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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,

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Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade

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Speaker 2: the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent coverage.

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Speaker 3: That is possible.

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Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means

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Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,

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Speaker 2: let's get to the show.

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Speaker 3: Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints.

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Speaker 1: We have less than two days until what almost one

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand workers could walk off the job

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Speaker 1: in Detroit if they don't strike a bargain with the

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Speaker 1: big three automakers. We're going to talk about that in

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Speaker 1: just a moment. We also have some news on COVID origins.

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Speaker 1: What else what else we got today?

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Speaker 4: Well, of course the big news about impeachment. We're going

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Speaker 4: to start with that. We have lots of video clips

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Speaker 4: that I think give a great glimpse and said, what

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Speaker 4: was happening in Capitol Hill yesterday? Ryan was there, so

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Speaker 4: he can share some color from actually doing some on

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Speaker 4: the ground reporting inside the halls of the Capitol last night.

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Speaker 4: We're going to talk about the Biden administration's new waiver

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Speaker 4: to unfreeze some of Iran's own money and the controversy

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Speaker 4: that has erupted. We're going to hear from the White

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Speaker 4: House their response to criticism from Republicans. We're gonna be

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Speaker 4: talking about Woody Harrelson his response to some the war,

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Speaker 4: the war in Ukraine. I'm going to be talking about

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Speaker 4: a little bit of a snitch line that's happening in

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Speaker 4: La Ryan, You've.

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Speaker 1: Got some Yeah, Today, we're going to get inflation numbers.

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Speaker 1: Those are going to be out by the time that

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Speaker 1: you've watched this, so we'll be talking about that later

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Speaker 1: in the program. We'll talk about the inflation numbers as

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Speaker 1: they relate to worker power and the battle between capital

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Speaker 1: and labor. And then at the end, speaking of capital,

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this incredible story of how

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Speaker 1: one of Warren Buffett's kids bought a town.

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Speaker 3: Why not if you can?

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Speaker 4: Why not? Why not?

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Speaker 1: But Yeah, So I was on Capitol Hill yesterday and

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Speaker 1: all the reporters, how are you responding to Kevin McCarthy

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Speaker 1: deciding that he's going to open an impeachment inquiry?

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Speaker 3: And it was so kind of depressing.

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Speaker 1: It's like I was with Federmal who cares you don't

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Speaker 1: have the votes for this?

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Speaker 3: Why are we doing this? What's going on? Anyway? Here

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Speaker 3: is what everybody was responding to.

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Speaker 1: Let's roll Kevin McCarthy's kind of quick press conference that

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Speaker 1: he called yesterday morning.

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Speaker 5: I am directing our House Committee to open a formal

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Speaker 5: impeachment inquiry to President Joe Biden.

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Speaker 6: This logical next step.

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Speaker 5: Will give our committees the full power to gather all

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Speaker 5: the facts and answers for the American public. It's exactly

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Speaker 5: what we want to know, the answers. I believe the

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Speaker 5: President would want to answer these questions and allegations as well.

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Speaker 1: Now, crucially, the way that an impeachment inquiry is opened

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Speaker 1: is through a vote on the House floor. Typically, typically

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Speaker 1: that's what it is supposed to trigger all of the

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Speaker 1: kind of extra powers that come with that impeachment inquiry

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Speaker 1: and the ability to obtain records, deeper subpoena power. McCarthy

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Speaker 1: has said he's not going to do that, He's just

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Speaker 1: going to declare an inquiry. But we also have some

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Speaker 1: suggestion of where this declaration come from came from. Here's

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Speaker 1: Matt Gates speaking on the floor A little bit after

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Speaker 1: McCarthy's announcement.

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Speaker 7: On this very floor in January, the whole world witnessed

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Speaker 7: a historic contest for House Speaker. I rise today to

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Speaker 7: serve notice, mister Speaker, you are out of compliance with

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Speaker 7: the agreement that allowed you to assume this role. The

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Speaker 7: path forward for the House of Representatives is to either

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Speaker 7: bring you into immediate total compliance or remove you pursuing

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Speaker 7: to emotion to vacate the chair.

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Speaker 4: So there you see very clearly the connection here between

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Speaker 4: impeachment and the motion to vacate, and this is all

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Speaker 4: tied together. That's why this is such a busy fall

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Speaker 4: because this is going to get into the government shutdown argument,

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Speaker 4: This is going to get into changing the speaker, and

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Speaker 4: this is going to get into impeachment. All of this

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Speaker 4: is colliding in this short number of days that they're

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Speaker 4: actually in session a before a government shut down at

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Speaker 4: the end of this month. So now they're going to

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Speaker 4: be fighting over whether they pass a continuing resolution to

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Speaker 4: fund the government into December, which is McCarthy's preference, and

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Speaker 4: then they have to figure out how to fund the

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Speaker 4: government before the end of the year, or I mean,

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Speaker 4: it's McCarthy's like between a rock and a hard place,

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Speaker 4: and he's been there for six months now, six months plus,

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Speaker 4: so he has some experience there. But holy smokes, is

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Speaker 4: this entangled not for him in the next.

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Speaker 3: Couple of months.

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Speaker 1: And so Gates is saying that if he puts a

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Speaker 1: CR on the floor, he will introduce a motion to

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Speaker 1: kick McCarthy out of the speakership. A CR stands for

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Speaker 1: continuing resolution, which also isn't very helpful if you're not

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Speaker 1: following Congress. It basically means whatever the kind of line

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Speaker 1: of the budget lines are now, those continue until a

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Speaker 1: certain date. So if they do a CR until December fifth,

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Speaker 1: then the government stays funded at the same rate until

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Speaker 1: December fifth. And they've been kicking around the idea of,

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Speaker 1: you know, a CR into December. Gates said, no, you

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Speaker 1: do that, We're going to kick macarthy out of the chair.

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Speaker 1: Now does he have the votes to kick macarthy out

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Speaker 1: of the chair, We don't know. But the alternative is

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Speaker 1: to pass a dozen appropriation bills through all the different

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Speaker 1: committees and then pass those through the Senate and then

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Speaker 1: have those signed by President Joe Biden.

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Speaker 3: Well that's a complete fantasy, of course. So he's saying

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Speaker 3: neither is okay.

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Speaker 4: And right right, and there are a million We're going

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Speaker 4: to get into this, I think a little bit later

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Speaker 4: in the block, but there are a million different scenarios

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Speaker 4: where neither is okay. Like those are the two options

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Speaker 4: on the table, and they're not workable whatsoever. So it's

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Speaker 4: it's just going to be for people who want their

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Speaker 4: government to function. Some people don't want their government to function.

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Speaker 4: A lot of people in the on the right say like,

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Speaker 4: screw it, you know you're not doing anything for us anyway.

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Speaker 4: I don't mind if you shut down for a month,

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Speaker 4: but if you're not in that camp, this fall is

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Speaker 4: going to be, uh, not going to be. It's going

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Speaker 4: to be a bloodbath from that perspective.

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Speaker 1: And what makes it all feels so empty and why

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Speaker 1: it felt so hollow upon the Hill yesterday is Later

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Speaker 1: in that speech, Gates talks about the things that the

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Speaker 1: Freedom Concus wants kind of in exchange for their leveraging

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Speaker 1: of this this power.

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Speaker 3: Here's what he said. He wants to vote on a

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Speaker 3: bounced budget amendment.

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Speaker 1: He wants a vote on an impeachment inquiry, not just

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Speaker 1: a declaration of it. He wants to vote on term limits.

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Speaker 1: So he wants these three votes, very reminiscent of force

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Speaker 1: the vote back in twenty twenty one when the left

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Speaker 1: was saying we want to vote on Medicare for all,

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Speaker 1: because just like that vote, Gates acknowledges on the floor.

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Speaker 1: He says, these things aren't going to pass. Bounced budget

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Speaker 1: amendment's not going to pass. He no, term limits probably

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Speaker 1: won't pass. And he says, oh, term limits might pass.

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Speaker 1: It's an easy thing to vote for because you know

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Speaker 1: the Senate's not going.

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Speaker 3: To take it up. And he says even impeachment inquiry

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Speaker 3: might not pass. But they just just wants to be

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Speaker 3: seen fighting.

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Speaker 4: He needs it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he needs to give his base something. So it

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Speaker 1: feels like McCarthy justes, okay, fine, vote on a balanced budgement.

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Speaker 1: But then right exactly, you have people like Nancy Mace

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Speaker 1: who are like, why are you making us walk the

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Speaker 1: plank on these unpopular items?

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Speaker 4: And that's where so there's the Tuesday Group Republicans, god

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Speaker 4: of moderate Republicans or people who are aligned with them,

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Speaker 4: versus the Freedom Caucus Republicans. And actually, when you have

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Speaker 4: the slim of a major of a majority, both are

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Speaker 4: in a big position of power for Kevin McCarthy. And

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Speaker 4: so Nancy Mace though, went on CNN with Caplon Collins

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Speaker 4: and defended the impeachment inquiry. And this is where without

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Speaker 4: a vote, and this is where the rubber meets the

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Speaker 4: road for Republicans in that they know even in moderate districts.

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Speaker 4: So Nancy Mace is from a solid red state, but

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Speaker 4: you know, not a not a let's say, you know,

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Speaker 4: red meat necessarily.

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Speaker 3: Part of South Caroline, Charleston.

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Speaker 4: People are doing all right, not like a populist haven

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Speaker 4: in South Carolina, but people want impeachment. Republican voters want impeachment.

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Speaker 4: It doesn't matter if you're populist or not. They look

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Speaker 4: at what's happened with Joe Biden Hunter Biden. They see

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Speaker 4: that there were outright lines over the course of the campaign,

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Speaker 4: and they want an impeachment from it. And so here's

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Speaker 4: Nancy Mace defending impeachment. As we heard this from Kevin

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Speaker 4: McCarthy as well. But this is the key. You're going

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Speaker 4: to hear what she says that it gives them certain powers.

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Speaker 4: And Ryan and I are going to get into whether

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Speaker 4: or not that's actually the case. But here's Nancy Mace

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Speaker 4: making that case.

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Speaker 3: You support launching an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

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Speaker 8: Well, I mean, it's hard to say at this point.

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Speaker 8: I think there's a difference between an impeachment vote and

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Speaker 8: an inquiry. The inquiry would give us another tool and

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Speaker 8: a toolbox, specifically to look at Joe Biden's bank records.

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Speaker 8: Everyone's screaming about the evidence. Where's the evidence. The bank

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Speaker 8: records hold all of the evidence. And if the American people, Caitlin,

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Speaker 8: if you could see the suspicious activity reports that I

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Speaker 8: have seen on the Biden family, you would too, would

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Speaker 8: probably support an impeachment inquiry just as a tool to

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Speaker 8: get more information on specifically the bank information bank records

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Speaker 8: of Joe Biden as family members. That's an important tool

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Speaker 8: in our toolbox.

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Speaker 9: What is a difference an inquiry and a peachment?

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Speaker 10: There is no difference on They have to vote on

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Speaker 10: whether to move forward on impeachments.

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Speaker 3: That's what the vote is.

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Speaker 10: That's what when we voted on impeachment of Donald Trump,

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Speaker 10: who we impeached twice because there was real credible evidence

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Speaker 10: that came up publicly and was evident and obvious, not

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Speaker 10: this hazy gray area that they're hanging their hat on.

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Speaker 10: They've acknowledged there's no evidence against Joe Biden. They are

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Speaker 10: going to vote. The House has to vote to move

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Speaker 10: forward on an impeachment period. They're adding the word inquiry

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Speaker 10: like they're still going to do some investigations. They've been

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Speaker 10: investigating for months and months. They've acknowledged they have no evidence.

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Speaker 3: Well they have not actually acknowledged they have no evidence.

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Speaker 1: But on her other point, you do have to vote,

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Speaker 1: and this is according to Politico reported this last night.

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Speaker 3: If you don't vote in the House that you're.

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Speaker 1: Opening an impeachment inquiry, then you're just some dude saying

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Speaker 1: some stuff, and then therefore you don't open up the

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Speaker 1: extra powers that come with the impeachment creer. That's according

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Speaker 1: to Trump's Office of Legal Counsel right that issued or

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Speaker 1: issued a kind of internal ruling on this. And it

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Speaker 1: matters because you know, you say, well, that's just the

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Speaker 1: opinion of the Trump administration, and now it is obviously

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Speaker 1: the opinion of the Biden administration. But it matters because

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Speaker 1: now if you get a subpoena that gets sent to

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Speaker 1: the White House, the White House, we'll just send it back.

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Speaker 1: Like here's the OLC memo from the Trump administration, thank

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Speaker 1: you for your subpoena. Once you vote on the House floor,

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Speaker 1: then you come back to us and then maybe we'll

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Speaker 1: comply with this. Their only route then is to try

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Speaker 1: to sue them, but that gets into some awfully diceyat

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Speaker 1: balance of powers questions, and the White House can be like, hey,

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court, thank you.

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Speaker 3: For your opinion.

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Speaker 1: Yes, but we're also not letting you weigh in on

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Speaker 1: the balance of power issue like this.

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Speaker 4: And I think that's imminent no matter what, even if

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Speaker 4: Kevin McCarthy brings this to a vote on the floor,

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Speaker 4: I think all of this is going to get tied up.

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Speaker 4: Because I actually went into this yesterday. I was trying

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Speaker 4: to figure out exactly what powers are granted to you

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Speaker 4: by declaring an inquiry or even voting to start an

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Speaker 4: impeachment inquiry. And it's basically Court's interpretations of what it

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Speaker 4: means what powers. As you were just referencing what powers

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Speaker 4: you have of the House of Representatives, what powers constitutionally

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Speaker 4: impeachment grants you. And so if you're going for bank records,

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Speaker 4: if you're confident that starting this impeachment inquiry is going

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Speaker 4: to get you bank records, I would imagine that's going

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Speaker 4: to get tied up in courts no matter what, because

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Speaker 4: the Biden administration has zero interest in complying with any

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Speaker 4: of that. They don't feel like they have to comply

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Speaker 4: with any of that, So I don't see why they

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Speaker 4: wouldn't kick it to the court system anyway. So it's

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Speaker 4: not going to be neat and clean no matter what.

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Speaker 4: Here's actually speaking of the Biden White House. Here is

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Speaker 4: a response from Ian Sam's he's working in communications over

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Speaker 4: at the White House. I think he's actually a communications

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Speaker 4: director there. He said, Well, anyone asked Speaker McCarthy, why

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Speaker 4: an impeachment inquiry is the next logical step? The House

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Speaker 4: GOP investigations have turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by Potus.

