Tulsi and RFK Jr. Approved by Key Senate Committees; Trump Meets Netanyahu: Wants to Cleanse Gaza; Pro-Palestinian Group Suspended at UMich
Trump's two most controversial cabinet picks, RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, are now one step closer confirmation. Plus: Trump's delusional plans for the future of Gaza revealed during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Finally: Detroit Free Press reporter Dave Boucher on the suspension of a Pro-Palestinian student group at the University of Michigan.
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern exclusively here on Rumble.
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Two of Donald Trump's most controversial nominees, RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, each took a major step forward to being confirmed.
The Senate Finance Committee voted to favorably report RFK Jr.'s nomination to the Senate floor by a strict party line vote of 14 to 13.
Similarly, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to favorably report Tulsi's nomination by a secret vote of 9 to 8, also strictly along party lines.
Three Republicans who had expressed doubts about Tulsi, Susan Collins, Mike Rounds, and another senator, who we will identify in a second, said shortly before the vote that they would actually vote in favor of Tulsi.
We'll explain these events, the implications, and all of these reactions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Washington today to become, unsurprisingly, the first foreign leader received by President Trump since his inauguration.
Netanyahu entered the U.S. despite arrest warrants for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court.
The United States only honors such warrants when it wants to, and in this case, it does not.
As part of that meeting...
It was first reported that Trump pushed Netanyahu to maintain the ceasefire agreement in Gaza and then to proceed to the second stage, which actually involves withdrawal of Israeli troops.
He also, however, Trump did, again stated his support for moving all the Palestinians out of Gaza, all of them, rebuilding Gaza and then presumably handing it over to the Israelis, a series of events that could and should and only can be described as ethnic cleansing.
We'll examine all of that.
Yet another pro-Palestinian group, this one at the University of Michigan, was suspended as a result of their activism and speech as the ongoing assault on free speech to protect Israel and the United States continues unabated.
The Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, also known as SAFE, We're suspended from all campus activities for two years.
The investigative reporter who has been covering that controversy for the Detroit Free Press, Dave Boucher, will be here to talk about it all.
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
We have been extensively covering the nomination by Donald Trump to two critical positions inside the cabinet, both of whom have a long history of being heterodox thinkers and anti-establishment both of whom have a long history of being heterodox thinkers and anti-establishment officials, and as a result have created more controversy than almost
We've seen people like Marco Rubio and Elise Stefanik and John Ratcliffe at CIA get approved unanimously with all Democrats voting.
But because both Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump wants to make Director of National Intelligence, as well as RFK Jr., who Trump wants to make Secretary of Health and Human Resources, have a history of contesting and challenging and denying a whole bunch of establishment orthodoxies, as well as condemning the corruption of the agencies that they would lead.
Those have created more...
Controversy than almost any other.
Up there with Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth, certainly Matt Gaetz was the most controversial and he never made it to a confirmation hearing.
Today, however, both of them Had major successes, cleared major hurdles, and have substantially increased the likelihood that they will actually be confirmed by the full Senate.
I don't want to say that it's 100%.
It still does need to go to the Senate floor.
But here is the Senate Finance Committee voting today on the confirmation of RFK Jr. to become Health and Human Services Secretary.
Mr. Grassley.
Aye.
Mr. Grassley, aye.
Mr. Cornyn.
Aye.
Mr. Cornyn, aye.
Mr. Thune.
Aye.
Mr. Thune, aye.
Mr. Scott.
Aye.
Mr. Scott, aye.
Mr. Cassidy.
Aye.
Mr. Cassidy, aye.
Mr. Lankford.
Aye.
Mr. Lankford, aye.
Mr. Daines.
Aye.
Mr. Daines, aye.
Mr. Young.
Aye.
Mr. Brassa.
Aye.
Mr. Brassa, aye.
Mr. Johnson.
Aye.
Mr. Johnson, aye.
Mr. Tillis.
Aye.
Mr. Tillis, aye.
Mrs. Blackburn.
Mrs. Blackburn, aye.
Mr. Marshall?
Aye.
Mr. Marshall, aye.
Mr. Wyden?
No.
Mr. Wyden, no.
Ms. Cantwell?
No.
Ms. Cantwell, no.
Mr. Bennett?
No.
Mr. Bennett, no.
Mr. Warner?
No.
Mr. Warner, no.
Mr. Whitehouse?
No.
Mr. Whitehouse, no.
Ms. Hassan?
No.
Ms. Hassan, no.
Ms. Cortez Masto?
Ms. Cortez Masto, no.
Ms. Warren?
No.
Ms. Warren, no.
Mr. Sanders?
No.
Mr. Sanders, no.
Ms. Smith?
No.
Ms. Smith, no.
Mr. Lujan?
No.
Mr. Lujan, no.
Mr. Warnock?
No.
Mr. Warnock, no.
Mr. Welch?
No.
Mr. Welch, no.
Mr. Chairman?
Aye.
Chairman votes aye.
Mr. Chairman, the final tally is 14 ayes, 13 ayes.
The vote was...
Would the clerk please restate the vote?
Mr. Chairman, the final title was 14 ayes, 13 nays.
The vote was 14-13.
The nomination is reported favorably.
Now, there you saw every Republican on the committee voting yes, every Republican on the committee voting no.
And what makes this quite odd, among other things, is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been a Democrat his entire life.
He was born into the Kennedy family.
But it's not just by virtue of his birth.
He has been a Democrat.
His entire life, he became an environmental lawyer.
He spent his career suing major corporations and objected to and tried to put a stop to the dumping of their waste and things like rivers and other environmental assets that the United States has.
He focused on the environment and then on the public health.
And so here you have a lifelong Democrat who ran as a Democrat for president last year and only became an independent because the...
System was completely rigged.
The Democrats wouldn't allow any debates.
The DNC wouldn't allow any real open primary.
So you have somebody who's been a Democrat until about seven seconds ago, and every single Democrat votes no.
Even though RFK Jr. is really the first major health official that I can remember, and certainly in my lifetime, to talk about what an HHS secretary should be focused on above all else, which is the...
Obvious public health crisis that the United States has with huge numbers of people suffering things like obesity and autism at record rates, as well as all kinds of mental health problems.
