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Aug. 2, 2024 - System Update - Glenn Greenwald
02:25:40
As the Middle East Moves to War, Where are Biden & Harris? What Interest Does the U.S. Have in Who Governs Venezuela? Glenn Returns from South Africa: Why is the Country So Pro-Palestinian?

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Good evening.
It's Thursday, August 1st.
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.
As you can see, tonight is a real episode of System Update, as evidenced by the fact that I am here and Michael Tracy is not.
Actually, Michael Tracy is here for some reason.
No one really quite understands why.
He's sort of lurking around.
I think we actually might need some sort of restraining order or decree of deportation to actually finally get rid of him.
But since he is here, I'm going to chat with him for just a little bit at the end of the show for what would ordinarily be the after show.
But we're going to put it on the live Rumble stream.
But in all seriousness, I think he did a great job.
The audience seemed to really appreciate him.
But I nonetheless am glad to be back.
And I'm certain that you're glad as well.
So for tonight, It seems as though one says this every other year or so, but the Middle East is really on the brink of a major escalation, a major regional war.
From the start of the U.S.-supported Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza back in October, a bombing campaign now in its 10th full month, A major concern has always been that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu actually seeks not only to destroy Gaza but to use that conflict as a pretext for waging war on all of Israel's enemies in the region starting with Hezbollah and the Houthis and then extending possibly and most disastrously to Iran itself.
We are not that far away from such a dangerous and possibly apocalyptic scenario.
And whatever else is true, this will not only be an Israeli war, but would also be an American war as well.
We know this in part because all Israeli wars become American wars, at least, at the very least, to the extent that the U.S.
will finance and arm the Israeli war and will protect that war diplomatically and could be far more extensively as well.
But we also know that this will become an American war because the current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, Explicitly vowed when asked about the possibility of an escalated regional conflict, quote, we will help defend Israel.
You saw us doing that in April, and you can expect us to do that again, referring to when the U.S.
actually deployed military assets to interrupt and intercept Iranian missiles shot at Israel.
While we have heard that statement, that quite significant commitment from Secretary Austin and others as well who have waited on this obviously significant national security crisis, two people we have not heard from are the sitting President of the United States, Joe Biden, and the sitting Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee for President, Kamala Harris.
That conspicuous omission further fuels two obviously vital questions.
First, Who is actually running the government of the United States right now?
Meaning, who makes these crucial foreign policy decisions and who would decide the extent of U.S.
involvement in this war if it did escalate further?
And second, other than abortion and LGBT rights, which we know very well because we constantly hear that she favors, what does Kamala Harris think about the Middle East?
Think about U.S.
support for Israel?
What does she think about pretty much every other significant question that would face An American president.
Somehow, even though she's the Vice President of the United States and the Democratic presidential nominee, she has not been asked that, any of that, since Joe Biden stepped down and has really not offered any answers on her own.
Then, Venezuela held national elections over the weekend, and the winner, as declared by government election officials, was the two-term President Nicolas Maduro.
But in advance of that election, Western officials who opposed Maduro and have long wanted him gone, warned that if he won, it would mean that the election outcome is fraudulent.
Then once he was declared the winner over the weekend by officials who were appointed by him and whom he does control, that there was fraud instantly became the Western consensus, namely that Maduro did not actually win legitimately, but only due to manipulation, fraudulent manipulation of the election outcome.
And there is some evidence of that, but beyond the question of whether that claim is correct, and we don't actually know for sure, nobody does, the broader and more important question is this.
Why is the U.S.
so interested in the question of who is governing Venezuela?
U.S.
officials in both parties vehemently denounced Maduro, and even many vowed to do something about it, although it was unspecified what we planned to do.
Do we care about Venezuelan elections because, as U.S.
officials and their media allies claim with a straight face, the U.S.
simply believes in democracy and freedom and wants everyone in the world to enjoy it?
Or are there other reasons worth considering as to what governs and drives U.S.
interest in who governs what is Venezuela?
And then finally, as I have mentioned on social media and the like, and I'm still staying here, I think I mentioned this before I left, the reason I was not here over the last 10 days that Michael Tracy was is that I was traveling With my family throughout South Africa.
That country is really beautiful and fascinating in so many ways and I highly recommend to anyone considering visiting that you should absolutely do so.
But another aspect of South Africa that really I think is worthy of discussion is that ever since the apartheid regime fell and the country became truly democratized, its leaders from across the spectrum of that country going back to Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu have been among the most vocal supporters
Most vocal and unyielding supporters of the Palestinian cause and also some of the most outspoken critics of the Israeli government and it is of course still true given that the South African government, the current one, it is they who brought the first case against Israel charging that country with genocide and the International Court of Justice.
It's really worth examining why that is, why South Africa has taken such a leading role in expressing support for and solidarity with the pro-Palestinian cause.
And I'll share some of what I saw and heard to shed light on what has really turned out to be a very consequential national ethos in South Africa regarding Palestine and Israel as well.
Before we get to all of that, a few programming notes.
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Finally, every Tuesday and Thursday night, once we're done with our live show here on Rumble, we move to Locals, where we have our live interactive after show where we take your questions, respond to your feedback and critiques, hear your suggestions for future guests and shows today.
Tonight, being Thursday night, we will have our aftershow immediately following our live show here on Rumble, but tonight, instead of Ending this show and then having our members on Locals, who usually have exclusive access to our After Show, be able to watch it.
We're going to broadcast that show itself, obviously sitting next to Michael Tracy, and we're going to review the last 10 days or so of what it was that he covered but I was not here to cover, as well as things that have been happening in the last couple of days.
As well, stick around for that because that will give you, if you're not already a Locals member, a sense of what kind of After Show we have for our local members.
And if you want to join, you can simply click the Join button right below the video player on the Rumble page, and it will take you directly to that community.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
I talked about this before I left, and I know that Michael talked about this while I was gone, but I really think we have severely underappreciated how strange our current political situation but I really think we have severely underappreciated how strange our current political situation in Usually when a party nominates someone as their presidential nominee, who is not currently the sitting president,
They have to go through a nominating process where they campaign against other candidates almost always.
That means engaging in debates, engaging in interviews, answering questions about what their policies are and what their ideology is and what their worldview would be if they were actually the winner of the nomination process and then were selected to the White House.
That's a very important and common and central feature of our democracy.
And yet none of that has happened with respect to the Democratic Presidential candidate, obviously Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has been the president for four years.
He also just engaged in a pretty adversarial interview at the National Black Journalists Association.
He's been appearing in all kinds of other interviews, maybe in more friendly confines, but still having to answer a lot of questions about what his views actually are on the matters most significant to the United States, the ones that would actually confront the sitting president.
And yet Kamala Harris was basically chosen as the nominee anti-democratically.
There was no election.
There were no votes.
There were no debates.
There were no needs for her to engage in any kind of interviews or participate in any sorts of debates where she would actually express her views about all of those issues.
And therefore, she's basically a complete blank slate.
She's basically been acclimated as the nominee and is being celebrated by the media even though nobody has any real idea.
Of the platform on which she intends to run, let alone the policies she intends to pursue when she's president.
We've heard her in the past say she believes in certain policies, and very often over the last month or so, her campaign has issued written statements, not in her voice, but just in the written statement and text of the campaign, claiming that she no longer believes in those same views that she previously had embraced, including things like a ban on fracking and several other issues.
And yet here we are now faced with a major war in which the United States is already heavily involved, which is the Israeli war and bombing campaign against Gaza in response to the October 7th attack.
And there are a lot of Democrats.
Definitely a large majority of young voters, Muslim and Arab voters, voters on whom the Democratic Party relies, who are vehemently opposed to U.S.
policy toward Israel, namely that the U.S.
is providing the bombs and the money to allow Israel to bomb Gaza.
We have no idea, absolutely no idea what Kamala Harris thinks of that, or really any other issue.
And the reason why it's so important is not just because there's an ongoing war there, as well as, by the way, still a war in Ukraine that the U.S.
is funding and arming seemingly indefinitely, but the Middle East really is on the verge.
I wouldn't say it's inevitable, but it's highly likely on the verge of serious escalation and therefore a major regional war.
And we are yet to hear from either Joe Biden about what the United States' view of this conflict is, whether or not the United States would actually be involved and what capacity they would be involved, the reasons for or against that, nor have we heard a single syllable
From Kamala Harris, the person who actually might be president in just a few months, the person the Democratic Party is hoping the American public will elect despite the fact that, as of now, she's almost said nothing about anything she believes other than repudiating a few of her policies in the past in written text, and
talking occasionally about identity politics and the culture war and beyond that she's just a complete blank slate and it's not just bizarre and anti-democratic but I would suggest quite dangerous because the United States government is already taking action with respect to this war and we have no idea who the decision makers actually are.
President Biden today held a press conference to celebrate the release of several hostages, including the Wall Street Journal article, Wall Street Journal article, journalist by Russia.
And although the media is treating it as some sort of heroic effort on the part of Joe Biden, almost like he broke into the Russian prison and took those prisoners out himself, it was actually part of a major deal where the United States and other European countries released all sorts of serious criminals that the Russians wanted back.
It was really a ransom that was paid for it.
President Biden spoke today at the White House celebrating himself for having gotten those prisoners back.
The families were there, but he said nothing at all and was never asked about whether or not the United States would actually involve itself in this Middle East war, whether that war is likely, what we're doing.
The only thing we've heard from Biden to today was a statement that was issued, very curt statement that was issued in his name, not from his mouth, but that was issued in his name.
After he spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu about the conflict, and this is what the quote readout from the White House said.
The readout is a technical term for when the White House explains what was discussed by the sitting president and a world leader in a telephone call.
This is the first time today, August 1st, that we're hearing from Joe Biden on this major national security crisis and we're not really hearing from him.
President Biden spoke today with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel.
The President reaffirmed his commitment to Israel's security against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
The President discussed efforts to support Israel's defense against threats, including against ballistic missiles and drones, to include new defensive U.S.
military deployments.
Together with this commitment to Israel's defense, the president stressed the importance of ongoing efforts to de-escalate broader tensions in the region.
Vice President Harris also joined the call.
So I guess we know that Joe Biden spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu today and Kamala Harris was on the call.
We don't know if she said anything or let alone what she said.
But it is pretty alarming given that we're hearing some very significant claims from other parts of the U.S.
government and haven't heard a single thing yet from Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.
I guess the White House, though, is saying that the United States is not only reaffirming its commitment to Israel's security against all threats, and you see there it says from Iran, as well as its proxy terrorist groups, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. as well as its proxy terrorist groups, Hamas, Hezbollah, and So you're looking at three countries named there, four countries actually, that we might go to war with or that we might protect Israel from.
Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, and Hamas, which is based in Gaza and to some extent the West Banks.
So you're talking about a major multinational war and the readout also says that the United States would support Israel's defense, including against ballistic missiles and drones, and we would send or are sending new defensive U.S.
military deployments.
So this is A vow, a commitment by the United States government to involve itself even further in what could be an extremely dangerous multinational war involving Israel on the one side and many of its enemies on the other.
And the president and the vice president have not uttered a word about this in public.
Now the background for why this war is so dangerous, why there might be so much escalation was explained by the New York Times in an article today.
Israel is admitting that it killed several militant leaders as funerals are held for two others.
The fate of Mohamed Daif, a top Hamas leader, has been unclear and the group has not confirmed his death.
Funerals for senior officials from Hamas and Hezbollah, both of whom were assassinated this week, drew thousands.
Major public outpouring for these leaders whom Israel killed by assassination in Lebanon, in Gaza, and in Iran, physically in Iran.
Quote, the death of Mr. Daif would make him the most senior Hamas leader killed in Gaza.
His fate has been unclear since Israel targeted him in a major attack that killed at least 90 people, according to Gaza health officials.
Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
Ismail Haniyeh, one of the most senior Hamas leaders, was assassinated by a bomb smuggled into his guesthouse in Tehran on Wednesday.
Hours later, Israel said it had struck Fahd Shukur, a senior member of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that has been fighting a low-level war with Israel since October.
Funerals were being held for both men on Thursday, with the region on edge about how Iran and Hezbollah would respond to the killings.
Mr. Haniyeh was mourned in Tehran, where Iran's senior Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led funeral prayers, an honor reserved for the highest-ranking figures.
Iran and Hamas have both accused Israel of killing him, and Mr. Khamenei has ordered a direct strike on Israel in retaliation.
It was unclear how Iran would respond to this killing, but the country's officials have said the military is considering a combination of drone and missile attacks on military targets near Tel Aviv and Haifa.
In April, Iran directed a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel but calibrated that attack to avoid the risk of further escalation.
It's amazing that the New York Times is admitting that.
Recall that Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus, a major act of war by any metric.
And in response, although the Iranians were obligated to show some sort of response, they deliberately used drones and missiles of a much less sophisticated type than the ones that they have, knowing, as the New York Times says, that it was calibrated to ensure that there was no real attack on Israel.
But now with this direct attack,
On the leader of Hamas who was actually leading the negotiations for a ceasefire with Israel, a very odd person for Israel to want to kill while it claims it wants a ceasefire and yet kills the leading official in Hamas who's known as a more moderate figure who's susceptible to negotiation to kill him is obviously an act that suggests that Israel has no interest in a ceasefire and wants the war to continue and to even expand.
Whether Iran will be this restrained this time seems both unclear and unlikely.
The New York Times article goes on, quote, the State Department has advised Americans not to go, quote, within 2.5 miles of the Lebanese and Syrian borders in northern Israel because of the tension in the region.
United Airlines and Delta Airlines suspended flights to Israel.
So when the State Department issues that kind of a travel warning, it means they're expecting a war.
Here's the travel warning issued by the U.S.