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Speaker 4: In fact, their own witnesses has testified to that, and

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Speaker 4: their own documents have shown no life to Potus. I

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Speaker 4: don't think that's true, but we'll keep reading what Ian

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Speaker 4: Sam says. Reminder, McCarthy already said weeks ago in Fox

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Speaker 4: he'd move forward with an impeachment, an appearance in which

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Speaker 4: he based his impeachment push on non existent obstruction of

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Speaker 4: a non existent request. Why no mainstream accountability for that falsehood?

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Speaker 4: We can keep going with Ian Sam's Here is his

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Speaker 4: final tweet or X on the matter. McCarthy is being

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Speaker 4: told by Marjorie Tayler Green to do impeachment or else

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Speaker 4: sheield shut down the government. Opening impeachment despite zero evidence

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Speaker 4: of wrongdoing by Potus is simply red meat for the

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Speaker 4: extreme right wing, so they can keep basically attacking him.

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Speaker 4: They admit it. We can move to the next element

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Speaker 4: here too.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so you admit it.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know. So I actually think this

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Speaker 4: is pretty interesting because even in Axios this morning, Mike

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Speaker 4: Allen's newsletter Morning Newsletter admitted there's a big problem for

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Speaker 4: the Biden White House here, which is that Joe Biden

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Speaker 4: flat out lied about a whether he had been involved

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Speaker 4: more than just like very very super officially in the business.

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Speaker 4: He lied about that. He lied about whether Hunter Biden

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Speaker 4: made any money from China. Those are two things he

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Speaker 4: said on the campaign trail in twenty twenty that if

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Speaker 4: we zoom out to the thirty thousand foot view and

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Speaker 4: look at it, say, why would somebody lie about those

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Speaker 4: two things? Even though we may have like color here

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Speaker 4: and there, and you know, understand it a little bit

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Speaker 4: from you know, the perspective of the politics. If you

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Speaker 4: zoom out as as an average American, you look at

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Speaker 4: it and you're like, well, that's pretty weird and that's

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Speaker 4: pretty bad. So I think Republicans feel like they have

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Speaker 4: the win at their backs when it comes to that. Now,

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Speaker 4: on the other hand, when it comes to all this

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Speaker 4: minutia about tying it back to Joe Biden and you

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Speaker 4: know what the text about the big guy means, and

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Speaker 4: you know, giving half your salary to Pops all of

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Speaker 4: those things, that's a little bit more difficult of a

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Speaker 4: case to make, even though I think that's legitimate evidence.

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Speaker 1: The other fundamental problem that this impeachment inquiry has is

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Speaker 1: that it involves activity that predated and was known before

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Speaker 1: he was president. So we had an election, I agree

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Speaker 1: on which the Republicans ran heavily on the idea that

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Speaker 1: he was corrupt, and he was elected anyway, and so

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Speaker 1: it would be breaking new ground to say that you're

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Speaker 1: going to impeach somebody for something that they did before

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Speaker 1: they were in office. Generally that's you know, you prosecute

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Speaker 1: them or you sue them, But impeachment is for things

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Speaker 1: that you do in office. You know, the whole audience

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Speaker 1: is going to say, what about Spiro Agnew. I don't

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Speaker 1: know about all the details.

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Speaker 3: Of spiritu agg.

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Speaker 4: Everyone in the audience right now.

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Speaker 1: What about spirit ag And he did not get impeached.

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Speaker 1: He'd resigned in disgrace, so that's slightly Would he.

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Speaker 3: Ever have gotten impeached, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: He was busted in all sorts of Maryland corruption and

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Speaker 1: he was Nixon's vice president.

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Speaker 3: That's how we wound up with Ford.

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Speaker 1: And so that's the only one that I can think

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Speaker 1: of that, you know, you might have gotten close to

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Speaker 1: getting impeached for something that he hadn't done while he

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Speaker 1: was in office. And then I think is a high

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Speaker 1: part of voters too, because the voters are like, look,

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Speaker 1: this was up to us, you know, we just sid

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Speaker 1: at this, And the Republics will say, well, there was

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Speaker 1: you know, Twitter censored us from like sharing all this information.

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Speaker 1: So therefore I guess we have to impeach him now.

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Speaker 1: But also, as Matt Gates admitted in the in the

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Speaker 1: pieces that you just posted, that this is a platform,

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Speaker 1: this is a way to drag.

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Speaker 3: Down his numbers.

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Speaker 4: Well, and that's why they can.

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Speaker 3: Do it fast. They will help democrats so that somebody

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Speaker 3: will replace Biden. Iron Democrats can get somebody reasonable.

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Speaker 4: In there, you know. Actually that was a case made

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Speaker 4: in the Washington Post just this morning, basically that like,

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Speaker 4: the time is it's time for Joe Biden to step down,

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Speaker 4: and the clock is ticking.

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Speaker 3: Democrats to start leaking, right, maybe they will.

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Speaker 4: Ryan's dms are open, but no, ironically, it's actually Kevin

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Speaker 4: McCarthy is the one who said that about the Benghazi

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Speaker 4: hearings and Hillary Clinton and gotten huge hot water with

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Speaker 4: a sort of establishment Republican sect when he came out

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Speaker 4: I think it was on Fox News back in twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 4: I mean it must have been twenty fifteen, about how

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Speaker 4: Benghazi was. He tied it to Hillary Clinton's campaign fortunes,

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Speaker 4: essentially the Benghazi hearings. On that note, and on the

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Speaker 4: note of Matt Gates talking about how it's all about

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Speaker 4: tarnishing Biden, let's go to the thread A seven here.

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Speaker 4: The dynamics internally the Republican Party, which we talk about

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Speaker 4: a lot here on the show, are absolutely key. This

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Speaker 4: is Mani Roger saying. Matt Gates warns that if McCarthy

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Speaker 4: puts a c R on the floor to keep the

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Speaker 4: government open, then he will force a vote to oust him.

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Speaker 4: He also warns there will be regular votes to oust him. Quote.

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Speaker 4: We are going to have them regularly, he says, and

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Speaker 4: suggests that it could happen daily. Let's put a eight

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Speaker 4: up on the screen. This is from Melanie Zna of Politico.

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Speaker 4: She says, the knives are out or CNN for Representative

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Speaker 4: ken Buck, one of the key lawmakers standing in the

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Speaker 4: way of a Biden impeachment. There's a serious effort to

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Speaker 4: recruit a primary challenger, while Marjor Taylor Green says he

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Speaker 4: shouldn't serve under the judiciary or whip team anymore. So

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Speaker 4: let's quickly ken Buck is under fire and the Freedom

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Speaker 4: Caucus with Freedom Caucus folks right now, because he came

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Speaker 4: out against making a huge deal of the January sixth,

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Speaker 4: the allegedmis treatment of January sixth prisoners, and wrote a

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Speaker 4: letter to I think it was like a county chairman

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Speaker 4: in his district back in Colorado, refuting some claims of

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Speaker 4: allegedmist treatment of the January sixth prisoners. This got on

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Speaker 4: the wrong side of Marjori Taylor Green a lot of

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Speaker 4: people in the Freedom Caucus. Marjor Taylor Green is not

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Speaker 4: even in the Freedom Caucus anymore. So what does this

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Speaker 4: have to do with impeachment? What does this have to

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Speaker 4: do with a government shutdown? Well, actually voting on impeachment,

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Speaker 4: as we talked about earlier, if you lose Ken Buck,

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Speaker 4: somebody who would have typically been counted on as a

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Speaker 4: gimme because he's a member of the Freedom Caucus and

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Speaker 4: you can only lose four people in an impeachment vote,

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Speaker 4: that's huge in and of itself. If he's out, then

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Speaker 4: we're talking about a totally different navigation. And then on

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Speaker 4: top of that, if these dynamics internally between Marjorie Taylor

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Speaker 4: Green Matt Gates, Matt Gates was flirting this week with

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Speaker 4: getting Democrats to help him with a motion of vacate

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Speaker 4: to oust Kevin McCarthy, Meaning if he got like two

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Speaker 4: hundred Democrats to vote as just chaos agents, they could

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Speaker 4: ask Kevin McCarthy with justin Matt Gates and a bunch

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Speaker 4: of Democrats, because that's how bad the numbers are for

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Speaker 4: Kevin McCarthy and for Republicans. So this has to do

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Speaker 4: with the markets based on a government shutdown. It has

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Speaker 4: to do with all of us the way that our

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Speaker 4: lives run. When we're talking about a government shutdown, it

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Speaker 4: has to do with what's going to happen with government funding,

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Speaker 4: what's going to get funded, what's not going to get funded.

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Speaker 4: It's a mess this fall, and they don't have a

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Speaker 4: lot of time to handle impeachment and funding.

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Speaker 1: And what's so depressing about all this is that ken

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Speaker 1: Buck has been really good on antitrust stuff and has

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Speaker 1: been willing to work with Democrats going after a big

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Speaker 1: tech and actually bridging that kind of populist coalition that

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Speaker 1: gets talked about. But that's not what's important in Washington.

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Speaker 1: Like it, it doesn't have the juice. What has the

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Speaker 1: juice is you know, impeachment hearings and saying stuff about

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Speaker 1: you know, is sticking to the party line about what's

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Speaker 1: going on in the DC jail, even if ken Buck

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Speaker 1: looked into it and thinks that's not what's going on

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Speaker 1: inside the DC jail. But the person that kind of

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Speaker 1: channeled my own response to this the most was actually

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Speaker 1: probably Fetterman. So do we have Fetterman's response when he

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Speaker 1: was asked about.

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Speaker 3: This is the Beach inquiry?

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Speaker 4: A five? Yeah, let's watch this ask you about this

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Speaker 4: news that Speaker McCarthy has formally launched an impeachment in

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Speaker 4: sad he's going to Oh my god, really, oh my gosh,

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Speaker 4: you know, Oh, it's devastating.

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Speaker 6: Don't do it, Please, don't do it.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, no, yeah, sounds about right, because the whole

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Speaker 1: thing's theater.

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Speaker 3: They're not going to get sixty seven votes in the Senate.

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Speaker 3: They might not even have the votes in the House.

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Speaker 3: So what does matter?

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Speaker 1: Over in Detroit at eleven fifty nine PM on Thursday,

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Speaker 1: contracts expire and president UAW President Sean Fain, who first

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Speaker 1: democratically elected president of the UAW basically ever and elected

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Speaker 1: by a kind of lefty reform kind of energy inside

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Speaker 1: the UAW, taking a very aggressive stand and says that

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Speaker 1: they will walk out on on auto companies who have

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Speaker 1: not that they've not reached a bargain with yet. He

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Speaker 1: spoke with Jake Tapper recently and ahead of this. What

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Speaker 1: he talked about, and we're going to play some of

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Speaker 1: this clip. What we talked about is that profits and

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Speaker 1: CEO pay have been up forty percent over the last

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Speaker 1: couple of years. Nobody freaked out about that. Let's hear

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Speaker 1: Sean Fain talking about the workers demands.

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Speaker 11: When workers ask for their fair share, it's always the

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Speaker 11: end of the world. And you know, no one you know,

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Speaker 11: the last four years in general, okay, in the last decade,

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Speaker 11: these companies made a quarter of a trillion dollars in profit.

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Speaker 11: In the last six months alone, they made twenty one

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Speaker 11: billion in profit. In the last four years. The price

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Speaker 11: of cars went up thirty percent, CEO pay went up

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Speaker 11: forty percent. No one said a word, No one had

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Speaker 11: any complaints about that. But now God forbid that workers

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Speaker 11: actually asked for their fair share of equity and the

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Speaker 11: fruits of the labor and the product they produce, and

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Speaker 11: all of a sudden, it's the end of the world.

438
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:03,000
Speaker 11: So you know, if you know, the talking heads, the pundits,

439
00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:04,879
Speaker 11: the companies want to say that, you know, if we strive,

440
00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:07,159
Speaker 11: it can wrect the economy. It's not that we're going

441
00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:09,480
Speaker 11: to wreckt the economy. We're going to we're going to

442
00:21:09,560 --> 00:21:12,480
Speaker 11: wreck their economy, the economy that only works for the

443
00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:14,840
Speaker 11: billionaire class. It doesn't work for the working class.

444
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:17,520
Speaker 4: Here are that analysts? All right?

445
00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:21,200
Speaker 1: Uaw President Sean Feng, thanks for your time today, appreciate it, sir.

446
00:21:21,240 --> 00:21:23,760
Speaker 3: We did invite the big three automakers to come on.

447
00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:27,159
Speaker 3: They declined. The invitation is openreach.

448
00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:30,879
Speaker 4: Brother, it's aggressive, and he is ever from his position,

449
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:33,280
Speaker 4: he has every reason to be aggressive. They have one

450
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:35,600
Speaker 4: hundred percent. And you know this is a It's actually

451
00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:39,200
Speaker 4: kind of interesting because the UAW feels like they can

452
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:42,879
Speaker 4: if a strike happens. They feel like they're in a

453
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:46,160
Speaker 4: position unlike ups where they can last a little bit.

454
00:21:46,280 --> 00:21:49,199
Speaker 4: Like they don't feel the same crunch to make a

455
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:52,920
Speaker 4: deal before anything happens like the rail workers like it

456
00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:55,240
Speaker 4: for them, doesn't feel like an emergency to get the

457
00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:58,520
Speaker 4: deal out before a strike starts at all. Uh So,

458
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:01,920
Speaker 4: I mean it's not the same exactly the same thing.

459
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:05,600
Speaker 4: But on the other hand, the UAW has all of

460
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:08,160
Speaker 4: the leverage in the world right now. I mean, that's

461
00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:11,720
Speaker 4: why you see that's such an aggressive stance from fame,

462
00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:14,359
Speaker 4: because they really are in the driver's seat. And I

463
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:16,800
Speaker 4: did not mean for that horrible pun to actually be

464
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 4: a horrible punt, and that just was actually saying they're

465
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:20,680
Speaker 4: really in the driver's seat here.

466
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:21,920
Speaker 3: Outrageous.

