Imperialism, Propaganda & War: The Truth Biden Hid and Trump Let Slip — Katie Halper

[Mehran] Welcome, Katie,
the floor is yours.

[Katie] Thank you.

That was great.

[Applause]

Hi, everyone.

Thank you so much
for coming tonight.

So the organizers were
really adamant that tonight

not just be depressing,
but be inspiring

and give people hope.

Oh, I'm glad you're
already laughing, okay.

I know it's funny right,
to think of something on

this topic being inspiring.

In that vein, I want to start off
tonight with a game.

This game is called:
Who said it,

Donald Trump
or Noam Chomsky?

[Audience laughs]

Let's see how everyone does,
ready?

Who said the following,
ready?

In some cases, I'm not
going to quote verbatim

because if I quote verbatim,

it's too obvious from
the style of talking.

It will either be a quote
or a summary of what they said, ok?

So who said:

The U.S. won't sanction Saudi Arabia
over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi

because that would
jeopardize billions

in arms sales to Saudi Arabia?

Raise your hand if
you think it's Trump.

Okay, Chomsky?

All right, it was Trump.

[Audience laughs]

And not only was it
Trump, but he was

saying it about himself.

He was explaining why he
wouldn't sanction Khashoggi.

Okay, let's see what's next.

We left troops behind
in Syria for the oil.

Okay, who says Trump?

Okay, Chomsky?

Trump.

Okay, good, good one,
all right.

Who said in response to
claims of Russian interference

in US presidential elections,
who said in response to that:

'The US has interfered in the
elections of many other nations.'

Chomsky - Trump

Chomsky

[Audience laughs]

Ok, who said:

'The Iraq war sunk America's prestige?'

Chomsky?

Trump?

Chomsky.

[Audience laughs]

Who said: 'There are a lot of killers,

what do you think,
our country's so innocent?'

Trump - Chomsky?

That was Trump.

Who responded to the claim that:

'The only one who wants the world to continue with Hamas,

who responded to
that claim saying:

'Actually, Israel is the one who
wants the war to continue.'

Trump, ok.

Chomsky?

Trump.

The reason that we
can even play this game

of who said it:
Donald Trump or Chomsky

is because they do have
something in common.

They state inconvenient truths.

There are a few differences
obviously.

Starting with the fact that
when he's not stating

inconvenient truths,

Donald Trump is lying pathologically
and rather creatively and flagrantly.

They have a totally
different value system, right?

Let's go back to one of
the earlier quotes I did

about how Israel wants
the war to go on.

That was actually taken from the
one and only debate In 2024

between Trump and Biden.

Biden said that the only one who
wants the war to continue is Hamas

and Trump said:
Actually Israel is the one.

But he finished that sentence.

The full sentence is: 'Actually Israel is the one

and you should let them
finish the job,'

So there he has it,

he's critical of Israel
in a weird way

or maybe he's praising Israel
according to his moral values.

Obviously, Chomsky would have shared
that same observation about Israel

wanting the war to go on
but would use that

to then argue why
Israel should not

be funded by the
United States, right?

He also, by the way, I should
bring up one other thing

that Trump said that really
resonated during the debate,

which was at the end,
Joe Biden said something

and Trump said: 'I really
don't know what he said.

I don't think he knows either.'

[Audience laughs]

At that moment,
we were all Trumps.

Ok, back to the
Trump-Chomsky game,

I don't bring it up to paint
Chomsky as Trumpian

it's not to praise
Trump as Chomskyian

it's not to make some lazy horseshoe
theory based observation about

the Left and Right
meet each other.

And it's not to argue that
Trump isn't an imperialist

or that Chomsky is.

And also, I'm not an excelerationist,

I'm not arguing that it's a good
thing that Trump was elected,

I don't believe that it won't
get better until it gets worse.

I'm saying that a silver lining
of Trump's presidency

is that he is laying bare the
brutality of American imperialism,

a brutality the Democrats
tried to conceal.

So we should take
advantage of that.

[Applause]

Now, as disgusting as it is

for Trump to announce plans
to open a Riviera on the Gaza Strip,

isn't it nice to hear someone
admit that our foreign policy

when I say our,
I'm talking as an American,

our foreign policy isn't
driven by a commitment

to fairness, justice, and
the rules-based order?

Isn't it helpful to know that in fact,

there is not rules based order?

Isn't it helpful to not pretend
that the US funds

and enables Israel because
it's a democracy?

Another example is Eukraine.

People are scandalised that
Trump spoke to Zelenskyy

like a petulant, ungrateful,
uncooperative

and self sabotaging child,
which he did.

But isn't that in some ways
preferable to what Biden did?

Biden may have said nice
things about Zelenskyy

but what did he actually do?

He dangled NATO membership
in front of him,

while knowing full well,
that was never a possibility.

He claimed to care about Ukrainian
sovereignty and self determination

while sending Boris Johnson to tell
Zelenskyy not to negotiate with Putin

one month into the war.

Had they done that, the war
would be over by now

thousands of people would be alive

and Ukraine would have more land
than they will ever have now.

It's also worth noting that 52% of
Ukrainians want a negotiated settlement.

When people say listen to Ukrainians,

you should find out what
Ukrainians are talking about.

