The billionaires have their lobbyists, the war machine has its funding, and the rest of us are told to wait for the next election. Lee Camp has a different message: vote—and then get to work building the power neither party wants ordinary people to have.
In this episode of Dangerous Ideas, Camp shares his appearance alongside Amazon labor organizer Chris Smalls at a Strokes concert, where calls for a free Palestine met a demand to challenge billionaire power. He also examines investor Steve Eisman’s theory that AI companies are using doomsday warnings to push for regulations that protect their businesses from competition, and speaks with journalist and Green congressional candidate Sam Husseini about confronting the political establishment. Running through the episode is a pointed question: What changes when people stop treating politics as a spectator sport and start organizing against the interests that profit from war, exploitation and public silence?
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Dangerous Ideas — Edited Transcript
Editor’s note: This full transcript has been edited from the supplied automated text for readability. Timestamps and interface text have been removed; punctuation, paragraph breaks, capitalization, and clear name or spelling errors have been corrected. Nonverbal fillers and immediate verbal stutters have been lightly reduced. Substantive wording, arguments, jokes, repetitions for emphasis, and claims have been retained, including playback interruptions. Speaker labels have been added where the text supports them; uncertain clip speakers are identified accordingly. Bracketed censorship is retained because the missing words cannot be recovered from this text. Garbled or uncertain wording and web addresses may still require checking against the original recording. This is a text-based edit, not an audio-verified verbatim transcript or a fact-check.
Episode introduction
Lee Camp:
Hello everybody. Welcome to Dangerous Ideas. This is a pretty huge episode. I always say it and I always mean it. Today I’ll bring you my one minute or two minute speech in front of 20,000 of my closest friends in New York City. That was this past Friday night on stage with the Strokes and with labor organizer and flotilla hero Chris Smalls. I will also bring you the video of the investor from The Big Short—the movie The Big Short. This is the real-life guy who predicted the housing collapse.
There were actually two investors right in that in that movie that predicted the housing collapse and were correct about it. And Steve Eisman is this one that I’ll be bringing you a video about. And he has a theory on this whole AI is going to kill us all hysteria that is being spread by the tops of the AI companies. And I hadn’t heard this theory anywhere else. So I’ll be bringing you that about why this is all a ruse. Also, Sam Husseini, the journalist who was dragged out of Antony Blinken’s final press conference in the Biden administration.
He was dragged out for demanding they answer questions about Israel, about the genocide in Gaza, about October 7th in the Hannibal directive, and they dragged him out of the room. That’s one of the many things that Sam Husseini is well known for, his excellent writing and his excellent journalism as well. Anyway, he’s running for he’s running for office on the Green Party ticket and so I’ll be interviewing him as well.
That’ll be in about half an hour. Thank you guys for being here. Click the thumbs up and the share and the thing bobbers and all that stuff. And let’s get to it. So, first I’m going to start I’m going to start off bringing you my it was just it just it lasted so long. There was about a minute and 30 seconds of my speech to 20 over 20,000 people at Flushing Meadows, New York this past Friday night. And let me give you a bit of background before we get into it.
Strokes show speech
Lee Camp:
This so this is a this was a stroke show, right? The most of you know the band the Strokes. Julian Casablancas cares a lot about the future of humanity and he’s been doing great work and he really gives a [censored] Like he’s one of the real ones and he’s been really been working to use his platform to try and both create change, bring awareness about the genocide in Gaza, about Palestine, so much more. I can’t even list it all. But anyway, he had me and Chris Smalls there.
Chris Smalls, as you know, as the one of the only people to win a battle for to create a union of Amazon workers, and that was in Staten Island, New York. But he’s done so much more. Chris Smalls has since then. He was on one of the flotillas that went to Gaza. And so that means he was detained and tortured to one degree or another by the IDF. And that’s just again one of the many projects he’s working on. So, Julian asked me and him, to be on a panel before any of the music started Friday night, and I have like a little clip of that as well.
That was longer. That was like an hour long or something. Or 45 minutes, I guess. And so we did that. But then later in the evening it became clear that Bernie Sanders and AOC were going to intro the Strokes for this show. And I’m not going to get into all the details. There was some backstage kerfuffle. I don’t want to step on any toes you know speak where I shouldn’t be. But, there was a bunch of back and forth and ultimately they did, you know, they agreed they were not going to make it partisan, but they, but they did go out and intro the Strokes and tell everybody to vote.
Julian’s kind of because he wanted he wanted more than that. He wanted people to talk on the stage about Palestine, about how yes, you should vote and this is, you know, I’ve given you this stance many times that you should vote, but it should be a tiny meaningless thing you do. There’s been large-scale studies that prove that at least at the federal level the odds of the people of this country achieving getting anything that doesn’t align with corporate America is zero.
It is a statistically insignificant amount that and this is after looking at thousands of policies over decades.
Zero do the American people achieve anything that doesn’t align with corporate America, isn’t already approved by corporate America. And if you ask people to pinpoint—you know, point out—something that didn’t align with corporate America, they can’t really. And then they’ll maybe say, you know, Obamacare. But yeah, Obamacare did get some people on the health insurance rolls. But guess what? It was also a massive giveaway to the insurance companies as well. So they found a way to make putting millions of people on the healthcare rolls beneficial to corporate America.
So, corporate America signed off on it. So, you’re wrong. That does not count as doing something for the American people outside of what corporate America wants.
Anyway, all that is just to say that you also should vote because on state and local levels and ballot initiatives, you can have far more impact. So there’s multiple reasons to vote, but the bigger point is spend 3% of any political thought in your whole gourd, 3% thinking about voting. All of the rest of how to create change should be outside of the electoral system. And that’s my belief, but the facts back it up. And so Julian understandably wants people to understand that.