467
00:22:22,119 --> 00:22:24,760
Speaker 1: Now, they have about three months in their strike fund,

468
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:30,600
Speaker 1: but within weeks the auto companies are going to start

469
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:33,919
Speaker 1: seeing problems in their supply chain. They've been working literally

470
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:37,200
Speaker 1: over time the last weeks and months to produce as

471
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:39,200
Speaker 1: many cars as possible so that they have a kind

472
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:41,560
Speaker 1: of glut so that if there is a strike, there'll

473
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:44,080
Speaker 1: be cars to go out out to the dealers, but

474
00:22:44,119 --> 00:22:46,280
Speaker 1: that will only last a couple of weeks, after which

475
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:48,800
Speaker 1: consumers who are looking for new cars are going to

476
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:51,520
Speaker 1: go to other car companies. You're going to see car

477
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:57,480
Speaker 1: prices increase, which which gives autoworkers leverage there at the

478
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:00,040
Speaker 1: same time, the auto companies have the leverage in the

479
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:02,880
Speaker 1: sense that three months is a long time, but you've

480
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:04,760
Speaker 1: seen how long the writers strike is going on, so

481
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:07,080
Speaker 1: you know, if the auto companies think they can wait

482
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:10,000
Speaker 1: them out for three months, A lot of this is

483
00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:12,199
Speaker 1: going to come down to public opinion, you know, you

484
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 1: know who, you know, who's take who's taking the heat

485
00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 1: for this, and so we'll you know, we'll we'll see

486
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,040
Speaker 1: the the The U a W is also saying that

487
00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:23,359
Speaker 1: it's willing to bargain with individual car companies, which I

488
00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:26,479
Speaker 1: think is very smart because they're trying to then split.

489
00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:30,440
Speaker 1: So if the car companies see, like, oh wait, we

490
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:33,919
Speaker 1: we have a better relationship with our union our segment

491
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:36,000
Speaker 1: of the UADUB. So we're going to reach a deal

492
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:38,119
Speaker 1: and then we can start moving cars out and we

493
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:40,280
Speaker 1: can get the good will publicly that comes with that,

494
00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: while these other people get called, you know, strike breakers,

495
00:23:43,560 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 1: and so it looks like the U a W is

496
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 1: in a strong position to get a serious deal, just

497
00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:52,640
Speaker 1: the way the teamsters did. I mean, we'll we'll see,

498
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of you know, there will probably

499
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: be a collapse today.

500
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:57,600
Speaker 3: That's that's how these things go.

501
00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: You'll get news that like talks have completely broke down,

502
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:03,680
Speaker 1: then like six hours later, you get news that actually

503
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:07,119
Speaker 1: they're back together. And then the questions do they collapse

504
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 1: again on Thursday?

505
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:10,199
Speaker 3: Do they walk out for one or two days? Do

506
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,560
Speaker 3: we get something extended? We'll see, But this is a

507
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 3: real chance for workers to flex some power.

508
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,160
Speaker 4: We talked about this a little last week with Sarabamari,

509
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 4: but I want to highlight this quote from Fain. He said,

510
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:23,640
Speaker 4: our union isn't going to stand by while they replace

511
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 4: oil barons with battery barons. And I love that because

512
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:30,199
Speaker 4: I think these dynamics are really fascinating, that sort of

513
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:35,200
Speaker 4: pit working class, bloue collar union guys who already very

514
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 4: tentative about the uaw's politics, especially on like cultural issues,

515
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,199
Speaker 4: I mean basically only on cultural issues too, sort of

516
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:47,240
Speaker 4: like culturally increasingly feel alienated to the union if they

517
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:49,480
Speaker 4: care about those sorts of things, which is not everybody,

518
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:53,360
Speaker 4: but there are That is true of some union members

519
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:59,879
Speaker 4: now against the economics of basically Democrats who are pushing

520
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 4: for the shift to electric vehicles. That is a very

521
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 4: very interesting fault line and basically this negotiation forcing the

522
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 4: Biden administration to deal with it and forcing one of

523
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 4: the biggest unions of UAW to deal with it, that

524
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 4: is setting the tone for like the next ten years

525
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:23,119
Speaker 4: and the evolution of the economy as it shifts to

526
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:27,719
Speaker 4: greener sources of energy. Batteries well, to the extent batteries

527
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:31,159
Speaker 4: are greener sources of energy, but you know, as we shift.

528
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 3: From oil more climate friendly.

529
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, put up this a p article because that gets

530
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:38,399
Speaker 1: into this and that's where you see actually an overlap

531
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: between the point that AMILY is making. The overlap between

532
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: the writer's strike and the autoworkers strike is that both

533
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:49,360
Speaker 1: of them are about control of the future changing economy.

534
00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 1: When it comes to the writer's strike, AI is a

535
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 1: huge part of it. They don't want, you know, they

536
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 1: want to make sure that humans are still involved in

537
00:25:57,560 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: the writing here and that they're not getting.

538
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 3: Just taken over by AI.

539
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: Whereas on the auto side, they're worried about these much

540
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 1: lower paid and kind of easier to do in some

541
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,720
Speaker 1: ways electric vehicle jobs, because if you look at an

542
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 1: electric vehicle, it's like four wheels in a battery. And

543
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 1: you look at an internal combustion engine, you're like, whoa,

544
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 1: you can assemble this on Christmas morning?

545
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, people do. Let's slap it together.

546
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 1: And so there are gonna be a lot fewer workers,

547
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 1: and UAW knows that, but they want to make sure

548
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: that at least, even though they are going to be

549
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: fewer workers, that at least those workers are as well

550
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 1: paid as the workers are today. And they want to

551
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: get back to where they were before because and the

552
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 1: APS talks about this too. Then in two thousand and seven,

553
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, when Detroit had its crisis, the

554
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 1: workers help save Detroit by taking huge concessions by saying,

555
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:56,160
Speaker 1: all right, we're going to get rid of our pensions.

556
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 3: We're going to move over to these crappy four oh

557
00:26:57,920 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 3: one case.

558
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 1: We're going to give up pay raises, we're going to

559
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: get worse health insurance. And what the UAW is saying

560
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: now is that, Okay, we did that. Now we're back

561
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 1: to massive profitability. So bring us back in. Yeah, and

562
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,879
Speaker 1: it's a completely reasonable case to make, but it shows

563
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 1: that once capital has gotten some type of gain, they're

564
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 1: not willing to just hand it back without it being

565
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 1: forced to.

566
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 4: And to your point, I mean public opinions, public favorability

567
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 4: of unions is soaring. I mean it is at levels

568
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 4: that haven't been seen in years. So if the Big Three,

569
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 4: if they want to test the political waters and public

570
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 4: opinion on this, it's not really going to be the

571
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:42,439
Speaker 4: right time. I mean, they can send their PR people

572
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 4: out to say the workers are going to make cars

573
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 4: cost more money, they're going to wreck the economy. They

574
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 4: can try that this time, but when you have feign,

575
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 4: you know, even defending that as well as he did

576
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:56,160
Speaker 4: on CNN saying, listen, we just went through COVID CEO

577
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 4: pay is increased x amount and this is what we're

578
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:01,439
Speaker 4: asking for the end of the day, he's going to

579
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 4: get a good deal no matter what. From the standpoint

580
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:08,239
Speaker 4: of right now, at least, let's see so meanwhile, just

581
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 4: a wild story on the COVID origin controversy put up

582
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 4: c one here.

583
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 1: The House Republicans announced that they have a whistleblower that

584
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 1: they are saying is credible from inside the CIA, who

585
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 1: tells this story that there were seven people assigned to

586
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: a task force responsible for analyzing whether or not or

587
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: what the origin of COVID was, was it natural origin

588
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:37,640
Speaker 1: or did it come out of this lab in Wuhan.

589
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: According to this whistleblower, six of the seven analysts wanted

590
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: to say with low confidence that Wuhan the lab was

591
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: the likely origin of COVID. The seventh, who was superior

592
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 1: to these other six, wanted to say with low confidence

593
00:28:56,640 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: that it was a natural origin. According to the whistle blower,

594
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: there were then financial incentives that were given to the

595
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 1: six members of the task force in order to pressure

596
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: them to go along with the natural origin.

597
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 3: That's what we know.

598
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: Letters have been sent to the head of the CIA

599
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,719
Speaker 1: and to others over at the CIA asking for records

600
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: and details. And we'll see if this whistleblower turns out

601
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 1: to be a cranker, turns out to be somebody who

602
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: actually has credible information.

603
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 3: If you read this letter.

604
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: It's somebody inside the CIA CIA who clearly knows what's

605
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: going on. They got the names of the task force,

606
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: they got the names of the people, they got the numbers.

607
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 1: So it's somebody who has some sense of what's going on.

608
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 1: We'll find out how much of this is genuine power

609
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: play that's where the whistle is being blown, and how

610
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 1: much of this is kind of internal office drama, Like

611
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: this person got a promotion and I didn't think that

612
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: they deserved a promotion, And I think they got a

613
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: promotion because they didn't go along with COVID, and I'm

614
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: going to blow the whistle on that, Like that's possible. Well,

615
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: it could be that kind of like annoying office stuff

616
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: could also be a major story.

617
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:09,560
Speaker 4: It could. It could be absolutely huge. Although at the

618
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 4: same time, as of right now, that term financial financial

619
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 4: incentives is so vague.

620
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 3: I promote like they are they could have gotten a

621
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 3: promotion or something.

622
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 4: Right, because financial incentives could mean, you know, a million

623
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 4: dollars they got a.

624
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 3: Three point five percent cola rather than the three.

625
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, and so so we need we need information, right, yeah,

626
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 4: because you would think, by the way, that if it

627
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 4: was some cold dollar amount, you would at least say

628
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 4: they were bribed with a check or so, you know,

629
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 4: you could say something more specific than financial incentives. Maybe

630
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 4: you can't for legal reasons, or maybe it's even unclear

631
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 4: to the whistle.

632
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 3: Go into its black box and just handing cash.

633
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 4: Out like Trump with the paper towels, you know. I mean,

634
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 4: this could be a lot of different things. At the

635
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 4: end of the day, though, when you have a CIA

636
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 4: whistleblower making allegations like this, it's probably probably serious, but

637
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 4: we don't quite know yet, accept Ryan. What we do

638
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 4: know is that the intelligence community hasn't exactly been shy

639
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 4: to say that this is likely allowed. They've had this

640
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 4: like low confidence. A lot of different agencies that have

641
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:18,959
Speaker 4: come out with the low confidence classification for their investigation.

642
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 1: The key ones have been the FBI and the Department

643
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: of Energy. We don't know some of them, but the

644
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: CIA has been The CIA basically has said can't figure

645
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: it out. They're like, we don't know, Like we're not

646
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: saying one way or the other. If we put up

647
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: C three, we do have response from the CIA. It's

648
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 1: rare that they put a name on a response or

649
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 1: can give a response at all. So CI Director of

650
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 1: Public Affairs Tammy Cooperman says, at CIA, we are committed

651
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: to the highest standards of analytic rigor, integrity, and objectivity.

652
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 3: Don't coffee. We do not pay analysts to.

653
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:56,600
Speaker 1: Reach specific conclusions. We take these allegations extremely seriously and

654
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: are looking into them. We will keep our Congressional oversight

655
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: comittees appropriately informed.

656
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 3: So it's not a denial, it's a.

657
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 1: Okay, this is this is a serious allegation that cuts

658
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 1: against what we say we do, and we're going to

659
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: look into it. So I think that we kind of

660
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: have to leave it it there until we until we

661
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: get more. The CIA is going to hopefully respond in

662
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: a serious way to the COVID Select Subcommittee and either,

663
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: you know, refute with some evidence these charges or maybe

664
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 1: find out that you did have somebody who was running

665
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: this task force who had a particular take on it.

666
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: And you could also see a non conspiratorial way where

667
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 1: let's say that the boss of this task force really

668
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: believes that it's natural origin and has been convinced of

669
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: that that they can then use their authority inside the

670
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: institution to get their way out of a task force.

671
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: That's called bureaucracy. That's how these things work. The public

672
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: deserves to know if it was done in an improper way,

673
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 1: and the public deserves to know what are these six

674
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 1: analysts who looked closely into this actually think, Yes, call

675
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:06,840
Speaker 1: them up to the hill, let's hear from them.

676
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 4: We should. And this is I mean, they got it

677
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 4: with the irs whistleblowers. We ended up hearing from them

678
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 4: very recently, a very recent parallel to that, I'm actually

679
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 4: really interested in this question of CIA specifically because the

680
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 4: Trump administration was increasingly adamant that a Lablaku was not conspiratorial.

681
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 4: In I mean as early as like the summer of

682
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 4: twenty twenty, as early as like the spring of twenty twenty,

683
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 4: the Trump administration was pretty hardcore about saying, we think

684
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 4: that there's a lot of evidence this is a lab leak.

685
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 4: At the time, the media was saying that this was

686
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 4: essentially a racist conspiracy theory. The evidence starts going in

687
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 4: different directions. But why I think the CIA's involvement is

688
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 4: so interesting is, as we've talked about, although the media

689
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 4: doesn't talk about it much, this implicates a Lablik directly

690
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 4: implicates the United States government, so that the CIA would

691
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 4: be in a very CIA way perhaps having someone go

692
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 4: rogue and just saying like, hey, cut it out and

693
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 4: figuring a way out where there's probably no fingerprints whatsoever.

694
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 4: But having you know, just one rogue agent be like,

695
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 4: we got it. What can we do? What can we

696
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 4: do here?

697
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: You could certainly see a situation where somebody's like, hey,

698
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: by the way, this is not just a Wuhan China

699
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,799
Speaker 1: run lab that we can just blame on China. Turns

700
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:23,480
Speaker 1: out we were actually funding this as well, which is true, Like,

701
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:26,520
Speaker 1: that's not a conspiracy. Intercept got the documents that show

702
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 1: US money was funding that lab and so, and that

703
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: makes it uncomfortable when when if you're just trying to

704
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:36,239
Speaker 1: pin in on a lab, it's like, yeah, turns out

705
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 1: that's a US funded lab too.

706
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 4: Yes. And it's something that I think the Trump administration has,

707
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:42,840
Speaker 4: not not just the Trump administration, but sort of the

708
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 4: Republicans who are on that side of the Lab leak

709
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 4: and were who were on that side of the Lab

710
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 4: league early, have to really reconcile with their distaste for

711
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 4: Fauci and the sort of byzantine bureaucratic system that allowed

712
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 4: American tax per dollars. As the interception is reported to

713
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:03,160
Speaker 4: fund the lab laboratory with very little transparency and apparently

714
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:06,279
Speaker 4: very little, very few guardrails as to how that money

715
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 4: was being used, whether it was being used responsibly, with

716
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 4: the reality that it's very possible that this bio hazard

717
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 4: emerged from that lab, because initially the theory was that

718
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 4: this was potentially a bio weapon or that China was

719
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 4: a malign for an actor that couldn't be trusted for

720
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 4: X number of reasons, and this was proof of that.