Our food supply is unhealthy, to put that mildly, and the major corporations have seized control of the regulatory agency.
All issues the Democrats have said for years they care about, and finally they have a nominee who is there to work on those issues.
I have no love lost for RFK Jr. I've had him on my show.
Is a fanatical supporter of Israel like every Trump nominee is.
But for this position, for somebody who needs to come in and confront the health policy, the public health industry that has proven itself to be so unreliable and deceitful over the last five years to try and break down the control of huge corporations, big ag and big insurance companies in control over our regulatory process, that's exactly something.
That you would want, but because these Democrats on this committee are just so driven by partisan loyalties, they just go right down the line voting no against a lifelong Democrat nominated by President Trump.
Now, the Republicans are also voting in locks up, and it is pretty notable given the fact that there are definitely people who are on this committee who have serious reservations about RFK Jr. And we've seen a few no votes so far.
Pete Hegseth, for example, suffered three no votes.
It was, I believe, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitch McConnell.
The Republicans can afford to lose three.
That will make it a tie vote, which then J.D. Vance will break by voting in favor of confirmation.
So RFK Jr., again, it's not guaranteed that he's going to get a positive four vote, though it's highly likely, given that they just got every Republican to snap into line.
Here is Bill Cassidy.
He's a Republican from Louisiana.
He has a Senate primary.
In two years, and someone to his right is running and challenging him.
He is a physician.
He said he's been offended by a lot of things RFK Jr. has done, especially in terms of challenging the efficacy and safety of vaccines.
And here he is explaining, although he was extremely negative, during the hearing how it is that from the end of that hearing until this moment, his obvious opposition to RFK Jr. got converted into a yes vote.
Mr. Kennedy, the administration committed to a strong role of Congress.
Aside from he and I meeting regularly, he will come before the help committee on a quarterly basis if requested.
He committed that the help committee chair, whether it's me or someone else, may choose a representative on any board or commission formed to review vaccine safety.
If he is confirmed, HHS will provide a 30-day notice to the HELP Committee if the agency seeks to make changes to any of our federal vaccine safety monitoring programs and HELP Committee will have the option to call a hearing to further review.
These commitments and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to make America healthy again is the basis of my support.
He will be the secretary.
But I believe he will also be a partner in working for this.
Probably has something to do with the fact that in two years, less than two years, he has a serious primary in Louisiana, where if he had voted no on RFK's nomination, his Senate career would have almost certainly been over.
Donald Trump would have done everything possible to defeat him.
He forgot to mention that.
But, you know, in some way, this is kind of a cowardly act, but it's also a Democratic one.
No question, people in the Republican Party want RFK Jr. confirmed.
He proved to be quite popular among not just Trump's voting base, but the independents, whose vote he originally sought.
And Senator Cassidy is responding to public opinion and his fear of it.
And I suppose on some level that's quite healthy.
Here's Elizabeth Warren.
I apologize for subjecting her to you.
And I, by the way, I was thinking about this the other day.
You have these moments where you...
It kind of just like breaks the camel's back when you just cannot tolerate media narratives any longer.
I remember in Russiagate I had that when Donald Trump stood up in front of a press conference during the 2016 campaign and they were asking about Russia and Russian hacking.
And he said, I don't know anything about Russian hacking, but Russia, if you're listening, maybe you can find Hillary Clinton's deleted emails.
It was actually quite amusing, very ironic, very quick-witted.
AND THE MEDIA DECIDED TO TREAT THAT AS THOUGH THAT HAD BEEN A SMOKING GUN.
THAT WAS PROOF THAT HE REALLY WAS WORKING WITH THE RUSSIANS BECAUSE HE'S SUBMITTING RUSSIAN HACKING -- HE'S SUBMITTING HACKING REQUEST DIRECTLY TO THE KREMLIN.
HEY, KREMLIN, GO FIND HILLARY CLINTON'S EMAILS.
AND I REMEMBER WATCHING HIM DO THAT AND I WAS THINKING, IT'S SO OBVIOUS THAT'S NOT WHAT HE WAS DOING.
Why would he submit his secret hacking request to the Kremlin while standing at a press conference in front of 100 cameras?
But for a year or two years, that was cited as proof that he was obviously working with the Russians.
The fact that he submits his hacking request to the Kremlin just happens to do it in front of the public.
When Donald Trump began mocking Elizabeth Warren by calling her Pocahontas, and the media decided to say that that was racist against Native Americans...
As though Donald Trump was mocking Native Americans when in fact he was mocking Elizabeth Warren for falsely having pretended to be a Native American.
He was calling her Pocahontas not to mock Native Americans but to mock Elizabeth Warren for having fake being one so that she could advance her career.
That was another one of those moments where you're just sitting there listening to the media and they're all claiming Trump is racist for calling Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas.
And you just realize that everything you're listening to is complete garbage.
In any event...
Here is Elizabeth Warren explaining why she voted no on RFK's nomination.
This is not only about a private company that gets sued and has to pay out.
Vaccine manufacturers often operate on very slim profit margins.
If they get sued repeatedly and successfully...
They simply move out of the vaccine space.
We've already seen this happen with vaccines in the past.
20 years ago, we watched vaccines just move away if they did not have protection from these kinds of lawsuits.
The consequence of Mr. Kennedy's ability to make those lawsuits easier is also the ability to shut down access and manufacturing for vaccines for every one of us.
And I think that's it.
I find it truly bizarre to watch Elizabeth Warren angrily rise to the defense of large pharmaceutical corporations and say that the ability to sue them is some sort of threat to their ability to develop and market their product.
That had been a long-standing Republican critique forever, that we need tort reform, that we can't have plaintiff's lawyers suing large corporations because the cost of litigation is so high that they can't be profitable.
They're going to be driven out of the space.
And here you have Elizabeth Warren, who marketed herself from the beginning as a champion of the working person against large corporations and their power, saying she's voting against RFK Jr. because he sued large pharmaceutical companies in the past and is concerned that he will continue to do so in the future.
Even though suing large pharmaceutical companies is one of the ways that you hold them accountable to make sure that the products that they're putting onto the market are in fact safe and that they've disclosed everything to the regulatory agencies whose approval they require.
or It's like backward world.
