Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
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Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 1: Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 1: What do we have, Crystal. Indeed, we do, of course,
Speaker 1: lots of big breaking news this week, including of course,
Speaker 1: we are expecting that former President Trump will be arraigned tomorrow,
Speaker 1: so we've got all the latest details there, and there
Speaker 1: is some new news there, both on the legal front
Speaker 1: and on the political front. Let's just say that our
Speaker 1: predictions thus far have come true. Yes, so we'll dig
Speaker 1: into all of that. We also have a new entrant
Speaker 1: into the twenty twenty four race. Everybody get hyped for
Speaker 1: Asa Hutchinson joining the twenty twenty four field. He's the
Speaker 1: first sort of like out and out anti Trump candidate,
Speaker 1: so that is interesting. At the same time, Maryan Williamson
Speaker 1: actually surging in the polls, so we'll break that down
Speaker 1: for you as well. Prominent military blogger was murdered in
Speaker 1: Russia and a Saint Petersburg cafe along with some of
Speaker 1: his supporters were also injured. We'll break that down for
Speaker 1: you as well. Dominion is celebrating today because they had
Speaker 1: a major victory in their lawsuit against Box News. That
Speaker 1: case moves forward. Got the details for you there, elon
Speaker 1: doing something genuinely hilarious by removing the chech mark just
Speaker 1: from The New York Times and no one else. So
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about what that means. And we have
Speaker 1: a couple of announcements before we get into the show.
Speaker 1: So first of all, we are going to be doing
Speaker 1: a livestream special in primetime tomorrow night because tomorrow is
Speaker 1: the day that Trump is expected to be arraigned. He
Speaker 1: also has a press conference scheduled for the evening that
Speaker 1: we are going to take live. So go ahead and
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen, guys, Soccer, what are
Speaker 1: some of the details the folks need to know Trump
Speaker 1: on trial. I know everyone's always asking for live streams
Speaker 1: and for primetime specials and all that, so which decided. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a genuinely historic event, President Trump
Speaker 1: being arraigned. He will be arraigned in Manhattan in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day, but he's doing a major press
Speaker 1: conference around eight pm tomorrow night Eastern time. So the
Speaker 1: four of us and the counter to meet the Counterpoints crew,
Speaker 1: we will all be here at the desk. We'll give
Speaker 1: everybody a little bit of a pre show and then
Speaker 1: a post show as well. We'll fully watch the press
Speaker 1: conference here together, so you can watch it here on
Speaker 1: the Breaking Point stream, and we are also going to
Speaker 1: be having some legal analysts. We will be running an
Speaker 1: AMA feature for our premium subscribers who can sign up
Speaker 1: at Breakingpoints dot com. On the AMA, you can submit
Speaker 1: your questions legal questions for two legal experts that we
Speaker 1: will have here on the show who will answer them,
Speaker 1: and then we will also break some of that down
Speaker 1: for you as well. So it's an opportunity for the
Speaker 1: premiums to ask questions. We will answer them live and
Speaker 1: also just have a fun live primetime special here at
Speaker 1: a normal times, So we'll be starting around seven thirty
Speaker 1: seven forty five from Eastern time, depending on when we
Speaker 1: think Trump will be speaking, but the four of us
Speaker 1: will be here at the desk, so you live analysis.
Speaker 1: No regular show tomorrow. Instead of regular show, we're doing
Speaker 1: the evening primetime live stream. If your premium sub submit
Speaker 1: your questions ONAMA. If you want to ask questions, become
Speaker 1: a premium sub and you can do exactly that second
Speaker 1: of all Spotify video. That's right, and so that's another
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Speaker 1: video fully on Spotify, and just so everybody knows the
Speaker 1: full video audio all of that, we will post the
Speaker 1: second day on the Spotify channel as well as on
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Speaker 1: don't worry about it. You can take everything the morning
Speaker 1: of whenever you wake up. We'll publish it as as
Speaker 1: early as possible, so if you can't stay up or
Speaker 1: have something to do, you can watch it that morning,
Speaker 1: and then Counterpoints will be moving to Friday, so we
Speaker 1: will still have content for everybody all throughout the week.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, it's still going to be a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: and of course you can become a premium sub Breakingpoints
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Speaker 1: use the AMA feature within the supercast website. Yah, whenever
Speaker 1: you become us subscriber. But okay, let's start with the
Speaker 1: actual news. Let's get to the show, all right, yett,
Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen. In a
Speaker 1: surprise to absolutely nobody, Trump surges to his largest lead
Speaker 1: ever over Ron DeSantis after the news of the indictment breaks,
Speaker 1: showing that most Americans don't think Trump should be allowed
Speaker 1: to serve as president again if convicted. But amongst Republicans,
Speaker 1: his star is not waning. It is what bursting? Is
Speaker 1: that how you would say? Rising? Okay, all right, floating? Rising,
Speaker 1: that's a good word. Well, it used to be a
Speaker 1: good word. Okay. So Republican preference for Trump over DeSantis
Speaker 1: has increased after Trump's indictment to fifty seven percent. Desanti
Speaker 1: is sinking to thirty one percent twelve percent undecided. Keep
Speaker 1: in mind, this is not even in a multi field poll.
Speaker 1: This is in a direct head to head and it
Speaker 1: is a surge of twenty six percent in that one
Speaker 1: to one contest, and a contest, not only does he
Speaker 1: attract majority support. Previously he had forty four percent, now
Speaker 1: up to an outright fifty two when even pitted against
Speaker 1: a wider ten candidate field. So that's the two headlines.
Speaker 1: Not only does he surge against head to head in
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, taking fifty seven percent, but also even in
Speaker 1: a multi ten candidate race where you have some of
Speaker 1: the declared and potential GOP GOP challengers to Trump, he
Speaker 1: still is at a fifty two percent. And actually this
Speaker 1: doesn't account for the ASA Hutchinson search. Right, Yes, I apologize.
Speaker 1: Keep out in mind for anybody who's asking exactly who
Speaker 1: the hell that is, we will bring you the details.
Speaker 1: For Ron DeSantis. There's even worse news, which is that
Speaker 1: Trump only drops by five percent in a multi candidate field,
Speaker 1: Desanda drops by ten, just showing you once again that
Speaker 1: in a multi candidate field, a large percentage of people
Speaker 1: who are quote unquote anti Trump, even though that's not
Speaker 1: actually that many of them are still not entirely wedded
Speaker 1: to Ron DeSantis. So, I mean, the overall headline is
Speaker 1: that this is a brutal and terrible poll, not only
Speaker 1: for Ron DeSantis, but for anybody who's even thinking about
Speaker 1: challenging Trump, you know, CC, Nikki Haley, Vivik Ramaswami, Mike Pompeo,
Speaker 1: Asa Hudginson, I guess who will talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about you in the next block. But overall, I mean, shocker,
Speaker 1: he's a lot more powerful than he was before after
Speaker 1: the indictment news. Who could have predicted this. I think
Speaker 1: that this is even more movement than I expected. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking just to underscore this. The last
Speaker 1: time this polster was out in the field, it was
Speaker 1: just two weeks ago, and there has been huge movement
Speaker 1: since then. So Trump was ahead the last time two
Speaker 1: weeks ago, but it was forty seven to thirty nine,
Speaker 1: much much closer than what it is now. And as
Speaker 1: recently as February, DeSantis was actually narrowly ahead of Trump
Speaker 1: in this poll. Now, I think with all of these polls,
Speaker 1: as we're moving forward and thinking about how to interpret them,
Speaker 1: et cetera, what's important to keep in mind is not
Speaker 1: what the absolute numbers are. It's what you see in
Speaker 1: terms of the movement. Because as we've talked about the
Speaker 1: Republican primary polls so far, they've been really wildly divergent
Speaker 1: across different polling methodologies. But if you see significant movement
Speaker 1: within one single poll, that tells you something here is
Speaker 1: really happening. And you know, I think it seems pretty
Speaker 1: clear this indictment has really strengthened Trump's hand. It has
Speaker 1: forced all of the Republican candidates to basically rally around him,
Speaker 1: giving him the strength. And it's important to keep in
Speaker 1: mind too, this is probably the first of several indictments.
Speaker 1: So it's not like you can say, Okay, we'll get
Speaker 1: through this. If you're round the Santa all right, we'll
Speaker 1: get through this. Yes, he's dominating the new cycle now,
Speaker 1: but then we'll be able to move forward. I'll be
Speaker 1: able to talk about what I'm doing with the Florida
Speaker 1: legislature or whatever. No, this is going to be the
Speaker 1: dynamic that is playing out the whole time. And even
Speaker 1: after we get whatever potential indictments are going to you know,
Speaker 1: come down here, then you're also talking about legal wrangling.
Speaker 1: You're talking about potential trials, You're talking about different you know,
Speaker 1: motions to dismiss in front of judges. This is going
Speaker 1: to go on and on and on, at least throughout
Speaker 1: the Republican primary and potentially throughout the entirety of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. Just as a side note here, you know,
Speaker 1: there's also some interesting news here in terms of a
Speaker 1: general election. Yes, a majority of voters, you know, they
Speaker 1: think he did it. They think it should be disqualifying.
Speaker 1: But then when you're like, all right, Joe Biden versus
Speaker 1: Donald Trump head to head, there has been zero change there.
Speaker 1: Biden has a two point lead, which is within the
Speaker 1: margin of error. So it's basically a jump ball. Even
Speaker 1: with everything that's happened so far and general electorate side,
Speaker 1: this hasn't moved the needle whatsoever so so far, And
Speaker 1: of course things can change if he ends up, you know,
Speaker 1: being found guilty of these things, or if you know,
Speaker 1: another indictment related to the documents or January sixth, or
Speaker 1: faked electors or whatever comes out, maybe that shifts things.
Speaker 1: But most of the general electorate audience kind of already
Speaker 1: has these things priced in, is my reading, at least
Speaker 1: of the initial polling on this front. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you're right, which is, you know, look, anybody who didn't
Speaker 1: like Trump, this is not going to change anything. Anybody
Speaker 1: who was on the fence about Trump. I also don't
Speaker 1: think this particularly changes anything because it's baked into it
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, he really looks like a guy who
Speaker 1: is a stand up dude, pays his taxes, on time,
Speaker 1: and would never ever do a book of what, would
Speaker 1: never ever try and disguise a payment via his own
Speaker 1: personal lawyer, even to the respect of the details of
Speaker 1: which we will get miired in. Unfortunately, just because of
Speaker 1: the historic nature of the case for us, most people
Speaker 1: you said this in our initial reaction, they're like, they're
Speaker 1: not taking much away from it. What I find more interesting, though,
Speaker 1: is Desanta still looks to be full steam ahead. He
Speaker 1: gave a speech two days ago in which he basically
Speaker 1: brushed off the polls but also tried to defend Trump
Speaker 1: because that's what so many people, especially Republicans, wanted to
Speaker 1: see from him. But he's still in an odd area.
Speaker 1: Still can't say Trump's name, He doesn't ever talk in specifics.
Speaker 1: He just talks in wide generalities. Here he is, let's
Speaker 1: take a listen. We resolve to lead by conviction, not
Speaker 1: by polls. I have never taken a poll about any
Speaker 1: of these issues that I've championed since I've been governor,
Speaker 1: didn't on day one and still having to this day.