721
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,399
Speaker 4: And if we're involved, and we're at the very least

722
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 4: complicit in funding a Chinese laboratory while not enforcing any

723
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 4: guardrails on the way that the money is being spent

724
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,399
Speaker 4: or whatever it is, and reckless by the way, again,

725
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 4: at the very least, it's very difficult for Republicans to

726
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 4: reconcile those two points because the United States government is

727
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 4: implicated in it. Why are we funding this research? Is

728
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:54,839
Speaker 4: it just because you have gain of function nerds at

729
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 4: the NIH who really believe in gain of function? Maybe

730
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:01,600
Speaker 4: or maybe there's something else going on, And these are

731
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 4: really really serious questions. So I'm glad. Actually the CIA

732
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 4: is under a microscope because the intelligence communities motivations here,

733
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 4: the political motivations here. That is something that I don't

734
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 4: think has fully been probed.

735
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 3: Yeah.

736
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: Well yeah, as Chuck Schumer said, they have six ways

737
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: to get you from Sunday. So we'll see how this

738
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: works out for the covids, like subcommittee, so over and

739
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 1: over Iran some news that also relates to gas prices,

740
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: to CPI, to the economy, all of this intersects. So

741
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: the big controversy now in Washington is a prisoner swap

742
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: that was struck between the United States and Iran. Five

743
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: Iranian prisoners being traded for five US prisoners plus six

744
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 1: billion dollars in Iranian funds being allowed to be released

745
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 1: from a South Korean bank to a cuttery bank, which

746
00:36:56,760 --> 00:37:00,400
Speaker 1: Iran will then have access to only for humanitarian concerns.

747
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: And so people understand the way that this works. Iran

748
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: ships oil around the world. We sanctioned the heck out

749
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: of Iran, and so most banks don't want to move

750
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: any money that might have something to do with the

751
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 1: Iranian oil shipments. And so if money winds up and

752
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 1: say a South Korean bank, south Korean bank might say,

753
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:20,800
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this looks like it had something to

754
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: do with Iranian oil shipping. We're not moving this money, right,

755
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: and that boom, now the money is frozen. By unfreezing it,

756
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 1: you allow Iran to continue to put more oil into

757
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 1: the global market, which then counteracts actually opex reduction in production.

758
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,319
Speaker 1: And so the Biden administration actually has real incentives. Even

759
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 1: if we can't buy oil from Iran, the entire world

760
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: price benefits from more supply being in there. John Kirby

761
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 1: was asked this White House spokesperson was asked about this deal.

762
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 3: Here's was his response to it.

763
00:37:56,120 --> 00:38:01,719
Speaker 9: The parameters of this arrangement Andrea are very clear, very concise,

764
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 9: and the Iranians have signed up to this, so there

765
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 9: should be no doubt in anybody's mind how this is

766
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:09,279
Speaker 9: going to work. And again, I think it's important to

767
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 9: remember this is not US tax payer dollars, It's not ransom.

768
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 9: These were Iranian funds that had been frozen in a

769
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 9: South Koreana account that they did not have access to.

770
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:21,359
Speaker 9: All we're simply doing is moving this money to cutter

771
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 9: to cuttery national banks so that it can be accessible

772
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:27,760
Speaker 9: to them for again, very discrete, targeted purposes.

773
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 4: I love how he's like, all we're doing it's the

774
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:34,800
Speaker 4: simple matter of transferring the funds to cutter. But actually

775
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 4: there also I think what's so interesting about this is

776
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 4: that it's a waiver to your point that you were making,

777
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,520
Speaker 4: it's a waiver that says, this whole decision was just

778
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:46,959
Speaker 4: the Biden administration saying we're going to give you a waiver.

779
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 4: That should assure you South Korea that this is not

780
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:53,360
Speaker 4: going to be sanctioned money, that you're not going to

781
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 4: get sanctioned from moving this money, like US sanctions won't

782
00:38:56,160 --> 00:38:58,239
Speaker 4: apply to this. Here's a waiver, sort of like a

783
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 4: kindergarten teacher will give you a waiver. That's really what's

784
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 4: happening here.

785
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 1: US sanctions are so draconian and overbroad that banks over

786
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: comply with them all the time, and over compliance to

787
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 1: sanctions is a huge problem. So like in an Afghanistan,

788
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: for instance, none of the aid money could get into

789
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: the country because the banks were saying the US has

790
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 1: said aid money can flow into Afghanistan, but our reading

791
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: of the sanctions is that it's a little dice and

792
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 1: might get too close to some of the groups that

793
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: they say we're not allowed and so we're not allowed

794
00:39:34,560 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 1: to finance, and so we're not sending money to the

795
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 1: red Cross, We're not sending money to any of these

796
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: organizations inside Afghanistan, and so then it kicks off this

797
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 1: entire bureaucratic process where the Treasury Department will then have

798
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 1: to specifically say, no, we waive it. Here is paper,

799
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: it's signed by all these bureaucrats. It's fine, but that's

800
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: a one time thing. And then you get jammed right

801
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: back up again. It appears like that's what's going on here. Okay,

802
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:04,240
Speaker 1: you can move this. You can move this six billion

803
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:07,239
Speaker 1: dollars now, now you put the Fox News clip up here.

804
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:11,320
Speaker 1: As you know Fox News, you know acknowledges in this article,

805
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:13,839
Speaker 1: which I thought was interesting that this is Iranian money,

806
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: because a lot of times in the public mind that

807
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 1: this gets kind of conflated with US.

808
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 3: Money getting shipped over to Iran, that we're like giving

809
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 3: them our money. It's not.

810
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 1: We give our money to Saudi Arabia, not to Iran.

811
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:34,800
Speaker 1: We would never, never, never support a theocratic terrorist financing country.

812
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 3: We're friends with Saudi Arabia.

813
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:42,240
Speaker 1: But so there was kind of a maniacal ted Cruz

814
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: response to this that I was curious to get your

815
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 1: take on what he's alluding to. He thinks that he

816
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:54,479
Speaker 1: has found evidence of some secret nuclear deal. President Biden

817
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,280
Speaker 1: has established a secret nuclear deal with the Iranian regime

818
00:40:57,360 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 1: that is being kept from Congress and the American people.

819
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 1: Today's News confirms there has already been a side deal,

820
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: including a six billion dollar ransom and the release of

821
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 1: Iranian operatives. Nevertheless, these are only the barest outlines of

822
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,360
Speaker 1: the staggering concessions that Biden has already made it intends

823
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 1: to make to the Ayatola, including an additional ten billion

824
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: dollar transfer and indeed hundreds of billions of dollars by

825
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:21,399
Speaker 1: not enforcing oil sanctions, he goes on. Meanwhile, he has

826
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: allowed the Iranian regime to all but acquire a virtual

827
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 1: nuclear arsenal over the last two and a half years.

828
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 1: The Biden administration must keep their deal secret because if

829
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: they disclose it, the law requires them to come to

830
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:36,840
Speaker 1: Congress and defend it, and this appeasement is utterly indefensible. Instead,

831
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 1: they will continue lying about their policies until Congress forces

832
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 1: them to do otherwise. So what I'm confused about here

833
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 1: from Ted Cruz is what kind of nuclear deal is

834
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 1: it if we if we're giving them money and also

835
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:50,840
Speaker 1: allowing them to develop a nuclear program in nuclear weapons.

836
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 1: Seems like the earlier deal in which we pulled back

837
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:58,720
Speaker 1: on some sanctions in exchange for them not creating nuclear weapons,

838
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 1: was better, and maybe we should state in that well,

839
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: it's an.

840
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:05,919
Speaker 4: Interesting question of better versus like bad. You know, there's

841
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 4: bad and then there's bad, but better, and I think

842
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 4: maybe that would be a good question. Top post to

843
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:12,439
Speaker 4: Ted Cruz if you see him in the hallway this week,

844
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 4: is it a manner of like, was the Iran nuclear

845
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:19,879
Speaker 4: deal at least better than the post Iran nuclear deal order?

846
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:24,280
Speaker 4: He'd probably say the Biden administration is still basically bungling

847
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:26,919
Speaker 4: it in the last couple of years because obviously Donald Trump,

848
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 4: at the urging of people like Ted Cruz, pulled out

849
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 4: of the Iran nuclear deal. The Biden administration comes in

850
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:34,680
Speaker 4: and implements this policy that Cruz is taking issue with.

851
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 11: Here.

852
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:37,840
Speaker 4: Your point about gas prices is what's really interesting to me,

853
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 4: because Republicans have been pointing to the President of Iran,

854
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 4: and we saw John Kirby say there are guardrails on

855
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 4: how this money can be spent by Iran that are

856
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 4: on like actually the bank, like we have ways of

857
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 4: monitoring how this money is going to be used. It

858
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 4: essentially has to go to helping the Iranian people. The

859
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 4: government of Iran, the President of Iran has said, yeah,

860
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:04,280
Speaker 4: well it for quote like helping the Iranian people. Wink

861
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 4: and nod, basically like we can do what we want

862
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:09,399
Speaker 4: with this money, and you know whether or not we're

863
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,919
Speaker 4: able to actually ensure that's the case. Republicans are saying,

864
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 4: they're basically calling bs. They're like, there's no way that

865
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 4: this money is actually going to be used on things

866
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 4: like food and you know, just like it's going to

867
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 4: go into the pockets of actually struggling Iranians. Struggling Iranians

868
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,919
Speaker 4: partially because of sanctions, not in any small part because

869
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 4: of sanctions. So they're they're skeptical and have this idea

870
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:35,279
Speaker 4: that like the Biden administration is trying to do what

871
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 4: Ben Rhoades and the Obama administration we're doing back in

872
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:40,760
Speaker 4: twenty fifteen, when the original twenty fourteen, when the original

873
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,320
Speaker 4: Roun nuclear deal was struck, because they just sort of

874
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 4: have this dubvish approach to Iran. I actually think the

875
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 4: gas prices are a way more reasonable explanation for what's

876
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 4: happening here than a conspiracy, right.

877
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:58,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, the big mistake the Biden administration made was not

878
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:02,320
Speaker 1: getting back into the Iran deal as quickly as possible,

879
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 1: you know, dragging its feet asking for some you know, concession.

880
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 1: It's like, we sign a deal with them, they follow

881
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: the deal according to all international observers and according to

882
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:14,479
Speaker 1: the EU, and then we walked out of it because

883
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:17,759
Speaker 1: Trump didn't like that. Obama cut the deal with them,

884
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 1: and so the Iranian is like, how can we trust

885
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 1: you to stay in it again? And it's like, well,

886
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:25,839
Speaker 1: you can't, Like we're completely unreliable negotiating partners. We struck

887
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,240
Speaker 1: a deal and then two years later, for no reason

888
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:32,400
Speaker 1: other than that we had a change in president, walked

889
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,879
Speaker 1: out of it. And so the result has been, Yeah,

890
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: Iran getting that much closer to a nuclear weapon. It's

891
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: one of the most The only explanation for it is

892
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 1: that the leading force behind undermining it, which is the

893
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:51,800
Speaker 1: kind of pro Israel lobby and Israel itself kind of

894
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:57,080
Speaker 1: once a hawkish confrontational approach with Iran, Like the idea

895
00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 1: of an Iran that is actually not sanctioned and is

896
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:04,439
Speaker 1: abiding by a nuclear deal with the EU, the United

897
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 1: States and Russia makes it harder for them to then,

898
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:12,400
Speaker 1: you know, raise conflict with this country like that, and

899
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:16,040
Speaker 1: there's some domestic benefits to having Iran out there and

900
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 1: being able to save a rattle back and forth, like

901
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: none of it otherwise makes sense because our policy is

902
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:26,879
Speaker 1: pushing around closer to a nuclear weapon rather than further

903
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 1: away from it.

904
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:28,319
Speaker 6: You know, it's a.

905
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 4: Obviously on Israel's from Israel's perspective, it's a very well,

906
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 4: it's a more existential question and visceral I think because

907
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:39,240
Speaker 4: of that, but which.

908
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 3: Would make you think they'd want to get it right.

909
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:42,800
Speaker 4: Well, So this is what's interesting, because you know, we

910
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 4: have two more elements here and that I think are

911
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 4: worth mentioning. Iran this week confirmed the detention of a

912
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 4: Swedish EU worker, So this is yeah, And we're also

913
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 4: on the one year anniversary. This is the next element

914
00:45:55,880 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 4: from the Associated Press of the Masamini protest which erupted

915
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 4: last fall. There is some evidence that there's government crackdowns

916
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 4: coming right now on the anniversary of the protest, and

917
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 4: that there have been government crackdowns in the aftermath of

918
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 4: Masamini's death. And this is all happening as Irani and

919
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 4: drones are being found on the battlefield in Ukraine, and

920
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:25,960
Speaker 4: the conventional wisdom of American foreign policy over the last

921
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 4: several decades would of course be, especially in the context

922
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:33,759
Speaker 4: of Israel, would of course be, this is not the

923
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:36,279
Speaker 4: time to be easing sanctions. This is the time to

924
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 4: be implementing more sanctions. This is the time for saber rattling,

925
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:42,880
Speaker 4: if anything, people like Ben Rhodes and you know, I

926
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:45,960
Speaker 4: would say gas prices aside. Let's say gas prices, which

927
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 4: I think probably is the most reasonable explanation. But hypothetically,

928
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 4: let's say that had nothing to do with it. And

929
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 4: there were real ideologus in the Biden administration, Ben Roads

930
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 4: type ideologues, and we have evidence that Barack Obama is

931
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 4: behind a lot of the Biden administration's decision making. Let's

932
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 4: say that's what they're doing. That's a challenge to the

933
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 4: conventional wisdom of United States foreign policy in the way

934
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 4: that actually Obama campaigned on challenging the conventional wisdom of

935
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:11,800
Speaker 4: US foreign policy back in two thousand and seven against

936
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 4: Hylary Clinton and into two thousand and eight. It's not

937
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 4: this like black and white, you know, hawk versus Dove.

938
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 4: It's actually saying, is the hawkishness even effective at accomplishing

939
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:25,240
Speaker 4: hawk goals.

940
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:30,720
Speaker 1: But imagine, imagine a world where after twenty fifteen, Trump

941
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 1: comes in and instead of becoming you know, after a

942
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:39,240
Speaker 1: close nuclear standoff with Kim Jong un like, he becomes

943
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 1: best buddies with this North Korean dictare would imagine, becomes

944
00:47:41,560 --> 00:47:44,920
Speaker 1: best buddies instead with the Iyatola and stays in the

945
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: nuclear deal and money continues flowing back and forth, and

946
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 1: relations with Iran get better, and they just they agree, like,

947
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 1: you know, we are going to continue allowing inspectors in.

