10/8/26: Trump Plans Imminent Iran Attack, US Presses Russia On Lab Leak, Levin Stepson Rigs Israel Intel

Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. Extra amazing because Crystal is back.

What do we have today, Crystal?

Yes, indeed we do.

I missed all the fish shenanigans, but we have updates for you guys about the subscription drive and whether or not Ryan made it to the show last night. So stay tuned for that. But we have lots of actual news in the show as well, including it looks like Trump is asking for plans to strike Iran potentially before midterm elections. This comes as Saudi Arabia has now been hit by the Houthis, their airports in particular, in a significant mass casualty event there. So we'll break all of those details down. We've got new details about that potential plague death in Russia this morning. So we'll update you on that. A top aide to Mike Huckabee has now been caught lying about Israeli war crimes to the president

and trying to cover up some of the abuses that he thinks may go too far, even for this administration. There's a bunch of new focus groups of voters coming out of Michigan, including one of Trump voters that say they are actually going to back Abdul El-Sayed. We have some ominous signs as well about how Trump plans to mess with the upcoming midterm election. So we want to keep our eye on that. And then breaking yesterday evening, pathetic and deeply corrupt new revelations about Kimberly Guilfoyle begging for cash to pay off her American Express bill in advance of her confirmation hearings. This is just the latest revelation about the way that she has conducted herself as ambassador to Greece, which has been deeply shameful, corrupt and

all of the rest.

Oh, absolutely.

And actually, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is in Greece right now and is being asked about it, putting him in a very uncomfortable situation for you can, of course, go ahead and sign up for breakingpoints.com and take advantage of our free month trial.

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Because of the fun little shenanigans like that we have here on our show.

So so many of you came through.

And included, and in fact, sending me pictures of you with Ryan at the Phish show. Many people at the Phish show actually came up to Ryan and even said that they were held responsible for getting him there. And yesterday, Neera Tanden, very late at night, was trying to troll Ryan, just said, I'm looking forward to Ryan Graham's thoughtful analysis.

And he just replied, I'm busy with this panoramic shot of the Phish concert. They're calling it the very first Phish-mogging in history. And so that is entirely because of all of you. So breakingpoints.com, if you want to be part of our shenanigans, I've got a few other concerts. Now I'm checking the Phish schedule to see where we can send Ryan around the United States. So if you want to support all of the family that we have over here at breakingpoints.com, we do appreciate all of you.

So with all of that, let's get to the actual news here. Let's put this up here on the screen. A9, Trump is now considering a plan to strike Iran before the midterms. Pentagon planners are weighing options, though no final decision has yet been made. After months of on-again, off-again fighting, the United States has not outstruck Iran in several weeks.

That is a stretch of relative tranquility, but that may not be exactly what happens. The White House has now asked the Pentagon to develop strike options against Iranian targets, which would be exercised ahead of the midterms, according to two administration officials. The planning underscores just how much the president wants to reduce gas prices and demonstrate progress in the conflict before the vote. This also fits with another leak that came out late last night. Let's put A10 up here on the screen. The United States military has now been ordered to be ready for possible Iran strikes as Trump weighs timing. I can say that I personally confirmed some of this news as well. Many of the targets,

as I understand it, would focus on energy sites, nuclear sites, and kind of be a shock and awe style attack similar to the ones that were launched in the very early days of the war. Crystal, the electoral significance of this is actually very interesting because as you and I both know, there is no world where striking Iran is going to increase or to decrease oil prices. But Trump seems to still believe in this fantasy. In fact, as I understand it, and the Atlantic also alludes to this, a lot of this is being pushed by the Israeli government because Prime Minister Netanyahu is also in an election.

And so he is selling Trump behind the scenes saying, hey, what we'll do is we'll go in, we'll have another shock and awe victory like we did the very first time. So Bibi Netanyahu, very similar to the February 28th attacks, has his own political motives because it's actually not a surprise that them being at war ahead of the Israeli elections would be helpful to him and is trying to delude Trump into this new plan of bringing the United States back fully into the war, reigniting the campaign again.

The funniest part about all this is just the signal alone that Trump may be considering more strikes on Iran has sent Brent crude, which yesterday dropped below $ 100 per barrel at nearly $ 105 a barrel as of this morning, showing that even the signal of wanting to bomb alone is enough to increase overall gas prices. There is not a single scrap of evidence the United States can militarily lower gas prices with more bombs on Iranian energy infrastructure, the likely outcome would be retaliatory strikes on energy infrastructure in the rest of the Gulf, ballistic missile attacks, etc.

Like we're seeing right now, spending gas prices even more sky high, and the October surprise would be one of Trump's own making. And yet, that is the idiocy which is currently occupying the decision-making in the White House.

Yeah.

I mean, the entire election surprise has been Trump's repeated self-immolation. So I guess why would we expect anything different heading here down the stretch? And it's worth noting, we literally warned about this last week because while for Trump, it is insane to think that additional strikes on Iran is going to improve his midterm prospects whatsoever, for Netanyahu, the.

Calculus is quite different.

