1/27/25: Trump War With Colombia Over Deporation, Trump Demands Gaza Cleansed, Elon Mask Off AfD Germany Rally

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Good morning, everyone, especially to Sagar and Jettie, who is recovering from the Eagles game. He was actually there, so big congrats to Ryan and Sagar. Crystal, how are we? Oh, that's right. Ryan is an Eagles fan. This is outrageous. This is outrageous. Not good. It's not good. It's not good. I was a long-suffering watching a football fan. I, you know, when I was a kid, they were so good, and then they were just terrible forever. So I hadn't watched any of their games in like a decade, and then I watched

this one. And of course, because I watched they lost. So I'm sorry, everybody. I've really played myself. She really was beating herself up this morning. I can attest to that. And I'm a curse on every team. But at least you have some self awareness. Yeah. So sorry, guys, I will stop watching again. Don't worry. Lots to get to this morning, including we had to add yesterday evening. There was a big showdown between the Colombian president and Donald Trump. We'll tell you where that stands this morning over

Deportations on military planes. There's actually a number of countries that are taking a lot of issue with that. So we will break all of that down for you. We've also got some very disturbing comments from Trump pushing ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip. So we'll break all of those details down for you and also the Israelis really violating the ceasefire agreements both in Gaza and in Lebanon. Elon decided to go and speak at the AFD rally. That's that far right party in Germany. I'll tell you what he said.

It's doking more controversy about his political views. Trump purged a number of inspectors general. It appears to have been blatantly illegal the way he did it. So there is a fight brewing there as well with even Republicans who are perturbed, I guess I would say, by that. We're also taking a look at, this is maybe the most important story of the day, a new AI development out of China.

They have now launched a competitor, a Chinese company launched a competitor to chat GPT and Metas offerings, et cetera, called DeepSeek. They did it for wildly less money and less what they call compute in terms of the chips that it requires and really has shocked Silicon Valley could put a real squeeze on our stock market, huge implications here. We're going to have Arno Bertrand join us to break down these developments and what it means more broadly.

And very excited to have Andrew Callahan on of Channel 5 News. He just dropped a new documentary. It's really interesting. It follows this one man who's been sort of like radicalized into all the wildest conspiracies on the Magaside. And what led him there and what he's all about. And he just sort of like digs into this man's life and his family, et cetera. And it's really interesting. I think you guys will like it. So we're excited to talk to Andrew about that.

Yes, we absolutely are. It's fantastic. And he will be here later in the show. So, Crystal, let's get started with Colombia, because yesterday was a roller coaster for Colombians, for the United States, and it looks like maybe there's resolution, at least for now. Yeah, so the TLDR is, you know, all of these Central and South American countries have been routinely accepting deportation flights from the U.S., typically ICE charters civilian planes. But Trump has decided to use, in addition to those civilian planes,

military planes, and they really have taken this as a sort of a front in addition to the treatment of the migrants of the deportees who were on these planes. There have been images circulating. In fact, we can put this first tweet up on the screen, which contains some of these images. You can see people being led off the plane. I think this is actually in Brazil in shackles, in handcuffs and shackles.

There were also reports that some of these deportees to Brazil in particular were denied water, denied bathroom, and, you know, treated according to them with a total lack of dignity. So this is the president of Columbia weighing in saying a migrant is not a criminal must be treated with the dignity that a human being deserves. That's why I turned back.

U.S. military planes that were carrying Colombian migrants. I cannot allow migrants to remain in a country that does not want them. But if that country sends them back, it must be with dignity and respect for them and for our country. We will receive our fellow citizens on civilian planes without treating them like criminals. Colombia is respected.

So Trump, wasting no time, jumps in with a major economic threat here. He says, I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the U.S. with a large number of illegal criminals were not allowed to land in Colombia. This order was given by Colombia's socialist president, Gustavo Pedro, who is already very unpopular amongst his people.

Patre's denial of these flights has jeopardized the national security and public safety of the U.S., so I've directed my administration to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures. Number one, and this is the most significant, emergency, 25 percent tariff on all goods coming to the U.S. In one week, the 25 percent tariffs will be raised to 50 percent, a travel ban in immediate visa revocations on the Colombian government officials and all allies and supporters, and there are a number of other

sanctions and provisions here which were threatened. So in the next development, the Colombian president chimes in and offers to allow the use of his presidential plane to help repatriate deportees from the US. So he's offering the use of his presidential plane. Again, underscoring that what was really objected to here was the use of military planes to do these flights.

There were hundreds of these during the Biden administration. It was the change to use of military planes that irked this president. Also, I think the president of Honduras is weighted. Lula down in Brazil was upset by this Claudia Shinebaum. It appears may have also rejected one of these military planes landing. So that was really kind of the beef. And then we have the next piece, which is a lengthy post from Gustavo Pedro.

I won't read the whole thing, but suffice it to say that he and President Trump, Emily, I would say they sort of match each other's freak. Yeah. Oh, well said. Yeah, well said. Trump, I don't really like to. This is a translate from Google. I'm sure it's not entirely accurate. So do take it with a grain of salt, but he says,

In part, Trump, I don't really like traveling in the U.S. It's a bit boring, but I confess there are some commendable things. I like going to the black neighborhoods of Washington where I saw an entire fight in the U.S. Capitol between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me because they should join together. I confess I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller. I don't know who Miller is, do you? I'm not sure what he's going for. I'm thinking not Stephen Miller, probably. Oh, you know what? But what if it is? What if this is his appeal to Trump? That would be a real twist. Anyway, at some point, I think he believed, I believe he

um, indicates that Trump is trying to push him out of power. He says, overthrow me, president in America's inhumanity will respond. But don't forget producer Mack's favorite one. Oh, maybe one day over a glass of whiskey, which I accept despite my gastritis. We can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I'm not nor is any climbing. Anyway, the TLDR of this is that he ends up, um, also threatening

retaliatory tariffs in response. That was where things stood yesterday until later in the evening. And now it looks like we have come to some sort of a resolution, put this last piece. A-6 guys put up on the screen. This is some of the things that we get from Colombia. But in the final communication, it looks like Colombia is confirming some sort of deal has been made. Notes that Colombia's foreign minister and its ambassador of the U.S. will be holding high-level talks. And also states, Colombia's president continues to make the presidential plane available.

four Columbia nationals who were set to be deported to return home and they even accepted Emily the use of the controversial military planes. So anyway that's where everything went. Obviously the big picture here is you know these heads of state

bumping heads, and the Trump administration being quite aggressive. But also, I mean, I just look at this and I know that people are all Trump stood out to them and they won. I mean, first of all, it's Colombia. Like, who do you think is going to win in that fight against the giant superpower?