948
00:47:57,280 --> 00:47:59,479
Speaker 1: We're not gonna you know, we're not going to build

949
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 1: this nuclear program, this nuclear weapons program anymore. Once the

950
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:09,839
Speaker 1: Ukrainian invasion comes around. Then in twenty twenty two, if

951
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:12,279
Speaker 1: Iran and the US are on much better terms at

952
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: that point and Russia comes in, it is like, hey,

953
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 1: we need help with drones.

954
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 3: Iran is going to.

955
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,320
Speaker 1: Think twice about that, because now they have something to

956
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: lose with the United States because their population loves United

957
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:26,879
Speaker 1: States already. Like that's the one kind of trump card

958
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:30,319
Speaker 1: that the US still has is that culturally the US

959
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 1: is still very popular, or foreign policy extremely unpopular, but culturally,

960
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 1: hip hop Hollywood just kind of the American ideals of liberty, freedom, equality,

961
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 1: all of those things resonate with people. And if you

962
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 1: were in a place where we're on good terms with Iran,

963
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:50,879
Speaker 1: Russia comes in, it's like, yeah, we need drones. Iran

964
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 1: might be like, you know what, maybe you shouldn't have

965
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: invaded in another country, and you can make.

966
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 4: The same case. I think it's actually a case that

967
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:57,759
Speaker 4: is being made about Ukraine and China too, that the

968
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 4: sort of conventional hawkish approach to Russia and the conventional

969
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 4: hawkish approach to China because we're sort of caught caught

970
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 4: in this Cold War muscle memory that is now being

971
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:10,520
Speaker 4: grafted onto the China conflict. In some ways, I think

972
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:12,440
Speaker 4: there are actually even people in the Republican Party in

973
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 4: the conservative movement. The Heritage Foundation put out a damning

974
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:19,880
Speaker 4: indictment of our policy towards Russia, which was rather interesting,

975
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:23,239
Speaker 4: but I think that's actually becoming a more like top

976
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 4: line conversation. And actually, speaking speaking of which, we have

977
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:32,840
Speaker 4: some video from actor Woody Harrelson who weighed who weighed

978
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 4: in on Ukraine and on imperialism. Let's take a listen

979
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 4: to Woody Harrelson here.

980
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 12: You know, I'm the kind of guy who just thinks

981
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 12: it's abominable when superpower with all this military might, with

982
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 12: no provocation attacks a country that is you know, like

983
00:49:56,320 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 12: you know, Iraq, sorry, afghan vi It, Korea, No, sorry,

984
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 12: Ukraine terrible.

985
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:11,759
Speaker 3: I like that he threw Korea in. There is a

986
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 3: deep cut listening to Blowback.

987
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:18,239
Speaker 4: What did you make of those comments from Woody Harrelson.

988
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:21,560
Speaker 3: Love Woody, Yeah, great, so good. Well, I mean it's

989
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:23,759
Speaker 3: it's good. The mirrors need to be held up in

990
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:25,240
Speaker 3: front of imperial powers.

991
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's actually so similar to what we were just

992
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:32,800
Speaker 4: talking about with Iran when you're making these equivalent sees

993
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 4: as he's he's making his joke there about Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Ukraine.

994
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 10: This is.

995
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:45,200
Speaker 4: One of the things I've been thinking about since the

996
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 4: entire inate Russia's entire invasion of Ukraine started, is just

997
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:52,880
Speaker 4: how the Cold War is still ever present in foreign

998
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 4: policy every single day in ways that we think we

999
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 4: sort of turned the page on end of history. But

1000
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 4: we've had nuclear power or on the face of the

1001
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:04,120
Speaker 4: earth for not even one hundred years. As we talked

1002
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 4: about when Oppenheimer came out this summer this is really new,

1003
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 4: and the idea that humans it can eliminate tens of

1004
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:16,240
Speaker 4: thousands of other humans on another part of the world

1005
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:19,640
Speaker 4: with the push of a button has dramatically changed the

1006
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:21,840
Speaker 4: way that we relate to each other just as human beings,

1007
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 4: let alone as great powers. And we're not even one

1008
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 4: hundred years in this vast scope of human history into

1009
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:32,800
Speaker 4: that world order. So the blink of an eye and

1010
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 4: we've run a lot of experiments unsuccessfully without realizing it yet.

1011
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:41,799
Speaker 3: So Emily, what's your point today.

1012
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 4: Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was in Los

1013
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:48,719
Speaker 4: Angeles giving the remarks on a panel basically, and as

1014
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 4: I was walking back to my hotel, I noticed something

1015
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 4: interesting on a bus sign. Let's put this picture up

1016
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,720
Speaker 4: on the screen. This is exactly what I saw, report

1017
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:02,120
Speaker 4: acts of hate. The sign on the bus stop said

1018
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:05,360
Speaker 4: dial to one one. That was really interesting to me

1019
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 4: because A, there are hate crime laws and the police

1020
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:11,800
Speaker 4: are involved, and obviously this is there's a legal system,

1021
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:14,879
Speaker 4: there's law enforcement that exists to enforce all of these things,

1022
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 4: and B I wonder just exactly how this was being

1023
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 4: facilitated in a context of a culture that doesn't really

1024
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:27,600
Speaker 4: agree on what hate actually is, and that's been the case,

1025
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 4: you know, in different periods of American history, and we've

1026
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 4: had to fight and overcome that. But it's a serious

1027
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 4: problem right now. People who tend to be on the

1028
00:52:35,719 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 4: right of center, like myself, are more concerned about it

1029
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 4: the people on the left of center, because people in

1030
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:41,759
Speaker 4: the left of center right now have a lot of

1031
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:46,040
Speaker 4: power in government and in pop culture, et cetera, et cetera.

1032
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:48,800
Speaker 4: But I think this is a problem that affects everybody,

1033
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:51,600
Speaker 4: regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum. So

1034
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:54,400
Speaker 4: we have a young writer who goes to U. C.

1035
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 4: Davis and I sent the picture to her and I

1036
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:59,800
Speaker 4: was like, oh, let's look into this. At the bottom

1037
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:02,439
Speaker 4: of that picture you would have seen the group la

1038
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:05,680
Speaker 4: versus Hate. There's their website, la versus Hate dot org.

1039
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:07,920
Speaker 4: I was particularly curious to know if this was a

1040
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 4: government funded project and a government authorized project. So we

1041
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 4: dug into la versus Hate dot org and actually have

1042
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 4: a new story up on The Federalist from Rebecca the

1043
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 4: student I was talking about just this morning. You can

1044
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 4: put that up on the screen. What we found, in fact,

1045
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:26,919
Speaker 4: is that la Versus Hate this is a government group

1046
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:30,160
Speaker 4: out in Los Angeles County runs a snitch line. It's

1047
00:53:30,200 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 4: funded by Biden. They got in some sense, they got

1048
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 4: this grant from the Biden Administration's American Rescue Plan about

1049
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:40,839
Speaker 4: a million dollars. It's funded by Kaiser, Permanente and Blue

1050
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:44,520
Speaker 4: Shield of California. But most importantly, it's funded by taxpayers,

1051
00:53:44,520 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 4: and it is operated by Los Angeles County. Now, the

1052
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:51,840
Speaker 4: key here is not that this is merely is that

1053
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:54,800
Speaker 4: this is not just merely a tip line to report

1054
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:58,320
Speaker 4: hate crimes. It makes sense in some cases that you

1055
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:02,120
Speaker 4: have a tip line to report things that are actual

1056
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:05,839
Speaker 4: criminal behavior, for instance, domestic abiefs, women who don't want

1057
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:08,360
Speaker 4: to go to the police and would be more comfortable

1058
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 4: calling a hotline something to that extent. So I'm not

1059
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 4: saying it's crazy to have a tip line for criminal offenses.

1060
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:19,320
Speaker 4: And this is a tip line for potentially criminal offenses,

1061
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:22,840
Speaker 4: and they have fielded calls for criminal offenses based on

1062
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:26,480
Speaker 4: their own records. But what's really important is that they're

1063
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:30,880
Speaker 4: also open to calls about quote, hate incidents, hate incidents,

1064
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 4: and nowhere on their website do they define what it

1065
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 4: actually constitutes hate. And when the federal has reached out

1066
00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:42,040
Speaker 4: to ask for a definition of hate to ask if

1067
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 4: things based on their website, which endorses you know, full

1068
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 4: trans ideology, endorses the Black Lives Matter movement. There are

1069
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 4: a lot of people in the country. There are certainly

1070
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:55,440
Speaker 4: people in Los Angeles County who are decent and disagree

1071
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:59,440
Speaker 4: with you every sort of aspect of trans ideology for

1072
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 4: whatever reason in or disagree with the Black Lives Matter

1073
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:05,879
Speaker 4: movement for whatever reason. Are they committing hate incidents if

1074
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 4: they make a reasoned case against either of those movements?

1075
00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:14,239
Speaker 4: For instance, let's say the Dave Chappelle special. Let's say there,

1076
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:18,520
Speaker 4: Let's say, can somebody report one of the Dave Chappelle

1077
00:55:18,560 --> 00:55:23,759
Speaker 4: specials his criticism of the trans movement, which some people

1078
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:26,760
Speaker 4: may disagree with, But is that a reportable hate incident

1079
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:31,520
Speaker 4: to the government of Los Angeles County Because they refused

1080
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:36,160
Speaker 4: to define, because they refused the Free Press's questions on that,

1081
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 4: it doesn't give me a lot of optimism that this

1082
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,719
Speaker 4: isn't you know, a government snitche line essentially that operates

1083
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:45,840
Speaker 4: in a way that should actually be chilling. This is

1084
00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:48,759
Speaker 4: the case actually that Edward Snowden, who hasn't you know,

1085
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 4: I don't want to put any words in his mouth.

1086
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:52,680
Speaker 4: He hasn't weighed in on this particular incident, but he

1087
00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:55,359
Speaker 4: made a lot when he was, you know, more front

1088
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:59,240
Speaker 4: and center in the news about how just the knowledge

1089
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:03,320
Speaker 4: that you're being watched, just the knowledge that the government

1090
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:07,080
Speaker 4: is monitoring, surveilling what you say, what you do, and

1091
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:09,320
Speaker 4: is looking out for those things, changes the way that

1092
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:12,279
Speaker 4: we think. It changes the way that we interact with

1093
00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:16,000
Speaker 4: each other. And it's really really bad. It's a bad

1094
00:56:16,120 --> 00:56:20,480
Speaker 4: precedent whether you're in deep, deep blue Los Angeles County

1095
00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:23,879
Speaker 4: or a deep deep red area and people are having

1096
00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:26,719
Speaker 4: issues with let's say, you know what I think are

1097
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:30,480
Speaker 4: sometimes incorrectly referred to as book bands. You know, there

1098
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:35,239
Speaker 4: have been some really excessive legislations pieces of legislation when

1099
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:36,440
Speaker 4: it comes to that. I think there have been some

1100
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:38,680
Speaker 4: really reasonable ones we've talked about here on the show.

1101
00:56:39,080 --> 00:56:41,960
Speaker 4: But the principle is basically the same that the government

1102
00:56:42,080 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 4: doesn't have any business, especially we're talking about adults, not children.

1103
00:56:47,719 --> 00:56:51,560
Speaker 4: The government doesn't have any business monitoring your sort of

1104
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:56,480
Speaker 4: ideological consumption. Conversation. Discourse is not the business of the government.

1105
00:56:56,760 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 4: It is the business of a society to decide what

1106
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 4: its norms are, what is hate. It's a business of

1107
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:07,480
Speaker 4: individuals to come together and make those decisions, and obviously,

1108
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:10,600
Speaker 4: through the democratic process, they should be reflected in our laws.

1109
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:17,160
Speaker 4: But non criminal quote hate incidents should not be facilitated.

1110
00:57:17,240 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 4: You shouldn't facilitate a tip line. The government of all

1111
00:57:19,520 --> 00:57:23,240
Speaker 4: places and these major corporations should not facilitate a tip

1112
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 4: line for people to snitch on one another for non

1113
00:57:26,440 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 4: criminal quote hate incidents that we can't even define the

1114
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:35,400
Speaker 4: root cause of what a hate incident actually actually is.

1115
00:57:36,040 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 4: And all over the website you can see very clearly

1116
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:41,000
Speaker 4: this was Elie versus Hate or something that was launched

1117
00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:43,200
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty. I think they started the process of

1118
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 4: launching it in twenty eighteen, but it formally became a

1119
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:49,680
Speaker 4: program in twenty twenty, so it's been around for a

1120
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:52,800
Speaker 4: couple of years. They do list examples of hate incidents

1121
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:55,400
Speaker 4: on their website that could call name They could include

1122
00:57:55,480 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 4: name calling, insults, displaying quote hate material on your own property,

1123
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 4: posting alleged hate material that doesn't result in property damage,

1124
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:07,560
Speaker 4: and distributing materials with hate messages in public spaces. But

1125
00:58:07,640 --> 00:58:12,760
Speaker 4: if you cannot fundamentally define hate, especially in a time

1126
00:58:12,840 --> 00:58:16,560
Speaker 4: right now when there's so much of that word being

1127
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 4: flung at people, even on the left who disagree with

1128
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:24,200
Speaker 4: some people on the left. That is just extremely dangerous.

1129
00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:26,120
Speaker 4: And it's not just going to hurt people on the

1130
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:29,360
Speaker 4: right or people who disagree with BLM or transideology. It

1131
00:58:29,440 --> 00:58:32,520
Speaker 4: is going to hurt everybody when we set precedents like this,

1132
00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:35,880
Speaker 4: because when another person gets in power. We're actually seeing

1133
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:38,040
Speaker 4: this happen in the Capitol this week as the impeachment

1134
00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:42,040
Speaker 4: inquiry came up for a vote. That you sort of

1135
00:58:42,440 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 4: break one of those precedents, you break a norm, that

1136
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 4: norm is going to be broken right back at you

1137
00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:51,520
Speaker 4: when the other side is in power. And the principle

1138
00:58:51,640 --> 00:58:57,439
Speaker 4: of government monitoring ideological conversations discussions and lumping it into

1139
00:58:57,480 --> 00:59:01,640
Speaker 4: that broad category of hate is really really dangerous. And

1140
00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:04,360
Speaker 4: so my message would just be this is not good.

1141
00:59:04,400 --> 00:59:06,400
Speaker 4: Whether you're on the right, whether you're on the left,

1142
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:09,560
Speaker 4: this is a wild abuse of government power out in

1143
00:59:09,720 --> 00:59:14,640
Speaker 4: La County under this very innocuous and seemingly virtuous mission

1144
00:59:14,880 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 4: of combating hate. There's nothing wrong with combating hate, that's

1145
00:59:17,720 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 4: for sure, but this is not nearly as innocuous as

1146
00:59:21,360 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 4: it sounds. There are new inflation numbers. You've been crunching

1147
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:29,680
Speaker 4: the numbers. Actually, we took a little break here so

1148
00:59:29,800 --> 00:59:32,840
Speaker 4: Ryan can dig into the inflation numbers, which would.