The way he has held on to power for these many years is to foment some sort of crisis that he can paint himself as the savior of the Israeli people and go to war, commit war crimes. And this has also been the way that he has delayed any sort of reckoning over the allegations of corruption against him that he's also facing within the country. And we know that Netanyahu, while he is evil, he is not stupid.

Trump is both evil and stupid. So he is easily manipulated by Netanyahu. At least that's the way it has appeared throughout this entire term. So on the other hand, too, you know, this is classic escalation trap. It's also classic sort of degenerate gambler behavior. where he's looking at the polls, he's having to fly to places like Texas and worry about Iowa and Kansas. He knows this thing could be a complete and total disaster. So that's the trend that he's on right now. That's the trajectory that he is on right now. So what do you do when you're already deep in the hole and you are a, you know, a gambler who has to be able to pay your mortgage and the house is on the line, you double down.

And so he's, open to being convinced of this idea that, oh, if we just do one more wave of aggressive attacks, then Iran is not going to be able to hold the straight anymore. It'll be completely open. The gas prices from the market will plummet and you'll get this tremendous bump going into the midterms and we can sell it as some sort of mission accomplished moment before voters en masse head to the polls. So again, I think this is completely foolish. It's not going to work. It's only going to make the situation worse for him But it doesn't surprise me that he would be susceptible to this type of quote unquote rationale.

Yes, exactly.

And in fact, one of the things that we see inside of it is he's still desperate to declare victory. And so the thinking is that they can maybe bomb. They can have a temporary rise in gas. What will then happen is the Iranians will magically just sign another memorandum of understanding, which they had already signed previously. I mean, this is the sheer foolhardiness of it, because the reality on the ground, as we continue to cover every single day shows that things are creeping in the opposite direction.

So yesterday we had the official 15th strike in the Strait of Hormuz by the Iranians. This is actually a very significant strike because it was apparently it was a ship at anchor, which had not previously had happened. We've had multiple tankers actually turn around as a result of IRGC warnings. And there is more evidence this morning, including from the energy firm, which is very Trump friendly by reporting some of the data about the rising levels of oil that was coming out, one of the analysts at that company basically says, I'm not really sure I can reconcile this increase without a suspicion that many oil companies are just paying 10 to 20 percent tolls to the Iranians.

So remember, that would be a surreptitious transaction, which is directly in violation of sanctions. Part of the reason Iran wants to stay quiet because they want their money, they're bleeding for it with about being able to export oil and the ship companies themselves don't want to be sanctioned by the US government. Ryan also showed in our previous show that the US government has previously already sanctioned a crypto exchange, which was trying to facilitate these transactions. So tolling itself is already part of this. This shows some of the success of the Iranian strategy. On the other side of the Middle East, you have what's happening in Saudi Arabia, which is completely imploding. Let's put A2B up

here on the screen. Remember, the information environment out of Saudi Arabia is a very, sketchy. As of this morning, Saudi Arabia time, there were massive explosions that rocked the capital of Riyadh. No actual information has yet been released, but it comes in the last 48 hour period where what we know is that blasts are currently rattling Riyadh and Saudi Arabia is hit by the deadliest Houthi attacks so far. The Houthis struck two different airports that killed two people, including a worker at one of the airports and two female pilots who were actually working there. Let's put A1 up here on the screen. This is what we had yesterday, an official confirmation of targets, both two international airports in Saudi Arabia from the General Authority of

Civil Aviation in the country. And you actually see a picture of one of those airports In fact, this morning, there was reporting out of many of the flights that were trying to land where they were circling, and they were not able to do so immediately after the report has happened of those blasts on the Capitol. you could see Saudi Arabia is now taking ballistic missile hits directly on its own capital, critical infrastructure. The reason why that airport attack is so significant is previously the Houthis had struck the fuel depots actually in the airport, but this time around shifted to a much more deadly strike on the infrastructure. That's another reason why oil continues to climb.

And it's humiliating, obviously, for the kingdom, which has spent tens, hundreds of billions of dollars on United States military equipment, Patriot missiles, they have the military there.

You have 200 U.S.

Intelligence analysts which are trying to counter-program the Houthi offensive and are giving intelligence and satellite imagery to the Saudi-backed forces in Yemen. So much of it is already falling apart. Let's put A2 on the screen just to show you some of the details. DropSite compiled some of the more recent Houthi advances, not only in striking Afghanistan, the airport, but they're also now saying all airlines must stop flying through Saudi airspace, calling it a theater of our operations with the sole exception of Mecca and Medina, the holy sites of Islam. It says attacks are retaliation for 60 Saudi airstrikes and a missile on Sana'a and multiple other places over the last 24-hour periods, which it says has

killed civilians. It says 1,576 Saudi strikes have now hit Yemen since that escalation.

Began.

So again, the war is expanding. It continues to send oil upwards. And already, just Trump's suggestion or leaking that they might start bombing Iran again has erased all of the price pressure, which previously had been alleviated by the release of diesel and oil from the strategic petroleum reserves of the G7 countries. So everything is actually pointing in the opposite direction. But the Netanyahu factor is is above all of this, where he's in Trump's ear, just telling him, hey, just restart the war because it'll be good for you.