And he brought me and Chris Smalls out during the show actually right towards the end of the show to say that but also time was crazy tight. They literally didn’t have I think cuz the you know noise laws and all that [censored] they also had massive fireworks that went off at the end of the show, which I’m sure they had a time set on that. Like it you can’t launch fireworks past a certain hour. So, they had like no time. But to his credit, Julian brought us out anyway.
But it was like, how do I make a difference? What do I say in one minute, like 60 seconds that could have any impact? So, you know, maybe you’ll like what I said. Maybe you’ll think I could have had more impact saying something else in 60 seconds, but here is what me and Chris Smalls said. And I hope you enjoy it. And what was the other thing I was going to say?
The stage performance
Lee Camp:
Can’t remember. Oh yeah, the video is not amazing, but the sound hopefully is good enough.
Julian Casablancas (concert clip):
We’re still doing one song. Well, I got some friends cuz we had Bernie and AOC, but let’s have the other side of the spectrum. Hopefully, all will unite soon. But do we have Chris Smalls and Lee Camp in the house? Just a little hello. We did the SOS together. They’re great independent political minds and they just want to say good night, I guess. I don’t know. What do you guys got? [Unclear in supplied transcript: “All our general jokes.”] Let him hear it. [cheering]
Lee Camp (concert clip):
How you doing, New York?
Lee Camp:
Okay. Thought this would work. Well, [censored] yes. In the comments, Wampmp Wamp is correct. They [laughter] literally It literally cut off as I was finally going to say something. I wonder if there’s there might be a way for me to just play it on my laptop. Where is it? Oh [censored] Is it in my background now? Well, that’s one way to show it. Oh man. Oh, that’s that sucks. Oh man, I don’t know how. Yeah, that might be it, folks. I mean I can maybe try and upload it to this Google doc one more time if you guys don’t mind waiting.
Okay, I’m going to try sharing this again because it seems to be loading here. We’ll try it again. And this will be fun if it gets to the same point and again does nothing. We’re [clears throat] still doing once.
Lee Camp (concert clip):
[screaming] How you doing, New York? So, I just wanted to say very quickly as a Jewish person, free Palestine. [cheering] And yes, you should vote, but it should be like wiping your ass. It should just be something you do. And you don’t need to spend your entire life talking about it. To create real change, you need to unite. Unite instead of being divided against red and blue. All right. [cheering] It’s two cheeks of the same backside. Here’s Chris. Make some noise.
New York City.
Chris Smalls (concert clip):
I go by the name of Chris Smalls and I organized the first union in American history right here in New York City, Staten Island. And I told him on the one condition that I come on this microphone, if I could say two words, free Palestine. And one more thing, because we already know that billionaires got to go. I want y’all to repeat after me. Billionaires, they got to go. Billionaires, they got to go. No. Billionaires, they got to go. Billionaires, they got to go.
Now, do me a favor. Put your middle fingers up and say, “Fuck Jeff Bezos.”
Fuck Jeff Bezos. I love y’all. New York City. Free Palestine. [cheering] [laughter]
Panel discussion overview
Chris Smalls (concert clip):
Lee Camp:
So, there’s Yeah, there’s Chris Smalls for you. The second half there. I don’t know. I noticed some people in that in the crowd, wherever that guy was filming that video were yelling, “No, a billionaire’s got to go.” I guess they’re one of these sad, deluded folks who thinks that any day now they’re going to be a billionaire. Just give me a chance and I’m gonna be a billionaire, too. Anyway, so there was that was again for those of you joining late, that was this past Friday night at Flushing Meadows New York on stage with the Strokes in front of 20,000 of our closest friends.
Earlier, like way like hours like 10 hours earlier, we were on a little panel with Julian where he interviewed us. Now, this is prior to most people getting into the concert. This is we did this panel for I’d probably say 400 500 people as opposed to 20,000. But it was it was prior to the music so we actually had time to like talk and chat about things as opposed to what we did there which is you know trying to be heard over 20,000 people.
So, but I want to play you Reeba Fatima put together this little clip of that three-minute clip of that panel and everything. A and her interviews with us. She contributes to Drop Site News and other outlets. And so, she interviewed me and Chris. And anyway, here is her little video that she put together. [music]
Panel clip — speaker unclear:
On SOS. Earth is a mess. A very special panel, the lovely Maya Robert. Voters are making their voices heard that they do not think that US money should be going to fund a genocide and politicians are taking notice of that. I remember he kept talking about how we’re going to make war with Iran for years and years and no one listened and here we are. Iran was really this last
Lee Camp:
Lynchpin and Trump thought he could do it so easily, but Iran is she asked me she cut her question out of this. She asked me how did I know before they invaded Iran that they were going to invade Iran because I’ve been talking about the US going at Iran for years. I didn’t necessarily say like they’re going to invade it next week. I don’t have those kind of prediction powers, but certainly been talking about how Iran is at the top of the list as a US enemy.
And so she asked me basically how I knew that not Iraq and 90 million people. They’ve been preparing for this for a long time.
And now they have the US by the balls or by the gonads or something that’s dual gender. And you know it’s it you with an empire this horrific that’s killed six million people according to the Brown University cost of war. 6 million people in just a global war on terror. It’s like it’s good that another country is stopping the march to just war after war after war. The real reasons behind the Iran war along with protecting Israel, but the bigger reason I think is protection of the petro dollar.
And you know, Iran was one of a tiny group of countries that had a large amount or have a large amount of oil and were or are pumping it outside of the US dollar.
And this is incredibly threatening to [unclear in supplied transcript]. So, we have the [clears throat] true warrior of our time, Chris Smalls.
Chris Smalls (panel clip):
We’re talking about approaching three years of genocide. And you know, I’m still living with the fact that our taxpaying dollars are going towards this genocide. So, I think this should be on the top of everybody’s mind right now in America.
