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Speaker 1: Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making

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Speaker 1: it impossible to function as a society and to know

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Speaker 1: what is true and what is false. The good news

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Speaker 1: is that they're failing and they know it. That is

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Speaker 1: why we're building something new. Be part of creating a new, better, healthier,

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Speaker 1: and more trustworthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points Premium

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Speaker 1: member today at breakingpoints dot com. Your hard earned money

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Speaker 1: is going to help us build for the midterms and

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Speaker 1: the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage

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Speaker 1: of what is sure to be one of the most

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Speaker 1: pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for?

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Speaker 1: Go to Breakingpoints dot com to help us out. Look,

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Speaker 1: we don't like doing a bunch of segments about the view,

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Speaker 1: but look, these guys just keep giving us content that

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Speaker 1: we have to cover, and ladies, killer, they're watched by

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Speaker 1: a lot of evil. Genuinely stunned by that. So I

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Speaker 1: don't know why, but here's our latest example of the view.

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Speaker 1: Sonny Hostin says that a black Republican is an oxymoron.

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Speaker 1: Let's take a listen. Of course, I know, okay, but

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Speaker 1: I know this may be a novel point a novel

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Speaker 1: idea for somebody who's you know, a supporder of. But

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Speaker 1: there are people who are capable of related on the

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Speaker 1: order many things that I don't stand by that Trump did.

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Speaker 1: Trump has done things that are racist. I'm a black

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Speaker 1: woman first, so always understand that. But I do say

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Speaker 1: that I have many conservative values that I will talk

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Speaker 1: to you about. And so if you look at your

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Speaker 1: network that you're standing behind, yes, And when you look

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Speaker 1: at your network that you're standing behind, you're saying that

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Speaker 1: you look at Chris Coman, that's an oxymoron. A black Republican,

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Speaker 1: you feel like it's an oxymoron. Why your friend right

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Speaker 1: here is a Republican? Have you do what you say?

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Speaker 1: You feel like it's more that you're Catholic. But you also,

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Speaker 1: I don't understand you don't understand yourself, then you have

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Speaker 1: you have to understand myself. I don't understand either of this.

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Speaker 1: But it's not a personal conversation we're going I don't

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Speaker 1: like we're having a personal conversation about about CNN. I

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Speaker 1: don't and I don't understand Latino Republicans. Well, this is

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Speaker 1: not about me, and it's not about you. It's about

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Speaker 1: celebrating corn Jean Pierre and I agree on that right down.

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Speaker 1: What a show. Amazing. I don't understand Black Republican Latino

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Speaker 1: Republicans aren't oxymoron. I just look. I mean, it's probably

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Speaker 1: what the ten millionth time that that has been uttered

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Speaker 1: on cable news. But this way that we just like

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Speaker 1: racewash people and think that they're supposed to align with

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Speaker 1: different parties is just not how people of those actual

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Speaker 1: races think about politics. Well that's what drives me the

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Speaker 1: most nuts. I mean, we see more black and Latino

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Speaker 1: Republicans than ever in the year twenty twenty two. Well,

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Speaker 1: des letely false. That's the thing is, I actually appreciate

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Speaker 1: the honesty because she's admitting she doesn't understand it, and

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Speaker 1: it's like, oh yeah, that's clear, and so like, I mean,

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Speaker 1: really like, if you are, if you are a Democrat

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Speaker 1: and you care about the party succeeding, understanding why you

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Speaker 1: have an increasing number of Latinos, in particular identifying with

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Speaker 1: the Republican party would be an important intellectual project to

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Speaker 1: engage with something that we've been engaging with here long

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Speaker 1: before it was a hot topic in DC. Understanding why

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Speaker 1: so many Latina's back, Bernie Sanders, why this is like

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Speaker 1: the true swing vote now and the gradations of you know,

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Speaker 1: what is what is driving that sentiment, Like the fact

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Speaker 1: that you don't understand that and you clearly don't care

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Speaker 1: to understand that. It means that you're not good at

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Speaker 1: your job. Because this is a really important political trend

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Speaker 1: that is happening right now. And you might disagree with

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Speaker 1: those folks, obviously you do. That's fine, that's not a problem,

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Speaker 1: but you should at least endeavor to try to get

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Speaker 1: where is this coming from, what is the sentiment, what

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Speaker 1: are they responding to, and what does it mean for

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Speaker 1: this party that I care about ultimately moving forward. It

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Speaker 1: reminds me too, of of course, the famous Joe Biden

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Speaker 1: moment with Charlemagne the God where yeah, where, you know,

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Speaker 1: Biden got pressed on some issues that Charlemagne, you know,

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Speaker 1: thought were important, and Biden's response, rather than engaging with

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Speaker 1: that discussion and with those, you know, many appointments over

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Speaker 1: the course of his long career in the Senate, was

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Speaker 1: to shut it down by saying, if you are what

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Speaker 1: was the quote, if you're voting for Trump, then you

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Speaker 1: ain't black. That's right, and so it's also a way

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Speaker 1: to just shut down any criticism, justified criticism of the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Party on any range of issues, everything from you know,

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Speaker 1: they've completely failed on economics, they've completely failed on issues

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Speaker 1: like voting rights, which was something that they talked a

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Speaker 1: lot to the black community about in particular. And so

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Speaker 1: that's the other problem with this mode of lack of

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Speaker 1: thought really is because it's an effort just to shut

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Speaker 1: down any criticism of the Democrats by just saying, well,

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Speaker 1: they're better than the Republicans and you can't possibly vote

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Speaker 1: for them, so you're stuck with us. That's just crazy.

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Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, I mean, you have been overwhelming,

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Speaker 1: not more than ever before number of Latinos identifying or

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Speaker 1: voting Republican. And actually this was a totally undercovered element

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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, but verified exit data shows us that

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Speaker 1: the only group a demographic group in America that voted

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Speaker 1: less before Donald Trump per capita was white men. He

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Speaker 1: actually increased his vote share amongst young, amongst black men,

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Speaker 1: black women, white women, like everybody else except for the

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Speaker 1: caricature demographic of the people who was supposedly aheaded him.

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Speaker 1: I saw the White House like we asked white men

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Speaker 1: to do better, and they did. Yeah, and they did.

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Speaker 1: Everybody else actually increased their vote share for Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: So look, I mean, I'm not saying there's an overwhelming

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Speaker 1: majority of black people who were voting Republican, but there's

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Speaker 1: like eighteen nineteen percent of young black men in particular

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Speaker 1: who seemed Trump sympathetic. Amongst Latino men, it's genuinely about

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Speaker 1: fifty to fifty right now, and it was nearly forty

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Speaker 1: percent in the twenty twenty election. And now, actually that

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Speaker 1: we covered that NPR Marris poll, maybe we didn't. Maybe

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Speaker 1: we had to scrap it because of ROVERSUS way whatever,

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Speaker 1: it was like sixty percent Latino identification with the GOP

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. We'll see how it shakes out.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true. It could vary geographically

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Speaker 1: and obviously, but still, I mean, these are dramatically important thing.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, maybe you're right, you know, her admitting I

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Speaker 1: don't understand it. I think it's an ox and worm,

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Speaker 1: but it's very racist, and it really it's just it's

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Speaker 1: an elite liberal mindset on race, which is just belies

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Speaker 1: the truth of the way that people actually act and

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Speaker 1: behave in their real daily lives, and yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: I would also submit without making Sunny Houston personally too

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Speaker 1: central to this narrative, but that general attitude, dismissive attitude,

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Speaker 1: is a key part of why, of course, Democrats have

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Speaker 1: found themselves in this situation where they thought they had

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Speaker 1: this coalition of the assentate. They thought demographics were destiny.

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Speaker 1: They thought that Latinos would only move more firmly into

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Speaker 1: their camp and become more of a solid voting block,

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Speaker 1: the way that African Americans have been for years and

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Speaker 1: years for Democrats, and things have gone in the opposite direction.

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Speaker 1: I think in part it is because you had this

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Speaker 1: very surface level view of you know, you can't even

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Speaker 1: really call it a community because it's such a diverse

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Speaker 1: and disparate group of people, but you had this very

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Speaker 1: surface level view. You had this you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: like solely based on representation and immigration politics approach to

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Speaker 1: appealing to the community, and this like dismissive attitude of like, well,

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Speaker 1: of course you're not going to vote for them. Of

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Speaker 1: course you're stuck with us, You have no other choice. No, anyway,

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Speaker 1: there it is on display absolutely, as you guys know,

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Speaker 1: the account unusual. Wales has been at the center of

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Speaker 1: exposing corruption fraud among members of Congress, especially with regard

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Speaker 1: to what they're doing in the markets and how somehow

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Speaker 1: they're able to beat the markets routinely interesting traits that

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Speaker 1: they're making potentially with inside information. And they have a

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Speaker 1: new report out now that looks at the impact of

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Speaker 1: lobbying in DC, and I think this is really important,

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Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and throw this here up on

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Speaker 1: the screen. What they say is four hundred companies lobbied Congress,

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Speaker 1: with these companies showing up in ninety two lawmakers portfolios.