Embassy in Beirut in Lebanon yesterday.
Quote, the Department of State has raised its Lebanon travel advisory from Level 3, reconsider travel, to Level 4, do not travel.
I don't know why that was an important part of the statement, but the important part of the statement really is that the United States government is obviously expecting at least a major military conflict, if not all-out war, involving Israel and the Hezbollah militia based in Lebanon and maybe even in Beirut itself.
As an American, the question I would think you'd be most interested in is what does this mean for the United States?
We're already involved in two major wars.
fueling the war in Ukraine, fueling the war in Gaza that Israel is conducting.
We've also engaged in other conflicts in the Middle East, bombing the Houthis in Yemen, also having to bomb targets in Syria and Iraq in response to the killing of American troops that are stationed there.
So we've already been quite involved in this war.
And the question is, how much more would we be involved if this type of regional war that looks like it could break out actually does break out?
As I said, we have not heard from Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, even a word spoken from either of them in public.
We did, however, hear something quite significant, quite, I would say, alarming from the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, who was asked yesterday about what the United States would do in the event that this war escalated.
Here's what he said.
You said that a wider war in the Middle East is not inevitable.
Nevertheless, the risk is becoming more acute.
If it does break out, what assistance would the United States bring to Israel if there was a wider war?
And how much does that detract from the work you're trying to do in the Indo-Pacific?
Yeah, so what you heard me say yesterday is that if Israel is attacked, we certainly will help defend Israel.
You saw us do that in April.
You can expect to see us do that again.
But we don't want to see any of that happen.
We're going to work hard to make sure that we're doing things to help take the temperature down and address issues through diplomatic means.
I honestly can't remember the last time when a national security crisis of this magnitude took place.
And it was left to other members of the government to explain to the public not only what the United States government is doing, but what it would do in the event that there was an outbreak of a wider war.
And specifically, with having it left to the Defense Secretary to explain to the public, to announce to the public, that the United States would be actively involved in some capacity in this war.
There simply has been nothing from the President or the Vice President About this, we have no idea who made this decision.
Now, it's possible that this outbreak would not occur.
As the New York Times article indicated, as we covered at the time, Iran was extremely restrained in responding to that Israeli attack on their embassy in Syria.
Iran obviously does not want a war with Israel, given that Israel is a nuclear power and Iran is not.
And there would be a lot of damage done to Iran, but at the same time at some point the population is going to demand that just their basic dignity will obligate them to engage in a response that's much more serious than the one they engaged in last time.
And nobody doubts that Hezbollah can do a great amount of damage to Israel proper, including to its largest cities.
They have thousands, maybe tens of thousands of sophisticated missiles aimed directly at numerous Israeli cities.
They've demonstrated with drone footage they released that they're capable of invading Israeli airspace and identifying Israel's most sensitive military installations and energy facilities.
They could do a great deal of damage to Israel and to the Israeli population.
And obviously that would mean an all-out war.
And it's not very speculative or hard to imagine that happening, even though it may not be inevitable.
So it's bizarre that we haven't heard from Joe Biden that nobody wants to apparently hear from Kamala Harris as well as to what she thinks about all of this.
Fox News's Jackie Heinrich participated in the White House briefing session yesterday and she asked the White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about this oddity and here's how that exchange went.
We heard from him, for instance, on the news unfolding in the Middle East.
We heard from Secretary Lincoln.
We heard from Secretary Oskin.
We heard from the Vice President.
It would be something that ordinarily we would expect to see.
Stay tuned.
Stay tuned.
I just said that you're going to hear from the President later this week.
And look, I think when it comes to the Middle East, when it comes to foreign policy more broadly, this is a President that has a record to stand on when it relates to making sure we're putting the national security of the American people first.
This is something that he's done, making sure that we So the rest of it is just sort of cliches about how great Joe Biden is when it comes to foreign policy.
So this was July 31st, this was yesterday, and the question noted that it is quite bizarre that we're hearing from the Defense Secretary that we are about to be involved, very likely, in a new major war, and yet nobody in the White House has spoken about this, or at least the President himself nor the Vice President have as well.
And she said, oh, we're going to hear from him later in the week.
Why?
It's a major national security crisis.
Why aren't we hearing from Joe Biden now?
And let's remember that the Democratic Party basically just forcibly overthrew Biden.
Who, however you want to characterize the Democratic Party primary, was actually the winner, democratically, of that primary.
He was poised to be the Democratic nominee up until about two weeks ago, or three weeks ago, when the Democratic Party and their media allies forced him out of the race.
He did not want to leave the race.
He was forced out of the race by top officials in the Democratic Party.
And the reason was, as we all know, because they had concluded that Joe Biden is not cognitively capable of even making it through the election in any sort of meaningful way.
We all watched that debate where his brain is, at least much of the time, if not most of the time, simply not functioning.
And so the fact that Joe Biden is not appearing to talk on this Major crisis is obviously something that's very notable, and we don't have to speculate or engage in conspiracies.
It's the Democratic Party elites themselves who have said that Biden is essentially vacant.
He's gone half the time.
That's what all their leaks were when they were trying to drive him out of the race.
So then you have the question of, okay, if Joe Biden can't even appear in public to speak on this, And we haven't heard from him.
Sometimes we're going to hear from him later in the week when he's, I don't know what, like awake and conscious and alert.
And we also haven't heard from Kamala Harris because she doesn't want to express any of her views.
She doesn't want to say, I support fully the U.S. policy of Joe Biden of standing by Israel, arming and financing Israel, defending Israel, or that I think we should commit to getting involved in this work.
She doesn't want to say that.
She doesn't want to alienate the left wing of her party.
But she also doesn't want to say, I think we need to readjust our policy of supporting Israel, because that could alienate a large sector of the public that she also wants to vote on.
So nobody is hearing from the vice president.
Nobody's hearing from the president.
And given that the president is by all accounts incapacitated much of the time, it really is a genuine question, not making like a rhetorical point, that we actually don't know who's running the U.S.
government.
Who's making these decisions about that Lloyd Austin announced about what the U.S.
posture would be in the outbreak of a new war?
Who issued that statement in Joe Biden's name?
It is truly bizarre and the fact that even the White House press corps was willing to ask that shows the extent of it.
Now we have heard from Joe Biden.
I want to be fair to him.
We actually have heard from Joe Biden.
We heard from him today.
As I mentioned, he appeared at the White House to celebrate himself for getting these prisoners in Russia sent home these American prisoners who the United States government asserted and believed were unjustly imprisoned in Russia.
And everybody's celebrating this, as I said, like it's some kind of heroic raid on Entebbe, when in reality the U.S. government just paid enough ransom by releasing enough criminals and prisoners that the Russian government wanted in exchange because they wanted this sort of victory three months before the election.
It was an election-driven ransom Joe Biden paid.
And so he appeared at the White House to celebrate this.
And although he didn't speak about the fact that the Middle East is on the brink of a major war that the United States would involve in, he did actually speak.
And here's part of what he said.
I'm all right.
Come here.
Come here.
You all know we have a tradition in the Biden family.
We sing happy birthday.
Happy birthday.
You ready?
All of you.
Happy birthday.
Now, just by the way, There's all these pictures of Joe Biden kissing young schoolgirls in ways that are very strange, if not actually creepy.
And they always look like this, like that girl standing next to him.
It looks like the same girl, just like dressed differently.
It's always the same girl.
I actually thought when someone showed me this image today that it was actually that girl who he kissed on the neck that time.
I thought it was that scene, but no, this is a scene from the White House today.
There's a major national security crisis in the Middle East.
He didn't speak on that, but he wanted to sing happy birthday to her because it's a tradition in the Biden family.
And here's what he did.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, dear Miriam.
Happy birthday to you.
Remember, no serious guys until you're 30.
God love you.
I mean he always does that thing, he like physically draws these schoolgirls close to him and you can see he's like holding on to her, she's trying to separate, it's like way too long of an embrace.
And then he always talks to them about like dating and boyfriends, you know like no dating seriously until you're 30.
It's just, I don't know, it's the kind, if you ever had someone in your family who's been in a nursing home, At the end of their life, at the end stage of their life, you see a lot of the people who are in these nursing homes who are in major cognitive decline.
They often engage in inappropriate sexual commentary.
I don't know if that's what explains Joe Biden's behavior.
He's been doing that for a long time, but it's just so strange.
That the media allows Joe Biden to appear to do these sorts of things, to hug some 10-year-old girl and sing happy birthday to her and talk to her about her dating trajectory, and doesn't really think there's anything strange about the fact that Joe Biden doesn't speak about any real issues anymore about what's happening in the world, about what the White House is doing.
Nor does anyone seem at all bothered that Kamala Harris doesn't speak about any of that as well, even though she's offering herself as president.
She's actively running for president while speaking about nothing.
Willie Brown, who helped Kamala Harris get her start in San Francisco politics.
He was 60 years old at the time, and he was married but legally separated and began dating Kamala, who was 29.
And that was when he helped her get her first job in politics, so they've known each other for a long time.
They've had a lot of professional interaction.
Willie Brown is still around and he's always been a very charismatic character in the political scene and he was asked about her candidacy by Politico and For some reason the headline is this in Politico, Willie Brown on Kamala Harris.
Quote, she'll deport my ass.
And then the sub-headline is, at 90, Harris' mentor and former boyfriend is basking in her rise to power, along with those of his many other protégés.
Quote, the former mayor is no longer directly in touch with Harris, but is eager to offer suggestions.
He said Joe Biden should step down now so the country can see her as president before the election, and Harris should avoid making her history-making identity central because, quote, the voters want her to answer them, and that she ought to embrace her hazy ideological characterization because, quote, if she keeps people continually guessing, then she can adjust the interpretation of your guess every time she sees you.
So he's essentially saying it's smart and wise for Kamala Harris to stay this sort of blank slate, to not commit to any policy views, so that everyone can read into her what they want to see.
And the only way that would be possible is if the media actually permits her to do that.
And thus far, the media seems very excited about her candidacy, very enamored of all the identity politics first that it would bring, and extremely indifferent To what she actually thinks.
And again, she's not just the candidate for president, she's the actual vice president.
The vice president to a president that we've heard for the last several months is so mentally incapacitated and so incapable of processing basic information that he can't serve as the president.
Is she making these decisions about war in the Middle East and what the U.S.
would do?
What does she think about any of these things?
How is it possible that we have a media that isn't at all disturbed, at all bothered by the fact But she's following Willie Brown's advice and saying nothing of substance because no one's requiring that of her.
I want to quote a renowned scholar and highly respected political analyst named Michael Tracy, who on Twitter said the following, and he's talking about a New York Times article, which says, quote, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, says Michael, is becoming, quote, less vocal on Israel because they believe Kamala is, quote, inching toward their position.
And then he adds, apparently based on absolutely nothing other than her ability to recite standard Biden administration talking points with more pizzazz.
And we talked about this before I went on vacation, before I left for the last 10 days, that you have this entire left wing and even liberal sector of the Democratic Party that has been going around accusing Joe Biden, not just of being a poor leader, Or making poor foreign policy decisions, but of actually being a genocidal monster of supporting and funding and arming a genocide.
And there has been no indication ever that Kamala Harris is anything other than a standard Democrat who supports that.
Where did all the left-wing concern go about this genocide?
By the way, it's still ongoing.
They would, you would think, be extremely interested in hearing whether Kamala Harris Says that she would have done everything the way Joe Biden did it with regard to the Israeli war in Gaza, whether she would do anything different or whether she would change policy when she's the president and do things like cut off aid and arms and money to Israel in the event that the war in Gaza continues as is.
With Israelis raping Palestinian prisoners, with parts of the government actually arguing that the Israeli government or the Israeli soldiers have a right to rape Palestinian detainees, with more and more journalists killed in Gaza, with all of the issues that have been raised about crimes of humanity by the Israeli government, you would think that members of the Democratic Party who have been describing the Biden-Harris administration as engaging in a genocide
And threatening not to vote for Joe Biden because of his support for that genocide would actually want to know what Kamala Harris's position is.
Instead, they're pretending.
They're just making things up to try and justify to their own audience how it is that they could be screaming about genocide for 10 months and now support somebody who, by all appearances, participated in that and supports it.
And also are misleading others who may be reluctant to vote for the Democratic Party because of that, deceiving them by telling them based on absolutely nothing that Kamala Harris is more pro-Palestinian than Joe Biden is.
It is a completely substanceless
Campaign thus far and the fact that we have a president who everyone agrees is incapacitated and a vice president who's required to speak on absolutely nothing of substance is itself a political crisis and yet the media is so eager to make sure that she's elected and Donald Trump is defeated that it's almost impossible to see them demanding ever that she answer the questions that politically speaking she wants most not to answer.
So we had a foreign policy event, not in the Middle East, but in Latin America over the weekend that I think so vividly illustrates the most virulent strain of American propaganda that engulfs so many people who like to think of themselves as sophisticated analysts of the public scene, who believe that they are able to see in a clear-eyed way what the American role is in the world.
And that is the Venezuelan election, which took place over the weekend, and the successor to Hugo Chavez, who by all accounts, at least all non-propagandistic accounts, was a genuinely popular figure in Venezuela, the third of a country that's well-off and wants the Venezuelan nation to be more pro-American and pro-Western, hated Hugo Chavez,
But the vast majority of the country, the people who are poor, who were the working class, adored Hugo Chavez and he was absolutely representative of the Venezuelan people.
And his successor is Nicolas Maduro, both of whom they consider themselves socialists slash communists.
And in a lot of ways he's clamped down more on basic civil liberties in Venezuela, has become more authoritarian, but he also is someone who refuses to bow to the orders and decrees of the United States government and spent a long-standing explicit American policy in the name of the Monroe Doctrine, that we don't allow that sort of defiance in what we call our backyard, which is all of Latin America.
