In This Episode
- Check out Matthew’s reporting – www.cnn.com/profiles/matthew-chance
- Call Congress – 202-224-3121
- Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8
- What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast
Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/
TRANSCRIPT
Jane Coaston: It’s Tuesday, August 12th, I’m Jane Coaston and this is What a Day, the show that says sorry about our asshole president to the good people of Vietnam who are getting shoved out of their ancestral lands so the Trump family can build a golf course. There’s good news for those farmers though. In return for their homes and land, some of them will receive about $3,200 and some rice. [music break] On today’s show, hundreds of National Guard troops are preparing to deploy to another American city, and [internet dial up sounds made by Jane’s mouth] AOL dial-up is soon to be extinct. But let’s start with Israel’s efforts to expand the war in Gaza. As we talked about on yesterday’s show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans for the Israeli military to take over Gaza City, despite a massive backlash from pretty much everyone. From Israelis to foreign governments. Netanyahu has doubled down, saying, quote, “dismantling the two remaining Hamas strongholds in Gaza City and the central camps, this is the best way to end the war.” It could take weeks or months for the Israeli military to start enacting its plans, but it’s still terrifying news for the families of the hostages remaining in Hamas control. They include Lishay Miran-Lavi, whose husband, Omri Miran, was kidnapped on October 7th. He’s still being held by the terrorist organization. Lishay spoke to a crowd of thousands at a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
[clip of Lishay Miran-Lavi] Now the government has decide to extend the world and push deeper into Gaza. But my husband is still there. Every invasion, every bullet, every airstrike could cost him his life. This isn’t just a military decision. It could be a death sentence for the people we love most.
Jane Coaston: The Israeli military also confirmed that it had killed five journalists for Al-Jazeera in a targeted airstrike Sunday. Military officials accused one of the reporters, Anas Al-Sharif, of running a quote, Hamas terrorist cell, claims Al-Jazeera flatly denied and that Al-sharif himself had denied before his killing. To me, it’s clear. The Israeli government is doubling down not just on taking over Gaza, but on ensuring that there will be no witnesses to their efforts who aren’t approved by and embedded with the Israeli military. So to talk more about the potential takeover of Gaza City and the many, many, many problems with that plan, I spoke to Matthew Chance, chief global affairs correspondent for CNN. He spoke to me from Jerusalem. Matthew, welcome to What a Day.
Matthew Chance: Hey Jane, great to be here.
Jane Coaston: So let’s start with the massive protests we saw this weekend in response to the Israeli government’s decision to expand the war in Gaza. You’re in Jerusalem. What’s the mood like?
Matthew Chance: Yeah.
Jane Coaston: Is the anger concentrated in big cities like Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, or is it fairly widespread?
Matthew Chance: Um. I think, I think both of those things. I mean, it’s um it’s fairly widespread. There are sort of protests around the country, because the the latest decision by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister is so sort of like, generally unpopular. But I was in Tel Aviv um on Saturday night, when that massive protest took place. And there were tens of thousands of people in the streets it was swelteringly hot like really humid. But real real anger um and fear amongst the crowds there. Um. All these Israelis, it’s like something like 70% of the entire population, according to opinion polls, believe that this is an unnecessary military operation now. It’s just being done to keep Netanyahu in power.
Jane Coaston: This all stems from the Israeli Security Council approval last week of plans to take control of Gaza City. This fell short of what Netanyahu had been pushing for, which was a full occupation of the territory. First off, can you explain the stakes of taking control of Gaza City? Because Israel already controls what, 75% of Gaza?
Matthew Chance: Yeah, and that’s why I think this is slight. There’s a slight sort of semantic problem. They already control 75% of Gaza. We’re talking about the other 25%. Right. And that’s the bit in the middle. Gaza City. It’s the most densely populated area. It is where the majority of the Palestinians are currently located. About a million people in Gaza City, that’s what the estimate is. Um. And so obviously, if you stage a military operation there, the casualties are likely to be high. Already more than 60,000 people have been killed in the past two years in the military operation. So that’s one thing. Um. And the other thing is that you know the 50 hostages that are still being held, 20 who are still believed to be alive, 50 altogether, they’re believed to mainly be in that area. And so you know if you go in with all guns blazing, many people think the chances are those hostages are gonna be executed or get caught in the crossfire. It’s happened before, right? There’s no reason to think that it won’t happen again.