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Speaker 1: What they found is that the more that an industry

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Speaker 1: lobbied Congress, the better their returns were, suggesting that they

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Speaker 1: were getting some of that thought lobbying money was well spent.

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Speaker 1: And the more that a company lobbied Congress, the more

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Speaker 1: likely that company was held by members of Congress. So

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Speaker 1: you have it both ways. So they're spending tons of

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Speaker 1: money to lobby Congress. This is showing up in their

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Speaker 1: results in the stock market, and you also have members

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Speaker 1: of Congress who are being fetted and manipulating coerce by

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Speaker 1: these lobbyists. And then they also are using the information

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Speaker 1: that they're gleaned there and potentially benefiting in the market

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Speaker 1: too from holding their Yeah, this report is actually very

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Speaker 1: very important. And what I appreciate about what he did

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Speaker 1: is that before his time, nobody just took the time

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Speaker 1: to just cobble the data. I mean it's like, you

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Speaker 1: have all the trade data out there, but everybody has

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Speaker 1: to go and compile it, and there's all these documents.

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Speaker 1: And what he did here is by looking specifically at

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Speaker 1: the lobbying companies, then you show up in the specific

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Speaker 1: portfolios which are publicly shown to us. And then the

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Speaker 1: more an industry lobby Congress, the better that their returns

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Speaker 1: at actually were. And then the more a company lobbied,

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Speaker 1: the more likely they were to be held by Congress.

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Speaker 1: Which is really interesting, right because if you think about

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Speaker 1: it from an intuitive nature, the way the defense that

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Speaker 1: these guys always have is like, look, I'm just trading

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Speaker 1: like everybody else. I mean, remember Dan Crenshaw, right, He

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Speaker 1: was like, look, I'm just like an average three year

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Speaker 1: old guy who was trying to be trade. I end up, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I should have better myself. And the interviewer was like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but you bought Boeing stock and He's like, have you

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Speaker 1: ever met with Boeing? And Dan is like, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: you know, and he goes, yeah, but have you met

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Speaker 1: with Boeing? And he's like, I'm sure at some point,

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Speaker 1: like some member of my staff like might have met.

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Speaker 1: We're Boeing, but you know, we don't know anything. It's like, oh, really,

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Speaker 1: you don't know anything. What's going on? Why are you

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Speaker 1: even Boeing? What's happening? I've never met with Boeing. So

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Speaker 1: that's the interesting part of this, which is that if

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Speaker 1: you look at the report, the more contact that they have,

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Speaker 1: the more likely likely to hold sock. Now, look, the

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Speaker 1: biggest companies in the world are also the most likely

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Speaker 1: to be held and are also the most likely to lobby.

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Speaker 1: So it's not always a conspiracy, but something's going on here.

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Speaker 1: And what I would say is that let's just remove

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Speaker 1: the question. Okay, let's make it so you can't trade, period,

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Speaker 1: and then we'll all know whether you're full of it

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Speaker 1: or not. Then we can find out does the lobbying

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Speaker 1: correlate with market cap or does it correlate with your

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Speaker 1: stock trades? And the thing about lobbying is is it's

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Speaker 1: one of those where you look at it. They would

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Speaker 1: never spend this type of money if it didn't work right, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: because that's sometimes the lobby is like, look, we're just

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Speaker 1: representing our client's interest, but it's really on balance. I'm like,

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Speaker 1: you mean to tell me that companies are going to

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Speaker 1: spend their hard earned money, billions of dollars worth it

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Speaker 1: lobbying Congress just for a fifty to fifty shot. I

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Speaker 1: don't believe you. I don't believe you for a second, right. Well,

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Speaker 1: And also here's the other piece is who are these

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Speaker 1: companies going to lobby? They're going to spend their time

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Speaker 1: lobbying members that are on key committees specific to their interests.

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Speaker 1: So then you're going to turn around if you're that

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Speaker 1: member on that committee and you're going to own stock

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Speaker 1: in a company that has a direct interest in what

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Speaker 1: you are legislating sitting on that committee. And that's the

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Speaker 1: other thing that they that he reveals here is specific lawmakers.

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Speaker 1: And this is why it's so important to look at

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Speaker 1: the data in the aggregate, because any one of these

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Speaker 1: lawmakers could explain away like, oh I have that because

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Speaker 1: of this reason. No, of course it wasn't corrupt. No,

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Speaker 1: of course, it wasn't tied to the many meetings that

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Speaker 1: I had with their lobbyist representatives here in my office.

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Speaker 1: But when you look at the overall picture, you see

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Speaker 1: how frequently you have members of Congress being lobbied by

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Speaker 1: these specific companies and these specific industries on matters that

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Speaker 1: are coming in front of them on their key committees

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Speaker 1: where they hold power and jurisdiction. And you start to go,

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Speaker 1: this is listen, this is just not acceptable in any way,

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Speaker 1: shape or form. Like, we're not idiots, right right, we

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Speaker 1: don't like, can you just not engage in these trades

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Speaker 1: that have a clear appearance of corruption and that, of

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Speaker 1: course we know from the data you all are outperforming

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Speaker 1: everybody else out there in the market, doing way better

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Speaker 1: than what the market average is. And it certainly looks

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Speaker 1: like there is some insider information being exchanged here to

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Speaker 1: their personal financial benefit into your jutchment. You be the judge,

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Speaker 1: doesn't make a difference or not, don't let them be

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Speaker 1: the judge. There you go, Okay, a very important newly

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Speaker 1: declassified document from twenty seventeen shows something that we've all

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Speaker 1: suspected for a long time. Let's put it up there

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Speaker 1: on the screen, which is that declassified memo confirms a

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Speaker 1: direct tie between the Saudi government and the nine to

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Speaker 1: eleven hijackers. So let's explain. This all goes down to

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Speaker 1: Omar all Bayumi. Now, al Bayumi was a member of

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Speaker 1: the Saudi consulate who had confirmed meeting connections and financial

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Speaker 1: ties with two of the nine to eleven hijackers. So

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Speaker 1: the previous story goes like this. All Byumi is in

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Speaker 1: a cafe and he overhears two young Saudi men speaking

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Speaker 1: in Arabic, and he's like, how can I help you,

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Speaker 1: two gentlemen? And then he gets them an apartment and

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Speaker 1: puts down cash and does all of his stuff for them.

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Speaker 1: It was said to be an on the chance encounter

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Speaker 1: that had no direction from the direct Saudi government. If

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Speaker 1: you believe that, I'm not sure what to tell you.

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Speaker 1: But it was confirmed by the nine to eleven Commission,

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Speaker 1: and we thought that it was basically buried, despite many

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Speaker 1: people like myself who said, hmm, this seems pretty sketchy. Well,

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Speaker 1: a newly declassified two thy seventeen FBI memo shows that

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Speaker 1: the FBI itself wrote that al Bayumi was cast with

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Speaker 1: collecting and delivering intelligence specifically to Prince Bandar al Sultan,

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Speaker 1: who was at the time the Saudi ambassador to the

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Speaker 1: United States. So as long again suspected Al Bayumi was

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Speaker 1: not some innocent driver who just happened across these two

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Speaker 1: Saudi gentlemen who happened to be in America who happened

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Speaker 1: to crash planes into the Twin Towers. Well, he was

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Speaker 1: actually reporting directly to the Saudi ambassador at the time,

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Speaker 1: which then also gives us some insight into well, what

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Speaker 1: did the Saudis know? The Saudi government know about it?

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Speaker 1: Two of its fifteen of its nineteen citizens who eventually

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Speaker 1: crashed into our towers and into the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: What did they know at the time about the plot?

