Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 2: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent
Speaker 2: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,
Speaker 2: it just means the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 3: Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show
Speaker 3: for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do. Lots of interesting things happening this morning.
Speaker 1: First of all, they managed to locate that F thirty five.
Speaker 1: We've got an update. We're down there, we found it.
Speaker 1: Congratulations everybody. Also, we have Vladimir Zelenski in town today.
Speaker 1: We'll update you on what's going on with him, and
Speaker 1: also some doings in the Republican caucus kind of civil
Speaker 1: war breaking into the open, which is very interesting. We
Speaker 1: also have an update about where Trump is going to
Speaker 1: be for the next Republican debate. Spoiler alert, it is
Speaker 1: not at that debate. He is actually headed to Detroit,
Speaker 1: going to give a speech to workers there. And try
Speaker 1: to signal his support in some way for the autoworkers.
Speaker 1: So we'll break that down for you, but also have
Speaker 1: some updates on the housing market and just how that
Speaker 1: is factoring into twenty twenty four in a big way,
Speaker 1: very much undercovered. Bill Maher has backed down. He will
Speaker 1: not be restarting his show, so we'll give you his reasons.
Speaker 1: And we also have an incredible clip of MSNBC trying
Speaker 1: to cover for Kamala Harris that is truly extraordinary.
Speaker 2: There's a lot going on there, yes, indeed, but as
Speaker 2: you said, Crystal, well actually before you even get to that,
Speaker 2: we just want to say once again thank you to
Speaker 2: all the premium subscribers who've been signing up and helping
Speaker 2: support our work. We were really proud yesterday to be
Speaker 2: able to bring voices from the striking workers themselves by
Speaker 2: our partnership with Jordan Chariton over at Status KUP. That's
Speaker 2: what your hard earned money is helping support, you know,
Speaker 2: not just the focus groups, the studio and all of that,
Speaker 2: but continue to look for opportunities like that where we
Speaker 2: can fill in and it's one of the things I'm
Speaker 2: most proud of, I think being able to do this
Speaker 2: show with you is. You know, yesterday we had a
Speaker 2: tremendous amount of interest on our block about the UAW.
Speaker 2: You know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of yews things
Speaker 2: that were listened to. People wrote in actual striking workers themselves,
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't think there's a real media
Speaker 2: outlet out there's another media outlet that is there that
Speaker 2: can claim, you know, that their highest ratings come from
Speaker 2: covering real structural economic issues and that they use their
Speaker 2: money to support journalism specifically to try and highlight that.
Speaker 2: So that's what you guys are helping us build. And
Speaker 2: I just want to say thank you once again. So
Speaker 2: Breakingpoints dot com if you are able.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, and one of their little teas, we have
Speaker 1: interview with Andrew Yang today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh I forgot that.
Speaker 1: We'll be posting later so make sure to look for
Speaker 1: that as well. And it was really neat talking to
Speaker 1: Neil de grass Tyson. Oh yeah, that was fun yesterday.
Speaker 1: I know you enjoyed talking I really did.
Speaker 3: I couldn't help that. Well, it's fun, it's a little
Speaker 3: it's a change up.
Speaker 2: And already the UFO people are responding, yes, as you said,
Speaker 2: Andrew Yang, we're gonna be interviewing him. That will be
Speaker 2: dropping on our podcast feed later. Of course, it will
Speaker 2: drop immediately after we're done. For our preubscribers, it will
Speaker 2: drop later on in the day, depending on when we
Speaker 2: decide to post it publicly. So another reason to go
Speaker 2: ahead and to sign up. So let's get to the
Speaker 2: missing jet, the F thirty five. So, after a lot
Speaker 2: of consternation and nearly almost twelve hours, they did end
Speaker 2: up finding the jet, and you will be shocked to
Speaker 2: learn they found it very close to where the pilot ejected.
Speaker 2: So why did we have to all look so hard?
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: It was found in Williamsburg County, South Carolina. There was
Speaker 2: no actual official declaration from the Pentagon, which makes the
Speaker 2: entire thing even more interesting. So basically what came out
Speaker 2: is that very very near to where the pilot was
Speaker 2: safely ejected over North Charleston, it turns out that the
Speaker 2: jet had gone down. However, the flight path for the
Speaker 2: South Carolina wing of Civil Air Patrol showed that airsh
Speaker 2: air search had been going on all over the entire
Speaker 2: state and that despite they had to search quote nearly
Speaker 2: ninety percent of search and rescue missions in the United
Speaker 2: States for the Civil Air Patrol, So it took them
Speaker 2: hours to be able to find this thing crystal, even
Speaker 2: though it ended up being very close to where the
Speaker 2: actual ejection took place. There were a lot of you know,
Speaker 2: amateur salutes posting the flight pattern of how this thing
Speaker 2: was flying around and strange circles and how Yeah, at
Speaker 2: least until the transponder went off and they ended up
Speaker 2: asking people for information. But I think what's really terrifying
Speaker 2: about this thing is that there is no official explanation.
Speaker 2: There's been multiple like here's may what have happened from
Speaker 2: avionics experts, but just to underscore how bad things are,
Speaker 2: the Marine Corps has now issued a two two day
Speaker 2: quote stand down for all aviation units both inside and
Speaker 2: outside the United States after the disappearance of this F
Speaker 2: thirty five. And this actually follows a really terrible accident
Speaker 2: that just happened a couple of days ago where three
Speaker 2: US Marines were killed in Australia and were retrieved from
Speaker 2: a crash site in Darwin, Australia, and same thing. It
Speaker 2: was a Marine V twenty two b ospre. There were
Speaker 2: twenty three marines that were on board and they crash
Speaker 2: in the middle of a tropical forest on an island
Speaker 2: while taking part in an exercise. So this is the second,
Speaker 2: basically in the span of what like almost twenty days
Speaker 2: of a terrible aviation accident within the US Marine Corps
Speaker 2: and stand down. I mean, it's not unprecedented, but it's
Speaker 2: certainly like a major safety event, and the entire purpose
Speaker 2: of the standdown is to tell troops like to underscore
Speaker 2: safety procedures. But I have to be honest, I think
Speaker 2: something else is going on here.
Speaker 3: I mean this entire thing.
Speaker 1: By something else, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean there could be some like a software glitch.
Speaker 2: I mean, one thing that I was reading from an
Speaker 2: avionics expert is that the F thirty five, specifically the
Speaker 2: marine I think it's like the F thirty five b U,
Speaker 2: the one that they were lying has a program inside
Speaker 2: of it that automatically ejects the pilot. So it may
Speaker 2: not have been one where he had actually hit ejection,
Speaker 2: but before a safety procedure, it's automatically ejection. But then
Speaker 2: they're like, you know, under circumstances of which that would happen,
Speaker 2: you have to be flying in a different way than
Speaker 2: normal over where we are right now. So look, I mean,
Speaker 2: don't forget remember those Boeing crashes that happened.
Speaker 3: Back to back.
Speaker 2: That was a software issue in a training issue, right,
Speaker 2: that wasn't properly presented.
Speaker 3: So I think there's actually a lot going on here.
Speaker 2: Eighty million dollar aircraft aren't just supposed to fall out
Speaker 2: of the sky pilots and then not be able to
Speaker 2: be found.
Speaker 1: Well, there's big questions about what happened with the transponder,
Speaker 1: because that's why this was so apparently difficult to locate,
Speaker 1: like you would normally be able to track this thing
Speaker 1: all the way. And so one of the question marks is, okay,
Speaker 1: well was that functioning properly because you and I both
Speaker 1: kind of assumed it must have crashed into the ocean
Speaker 1: for them to be having so much difficulty locating the debris.
Speaker 1: But lo and behold, it's there close to where the
Speaker 1: pilot was ejected. So yeah, a lot of question marks here.
Speaker 1: They said the stand down is needed to ensure the
Speaker 1: service is maintained operational standardization of combat ready aircraft with
Speaker 1: well prepared pilots and crews, whatever that means. So it
Speaker 1: was it an aircraft issue. Was it a pilot issue,
Speaker 1: Was it a training issue, was it a software issue?
Speaker 1: Still a lot of questions.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's a question, and we really shouldn't take our
Speaker 2: off the ball. As we all just said, we spent
Speaker 2: one point seven trillion dollars on the F thirty five program,
Speaker 2: all to be able to not be able to find
Speaker 2: the jet after the pilot is ejected, and especially not
Speaker 2: find it when it turns out it was right near
Speaker 2: the ejection site the whole time. So I guess just
Speaker 2: thank god it didn't kill anybody, you know, whenever it
Speaker 2: crashed or destroyed the pilot.
Speaker 1: With the debris.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so right, we lucked out real, you know, we
Speaker 2: lucked out hardcore the fact that this wasn't way worse.
Speaker 2: So there's still a lot of questions the Marine Corps
Speaker 2: has to answer. Don't think they're going to be all
Speaker 2: that forthcoming though.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Ukraine, So there's a lot going on today here in Washington.
Speaker 2: President Zelenski of Ukraine is in New York City for
Speaker 2: the UN General Assembly, and we're visiting here in Washington.
Speaker 2: He'll be meeting with all one hundred Senators and with
Speaker 2: some members of the House Leadership team We're going to
Speaker 2: get to that in a little bit, but as a
Speaker 2: part of his visit, Low and Behold, he only seems
Speaker 2: to come here whenever he wants more money. So let's
Speaker 2: go and put this up there on the screen in
Speaker 2: typical fashion. The New York Times got a preview of
Speaker 2: his remarks that it will be delivering to Congress after
Speaker 2: he addressed that joint session last time. Quote in the
Speaker 2: US Zelenski will make the case for more aid and
Speaker 2: to offer thanks. But this time around he is meeting
Speaker 2: a very different Washington and a much more skeptical Washington
Speaker 2: as to whether they want to provide him that money.
Speaker 2: As we're going to get to part of it comes
Speaker 2: to concerns over the way that Ukraine is not only
Speaker 2: using our aid but to the best effect. Are they
Speaker 2: actually able in order to accomplish any of the goals
Speaker 2: from their counter offensive? And then second like are they
Speaker 2: going to use our weapons to strike Russia? And that
Speaker 2: is a very important question considering that while President Zelenski
Speaker 2: was here, he sat for an interview with sixty Minutes
Speaker 2: in which he blatantly lied about striking Russian territory and
Speaker 2: didn't even get called out in the interview, and he
Speaker 2: was also pressed about what the parameters of peace field
Speaker 2: may look like.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to some of that.
Speaker 4: The drone strikes in Russia are being done on your orders? No,
Speaker 4: not on your orderly?
Speaker 3: Well, you know how is this happening?
Speaker 4: You know we don't shoot at the territory of the
Speaker 4: Russian Federation. We decided to try the question another way.
Speaker 4: What message is being sent with these drone strikes in Russia?
Speaker 1: Was not at the ducks?
Speaker 4: You do know that we use our partner's weapons on
Speaker 4: the territory of Ukraine only, and this is true, but
Speaker 4: these are not punitive operations such as they carry out
Speaker 4: killing civilians. But Russia needs to know that wherever it is,
Speaker 4: whichever place they use for launching missiles to strike Ukraine,
Speaker 4: Ukraine has every moral right to send a response to
Speaker 4: those places. We are responding to them saying your sky
Speaker 4: is not as well protected as you think. Can you
Speaker 4: give up any part of Ukraine for peace?