Speaker 1: A leader doesn't respond to poles. A leader gets in
Speaker 1: front of issues, identifies what needs to be done, sets
Speaker 1: the vision, executes the vision, delivers the results, and guess
Speaker 1: what happens when you do that? The polls change in
Speaker 1: your direction. So now he turns around purely for political
Speaker 1: purposes and indicts a former president on misdemeanor offenses that
Speaker 1: they're straining to try to convert into felonies. That is
Speaker 1: when you know that the law has been weaponized for
Speaker 1: political purposes. That is when you know that the left
Speaker 1: is using that to target their political opponents. And I
Speaker 1: can tell you this, these soros back das. They are
Speaker 1: a menace to society. They are a menace to the
Speaker 1: rule of law. Speaking Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is that an important state?
Speaker 1: You know, somebody can tell me about that. Now, why
Speaker 1: is the governor of Florida and Harrisburg? That's an interesting question.
Speaker 1: Well the second one. First of all, in the pole thing,
Speaker 1: there's just no way that's true. Let's all just be honest.
Speaker 1: It's impossible. All politicians are some of the most politested people.
Speaker 1: That's why it is almost a verb at this point,
Speaker 1: like or I mean in that like poll tested candidate
Speaker 1: in terms of the way that we think about them. Second, though,
Speaker 1: in his response to Trump, he still can't say the
Speaker 1: man's name. Yeah, who which former president. This is where
Speaker 1: trying to play the game of being on Trump's side
Speaker 1: but never actually mentioned his name, not coming to his
Speaker 1: defense in the same way that a Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 1: or a Matt Gats or any of the other die
Speaker 1: hard actual MAGA people would just shows you the disadvantage
Speaker 1: that he is. And then the poll just shows you
Speaker 1: something very clear. Republicans like Trump. They love Trump. You know,
Speaker 1: at fifty seven percent, he is like, by and far
Speaker 1: the leading candidate to the extent that you might be
Speaker 1: able to beat him, you have to win over not
Speaker 1: just a little bit, a lot of the people who
Speaker 1: love him and see him as under persecution. How can
Speaker 1: you do that if you're not willing to really like
Speaker 1: go in a full throat of defense like that. Well,
Speaker 1: the funny thing to me, listen, I don't talk about like,
Speaker 1: oh I don't take a pull and not pull tests
Speaker 1: like you're literally giving a pull tested answer about the
Speaker 1: Trump thing as you're claiming that he full tested answers
Speaker 1: because he saw it happen the first time around. When
Speaker 1: Trump put out his truth social that was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm about to be indicted on Tuesday. Of course, the
Speaker 1: timing wasn't exactly right, but anyway, there was a rush
Speaker 1: to his defense from a lot of Republicans, and DeSantis
Speaker 1: was notably really quiet. And then when he did say
Speaker 1: something and took a little jab at Trump with a
Speaker 1: little like, well, I don't know anything about hush money
Speaker 1: payment to porn stars, but you know, and then he
Speaker 1: went on and gave his full tested answer. So he
Speaker 1: learned from the backlash that he got, and then he
Speaker 1: tried to craft the answer that he thought people wanted
Speaker 1: to hear from him, and it just really reeks of
Speaker 1: finger in the wind type of politician. And again I
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, I don't really like Rond DeSantis
Speaker 1: at all, but I have some epathy for him because
Speaker 1: I think it's an impossible position that he's in. I really,
Speaker 1: do you know what really motivates and galvanizes the Republican
Speaker 1: base at this point above everything is seeing the way
Speaker 1: that the people they hate are triggered and upset and
Speaker 1: how much they hate Donald Trump, right, And how do
Speaker 1: you beat a guy who's actually getting like indicted and
Speaker 1: arrested by these people? Like there's no level above that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it's an impossible landscape. I think
Speaker 1: the media landscape is going to be impossible for these
Speaker 1: Republicans to navigate because all they're going to get asked
Speaker 1: about from here on out, almost exclusively, is how do
Speaker 1: you react to this indictment? How do you react to
Speaker 1: what Trump said about X or Y or Z? How
Speaker 1: do you react to potential charges about January sixth or
Speaker 1: fake electors, et cetera. One other thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: pull out of this poll that I do think is relevant.
Speaker 1: You know, I said before it, and I do think
Speaker 1: that this is true. You know, all of these charges,
Speaker 1: the specific specifics of them, were going to get into
Speaker 1: and I think that they matter a lot on a
Speaker 1: substantive level in terms of the politics of it. I
Speaker 1: think it is a rorshac test of just how do
Speaker 1: you feel about Donald Trump going in? But you know,
Speaker 1: the potential charges that the public finds the most persuasive
Speaker 1: in terms of thinking that he actually did it is
Speaker 1: actually the classified documents piece. And there is some news
Speaker 1: that just broke that they have more evidence suggesting that
Speaker 1: he was directly involved and potentially moving some of those
Speaker 1: documents and even reviewed some of those documents after they'd
Speaker 1: been asked to turn everything over and after they had
Speaker 1: claimed that he had turned everything over. So that's the
Speaker 1: one where people are most persuaded that he actually, quote
Speaker 1: unquote did it. The next one is inciting the January
Speaker 1: sixth attack, And so you know, I think some of
Speaker 1: the other charges are sort of more persuasive to the
Speaker 1: American people, But again, I'm not sure that it really
Speaker 1: makes that much of a difference. If you think Trump
Speaker 1: is a criminal and he deserves to be held accountable,
Speaker 1: you're unlikely to look at these particular charges and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: but not like this, but this one is wrong. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: people want to see him held accountable, then they're going
Speaker 1: to be fine with basically what I charges. They're thrown at.
Speaker 1: It asks for other GOP voters. They're coming to Trump's defense,
Speaker 1: not just in the polls. Let's put this up there
Speaker 1: on the screen. Trump has been raising money like nobody's
Speaker 1: business with his campaign list. He's raised twenty four or
Speaker 1: four million dollars in just the first twenty four hours
Speaker 1: after his indictment. Keep in mind, that's just after the
Speaker 1: news of the indictment broke. Just go ahead and wait
Speaker 1: until there's television cameras showing him in handcuffs potentially or
Speaker 1: has a mugshot released by the City of New York
Speaker 1: or the State of New York while he's being prosecuted.
Speaker 1: And then after his press conference, which if you think
Speaker 1: Trump did not time his press conference exactly for a
Speaker 1: primetime in this country, then you don't really know anything
Speaker 1: about Donald Trump and how much he understands the media.
Speaker 1: This is a fundraising bonanza for the Trump campaign. They
Speaker 1: are probably stronger than they have been in a long time.
Speaker 1: So anyway, you know, look value judgment aside. Those are
Speaker 1: just the facts. He's surging in polls and he's making
Speaker 1: a ton of money, so everybody else who was hoping
Speaker 1: that might bring him down maybe, but not an indication
Speaker 1: of that yet. Yeah. I do want to say though,
Speaker 1: like it's this is not all like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: great for Trump. On a personal look, he faces potential
Speaker 1: prison time. I'm sure the man does not want to
Speaker 1: go to pre stressful so on a personal level, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying he's like celebrating this. I have no idea
Speaker 1: what his mindset is. There's some reporting that this is,
Speaker 1: you know, deeply like unsettling to him, and he's stressed
Speaker 1: out about it, even as he's trying to project, you know,
Speaker 1: a sort of public bravado. All we can talk speak
Speaker 1: to is the politics of it. First indications are for
Speaker 1: the general election, it doesn't make that much of a difference.
Speaker 1: Now I do think that that could potentially change, so
Speaker 1: I want to put that out there. I think it's
Speaker 1: really clear though, the impact that it has on the
Speaker 1: Republican primary, and it makes it very tough setting for
Speaker 1: anyone not named Donald J. Trump. Absolutely right, Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go to the next part here about Trump and any
Speaker 1: of the news that has broken. First of all, just
Speaker 1: an inside look into the actual process through which Trump
Speaker 1: wasn't diet and let's go ahea and put this up
Speaker 1: there on the screen. I encourage people to go through
Speaker 1: and read it if they're interested. Article is how Alvin Bragg.
Speaker 1: Alvin Bragg resurrected the case against Donald Trump. What it
Speaker 1: points to is a couple of things. The original investigation
Speaker 1: by Cyrus Fance, who was the Manhattan DA into Trump,
Speaker 1: had stalled over a year ago. Eventually, after he left
Speaker 1: the office, people who were inside the office had came
Speaker 1: to Alvin Bragg after he'd been taking the job, and
Speaker 1: they said, hey, look there actually is some quote there there.
Speaker 1: You should look at this investigation. The original DA's office
Speaker 1: is a decision not to prosecute Crump was controversial within
Speaker 1: the office. A lot of them are people who really
Speaker 1: wanted to go after Trump for the hush money payment.
Speaker 1: At the same time, they had two major incidents. Number
Speaker 1: one was a meeting that they had with Michael Cohen
Speaker 1: where they went through some of the details around the
Speaker 1: hush money payment, the scheme, and the installments to which
Speaker 1: they thought that they could brand case. And two, apparently
Speaker 1: is they were looking not only at Stormy Daniels, where
Speaker 1: they were also looking at other hush money payments. There
Speaker 1: has been some indication that it could include Karen McDougall,
Speaker 1: the former Playboy model who we've told you about, but
Speaker 1: there also could be other ones. It never came legally
Speaker 1: to light in the nature of these NDAs that were
Speaker 1: being distributed again all of it though. The reason why
Speaker 1: that they went for the felony case is just doing
Speaker 1: a just having bookkeeping fraud where you are mislabeling a
Speaker 1: transaction on your books, that's a misdemeanor. For it to
Speaker 1: be a felony that mislabeling in the payment has to
Speaker 1: be in the prosecution right in the cover up of
Speaker 1: another crime. The theory is that that another crime, though
Speaker 1: is a federal crime, of which though that they have
Speaker 1: no jurisdiction. So that novel kind of theory of the
Speaker 1: case is exactly why Cyrus Fans did not prosecute over
Speaker 1: a year ago, but Alvin Bragg thought that he could
Speaker 1: do so and that he had some more information that
Speaker 1: he could bring to light. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: in general, it was an interesting look just at the
Speaker 1: pure like legal mechanics and how the case went through
Speaker 1: the office and why exactly, you know, April of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, we're still talking about a hush money payment
Speaker 1: from November of twenty and sixteen. Yeah. So the other
Speaker 1: thing that was fascinating here is when it was Alvin
Speaker 1: Bragg's predecessor, Cyrus Fans, he was really looking more into
Speaker 1: some of the questions about that didn't have to do
Speaker 1: with the hush money payment at all. That had to
Speaker 1: do with Trump inflating his net worth and it was
Speaker 1: like business fraud in that direction of you know, lying
Speaker 1: to banks and potentially lying the irs about how much
Speaker 1: he was actually worth. And that was the piece that
Speaker 1: they couldn't quite put together. Michael Cohen has been apparently
Speaker 1: instrumental in considering any of these charges the whole time.