It's bizarre.
But then again, yesterday we watched the Democratic Party march outside of the headquarters of the U.S. AID and act as though it was some kind of humanitarian agency rather than what it is, an arm of the CIA. And that was what Democrats finally found their passion in order to care about.
I don't know why I'm on so many tangents tonight.
I think I'm just a little bit irritated and it's helping me expel that irritation.
So just follow along with me a little bit.
A committee that is voting on RFK Jr., but also the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee who's voting on the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard, which we'll get to in just a second.
Here he is talking about why he voted no on RFK Jr. Quote, RFK Jr. sows doubts about settled science, won't stand up to protect access to safe abortions, and spreads conspiracies on everything from vaccines to 9-11, which is why I voted against his nomination.
Now, that is the other irony here is that...
R.K. Jr. has been pro-choice his entire life.
I mean, obviously he's a Democrat, and that's sort of the price of admission.
So imagine the likelihood that Donald Trump will appoint as his Health and Human Services Secretary a lifelong Democrat who was pro-choice, and that's exactly what he did.
And then every Democrat just right down the line like puppets voted no, even though...
And they even cited abortion to do it, even though this is a pro-choice.
Health and Human Service Secretary.
So this was one of the Trump nominations that from the beginning seemed imperiled.
And it has just overcome a major hurdle.
And I think an RFK confirmation as Health and Human Service Secretary will be a massive advancement, a huge event for putting somebody in a key government position whose views are so heterodox in comparison to the D.C. consensus that has prevailed for so long.
And as I've said before, it is truly stunning to watch these people defend settled science, as they call it, even though not 20 years ago, not 40 years ago, not even 10 years ago, just two years ago, all of these people were defending what they called subtle science, and so much of it turned out to be completely false, deceitfully false, aggressively false, maliciously false.
And now they're acting like it's offensive to have somebody like RFK Jr. come in and question The orthodoxies of these public health officials who have proven so wrong over and over.
So that's RFK Jr. He seems like he's on his way to the confirmation.
I don't want to be too assertive in predicting it, but it certainly seems likely.
The same is true for Tulsi Gabbard, whose difficulties in these confirmation hearings we have extensively covered, as well as the issues that were raised by her nomination as well from the start.
The nomination was particularly attacked at these hearings based on, number one, her long-stated support for Edward Snowden, her belief that he acted as a noble and heroic whistleblower, and her pledge when she was running for president to pardon him.
And then, number two, her concerns over the abuses of spying on American citizens without warrants required by law.
Apparently, in the United States Senate, those are considered to be very, not just negative attributes, but disqualifying ones.
But one of the Republicans who seemed very likely to vote no on Tulsi's nomination, as I said, she voted no on Pete Hextest, was Susan Collins, the Republican of Maine, who loves to make a show of how thoughtful she is and moderate she is and balanced she is, and typically she just goes along right at the last second.
Almost always with the Republican Party in this case, I'm glad she did.
Here is what she said in announcing her yes vote for Tulsi.
After extensive consideration, conversations with her in my office, attending the hearing, questioning her there, and listening to her in the closed session, I decided to vote that I will vote for her.
I believe she's committed to strengthening our national security.
These people have been in the Senate for so long.
I also don't remember being alive when Susan Collins wasn't a senator doing exactly this sort of thing.
And so the way they speak is just so bereft of any life.
It's just like these phrases strung together that really don't mean much.
Here is Senator Colin Cotton, and I have to confess, this did worry me a bit, but he became the lead senator shepherding.
Tulsi Gabbard's nomination, the confirmation, and the reason that matters, among other things, is that he is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
After the secret vote, he went on to Twitter and said this, quote, I'm pleased that the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence.
Once confirmed, I look forward to working with Ms. Gabbard to keep America safe and to bring badly needed reforms to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Now, I can speculate about why Tom Cotton decided he was going to not just vote for her, but spearhead the effort for her confirmation.
I think, obviously, once Tulsi gets confirmed, again, as seems likely for the same reason RFKs does, she still has to go to the House floor, to the Senate floor, rather.
She's obviously going to feel indebted to him because he, if she's confirmed, was a key reason why.
And presumably that means he thinks he will have greater influence.
But I also think Tom Cotton...
believes as well that the intelligence community has not been working, functioning properly.
And having somebody in there who also believes that, who is committed to reforming it in some way, and if he has a lot of influence on her, he can get her to reform it in ways that he thinks are in the right direction.
That seems to me to be what's going on with Tom Cotton.
He's certainly no fan of Edward Snowden.
He's not in any way an opponent to warrant he's eavesdropping.
He disagrees with Tulsi on all of those issues every bit as much as anybody else on this committee.
But I also think it's important to realize that we're in Washington with the Trump administration, this sort of royal court dynamic, where right now Trump, having just been elected, probably is at the peak of his power, the peak of his popularity.
Nobody really wants to challenge him, especially in the Republican Party.
And if you challenge Trump, if you're perceived as opposing Trump, it can really jeopardize your future political prospects.
And if you stand in Trump's way in trying to get...
In his attempt to get confirmed, his key nominees, that's going to dilute and weaken your political position.
And Tom Cotton's a fairly young senator.
I'm certain he has future ambitions in the Republican Party.
And doing things like this is his way to solidify his position.
Michael Bennett, who is the Democrat from Colorado who really put on a completely unstable and hysterical performance, just an absolute spectacle.
And essentially accusing Tulsi Gabbard of being a traitor, being on the other side, of loving traitors like Edward Snowden.
He really made quite a scene.
All for naught, because his position did not prevail on the committee.
Here he went onto Twitter to respond to the positive vote for Tulsi Gabbard by saying she has repeatedly refused to answer questions that matter to the American people and affect her ability to lead.
As the U.S. faces serious scrutiny threats at home and abroad, she is a dangerous choice for DNI. I voted no on her confirmation today.
Do you actually think that the American people, as he claimed, care a lot about the answers he was seeking on things like whether or not she's willing to say that Edward Snowden is a traitor and whether she's willing to say that she supports the ability of the NSA and the FBI and the CIA to spy on Americans without warrants?
Do you think that's something that the American people wake up at every day and say, I really want to make sure...