Speaker 3: Me?
Speaker 4: No, this is our territory. You must have it all,
Speaker 4: including crimea.
Speaker 3: She would you vama of women? You put because.
Speaker 4: Today you and I you said it to me. You
Speaker 4: saw me awarding people medals. Well, today is a day
Speaker 4: like that. A week ago, I gave awards to parents
Speaker 4: of soldiers who have been killed. It's a difficult job,
Speaker 4: you understand me, right, giving awards to people whose faces
Speaker 4: show their whole world has collapsed and all I can
Speaker 4: give them all I can give them.
Speaker 3: That's a Buttom wall is victory.
Speaker 2: And so that's the declarative line from President Zelenski here
Speaker 2: in Washington Crystal.
Speaker 3: But I think the most galling part of it.
Speaker 2: Is that the very beginning, when he's basically smirking and
Speaker 2: he's like, you know that we don't use those and
Speaker 2: we would never use our partner's weapons. I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: if you're gonna lie in the one part, why would
Speaker 2: we believe you on the second part. It's always a
Speaker 2: consistent question that we have for the president. And also
Speaker 2: there's a lot of performative anti corruption stuff happening right
Speaker 2: now in Ukraine, because Ukraine, I think can read and
Speaker 2: knows that people in America and across the world are
Speaker 2: getting concerned about the vast amount of graft and corruption
Speaker 2: and what was previously acknowledged is one of the most
Speaker 2: corrupt nations literally in the entire Western world. And so
Speaker 2: a new purge is happening inside of the Defense Ministry.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen. Right before
Speaker 2: the visit, without explanation, seven ministers in the US Defense
Speaker 2: Ministry or sorry, in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry were fired
Speaker 2: right ahead of the trip to the UN General Assembly.
Speaker 2: That came after the actual State Secretary for the Defense
Speaker 2: Ministry had previously been let go, and then all of
Speaker 2: us were allowed to, at least for once, acknowledge graft
Speaker 2: and correct inside Ukraine. My personal favorite line from that
Speaker 2: was that prior to the war that was happening, that
Speaker 2: corruption and oligarchs would focus on grifting off of the state.
Speaker 2: But now that so much money is flowing in from
Speaker 2: the West that is now.
Speaker 3: The primary source of revenue.
Speaker 2: The number is probably in the untold billions, if not
Speaker 2: tens of billions that have been siphoned off from Western eed.
Speaker 2: Of course, no curiosity I'm here in Washington about that.
Speaker 2: But he's trying to make a show of this crystal
Speaker 2: while actively asking for twenty five billion more before the Congress.
Speaker 2: But this time around, as I said, the political dynamics
Speaker 2: are very different.
Speaker 1: And listen, Zelensky is not a stupid person. He can
Speaker 1: read the polls here, he can see the public support
Speaker 1: ebbing away from providing additional support to Ukraine. He can
Speaker 1: see the political t leaves as well that certainly, especially
Speaker 1: within the Republican caucus, there's increasing skepticism towards the direction
Speaker 1: of just sort of sending endless aid. And so while
Speaker 1: he's still coming here to make his ask, he is
Speaker 1: changing his tone, both from feedback, you know, from the
Speaker 1: US and irritation from politicians here, but also from the Europeans,
Speaker 1: the fact that it was always like, you need to
Speaker 1: do more. In fact, one of the Ukrainian excuses for
Speaker 1: why the counter offensive hasn't gone better is they claim
Speaker 1: it's our fault because we didn't provide them with weapons,
Speaker 1: that everything that they wanted as quickly as possible. So
Speaker 1: he's changed his tone. He's, you know, trying to lead
Speaker 1: with thank you, We're so grateful, but also here's our
Speaker 1: needs going forward. And I think also another thing that
Speaker 1: he's reading here is even though it's kind of extraordinary
Speaker 1: that he's caught in a lie directly when this question
Speaker 1: gets asked about, like, hey, these strikes are happening under
Speaker 1: your orders, and he's like, no, we don't do that,
Speaker 1: and then one minute later he's admitting that they do
Speaker 1: do strikes in US, but it's only, you know, to
Speaker 1: show them that their skis are not as well protected
Speaker 1: as they think, and it's definitely not with any of
Speaker 1: our partner's weaponry. So he's immediately caught in this lie.
Speaker 1: But even the fact that that question was even asked
Speaker 1: is a shift in terms of the media's tone. There's
Speaker 1: at least like one iota of skepticism, and so you know,
Speaker 1: the display of I'm going to fire all these deputy
Speaker 1: defense ministers, I'm going to change my tone as I
Speaker 1: come here. I think it's all a sign that he
Speaker 1: realizes the political landscape has really significantly shifted.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: And another way that it has shifted, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: is that the Biden administration is actually trying to manage
Speaker 2: being giving Ukraine everything that it wants without also getting
Speaker 2: the headlines while he's here.
Speaker 3: So let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This was surreptitiously leaked that the US is planning not
Speaker 2: to announce the long range missiles decision during the Zelenski visit,
Speaker 2: even though the decision has basically been made. As again,
Speaker 2: these are the Army tactical missile systems, surface to surface
Speaker 2: guided missile systems with a range of one hundred ninety
Speaker 2: miles that the Biden administration repeatedly or reportedly has said
Speaker 2: that they are willing to provide to Ukraine. And the
Speaker 2: reason why we have not been doing that up until
Speaker 2: this point is for the exact reason that himself is
Speaker 2: lying about not striking Russian territory. We're afraid that they're
Speaker 2: going to do it, and they're going to escalate the
Speaker 2: war even further by striking very strategic Russian assets directly
Speaker 2: with provided US long range missile systems with the Russians.
Speaker 3: Two have been warning about.
Speaker 2: The most important thing to remember all of this is
Speaker 2: why should we trust you? Why should we trust that
Speaker 2: you're not going to be using this? And also why
Speaker 2: should we trust that this is going to make some
Speaker 2: critical difference crystal in the counter offensive.
Speaker 3: If you look at any map of.
Speaker 2: Reclaimed Ukrainian territory, if you zoom out for the entire country,
Speaker 2: it is effectively negligible.
Speaker 3: You can't see anything.
Speaker 2: Every day they try and justify the tens of billions
Speaker 2: of dollars that were providing them with Oh, we took
Speaker 2: this small village, or we took this, there's no major breakthrough.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, we've pierced the first line of defense.
Speaker 2: It's like going back to the First World War and
Speaker 2: being like, well, we took one out of thirty of
Speaker 2: the lines of defense, so the Battle of the Somme.
Speaker 3: Was a victory.
Speaker 2: It's like, one hundred years later, what do we all
Speaker 2: acknowledge was a senseless waste of bloodshed and not a
Speaker 2: single thing was accomplished on the battlefield. It's like the
Speaker 2: same si op that's being run again and again to
Speaker 2: justify not only propaganda, but in this case, it's not
Speaker 2: even their money or weapons that they're spending here, it's
Speaker 2: ours that they're trying to take from our you know,
Speaker 2: from taxpayers and convince lawmakers.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't blame him. That comes directly from us.
Speaker 1: That comes directly from our enabling and not laying any
Speaker 1: sort of a realistic or practical direction in terms of
Speaker 1: ending this conflict. I mean, that's the piece that I
Speaker 1: just keep coming back to, Like, I support the Ukrainians.
Speaker 1: I think that this war from Russia was illegal and unjustified.
Speaker 1: I think that it has created untold amounts of suffering, death,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But what is the end game? How do
Speaker 1: we get from here to there? Especially when so much
Speaker 1: I know now they're sort of downblaying it, but so
Speaker 1: much was really pinned on this calendar offensive. We just
Speaker 1: do these packages now and we support them here they'll
Speaker 1: be able to strengthen their position and then maybe they
Speaker 1: can come to the negotiating table. That didn't happen. So
Speaker 1: what now? What is the next plan? I think we've
Speaker 1: gotten a preview of that with you know, there was
Speaker 1: that up ed in the Financial Times of General saying basically,
Speaker 1: well they can't win now maybe in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: They're really laying the groundwork for a sort of endless
Speaker 1: status quo of continuing to send this aid with no
Speaker 1: real end in sight. I think from for Biden politically,
Speaker 1: he's just hoping that kind of the status quill maintains
Speaker 1: and this remains a back burner issue in terms of
Speaker 1: the perception of the American public through election day. We'll
Speaker 1: see if that happens or not. But they really owe
Speaker 1: at this point, given the failure of the counter offensive,
Speaker 1: they really owe the American people an explanation of how
Speaker 1: this is all going to come to a close.
Speaker 2: And I would point back to, you know, our interview
Speaker 2: with Rocana. I said, look, you know you're going to
Speaker 2: vote for twenty five billion. I said, nine months from now,
Speaker 2: when we have the same situation, you and I are
Speaker 2: going to be sitting here and what are you going
Speaker 2: to say to me? And he's like, well, we can't
Speaker 2: be providing endless war. And I said, okay, well then
Speaker 2: what should it look like? And he's like, well, Russia
Speaker 2: needs to pull out. And I'm like, well, they're not
Speaker 2: going to do that. Why do you think they're going
Speaker 2: to do that nine months from now after fighting? And
Speaker 2: he's like, well, when they need to pull out, I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: it's like we're in a total here. It's like there's
Speaker 2: it's like an endless circle of reasoning. And as you said, look,
Speaker 2: I don't take any glee in this. I think it's
Speaker 2: horrible what's happened to Ukraine. I feel terrible for them,
Speaker 2: But that again does not mean that the entire burden
Speaker 2: should fall on us, and we should continue to compromise
Speaker 2: our national security for defense stores and weapons even with
Speaker 2: these missiles. I mentioned previously one of the reasons the
Speaker 2: Pentagon had ruled it out. Is They're like, we don't
Speaker 2: have enough of these, and if we need them in
Speaker 2: a future conflict, you know, we would compromise our own
Speaker 2: national security. There's no reason to think that that hasn't changed.
Speaker 2: We have major production timelines. So anyway, all of this
Speaker 2: is also happening on the heels of some pretty major
Speaker 2: machinations inside of Congress that directly concern Ukraine aid and
Speaker 2: whether we're going to have a government shutdown. Let's go
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. This was
Speaker 2: reported by Playbook yesterday kind of the internal DC newsletter
Speaker 2: for the inside Congress, and here's what they said. Quote
Speaker 2: one senior GOP lawmaker told Playbook that is crazy. We
Speaker 2: do not have the votes in the Republican Conference to
Speaker 2: do any Ukraine funding. One thing that they note is
Speaker 2: that McCarthy will host a meeting with President Zelenski, but
Speaker 2: it will not be a one on one meeting, and
Speaker 2: it will be with multiple other leaders from the House representatives,
Speaker 2: including chairmen and ranking members, with no one on one.
Speaker 2: Also noteworthy, on the Senate side, all one hundred senators
Speaker 2: are attending a meeting with President Zelenski, but on the
Speaker 2: House side that is not happening. There also is a
Speaker 2: pretty major push coming from MAGA influencers and other conservative
Speaker 2: influencers to lead a charge against funding for Ukraine in Congress.