When in reality, it's only good for him. He doesn't care about oil, diesel, or anybody else. He cares about himself and getting himself reelected. And I wouldn't bet against him considering his track record now so far.

You'd be a fool too. You'd be an absolute fool too.

It's incredible that he hung on after October 7th, especially given how much we know now about all the repeated warnings that he received and ignored. The repositioning of military assets away from Gaza and all of the rest, including the fact they literally had the October 7th plan in their hands and did absolutely nothing in order to stop it.

You know, the real question now is not if we are going back to more significant strikes against Iran, it's when. because it seems very much like these plans have been drawn up. The Iranians definitely expect Trump to go back to bombing them. Their previous suspicion had been after the midterm elections, that would be when he would open up the full-scale war again. Now it appears that he's considering going forward even more quickly. So like I said, it seems like more a question of when rather than if.

We can put A4 up on the screen. This is some video that was released from the Houthis just showing them showing them fighting. And, you know, they've had obviously this very successful initiative. And can you imagine, you know, I flew out of Dulles Airport to go visit my daughter in Spain. And the thought of your major international airport in your nation's capital being a target where, you know, civilians and pilots are at risk is, I think, for most Americans completely unimaginable. And yet that's exactly what Saudi Arabia is facing at this point. So they've got that problem.

They've also got the problem with Iran, you know, economic issues. They've got longer term brand issues because they very much want Saudi Arabia to be seen as the sort of, you know, safe island apart from any of the turmoil in the rest of the region. That's the sort of modus operandi of all the Gulf Arab nations. So major, major problems for them. Let's go ahead and put A5 up on the screen because we have some more details about what's going on with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

This is from the Financial Times. There was also some reporting from Bloomberg about the situation facing the ship's captains and the crew members. These crew members are really drawn from sort of the global poor. They can make more on these ships than they could at home. At the best of times, it's a very difficult job. You're away from home. The conditions are not great. You're treated very poorly.

The pay by.

American standards is terrible, but again, more than they would likely be able to make at home. Now ships are having to pay quite a lot more to the captains and to the sailors, although our friend Sal put some fine print on this that probably more of what's going on here is they're being coerced. Hey, either you're going to do it or you're going to lose your job.

We'll find someone else. But in any case, the transit costs have absolutely skyrocketed for what these ships have to pay in order to transit the Strait. We can put A7 up on the screen from Sal just to add a little bit of context based on his expertise about what's going on here. So he says that the minimum wage for mariners is currently $ 690 per month. Tanker masters are making about $ 12K per month. The $ 50, 000 bonus is to sign up for a three to four month tour on a tanker that's doing shuttle service between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The danger pay is only paid while the ships are making the Hormuz transit or if the ship comes under attack. It's unlikely the ship owners are actually paying four to six times to

sit in the Persian Gulf or Gulf of Oman. Most assuredly, when the ship has departed, the mercenary term, which is used in one of these articles, is derogatory. Instead, the mariners should be considered veterans. for being willing to take these chances with minimum defenses. And, you know, I think these are really important to note because, of course, the ship owners are really trying to absolutely maximize their profit.

They know how to nickel and dime these mariners. But the point remains, Sagar, that they are effectively combatants at this point and taking tremendous risks because you've had dozens of these mariners who have been killed over the course of this war.

Exactly.

And, you know, you have ships struck at anchor. You've had people who've been killed. I mean, You've had people who've been wounded, smoke inhalation. Remember our own United States Marines who were on board one of those merchant carriers themselves suffered after a direct missile hit on the ship that they were on. You've also had many of them had to abandon ship in honestly some terrifying circumstance if you watch some of the video that's come out of the Strait of Hormuz. Let's put AA up on the screen because I want to highlight this around oil. Rory, I will just say ignore the price here because he tweeted it yesterday, but he points out that already the International Energy Agency's member countries are saying again that they

stand ready to release additional oil from strategic reserves if necessary and will prioritize diesel fuel due to a tight supply, the head said on Wednesday. That had initially sent the Brent crude price under $ 100 a barrel. But as I said, many of the recent developments have already sent Brent crude back above $ 100.

$ 105.

The physical barrel premium and all of that puts it around $ 130, $ 140, which is what all of us are paying at the gas station. Right now, gas remains around $ 4. 36 a gallon, and diesel actually beginning to drop by about a quarter from its all-time high to $ 6.

28.

I'm not saying it's a titanic drop or anything, but that does reflect all of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve diesel-specific releases that have now been orchestrated across the G7. I will note that as of this morning, it does look like that hurricane is beginning to gain some steam, I think, in the Gulf of Mexico heading towards Alabama. Obviously, we'll keep people updated with respect to how much damage it is able to do because global refinery supply, we covered yesterday, Venezuela, that huge explosion that happened just two days ago.

We covered what's happening in Russia.

A total diesel export ban out of that country in addition to multiple attacks in the Black Sea on some of their tankers. And then our own refinery is already running near 100% of their own capacity with diesel where it's at right now. So very difficult situation. And even that comes after the president signed some crazy executive order, which it's something about dyed diesel. Again, I'm not an expert or any of that. It's all trying to keep the price down Already, I believe, farmers had had access to that, so it's not like it was going to have some sort of immediate impact more towards the trucking industry.