1149
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 3: We be looking at well.

1150
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:36,600
Speaker 1: So the inflation data was released today found that the

1151
00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:39,720
Speaker 1: core rate of inflation remained the same at four point

1152
00:59:39,840 --> 00:59:44,080
Speaker 1: three percent year over year. Core inflation, which excludes energy

1153
00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 1: and food basically for August, had been expected to run

1154
00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:50,000
Speaker 1: at zero point two percent, but came in at zero

1155
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 1: point three percent. That means that when the Fed meets

1156
00:59:53,520 --> 00:59:56,280
Speaker 1: next week, they're likely to keep interest rates where they

1157
00:59:56,320 --> 00:59:59,800
Speaker 1: are now. The leading driver of overall inflation this month,

1158
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:03,360
Speaker 1: as anybody would guess, rising gas prices.

1159
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:05,520
Speaker 3: But we'll get into all of these numbers soon in

1160
01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 3: a bit.

1161
01:00:06,160 --> 01:00:08,439
Speaker 1: Whenever you hear that the Fed is planning to raise

1162
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:10,960
Speaker 1: interest rates to cool off the economy, because of these

1163
01:00:11,000 --> 01:00:14,240
Speaker 1: inflation numbers that you're hearing, it's useful to understand what

1164
01:00:14,400 --> 01:00:16,760
Speaker 1: the titans of industry are really after.

1165
01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:17,280
Speaker 7: Now.

1166
01:00:17,280 --> 01:00:20,480
Speaker 1: I often try to explain that interest rates and unemployment

1167
01:00:20,680 --> 01:00:24,240
Speaker 1: are really about worker power, but nobody has explained it

1168
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:27,640
Speaker 1: better than this guy, Tim Gerner, who's the founder of

1169
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:31,720
Speaker 1: the Gerner Group. He spoke here recently at the Financial

1170
01:00:31,880 --> 01:00:33,480
Speaker 1: Review Property Summit.

1171
01:00:33,920 --> 01:00:34,720
Speaker 3: Here's his lesson.

1172
01:00:34,880 --> 01:00:37,520
Speaker 13: I think the problem that we've had is that we've, yeah,

1173
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:40,800
Speaker 13: we have people decided that they didn't really want to

1174
01:00:40,840 --> 01:00:43,200
Speaker 13: work so much anymore through COVID, and that has had

1175
01:00:43,240 --> 01:00:46,440
Speaker 13: a massive issue on productivity. You know, tradees have definitely

1176
01:00:46,520 --> 01:00:50,120
Speaker 13: pulled back on productivity. You know, they have been paid

1177
01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:52,560
Speaker 13: a lot to do not too much in the last

1178
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:54,640
Speaker 13: few years. And we need to see that change. We

1179
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:57,439
Speaker 13: need to see unemployment rise. Unemployment has to jump forty

1180
01:00:57,480 --> 01:00:59,840
Speaker 13: fifty percent in my view. We need to see painting

1181
01:00:59,840 --> 01:01:02,520
Speaker 13: the economy. We need to remind people that they work

1182
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:04,920
Speaker 13: for the employer, not the other way around. I mean,

1183
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 13: there is a there's been a systematic change where employees

1184
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:12,920
Speaker 13: feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them as

1185
01:01:12,960 --> 01:01:15,720
Speaker 13: opposed to the other way around. So it's a dynamic

1186
01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:17,880
Speaker 13: that has to change. We've got to kill that attitude

1187
01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:20,640
Speaker 13: and that has to come through hurting the economy, which

1188
01:01:20,640 --> 01:01:24,040
Speaker 13: is what the whole global you know, the world is

1189
01:01:24,120 --> 01:01:25,919
Speaker 13: trying to do. The governments around the world are trying

1190
01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:30,520
Speaker 13: to increase unemployment to get that to some sort of normality,

1191
01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:32,800
Speaker 13: and we're seeing it. I think every employer now is

1192
01:01:32,840 --> 01:01:34,919
Speaker 13: seeing it. I mean, there is definitely massive layoffs going

1193
01:01:34,960 --> 01:01:36,840
Speaker 13: off for people might not be talking about it, but

1194
01:01:36,920 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 13: people are definitely laying people off, and we're starting to

1195
01:01:39,520 --> 01:01:41,920
Speaker 13: see less arrogance in the employment market, and that has

1196
01:01:41,960 --> 01:01:44,920
Speaker 13: to continue because that will cascade across the cost balance.

1197
01:01:45,160 --> 01:01:47,760
Speaker 1: Now, Emily, believe it or not, it turns out that

1198
01:01:47,920 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: this was the avocado toast guy put at this next one.

1199
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:53,960
Speaker 3: If people remember, this feels like five ten years ago.

1200
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:57,680
Speaker 1: At this point, there was this viral sensation going around

1201
01:01:57,720 --> 01:02:00,600
Speaker 1: where a dude said, the reason that millennials can afford

1202
01:02:01,320 --> 01:02:03,880
Speaker 1: to buy a home is that they buy too much

1203
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:08,320
Speaker 1: avocado toast. This guy's back with a new take, And

1204
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:12,240
Speaker 1: what's useful about this guy is that that avocado toast

1205
01:02:13,480 --> 01:02:18,160
Speaker 1: idiocy was obvious idiocy, but it was the distilled It

1206
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:21,600
Speaker 1: was the wisdom of the kind of titan class distilled

1207
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:22,760
Speaker 1: down to its essence.

1208
01:02:23,080 --> 01:02:25,880
Speaker 3: And by distilling it down, you can really see how

1209
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:28,640
Speaker 3: idiotic it is in its purest form.

1210
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:30,760
Speaker 1: Because there are a bunch of people who were saying

1211
01:02:30,800 --> 01:02:35,000
Speaker 1: at the time, look, it's just these spendthrift millennials, that's

1212
01:02:35,120 --> 01:02:38,560
Speaker 1: the problem. It's not that rent is too high, it's

1213
01:02:38,560 --> 01:02:40,720
Speaker 1: not that wages are down. It's not that there aren't

1214
01:02:40,760 --> 01:02:44,840
Speaker 1: enough jobs coming out of this the financial crisis. It's that, yeah,

1215
01:02:44,840 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 1: they're just spoilt and spending money on avocado toast. But

1216
01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:52,000
Speaker 1: back to his point that he's making now, it's the

1217
01:02:52,080 --> 01:02:52,600
Speaker 1: same thing.

1218
01:02:53,000 --> 01:02:53,240
Speaker 4: It is.

1219
01:02:53,440 --> 01:02:56,520
Speaker 1: What he's saying feels idiotic because he's just saying it

1220
01:02:56,600 --> 01:03:00,240
Speaker 1: so bluntly, But it is really the wisdom of the

1221
01:03:00,320 --> 01:03:03,520
Speaker 1: ruling class distilled down to its essence. And to me,

1222
01:03:03,680 --> 01:03:06,320
Speaker 1: what it suggests is that a capitalist class doesn't deserve

1223
01:03:06,400 --> 01:03:08,400
Speaker 1: to exist because.

1224
01:03:08,560 --> 01:03:13,560
Speaker 3: If they can't handle a full economy that is humming

1225
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:15,080
Speaker 3: on all cylinders, you know, that.

1226
01:03:15,200 --> 01:03:19,160
Speaker 1: Is employing as many people as it possibly can. Like,

1227
01:03:19,280 --> 01:03:22,200
Speaker 1: if they can't handle that, if their reaction to that

1228
01:03:22,320 --> 01:03:25,480
Speaker 1: is that they have to undermine it, then they should

1229
01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:29,880
Speaker 1: be thrown out, like let some other system in that

1230
01:03:30,040 --> 01:03:35,280
Speaker 1: can actually allow humanity to flourish in its full dignity.

1231
01:03:35,720 --> 01:03:39,040
Speaker 1: Like what he's saying there is that we can't do this,

1232
01:03:39,880 --> 01:03:41,960
Speaker 1: like we don't know how to run a full economy

1233
01:03:42,280 --> 01:03:45,280
Speaker 1: because if we're running a full economy, workers have power

1234
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:49,360
Speaker 1: and we don't like that. Now, you go back to

1235
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 1: some of these inflation numbers. You put up this chart

1236
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:57,080
Speaker 1: from recently. This shows kind of the direction that we're

1237
01:03:57,120 --> 01:04:01,320
Speaker 1: looking at. And so the headline number, you know, popping

1238
01:04:01,400 --> 01:04:04,040
Speaker 1: up because of gas prices, but overall you're seeing this

1239
01:04:04,160 --> 01:04:06,560
Speaker 1: kind of mountain. You know, we climb, We climbed up

1240
01:04:06,600 --> 01:04:10,040
Speaker 1: the mountain in twenty twenty one, and we're heading down

1241
01:04:10,080 --> 01:04:12,120
Speaker 1: the other side of the mountain now.

1242
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:12,560
Speaker 3: Now.

1243
01:04:12,600 --> 01:04:14,920
Speaker 1: The problem being if you look at where you know,

1244
01:04:15,000 --> 01:04:19,120
Speaker 1: prices were back in twenty twenty, which saw massive deflation

1245
01:04:19,200 --> 01:04:22,720
Speaker 1: because of COVID, compared to where they are now, that's

1246
01:04:23,720 --> 01:04:25,960
Speaker 1: that's the kind of that's the gap that spells the

1247
01:04:26,040 --> 01:04:30,080
Speaker 1: headache that we're all living in. And so you do

1248
01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:33,720
Speaker 1: have food prices coming down the numbers showed, but you

1249
01:04:33,840 --> 01:04:37,200
Speaker 1: have gas prices going up. Gas prices haven't gone up

1250
01:04:37,200 --> 01:04:38,960
Speaker 1: as much as people are worried about. We're probably going

1251
01:04:39,000 --> 01:04:41,000
Speaker 1: to see more pain on that front. But so what

1252
01:04:41,120 --> 01:04:42,400
Speaker 1: it means is that we're not going to see a

1253
01:04:43,360 --> 01:04:45,920
Speaker 1: We're probably not going to see an inflation increase, an

1254
01:04:45,960 --> 01:04:48,680
Speaker 1: interest rate increase at the next FED price, but we're

1255
01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:50,400
Speaker 1: not going to see a cut either. I don't know

1256
01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:57,480
Speaker 1: what's what's your takeaway on the avocado toast man Howard Buffett,

1257
01:04:57,480 --> 01:05:01,640
Speaker 1: who is billionaire Warren Buffett's son own a town essentially

1258
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:06,280
Speaker 1: in Illinois, Decater, Illinois. And we're joined now by Amos

1259
01:05:06,600 --> 01:05:10,520
Speaker 1: Barshad of lever News, who who was out indicator to

1260
01:05:10,640 --> 01:05:13,400
Speaker 1: try to figure out what it's like living in a

1261
01:05:13,480 --> 01:05:16,640
Speaker 1: town effectively owned by a billionaire.

1262
01:05:16,960 --> 01:05:19,000
Speaker 3: And the story is terrific. You can put it up here.

1263
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:21,040
Speaker 3: Is called American oligarchy.

1264
01:05:20,480 --> 01:05:24,160
Speaker 1: And it's and it's something of a kind of allegory

1265
01:05:24,360 --> 01:05:28,120
Speaker 1: for our, I think, our broader society, because we all

1266
01:05:28,280 --> 01:05:30,640
Speaker 1: live under the thumb of a Warren Buffett one way

1267
01:05:30,720 --> 01:05:33,800
Speaker 1: or the other. But these folks, you know, live right

1268
01:05:34,040 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 1: specifically underneath that thumb and they can see it every

1269
01:05:37,640 --> 01:05:40,880
Speaker 1: single day. Amos, you know, welcome to the program, Thanks

1270
01:05:40,920 --> 01:05:42,440
Speaker 1: for joining us in grats on this piece.

1271
01:05:43,200 --> 01:05:44,280
Speaker 6: Thank you, thanks for having me.

1272
01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:48,880
Speaker 14: Yeah, and yeah, I should clarify he obviously doesn't legally

1273
01:05:48,920 --> 01:05:52,720
Speaker 14: own the town, that's not possible, but yeah, his influence

1274
01:05:52,800 --> 01:05:57,760
Speaker 14: over you know, two decades now can be seen, can

1275
01:05:57,840 --> 01:06:00,320
Speaker 14: be felt, and that was kind of my hope from

1276
01:06:00,400 --> 01:06:03,120
Speaker 14: the piece is to to go to Decatur, uh and

1277
01:06:03,320 --> 01:06:05,600
Speaker 14: to hear from regular people, you know, what it feels

1278
01:06:05,640 --> 01:06:09,920
Speaker 14: like to live amongst amongst Buffett's influence, and that's how

1279
01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:12,120
Speaker 14: the story was first introduced to me. I was happening

1280
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:15,280
Speaker 14: to speak with a someone who was born and raised

1281
01:06:15,320 --> 01:06:18,720
Speaker 14: in Decatur who's now a professor at the University of Virginia.

1282
01:06:19,160 --> 01:06:19,800
Speaker 6: His name is A. D.

1283
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:23,080
Speaker 14: Carson, and we were actually talking about a completely different topic.

1284
01:06:23,480 --> 01:06:27,760
Speaker 14: It was the Illuminats popularity and hip hop, and he

1285
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:28,800
Speaker 14: just kind of happened.

1286
01:06:28,520 --> 01:06:31,000
Speaker 6: To mention, you know, this, this this thing with with

1287
01:06:31,120 --> 01:06:33,280
Speaker 6: Howard Buffett, which I just had never heard of. I

1288
01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:34,320
Speaker 6: don't think a lot of people have.

1289
01:06:34,480 --> 01:06:36,160
Speaker 14: But after he told me about it, you know, I

1290
01:06:36,280 --> 01:06:38,160
Speaker 14: read up and learned that there has been some great

1291
01:06:38,200 --> 01:06:41,400
Speaker 14: reporting on him, some of his influence on the Southern border,

1292
01:06:41,880 --> 01:06:42,400
Speaker 14: you know, some.

1293
01:06:42,560 --> 01:06:43,840
Speaker 6: Some more positive coverage.