Speaker 2: One reason I think that's significant is we did a
Speaker 2: whole story here yesterday about how Ken Paxton was effectively
Speaker 2: saved by a MAGA influence campaign. So you can't underestimate
Speaker 2: how powerful some of these people are. One of them
Speaker 2: is Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA. Just giving people
Speaker 2: a taste of some of the stuff that's out there,
Speaker 2: he writes, Zelenzi's coming to DC next week to bully
Speaker 2: the American publican too, writing another twenty four billion check
Speaker 2: to a quagmire. He's coming here days after his English,
Speaker 2: transgender English spokesperson threatened to hunt down and kill anti
Speaker 2: Ukraine critics and propagandas he's doing this after threatening his
Speaker 2: European allies and millions of refugees across the EU will
Speaker 2: start terrorizing their nations if he doesn't receive perpetual financing
Speaker 2: of the war.
Speaker 3: The American public.
Speaker 2: Must stop being exported by a foreign gangster, not one
Speaker 2: more dime. So, whether you agree or disagree, that is
Speaker 2: a flavor of what is coming from one of the
Speaker 2: activist parts of the GOP. You see it definitely represented
Speaker 2: in the voices of people like Matt Gates and Marjorie
Speaker 2: Taylor Green and several others, but you also see it
Speaker 2: Representative Dan Bishop and others from the Freedom Caucus who
Speaker 2: are refusing to include in any continuing resolution to fund
Speaker 2: the government any of this Ukraine Aid and the Disaster
Speaker 2: Aid also that President Biden tried to put together, setting
Speaker 2: us up for a major showdown with the Senate and
Speaker 2: the President who both say that it's not negotiable. Any
Speaker 2: increased funding of the government has to come with Ukraine Aid.
Speaker 3: Especially to have this fight.
Speaker 2: It's an insult to Zelensky to do it while here's
Speaker 2: here in Washington.
Speaker 3: That's why we have to pass it right now.
Speaker 2: And I just don't think that's very likely right now, Crystal,
Speaker 2: with all the fights that are happening.
Speaker 1: The reason that the Ukraine Aid and the so called
Speaker 1: continuing Resolution, which is just basically like a budget patch
Speaker 1: so that the government doesn't shut down, the idea had
Speaker 1: been to attach those things together. This was sort of
Speaker 1: McCarthy's idea too, and pass them both through simultaneously, to
Speaker 1: try to keep everyone together on these things. And we
Speaker 1: are days away at this point from a possible shutdown.
Speaker 1: It's an October one deadline. There had been a tentative
Speaker 1: deal just among the House Republican caucus. We're not even
Speaker 1: talking about the Senate. We're not even talking about what
Speaker 1: the president wants, but just to get it through the
Speaker 1: House with Republican votes. There had been a tentative deal
Speaker 1: between the House Freedom Caucus, some members of the House
Speaker 1: Freedom Caucus, and some of the more moderate members of
Speaker 1: that caucus. But that deal instantly when it was announced,
Speaker 1: was comp completely obliterated and shot down, primarily by other
Speaker 1: members of the House Freedom Caucus who did not agree
Speaker 1: with the person who had been negotiating it. So even
Speaker 1: the original idea was okay, well, that might be able
Speaker 1: to get through the House, but it's probably not going
Speaker 1: to get through the Senate, which is still controlled by Democrats.
Speaker 1: Even the idea that was going to get through the
Speaker 1: House has now fallen apart. And so that's how these
Speaker 1: things are tied together. Because the idea had been to
Speaker 1: put the aid along with the Continuing Resolution and pass
Speaker 1: them as one. Well, now there is really no sort
Speaker 1: of clear endgame in sight in terms of getting this
Speaker 1: government funding through. So another government shut down game of
Speaker 1: chicken here looms. Kevin McCarthy, his speakership potentially in danger.
Speaker 1: Matt Gates in particularly making a lot of noise. I
Speaker 1: would say that those are kind of empty threats because
Speaker 1: they still don't have a real alternative to McCarthy. But
Speaker 1: you'll remember, as part of his speakership deal made it
Speaker 1: very easy for this vote to be brought up to
Speaker 1: remove him from the speakership. So he's running scared. There's
Speaker 1: a lot going on there. It's very ugly. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was like cursing at the caucus, yelling at them,
Speaker 1: and Gates is coming back at him. So it's a
Speaker 1: total mess over there. And this Ukraine Aid funding is
Speaker 1: caught up in the whole situation.
Speaker 2: You know, and McCarthy won't even commit to passing any
Speaker 2: Ukraine aid. So he was asked about this late last night.
Speaker 2: They said, will you expect this aid to eventually pass?
Speaker 2: He says, quote, I think we will look through it.
Speaker 2: But the one thing I think the House is very
Speaker 2: concerned about is what's happening right now in America. He
Speaker 2: was also asked why the entire House Republican Conference is
Speaker 2: not meeting with Zelensky unlike the Senate. He said, well,
Speaker 2: they can run things their way.
Speaker 3: We run it our way.
Speaker 2: If he wants to meet with other people, he can
Speaker 2: meet with them if he wants to.
Speaker 3: So, I mean, all signs.
Speaker 2: Point to no confidence within the GOP confidence that any
Speaker 2: of this Ukraine aid will be able to pass. It
Speaker 2: also raises a question will the Senate and the President
Speaker 2: shut the government down over Ukraine aid and disaster relief,
Speaker 2: because there's two ways it could go. If the GOP
Speaker 2: puts through a continuing resolution which includes Ukraine aid, but
Speaker 2: then is about federal spending, I think that the Democrats
Speaker 2: and the President would win because it would be like, oh,
Speaker 2: they're trying to cut food stamps or.
Speaker 3: Something like that.
Speaker 2: But if they are, if the government is shut down
Speaker 2: over not funding Ukraine, and then you know the cynical
Speaker 2: ploy of pairing it with funding for like Maui and
Speaker 2: for Hawaiian disaster relief, I think that's a whole other
Speaker 2: conversation as to whether you're literally going to shut down
Speaker 2: the United States government over not funding Ukraine.
Speaker 1: But those aren't the contours right now, because even the
Speaker 1: proposed deal from that has now fallen part with the
Speaker 1: Republican Caucus called for like eight percent cuts to everything
Speaker 1: except of course, defense spending, because we can't touch that,
Speaker 1: Lord God forbid. So it was going after things like
Speaker 1: food stamps and other programs that are really critical to people,
Speaker 1: given how tough the economy is for a lot of
Speaker 1: ordinary Americans. So anyway, there's a lot of pieces here.
Speaker 1: I have no predictions about how this is all going
Speaker 1: to work out, but it's hard to see how they're
Speaker 1: going to navigate through these next few days without some
Speaker 1: sort of a shutdown situation, given again that even the
Speaker 1: House Republican Caucus cannot agree on what they want to
Speaker 1: do with this situation. Last thing I'll say on the
Speaker 1: Ukraine aid is if you just pulled if you just
Speaker 1: asked members of the House Democrats and Republicans do they
Speaker 1: support the aid, you'd have an overwhelming jory. The issue
Speaker 1: comes in because it's still a minority. You have a
Speaker 1: majority of regular Republicans in the country who are against
Speaker 1: additional aid, but it's still a minority even in the
Speaker 1: House Republican Caucus that want to block all aid going forward.
Speaker 1: The problem is when you tie these things together and
Speaker 1: you get it into these sort of negotiations. Democrats are
Speaker 1: not going to help House Republicans pass like this deal
Speaker 1: that they're trying to come to together within themselves. So
Speaker 1: that's where this all gets really complicated and very dicey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very well said Okay.
Speaker 1: At the same time, of course, we have been tracking
Speaker 1: very closely here the ongoing United Autoworker strike of the
Speaker 1: Big Three. As we've been discussing. This happened last week.
Speaker 1: They actually went out on strike after they were unable
Speaker 1: to reach a deal with the Big Three or three.
Speaker 1: They are target targeting all three automakers with what they're
Speaker 1: calling a stand up strike. That means they're not all
Speaker 1: going on at once. They announced three plants that are
Speaker 1: on strike right now. I think that's about thirteen thousand
Speaker 1: of the roughly one hundred and fifty thousand UAW auto
Speaker 1: workers who are working at these Big three. So that's
Speaker 1: the direction that they're going in. We've had yesterday we
Speaker 1: covered the political response. We had Biden very clearly on
Speaker 1: the side of the workers, using their framing saying record
Speaker 1: profits should mean record contracts. You had Trump unable to
Speaker 1: say whose side he was on when he was asked
Speaker 1: directly by Kristen Welker, are you on the side of
Speaker 1: the bosses or on you on? Are you on the
Speaker 1: side of the auto workers? However, he wants to use
Speaker 1: this moment to try to resignify his working class solidarity,
Speaker 1: even though in my opinion this has been nothing but
Speaker 1: empty words. And he also wants to use it as
Speaker 1: a cudgel against some of the push towards electric vehicles.
Speaker 1: So let's put this up on the screen for the
Speaker 1: New York Times. This broke just yesterday. There is a
Speaker 1: second Republican debate scheduled for next week, so this is
Speaker 1: coming very soon. And instead of going to that debate,
Speaker 1: Trump is instead going to travel to Detroit and give
Speaker 1: a speech to a lot of workers and potentially union workers,
Speaker 1: again in an attempt to sort of tacitly signal his
Speaker 1: support for auto workers, even as he hasn't explicitly backed
Speaker 1: their wage and other demands. According to The New York Times,
Speaker 1: it also says the campaign is considering the possibility of
Speaker 1: having mister Trump make an appearance at the picket line,
Speaker 1: although the advisor said such a visit is unlikely. So
Speaker 1: this is the play that he is making and part
Speaker 1: of it, Sager is trying to signal his support for
Speaker 1: workers without actually taking explicit stance in favor of their demands.
Speaker 1: Part of it is trying to hit Biden over EVS
Speaker 1: and the electric vehicle transition. And part of it is
Speaker 1: also to signal to Republicans that listen, this whole primary
Speaker 1: situation that you all are playing at this is over.
Speaker 1: I'm focused on the next one.
Speaker 3: That's actually the one that I take at most.
Speaker 2: He's like, I'm playing for the general, I'm playing for Michigan,
Speaker 2: I'm playing to win, and it's actually a smart play
Speaker 2: on literally all sides. As he said, I mean, Trump
Speaker 2: won a decent portion of the union vote in twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen and in twenty twenty, not an outright majority, but
Speaker 2: enough in order to make some Democrats scared. Obviously a
Speaker 2: lot of worker auto workers in particular back to him
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen because of some of the claims he made,
Speaker 2: some of them didn't end up being true. Whenever it
Speaker 2: came to GM plants and all of that.
Speaker 1: I wonder how people in Lordstown how that went.
Speaker 2: I wonder Crystal though, if he will reverse and actually
Speaker 2: would come out of the side because.
Speaker 3: Outright joining a picket line. I mean, you tell me.
Speaker 2: I mean that seems like an outright declaration of support,
Speaker 2: like if you were going to do he hasn't done that.