That the people who are confirmed as President Trump's cabinet secretaries are willing to call Edward Snowden a traitor.
I need to know the answer to that.
I also really need to know that they're in favor of eavesdropping on American citizens without warrants.
They take these positions that the bipartisan Washington class has that nobody else really has, and then they pretend they're speaking on behalf of the American people even after this election where they just found out that they weren't.
When we were covering the hearing, I was discussing the possibility that Senator Ron Wyden would possibly vote for Tulsi.
And the reason for that is that Senator Wyden, the Democrat from Oregon, has made his career centered around one of the issues, certainly.
He has others, but one of the main ones is the privacy rights of American citizens, opposing the abuses and excesses in domestic spying on the part of the NSA and the FBI.
This has been a central issue in his entire political career.
He was talking about this before the Snowden reporting.
Okay.
And now here you have a nominee to be the head of the intelligence community, the first one in, again, decades, who has also undertaken this same cause, who is also coming before the Senate and saying, I, too, am deeply concerned about the prior abuses of the U.S. security state.
It needs to be reformed.
Americans' privacy rights need to be protected.
We have to have warrant requirements.
Obviously, there are things that Senator Wyden, as a Democrat, is going to disagree with when it comes to Tulsi Gabbard.
Although, again, just like RFK, Tulsi Gabbard is a lifelong Democrat.
Like RFK, she ran for president as a Democrat, not in 1992, but in 2020. Four years ago.
She was the vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
She resigned in protest to how they were cheating against Bernie and then endorsed Bernie Sanders.
And yet not a single Democrat would vote for her, including Ron Wyden, even though, as he said on Blue Sky on his account the day of the hearing, this is what he said after the hearing, quote, I appreciated Representative Gabbard's commitment to protect strong encryption, civil liberties, and the rights of journalists.
But America needs nominees that will commit to follow the law when faced with Trump's outlaw policies, and she couldn't make that commitment.
Here's why this is so dishonest.
If Ron Wyden had voted no on Tulsi Gabbard and that was the decisive vote, if, for example, there had been a Republican defection and they needed Wyden's vote and he voted no, He would have derailed her nomination, even though she's far better, as he acknowledges, on the issues he claims to care most about than any other conceivable alternative who would sit in her place.
And whatever issues he has with her, whatever disagreements he has or concerns or objections or whatever they call them in the Senate, the next person to sit in that seat would have been just as bad from his perspective on all those issues, but would have been bad as well on privacy and 702 and Snowden and everything else because they would never have sent somebody up.
After Tulsi, who had those same views because they just saw that the Senate won't confirm them.
Obviously, if you're on Widen and you care about any of the issues you pretended to care about your entire career, you would vote yes on Tulsi Gabbard.
The problem is that in the Democratic Party, that is not tolerated.
Again, you can vote yes on some of Trump's choices, the ones that the bipartisan class are comfortable with, like Marco Rubio and Elise Stefanik and those types.
You just can't vote yes.
On any of the anti-establishment choices.
Even if, as of the case of R.K. Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, they have been lifelong Democrats who have espoused and defended causes that as Democratic senators these people have long pretend to believe in.
Now, I think I mentioned this before, but Ron Wyden did one of the most cowardly and craven things I've ever seen in my time of covering politics.
Prior to the Snowden reporting, which we did in...
2013. We started in June of 2013. Wyden had been going around for a long time talking about how there were things that the NSA was doing when it came to warrantless spying that the American public should know about but doesn't know about and saying that they would be shocked to learn if they discovered it.
And he said it in op-eds and newspapers and on television shows, but he also said it on the Senate floor.
Where, according to the Constitution, he has complete immunity.
There's nothing you can say in the Senate for which you can be prosecuted, even if you disclose classified information.
And yet he went around for years saying the American people must know what the NSA is doing and spying on that.
They must know how they're interpreting the Patriot Act far beyond what it was intended to be.
The American people would be shocked to learn what they were doing if they knew, but I can't tell you.
I'm not going to tell you because I'm too much of a coward.
Here's just one example of so many.
In 2011, on the Senate floor, where again, he has complete legal immunity from prosecution for anything he says, and here's what he said.
...to the Intelligence Committee several times a week, as Senator Udall and I do, you come away with the indisputable judgment that there are threats to the well-being of this country, that there are people who do not wish our citizens well.
So in these dangerous times...
The sources and methods of our anti-terror operations absolutely must be kept secret.
That is fundamental to the work of the intelligence community.
Keeping the sources and methods of those who serve us so gallantly secret and ensure that they are as safe as possible.
But while we protect those sources and methods, the laws that authorize them should not be kept secret from the American people.
Yes, we need secret operations, but secret law is bad for our democracy.
It will undermine the confidence that the American people have in our intelligence.
So just cut off in the middle of the word there, but he's basically saying that the way in which the NSA succeeds technologically in spying, The technology they use, the devices they use, all of those sorts of things.
Those things are actually things that ought to be kept secret because if you make them known, not only will people be able to evade them, but other people will be able to replicate them.
But the way in which those...
The technological spying tools are being utilized, the legal interpretations that are being embraced by the intelligence community, meaning the things they think they're allowed to do, like spying on America without warrants.
He was saying those things can't be secret because the way they're doing these things means that they're abusing these powers and the people have a right to know that.
And yet he just never bothered to reveal it, and it never got revealed.
He just let Americans be ignorant of it until...
The 2013 Snowden reporting came out, and we were able to then reveal how the NSA was spying on people and the interpretations of law that they had embraced.
We disclosed it.
And then the Washington Post, if we can pull that up.
The Washington Post in 2013, after the Snowden reporting started, published this article that said, with the NSA revelations, published this article that said, with the NSA revelations, meaning the ones from Snowden that we were doing, Senator Ron Wyden's vague privacy warnings finally become clear.
I In other words, he had been running around hinting and implying and winking but saying nothing because he was a coward.
Saying, oh, the American people should know this, but I'm not going to tell them.
And then finally Edward Snowden came forward heroically and made it known, and then he took credit for it by saying, see, this is what I've been trying to tell you all along.
And even though it was Edward Snowden who had the courage to do it and Ron Wyden didn't, even though Ron Wyden had that constitutional immunity from prosecution that Edward Snowden didn't have, he never really supported Snowden.