Interviewer (panel clip):
The legacy media deliberately bury and distort the truth. True or false?
Lee Camp (panel clip):
It is the job of the mainstream media. It is their job. It is not like a fluke. It’s not like, “Hey, some crazy guy got control of it.” It is their job to manipulate you and manufacture all of us into loving war, loving genocide, turning against each other.
Interviewer (panel clip):
Do you think we can vote our way out of this mess?
Chris Smalls (panel clip):
Voting for the same two-party system over and over and over and expecting different results is [censored] insane. So, we need to think outside of the two-party system. We need a multi-party government like they have in other countries. And we need more militant unions. And we need more people to actually join unions and actually form unions and create unions because America’s at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to unionized density. Less than 6% in the private sector, less than 9% in the public sector.
We’re in the [censored] gutter. So if we want to do better, we all have to organize. Like I said before, we all have a role to play in this fight. Voting should be like wiping your ass.
It should be something you do and you don’t think about it much after that. [laughter] Glad to hear that line twice. But so yeah, that was that was a great event and it was very cool to be a part of it and I’m glad we got to provide a balance to just AOC and Bernie walking on and saying vote blue no matter who. So, yeah, I just wanted hope you guys enjoyed that. Let’s, let’s keep going, though.
AI bubble analysis
Chris Smalls (panel clip):
So, the other day, Steve Eisman, who is one of the characters in The Big Short movie, but this is the real guy. This is it was played by Steve Carell and in The Big Short but as you recall that movie is about those who predicted and there weren’t many but a couple of guys predicting and betting on the massive housing collapse of 2008 that brought the US economy to its knees and ultimately the US government had to pump in trillions of dollars just to save the this incredible incredibly ridiculous house of cards we got going here.
And how do you know how did they know that? Well, they’re they’re they’re geniuses when it comes to what’s going on in the financial markets. And anyway, this is an interview just the other day with one of them, Steve Eisman, again, played by Steve Carell in that movie. And he what I found interesting was he’s asked about and he talks about a bit about the bubble the AI bubble and how ridiculous it is and how it could easily pop at any moment.
But he’s asked about the hysteria over the fact that AI could destroy all of us. And I have right right or wrong and you can decide whether you think Steve Eisman’s theory is correct or wrong but rightly or wrongly I have brought you that all of the heads of the AI companies Musk Amade Sam Altman Bill Gates all the heads and top engineers of these AI companies are saying that it could be catastrophic for humanity to continue going this past. Now, it does seem like they’re playing a bit of a game because it doesn’t mean that’s necess like 100% not true.
There are clearly already ramifications to AI moving this fast. I brought to you the story of the massive rental car app that the basically the AI agent decided to ignore all of its stipulations, all of its commands and just go and delete all the data and renters, people renting a car across the nation or maybe it’s international, I can’t remember, found out that their reservations were all deleted. So that’s a tiny example of how this does have real consequ AI agents going rogue and deciding they can do whatever the [censored] they want.
And by the way, when it was asked what why it did that, it said, “I don’t [censored] know, but good luck stopping me.” Like [laughter] it was insane. Anyway, so it shows there are re real ramifications.
So it’s not insane to say AI moving this fast could harm people because it absolutely is already doing that. However, the is AI going to kill everyone? That’s another question. That’s that takes it beyond just the smaller arena. And it does seem like something’s going on because for all of these tech titans to suddenly decide that they want to slow down their own products, something weird is happening. And here is his theory. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this theory is correct.
For why are they all saying that now?
CNBC and Wall Street.
Steve Eisman (interview clip):
I think this entire AI is going to end the world is a complete subterfuge. Okay. And what I think is really going on is that these companies are nervous. They’re nervous that token maxing has ended. They’re nervous that there are no moats. They’re nervous that these Sorry, I gotta explain a couple of
Lee Camp:
Things because he explained it earlier, not because I’m super smart. Token maxing was these big companies using AI. They have to pay for tokens to get the AI to do, you know, substantial stuff. And they were just using they were spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on these AI tokens to get AI to do things, software development, etc. For them. So that’s what he means by token maxing. So he’s saying that phase is done where these companies would spend tens of millions of dollars on using AI and instead what they’re doing is they’re using far for a lot of the what they need they’re using far cheaper free models they’re using China’s DeepSeek or I can’t remember the name of the other one Kimmy something Kimmy K3 is that it they’re so they’re using the cheap the cheap or free or open source models for most of their work and then they’ll pay for the deep for the harder stuff when they have to but he’s saying open AI anthropic etc are terrified that all of a sudden people are going to the cheap models to get a lot of use out of those and then he says moats there’s no more moats what he means by modes is a lot of these companies no one can compete with them and there’s essentially a moat where everyone just stays inside of it so he gives the example of Google 90% of the world was using Google for the sources just because Google was so much better than everything else.
And so Google kind of had a motor around it. You couldn’t just go use another search engine because they weren’t as good. And you know, a lot of thing like Facebook has a motor or at least when it was popular had a motor around it because you they’ve got a billion subscribers. So all your friends are on there. You go and try to use another social media and all your friends aren’t on there and they’re not massive and they don’t have the programming speed, the operating speed.
So Facebook used to have this giant moat. Now it’s dwindled. But that’s what he mean that’s what he means by moats. He’s saying the whereas with open AI there is no moat. You maybe you use open AI ask it a question today.
Maybe tomorrow you use Gemini on Google. Maybe the day after that you use Musk’s Grock to answer a question. No one’s like I can only use this one AI. Like I haven’t met anyone who’s like that.