Speaker 2: We'll see, you know what the actual thing comes down to.
Speaker 2: I will I would just take note that, you know,
Speaker 2: politically savvy is Trump like?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Yesterday Tim Scott was on Capitol Hill. He was asked
Speaker 2: about the auto strike. He says, quote, I think Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided
Speaker 2: they were going to strike.
Speaker 3: He said, you strike, you're fired. Pretty simple concept to me.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, that is what the other side of
Speaker 2: the GOP looks like.
Speaker 3: And it is just.
Speaker 2: Funny because similar and said the same thing Sody Nikki
Speaker 2: Hailey as well. They were actually really understand is South
Speaker 2: Carolina like that not? You know, I feel like there's
Speaker 2: a lot of working classes.
Speaker 1: And their very right to work there. They're very highways there,
Speaker 1: and they have a number of they've got a big
Speaker 1: non union BMW plant there, et cetera. So though it's
Speaker 1: like kind of.
Speaker 3: Baked, it makes sense.
Speaker 2: But the point my thing was is I'm looking at
Speaker 2: that and then you see Trump and you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: that's why it even was able to win, you know,
Speaker 2: off rhetoric alone in twenty sixteen. So I think it's
Speaker 2: a very politically savvy move, as you said. And the
Speaker 2: other thing that I think is smart is this time
Speaker 2: it's a primetime speech. It's an actual speech where the
Speaker 2: networks are going to have to choose which one they're
Speaker 2: going to have to cover, as opposed to the Tucker
Speaker 2: interview that dropped on Twitter, where the clips, let's be honest,
Speaker 2: they just weren't widely circulated. Yeah, what they wanted did
Speaker 2: not occur, which is that for to Upstate in terms
Speaker 2: of viewership. Now, you know, you can say all you
Speaker 2: want about numbers and all that, maybe you know some
Speaker 2: of it in terms of regular viewers, but I think
Speaker 2: what Trump cares about and has always cared about the most,
Speaker 2: is the ability to dominate the actual conversation.
Speaker 1: And he did not do that.
Speaker 3: He did not do there's no question.
Speaker 2: I mean, we even saw we saw a tremendous interest
Speaker 2: from a general purpose audience on our show for the
Speaker 2: GOP primary, and I spoken to people in media. It
Speaker 2: surpassed all expectations across several outlets, So there was no
Speaker 2: you know, there's no ambiguity here as that people were interested.
Speaker 2: And if he wants to continue to not show up
Speaker 2: to the debates, then he wants to have to try
Speaker 2: and dominate some of these airwaves. And I think this
Speaker 2: actually is a smarter play by actually forcing them to
Speaker 2: choose what they're going to cover and not and then
Speaker 2: possibly even getting them to ask questions about it whatever
Speaker 2: he's saying in said speech, Like tonight President Trump is
Speaker 2: at the UAW or is talking to UAW workers where
Speaker 2: do you stay? So in a reactive sense to get
Speaker 2: the moderators to ask about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would certainly think and hope that the
Speaker 1: autoworker strike is a topic of conversation in the debate.
Speaker 1: I think it would be with Trump or no Trump.
Speaker 1: I think it'd be real shame for that to not
Speaker 1: be brought up. And see what these candidates have to say,
Speaker 1: even as I mean, yeah, the writing is kind of
Speaker 1: while at this point, Trump has really pulled away. The
Speaker 1: first debate didn't do much in terms of moving the needle.
Speaker 1: If anything, in some ways it strengthened his position because
Speaker 1: you had NICKI Haley coming up a little bit, taking
Speaker 1: a little bit down around Desant is kind of eating
Speaker 1: into his position. No one else broke out of the
Speaker 1: pack to really consolidate like one potential Trump alternative candidate
Speaker 1: that just benefits him. I'm a little skeptical that he'll
Speaker 1: really be able to successfully counter program any of these
Speaker 1: debates just because they are such a big seminal event
Speaker 1: and they contain so much you know, theater and spectacle
Speaker 1: that people really enjoy that combat and to you know,
Speaker 1: see these candidates head to head, et cetera. So I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how much he'll be able to break through
Speaker 1: in terms of forcing this choice. And it's not like
Speaker 1: the media is like super excited about covering strikes and
Speaker 1: economic issues anyway. One piece on his writer, I mean,
Speaker 1: we debated the ev piece yesterday, so you guys can
Speaker 1: go back and watch that. But one thing about his
Speaker 1: rhetoric that really bugs the hell out of me, and
Speaker 1: that I also think is totally off base with the
Speaker 1: actual workers who are involved in this strike, is he
Speaker 1: keeps attacking Sean Fain, yes, without seemingly realizing that this
Speaker 1: guy is brand new, that he was just elected by
Speaker 1: these members, that they are very wholeheartedly behind him. I mean,
Speaker 1: we you know, have Jordan Sheridan on the ground there
Speaker 1: from Status co talking to the workers. They are very
Speaker 1: much with him and with his approach and all on
Speaker 1: board with this strike. So all of his crap that's
Speaker 1: really typical like Republican union busting kind of language about
Speaker 1: like the union bosses and you should quit the union
Speaker 1: and form a new union and all of this kind
Speaker 1: of nonsense. I think it's very off base and displays
Speaker 1: a lack of understanding about what has actually been going
Speaker 1: on for these workers inside of the autoworkers.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone is a very accused Trump of
Speaker 2: being the details guy.
Speaker 3: I think he's probably yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, as you said, I think he's probably stuck
Speaker 2: in the previous frame of mind, which was correct, is
Speaker 2: that you know these union didn't the previous leader didn't
Speaker 2: you get fun think he might have gone to jail
Speaker 2: or he was charged or something like that.
Speaker 1: There was previous leadership, not the present, but there were
Speaker 1: there were leaders of the union who yes had charges
Speaker 1: against them. And the message that Fane ran On was
Speaker 1: not only being more militant with regard to these Big Three,
Speaker 1: but the idea that the previous leadership was too cozy
Speaker 1: with the bosses and that went out and it was extraordinary.
Speaker 1: They also just changed the way that those elections even happened,
Speaker 1: so that it was a much more democratic vote and
Speaker 1: actually represented the desires of the rank and file. So
Speaker 1: this part he either doesn't understand or doesn't want to
Speaker 1: understand or whatever. But you know, I continue to think
Speaker 1: because his message is on this is kind of convoluted.
Speaker 1: It's all like he'll dodge when asked like whose side
Speaker 1: are you act on? But then has you know, this
Speaker 1: lengthy thing about EV's and China and Biden and inflation
Speaker 1: and the union leadership, et cetera. I do think Biden's
Speaker 1: message on this is much more clear cut about wages,
Speaker 1: about yeah, just yes, I stand with the workers. They
Speaker 1: deserve a better way. I mean, that's just much easier
Speaker 1: to understand, and there's a much more direct line between like, oh,
Speaker 1: these companies are making record profits, they're extremely greedy, they're
Speaker 1: screwing their workers. On on the side of the workers,
Speaker 1: that's it, end of story. Whereas Trump and the Republicans
Speaker 1: thing is this like attempt at jiu jitsu to not
Speaker 1: really take a side but then use it to bash Biden,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And I just don't think it's as clear
Speaker 1: cut of a direct message from them.
Speaker 3: I don't disagree.
Speaker 2: And that's actually how I wonder whether he's going to
Speaker 2: change tactics and whether he especially a picket line appearance
Speaker 2: and all that, if he's asked about the wages and
Speaker 2: in the story.
Speaker 1: I mean, if he showed up in the picket line,
Speaker 1: that would really be something extraordinary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it'd be a great thing to have
Speaker 2: two presidents, both the opponents in the in the race,
Speaker 2: endorsing like wage demands.
Speaker 3: I can't that's bipartisanship. Yeah, we've always desired here, right.
Speaker 1: And then but I mean, and then you see like
Speaker 1: his National Labor Relations Board in the way that he
Speaker 1: just chocked it full of I mean, he's been a
Speaker 1: union buster his entire even in his business career, so
Speaker 1: it's also dissonant with what his record was. But even
Speaker 1: the symbology of him and Biden, if he were to
Speaker 1: show up at the picket line, if he were to
Speaker 1: change his rhetoric, these are all big ifs at this point.
Speaker 1: You know, that would be a lot of pressure on
Speaker 1: these auto exacts.
Speaker 3: So we got to be watched. Yeah, let's watch it. Closely.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it would be an extraordinary moment
Speaker 2: if something like that happened.
Speaker 3: I mean, don't forget.
Speaker 2: You know, we've had a couple of moments like this
Speaker 2: which have showed us like how corrupt the system is.
Speaker 2: Trump and Biden have endorsed the JD Vance Shared Brown
Speaker 2: Rail Safety Bill. It's one of the only bills in
Speaker 2: all in the entire modern Congress that has ever been
Speaker 2: endorsed by the two sitting leaders of their party. And
Speaker 2: it still has been unable to pass because of a
Speaker 2: railway interests on the GOP side, which I think tells
Speaker 2: you a lot about some of those Senators and some
Speaker 2: of those House of Representatives people are. But the point
Speaker 2: is that's very rare for stuff like that to happen. Now, look,
Speaker 2: it hasn't passed, but you know, it's like one or
Speaker 2: two votes, I think away from passage.
Speaker 3: So if they were, as you said, if.
Speaker 2: Trump were to join the picket line, and again it's
Speaker 2: a big if, if you were to declare some sort
Speaker 2: of support the autoworkers can't be or the auto the
Speaker 2: bosses can't be, Like, man, maybe we should wait this out,
Speaker 2: you know, because that could very much be on their
Speaker 2: minds too, about changing Washington, change in regulatory regime. So
Speaker 2: it could definitely actually put even more pressure on them
Speaker 2: if it were to happen.
Speaker 3: It would be interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, the thing with Trump is he'll do
Speaker 1: all of this symbolic stuff. You know, especially if you
Speaker 1: go back to twenty sixteen, like the things he was
Speaker 1: saying versus how he governed. You know, I did a
Speaker 1: thing on like what happened with Lordstown. He went there
Speaker 1: and was like, don't sell your homes, you know, in Youngstown,
Speaker 1: like don't sell your homes or bringing it back. Of
Speaker 1: course that all fell apart. So he'll do all the
Speaker 1: symbolic stuff. However, I will say in a moment like this,
Speaker 1: when you have a strike. And this is why it
Speaker 1: was heartened by Biden's rhetoric, that sort of rhetoric coming
Speaker 1: from very prominent officials or the President of the United States,
Speaker 1: you're talking about a handful of auto executives who are
Speaker 1: making these decisions about how this is going to go forward.
Speaker 1: And so in that instance, the bully pulpit actually really
Speaker 1: does matter. And the other place where it has mattered
Speaker 1: is we have never in my lifetime had higher public
Speaker 1: support for unions and striking workers. And so even though
Speaker 1: Trump was a union buster as you know, a business
Speaker 1: person and as a president, the fact that his rhetoric
Speaker 1: was different on unions I think opened up a possibility
Speaker 1: for the public, including Republicans, to be at least tacitly
Speaker 1: in support of union power because you know, they didn't
Speaker 1: see the slide of hand that like always saying this,
Speaker 1: but then really what he's doing is union busting. So anyway,
Speaker 1: it's it will be fascinating to watch how all of this.