It's going to continue to send inflation very high. But that's where things stand as of right now. It does look like some resumption of major combat operations, as they call it, could happen again with Iran. And it's almost just certain to end up right back where things started, unless Trump does what he's been unwilling to do so far, which is do some crazy big strike and then just be officially say, we're done. The reason I don't buy it is you have the third carrier group, which is on its way right now, in addition to 10,000 more U.S. troops.

And that's not something you do whenever you're going to declare victory. That's something you do whenever after the midterm elections, which is the current plan, is you escalate the war even more. You might just do it early because Bibi has asked you to.

Yeah.

And also, it's not like he can just declare mission accomplished and walk away. The Iranians get a say in this thing, and they're very committed to getting their assets unfrozen and the sanctions lifted. And I don't think they have any intent of allowing some sort of free flow of goods through the Strait of Hormuz until those demands of theirs are met. So we're still in a torturous position where neither side has extracted enough pain from the other to force some sort of a resolution to this wholly unnecessary and completely destructive war. So that remains and Trump continues to evaluate a series of potentially catastrophic options.

Wow.

Big news.

Just saw it actually big update from flight radar. Riyadh airport is completely closed right now. They haven't a flight taken off in over 90 minutes. Last takeoff was yeah, over 90 minutes ago. So their entire airspace basically shut down even for a one, two hour period. That's billions of dollars of damage. It's humiliating there. For the kingdom, to be honest, at this point, like you were saying earlier, I cannot even fathom booking a flight out of Riyadh or anywhere in the Gulf. I mean, why would you take the chance that some errant drone or missile is going to take you out?

I don't need that.

And I don't think any of you do either. So that's just my own personal advice. Either don't go or I guess pay the premium because, you know, it's not like exactly like flights are all that cheap anyways.

OK, let's get to lab leak.

Turning now to this lab leaf situation in Russia, some more information being released, but frankly, none of it is making us feel any better about the situation. So Trump was pressed yesterday in the Oval Office about what we know about the situation. He seemed to be trying to calm the situation down, despite the fact the U.S. government is actually protesting to Russia to try and get more information.

Here's what he had to say.

Is the plague in Russia a bioweapon?

Well, we don't think so. We're going to find out soon enough, but we don't think so. And if you listen to them, it's under control. But, you know, people have said that before about other things. So we hope it is very sophisticated, very smart. And they're saying it's very much under control. So we hope not, Peter. We've heard this before.

A couple of years ago during your first term.

Are you getting the same vibe? Many times before and many different things.

Are you getting the same vibe right now from Russia that you got from China at the start of COVID?

Well, China didn't say much and Russia's not saying much either, but they do say they have it very much under control.

Behind the scenes, here's what's actually going on. Let's put the next one up here on the screen. Trump is trying to calm things down, but it turns out that the State Department actually has sent Russia a confidential diplomatic warning saying that its silence about this death at the Plague Research Institute is running against its obligation under international health regulations, which also required prompt notice to the WHO of any potential health emergency. Behind the scenes, Russia actually called the information Moscow has shared still limited. He's urged more transparency and said agencies are watching it closely. Right now, the WHO rates the possible economic plague case as, quote, very low risk outside of Russia itself. But what you

can see from this Wall Street Journal piece is that there are escalating things happening at the official level where they're basically begging them for more information in some of these confidential exchanges. And part of the thing is that there's no details that have yet been released by the Russians.

What they have released is actually kind of scary. Let's go to the next part here. Russia says it has found no emergency in the plague lab. no information or new information around the lab death worker, including a statement, has now come after the US demand. So I'm gonna read you from their official health regulator, their statement as translated, obviously.

They said that the researcher who died had been, quote, vaccinated against the pathogens that she worked with and that no emergency situations had occurred at the lab. Right now, they are urging Moscow, obviously from the United States, for more details. All they were really able to say was that she was vaccinated and therefore, quote, had immunity to the dangerous infection she worked with. And the statement implies that she actually had a much lower risk of contracting the natural plague, which she would have been vaccinated, though it does not definitively rule out becoming ill with the disease.

It would, again, as I understand it right now, it would rule out the likelihood, not rule out, but it would diminish the risk, the likelihood of her death. Obviously, she was 28 years old, presumably healthy, and of course died in these mysterious circumstances. This is actually enhancing, Crystal, even more speculation that this might have been some sort of genetically modified or gain-of-function style strain of the bacteria, specifically because if you had a vaccination and if this was a normal laboratory accident, what would have happened would have pulled the emergency alarm and she would not have come into contact with the nearly 200 people and others in the city of Irkutsk And it definitely would not

have led to the current screenings that are happening in these maternity wards and around these hospitals. So no confirmed more infections as of right now. But I do think it does highlight that they are not telling the truth. And, you know, more broadly, speaking with Annie on our show and what I've learned even more from some of the other lab experts is that nothing about the way this is being handled is consistent with a laboratory accident. You can actually rule that out, basically, in the way that the public health authorities have responded. Either she was smuggling something out, she was infected by something, like we said, that's much more genetically modified. And this is a known bioweapons facility with a long history in the Soviet bioweapons program.