And so the US government has long wanted Nicolas Maduro gone.
And in advance of the election, we were hearing over and over from Western sources, from American sources, that the only way Nicolas Maduro could win the election is if he engaged in serious and radical fraud to manipulate the outcome of the election.
And since the election has taken place and Maduro was declared the winner by election officials, whom he appointed and essentially controls, we are hearing as well that not only that there was major fraud in the Venezuelan election, that he was not the rightful winner,
But also that the United States government should take steps either to punish the Maduro government in the form of sanctions, which we already have in place, but even harsher sanctions that, as we know, never actually result in the removal of governments, but only result in the suffering, the greater suffering of the people of that country makes them weaker and therefore more dependent on the government we're supposedly trying to remove.
But the position of the United States is not just that we object to voting fraud in Venezuela, but that we should use this opportunity to do something about it.
The government of the United States had previously tried to engineer coups to remove Hugo Chavez when he was the president, and John Bolton was pressuring Donald Trump throughout his entire tenure in the White House to try and engineer a coup against Nicolas Maduro, and it just failed.
So the United States government has made repeatedly clear it wants the government of Venezuela to change, and now it's using allegations of election fraud, which very well might be valid.
There's some evidence of election fraud.
I wouldn't say it's conclusive, and not somebody who's here to say that the election was legitimate, but the question is, why does the United States government have such an interest In alleged election fraud in Venezuela, here from Reuters on July 29th, quote, the U.S.
accuses Venezuela of election manipulation, leaves door open to sanctions.
Quote, the Biden administration said on Monday that electoral manipulation had stripped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's claim of re-election victory of, quote, any credibility.
And Washington left the door open to fresh sanctions on the OPEC nation.
The U.S.
and a number of other governments cast doubt on the official vote count.
Maduro's opposition rival, Edmundo Gonzalez, asserted that he was the true winner.
U.S.
officials speaking on condition of anonymity amplified public demands by President Joe Biden's senior aides that Maduro publish a detailed tabulation of votes and said a failure to do so would leave the international community unwilling to accept the announced outcome.
Now I should note that there are some countries, some serious countries, that have acknowledged Maduro's victory, have congratulated him.
That includes the government of Russia, it includes the government of Mexico, and several other more left-wing countries in the region.
Although Brazil, which is governed by a center-left president, Lula da Silva, and is the largest and most influential country in the region, Has not joined the United States in rejecting Maduro's victory, but they also have not accepted it, saying that the government of Venezuela should release all of the election data so that it could be audited.
So there are countries in the world who recognize Maduro's victory, there are other ones who are in wait-and-see mode, and then there are others like the United States who insist that Maduro won only by fraud and that the United States government should do something about that.
Now the question is, why?
Why is the United States government so bothered by election fraud in Venezuela?
The real leader of the Venezuelan opposition was not the candidate who actually ran against Maduro.
She was banned from running by the Venezuelan government based on all sorts of accusations of corruption and other acts against the state, very similar to what Democrats wanted to do to Donald Trump in the United States, what the current Brazilian government did to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.
And there are all sorts of questions around why the United States is so eager to make this an issue.
And of course, the media, if you ask them, if you ask the Biden administration, they will say it's because the United States government is a democratic country.
We venerate democratic values.
And our foreign policy is based on trying to bring democracy and freedom to the rest of the world.
That's why we went to Iraq.
We were told not only because Saddam Hussein above is about destruction, but we wanted to liberate the Iraqi people from the grip of tyranny.
That's what we're told we're doing currently in Ukraine, is we're trying to defend the Zelensky government, which has suspended all democratic elections indefinitely.
We're told that's the reason we're in Ukraine, to protect Ukrainian democracy from the Russian tyrants.
That was the reason we were told we were in Syria trying to remove Assad and in Libya trying to remove Gaddafi, which is what we did.
Because we are a country that just loves democracy so much and believes so much in freedom that we don't just want it for our own country, our sacred democracy and our freedom at home.
That's not enough.
We want to make sure every other country has that.
And when we see a country like Venezuela denying democratic rights based on a fraudulent election, we get enraged by that.
We want to do something about that.
We want to fix that.
We want to bring democracy to Venezuela.
That's the claim that the United States government and the media make as to why we care so much about what happened in Venezuela and why we care so much about who governs it to the point that we're willing to starve and suffocate the people of Venezuela like we're doing to the people of Cuba for many decades by suffocating their country, preventing any trade.
And basically preventing any kind of prosperity at all in those countries, making the people of those countries suffer because we want to bring freedom to them.
And so the reason we make them suffer is because we want to bring them freedom.
Now, let's look at whether or not this holds up as a viable rationale that this is what the United States government's role in the world is, that this is what motivates the United States government when acting in the world to bring freedom and democracy, to fight against authoritarianism and tyranny.
As I said, Hugo Chavez was, by all accounts, a popular leader in Venezuela.
The West hated him.
Hated him.
The United States hated him, called him a tyrant all the time.
But nobody doubted that Hugo Chavez had the support of a majority of the Venezuelan people and therefore won the elections that made him president.
And yet the United States On several occasions, tried to overthrow Hugo Chavez and replace him as President of Venezuela with somebody that the United States government liked most.
One of the times that the United States government tried to do that was in April of 2002 when George Bush was president along with Dick Cheney as vice president and there was a coup against Hugo Chavez that appeared for about one day to have succeeded and have driven Hugo Chavez, democratically elected president of Venezuela, out of office.
And here's what the New York Times editorial board had to say about the U.S.
attempt that they thought was successful to drive out, to overthrow the democratically elected government of Venezuela and replace him with a more pro-Western leader.
Quote, the title was in this editorial, Hugo Chavez Departs.
Quote, with yesterday's resignation of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.
Mr. Chavez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona.
So, by the New York Times own account, this was a coup that they felt was successful against the democratically elected leader of Venezuela, Who was replaced by someone in the opposition in the United States like a respected businessman.
And in the New York Times mind, in the mind of Western discourse on foreign policy, when a government or a leader who's democratically elected but we dislike is overthrown That means, says the New York Times, that democracy is no longer threatened.
Democracy is no longer threatened, said the New York Times, by the person that the Venezuelan people democratically elected.
Now that there's a respected businessman who nobody voted for who's going to take over, Venezuelan democracy is not subverted, which is what you would think if we overthrew a democratically elected leader, but it's actually saved.
It's now no longer threatened.
Because the democratically elected leader was removed.
So it doesn't seem like we actually take very seriously the idea that countries should be able to be governed by the actual leader who is elected.
Remember, for a long time, the United States policy under both the Obama administration and the Trump administration was that the legitimate president of Venezuela was somebody named Juan Guaido, who never ran for president, was never elected by anybody.
And yet we just called him, and he called himself, the president of Venezuela.
And he used to go around the West.
Congress and Nancy Pelosi stood up and applauded and said, welcome, Mr. President.
We just decided that the Venezuelan president was somebody who was never elected, Juan Guaido, because we knew that he would do America's bidding, in case any of you think that the United States government is actually interested in democracy in Venezuela.
Back in 2013, when the Arab Spring happened, as it was so called, and the Western media pretended to be so in favor of the Arab Spring, We were particularly enamored of how the Egyptian people had risen up against this brutal dictator, Hosni Mubarak, and demanded democracy.
We were so moved by them.
They were so inspiring, these students, demanding elections.
Even though the United States government for 30 years was the one who armed and funded that Egyptian dictator, kept him in office, was allies with him, he did our bidding in that region, and we loved Hosni Mubarak, suddenly that was all forgotten.
We were somehow on the side of the students who wanted democracy.
And they got democracy!
The first ever election in Egypt was held where the people of Egypt got to decide their leaders instead of having dictators imposed on them, supported by the West.
And the problem was that they elected the wrong person.
They elected somebody that the West strongly disliked.
Mohamed Morsi, who was Muslim, was part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and we saw him as a danger.
And we didn't care at all that he was the leader that was democratically elected by Egypt because we don't care in the slightest.
Whether a country is democratic or not, democratic countries mean countries that do our bidding regardless of whether the leader is chosen democratically or imposed dictatorially.
And so what happened was that elected leader, Mohamed Morsi, who asked in about 10 months in office, the first ever elected leader of Egypt, and he was overthrown by the same factions of the Egyptian army that the United States always supported and aligned with, who kept the dictators in place, and put into power a military junta led by General Sisi, who was anything but a Democrat.
And that was under the Obama administration.
And at the time, John Kerry, who was the Secretary of State, Described the military junta, the military coup that removed the democratically elected leader, he called it, quote, restoring democracy.
The Egyptian army was, quote, restoring democracy.
Just like the New York Times said about the attempt to remove Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected president, and impose on Venezuelans somebody they didn't elect.
And the New York Times said, oh, democracy is saved in Venezuela.
That's what John Kerry said.
When the democratically elected leader of Egypt, the people chosen by the Egyptian people, was removed and removed by a military coup that then took over the country and has remained ruling that country ever since with no elections, John Kerry described that as an advancement of democracy in Egypt.
How not only propagandistic, but Orwellian that term is when used by the U.S.
government and the media.
Democratic, advancement of democracy.
It always means not that the country gets to choose their own leaders, but that we get to put into place a leader that we prefer.
You don't have to go back very long at all to see this in a major, one of the largest countries on the planet, a nuclear power in Pakistan.
My former colleague at The Intercept, Ryan Grim, broke a major story, and I believe he also reported part of this with Murtaza Hussain, that the United States government had played a major role in removing by far the most popular leader in Pakistan, Imran Khan, who had been Prime Minister, and then helped to ensure that he would be imprisoned.
We prevented the most popular leader from remaining in power.
We ensured that he would be in prison because we no longer, like Dimran Khan, wanted our Pakistani allies in the military to take over the country.
Here's what The Intercept reported in August of last year, quote, secret Pakistan cable documents, U.S.
pressure to remove Imran Khan, quote, all will be forgiven, said a U.S.
diplomat, if the no-confidence vote against Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan succeeds.
So they removed Imran Khan, the actually elected leader of Pakistan.
The U.S.
government encouraged that.
He's now in prison and we now celebrate Pakistani democracy.
There was never, if you recall, any media outcry over the manipulation of the outcome of Pakistan.
How come?
How come they're so concerned about it when it comes to Venezuela, election fraud in Venezuela, but nobody basically talked about it, let alone objected.
to at least as equal of manipulation in Pakistan where they actually removed the sitting prime minister who was elected and then imprisoned him.
The reason is obvious.
It's not because we care about democracy.
That's why, if we did, we would be objecting at least as loudly to what happened in Pakistan, a much bigger and more important actor on the international stage than we are talking about Venezuela.
But we were happy with the subversion of democracy in Pakistan, just like we were happy with the subversion of democracy in Egypt, and just like the New York Times celebrated the subversion of democracy in Venezuela, because what we care about only is whether the leader does our bidding and is our ally, and then we call it democracy no matter how they obtain power.
That's what a democratic country means.
And we only object to tyranny when the supposed tyrant like Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela is somebody who is adversarial to the United States government.
I never understand How this can work, this narrative about how much we love democracy, about how much we object to authoritarianism, can possibly work given that our closest allies long have been and still are some of the most brutal anti-democratic and tyrannical regimes on the planet.
Do you ever hear the U.S.
media or the U.S.
government complaining about the lack of democracy in Saudi Arabia?
Are there any movements to democratize Saudi Arabia, one of our most important allies, a country we routinely fund and arm and help in wars, as we did with their war in Yemen, and give intelligence to so they can better spy on their own country?
Does anyone ever talk about the need to democratize Saudi Arabia or object to the lack of democracy in Egypt or the United Arab Emirates?
No, of course not.
Nobody does.
Or in Jordan?
Or in Kuwait?
Because we have no interest in changing the governments there.
We're very happy with the governments there, so we don't care at all about whether there's democracy.
Now, just on the question of election fraud, I just want to remind you, and I think this has been whitewashed from history, it's a very important moment to consider.
In 2019, the president of Bolivia, Ivan Morales, Who is a left-wing leader, has long been extremely critical of the U.S.
government, has long resisted U.S.
government attempts to control Bolivia and its resources.
The U.S.
government hated Elie Wimorelis and he hated the U.S.
He ran for a fourth term, which people in Bolivia thought was unconstitutional, and yet his argument was that it's actually unconstitutional to put term limits on.
They have election courts.
The election courts ruled in Ivo Morales' favor.
He was able to run.
They okayed the ability of him to run for a fourth term.
And what happened was, on election night, in order to win in the first round of Bolivia elections, to avoid a runoff, you have to win by more than 10 points against your nearest competitor.
And for most of the night, Ivan Morales was ahead, but only by 8.5 or 9%, just short of what was needed to avoid a runoff.
And at the very last moment, in the last couple hours, in the middle of the night, a huge amount of pro-Morales votes came in to put him over the 10% mark.
And the United States government, and most of Western Europe, united to accuse Bolivia and Eva Morales of having manipulated the election, and Eva Morales of not having been the legitimate victor in that election, but instead having committed Fraud in the election.
Here from the BBC in December of 2019.
Ivo Morales, overwhelming evidence of election fraud in Bolivia, monitors say.
Quote, questions about the legitimacy of the election were first raised when the results count inexplicably paused for 24 hours.
The final result gave Mr. Morales slightly more than the lead he needed to win outright, sparking protest across the country.
An initial OAS report Mr. Morales had already pointed to clear manipulation of the election and called for it to be annulled.
In response, Mr. Morales agreed to replace the electoral authorities and hold a fresh poll.