He never came out and said that he did something noble, even though Edward Snowden did what Ron Wyden was too afraid to do.
The reason why...
Ron, as Senator, that Edward Snowden had to come forward was because Ron Wyden was too afraid to do it himself, even though that's his job, to inform the American people about the ways in which the government is spying on them illegally and unconstitutionally.
So it's not a surprise to me at all that Ron Wyden was too afraid to vote yes for Tulsi Gabbard, even though, if you give him credit for believing any of the things he's been claiming to believe in since, well, we showed you that tape, that was 2011, that's 14 years ago.
He would have clearly voted yes, but that takes just a small amount of courage that none of these senators seem to have, with a very few exceptions.
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Earlier today in the White House, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, became the very first public leader to meet with Donald Trump since his inauguration.
And obviously the top of the agenda was the ceasefire that Trump and his envoy, Steve Whitcoff, to the Middle East helped facilitate and negotiate.
And according to all reports, Trump is trying to pressure Netanyahu to maintain that ceasefire.
When many people in Israel, including people in Netanyahu's own party, are demanding that he abandon it and instead return to bombing and even invading Gaza.
Here is a part of the video where Donald Trump is greeting Netanyahu today as he visits the White House.
All right, there's those two shaking hands there's those two shaking hands in front of a car.
Um...
And obviously, it's pretty telling that that's the first leader in the entire world that Trump decides that he's going to meet with.
Here's the BBC description of it from February 4th.
That's today, Trump to host Netanyahu and his first foreign leader visit of the second term, which is the video we just showed you.
The question about what exactly is going on in this visit is something that the Israeli media has been very openly and assertively analyzing and trying to discuss, because the question of what Netanyahu really wants from the United States, I think, is in doubt.
When they signed this peace deal, he had a lot of people in his cabinet, to his right, who wanted to keep going in Gaza, and in fact...
Some of the extremists resigned from his government in protest of this peace deal, wanting to go and kill the rest of Hamas, in their words, kill more Gazans, destroy the 6 or 7 percent of buildings in Gaza that have not already yet been destroyed.
And yet now who told them, look, I'm being pressured by the United States to do this deal, but don't worry, the second stage of the deal, which involves us withdrawing from most of Gaza, if not all of Gaza.
And the return of other hostages, don't worry, we're not really going to do that.
We're just going to get some of our hostages back and then keep bombing.
And Trump has staked a claim in his credibility.
He trumpeted this peace deal that he negotiated, that his envoy negotiated.
And obviously, if that comes undone, that will look...
Like, one of Trump's accomplishments that he's been touting has been illusory, because it's not a real ceasefire.
So there definitely is pressure on Netanyahu to continue with the ceasefire, but the question, of course, is what is he getting in return?
Heretz, the Israeli daily on February 2nd, said the following, quote, Netanyahu comes to Washington to kill Trump's Gaza deal.
Will the president let him?
Quote, in order to get the remaining hostages to their families, Trump will have to do something difficult, to reject a plane load of lies, excuses, false promises, and shiny distractions from Netanyahu and his right-hand man, Ron Germer.
What Netanyahu and Germer want is one thing and one thing only, to minimize any risk to Netanyahu's hold on power.
This is their life's mission, and right now they view Trump as a potential threat because of his demand to end the war in Gaza and bring back all the hostages.
Netanyahu's far-right ruling coalition partners have promised to bring down the government if the hostage deal secured by Trump is fully implemented, and therefore Netanyahu is determined to blow up the deal.
This isn't some conspiracy theory being spread online by his opponents.
It's a promise Netanyahu's biggest supporters are proudly making on the airwaves in Israel every day.
The Prime Minister's loudest defenders say openly that he wants to destroy the deal and renew the war by the end of February.
Dermot and Netanyahu are both smooth political operators with lots of experience in tricking and fooling American presidents.
They had it easy with Joe Biden, whose Zionist convictions and love for Israel made it impossible for him to comprehend for a long time the possibility that Israel's leader simply doesn't care that much about the hostages' fate.
Trump is in a much better position ahead of Netanyahu's arrival to the White House.
The real question is whether Trump, who is surrounded by blind admirers of Netanyahu, With a very shallow understanding of Israeli public opinion, is aware of all of this.
That is indeed the question.
The night before this meeting, that was last night, the New York Times, lo and behold, as it's done for 15 years now, warned that Iran is very close to developing a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. intelligence.
Here's the New York Times.
Iran is developing plans for faster crew to weapons, U.S. concludes.
As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel prepares to meet with President Trump, the question of whether to strike Iran's facilities or negotiate with Tehran appears certain under debate.
New intelligence about Iran's nuclear program has convinced American officials...
By the way, I just want to say here that, before I read this, that...
If you remember in 2002, 2003, some of you who are not old enough to remember probably know anyway that the run-up to the war entailed nothing but...
The New York Times printing on its front pages claims by anonymous intelligence officials, and sometimes even named ones, about the Iraqi nuclear program, the Iraqi biological and chemical weapons program.
And once the war was sold on that basis, and it turned out that that was all false, the New York Times issued a mea culpa saying...
Oh, we will never do that again.
We're not going to just publish intelligence claims on our front page without investigating and affirming if it's true.
This article reads almost exactly like those 2002 and 2003 articles.
Listen to this.
Quote, I
mean, it's just nothing but U.S. officials say there's no evidence presented.
I have shown you on this show before, 15 years' worth, when I did the debate with Alan Dershowitz in New York City on whether we should bomb Iran, I went through all those accounts as well.
Every headline throughout every year, Netanyahu says Iran is weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon.
This is always the scaremongering tactic that the Israelis use to influence American public opinion and American presidents.
And whether what Netanyahu really wants is a pledge from Trump to attack Iran, and thus there's these intelligence leaks.
Or whether he wants what Trump promised, which we're about to show you, I think that's unclear.
But clearly Netanyahu is going to get a lot with his Washington visit because he always does.
Now, here is Trump in the White House today with Netanyahu.
And you see Netanyahu there kind of smiling in a very sort of pleased with himself manner.
And before we get to that, before we get to...
Netanyahu joining Trump in the Oval Office.
