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Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the convenient timing of this cease fire deal between Israel and Hamas just before Trump takes office. They break down Biden's farewell speech as he ominously warns of the coming oligarchy before examining how the GOP wants to put conditions to aid for the fires in Los Angeles.
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This is the Weekender Edition of the McCreek Podcast.
I'm here with Nick Housman.
How are you doing, bud?
I'm doing fine.
Everything is good.
It's a nice day out and nothing to complain about.
All right.
That's good to hear, especially with everything that's been going on in Los Angeles.
We have a jam-packed show, everybody.
Just an absolute wall-to-wall at this point.
We have so much to cover.
A reminder, go to patreon.com slash muckraigpodcast.
Listen to the entire weekender.
But also, on Monday, January 20th, which is the day of the inauguration, Nick and I are going to be doing a live taping of our Tuesday episode covering the inauguration, talking about what to expect, all that good stuff.
We'll be doing that at 8 p.m.
Eastern for patrons.
So patreon.com slash muckraigpodcast.
Well, Nick, we're in the last few days before Donald Trump becomes president of the United States of America.
And Joe Biden, for those who haven't listened yet, Tuesday's episode was our big, giant, mega evaluation of Biden's presidency and what his legacy will be and what is happening afterwards.
He's been on a little bit of a flurry in the past couple of days, Nick, and we have to talk about what's been happening.
Yeah.
You know, I don't know if it's the right term to describe these days as simply a few days before Trump assumes office.
I feel like we need to commemorate this in a way that reminds us all of what we're in store for.
The last few days of democracy?
I don't know.
The pre-oligarchy days?
I don't know.
What do you think?
I mean, listen, I would say it's the last couple days before literally all hell breaks loose.
It doesn't mean that hell hasn't been going on, but it is.
Nick, it has been announced that he has It's
already kind of a mess, Nick.
We need to talk about the fact that this happened right...
Right at the end of Biden's presidency, Donald Trump was a part of it.
How do we think it got here?
And what do you think we can glean from this?
Because these first two segments we've got today have a lot of historical precedent in them.
I absolutely agree.
And I had called this, I had said it, I don't know, as soon as, when Netanyahu came to speak to Congress, which I was already mortified that they allowed him to do that, way back when, and Trump met with him, my prediction was that he had said to Bibi, you cannot release these hostages, do any kind of deal before the election, otherwise it will hurt me.
Of course, it then becomes hard reported that that was what exactly happened.
And so the needless deaths between then and now, And then before that, even anyway, is really the tragedy here.
And even as of now, it's a few days.
It's three more days until this ceasefire takes hold.
So let's get a round of killing in before that happens, is essentially what they're saying.
Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, there was already, after the deal was announced, a bombing in Gaza that killed over 70 people.
Benjamin Netanyahu is already dragging his feet on this, saying that Hamas is not going to cooperate and he's delaying the ratification of it within parliament.
It's already a big, giant mess.
And Nick, here's the thing on this.
It feels a lot like the Iranian hostages being released.
During Ronald Reagan's inauguration, it looks bad for Joe Biden because it is bad for Joe Biden.
It looks bad for Donald Trump because it is bad for Donald Trump.
It looks bad for Benjamin Netanyahu because it is bad.
Everybody here failed in multiple different ways.
The only thing good about this is if it saves lives and it hasn't yet.
And, you know, this is a big, giant stain on not just Joe Biden's presidency, but the United States of America, an absolutely disgusting tragedy.
The deal that supposedly got accepted, it was on the table in May of 2024. The exact same deal, and now it's coming over the finish line.
I have my thoughts about how this took place and how it occurred.
What do you think happened?
What is your instinct on how this deal came to be carried out?
Well, you have to sort of figure out if the deal's on the table and who is saying no to it the entire time until they finally say yes.
Now, both sides were going back and forth, so you can point to both.
You could read whatever article and listen to whatever coverage you wanted to tell you which side you wanted to believe dragged their feet.
Right.
But if you want to look at, like, Israel had the upper hand in terms of military might, so you have to feel like they're the ones who ultimately are going to decide when they're going to stop bombing and stop doing these things and get the ceasefire done.