Speaker 3: It'll be fun. It'll be fun.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we continue to have a lot
Speaker 1: going on over at CNBC, which I'm enjoying watching very much.
Speaker 1: Jim Kramer has long been freaking out about Sean Fain
Speaker 1: and the auto workers, et cetera, et cetera, which I've
Speaker 1: been eating up. But CNBC hosted a very interesting debate
Speaker 1: between a former National Labor Relationsport official who was backing
Speaker 1: the workers in their demands and a Chamber of Commerce
Speaker 1: official who was very much on the other side of this.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3: To some of that.
Speaker 5: But you point out about the booming profits, and my
Speaker 5: question is, you know, past performance is no guarantee of
Speaker 5: the future. Do you think the outlook is bright for
Speaker 5: the Big three for booming process to continue from here on.
Speaker 6: Well, I certainly think that the outlook will be brighter
Speaker 6: if the companies treat their workers in a way that's fair.
Speaker 6: And there are a lot of variables that will determine
Speaker 6: the future of the auto sector. You know, let's remember
Speaker 6: that labor costs are actually a very small part of
Speaker 6: these companies' costs. When as you as you were talunted,
Speaker 6: the union did make great concessions to save this industry.
Speaker 6: The companies have increased CEO pay at a very rapid rate.
Speaker 6: They have given out billions of dollars in stock buybacks.
Speaker 7: It would be one thing if the focus were talking
Speaker 7: about how we share in the future growth and profit
Speaker 7: of the auto makers. But listen, the UAW is looking
Speaker 7: for forty percent pay raise. They want workers to be
Speaker 7: paid for five days when they only work for four.
Speaker 7: They want to return to define benefit pension systems. That
Speaker 7: is a recipe to put these companies into bankruptcy, and
Speaker 7: that serves you no one interest. I think the question
Speaker 7: we have to ask is why do they feel so emboldened?
Speaker 7: This actually isn't the first time we've seen demands like this.
Speaker 7: It's been the summer of strikes, and this is a
Speaker 7: bit of a pattern, and unfortunately, I think it's being
Speaker 7: fueled in part by the Biden administration and this push
Speaker 7: for unionization at all costs.
Speaker 6: And not hearing a lot of concern about increasing CEO pay,
Speaker 6: increasing stock buybox.
Speaker 3: But that's just optics.
Speaker 5: If you if you take for twenty or twenty five
Speaker 5: or thirty million, that's that's deminimous for what we're talking
Speaker 5: about at the success of the coming. Maybe optically it
Speaker 5: looks bad and you know, it's the politics of envy
Speaker 5: and everything else, but you take a defined benefit to
Speaker 5: put that back in thirty two hour work week, a
Speaker 5: forty percent pay raise. I mean the CEO issue, that's
Speaker 5: that's just a talking point.
Speaker 3: Why is it a talking point? I mean, he got
Speaker 3: paid that amount of money. Is it yet? Is true
Speaker 3: or is it not? The entire thing is just absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I also like the way the Chamber of Commerce guy
Speaker 1: is accidently done only making the Biden administration sound really great.
Speaker 1: It's like, why it's the summer of strikes. I think
Speaker 1: Joe Biden has a lot to do with it, like
Speaker 1: he's encouraging unionization at all costs. I mean, listen, I
Speaker 1: support some of whi's been done by this administration, but
Speaker 1: I would not frame it in quite that way. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, I love that he's because you have to
Speaker 1: even I mean, the CNBC's audience is a different kind
Speaker 1: of animal. But in terms of general public, seventy five
Speaker 1: percent of people support this strike, record breaking numbers of
Speaker 1: people support unions. So when they hear like, oh, the
Speaker 1: summer of strikes and it's Joe Biden's because of Joe
Speaker 1: Biden and his policies, I don't think that that's landing
Speaker 1: quite the way that he wants it to outside of
Speaker 1: the CNBC audience and the anchor there.
Speaker 2: It's also a very unfair thing that people do. I mean,
Speaker 2: you and I know this. Whenever we host a debate
Speaker 2: or something like that. You can't just rule out some
Speaker 2: of the ground that somebody is arguing on, especially if
Speaker 2: it's I mean, if you bring up a totally irrelevant point,
Speaker 2: you could be like, okay, well.
Speaker 3: But he's little. I mean, it's a very basic point.
Speaker 2: It's like your pay has gone up by x amount
Speaker 2: you have paid out why amount in shareholders effectively the
Speaker 2: exact same cost of what this raise would be. So
Speaker 2: instead of producing a dividend or paying out and buying
Speaker 2: stock buybacks artificially in juice the price, why don't you
Speaker 2: use that to pay the workers more and we can
Speaker 2: make better cars and have a happier workforce and we
Speaker 2: don't have any shutdown or strike. I mean, it's that's
Speaker 2: not a talking point. That's a very basic line of argumentation.
Speaker 2: It's why even investors and even people like Mark Cuban
Speaker 2: have been come out against stock buybacks because they're like,
Speaker 2: it's an irrelevant action that doesn't have anything to do
Speaker 2: with the actual productive capacity of the company. It's why
Speaker 2: they were even illegal for so many years in the US.
Speaker 1: It's just financial engineering, and it's just like a kickback
Speaker 1: to your executives. Two executives who, thanks to a Clinton
Speaker 1: era loophole, like their compensation is largely in stock so
Speaker 1: that they don't have to pay taxes on it, again
Speaker 1: thanks to a Clinton era loophole. So that's how all
Speaker 1: of that works. But he also the anchor made this
Speaker 1: point at the beginning, like, oh, what you think you
Speaker 1: think the Big three are going to do? Fine with
Speaker 1: profits and you think past performance is indicative of future performance.
Speaker 1: It's like you could always use that, you could use
Speaker 1: us as an excuse also to not pay the CEO, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: what you think that because things have been going well,
Speaker 1: you think things are just going to continue to go well.
Speaker 1: These workers have a track record that they can point
Speaker 1: to of when things were bad for the automakers. Guess what,
Speaker 1: they took a huge haircut, they took layoffs, they took
Speaker 1: a big hit to their pensions, they got rid of
Speaker 1: cost of living increases. And that's why these demands now
Speaker 1: seemed so large. It's because they have been so screwed
Speaker 1: and set back over years. And of course at the time,
Speaker 1: the thought was, all right, you guys, bail us out now,
Speaker 1: and that's what it was. It was a worker funded
Speaker 1: bailout of these auto companies and their executives. You guys,
Speaker 1: bail us out now, and we got you in the
Speaker 1: future when we return to profitability. That never happened. And
Speaker 1: so for them to then turn around and say, oh,
Speaker 1: what you think now that they're profitable, they're just always
Speaker 1: going to be profitable forever is such incredible garbage. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I love to see the Chamber of Commerce guy trying
Speaker 1: to spin this, and I mean even on CNBC his
Speaker 1: points look pretty weak.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it was a very foolish moment, I think for
Speaker 2: all of them.
Speaker 3: Indeed, all right, let's talk about housing.
Speaker 2: This is always so important and one that we're always
Speaker 2: trying to keep an eye on. And it's one of
Speaker 2: the chief reasons why despite the fact that people like
Speaker 2: Paul Krugman and are always like, oh, the economy, we're
Speaker 2: making one of the mooset stunning recoveries.
Speaker 3: Ever, and then inflation hit.
Speaker 2: Numbers come out literally the next day showing that gas
Speaker 2: is reaching nearly completely unaffordable heights, that grocery prices and
Speaker 2: all of that remain flat and very high over the
Speaker 2: last couple of years.
Speaker 3: Well, this is probably the core.
Speaker 2: It all comes back to cost of living and housing
Speaker 2: and housing and shelter with being a key driver inflation
Speaker 2: over the last couple of years. Let's put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen where even the financial papers are
Speaker 2: beginning to take notice. They say, Americans can barely afford
Speaker 2: homes and that's a problem for Biden. Quote, housing affordability
Speaker 2: has declined to the lowest level on record. But what
Speaker 2: I thought that they did a great job of was
Speaker 2: not just talking about it on the macro number, but
Speaker 2: zooming in on a state like Wisconsin, where as they
Speaker 2: accurately point out, they can show you very clearly that
Speaker 2: in the city of Milwaukee, in the swing state of Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: you have a huge drop in overall housing affordability, which
Speaker 2: is making it nearly impossible to argue to the general
Speaker 2: population there that things are going well. Their deterioration in
Speaker 2: the rental market is quote more than almost any US
Speaker 2: metro area in the year ending in July, according to
Speaker 2: the National Association of Realtors, and one of the largest
Speaker 2: increases in mortgage burdens amongst the biggest fifty markets. Crystal,
Speaker 2: that's just the city of Milwaukee, and actually completely makes sense,
Speaker 2: and it tracks with a lot of what we talked
Speaker 2: about about how industrial Midwestern cities which have seen in
Speaker 2: some cases a slight like net migration inflow and people
Speaker 2: coming from the East and the West coast either moving
Speaker 2: back home or moving to more not rural but like
Speaker 2: second tier cities, I guess, as opposed to like the
Speaker 2: bigger global cosmopolitan cities are driving up the overall market.
Speaker 2: You're seeing a major drop in supply, largely because interest
Speaker 2: rates are so high nobody wants to sell a major
Speaker 2: lock up.
Speaker 3: And in a city like Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of poor people who live in Milwaukee,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of people who have to work
Speaker 2: also in the service sector as well, and they're being
Speaker 2: pushed out of the overall rental and housing economy. And
Speaker 2: whenever you find your lease expiring and then you're going
Speaker 2: out and you're looking, people are just finding complete sticker
Speaker 2: shock at both of the options that they have and
Speaker 2: having to make plans of like, yeah, maybe I got
Speaker 2: a four percent raise, my rent is up by twenty
Speaker 2: five percent. That's coming up, and the landlord wants like
Speaker 2: first and last month's rent or something like that, So
Speaker 2: you got to cough up like huge portions of cash
Speaker 2: on top of moving costs and all. Then you're looking
Speaker 2: at a multi thousand dollars transaction that a normal single
Speaker 2: family is having to deal with.
Speaker 3: That's the issue.
Speaker 1: I mean, this issue is so central, and it is
Speaker 1: hanging out there as an obvious place for a politician
Speaker 1: who was savvy and wanted to actually gain some ground,
Speaker 1: because this pain is at every level of the income
Speaker 1: spectrum outside of the wealthy who are just fine houses
Speaker 1: because they have houses. But when you pull gen z
Speaker 1: the inability to buy a home, they cited that as
Speaker 1: the second largest source of their unhappiness. This is a
Speaker 1: massive issue in community after community across the country, and
Speaker 1: you can understand why. I thought there was a really
Speaker 1: good quote in here from a political science professor who said, listen,
Speaker 1: this contributes to a general sense that the American dream
Speaker 1: is out of reach and that the Democratic Party promises
Speaker 1: a middle class American dream and it's failing. I think
Speaker 1: those voters are more likely to listen to the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: And it's not that Republicans have offered any answers on this.