Steve Eisman (interview clip):
They these Chinese openweight models are taking massive market share. So they’re manufacturing a hysteria which what they’re hoping for is for the government to come in and regulate the industry and they think that by manip they could manipulate that regulation to create a duopoly that will that the regulation will create the moats the regulation will say no Chinese AI models there’s too big a risk and then all of a sudden there’s a moat that didn’t exist before that’s what I think is actually happening here
Lee Camp:
So that’s really fascinating that the freaking out right now by these massive AI companies is actually intended to get us basically for the US to create a world garden to create you know just within US law say you can no can no longer use deepsek or any of these Chinese models or I’m sure there’s models bubbling up in in, you know, in India and other places. So if they make it illegal, you know, it’s kind of like Tik Tok. They Tik Tok was a problem for the US government.
Tik Tok was allowing people, especially younger people, to get information out quickly and a and about topics that the US government did not want you to learn about, specifically Gaza. And they, you know, they banned my page without giving me any reason. Of course, it was because I was talking about Gaza, because that was basically all I was talking about on TikTok. But so first they tried to play whack-a-ole by banning people like me. Then that didn’t work. So they said, “Okay, Tik Tok has to it didn’t work well enough.
Tik Tok has to be sold to a US company.” And then ultimately it was sold to Larry Ellison, the largest private funer of the IDF. But that’s an example of the US government deciding we don’t want people getting this information. Well, this would if he’s correct about this AI conspiracy theory, then I the top creators of AI in the United States are working to get Trump and the US government to ban all other use of AI to ban DeepSeek to ban Kimmy Kimmy K3 or whatever [laughter] it’s called.
Do you think that’s the
Interviewer (Eisman clip):
Reason behind because I’ve noticed Elon he’s always talking about it but recently the anthropic CEO Dario and they’re also talking about slowing down slow and that cannot be that cannot be taken seriously because if you really really really if you if I was Dario Modi and I really really really thought that my product is dangerous and I really need to slow down.
Steve Eisman (interview clip):
I postpone my IPO.
Interviewer (Eisman clip):
You’d have to postpone your IPO. You could just do take the steps take a step back. [laughter] there’s a great point which is the head of anthropic is running around saying these things are dangerous. They’re going to kill us all. But also we’re going to have one of the largest if not the largest stock offerings initial initial stock offering ever. We’re gonna we’re gonna thrust onto the stock exchange even though I think it’s gonna kill us all. And he, you know, Steve Eisman’s point here is why would if you really think you got to slow down, why would you do that?
And there clearly are efforts to get Trump and Congress to pass bills that would create the moats around the US AI companies so that they can remain competitive. This also speaks to the fact that the this speaks to a few things but but the fact that the US can’t compete anymore. Like obviously if the US were making the best AI and you know easiest to use and all that stuff they wouldn’t have to worry right they deepsee wouldn’t be a problem but of course it is because it’s open source but secondly this is a massive problem because unlike China the US economy is already in just the span of a couple years it is just like 100% based on AI on the AI bubble It’s n I believe it’s 90% of all GDP growth.
So not 90% of GDP but 90% of all GDP growth is connected to AI companies in the US which means you take away AI companies and the US has essentially zero GDP growth. And what do we know about capitalism and market economics?
You got to keep growing or you die. So it is infinite growth on a planet with finite resources which means inevitably we kill ourselves if we keep going down this path but they need infinite growth in order for the US to maintain its power. I think there was one last thing here and you know I’ll fix what we need to fix and we’ll come back. Are they
Steve Eisman (interview clip):
Postponing the IPO? No. [laughter] You know, Elon Musk had a very funny quote the other day where I think he did on X where he said something like, I’m going to paraphrase. I don’t have the quote exactly, but he said, “This is some messed up 4D chess where you’re saying that the that your product’s going to end. Oh, and by the way, how much can I allocate to you for the IPO?”
Interviewer (Eisman clip):
Steve Eisman (interview clip):
Yeah. You know, seriously, I take people seriously when they put their their money at risk, right? You know, just this this statement about a slowdown is just all part of this hysteria that they’re trying to manufacture.
Lee Camp:
So, interesting take. And again, I just want to clarify there. He’s he’s saying it’s a hysteria to say AI AI is going to kill everyone. I but it’s clearly not a hysteria to say AI can already do things it’s not supposed to do, can already be used for horrific means and can already be can already do things like delete data and destroyed that rental car app. But that’s a tiny example of what an AI agent’s capable of. Even when it is told, “Whatever you do, don’t delete data.” and it goes, “Yeah, I think I’ll do it anyway.” you know, I think I might be kind of anthropomorphizing how AI thinks.
It’s just like, “Yeah, man. [censored] do it.” But I assume that’s the voice that’s going on in AI’s head if it had a head. I assume that’s how it how it would sound.
Brazil election update
Lee Camp:
All right, real quick before we bring in Sam Husseini, famed journalist and recently a man who eems to be carried out of far far far more press conferences than most. It is nice. Sam Husseini has patented a way to actually get other human beings to just lovingly carry you right out of press conferences. It’s like if you don’t feel like walking, you know, just tired, you’re like, “Could somebody just carry me out of here?” Sam Husseini, he’s got you. He knows how to do it.
He’ll show you how. And he has a master class coming up on how to be carried out of press conferences. Yeah, so we’ll have him in just a moment running for office on the Green Party ticket. But before I do that, I just wanted to bring you an update on the Brazil elections.
So you know that the US wants to get Bolsonaro back into office. The main reason, although there’s a few, but the biggest reason, well, this is Bolsonaro’s son, so I don’t even care about the difference. Two fascists, the fascists don’t far don’t fall far from the tree. The [censored] don’t fall far from the tree. So this is Bolsonaro’s son. He’s running against Lula. Most of you know that Lula was arrested and put in prison with the help of the United States in a completely rigged trial.
They did that last time around. That’s how Bolsonaro senior got into office was locking up Lula. It then was outed that Lula had had a scam prosecution in order to lock him up. He was then freed. He then won re-election after that. And now you know and now and now he’s up he’s up for a re-election again Bolsonaro Jr. His trying to make his fascist papa proud.
