1/21/26: Zohran Calls For ICE Abolition, IDF Buckles To Ms Rachel, India Joins Fight Against Saudis

This is an iHeart Podcast, Guaranteed Human. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How To Money. If your New Year's Resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place, but 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Break off the year with confidence, listen to How To Money on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello, all my people, what's up? It's Questlove. Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with the one and only ASAP Rocky. He reflects on his journey from Harlem Roots to Global Icon Status and discovering the hip-hop origin of his name. The ledge was on the TV, where I can't have the bucket hat kangaroo join on, possibly. That's where I can, that's who you make that. I just, damn, that s**t, that s**t, that s**t. But listen to the Questlove show on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we've got some incredible guests, like Kumail Nanjiani. Let's start with your cat. How is she? She is not with us. She? Great, great, great way to start. Maybe we'll cry. Ross Matthews. You know what kids always say to me? Are you a boy or a girl? Oh my god. All the time. I know. So I try to put you up for kids, so they're not confused. Yeah, but you're butching it up is basically like a tourist day. Right? Right now. I turn it to be Arthur. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys. Saga and Crystal here. Independent Media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of Independent News Media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. Speaking of the abolished ICE movement's political momentum, New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani made his case for abolishing ICE on where else, but the view, he was back with the ladies yesterday. Let's get to that. The honestly feels incredible. Yeah. You know, this is the dream of a lifetime, and we've always wanted to build a city government that moves as fast as New Yorkers do. You know, when a New Yorker is trying to walk somewhere, you don't get in their way. City government hasn't felt like that for a long time. So we've wanted to say that there's not going to be any problem too big or too small for us to address. So day one, we put bad landlords on notice right after that inauguration speech. You know, day six, we fixed a bump on the Williamsburg Bridge. Day eight, we announced more than a billion dollars in funding for Universal Child Care. That was a huge bump, by the way. That's coming from the state. And what that does is it allows us to fix Universal Child Care for three-year-olds and deliver it for two-year-olds. We actually have a mother in the audience, Mallory, who is here with us and who, when the announcement was made, texted her husband to say, "It might be time for a second kit." And I think so often, we think that these are decisions families are making on their own. But really, we're giving them no choice when we say that Child Care costs 25, 26,000 dollars a year. Now, it's something that they can actually get for free. Right. All right. So, lots of friendly banter was on Mamdani once again on the view. Here he is on abolishing ICE, D2. In light of recent events, there have been renewed calls from prominent Democrats to abolish ICE. I want to know where you come down on abolishing ICE, and if you believe that ICE has any legitimate law enforcement role. You know, I am in support of abolishing ICE, and I'll tell you why, because what we. What we see is an entity that has no interest in fulfilling its stated reason to exist. We're seeing a government agency that is supposed to be enforcing some kind of immigration law, but instead, what it's doing is terrorizing people, no matter their immigration status, no matter the facts of the law, no matter the facts of the case. And I'm tired of waking up every day and seeing a new image of someone being dragged out of a car, dragged out of their home, dragged out of their life, what we need to see is humanity. And there is a way to care about immigration in this city and in this country with a sense of humanity. What we're seeing from ICE is not it, and we have not seen that from them in a long, long time. And finally, one more skeptical question from a view house this time on Zoran Mamdani's policies towards Jewish New Yorkers. Let's roll the clip. One of your first acts as mayor was revoking executive orders related to the definition of antisemitism and lifting restrictions on boycotting Israel, a staff appointee, which I know you've spoken to this a little bit with a list of questions, had to resign over resurfaced antisemitic social posts. How do you answer to Jewish New Yorkers, which is the largest population outside of Israel who still don't maybe feel protected under your administration? So this is an administration that will root out antisemitism across the five boroughs. And you're right that we signed an executive order on the first day, revoking every order that the previous mayor had taken after he was federally indicted. The reason we did that was because it was a day when New Yorkers looked at city hall and said, I don't know what's motivating these actions anymore. Is it the indictment or is it the interest of the city? And another order that we did ourselves was to keep the mayor's office to combat antisemitism. This is an office and an administration that looks to fulfill those words that commitment we've made, increasing funding for hate crime prevention programming, increasing security for Jewish New Yorkers outside of synagogues and temples, and also saying that the rubric we judge ourselves on cannot be, are we keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe? It has to also be, are we celebrating and cherishing them? Because that's what it means to feel like you belong in a city. That's what we want to do for everyone. Especially in New York. Yeah. Okay. So most of those women either just work in New York or own property in New York, probably a couple of them live in New York at least. And they are. They can't. They can't be voted for them. I highly doubt that. Ah, sunny, awesome. Might have voted for them. I don't know. But they are thoroughly charmed. I mean, here you have moderate, wealthy women in New York City ready to get on board the zone run Mamdani and D.S.A. Train. I mean, how could you? But that smile? Come on. How can you not? On the question of the anti-Semitism definition, I wish sometimes he would spell out like why he got rid of it. It explicitly conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Like it lumps those together and it's in the examples of things that it considers a legal definition of anti-Semitism. I'm like, I wish he would kind of just say that. For whatever reason he clearly feels like he doesn't want to get into the weeds on it and just wants to kind of hit Eric Adams instead. Let's linger for one second on that fixing the bump on the Williamsburg Bridge. It sounds silly. No, it doesn't. But like that combined with the deep seasoning of the subway. So there was this bump apparently on the bridge that was on a bike lane. That was a little bit treacherous and was the bane of every bike commuters existence going to and from work or into and out of the city, including Mamdani. And he's like, you know what? Let's fix that. Just do it. And he showed up and thanked the guys for fixing it. Like Pete, like. It's so easy. It's low hanging fruit. People are so grateful to see the city do something to make their life better. Kind of as small as like making their ride like a little bit safer. In turn MJ put together a list of a bunch of the other executive actions that he's rolled out really quick. I don't know if we have any elements for these, but I can go through some of them. He reestablished the mayor's office to protect tenants. He did a bunch of other things to kind of. Is that the CEO of your office? She's involved in that. Okay. He did a bunch of other things to accelerate housing, ticking off Nimbis in the process. We don't have to get into that. She is the director of that. So maybe not the cleanest W for his own in that case. But he has stood by her. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I suggested was like a good idea because if you notice. So he got rid of the person that was mentioned who had some, you know, antisemitic posts. They mentioned it in the clip there that one of his people had to quit. By the way that person. Is there a Jewish or married to a Jewish person? But had said some tweet that was like, "This is indefensible." It looks antisemitic. The fact that you. We know you're not. It doesn't matter. It looks bad. And so they did. She did withdraw. But if you notice what the political effect of that is, it's going to be constantly brought up as an indictment against him. Did you notice how the question was framed? It wasn't like. You got rid of this person, therefore that's a good thing and shows that you're willing to fight antisemitism. It was used as an example of how actually your administration is shot through with antisemitism. So there's this. That's the trap of getting rid of people. If you get rid of seaweers, like, "Oh, no, white people, you got rid of this. One person hates white people." The politics of it were very smart. Yeah, so. I stick around. And then it tells a New York post, like, "Don't waste your time." It's not. The bait isn't going to break. Right. Maybe do two articles next time. Not seven. Yeah. You don't need to send the photographer. Right. Yeah. You don't want to stake out her apartment. Let's see what else they do. You know, the free childcare. Yes, I saw the announced new commitment to expand access to public bathrooms, and you've already seen that. Like, they're already opening up new bathrooms. Like, people are like, "Yes, more bathrooms, good." He's picking a lot of low-hanging fruit that if you come from DSA organizing world, you are going to be equipped to pick in a way that if you're Andrew Cuomo in a bubble of wealth privilege. Right. You don't even know what bothers the average New Yorker. And there's some Lena Kahn stuff in here, Department of Consumer Worker Protection, crack down on illegal subscription tactics, like fighting subscription tricks and traps. Like when you try to get rid of your breaking points, premium subscription, and when we send you with this. But nobody does. No, actually, that's true. Nobody has ever. It's never happened. Nobody has ever tried to do that. Why would you? I wonder if Zauron has a BP subscription. We'll look his email up in there. He should. You don't want to waste his time with the ads. No. I see. Sood, the same agency, sood predatory delivery app, Motoclic and the CEO for violating the city's delivery worker laws, Warren delivery apps to comply with worker protections, announced $2.1 million a settlement to address hazardous condition and tenant harassment across 14 buildings, restarted the just home support of housing initiative, which will create 83 new homes, which reverse something that Eric Adams had done. And it's January 21st, like he's been in for exactly three weeks at this point. So I like his idea that New Yorkers walk fast as he needs to also. The. I mean, it's repetitive for us to say this at this point, because we've literally been saying this since before anybody knew his name, but he's very talented, and it is completely obvious to the point where, again, not only did he charm Donald Trump, but when you have moderate, rich media women on the view, fawning over you, eating out of the palm of your hand, that is. As you're already in office, not even before you're in office, but they've seen a couple of weeks of your administration. I mean, we'll see how long it lasts, but that in and of itself is obvious evidence of an generational political talent. Now, what he did not get yet, Kathy Hochel's budget just came out, and it includes none of the increases in taxes on the rich, that he wants to fund his agenda, and he's facing a significant, you know, looming shortfalls. So that is going to be a big fight playing out in Albany over the next weeks and months, but so she's, her opening bid is nothing. Even though she's funding his Universal Child Care program, but to go beyond that, he's going to need these tax increases, and he can't do them on his own. Well, we'll obviously continue to follow that story, no question about it. Hey, what's up y'all, this is Quasla of recently. I had the opportunity to sit down with ASAP Rocky ahead of his album release, Don't Be Dumb. He reflects on his journey from his Harlem roots to global icon status, discovering the hip hop origin of his name. The leg was on the TV where I came and had the bucket hat can go, you know. Possibly. That's where I came. That's who you named after. Rocky offers a window and not only a boundary breaking artist, but as a man committed to fusing creative ideas, community, and remaining unapologetically himself. Have you ever gotten roasted for any of your outfits? For sure. Some people don't begin the vision. They could roast me, they could cook me, they could defraud me, they could saute whatever they want. I'm just like, I impress myself a lot. It's an amazing conversation, one, you definitely don't want to miss so listen to the Quasla show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever, you get your podcasts. A new year doesn't mean erasing who you were. It means honoring what you've survived and choosing how you want to grow. It means giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help. I'm Mike Doloroccio, host of Sacred Lessons. This podcast is a space for men to talk openly about mental health, grief, relationships and the patterns we inherit, but don't have to repeat. Here we slow down, we listen, we learn how vulnerability becomes strength and how healing happens in community, not in isolation. If you're ready to let go of what no longer serves you, and step into the year with clarity, compassion and purpose, Sacred Lessons is your companion on your healing journey. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Doloroccio on America's #1 Podcast Network, iHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Doloroccio and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today. New year, new goals and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt and I'm Joel. We are from the How To Money Podcast and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to how to money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Another story that we've been following, Ryan, is the plight of Miss Rachel. Yes. So, actually, Zoran and Miss Rachel started his term off by pushing for universal pre-K by visiting a preschool class. One of the other things that Miss Rachel made a crusade of recently was to try to save a soccer field in the West Bank that the IDF claimed absurdly was constructed illegally, the entire occupation of the West Bank is illegal. They said they're going to demolish this soccer field, which is used by hundreds of kids every day in this kind of barren hellscape, one of the few places where they can get some normalcy, get some exercise, get some camaraderie. IDF is saying that they're going to destroy it, Miss Rachel stepped in to try to defend the kids' soccer pitch. Let's roll this from her. Hi, friends. It's Miss Rachel. I'm so happy to see you in your beautiful soccer field. We are going to do everything we can to help save the field and that every child has the right to play soccer and that you deserve to have your wonderful field. We are so sad about what's happening in the field and what's happening in the camp. Thank you for supporting us and standing with us and thank you so much. We love you. I am so proud to be one of the people supporting you and I know we've heard from some really, really big things are happening and I really believe in my heart that the field will be saved. Ana Beheve. So it was Miss Rachel versus the IDF. Miss Rachel won. I hope this for now, but of this next element here. So Swiss MPs also teamed up with Miss Rachel to put pressure on the Israeli government to urge them not to demolish this. This fight is playing out in the context of UEFA threatening to kick Israel out of European soccer league, which would be kind of cataclysmic culturally to Israel. Israel has fought back, they were supposed to be a critical vote yesterday. It got delayed until later in January. There's this organization called Game Over Israel that is trying to get them kicked out of UEFA FIFA and the argument that they're making in Switzerland is that Israel is, Israeli teams that are based in the West Bank are just functionally illegal and that you can't have, you would, you know, UEFA's own tax status is to put in a jeopardy by collaborating with teams that are blatantly violating the law. Like you can't, like it's illegal, like the occupation is illegal. It just is. And you're participating in the occupation by allowing these Israeli clubs to play in UEFA. So they have this kind of sword hanging over their neck of getting kicked out of soccer league. The fact that they would even get this close to demolishing the soccer field when there's so much pressure in Europe to kick them out of the soccer league and they don't want to be kicked out of the soccer league is kind of a remarkable piece of evidence about how much confidence they have in their position. It's like, is it really that important for you to destroy this little soccer pitch? It's that, like it bothers you this much that these kids are playing soccer on this field, that you're willing to make it more likely that you're going to be kicked out of European soccer. Really? Like that, that's insane, right? Like just from a rational perspective of Israel's own strategic interests, that's nuts. And so the only way to explain it is just a level of like hostility to these kids just having fun on the soccer field. Well, and we can put this drop site report up the next headline. It's Israel is preparing land and raw funds for Corral Palestinians into an area under full military occupation and the reason that it gets worth putting that up in the context of the conversation we're just having about Miss Rachel is to your point about the interests, the political interests of Israel, Ryan, I think it's the explanation is that they don't want any, I mean, they want everything. They want everything. It's, you know, understandably from there, if you're putting yourself in the minds ideologically of them, they don't, they want total buffer and they'll, they don't always say it allowed. What that means is literally all of the land and taking everybody else out. And so I think that's, I think probably a, maybe a more honest explanation for why they don't seed even a secret team in the West Bank. Yeah. Yes. And so the whole piece is worth going through when we teamed up with forensic architecture to put the piece together, they are expert at analyzing kind of satellite imagery to figure out, you know, what's going on over time. And what they're finding there is that in, in this roughly one square kilometer area in Rafa, which they completely control, they took over an area that was mostly still intact, like despite the kind of apocalyptic scenes you see over the rest of the Gaza Strip, there were still a lot of greenhouses, there were still a lot of homes that were still up. They bulldozed all these homes, they then cleared out all the rubble, they then, and they have now compacted the ground in a way that experts say is prepping the ground for development of, of housing. They currently control about 53% of the Gaza Strip that they're occupying east of what they called the yellow line. And the suggestion here is that you're going to have this military base, you'll have this housing completely surrounded. You will allow Palestinians to come from the west of the yellow line where they're still being kind of starved and shot at, bombed, and denied medical care and say, look, you don't like this, you want to live, then come on over here. You will have a roof over your head, they're not even letting tents in for the most part. Get alone, the reconstruction that was promised as part of the ceasefire, so you don't like living outside for three straight years. Come on over here, live inside this prison camp, basically. And then gradually then creep the 53 to 55, 60 and push until you control the entire thing. That seems to be the plan that is unfolding in the face of Trump's board of peace, which has a kind of a different vision, complementary, but a different vision. Well, that's the next element we have here. Speaking of Trump's different vision for his board of peace, E4, let's put this up on the screen. You may have heard this news by now, but I'm eager to get Ryan's reaction to it. Vladimir Putin was reportedly invited to join the Gaza Peace Board by Donald Trump. Plus a billion dollars, which what's the Tony Blair involvement in this? He's like the boss of it. He's basically Larry Ellison's proxy on the board. So the board is off to hell of a circle. Yeah. And it costs a billion dollars to join. He apparently invited Lula, a bunch of the Mark Carney, the Canadian, who is in a bit of feud with other people. He's soon to join. They asked if he'd pay the billion dollars and he said, well, we will contribute as long as, and we'll contribute things that will go to the benefit of the Palestinian people, like whether in kind or cash or whatever. In other words, he's like, I'm not going to write Donald Trump a check for a billion dollars. Trump seems to be kind of like just write that out to DJT. Just buy it in the meme coin. Yeah, just buy a little billion dollars in the meme coin we'll do. And he also said, and it has to be exclusive to Gaza because the UN shockingly did actually bless this board of peace. So people who want there to be this idea of international law can say, well, the UN did actually vote to approve this security council voted for this. So it's fine. What Trump wants to do is have it also run Venezuela who God only knows what else. Well, he talked a little bit about this at that White House briefing yesterday. He got a question about it, and this is how far he went. Let's roll E5. Do you want your board of peace to replace the UN? Well, right. I mean, the UN just hasn't been very