But second of all, you won what? The ability to continue to do deportation flights that have been going on routinely for years and years with no incident. So it's sort of this like drama and fight and spectacle over really kind of nothing. You know, there's also an argument. I was talking to Juan David Rojas, who covers Central America very well. And he was saying the effect of this, the consequence of this might actually push Colombia closer to China. Oh, absolutely. Right. And not just Colombia.

Oh, 100%. And that's already a problem. I mean, obviously, it's the problem that Donald Trump says he's responding to in Panama. But that's, I mean, if that's the consequence of this, which it very likely could be, that's very problematic for the Trump agenda in Central America. So we'll see, obviously, there's more to come on that. But I mean, I think there is something to the stepping back.

When Petro was saying, you can't treat Colombians like criminals. It goes back to, I think, back to those flights of Haitians that were taking place during the Biden administration. They were basically rioting to get off the planes. They so badly did not want to go back to Port-au-Prince.

I understand why the Trump administration is flying them back in handcuffs, but then you would also understand why the president, who's far left, would be saying, this is causing me a problem because now I look like I'm cooperating with people who are being treated poorly, Colombians who are being treated poorly. It's just a sense of disrespect.

Because these are by and large people who are just in certain instances, like in Venezuela, for example, in Venezuela does not accept our deportation flights, but they're literally fleeing the sanctions that we have imposed in the economic hardship there. So to have people shackled, the other thing is the use of the military planes, it's really meant to provoke these fights. I think that Trump feels like this whole showdown really serves

his, the propaganda he wants to put out about we're really getting tough on immigration and we're throwing our weight around in the world and we're not being pushed around anymore, et cetera, et cetera. But the reality is there's no real reason to use military planes. In fact, I looked it up. So the cost of the civilian flights that ICE charters are roughly around $8,000, $9,000. The cost of these military flights is upward of $800.

thousand dollars. So wildly more expensive, sparking diplomatic crises throughout Central and South America. And I think the broader picture is, like you said, Emily and Arnold Bertrand was who we have on later in the show is a good observer of these things too.

It's very late. I mean, Trump's already picked fights with Canada, Mexico, with Panama, you know, with now we've got Honduras and Brazil and obviously with Colombia. And it's kind of like over what? And all of these countries individually, no one of them can hope to sort of stand up against the economic military might of the United States of America.

But at some point, they're going to get smart and say, but we do have other alternatives at this point. Like the multipolar world with bricks and with China, that's already a reality. We have other patrons that we can go to and that we can become more cozy with and weaken ourselves, band together, and have more strength than numbers.

individually, none of them stands a chance. But it's a preview of I think that the way things are going to continue to operate. And it could have really far-reaching ultimate consequences if he continues to behave in this way. And again, it's like, for what? To be able to fly these deportation flights, which have been a regular occurrence for years and years, and you just provoked this incident and are now claiming a victory just to be able to do the thing that has already been done without an incident for years.

You know, it's interesting because I guess one counter argument would be on the point of respect. I think what Trump is trying to say is that he feels as though they actually are criminals because they committed a crime by crossing the border illegally. And that's sort of the baseline. He's trying to say, I think, if we all accept that.

then we can have whatever diplomatic negotiations. But if you won't accept that it's a matter of respect, blah, blah, blah, blah, what's interesting about that is not every government in Central America has facilitated the exodus. It's not like Mexico is a very different case study. Mexico actually really hasn't facilitated the exodus of people up through these cartel pathways, which is so

to see what it's done to those countries. And I'm not saying that Donald Trump has that in mind, like, pushing back on the cartel takeover of some of these countries, which is obviously a problem in Mexico, but Claudia's shine bomb, for example. I mean, it's hard to connect her to actual cartel. Like, she's not in the pockets of cartels. There were some of that with Amla. There were some speculation going back years when it came to Amla. But they're not all in the pockets of cartels. But that said, I think there is something really important about

understanding from the president's perspective that if you continue to allow people to send all of these migrants, it's just patting the pockets of the cartels that are literally taking over their territory. And that's actually helpful for negotiating because a lot of them want help with that too. And I mean, if you're pushing them close to China, I don't know that any problem gets solved. Lately on the NPR Politics Podcast, we're talking about a big question.

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He doesn't want to frame them as criminals in the sense of, like, they committed the crime of crossing the border. He routinely talks about, he made up this thing about, oh, you're emptying your mental asylums, whatever, which many people have speculated he's confused between people who are seeking asylum and who were at.

insane asylum because there's no evidence that any of these countries emptied their asylums. This isn't like some burial boatlift situation from Cuba where they literally did empty their prisons and sent them to us. So I think he wants the imagery of all migrants are criminals, like hardened criminals, like committing violent crimes here in America, which we know is obviously not the truth. There are some.

who have committed crimes, but the overall crime rate is lower among both documented and undocumented immigrants. The US so.

In any case, I think the use of the military planes, the insistence on shackling people and treating them like they're these hardened, like they're fricking serial killers or something like that, I do think this is sort of the fight and the imagery that he ultimately wants. And I think there will be a lot of that in terms of his immigration policy, like obviously what he's done with his executive orders and his approach is already very hard line.

But in addition, ICE doesn't have any more resources than they did under Biden. In fact, so far, the number of deportations under Trump, it's very early days, obviously, but it's roughly the same number that Biden had been doing on a daily basis during his term in office as well. So what he wants, in part, is this show of force

to overcome the fact that, you know, they don't have nearly the amount of resources to detain and deport every undocumented immigrant who is here in the U.S. So whereas the Biden administration really wanted to kind of keep under wraps these images of deportations and the ugliness and the sort of cruelty involved in that.