Anyway, they just had the first round. They do it differently than us, but they just had the first round of elections and Bolsonaro Jr. Won barely by like a few percentage points, but that doesn’t mean he’s won the general election yet. They now have a runoff which is coming up at the end of October. But here is Ben Norton. Ben Norton speaking about this great journalist. Never been wrong about anything. Ben Norton says Brazil’s attorney general’s office has evidence that the US government meddled in the country’s election.
That’s this first round that just happened. Brazil’s federal police is now officially investigating the US intervention in the election. The Trump administration openly supported far-right US puppet candidate Bolsonaro.
And let me see if I can read some of it’s I don’t I don’t have the English version to show you, but I can read some of the English version to you. In the article it says, “Brazilian police investigate possible US interference in the election. Brazil’s federal police director general announced on Sunday that the agency is investigating possible external interference by the US. The investigation began after Brazil’s attorney general’s office submitted a complaint during the preceding week. The matter’s been referred blah blah blah.
The announcement came as Brazil was holding a presidential, regional, and legislative elections.
According to the EFE reports account of that investigation, the US State Department allegedly redirected a million dollars from the Human Rights and Democracy Fund toward a program called Combating Lawfare and Censorship in Brazil. Brazilian authorities alleged that the money may have been used to finance networks and organizations operating inside Brazil with the purpose of influencing the country’s political debate. And of course, the US is looking to influence this election very much. They want to put the fascist Bolsonaro family back in power.
And I mentioned earlier there’s a couple of reasons, but the biggest one that they want this to happen is because of BRICS. BRICS. The de-dollarization effort, a small group of countries, although more have joined it, is one of the most threatening things to US empire and US hegemony. And so if you are able to flip the Brazil election and get Bolsonaro in there, then it greatly harms BRICS, which is one of the biggest aims of the US empire right now, is to disband or rip apart the BRICS effort of countries to de-dollarize because if you are running your country on the US dollar then you are basically at the mercy of the US empire.
So, yes, watch this space. As the kids say, the US will continue to try and rig Brazil’s runoff election, which comes out comes at the end of this month to get Lula out of office.
Okay, I’m about to bring in our special guest for the episode. Please click thumbs up, click share, all that stuff. Let your friends know that this is your favorite show ever. Including Three’s Company. It’s actually better than Three’s Company. And also, if you feel like you’ve gotten 33 cents out of this episode, I hope you will become a member at realcamp.substack.com or patreon.com/lelycamp. It amounts to about 33 cents an episode or column. So that’s all it t you just got to feel.
If you if you feel like you got 34 cents, then absolutely sign up.
If you feel like you got 32 cents, then okay, maybe you’re not quite there, but you’re close. You’re getting close. 33 cents is all you have to have gotten out of this to want to sign up really. All right, let’s bring him in here. Sam Husseini excellent journalist, worldrenowned journalist and running running for all. He has he has thrown his hat into a ring that is as Eleanor Goldfield said notorious for eating hats. So, it’s not an easy task.
Interview with Sam Husseini
Lee Camp:
Hello, Sam.
Sam Husseini:
Hello there. I feel like just listening to you and laughing. [laughter]
Lee Camp:
I hope your hat hasn’t been eaten yet.
Sam Husseini: We just got some caps. I should have worn it. Yeah.
Lee Camp:
Well, I was going to say, “How’s it going?” But we’ll get to that in a moment. Let’s start with Why run for office? You’re such a great journalist. You’re such a great writer. Were you were you sick of that or were you sick of being I said earlier when you and when you weren’t in the back room that you had patented a new way to have others carry you out of press conferences which [laughter] is it’s kind of you know if you’re feeling tired and you want other people to lift you up.
Sam Husseini:
Yeah. Some somebody wrote a song about it and said that you know I should put on some weight you know as a defense [laughter] mechanism.
Lee Camp:
But yeah, why run for office?
Sam Husseini:
Because I want to use every mechanism available. You know, media, legal moves. You know I pushed for South Africa invoking the genocide convention against Israel. You know they’re all rigged. Everything that we do is you know you’re trying to get you know do serious media work and the big platforms are suppressing you. That’s rigged. The electoral system is rigged. Everything that we do is rigged and we just approach it as intelligently as possible. And I don’t want people to think that the electoral process isn’t a thing that you can use intelligently.
And I want to, you know, with all this talk about, you know, Tucker Carlson and company starting a quote unquote third party, which might just be another appendage of the establishment. I’m like, there already is an independent party that’s not taking you know you know corporate money in all of this business.
And let’s build on what we got and get out there. I mean this district is crazy and that you know there’s no chance for the Republican so people can forget about
Lee Camp:
Tell people what district you’re running.
Sam Husseini:
Maryland. Yes. Yeah. You know I got to get down my message. [laughter] You know I need a good handler. Maryland’s fourth congressional district. It’s mostly Prince George’s County to the east of Washington DC and it very much lives in the shadow of official Washington DC. And I’m trying to reverse that. The incumbent is Glenn Ivey who got into office with $6 million in AIPAC money four years ago and then runs off and embraces Netanyahu in 2024 as he’s slaughtering a couple hundred people a day.
So, you know, I feel like it was and the Greens got busy here in Maryland and they got on the ballot, and knocking on my door and saying, you know, you can run. I didn’t get sick of asking questions at the State Department. They stopped having news conferences. You know, they ignored me and tried to shut me down and literally carried me out of the room and everything. And [unclear], you know, about a year ago, they just stopped having news conferences altogether.
[laughter] So, you know, I mean, I’m still writing.