helpful. I'm a big fan of the UN potential, but it has never lived up to its potential. The UN should have settled every one of the wars that I settled. I never went to them, I never even thought to go to them. They should be able to settle those wars. I believe you got to let the UN continue because the potential is so great. Right. I don't think you're any defender of the UN's efficacy in this particular conflict. So maybe in the vacuum here, you have the pendulum swinging in another direction. Yeah, the Trump seems to want to replace the UN with whatever this is. He seems completely open to that. Meanwhile, Israel is clearing the way for that. If you can put up E6 here, this VO, the Israeli government took a bulldozer to the UN headquarters in Jerusalem, the unread headquarters, like just an utterly incredible scene. This is the chief relief agency tasked with providing education, housing, food, medical care, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jordan, in Syria. And they just destroyed it. The UN put out a -- Guterres put out a statement condemning it. But like the contrast between a statement condemning it versus the visual of them just going in and knocking it down into the ground is quite striking. It's in the Sheikh Jarrad neighborhood, which was the neighborhood, actually, where Israel was evicting a bunch of Palestinians back in 2021, if you remember. And Hamas said if they didn't stop, they would shoot rockets at Israel over it. And that's what started that 2021 war. So let's take Trump both literally and seriously on this UN point and pull it a little bit more. What happens if Trump's peace board does step into the UN power vacuum, obviously with Tony Blair, as we're just discussing, not merely in the background, but they have the forefront of what the operation would look like, you can guess which side of the conflict is going to be favorable to, even if Donald Trump has kind of a real politic, pragmatic approach overall. If they step into the power vacuum here, Ryan, what do you think that looks like ultimately? I mean, we don't even know what the board looks like to be fair, but it sounds to me like you have a lot of free-lancing from people who are ultimately ultimately going to be leaning in one direction. They also seem to be forgetting that the Palestinian people still exist and Hamas still exist, like this is, you can think and wish them away. They reached a ceasefire, Israel is badly to the ceasefire and basically on a daily basis, killing multiple people a day since it went into effect. But Hamas is still there, so what's, how do you, they seem to be trying to just skip over this part of it, just skipping to a place where they'd like to be? Because they won the war and eradicated Hamas, right? In that 53% they did and they've completely leveled it. Yeah, but what did Blinken say as Biden was leaving Autos that they'd reconstituted? The same number of fighters as at the beginning, and they rely on, unexploded Israeli ordnance for their explosives, a lot of, you know, homemade ammunition in that sense. So like, I don't, it just seems like kind of fantasy stuff. Yeah, well, we'll, we'll see where it goes from here, Ryan. We have a guest who is joining us now. Let's get to him. Hey, what's up, y'all? This is Questlove. Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with ASAP Rocky ahead of his album release. Don't be dumb. He reflects on his journey from his Harlem roots to global icon status, discovering the hip-hop origin of his name. The ledge was on the TV where I came and had the bucket hat can go, you know, possibly. That's where I came. I just was like, "Damn, I'm f---ed, I swear." Rocky offers a window into not only a boundary breaking artist, but as a man committed to fusing creative ideas, community, and remaining unapologetically himself. For sure, some people don't begin to vision. Look, they got roast meat, they could cook meat, they could defraud meat, they could saute whatever they want. It's nobody who could f---ed with my fashion since my taste is impeccable. I'm just like, "I impress myself a lot." It's an amazing conversation. One, you definitely don't want to miss. So listen to the Questlove show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever. You get your podcast. Every January, we're encouraged to start over. But what if this year is about slowing down and learning how to understand ourselves more deeply? What if this year is about giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help? I'm Mike Delarocia, host of Sacred Lessons. This is a podcast for men navigating stress, emotional health, fatherhood, identity, and the unspoken pressures we're taught to carry alone. We talk honestly about mental health, about healing generational wounds, and about learning how to show up with more presence and care. If you want a healthier relationship with yourself and the people you love, then Sacred Lessons is the podcast for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delarocia on America's #1 podcast network, iHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Delarocia and start listening on the Free iHeart Radio app today. Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January guys everywhere make the same resolutions, get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Polter, a psychologist with over 30 years experience of helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name. In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others. Guys who are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved. Once that gets resolved, then there comes efficacy, as in compassion. If you want this to be the year, you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's underneath, listen to the Mailroom. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. All right, so joining us now to discuss all this is Zishan Hafiz, who's running for Congress in Texas's 33rd District, Zishan, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for the opportunity. It's a pleasure to be here and thank you for the amazing journalistic work that you all do. And buttering us up to start, this is going to go smoothly, I see. I truly mean it. I truly mean it. You're doing a great service for the progressive cause across the country, and I truly do appreciate it. Emily doesn't. I'd like to hear that for sure. Oh, the conservatives would say that I do a great service to the progressive cause. You do. You do, you do too, Emily. Oh, man. Oh, man. Now she's in trouble. So, the reason we wanted to have you on is because you're kind of a different kind of congressional candidate. So, in the 33rd District right now, there are, it's basically a three-way race. You're in third place, but the reason we think you have at least a fighting chance in there is that you have two members of Congress, or is Colin Allred now a former member of Congress at this point? Technically, former member of Congress. So, you have Julie Johnson, who's a Democrat, and Colin Allred, who's also a Democrat former football player, who was going to run for Senate, but then kind of got elbowed out of that race, and is now running against Julie Johnson in this kind of redrawn district. So, Texas, as we all saw, famously, redrew its districts, it's like California's Mother States did to try to, you know, goose the number of Republicans that could win in the state so they're kind of cramming all the Democrats they can into the race. And my read is