Speaker 1: They have it. But if you're supposed to be the
Speaker 1: party as the Democrats, who are representing working class and
Speaker 1: middle class interests and under your watchist Joe Biden, that
Speaker 1: ability to even aspire to the classic American dream feels
Speaker 1: like it's falling away, as it does for many many people.
Speaker 1: Guess who's going to get the blame. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really not rocket science. So there was a proposal in
Speaker 1: way back when they were talking about building back better
Speaker 1: to help to surge housing and help to try to
Speaker 1: improve the situation, but you really need an aggressive top
Speaker 1: to bottom approach to deal with this, because this level
Speaker 1: of housing unaffordability is just an absolute crisis and really
Speaker 1: eats at the core of our own self conception as
Speaker 1: a nation, let alone anybody's ability to feel like they
Speaker 1: can ever have some sort of stable situation, stable middle
Speaker 1: class prosperity that they can pass forward to the case.
Speaker 1: We cover the fact, you know, for young people, for
Speaker 1: millennials trying to buy a house who are not that
Speaker 1: young at this point, they have to basically have mom
Speaker 1: and dad to write the down payment.
Speaker 2: The vast majority of them they're able to do so,
Speaker 2: at least in an affordable market. It's in a supermarket
Speaker 2: like DC New York, and others are going to their.
Speaker 1: Parents without payment, and so you need help for first
Speaker 1: time buyers in terms of that down payment. You need
Speaker 1: to do something about permanent capital coming in and swooping
Speaker 1: in and buying up these neighborhoods. This has become even
Speaker 1: why it was just looking in the numbers, it's become
Speaker 1: even more of an issue in the high interest rate
Speaker 1: landscape because they're the ones who can they can pay
Speaker 1: all cash cash Yeah, So if you're coming in with
Speaker 1: an all cash offer and you've got someone else trying
Speaker 1: to scrape together figure out their mortgage situation, and it's
Speaker 1: wildly utaffordable, et cetera, Like, guess who's going to end
Speaker 1: up with those homes. This is a deliberate strategy at
Speaker 1: this point. So you've got to help first time home buyers.
Speaker 1: You've got to do something about permanent capital. You've got
Speaker 1: to make sure you're surging housing supply and not just
Speaker 1: leaving it to whatever the developers want to build, because
Speaker 1: guess that's what guys Guess what they want to build,
Speaker 1: luxury high rises, and that is not going to benefit
Speaker 1: the broad population that's looking for more affordable housing. So
Speaker 1: I think that this issue is so incredibly central and
Speaker 1: so wildly underestimated and under discussed in terms of our
Speaker 1: political and media.
Speaker 2: System undred percent. You can even see it a lot
Speaker 2: in the data is put this up there. For example,
Speaker 2: this is one of the latest polls that on the economy,
Speaker 2: it's like voters feel a little bit better about the economy,
Speaker 2: but very few credit Biden. Most Americans disapprove of the
Speaker 2: president's economic policy, posing a challenge to his re election
Speaker 2: and I think it's just over and over comes back
Speaker 2: to structural factors that our media, CPI and all of
Speaker 2: that they don't measure properly. They don't understand how disheartening
Speaker 2: it can be for people who are in that time
Speaker 2: of their lives where they feel as if they've done
Speaker 2: everything right, they follow all the right steps, and they
Speaker 2: still aren't able to. They quote and they look at
Speaker 2: several people here in the Milwaukee area who are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the only reason I got a house is because half
Speaker 2: of the house has not even finished. Now I got
Speaker 2: to pay more for that house, and I have to
Speaker 2: spend the next several years modeling this when previously I
Speaker 2: could bought something which wasn't like that. And then over
Speaker 2: and over again, it's happening to people, even with families,
Speaker 2: people who thought that they were right on the cost
Speaker 2: of being able to you know, as you said, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're an elder millennial now you're looking your late
Speaker 2: thirties and early forties, and to not have the ability
Speaker 2: to buy a house is a major determination of generational wealth.
Speaker 2: So overall, yeah, I think this is going to be
Speaker 2: one of the biggest drags you think about car prices
Speaker 2: You've got average car new car costs fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and you're financing it at what seven eight percent interest rate?
Speaker 2: We know that several states have average car payments of
Speaker 2: over one thousand dollars, largely people who are buying trucks
Speaker 2: and some sucks. I mean, all of that is just
Speaker 2: not going to keep up with where the wages are
Speaker 2: right now in this country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And so there's all this
Speaker 1: political class confusion of like, oh, some of the numbers
Speaker 1: are better, and why aren't people feeling it. It's really
Speaker 1: not complicated, and I do, I do genuinely think that
Speaker 1: housing affordability is such a key part of why people
Speaker 1: do not feel like this economy is working for them whatsoever.
Speaker 1: All right, we got an update for you coming out
Speaker 1: of Hollywood. So he previously announced, based on his announcement
Speaker 1: that Bill Maher was bringing Real Time back in spite
Speaker 1: of the fact that the writer's strike in the actor strike,
Speaker 1: but with this one, the writer's strike is what's pertinent,
Speaker 1: is still ongoing. He said, Oh, I want to the monologue,
Speaker 1: I want to do the other scripted segments, but we
Speaker 1: are going to bring it back at this point, well,
Speaker 1: after a lot of what I can only presume is
Speaker 1: a lot of public pressure and probably a lot of
Speaker 1: guests who didn't really want to join him for the panel,
Speaker 1: he has backtracked. Put this up on the screen. Here's
Speaker 1: his announcement. He says, my decision to return to work
Speaker 1: was made when it seemed nothing was happening and there
Speaker 1: was no end in sight to the strike. Now that
Speaker 1: both sides have agreed to go back to the negotiating table,
Speaker 1: I'm going to delay the return of real time for
Speaker 1: now and hope that they can finally get this done. Sager,
Speaker 1: what do you think about this about.
Speaker 2: THEABE, Well, I'm asking you what is he talking about?
Speaker 2: What do you mean they've agreed? What has actually changed
Speaker 2: in the last week. I think the only thing has
Speaker 2: changed is back clash and Drew Barrymore. Yeah, and look,
Speaker 2: you and I track this stuff pretty closely. I haven't
Speaker 2: seen any major shift in the negotiating posture. I mean,
Speaker 2: there have been continuing talks throughout this entire thing. It's
Speaker 2: not like there's been nothing. There hasn't been substantive movements.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of speculation. I'm curious what you
Speaker 2: think if I had to guess. I think it's because
Speaker 2: he couldn't book very many guests, yeah, or because he
Speaker 2: received some sort of ultimatum from the people who do
Speaker 2: work for him. He said he loved his writers previously
Speaker 2: will pay you the clip in a little bit, and
Speaker 2: they were like, Hey, if you do this, I'm never
Speaker 2: going to come work.
Speaker 3: For you again.
Speaker 1: The justification he gives here, I don't think has anything
Speaker 1: to do with it. I mean, I think it's very
Speaker 1: I honestly think it's very weasily like, Oh, it just
Speaker 1: happens that there was some untold breakthrough that now has
Speaker 1: completely changed my mind. I think. Closer to his actual
Speaker 1: feelings about this whole situation were revealed when he was
Speaker 1: talking on his podcast to Jim Gaffigan. Let's recall what
Speaker 1: he said before all of this unfolded.
Speaker 8: I feel for my writers. I love my writers. I'm
Speaker 8: one of my writers. But there's a big other side
Speaker 8: to it, and a lot of people are being hurt
Speaker 8: besides them, a lot of people who don't make as
Speaker 8: much money as them.
Speaker 1: In this.
Speaker 8: Bipartisan world we have, where you're just in one camp
Speaker 8: or the other. There's no in between. You're either for
Speaker 8: the strike, like they're fucking Shay Guavera out there, you know,
Speaker 8: like this is Caesar Chavez. Let us picking strike or
Speaker 8: you're with Trump. You know, like there's no different, there's
Speaker 8: only two camps, and it's much more complicated than that.
Speaker 8: What I find objectionable about the philosophy of the strike,
Speaker 8: it seems to be they have really morphed a long
Speaker 8: way from two thousand and seven strike, where they kind
Speaker 8: of believe that you're owed a living as a writer
Speaker 8: and you're not. This is show business, This is a
Speaker 8: make or mis league.
Speaker 1: They kind of believe you're owed a living as a
Speaker 1: writer and you're not. And so the original his original
Speaker 1: justification for why he was going back to the show
Speaker 1: was all framed very altruistically, like, oh, I'm looking out
Speaker 1: for the other members of the show staff, etc.
Speaker 3: Etc.
Speaker 1: But I think this is truer to his real thoughts
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely true to his thoughts. And we talked about
Speaker 2: this previously about what he means. I mean, look, yes,
Speaker 2: if you're an aspiring writer, sure you're not you know,
Speaker 2: owed a living. But if you're a professional writer in
Speaker 2: the game who is attached to a show that is
Speaker 2: making money, well, yeah, I think that you are o
Speaker 2: living as a writer, and I think that's what the
Speaker 2: entire strike is about. It's also about preserving said ability
Speaker 2: to continue to make a living in the future, to
Speaker 2: make sure that that doesn't go away. But I don't
Speaker 2: really know, you know at this point how it's going
Speaker 2: to end. I mean, look, I think it's a good
Speaker 2: thing that he didn't do it, especially, as I said
Speaker 2: at the time, his entire justification. He's like, the essence
Speaker 2: of the show is discussion. I'm like, well, dude, you're
Speaker 2: still doing a podcast. He got Tarantino on, you got
Speaker 2: Jim Gaffigan on. It's like, you can still do everything
Speaker 2: you want to do. As I understand it. HBO even
Speaker 2: pays him to do Club Random. So like, I don't
Speaker 2: think he's losing any money, you know, from do it,
Speaker 2: or at least he's not going completely broke as a
Speaker 2: result of this. Maybe hire him on your Club Random podcast.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of cameras in there for some reason.
Speaker 2: My point is just that you can continue to make
Speaker 2: things work and have your voice out there.
Speaker 3: At the time, I speculated.
Speaker 2: I was like, maybe he really wants his voice heard
Speaker 2: in the middle of the election, season, which I guess
Speaker 2: I could understand. But again, when you have the ability
Speaker 2: to continue to go on podcasts and do all this tour,
Speaker 2: he could probably do stand up and so many of
Speaker 2: these other things.
Speaker 3: I just don't see why, like there's no point to.
Speaker 2: Coming back to the show other than just directly, you know,
Speaker 2: disregarding some of those claims. Another reason why is he's
Speaker 2: actually a member of the Writer's Skill Yes, so it's
Speaker 2: one of those where it's like, unlike Drew Barrymore, he
Speaker 2: literally is a member of the WGA, So for him
Speaker 2: to go back is a totally in violation of his
Speaker 2: own membership of the union.
Speaker 1: It certainly seemed that way. It certainly would seem that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I had to guess what happened here, I do
Speaker 1: think that there was probably like elite level pushback that
Speaker 1: got through to him where they probably started the process
Speaker 1: of like reaching out to gas and seeing who they're
Speaker 1: going to get on the panel. And I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are plenty of you know, Republicans who don't support unions
Speaker 1: who were willing to come on, but they try to
Speaker 1: balance out the panel and have a diversity of viewpoints
Speaker 1: every single show. And I guarantee you every probably every
Speaker 1: Democrat or Liberal that they were reaching out to, was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be the one who goes out
Speaker 1: there and takes this heat from crossing a picket line.