Jane Coaston: Now the plan to take over Gaza City has been criticized from like every angle. The Israeli left says it puts the hostages at further risk. Rights groups fear even more Palestinian deaths. The Israeli right says it doesn’t go far enough. International leaders are furious that Netanyahu is doubling down in the face of mounting pressure to reach a ceasefire. What is Netanyahu hoping to achieve here? Is it just like keep his government intact?
Matthew Chance: Yeah, I think so, because because even though you’re absolutely right, the moves by Netanyahu don’t go as far as the right-wingers in his coalition want them to go. It’s still moving in that direction, right? And so it’s still enough to keep them sort of supporting his his coalition. In terms of the other stuff, you know, the international condemnation, for example, which has been growing, you’ve got countries like Britain and France, Canada, Germany, which has always since the Second World War been a massive supporter of Israel. Germany has been critical. It said it won’t supply weapons to Israel anymore if they’re going to be used in Gaza. And so there’s this growing international condemnation, but Netanyahu is sort of immune to that because there’s one country that isn’t criticizing him, and that’s the United States. President Trump has taken a much more hands-off approach, basically saying it’s up to Israel to decide what it wants to do. And that hands-off approach has very much been interpreted by Netanyahu and his government as a green light to conquer, to occupy, basically to do whatever they want in Gaza.
Jane Coaston: Overnight, Sunday into Monday, the Israeli military also killed five journalists with Al Jazeera. The Israeli military confirmed the attack, claiming one of them was a member of Hamas. The United Nations Secretary General has called for an investigation. I mean, this would seem to be a deliberate killing of journalists. How does this impact that international pressure that you say that Netanyahu is immune to? Will this change anything?
Matthew Chance: I mean, I’d like to say that it will change something, but, I mean you’ve got five journalists from Al Jazeera who’ve been killed, but there’s something like 180 journalists who have been killed since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza, and, you know, the killings are still going on. So it’s shocking, but unfortunately, it’s happening quite a lot. This guy in particular, Anas Al-Sharif, his name was, 28-year-old Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza. I think he’s particularly noteworthy because he’s been so prominent inside Gaza. You know he’s been really the face of the war for, you know certainly for Al Jazeera, but for much of the Arabic speaking world. So he’s pretty well known, very well known. And of course, it comes amid a growing humanitarian crisis as well, so there’s additional focus on that. I think what was striking for me though is that you know Israel didn’t even attempt to deny that it killed this guy. In fact, they said that they targeted him on purpose because they thought or decided or knew that he was a, they accused him of being a Hamas operative. They said he was the head of a Hamas cell that was involved in firing rockets at Israeli troops and Israeli civilians. Now, they’ve not presented very, you know kind of convincing evidence of that, some lists with his name on it, right? And certainly when he was alive. And Asas Sharif categorically denied that, and his news organization Al Jazeera have also denied it, saying that, look, this is just another example of Israel trying to silence people um ahead of their forthcoming occupation.
Jane Coaston: Al Jazeera is one of the few news organizations that still has a big team of reporters in Gaza. There’s been a lot of conversation about how Israel has done its level best to keep journalists out of this conflict and to keep them from being on the ground, saying that it’s for their protection, but who knows? What do you think that says about international coverage of the war, especially since, I mean, you’re doing international coverage of this war.
Matthew Chance: Yeah, I mean, well, it’s not, it’s not ideal, is it? I mean what you want ideally is access, free access, uninhibited access to Gaza, so that we could see for ourselves the situation. Um. Not because the Palestinian journalists who are there aren’t doing an incredible job, because they are, but I think, you know, opening it up to international journalists would provide a degree of transparency that just isn’t there anymore. What I’ve had to resort to and what many people in my position, international journalists outside of Gaza, have had to resort to is taking any opportunity we can to get a glimpse into the Gaza Strip. I mean, I was down in the south of Gaza a couple of months ago. I went in with the Israeli military because it’s the only way you can get in. And then a few days ago, I went up with an aid flight which was being run by the Jordanian Air Force. And we were flying a couple of thousand feet above Gaza dropping aid packages. [?]