And their tight-lippedness around this and the total amount of control that they have imposed on Irkutsk with the information blackout makes things very reminiscent of Yeah, I think we just don't have enough information to say whether this is something that we should be afraid of or whether it is a minor blip that we'll all move past shortly because.

Also, some of their actions are consistent with what they are claiming, which is that she died of some sort of pneumonia. Now, that would be very unusual for someone who is 28 years old. It would be highly unusual, but it wouldn't be impossible. And so if you had a researcher at this facility who died in a mysterious way, if you were a responsible government, what you would do is out of an abundance of caution, some of the things that they had done, you know, the lockdowns of the hospital, the quarantine, the testing, etc., Now, of course, we don't trust our own government. We shouldn't trust the Russian government, the information that they're putting forward, et cetera.

I do think the piece about the notion that she was vaccinated against the strain that she was working with, that just sounds very plausible based on what your typical lab protocol would be. It is worth saying that that vaccination is not 100%. So even if she was vaccinated, if she was exposed to it, there's still a possibility that she would contract the plague and die without it having been enhanced. Although these are obviously things that, you know, we have to be concerned about and worried about given the, what we've all been through and what we know is possible.

So I don't know, maybe I just have already too many existential worries on my plate. Like I can't really wrap my head around another one. So I'm looking at this and going, I need more information before I freak out about it. Because as much as we are lacking in specific information, there continue to be a lot of question marks. There's also not been, you know, confirmed sort of like Anarchy or breaks mass social breakdown in the region.

You know, I'm sure that we do have quite a bit of intel resources there to know what they're doing. Our own government doesn't seem to be completely panicked or freaking out about it. So I'm going to I'm going to wait on this one before I go for like five alarm fire.

To be fair, I actually am not that worried for a total international COVID-style outbreak. And the reason why is everything that we're able to understand about this disease is that it's literally so deadly and horrific that you will not make it to the gate for your flight. You will not be able to asymptomatically pass this disease. If you get it, you will come into contact with that person.

You will know how sick that person is. They're not leaving their house, basically. So It's actually more about lab safety, about known bioweapons than it is necessarily like this specific one.

And I think that's why it is important.

It also does, again, highlight the breakdown in all of these so-called bioweapons conventions and international health regulation. Like no country has a interest in actually abiding by these things. And that's part of the issue. So that's part of the reason I wanted to focus on it. Let's put before, let's take a listen here. The CDC director said, is giving an update, asked about it yesterday at a Wall Street Journal conference.

The situation in Russia right now, the U.S. has warned Moscow about its failure to disclose details of the death of a lab worker from a plague research center in Siberia. What steps are you... and the federal health apparatus taking to ensure that America is protected from this potential spread of whatever is happening there?

Yeah, so the CDC certainly and the whole of government, we are hearing the same thing that the American public is hearing, that there is an unconfirmed case of what we've heard of is pneumonic plague. It's from Yersinia pestis. It's a bacterial disease, very serious bacterial disease. The one good thing, if I could say there's a good thing, is that it's a treatable, highly treatable bacterial disease with common antibiotics that most physicians within the United States can utilize.

This is a disease that is spread person to person through respiratory droplets. But like I said, if we can identify cases early, they're absolutely treatable. What we're doing from a whole of government standpoint is we're making sure that we understand exactly what that threat is. We are very confident that the threat to the United States is extremely low.

There are about 200 flights that come into the United States from Siberia, that region. We are working with Department of Homeland Security, working Department of State, Department of War, and other agencies within the government to make sure that we know exactly if anyone from that area comes into the United States. Like I said, there are about 200 flights there.

Per year.

They typically come into JFK. We have a port health station set up in JFK so that we can do appropriate surveillance and screening if anyone from that area comes into the United States. So we're very well positioned to make sure that we are protected from a potential threat like that.

Is Russia being adequately transparent with the U.S.

So from what I understand from the Department of State and from others within the Department of Homeland Security, we are still having those conversations about what exactly happened in Siberia.

Relatively reassuring, Crystal.

Although I feel like every movie that's a zombie movie starts with a clip.

It's just like that. So maybe I have too much Hollywood. There's nothing to worry about. There's nothing to worry about.

We got everything under control. We got it all handled at JFK. And I'm like, OK, she seems like a smart lady. Sounds reasonable, Dr.

Erica Schwartz.

Let's put the last one element up here from the WHO. This was significant. Annie Flagg, because it was actually the first time WHO has even acknowledged the situation. The World Health Organization saying, been actively following this reported death in response to the verification requests under IHR guidelines. Health authorities reported no case of plague has been registered in the Irkutsk Oblast.

They have informed the WHO.

An epidemiological investigation had been conducted, preventative and control measures implemented, and identified contacts placed under medical observation tested. They reported that no high-threat pathogens have been detected among contacts. Medical observation of all identified contacts had been completed. So that's it for what we have right now. We're going to keep our eyes, obviously, on the story. And as Crystal said, look, It's not something to panic about that's gonna be happening, at least in terms of what a lot of these epidemiologists are saying right now. But it does highlight the problem around lab leaks, around safety, around the way that governments communicate about these things. And just like with COVID,

I think what's important about COVID is that the people who had followed this, obviously not me, I didn't wake up one day and I was like, oh, lab leaks happen all the time, is that there were so many precipitating and precursor incidents that people like Richard Ebright and others who had all been warning about this for literally decades from anthrax and leading up to this in like a 20-year period could point back and say, hey, look, this system is not working. And eventually the big one is going to happen. And then it did, like with COVID.