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Speaker 1: That question has been buried by the US government for

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Speaker 1: over twenty years. Yeah, because of Saudi corruption and pressure

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Speaker 1: by the Saudi government, and we all just kind of

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Speaker 1: moved on from it. But I don't think we should

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Speaker 1: ever move on from it because a lot of the

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Speaker 1: people who are still responsible for that, Prince Turkey bin

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Speaker 1: Faisal Bandar and all those people are living high and

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Speaker 1: mighty in Saudi Arabia, live in the jet setting high

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Speaker 1: life and very clearly at the very least knew what

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Speaker 1: was going to happen and possibly were even involved or

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Speaker 1: the very least derelict about what happened, and that piece

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Speaker 1: of our own governments cover up. Yeah, the bushet industry

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Speaker 1: these critical facts is also really important here. Biden does

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Speaker 1: deserves some credit for long after the fact, declassifying these memos,

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Speaker 1: which has never been done before. And just to make

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Speaker 1: it like super clear, Bayoumi was literally getting paid by

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Speaker 1: Saudi intelligence. Yes, yeah, so, I mean it always was

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Speaker 1: a stretch credulity, the idea that he just stumbled upon

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Speaker 1: them and then went out of his way to not

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Speaker 1: only secure them apartment, but really to sort of serve

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Speaker 1: as a guide and help them get settled here in

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Speaker 1: America and help them move to San Diego. And there's

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Speaker 1: another piece here which makes it even more plain, which

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Speaker 1: is there was a second raft of documents released by

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Speaker 1: the British government last week. This was in response to

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Speaker 1: a civil lawsuit against the Saudi government by families of

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Speaker 1: nine to eleven victims, and among Bayoumi's papers literally was

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Speaker 1: a diagram depicting a plane descending toward a target on

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Speaker 1: the horizon and alongside the diagram is a bunch of

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Speaker 1: formula is used to calculate the distance to the target. Okay,

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Speaker 1: paid by Saudi intelligence. It's so happens to have a

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Speaker 1: diagram of a plane descending toward a target on the horizon. Okay,

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Speaker 1: riddle me out. Explain that one to me in an

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Speaker 1: innocent way. Now what they say is, oh, he had something.

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Speaker 1: He was working for the aviation industry, and so that

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Speaker 1: maybe that's what it. Okay, all right, all right, h yeah.

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Speaker 1: And they even said in the second round of FBI documents, quote,

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Speaker 1: there's a fifty to fifty chance he had advanced knowledge

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Speaker 1: of the plot fifty and again back in the two thousands,

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Speaker 1: they covered all of this up. Guys. It was not

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Speaker 1: until two thousand and five, two thousand and six when

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Speaker 1: there was a lot more open source reporting about al Bayoumi.

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Speaker 1: Lawrence Wright from the New Yorker wrote the whole book

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Speaker 1: about it, and there was a lot more of a

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Speaker 1: scrutiny on this. But this was the height of Rackmania,

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Speaker 1: and then it just got lost in the Iraq War

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Speaker 1: and the debates in the country, and every once in

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Speaker 1: a while, around nine to eleven, everybody just kind of

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Speaker 1: wakes up and I was like, yeah, remember when the

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Speaker 1: Saudi's were fifteen and nineteen citizens crashing into there, and oh,

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Speaker 1: and you know, they kind of tried to get bin

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Speaker 1: Loadden out of Afghanistan, but not really even though they

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Speaker 1: were pretty sure about what he was up to. And

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Speaker 1: then they just spirited away a bunch of their citizens

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Speaker 1: and ambassadors right after nine to eleven. And then they

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Speaker 1: bought billions of dollars worth of advertising on American TV

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Speaker 1: networks in order to prop up their image. And what

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Speaker 1: was going on there. I know they had all these

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Speaker 1: connections to the Bush administration, but then they're like, well,

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Speaker 1: there's inflation, ROVERSUS weighed and this, all this stuff we

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Speaker 1: shouldn't forget. Like one hundred years from now, it's going

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Speaker 1: to be one hundred percent clear about what's happening. And

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Speaker 1: you know, I never thought I actually see these documents

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Speaker 1: in my lifetime. I thought it'd be a lot like

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Speaker 1: the jfk assassination. Wait those so waiting on that one those,

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Speaker 1: But you know, I'm glad to see it. I genuinely

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Speaker 1: thought I'd be dead before any of this stuff even

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Speaker 1: came came out. But at least we know, yeah, yeah, Well,

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Speaker 1: and I mean, it'll be clearly the Biden administration not

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Speaker 1: exactly having sort of a romance with the Saudis right now.

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Speaker 1: So that's also the count that's a good point that

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Speaker 1: this coming found. It didnt think about why that came out,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, it makes sense. Yeah indeed, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, the US relationship towards Saudi isn't quite the

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Speaker 1: same as what it was back in the Bush years,

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Speaker 1: And to my mind, that's a good thing, very interesting

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Speaker 1: moment in the latest Matt and Shane's Secret podcasts, who

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Speaker 1: have been doing an excellent series with Louis c. K

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Speaker 1: on the American Presidents. Now, I was telling you this before,

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Speaker 1: I as a history buff am shocked at the level

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Speaker 1: of knowledge that Louis and Shane have on early American history.

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Speaker 1: Oh really, honestly, Louie uh knows more about the early

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Speaker 1: presidents than I do. And I've read quite a bit

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Speaker 1: of early biographies. Like he was reciting some really deep

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Speaker 1: stuff on like Juohn Quincy Adams and Madison and Martin

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Speaker 1: van Bierre. I don't even know that much root Martin

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Speaker 1: man Beren, I do this and Buren buff over here,

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Speaker 1: I do this for and apparently this man is deeply

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Speaker 1: well versed in American history, which is kind of amazing.

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Speaker 1: But in the latest example, Louis actually gave a very

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Speaker 1: impassioned kind of analysis as to why shaming people for

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is both counterintuitive and against a lot of

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Speaker 1: the values that liberals profess to say that they have.

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Speaker 1: So let's take a listen to what he said. I'm

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Speaker 1: afraid to tell you, but you're a Republican. That's what

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Speaker 1: that's what. That's what people do is like, come here,

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Speaker 1: I've got I've got the same I'm like you, you're

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Speaker 1: like me more than you understand now, and they head you.

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Speaker 1: They go like, now, I'm not I don't I don't

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Speaker 1: agree with my opponent's bill for healthcare, but I have

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Speaker 1: the same concern as you do about healthcare, have the

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Speaker 1: same values you do, where like you should vote for me.

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Speaker 1: But what progressives do is they you actually say to

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Speaker 1: them I'm a progressive, yeah, and they go really prove it, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm for gay marriage, we mean gay, we mean marriage. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you are a Trump. They like tell other people that

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Speaker 1: they belong to Trump. They give him. They push people

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Speaker 1: away because the goal is not actually to win and

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Speaker 1: to change the country, which is an ugly difficult to

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Speaker 1: really change the country is a gray difficult, boring, bureaucratic, unsatisfying,

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Speaker 1: slow business, and people want to be able to make

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Speaker 1: it happen like this can this, I can just And

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Speaker 1: they're not trying to make something happen. They're just trying

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Speaker 1: to feel. They're trying to show what they think and

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Speaker 1: perform what they are and just get it, and they're addicted.

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Speaker 1: It's a sickness. I feel sorry for them. I don't

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Speaker 1: hate people like this. Wow. I mean, that's very profound.

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously probably impacted by Louise's own just like

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Speaker 1: the vitriol that was directed his way. But that's a

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Speaker 1: very good cogent analysis on why yelling in people and

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Speaker 1: screaming at them is not going to work if one

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Speaker 1: of your goals is to actually transform the country. Well,

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Speaker 1: but he also says the important part, which is that

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Speaker 1: these people's goal isn't actually exactly to change the country

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Speaker 1: or to change anything, or to have like a movement

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Speaker 1: or grow their political coalition. It's for their own personal

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Speaker 1: like this is something I can do to feel good

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Speaker 1: in this moment and feel like I'm virtuous and on

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Speaker 1: the right side of history and all of these things,

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Speaker 1: which is, you know, a nice short term payoff, but

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Speaker 1: if you actually cared about building a winning coalition, it's

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Speaker 1: obviously the polar opposite of what you would actually do.