Trump has the exact opposite motivation, which he wants to put it on display. Biden quietly bribed Haiti into taking back flights. Like, they didn't want anyone to know it. It was reported in, like, the New York Post. Biden deported more now. There were more migrants coming in, but Biden deported more people than Trump did during his first four-year term in office. You would never know that both because of the way it was covered, but also because, yeah, the Biden administration that didn't serve the

propaganda, you know, direction that they wanted to go in, whereas with Trump, I think you're going to see some of these, you know, they're highlighting these ice rates that are going on already, et cetera. So I think this is part of that spectacle that he wants, and he can sort of like claim this win here.

and also underscore his narrative of the world that these migrants are criminals, and not just in the sense of like they cross the border illegally, but they're with the cartels, or they're drug dealer, they're murderers, they're violent, et cetera, et cetera. That's part of what you want from imagery of people who are like shackled and treated in this way on military planes.

Well, they're definitely going... I mean, they've said that they're starting with people who are in the country illegally and have committed crimes, which is going to be an interesting thing in Chicago, because right now, Chicago is a sanctuary city. Technically, it doesn't have to cooperate with ICE when they're trying to get people out of the prison or out of the jails, basically. And that's now one of the things that Tom Holman, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal just this morning,

is talking about is like if you don't let us into the jails we're going to have a problem because what we're trying to do in this this first couple of weeks is deport people, send people back who have committed crimes beyond just crossing the border illegally and I think where the rubber is really going to meet the road

is when the Trump administration doesn't have the optics of just flying military-aged men back on military planes, which is when you look at the images, at least from like a PR standpoint, as sad as it is to say, you can see what they're doing. They're actually like going specifically for military-aged males, the least sympathetic case. I know in the instance of Brazil, there were families and kids on those planes. Really?

So the ones they're putting out, the ones the administration's like the public's leading was that makes sense. And so I think where the rubber is going to meet the road is when we see them going into cities like Chicago, whatever, and you know, maybe they take the people out of the jails and they get cooperation, but then what happens? Like then what's next? How are they going to handle that? Are they going to keep going full home when it is, you know, when the optics are, you have news cameras with you and it's women and children.

I mean, I think that they want that. I genuinely think they want that because they believe in this like deterrent effect, right? That if you put sort of like fear and cruelty on display, that that will force people to leave to not come in the first place. So that's part of their, you know, their theory and their ideology. And the irony is if you compare

the Trump administration the first time and the Biden administration in terms of the number of actual criminal, like not just crossing the border, but actual criminals who were released. There were more under the Trump administration and that makes sense because the Biden administration and the, actually the Obama administration deported more than any of these people. He earned that title, the Deporter-in-Chief, but they made a concerted effort to focus their deportation

efforts on criminals. And if you know that that's sort of the policy of the government, then if you're not a criminal, you feel like, I'm probably okay. Like, I need to be careful, but I'm probably okay. The Trump administration, both in the first term and it appears in this term as well, they would rather have cast a broader net because that helps to put the fear of deportation in everyone.

So you don't have that sense of like, well, if I didn't do anything wrong, I'm probably going to be OK. So that's part of their ideologically different approach is that they actually don't laser focus on just the criminals. And the Lake and Riley Act, similar thing,

requires people who have been, you know, who have been arrested for even like something really minor like shoplifting, requires them to be detained and then prioritize for deportation. Well, again, there's only so, ICE doesn't have unlimited resources. So if you're focused on just use like the most sympathetic, like a mom who shoplifted diapers over an actual gang cartel member,

You know, that is a change in prioritization. That means you are going to have fewer resources to go after actually the more hardened criminals who have, you know, who are undocumented than the Trump administration wants to sort of capture a larger number of people and a larger sort of breadth of types of migrants who have come here. Some of them who even came here through this process set up with the Biden administration, the CP who won up and claimed asylum and all of that as well.

I mean, that's probably the most difficult thing for the Trump administration. Actually, as much as I sadly do believe in the deterrent problem here or the deterrent effect here, because I've talked to people who work in Mexico, like immigration at refugee centers and everything, and they say they've begged the government to do more and tell people don't come, don't come. And one of the reasons I think it's so tragic

is that the Biden administration with their asylum expansion has put a lot of people in the situations now where they get into the country. They try to start lives. Most of them have work permits. And the Trump administration and the Biden administration, the Trump administration takes people who are here legally through asylum, expanded asylum and departs them. That's disgusting.

as much as they may want to, and as much as they may be men who are abusing the system, and people are being used as mules, whatever, that's disgusting. They're here legally. You can hear their asylum cases faster, and you can be more stringent in hearing their asylum cases, but they're not here illegally. The Biden administration made sure that they actually reclassified a lot of this illegal immigration to legal immigration.

they're here illegally. And that's now going to be one of the most difficult things for the Trump administration to deal with, because in the last few years, a huge proportion of the people who crossed the border, and there were a lot of people crossing the border, did it through expanded asylum. So good luck with that. It's a totally different ballgame than just taking people out who crossed the border illegally. Yeah. So in any case, the fight is, I guess, sort of resolved for now, but an interesting

window into how things are going to go, how Trump is approaching things, how, you know, he's sort of has an interest in picking these kind of fights for show and throwing the weight of the United States government around. And so it looks like we have a resolution here with Columbia specifically, but I don't think this issue of upset and a sense of like the dignity of a whole country being threatened by the use of these military assets and the deportations of the treatment.

of, you know, Colombians or Mexicans or, you know, people from Honduras or whatever, I don't think that issue is going to die down because you've already had a number of other heads of state express their upset about it. It's less thought, actually. It's just on petro. It reminds me a little bit, going back to Amlo.