And so I think that's how we should look at this situation because it's a very, very deadly and horrific pathogen. However, it is so deadly, in fact, that it may not likely to be caused some sort of global epidemic, but that doesn't mean that the next one or some sort of other virus or bacteria, which is being genetically modified, won't be. And in fact, the same director of this Plague Institute laboratory, as we showed everybody in one of our previous shows, had just traveled to China, not only to participate in an exercise about the outbreak of plague, but around tick-borne diseases, which we know, like Lyme disease here in the United States, has at least the potential to itself have leaked from the Plum Island Research Defense

Laboratory in the 1970s. So those are exactly the type of things that apparently the United States and Russia had all been researching at the time of the Cold War. Russia itself is currently embroiled in a long ground war, which is grinding to a halt. And many of those types of diseases, bioweapons and others, are specifically studied for the implementation to unleash on the enemy in order to weaken their resolve in some sort of Spanish flu-style 1918 pandemic collapse. And so always important, I think, to highlight these stories.

And the other thing is now we don't just have to worry about governments. Everybody excited for the anthropic wet lab that they're setting up. I mean, and this is one of the things that is a great fear of mine with regard to AI. So it's a reminder, too, of how deadly these things can be, how quickly they can spread. Not that any of us really needed that.

reminder because of what we have all lived through at this point. So it's important to take these things seriously. I don't know if you saw that some hacker who appears to have not been all that skilled using off the shelf, not even the frontier AI models was able to hack into the South Korean banking system. And again, using like pretty unsophisticated techniques based on other technical analysts who were looking at it and were like, oh, they didn't even do this basic thing you would do to hide your identity. And we're asking Claude also things like, hey, can you make a resume for me? So they got all of their contact details. So it didn't exactly seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer and yet

able to pull.

Off what was a sophisticated hack.

And so that's the problem is when you enable this highly technical, sophisticated technique. technology to be in the hands of anyone. Now, anyone who has a nefarious purpose or deeply ideological viewpoint who wants to unleash something terrible on the world, they are more likely to have the tools to do so. So that's part of the concern too, is that now we don't just have to worry about governments.

We have to worry about pretty much anyone.

Yeah.

Any private laboratory, chemist sets and all. Wow. Too much. It's too much for today.

Okay.

Let's get to Michigan.

So breaking just this morning, we have a New York Times report about how a top aide to Mike Huckabee has been actively covering up negative information about the Israeli government in an effort to protect Netanyahu. So this is a man who works for the U.S. government, and yet he is covering up negative information about the Israeli government in an effort to hide the truth from the White House and indeed from President Trump. So Let me read the TLDR they put here at the top. So they say in late March at the height of the Iran war, Israel quietly approved more settlements in the Israeli occupied West Bank than it ever had at one time. Staff members at the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem saw the move as

potentially flouting one of President Trump's explicit red lines for Israel. No annexation of the West Bank and drafted an urgent report intended for policymakers in Washington. That memo never reached Washington. It was quashed by David Milstein, a top aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee. According to three U.S. officials briefed on the process, they go on to say that this was no isolated incident. He has repeatedly suppressed or significantly revised embassy reporting on Israeli activities to present the Netanyahu government in a favorable light. Here are the examples that they give.

As settler violence in the West Bank surged in the spring, he stymied embassy reporting suggesting the Israeli government was failing to take action. Instead, he sent a cable to Washington praising Israel for cracking down on the attacks. So quashed the truth and actively lied to them in a cable that was sent to Washington. When members of Congress pushed for accountability over the killing of nine Palestinian Americans, okay, again, Americans killed by Israeli settlers and security forces, He suppressed a detailed report the embassy staff had written, effectively stonewalling lawmakers' efforts to gain information.

Soon after arriving in Jerusalem, Mr.

Milstein began insisting on approving communications from the embassy section that handles Palestinian affairs. The flow of cables plummeted from several a week to a few a month, as some staffers refrained from writing reports for fear Mr. Milstein would block or rewrite them. They go on to say his interventions go far beyond those of any recent investigation.

Predecessor.

I mean, in my view, Sager, this is literally treasonous. Protecting the interests of a foreign government over the interests of the government that you work for, the country that you are a citizen of, this is completely insane.

Absolutely.

And don't forget, Milstein is Mark Levin's stepson. Now, I don't usually care about these types of things, except for the fact that apparently in the Trump administration, nobody wants to touch him because he's Mark Levin's Now, normally, if a United States ambassador found out that their chief of staff was editing cables, manipulating intelligence that's being sent to Washington, they would be furious about it. Instead, Mike Huckabee is defending him. Don't forget that this is the same David Milstein.

I don't know if we even covered this story on the show. I know I certainly mentioned it. is the same guy who, when he was getting married, solicited cash donations in dollars and shekels from his guests for his wedding. Now, I guess that's, I mean, you know, donations and all that is largely par for the course. However, this was in such a fashion where he sent out a QR code, making it easier to all of the guests, basically saying, hey, anybody can donate, you know, literal cash to this. He had claimed after it was reported in Politico that it was meant to only go to a small circle of family and friends and not to everybody. But nonetheless, the reason why it was highlighted was was for the potential

of corruption because there are corruption guidelines that govern people who serve in public office, solicitation of cash donations, and yes, especially if they come from foreign citizens, and in this case, obviously, in the nation of Israel. So this is incredibly a wild story. I mean, as you said, treasonous behavior because it's not just about manipulating intelligence and cables specifically to make the Netanyahu government look better. What it really is is you have this situation where you have American citizens who have been killed in the West Bank. Your embassy is supposed to look out for your interests and especially to pressure the host government who is responsible, Israel in this case, who occupies the West Bank, into making sure

that there is an investigation that has taken place. The actual embassy workers responsible are like, yep, nothing's happening. They're not doing anything about this. Clearly, this is being sidelined. There's not going to be any justice. He comes in and defends the Netanyahu government, basically saying they're doing a good job. Same whenever it comes to settler violence. And so here you have like the it comes all together like full circle. You've got Mark Levin's stepson who nobody wants to touch because he's Mark Levin's stepson. To be fair, you know, previously worked for Ron DeSantis and some of these other longtime person in American politics on the right, but always has had a massively pro-Israel bent, then becomes

the chief of staff. in the United States embassy and is now doing this and basically being caught with no repercussions from Washington, from the State Department, or from the White House. And so I think that's what is the craziest part. I mean, if you were some, as we saw, actually, we interviewed one of those people, a State Department employee who was just trying to pass the facts on about, you know, restraint and some pro-Israel influence.

He's totally, or he was trying to do his job. in a more.

Apolitical way, this guy gets fired largely at the behest of David Milstein, whereas Milstein can basically be caught manipulating intelligence or using his position to make the Israeli government look better in official diplomatic channels. And he gets a complete free pass from the Trump White House, from Marco Rubio, and also from the embassy itself. So much so that the funny part is, is that despite what Ben Shapiro and those people would tell you, It's not like the people who work at U.S. Embassy Jerusalem, you know, the so-called career diplomats are like rabid Hamas leftists. These are almost certainly, you know, bipartisan pro-Israel mainstays who already have been screened by the Trump administration who are working in

that building. Those are the people who are like, yo, man, what David Milstein is doing is crazy. So keep that in mind whenever you when you see who is sourced for a lot of this stuff is. Yeah.

Even if they're like holdovers from the Biden administration. Oh, were they like pro Hamas and pro Palestine?

Like, be for real. What U.S.

President could you point to where it's like, oh, they're a holdover from George H.W.

Bush, who actually pushed back a little bit.

I mean, you have to go way back to find someone who would break from the pro Israel consensus that we've had has had a, you know, a lock grip on the country for so long. Here's another instance just to show you how far this goes because it's not just like a handful of cases. In the summer of 2025, dozens of Palestinians seeking food were killed near the distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. People who watch our show will certainly remember us talking about this quite a bit. In that cable, diplomats, American diplomats, warned that the foundation's distribution process was chaotic and deadly and risked more mass casualty events. Milstein rewrote the cable saying, to declare GHF's operation a success while overlooking the mass casualties

all together. So literally took what the diplomats were saying, hey, this is a disaster.

It's chaotic.

People are getting killed. Like, this is not good. And totally erased that and instead said, this is going great. This is amazing. Mass casualty event. What mass casualty event? This has been a tremendous success. So it is truly, look, it's not shocking. But we still have to look at this and say it is unbelievable that someone who has truly amassed, by the way, you may have never heard of him before out there, but he has amassed a lot of power within this administration and has been very influential in terms of the Israeli policy, which, of course, has governed a lot of our foreign policy. He is completely lying about the facts of what's happening in an effort to cover up and make the Netanyahu government look good.

It is totally, completely unbelievable.

Disgusting.

And by the way, hat tip, shout out to Quincy Institute, who had some of this reporting first quite a while ago before New York Times got their hands on some of these details.

Absolutely. I told Trita this privately. I said, you achieved the impossible.

You did something first and got the New York Times to acknowledge it, which they never do. So that is how dead on that they actually were. I do want to just remind people, too, about Milstein. Milstein is the person who was also in that meeting with Jonathan Pollard and May have helped kind of make that happen. Remember the convicted spy, Jonathan Pollard, who set foot back on U.S.

soil at the embassy in Jerusalem at the invitation of Mike Huckabee, to which he still, to this day, has no apologies for what he's done, even though Huckabee himself actually pushed for a pardon and for his own release while he was an elected official because he was so unfairly treated. In my opinion, he didn't serve nearly long enough in prison. That's exactly what we're dealing with. That's what they think.

Of people.

I mean, at a certain point you're like, who are you working for, man? And I think we all know the answer and you also can see why.

Yeah, go ahead.

And to your point, Sagar, it's not like this guy came out of nowhere. He's been an aid to a bunch of, I mean, he's totally like mainstream within Republican political circles. Also former top aid to Ted Cruz, which may not.