Here is Trump in the Oval Office behind his desk answering questions about what he thinks the resolution should be in Gaza.
President, will you continue to press for this idea that Jordan and Egypt can take Palestinians from Gaza?
Yeah, I would like to see Jordan.
I'd like to see Egypt take some look.
The Gaza thing has not worked.
It's never worked.
And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people.
I think they should get...
A good, fresh, beautiful piece of land, and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable and make it a whole...
You said they don't want to leave, though.
How can you say they don't want to leave?
I don't know how they could want to stay.
It's a demolition sign.
Well, they may have said that, but a lot of people said things to me.
They said they wouldn't take anybody back in Venezuela, and right now they're flying them right back into Venezuela.
And they're doing the right thing in Venezuela.
The Panama Canal is an active discussion right now, and they said things about that.
And virtually everything that's been said has been...
Incorrectly stated based on the result.
Would that amount to forcibly displacing those people from Gaza?
I don't think so.
I think if they had the opportunity, they'd love them.
If they had an alternative to Gaza, they have no alternative right now.
I mean, they're there because they have no alternative.
What do they have?
It is a big pile of rubble right now.
I mean, have you seen the pictures of it?
Have you been there?
It's terrible to live.
Who can live like that?
And very dangerous.
There's shooting all over the place.
There's bombing all over the place on both sides.
Now, I would think if they had an option of moving to an area, either in a large group or various smaller groups, and take care of the close to two million people, I would think that they would be thrilled to do it.
They have no, you know, when you say about the Gaza Strip, they don't have an option.
You know, I remember at the beginning of the war, Israeli war on Gaza in October of 2023. There were a lot of people talking about how there were all these extremist statements being made by pro-Palestinian protesters.
And the reporter, Jeremy Lefredo, who ended up being arrested in Israel, he's been on our show.
And others went to these pro-Israel protests and interviewed on American streets a bunch of extremists saying things like, we have to turn Gaza into rubble, we have to turn it into a parking lot.
We have to drive these people out and have Jews take it over all of Gaza and build, you know, seaside apartments or oceanside hotels.
And I remember being told, you shouldn't be publishing, you shouldn't be promoting these.
These are just fringe extremists.
They don't represent Israeli public opinion.
You're trying to make it seem like these hateful bigots and extremists who are saying flatten all of Gaza are somehow representative of Israeli public opinion.
They ended up being very representative of Israeli public opinion.
Because that, in fact, as Donald Trump says, is what Gaza is.
It's a demolition site.
Everything there is destroyed.
All civilian life is obliterated.
And yet the U.S. government was lying under Biden for 15 months saying, oh, don't worry, Israel's conducting a very targeted campaign.
They're trying to flatten Gaza.
And Gaza's completely flattened.
So he's right about that.
And I think in Donald Trump's mind...
He envisioned himself as this sort of peacemaker who's going to come in and finally resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In his mind, if they stay in Gaza, Palestinians are in the West Bank, you're never going to get peace.
And so he has this vision where you're going to build some nice space for them in Egypt and in Jordan, new homes, new developments, put them in camps, I guess, because Egypt and Jordan isn't just going to let people in Gaza and the West Bank come into their countries.
Be constrained.
The Palestinian population in Jordan in particular are very mistreated.
And the Jordanians and the Egyptians are adamant they don't want them in their country, in part because they don't want to help Israel ethnically cleanse that land.
And Trump seems to think that, oh, they're just waiting to go to some other place.
They're very unhappy where they are.
And of course they are unhappy where they are.
Israel has destroyed their entire society in an unprecedented way that we haven't seen.
In the 21st century, but the idea that they're just all clamoring to give over that land to Israel, let Israel build Trump Towers all across the Gaza Strip with golf courses and nice views of the water, you're going to cause a regional conflagration if you try and do that.
And Trump seems to think that there's no connection that Palestinians have to this land.
They have an incredibly intense and religious and cultural connection to that land.
And there's no way, at least peacefully, to make them leave.
You're going to talk about not just ethnic cleansing of the kind Trump is, by definition, advocating.
He's saying get all the Arabs out of Gaza and rebuild it and give it to the Israelis and let the Gazans go somewhere else permanently.
You have to talk about military force to ethnically cleanse Gaza, one of the most horrific war crimes we've seen in decades that the United States would be doing along with Israel if this plan comes to fruition.
Here is Trump sitting next to Netanyahu while he says something very similar.
How many people are you thinking about...
All of them.
I mean, we're talking about probably a million seven people, a million seven, maybe a million eight.
But I think all of them, I think they'll be resettled in areas where they can live a beautiful life and not be worried about dying every day.
Mr. President, do you support building settlements back in Gaza in the next year's?
I don't see it happening.
It's too dangerous for people.
Nobody can go there.
It's too dangerous.
Nobody wants to be there.
Warriors don't want to be there.
Soldiers don't want to be there.
How can you have people go back?
You're saying go back into Gaza now?
The same thing's going to happen.
It'll only be death.
The best way to do it is you go out and you get beautiful, open areas with the sunlight coming through and you build something nice.
They are not going to want to go back to Gaza.
If it were true, as Trump seems to be assuming, that Palestinians have no connection to the land, that it's kind of like if you're living in Ohio when it gets kind of cold, you just move to Florida, you don't really care, you have no connection, it's nice in Florida, there's new developments there.
If that's how Palestinians thought, maybe Trump would be right.
But that's not how they think.
And to sit there next to Benjamin Netanyahu while he smirks and Trump talks about how Gaza is in rubble when the person who turned it into rubble, with the help of the United States government, Andrew Biden, who paid for it and armed it, is sitting there next to him and saying, we have to get these Gazans out, and obviously that means having the Israelis get that land, is kind of sickening to watch.
Now, we'll see how it happens.
Trump cares a lot about the Saudis.
He cares a lot about the Emiratis and the Qataris and the Jordanians and the Egyptians.
And they've always said that they would not tolerate.
Having the Palestinians ethnically cleansed, certainly not going to their countries, but the Saudis are adamant that normalization with Israel requires a two-state solution.
I don't trust these Arab tyrants, and I don't think their conviction, their commitment to the Palestinian people is particularly authentic, but the populations in those countries absolutely do.
