Glenn Greenwald
Politics • Culture • Writing
After RNC: Which Part of the Party Will Trump Embrace? The Dem Party's Growing Civil War; Scandal at WaPo Involving Neocon Max Boot and his Accused Spy-Wife
Video Transcript
July 22, 2024
post photo preview

Watch the full episode HERE

Podcast: Apple - Spotify 

Rumble App: Apple - Google


Good evening. It's Friday, July 19. 

Tonight: The four-day Republican National Convention concluded last night with a quite lengthy and sometimes genuinely emotional speech by the former president and current Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump. Typically, the purpose of a convention is to present a clear, unified and coherent vision of America and the policies that will facilitate it to the public – sometimes it is the genuine policy and ideological preference of that party, and sometimes that is simply the image the party wants the public to hear – but either way, there is usually a highly coordinated, scripted and tightly controlled message that the party wants the public to hear and on which the party intends to campaign. 

As was true for the first term of the Trump presidency, there were many clearly expressed views and perspectives that we heard during the Republican National Convention, but they were anything but tightly coordinated. In fact, there were often very contradictory speakers from one night to the next, or even from one speaker to the next. Trump's choice for vice president, JD Vance, for example, delivered a very populist anti-Wall Street message only for many traditional members of the Republican Party, from the more traditional wing, to demand the standard, subservient policies of the GOP when it comes to serving large corporate interests. Several speakers gave rousing and sometimes rather radical denunciations of U.S. support of the war in Ukraine, such as Tucker Carlson and David Sacks and even JD Vance alluded to that, while others were brought onto the platform in order to invade prominent speaking spots to urge the traditional hawkish GOP view about the war in Ukraine and about foreign policy in general. People like Mike Pompeo and Tom Cotton, those worlds and those views could not have been further apart. And yet both of them are accommodated within the Republican Party. That incoherence was one of the biggest mistakes of the first Trump presidency, in my view. Trump won in 2016 on a clear platform of rejecting Bush-Cheney war policies, but then empowered people on the highest level of his government such as Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, who are classic neocons who are pursuing exactly the opposite goals of the ones Trump won the campaign on. 

Given that Trump, by all accounts, has a very good chance of winning the 2024 election, it is very worthwhile and, I think, very important to examine what kind of presidency Trump will have this time around, or more to the point with which faction of the Republican Party he will align.

Then: the Democratic Party, by contrast, is embroiled in what can only be described, without hyperbole, as an embittered civil war, the likes of which we really haven't seen inside a major party for several decades. On the one hand, a huge segment of the Democratic Party leadership is using cowardly, anonymous leaks, highly coordinated ones, to make increasingly clear that they want Joe Biden out of the race as soon as possible and are doing everything and will continue to do everything possible to force his hand. While other members of the party and the party's base, as well as those closest to Joe Biden and the White House, are making equally clear still that they have no intention of withdrawing, but instead are quite enraged by the efforts of people like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and now Barack Obama to attempt to force Joe Biden out of the race. 

For a while, it seemed Biden was almost certain not to leave. Then it started to look like the momentum for his expulsion was growing so much, and the league started claiming that he was on the verge of softening up and almost agreeing to leave. Now, it's hard to know if those leaks were just further designed to pressure him, and they were just lies, or whether they were real. But either way, we're now back to a situation of utter lack of clarity and even growing enmity within the party over these conflicting leaks. We will look at where everything is regarding the viability of Joe Biden's ongoing candidacy as the Democratic Party nominee. 

And then finally, we have a journalistic scandal that is just almost too good to be true. It just brings me so much pleasure to be able to report and talk about all of this. The fanatical neocon and Washington Post columnist, Max Boot, has been basically making a living over the past several decades, recklessly accusing anyone he disagrees with of being a clandestine agent of some foreign power, usually Russia. He is the author, for example, of endless screeds in the Washington Post claiming, obviously falsely, that Donald Trump secretly works for or is subservient to the Kremlin. He certainly says the same thing of anyone who has questioned the war in Ukraine and spent much of the War on Terror accusing the people who disagreed with him of being on the side of Saddam, secretly working for al-Qaida or Assad or Gaddafi, etc. He used that accusation of foreign disloyalty or secretly serving a foreign power any time anyone questioned the Bush-Cheney and then the Obama War on Terror policy that he supported. 