Oh yeah.

I've heard stories about the mill scene for years.

Uh, some hilarious, maybe one day I'll be able to report some of the things, the shenanigans has been up to for a decade. I will say what's also important about this is people often wonder about Trump's mindset and with Bibi. But here you can see how the information, this is why systems matter so much, that information that bubbles up. Let's say when Trump asks, he goes, hey, what's going on with these Americans who have been killed?

Let's say on the very off chance that he even hears about it. Well, if you ask for the info and the info is coming from U.S. Embassy Jerusalem and he's cooking the information from U.S. Embassy Jerusalem, People are like, oh, it didn't go down the way that the media is saying. That's why this stuff is so important, is that usually they're supposed to actually just give the facts or at the very least their own assessment about what's going on.

You change that assessment, you can change the entire ramifications of all of this. And I haven't seen any of those families get any recognition or any Oval Office meetings for their deaths or investigate nothing. I mean, you have a few congressmen and senators who may speak up and say something, but These people, I mean, their literal family members are dead at the hands of settlers and nothing has been done for them. And the people who are supposed to represent them regardless of nationality, regardless of race or their own, which side they fall in the conflict, you usually used to have this feeling when you would travel abroad. I am an American. My embassy will do something for me if something happens. If you are in

the West Bank, You already know that's not the case, but now you especially know that that's not the case.

It's terrifying.

No, that's absolutely right. And none of this is to let Trump off the hook, by the way. You know, if we're able to get the information, the president of the United States certainly could. He's constructed this intentional information bubble. And so, you know, he's susceptible to these sort of very simple lies and manipulations. But that is all of his own making and his own responsibility. Meanwhile, guys, I'm sure out there you're worried about gas prices. You're worried about being able to afford a home. You're worried about whether there are going to be any jobs for your kids after they go to college because of AI.

Don't worry.

The Trump administration is really in touch with your deep concerns about the future. That is why they are launching this task force to combat anti-Semitism.

Let's take a listen.

Our nation is at a pivotal moment. In recent years, we have seen a disturbing rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric and acts of hatred against fellow citizens. Let me say this. Hate has no place in America, and this Department of Justice remains committed to confronting it wherever it appears.

What makes America unique is the promise embedded in our Constitution that all Americans should freely enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This Department of Justice is committed to protecting those freedoms and upholding law and order to ensure that that promise endures.

Under President Trump's leadership, this administration has one goal, to make sure that every American has the freedom to enjoy their rights guaranteed to them by God, the Constitution, and our laws. That is why this department has already taken decisive action to safeguard American civil rights in cities and universities across the country. We have accomplished a lot in just the past year, and we are only just beginning.

I mean, you can't take these people seriously. Like this is the administration that ran against DEI and Wokeness, who under Stephen Miller is literally running a whites only immigration policy. And we're supposed to imagine that, you know, on this one issue, they actually deeply care and that this is going to do something about quote unquote anti-Semitic hate. Why is it that they only care about this one particular form of bigotry? Well, I mean, for one thing, there's, we of course know some of the structural factors influencing American politics. But the other piece here, Sagar, of course, is politics itself. The first stop on the anti-Semitism tour just so happens to be in the swing state, very

important to Senate control of Michigan.

Yeah, shocking.

Yeah, I mean, can you imagine if Biden- took the DOJ on a, like some sort of, I'm trying to think, CRT, on like a pro-CRT critical race theory tour of Florida in 2022. I would be losing it. I'm telling you right now, I would absolutely be losing it. People should be losing it around this too, because this is the power of the federal government, and not just the power of the federal government, we're not even talking about the White House, we're talking about the Department of Justice, which has multiple times prosecuted bullshit incidents of so-called anti-Semitism, or they have brought cases or brought their, you know, threats against like civil misdemeanor style cases, which could easily be

handled by the University of Florida, you know, like the University of Florida campus police or Los Angeles PD, and which would be a literal civil matter and escalating it all the way up to the top of the federal government. So this I have joked Previous, not really joke because it's true. The Department of Justice actually did Ibrahim X.

Kendi's dream of the Department of Anti-Racism, but they decided to create it as the Department of Anti-Semitism. And that's effectively what we see here right now. Obviously, the politicalization of it with Michigan.

And what you point out is so important. Like their definition of anti-Semitism is fake.

It's Israel criticism.

And that's not hyperbole. That's their literal definition of anti-Semitism is criticism of Israel. And of course, we've seen the way that they've weaponized that and applied that. If you want to talk about Mahmoud Khalil or to your point, these silly examples of some Florida student who bumped into a guy with an IDF sweatshirt and became some national, oh my God, it's such a hate crime. We have to do something about this. Just utterly, utterly ridiculous. But They think that they have a chance in Michigan because there's a pretty significant Jewish population that's been expressing some concerns, at least among some corners, about Abdul El-Sayed, that maybe they can help to peel off some of those voters.

So that's part of the reason for the timing here.

10/8/26: Trump Plans Imminent Iran Attack, US Presses Russia On Lab Leak, Levin Stepson Rigs Israel Intel

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