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Speaker 1: And it's something that drives me absolutely bananas because you

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Speaker 1: have this bizarre instinct among a lot of progressives to

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Speaker 1: basically be extremely judgmental about their fellow ordinary citizens. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: people who may share some values with them, who might

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Speaker 1: be open, who you might be able to bring along

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Speaker 1: if you're willing to approach it in an open spirit,

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Speaker 1: extremely judgmental with them, and then like give a complete

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Speaker 1: past the elected officials who actually have power, who are

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Speaker 1: not living up to their end of the deal. So

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Speaker 1: the exact opposite of what you should do. You should

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Speaker 1: have a lot of compassion for your fellow citizens, You

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Speaker 1: should have a lot of openness. You should be trying to,

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Speaker 1: you know, to engage and understand their concerns and bring

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Speaker 1: them along. And also, by the way, has some people

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Speaker 1: in your coalition that don't agree with you and that

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Speaker 1: make you uncomfortable on certain issues, like that's also part

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Speaker 1: of having a winning, powerful coalition. But then when it

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Speaker 1: comes to people in power, yeah, you should be constantly

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Speaker 1: holding their feet to the fire, especially when they don't

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Speaker 1: do the things that they are supposed to do or

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Speaker 1: that is within their power to do. So oftentimes it's

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Speaker 1: like completely backwards. And we've talked about this some with

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Speaker 1: regards to the way that a lot of progressives have

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Speaker 1: approached Joe Rogan, who is someone who agrees with them

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Speaker 1: on quite a number of issues and doesn't on certain issues,

427
00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:57,920
Speaker 1: and so it's like the only things they highlight are

428
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:01,439
Speaker 1: the areas where he has disagreement, and so try it,

429
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:04,560
Speaker 1: they've created this national impression that he's just like this

430
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 1: consistently right winged dude. And meanwhile the right, also because

431
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 1: they are smart enough to want to claim him, they

432
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:14,720
Speaker 1: also highlight those areas where he has agreement, and then

433
00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:17,800
Speaker 1: the places where he is on the left side of

434
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:21,439
Speaker 1: the debate, like neither side ever highlights. So you pointed

435
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:23,159
Speaker 1: this out to me and Kyle and actually talked, and

436
00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 1: Kyle and I talked about it on Crystal conference. He

437
00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:29,400
Speaker 1: made comments about Roe versus Way. Yeah, we're very nobody

438
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:31,400
Speaker 1: comfort our choice, right. We were the only ones who

439
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:35,120
Speaker 1: covered it, because you know, if if the right behaved

440
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:37,200
Speaker 1: the way the left did, they would have pulled on

441
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:40,880
Speaker 1: those comments, they would have trashed him. He's left wing,

442
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,960
Speaker 1: he's a Marxist, He's this, he's not us, He's with them,

443
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:48,399
Speaker 1: And instead nobody talks about it because the left is

444
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 1: so invested in like pushing people away weirdly for their

445
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 1: own like personal virtue signaling, and the right smartly, strategically

446
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:57,800
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, we'll claim and we'll claim the most

447
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:00,400
Speaker 1: powerful you know, the number one podcast or the entire

448
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 1: world will claim him. So whatever you think of Louis

449
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:06,080
Speaker 1: c K, he makes a good point here. Yeah, well exactly.

450
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 1: I don't know how you possibly look against it, and look,

451
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: I highly recommend. I haven't listened to parts two through four,

452
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:15,920
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna go and I'm going to listen to

453
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,880
Speaker 1: all of these because I found Louise's analysis of history

454
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: like really compelling, and they were both It's really funny,

455
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 1: like the way that him and Sheane kind of play

456
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:28,440
Speaker 1: off of each other. It's both hilarious but really informative,

457
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:30,679
Speaker 1: both not only on what happened, but kind of like

458
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:33,959
Speaker 1: his meta analysis of the president. Yeah, yeah, a lot

459
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 1: of time to think while he was canceled. I guess,

460
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: I mean he put out two. What is it Grammy Award?

461
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: Did he win a Grammy? I think for his latest thing? Whatever. Look,

462
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 1: he's a great comedian and apparently he's the greatest storyan

463
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 1: as well, so it's good to see him. Earlier, we

464
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:48,879
Speaker 1: got a report and we asked a very basic question.

465
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 1: It said Hunter Biden has paid off nearly two million

466
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 1: dollars that he owed in taxes. However, he had to

467
00:24:55,960 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 1: take a loan. Now, the corporate media didn't tell us, Hey,

468
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,880
Speaker 1: who gave Hunter this loan? And I asked, and I said, hey,

469
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 1: I would really like to know who paid off these taxes. Well,

470
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 1: now we seem to know the answer to that. According

471
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:11,480
Speaker 1: to the New York Post, let's put this up there

472
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:16,399
Speaker 1: on the screen, a big shot Hollywood lawyer is apparently

473
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 1: paying off all of Hunter Biden's nearly two million dollars

474
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 1: that he owed to taxes. So this lawyer, his name

475
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: is Kevin Morris. He's an entertainment attorney, and he was

476
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:30,960
Speaker 1: actually the guy who represents the co creators of South Park.

477
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 1: So he's apparently made millions of dollars in negotiating these

478
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: licensing deals. Obviously, both Trey and Matt are worth I

479
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 1: think hundreds of millions of dollars, like a piece based

480
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: upon the ip that they've created. But this guy Morris,

481
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: and by the way, this is all alleged, he hasn't

482
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 1: responded for a comment, so you know, this is again

483
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: according to the New York Post. We're simply commenting on

484
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:53,400
Speaker 1: the story, though. But he says that Morris is Hunter's

485
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: quote latest sugar brother. According to Hunter Biden's friends, he's

486
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:01,919
Speaker 1: been funding the fifty two year old Hunter's lifestyle in

487
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:06,800
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, including his rent and his living expenses, and

488
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 1: the attorney has also been advising the president's son on

489
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 1: how to structure his art sales. Now, Morris's wife slammed

490
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,920
Speaker 1: the door in the reporter's face at the New York Post,

491
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 1: And I mean, look, the story's been out for a

492
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 1: couple of days and he hasn't denied it. So I mean,

493
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: you can be the judge as to how exactly that's happening.

494
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 1: But I think there's a lot of questions here, which

495
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: is why. I mean, that is a hell of a

496
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: lot of money, Crystal two million dollars in on pay.

497
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: I don't know how much money this guy has, but

498
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, I've met some of the

499
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: some very very rich people in my time, and even

500
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 1: they are pretty stingy whenever it comes to, you know,

501
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. So like, who is this guy is

502
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 1: just willing to shell out two million dollars for somebody

503
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 1: else's taxes. We don't know if he's ever asked to

504
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:55,400
Speaker 1: pay it back. Apparently he's funding his lifestyle, he's paying

505
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: for his rent, all of this, he's advising him on

506
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 1: art sales. He's the president. What are you getting out

507
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: of it? I don't know the answer that question. Yeah, Now,

508
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: rich people don't spend money for for I just don't

509
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: believe it. I don't believe this is an altruistic the

510
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 1: busness of his heart, I don't believe it. Once as

511
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 1: support Hunter Biden's lavish lifestyle and pay off his tax debt, yeah,

512
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:18,679
Speaker 1: the why is interesting and of course, I mean just

513
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: as a reminder, Hunter Biden continues to be under federal investigation.

514
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 1: There reports a couple months ago about how that seemed

515
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 1: to be heating up. This is from vox, so not

516
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: a conservative outlet. They say federal prosecutors investigation into Hunter

517
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 1: is heating up. The indictment of the presence son is

518
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:40,880
Speaker 1: a real possibility. There were stories across mainstream outlets suggesting

519
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: that the investigation run by the US Attorney's Office in

520
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: Delaware has gotten increasingly active. Witnesses have been testified or

521
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: grand jury, and it focuses on his well compensated work

522
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,880
Speaker 1: for foreign interest over the past decade or so, particularly

523
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: for businesses or tycoons in Ukraine, China, and Kazakhstan. The

524
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 1: main legal questions appear to be whether Hunter violet tax laws,

525
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: committed money laundering or acted as an unregistered foreign lobbyist.

526
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 1: And so this investigation is part of why it was

527
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: so important that Hunter pay. At the time, it was

528
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: reported as a million dollar tax liability, come to find out,

529
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: at least according to this latest reporting, and was closer

530
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: to two million dollars. And it is a lot of money.

531
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: And even though him paying those back taxes doesn't let

532
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 1: him off the hook in terms of if he violated

533
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 1: tax law, the thought, according to legal analysts at the

534
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 1: time was that if he did pay that back tax debt,

535
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: that might allow, you know, allow the grand jary to

536
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 1: view him in a more favorable light, that it would

537
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: be something that could potentially mitigate you know, possible indictment here.

538
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 1: So it is a significant story, you know, because he's

539
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: the president's son, because he's being looked at for potentially

540
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: illegal behavior. And who and why this person wanted to

541
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: come in and help him with this two million dollars

542
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 1: in debt and potentially fund his lifestyle, I think is

543
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: a it's an interesting question. Yeah, it's worth pondering. I

544
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:08,959
Speaker 1: should just note after the Post came out with the story,

545
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: apparently CBS News has followed and is reporting the exact

546
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: same thing. So they say that he maintains a robust

547
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: team which is being funded by mister Kevin Morris. I mean,

548
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: that's pretty extraordinary here. So mister Morris has declined for

549
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: their comment. Nothing has been confirmed, but nobody really knows

550
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: what exactly this guy is getting out of it. And

551
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: it just says that in terms of many the things

552
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: that they're looking into, that Morris is funding both the

553
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 1: legal defense and his taxes and his lifestyle again structure

554
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: his art deals, helping him structures art deals, art career.