And it's almost inconceivable to watch normalization of the kind Trump wants in that region.
And that Trump thinks is vital to American interests.
It's impossible to imagine that happening.
While the United States' formal position is that the Palestinians need to be ethically cleansed from Gaza and even the West Bank, and that land needs to be handed over to Israel.
There's just no way that that region could sustain that kind of a solution, even if those Arab governments responded to it.
So we'll see where this goes.
Obviously, right now, the solution that Trump's talking about is not a solution at all, not strategically, not morally.
And it's not practical either.
But at the very least, at least for the moment, most Israeli bombs have ceased to fall on Gaza.
And if you ask the Palestinians in Gaza what they think about that, they will tell you that they have unbridled joy as a result of it for good and obvious reasons.
We have been covering for quite some time the ongoing assault on free speech, both in America generally, in the West more broadly, and especially on American campuses. in the West more broadly, and especially on American campuses.
Yet another pro-Palestinian group, this one at the University of Michigan, was suspended as a result of their activism as the ongoing assault on free speech continues.
The students allied for freedom and equality...
Also known as safe or suspended from all activities for two years, in large part said the administration because they were violating protocols and rules, including protesting at the houses of various administrators.
The investigative reporter who has been covering this for the destroyed Free Press, Dave Boucher, is now here to talk about it.
We are delighted to welcome him to the program.
Dave, good evening.
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
So let's talk about this controversy.
Generally, In academic institutions, it has long been considered the right of students to form activist groups based on political views.
It has been going on for decades in the United States.
And here we have a pro-Palestinian group at the University of Michigan campus, by no means the first in the United States, who has now been suspended.
What is it that led us to this point?
Sure.
So as you noted, this was one group, as many others have on campuses, that started a protest in relation to the war in Gaza.
This group, as have many others, called for the university to divest from Israel or companies that are doing business with Israel or otherwise contributing to the war in Gaza.
The university has generally refused but allowed...
These groups and other groups to protest.
So there were various times during the spring and fall when, as you mentioned, this organization protested at the home of a regent and at various campus events.
There was also an encampment, for lack of a better term, that was set up in the spring.
At a very central location at the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan, remained there for roughly a month before it was cleared away by the university.
A complaint was filed in the fall by a consultant working with the university that alleged that the protesters violated several rules that essentially go into place with an accordance of being a recognized student organization.
And that's what ultimately led to the suspension that just recently occurred.
I'm wondering, in terms of your experience, both.
Just as a citizen of this country, but also as somebody who's been covering this campus controversy, you know, I look back to my time in college and...
You know, when you're 20 and 21 and 22, your form of political activism tends to be very passionate.
You're very convicted about the cause.
You tend to believe that your cause is so just that, you know, a little bit of rule breaking is justified.
It's sort of the nature of student activism.
It has been going back to the war in Vietnam and the student marches and protests against apartheid South Africa that helped bring down that government.
Even the Black Lives Matter protests on campuses did not exactly, carefully abide rigorously by every law.
So is the kind of behavior that the administration is citing here when it comes to the reason why this group was suspended really kind of an aberrational and extreme expression of student activism?
Or is this the sort of thing that one might expect to see from student protests?
Sure.
So I can tell you that SAFE, the organization you mentioned, certainly feels like they are being unfairly targeted.
And the university cites two specific incidents, but there are obviously other times when students protested on campus.
So on the anniversary of the October 7th attack, I covered this, there was a memorial set up in the central location on the Ann Arbor campus by students from several Jewish organizations, and then probably, you know, several hundred yards away, hundreds if not thousands of pro-Palestinian...
Activists shut down major streets in Ann Arbor, and they marched.
And to your point, these were very adamant, very outspoken activists who were in favor of their causes.
There were several people that were opposing them.
They were marching very close to them.
And this ultimately led to a brief but intense skirmish with police.
So police deployed chemical spray.
There were several people that were briefly detained.
It was somewhat of a chaotic moment.
To your point, it's reminiscent of protests on college campuses.
I think that somebody, if you look at protests, these weren't necessarily be something that would stun anyone, right?
But at the same time, this was not something that was cited by the university.
So again, SAFE, the organization believes that they are somewhat, they're being cherry picked and that they are being unfairly targeted for their particular stances in this case.
For a long time, there's been this controversy on college campuses, certainly over the last I think you can even go back further.
It had different names at the time, maybe political correctness.
Now it's woke.
But there's certainly been a debate about the idea that we don't want college campuses to be this place where safety is demanded.
If safety means being shielded from ideas that makes one uncomfortable or even makes one a little bit feeling threatened or unsafe because the idea is words are not violence, free speech means that sometimes you're going to hear things.
That are unpleasant to hear.
And that has been a conservative cause for a long time.
The allegation that the left wants to convert safety issues into nothing other than fragile students wanting to be kept safe from ideas that they don't like.
How much of that is going on here as opposed to whether this group has been alleged to have actually engaged in physical assault or physical violence against students on campus who have a different view of Israel?
So I would tell you that one of the incidents that the university cited was a protest outside of a university regent's home.
This happened very early in the morning in May.
It was between 5.45, 6 o'clock a.m.
And there were body bags, replica body bags, put out in the regent's yard.
And there were stuffed animals that were painted red, essentially to, you know, obviously demonstrate the idea of blood, that were placed on her porch.
There's images of this.
There was a letter placed on there.
The university indicates that this is a...
This was an escalation and that this was inappropriate and possibly posed a safety risk to a university regent.
There was another case of vandalism and what the university calls an anti-Semitic attack at a separate regent's home.
This regent happens to be Jewish.
There was spray paint on a car that was calling for divestment.
Now, SAFE, this organization, I should be abundantly clear, wasn't necessarily blamed for this attack.
This wasn't cited by the university in their suspension.
But there are, when I talk to Jewish students on campus, there is a concern for safety.
So there have been multiple attacks on students on campus that are alleged.
Definitely by Jewish organizations to be anti-Semitic.
There was one case in particular where a student was asked if they were Jewish and then they were physically attacked.
This was in an Ann Arbor police report.
It got to the point where I talked to multiple students who designed what they called a Shmira, or an organization of students that would walk other students from...