Trump speaks crudely and cruelly
of natural minerals in Ukraine

but if the US is going to exploit Ukraine,

isn't it better to know what
the war is actually about?

And isn't it better for Ukrainians to
know what the US is really prioritising?

Another thing I want to thank Trump for
is bringing Elon Musk into the forefront.

Because like Trump,
he's exposing things, right?

First of all, this guy literally comes out with a chainsaw to demonstrate how he wants to cut the welfare state.

Which again, that would
be like a parody,

like that's something the Left would
say about him, to critisise him.

But he actually does it.

[Audience laughs]

That's how out of touch he is.

Also it was great when
he gave the Nazi salute

not because I'm a fan
of the Nazi salute,

but because it was so great at
exposing the absolute bankrupt,

hypocracy and rank hypocracy of the ADL,

the Anti Defamation League

which claims to combat anti-Semitism
but really creates anti-Semitism

by suggesting that...

[Applause]

They're not clapping for anti-Semitism
they're clapping for calling it out

by suggesting that being Jewish
and being Zionist are the same thing.

I mean, maybe it's like a bad sign

when you're talking points
are shared by the KKK.

Think about the people
who use the terms

'Zionist' and 'Jewish'
interchangeably, right?

It's like David Duke types,
real neo-Nazis

and of course,
the ADL and AIPAC and Israel.

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

When Elon Musk
gave that salute,

what was so great about it was
that the ADL had to defend him.

The ADL said that it wasn't
actually that problematic,

people were on edge, people
need to calm down,

people were being too sensitive,
but it was totally kosher.

[Laughter]

My word, not theirs at
the end, but basically

I paraphrased.

So that was useful because
it laid bare what despicable

people the ADL are.

Now, I also liked it because
it brought out Steve Bannon

and he did another salute,
but the reason I like Steve Bannon

is because he makes
me feel really special

because he said that
the number one enemy

are Jews who are
critical of Israel,

American Jews who
are critical of Israel.

So, I was kind of blushing.

Rutger Bernhardt The sentenced
Republican Only selected a

few Republicans last year.

The other good thing
about this is that people

are seeing thru Dems.

People are seeing
thru the Dems.

The Democrats do not want
to fight against Trump.

Tom Palestinian Americans
for staying home or

voting third party.

They refer to them as Dearborn
voters They tell us that

people are self-indulgent
practicers of purity politics

who needed to do whatever it
took to stop Trump Well, if

people need to do whatever
was needed to defeat

Trump Shouldn't that have
included Kamala Harris?

Because for a year and a
half a significant and vocal

portion of the Democratic
Party electorate and

their progressive base

The polls showed this would
have helped her numbers.

Was it not self-indulgent
and Trump-enabling of her to

ignore the base and instead
run around with Liz Cheney

and brag about getting
an endorsement from war

criminal Dick Cheney?

And by the way, a YouGov
IMEU poll showed that 29

% of voters nationally
who voted for

Another thing that's
positive is that people are

seeing through the media.

So more than 75 ,000
subscribers have cancelled

their Washington Post
subscription since Jeff

Bezos announced he would
only promote free market

and libertarian ideals.

Another example, thank
you for saying the quiet

part out loud, Jeff.

Again, that's like a critique
that you wouldn't make

of him, Yanis, but he's
saying it about himself.

Also, MSNBC viewership
is really low.

And you know, I do want to
say how disgusting Western

media has been on Gaza.

I actually learned this
Ivana Morozian-Murdoch.

It's kind of firsthand.

I mean my experience was not
that bad and it certainly

pales in comparison to
Melanie's which you'll

hear about shortly.

But I made a video at an
outlet called the Hill.

I wrote a monologue saying
that Israel is an apartheid

state and for that I got fired
and even though there was

really nothing you can say
because the video pointed

out how many people including
the Israeli Human Rights

Organization, Be'tselem, and
including like former prime

Israeli Prime Ministers were

calling apartheid a state.

2.0

2.0

2.0 2.0 No one was saying,
this wasn't an issue of

Believe Women because
no one was saying

it happened to them.

Now, the same media who
covered that story and

never retracted it decided
to ignore the fact that

it was documented that
Palestinians were raped.

I mean, this was covered
by Israeli media and

somehow Western media
never covered it.

This isn't like, you don't
even have to go to Haaretz.

This was centrist
and right-wing media

that covered this.

This was sexual assault
captured on video.

And this is something
that you actually had a

member of the Knesset.

There were protests when they
started to arrest soldiers,

but the protests weren't
about the rapes, the protests

were about arresting them.

And you actually had a member
of the Knesset being asked

rhetorically, so is it
legitimate to insert sticks

into people's rectums?

And a member of the Knesset
said, yes, it's legitimate.

ChatGPT Robb Eggen

Juliana Zaito-Ferrari,
Ph.D., Professor, Bachelor

of Social Sciences,
Columbia University, USA

Jennifer Hale Prof.

Rafat Al-Arir is a poet
and professor in Gaza.

He wrote a beautiful poem
called If I Must Die.

He was murdered by Israel.

He was targeted.

It wasn't just a
random war crime.

It was a targeted one.

Thank you for watching.