Trump had a very interesting relationship with Amla, somebody who is like, I guess Latin American politics are so interesting and they confuse our binary in interesting ways, like our left-right binary in interesting ways, and your petro obviously is different than Amla, although they're not entirely dissimilar, and Trump loves those relationships with other charismatic

He obviously likes being able to like stomp on other countries and it flexes America's power. But it is kind of interesting how he can get on the same wavelength and you were saying that Petro's letter sort of matches the freak of Trump in terms of like incredible like press releases and tweets. So I don't know. I mean, maybe this is a big bit of an interesting relationship that Trump has with some of these like genuinely charismatic and interesting features leaders in Latin America.

Yeah, well, Colombia has long been sort of our strongest, I mean, because they mostly have had these like extremely right-wing governments that we are very cozy with. Lots of drug cooperation, yes. Very much so. And Patricia is a real break from the typical political mold. And Colombia was a big deal when he was elected, et cetera. So in any case, very unusual to have this kind of fight between the US and Colombia, which has been a very reliable ally for us in

the region. Lately on the NPR Politics Podcast, we're talking about a big question. How much can one guy change? What will change look like for energy? Drill, baby drill. Schools. Take the Department of Education follows it. Health care. Better and less expensive. Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made. Promises kept. We're going to keep our promises.

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All right, let's go ahead and move to these Trump comments with regard to Israel and Gaza, which are quite disturbing. I mean, also just quite overt. The audio, and this is not great. He's on the plane. He gets asked about, you know, what he wants to do with regards to the Gaza Strip. Go ahead and play this. And then I'll tell you on the other side, if in case it's difficult to hear the audio, exactly what he said.

And I'd like Egypt to take people, and I'd like Jordan to take people. You're talking about probably a million and a half people. And we just clean out that whole thing. It's over the centuries that many, many conflicts, I'd say. And I don't know. It's something has to happen.

It's literally a demolition site right now, almost everything's demolished. And people are dying there, so I'd rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location where they can maybe live in peace. It could be either, it could be temporarily, it could be long-term.

So the key quote there is, he says he's going to talk to General Sisi. Egypt, he says, I'd like Egypt to take people, and I'd like Jordan to take people. You're talking about a million and a half people, he's referring there to the entire population of the Gaza Strip, and we just clean out that whole thing. I mean, it's obviously brazen call for ethnic cleansing.

And this couple's Emily with comments that both he and Jared Kushner made about, he kind of alluded to, he's like, oh, it's a demolition site. And previously, he had said when he was in the Oval Office, it's very interesting. They have all this beautiful coastline, et cetera. Kushner had talked before about waterfront development in Gaza.

capitalist real estate developer, he looks at Gaza, the Gaza Strip, and he sees dollar signs and says, let's just push out all the people there entirely into Egypt and Jordan. And he said, this is one of the, the thing is with Trump, it's like, this was the most galaxy brain, like libertarians smoking pot in their dorm room approach to the

problem where you're like oh okay so here's all of this rubble we need to clean it out using the word clean I mean is like you use the word brazen I think that's a great description and he says towards the end of this like answer that he it could be temporary it could be longer term and it's like

Your idea is to take people off of the land that they have spilled so much blood over the years to stay on because it means something to them. The land itself is important to them and that's the most basic takeaway from what's happened over like the decades that he references there and the quote many many conflicts that he references there is it's

specifically their homeland that they care about. So it's just sort of, it's so, so your, your, his realism like bumps into galaxy brain dorm room libertarianism. It's like, this is actually not that smart. It's missing the most basic reality of the situation. Well, and I'm bumping into developer brain too.

There's a profit to be turned here like I just got to get all these pesky people out of the way clear clean that out that whole thing That's what he says. You're talking about a million and a half people and we just clean out that whole thing You guys might remember back kind of early after October 7th I don't remember exactly the time frame I want to say it was like a couple months in the Biden administration was floating

Hey, why don't, hey, Egypt, why don't we just, you know, open up the borders here and let Palestinians flow into the Sinai desert and set up camps for them there. And they were actively trying to, like, you know, basically bribe the Egyptians into accepting this. And obviously, Jordan already has a huge number of Palestinian refugees has for years and years, the queen of Jordan is herself.

And neither one of these countries wants to be a party to ethnic cleansing, not to mention that it's quite a lot for Egypt, which is already in economic chaos to take people in. So there was a huge backlash to that idea from a variety of sectors.

And so they kind of dropped that whole thing. But yeah, Trump just comes out and says a quiet part out loud that the basic plan, what he would like to see in effect here is a wholesale ethnic cleansing. We have some additional Trump news here, too, from Axios to put this up on the screen.

So I don't know if you guys remember, there was this one shipment of 2,000 pound bombs that the Biden administration had like as a token withheld out of concerns for how they could be used in Rafa in particular.

Now that there is this temporary ceasefire, in effect, we've gotten a better look at Rafa. And some of the Biden administration cope with like, oh, well, we constrained them in Rafa and didn't let them do what they really wanted to do wrong. Rafa is utterly destroyed. But in any case,

They did put this hold on the shipment of 2,000 pound bombs. And so even the sort of like token signs of upset at the way that Israel has conducted themselves in Gaza have been rolled back by Trump, not just that, but also, Emily, you probably remember there were some like also token

sanctions put on a handful of extremist violent settlers that the Trump administration has also now rolled back. So that is very much the direction that they're going in. We can put up Trump's truth about this action. He says, a lot of things that were ordered and paid for by Israel but have not been sent by Biden are now on their way. So certainly no qualms here about shipping 2,000-pound bombs or whatever else Israel wants, and also just to add one more thing to this.

The Trump administration issued an executive order putting a freeze on all foreign aid with the exception of

Israel. You've got to fill those orders. Yes, they know no qualms there. Got to make sure that they're getting everything that they want. You know, it's about customer service, Crystal. That's right. You have to get you order something. You order the two thousand pound bomb. You expect to get it. You know, he's been having a lot of conversation with Jeff Bezos, who knows more about customer service than anyone. So he's prepared to fill his orders in a timely fashion with great integrity. I mean, they, you know, they want the prime service.