Speaker 1: And Cohen didn't have as much insight into directly the
Speaker 1: operation of the Trump organization and whether or not these
Speaker 1: assets were inflated and you know, potentially you know, criminally
Speaker 1: criminal way. And so that was where Alvin Bragg when
Speaker 1: he takes over the office, where he was kind of
Speaker 1: struggling because he felt like Cohen didn't have strong enough information,
Speaker 1: They couldn't quite put the pieces together, and so and
Speaker 1: he only had a few weeks. The clock was ticking
Speaker 1: when he took over. He only had a few weeks
Speaker 1: to make a decision about whether or not to charge.
Speaker 1: They already had the Grand Jurion paneled and they were
Speaker 1: already working through the evidence there. So he decides, we're
Speaker 1: not going to move forward with this one, much of
Speaker 1: the chagrin of a couple of the prosecutors who were involved,
Speaker 1: who ended up sending him a letter, say, you know,
Speaker 1: expressing their upset that they weren't moving forward with that
Speaker 1: particular direction, and they ended up resigning. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the New York Times got their hands on that letter
Speaker 1: and that had been reported out previously, but then Bragg
Speaker 1: settled on Okay, well, Cohen doesn't have insight as much
Speaker 1: into this whole net worth situation, but he directly was
Speaker 1: involved in the hush money payments, and so they start
Speaker 1: pulling on that thread. And that's how they and they
Speaker 1: you know, staff back up because they'd lost some of
Speaker 1: their key prosecutors, and that's how they end up, you know,
Speaker 1: in this place. So basically, the press had sort of
Speaker 1: left these potential charges for dead because the initial investigation floundered,
Speaker 1: went nowhere. Alvin Bragg pulled the plug. The whole time
Speaker 1: he was insisting in the media like hey, we're not
Speaker 1: done here yet, but it seemed to the press like
Speaker 1: all right, this one has kind of like fallen apart,
Speaker 1: and you know, behind the scenes, they were actually working
Speaker 1: through this hush money piece, and that's how you end
Speaker 1: up where we are. There you go. So that's inside now.
Speaker 1: In terms of the details itself, Trump spent the weekend
Speaker 1: going and doing time tested strategy going after the not
Speaker 1: only the Manhattan DA but now the judge, let's go
Speaker 1: to put this up there on the screen. He writes, quote,
Speaker 1: the judge assigned to my witch hunt case, a case
Speaker 1: that has never been charged before, hates me. His name
Speaker 1: is Juan Manuel march On. We has handpicked by Bragg
Speaker 1: and the prosecutors, the same person who railroaded my seventy
Speaker 1: five year old former CFO Alan Weiselberg to take a
Speaker 1: plea deal plead, not get plead guilty even if you
Speaker 1: are not ninety days fight us and core ten years
Speaker 1: life in jail. He strong armed Alan, which is his
Speaker 1: judge is not allowed to do, and treated my companies
Speaker 1: which didn't plead viciously. I am appealing. So that just
Speaker 1: gives you an insight a little bit into the legal strategy.
Speaker 1: Daily Mail also reporting this morning that Trump is likely
Speaker 1: to hire a First Amendment lawyer in the case that
Speaker 1: there is a job gag order that the judge has
Speaker 1: on the case, both from the Manhattan DA and from
Speaker 1: Trump himself, which would put him obviously in a difficult
Speaker 1: position and actually would be legitimately interesting from a First
Speaker 1: Amendment law perspective. It's like, well, how much of it
Speaker 1: is criminal, how much of it is in the public interest,
Speaker 1: and should a defendant be allowed to speak publicly about
Speaker 1: what's happening? So anyway, also in terms of the details.
Speaker 1: Here's what you guys need to know about today. Let's
Speaker 1: go and put this up there on the screen. Trump
Speaker 1: is going to speak at mar A Lago on the
Speaker 1: day of the expected arrangement. As we already told you,
Speaker 1: we will be covering that live here in primetime on
Speaker 1: the Breaking Points YouTube channel. But today, at exactly noon
Speaker 1: Eastern time, Trump will be leaving from mar A Lago
Speaker 1: to the City of New York, where he will reside
Speaker 1: in Trump Tower while he is there. From that point
Speaker 1: Tomorrow on Tuesday, around two fifteen pm Eastern Time, he
Speaker 1: will be taken to the Manhattan Courthouse. They've apparently going
Speaker 1: to block off the entire street before he is taken
Speaker 1: and arraigned. Not only rained, but it's likely he'll be processed,
Speaker 1: mugshot will be taken, etc. So all of those proceedings
Speaker 1: will be happening tomorrow, But the initial transfer to the
Speaker 1: state of New York, to the City of New York,
Speaker 1: where Trump will reside for a single night before returning
Speaker 1: tomorrow Lago on the day of, is all going to
Speaker 1: happen today. It is likely that he will take questions
Speaker 1: and possibly speak to the press at that time, Monitoring
Speaker 1: that right now very closely. What, of course, what Trump
Speaker 1: is doing is he's turning this all to a show.
Speaker 1: Why do I even know all of these times off
Speaker 1: the top of my head, because he tells us, He's like,
Speaker 1: I'll be there, be there at noon, just so that
Speaker 1: the cameras can come, they can set up, they have
Speaker 1: a press thing. You know. Also, invitations have been going
Speaker 1: out to MAGA allies from across the country to mar
Speaker 1: A Lago to join him at the press conference. In
Speaker 1: a Republican strow of show of strength. They're saying, we
Speaker 1: welcome and we are excited and welcome to host you
Speaker 1: here at Marlow. They're turning it into a major your
Speaker 1: campaign event. And you know, given the amount of money
Speaker 1: that they are now making off this, why wouldn't they
Speaker 1: At the same time, Crystal, people like Jim Banks, the
Speaker 1: prospective senator from Indiana, the congressman who's a MAGA person,
Speaker 1: endorsed Trump in the middle of the indiability Stephonic and
Speaker 1: others know majorly coming to his defense. Lots of MAGA
Speaker 1: ally Sarah Huckoby Sanders, who apparently refused to endorse Trump
Speaker 1: initially coming out to his defense, not necessarily endorsing so
Speaker 1: you know, the coalescing around Trump all continues. And let's
Speaker 1: go to the next one here too, though, because the
Speaker 1: legal jeopardy that Trump faces is not just in this
Speaker 1: case as he kept alluding to, it continues in many
Speaker 1: of the other cases. So right now the Justice Department
Speaker 1: and the FBI have actually amassed new evidence. This is
Speaker 1: according to the Washington Post, pointing to possible obstruction of
Speaker 1: justice by Trump in the Classified Documents investigation. They are
Speaker 1: increasingly suspect that Trump actually went through the boxes after
Speaker 1: his subpoena. Similarly, there was a report this morning from
Speaker 1: Brett bayer over at Fox News that several of a
Speaker 1: secret SRVIS agents who are on the detail for Trump
Speaker 1: are going to be subpoenaed and are going to be
Speaker 1: brought before a grand jury or brought before investigators where
Speaker 1: they will be asked specifically whether they witness Trump going
Speaker 1: through the documents with the handling of said documents and
Speaker 1: all that. That's before the Special Council Jacksmith and all
Speaker 1: of us leaves aside the other investigation into January sixth
Speaker 1: with Mike Pence is now being asked to testify before
Speaker 1: and then, of course the Fulty Fulton County investigation where
Speaker 1: after we met the kookie for woman, it's been silence
Speaker 1: over there. Yeah, I know what's going on, right They
Speaker 1: locked it down over there. Well they should have been
Speaker 1: after whatever the hell happened over there. So there you go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean, yes, it is going to be quite
Speaker 1: a ride here. I think this is the first of
Speaker 1: a number of charges that Trump is likely to face,
Speaker 1: but we'll have to see how that all unfolds. The
Speaker 1: last thing that I want to say on this put
Speaker 1: this last piece up on the screen, is that, you know,
Speaker 1: let's keep in mind we don't know exactly what the
Speaker 1: charges are going to be. We don't know how wide
Speaker 1: ranging they're going to be. As well. There's reporting Michael
Speaker 1: Cohen provided Manhattan prosecutors with documentation about a Trump hush
Speaker 1: money payment to a second woman, expectations that would be
Speaker 1: Karen McDougal, though we don't know for sure who claims
Speaker 1: to have had an affair with him. That's according to
Speaker 1: Lanny Davis. That's what he told CNN. That is Michael
Speaker 1: Cohen's lawyer. That suggests that Alvin Bragg's case could be
Speaker 1: broader than the storm Meet Daniels payment. So We'll have
Speaker 1: to wait and see exactly what is contained in these charges.
Speaker 1: How many are there? Thirty five five thirty five different counts, which,
Speaker 1: as Soccer pointed out before, you know, each individual payment
Speaker 1: to Michael Cohen, because it didn't come in one lump sum,
Speaker 1: would be one count. But is there you know, are
Speaker 1: there additional charges related to the Karen McDougall affair. Is
Speaker 1: there stuff in there that we don't even know about?
Speaker 1: That certainly possible as well. So we'll have to wait
Speaker 1: and see. We'll be watching with a lot of interest
Speaker 1: to see the specifics of the charges and what the name.
Speaker 1: Some insight into that. I actually spoke the former federal
Speaker 1: prosecutor and one of the things that they said is
Speaker 1: that that is kind of a mob played book. It's
Speaker 1: one of the ways that they will inflate the number
Speaker 1: of charges against the suspect if they really really want
Speaker 1: to go after them, is do the multiple count charges
Speaker 1: instead of the all encompassing charge. Its actually up to
Speaker 1: a prosecutorial discretion in terms of how you do that.
Speaker 1: They're like, look, clearly this you know they're trying to
Speaker 1: throw the book, and this is what throwing the book
Speaker 1: look trying to make a big show. Yeah. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: it's a fun number. They were a big show too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody's like thirty. Everybody listen, life is a show. Wwe
Speaker 1: apparently just got bought. So you know, we could all
Speaker 1: learn a little bit from what happens in that, not
Speaker 1: to say that it isn't real. Of course, let's talk
Speaker 1: about Asa Hutchinson, all right. Never before has Asa Hutchinson
Speaker 1: been so teased as we have in this show for
Speaker 1: the big announcement. He is, former Arkansas governor is in
Speaker 1: fact running for president, seeking the Republican primary nomination. Let's
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. The New York Times
Speaker 1: had an interview with him. They say, Asa Hutchinson announces
Speaker 1: presidential bid. The former governor of Arkansas, prominent Trump critic
Speaker 1: within the Republican Party, has been testing the waters in Iowa. Now.
Speaker 1: To give you a sense of Asa Hutchinson, he's kind
Speaker 1: of like politically, I would put him in like the
Speaker 1: Mike Pence Lane, very socially conservative, certainly like led the
Speaker 1: charge after Sandy Hook in partnership with the NRA to
Speaker 1: make sure that absolutely no gun legislation passed, was involved
Speaker 1: in passing a complete abortion ban within his state when
Speaker 1: he served as governor. So this is a very like,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly conservative right, hard right figure in terms
Speaker 1: of his politics, but in terms of critiquing Trump, he's
Speaker 1: been one of the more vocal folks out there. And
Speaker 1: unlike an you know, Desantists or Nikki Haliy or whoever
Speaker 1: take occasionally these little passive aggressive jobs at Trump, Asa
Speaker 1: Hutchinson is not afraid to make a full throated case
Speaker 1: against Trump and some of the actions that he's taken.