Yet now, in a turn of fate so karmically perfect that I can barely believe it's happening – you rarely get karmic justice this sweet and perfectly constructed – Max Boot's wife, a former CIA agent named Sue Mi Terri was just indicted by the Biden Justice Department for criminally serving as an undisclosed agent of the South Korean government and helping that government infiltrate the U.S. with South Korean spies, all without disclosing any of this. To make matters much worse for The Washington Post and for Max Boot, the duo often coauthored op-eds in The Washington Post that were not only about South Korea but also, according to the DOJ, were written after Sue Mi Terri explicitly requested instructions from her paymasters in Seoul on what she should say. In other words, many articles published by The Washington Post and even the New York Times about South Korea, written to advance the interests of the South Korean government, were being published in her name and her husband's name at the same time, according to the Justice Department, those articles were specifically constructed not to express a genuine opinion, but to advance the interests of a foreign government that, unbeknownst to any of the readers or perhaps to these papers, was paying her not only to do that but to help it contaminate the U.S. government with its spies. We'll examine the implications and the fallout of this delicious but highly revealing journalistic scandal. 

Next week I will be traveling on a family vacation for the next 8 or 9 days or so, but we will not be off the air. We will have at least one guest host, perhaps two, at least one of whom will be here in the studio. We'll have our Tuesday and Thursday aftershow as normal and everything else perfectly normal, except somebody else will be sitting in this very spot, so we hope you'll watch. I think it'll be people who obviously will have a slightly different view than I on a variety of issues. Nobody, I think, sees everything the way that I see them. That's very rare to find and this isn't MSNBC or CNN where everyone is forced to agree to the same things but, certainly, there are people who have compatible fundamental approaches to how to think about politics and journalism. I think the show will benefit from an injection of something a little bit different but, obviously, we'll be back right after that week and we will resume the show regularly. 

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

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
7
What else you may like…
Videos
Podcasts
Posts
Articles
Answering Your Questions About Tariffs

Many of you have been asking about the impact of Trump's tariffs, and Glenn addressed how we are covering the issue during our mail bag segment yesterday. As always, we are grateful for your thought-provoking questions! Thank you, and keep the questions coming!

00:11:10
In Case You Missed It: Glenn Breaks Down Trump's DOJ Speech on Fox News
00:04:52
In Case You Missed It: Glenn Discusses Mahmoud Khalil on Fox News
00:08:35
Listen to this Article: Reflecting New U.S. Control of TikTok's Censorship, Our Report Criticizing Zelensky Was Deleted

For years, U.S. officials and their media allies accused Russia, China and Iran of tyranny for demanding censorship as a condition for Big Tech access. Now, the U.S. is doing the same to TikTok. Listen below.

Listen to this Article: Reflecting New U.S. Control of TikTok's Censorship, Our Report Criticizing Zelensky Was Deleted
LAST-MINUTE CHANGE: Ask Questions for Today's Mailbag on System Update!

Norm Finkelstein will be joining us tomorrow for the whole show, so please post all of your questions here. There’s a lot to discuss: Tulsi Gabbard’s Russiagate report, Columbia’s settlement with the Trump Administration, the new censorship bill working through Congress, and more!

We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told
We bought and sold
It was the greatest show on earth
But then it was over
We ohhed and aahed
We drove our racing cars
We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen-eyed look-out
Spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah
And when they found our shadows
Grouped 'round the TV sets
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their lists
And then the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise
They logged the only explanation left
This species has amused itself to death
No tears to cry
No feelings left
This species has
Amused itself to death

Here is a great podcast with Friend of Show, Aaron Mate, being interviewed by Professor Glenn Diesen on the fraud that was Russia-gate:

post photo preview
Semafor Editor Ben Smith on Epstein Saga; How do MAGA Supporters Really Feel About Trump's Foreign Policy? Eddington Movie Review: Reflections on 2020
System Update #490

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

AD_4nXfT_BDy4ZmCv7YowmlpimI3uiq7dVGVrebs2HL5mg4ECkvfhs3Y9eBAUpJII2f7KX_c0cHmCe_nJBq8K854h7KfY2o0T-_oXaV3vkUdy7KoA6IgnNWbT7_2jA5tfHRgXGATMZsLGqoQcnMQKCpn6Fk?key=4MGSGk-P8UsiVP_KGEUadw

Michael Tracey: Good evening, everybody. I'm Michael Tracey, and Glenn is somewhere. So, this is where I triumphantly storm in and anger parts of the audience who would prefer not to have to see my face, which I have to say, on some level, I sympathize with. 