Jane Coaston: Yeah, I was just about to ask about that.
Matthew Chance: Yeah.
Jane Coaston: What did you see?
Matthew Chance: You know, it is a desert of ruins that you’re flying over. And it was very shocking for me because, you know, I spent a lot of time in Gaza. I spent many years actually as a reporter in the early 2000s going in and out of Gaza, spending months at a time there. And so I know how sort of full of life the place was and full of people. I mean, it’s one of the most densely populated areas in the world, right? And it’s just a cacophony of, you know sounds and smells. And you look down on Gaza City now and on the areas around it, and it’s just been laid to waste. It’s been flattened in a way which it’s quite hard it’s quite hard to to believe.
Jane Coaston: For the Palestinians in Gaza City, who are still there, where will they go if the Israeli military does take over?
Matthew Chance: I mean, look, we don’t really know the detail of this, but I mean Israel has, in so much as it has a plan that’s been made public, and I’m not sure the military really has developed a plan yet. The military doesn’t really wanna do this, right? But what they’ve said is that, look, we’re gonna first as the first step, we’re gonna evacuate Gaza City, which sounds easy, but it’s not, because you’re talking about a million people, many of whom have been displaced several times before already. And they’re living in basically rubble on the side of the road. And so they’re going to be uprooted, they’re going to displaced and sent to what the Israelis are calling evacuation centers, which have yet to be built and set up. The Israelis say that in those evacuation centers they’ll be screened and then provided with humanitarian assistance. Let’s see. You know, so far the Israeli efforts at humanitarian assistance have not been particularly successful. But once the evacuation is complete, then the sort of second phase of the plan that’s been announced so far is that there’s going to be a full-on sort of military assault on Gaza City to destroy Hamas, who the Israelis say are sort of camping out inside Gaza City as one of their last strongholds. And so that’s why Netanyahu is so keen on it, you know, because you evacuate the people, you destroy Hamas, the war is over, the hostages are released. The trouble is, it’s obviously may not necessarily work out that way, and that’s what everybody is worried about, including Palestinians and hostage families and people around the world.
Jane Coaston: Right, and it feels like we’ve heard this story before about northern Gaza, about Rafah. Like, do we have any evidence that Hamas is camped out in the rubble of Gaza City? That if they just invade, move all these people, which they haven’t explained how they’re going to do it, and just go after Hamas, that would work.
Matthew Chance: Yeah, you’re right in the sense that, you know, that was the objective in the first place, wasn’t it? To go in militarily and destroy Hamas, and they haven’t managed to do that. And that, I think, is the essential problem, that Netanyahu’s objective that he set for his military to destroy Hamass and wipe it out like it was never there, it’s just not possible. It’s just not achievable. You know, in a densely populated area where Hamas, and other militant groups, they’re sort of part of the community. That’s the problem with the Israeli plan, I think it’s not going to work.
Jane Coaston: Matthew, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.
Matthew Chance: Thank you very much.
Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Matthew Chance, Chief Global Affairs Correspondent for CNN. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]
[AD BREAK]
Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today.
[sung] Headlines.
[clip of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser] While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we’re totally surprised.
Jane Coaston: That’s Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser sounding a little resigned during a press briefing Monday after President Trump invoked part of the D. C. Home Rule Act. In an executive order, he declared a quote, “crime emergency.” Why? So his administration could take over Washington’s police department. Trump said the action was meant to quote, “rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor.” The president also said he’s activating 800 members of the National Guard. Sound familiar? But Trump’s idea of D.C. may be a little skewed. Shocking. City officials have stressed that crime is falling. Bowser reiterated that though there was an uptick in crime post-COVID, officials have addressed that.
[clip of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser] This year uh, crime isn’t just down from 2023. It’s also down from 2019, before the pandemic. And we’re at a 30-year violent crime low.
Jane Coaston: Trump did not provide a timeline for the control of the police department, but he’s limited to 30 days under the Home Rule Act, unless he gets approval from Congress. Like that’s ever stopped him before. During his own press conference earlier Monday, Trump also said his administration would be removing homeless encampments. Well, that’s not exactly what he called them.