Speaker 1: He's really the first kind of explicitly anti Trump figure
Speaker 1: to enter the race here. Larry Hogan took a pass.
Speaker 1: Liz Cheney so far has not you know, stepped up
Speaker 1: to jump in here. So he is the one who's
Speaker 1: the most vocal in terms of his critique of Trump.
Speaker 1: He says that he said, mister Trump and those who
Speaker 1: supported his efforts to overturn the results of the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty election should not have positions of power. He stood
Speaker 1: against the RNC censure of former Representative Liz Cheney and
Speaker 1: Adam Kinziger of Illinois for servings the only two Republicans
Speaker 1: on the House committee investigating the January sixth attacks. He
Speaker 1: called Trump's election denial a quote recipe for disaster for
Speaker 1: the party, and he was one of the few Republicans
Speaker 1: to issue a statement after Trump's reported indictment last week
Speaker 1: that did not dismiss the charges as political. So he
Speaker 1: thinks there's a lane for someone to be hard right
Speaker 1: on the issues but explicitly anti Trump and sort of
Speaker 1: like you know, in the resistance vein in terms of
Speaker 1: his Trump critique, and so he is stepping into that
Speaker 1: race to filled out wide. You know, the thing is
Speaker 1: about Hutchinson's that, as you said, he is socially conservative
Speaker 1: in some ways at the same time actually become a
Speaker 1: villain on the right because he vetoed a bill banning
Speaker 1: so called Oh yeah, I forgot about that. He's actually
Speaker 1: a little bit more of a libertarian. I would describe
Speaker 1: him as like a libertarian traditional three legged stool conservative,
Speaker 1: like a fiscally conservative, socially conservative in the old way
Speaker 1: but not necessarily in the new way. And then also
Speaker 1: anti Trump, more of a Reagan esque. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: does his candidacy matter. Maybe, I mean it will be
Speaker 1: a fun test of somebody, like it will be a
Speaker 1: fun test of the ceiling on the Liz Cheney vote.
Speaker 1: Inside of the GOP. Second, you can guarantee, as you know,
Speaker 1: he was on Meet the Press, and he was all
Speaker 1: over the he was all over the Washington Press Corps
Speaker 1: with his announcement. But in terms of you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of his reception amongst the GOP base and others like,
Speaker 1: there has just been very limited bounce from any of this.
Speaker 1: A you know, he's the former governor of Arkansas, be
Speaker 1: Sarah Sanders is actually a vocal critic of him, and
Speaker 1: many others are inside of Arkansas. So the extent to
Speaker 1: which he would have any real political constituency is basically
Speaker 1: non existent. Now. I don't even know if they've done
Speaker 1: any polls which include his name. I was. I don't
Speaker 1: see anyway in terms of the in terms of the
Speaker 1: people who have name I D and who are anti Trump,
Speaker 1: Pompeo usually rates at like three percent. Mike Pence is
Speaker 1: always the highest. He's at seven, and he's a very
Speaker 1: you know, it's a very consistent seven almost across every
Speaker 1: GOP poll that we look, like, Nicky Haley is between
Speaker 1: one and two percent. Ramaswami does not even come to
Speaker 1: one percent. And uh yeah, so aha, Hutchinson, We'll see
Speaker 1: for those of you who are watching succession, he's like
Speaker 1: a Connor Roy type figure. I am not I have
Speaker 1: no idea what that means, but I'm just looking at
Speaker 1: these polls. I'm looking at a real clear politics, and
Speaker 1: you know, they've got their tracker of where everybody is
Speaker 1: and taking all the different polls into account and averaging them.
Speaker 1: He I don't somebody has certainly pulled his name, but
Speaker 1: he's not listed among the polls that they have here.
Speaker 1: And to give you a sense of the potential support,
Speaker 1: Liz Cheney is at two percent in the average of
Speaker 1: polls here. So taking the explicit anti Trump lane, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean politically is basically like everybody else in the
Speaker 1: field more or less, but probably actually worse than Trump
Speaker 1: on the politics because he probably supports cutting social care
Speaker 1: bat care that I don't know that for sure, he
Speaker 1: absolutely will, Okay, So anyway, he's That's why I put
Speaker 1: him kind of the Mike Pence lane in terms of
Speaker 1: his actual political ideology. But I think the fact that
Speaker 1: Liz Cheney is at two percent in these polls when
Speaker 1: her whole brand at this point is basically being anti Trump,
Speaker 1: shows you how much appetite there is for this type
Speaker 1: of politics in the Republican with the Republican primary electorate
Speaker 1: at this point. So anyway, that's Asa Hutchinson, that's the
Speaker 1: bet he's making, That's how he wants to have an
Speaker 1: impact on this race. And I guess we will see
Speaker 1: what the voters have to say about that soccer, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we will. At the same time, I can't help but
Speaker 1: notice that Asa Hutchinson, who has zero chance of being
Speaker 1: the Republican nominee, is pulling it nothing in currently in
Speaker 1: the Republican primary, is getting lots of media attention. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the only declared Democrat in the race, because remember Joe
Speaker 1: Biden hasn't even declared that he's running for president, has
Speaker 1: been almost completely shut out. And Mary and Williamson, I
Speaker 1: gotta say, she's got a little bit of a bump
Speaker 1: in the polls here. That's kind of noteworthy. And does
Speaker 1: I don't want to overstate things whatsoever, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to be naive about any of this, but does
Speaker 1: have some echoes into the early rise of Bernie Sanders
Speaker 1: back in twenty sixteen. Let's put this up on the
Speaker 1: screen from Newsweek. The headline here is Mary and Williamson
Speaker 1: making gains against Joe Biden. New poll suggests. So the
Speaker 1: very first poll that had her name in it, she
Speaker 1: was at four percent, and just a few weeks later
Speaker 1: she's now made it into double digits. She's at ten percent.
Speaker 1: That's actually almost exactly the same trajectory of Bertie early
Speaker 1: in the race. His very first poll was four percent,
Speaker 1: and then a few weeks later he hit ten percent,
Speaker 1: and then he went up from there. Obviously, the dynamics
Speaker 1: are very different because you're talking about comment president. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, it is effectively a head to head,
Speaker 1: one on one. So you know, it's interesting that clearly,
Speaker 1: even as she's been nearly completely shut out by the media,
Speaker 1: voters are hearing something from her that is making them
Speaker 1: interested in an alternative. And the other thing I'll say
Speaker 1: Sager here is well, I certainly think it is a
Speaker 1: longest of long shots to imagine that Marian could actually
Speaker 1: supplant Biden. I think she is being a bit underestimated.
Speaker 1: People forget that this was a woman who was, you know,
Speaker 1: a national figure, a best selling author in her own
Speaker 1: right before she ever took up politics. So there are
Speaker 1: a lot of I can't tell you how many people
Speaker 1: I've talked to who's like mom and Grandma loves Mary
Speaker 1: and Williamson. So she has that. And then you also
Speaker 1: just have Biden is making a lot of mistakes now
Speaker 1: with regard to the progressive base. People are very upset
Speaker 1: with him on a number of issues, and you have
Speaker 1: a majority of the Democratic base that is saying they
Speaker 1: would like someone other than Joe Biden. So there is
Speaker 1: clearly an organic interest in alternative candidate. So I think
Speaker 1: to just dismiss her out of hand or to shut
Speaker 1: her out of the media as they have is kind
Speaker 1: of outrageous and it shows you that, you know, the
Speaker 1: thing that they really look for is number one candidates
Speaker 1: who are going to say the things that make them
Speaker 1: comfortable and that also have the sort of like in
Speaker 1: the club credentialing that the corporate press. You know that
Speaker 1: the corporate press esteems and takes seriously. Yeah, look, I
Speaker 1: mean ten percent, as you said, look it's a long shot,
Speaker 1: it's always going to be difficult taking on and come
Speaker 1: to president. That is still pretty high. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you consider what an insurgent candidate would look like, that's
Speaker 1: higher than everybody, than DeSantis and the higher Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is higher than everybody but Ron DeSantis in the Republican primary,
Speaker 1: they get plenty of media coverage. It's higher than Andrew
Speaker 1: Yang ever got in any major Democratic poll, So it's
Speaker 1: not nothing. And at the very least, well, if they
Speaker 1: allow a debate to happen, that would qualify you for
Speaker 1: the debate stage, which is I believe old what was
Speaker 1: the old metric? You have to be polling at least
Speaker 1: two percent, something like the SAX amount per money. I
Speaker 1: doubt she would have any problem with the money, So okay,
Speaker 1: polling wise, I mean she at least she at least
Speaker 1: checks the box to what she was, much more so
Speaker 1: than what she held in the twenty twenty primary. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting. Probably anything else to say about it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think again the media piece of this, it really
Speaker 1: irritates me because think of how much press Nikki Hiley
Speaker 1: has gotten with tons. Yeah, and she's at what three
Speaker 1: maybe four percent on a good day in the polls,
Speaker 1: and it reminds me very much of last time around
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty in the Democratic primary, in which candidates
Speaker 1: they took seriously as real contenters and which ones they
Speaker 1: completely tried to dismiss because Andrew Yang. Obviously at the
Speaker 1: beginning they tried to completely bl blackout they'd like him,
Speaker 1: get his name wrong. They just like leave him out
Speaker 1: of poles because they didn't want to talk about him.
Speaker 1: When he was out polling some of their darling Bato
Speaker 1: and Commlin whatever, he'd be pulling ahead of them, but
Speaker 1: they just pretend like he didn't exist. And so so
Speaker 1: it's partly they take credentials as gospel number one and
Speaker 1: number two like this particular type of DC credentials by
Speaker 1: the way, and number two they don't want a platform
Speaker 1: anyone who's going to say anything that they find to
Speaker 1: be uncomfortable. Everybody knows I'm friends with Marian. I'm not
Speaker 1: a disinterested party here. And so I also have some
Speaker 1: insight into the fact MSNBC, which is supposed to be
Speaker 1: like the progressive lean left what I lean forward network.
Speaker 1: I don't think that she's gotten a maybe she's gotten
Speaker 1: one request wow from MSNBC, whereas Fox News is beaten
Speaker 1: down her door. So again it shows you who they
Speaker 1: decide to elevate and who they decide to try to quash.