But days later, on November 10th, Mr. Morales stepped down and sought asylum in Mexico following an intervention by the Chief of the Armed Forces calling for his resignation.
He denounced the move as a coup.
Do you see, look at how soft that language is because the BBC wanted him gone.
What actually happened was Ivo Morales won that election when he was, and then he was forced out of the country because the head of the police and the military came to him and said, if you don't leave Bolivia and renounce power, we will kill you and kill your family.
And he was forced out of Bolivia, a country he had governed for 12 years, also always representing the poorer and indigenous parts of that country, just like Hugo Chavez did.
And he was driven into asylum, exile in Mexico.
And I was one of the very first reporters to go to Mexico and interview him about what had happened.
And that's when he explained how he was driven out of the country.
And so the consensus in the West was Ivo Morales did not win.
That evidence of fraud was overwhelming.
And ironically, it was based on the same theory that Donald Trump used to accuse the 2020 election of being fraudulent, namely that all night Trump was in front, and it was only late into the hours of the morning when a bunch of Biden votes came in and put Biden ahead of Trump, which is exactly what the West used to say that Eva Morales committed fraud, namely that he was under the 10%.
Count for most of the night and then suddenly a bunch of Morales votes came in.
Remember, here from ABC News, November 5th, 2020, quote, Trump calls for vote counting to stop as a path to victory narrows.
Biden urges all to stay calm.
Quote, several key states are expected to release more vote counts Thursday.
That was the same theory that the West used to accuse Ivo Morales of engaging in election fraud.
since flagged by Twitter as potentially misleading, he added, quote, "Any vote that came in after election day will not be counted." That was the same theory that the West used to accuse Ivo Morales of engaging in election fraud, even though if you look at every Bolivian election, it's always the case that the last votes that come in are from the more distant rural areas that have always been strongholds
So he always gets a bunch of Morales votes at the end of the election, but the United States was so eager to drive him out that the last United States united and denounced that election as fraudulent.
Once Morales was gone and a right-wing pro-US government seized power, one also not elected democratically, The West started admitting, including the media outlets that had originally accused the election of being fraudulent, that in fact there was no election, there was no evidence at all of fraud.
From the New York Times in June of 2020, six months after they drove out, Eva Morales with claims of election fraud.
Quote, a bitter election, accusations of fraud, and now second thoughts.
It reminds me so much of how the U.S.
media always admits their lies once it's too late.
Right before the election in 2020, everyone agreed reporting based on the Hunter Biden laptop was, quote, Russian disinformation.
And then once Biden was safely elected in the next year, one media outlet after the next began admitting that all along that reporting was based on fully authentic documents having nothing to do with Russia.
And that's what happened here.
Quote, a close look at Bolivian election data suggests that an initial analysis by the OAS that raised questions of vote rigging and helped force out a president was flawed.
They're saying that the Organization of American States that initially issued the allegations of fraud based on a report and an analysis
That report of that alleged fraud that report was flawed quote amid suspicions of fraud protests broke out across the country and the international community turned to the Organization of American States which had been invited to observe the elections for its assessment
The organization's statement, which cited, quote, an inexplicable change that, quote, drastically modifies the fate of the election heightened doubts about the fairness of the vote and fueled a chain of events that changed the South American nation's history.
The opposition seized on the claim to escalate protests, gather international support, and push Mr. Morales from power with military support weeks later.
But now, a study by independent researchers using data obtained by the New York Times from the Bolivian election authorities has found that the OAS's statistical analysis was itself flawed.
The conclusion that Mr. Morales' share of the vote jumped inexplicably in the final ballots relied on incorrect data and inappropriate statistical techniques, the researchers found.
Quote, we took a hard look at the OAS's statistical evidence and found problems with their methods, said Francisco Rodriguez, an economist who teaches Latin American studies at Tulane.
Quote, once we correct these problems, the OAS's results go away, leaving no statistical evidence of fraud.
In other words, the West unified claim that Ivo Morales won only by virtue of stealing the election and fraudulently manipulating the results, that claim itself they admitted only once he was out of power and the pro-Western leaders had taken over Bolivia, only then did they admit that those accusations were baseless and wrong.
From the Washington Post on the same topic in February of 2020, two or three months after that election when Morales was forced out, the headline, if we could put it on the screen, Bolivia dismissed its October elections as fraudulent.
Our research found no reason to suspect fraud.
Bolivians will hold a new election in May without ousted President Evo Morales.
Now, I'm not suggesting that this is true of Venezuela.
That we're accusing Venezuela and Nicolas Maduro of having won solely by fraud, and we're going to find out in a few months if those claims are inaccurate.
I honestly have no idea whether there was election fraud in Venezuela.
I've actually seen some evidence that there is that I think is credible, although not dispositive.
In countries that generally are more neutral when it comes to these questions, like Brazil, Have refused to say that the election is legitimate or fraudulent.
Instead, they're urging the Venezuelan government to do what thus far it has refused to do, which is release all of the election data so that it can be audited, which obviously also raises suspicions.
My point is not to question claims of fraud in Venezuela.
My point is that the United States doesn't care in the slightest.
about the legitimacy of elections, about whether there's a democratic process that's fair.
All they care about is whether the leader who governs and yields power in that country is one that serves the United States agenda or opposes it.
If they serve the United States agenda, it's called democratic.
If they oppose the United States government, a government agenda, even if they're elected democratically, they're called tyrants and dictators.
Now, just to underscore the point, I don't know if we have the Chris Murphy... Yeah, we do.
So, another obvious example that we've shown you before is in Ukraine, where a presidential election was held in 2010.
And the winner was elected to a five-year term under the Ukrainian Constitution, served to 2015.
And he was generally regarded as more pro-Moscow than the West wanted, more adversarial to the West.
And in 2014, there was a change of government, a forcible coup, and the United States was very open about the fact that it participated in that coup, that it helped it, that it encouraged it.
They did it openly.
Victoria Nuland, who runs Ukraine no matter who the president is, went to Ukraine multiple times.
She had a bunch of snacks in her purse, which is unsurprising, and she handed them all out to the protesters outside of the presidential palace in Ukraine.
And then Chris Murphy, the Democratic Senator from Connecticut, John McCain, the Republican Senator from Arizona, openly went to Ukraine and pledged to support the supporters who were trying to remove the democratically elected president and install a president the United States wanted.
That's exactly what happened.
We heard Victoria Nuland get caught on her conversation with the U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine, plotting who should be the next leaders of the Ukrainian government once the democratically elected one was removed with U.S.
support.
And when Chris Murphy went on C-SPAN in 2014 as a somewhat newly elected senator, He wasn't really well-versed yet in how you lie about these sorts of things and he was bizarrely candid about what a explicit, overt role the United States government played in helping remove the democratically elected leader of Ukraine and replace him with someone the U.S.
government wanted instead.
I will admit to you that I have not been as involved in what's happening in Venezuela over the last week because I've been focused as the Chairman of the Europe Subcommittee on Ukraine.
But with respect to Ukraine, we have not sat on the sidelines.
We have been very much involved.
Members of the Senate who have been there, members of the State Department who have been.
Let me just play that part again because this is something they usually don't admit.
administration passed sanctions.
The Senate was prepared to pass its own set of sanctions.
And as I said, I really think that the clear position of the United States has in part been what has helped lead to this change in regime.
So I know that there is.
Let me just play that part again, because this is something they usually don't admit.
Like I said, I think what happened was the question that he was asked, a very good question The only good questions are generally from citizens, not from the journalists, is why isn't the United States doing more to combat the government of Venezuela?
Why aren't we doing more to remove the government of Venezuela?
Why are you just sitting on the sidelines?
And that's why he began to say, well, look, I don't know what we're doing in Venezuela, but I do know that in Ukraine, we're doing a lot to remove the government.
And this is, listen to these words.
The Obama administration passed sanctions.
The Senate was prepared to pass its own set of sanctions.
And as I said, I really think that the clear position of the United States has in part been what has helped lead to this change in regime.
I really think the policy of the United States has been what has helped lead to the change of regimes by which he means the removal of the democratically elected president of Ukraine and his replacement who was not elected but more pro-US.
Here's the rest.
I know that there is merit in the claim that the United States sort of has these principles and then we selectively apply them.
We get involved in certain places and then we don't get involved in other places.
But I think if ultimately this is a peaceful transition to a new government in Ukraine, it'll be the United States on the streets of Ukraine who will be seen as a great friend in helping make that transition happen.
So how is it that You can have U.S.
officials openly admitting, boasting, that the reason there's a change in government in a country from a democratically elected leader to one that's imposed on those people undemocratically was because the United States helped engineer the subversion of democracy.
How can you hear things like that on the one hand, or know that the United States embraces the most tyrannical despots on the planet in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, And then believe, on the other hand, that the reason we're so concerned about the integrity of democracy and elections in Venezuela is because we're just so benevolent.
We just care so much about democracy.
We just want to spread freedom all over the world.
It's something that will never stop being confounding and bewildering to me generally.
I understand that propaganda often is designed to work well based on studies of how the human mind functions.
It's a science developed over many decades.
But sometimes it's so blatant, the falsehoods on which it's based, that I do think it's worth documenting, but it's still something that I don't understand how it isn't just immediately visible as the obvious fraud that it is.
Ever since the Israeli war in Gaza began, there have been a lot of countries who have gradually begun to abandon support for Israel and then actively there have been a lot of countries who have gradually begun to abandon support for Israel and then actively
That's the reason the United States so often has to isolate itself from the rest of the world at the UN in order to shield Israel from denunciations or other kinds of penalties.
One of the countries that stood up almost immediately When that bombing began, when a lot of other countries were afraid to do anything or say anything against Israel, was the government of South Africa.
And eventually that opposition to what the Israelis were doing in support of the Palestinians led South Africa to initiate what has become an extremely important case in the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Here's CNN from January of 2024.
South Africa accuses Israel of genocide and urges the UN court to halt the Gaza war.
South Africa took a major leadership role in being the first country to initiate legal proceedings against Israel.
And one might ask why that is.
South Africa is not in the proximity of that region.
They certainly have a lot of challenges and problems within their country, a lot of political strife.
To deal with, there's still massive poverty in South Africa.
It's a place that I just spent the last 10 days in, so it's one of the reasons why I want to talk about this.
But it's always been the case that ever since apartheid fell, the apartheid regime fell, and South Africa became an actual democracy where not just white citizens, but all citizens, had the right to vote.
And then elected Nelson Mandela, who had spent 27 years in prison, As its president, it's always been the case that South Africans have not just been pro-Palestinian or critical of Israel, but vehemently so.
Nelson Mandela, once he got out of prison for 27 years, and his imprisonment was supported by the U.S.
government.
He was put on a terrorist list.
He was deemed formally to be a terrorist by the U.S.
government.
The U.S.
government was a close ally of the apartheid regime and government in South Africa, as was Israel.
And then just like the way we celebrated the students of Tahir Square protesting against Hosni Mubarak as though it wasn't the case that we supported Hosni Mubarak when Nelson Mandela was released, we all agreed that he was a heroic figure for having brought down the apartheid regime that the United States played such a major role in supporting.
In fact, it was the CIA that helped the apartheid government find where Nelson Mandela was in hiding underground and arrested him and put him in this tiny little prison cell on an island near Cape Town for 27 years.
But then when he was released, we all agreed that Nelson Mandela was this heroic figure who was going to be celebrated.
And he came to the United States.
And a lot of Americans, including members of the media, were very ready to just celebrate Nelson Mandela as a great man and obviously expected that he would say all the things as a freedom-loving man that the United States government believes and thinks because the United States government is also were very ready to just celebrate Nelson Mandela as a great man And they were often very...
Given a unpleasant surprise when Nelson Mandela saw many things in the world, including the United States' role in the world, the Israeli role in the world, the Palestinian cause, much, much differently than the United States government saw it, and he was extremely Assertive and emphatic and very uncompromising about the way in which he expressed some of those views.
Here he is in 1990, Nelson Mandela, speaking at CUNY, the public college in New York.
our attitude towards any country is determined by the attitude of that country to our struggle Yasser Arafat, Colonel Gaddafi,
Cidel Castro support our struggle to Cidel Castro support our struggle to the hilt They do not support it only in rhetoric.
They are placing resources at our disposal for us to win the fight.
That is the position.
Thank you.
Mr. Mandela, as I mentioned to you before the program, we also have some distinguished guests sitting behind us.
One of whom, Mr. Henry Sigmund, together with two other Jewish leaders, came to Geneva.
To visit with you, precisely because they were so concerned not only by the kind of thing that you just said before the break with regard to Yasser Arafat, with regard to Libya's Colonel Qaddafi, but also because of the support that you seemed at different times to give to the PLO.
I would like to ask Mr. Sigmund to stand now for a moment and pose whatever question he would like directly to you, Mr. Sigmund.
Let me just say that it is kind of remarkable, this Ted Koppel, by the way, for those of you too young to remember him, who was a very prominent journalist on this show called Nightline and ABC News, but Nelson Mandela is imprisoned for 27 years.
Both the United States government and the Israeli government are among the greatest allies of the apartheid South African regime.
Both countries called Nelson Mandela a terrorist.
Both supported his imprisonment.
As I said, the CIA helped put him in prison.
And then when Nelson Mandela finally gets out of prison and brings democracy to his country, He obviously is somewhat hostile to the governments that helped support apartheid and helped him remain in prison for a good chunk of his life.
And I mean a harsh prison.
I saw the cell where he was, the prison where he was.
It was not in any way a kind of prison that is like a federal prison in the United States.
It was a deliberately harsh prison.
He was in a tiny little cell designed to humiliate him along with other black leaders.