[clip of President Donald Trump] We have slums here, we’re getting rid of them. I know it’s not politically correct. You’ll say, oh, so terrible. No, we getting rid the slums where they live.
Jane Coaston: Eh? Slums. What? I lived in D.C. for 13 years and I’m lost. Trump has emphasized the removal of Washington’s homeless population, but it’s unclear where the thousands of people would go. Trump, I’m guessing, doesn’t care. In the meantime, Bowser said she would follow the law regarding the quote, “so-called emergency” and do everything to end it. She also indicated that Trump’s actions were a reason why the District of Columbia should be a state with legal protections. Speaking of cities facing an administration that hates cities, in June, President Trump federalized roughly 4,000 California National Guard members and deployed them, along with 700 U.S. Marines, to Los Angeles. Now California state officials are challenging the legality of that deployment in a three-day trial that started Monday in San Francisco. California is asking a federal judge to order the Trump administration to return control of the remaining troops to the state and to stop the federal government from using California Guard troops to enforce federal law. The centuries-old Posse Comitatus Act prevents the president from using the military as a domestic police force. But Trump’s attorneys are arguing that the case should be canceled, because according to Title 10, the president is allowed to call the National Guard into federal service when the country is, quote, “invaded” and or when there is a, quote, “rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government.” The district judge on the case, Charles Breyer, says the protests in Los Angeles, quote, “fall far short of a rebellion.” The case could set precedent for how Trump can deploy the guard in the future in California or other states, which he’s already doing. You might remember back in July, which feels like a year ago at this point. President Trump and the Justice Department formally asked to unseal the transcripts of the grand jury testimony against Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend and longtime accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. It came amid intense public pressure, he was, and still is facing about his administration’s refusal to release a different truckload of documents known as the Epstein files. Oh yeah, because they allegedly mentioned his own name multiple times. And weirdly, this argument wasn’t convincing.
[clip of President Donald Trump] Look the whole thing is a hoax. It’s put out by the Democrats because we’ve had the most successful six months in the history of our country and that’s just a way of trying to divert attention to something that’s total bull [bleep].
Jane Coaston: Well on Monday, Manhattan federal judge Paul A. Engelmayer officially rejected the request, saying that the DOJ’s real motive was to fool the public with the, quote, “illusion of transparency.” Okay, Judge Engelmayer, go off. Engelmayer added that the DOJ’s claims that the testimony could reveal new information about Maxwell’s crimes was, quote, “demonstrably false,” because it actually doesn’t include anything we didn’t already know. No new crime locations, no new information about Epstein’s death or the sources of his wealth. Nada, zilch, nothing. So basically, the judge agreed with Trump’s own words that the whole thing is.
[clip of President Donald Trump] Total bull [bleep].
Jane Coaston: [sound of AOL dial up internet plays] Ah, the sweet, sweet sounds of AOL dial-up. Apparently, this crown jewel of the early internet will cease to exist on September 30th, according to the company. But the bigger news might be that anyone was still using it? According to Census Bureau data, about 0.13% of homes in America were on dial- up internet subscriptions in 2023. So, not a total dinosaur, but close. For our many, many Gen Z listeners, first of all, thank you so much. Anyway, long, long ago. In a time we like to call the 1990s. There was a pop-up box in our computers that we had to click on and then wait for approximately infinity amount of minutes to the sound of those beeps until we were granted access to this brand new thing called the internet. It was a glorious time where we learned to expect the unexpected because we’d inevitably be kicked off if anyone in our family needed to use the phone line to make a call. Yes, before cell phones, you had to use a telephone connected to a cord connected to a wall. So on that note, we wish a fond farewell to you, AOL dial-up. We hope you’re enjoying your newfound leisure time on a farm upstate, hanging out with Vine, Instant Messenger, Internet Explorer, landline phones, and my dignity because I feel really, really old right now. Thank you. And that’s the news. [music break].
[AD BREAK]
Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, nod knowingly at who the most disliked person in America is, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how Elon Musk is the most-disliked figure in America right now, according to Gallup, with a net favorability of minus 28, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and here are the people more well-liked than Elon Musk right now. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State and like six other jobs, Marco Rubio, and President Donald Trump. Woof. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Gina Pollock, and Laura Newcomb. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. We had help with the headlines from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