Yes, right. Yeah, it will way beyond two days at this point. So he has a lot of ground to make up for. But I mean, it's interesting to see the freak out that you and Sagar covered last week about people like Dan Caldwell and others in Trump circles. They did the same thing with Albert Colby, who have somewhat heterodox realist views for the Republican Party when it comes to

focusing on the Middle East versus Asia, and you have this, like, neoconservative, uh, hissy fit over these people with different ideas coming in or-or Steve Whitcock, for example, brokering the ceasefire deal, and then you have the sanctions being lifted and the bombs being delivered, so...

Honestly, Trump has said some somewhat interesting things about the conflict, but we have like no indication of him significantly changing course other than the ceasefire deal, which no other Republican president would have been comfortable with. But if it's just that, if it starts with that, because he wanted the kind of optics of ending the conflict, it was just that and it doesn't go any further than all the freak out was for nothing from the neocons.

Yeah, well, not only that, but Israel has expanded their war aims to include the West Bank. And I know Ryan and Jeremy over at drop site have been doing a great job covering that expansion, that deadly expansion in the West Bank. There's been settlers who are rampaging and also the IDF backing up those settlers and doing raids in various villages in the occupied West Bank. So one of the things that has long been speculated and has been publicly reported that this is what Mary Madison wants,

is for mass annexation in the West Bank to occur under this Trump administration. I think you should have every expectation that that is ultimately going to occur. Another interesting development here out of Gaza, we can put this up on the screen, is so we had another hostage exchange between the Israelis and Palestinians. And as part of that, Hamas has really been coming out

trying to show like, you know, it's a real show of force. Here is their propaganda video that they put out showing the latest, these were actually female soldiers for female soldiers, IDF soldiers who were released in this latest exchange. They, you know, show them here smiling and getting goody bags and various gifts, etc. But, you know, again, they're, they're really trying to show, look, we're still here. You didn't defeat us.

And by the way, Tony Blinken on his way out said, you know, our analysis is that they recruited as many new fighters as were killed during the conflict. So certainly the fantasy, which we always knew was a fantasy that we're going to be able to thoroughly destroy Hamas through military means.

has been completely disproven at this point. And there again, you see the hostages, the Israeli hostages being released. But Crystal, if they just had a little bit more time. Oh, yeah. If Biden hadn't withheld that shipment of 2,000-pound bombs, I think that would have done that. Hamas would have been gone forever. They were so close, and you thwarted it. Personally, you.

It's such a ridiculous argument and it's one that you're just expected to swallow whole cloth on the right or even in the center that if Biden hadn't been truly, the argument is that there's some type of Iranian sell operating within the deep state of the American government and especially the Biden administration.

They were taking every possible maneuver to make it look like they were cooperating with Israel, but at the same time, we're thwarting Israel behind the scenes, and all that you need to do is let Israel fight Hamas will be gone. Let them fight the world they want, and Hamas will be gone.

Okay, it's such a, it's always from the very beginning, but an absurd goal. There's no signs. Hamas can be significantly, they can be significantly defeated, but like fully defeated. We've clearly seen that to be like, there's no way that they're going to be able to do that. Violent resistance is going to be popular as long as there is no peaceful alternative.

Hamas is not going to be defeated through bombs, period. I mean, if this doesn't prove that to you, I don't know what could. And part of why BB did not ever want this bombing to stop in Gaza is because when it does, you have to reckon with that reality. And that's very difficult for him politically because he promised

these maximalist goals that Hamas would be eliminated. They would be eradicated. And obviously, you know, in terms of that, they were very successful in turning Gaza into what Donald Trump describes as a demolition site. I think accurately so. They were very successful at killing

God knows how many people, orphaning tens of thousands of children, creating mass numbers of amputees. They were very successful at those things, but in terms of the actual set out war aims, it was, this is manifestly evidence that it was a dramatic failure. And do you know who's going to be really susceptible to islamism? A radical islamism is orphans.

Yeah, imagine. You know, your only experience with this country is them destroying your home, murdering your parents, you know, creating all of this pain and trauma. That doesn't exactly typically lead people down a path of peace and harmony. No.

So, and we know this from the past. So, in addition, there were some updates with regard to this quote, unquote, temporary ceasefire. We can put this up on the screen. So, over the weekend, the IDF was preventing Palestinians from returning home to northern Gaza. These are, you know, people who are traveling with their belongings, trying to return to northern Gaza. IDF actually fired on some of these people and, you know, killed

At least one injured a number of others. There's an update this morning that apparently this morning, Palestinians are successfully returning to northern Gaza. Again, this was a key part of this phase one part of the ceasefire deal. They were supposed to be allowed to return to northern Gaza. So it does look this morning. Early indications are that that is actually happening.

At the same time, you'll recall, there was a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon. We can put this up on the screen. They have been completely blocking Lebanese people from returning to their villages. And this says 15 killed. It was actually 22 people ultimately killed by the IDF. At least 120 wounded as the IDF fired on these Lebanese civilians who are just trying to return to their homes.

at the time that the ceasefire agreement stipulated that they should be allowed to return to their homes. So as far as I know, that block on people returning home continues in Lebanon. The Israelis are claiming that, oh, the Lebanese army isn't ready to take over their responsibilities.

But right now, as of today, you have the Israeli army occupying a significant portion of southern Lebanon with a lot of questions over whether they ever intend to leave. And they also continue to occupy portions of Syria as well. So in addition to obviously Gaza and the West Bank. So that's the current state of affairs. And there is a stunning image that came out of this confrontation between the Lebanese civilians trying to return home. And the IDF, we can put this up on the screen.

you have this lone woman standing up to a tank and trying to argue with the IDF soldiers inside. And people watching on, you can see people there on the road trying to return home. And as I said before, the IDF fired on some number of these people killing roughly 22 and injuring over 100 more. So both cease fires are really kind of

I mean, the Lebanese ceasefire, they've just clearly brazenly violated. Honestly, the one in Gaza as well, they've brazenly violated in terms of the letter of what they're supposed to be doing. They're certainly not supposed to be firing on civilians. They were supposed to allow people immediately to be able to return to northern Gaza, but so both really sort of already teetering on the brink.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And if this Trump administration really is so unconventional and Steve Whitkoff really is just in an enemy of Israel, surprise, this comes as a surprise to the people of Gaza in the last couple of days. Yeah, very much so. Lately on the NPR Politics podcast, we're talking about a big question.