And of course, if he gets out of prison and he supports the Palestinian cause for reasons I want to talk about, substantive reasons, but also because it was the PLO and Cuba and Libya under Muammar Gaddafi who are among the greatest supporters of the anti-apartheid activists like Nelson Mandela and they're so shocked and offended
With this obviously normal and natural and expected position of Nelson Mandela, that they actually forced him to have to confront pro-Israel activists who are offended that Nelson Mandela has solidarity with the Palestinian people and actually supported the PLO.
Now, one of the interesting things is although Nelson Mandela is celebrated as this man of peace,
Because when he was released from prison, he did do something extraordinary, which is he urged the people of South Africa, the majority of people in South Africa who are black and who had been oppressed so brutally for so long, not to seek vengeance through violence, but instead put aside the desire for violence and create a peaceful South African democracy that could thrive instead of being engulfed in civil war.
And he joined hands with the white apartheid leader, the last one.
President DeKlerk and they both kind of were symbols of peace and they won the Nobel Peace Prize.
We think of him as a man of peace, but during his activism as an anti-apartheid activist, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress did in fact use violence on occasion to further their cause of bringing down the apartheid government.
And five years before he was actually released from prison, And again, not only was it harsh imprisonment, but he was cut off from his family.
He was barely able to get visits from his wife maybe once a year or his children.
They came to him five years before he was released from prison and offered him a deal.
And they said, we will release you from prison today as long as you vow in writing and then go on television and repeat that under no circumstances is violence justified in the anti-apartheid cause.
And he said, I don't accept that.
Deal because I don't agree that violence is never justified.
I do think violence against an extremely unjust and repressive government can be justified.
That was what the American founders thought.
And so Ted Koppel and the United States government were saying, you should condemn the PLO.
They use violence against the Israelis.
Something we hear now about Hamas and Gaza and Nelson Mandela was obviously in solidarity with the Palestinians because he too believed that violence against unjust repression by a government denying basic rights was something that was and could be justified.
And so here he is.
Coming to the United States, speaking, it's this honored person, and they have to have Israel supporters, in the words of Ted Koppel, American Jews, there to confront him on his support for the Palestinian cause and his opposition to Israel, which has supported apartheid for decades.
Here's what happened.
I think I would be dishonest if I did not express profound disappointment with the answer that Mr. Mandela gave to the previous question.
Because it suggests a certain degree of amorality.
The...
As far as Yasser Arafat is concerned, I explained to Mr. Sidney that we identify with the PLO because, just like ourselves, they are fighting for the right of self-determination.
If the Jewish leader have any doubts about our stand, I am prepared to address them and to allay their concern.
Because they are a very important community both in South Africa and of course in the States.
And I'm prepared to iron out any differences that might exist.
But they must know what our stand is.
Arafat is a comrade-in-arm.
And we treat him as such.
We have many Jews, members of the Jewish community, in our struggle.
And they have occupied very tough positions.
But that does not mean to say that the enemies of Israel are our enemies.
We refuse to take that position.
You can call it being political.
Or a moral question, but for anybody which changes his principles depending on whom he is dealing, that is not a man who can lead a nation.
Now, can you imagine the audacity of that person who stood up and said, I'm deeply disappointed in your answer where you criticize the Israeli government and express support for the PLO when the Israeli government was a part of the reason, along with the United States, why apartheid was permitted to lurk and linger in this world for so long?
And especially given the support that the PLO gave to the African National Congress and the movement to combat apartheid.
And some Israel supporter stands up and says, I'm so disappointed that you don't support Israel, but instead support the Palestinian cause.
And as he pointed out correctly, when we had George Galloway on our show shortly after he won his election to the British Parliament earlier this year, he also pointed out that he's often accused of being an anti-Semite, and yet George Galloway was a major activist in the anti-apartheid movement, going to South Africa and working underground, and what he said was, almost everywhere he went, it was
both in South Africa and other Jews who had come to South Africa who joined in the anti-apartheid movement to combat apartheid.
Now, it isn't just Nelson Mandela, But it's also Bishop Desmond Tutu, who also explained why the South African anti-apartheid movement found so much empathy for and similarities with the pro-Palestinian cause as well.
Here is Desmond Tutu in the West Bank in August of 2009, where a bunch of Palestinian families were evicted by Israeli settlers.
And here's what he had to say about that. - Thank you.
Well, thank you.
But it reminds me so much of what used to happen in South Africa, where people were evicted from their homes, and their homes were taken over by whites.
And you would see someone say, you see that house?
That used to be my home.
But they are no longer allowed to be there.
But the point is, that happened.
And now freedom has come to South Africa and we want to say to you that justice will prevail in your own situation as it has prevailed in other situations and that you should not give up hope that you will be able to live securely in your homeland.
I mean beyond the fact that Israel supported the apartheid movement and wanted Nelson Mandela in jail, it really is the case that South Africans back then and to this very day, I saw this and I heard it in so many places, see in the apartheid in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza and see in the repression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government exactly in their mind what was done to them by the apartheid government.
I'm going to show you a couple of things that I saw and heard that made me realize how true that was.
But the idea that Israel is an apartheid state and that Palestinians are fighting against the same kind of apartheid that South Africans face is something that not only South African leaders have long maintained, but also many Israeli leaders as well, Israeli officials, Israeli leaders, citizens of Israel.
Here in The Guardian, all the way back in 2006, by the reporter Chris McGreal, the article was entitled, Worlds Apart.
Quote, Israelis have always been horrified at the idea of parallels between their country, a democracy risen from the ashes of genocide, and the racist system that ruled the old South Africa.
Yet even within Israel itself, accusations persist that the web of controls affecting every aspect of Palestinian life bears a disturbing resemblance to apartheid.
An Israeli human rights organization has described segregation of West Bank roads by the military as apartheid.
Arab-Israeli lawyers argue anti-discrimination cases before the Supreme Court by drawing out similarities between some Israeli legislation and white South Africa's oppressive laws.
Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town and Chairman of South Africa's Trust and Reconciliation Commission, visited the occupied territories three years ago and described what he found as, quote, much like what happened to us black people in South Africa.
As far back as 1961, Hendrik Verwoerd, the South African Prime Minister and architect of the, quote, Great Apartheid Vision, saw a parallel, quote, the Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years.
Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state, he said.
It is a view that horrifies and infuriates many Israelis.
Quote, if we take the magnitude of the injustice done to the Palestinians by the state of Israel, there is a basis for comparison with apartheid, said the former Israeli ambassador to South Africa, Alon Leal.
Quote, if we take the magnitude of suffering, we are in the same league.
Of course, apartheid was a very different philosophy from what we do, most of which stems from security considerations, but from the point of view of outcome, We are in the same league.
That was 20 years ago, where many Israeli officials, along with the white leaders of the South African Apartheid government, were seeing this parallel between Apartheid in South Africa and what was happening in the Palestinians.
Now, even more recently, as things have gotten way worse for the Palestinians in terms of these separate laws and separate living conditions, Major Israeli leaders have been saying what the South Africans have long been saying, namely that what we're doing to the Palestinians is the same kind of apartheid.
Here in The Guardian from September of 2023, so the month before the October 7th attack by Hamas in Israel, the headline is, Israel is imposing apartheid on Palestinians, says the former chief of the Mossad, Tamir Pardo comments slammed by ruling Likud party carry weight because of high regard for intelligence agency in Israel.
This was the head of the Mossad chosen by Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015.
Who, like other Israeli leaders, including Ahud Barak, the former Prime Minister and Defense Minister of Israel, have said that what is happening in Israel is extremely similar, if not identical, to what the South African Apartheid government did to black South Africans.
Here is Baruch, all the way back in 2010, warning that either we make peace with the Palestinians or we face Apartheid.
The reason I bring all this up is not because I do think it's so relevant to the leadership role that South Africa has taken, but also given that I've just been in that country for the last 10 days, so much of what I heard and saw made me understand, even on a more visceral level, the reasons why This is how South Africans see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, why they, on a very personal and human level, see in the Palestinians exactly what was done to themselves.
If you go to something called the Sixth District Museum in Cape Town, which isn't a very well-known museum but it's sort of this illustrative small museum that commemorates just one small part of apartheid, and it's called the 6th District of Museum because it was in the 6th District.
The 6th District of Cape Town had been this thriving town where races of all sorts lived in peace side by side, just like Jews and Muslims and Christians lived in what was then called Palestine.
side-by-side and peace and working with one another and being each other's neighbors.
That was what had happened in the 6th District.
It was this thriving, robust town that was multiracial.
And when the apartheid regime was instituted, certain parts of Cape Town, like Johannesburg, were declared white only, or European only, and other parts were declared black only.
And usually the black only sections were the poorest parts of what were called shantytowns.
And this museum commemorates what was done to the black people of the 6th District in Cape Town in a way that just so viscerally illustrates the reasons why they see in their own cause what's happening in Palestinians.
So here was just a common sign that was in Cape Town right when those mid-20th century apartheid laws were instituted.
And there you see, "For use by white persons only, these public premises and the amenities thereof have been reserved for the exclusive use of white persons by order of the provincial secretary." And there were all sorts of photos from real time of black people being expelled from these neighborhoods where they were no longer allowed to live and their houses were being bulldozed
And they're all possessions being destroyed, something we've seen from the West Bank for many, many years, including far more aggressively in the last several years where Palestinians' homes are just taken from them, they're bulldozed, they're expelled from certain lands that the Jews now want to control, even though international law says they can't.
Here's a photo of one of the bulldozers that did that.
Here is the entrance to this museum talking about Pretoria where every sign says Europeans only.
Here is another sign that just says parking area for three taxis for non-whites.
It was all just divided this way.
And then here is the entrance to that museum where there's one entrance for whites and one entrance for non-whites.
And all these things resonate so obviously for such clear reasons when South Africans look at what is happening in Palestine.
All sorts of areas are reserved for Jews only.
Roads are reserved for Jews only.
To the point where even the former head of the Mossad, appointed in 2015, now says that Israel is an apartheid regime.
And just, if you go to South Africa, which again, if you're considering doing it, I highly, highly recommend it.
It has everything that you could possibly want there.
Natural beauty, an incredibly interesting culture, but also this important political history.
You'll really see just on such a visceral level Why, what is happening in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza, though we think about it differently in the United States and talk about it differently, is exactly what activists against the apartheid regime experience and it's why South Africans, not just as a government in the past but as a government now, and across the political spectrum,
everywhere you go you see Palestinian flags or signs against the Israeli war and it becomes extremely easy to understand all the different reasons everywhere you go you see Palestinian flags or signs against the Israeli war and it becomes extremely easy to understand all the different reasons why South Africa has become such a leading voice against the Thank you.
I love you.
- Yeah, he could have done it.
Good evening, everybody.
So this is normally where we have our live after show, which is available solely for members of our locals community, and we generally interact with our audience.
It's the place where I sit.
We actually have some dogs that are always present for the after show.
They're about to be let out, and they will join us shortly.
Michael's a big dog person.
You were just insulting one of them, which I found I wasn't insulting him, I was just saying he was a puppy who needs more training and is a little bit of an aggressive puppy.
I got along perfectly well with him.
We'll see, I hope he comes out and barks at you.
But anyway, I'm here with Michael Tracy who, as I said at the top of the show, his role as guest host had ended and yet he just doesn't want to leave.
And I don't even mean leave Rio or leave Brazil, I mean like even leave our studio.
He just continues to lurk here.
Here you see him, we don't know why he's here, but he just came here, people were kind of I don't know, a little alarmed by his presence.
There were talk of restraining order, but I do think you did a great job as guest host.
I sincerely mean that.
I saw a lot of the segments.
I think you were great in your interviews.
Well, thanks for the one sincere half sentence.
Yeah, it was just on my way to another insult.
I was going to praise the stylist for the incredible work she did in getting you presentable for the camera, but Anyway, here you are.
So the audience, you were about to comment on the audience.
Yeah, I know.
I mean, usually, you know, anything on the internet Produces polarized reaction.
Like you can, I don't know, have like a, just a charity drive for like cancer child, pediatric patients and some people will be angry at you.
But I do think the audience response was overwhelmingly positive in a way they didn't expect to your presence.
Obviously, people are thrilled that I'm back and that that has ended, but they also seemed happy with the work you did.
Did you enjoy being a guest host on my show?
I did.
I think people were thrilled at my physical appearance, mostly.
And I have been told that the extreme makeover that I was subjected to, and in fact I actually ambushed at one point and kind of like restrained and held down, and like five people speaking Portuguese had to strategize.
About how to make you presentable.
Yeah, so I had no clue what was going on.
But I've been told it was one of the biggest Brazilian public works projects.
Achievements.
Public works projects in history.
I not only, I mean really, we have a person here who's responsible for our makeup and our stylist as well.
And I really believe we should not only give her a raise, but also like hazard pay.
I think she deserves some sort of award.
I was shocked when I saw you in front of the camera.
So well-groomed, so well-dressed.
Maybe put her through a PTSD test.
Yeah, I mean, I do think there's probably some trauma lingering that we're going to have to deal with at some point.
But for now, I think she deserves a lot of praise.
On a sincere note, I really did enjoy hosting.
People did have a positive reaction, which is very strange for me as somebody who regularly absorbs feedback on the Internet, which people just revel in being as recreational and negative as possible.
But no, the reaction was very positive.
The staff was very Competent, professional, professional, helpful, nice recommendations and suggestions for how to handle things.
So yeah, it went well.
The guests that we had on, I thought were... You had guests on who... Outside of your usual roster.
Yeah, I wonder... None of these guests that you had on were people I've ever asked to come on.
Well, you had one.
I think you had Janine Yunus.
Oh yeah, I love her.
She's the lead plaintiff in the case against the Biden administration's censorship regime.
Yeah, we definitely had her on.