1294
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:47,800
Speaker 14: He donates a lot of money internationally globally, and but

1295
01:06:47,920 --> 01:06:50,040
Speaker 14: I felt like this piece hadn't been done, this piece

1296
01:06:50,080 --> 01:06:52,440
Speaker 14: where we focus on the people of Decatur, what it

1297
01:06:52,480 --> 01:06:57,160
Speaker 14: feels like to to live, yeah under under the influence

1298
01:06:57,280 --> 01:06:58,400
Speaker 14: of Howard Buffett.

1299
01:06:58,840 --> 01:07:00,240
Speaker 3: Yeah nine team.

1300
01:07:00,320 --> 01:07:03,479
Speaker 1: My colleague, my then colleague at the Intercept, Rachel Cohen,

1301
01:07:03,520 --> 01:07:06,520
Speaker 1: wrote about his wrote about this kind of phenomena. She

1302
01:07:06,560 --> 01:07:09,560
Speaker 1: focused on the weird marijuana fight that was going on

1303
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:11,640
Speaker 1: that was that was my first introduction to the idea

1304
01:07:11,680 --> 01:07:13,520
Speaker 1: that Howard Buffett had decided he was going to spend

1305
01:07:13,560 --> 01:07:16,840
Speaker 1: his money effectively just kind of running the show over

1306
01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 1: here and has all of these weird kind of interests

1307
01:07:20,080 --> 01:07:23,800
Speaker 1: in being a sheriff sometimes actually, as you report, literally

1308
01:07:23,880 --> 01:07:25,920
Speaker 1: being a sheriff, otherwise kind of playing.

1309
01:07:25,680 --> 01:07:26,600
Speaker 3: One on TV.

1310
01:07:26,760 --> 01:07:29,760
Speaker 1: But so when I say that he effectively owns the town,

1311
01:07:29,920 --> 01:07:32,200
Speaker 1: like what what is that? What does it mean to

1312
01:07:32,360 --> 01:07:35,760
Speaker 1: kind of like how does he exert his influence indicator?

1313
01:07:37,040 --> 01:07:39,200
Speaker 14: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So Yeah, first of all, that interescept

1314
01:07:39,480 --> 01:07:41,880
Speaker 14: PC mentioned is a great piece and I encourage everyone

1315
01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:44,560
Speaker 14: to seek that out. She was reporting from the time

1316
01:07:44,880 --> 01:07:47,560
Speaker 14: time as he it was revealed that he had pushed

1317
01:07:47,640 --> 01:07:52,240
Speaker 14: back against a dispensary. So Illinois had legal legalized uh,

1318
01:07:52,720 --> 01:07:56,440
Speaker 14: you know dispensaries, marijuana dispensaries statewide, and so then the

1319
01:07:56,520 --> 01:07:57,760
Speaker 14: you know, municipality of.

1320
01:07:57,760 --> 01:07:59,600
Speaker 6: Decatur had to decide if they were going to have one,

1321
01:07:59,640 --> 01:08:03,040
Speaker 6: and a lot of people were very pro the dispensary.

1322
01:08:03,280 --> 01:08:06,760
Speaker 14: There was a referendum that was run in the township

1323
01:08:06,800 --> 01:08:10,400
Speaker 14: of Decatur, uh uh, and and showed that there was

1324
01:08:10,480 --> 01:08:13,120
Speaker 14: you know overhall and majority of people wanted the dispensary.

1325
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:17,000
Speaker 14: But basically, uh, you know, as the as that piece,

1326
01:08:17,040 --> 01:08:20,280
Speaker 14: the Intersip piece reported, you know, due to Buffet's explicit

1327
01:08:20,360 --> 01:08:23,960
Speaker 14: influence the city council members, the majority voted against the dispensary,

1328
01:08:24,439 --> 01:08:27,600
Speaker 14: and it gets tied back into his personal views.

1329
01:08:27,439 --> 01:08:29,760
Speaker 6: His personal views against marijuana, against you know, pro war

1330
01:08:29,840 --> 01:08:30,360
Speaker 6: on drugs.

1331
01:08:31,000 --> 01:08:31,160
Speaker 10: You know.

1332
01:08:31,280 --> 01:08:34,200
Speaker 14: Interestingly, there's a big addiction recovery center that he built

1333
01:08:34,640 --> 01:08:37,960
Speaker 14: in town, which feels, you know, you know, objectively, a

1334
01:08:38,000 --> 01:08:42,320
Speaker 14: good thing to to to provide addiction treatment, recovery treatment.

1335
01:08:42,479 --> 01:08:42,599
Speaker 9: Uh.

1336
01:08:43,400 --> 01:08:45,439
Speaker 14: But where it gets more complicated is in the idea

1337
01:08:45,439 --> 01:08:47,519
Speaker 14: of how you you know, it's a philosophy, right, it's

1338
01:08:47,560 --> 01:08:49,760
Speaker 14: like a it's like a world building, is how he

1339
01:08:49,840 --> 01:08:52,120
Speaker 14: sees the world. So he believes in addiction recovery, but

1340
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:54,800
Speaker 14: he doesn't believe in access to marijuana. So you know,

1341
01:08:54,960 --> 01:08:57,200
Speaker 14: you see these things as you shouldn't be opposed, but

1342
01:08:57,280 --> 01:08:59,360
Speaker 14: in his point of view, they are, so you know,

1343
01:08:59,479 --> 01:09:02,479
Speaker 14: so it's it's a very a palpable thing that he's

1344
01:09:02,520 --> 01:09:06,000
Speaker 14: able to control, you know, what happens in this town

1345
01:09:06,120 --> 01:09:10,080
Speaker 14: through his influence and through his financial support. From there,

1346
01:09:10,120 --> 01:09:11,720
Speaker 14: it goes on to just kind of you know, when

1347
01:09:11,720 --> 01:09:14,400
Speaker 14: you walk around the town. You'll see signs, you know,

1348
01:09:14,479 --> 01:09:19,080
Speaker 14: thanking his foundation. The local zoo has an exhibit for

1349
01:09:19,240 --> 01:09:23,320
Speaker 14: the paying homage to the guards of the Verunga National

1350
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:27,959
Speaker 14: Park in Congo and the mountain gorillas. You know, strange,

1351
01:09:28,080 --> 01:09:29,519
Speaker 14: but you know it's one of his passions.

1352
01:09:29,560 --> 01:09:33,000
Speaker 6: So it's there. The Children's Museum.

1353
01:09:32,680 --> 01:09:36,400
Speaker 14: Which is a private museum, it has an exhibit called

1354
01:09:36,400 --> 01:09:40,240
Speaker 14: the Heroes Hall, which is like this very very explicitly

1355
01:09:40,360 --> 01:09:43,760
Speaker 14: pro law enforcement exhibit. You basically go in there and

1356
01:09:43,880 --> 01:09:45,680
Speaker 14: you you know, you read these plac guards about how

1357
01:09:45,720 --> 01:09:48,200
Speaker 14: the police are heroes, and you can put on different

1358
01:09:48,280 --> 01:09:50,320
Speaker 14: uniforms and pretend to be a cop and you're told

1359
01:09:50,360 --> 01:09:53,120
Speaker 14: about what, you know, the great things that the police do.

1360
01:09:53,920 --> 01:09:55,519
Speaker 14: And you know, it's as a children's museum, it's like

1361
01:09:55,520 --> 01:09:58,360
Speaker 14: all primary colors and you know, fun running around stuff.

1362
01:09:58,400 --> 01:10:01,600
Speaker 14: There's a statue of Buffet from his time when he

1363
01:10:01,640 --> 01:10:04,200
Speaker 14: guessed he was actually officially share if. There's a statue

1364
01:10:04,240 --> 01:10:08,160
Speaker 14: of him outside of the museum as well. So yeah,

1365
01:10:08,200 --> 01:10:11,519
Speaker 14: I mean it's just about I think when someone has

1366
01:10:11,560 --> 01:10:13,320
Speaker 14: this amount of money and this amount of focus on

1367
01:10:13,400 --> 01:10:16,400
Speaker 14: a small town, they're able to you know, actually literally

1368
01:10:16,560 --> 01:10:19,800
Speaker 14: change people's daily lives. You know, the things that they see,

1369
01:10:19,920 --> 01:10:22,880
Speaker 14: the information that they're provided through their daily lives.

1370
01:10:23,360 --> 01:10:26,479
Speaker 4: Now, his representative told you in the story when you

1371
01:10:26,600 --> 01:10:29,960
Speaker 4: asked to potentially speak with Howard Buffett, basically that listen,

1372
01:10:30,000 --> 01:10:31,960
Speaker 4: he would have moved out of Illinois years ago if

1373
01:10:32,000 --> 01:10:34,600
Speaker 4: it wasn't for his wife health. You know, he's too

1374
01:10:34,680 --> 01:10:38,200
Speaker 4: busy for Decatur basically except for planting and harvesting season.

1375
01:10:38,280 --> 01:10:41,240
Speaker 4: He's traveling around the world with his charities. But you

1376
01:10:41,360 --> 01:10:44,000
Speaker 4: also point out that Decatur is a really interesting kind

1377
01:10:44,000 --> 01:10:47,240
Speaker 4: of case city. It's not your typical maybe rust belt city.

1378
01:10:47,439 --> 01:10:51,599
Speaker 4: There's something it's shrinking, like many many roust belt cities are.

1379
01:10:52,520 --> 01:10:55,120
Speaker 4: But analysts look at it and say, there's a decent

1380
01:10:55,200 --> 01:10:57,759
Speaker 4: number of jobs here. People are able to make a living.

1381
01:10:58,200 --> 01:11:01,080
Speaker 4: What can you tell us actually about Cater just as

1382
01:11:01,120 --> 01:11:03,200
Speaker 4: a city? What kind of city is it? What is

1383
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:06,479
Speaker 4: it like? And you know, how has the city reacted.

1384
01:11:06,840 --> 01:11:08,639
Speaker 4: You have some really interesting stuff in there too about

1385
01:11:08,640 --> 01:11:11,600
Speaker 4: how the city itself has reacted in different ways to

1386
01:11:11,840 --> 01:11:13,000
Speaker 4: Howard Buffett over the years.

1387
01:11:13,960 --> 01:11:14,160
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1388
01:11:14,160 --> 01:11:17,120
Speaker 14: Absolutely, this is you know, all stuff that I learned

1389
01:11:17,280 --> 01:11:19,400
Speaker 14: from my reporting, and you know, I really enjoyed being

1390
01:11:19,439 --> 01:11:21,800
Speaker 14: indicator and learning this and so yeah, it's you know,

1391
01:11:21,920 --> 01:11:24,439
Speaker 14: kind of classic Illinois farm country as you imagine you're

1392
01:11:24,479 --> 01:11:26,599
Speaker 14: driving through and you're seeing you know, rows and rows

1393
01:11:26,600 --> 01:11:29,439
Speaker 14: of crops and it feels, you know, endless. And the

1394
01:11:29,520 --> 01:11:32,720
Speaker 14: big company that's there is Archill Archer Daniel Midlands, this

1395
01:11:32,800 --> 01:11:35,640
Speaker 14: agricultural giant. So you know they take all these uh

1396
01:11:35,960 --> 01:11:37,560
Speaker 14: take all his corn and make all these products that

1397
01:11:37,600 --> 01:11:39,080
Speaker 14: end up in our food and all these millions of

1398
01:11:39,120 --> 01:11:42,360
Speaker 14: different ways, and which is obviously a very lucrative business

1399
01:11:42,400 --> 01:11:44,719
Speaker 14: to be in. And that's actually what brought Howard Buffetts

1400
01:11:44,720 --> 01:11:47,080
Speaker 14: town originally, which is another kind of layer to this

1401
01:11:47,240 --> 01:11:49,760
Speaker 14: that he's not from Illinois. He's from Nebraska, you know,

1402
01:11:49,800 --> 01:11:52,519
Speaker 14: famanasy like his father, and so he comes here almost

1403
01:11:52,600 --> 01:11:55,600
Speaker 14: arbitrarily and becomes it starts building his influence over the

1404
01:11:55,720 --> 01:11:59,519
Speaker 14: years and uh and so yeah, so there are jobs,

1405
01:11:59,640 --> 01:12:04,719
Speaker 14: and that is a profitable company. What I heard from locals,

1406
01:12:04,760 --> 01:12:06,479
Speaker 14: people that are involved in this in the city in

1407
01:12:06,520 --> 01:12:09,960
Speaker 14: different ways, of activists and also a member of the

1408
01:12:10,000 --> 01:12:12,720
Speaker 14: school board, is that they feel that there's been a

1409
01:12:12,840 --> 01:12:16,080
Speaker 14: lack of you know, the maintenance of the infrastructure or

1410
01:12:16,080 --> 01:12:18,880
Speaker 14: the things that the school needs, you know, the thing

1411
01:12:18,960 --> 01:12:21,560
Speaker 14: the city needs, like schools, and you know, I was

1412
01:12:21,640 --> 01:12:23,759
Speaker 14: told that, you know, literally some of the public pools

1413
01:12:23,760 --> 01:12:27,080
Speaker 14: have been closed down as this private pool kind of

1414
01:12:27,200 --> 01:12:29,200
Speaker 14: complex had come in. You know, just things that any

1415
01:12:29,560 --> 01:12:31,560
Speaker 14: person that lives in a town would think about, you know,

1416
01:12:31,640 --> 01:12:33,400
Speaker 14: if you have children or not. You know, you're just

1417
01:12:33,560 --> 01:12:35,240
Speaker 14: you know, this is these are the basics that the

1418
01:12:35,280 --> 01:12:37,840
Speaker 14: town might need. And that's what they felt. They felt that,

1419
01:12:37,920 --> 01:12:41,120
Speaker 14: you know, despite the fact that there's this benefactor who

1420
01:12:41,160 --> 01:12:43,640
Speaker 14: has spent all this money, somehow none of that has

1421
01:12:44,200 --> 01:12:47,000
Speaker 14: manifested in, you know, the basic needs of a town,

1422
01:12:47,080 --> 01:12:50,320
Speaker 14: what a town really needs. And yeah, I think that

1423
01:12:50,600 --> 01:12:52,840
Speaker 14: kind of that's kind of the interesting point. You know,

1424
01:12:53,200 --> 01:12:55,320
Speaker 14: someone spending money, are they spending money the way they

1425
01:12:55,400 --> 01:12:57,519
Speaker 14: want to or are they spending money the way that

1426
01:12:57,640 --> 01:12:59,840
Speaker 14: the town might need. And so yeah, so I think

1427
01:13:00,160 --> 01:13:02,639
Speaker 14: you know, while while a Decatur has had factory closures

1428
01:13:03,240 --> 01:13:05,120
Speaker 14: that have led to job lost, you know, as we've

1429
01:13:05,160 --> 01:13:07,840
Speaker 14: seen throughout the country, throughout the rest Belt. Uh, the

1430
01:13:08,160 --> 01:13:10,040
Speaker 14: feeling that I got from some of these activists is

1431
01:13:10,120 --> 01:13:13,920
Speaker 14: that if we just made some decision decisions differently, we could.