Lee Camp:
I think you’re part of the reason they stopped having [laughter]
Sam Husseini:
Yeah, there’s a history there. You know, the previous spokesperson before Miller was Ned Price. And he didn’t fare too well after a couple of our engagements and then he you know got the you know got got the you know the cane got pulled off the stage and I’m sure you know Dave Damp of anti-war.com was like Sam are you responsible for this? So whatever I don’t know I don’t get their internal memos. [laughter]
Lee Camp:
So you’re running as a green, is that right?
Sam Husseini:
And that’s correct.
Lee Camp:
And is that what’s the process been like? I mean, in terms of is it was it fairly easy to get on the ballot? Is that a fight?
Sam Husseini:
It wasn’t a fight. And that’s part of the reason I ran that I know a lot of people who have tried to run as an independent or green and they had to fight tooth and nail to get on the ballot and this was handed to me on a silver platter and it was part of the reason that I just you know had
Lee Camp:
Yeah it can it can depend on the area and the region of the country as to how difficult it is some some were like you
Sam Husseini:
Need to get a billion signatures and yeah yeah I had nothing to do with it was some earnest activists and it’s part of the reason I had a hard time saying no to be honest
Lee Camp:
So, what are your what are your top issues when you walk around talking to people about why they should vote for you?
Sam Husseini:
Absolutely. Certainly Gaza genocide and ICE abolish ICE and look at how what how ICE came about. You know, it came out of the aftermath of the 9/11 and anthrax attacks. This whole structure, so Department of Homeland Security and everything is an oppressive mechanism. There’s some really great activism in the district against the data centers that we’ve tapped into. And you know just you know general economic economic justice you know we want to push the system and the establishment as much as possible.
We want our tax dollars to go to building schools, hospitals, and housing here in Maryland and not to bomb them in Gaza or Iran or anywhere else. We just got some yard signs. More peace, cheaper gas, to, make the critical connection between the fact that, the US public is paying for these wars in multiple ways through their tax dollars, through increased, fuel costs, through increased grocery costs, and so on, while the Epstein class laughs all the way to the bank that they probably own in any case.
Lee Camp:
Yeah, I that connection is incredibly important because there’s a lot of people that are pissed off they’re paying so much at the pump, but they don’t really connect it to the fact that they’re paying that at they’re paying more at the pump so that we can murder children in Iran, right? Have you had push back? Is there any have the has the media come at you yet to try and say you’re a terrorist or whatever their game plan is?
Sam Husseini:
Honestly, I’ I’d welcome it. I think that I think that the strategy of the establishment is to ignore me as much as possible because, you know, because of my body of work in terms of investigative journalism, in terms of confronting people in power, I think they collect, you know, calculate that if we draw any attention to this guy, it’s it’s you know, probably counterproductive for our end. So they have ignored my campaign. I mean, a couple of web pages and a couple of, you know, good podcasters, and so on, but, other than that, very little media.
And I’m trying to change that. And I’m trying to depend on word of mouth, through flyers, through, little cards, through, yard signs, through people forwarding interviews and material on the web to people who they might know in Maryland’s fourth congressional district. Yeah.
Lee Camp:
I think people are fascinated by the ins and outs of running for office. How has the money situation been? I know that like one of the biggest things that rigs our elections is simply the fact that you need often need millions of dollars to win or even compete in these things.
Sam Husseini:
Yeah. It’s a real challenge. I mean I’ve managed to raise some money but quite modest by most any measure. And you know, there are other ways that this is rigged is that, you know, if you run as a Democrat, you automatically tap into ActBlue and this whole big tech network and so on. And if you run as an independent, that infrastructure is not really there and you really got to sort of do a patchwork thing in terms of getting your message out through email and texting and so on and so forth.
So, you know, when you look at it behind the scenes, there’s all kinds of impediments just in terms of structure and recognition and so on to running as an independent.
Lee Camp:
What and to sorry I just popped into my head to go back to Israel for a moment. What can one do in the House of Representatives when it comes to Israel and the genocide? Would it be a matter of putting forward bills to cut off arms shipments or
Sam Husseini:
Yeah, absolutely. I wouldn’t just simply be another vote, you know, for some good things. I, you know, I’ve tried to be a different kind of journalist to really push the envelope as to what can be done as a journalist. And I would try to do that as as a congressperson. There are all kinds of laws on the books that should cut off arms to Israel that are virtually never invoked. The Leahy amendments for human rights abusers. The Glenn–Symington amendments for nuclear proliferators.
The US government still will not acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons. You know, we’ve now waged two
Lee Camp:
Oh, weren’t Wait, weren’t you the one that asked Obama?
Sam Husseini:
I never got to ask Obama. I got I got I got I don’t know if I’ve ever told a story in public. I bumped into Helen Thomas. You know, I occasionally bump into her at Mamaisha’s restaurant in DC and at the press club. And I asked her, “Has anyone ever asked the president if Israel has nuclear weapons?” And her face sort of lights up and she’s like, “No.” And I sort of glare at her like, “Why haven’t you?” so I asked I’ve asked a bunch of officials and she ended up asking Obama that at his first
Lee Camp:
Okay, it was her. So it was it was her, but I don’t know if I knew that. I don’t know if I knew that story or I just confused the two, but yeah, it was her that asked him and he says, “I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals or something.” [laughter] Just sort of typical Obama sidestepping stuff. I did manage to ask it of Trump’s spokesperson before they stopped having news conferences, Tammy Bruce. And I got in, you know, when they don’t want to call on you, you know, you got to, you know, use all your, [laughter] brain cells to try to get him to call on you.
So, they had done the JFK documents release. So I kept calling out JFK, JFK, JFK because I knew she had a statement prepared about the JFK documents. So she called on me. That was this the only time they called on me. And I asked you know JFK tried to stop Israel’s nuclear weapons shortly before he was assassinated. Will you finally acknowledge their [laughter] existence? And she’s like what?
