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Good evening. It's Wednesday, July 24. I'm Michael Tracey, filling in for Glenn Greenwald, who's probably laughing at me, at least in spirit, wherever he may be while he's away. 

Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel – you may have heard of him – was in Washington, DC, today, and delivered another one of his magnificent soaring addresses to a joint session of Congress that predictably evoked mass adulation and euphoria. So, we will review the fallout in graphic and possibly sarcastic detail. 

Next, we will talk to the president of the Heritage Foundation to discuss the much-buzzed-about Project 2025. This is a document that's become a major bone of contention in the 2024 presidential campaign. Already, some aspects of that plan or project that you probably won't hear discussed very much anywhere else in the so-called mainstream media, but I'll take care of that for you. 

And finally, we'll be joined by journalist Max Blumenthal, hopefully well known to many of you out there on the internet who's been surveying the wreckage out there in Washington, DC at the Netanyahu address or in the perimeter anyway, and he'll tell us about all the insane security protocols that I understand have been imposed to ensure a wonderfully smooth visit for the prime minister of our greatest ally, that being the Jewish state. 

For now, welcome to a new edition of System Update, starting right now.

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Interview with Kevin Roberts

And so that's something to perhaps ponder. And, with that, we wanted to move to an interview with the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, who is somebody of interest, because the Heritage Foundation has been in the news quite a bit recently. The document that the think tank produced, called colloquially and referred to as “Project 2025,” has become a major point of contestation among the Republicans and Democrats as it relates to the 2024 campaign. My working sense is that there are many aspects of that document, which I actually took the liberty of reading. At least large portions of that have not really been discussed much in the so-called mainstream media. So, glad to be joined by, Kevin Roberts. 

M. Tracey: Hello, sir. 

Kevin Roberts: Michael. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to an intellectually honest conversation. Whatever someone's political beliefs are about “Project 2025.” So, thanks for having me. 

M. Tracey: I appreciate that. So, if you listen to the chatter and much of the liberal-oriented media, obviously they've converted Project 2025 into what they think is going to be their gold mine of an attack line against Donald Trump and the Republicans writ large. And, I did something, I guess, a bit unusual by media standards, which is I read the document and there are portions of it that stood out to me as really guiding, getting no discussion whatsoever, at least as far as I've ascertained and those, for me, anyway, have to do with, national security and foreign policy. So, I want to discuss a few of those items with you, if you don't mind. 

So, obviously, some recommendations are made in terms of how to reorganize the bureaucracy, the federal government, including the intelligence services and one prescription that is made is that section 702 of FISA, the Surveillance Act, ought to be renewed and reauthorized and that's been fairly controversial, including among the right, because, you know, the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant, and this authority is seen as authorizing warrantless surveillance and only barely passed the House in April, in terms of renewal. I think, actually, Speaker Johnson cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of that reauthorization of FISA. So, the section of Project 2025 that I'm referring to here, says that section 702 should be understood as a:

And so, it says that these authorizations need to be properly maintained and accountable, but that they should be retained nonetheless. So, what is your sense of what Project 2025 proposes for that particular authority, FISA? It's been controversial throughout the Trump administration. Trump has criticized certain aspects of it as having been abused. But the fundamental authority the document does propose be retained. 

Kevin Roberts: Yes. Thanks so much for this conversation. We need to have more discourse like this in the United States, regardless of someone's political beliefs. So, I'm really grateful to answer the question about the policy detail. And, Michael, I'll make two points. One, from the standpoint of Project 2025, what you've read there is what's in the mandate for leadership book “The Conservative Promise,” this conservative policy manual, if you will. And keep in mind, we wrote that two years ago, so well before the most recent vote on the issue. The second point that I'll make is we do believe that the underlying authority of Section 702 should continue to exist, but especially those of us at the Heritage Foundation, which has facilitated this project, believe that there need to be very stringent serious amendments added to that. And so, during the last legislative, In the last legislative fight. Heritage. Of course, just one part of Project 2025, was vocal about some of these amendments being added to the bill so that we could better protect innocent Americans. All of that to say that this has been extended into what would be the next presidential term, and either for Mr. Trump or it looks like, you know, Ms. Harris, the nominee for the left. And I think at that point, we'll have the conversation about making those amendments again so that we can better protect the Fourth Amendment. 

M. Tracey:  Because also on the intelligence community, which again, raised a bit of a paradox for me because I've seen a lot of like people who on the right online who are actually in favor of Project 2025, anticipating that what's so great about it is that it will fundamentally overhaul the intelligence services and maybe combat the deep state, which has become a main theme among, you know, among right-wing discourse. And also Donald Trump obviously rails against it because he feels understandably aggrieved by elements of the National Security State that use unprecedented tactics to undermine him, whether it was through the Russia investigation, the Mueller special counsel investigation, etc., in his 2016 campaign. And then also in the early part of his first term, I want to just read a quote here. Here's what Project 2025 prescribes for the intelligence community.

That seems like the purpose of these bureaucratic reorganizations that are being proposed is to better entrench American primacy, right?, to better expand American hegemony, and to combat alleged adversaries, which is very much in keeping with the standard mission of the intelligence services. Whatever tweaks you might want to make around the margins of how it's bureaucratically organized, would that be a fair summation? 

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Good evening. It's Tuesday, July 23. Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday to Friday, at 7 p.m. Eastern, exclusively on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube, by your esteemed host, Glenn Greenwald, who is out on vacation this week, and it really is an honor and a pleasure for me to try to fill his very big shoes as guest host today. 

If you're not familiar with me from past appearances on System Update, my name is Briahna Joy Gray, I host my own podcast called “Bad Faith” and until recently co-hosted The Hills show “Rising,” before I was censored for reporting news that was critical of Israel. Prior to my own show, I worked as the national press secretary for the Bernie 2020 campaign, and before that, I worked with Glenn at The Intercept. And like Glenn, I started my career as a lawyer, practicing in New York for about seven years before leaving to become a journalist. So, I felt very supported by Glenn early in my career and considered him to be one of the most ideologically consistent, intelligent, insightful, and courageous voices in the space. So really, it is a pleasure for me to be here with you today. 

Coming up today on the show we’ll be covering the Democrats' anti-democratic maneuvering to oust Biden and replace him with Kamala Harris, and how the group of politicians that sold themselves as the “anti-establishment left” have really shown themselves to be frauds in many respects, especially Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

We're also going to assess whether Kamala solves Biden's Gaza problem, that is, his unpopular handling of the war in Palestine, before being joined by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, who has written a recent Substack post asking whether Joe Biden resign all together now if he’s too unfit to finish out his presidential campaign. 

Stick around after that, because Michael Tracey will be taking over as guest host to conduct an interview with Ro Khanna. I understand Ro Khanna is the first Democrat to come on System Update, so that's bound to be a really good interview.

For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.