555
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 1: You really should ask the question why. And I don't

556
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: see a lot of media interest in that, but you know,

557
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: we'll continue to keep up on it. Indeed, we will. Hey, guys,

558
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: Kyle Kalin is letting us post some of the clips

559
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: from his channel that we think you guys will really

560
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 1: love in the Breaking Points community on our channel. Yep,

561
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: let's get to it. So there's a little bit of

562
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 1: a democratic civil war going on right now, and it's

563
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: not the kind that we're all familiar with. The kind

564
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: that we're familiar with is like the left versus the

565
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: establishment Democrats. This is not that. This is corporate dem

566
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 1: on corporate dem violence. So Gavin Newsom was talking about

567
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: the role versus way decision. He sort of lit into

568
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: the leadership of the Democratic Party in Washington, DC. Nancy

569
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 1: Pelosi's on Face the Nation. The host is going to

570
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 1: play the Newsome clip and get Pelosi to respond, Let's

571
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: take a look, where is the Democratic Party? Where's the party?

572
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 1: Why aren't we calling this out? This is a concerted,

573
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 1: coordinated effort, and yes they're winning. We need to stand up.

574
00:30:55,720 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: Where's the counter offensive to speaker? Why we're pro abortion rights?

575
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: Democrats out maneuvered? I have no idea. The fact is

576
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 1: that we have been fighting for a woman's right to choose,

577
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: and that is to choose. We have been fighting against

578
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 1: the Republicans in the Congress constantly, because the fact is

579
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: they're not just downtire woman's right to choose in terms

580
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: of terminating a pregnancy, but in terms of access to

581
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: contraception and family planning and the rest, both domestically and globally.

582
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 1: This is a constant fight that we've had for generations

583
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 1: of decades, I should say, in my case in the Congress,

584
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: and we had been bipartisan early on support for a

585
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:47,479
Speaker 1: woman's right to choose until the politics have changed, and

586
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 1: that's what happened to the court. The science hasn't changed,

587
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: but the court changed, and therefore they're deciding that it

588
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 1: will be different. I have no idea why anybody would

589
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: make that statement so unaware of the fight that has

590
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 1: been going on. Well, you have been fighting for decades

591
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: on this issue. But back when Democrats held majorities in

592
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: the House and the Senate two thousand and nine, when

593
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: you were Speaker, President Obama was asked about codifying Roe

594
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 1: versus Wade instead abortions a moral and ethical issue and

595
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: quote not the highest legislative priority. Do you think it

596
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: was a mistake for him for other presidents not to

597
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: push harder when Democrats and the majority. If I just may,

598
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 1: the focus we have right now is an urgent one

599
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 1: in order to try to improve and try to improve

600
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: this what we're calling it fake or draft decision, whatever

601
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: it is. I think that this is a waste of time.

602
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: The fact is in nine we really did not have

603
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: a pro choice Democratic Party. I had to fight against

604
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 1: some of the people who did not want to pass

605
00:32:56,840 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act. Understand how deeply disingenuos this is

606
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: last week after we got the decision of what the

607
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: Supreme Court is going to do. Nancy Pelosi and Clyburn

608
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: and other Democratic leaders, corporate Democrats. We're campaigning for Henry

609
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:24,719
Speaker 1: Henry Quaar Qualar, who is a pro life Democrat, supporting

610
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: him over Jessicasiesnaro's who is pro choice. So the Supreme

611
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: Court is going to overturn Roe versus Way. They look

612
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: at that and go, oh okay. Then they immediately go

613
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: and campaign for a Democrat who agrees with them, who

614
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 1: will block any sort of change they try to make

615
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: in a pro choice direction. It's hard not to conclude

616
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 1: that they're total frauds and Charlatan's when you look at

617
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:55,479
Speaker 1: something like that, that they're just going to use this

618
00:33:55,680 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: as a as a wedge issue to virtue signals. We're

619
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 1: pro choice, their pro life. If you agree more with

620
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: the pro choice position, vote for us. But we're not

621
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 1: gonna do anything about it. We're not gonna do anything

622
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 1: about it. So let's break this down now. Newsom says, well,

623
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 1: where's the Democratic Party on this? And I'll come back

624
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: to him in a little bit because he's Weasley and

625
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 1: he's a slime ball too, But he says, where's the

626
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: Democratic Party on this? The host says, why were pro

627
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: choice Democrats outmaneuvered? Pelosi goes, well, I have no idea. Well, then,

628
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: isn't that the problem? If you have no idea, why

629
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 1: are you a leader? Why don't you step aside? Why

630
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: don't you let somebody younger who actually cares about this

631
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: stuff take your place? Though I have no idea how

632
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: we were amen, Well that's the problem. But also you

633
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 1: do kind of know because you guys support pro life Democrats.

634
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 1: And the other thing is Roe versus Wade was settled

635
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:53,399
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three. Jimmy Carter had a veto proof

636
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:56,279
Speaker 1: supermajority from nineteen seventy seven to nineteen seventy nine. He

637
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:59,839
Speaker 1: didn't codify roe versus Weid. Carter had a Democratic Senate

638
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: and from nineteen seventy nine to nineteen eighty one didn't

639
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: codify reversus weight. Clinton had a Democratic Senate and House

640
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:07,280
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three to nineteen ninety five didn't codify

641
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: reversus weight. Obama had a super majority in two thousand

642
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: and nine, didn't codify reversus weight. Biden currently has a

643
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: Democratic Senate and a Democratic House Representatives didn't codify rero

644
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: versus weight. So how do we get to this point? Well,

645
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:21,800
Speaker 1: all these Democratic presidents said I'm going to codify reversus

646
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: weight and pass it into law. So do even something

647
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:25,239
Speaker 1: happens at the Supreme Court, we still have the law.

648
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:27,319
Speaker 1: None of them did it. None of them did it.

649
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 1: Obama said at one point when he was campaigning, that's

650
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:30,799
Speaker 1: gonna be the first thing I do when I get

651
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 1: an office. I'm gonna codify reversus weight. Then he gets

652
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 1: an office and he's like, that's not on the top

653
00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:40,320
Speaker 1: of my legislative priorities list. How did this happen? Well, jeez,

654
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know how this happened. I

655
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 1: have no idea now, excuse me, I need to go

656
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 1: campaign for another pro life Democrat. Pelosi goes on to

657
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: say about Newsom, I have no idea why anybody would

658
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 1: make that statement unless they're unaware of the fight that's

659
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: been going on. What fight? What f what fight are

660
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: you talking about? You guys haven't lifted a finger for this.

661
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: If anything, you've lifted a finger on the opposite side

662
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 1: trying to get Quola elected. And then she goes on

663
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 1: to say, the focus we have right now is an

664
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,320
Speaker 1: urgent one to try to improve the Supreme Court decision. Well, look,

665
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 1: I support every attempt to do that, whatever, protest, whatever,

666
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: direct actions, as long as, of course, as it's peaceful.

667
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 1: But that's not gonna happen. You're not going to change

668
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:34,759
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court's decision on this by what finger wagging? Hey, guys,

669
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:37,320
Speaker 1: our friend Marshall Kassof, he's going to be conducting interviews

670
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:39,439
Speaker 1: with experts and newsmakers for us here on the Breaking

671
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:42,359
Speaker 1: Points channel. We're really excited. Yep. Here it is, hey,

672
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: Breaking Points. We're joined by a really great guest. I'm

673
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: speaking with James Pogue. He is the author of a

674
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: new piece in Vanity Fair. It's called inside the New Right.

675
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: He's a contributing editor at Harper's and as someone who

676
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: covers this space, I think this is one of the

677
00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:59,439
Speaker 1: best written pieces on this really important dynamic, especially post

678
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 1: Vance wins. So let's just ask the obvious question. This

679
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: New Right discourse has existed for a couple of years,

680
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 1: like the podcast Soccer and I do call the Realignment

681
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,759
Speaker 1: started covering this space, like in twenty nineteen. Why this year,

682
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,839
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, late APRILWI like, why was this the

683
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 1: moment for you to write this piece? Oh, that's a

684
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: good question, I suppose to be honest. The proof that

685
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 1: this was the moment was the fact that before this year,

686
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: I didn't really know that much about this stuff. And

687
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:35,439
Speaker 1: so I met jd Vance in July of last year

688
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: when he was running pulling at seven percent. And I

689
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: think part of why this piece cut through and was

690
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 1: successful is I was coming to this stuff with a

691
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 1: relatively new eye. I hadn't been reading people like Curtis Jarvin.

692
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,879
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware of jd Vance as someone other than

693
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, as they say in the liberal media,

694
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: like a kind of trumpest pantomime buffoon kind of guy.