Speaker 1: So I don't doubt that that's the case. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he has other friends that are in the WGA that
Speaker 1: were probably like, dude, what the hell. I don't know
Speaker 1: what his own staff was saying to him or how
Speaker 1: they felt about it, so that could have been a
Speaker 1: factor as well. But then I also think watching what
Speaker 1: happened with Drew Barrymore and then the level of pushback
Speaker 1: he himself was getting directly from the public. When again,
Speaker 1: you know, we looked at the numbers yesterday. I think
Speaker 1: it's seventy two percent of the public supports the writers
Speaker 1: and only nineteen percent are on the side of the
Speaker 1: studio sects. And you basically by bringing your show back,
Speaker 1: you're you are taking the side of the studio execs.
Speaker 1: Like whether you however you want to frame in your head,
Speaker 1: that's the reality of what you're doing. And so I
Speaker 1: also think, you know, this is an instance where like
Speaker 1: online public bullying, shame pressure, et cetera. Worked out in
Speaker 1: the correct direction.
Speaker 2: I've never done the show you have. Who are the
Speaker 2: audience members? Are they from LA?
Speaker 3: Are they not?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Who are they exactly?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Okay, because that's another thing I was thinking because of
Speaker 2: Drew Barrymore show. She was searching people's bags for wgah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, maybe they weren't even able to get
Speaker 3: audience or they were afraid that they were.
Speaker 1: That could be I mean, I do think my assumption
Speaker 1: is that the audience is just yeah, drawn from people
Speaker 1: locally who you know, probably wait in some line to
Speaker 1: get a ticket or whatever. But I don't really know
Speaker 1: the details of how that all works out. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that could have been an issue as well. I think
Speaker 1: probably just the public heat and public pressure was too overwhelming,
Speaker 1: and we saw some other shows like I think that
Speaker 1: showed the talk they had originally announced they're coming back,
Speaker 1: and I think they also caved and back down because
Speaker 1: they none of these people wanted to, you know, end
Speaker 1: up like Drew Barrymore weeping and panicking and whatever was
Speaker 1: going on with her. So I think that's probably the
Speaker 1: bottom line. Okay, all right, we've got an extraordinary clip
Speaker 1: here who wanted to share with you from MSNBC A
Speaker 1: lot of elite conversation right now about like we want
Speaker 1: Joe Biden to drop on or at the very least,
Speaker 1: you should switch out the ticket and put somebody else
Speaker 1: in there for Kamala Harris, which by the way, is
Speaker 1: not happening. But nevertheless, host Jonathan cape Hart over there
Speaker 1: ATMSNBC asked if really there was something else going on
Speaker 1: here with the criticismicism of Kamala Harris, not the fact
Speaker 1: that she has extraordinarily low approval rating and an even
Speaker 1: worse candidate than Joe Biden for the general election. Know,
Speaker 1: there must be something else going on here. Take a
Speaker 1: listen to his explanation to.
Speaker 9: Your point, the criticisms of the vice president have been
Speaker 9: coming at her since she was picked by Joe Biden
Speaker 9: to be his running mate. My question is are they
Speaker 9: doing it not because they think she's incompetent, but because
Speaker 9: they know her potential and they're afraid of her.
Speaker 10: Well, you know, I think you know because the vice
Speaker 10: president is in a historic role. A lot of times,
Speaker 10: you have a political press that is frankly white and male,
Speaker 10: and that is used to covering politicians that don't look
Speaker 10: like Vice President Harris and so this is leadership that
Speaker 10: is kind of hard for them to necessarily understand. This
Speaker 10: is not the vice president's role, is not something that traditionally.
Speaker 3: We have paid a lot of attention too.
Speaker 10: And yet because she is somebody that is doing this
Speaker 10: for the first time, that's somebody who is a black woman,
Speaker 10: we are that judge drop and increased scrutiny, I think
Speaker 10: to the role. And frankly, even you know, black voters
Speaker 10: have told me they wanted to see more of her.
Speaker 10: They wanted to see what she was doing, no matter.
Speaker 3: What that was.
Speaker 10: And so I think you've increasingly seen her showing up
Speaker 10: and doing the job. She's been more visible, You've seen
Speaker 10: her kind of honing her message, and so I think
Speaker 10: that is drawing more attention to her, especially as we
Speaker 10: had in the twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: I think her response there is funny because even she
Speaker 1: can't be like, yeah, that's totally.
Speaker 2: She just pulls out the race card instead, because obviously
Speaker 2: that's something.
Speaker 1: But it was a tacit admission of like, no, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's a problem. I don't think the issue
Speaker 1: is that they're like actually secretly afraid of her. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's it.
Speaker 2: We have the data she's the least popular vice president
Speaker 2: in modern history, more so than Dan Quayle. That actually
Speaker 2: takes scale. And yeah, my guess is is not because
Speaker 2: she's black. I think she's a terrible politician. It's very simple,
Speaker 2: especially because we know that if you want to just
Speaker 2: play it purely on race, all of that would have
Speaker 2: applied to Barack Hussein Obama whenever he was the President
Speaker 2: of the United States.
Speaker 3: He got reelected folks.
Speaker 2: Sorry, especially Also, we're talking about Democratic voters too, who
Speaker 2: don't want her to run, and they prefer Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: So it's facetious and ridiculous on its face, the entire criticism,
Speaker 2: but it is also with the most ridiculous excuse to say, oh,
Speaker 2: it's because they are afraid of her.
Speaker 3: No, she is not talented.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not just us who're saying that the
Speaker 2: Democratic leadership themselves won't even endorse her. We played that
Speaker 2: clip of Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if you saw this.
Speaker 2: Immediately after that, Jamie Raskin was asked three separate times
Speaker 2: on MSNBC, will you support Vice President Harris for Vice president?
Speaker 2: He's like, well, that's what the president's decision is and
Speaker 2: he's like, no.
Speaker 3: No, no, do you think this is a good choice?
Speaker 3: He's like, this is the president. These people are dumb,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean.
Speaker 2: And also there's a you know thing in Washington where
Speaker 2: if you can say it and get away with it,
Speaker 2: then you have no power. Like if she had any
Speaker 2: power here and political power or even electoral power. Her
Speaker 2: chief of staff calls up that chief and be like,
Speaker 2: who do you think you are like talking this way?
Speaker 2: You're going to issue a public apology and all of
Speaker 2: that right now, And if they have any juice, they
Speaker 2: will whenever you step out of line. So that the
Speaker 2: fact that everyone can get away with it and then
Speaker 2: Gavin Newsoen can upstage her consistently and then again not
Speaker 2: face any real pushback in the actual coalition where it matters,
Speaker 2: only shows us once again that she has such limited
Speaker 2: power as a result of her own lack of skills.
Speaker 2: She's got nobody to blame but herself, you know, for
Speaker 2: making a fool out of herself for the last couple
Speaker 2: of years.
Speaker 1: So Gavin actually just did an in area. I was
Speaker 1: looking for the specific quote where he was asked directly
Speaker 1: about Kamala Harris and he was on the talking points
Speaker 1: like absolutely, she's the best. And he was also asked
Speaker 1: about Biden's age and he's like, I want to seize
Speaker 1: the throw and there he's on the talking points. Man,
Speaker 1: he knows exactly what he's doing in all of this
Speaker 1: because he also is like, you know, wants to make
Speaker 1: sure that they don't continue. Well, he actually loves these
Speaker 1: articles that are like, oh, actually Gavin Newsom is angling
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty four for future presidential run. But he
Speaker 1: can't give any sort of actual nod to that because
Speaker 1: you know, it will endanger his political position within the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. So he was on the messaging, you know,
Speaker 1: for what it's worth. But yeah, lots of Democratic politicians,
Speaker 1: including Nancy Pelosi fellow California, who cannot just come out
Speaker 1: and say, yes, I think Kamala Harris would be a
Speaker 1: great president and is the best person to be vice president,
Speaker 1: because it is it's difficult to argue that. And I
Speaker 1: also would just remind Kamala Harrison was in the Democratic primary.
Speaker 3: Yes time around.
Speaker 1: She didn't do well. She didn't do well with any
Speaker 1: type of voter, no matter what demographic you looked at,
Speaker 1: she didn't do well. She had to drop out before
Speaker 1: the voting even you know, began in her home state
Speaker 1: because there was so much concern about how she would fare.
Speaker 1: Her proof of rating is lower, consistently lower than Biden's.
Speaker 1: She fares in terms of head to head matchup. She
Speaker 1: consistently fares more poorly against Trump or any other Republican
Speaker 1: than Joe Biden does. So I don't think the issue
Speaker 1: is that they're actually secretly afraid of Yeah, that's right there,
Speaker 1: you're throwing that out there.
Speaker 3: It's also not the pressest fault that you're bad at
Speaker 3: your job.
Speaker 2: But of course that's a very convenient explanation, Crystal, what
Speaker 2: do you take.
Speaker 3: A look at well.
Speaker 1: In a recent trove of documents called the Pandora Papers
Speaker 1: was released revealing how the world deleite hid their many millions,
Speaker 1: the countrymen of one nation were oddly missing among all
Speaker 1: the documents showing offshore accounts, secret bank accounts, shady shell companies.
Speaker 1: Few rich Americans had their secrets exposed, because, as it
Speaker 1: turns out, if you're wealthy in America, you don't really
Speaker 1: have to illegally hyde your ridges. Our bought off political
Speaker 1: class has already provided ample loopholes and legally sanctioned tricks
Speaker 1: to keep the rich from having to pay much in taxes, or,
Speaker 1: in some instances, really anything at all. This situation was
Speaker 1: made worse under the Trump administration when his tax cuts
Speaker 1: for the rich open up new opportunities for the wealthy
Speaker 1: to skate with low or no taxes. But the preservation
Speaker 1: of low taxes for the rich has truly been a
Speaker 1: bipartisan affair, and now a former Obama solicitor general is
Speaker 1: behind a new push to guarantee that the ultra wealthy
Speaker 1: never have to pay their fair share. That is, according
Speaker 1: to reporting from our friends over at lever News, Neil
Speaker 1: Katyal has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: on behalf of an anti tax organization attempting to use
Speaker 1: an obscure corporate taxation case as a vehicle for permanently
Speaker 1: banning wealth taxes. Now, this effort would block one of
Speaker 1: the most promising ideas put forward in recent years to
Speaker 1: make sure billionaires are taxed at anything approaching the rates
Speaker 1: of ordinary Marria Mericans Kachiall has gained prominence in the
Speaker 1: Trump years as a resistant liberal mainstay of MSNBC. Of course,
Speaker 1: in spite of the factor, perhaps because of the fact
Speaker 1: that his work has frequently entailed carrying water for large
Speaker 1: corporations in some of the most indefensible cases. This is
Speaker 1: the man, for example, who defended Nessle after they were
Speaker 1: caught knowingly using products obtained through child slavery. He also
Speaker 1: backed Johnson and Johnson's efforts to avoid liability when their
Speaker 1: baby powder was chock full of cancer causing asbestos. Katchill's
Speaker 1: also got some Supreme Court favors that he can trade
Speaker 1: in now. During the Trump administration, he explicitly used his
Speaker 1: Obama era liberal cred to slather praise on every one
Speaker 1: of Trump Supreme Court nominees, providing them with critical Democratic
Speaker 1: cover to aid their confirmation process. Kotchiall can be seen
Speaker 1: here at Burning Man healthfully providing us all with an
Speaker 1: avatar of soulis elitism for our enjoyment as festival goers
Speaker 1: became miird in a pit of mud which left them
Speaker 1: stranded for days. Sorry I had to include that. But
Speaker 1: he is not alone in his anti wall tax crusade.