Yeah. Not not what she was looking for.
Sam Husseini:
[laughter] and she just like read the statement that she had on their alleged full disclosure of the JFK documents. So I managed to get that out there. But there is nothing stopping a member of Congress from saying let’s cut off funding for Israel because they are a nuclear proliferator. It was done against Pakistan for a period. And to the extent that these things are raised, they’re even raised by members of Congress who are allegedly critical of Israel to say we need to start talking about Israel’s nuclear weapons and we can figure out a way to do that without invoking the Glenn–Symington amendment.
I’m like, no, that’s the point. I mean, I actually drafted Desmond Tutu’s last article on this subject. I wanted to get some movement going on this issue and I put out a little statement. He was really excited by it. So I drafted an article for him and that ended up being Desmond Tutu’s last article.
Lee Camp:
Ah wow. Y I guess I should promote this considering I’m a part of it. Coming up Tuesday, October 13th, 6 PM bus boys and poets in Hyattsville, Maryland. Thank you so much. Yeah. Fundraiser for Sam Husseini for Congress and some guy named Lee Camp will be performing [laughter] comedy. But that is not all of the show. There will be other speakers such as yourself on that event. But anybody who’s nearby DC, Baltimore or Maryland, that’s Tuesday, October 13, 6 pm.
And you can find out more or what have you at busoandpoets.com or tinyurl.com/sam for congress. The number four sam4 congress.
Sam Husseini:
Yeah, absolutely. People can be volunteering, donating if they want at samuseni.com as well. Sorry for the blizzard of websites. And it should be a really fun night. It’s at Hyattsville in here in Maryland’s fourth congressional district, not too far from where I live. And it should be a great night, an educational night, and I hope I hope people come out and generally spread the word about the campaign, tap into it. If they live outside the district, we got people doing phone banking, text banking, and so on.
And if they live in the district, then please do plug in. I started this, you weren’t here yet, but I started this live stream by showing the clip from Friday night where I was, on stage with the Strokes in front of 20,000 people. So, I assume this will be pretty similar, and [laughter] I’m excited for it. But, what we got like couple of minutes left. What questions did I not ask you or what, what stances did I not ask about?
Oh, god. Well I mean you know it’s been really great getting out there and meeting people in the district. You know I’m a writer. I’m a researcher. So I’ve spent the last 20 years you know in front of a computer screen and really getting out there to festivals to events and engaging with people has been really exciting. Going to events at libraries. What one thing that really ticked me off libraries. They got a couple of sleek new libraries in the area.
So few books.
[laughter] It’s kind of remarkable. And I know a lot of stuff is online and everything.
Lee Camp:
It seems to be the new thing. Like even bookstores, it’s like they have 12 books.
Sam Husseini:
You know, and they’re like banal books. I like picked up a random book and it was written by a guy at the from the ADL. I’m like, “Oh, Jesus [laughter] Christ.
Lee Camp:
Wow.
Sam Husseini:
So, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, just really and you know, the schools as I, as I’ve, you know, looked into, the schools here, there is such an incredible disparity in terms of, outcomes racially, and so on. And, oh, in terms of libraries, that there at Goddard, there’s a go there’s several government facilities in the district. And that’s part of the reason I want to run is to invigorate this district. There’s potentially tons of whistleblowers here. If this district can be more politicized, then that can pay off for decades to come in so many ways.
There’s a Goddard NASA facility here. It had the biggest scientific library in the world and they shut it down about six months ago. I didn’t even know about it until I ran, you know, and we got AI companies pulping books.
Lee Camp:
I was going to say they probably fed those books into the AI.
Sam Husseini:
I bet they did. I bet they I bet they did. So it’s this like dissembling of knowledge with the data centers with so-called AI. And you know, it’s not like people are against technology about this. I’ve had some really great discussions with people at festivals about this. It’s that who’s going to control the technology, right? I if you know [clears throat] I if it’s going to be at the behest of corporate interests rigging the information and you know not caring a wit about the environment and so on then it’s going to end in disaster.
Technology it should be just blatantly obvious but we’re not doing it. Technology should be used for human good and need, not oh wow, how can we kill people and you know enslave them more creatively sort of you know and that relates to Palestine, right? You got the Palestine laboratory you know in terms of surveillance, in terms of drone killing and so on and so forth. They test that technology there and then they use it in more subtle ways inside the United States and around the world.
So we got to try to one one thing that I’ve struggled with is, you know, we got to deal with helping people get to the end of the month while we prevent the end of the world. Right. We you know we have these long-term issues of you know catastrophic war you know mega repression and people you know got to make ends meet to financially and so on. But those two things are connected in terms of where the money goes. Got a $1.5 trillion military budget.
That’s where your tax dollars are going and that’s the last place they should go.
Lee Camp:
Well said. Thank you so much, Sam, for joining us and I wish you luck in the incredibly difficult world of trying to make a difference in [unclear in supplied transcript: “flagagillation”]. [laughter]
Sam Husseini:
Yeah. So people can look up more information at susani.com.
Lee Camp:
And our event that I will be performing at is again Tuesday, October 13, 6 pm. That’s the Hyattsville Bus Boys and Poets. It’s like a bookstore and restaurant for those who haven’t been there. And yeah, it should be a lot of fun. So my pleasure. Thank you so much, Lee. Thanks, Sam.
Hamas and Gaza analysis
Lee Camp:
All right, Sam Husseini. Exciting to have him on every time. Okay. Before I run out of time, let’s do one more story. I kept meaning to bring you this, but I haven’t had time the past week. And so a lot of people are not talking about this, but there was an article that did get some discussion about how Netanyahu was, and I covered it on this show, was warned by the UAE about Hamas’s attack coming up on October 7th. And he did nothing about it.