695
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: And I started talking to him and realizing that he

696
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 1: was emerging out of an ecosystem that I, frankly wasn't

697
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:07,439
Speaker 1: aware that much about. And I then went to nap

698
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:11,600
Speaker 1: Con the Natural Conservative as a conference and was sort

699
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:14,280
Speaker 1: of blown away by the fact that there were intellectual

700
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: currents that I wasn't aware of as a reporter and

701
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: that I thought honestly ought to be discussed. So let's

702
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:22,320
Speaker 1: just go to the line with the really obvious questions

703
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:25,360
Speaker 1: that we could get into it. What actually is the

704
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 1: new right? This is a very contentious subject, and I

705
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 1: think because you're an outsider, I'll actually trust to your

706
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 1: definition about the personal beef you usually get on the inside. Well,

707
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: so I tried to explain it to people who've literally

708
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:40,959
Speaker 1: never heard anything about this stuff as kind of two

709
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: twin tendencies. And so one would be this kind of

710
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:49,239
Speaker 1: broad based idea on the right, you're going to take

711
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: over the Republican Party and refashion it towards something like

712
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 1: what we see in France with Marine lapenn a sort

713
00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: of like nationalist, anti globalist vision of a right that

714
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: is conservative, anti globalization and kind of proudly Americanist in

715
00:39:07,719 --> 00:39:10,719
Speaker 1: a way that the Republican party hasn't been. That's an

716
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: unsatisfying answer to a lot of people who really know

717
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: what the New Right is, because there's also this intellectual

718
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 1: undercurrent that is much weirder, much more online, and that is,

719
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: I like to say, like a kind of intertwined set

720
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:25,719
Speaker 1: of critiques of what liberalism, frankly is. And I don't

721
00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:29,760
Speaker 1: mean Democratic party liberalism. I mean the idea of liberal

722
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 1: individualist capitalism as being the organizing force in human life.

723
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: This is a set of critiques of that that are

724
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 1: coming from the right instead of the left, as a

725
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 1: lot of people are used to. You know, I was

726
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: gonna not quibble if your definition, but something that's probably

727
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: going to prick up in people's mind when you say

728
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 1: the New Right is more Americanist than the current conservative movement.

729
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 1: People say, what are you talking about? You know, like

730
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, Morning in America, like apple pie, lots of flagwaving,

731
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: lots of boomer memes there. But I think the thing

732
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: that you really captured your piece. I love you to

733
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 1: expand on this is it's Americanist, but it's focused on

734
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: decline in a way that the Reaganite version just wasn't.

735
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:13,840
Speaker 1: But it's very definition so Q you go into this bit, sure,

736
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:17,879
Speaker 1: I mean, and I think so when we talk about decline,

737
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 1: I think what the new Right is offering essentially is

738
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: a vision that the Reaganist kind of corporatist, triumphalist vision

739
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:30,319
Speaker 1: of a capitalism and a global system that was going

740
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,840
Speaker 1: to inevitably lead towards a better world step by step

741
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 1: by step, actually was the failed system, and it was

742
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 1: a filled vision. And that's a difficult thing for people

743
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 1: both on the traditional right and left to accept. Particularly,

744
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:46,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a millennial. We grew up with this

745
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: idea that you know, you just kind of played the

746
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 1: neoliberal game and over time everything will sort of work out.

747
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: Reagan was an apotheosis of that vision. And so for

748
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: a lot of people on the New Right, what you're

749
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: actually seeing is a kind of pointed critique of a

750
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 1: vision that Reagan and Clinton together sort of formed and

751
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:10,600
Speaker 1: created and led into the point where you might say,

752
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 1: the end of the end of history that we're living now.

753
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: And so privately, I'm not going to name particular names

754
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:19,120
Speaker 1: because a lot of this is sort of at parties

755
00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 1: and things like that, But privately, a lot of the

756
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 1: major figures on this New Right are pointedly and almost

757
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:29,320
Speaker 1: violently critical of Reagan. And that's something that I think

758
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans, even in the kind of maga

759
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: Trump mold, won't do. And something I'm wondering here is

760
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:39,400
Speaker 1: a lot of folks, especially in the Breaking Points audience,

761
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,880
Speaker 1: will especially when it looked like Bernie was going to

762
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:46,839
Speaker 1: be the nominee after you know, New Hampshire, and when

763
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: Trump was obviously gonna be the Republican nominee in twenty twenty,

764
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 1: they were like, oh wow, Like there's this populist like

765
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 1: new left. There's this populist new right. It's kind of

766
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:57,840
Speaker 1: mixed up, Like is there any analog between like debates

767
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 1: about progressivism on the left left and these debates between

768
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 1: the new right. I don't think they quite line up,

769
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 1: but like, what do you think about that idea? So

770
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: I'll go out on a limb here and give a

771
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 1: personal response. I was there the night Bernie won the

772
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 1: New Hampshire primary in twenty twenty, and you know, I

773
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: was talking to my girlfriend at the time, who you know,

774
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: she didn't come from the left, she didn't come from

775
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 1: these traditions of critiquing sort of liberal notions of progress

776
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 1: and I just I was so taken. I was personally

777
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: so taken with that moment as a moment where we

778
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: might as a country shift from this vision of like

779
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,759
Speaker 1: everything that we do, our governing value in society is

780
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: going to be three point two percent economic growth, and

781
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 1: everything that we do is going to be oriented around

782
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:47,319
Speaker 1: market policies that basically enrinch people, and that there might

783
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: be a populist movement coming from the left that was

784
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 1: going to reorient how society worked. And then that didn't

785
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 1: work out, and it ended pretty quickly after that, and

786
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 1: pretty brutally after that for me at least. And I

787
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: say that because I see on the right a very

788
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: similar kind of energy, where there's a longing, particularly amongst

789
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:13,080
Speaker 1: young people, for a different set of values and a

790
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:17,880
Speaker 1: different kind of frankly, metrics that's a kind of brutal word,

791
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: but a different set of measures for what a valuable

792
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 1: life is and how a society should be organized. And

793
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 1: that's something that I personally felt with Bernie, and it's

794
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: something that I personally see a lot with young people

795
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 1: coming to the New Right. It's it's so funny that

796
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:35,919
Speaker 1: you use the word metrics, because it gets it kind

797
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 1: of like the neoliberal, market oriented mind capture. I was

798
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 1: as planning like a social event, and on ironic was like, okay,

799
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 1: who's taking ownership out of like finding like the proper

800
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 1: bar for us to go meet up too? So like

801
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:51,840
Speaker 1: we've all been captured by like this like market neoliberal

802
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:55,439
Speaker 1: millennial esque real you know, subculture there. But I think

803
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:57,160
Speaker 1: something i'd like to And once again, I think you

804
00:43:57,200 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 1: get at this. You just made a very like economic

805
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: focus articulation. I think a lot of what you just

806
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: said are things that people on the New Right and

807
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 1: the new left could both resonate with. However, there's a

808
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 1: very cultural aspect to the new right, and this is

809
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 1: something that I don't think a lot of folks. I

810
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,280
Speaker 1: think folks on the left, especially like you said, post

811
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:20,840
Speaker 1: Bernie deflation, are looking for something and I've just noticed

812
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:25,880
Speaker 1: this real tendency to just underplay this cultural critique that

813
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,480
Speaker 1: they're making. I met someone who was like, oh, yeah,

814
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 1: I'm Marshall. You do new right stuff like you don't

815
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:33,680
Speaker 1: care about abortion. Right, people on the New right don't

816
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 1: care about abortion. They're just like Bernie. It's like, no,

817
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:39,320
Speaker 1: that's actually not an accurate interpretation of it. So, like,

818
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 1: how would you articulate that bit. I mean, yeah, I

819
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 1: mean like I'm very much sort of on New Right

820
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:47,800
Speaker 1: Twitter now, just if only because like you know, a

821
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: lot of people followed me, and I'm around it now

822
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 1: a lot. And I remember the minute that leak happened,

823
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:56,960
Speaker 1: people were like, let's go. This is a kind of

824
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:01,320
Speaker 1: This is a kind of world that is very conservative,

825
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 1: even in a way that I think kind of the

826
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: conservatism that I grew up in southwestern Ohio around you know,

827
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: people who came to the Maga movement, people who were Reaganites,

828
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 1: are not even really aware of. I mean, this is

829
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 1: a conservatism that is sort of longing for some kind

830
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 1: of frankly strictures to use that word, for boundaries and

831
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:25,880
Speaker 1: for values that a lot of people don't feel like

832
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: exist for people of our generation anymore. And I mean,

833
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: it's interesting this is talking about abortion. It's really really

834
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 1: fascinating to see how much in my social circles as

835
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 1: I've moved through this world, a lot of people are

836
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 1: very very uncomfortable with abortion these days, in a way

837
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:45,839
Speaker 1: that I don't think would have been true or even

838
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:50,399
Speaker 1: socially acceptable to say ten years ago, even five years ago.