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All right, let's get to our friend Elon Musk. Fresh off his- Your friend. Of course, of course. Yeah, I don't- He's not really your type. Yeah, no, I know you guys are close. I don't wanna- It's still in valor, really, to come in and act like we're best friends.

You guys go back here. Fresh off his awkward gesture, his awkward, Kyle Hitler-esque gesture. Sagar and I very much are on the other side of this one with you, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, hold on though. I have to say, even now, I mean, because

Like, after he did this, he has never denied that he was trying to, like, in a trollish way do this wink, wink, nod, nod thing. He said he was throwing his heart to the crowd. Girl, it was the next line of a speech.

It would be extraordinary. He did it twice, Emily. He did it twice. I mean, I think it would be extraordinarily stupid for a man with billions and billions and billions of dollars on the line to go out there to do a brazen Nazi. He does a lot of brazen stuff. He does a lot of brazen stuff. He does a lot of stuff. That does exactly make sense. Here's the thing that, OK, here's the thing. So in addition to the AFD thing, we're about to show you which I think bolsters my side of the case here. Any reservation I had about whether this was intentional was eliminated when, first of all, he's posting on Twitter about how much a troll he is.

And he was sharing that meme of the goose with the thing like there. And it's like the thing I'm not supposed to do that. And then he's doing that thing he's not supposed to do. And it's like, you knew what you were doing. You 100% knew what you were doing. And to me, whether it's a quote unquote troll or whether it's done in earnest, given his politics and his support for the furthest right, most reactionary forces in Europe in particular,

I'm not sure that it really makes all that much of a difference, but in any case, he decided to speak. Again, I mean, this is the thing that a troll would do, fresh off of this Heil Hitler controversy, decides to go and speak to the far-right reactionary AFD party in Germany.

Okay, so the scene of the crime, so to speak, and tells this assembled audience that he doesn't think that they should feel guilty for the Holocaust anymore. Let's take a listen to how that went.

I think something that is very important is that people take pride in Germany and being German. This is very important. It's okay to be proud to be German. This is a very important principle.

It's okay, it's good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything. I think there's frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that. Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents or even letting them go on their parents, their great-grown parents.

So, you know, be proud of German culture, don't feel guilty about the past, and I mean, whether you want to call it guilt or not, I think it is appropriate to like, the whole thing is you never want something like that to happen again, right? So to carry some emotion around that and to keep fresh, the lessons and the warnings of the past,

which should be lessons and warnings that all of humanity takes in because there's nothing particularly distinct about the German people versus any other people. We're all made of the same good and evil inclinations and tendencies. But yeah, I think we should carry that forward. And obviously, these are talking points that AFD wants to hear, part and parcel of their right-wing ideological positioning in Germany. But again,

wanted to push the envelope coming off of the Heil Hitler controversy and wanted to continue to kind of flirt with this and you know I think does it quite a quite successfully here. He's been flirting with AFD for a while because AFD is this genuinely it's so it's different than the other like reactionary populist movements that have cropped up in that it came about in the like

I guess maybe this was like the middle of Merkel's period was like 2013 as this libertarian like almost melee anti-government type of party which is so different than other populist movements across Europe that are reactionary and have this blend of like

cultural reactionary conservatism and then economic leftism. And so Ilana has had this like magnetic interest in AFD because it's anti-immigrant and also like very libertarian. Very like right-wing economics. It's not like the, you know, Le Pen or somebody who's like social safety net, but just for the French and keep on all the immigrants kind of a deal.

Right, yeah, exactly. So it's an interesting movement and it does thrive. I mean, AFD does have some legitimate, it's not like a smear to say that AFD has some extreme associations and that's like actually been a legitimate problem for AFD. But, you know, I work for a British publication so have a little bit of context. Like they thrive on, it's kind of like Trump in a way that criticism of them and how bad their enemies are politically that like,

Germany is having such a hard time getting on track and AFD is able to then say, we have to totally close the borders and re-migrate and blah, blah, blah. And then the opposition is so hysterical and freaks out about it that more and more people go to AFD and AFD keeps on growing. And so it's just this awful doom spiral that's not unfamiliar to the rest of us. And somebody needs to make Elon Musk stop being a diplomat because he just

He is not a diplomat. He is not a diplomat. But when he's in this like random unpaid advisory position for the U.S. government and talking to foreign countries, it carries the weight of diplomacy, not that it wouldn't given that he's like a zillionaire who has all of these really powerful companies. The military contractor is Starlink, which controls foreign conflicts and it has influence, significant influence over foreign conflicts. But like he's now basically speaking on behalf of the U.S. government.

Yeah, that's right. It's like we're just all letting it happen. And backing characters like Tommy Robinson, who even Nigel Farage was like, I draw the line. Yeah. So, yeah. There's some reporting. I'm curious what you think about this, Emily, about some upset within the Trump administration. I personally think the theories about how Trump and Elon are imminently going to have some major falling out. I just don't see it because I think that they

I think they really find this to be both of them mutually beneficial. Elon is taking actually a lot of heat. His approval rating is plummeting in the US, which I'll show you momentarily. Trump says not. And he gets to go in. And I mean, part of basically why Pete Hegstaff got confirmed last week is because Elon Musk

threaten to primary Joni Ernst or anyone else who didn't fall in line and has a bajillion dollars to make that threat reality. So he doesn't even have to do it. And so for Trump, you know, Elon can be very effective, enforcer of whatever it is that he ultimately wants to do. But put C2 up on the screen, there was some, there was some reporting to the indication that Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who he apparently calls the ice maiden. Did you know that? Amazing. I think she's Joe Bennett from the office.

Uh, the Kathy Bates character. Oh, really? Yes, it's the Florida vibes. It's immaculate. OK, all right. I'll take your word for it. That sounds correct. But in any case that she's trying to limit must direct access. One of the things that.