Speaker 1: The one thing that I will say, which I think
Speaker 1: is a real positive, is every year that goes by
Speaker 1: the mainstream corporate media gets less and less powerful, and
Speaker 1: they have less control over what people think and what
Speaker 1: people see and what people hear and what ideas they're
Speaker 1: open to. And so I think that's why you see
Speaker 1: some bump here in the Marianneah, it's certainly very interesting. Oh,
Speaker 1: let's go on to a very troubling piece of news
Speaker 1: out of Russia. A prominent pro Russian military blogger, Vladen Tatarski,
Speaker 1: whose real name was Maxim Fomen, has been killed by
Speaker 1: a blast in a cafe in Petersburg where he was
Speaker 1: giving a talk. We have a little bit of video
Speaker 1: from this incident, just a warning. It is obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a scene from a war where basically there's a
Speaker 1: massive explosion in the middle of Saint Petersburg's put this
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. We'll play it for the
Speaker 1: audience for those who are just watching. You can see
Speaker 1: how the cafe just gets completely blown out. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he was killed by the explosion. We don't
Speaker 1: know quite a bit about the details, crystal, about any
Speaker 1: collateral damage or although, but clearly it was a targeted
Speaker 1: terrorist attack. Now in terms of the reports about who
Speaker 1: and how he received the bomb. It appears to be,
Speaker 1: or at least the reports coming out out of Russia,
Speaker 1: and you know, I always take these with a grain
Speaker 1: of salt, is that a woman brought the bomb to
Speaker 1: a meeting and hit it inside of a figurine, presenting
Speaker 1: it to Tatarski as a gift before he was then
Speaker 1: blown up and killed by figurian of himself, by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 1: figurine of himself, which is you know, that's that's pretty savage, brutal.
Speaker 1: So in terms of the details and others, I know
Speaker 1: that you've been speaking to our friend Igor, who is
Speaker 1: inside of Russia and who can analyze some of the
Speaker 1: Russian media for us. What does he have to say? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so shout out to Yegor Kotkin. You can follow him
Speaker 1: on I think he's got a substack and certainly a Patreon,
Speaker 1: so this analysis all comes direct from him. So in
Speaker 1: terms of who this dude was, he was one of
Speaker 1: these very prominent military bloggers. He had over half a
Speaker 1: million subscribers. I guess they call him on telegram, and
Speaker 1: he was one of the more sort of like violent,
Speaker 1: psychopathic of the military bloggers. Now, according to Yegor, there
Speaker 1: are people who are more ghoulish in his words, but
Speaker 1: they're almost all anonymous. So he's the most prominent, like known, outspoken,
Speaker 1: very aggressive military blogger. He's one of these who he's
Speaker 1: not a direct Kremlin mouthpiece, so he has been critical
Speaker 1: from the right like he at times of the Kremlin,
Speaker 1: like the once War, brutality in the war, more violence
Speaker 1: in the war, et cetera. He's actually from the Donbas region,
Speaker 1: and before the most recent revolution in Ukraine and the
Speaker 1: start of this latest separatist war, he was actually in
Speaker 1: prison for robbery in eastern Ukraine, so that's kind of
Speaker 1: his backstory here. You know, listen, it is very likely
Speaker 1: that this was done by Ukrainians in a very similar
Speaker 1: manner as what we saw the you know, a previous
Speaker 1: outspoken pro war figure who was killed about a year ago,
Speaker 1: and there really is no alternative explanation for the way
Speaker 1: that she was blown up. It's most likely that it
Speaker 1: was the Ukrainians. You can't rule out that it was
Speaker 1: the FSB because this guy has been critical. Now, the
Speaker 1: reason that Jegor says he is more suspicious of the
Speaker 1: Ukrainians is because it's not just you took this guy
Speaker 1: out it's you took him out in a cafe with
Speaker 1: a lot of other pro war He was there giving
Speaker 1: a talk to a lot of other you know, pro
Speaker 1: war Russians who came to hear what he had to say.
Speaker 1: So you're not only killing him, you're killing, maiming, injuring,
Speaker 1: and potentially killing other bystanders who are pro war. And
Speaker 1: you're doing it in a cafe in Saint Petersburg, which
Speaker 1: is the birthplace of Ladimir Putin. Yeah, so there's a
Speaker 1: lot of symbolism here that suggests it's probably more likely
Speaker 1: to be the Ukrainians than FSB. But again, you don't
Speaker 1: want to entirely rule it out. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: the way that he is viewing this whole situation, which
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: Of course, it makes sense, and we already know, you
Speaker 1: know that the U. I mean, look, most of us
Speaker 1: can already guess three months from now seeing and honestly
Speaker 1: source New York Times article Wars as like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it might have been elements of the Ukrainian state, but
Speaker 1: Zelenski never knew about it, and US involvement was never there.
Speaker 1: The CIA, of course, had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if any of that is I mean,
Speaker 1: it is troubling whenever the stuff stuff is happening. I mean,
Speaker 1: just imagine if somebody was killed in downtown like New
Speaker 1: York City or in downtown Washington, people would be outraged
Speaker 1: and up in arms, and they would really want to
Speaker 1: know and get to the bottom of it. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: look like they are waging a brutal war in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that they don't deserve it. What I'm saying, though,
Speaker 1: is that all of this is just embroiling in a
Speaker 1: situation which we may not be able to control. That's
Speaker 1: really what the dangerous part of it is. Going back
Speaker 1: to the assassination of Dugan's daughter on Russian soil, the
Speaker 1: bombing of the Crimean Bridge and now here the bomb
Speaker 1: blast in downtown Saint Petersburg in a cafe in a Sunday.
Speaker 1: You know, I love how Reuters phrased it too. The
Speaker 1: second assassination on Russian soil of a figure closely closely
Speaker 1: associated with the war in Ukraine. As you also said,
Speaker 1: I did some more reading. I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: things is who would kill him inside of Russia? Like
Speaker 1: you said, Sure, it could be the FSB, but the
Speaker 1: FSB buy and large. You know, they're allowed in general
Speaker 1: in Russian society. They seem to be okay with allowing
Speaker 1: criticism from the right, from the more pro the war wing,
Speaker 1: so they can be like, look, we're being responsible. See
Speaker 1: like all these craziest wants to do this, we're not
Speaker 1: actually doing that. From the left though, there are all
Speaker 1: these horrific stories of anti war protesters and college students
Speaker 1: getting sentenced to years in Russian for like retweeting criticism
Speaker 1: of the war. So you can see which way law
Speaker 1: enforcement is. It's almost entirely geared towards the anti war movement,
Speaker 1: not towards the pro movement. Initially, when the Dugan assassination happened,
Speaker 1: I've speculated, I was like, look, it's possible, you know,
Speaker 1: like maybe they wanted to take him out. But you know,
Speaker 1: as all the intel and the reporting came forward, it
Speaker 1: looked pretty clear that it was a Ukrainian attack, and
Speaker 1: you know, given the circumstances, I guess you can't rule
Speaker 1: it out. At the same time, look, you know these movements,
Speaker 1: these have internacing stupid conflicts all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: these revolutionary type paramilitary organizations where they kill each other,
Speaker 1: so you can't rule that out either. But troubling nonetheless,
Speaker 1: because you can bet that the Russian government already, you know,
Speaker 1: they're already pointing the finger. At least some figures are
Speaker 1: at Ukraine, and many of them and especially inside of
Speaker 1: the Dunboss where the war is going on, they're all
Speaker 1: like it was Ukraine's fault and this guy was already
Speaker 1: from there, so they could have used as a retaliatory attack. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the last detail here, even the cafe, like so much
Speaker 1: of this seems to have been very intentionally chosen for
Speaker 1: its symbolism, which is what led Yegor to feel more
Speaker 1: suspicious that it was the Ukrainians than any of the
Speaker 1: potential other explanations. Another piece of the symbolism here is
Speaker 1: this cafe apparently has ties to the leader of the
Speaker 1: Wagner group, and so you know, if it was the
Speaker 1: FSBU wanted to assassinate this guy, you'd more likely do
Speaker 1: like poison. You know, there wouldn't be this blowback with
Speaker 1: because this was obviously directed at him, but the audience
Speaker 1: was a target in a way as well, So would
Speaker 1: you really be targeting your own civilians who are supportive
Speaker 1: of your war effort. That can instill fear in the
Speaker 1: broader population of even you know, like going to any
Speaker 1: of these talks and you know, doing sort of like
Speaker 1: public support for the Russian war effort here. So those
Speaker 1: are some of the pieces that make it not make
Speaker 1: so much sense from the FSB potential perspective. But again,
Speaker 1: you just really never can be one hundred percent sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly right. We've got some updates here for you with
Speaker 1: regard to Dominion's lawsuit against Fox News, and I got
Speaker 1: to tell you right now, it sure looks like they
Speaker 1: got the upper hand. Significant ruling from a Delaware judge
Speaker 1: that came out on Friday, and long story short, this
Speaker 1: thing is set to go to trial, and some of
Speaker 1: the pieces of Fox's potential defense have also been ruled out.
Speaker 1: The judge basically saying, it is not disputable that what
Speaker 1: you were putting on air was You can't argue that
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It was clearly wrong. It was clearly a
Speaker 1: misstatement of fact. So that piece of your defense you're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to go with that leaves
Speaker 1: and let's goad and put this report up on the
Speaker 1: screen that the ap headline is Judge Dominion defamation case
Speaker 1: against Fox will go to trial and reminder Dominions suing
Speaker 1: Fox for one point six billion dollars. This judge ruled
Speaker 1: that it was quote crystal clear that none of the
Speaker 1: allegations made by Trump allies and Fox in the weeks
Speaker 1: after the election were true. So now what Fox is
Speaker 1: going to have to argue in front of a jury
Speaker 1: is that they did not show actual malice. That's the
Speaker 1: legal standard that is required for Dominion to prove in
Speaker 1: order to actually win this case. And the definition of
Speaker 1: actual malice is that they had to have known it
Speaker 1: was false or acted with a reckless disregard for whether
Speaker 1: or not it was true. And of course, SAG we
Speaker 1: have seen some of those internal messages already that certainly
Speaker 1: seemed to indicate that at least some people at Fox
Speaker 1: knew that what was being put on the air at
Speaker 1: times was total bullshit, and yet they went along with
Speaker 1: it anyway. So actual malice a very difficult standard to prove, though,
Speaker 1: because in some ways you have to get into someone's
Speaker 1: like inner thoughts and mentality in order to show definitively
Speaker 1: that they knew this was false and they did it anyways,
Speaker 1: so that is a task that is ahead of them. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right. On its face, it seems like a difficult one.
Speaker 1: But also, guys, this is a Delaware jury. So look,
Speaker 1: from what I heard I asked around people inside a
Speaker 1: fox are deeply unhappy with this ruling. They had been
Speaker 1: holding out on a settlement specifically to see if they
Speaker 1: would be able to get not only if they were
Speaker 1: going to go to trial, but if they could go
Speaker 1: to trial in the way that they wanted, because now
Speaker 1: they are not talking about the facts of the case,
Speaker 1: they are only talking about actual malice, and with the
Speaker 1: actual malice standard, the fact that they have text messages
Speaker 1: that showed consternation within also the overall branding of that
Speaker 1: they are either going to have to settle for a
Speaker 1: massive number. Dominion feels very confident going into this legally
Speaker 1: that they will prevail, and so they are either going
Speaker 1: to have to pay very close to what the initial
Speaker 1: lawsuit is, or they're going to have to take it
Speaker 1: all the way to the jury and basically roll the
Speaker 1: dice where if they're going to pay a billion or whatever,
Speaker 1: then they might as well drag it through court and
Speaker 1: make it as long as possible. But yeah, overall, you
Speaker 1: can make no mistake like the Murdochs and Fox News
Speaker 1: and all of them are very very upset about this ruling.
Speaker 1: Don't forget. I mean that is almost equivalent to an
Speaker 1: entire year of profit within the network. About a billion
Speaker 1: is what they make in profit overall. Ear flap on
Speaker 1: the rest, it's not nothing, yeah, exactly, So you know,
Speaker 1: from they're already facing financial problems because of just diminishing advertising,
Speaker 1: not specific to Fox, the entire cable network. On top
Speaker 1: of their overall business is literally on the backs of
Speaker 1: geriatrics who are dying, you know, no offense to them,
Speaker 1: but just natural aerial table. And so the long term
Speaker 1: prospects of their network's not great. Fox Nation is already
Speaker 1: also not going great. They have a high burn rate
Speaker 1: in terms of cash with acquisitions, and then on top
Speaker 1: of that they might have to pay now over a
Speaker 1: billion dollars. So not good times for the Murdoch family
Speaker 1: right now. They are paying a billion. I think at
Speaker 1: this point, no matter what, it's only a question of
Speaker 1: what the margins are. I think that is probably correct.
Speaker 1: And they've also kind of placed a bit of a
Speaker 1: bet on rhnd De Santis in the Republican primary. I
Speaker 1: don't think that BET is really working out thus far. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean they want to switch horses here the
Speaker 1: moment that they feel that they have to. I do
Speaker 1: want to say, you know, read the Fox statement here,
Speaker 1: just for the lawyer's sake. In a statement, they told
Speaker 1: the AP that Fox will continue to fiercely advocate for
Speaker 1: the rights of free speech and a free press as
Speaker 1: we move into the next phase of these proceedings. So
Speaker 1: they're framing this as a First Amendment free speech issue,
Speaker 1: which in a sense it certainly is. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: think they have the fact that you have such explicit
Speaker 1: statements from so many of these Fox hosts and producers
Speaker 1: makes things difficult. There were also some other details that
Speaker 1: were in this report that underscores again the difficult landscape
Speaker 1: they face. In particular, Dominion went at length through you know,
Speaker 1: they fact checked all of the claims that were being
Speaker 1: made on Fox, and they sent emails to basically everyone
Speaker 1: within the organization, some like thirteen hundred emails that they
Speaker 1: sent out, so literally thousands within the Fox organization of
Speaker 1: here's where you're wrong and here's what the actual facts are.
Speaker 1: So pretend to pretend like oh, we had no idea.
Speaker 1: That makes it difficult. And then within Fox News itself
Speaker 1: they have a fact checking operation internally called the brain Room,
Speaker 1: I think, and they had done their own fact checking
Speaker 1: of some of the election fraud claims and basically debunked it.
Speaker 1: All that also would have gone out and been available
Speaker 1: to all of the shows. So to claim that oh,
Speaker 1: we really belie leave this, or we really had no
Speaker 1: idea and this was just like an innocent mistake, I
Speaker 1: think is going to be difficult to convince a jury
Speaker 1: of that at this point. Oh, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a big cering be difficult to convince me at this
Speaker 1: point that that was the case. Yeah, of course, it'd
Speaker 1: be difficult for I think for anybody. And like I said,
Speaker 1: taking then the account of a Delaware jury, so you
Speaker 1: already have a disproportionately liberal audio, a liberal jury pool
Speaker 1: which is hate Fox News. So you put all that
Speaker 1: together and I would be very scared if they were
Speaker 1: Lord this is it's not existential, but business wise, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a big, big problem, and very legally, they
Speaker 1: also are going to have to drag their asses through
Speaker 1: court and they are going to try and fight this,
Speaker 1: you know, to the end, because even if they do lose,
Speaker 1: you can appeal it, and there's caps on the amount
Speaker 1: of payment, damages, et cetera, that all of it can
Speaker 1: come to is So it's not like Dominion is going
Speaker 1: to be getting paid. But this is a big drain
Speaker 1: reputationally and financially at the end of the day. The
Speaker 1: Murdocks never really cared about the reputation of Fox, you know,
Speaker 1: as a journalistic organization, or they cared about the money.
Speaker 1: This was always a money project and it's been tremendously
Speaker 1: successful over the years. That doesn't mean though that they're
Speaker 1: not stupid and they can't see the future. And this
Speaker 1: very much is going to just at the very least
Speaker 1: limit the amount of cash available for operating expenses, hurting
Speaker 1: their profit. Yeah, and all that that you know, they
Speaker 1: own not just Fox, they all News Corp, all of
Speaker 1: these different places which they remain responsible for. I mean,
Speaker 1: mine it is a money making venture at bottom. But
Speaker 1: I think actually, sort of uniquely to the cable news network,
Speaker 1: it was explicitly set up as an ideological project as well,
Speaker 1: and that comes through in some of the messages here too,
Speaker 1: Like I think it was Murdoch who messaged like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: let's just try to put the election stuff high. Let's
Speaker 1: focus really hard on Georgia and do everything we can
Speaker 1: to help Republicans there on paraphrasing, and this weren't the
Speaker 1: exact words, but it was like very explicit, like, we
Speaker 1: want Republicans to win in Georgia and we're going to
Speaker 1: do everything we can. Now, listen, do the other two
Speaker 1: cable news networks also push hard for Democrats? Yes? I
Speaker 1: don't even know that it makes a difference to make
Speaker 1: this distinction at this point, those two really did just follow,
Speaker 1: like the money sort of led them into the liberal
Speaker 1: positioning that they're in now. With Fox, it was set
Speaker 1: up originally as an explicitly ideological project. I do think
Speaker 1: that that relates to another thing that comes through in
Speaker 1: the messages here, which is they were really quite terrified
Speaker 1: of the rise of Newsmax, in particular during the election fraud,
Speaker 1: Stop the steal Peak, news Max was getting hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of viewers and Fox was falling off a cliff.
Speaker 1: And you know, these things can turn really quickly. Even
Speaker 1: with all of the years and the money and the
Speaker 1: investment and the brand name and everything that Fox has
Speaker 1: going for them. They really perceived Newsmax as a sort
Speaker 1: of existential threat, and so that caused them, even as
Speaker 1: there was some desire in the beginning to rebut Trump's claims,
Speaker 1: that really caused them to make a U turn, it appears,
Speaker 1: and go in the other direction because they were so
Speaker 1: fearful of the audience, which they no longer had control over,
Speaker 1: which I also think is just revealing in terms of
Speaker 1: the cable news landscape. There was this idea in the
Speaker 1: Republican primary, Fox's pick DeSantis, that's going to be great
Speaker 1: for him. They're going to be able to promote him
Speaker 1: and push him over the finish line. But they don't
Speaker 1: have that. If they ever had that kind of control
Speaker 1: over the Republican base, they definitely do not have that
Speaker 1: kind of control anymore. Oh absolutely. I recommend people go
Speaker 1: and read called The Loudest Voice in the Room. It's
Speaker 1: a biography of Roger Rail's but it's about the history
Speaker 1: and the founding of Fox News. I always found it
Speaker 1: very interesting just to see exactly, as you said, the
Speaker 1: power that they once had not that long ago, we're
Speaker 1: talking about ten years ago. In twenty two, they were
Speaker 1: king makers. Yeah, for the Tea Party for the twenty
Speaker 1: twelve the whole decision behind the scenes about Rommy. They
Speaker 1: even had a meeting. Murdoch at one point was flirting
Speaker 1: with Obama because his wife at the time liked Obama,
Speaker 1: and so they were like, well, maybe little broker pieced.
Speaker 1: Obama took this meeting, you know, very seriously. He saw
Speaker 1: Fox's number one enemy. It's just it's not like that anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1: With the Internet, all of that has changed for the
Speaker 1: better because at least people like us can exist. Yeah, okay, indeed,
Speaker 1: all right, we got some elon moves. We got to
Speaker 1: report here. Okay, So, as we covered previously, as of
Speaker 1: April first, everyone was basically all the legacy blue check
Speaker 1: marks were allegedly going to lose their checks That did
Speaker 1: not happen. However, one very prominent organization did lose their
Speaker 1: check mark on that day. That would be The New
Speaker 1: York Times. Put this up on the screen. The New
Speaker 1: York Times and a number of other outlets and celebrities
Speaker 1: came out and explicitly said, we are not going to
Speaker 1: pay for Twitter verification. We're not going to pay for
Speaker 1: it for our organization. We're not going to pay for
Speaker 1: it for our journalists. We're just going to go without.
Speaker 1: We are dead set against going for the pay to
Speaker 1: play Twitter check mark situation. So Elon sees this, he
Speaker 1: replies to someone on Twitter and says, oh, okay, we'll
Speaker 1: take it off then, and then he goes on to
Speaker 1: say the New York Times being incredibly hypocritical here, as
Speaker 1: they are super aggressive about forcing everyone to pay their subscription.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that those analogies really a hold up,
Speaker 1: but anyway, that is that's his take. So as far
Speaker 1: as I know, everyone else has maintained so far their
Speaker 1: legacy blue check mark. But New York Times now looks
Speaker 1: like this. Put this up on the screen. They are
Speaker 1: checkmark lists for their main account anyway, mark of shame.
Speaker 1: A bunch of their journalists and even some of their
Speaker 1: other like I don't know, New York Times Business or
Speaker 1: whatever Twitter accounts still have their check marks, but it's
Speaker 1: it is. I can't help but be amused by the
Speaker 1: fact that the paper of Record is the one account
Speaker 1: that had their check mark stripped. Oh you can't help,
Speaker 1: but you can't help, but just absolutely love the entire thing.
Speaker 1: But washing your post. Put out a statement this morning, Crystal,
Speaker 1: I'll have you know, saying that their journalists will not
Speaker 1: be paying also for check marks. Here's the thing on
Speaker 1: the merits, I actually think they're up. I don't think
Speaker 1: for a freaking check organization should pay for the check
Speaker 1: mark just because Actually, one of the things that the
Speaker 1: Washington Post said in his statement is, by the way,
Speaker 1: being on Twitter is not part of your job requirement.