839
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:54,760
Speaker 1: That's something that I've noticed has really changed. I think religion.

840
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I often like you know again,

841
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 1: like people I'm around will often now be like, well,

842
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:05,359
Speaker 1: it's Saturday night, should we go to church tomorrow? And

843
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 1: that's honestly not something that I do a lot, but

844
00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 1: it's it's something that has inserted itself into my cultural

845
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 1: world with a rapidity that I would have found almost

846
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 1: baffling a few years ago. Almost I would have never

847
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:20,840
Speaker 1: predicted it, right. And there's a lot of there's a

848
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:23,839
Speaker 1: lot of chatter about how that's fake, how it's an affectation,

849
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: how it's all just sort of an act, And frankly,

850
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 1: I don't believe that. I think it is a response

851
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:35,320
Speaker 1: to the kind of, to use an invented word, metricization

852
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:37,799
Speaker 1: of the world that we live in. I think it

853
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:39,839
Speaker 1: is a response. It is a search for some kind

854
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:43,320
Speaker 1: of deeper understanding and interaction with our community and values

855
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:46,160
Speaker 1: around us. That is not an endorsement of it. That's

856
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 1: not an endorsement. I mean a lot of the people

857
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 1: around here, particularly the critics of and you will notice

858
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: this a lot in this world, the critics of the

859
00:46:55,000 --> 00:47:00,080
Speaker 1: sexual Revolution, I find very glib, and I find that

860
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 1: They often critique the sexual Revolution and the kind of

861
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: morais and values of this society that we live in now,

862
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: with a kind of ease and looseness that I don't

863
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:14,600
Speaker 1: really personally share and also that I think is very

864
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:18,840
Speaker 1: societally kind of worrisome. What's an example of that, Well,

865
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:23,920
Speaker 1: so there's a guy, Indian Bronson, who's very smart, who's

866
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 1: on Twitter. People can find him, people should should listen

867
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 1: to and engage with him with his work. I'm not

868
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,879
Speaker 1: saying he's an evil guy, but you listen to him

869
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 1: on podcasts saying kind of essentially, undo the sexual revolution,

870
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 1: undo this, because what has happened is essentially that women

871
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: now in their thirties, they've slept around a lot, and

872
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 1: men get to sleep around a lot, and then we

873
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 1: supposedly get to choose younger women and marry at our

874
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 1: leisure while women are left bereft and alone. That's an

875
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:54,919
Speaker 1: important and fair critique to some degree, but it also

876
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 1: doesn't incorporate any of the libratory aspects of feminism. It

877
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:01,280
Speaker 1: doesn't describe any of the things, any of the strictures

878
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:04,959
Speaker 1: that were shed during that sexual revolution, And I find

879
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:09,360
Speaker 1: that to be a glaring and important omission that said,

880
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 1: do I think that he's doing this in bad faith

881
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:15,879
Speaker 1: or because he like hates people? Not necessarily. I think

882
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 1: it's an important and kind of wild ferment that people

883
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 1: are responding to in this case, even anonymously. And there

884
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 1: are critiques of the sexual revolution that some people probably

885
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 1: are going to respond to and find valuable. You don't

886
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 1: have to necessarily incorporate those into your life. You know,

887
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 1: something I'm wondering here because as you're describing this, I'm

888
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:43,720
Speaker 1: really thinking because once again, like I run in Sumilar

889
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:46,439
Speaker 1: circles to you and you know, I'm in New York

890
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 1: City right now, and I think you're really capturing your pace,

891
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 1: is that there's actually a kind of like reactionary new right,

892
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 1: Like there's a scene here and it's this scene feels

893
00:48:57,160 --> 00:49:01,440
Speaker 1: very much responsive to most of the people I know

894
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:03,959
Speaker 1: in this you know, are like very successful people who,

895
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:06,719
Speaker 1: like you said Tod, this Moennial story, right, did the

896
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:08,600
Speaker 1: things they needed to be did the things they needed

897
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:10,759
Speaker 1: to be told, Like you know, you talk about, you know,

898
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:13,880
Speaker 1: interviewing JD Evans and Jadvance is obviously talking about how

899
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:15,880
Speaker 1: there are people who've been left behind, who are like

900
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 1: you know, who are not opioid addicts like I do

901
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 1: not know a single New Right opioid addict. I know

902
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,400
Speaker 1: a bunch of New Right people who were about to

903
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:24,920
Speaker 1: go to law school after working in McKenzie for two years,

904
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:28,719
Speaker 1: but feel this like deep societal that's what you're really

905
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: speaking to. I guess what I'm wondering to actually get

906
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: to a question because I'm trying to think out loud

907
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: here is what does the left, especially like the new

908
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 1: Progressive Left, have to say to these people? Because whenever

909
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: I talk to people on the left and the Bernie

910
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,319
Speaker 1: post Bernie Left, it's everything's very economically focused, and that's

911
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:49,200
Speaker 1: not quite so. There are people in the New York

912
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 1: who are obviously economically populist, but that isn't the center

913
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: of what Indian Bronson is that Indian Bronze isn't saying,

914
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 1: and that's why we need ten weeks of paid sick

915
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 1: leave and an increasing unionization. So how does the left

916
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:04,239
Speaker 1: think about this? Well? I think there's two things. The

917
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: first is that I think the progressive left is very

918
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with ideas of let's say community of like the

919
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:19,879
Speaker 1: kind of the fact that so many people of our

920
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:25,320
Speaker 1: age have struggle, have trouble forming families, have trouble getting

921
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:27,880
Speaker 1: to a point where they can get to a place

922
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 1: with a stable life, a stable home, a stable set

923
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:35,399
Speaker 1: of neighbors, a set like a kind of world that

924
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 1: feels coherent and meaningful. These are things that, for various reasons,

925
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:42,280
Speaker 1: the progressive left has a lot of difficulty talking about.

926
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:50,560
Speaker 1: And I why why, Well, that's a good question. I

927
00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:53,960
Speaker 1: don't think that necessarily everybody on the Bernie side of

928
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 1: things did feel that way. But if you notice, I mean,

929
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 1: you notice the way that someone like Elizabeth Bruneigue is

930
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 1: constantly attacked on Twitter for reasons that are basically cultural,

931
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:06,600
Speaker 1: not because of her views and values. You do notice

932
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 1: a kind of aggressive energy on the left that is

933
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 1: very skeptical of these kind of conversations. And I think

934
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: that a lot of people get alienated by that. I

935
00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:17,480
Speaker 1: think that it's hard to stay on the left when

936
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:19,399
Speaker 1: it's so much easier to go over to the right

937
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:21,879
Speaker 1: and just be welcome, just be welcome and say, hey, cool,

938
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,839
Speaker 1: we love these conversations. Come on over. And I think

939
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 1: that that's not a great way of doing politics. To

940
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: be frank, to go a little bit beyond that. The

941
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 1: New Right, with its kind of emphasis on recentralizing executive

942
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:37,799
Speaker 1: power has a real vision of how to do a

943
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:39,919
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff. They have, and I'm not saying

944
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:43,239
Speaker 1: that it's a plausible vision, but they have an articulation of, like, hey,

945
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 1: we're going to recentralize power in the executive branch and

946
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 1: we are going to do big stuff really quick. And

947
00:51:49,120 --> 00:51:51,719
Speaker 1: that was something that Bernie offered to some degree. He

948
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:53,960
Speaker 1: was saying, we're going to build a huge, broad based

949
00:51:53,960 --> 00:51:56,359
Speaker 1: coalition that will allow us to move really quick and

950
00:51:56,400 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 1: do big stuff that got broken. And now I tend

951
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:03,440
Speaker 1: to question whether the progressive left has at this point

952
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 1: a real articulation of how they are going to acquire

953
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 1: and wield power quickly in a way that will allow

954
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 1: us to do the stuff that people of our generation

955
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:12,960
Speaker 1: are asking them to do. Uh, And that I think

956
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:15,879
Speaker 1: is really worrisome because it points directly towards the kind

957
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: of new right critique. What's interesting here? To basically wrap

958
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 1: the segment, I'll ask this very obvious question, which is

959
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: how much everything you're writing about and talking about is

960
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: just like really really really interesting. But a problem I

961
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: started to notice covering in this space, especially during COVID

962
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 1: is so and this is more of just the like,

963
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:38,759
Speaker 1: this is all just happening on Twitter, Like that's a