that if it was just you against a known member of Congress, then that's a pretty tough fight. Two against two members of Congress who might split that kind of establishment vote could potentially let you slip into a runoff, because Texas has this runoff system where if nobody gets 50% the top two going to the runoff. So, we just put up E6 again for a second to let you know what we were talking about kind of earlier in the show. Because this is in the Shakjara neighborhood of Jerusalem, the Israeli government, just literally destroying Enra's headquarters. This is the UN Agency in charge of doing relief education and health care for Palestinian refugees and Gaza, West Bank, Syria, and Jordan, and so on. And so I'm curious, what role, first of all, are you taking APAC money? That's the Jennifer Welch question that every candidate now gets asked. And what role is Israel's ongoing genocide playing in congressional races now that we're in a kind of era of a, you know, so-called ceasefire? Absolutely, now, first off, it's not a ceasefire. There's been over 1,400 violations of the ceasefire. There have been over 500 people killed in Gaza, over 250 people killed in the West Bank. These are just very conservative estimates. So I would not say there is a ceasefire by any means that genocide continues. Absolutely, you can tell by the fact that I'm using the term genocide that I absolutely refuse APAC and all pro-Israel money. Right to opponents, Julie Johnson and Colin Allred have received a combined $700,000 from APAC and the pro-Israel lobby. And the fact of the matter is, we need people in Congress right now that are willing to be on the right side of history. Not only with the genocide, I think if you look at Colin and Julie, they're both establishment Democrats, as you mentioned, but on top of that, they do not stand on the side of abolishing ICE. They do not stand on the side of fighting for the affordability crisis with real solutions, like a real living wage of $20 per hour, affordable housing for all, providing universal health care through Medicare for all. These are real progressive issues. And the fact is that district 33 is now a district that Kamala Harris won by 32 points. And on top of that, this is a very low turnout district. In 2024, there was only 22,000 total votes in the Democratic primary. And in 2022, there was only 24,000 votes. There's a very low turnout race, a historic race where we have a progressive challenger up against two establishment Democrats who are both bought and paid for by the pro-Israel lobby. Well, the point about turnout rates is really important. That's insane. 22,000. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, is that, are you sensing that this issue is what energizes, or one of many issues, but probably one of the primary issues that energizes people to get involved in campaigns like yours, and then to end up actually voting, I mean, primaries can be low energy, low turnout and all of that. So, when you're trying to squeeze in a race like this, do you find that's what, right now, when you're out there campaigning, this is one of those things that gets people going. I mean, this is the one issue that gets standing ovation, that gets the crowd excited, that gets people excited because I am the only one that's pulling it. A lot of younger people. Do you find it's a lot of younger people? It's younger people. It's older people. It's people of color. It's everyone. It's a lot of conscious. I think that numbers have said that 92% of Democrats are against Israeli military actions in Gaza, and what's happening, a lot of people are starting to see that it's a genocide. And I think that this is a defining line and a defining moment in the Democratic Party this year, that people, the primary voters, will not support A-PAC sponsored candidates anymore. And I think this is also a moment to your point, Emily, where young voters are getting very excited because they want to do something about what's happening over there. They have seen the genocide unfurl on their social media in ways that have never happened in modern history and any other sort of action. So this is something that's not only energizing young voters, but it's energizing minorities and progressive voters, the labor union. A lot of folks are very excited about this. And my opponents, both Julie Johnson and Colin Allred, refused to call it a genocide. One of my opponents refuses to even talk about. She refuses to even discuss Palestine in any of the public forums that are at, even though just last week, she approved $3.3 billion more to go and commit this genocide or her name when Americans are dealing with an affordability crisis at home. You know, I've heard people say, and I think Tanasi Kodes put it best when he said something like, people care about the issue because of the human cost, the human toll, but it's also a proxy for whether or not you're willing to kind of fight for anything at all. I think his quote was something like, if you're not willing to draw the line at genocide, how can I trust you to fight for democracy? So with that being said, in this Dallas district, what is the thing that people want you to be fighting for in back in Dallas? Like, what is the thing that is animating people right now? I mean, there are a number of issues locally that are mattering to the local people in Dallas. One of the things is rapid transit. Dart has recently been defunded by multiple cities within the Dallas-Worth area. The federal government must come in and build a real transit system for Dallas-Worth. But on top of that, it's the standard things that matter to Americans all across the country. Imagine if we were able to invest in a green new deal. The reason why we don't have a green new deal for Dallas-Worth is we've been represented by people that are bought and sold by the oil lobby. I'm proud not only to be endorsed by citizens against APAC corruption, but also citizens against big oil and track oil packs. So, the fact of the matter is that we have a government that is being bought and sold and run by corporations, by foreign lobbies, and by the billionaires. And I think the average American today is hurting. There's an affordability crisis, and they are having trouble not only paying rent, but affording grosses and taking care of the fundamentals to take care of their family. They would rather have someone who's going to fight for free public education. Someone who's going to make sure that we have free public universities, free public trade schools and free public colleges like to have in Europe, and invest in kindergarten and 12th grade by providing actual increases to teacher pay. I think that in this country, it's a sham that ICE agents get $50,000 signing bonuses while teachers are lucky to get one to $3,000 to go in very specialized fields. And teachers start out at pays that are less than $50,000, whereas ICE agents are making six figures. I think that's unacceptable and our nation has the wrong priorities because we have politicians that are not willing to start fights on the right issues. Well, speaking of that, actually, let's put this post from Lindsey Graham up on the screen. This is E9. Over the conflict in Syria right now, Lindsey Graham has said, there's use of military force by the new Syrian government against Syrian Kurds in the SDF. That would create tremendous instability in Syria in the region and would tell me all I need to know about this new regime. If military