Tonight, an interesting show. We'll be joined by Ben Smith, who is the editor-in-chief of Semafor and a longtime political observer, journalist, editor. And we will probably, I think, provide you with a slightly counterintuitive for different perspective anyway, on the meaning of the whole Epstein saga that continues to engulf American politics and media, seemingly. 

We'll also bring in somebody who works on this very show, and who you often don't see on camera, she stays behind the cameras but today, we're going to pry her out because Meagan O'Rourke, who I often do interviews with, and she's a producer on the show, I'm sure should be a fan favorite anyway. We're going to do actually a review of a new movie. This is a little out of left field based on typical System Update content, but there's a new movie that I happened to see last night, partly at the adamant urging of Meagan, called Eddington. And I think it's an incredible movie and an incredible window into a lot that's going on politically and culturally. So we're going to a movie review tonight. 

And we are also going to show some footage that she and I collected, actually back on the Fourth of July, earlier this month, that has been available on Locals for you subscribers for several weeks. But what we wanted to do was go to like an area that is sort of ground zero for salt of the earth, Joe six-pack style supporters of Trump voters and ask them about his foreign policy record thus far, particularly the bombing of Iran, which may seem like eons ago at this point, but it was only last month, and the full ramifications have not really been settled. 

AD_4nXfT_BDy4ZmCv7YowmlpimI3uiq7dVGVrebs2HL5mg4ECkvfhs3Y9eBAUpJII2f7KX_c0cHmCe_nJBq8K854h7KfY2o0T-_oXaV3vkUdy7KoA6IgnNWbT7_2jA5tfHRgXGATMZsLGqoQcnMQKCpn6Fk?key=4MGSGk-P8UsiVP_KGEUadw

Michael Tracey and Meagan O'Rourke

Okay, so we're going to go a little bit off the beaten path tonight because I know my mind has been largely occupied by this movie that I saw last night. And if it was just a well-crafted drama, or if there were just some sterling acting performances that were put in, I'm not sure that I would necessarily have been compelled to discuss it on System Update. 

However, there's like an interesting synergy going on in the universe where we have this Epstein story that keeps embroiling the American political and media worlds with some new developments on that score even just this afternoon and we have the opening of this movie which really gets to the beating heart in a very unparalleled way for like a cinematic experience of what drives the contemporary kind of like internet addled American political psyche. 

It's called “Eddington.” I guess we'll try to steer away from spoilers. We'll play the trailer for those who are not familiar. 

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
post photo preview
World Finally Horrified by Israel's Atrocities in Gaza; Mass Starvation Expert Warns of Spiraling Crisis in Gaza; AOC Votes to Fund Israel's Iron Dome
System Update #489

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

AD_4nXdDv1jKaVLrSHfHcxjzD8ZzSIHBr394LRn3K_HF558Wxr3ZNlHseYFEoO9tbN-y8evkWTnLDuUYw9I6UnlxrxyiloWFQ3dVP5qm_C8T86dntn8nv90jM_SHo8pukYsy9QtsAGe-cuetCuLtGqZR4QQ?key=woXOmZZkg72ma4D0gIyUwA

The atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza have become continuously more horrifying and more inhumane over the last 21 months. Even when one thinks that Israel could do nothing worse, they always seem to manage to do exactly that. That there is mass starvation and even mass famine in Gaza is beyond any reasonable dispute. The scenes from Gaza are really the stuff of horror films, of the greatest historical evils, of classic genocide and it's all paid for and armed by the U.S. and the West generally – in case you're wondering why you should care about this more than something else. 

We'll review all of the latest atrocities and then speak with Alex de Waal, the British executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He has a lot to say about where the Israeli-imposed famine in Gaza ranks among all the other famines he's had to witness. 

We’ll also note that not everyone is being passive or silent about these horrors in Gaza. Late last week, the Republican Congresswoman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a bill to cut off all American funding for Israel's Iron Dome, simply arguing that what she called a nuclear-armed Israel – something that everyone knows is true, but you're not allowed to say, and yet she said it on the House floor –  is more than capable of paying for its own defense. Why should American workers be forced to subsidize Israelis' defense? 

Her bill was supported by her fellow genuine America First Republican, Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, as well as four Democrats: Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Al Green and Summer Lee. But one very conspicuous YES vote on having American workers continue to fund a key part of Israel's military arsenal was a New York congresswoman named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Even her most stalwart fans, who are extremely reluctant to criticize her, erupted with anger over not just her vote but also the explanation she provided, which made the situation much worse. This really says a lot about the emerging political dynamic around Israel and the United States and that's the part that I think merits the greatest attention. 