But sometimes I just refrain from asking certain people because we have such a polarized media that people are so incentivized not to go on shows where they're going to have adversarial questions.
Everybody kind of stays in their little cocoons.
But I think your ability to get some of these people on, and you actually got Our first Democratic member of Congress to agree to come on, which is Ro Khanna, and I'm not really sure he checked out at the last minute.
But I talked to him and he said he's going to come back on the show.
I was even sitting at the desk and I saw him on this side camera or side screen.
Don't ruin my chances to get him on.
Just be very neutral.
I'll be very neutral.
I'll neutrally recall that I saw him fumbling around on his camera.
And then all of a sudden, he just vanished.
And I was in shock, so I had to... On my first night, it was like a partial show that I was hosting, because Brianna... I think he had some... Oh yeah, you were co-hosting with Brianna, basically.
Right, so I had to improvise a whole segment, which I think I did with some aplomb.
So yeah, it was... I made the most of it, but yeah.
I mean, what I wanted to do, I didn't even...
tell you about this.
I wanted to do it totally behind your back.
But I wanted to just kind of diversify the typical range of guests that you would ordinarily have on.
In part because I like the idea-- - I think we have a pretty diversified range of guests.
- Well, I mean, in terms of, like, when you, before you had this show and you'd be like a guest on various shows, like they'd all put you in debate formats.
- Yeah, exactly.
So, like, people who you would disagree with, I guess, right?
So, who you'd be pitted against.
That's what I kind of wanted to mimic, but in an interview format.
You know, this is an interesting question because I saw people saying that in your interviews you ask kind of long questions that lay out a bunch of arguments, and I saw your reply, which was, and I've said this many times myself, like, when I have a guest on the show, I don't try to, I try not to just do some standard interview format where I just ask them like little brief questions and let them answer it.
Please recite your latest press release to me.
Yeah, exactly.
I regard it more as like a conversation that I'm having on and sometimes like a debate where you do have to lay out your own arguments.
I think it's incredibly boring to have people on your show just ask like very concise short questions and then just let them talk and move on to your next planned question.
The problem is, I like, one of the things that, you know, I do love to do these, I do love to have, like, adversarial conversations.
I don't really like online debates anymore because I feel like you're a trained monkey throwing poop at somebody for the enjoyment of others.
Debate's the wrong word.
I'm just, like, a conversation with, like, contested premises.
Exactly, where you have, where you have, right, exactly.
So I always, I feel like the problem is, this is something I didn't really know until I did the show, it's like, When you have somebody on your show, like you ask somebody, oh can you come on my show for a interview, usually people's expectations is they're coming on, you're going to ask them questions, and they're going to answer, and you're going to, you have to, as like the host, you have to give them a certain kind of, like you have to abide by a certain kind of etiquette, right?
Like, you can't constantly interrupt them.
You can't, like, be too aggressive with them.
And so I never feel like I can really aggressively debate my guests in a way that I would.
Which is totally contrary to your nature in a way.
Right, because you're like the moderator.
You're like the host.
You're not like a participant in a debate.
Your nickname used to be Glenzilla.
You would just unleash on people.
Right, that's how I used to.
And like I said, I don't like doing that as much.
I mean, I did that with, like, I did a recent debate with Destiny that was something similar to that.
Where, like, it was more of that old style, like, 2007 internet style debate.
Because he thinks he's so good at that even though he's actually terrible.
He just read Wikipedia like an hour before.
Yeah, and he just like uses like really primitive debate tactics that anyway So I don't really enjoy those anymore I only did it with him because I wanted to show him and everybody else how actually like shitty of a debater he is and But yeah, I don't like, that's not the kind of discussion that I like having anymore.
Well...
If anything went wrong, I could just blame it on you, so that was helpful for me in this situation.
Yeah, that's why you were so relaxed.
It's not my show, technically.
Like, for example, when you invited Nick Fuentes on my show.
But even that, I mean, so that's another example.
Everyone that I had on, for the most part, not all of them, but like a number of the guests I invited on, and I wanted to do a respectful but adversarial interview where Maybe even adversarial is not the right word.
More of a probing, interrogative type interview where you're kind of challenging or trying to identify certain inconsistencies.
The weakness is in people's arguments to ask them to explain or account for what they think.
Exactly.
And we had the head of the Heritage Foundation on last week about this Project 2025 thing and of course he was You know, amenable to coming on because he understood that it wouldn't just be an MSNBC style interview.
Right, where you wouldn't be screaming like, oh, this is a Nazi project.
But nonetheless, I did read the sections of the Project 2025 document had to do with foreign policy and national security, which is the last thing that the liberals are screeching about when they have these whole talking points about Project 2025.
And that gave me an opportunity to question him on some of the premises like, you know, the document endorses the renewal of Section 702 of FISA.
Oh, it does?
I wasn't aware of that.
Oh, you should watch the interview.
Go back and watch the interview on your own channel.
And then I'll learn that.
What, you think I was on vacation, like, watching you on my show every night?
Yeah, on your safari.
I was, like, telling my kids, like, I know we're in this, like, amazing country, but I'm sorry, like, 7 o'clock Eastern, on the dot, I have to watch Michael Tracy.
Yeah, on your, like, exotic safari, you had your headphones on.
You're listening to Michael Tracy interviewing Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation.
Exactly.
But that was a good example, because if you read the parts about Ukraine and Israel, it kind of advocates, whether implicitly or overtly, depending on the passage, just the continuation basically of the bipartisan status quo, re-empowering actually through bureaucratic reorganization, the intelligence services to more aggressively confront Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, etc.
First of all, I think that's a very good journalistic service because there's so much like Project 2025 and, you know, it's like supposed to be the signifier of some kind of like authoritarian departure.
Yeah, maybe there is parts of that, but no one actually knows what it is or what it says.
Right.
And my point was Kevin Roberts, although he willingly subjected himself to what was a substantive but probing interview, he I don't know.
welcomed it afterwards and said that he appreciated it and he said that it was about the policy substance and so forth.
So he was appreciative of the manner in which I conducted that interview.
So I think there's a balance to be struck when you're trying to bring on people who maybe don't share every premise or are going into it with the expectation that it's not just going to be a friendly kind of ass-kissing fest.
I think there's a difference between, for example, like what Trump just was subjected to at the National Black Journalist Association, where the questions were just like basically standard Democratic talking points.
You are racist.
Here are a few, like, racist words that you said in the past couple of weeks.
Why do you hate black people so much?
And respond.
Like, ask the question.
Right.
But alternatively, Trump also does... I mean, that was actually the first adversarial media appearance that Trump has done in 2024.
I've heard you say that, but like... It's true!
No, it's not entirely true.
Like, because sometimes when he's interviewing, he's being interviewed by friendly hosts like Laura Ingraham on Fox or Bret Baier.
Yeah, or Logan Paul.
No, I'm not saying he hasn't done friendly interviews as well, but I'm just saying, I do think Fox hosts are far more willing to ask, not Sean Hannity, certainly with Trump, but every other one.
That's mostly what he does when he goes on Fox, Sean Hannity.
Right, well he just talked to Laura Ingraham and one of the things she was pressing him on was like, well you made this statement that Democrats are like making a lot of hay about, about how don't worry in four years you won't need to vote anymore.
But Laura Ingraham is always like, here's a political liability for you, I'm giving you an opportunity to correct it to help you.
Like that's where she's coming from.
Right, I mean I think the reason I'm so interested in Project 2025 and Trump's like very aggressive renunciation of having, not only is he saying I have nothing to do with Project 2025, he's now like aggressively attacking Project 2025.
And celebrating its disbandment.
Right.
And I think, like, one of the most important questions in this whole election is beyond, like, hey, is Kamala Harris ever going to, at some point, say what she thinks about anything other than, like, she loves gay people and abortion, or the right to abortion?
The other question is, like, what kind of I'm sure it's going to be wonderful.
was Trump gonna pursue because with Trump, you just never know because he doesn't, he just is so unpredictable in terms of like-- - Well, Glenn, I have a gift for you, a very special gift that relates to this point. - I'm sure this is gonna be wonderful.
I can't wait to have this. - This was something I received at the Republican convention.
It is a Trump kippah.
Oh wow, that's so nice.
And since I know you're an observant Jew and also a strong MAGA Republican... The problem is, like, the yarmulkes I usually wear are designed to... I would like for you to please wear it!
No, the problem is, I already have the yarmulke on, but it's the same color as my hair.
I like to be subtle about it, so this one would be a little too conspicuous, but... And it's from the Republican Jewish Coalition, so you should send them a note of thanks.
Yeah, so that's what I mean, like, you know, if you compare, like, if I were Trump, I would look at what I did in 2016, when he had this, you know, like, smashing, unpredictable victory, but like, it was... I'm gonna sneeze.
It's just the comic relief.
I keep asking, like, why?
First of all, I never sneeze until I'm in front of a camera.
And also, nobody on live TV, you ever see them sneezing.
That's true.
I think it's like, first of all, it might be just like... Is it because you're mentally focused or something?
I don't know.
It might be just like a psychological weird thing.
It might be that I'm allergic to something in the studio, just like a little bit.
Anyway...
It's so gross when you sneeze in front of the camera and then you work your way up to, like, am I going to sneeze?
Can I stop it?
So you have, like, two minutes left.
You have to, like, announce your sneeze is coming.
Yeah, yeah.
And I try and, like, suppress it and then sometimes it makes it worse.
Anyway... Here's my point on... I do want to make a serious point on Trump.
What I want to say is, like, I was saying, if I were Trump, I would look at what I did in 2016.
Where I had this like big victory against like the Clinton machine and every establishment outlet aligned against me and I would do that.
Instead it seems like he's just running like a very conventional, he's almost like running like he's Bob Dole.
He's old, like Bob Dole was when he ran.
Everything's just a little bit cliché.
It's all, oh, I'm running against the far left, the Democrats, the liberals.
They're weak on foreign policy.
They're weak on this.
We should be stronger with Iran.
It's a very conventional Republican Well that's basically how Trump ran in 2020.
J.D. Vance, who at least is more heterodox on some of these issues.
But it's just so, I don't know, I just think Trump is being misled by a lot of people who are trying to turn him into a standard Republican.
So that's why I think the whole thing with Project 2025 is interesting.
Well, that's basically how Trump ran 2020.
I mean, 2020 is the more recent precedent to refer to than 2016 at this point.
In 2020, Trump was the incumbent, so he couldn't be like running against himself as the establishment, at least in the same way that he was in 2016.
In 2020, it was a very similar rhetorical style.
Oh, Joe Biden is like an anarchist.
Joe Biden is supported by the radical left, which was not entirely plausible given Joe Biden's political history.
Well, there was a lot like immigration, which is like a constant, right?
From like his 2016 campaign to...
Not so much in 2020.
I mean, Trump actually says this cycle that his advisors told him to stop talking about immigration so much in 2020.
Go back and check some of Trump's attacks on Biden in 2020.
It was all about Trump, Biden is empowering the radical left, that he wants, Biden wants to defund the police, this kind of stuff.
And it kind of fell flat because, I mean, who looks at Joe Biden and looks to see the radical leftist, whereas in 2016, People did look at Hillary Clinton and see an avatar of a failed establishment, and that's what Trump was campaigning on at the time.
Whereas in 2020, he was surrounded by just the Republican PR apparatus, which kind of habituated him to the old-fashioned attacks.
He had to run against the Republican establishment as well that was behind his opponents like Jeb Bush, and then Marco Rubio, and then even Ted Cruz.
So, it was a very different campaign, rhetorically, from And that was the appeal of it.
It was the same thing with Bernie.
It reminds me so much of Bernie Sanders' success in 2016 when he ran, having no expectation of winning, as harsh of a critic of the Democratic Party as he was of the Republican Party.
And I kept hearing all these reports that in labor unions, like union halls, you would go in and you would ask, like, who are you supporting?
People would be like, oh, my two favorite candidates are Trump and Bernie.
And he got tons of, like, rural voters, people who had never voted for Democratic candidates before in the primary, because he was so, like, liberated from the left, right, Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative prism that he actually sounded like, you know, somebody who was not a partisan and that appealed to so many people who hate politics and a lot of people didn't vote.
And then in 2020, when he thought he could actually win, he had a much more conventional Democratic Party But how much can a former president really divorce himself from the establishment?
know fascist threat and all identity politics stuff and he did worse that way and it's so obvious that like the the types of candidates that win in western democracies are people who just seem as divorced from the establishment as possible and i think that's a big part but how much can a former president really divorce himself from the establishment because you can say 2016 no but i don't think that's true because you can say and i think it's actually true like when here in brazil before bolsonaro won
Like when here in Brazil, before Bolsonaro won, I actually regarded him as a big threat because of all the things he had said over the years that were genuinely disturbing just from the perspective of being a basic Democrat with a small d.
And then once he was elected, the institutions of authority aligned so much against him that he was basically a completely leaked president.
And I thought that what was ended up being more threatening is the way in which these establishment forces had resorted to authoritarian anti-democratic power to restrain him more than he more than the threat that he posed because he had been a very weak president.
So you can be president and say, I was so sabotaged by the fake news media, by these fabricated Russiagate channels.
Well, you can say it, but you can also then look at his record and assess it and note that it was totally in line with every bipartisan orthodoxy.
I found foreign policy and national security with maybe some marginal exceptions like the direct diplomacy with North Korea, which I acknowledge, but there's a reason why Trump is campaigning now basically by saying if you're...
If you vote for a Democrat in 2024, you ain't Jewish.
Like how Biden said in 2020, if you vote for Trump, you ain't black.
I'm distinguishing and you're conflating the rhetoric that you use in a campaign to attract votes to convince people to vote for you and to be excited about your candidacy versus the reality of how you govern.