action is taken by the Syrian government, I will do everything in my power to revive the Caesar Act sanctions, making them even more bone crushing. Now, of course, you're not running against Lindsey Graham, but right now, the Trump administration is facing criticism from Republicans, and even internally, that it's so focused on foreign conflicts from Venezuela, to Canada, to Greenland, to, of course, basically all of the Trump is constantly talking about how he solved eight wars and he just repeated today that the UN should have solved all of these eight wars that he solved. I noticed when we were talking about Israel earlier, you mentioned, you very, I think you could tell us a little bit about this, but you pivoted to while we have an affordability crisis at home that Republicans are doing X, Y and Z, or your opponents are doing X, Y and Z, while we have an affordability crisis at home, you talk a little bit about how making that connection is powerful with voters in your experience. I imagine you've noticed that's something that lands. Absolutely. And that's a great point that you bring up first off, Donald Trump has launched nine illegal invasions in the last year as a quote unquote peace president. The peace president has gone and essentially declared war on Venezuela without congressional approval, without there being a clear and imminent threat to the United States. So what he is doing is completely illegal and completely an impeachable offense, instead of invading Venezuela, instead of fighting foreign wars, instead of potentially bombing Syria, Iran and other countries like I'm sure Lindsey Graham and others on the extreme right wing of the Republican party would want to do. The American people would rather us invest at home. And the fact of the matter is it's not just Republicans, it's establishment Democrats, the Julie Johnson's and Colin Alreds of the world that allow the Republicans to get away with this because the fact of the matter is they are bought and sold by the, by APAC and the pro-Israel lobby. And APAC would love nothing less than for the United States to go and bomb Syria, bomb Iran and destabilize the Middle East. So whereas the American people would rather have someone who is going to fight for stronger unions, who is going to fight for veterans benefits. Veterans in my district are struggling. The VA is highly underfunded. Money could go to help providing better lives for the people that fought for our country. Instead of providing, instead of making more veterans who are going to come back with PTSD, who are going to be under threat because we're declaring war on Iran or Syria or anywhere else. We should be instead investing in the people who have already had to survive these forms wars, people who came back from Afghanistan, people who came back from Iraq, people who came back from Vietnam and had to deal with the same things that our government is doing again. I think the American people know where this leads us and they would rather us invest here at home. Why can't we do things like what Bernie Sanders has proposed and invest in millions and millions of affordable housing units so we can fight a real war? The war that we should be fighting is the war on homelessness. One of my local communities here has recently passed a resolution to ban homelessness. That is not a real solution. We should be fighting a war on homelessness by building affordable housing units all across the country so that everyone can live a dignified life under a roof under their head and their family's heads. That's what's important to the American people right now. Well, Zeeshan Hafiz, thanks so much for joining us and good luck in your race. We'll be tracking it. When's the primary? The primary actually starts with early voting on February 17th. It goes from February 17th to the 27th. The actual election is on March 3rd and we hope to take down two pro-Zionist, pro-Israel, APAC sponsored, corporate establishment Democrats and bring a progressive blue wave. It happened in 2016 after 2016 when Donald Trump first came on into power. We hope that it will come again in reaction to his most recent attack on our government, on our democracy, on our civil rights. Yeah, I mean, and it's one of those weird situations where it's doable in a sense that like in Joe Crowley versus AOC is the election, like 40,000 people, maybe actually something like 40,000 people voted. Like, it's not many at all. This is way less than that, and it's even less than that, yeah. Joe Crowley was actually about to be the speaker of the House. Right. He was one of the most powerful people in Congress. I'm going up against a one-term Congressperson and someone who hasn't been in Congress who could not win a Senate seat. So this is an entirely winnable seat, and the American people, the people of District 33 are tired of these politicians that are being bought by corporations, being bought by foreign interests, and are not taking care of the American people at home and fighting for the issues that matter to the American people. So I encourage everyone who's interested in learning more about our campaign to visit our website, www.zshoundfortexas.com. We love for you to phone bank, contribute, be involved. We're going to win this race. We're going to turn this -- if this country is going to go blue. If there's a plus 32 Democratic district, we don't need another corporate-centric Democrat. We need a true progressive who's going to fight for the values and start fights for us to go and support the American people and fight the real crisis, the crisis real home, the crisis of the affordability crisis. All right. Let's see if there's 10,000 people. I guess not that many people out of a district of -- We need 15,000 to be conservative based off of a 30,000 vote total. It's less than 10,000 just to get to a runoff because of the three candidates in the history. It's not that many people. And that's -- if you look historically, there's not many races across the country where it's just so few votes. So this is a great chance to be involved in some real progress with someone who's not going to fight for corporations. We won't take a single sentence from corporate PACs or anything else who will end citizens united and corporations control over our government. And instead, return the power to the only interest that matters, the interests of the American people. All right. Thank you, Zishan. Up next, we're going to be doing updates from the conflict in Sudan. Stick around for that, please. Thank you so much. This is Cuasla. Don't be dumb. The leg was on the TV where I came and had the bucket hat can go, genuinely. 