AD_4nXdDv1jKaVLrSHfHcxjzD8ZzSIHBr394LRn3K_HF558Wxr3ZNlHseYFEoO9tbN-y8evkWTnLDuUYw9I6UnlxrxyiloWFQ3dVP5qm_C8T86dntn8nv90jM_SHo8pukYsy9QtsAGe-cuetCuLtGqZR4QQ?key=woXOmZZkg72ma4D0gIyUwA

AD_4nXdaMDjGWiLjKGhPNMUOteGnNl98IUfphxvSSHB46C3z2UwIbix6NnAw_LcsxUH4-CUJrlGV0GpLA4g0b93nff9I_065DhxqganxbH3ALknFhaFmLK6BZNA5HzBVFJq5qPwyFAFYGDeccWhhDyLquQ?key=woXOmZZkg72ma4D0gIyUwA

One of the struggles of covering what the Israelis are doing to Gaza and have been doing for the last 21 months is that so many times you get to this point of despair where you feel like no words are sufficient any longer to explain, describe and express the level of utter sadism and sociopathic cruelty and war criminality that you're watching unfold every day, and not just unfold, but get worse and worse the more it goes. It's been a gradual, inexorable, but horrific destruction of all civilian life in Gaza; constant, indiscriminate slaughter of innocent Palestinians, including untold numbers, but certainly tens of thousands of children who have been shot in the head by snipers, blown up into little bits and pieces. 

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
post photo preview
Congress Again Dictates Curriculum & Faculty at Private Universities; How UnitedHealth Group Silences its Critics: With NYT Reporter David Enrich
System Update #488

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

AD_4nXfbauxDuxae1Q7OSYafF8EtxqWgcnGfBQakVpf7_2lkyqUsxMIV9F9xarGlHSbAGRnHp1NLta2f2L6jisp3yNA42VZUXwrITHDKY9ypmDvR2iOApmWiNWnZr3yyN_LPG7AMjdNhBG7foLmBg1SneQg?key=QEh1F3pE6JzpBjyxrbPdRw

The desire to micromanage universities does not extend to all issues but seemingly just to one, namely, what can and cannot be said about Israel and about Jewish individuals in particular. As they have done countless times over the past 18 months, the House yesterday held a hearing on antisemitism in America's universities, hauling three more college presidents before them to interrogate them on why they allow certain people to teach or certain opinions about Israel or American foreign policy to be expressed. This is all accompanied by a growing trend, a rapidly growing trend of forcing these universities to implement radically expanded "hate speech" codes with the purpose of outlawing what can and cannot be said about Israel. We'll report on the latest House hearing and how it is directly assaulting the free speech and academic freedom rights of Americans. 

 Our guest was reporter David Enrich, who published an extremely well-reported and important article last week detailing the means that UnitedHealth Care is using to silence critics.

AD_4nXfbauxDuxae1Q7OSYafF8EtxqWgcnGfBQakVpf7_2lkyqUsxMIV9F9xarGlHSbAGRnHp1NLta2f2L6jisp3yNA42VZUXwrITHDKY9ypmDvR2iOApmWiNWnZr3yyN_LPG7AMjdNhBG7foLmBg1SneQg?key=QEh1F3pE6JzpBjyxrbPdRw

AD_4nXf1_wUNmtoxrkk5rq0NXdJFV2hnlTpLy24-W3G-jNOBya9JCCjtCrFLD0e0Aspirw9d65J-Wb06eZBG4SFf8V4ea93Z2rdHz0Xd3BsQVPfwMzzu9ElFS842GQmhM__M_jTBuAo1NQai96ZP67u_Ig?key=QEh1F3pE6JzpBjyxrbPdRw

Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene are two members of the House, both Republicans, who have often noted how often the House meets in order to discuss matters pertaining not to the lives of the American people, but to Israel or to combating criticism of Israel or to investigating the alleged epidemic of bigotry not against every minority group, but against only American Jews, notoriously, excluded from centers of power in the United States. It's like an obsession. They do it all the time. Every time I turn around, there's another hearing about antisemitism or about criticism of Israel being organized by the Republican-led House and Senate.

 Yesterday was no exception. The Committee on Education and Workforce, which is chaired by House member Virginia Foxx, a Republican of South Carolina who oftentimes has no idea where she is, it was entitled – and it sounds like a kind of woke thesis from one of these universities that they're so interested in:

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals