Andrew Garfield refuses to name JK Rowling when talking about Harry Potter

Caroline Marcus filling in for Rita Panahy. Now it's time for Lefties Losing It. Let's begin with the unfortunately named Californian Democrat Scott Weiner who posted this cringe video online celebrating having shamed a coffee chain into reinstating its pride flags. Phil's just announced that the pride flags are going back into Phil's locations. This is a huge win for the community. It's amazing. And huge thanks to all of the Phil's baristas who advocated and fought for our community. Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you. What a victory. And no, that video is not awkward at all. Speaking of pride, classic poetry was once a thing of timeless beauty. Think Shakespeare's sonnets or Wordsworth's tributes to nature. Now we get poems like this. Dear transphobic female, you speak of my body to say I am not a woman. I speak of your soul to say you are not a woman. Your misogyny is poison. Your masculinity is toxic. Your eyes are empty. Your soul is a void. You are not a woman. You are simply female. Stay out of my bathroom. Right. So it's now misogynistic to want biological males out of our bathrooms. Spare me. And here's Hollywood actor Andrew Garfield struggling in a recent radio interview with his newfound love for the Harry Potter films. He's conflicted, of course, because Harry Potter was created by that evil TERF J.K. Rowling, who, like her famous villain Voldemort, cannot be named. Those Harry Potter movies are really good. Unexpected. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's controversial and we shouldn't be putting money in the pocket of inhumane legislation right now that she'll remain nameless. But the soul and the spirit of a lot of the essence of the themes of those films and the kids and all the artisans and the craft people and I'm working with a wonderful makeup artist, Claire, right now who was was was working the creature workshop. And I'm just like, oh, man, we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Seriously. Now, Donald Trump has been in a war of words with the pope over his war in Iran. Now, watch as this Irish priest prays for the US president's death and his congregation bursts into laughter. Doesn't seem very Christian, does it? And this confused American lefty is actually rooting for a fascist Islamist regime over his own country. I'm not going to lie. Iran totally the United States military is kind of the coolest I've ever seen in my life. Like this. It makes it actually fills me with like such hope. I'm like, yeah, get him, Iran. Get them. They can't have the street. That's your street. That's yours. Take that sovereignty. Take that sovereignty, Iran. Rest in peace, the Ayatollah. I don't think anyone's told him his Ayatollah had called for death to Americans like him. Meanwhile, Democrats are back making the world a better place by singing again. And this time, the New York City gay men's chorus co-opted the hit song from K-pop demon hunters. It's actually kind of catchy. I don't mind it too much. And finally, from the everything is problematic files, here's a lefty explaining how mowing your lawn is now racist. I can't stop thinking about how grass lawns are racist and like based in white supremacy. If that doesn't make sense, that's OK. I guess it seems really obvious to me. It's it's really upsetting. Bring back weeds. Bring back clover yards. Look, can we just can can anything just be OK in its natural state or do we just have to whitewash everything, make it a competition and use it as a sign of your worth as a human being in society? Can we just have weeds? I think I'll stick to the white privilege over the weeds. But Donald Trump has said he is willing to meet with senior Iranian leaders if a breakthrough is reached during talks in Pakistan this week. The president appeared to extend the ceasefire between the US and Iran, saying it will expire Wednesday night, Thursday morning Australian time, which is a day later than initially expected, and that he's unlikely to extend the truce further. He also said the US would not lift its blockade of Iranian ports until Tehran had agreed on a He posted on Truth Social they are losing $500 million a day, an unsustainable number, even in the short run. Let's bring in Sky News contributor Kosha Gardner now. Kosha, it's great to see you. It's always hard to predict what will happen with Trump, of course. But do you see him being able to reach a deal with Iran and ending this war? You know, I think it is always very difficult to predict anything with Trump, as you say. But here on top of that, it's difficult to predict, Caroline, because there's so much lack of consensus on even what the objectives are of the deal. There are so many externalities that we can't control. We don't even know who from the Iranian side really has decision-making authority. There's the speaker of their parliament that's sort of the face of the negotiations and seems relatively more reasonable. But then everybody expects and believes it's really the IRGC that's calling the shots and has final control. And they have a different approach to things, to put it mildly. So we really don't know. I think I would boil it down to, if the goal is really curtailing their ability to enrich nuclear in order to rebuild their ambitions of having a nuclear weapon, then it feels like that might be within reach, not to, you know, get ahead over my skis, but because there are numbers being put on the table where the U.S. is saying not for 20 years, Iran is saying not for five years, and that would suggest maybe some sort of agreement could be reached in the middle. If the goal expands to getting the so-called nuclear dust, for instance, and other things like that, then it feels very difficult to see how a deal is going to be reached because there's just completely no middle ground. The two sides are too far apart on that issue. Well, I guess we'll find out in a couple of days, won't we? The president also spoke to the New York Post where he said he will not be rushed to end the Iran war. He also lashed out at Democrats and Republicans trying to force him to end the conflict, saying, how bad is it that when you are in the middle of negotiations and you have got the Iranians in a perfect position, including being militarily defeated, and you have Democrats and some Republicans asking to settle it now? Kosher, I mean, he kind of has a point, doesn't he? There's pressure, including from within his own party. That only helps Iran's position, wouldn't it? Yes, Iran knows what its points of leverage are, just like anybody in an adversarial negotiating position would know. One is the Strait of Hormuz, for example. The other is their missile range to neighboring Gulf states that are allies of the U.S. And one, a very big one, is they know what we know, which is the political pressure on President Trump domestically, with the midterms right around the corner, and the fact that this war has been controversial from day one, his choice in making this action, taking this action now, in a midterm year, has been super controversial, including with his own base, and especially, I would say, with some of his biggest supporters, as we know. So Iran is aware of that, and it's sort of rational to understand that they are going to use that to their advantage, because there is a little bit of a clock-ticking situation with the U.S. political agenda domestically, and they know that, and I'm sure that's factoring into how they're approaching this. You mentioned Iran's parliament speaker earlier. Well, he's warned that Tehran has new cards to play if the war resumes. Do you think that's just tough talk, or what do you think he might be referring to there, Kosha? Any ideas? You know, these folks are always telegraphing things. Maybe it's a little bit of saber-rattling. I think, you know, the three things I mentioned before seem to be the known cards, the ones that are face up, just to continue that metaphor, with the strait, with their willingness and ability to attack allies nearby, and then the domestic pressure. A fourth one that's obviously very sinister, and we haven't seen play out yet, but people have talked about, is activating sleeper cells in the homeland, in the U.S. homeland, maybe in Israel, elsewhere, wherever they have them. That would be another escalation, for sure, if something like that happened, like a terrorist attack on American soil. That is another card that's out there, but obviously I hope and pray that that is not what they're intimating. They're at the negotiating table, though, and as things continue to escalate and be very adversarial, I think, unfortunately, nothing is off the table. That would be awful to see. Let's hope that's not the case. But you're right, they have operated that way in the past, so it's not completely off the table, I guess. Meanwhile, a spate of AI-created Lego-style animations made by Iran-aligned studios are sharing pro-Iran and anti-Trump messages, and they're being viewed millions of times on social media. Let's take a look at one of them. A representative for Explosive Media, who produces these videos, spoke to the BBC last week defending them, saying that the Iranian regime was simply another customer. Kosher, I guess it's a very modern take on propaganda, war propaganda, but do you think it will be effective in turning young people in particular against the West, against US and Israel over this war? You know, the creator of those videos might want to check any IP violations of Lego, just saying. I'm curious. I doubt Lego gave them permission to use those characters. But, you know, on a more serious note to your question, I think the reality is, even putting aside the propaganda machine from Iran, is the tide has turned to a great extent among the young people. We see that against Israel, certainly, and the US, for some related reasons, some different reasons. And they've been fighting that battle for a long time. The Trump election was sort of a little bit of a spark, where young people did see more of a pro-America push. But in general, young folks have been sort of anti-America and anti-Israel for a long time. And I think Iran is harnessing that. And then propaganda and social media and these types of cutesy videos help. It's one more tool in the arsenal in this day and age that we live in. There's hot warfare, there's intelligence warfare, there's cyber warfare, and then there's information warfare. And this is something that different actors are perfecting to a greater or lesser extent. And it sounds like Iran is certainly having that in their arsenal of trying to shape public opinion in their favor, or at least, if not in their favor, against their big adversaries, the US and Israel. Yeah. And I think you're right. I very much doubt Lego gave them any permission, I dare say they might be receiving a legal letter from Lego. And let's move on to more domestic issues in the US. And the White House has announced the Labor Secretary is stepping down from the Trump administration amid an internal investigation into possible misconduct. The Labor Department's Inspector General's Office has been investigating a complaint that Lori Chavez de Reymer was having a sexual relationship with a member of her security team. A Department of Labor source told CNN there are also allegations of inappropriate behavior, such as sending staff to pick up alcohol and attempting to use business trips as excuses for personal travel. Kosha, what has happened here? No, this is interesting because she's a name that is not really on the tips of many people's tongues, not somebody that anybody's really paying that much attention to. And so it's always interesting when you see these allegations of and sexual misconduct and all of that. Two things come to my mind. One is it's an open secret in Washington that everybody and every virtually every branch of government on both sides of the aisle have a lot of skeletons in their closet. And often it's known. And then the question is when things come out, why do they come out? That's what the cynical side of me always thinks, whether it was Eric Swalwell, who's been in the news in recent days, Tony Gonzalez on the Trump administration. Again, I would say I don't know anything in particular about her history, but obviously this doesn't look good. And if somebody is being hung out to dry, there must be enough evidence there that, you know, led to that, because otherwise people don't leave their posts very easily or very willingly in Washington. No, no, they don't. Now, FBI Director Kash Patel has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic and one of its writers. An Atlantic story claimed Patel's drinking has become a source of concern among government officials and cited sources who are worried his behavior has become a threat to public safety. Patel has denied those claims, saying they are malicious and factually inaccurate. He's seeking two hundred and fifty million U.S. dollars in damages in the suit, which was filed in the federal district court in Washington, D.C. Kosher, I mean, they are some pretty damaging claims to make against someone in Patel's position, but a quarter of a billion dollars, that's what he's seeking here. It's quite, you know, it's huge. Obviously, it's a massive amount of money. Do you think he has a case? It's very difficult in the U.S. to sue the press because of the First Amendment and the way the libel laws are structured. If you're a public figure, which he obviously is, it is very, very difficult to win these types of cases against the press. He would have to prove with actual document or documented evidentiary proof that they knowingly slandered him and misstated his drinking. You know what this case is about with malice. That's a very high bar to clear. So more likely what it is, is it's a little bit of a PR tool. It's kind of a page out of Trump's playbook, actually being litigious and using the law to to silence people who maybe are disparaging things or slandering you, even if it doesn't rise to the necessary legal standard. It's possible they settle just out of nuisance value or something like that. Maybe he gets some sort of apology if he's able to prove that there was deliberate slander involved in some way. But it feels like it's a little bit more of optics and PR as opposed to a serious legal strategy. But I don't know. Maybe he does have proof to reach that threshold of malice, proving malice. And if so, then we shall find out. Well, we'll see, because suing someone for a quarter of a billion dollars is pretty much the strongest denial you can make, I guess, against allegations, even if you can't win a court case. Now, let's talk about this tragic story. The identities of eight children killed in the Louisiana shooting have been released by local authorities. The gunman, identified as 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, fatally shot the children, including seven of his own, at two separate houses. Police then shot Elkins dead during a pursuit after he fled in a vehicle that he had carjacked, they say. It marks the nation's deadliest mass shooting in more than two years. Kosher, it's such a sad story. And now it's emerged that one of the victims actually made an ominous warning about the killer some years ago. Yeah, it really is horrific. We don't know too much more about it at this stage because it's a developing story. We do know that he is 31 years old, was 31 years old, and was an army veteran. So that sort of adds another layer to it. And the motive so far that authorities are ascribing is that it's relating to domestic dispute. He had separated from the mother of those seven children. There's some sort of custody battle and other things potentially that were at play. And of the eight children, seven were his own, and one was a nephew who was next door. It was two houses that he basically opened fire on with this gun. So who knows? Now I'm just speculating if there's some sort of mental issue and PTSD as an army vet or other things that were at play. We don't know. But this is not something you see every day for somebody to pick up a firearm and open fire on a house that they know their own small children are in. And it's indeed a very, very sad story. Yeah, just so tragic, heartbreaking. Let's talk about President Trump announcing historic reforms to accelerate access to new medical research and treatments for psychedelic drugs. Now, podcaster Joe Rogan joined the president in the White House as Trump announced the reforms. I am pleased to announce historic reforms to dramatically accelerate access to new medical research and treatments based on psychedelic drugs. In many cases, these experimental treatments have shown life changing potential for those suffering from severe mental illness and depression, including our cherished veterans. Our veterans are having a tremendous hard time. You know, the suicide rate, we have it down a little bit, but they are having a hard time. Now, Kosha, this will pave the way for the first ever human trials for these drugs in the United States. How significant is that? Potentially really significant. I mean, psychedelics is obviously very experimental, as the president said. And there's so much we don't know as a field. It's certainly in its infancy. It does have a following. There's lots of research in it. But I think the bigger point is his ability and willingness to cut red tape and accelerate the FDA process, not irresponsibly, but in a way where you're removing barriers, bureaucratic barriers that lead to these things taking decades and decades and decades and maybe where they could be shortened. He's done similar things. And in the first term, he famously approved this right to try concept, which is that if you are terminally ill, you should have full access to anything experimental because it's your choice at that point if your days are numbered. And that thing was caught up in so much bureaucracy for many years. And he was somebody who was able the first president who was able to get it over the line. So this sort of fits in that category of just his willingness to cut red tape and be innovative and unleash innovation in the medical sciences into the world. And if it turns out that medicinal psychedelics do have some important powers against diseases that right now are evading conventional therapies and remedies, then this would be a big step towards getting us closer to seeing that come to fruition. I think a lot of countries will be watching it closely. Koushik Arda, thank you for your time.