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Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Dollarocha on America's #1 Podcast Network, iHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Dollarocha and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today. New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt, and I'm Joel, we are from the How To Money Podcast and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. Listen to how to money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Saudi Arabia has announced a deal with the Sudanese government to start buying its gold. We put up F1 here. Last year, something like 99% of Sudanese gold was sold to the United Arab Emirates, which is basically a crime family that masquerades as a country that engages in a lot of money laundering and other services that are useful to Western governments and crime syndicates. Most of that gold, like the bulk of it, was sold through the black market, but even the gold that was sold through the regular market, went through the UAE, Sudan is one of the countries that has kind of the greatest kind of stores of gold remaining. Gold prices over the last year have surged, like if you were a gold bug the last 10-15-20 years. Last week has been a good run for you for a very long time. Saudi Arabia, as it's going through its hot war and its fallout with the UAE, is announcing that it's going to send the Sudanese gold and put it through its own kind of processing facilities that it has in Saudi Arabia. This is all part of the crack-up between these one-time allies in the Gulf that is entirely reshaping relations everywhere from Africa into Asia. The UAE is backing, that's the United Arab Emirates, their backing, what's called the RSF, Rapid Support Forces, which is if you remember the John Joed from the Darfur conflict back in 20 years ago, they're basically a derivative of the John Joed, which they carried out a genocide then. They're doing it again. Now the UAE is arming them to the Hilt. They even got into a border clash with Chad and are sort of apologizing for that, they're realizing they're kind of overstepping things a little bit here as their patrons are coming under intense pressure. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have teamed up to offer like a billion-plus weapons package to the Sudanese army. If that comes through and the RSF's supply chains are cut off, it's going to be difficult for them to keep carrying out the assault that they're under or the offensive that is underway in Sudan now. Well, and give us the big picture ripple effect potentially of this as well. We can put the next element on the screen. This is from Reuters, and this was just from Monday, India UAE signed $3 billion liquid natural gas deal, agreed a boost trade and defense ties at leaders meeting. That's the Reuters headliner Ryan, the international, I mean, it's crazy to see that it's not crazy. It's predictable, but a proxy conflict like this bringing even bigger players than just Saudi and UAE and it's all over putting people all over the world against each other in a proxy conflict that is primarily between them. Yeah, exactly. This war between Saudi and UAE really started in Yemen and then rolled into Sudan, where in Sudan it has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. But yeah, to now rope in India, the way to think about it is that Pakistan and India, could oil and water, could not hate each other anymore. And so as Saudi Arabia has linked up with Pakistan and tightened its relationship a couple was a week ago, maybe a month ago, more inked a security agreement with Pakistan, which gives Saudi Arabia then the kind of nuclear umbrella of the Pakistan, Pakistani nuclear weapons. So they're tightening their relationship. And so then as Saudi Arabia and the UAE fall out, the UAE links up with India. They also have ideological sympathy with each other. The UAE ironically is as hostile to Islam as a quote unquote Muslim country could possibly be. It's funding Tommy Robinson to go around attacking Muslims. They're constantly whipping up Islamophobia in Europe. The UAE, I know if you're just coming to this fresh, wait a minute. What? Well, yeah, it's strange. They're chewing what? And there's like Arab Spring. They hated the Arab Spring. Muslim Brotherhood. Yeah, the UAE hates the Muslim Brotherhood, hates Qatar, which they call like an outcropping of Muslim Brotherhood. They felt like the Arab Spring, which was pushing for democracy in the Gulf, was a direct threat to their autocratic role, which of course it was. It is. They're like a couple thousand people ruling over this extraordinary amount of wealth and people and migrant labor. It's like apartheid doesn't even do justice to the level of inequality, political, and legal, and financial that is an economic that exists in their country. So they see any of that as a threat. They led the coup to overthrow Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Egypt is now teamed up with actually Saudi Arabia and the Sudanese conflict. And so India also, and Modi in particular, they have as much hostility to Muslims as the UAE does. So there's some ideological affinity there. But more importantly, there's the money. India's a growing economy needs energy, UAE has energy to spare. UAE can also do, like I was saying, like all sorts of financial services in the gray area that allow for that kind of world to flourish. And to make sense of it, we can put up F4 again. I heard from people last week who said that this map was actually very helpful. It's not as if this is the first time that anybody has seen a map, but like in the news for whatever reason. And also in our history books, when we learn about these things, the kind of, the players are talked about as if they're all kind of sitting in a bar together rather than like slayed out geographically in important ways and ways that like are, you know, define the relationships. So you have the Red Sea here, which is the critical waterway that runs through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean and also through the Gulf of Aden. So along that, that's everything, like control of the world in some ways kind of runs through there. And so that's why Saudi and the UAE were fighting for the southern tip of Yemen. That's why both China and the U.S. have, or just China still have a base in Djibouti. I know they did for a long time, but the U.S. has a massive military base in Djibouti. The, you know, Eritrea is split off from Ethiopia there. Ethiopia has no access to the Red Sea. Sudan has a bunch of ports along the Red Sea, which are critical to, you know, both Saudi Arabian and the UAE. And there, obviously you have the border there between Egypt and Sudan. And it's just like at how massive Sudan is. I mean, it's just, it's a huge, huge country. And it used to be bigger than when you're looking at the bottom there is South Sudan, which is, which was broken off after the last, the last genocide that unfolded back in the 2000s. And just full of resources. I mean, we just, we were talking about gold prices earlier, but that's, I mean, it's not just gold. But we were talking about India. It's the liquid natural gas. It is. And to the west of Egypt there, you've got Libya. And so the UAE was building its ports throughout the Red Sea, was building its strength in Yemen and also in Libya, because they basically run Libya now through Haftar. And so they basically had encircled Saudi Arabia. And there was then a clash in Yemen between Emirati and Saudi proxies. And after that Saudi Arabia then attacked the Emirates. And here we are with this continuing to play out. So now here comes India kind of inking this strategic deal with the UAE. Meanwhile, if the ICC is still allowed to do business, is it, is it, or it's just against, just not against Israel? It's, I mean, I guess we'll see, but was it ever really even allowed to do business? In Africa, in fact, there was this incredible quote, this incredible quote from, it was obviously Lindsey Graham, who, who, who, who on a call with Karim Khan, who is the chief prosecutor of the ICC, said, what are you doing going after? I don't, we can find the exact quote, but it was like, what are you doing going after Israel? The ICC is set up for