I had seen is that he is going to take office space in the old executive office building, which is adjacent to the West Wing, but is not actually in the White House and that he actually wanted to be in the West Wing. And she was like, that's not happening, but he's still plenty close to Trump. Don't worry. Then give up your business conflicts. If you want to work in the West Wing, then divest. Why should he when Trump himself has the

greatest business conflict of, you know, of all time. He formally divested, but that's why it's like, yeah, it's a joke. Yeah, it's a total and complete job. I mean, Elon is one of the largest government contractors. Yeah. One of the largest has all kinds of regulatory disputes over alleged labor and SEC violations and environmental violations. I mean, massive, massive, massive.

unimaginable conflicts of interest, but yeah. Starlink is a not significant part of the Ukraine war. That's true. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Obviously the NASA contracts with SpaceX are gigantic. So, I mean, just massive amounts of conflicts of interest. We can put this next piece up on the screen.

from Politico, Trump's staff furious after Musk trashes AI projects, theories abuse the proximity to the president. But again, this is all like staffers leaking to Politico. And probably the most, you know, and there's no indication that Trump is furious, just that the staff is furious, which makes sense, because they, I'm sure, put a lot of work into this big announcement, getting these leaders there, doing the whole thing.

This is in reference to the $500 billion Stargate investment effort. And Elon immediately goes out and is like, they don't have the money. Well, because he's in an antitrust suit against Sam Altman. Right. That's to this big question about whether the Trump and Elon relationship ultimately implodes. I'm with you. I think they both have way too much on the line. Again, with Trump, this is a man who, Starlink and SpaceX is controlling

so much of the country's like domestic and foreign policy. One man. Yeah. So he can't really afford to blow up that relationship. Elon Musk certainly can't afford to blow up that relationship because he has now staked his entire reputation, not just as a person, but as a businessman.

on Donald Trump as a leader on Donald Trump as a diplomat on Donald Trump. And so that's how high the stakes are for both of them to play nice with each other. It doesn't mean that they're not going to get incredibly annoyed. I think it's more likely that Trump gets annoyed with the en masse than the other way around, but like those- I mean, Elon seems like a pretty annoying person. Yeah, he does.

Those leaks are, I feel like the Trump White House is either going to encourage them forever, like in quick, and Elon's just going to have to get used to them. Or if Musk is really sensitive, they're going to shut those down really quickly, and we'll find out in the next couple of months. But I mean, the relationship is just way too high stakes for either of them to bungle. And yet,

Elon Musk continues to now go and act as a diplomat and make policy by tweet as somebody who is not divested up as conflicts of interest cannot take a paid position with the US government because he hasn't done it, but is in this position of the US government. It means the entire arrangement is completely insane. And I think Trump thinks and Trump supporters think that it's the type of thing where a hundred years you look back on and you're like, this was brilliant.

This was a Gilded Age, JP Morgan, saving America because one of the presidents asked him to. And that's a hell of a bet. That's a hell of a risk. And it's one that they're in. It's so deep right now. There's no way really out of it. You can't really dig yourself out of this hole.

Yeah, no, that's right. And obviously some parts of the MAGA coalition are very upset with the influence and sway of Elon, who they don't see as an ideological ally of the original MAGA view. That broke out into the open with the H-1B fight, but Steve Bannon really been cooking with the Elon insults calling him evil. Saying that he called him evil, he said that white South Africans are the most racist people on the planet.

I wonder if he agrees with me about the cigaril salute. Oh, that would be really interesting. Yeah, I know if he's waiting. But anyway, well, I'll leave that at that. But the key quote from the piece on Politico was, the problem is regarding Elon, the president doesn't have any leverage over him and Elon gets zero thoughts.

The president has no leverage over it because he's the richest man on the planet. He owns a major communications platform. He has his own fawning base of cult support and, you know, really, and also he spent

more than a quarter of a billion dollars getting Trump into office. So yeah, he feels like, I'm going to do what I'm going to do, and you're really not going to have any say in it. And that means, like, undercutting your announcement on Twitter, you're just going to take it. And actually Trump did just take it. Let's go ahead and play, Eric, if we can. Trump got asked.

about Elon undercutting him on the AI thing. And, you know, he was very unruffled about it. He was like, yeah, well, he hates one of the people involved referring to Samuel, and he says something funny, something very Trump-like. I have certain hatreds too, so let's take a look at that. Mr. President, does it bother you that Elon Musk criticized a deal that you made publicly that he said that he tweeted that? No, does he hates one of the people in the deals? Have you spoken to him since then? No, no, I've, well, I spoke at Elon, but I spoke at all of them, actually.

No, no, people in the deal are very, very smart people. But Elon, one of the people he happens to hate, but I have certain hatreds of people, too. I'm certain hatreds of people, too. So it's so, and that was a classic Trump moment. I mean, just we all hate people that we do deals with, and we're adults about it, and we move on. Let's move on. He has some leverage over Elon Musk because clearly Musk has something

He has a lot at stake in his relationship with Trump in the US government, and that's part of the problem is that he's expecting favors in return, but Musk obviously would have so much power even if he fell out with Donald Trump. And we were talking about countries that have other places to turn to China. Musk also can turn more to China. That's huge.

Yeah, because he has significant business relationships there and has really gone on his way to cultivate. I mean, this was also important. You remember that whole spending bill fight that he and at that point, Vivek, who's now been excise from that kingdom. But in any case, that they picked over that spending bill. And one of the things that got pulled ultimately out of the spending bill was these restrictions on high-tech investments in China because must

didn't like that. So that is his agenda. That was not originally Trump's agenda, but he was able to successfully get it through just by using Twitter and throwing his weight around and threatening primaries in that context as well. Last piece here put C4 up on the screen. So both Elon

And doge are not popular. They are really unpopular. And this musk approval rating has dramatically fallen. I mean, Americans have sort of, it's interesting. Americans have a reflexive bias against, I would say appropriate, so not bias in a negative way, but against billionaires as a group in general.

But specific billionaires, they really bind to this, oh, they must have done something great, and they made a great product, they must deserve what they got, et cetera, et cetera. And Ewan had a very positive approval rating until pretty recently. And now his approval rating is roughly that of Joe Biden.