Jewish community events to their classes or to their houses.
Again, safe and safe individuals have not been blamed specifically for this, and this was not cited by the university.
But I will tell you that there's a general sense that Jewish students feel unsafe on campus.
Now, of course, I'm not seeking for all Jewish students.
There are Jewish students who are at some of these pro-Palestinian rallies, but that is some of the dialogue that is happening while the suspension is coming down.
Let me ask that last part just briefly because we covered a lot of these protests and we covered specifically ones at Columbia and Harvard.
We had some of the student organizers on our show whom we interviewed.
And several of those student organizers leading the protest movement against the Israeli war in Gaza were themselves Jewish.
In Columbia, which was one of the protests that received the most media attention and most controversy, probably because it's the middle of New York, but it's also a...
Longtime site for Arab-Israeli conflicts expressing themselves on campus.
They actually had Sabbath dinners and a big Jewish presence inside the encampment, despite this narrative that these were a bunch of Muslim and Arab students, most of whom are foreigners.
And the narrative just didn't really quite match.
The description, when you actually took a look at it, because a lot of these, not just protesters, but student organizers were themselves Jewish, is that, obviously there's a big Arab and Muslim population in Michigan, but there's also a big Jewish population in Michigan.
Is there, is that true as well for the University of Michigan protesters in general and this group in particular?
I would say that, well, of course, I was not there every day and I certainly could have missed something.
I didn't notice, you know.
particular Sabbath dinners or something comparable to what you're saying.
At the same time, when I was there, I certainly talked to students who said that they had a broad coalition that were in favor of for this pro-Palestinian group and the pro-divestment group.
Of course, you know this, narratives do not capture the nuance on the scene.
And so, of course, there are, again, Jewish students who believe that the university should divest.
And there are, you know, a wide view.
There's a wide array of view from students.
It's complicated.
As you mentioned, this region of the state has a high Arab American population.
There are also, according to Jewish groups on campus, thousands of Jewish students, especially at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
And so it creates a dynamic where there can be the potential for conflict.
There have been complaints lodged by Jewish groups and by pro-Palestinian groups with the U.S. Department of Education off of civil rights, saying the university hasn't done a good job of protecting students on campus.
And so it's complicated, it's nuanced, and like I said, doesn't really fit into a neat narrative box, of course.
We saw Congress take up this issue and essentially allege that these universities have, in a sense, failed to restrain these pro-Palestinian students enough because that has a...
as you said, created disperception among Jewish students that they are unsafe and that violates education laws.
So there's a lot of pressure coming from Washington.
And in fact, the Trump administration has issued some new initiatives to investigate some of these schools.
I don't know if Michigan is one of them, but certainly a lot of these schools are concerned about that.
And then at the same time, at a lot of these schools, you've had donor pressure.
Where a lot of donors have said, look, we've donated a lot of money to your school and we are concerned about these protests and if you don't take stronger action to stop them, that might jeopardize our donors.
Do you think either government pressure or donor pressure has played a role in the decision by the administration to suspend this group?
I would say that it hasn't.
They would certainly say that it hasn't in this specific case in terms of suspension.
I would say that President Ono, the president of the University of Michigan, has certainly noted government pressure and has noted that idea.
Again, I mentioned that there was a specific complaint in the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, alleging that the university had not done enough to protect Jewish students on campus.
But as you mentioned, this is complicated.
Obviously, as your viewers probably know, there were many executive orders issued recently by the Trump administration, and some of them relate to...
Investigating or looking at pro-Palestinian movements and campus protests.
And so the University of Michigan this week or recently issued guidance for students if they see ICE agents, immigration officials on campus, what to do.
And they essentially said, don't talk to them, don't accept subpoenas.
You call us, call our attorneys, that we will help you, that we are essentially here as a guide and that you do not need to cooperate.
And so it's a strange position for the university to be in.
On one hand, they are, again, suspending this pro-Palestinian student group.
And on the other hand, they are issuing this guidance about what happens if...
Ice were to come onto campus to look at some of these students that might have participated in these protests.
Our last question.
Whenever you have these kind of controversies, you have, on the one hand, the kind of underlying substantive controversy itself.
People feel strongly about supporting Israel, supporting the Palestinian cause.
But then you have the free speech issue on the other side, where, you know, at least in theory, people should be able to say, I really support what Israel is doing, but I also support the right of...
Students to protest in favor of whatever cause, including the Palestinian cause, even if it's in a sort of robust and arguably excessive way.
Is the free speech debate being expressed in a kind of a robust way on campus?
Is this something that a lot of people are concerned about, independent of the Israel-Palestine question?
Sure.
I would say specific to this case, the ACLU is working with several students.
They filed multiple lawsuits against the University of Michigan, essentially making the same argument that you've made, that they are violating students' free speech rights.
And of course, there are vibrant debates on every college campus about what should be allowed, what should not be allowed.
I think it's worth noting that this suspension means that the student group doesn't get university funding and that they can't formally rent out spaces on campus.
The groups won't demonstrate on campus.
Again, when there was an encampment set up on this central location on campus for a month, they didn't necessarily have university approval to do that for a month, and that ultimately led to police raiding this encampment.
But I wouldn't be surprised at all if we saw additional protests happening.
I think it's worth noting very quickly that the university says that it doesn't really invest in Israel.
It says that it invests in companies that might have an investment in Israel, but it represents less than 0.1% of its entire endowment.
And there's a Michigan law that essentially says if a public entity tries to divest from any country, be it Israel or somebody else, that they could risk losing state grants or funding.
So this is a weird position for the university to be in.
It doesn't mean that, you know...
I'm saying that they're justified in what they're doing with the student group, but that is the reality of the situation of trying to even listen to a divestment argument.
There are practical limitations about what they can and can't do.
Yeah, which is interesting since, as we alluded to, the anti-apartheid protest of the 1980s focused on the need to divest from South Africa.
And as you say, there are now a lot of laws.
Even if not in name directed at preventing divestment from Israel, certainly motivated by that, and they make it generalized to protect it from challenge.
Well, it's certainly a super interesting controversy.
There's obviously similar ones taking place all across the campus, and we very much appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk to us about it.
We'd love to have you back on if there are follow-ups to the story.