So what I laid out is exactly what happened.
It was done to benefit Trump.
I believe that Biden...
I think the version of him getting credit and being praised for that would have happened in May when that would have happened.
I think that's your point, right?
Like, this is what dragged out way too long and just showed the sort of inability of Biden to have any influence over this, even though he wants to try and claim that he did.
So, again, he had the influence.
The United States was part of this deal, the negotiation.
But, again, because it dragged on so long, it's the two things.
It's Trump on purpose, and it shows that Biden doesn't really have a handle on this thing.
I know that in the United States of America, we are the absolute kings and queens of dispelling cognitive dissonance.
But you cannot tell me on one hand that there was absolutely nothing the United States of America could do to stop this genocide.
And by the way, they were able to do it.
They brought it over the finish line, everybody.
The entire point goes back to what we talked about on Tuesday, Nick, which is that Joe Biden was not willing to spend political capital to stand in the face of a lot of these things.
They could have taken away weapons.
They could have taken away financial assistance.
I don't think we're going to know the entire story on how this thing got quote-unquote solved, or even if it does.
I'm not completely confident that it is going to come to completion.
No.
You know, the other thing I was thinking of was that Trump had posted an incendiary post about Netanyahu and then sort of in response, Netanyahu says he's not going to come to the inauguration.
So the only thing I can manage to that is either they're trying to put a smokescreen to make it seem like that Trump hadn't done anything to do this or...
Trump was mad that they did this now before the inauguration so that Trump doesn't get any of the credit.
Nick, I remember back before WrestleMania V where Macho Man Randy Savage had a lot of really mean things to say about the immortal Hulk Hogan.
Let me tell you something.
He laid some real stiff punches in on him.
I know most wrestling is fake, but I think that was some real stuff.
It is more or less...
A situation where we're not going to know the entire story for probably 20 or 30 years of how this thing came to an end.
And also, by the way, until we figure out all the ways the Benjamin Netanyahu screwed over Joe Biden and the United States of America and used them.
Like eventually at some point we'll find out and we'll be horrified how this happened.
So did he do this to get a better deal?
I don't know.
Did he think that, you know, Trump was somehow or another going to, like, bring him into line?
Not necessarily.
That's not really how all these things work.
It also, by the way, Hamas probably looked at this and thought, you know, this is probably the best deal that we're going to get, you know.
And meanwhile, they were looking for this deal and Netanyahu was dragging his feet and trying to ruin it and sabotage it the entire time.
All I know here is that a lot of people have died and suffered who shouldn't have died and suffered.
That's it.
That's the one thing that I know about all this.
I know that American empire is both capable of stopping things like this, but because they're not interested in taking on the geopolitical realities of the time, that they didn't feel like they could.
This is a big, giant mess.
I'm still, again, I'm not completely convinced we're going to get to this ceasefire or that it's going to last, but I do know that this has been an absolute tragedy and a travesty.
And by the way, a ceasefire means nothing to me because it'll just go back to status quo, the way it sounds like.
Yeah, an apartheid state.
Right, the Red Cross will come in and they'll help people and they'll whatever.
But the idea of having to rebuild Gaza or figure out what Gaza now is at this point going forward, there isn't any...
I will say, on that point, Nick, and I'm glad you brought it up this way, the one thing that's in the back of my head that I can't stop thinking about is that this is more or less a reboot.
For Trump's presidency, to go ahead and take out, like, the active sort of carrying out of this, and then go ahead and sort of quietly do it, and then go ahead and gobble out as much land and resources and continue ethnic cleansing.
So it feels like an opportunity to sort of rebrand it a little bit and take a lot of the light off of it, which, by the way, plays out in the way that Democratic versus Republican politics usually does anyway.
Yeah, it's interesting because I'm trying to think of how if this was in a Democrat-Republican lens.
You know, the Democrats would probably be calling for, okay, what can we do to help the people, right?
And, like, how can we help rebuild?
If this would have started under the Trump presidency, like, there are so many variables that would have come out.
Like, we still probably would have seen the fracturing of the liberal base.
And by the way, I don't know if you watched the video of Biden announcing this.