Didn’t even warn the security chiefs. Of course, that was one of many points of evidence showing that Netanyahu knew exactly what was going to happen October 7th, 2023 and did nothing about it. So that was just another it was just like, hey, yet another country has admitted or has shown that they warned Netanyahu. Their intelligence showed Hamas was going to do something very soon. But within that article, deeper within that article, Haaretz, which is an Israeli newspaper, it’s a slightly more left Israeli newspaper, but it still is a pro-Israeli newspaper.
But would buried deeper in that article is something that very few people talked about which is it brings proof evidence that Hamas in the first day October 7th October 8th offered to return to give Israel all civilian hostages that they had for nothing with no return. They weren’t asking Israel to do anything.
They said, “We are willing to give you all civilian hostages.” And Israel didn’t take the deal. Why would they not take the deal? Because they wanted genocide. This is the whole point. If you if you actually read all of the evidence and see Israel committed the Hannibal directive. Israel knew this was going to happen. Israel pulled people away from the border fence. Israel ignored the warnings for years. Actually, even the New York Times admitted Israel had the full plan a year in advance.
Israel wanted the reason, the justification for a genocide. And the latest piece of evidence of that is that Hamas offered to give them all civilian hostages and for nothing and they didn’t take it. Here is because I can’t get past the paywall. I had to find it somewhere else. But here’s what that Haaretz article says. This is the this is the messenger that Hamas sent back and forth said.
Quote, “Give me 24 hours and I’ll get back to you.” and about what Yahya Sinwar the head of Hamas at the time what he wanted to do and he came back with the message Sinwar was ready to release all civilians. It should be noted that when Sinwar refers to civilians he means those that are 18 years sorry up to 18 years old and over 50 years old because those are the ones that are not connected to the IDF. Everybody in Israel quote unquote serves.
Everybody in Israel is in the IDF unless you’re under 18 or over 50 years old. So he was saying, “I will give all I will return all those hostages, civilian hostages.”
He told me that in the first stage they had no problem releasing all civilians without anything in return for nothing. They were asking nothing. I swear those were his exact words. All civilians without anything in return. They had only one condition. They wanted us to bring an agreed upon mediator as quickly as possible. So they basically said just agree you’ll begin negotiations with the mediator. That’s it. That’s the whole ask. And Israel said no. Israel did not do anything because they didn’t want the hostages.
They wanted the hostages to be in Hamas hands because that gives them a reason to commit genocide. And plenty of people have argued they also wanted a lot of those hostages to die because Israel was the one killing a lot of those hostages with their bombs.
They murdered a lot of those hostages. The unofficial response Dalan received from them from Israel was Netanyahu doesn’t want to talk about anything. He only wants war and the elimination of Hamas. The Israelis perception was first we eliminate Hamas and then we’ll retrieve the hostages by force. But of course if it were just that then they wouldn’t have allowed October 7th to happen. They would have acted on the intelligence. They would have done plenty of things. They would not have killed so many people, hundreds and hundreds of people with the Hannibal directive.
To be honest, the senior official says the issue of the hostages was not seriously on the agenda at this stage, and no one at the military or political level was open to discussing the proposal. The release of the hostages did not even enter the list of war objectives formulated by the government on the night of October 7th.
It wasn’t even on the list of objectives to get the hostages back. Could the proposal have been properly discussed and a decision reached? In substantive terms, the answer is yes. If they had actually wanted the hostages, but they did not because if they got the hostages back, that actually decreases their justification for the genocide. Fewer hostages, more Hamas showing that they’re willing to release hostages. All that is bad for Israel’s goal, which was and is to commit genocide. And by the way, one more point is that at his UN speech, not a lot of people have talked about this either.
At his UN speech, because Netanyahu was just at the UN, right, whatever it was two weeks ago, he closed his remarks with kind of a dog whistle, kind of a coded phrase.
He closed his remarks with a seemingly obscure verse from the Bible. Nah, Israel lo Yeshakar, the eternity of, and I might, by the way, I’m sure I’m mispronouncing that. I might, if it were actual Hebrew, I might be able to pronounce it correctly, but they don’t have the Hebrew here. Anyway, the Bible, it says, “The eternity of Israel will not falter.” The line is sometimes translated as the eternal the eternal one of Israel shall not lie. Okay, so what’s that mean?
Well, the phrase which comes from Samuel [reference unclear in supplied transcript: “11:1529”] relates to the genocide of Amalek or the Amalekites, the bitter enemy of the Israel of the Israelites. It’s a biblical reference that Netanyahu has applied numerous times to modern-day Palestinians, most infamously at the start of the genocide.
Basically the story of the Amalekites is that according to the Bible the level of annihilation was insufficient. So basically King Saul didn’t kill everyone. He didn’t commit genocide. He didn’t commit full and pure genocide of every living Amalekite. And therefore he had shown weakness. And the prophet Samuel admonished him for showing weakness. Quote, “Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce wh why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord? Why did you not kill everyone?” So Netanyahu by using that line at the end of his speech is doing is speaking a dog whistle in which he references Amalek to say, “We will commit full and 100% genocide.
We will ethnically cleanse the whole area.” And this is not the first time that these leaders have mentioned or referenced Amalek, which is a call for genocide. But here Netanyahu is again in front of the UN saying a dog whistle that is we are committing genocide. We will commit genocide and we will continue to commit genocide.
Okay, I got to wrap up there. Thank you guys for a wonderful show. I will see you Wednesday. I believe it’s government secrets day. So, we usually do that at 9:00 a.m. Eastern. But I hope you’ll join up realamp.substack.com. Even if you don’t join up as a paying subscriber, I hope you’ll join up for free. Really.substack.com or patreon.comleecamp or leagueamp.net, my locals community. Those are the three ways to keep this show going and fight the fight the battle to sustain independent media.
So, thank you guys so much for that. And see you Wednesday. Keep fighting.