talk about K Street and lobbyists and the swamp and the revolving door, you're basically talking almost entirely about what you refer to as big law.
Let me just ask you, I don't think there's any chance that a person like this will end up being rejected in terms of her nomination to the bench because, as I said, there's a ton of Republicans who are going to look at her and be like, yeah, we'd rather have a corporate lawyer than, say, like a defense lawyer or we'd rather have a corporate lawyer than, say, like a defense lawyer or a plaintiff's lawyer or a union lawyer, which is why people like this have the path
Nonetheless, I did think it was worth highlighting here because it was such a vivid case, because it was Josh Hawley doing it, because of the nature of the work being so extreme.
There is an issue with the circumstances under which she left this law firm, whether or not she resigned out of principle or in protest.
She seemed to give very different versions of events during her testimony.
Talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, I mean, there were two things that she said that I think were lies to Senator Hawley.
And the first one was, you know, the circumstances under which she left Jones Day.
So part of the dynamic here is for Democratic big law people, for Republicans it's different, but for Democratic big law people is they have to, they have a moral code where you're supposed to do pro bono work for civil rights type of cases and symbolic cases.
Not unimportant, but but certainly not touching corporate power.
And then at the same time, you're supposed to represent the hedge funds in this case.
And so you can be a good Democrat.
Well, when Trump got elected in and Jones Day was a major source of talent for him.
And then in 2020, when he was challenging the election in ways that Democrats thought were abhorrent, and I'm a Democrat, I thought it was abhorrent too, but what this lawyer did is she spoke out, she was quoted in the New York Times as saying, you know, I just can't countenance this anymore.
This is awful.
And then, you know, and then left.
Right.
And joined the Biden administration.
And the perception that she gave to the press was that she had resigned because Jones Day was participating, had basically Trump as a client in election cases.
So when she was asked by the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee about why she resigned from Jones Day, at least to Senator Hawley, she said, oh, no, no, that's not why I resigned.
from Jones Day.
I left Jones Day because I got a new job in the Biden administration.
I never had any problems with any of our clients.
And it's like, that is not what she was saying in 2020.
It's not what she was telling the press.
So I think that was not true.
There's another thing that I think was dishonest about what she was saying.
But what she was doing was indicating that she's trying to articulate a value that any lawyer can work for any client and provide them vigorous representation.
And that's the ethical way to practice law.
But she has in previous circumstances indicated that she doesn't actually believe that.
No, but I think that's what's so revealing to me about the establishment liberal mind and kind of Democratic Party politics at the most mainstream and establishment level, which is, I do think That she would find absolutely nothing wrong about representing vulture capital funds that are trying to squeeze wealth out of the island of Puerto Rico and impoverish the residents of that island and all other kinds of ordinary people.
She'd be like, how dare you cast moral judgments upon not just me but also my clients.
And the only bridge too far for her would be having a law firm represent Donald Trump.
I actually do think that very much represents the ethos and the kind of hierarchy of values within these kind of people who populate Washington.
And that is one of the things that I found so annoying was she tried to turn herself into a martyr.
Like, I refuse to be associated with a firm willing to defend Donald Trump.
But then she got writ as though she's like of the highest ethics, as though she refuses to represent.
any clients doing any immoral things.
But I think it was so obvious, and this is what bothered me the most about this exchange, was although she kept resorting to that principle, like I'm a lawyer, we're ethically bound to defend our clients, she obviously sees nothing wrong at all with these hedge funds and what they're doing.
She had no moral qualms whatsoever.
She wasn't saying, oh yeah, I represented people who I found had some pretty reprehensible views.
I had no problem saying that.
And then I would say, but I'm representing them because of the principle involved, free speech or whatever.
She is clearly unbothered by nothing other than Donald Trump.
And I think that is so representative of the establishment mindset in Washington.
I think that that's, I think you're probably right in terms of her being unbothered by it.
But I would note one thing, which I think is really interesting, which is that when Senator Hawley pushed her and said, weren't you the lead counsel?
She said no.
No, I was just one of many lawyers.
Yeah.
So now I looked and Jones Day issued a press release in 2020 saying, You know, this woman is a rising star.
She led the team of litigants in this case, and she is listed as the attorney of record on the Supreme Court docket for her clients.
So I don't know if she was the lead counsel.
There might be some term of art there that I'm not familiar with, but she clearly was not just One lawyer among many.
So at some level, whether she was ashamed or not, and I don't think she was, but she knew that she shouldn't represent herself as kind of the leader and the innovative legal thinker behind these hedge funds.
She knew at some level that it's distasteful to represent hedge funds Even if only just you're not supposed to say that in public in a Senate hearing.
I think you're totally right about her attitude, but it was interesting to see her kind of like try to mislead the Senate on that.
And it indicates that she gets, that she doesn't actually believe that, you know, you just vigorously advocate for your client, no matter who they are.
Because if she did believe that, she'd say, absolutely, I was the lead attorney and I'm proud of it.
But she didn't say that.
She tried to walk it back.
Yeah, and you can see, here's Law.com, and they have a profile of her, and they call it DC's Rising Stars, Sparkle Sukunan, 36, so she was 36 in 2020.
She's 39 or 40 now, so she had a long time on the bench.
There's a picture of her when I left the Caribbean at age 16 for college in New York.
I never envisioned clerking for a Supreme Court justice or becoming a Jones Day partner.
So this is somebody they were, you know, constantly promoting as like a major lawyer, as a big partner at Jones Day.
She was not just some obscure lawyer, like an associate on a team that just got told to work on a case.
They were touting her as, you know, this major figure In the law.
I mean, she has a lot of identity politics value, as I said.
She has a very inspiring background.
She's clearly well-spoken and competent, et cetera.
And, you know, I think that that's what interests me so much about it is when you kind of look under the hood of who these people are and what these institutions are and the values that they actually believe in.
And it tells you so much about how Washington really works.
And so often the brightest light takes place at these hearings that not a lot of people pay attention to.
I'm glad that you do, Matt.
As I said, when I asked you to come on, we've been obviously covering the debate about, I really appreciate you covering this.
under force of divest from their Chinese owners.
And I've been very critical of the bill and the arguments for it.
And I know that's something that you're positively disposed to.
So we'd love to have you on shortly to have a little bit of a discussion of our differing views on that question.
And I appreciate you coming on tonight and talking about all of this.
Hey, thanks for having me.
I really appreciate you covering this.
Always good to see you.
Have a good evening.
You too.
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