I'm a stickler for the latter.
Right, but most people aren't.
Most people don't follow politics that closely, don't understand that, like, Trump, you know, was more or less... I do think a lot of his power was commandeered.
I think he ended up capitulating to a lot of things that he said in 2016 he didn't support.
Because he didn't have firm enough convictions to withstand the pressures.
Well, it's just like Obama.
In Obama, when he ran into 2008, everyone was so excited about him because he was like, I'm going to go to Washington and change the way I'm an outsider.
That's why he won.
And then he got there, and he just didn't want to do any of that fighting.
You elect a chief executive on the pledge, at least if they're making the pledge, is that they're going to be able to preside over this vast bureaucracy and manage these different pressures that could sway them from their core principles.
And if they don't do that, I mean, it's kind of a deflection to say, oh, I was commandeered.
Any president's commandeered to some extent, I mean, that's why, but you elect them because they're supposed to be competent in how they run that vast apparatus.
But I mean, I think this is like a very, like, 8th grade civics view of how American power works.
I mean, even Dwight Eisenhower, like, he spent 8 years in the presidency, he had, like, 12 minutes on primetime television to give his farewell address, and the thing that he chose to warn the country about was that there were these permanent power factions, like the U.S.
security state and the military-industrial complex, who We're so powerful that they were even more powerful than the elected president.
Trump appointed as his defense secretary the top Raytheon lobbyist.
How is that commandeered?
Why is this removal of agency from Trump?
To what extent was Trump responsible for his own actions?
I've never been able to get a grasp on where the line is drawn.
In order to combat That whole system, and Eisenhower warned about this before Vietnam, before the war on terror, before, I mean, it was tiny then when he was scared of the threat it posed to democracy, that permanent power faction of Washington, as compared to what it is now, which is like this sprawling, multi-pronged system that almost nobody can control and know about.
In order to combat that, you have to be Extremely dedicated to combating it, like very convicted about it, willing to sacrifice your political interests, because as Chuck Schumer said, if you stand up to those, you know, yeah.
So you have to be courageous, you have to be convicted, you have to be strategic, you have to be disciplined, you have to be committed, all things that Trump isn't.
So all I'm saying is like... He just wanted to be the guy in charge of that, you know, corrupt architecture essentially.
I mean, that's what the record shows!
I don't know.
I don't think that everything Trump said in 2016 was engineered.
Part of what made Trump interesting was that he was not really scripted.
He wasn't saying the things the Republicans operatives would have told you that you have to say to win an election.
That's what made him so exciting to so many people.
And I actually think, like, just to bring it to this election, like, the reason Kamala is actually provoking a sort of excitement that no one ever expected of her because she's, like, deprived of charisma, not an interesting candidate, not an interesting person, is simply because it's the same thing like Obama in 2008, Trump in 2016. is simply because it's the same thing like Obama in The polls were, like, continuously showing that everyone was miserable about having to choose between two old former presidents like Biden or Trump.
And Kamala suddenly appears, and she's like looking, you know, she's pretty.
She looks young.
Even though she's like a complete establishment tool and was in the Senate.
She's pretty and young.
She's older than you and you're an old fart.
I'm young compared to Kamala Harris.
She's older than I am.
I know.
I'm saying she's older than you but people think that she's young and, you know, rejuvenating.
Well because compared to Biden and Trump she totally is.
But also she's been invisible for four years so people think about American politics You'd be shocked.
You know, have you ever seen those polls where they ask Americans, like, name a member of the Supreme Court, name who the Vice President is?
Yeah, and they, like, 15% can, like, name them?
Yeah, exactly.
So, I, and, like, she in particular was invisible.
One person can, like, name the three branches of government.
Yeah, exactly.
So when she appears, like, to, I think, most people, a lot of people, they're like, wait, she was the Vice President?
She seems, like, new.
She seems new.
She's, like, Oh, finally they broke up the Trump- Well, that's why they introduced her with this onslaught of memes, just to get, you know, to amplify this idea that she was fresh and new and like bursting on the scene and having this pop cultural energy.
I want to make a quick point about And that's why they don't want to let her say any of her views, because then people realize how ordinary she is.
I want to make two quick points.
One is on my interview questions that I posed to a lot of people at the Republican Convention, which aired on the show, those clips, and then also to some of the guests, which is this tension between America First and supporting Israel, supporting Ukraine.
First of all, when people accuse me of asking long-winded questions, if you go and look at the interviews that I did at the RNC, I didn't do long-winded introductions.
I got to the point as quickly as possible.
I think people were complimenting on that, like, oh, these are, like, respectful, concise, but, like, provocative questions.
Yeah, and even the Republican elected officials who I was asking questions to tended to be shocked that, like, I knew just the basics about their voting record, especially on the National Security Supplemental, because, you know... I think they're happy when, like, people understand what they've been doing.
Well, you're right, because I mean, this is like their life, so it's like... And usually the journalists have no idea, they just ask like the same... Yeah, especially like the journalists who go to those things, like the dopey local TV anchors, who are just there to get, you know, B-roll footage... But also, I think the national media, so I, you know, I went to the... And the national media too!
I went to the 2008 convention...
You almost had a mental breakdown.
For the Democratic Party when Obama was the nominee.
And I stayed.
I was at Salon.com at the time.
I was making very little money as a journalist.
That's a throwback.
I stayed in the Salon.com house where all the other Salon.com journalists were.
So it was strewn with needles and vodka and everything.
Yeah, and everywhere you went you saw like Chuck Todd and like Andrew Mitchell.
And I just, I was like, I'm never going.
And then I went to the Republican one as well, which was in St.
Paul that year.
And I was like, I'm never, ever going to an event.
Because everywhere you look, it's the worst people.
You feel like you're suffocating in the middle of like the belly of the beast.
You like, you look one direction and you see like Lester Holt like striding down the concourse of the basketball arena.
All these journalists, when you see them up close, when you are around them, when you watch what they do, when you hear the questions they ask, compare them to the questions you were asking.
This is why I think usually if some Republican House member were interviewed, it would be like, What do you think of Trump when he just said this?
Yeah, will you denounce the latest thing that Trump blurted out on social media?
Right, or some like horse race kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or just something like that.
But they should be demonstrating a familiarity with their actual record as a legislator.
Right, the bills they're voting on.
And also, I think like that question, because that's what I used to do.
I don't know how many people I did this with.
I did it with R.K.
Jr., I did it with Marjorie Haley Greene, with Matt Gage, with so many people.
Who come on and they start like ranting about how much they're opposed to the war in Ukraine because we have to put America first, we can't afford to pay for more foreign wars, we shouldn't be focused on what's happening in Ukraine but only on our own people and then you let them go and talk about the America first ideology.
And then you say to them, does that also apply to the war in Israel? - Record scratch. - And nobody can answer, they got like very stuttery, they've never been asked them before. - They're never confronted with the contradiction or the paradox there, so, but they actually like talking about it.
I mean, I used, so it was shortly after the Trump assassination attempt, and a lot of them were saying it was divine intervention that was what spared Trump the worst of the would-be assassin's bullet.
So I used that as a nice little segue into asking about the divine providence of Israel.
And is the U.S.
divinely obligated to ceaselessly supply Israel with munitions?
And actually, a lot of them were very eager to talk about their religious convictions on Israel.
And I think a lot of the media takes for granted those religious beliefs on Israel.
I mean, people kind of know in theory that...
I don't think so, and I'll tell you why.
It shocks me when I hear how explicit it is.
Lee Fong did a series of interviews where he... No, he has done a great job with that, but he's one of the very few.
No, I know.
I remember when he did these interviews, and six or seven of them were like... We all know and talk about, at least some of us do, That a major reason why there's so much support for funding Israel, for arming Israel, for turning over billions of dollars of American taxpayer dollars to Israel is because there are a lot of Jewish members of Congress who were trained since birth to love and be devoted to Israel and they grow up and they still are.
But those are usually almost all Democrats.
Correct.
Exactly.
That's why there's so much support for the Democratic Party.
I think in the past, the reason why there was so much, and I do think there's been more questioning of Israel in the Republican Party of the past, like Reagan and Bush 41 were both way more skeptical and oppositional to Israel than would ever be allowed now.
Papu Kannon was tapping into that sentiment a long time ago.
You know, there was a lot of that sort of strain there, and so there wasn't as much, but I think the reason why there was so much support for Israel in the Republican Party in the past, it was assumed, was because it was just a good national security relationship for wanting, like, aggression in the Middle East.
Like, that was our ally in the Middle East, so if you were, like, a national security hawk who wanted to, you know, dominate the Middle East militarily, it was good to have Israel on your side because they were in there.
But I think what's changed is, like, The overt Christian belief that never used to be part of our politics, really, that it's a very new evangelical strain.
And Trump has elevated it.
That's why I focus on this relative to Trump a lot, because even compared to George W. Bush, like the Republican Party of that era, and even Bush himself, they kept a little bit more distance from those genuinely fanatical religious elements.
John McCain had to denounce John Hagee, Pastor John Hagee, who we featured last night because of his, you know, extreme theology.
But Trump, I mean, he had Hagee give the benediction at the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem, and Hagee loved that because he thinks that Christ is literally going to return to earth to rule over humanity from Jerusalem.
- And send all the Jews to hell, unless they accept Jesus as their savior. - Well, he's tinkered with that. - He's tinkered with that.
- Yeah, but that has been the theology.
And of course, Jews are happy to accept that.
- There's different strains of it.
- But all I'm saying is, I think it's shocking.
Like you hear- - And Trump genuinely has, Trump is, as the nominee in 2024, is campaigning on, I think, what you would have to objectively say, is the most extreme pro-Israel platform of any candidate ever.
He's denouncing Biden for being pro-Hamas essentially.
I know, I know.
And the people that Trump had in place In the first term, the first four years of his presidency, like the U.S.
Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, these are like the most fanatical, obsessive Zionists, like, you know, pro-Israel fanatic.
When I went to Israel, Shortly after October 7th, and I would talk to people about US politics, there was like, in terms of the more strident Zionist religious parties, which is different from the secular parties, they were pleasantly surprised that Biden was so supportive, but their instinct was with Trump.
Like, that's where their natural affinities lie with Trump.
Like the hardcore right-wing of Israeli politics.
Yes.
So that's, you know, when people sometimes show an international map of, like, which countries supported the Democratic nominee and which support the Republican nominee, Trump is ahead usually in, like, Israel and then maybe a handful of other random countries.
Also, what was so interesting was like the only real— To the genuinely fanatical elements, both Jewish and Christian, they're all part of the Trump governing coalition with regard to Israel.
But the only thing that Trump actually did meaningfully when it came to Israel was he moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which used to be considered like a whacked out radical thing to do because it would prevent a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal, which has always been, according to the U.S. government, in our interest to do.
And then Democrats, a lot of liberals in the media, were ready to attack him for being so reckless.
And then Chuck Schumer stood up and said, I applaud President Trump for what he did.
I agree.
And so I do think he's pro-Israel in his rhetoric because he sees that as a weakness.
Like a lot of American Jews think that the Democrats were a little bit too...
Willing to limit arms to Israel or be critical of Israel.
Yeah, he's the star of... I mean, that is a dumb thing to do.
You're anti-Semitic.
Yeah, I don't actually... Yeah, I've trained all my dogs not to do that because it's offensively stupid, but he's still a puppy, so I accept it.
But anyway, yeah, so I... Well, let's talk about Nick Fuentes.
I want to talk about Nick Fuentes.
But it wasn't just a quick point on this.
It wasn't just that Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem.
He sent Mike Pompeo to visit a settlement in the West Bank for the first time.
He made lots of other symbolic moves that were greeted euphorically in Israel.
He actually moved Israel into the U.S.
Central Command for the first time.
The other thing I agree is he was more pro-settlement.
The Democrats have always given lip service, but never done anything about it.
That's why the Adelsons showered him with hundreds of millions of dollars and are doing so again!
It's always a chicken and egg thing.
Did Miriam Adelson give Trump $100 million because she believes he's so pro-Israel or did she give him $100 million to extract a promise from him that he would be so pro-Israel?
Well, also out of gratitude for his ardently and fanatically pro-Israel record in office.
We played this clip last night.
Trump appeared at a Republican-Jewish coalition gala in October of last year and pointed to Miriam Adelson in the crowd and said, Your late husband really wanted us to move the embassy to Jerusalem, and we did it for him because he was such a great guy.
So, yeah, of course, they got the bang for their buck with their donations in the past cycles.
So why wouldn't they do it again?
I know, but all I'm saying is that, like, you know, Chuck Schumer, like I said, the senior Democrat.
Yeah, you should put that on as well.
I think a lot of people always assumed that you were Jewish.
I think I was shocked the first time I learned that you weren't.
So let's talk about the next question.
I wish I was.
I wish I was.
Maybe my IQ would be a little higher.
Yeah, I think there are benefits to it.
But, you know, if another Holocaust comes, you'll have the benefit of that.
I get all the disadvantages from being assumed to be Jewish, and none of the advantages from actually being Jewish, so I feel like I'm one of the worst victims of anti-Semitism.
Yes, because you have the appearance, but not the virtues and the capacity.
Alright, so let me ask you.
Oh, on Kamala Harris, I wanted to make this point, because one thing that I asked lots of guests, and I had a big debate slash interview with, you know, kind of just a mainstream Democratic type, who wouldn't ordinarily come on the show, correct me if I'm wrong, but I wanted to have them on to, like, reflect the procedure.
Who was that?
It was this guy, Bill Scherr from Washington.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what I'm saying.
I assume he wouldn't come on if I asked, but I've never, I just don't ask.