Speaker 1: The only time we pay for something is whenever it's
Speaker 1: let you do it for yourself. So if journals want
Speaker 1: to pay for it themselves, go for it. You and
Speaker 1: I have basically made a decision. We're like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't really need it. We're not Twitter first people. The
Speaker 1: majority of our audience is here on YouTube, We're on Spotify,
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, you know, Instagram as well. We don't
Speaker 1: pay for any of that, so 're like, to the
Speaker 1: extent that we use Twitter, it's either elite signaling or
Speaker 1: to like make an annastment. I mean, I am adamantly
Speaker 1: opposed to paying for the check mark as like a
Speaker 1: matter of principle, because it does feel like and this
Speaker 1: is why a lot of people are reacting to it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it feels like a hostage taking kind of situation,
Speaker 1: and it's also like, okay, you're just paying to have
Speaker 1: your tweets boosted, like signal boosted. It's not like it's
Speaker 1: a real verification. You can still have all kinds of
Speaker 1: impostors whatever. So I'm not going to embarrass myself by
Speaker 1: paying to get my tweets in front of more people, right,
Speaker 1: Definitely not going to do it. But yeah, the dynamic
Speaker 1: of everybody maintaining their check marks except for The New
Speaker 1: York Times is amusing to me. Oh yeah, I must admit,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. So anyway, I think it is amusing, you know,
Speaker 1: from a perspective of just like yeah, we're just gonna
Speaker 1: yank it for you. And I find it also funny
Speaker 1: just from the emotional connection that so many people have
Speaker 1: to their blue checks, like, look, take ours. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't care, man if it goes away tomorrow, they
Speaker 1: said April first, I was ready. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, and then it went away. It's still there.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, it makes no impact or whatever
Speaker 1: on my life. I do know, though, the level of
Speaker 1: connection that so many elites, specifically bloggers, people who kind
Speaker 1: of made their bones on Twitter, developed the vast majority
Speaker 1: of their A lot of substackers are like this. Actually,
Speaker 1: not like Glenn and Tybe because they're genuinely talented, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people who built like big resistance followings
Speaker 1: and all that, they all got that through Twitter, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them are opposed Elon, so they don't
Speaker 1: want to pay either. At the same time, that's how
Speaker 1: they make all of their money, so I think many
Speaker 1: of them will cave. The only blue feature ahead did
Speaker 1: I see that he was gonna make it so that
Speaker 1: you could pay for the check but that nobody would
Speaker 1: know about it? Well, there's no way because if you
Speaker 1: click on the check mark, it'll say this person is
Speaker 1: subscribed to Twitter Blue. I think I saw though, that
Speaker 1: he was gonna make who knows if this is true whatever,
Speaker 1: but I think I saw that he was going to
Speaker 1: make it so you could like secretly have the check
Speaker 1: mark and get all the algorithmic boosting and ability to
Speaker 1: do the Twitter polls and whatever else. You can be
Speaker 1: poit but not the publicly shamed for paying for this nut.
Speaker 1: Right now, the only blue feature which seems interesting to
Speaker 1: me is long form tweet is the ability to break
Speaker 1: the character limit. But at the same time, once what
Speaker 1: am I published a lot I'm not a writer anymore.
Speaker 1: The laws really whenever some of them are the freaking
Speaker 1: read more. It makes me irrationally angry. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: why I like them as some of them. During the
Speaker 1: SBB crisis, some financial analysts wrote like a genuinely very
Speaker 1: helpful blog post. In one tweet, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is great. Actually, somebody sent me this. I said,
Speaker 1: this is great. This is one of the only times
Speaker 1: that I've seen one. And I've seen a few other
Speaker 1: explainers a sad or something. You know, Yeah, well it
Speaker 1: saves me a click. Okay, that's not a fan. That
Speaker 1: is the only one I've seen yet. That's the only
Speaker 1: blue feature currently. Think about Trump's freaking long ass truth socials.
Speaker 1: That is not an improvement I'm for. I'm not actually
Speaker 1: for brevity generally. What's the famous quote about writing where
Speaker 1: the I think it was either Voltaire or Rousseau, and
Speaker 1: he said, forgive the length of my letter. I did
Speaker 1: not have time to write you a short one, because
Speaker 1: it's you know, it shows you that when you write
Speaker 1: a short letter or some of you have to think
Speaker 1: about editing your words. You have to think carefully about
Speaker 1: choosing you to try and convey a big message in
Speaker 1: as few words as possible. We kind of do that
Speaker 1: all the time in our monologue, so I guess someone
Speaker 1: get it. But yeah, there's something about the magic of Twitter,
Speaker 1: about the short and the pithy thought that you can
Speaker 1: punch up of trying to express a complex idea in
Speaker 1: what is a two hundred and eighty character. Yeah, at
Speaker 1: the same time, I don't think in many cases you
Speaker 1: can't express a complex idea to two hundred eighty careacters.
Speaker 1: You know, to go back to the news outlets here,
Speaker 1: you know, to the extent that Twitter becomes less important
Speaker 1: for their journalists or their journalists or less vision on
Speaker 1: Twitter in terms of the management of these newsrooms, they'll
Speaker 1: be very happy, yes, because they've been very They've been
Speaker 1: frequently embarrassed and annoyed with the takes that their reporters
Speaker 1: are having and how much time they're spending and like
Speaker 1: rotting their brains on Twitter. So I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: that it's like it's certainly for newsroom management, they'll actually
Speaker 1: be happy to see it was a no brainer for
Speaker 1: them to be like, no, we're not paying for you
Speaker 1: to like go on this service where all you do
Speaker 1: is make our lives more difficult in terms of the
Speaker 1: actual news gathering news distribution process. So there's that aspect
Speaker 1: of absolutely, yeah, there's no way, so maybe he's doing
Speaker 1: them a favor. Also, we got to talk about the algorithm.
Speaker 1: So Elon open sourced the Twitter algorithm with some interesting results.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: What it shows is that actually there were some categories
Speaker 1: of people who were getting boosted. Now, amongst those is
Speaker 1: author is a power user. We don't know what the
Speaker 1: definition of that. Author is a Democrat, so a Democratic
Speaker 1: candidate to help boost politics. Author is a Republican. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: so power user, Democrat, Republican. All of those seemed reasonable.
Speaker 1: There's a fourth category, it says author is Elon. The
Speaker 1: funny part, though, is Elon actually replied to it and said, well,
Speaker 1: I had no idea that I was in there. I
Speaker 1: will be looking into it, oh and possibly at it. Okay. Well,
Speaker 1: given the fact, Crystal that he has fired people before
Speaker 1: for telling him that his tweets weren't getting as much engagement,
Speaker 1: maybe they wrote it into the code without his knowledge
Speaker 1: just to say look what you're doing. So well, but regardless,
Speaker 1: it is genuinely hilarious that the open source code shows
Speaker 1: you that Elon's tweets are artificially being boosted outside of
Speaker 1: It's like he's not even just categorized as a power user,
Speaker 1: which is how you should do it. He's just author
Speaker 1: is Elon. It was like a special category in the code.
Speaker 1: So I did a little like, obviously, I'm not a
Speaker 1: code or so reading these foreign language to me. I
Speaker 1: did read some coders who were analyzing this so and
Speaker 1: I don't know they're legitimacy or whether they're good coders
Speaker 1: and understand this fully or not. But the thing that
Speaker 1: I read is that it's not this particular part of
Speaker 1: the code is not actually directly boosting Elon's tweets or
Speaker 1: Democrat tweets or Republican tweets. It enables them to do
Speaker 1: an ab test of new features so they can easily
Speaker 1: see at a glance whether the new feature is good
Speaker 1: or bad for Elon Musk personally. This is according to
Speaker 1: Colin Fraser on Twitter, who seemed to know what he
Speaker 1: was talking about. So, I mean, bottom line is basically
Speaker 1: the impact is the same. They're making sure that whatever
Speaker 1: do changes they roll out on Twitter are going to
Speaker 1: be personally beneficial to the owner of Twitter, which listen,
Speaker 1: at this point, he's lost like at least twenty million
Speaker 1: dollars on this whole deal. I guess the least I
Speaker 1: guess the least that he can get out of it
Speaker 1: is a little signal boosting of his own tweets or not.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're going to lose that much money,
Speaker 1: you might as well get something out of it. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's the latest on Elon. He never never does disappoint
Speaker 1: in terms of a fun segment. All right, sorry, really
Speaker 1: going to a well. Last week I brought you all
Speaker 1: the case of Douglas Mackie. He's a pro Trump Twitter
Speaker 1: user who in twenty sixteen tweeted out a meme targeted
Speaker 1: at Hillary voters, telling them that they could avoid the
Speaker 1: line and vote by text. To most people, that sounds
Speaker 1: funny or lame, possibly a mix of both. But to
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's Department of Justice, they saw a crime. The
Speaker 1: very first week in office, they indicted Mackie on a
Speaker 1: charge of conspiracy to deprive individuals of their right to vote.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors alleged that some four five hundred people call the
Speaker 1: number on the meme and that Mackie distributed. They honed
Speaker 1: in on Mackie's private messages, where he and other pro
Speaker 1: Trump Twitter personalities reveled in the reach of their accounts,
Speaker 1: hoping they could trick quote dopey liberals not to vote. Now.
Speaker 1: Is Mackie a good person? Probably not, But that's not
Speaker 1: enough to put somebody on trial. Ultimately, this trial was
Speaker 1: about whether satire onl should be legal, even satire that
Speaker 1: is malicious, mean and targeted, whether that should be illegal
Speaker 1: or not. Here is the meme, and to be clear,
Speaker 1: Mackie did not even make it, He only distributed it
Speaker 1: along with many others. Do you really believe any reasonable
Speaker 1: person would see this meme and otherwise not vote? The
Speaker 1: Biden Department of Justice certainly did. Apparently so did a
Speaker 1: jury of Mackie's peers, who convicted him in the Eastern
Speaker 1: District of New York on Thursday on conspiracies to deprive
Speaker 1: other American citizens of their right to vote. Already, the
Speaker 1: censorious establishment is doing backflips online over the victory of
Speaker 1: this case. Why the government even put out a victorious
Speaker 1: press release about the verdict. Put it as a warning
Speaker 1: to anyone else who may do so online, but a
Speaker 1: closer scrutiny of the trial itself is necessary for the
Speaker 1: government to be truly ironclad in their case, they would
Speaker 1: have to prove that Mackie's meme crossed the satire line
Speaker 1: because people otherwise text it to vote rather than vote itself.
Speaker 1: Their theory of this case relied on the fact that
Speaker 1: some foury five hundred people called this phone number. Yet
Speaker 1: when his defense lenge prosecutors to bring forward one single
Speaker 1: witness who said that they were fooled, they could not
Speaker 1: do so. Let me repeat, not one person was called
Speaker 1: to the stand to testify that their civil right to
Speaker 1: vote was actually deprived by this meme, despite having their
Speaker 1: phone numbers, and that means from the facts of the case.
Speaker 1: On his face, all the government proved was a Macki
Speaker 1: post of this meme, that some people interacted with the
Speaker 1: same phone number, and that he may have been malicious
Speaker 1: in his attempt. As to the witnesses, the star witness
Speaker 1: at trial had nothing to do even with depriving anyone
Speaker 1: of votes. Instead, it was a dude named Microchip who
Speaker 1: was part of Macki's group chat. During this testimony, Microchip
Speaker 1: cast Mackie as a leader of the group who distributed
Speaker 1: means targeted at liberals, but under cross examination admitted two
Speaker 1: key things. Number One, he was testifying because he was
Speaker 1: cooperating with the FBI and plead to a reduced charge.
Speaker 1: Two quote, there was no grand plan around stopping people
Speaker 1: from voting. So if there was no grand plan, there
Speaker 1: was no conspiracy. Right. He can't prove a real conspiracy
Speaker 1: and he can't prove a single witness was harmed, then
Speaker 1: what are we doing here? Obviously none of these questions
Speaker 1: mattered to the New York City jury that convicted Mackie,
Speaker 1: but one has to wonder if the politics of the
Speaker 1: area played into that, and also to the wisdom of
Speaker 1: bringing charges like this in the first place. Prosecurial prosecutorial
Speaker 1: discretion is a hell of a drug, and immediately with
Speaker 1: the precedent set, a lot of people are looking for
Speaker 1: similar examples and say, hey, why isn't this person in jail.