So disapprove is 52%, so majority. Approve is only 36%. So you're talking about about a third of the country that is still on board with this guy. Doge also not popular. I mean, you still have a good number of people in these numbers who are like, I don't really know what that is and I haven't made up my mind. But it's underwater by 10 points. You've only got 29% who are like, yes to Doge. Which to me, I'm actually kind of surprised about Emily because you know the idea of like, we're gonna root out fraud. Like, who could be against that?

But because Elon has become such a toxic figure that has sort of tanked the whole Doge project in terms of public perception, and then lastly, and I think this is the big Achilles heel for the Trump administration if Democrats were able slash willing to exploit it.

60% of people think that billionaires advising the president is bad. And only 12% say this is good. And when you compare the musk influence with all of those guys that were behind him on the dias, Zuckerberg and Bezos and all of these billionaires, four of the five richest people on the entire planet standing behind him at the inauguration, again, this is I think a real vulnerability ultimately for Trump.

So, yeah, I mean, Trump thinks the world sees him as having co-opted these CEOs, and he can parade them around like trophies, and I don't think that's clear. You know, that sounds like what I just said is entirely obvious, but...

Trump thinks that people are seeing him as the conqueror of Silicon Valley, as opposed to the conquered. And Silicon Valley understands that, which is why they are allowing Trump to kind of frame it that way and are being... Obsequious. Obsequious, yeah. And Trump, on the other hand,

Or they, I should say Silicon Valley, on the other hand, has all of these plans actually to conquer the US government and to get these monopolistic contracts. Actually, interestingly, one of the things that Elon is fighting Sam Altman on is the open AI relationship with Microsoft. Elon is trying to compete in the AI space and is suing them for monopolistic practices. And he's completely right that it's a monopoly. It's a government sanction monopoly, essentially.

And our relationship, it's turning into like crony capital, not turning into it is crony capitalism. When it comes to AI, it's a crony industrial policy that is being paraded as this like melee-esque libertarian triumph. And it's nothing of the sort at all. And so

The American public, when you have 60% saying they don't like the billionaires, Trump still thinks he has room to operate with that because it looks like he's on the same page. These guys aren't running the government. I'm running these mother-effers. They're answering to us. They're answering the US. And his thing going forward is going to be whether the public sees him as the conqueror or the conquered. And that, for him,

is going to be a challenge to make it look like he really won. Because these guys are getting a hell of a lot out of the arrangement and increasingly more and more and more. So good luck. Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. I mean, they're already getting, you know, the $500 billion Stargate thing is like, they're putting up the money. It's not supposed to be public funds. But just getting that big White House announcement and all that access, Trump already rolled back. There were a few like modest

AI safety type of things, executive orders that Biden had signed, which we need to do way more, but at least it was something has already rolled those back. You know, they're doing their exploration about a digital asset reserve, which is just like, to me, so disgusting because, like I said before,

Imagine he puts the Trump and Melania shit coins in the digital asset reserve. That means you and me and you are all in the hook for pumping up the price of this just total fake invented scam. And many others besides, if it's a digital asset reserve, it could be any number of things that are in that. It's basically, listen, crypto is an even more unequal marketplace than the general economy.

there are a handful, like a few dozen gigantic whales that own the overwhelming bulk of cryptocurrencies. And so they have a problem, which is that if they sell a bunch into the market, then it completely tanks the price and they can't pull out any like real dollars out of this Ponzi scheme. But theoretically, they like to talk about theoretically the democratization that comes with crypto, but that's not in practice what's happening at all. Not at all.

Not at all. And with these meme coins, like, there's not even a theory of that, really? It's just like, it's just anarchy. It's just anarchy. It is a pyramid. It's just, can I get more people to be greater fools than me and get in after me and pump the price up? I mean, there's not even an illusion of, like, Bitcoin, there's some illusion of, like, oh, this can be used for transactions and

you know, evading sanctions is the use that I personally prefer for Bitcoin as like the best use case. But with these, there's not even like a theory of that, of it being used or useful in any way other than just like brazen speculation. So in any case, he is doing a lot for them. He is, you know, taking any sort of breaks off in terms of AI development and also

Well, has, I mean, he removed Leena Kahn. So, and the guy that he put in is much less signaled to be much less aggressive in terms of antitrust enforcement. So, and they're all going to get a giant tax cut that much is for sure. So, they already have gotten a lot out of the deal. And I think your way of framing it, Emily, is totally correct about it. It's going to all come down to

whether Trump is seen as like the victor or the vanquished of these billionaires. Right, and you know, it's not just that he, I think he understands, you know, a lot of people are arguing this sort of basic point that it looks gross just around yourself with all of these oligarchs, but I think Trump sees that differently. His perception of it is that he looks like he is taking over the men who opposed him at every step, and it's true. Like Zuckerberg is a great example of somebody who poured a lot of money into the 2020 election.

And, uh, it wasn't with the goal of getting Donald Trump elected or getting as many people to the polls as possible. It was, you know, he supported Joe Biden. And here Trump has him on his day as an inauguration. It's not just about, you know, the proximity to power. It's about saying, I own you now. Um, but the public may not see it that way going forward for the very reason that Trump was successful in the first place, uh, which is that people hate billionaires and Trump came out as somebody who hated other billionaires. Good luck. Yeah. So true.

Lately on the NPR Politics podcast, we're talking about a big question. How much can one guy change? What will change look like? Or energy? School. Take the Department of Education follows it. Health care. Better and less expensive. Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made. Promises kept. We're going to keep our promises.

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What's up, everybody? I'm Dan Vercier to tell you about a new podcast. It's NHL Unscripted with Verc and Diverse. Jason and MERS here in after playing 700 NHL games. I got a lot of dirty laundry to air out. Hey, I got a lot to say here, too. OK, each week we'll get together and chat with the sport that we love.

Tons of guests are going to join in too, but we're not just going to be talking hockey folks. We're talking movies, we're talking TV, food, and Ennad's favorite wrestling. It's all on Litablif. Listen to NHL Unscripted with Verkin D'Murs and the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.