1432
01:13:13,800 --> 01:13:15,439
Speaker 6: Prop this town up a little better.

1433
01:13:15,479 --> 01:13:17,360
Speaker 14: And that goes back to the dispensary you know, the

1434
01:13:17,479 --> 01:13:19,320
Speaker 14: tax revenue that they would hope to get from that.

1435
01:13:19,880 --> 01:13:20,280
Speaker 4: Uh you know.

1436
01:13:20,439 --> 01:13:23,559
Speaker 14: So, so what has happened since the original fight over

1437
01:13:23,680 --> 01:13:26,640
Speaker 14: it is the dispense dispensary has opened, but over the

1438
01:13:26,880 --> 01:13:30,880
Speaker 14: over the Decatur border, So it's a small municipality just

1439
01:13:30,960 --> 01:13:33,240
Speaker 14: over you know, just you know, five minute drive from

1440
01:13:33,320 --> 01:13:35,920
Speaker 14: Decatur that's getting that tax revenue. So I think that's

1441
01:13:35,960 --> 01:13:38,160
Speaker 14: a very kind of a blunt and clear example of

1442
01:13:38,439 --> 01:13:40,519
Speaker 14: you know, if locals are saying that they want something

1443
01:13:40,560 --> 01:13:42,960
Speaker 14: because they believe that it will lead to tax money

1444
01:13:42,960 --> 01:13:45,240
Speaker 14: that they can spend on things they want, and then

1445
01:13:45,280 --> 01:13:47,800
Speaker 14: you have a billionaire who has spent all this money

1446
01:13:47,840 --> 01:13:50,920
Speaker 14: and has accrue political capital, you know, political influence through

1447
01:13:50,960 --> 01:13:53,639
Speaker 14: that spending, deciding that that's not going to happen.

1448
01:13:54,080 --> 01:13:54,160
Speaker 2: Uh.

1449
01:13:54,240 --> 01:13:55,880
Speaker 14: Yeah, I think I think that that that puts it

1450
01:13:56,040 --> 01:14:00,160
Speaker 14: pretty starkly, you know, the idea of who who like

1451
01:14:00,280 --> 01:14:03,360
Speaker 14: who does this person have in his best interests as himself.

1452
01:14:03,120 --> 01:14:03,760
Speaker 6: Or is it the town?

1453
01:14:04,520 --> 01:14:07,679
Speaker 1: And so if Buffett here is kind of an avatar

1454
01:14:07,840 --> 01:14:10,559
Speaker 1: for the billionaire class and the way that they are

1455
01:14:10,680 --> 01:14:14,040
Speaker 1: kind of organizing society to you know, to their whims,

1456
01:14:15,040 --> 01:14:17,160
Speaker 1: what can we learn about the pushback to that who, like,

1457
01:14:17,240 --> 01:14:20,920
Speaker 1: who are the activists and what can we draw from

1458
01:14:21,680 --> 01:14:24,400
Speaker 1: what it looks like to kind of try to like

1459
01:14:24,840 --> 01:14:28,760
Speaker 1: galvanize some energy against that and reclaim a kind of

1460
01:14:29,880 --> 01:14:30,599
Speaker 1: self government.

1461
01:14:31,360 --> 01:14:33,720
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you know, I think that.

1462
01:14:33,960 --> 01:14:36,439
Speaker 14: I think that that's what was so interesting to me

1463
01:14:36,479 --> 01:14:39,240
Speaker 14: about Decatur and being indicator. You can literally physically see

1464
01:14:39,320 --> 01:14:41,560
Speaker 14: his presence, and you can hear from people, and you know,

1465
01:14:41,640 --> 01:14:43,880
Speaker 14: people see him around and it's this rare example of

1466
01:14:44,760 --> 01:14:48,519
Speaker 14: the billionaire that is controlling or influencing your life. Isn't

1467
01:14:49,000 --> 01:14:51,160
Speaker 14: is really there where most of the time, you know,

1468
01:14:51,439 --> 01:14:53,880
Speaker 14: we'd be hard pressed to try to exactly connect the

1469
01:14:53,960 --> 01:14:55,800
Speaker 14: dots between you know, the way money is spent and

1470
01:14:55,920 --> 01:14:58,200
Speaker 14: you know the way it affects our lives. And so

1471
01:14:58,439 --> 01:15:01,160
Speaker 14: I think that also manifested itself and the ability for

1472
01:15:01,280 --> 01:15:04,800
Speaker 14: some activist specifically to rally around the dispensary. Uh they

1473
01:15:04,840 --> 01:15:06,960
Speaker 14: were fighting the city council to kind of reverse the

1474
01:15:07,040 --> 01:15:10,880
Speaker 14: decision against the dispensary. And I think through that a

1475
01:15:10,920 --> 01:15:13,720
Speaker 14: lot of attention was paid to the manner in which

1476
01:15:14,000 --> 01:15:16,200
Speaker 14: Buffett did influence the whole thing, and from what I

1477
01:15:16,320 --> 01:15:18,120
Speaker 14: was told by local activists that they feel that that

1478
01:15:18,520 --> 01:15:21,080
Speaker 14: did push him back somewhat from from being as gung

1479
01:15:21,160 --> 01:15:24,479
Speaker 14: ho about you know, further actions than that in that

1480
01:15:24,600 --> 01:15:26,840
Speaker 14: kind of capacity. And and you know, the idea that

1481
01:15:26,920 --> 01:15:29,240
Speaker 14: maybe maybe they're pushing him out of Central Illinois a

1482
01:15:29,240 --> 01:15:32,040
Speaker 14: little bit altogether. Maybe he has lost the appetite to

1483
01:15:32,840 --> 01:15:36,680
Speaker 14: to uh, you know, influences as as aggressively as he

1484
01:15:36,760 --> 01:15:39,559
Speaker 14: has in the past. I think that this specific fight

1485
01:15:39,600 --> 01:15:42,440
Speaker 14: around the dispensary was the most kind of cohesive grassroots

1486
01:15:42,520 --> 01:15:45,240
Speaker 14: pushback that he's felt, that he's seen. And uh, and yeah,

1487
01:15:45,240 --> 01:15:47,320
Speaker 14: I think that kind of might have might might uh

1488
01:15:47,920 --> 01:15:50,240
Speaker 14: might kind of stymy any given person. You know, nobody

1489
01:15:50,320 --> 01:15:52,360
Speaker 14: really wants to be in the spotlight like that. You know,

1490
01:15:52,720 --> 01:15:54,360
Speaker 14: especially when you're someone who spends a lot of money,

1491
01:15:54,360 --> 01:15:57,240
Speaker 14: you're also interested in how that money is interpreted. So

1492
01:15:57,280 --> 01:15:58,880
Speaker 14: if you can, you can google him, you'll see a

1493
01:15:58,880 --> 01:16:01,479
Speaker 14: ton of great coverage, you know, from his time as sheriff.

1494
01:16:01,600 --> 01:16:03,840
Speaker 14: You know about how he's just this guy who loves

1495
01:16:03,880 --> 01:16:06,400
Speaker 14: the small town life and just runs around, you know, wanting.

1496
01:16:06,240 --> 01:16:06,760
Speaker 6: To help people.

1497
01:16:07,680 --> 01:16:10,040
Speaker 14: You know, where the reality of how he became sheriff

1498
01:16:10,080 --> 01:16:11,160
Speaker 14: is much more complicated.

1499
01:16:11,479 --> 01:16:12,880
Speaker 6: You know, sheriff is an elected position.

1500
01:16:13,160 --> 01:16:16,240
Speaker 14: Uh, he he was, he was appointed when the acting

1501
01:16:16,320 --> 01:16:19,920
Speaker 14: sheriff uh quit and and and and signed him as

1502
01:16:19,960 --> 01:16:20,280
Speaker 14: the sheriff.

1503
01:16:20,760 --> 01:16:20,880
Speaker 7: UH.

1504
01:16:21,080 --> 01:16:24,240
Speaker 14: Later on this this sheriff went on to to work

1505
01:16:24,280 --> 01:16:27,800
Speaker 14: at this kind of police training facility, this big police

1506
01:16:27,840 --> 01:16:30,599
Speaker 14: training facility that one activist compared to you know, Atlanta's

1507
01:16:30,600 --> 01:16:33,920
Speaker 14: cop city to me that they have an indicator and

1508
01:16:34,200 --> 01:16:37,400
Speaker 14: so yeah, so there's just like very direct, uh kind

1509
01:16:37,439 --> 01:16:40,360
Speaker 14: of an influence buying that you could that you could

1510
01:16:40,520 --> 01:16:43,160
Speaker 14: kind of see or assume. There was also an issue

1511
01:16:43,240 --> 01:16:46,760
Speaker 14: with the Buffett had gotten somewhat of a fraudulent lost

1512
01:16:46,800 --> 01:16:49,960
Speaker 14: certificate and the person who gave him the cpercificate he

1513
01:16:50,040 --> 01:16:52,840
Speaker 14: was involved with this standards board in Illinois. He ended

1514
01:16:52,920 --> 01:16:58,679
Speaker 14: up being indicted on on on charges of you know, felony, uh, forgery,

1515
01:16:59,000 --> 01:17:02,400
Speaker 14: fraud and uh and uh you know this this certificate

1516
01:17:02,479 --> 01:17:05,400
Speaker 14: business came out. So you see, like you see some

1517
01:17:05,560 --> 01:17:09,080
Speaker 14: of the more nefarious uh or or or you know

1518
01:17:09,520 --> 01:17:12,840
Speaker 14: sort of kind of a not as appetizing elements of

1519
01:17:12,920 --> 01:17:15,639
Speaker 14: how Buffett ended up becoming sheriff and how he kind

1520
01:17:15,680 --> 01:17:18,480
Speaker 14: of yeah, plays out some of his law enforcement fantasies.

1521
01:17:18,880 --> 01:17:22,880
Speaker 4: And finally, were you able to determine uh, this shocking

1522
01:17:22,880 --> 01:17:25,880
Speaker 4: anecdote in the story, does the guy really drink a

1523
01:17:26,360 --> 01:17:30,320
Speaker 4: gallon of coke for lunch? Do you have any information

1524
01:17:30,439 --> 01:17:31,840
Speaker 4: on this? Could you confirm.

1525
01:17:34,120 --> 01:17:38,000
Speaker 14: From an interview with an Australian newspaper that that that

1526
01:17:38,240 --> 01:17:40,599
Speaker 14: was you know that that that interviewer did sit down

1527
01:17:40,600 --> 01:17:43,439
Speaker 14: with Buffett. So I have no reason to believe that

1528
01:17:43,560 --> 01:17:46,559
Speaker 14: that is not true. That was not my direct reporting.

1529
01:17:47,640 --> 01:17:50,080
Speaker 14: I did not witness it. I have to clarify that.

1530
01:17:50,280 --> 01:17:52,879
Speaker 14: But I assume this person went to lunch with Buffett

1531
01:17:53,120 --> 01:17:55,559
Speaker 14: and that's what he saw. Otherwise, why you know why

1532
01:17:55,600 --> 01:17:56,360
Speaker 14: I put that in there.

1533
01:17:57,040 --> 01:17:58,000
Speaker 4: I'm almost impressed.

1534
01:17:58,080 --> 01:18:03,040
Speaker 1: But he doesn't like Wade, but fascinating that weed seems

1535
01:18:03,120 --> 01:18:05,360
Speaker 1: to be the thing that broke us back, and so

1536
01:18:05,840 --> 01:18:09,000
Speaker 1: the key to breaking the grip of the billionaire class

1537
01:18:10,160 --> 01:18:10,559
Speaker 1: is weed.

1538
01:18:11,880 --> 01:18:14,320
Speaker 3: And it's also good for it broken back. So there

1539
01:18:14,320 --> 01:18:14,439
Speaker 3: you go.

1540
01:18:15,240 --> 01:18:19,120
Speaker 4: Sager doesn't watch the segment. Amas, thank you so much.

1541
01:18:19,640 --> 01:18:22,920
Speaker 4: It's rare also to have such great writing and great

1542
01:18:22,960 --> 01:18:24,840
Speaker 4: reporting at the same time. The writing the story is

1543
01:18:24,880 --> 01:18:26,479
Speaker 4: really great. We recommend you check it out over at

1544
01:18:26,479 --> 01:18:28,800
Speaker 4: the Lever. Thank you so much, Amos, thank you so much.

1545
01:18:28,800 --> 01:18:29,479
Speaker 6: I really appreciate it.

1546
01:18:29,760 --> 01:18:32,440
Speaker 4: Well, that doesn't for us today on this edition of Counterpoints,

1547
01:18:32,520 --> 01:18:34,840
Speaker 4: we told you impeachment was coming, and here it came.

1548
01:18:35,880 --> 01:18:36,559
Speaker 3: It sort of came.

1549
01:18:36,680 --> 01:18:37,479
Speaker 8: Yeah, well we don't know.

1550
01:18:38,479 --> 01:18:40,439
Speaker 4: So Ryan's going to head back over to Capitol Hill.

1551
01:18:40,520 --> 01:18:43,720
Speaker 4: We'll have more for you on all these internal dynamics

1552
01:18:43,760 --> 01:18:47,680
Speaker 4: and Republicans Democrats, impeachment, Will Matt Gates get AOC to

1553
01:18:47,800 --> 01:18:51,919
Speaker 4: finally vote with him. We'll be back with more next Wednesday.

1554
01:18:52,040 --> 01:18:54,479
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for liking and subscribing. It has

1555
01:18:54,560 --> 01:18:57,080
Speaker 4: been a year here at Counterpoints. We appreciate all of

1556
01:18:57,160 --> 01:18:58,360
Speaker 4: you guys so very much.

1557
01:18:58,960 --> 01:19:01,280
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and if you're here, you're in DC tonight

1558
01:19:01,880 --> 01:19:03,560
Speaker 1: at GW I'm going to be doing an event with

1559
01:19:03,640 --> 01:19:07,920
Speaker 1: Naomi Client seven pm at the GWU Amphitheater. She got

1560
01:19:07,960 --> 01:19:11,920
Speaker 1: a new book out, really fun book called Doppelganger.

1561
01:19:12,400 --> 01:19:14,640
Speaker 3: Quite good. Anyway, see you there if you're there,