Speaker 1: Many pointed to this tweet by Christina Wong, a liberal
Speaker 1: Hillary supporter in twenty sixteen, who tweeted, quote, hey Trump supporter,
Speaker 1: skip poll lines in election twenty sixteen and text your
Speaker 1: vote tech votes are legit or vote tomorrow on super
Speaker 1: Wednesday that along with the video that was viewed close
Speaker 1: to one million times. Now, if you ask me, that's
Speaker 1: funny and just as ridiculous as the meme that MACKI posted.
Speaker 1: But now, by the standards of government is set any
Speaker 1: of the eight hundred and forty three thousand people who
Speaker 1: watch that video have been contaminated by Wang's conspiracy to
Speaker 1: prevent Trump supporters to vote. Now, curiously, Miss Wang remains
Speaker 1: free and clear to this day. To be clear, she
Speaker 1: should remain, and so so should Maacky people say stuff
Speaker 1: on the Internet they don't mean all the time. Worse,
Speaker 1: this has been rewarded now by the FBI for wasting
Speaker 1: their time policing Twitter trolls rather than letting child sex
Speaker 1: predators like Larry Nasser go free. As I reminded everyone
Speaker 1: last time, the nanny state behavior of the Feds here
Speaker 1: is something that reveals a very very deep rot. As
Speaker 1: Matt Tayeebi discovered, FBI agents whose salaries we are paying,
Speaker 1: we're spending their time flagging moronic tiny Twitter accounts joking,
Speaker 1: including one who said quote, I am a ballot counter
Speaker 1: in my state. If you're not wearing a mask, I'm
Speaker 1: not counting your vote, saying that every negative comment on
Speaker 1: the post she would add a vote for the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Or another example the low follower user who tweeted quote
Speaker 1: I want to remind Republicans to vote tomorrow and included
Speaker 1: the wrong date. This was flagged by FBI agents who
Speaker 1: wanted Twitter to take it down. It had three retweets,
Speaker 1: and under the standard of the now established Mackie conviction,
Speaker 1: they can claim anyone who saw that tweet and misinterpreted
Speaker 1: it could have had their civil rights violated or a
Speaker 1: conspiracy to do so. The standard now has been set
Speaker 1: and the gauntlet throne. We now live in a significantly
Speaker 1: less free internet. The best response to this from an
Speaker 1: individual perspective post less even if you're anonymous. If he
Speaker 1: screwed with somebody like Hillary, they will track you down
Speaker 1: to the ends of the earth and potentially throw you
Speaker 1: in prison for a decade for a crime of her
Speaker 1: running a terrible campaign. Ultimately, this is about elite protection.
Speaker 1: They target those who make a mockery of them. When
Speaker 1: they make a mockery of us, they get rewarded, they
Speaker 1: remain free, they get richer than ever. And once again
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that he's a nice guy. And if
Speaker 1: you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become
Speaker 1: a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Chrystl. What
Speaker 1: do you take a look at? Well, I'm crazy the
Speaker 1: same The more Americans health for health insurors now than
Speaker 1: ever in history. But that was then and this is now.
Speaker 1: Fifteen million Americans are said to be kicked off of
Speaker 1: Medicaid starting this month, leaving many without any health insurance
Speaker 1: and a healthcare plan that basically amounts to just pray
Speaker 1: that you and your kids do not get sick. A devastating,
Speaker 1: unnecessary calamity being intentionally inflicted on millions by their own government,
Speaker 1: one that has been effectuated by Democrats and Republicans acting
Speaker 1: in concert, and which, outside of this Washington Post coverage
Speaker 1: I just showed you, has barely registered with the news
Speaker 1: media that is blissfully insulated from the impact of all
Speaker 1: of these policies. As front of the show, Jeff Stein
Speaker 1: put it pretty remarkable that America temporarily constructed a safety
Speaker 1: net during COVID, including major healthcare coverage, food benefits, anti
Speaker 1: poverty funding for families and kids, etc. And then just
Speaker 1: systematically and slowly demolished it With regards to the millions
Speaker 1: about to be kicked off their healthcare, the process has
Speaker 1: a bureaucratic and antiseptic name, Medicaid unwinding. Basically, during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: states could only gain access to certain federal dollars if
Speaker 1: they pledged not to kick anyone off of the Medicaid program.
Speaker 1: That means that women who had had a baby and
Speaker 1: would have only qualified until just after the baby was born,
Speaker 1: or they were able to stay on. It means people
Speaker 1: who may have missed their renewal notices and the male
Speaker 1: were able to stay on. People who struggle to complete
Speaker 1: the mountain of paperwork in time to prove they are
Speaker 1: sufficiently poor to qualify they were also able to stay on,
Speaker 1: and that last category. It might sound small, but it's
Speaker 1: actually massive. HHS estimates seven million people will get kicked
Speaker 1: off of Medicaid who actually qualify due to issues like
Speaker 1: long wait times, bureaucratic mistakes like sending paperwork multiple times
Speaker 1: and missing renewal notices. That could be an especially large
Speaker 1: problem because of how many people have new addresses due
Speaker 1: to housing instability exacerbated by the pandemic. Millions more of
Speaker 1: the working class fall into a giant coverage gap because
Speaker 1: they live in states which did not expand Medicaid, So
Speaker 1: those individuals make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but
Speaker 1: then not enough to actually afford plans on the ACA
Speaker 1: exchange even with the subsidies. The Washington Post interviewed a
Speaker 1: single mom who was set to lose her coverage on
Speaker 1: just how devastates this is all going to be to
Speaker 1: her life. So Connie Bunch is mom to a toddler's
Speaker 1: son and a ten year old daughter who has cerebral palsy.
Speaker 1: Caring for a disabled daughter and struggling with her own
Speaker 1: health issues has made it nearly impossible for Connie to
Speaker 1: be able to hold onto a job, and certainly not
Speaker 1: one with health benefits. She was only able to stay
Speaker 1: on Medicaid because of those Pandemic era provisions. That's a
Speaker 1: benefit that she believes actually saved her life. It enabled
Speaker 1: her to go to the emergency room one evening when
Speaker 1: her face began drooping, resulting in a diagnosis of Belle's
Speaker 1: palsy and also the discovery of several small brain aneurysms.
Speaker 1: Now Connie is also among the millions who struggle to
Speaker 1: afford insulin for her diabetes and medication for her high
Speaker 1: blood pressure. After Medicaid unwinding, who knows how or whether
Speaker 1: this mom will even survive to be there for the
Speaker 1: babies who so thoroughly depend on her. But the truth is,
Speaker 1: gazing at this tangled healthcare mess is to realize how
Speaker 1: broken the system is. Even at its very best. A vast, expensive,
Speaker 1: dehumanizing bureaucracy is required to determine who checks all the
Speaker 1: right boxes and lives in the right state to be
Speaker 1: worthy of basic care. It's actually going to cost dates
Speaker 1: quite a bit of money to figure out who they
Speaker 1: can kick off the program, money that, of course, could
Speaker 1: instead be spent making sure moms like Connie have the
Speaker 1: care that they need. Social safety net programs that only
Speaker 1: benefit the poor and working class are also incredibly politically vulnerable,
Speaker 1: as low income Americans have zero political sway in Washington
Speaker 1: and little visibility to the national media. Consider how toxic
Speaker 1: it is for politicians to even consider cutting Social Security
Speaker 1: or Medicare, and compare that to how the child tax credit,
Speaker 1: rent for Baron's expanded unemployment, and now Medicaid for millions
Speaker 1: are stripped away while Democrats are in power with barely
Speaker 1: a whimper. Why Because Social Security and Medicare are near
Speaker 1: universal programs that every American feels they have a stake in.
Speaker 1: Means tested safety net programs are ghettoized as welfare for
Speaker 1: the unworthy, and in the current political climate, they've also
Speaker 1: been blamed for inflation, even as for bank bailance and
Speaker 1: corporate subsidies is just accepted as a matter of course.
Speaker 1: What's more, the overwhelming majority of political journalists grew up
Speaker 1: in at least the middle class and have had zero
Speaker 1: personal experience with any of these programs. They also live
Speaker 1: in class isolated bubbles where their only interactions with the
Speaker 1: beneficiaries of safety net programs are through the service workers
Speaker 1: who deliver their uber eats or care for their kids.
Speaker 1: Journalist Jeff Stein has made sure to document the stories
Speaker 1: of those for whom these programs have been a precious
Speaker 1: lifeline which has now been cut away. He wrote a
Speaker 1: while back about a single mom who has slowly slipped
Speaker 1: back into financial desperation as program after program has been demolished.
Speaker 1: In her words, it was a weight lifted like I
Speaker 1: can't describe. I could actually buy what I wanted to
Speaker 1: at the grocery store living is so much harder now
Speaker 1: that this brutality is being inflicted quietly, surgically under Democrats
Speaker 1: makes it all the more galling. After all, Joe Biden pretended,
Speaker 1: at least on the campaign trail that he was going
Speaker 1: to fight to get all Americans' healthcare through a public option.
Speaker 1: Now that was never as good a solution in his
Speaker 1: Medicare for All, of course, at LISTA was something. Now
Speaker 1: we watch him surrender fifteen million Americans to healthcare doom
Speaker 1: and he doesn't have a single word to say about it.
Speaker 1: I will close with this, Our country is facing a
Speaker 1: life expectancy calamity that is unlike anything happening anywhere else
Speaker 1: in the developed world. The Financial Times recently crunched them
Speaker 1: of the data, and they found that Americans, on average
Speaker 1: have life expectancy as low as Blackpool, that is the
Speaker 1: most economically depressed town in all of England. What's more,
Speaker 1: while all countries saw life expectancy take a hit during COVID,
Speaker 1: the US took a bigger hit and has failed to
Speaker 1: bounce back as other nations have done. Now, the causes
Speaker 1: of this are myriad, but I think in a way,
Speaker 1: the story of medicaid unwinding tells you everything you really
Speaker 1: need to know. In America, we don't actually value the
Speaker 1: lives of everyone, not even close. The country is run
Speaker 1: according to a radical, elite driven ideology which says your
Speaker 1: human worth is equal to your market worth, and which
Speaker 1: is then actively intentionally sought to make every human of
Speaker 1: his life work to the market as possible, and that
Speaker 1: sick a moral ideology leads Democrats and Republicans alike to
Speaker 1: just accept these deaths as a matter of course. Republicans
Speaker 1: don't really even pretend to care. Democrats pretend to care,
Speaker 1: but we'll do nothing that is even remotely hard or
Speaker 1: counter to donor interest to try to deal with the problem.
Speaker 1: And so millions get tossed out in the healthcare cold,
Speaker 1: and our elite institutions barely even register a loss. And
Speaker 1: zachar is singing a lot with regard to these fifty
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Just
Speaker 1: so everybody knows for inevitable question, we will be sending
Speaker 1: a link in the email today to all of our
Speaker 1: premium subscribers where you can ask questions for the stream,
Speaker 1: so all of that is going to be lined up.
Speaker 1: We're excited to bring you all the stream tomorrow. As
Speaker 1: a reminder too, you can watch the full show on
Speaker 1: Spotify for premium members Breakingpoints dot com. But I think
Speaker 1: that's it. We'll see you all tomorrow night, primetime special
Speaker 1: Trump on Trial. Can't wait. It's going to be interesting.
Speaker 1: We'll see you then,