Right, but you gotta ask.
It couldn't hurt to ask.
Right, I'm not, I just don't have that interest in talking to him.
Well, you gotta put yourself out there!
I'm not that interested in talking to Bill Scherr, so I'm like...
The person I've known for like 20 years from the old blogging days.
I know, but I did want to kind of, you know, I wanted to put some like, you know, pointed questions to somebody who's just representing the main... Like a hardcore Democratic Party.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think they have the excerpt of this because this, you might have missed this, so I can fill you in.
Because I was not watching Fanatically on my vacation.
Yeah, exactly, which I'm devastated by.
Or you might have covered this, actually, because it happened shortly before you left, but on July 8th, Biden sent a letter to congressional Democrats basically warning that if the donors and the operatives and the pundits and everybody went through with their attempt to oust him, what the effect of that would be is to show that the Democrats couldn't actually prosecute the case against Trump and the Republicans on their resolve to defend democracy, because it would prove that
Democrats can't even uphold democratic norms within their own party!
Right, now that was already demonstrated when they refused to have a primary, but... Look, there's the, there's the, uh... Yeah, where Biden, like, is actually raising that issue.
He says, how can we stand for democracy in our nation if we ignore it in our own party?
Right.
I cannot do that.
I cannot, I will not do that.
And that's just been memory hold at warp speed.
Because everybody is just so overcome with jubilation for Kamala that they forget, like, two weeks ago, the presumptive Democratic nominee and incumbent president was saying, if you guys try to force me out of this... You have no credibility in defending democracy.
You're eradicating, like, the central argument of the Democratic Party's case against Trump and the Republicans.
Totally.
But now that's all gone, and we're all just, like, dancing to brat memes and things.
Right.
We know why it's all gone, because, you know, it doesn't help.
The case of defeating Trump to remember that.
I think people have had enough of Michael Tracy, I know I have.
They never can get enough.
So let's just, before we go, I just want to talk to you about- I was going to barricade the studio, actually the staff were clamoring for me to do so and not even allow you back in because they were that head over heels for me and they wanted all the more of me.
By the way, this is how our conversations on the telephone go, I keep trying to get off.
One more thing, I've been trying to like end this now for 20 minutes.
We just start screaming eventually.
Well you start like bringing up tons of more things and insisting that I talk about them.
But anyway, I just want to talk about Nick Fuentes as the last thing we talk about.
So obviously there was a big controversy.
He'll love this by the way, I hope he's watching.
Anyway, I talked to him a little bit about coming on the show, but once after he came out.
Oh, this is new information.
Obviously a lot of people can believe that, like, Nick Fuentes is a explicit anti-Semite and white nationalist and racist and, like, sort of flirts with Nazi ideology or neo-Nazi ideology, and therefore he's somebody who shouldn't even be given the credibility of being asked as a guest onto a show like this where he's given a platform.
Why did you find that unpersuasive?
Well, I totally reject the logic that by, quote, platforming someone, you're in any way endorsing them.
In fact, I spent the entire interview probing and challenging him, not in a gratuitous way where I was just screeching, you're racist, you're anti-Semitic, how dare you, Holocaust denier, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Because that's not constructive.
That doesn't enhance anyone's understanding of him or of anything.
That was like the kind of question the National Association of Black Journalists asked to Trump.
And I think they actually might have invoked Fuentes.
They said, you had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the white supremacists.
That's who he was talking about.
So it's newsworthy, right, for when he gets invoked in a question to Trump about being this scandalously deplorable person, that people should have additional information about who's being talked about, right?
Well, also, beyond that, there was that debate at the National Association of Black Journalists.
There were a lot of members of that association.
We can't platform Donald Trump, really?
He's not going to have a platform otherwise?
Yeah, exactly.
And that's how I feel about Nick Fuentes.
Hate him or whatever.
He has a big following.
He's influential.
And the reason is, whether you invite him on this show or not, he already has his platform.
He has a show on Rumble actually, which I'm proud that he does.
He's a colleague of yours.
In a sense.
In the sense that everyone on Twitter is a colleague of yours, but in the very broad sense.
But it is interesting, and I'm happy about the fact that he's basically, he had been kicked off every platform, including one of the very first things that Elon Musk did was he banned Kanye West.
When that time when Kanye West went on Alex Jones and banned Nick Fuentes under his name was already banned but he had a pseudonym that everyone knew that he was using and a lot of people were following and Nick and Elon Musk banned Kanye and Nick Fuentes on the same day and I remember it went on the show because not only had Elon Musk declared himself to be a Free Speech Absolutist while he was buying Twitter, but he defined that as being allowing all speech except that which is illegal.
Right.
And obviously there was no way, no matter how much you hate what Kanye... And then within a week he bans Kanye because he posts a swastika, which is not illegal.
Yeah, which obviously is not illegal, nor anything that has Nick Fuentes says that it was illegal, so... Twitter's not based in Germany, it's based in the United States.
Exactly, where you're allowed to say all that.
Right.
So anyway, I do think it's just such a dumb, dumb, point of view that like somehow if you engage with people who are over a certain line, arbitrary line drawn by others, like I'm sure, let me say, I'm sure that if I invited onto my show someone who supports the Israeli war in Gaza, nobody who has I'm sure that if I invited onto my show someone who supports the Israeli war in Gaza, nobody who has been calling that a genocide would say, oh, why would
No, Now, in part, I think that's because most of the people calling the Israeli war a genocide a genocide don't actually believe it, which is why they're willing to vote for it.
Or don't actually follow that conviction through to its logical conclusion because they're willing to support Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.
Exactly.
Or they were willing to vote for Joe Biden.
They were always going to support Joe Biden as well.
But, so, I do, and for the same reason if I, like, invited some random member of the Democratic Party who supports the war in Israel onto my show, none of them would say, how dare you platform a supporter of genocide?
And even if they did say that, I'd be like, he's a fucking member of Congress who was elected, he already has a platform whether I invite him or not.
But even proponents of quote-unquote genocide For me, the question is, if you're just drawing somebody who has, like, totally offensive views and dragging them out of obscurity, you're, like, being Jerry Springer.
Just like a guy on the street.
Right, but for me, the standard is, or even if they just, like, are on some show and they have, like, a hundred listeners, like, they're totally obscure.
But if, the standard for me is, if somebody is sufficiently influential and wields a certain amount of, like, Yeah, and I got him to basically, you know, divulge and elaborate on his evolution and his views toward Trump.
Now he's much more disillusioned with Trump.
Totally.
that person is worthy of being engaged.
Because if you just put your head in the stand and pretend they don't exist, they don't actually go away.
Yeah, and I got him to basically, you know, divulge and elaborate on his evolution and his views toward Trump.
Now he's much more disillusioned with Trump.
Totally.
Because one of Fuentes' major issues is Israel.
Now, I said outright that I don't really agree with the source of his opposition to Israel because Fuentes basically opposes Israel.
I mean, I don't necessarily call it anti-Semitism.
I don't think that's true.
Hold on.
Let me finish the goddamn point.
Okay, go ahead.
Part of why, I mean, I've heard him say that.
That was so weird.
What happened to you there?
I don't know.
I had a spasm.
I had a spasm.
Because you're yelping rings in my ears.
Unlike your very dignified and calm way of speaking.
I'm not defending myself.
I have to live with myself.
Go ahead, make the point.
Fuentes has said explicitly, has he not, that he opposes Israel, at least in part because The Jews do not accept Christ as king and therefore a Jewish state is contradictory.
What do you mean Muslims accept Christ as king?
I know I understand that but like I mean he's that's why he's opposed to the outsized influences of Israel in U.S.
foreign policy and its influence on U.S.
I don't know.
I mean, I think my point is I okay, so The point is, I'm sure that our critiques of Israel diverge in the first principles.
I don't think they do.
That's the thing I'm saying.
Nick Flint has defined himself.
His show is called America First.
And as we were just talking about a few minutes ago, the thing you've been confronting so many politicians with as of high is how do you reconcile your claim that you believe in America First while simultaneously wanting to pay for Israeli military, Israeli wars and give all this money to Israel?
They don't.
Reconcile, because if it's America first, you wouldn't be wanting to turn American taxpayer money over to Israel and help Israel's country you would want to help ours.
Well, they reconcile by saying they proclaim Christ as king, or a version of that, and they view America as a divinely endowed nation that is founded on Judeo-Christian...
I know, but that's the argument.
Israel is like an extension of America.
But if you confront people who are not theologically motivated, there are a lot of people who are not believers of that theology who say they're America first, but still Right.
They have a bit more trouble reconciling.
And I'm saying, like, I know there's some people what they'll say, but I don't think they are reconcilable.
So I think Nick Frentice's primary reason for being opposed to supporting Israel is because he actually believes in America first and brings it to its logical conclusions.
But I think he's he's he's marshaled some critiques of Jewish influence in Israel that are in the United States.
Well, writ large, that are grounded in Jews not recognizing Christ as Savior, and therefore he has a theological... I don't think, I don't think, I don't think... Okay, maybe not... Maybe you're more of an expert in... The point is, I don't run around proclaiming Christ as King.
He does, so therefore I would expect us to have some differences philosophically.
I know but in terms of foreign policy I don't think you have differences because his argument is that the reason why the United States funds Israel to our detriment is because of how much Jewish influence there is inside the United States that propels us to do that which is you know basically what The book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt was about the Israel lobby.
But that was about the pro-Israel lobby, which is a more capacious term than just Jewish influence.
I think Fuentes kind of more singularly hones in on the nefarious nature of Jewish influence.
For sure, for sure.
Because of, you know, biblical reasons almost, or lineage of Jews as subversives and innately left-wing and so forth.
I think he would acknowledge that he's anti-Semitic, that he has a racial...
You would acknowledge that he's anti-Semitic?
I think so.
Okay, well that's a big difference between he and I then.
I know, but I'm not saying... I mean, I wish I was Jewish.
Of course you have major differences than Nick Fuentes.
All I'm saying is that I don't think...
What you said before is fully accurate, might be accurate to some extent, but not entirely, which is that his opposition to the war in Gaza and the U.S.
support for it comes from a completely different place than your opposition.
I don't think that's entirely true.
I certainly don't see his opposition to the U.S.
support for the war in Israel as being radically, fundamentally coming from a different place than my own.
That which is not to say that I don't have radically and fundamentally different views than he on other issues and I do think like there's an anti-semitic component to what he thinks.
I don't think he would deny that.
Right.
But I don't think that's, I don't think that's... Well to whatever extent that his worldview is informed by genuine anti-semitism, which is an overused term as you well know, I don't relate to that because I actually am not anti-Semitic.
But at the end of the day, all we're really saying is that he's a person in the discourse.
As you said, he met with Trump.
Being an actual anti-Semite, like the small minority of people who are, I don't think should automatically exclude you from being platformed, just like being a white nationalist or a black nationalist or a communist or a fascist, whatever.
It's a pluralistic democracy that we're all told we're supposedly in, so that requires interrogating a wide range of views.
I mean, one thing that I like to do is that, you know, even though I'm not, like, a staunch conservative or even, like, a staunch liberal in certain respects, I can kind of, like, question people for, like, within the confines of their own worldview to test for consistency.
I think that's useful and tends to be edifying and illuminating for myself and for the audience.
So I could do that with LentWiz as well.
And, exactly, and I think there's a big difference between just sitting in a studio talking by yourself, where you can kind of like skim over little flaws in your logical reasoning, than it is to actually be interrogated about them in a substantive, like, respectful way.
I mean, respectful just in the sense of how the conversation proceeds, and that way their views become more manifest.
Why don't you praise the interview as Well done, and all of his fanatical supporters and fans, of which there are many, which is why I say he's influential.
They named me an honorary Groyper.
Exactly, for having him on.
Alright, as I said before, and again, this always happens in our conversations, but I'm ready to go 30 minutes earlier than it ever ends.
You love it!
While I appreciate your being here and think you did a great job, I also feel like after all those Michael Tracey interviews, all those Michael Tracey interviews at the convention, followed by all the Michael Tracey guest hosting here, I think the Michael Tracey overload has come to an end.
And we're trying to get to the Democratic Convention.
Don't forget.
And you need to get on top of that task.
I have been.
I've asked many times.
Well, ask more.
The Democrats are extremely controlling.
I don't care what you need to do.
If you have to show up like Laura Loomer and protest.
I'll chain myself to the outside gates of the Democratic National Convention.
- We're gonna try and get you there. - We're gonna try and get you there. - I have some leads, but like, I mean, you really should have the rumble general counsel or whomever send a legal letter saying, given the historical enormity of this moment, you must.
I mean, you have to, like, use a little bit more force than just say, oh, gee whiz, okay, we just accept that we can't go.
We'll get right on that.
All right, Michael Casey, thank you so much for guest hosting the program, for joining me tonight.
We're probably going to once I turn the camera off because you're going to follow me around and you're going to provoke me into arguments.
Anyway, this is what I deal with all the time.
I'm glad that you've gotten to share a little bit of it with.
I also want to say that this is what we, not we, Michael, Tracy, and I, but this is what we, the System Update team, do on the After Show.
This is where we sit.
We usually converse with the audience.
We answer your questions and commentary.
So if you want to be able to have access to that, this After Show, which we do every Tuesday and Thursday night, it's available solely for members of our Locals community, which you can join by clicking the Join button.
But for those of you watching, Our show and we are happy to have put the after show on the regular show.
We are very appreciative for all of these who've been watching and I'm with Michael Tracy so I'm not able to do my usual closing but I will want to say that we hope to see you back tomorrow night.
Don't be constrained by me.
And every night at 7 o'clock p.m.
Eastern live exclusive here on Rumble.
Have a great evening everybody.
Good night.
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