Africa. For Africa. For Africans. And so the ICC, within its remit, apparently, says it is, it is indeed going to try to bring charges against the RSF, let's roll F5. Mr. President, excellencies, since I last addressed this council, the situation in Darfur has darkened even further. Darfuries, as we speak, are being subjected to collective torture, rape, arbitrary detention, executions, mass graves, all perpetrated on a massive scale. This criminality is being repeated in town after town in Darfur. It will continue until this conflict and the sense of impunity that fuels it are stopped. The fighting is continuing, despite the, despite the ICC, you can put up F6 here, this is also from drop site, intense fighting erupted on the North, a quarterfond cartoon border, as the Sudanese armed forces and the RSF clashed fiercely for control of the strategic Amdurman-Bara export road, a key supply route linking central Sudan, with Western fronts, a large RSF force launched a surprise assault along the road with heavy artillery and drones used by both sides, Sudanese army units, reportedly repelled the attack, inflicting significant losses on the RSF, while both sides continue to contest this vital quarter. This is all, if you can see that map there, headed towards a conflict over al-Obeyed, which we said last week, estimates are somewhere between half a million to a million people sheltering, and if the ICC is announced by the way that it's prosecuting atrocities committed in al-Fasher, which is what we talked about last week, could have been up to 150,000 people killed in al-Fasher, which is an absolutely staggering number. Especially for the media coverage, yes, compare that in your own mind. It's double the number of Palestinians killed, and as far as we know, like the official death count in Gaza is half what the upper estimates are in the al-Fasher massacre, and al-Obeyed, if the RSF manages to take control, could see an even bloodier massacre. And meanwhile, the famine and the health collapse continues and put up F7, also from drop-site, the Sudan Doctors Network warns that the health system in South Kortafan is near collapse after more than two years of siege and ongoing fighting. Cadoogly, it said, has five government hospitals and 10 health centers, about 50% of facilities are out of service or operating at half capacity, many have shut down entirely due to shortages of staff, medical supplies, and blood bags, and network warns the siege, and where have made basic health care increasingly inaccessible for civilians. Just, I mean, to your point about the reaction to Gaza and the reaction to this, I mean, I think we covered Gaza constantly, and that's partially because we tend to think these things. We're funding it. Yeah, we're funding it. But we tend to think these things are important when you have mass levels of human suffering that is just ongoing and in the shadow of the world media's attention. That's how this stuff happens. Yeah, and in this case, the way that I would explain it as mattering to the United States is that the UAE is driving this in a significant way, and the UAE is a top ally of the United States. We have empowered them throughout their rise into this, but what they are becoming this little miniature power center on their own, but they are entirely vulnerable to American action, a little tiny push, if you cut off one flight from New York to Dubai, or London to Dubai, one a day, it's reduced one a day, they would absolutely freak out. This is before you get into sanctions or investigations or anything else, but just backing off a time, but the UAE has completely purchased all of Washington, has bought off basically every college and university and the United States that matters, so we'll talk about it, but nobody else is going to. Yeah, I mean, I was just going to say the way that Donald Trump likes to do business, it bought him. Well, years ago, I mean, I think there's been a Trump tower in Dubai since 2005, but I'm looking at a Forbes headline now from October, and the headline is, "This golf nation is powering Trump's money-making machine," and you're sentence from it eight years later from 2017. The UAE, home to the metropolises of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, has become a hub for the Trump organization's international expansion. So again, just saying, in reiterating your point about the level of pressure that UAE is sensitive to, there are a lot of different pressure points just from the way Donald Trump likes to do business as president, meaning he has business deals in places that he likes to then pressure politically, geopolitically. So there are a lot of different avenues for change in this situation, but. Right. And the thing that you would think, given that, you'd be like, "Oh, well, this is Bakes." Like, they've completely bought the president and all of our institutions. No, not necessarily. But the only thing that makes it a live fight is that Saudi Arabia is against them right now and also has bought everybody. Yep. So someone's going to have to pay a little more money because it's a mafia racket at this point. Yeah, we've got to fair fight. Yeah. You're going to have to pony up a little bit more. Well, Ryan, thanks for continuing to cover this at drop site, and thanks for continuing to. You'll push for these updates every week on Wednesdays. That is going to do it for us today. And I will be gone next week. I think I'll be in Monday with Saga, because then I'm going to Mexico to see a little bit of fish. I'll see you down there. All right. Well, yeah. If you're in Mexico, you'll see Ryan. And if you're a premium subscriber, you'll see us in just a bit on the live, ask me anything that we're about to broadcast here from the studio. So please, please join us for that. And subscribe if you can. Do the free options, of course, subscribe on YouTube. It helps us so much if you do that. And it helps us a lot if you subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And if you're coming across our videos, give us a subscribe. It's really, really helpful. You can also get a premium subscription over at breakingpoints.com. That's how you get access to the AMAs. And more great content, the videos hit your, the full show hits your inbox every day before it's available to the public in one piece. So breakableice.com, that's where you can go. And you will see Ryan Monday, and then we'll do another one of these a week after when you're back. Tan, rest at and ready for fish. There you go. Let's see if that everyone. Prices, they're still high. And the economy is all over the place. So 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence, listen to How To Money on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we've got some incredible guests like Camille Nanjiani. How is she? She is not with us. Great, great. Great way to start. Maybe we'll cry. Ross Matthews. You know what kids always say to me, are you a boy or a girl? Oh my God. All the time. I know. So I try to butcher it up for kids so they're not confused. Yeah, but that you're butching it up. It's basically like a tourist day. Right now. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello. What's up? It's Questlove. Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with the one and only ASAP Rocky. He reflects on his journey from Harley Roots to a global icon status and discovering the hip-hop origin of his name. 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