Speaker 1: He has also joined in the anarchist brief by a
Speaker 1: former Clinton era Democratic Senator John brow Now. Since leaving
Speaker 1: the Senate, bro has become a highly paid lobbyist for
Speaker 1: companies like Exonmobile, Boeing and billionaire Democratic megadone or James Simons.
Speaker 1: Every one of these companies and certainly the billionaire Megadoner,
Speaker 1: clearly have an interest in the future of this corporate
Speaker 1: tax case and whether it can successfully be used to
Speaker 1: rule a wealth tax unconstitutional. You can see how slimy
Speaker 1: all of this is on its face. Katyall with his
Speaker 1: cozy political relationships, mainstream media credibility, and willingness to just
Speaker 1: shamelessly suck up to the justices and hopes that he
Speaker 1: can favor trade down the road bro taking money from whoever, wherever,
Speaker 1: and then coincidentally arguing their financial interests as part of
Speaker 1: a dark money group that frames itself as a social
Speaker 1: welfare organization in order to avoid any scrutiny or any transparency.
Speaker 1: And the constitutional questions here is center around whether a
Speaker 1: wealth tax can count as income under the sixteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: can unrealized gains count as quote unquote. Now, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to bore you with a lot of technical analysis,
Speaker 1: especially since the Supreme Court mostly just uses legal analysis
Speaker 1: as a cover for doing whatever the hell they want
Speaker 1: to do. Based on their ideology, personal corruption, and financial interests.
Speaker 1: But it is worth noting that the very first income
Speaker 1: tax that passed after ratification of the sixteenth Amendment actually
Speaker 1: included unrealized corporate earnings as part of income, So at
Speaker 1: least at the time, they certainly thought income included unrealized games.
Speaker 1: In other words, to put this in plane in English,
Speaker 1: based on the definition and implementation of the sixteenth Amendment
Speaker 1: at that time, a wealth tax should pose no constitutional
Speaker 1: problem whatsoever. Now, the need for a billionaire tax is
Speaker 1: obvious as a matter of revenue generation, basic fairness, and
Speaker 1: also to try to coax our society back from the
Speaker 1: brink of literal madness. Let's just say that wild inequality
Speaker 1: with billionaires building new cities from scratch while most Americans
Speaker 1: can't even make the rent not exactly great for the
Speaker 1: health of a nation. Currently, the wealthiest Americans pay for
Speaker 1: far less in taxes than you are likely paying right now.
Speaker 1: One report found that on average, the four hundred wealthiest
Speaker 1: Americans pay an effective tax rate of eight point two percent.
Speaker 1: And that's an average that means there are plenty who
Speaker 1: are paying even less than this poultry sum. Now, the
Speaker 1: wealth taxes come a long way from lefty fringe idea
Speaker 1: to more mainstream acceptance. Even Joe Biden, hardly a class revolutionary,
Speaker 1: embraced it as a means to potentially pay for the
Speaker 1: now tabled build back better currently seems a complete impossibility
Speaker 1: so long as Republicans hold the House and Joe Manchin
Speaker 1: holds the Senate. But listen, few elections could potentially change everything,
Speaker 1: which is exactly why an unholy alignance of corporate interest
Speaker 1: and bipartisan goals are doing all that they can to
Speaker 1: make sure that when it comes to taxing the rich,
Speaker 1: nothing ever changes. And it is remarkable to me the
Speaker 1: way that they are.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 2: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, saga, what are you looking at?
Speaker 2: Well as anyone who watches this show knows, I care
Speaker 2: a lot about dress code, much to the chagrin probably
Speaker 2: of most of you. Now most of society also is
Speaker 2: on your side at this point, and often I hear
Speaker 2: some version.
Speaker 3: Of why do you even care?
Speaker 2: We have bigger problems to worry about, or is it
Speaker 2: somehow elitists to think that dress code should be in
Speaker 2: place for the most powerful people in America.
Speaker 3: That's an interesting one.
Speaker 2: In this monologue, I'm going to try to answer those
Speaker 2: questions and make a case for why you should care,
Speaker 2: or at the very least, why you should think a
Speaker 2: little bit harder about the clear trend away by elites
Speaker 2: to dress down. The brujaja all started this week after
Speaker 2: the news broke that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has
Speaker 2: instructed the Sergeant of Arms to no longer enforce the
Speaker 2: dress code on the floor of the United States Senate.
Speaker 2: The new directive says that business attire for members is
Speaker 2: no longer required in the chamber, in a nod to
Speaker 2: Senator John Fetterman and Senator Christian Cinema, who have both
Speaker 2: repeatedly violated the long standing policy. The details of the
Speaker 2: policy hit home to something I have always tried to
Speaker 2: underscore that when politicians dressed down in an official capacity,
Speaker 2: they're not trying to relate to you.
Speaker 3: They think they're better than you.
Speaker 2: Till missing from the analysis is that it only applies
Speaker 2: to senators on the floor. In other words, if you're
Speaker 2: one of the clerks or one of the aids, or
Speaker 2: a member of the press or a visitor, you will
Speaker 2: still be required to wear a suit and a tie,
Speaker 2: or if you're a woman, you will need closed toed
Speaker 2: shoes and you have to cover your shoulders. The elites
Speaker 2: can wear whatever they want and dressed like slobs. The
Speaker 2: staff must abide by the precedent. So okay, you could say, then, well,
Speaker 2: who cares? Then just let the staff wear whatever they want.
Speaker 3: Why is the.
Speaker 2: Senate floor so special anyways? Do that have a very
Speaker 2: simple answer? The Senate floor, the House of Representatives, the
Speaker 2: Oval Office. They are symbols not of an individual, but
Speaker 2: of representative democracy itself.
Speaker 3: It is not a boardroom. It is not just a
Speaker 3: mere corporation.
Speaker 2: It is, at its best, the place in which the
Speaker 2: will of the people are supposed to be expressed. The
Speaker 2: point of dress code on the Capitol or at the
Speaker 2: White House has always been an enduring idea. Those who
Speaker 2: serve us must not do so for themselves, but must
Speaker 2: know the work that they are doing is on our behalf. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, so much of that already has been stripped
Speaker 2: away in policy, But shall we take away even the symbol?
Speaker 2: A symbol endures through time and through history. Is a
Speaker 2: matter of seriousness to understand that when they walk on
Speaker 2: the floor to make laws on our behalf, it is
Speaker 2: a form of service rather than one just for their
Speaker 2: own benefit. Even in a much lesser role like my
Speaker 2: job here, the idea still applies. Yes, I have come
Speaker 2: to enjoy wearing a suit daily. I don't just do
Speaker 2: it though for myself. When I put it on in
Speaker 2: the morning, I think about the people who watch the
Speaker 2: show all over the country, who I've met who say
Speaker 2: that they feel as if it's a source that speaks
Speaker 2: to their interests and their needs, that its respectability is
Speaker 2: one of the things that validates their lives and helps
Speaker 2: them share the show with other people. In time, I've
Speaker 2: come to think of it too out of respect that
Speaker 2: if you give us the grace of your time, which
Speaker 2: is your most precious resource, it's the very least that
Speaker 2: I can do for you. You might have seen a
Speaker 2: recent trend on TikTok where women have been asking men
Speaker 2: in their lives how often do you think about the
Speaker 2: Roman Empire? Apparently many think of it daily. With exciting
Speaker 2: their thoughts about the empire is how it relates to
Speaker 2: the origins of our democratic system and as a cautionary
Speaker 2: tale for how a Western empire can fall prey to
Speaker 2: its worst instincts and degenerate over time. Funnily enough, Roman
Speaker 2: history never was really my bag, which we can still
Speaker 2: talk about at another time, but apparently, since so many
Speaker 2: people are interested, here's something to think about. The Senate
Speaker 2: chamber itself was modeled by the Founders off of the
Speaker 2: Roman Senate. The original Senate, as designed by the Founders,
Speaker 2: did not feature directly elected senators, instead those appointed by
Speaker 2: state legislators. The idea was that these representatives, with longer
Speaker 2: term appointments would not always get caught up in a
Speaker 2: mob movement and could coolly deliberate whether laws from the
Speaker 2: House deserved passage. What would you know, though, The Roman
Speaker 2: Senate was actually governed by a very strict dress.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: You may have heard or have seen the Roman toga,
Speaker 2: but the senatorial toga itself was taken very very seriously.
Speaker 2: Roman senators had the right and the duty to where
Speaker 2: the lattice clavis a toga with Tyrian purple stripe. The
Speaker 2: toga had to be worn during all ceremonial activity, which
Speaker 2: strict finds in place for not attending. Major social backlash
Speaker 2: within Rome for those who did not hew to this
Speaker 2: dress code. In fact, Cicero, one of the heroes to
Speaker 2: the American founders and the ideal of a good senator were,
Speaker 2: actually wrote extensively about how important it was to huge
Speaker 2: dress code and would lambast his enemies as UnRoman slabs
Speaker 2: that did not dress appropriately. Contrary to what many people think,
Speaker 2: the toga was not the everyday ware of the Roman citizen.
Speaker 2: In private, they would don tunic's or more comfortable clothing,
Speaker 2: as we all do today. The standards, though, were in
Speaker 2: place for the senator and other Romans of high standing
Speaker 2: to mark their civic identity as a Roman citizen. It
Speaker 2: was the embodiment of the individual and their service to
Speaker 2: a larger community. And funnily enough, it was right around
Speaker 2: the time of Emperor Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire,
Speaker 2: who succeeded the Roman Republic, that dress standards of senators
Speaker 2: had fallen apart, so much so Augustus himself decreed that
Speaker 2: sloppy dress would no longer be tolerated, that the reclaiming
Speaker 2: Rome's glory, they must all return to the toga. So
Speaker 2: there you have it, an example from history itself of
Speaker 2: the senate. Even when people start to dress like bums
Speaker 2: and representative chambers. It is a sign of civilizational decline.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's not that serious, but maybe they were onto
Speaker 2: something that a high standard of dress in the Senate
Speaker 2: Chamber was set to remind people of their duty to
Speaker 2: their citizens. When you lose symbols, you lose yourself. When
Speaker 2: you lose yourself, you lose your government, just as the
Speaker 2: Romans did.
Speaker 3: So what do you think of some I ask?
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagres's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 2: We have a great guest standing by its Andrew Yang.
Speaker 2: We're gonna do a long interview actually with him, so
Speaker 2: we'll post a little bit later.
Speaker 3: We'll see you later.