Kamala Harris was standing next to him.
She looked like she had seen a ghost.
I mean, like, I guarantee they don't want to talk about Gaza, but it played a prominent role in the 2024 election.
But yeah, I'm not sure, but I think the Liberal base still would have been split.
I still think there would have been a schism, but I don't know that it would have played out the way that it did.
I'm so glad you brought that up.
I was going to ask you about this, is that, you know, did the position of the Biden administration in terms of Gaza affect the election at all?
Absolutely, yes.
And if it did, and the way they ended up...
You know, discussing it during the campaign, they lose anyway.
So, like, what would have been the difference?
They could have actually gotten ahead of this and said the right things that they needed to say more forcefully and to try to effect change versus just sort of, you know, get it into some corner where they didn't have to actually do anything before the election for fear of losing those votes, of which they lost.
I think there's two things to say on this.
One...
I don't know exactly how that would have ended up splitting.
How many Democratic voters who supported Israel, no matter what, would have left home and went with Trump?
I don't know.
But the second thing about it is it really doesn't matter.
The right thing to do was to say that this needed to end and that it was wrong.
So in speaking of acts of political courage, Nick, Biden followed up the announcement of this supposed agreement for a ceasefire by giving his farewell address.
And let me tell you something, Nick.
A lot of these are snoozers.
This was not one of them.
This is Joe Biden saying something that we're going to be talking about, I think, for a long time, but this deserves a little bit of attention.
This is from Biden's farewell address.
That's why my farewell address tonight I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern.
And that's the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people.
And the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.
Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.
We see the consequences all across America.
And we've seen it before.
More than a century ago.
But the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts.
They didn't punish the wealthy.
Just made the wealthy play by the rules everybody else had to.
Thanks, everybody.
Best of luck getting home.
You've been a wonderful crowd.
Right.
You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
Nick, I... I don't know how to properly convey to you and our audience what it was like for me to hear him say these words in his farewell address.
I would love to hear your opinion, and I'm going to go ahead and let my rage and frustration sort of simmer down so I can remain professional on this here broadcast.
Well, I knew, I already sensed how you were going to treat this.
You know, it's not like he didn't say a lot of these things throughout, you know, his presidency, right?
Like, he tried.
They warned us.
They tried to say a lot of these different things.
So, you know, it's not like it's like, oh, shit, did you realize what Trump's going to do?
You know, like, so that was, you know, he's out there a little bit on that.
So, you know, I don't know what else.
You want him to say, but go ahead, please, you know, lay it down for us.
I'm so sorry.
I'm trying to, like, bring myself together, but if he would have said in his farewell address, oh, shit, do you know what Trump's going to do?
That would have been probably pretty appropriate.
Okay.
I'm not going to lie.
That would have...
And I would have nodded and been like, you know what?
Fair game, Mr. President.
That's wonderful.
I... Yeah, go ahead.
I will say...
And we're going to listen to a historical precedent here in just a second, the first thing that came to mind.
There was no conversation about this in the 2024 election.
None.
None at all.
The main conversations were about who was best for the economy.
And by the way, that was Kamala Harris being like, look at all these economists.
Look at all these billionaires.
Look at all these Wall Street, you know, tyrants who are now on Trump's side and giving him money.
Like, there was no conversation whatsoever about the oligarchy.
On top of that, Biden didn't really connect the dots during his presidency whatsoever.
He just would be like, I'm really upset about what's going on here, and we do think some people should pay their fair share.
To come out and use the word oligarchy, which is correct.
He's not wrong.
This is something you and I have talked about at length, but it reminded me very, very much of a past clip.
And for people who haven't heard this before, maybe you have, maybe you haven't, but I think it's necessary to go ahead and let people hear it.
This is from the 1961 farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
We should take nothing for granted.
Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals.
So this is one of the most important and under-discussed moments in presidential history.
And to put it into context, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former commander of American forces, NATO forces, ends up becoming the president after Harry Truman, basically oversees the continued mobilization of American armed forces and weaponry.
Because in the past, after you're done with one of these wars, you went ahead and said, hey, go home.
We're going to focus on peacetime.
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