964
00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:42,720
Speaker 1: very obvious excuse, but it's the conversation of Okay, JD

965
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:46,160
Speaker 1: is very aggressive on Twitter, But if you actually go

966
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:50,600
Speaker 1: and talk to 's, say, a person who's voting for him,

967
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:55,719
Speaker 1: are they voting for him as he wins because of

968
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 1: the ideas we're talking about here because he knows you

969
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:01,840
Speaker 1: know mention just mob Are these different bits because he

970
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:04,719
Speaker 1: says we're going to raise taxes on wealthy people, or

971
00:53:04,760 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 1: because like we're going to take to the you know

972
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:10,239
Speaker 1: something you're talking about, let's tax the endowments of higher

973
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:13,520
Speaker 1: ed elite universities, or are they doing it just because

974
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 1: of like the culture war and because Donald Trump gave

975
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:18,600
Speaker 1: the endorsement. How do you where do you come at

976
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:22,960
Speaker 1: that dilemma? It seems I think with regard to JD

977
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:26,840
Speaker 1: uh somewhat and I'll say this a bit as a

978
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:28,799
Speaker 1: bit of a diss towards him. No, I don't think

979
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 1: he's really articulating that stuff quite out in the open, uh,

980
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:36,720
Speaker 1: the way that a fair attempt to seize the reins

981
00:53:36,760 --> 00:53:39,719
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party and articulate these views and have

982
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 1: conversations about them in public would really entail. With that said,

983
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 1: I think that's going to change a bit going into

984
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 1: the general uh. And I also think that if you

985
00:53:50,239 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 1: look at Blake Masters, I mean I've seen Blake Masters

986
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:56,440
Speaker 1: campaigning in private rooms and he's talking about this stuff.

987
00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 1: He's literally I mean, he quoted Curtis Jarvin to a

988
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 1: room of mega donors in front of me. Uh So.

989
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:07,200
Speaker 1: And I say that again, not with value judgment, not

990
00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: as a pro or con, but just as a kind

991
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:13,480
Speaker 1: of message to people that, hey, this stuff is coming

992
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 1: and there is going to be a war for kind

993
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:18,400
Speaker 1: of control of what it means to be conservative in

994
00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 1: this country. Uh And a lot of these young guys

995
00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:23,959
Speaker 1: are ready to fight that war, and they're ready to

996
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 1: just come out and say it and articulate it and

997
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 1: be very very open about their views. And I think

998
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: that's going to lead to an interesting and volatile space

999
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:35,319
Speaker 1: for right wing politics going forward. You know something you

1000
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:36,960
Speaker 1: said at the start of the piece that comes to

1001
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:39,680
Speaker 1: mind as I actually wrap with this question is this

1002
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:41,919
Speaker 1: piece came out in Vanity Fair, right, So this isn't

1003
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:45,120
Speaker 1: coming out in Jacobin. It's not coming out and like

1004
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: something like a little it's like the most very prestigious

1005
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:51,239
Speaker 1: but like a very like not traditional audience for this

1006
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 1: type of discourse. But what was the react So what

1007
00:54:53,560 --> 00:54:56,279
Speaker 1: was just the reaction you got from let's say, like

1008
00:54:56,320 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 1: your center left thirty eight year old like, what was

1009
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:02,560
Speaker 1: the reaction to these ideas? Well? So what was crazy

1010
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 1: about this piece? And what I try to do in

1011
00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:06,360
Speaker 1: my journalism in general is I try to let people

1012
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:10,239
Speaker 1: talk for themselves. And what's really crazy about doing that

1013
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:12,839
Speaker 1: at this moment is that half of the people who

1014
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:15,960
Speaker 1: read it are like, Oh my god, you've exposed a

1015
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:18,719
Speaker 1: threat to the republic, this is fascism, Thank you so much.

1016
00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 1: What can we do to stop this? And half of

1017
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:23,719
Speaker 1: the people are like, Wow, this is really cool. These

1018
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:25,840
Speaker 1: guys get to talk for themselves and they're really interesting

1019
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 1: and cool. And it's almost the responses that I like

1020
00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:33,759
Speaker 1: and that I care most about are the responses that

1021
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:35,879
Speaker 1: come in the middle of that. And actually, I think

1022
00:55:35,880 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 1: a lot of thirty eight year old center left people

1023
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:45,360
Speaker 1: were intrigued, worried, kind of bothered, but also kind of

1024
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:48,240
Speaker 1: interested in the questions that the new right was posing

1025
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:51,959
Speaker 1: that they didn't necessarily have political answers for. I think

1026
00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:54,080
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And the thing that I'm most

1027
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:57,320
Speaker 1: proud of is actually that a lot of people discovered

1028
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:01,280
Speaker 1: their first personal critique of literally liberalism in the pages

1029
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:04,160
Speaker 1: of Vanity Fair through this, and as a critic of

1030
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:08,279
Speaker 1: liberalism myself coming from the left, that you know, that

1031
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:10,279
Speaker 1: was something that I was proud to have done. And

1032
00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 1: you know, people often talk about ideology as the sort

1033
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:18,359
Speaker 1: of water that surrounds a fish, and the hardest thing

1034
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:20,759
Speaker 1: about any kind of political writing is to describe the

1035
00:56:20,800 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: water to the fish, and this just kind of hit

1036
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:26,759
Speaker 1: a line where a lot of fish saw the water

1037
00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:29,960
Speaker 1: for the first time. And I try to hope that

1038
00:56:29,960 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 1: that's got to be promising, because the water that we're

1039
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: swimming in right now feels kind of poison and just

1040
00:56:35,719 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 1: seeing it for what it is might maybe lead to

1041
00:56:39,000 --> 00:56:42,000
Speaker 1: something better. That was my hope, and I feel like

1042
00:56:42,040 --> 00:56:45,319
Speaker 1: I got some reads that way, so that was cool. Well, look,

1043
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: as a you know, YouTube poster, I could say that

1044
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:50,759
Speaker 1: definitely I think hit the mark, and I think that's

1045
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:53,520
Speaker 1: a really good way to put it. So, James, this

1046
00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:55,839
Speaker 1: has been really helpful. Thank you so much for joining

1047
00:56:55,920 --> 00:56:57,480
Speaker 1: us on Breaking Boys, and will definitely have view back

1048
00:56:57,520 --> 00:56:59,160
Speaker 1: at some point to talk about these things because, as

1049
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:03,040
Speaker 1: you said, this isasically just getting started. Jacob Alburn, thank

1050
00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:07,480
Speaker 1: you for joining us on Breaking Points. Thank you here

1051
00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:09,879
Speaker 1: to speak with you about a recent article you wrote,

1052
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:13,440
Speaker 1: how the war in Ukraine is reviving the Blob. You

1053
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:16,760
Speaker 1: are the editor of the National Interest, so this is

1054
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 1: right up your alley. In terms of topic areas, what

1055
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:21,560
Speaker 1: start of a quick definition? What is the blob? It

1056
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:24,800
Speaker 1: has actually a really interesting story behind its usage. In

1057
00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:30,720
Speaker 1: this context. The blob is what Ben Rhodes came up with.

1058
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 1: Who is the national security advisor to Barack Obama? Came

1059
00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 1: up as a form of contempt, I think after the

1060
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:43,640
Speaker 1: war in after the war in Syria and the adverse

1061
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 1: reaction that there was to Obama's decision not to enforce

1062
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:53,200
Speaker 1: his red line after Basher al Asad used chemical weapons

1063
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:59,400
Speaker 1: in Syria against the rebels and on innocent civilians. So

1064
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:08,920
Speaker 1: it's the journalists, think tank members, sorry, and politicians who

1065
00:58:09,160 --> 00:58:14,560
Speaker 1: form a kind of consensus, a bipartisan consensus, that America

1066
00:58:15,240 --> 00:58:20,000
Speaker 1: needs to have a leading role abroad. Now, the blob

1067
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 1: is a mean term for what used to be called

1068
00:58:23,560 --> 00:58:28,280
Speaker 1: the American establishment. There has been a foreign policy establishment

1069
00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:30,920
Speaker 1: in the United States pretty much since the turn of

1070
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:34,360
Speaker 1: the century, I mean the turn of the Night into

1071
00:58:34,440 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. Were twenty first century people like la

1072
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:43,400
Speaker 1: hu Root, the founders of the Council are on foreign relations.

1073
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:50,480
Speaker 1: Then after World War Two you have the establishment really

1074
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:54,040
Speaker 1: goes into overdrive in both made up of both Republicans

1075
00:58:54,080 --> 00:58:58,400
Speaker 1: and Democrats. And the idea again is that America takes

1076
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:03,320
Speaker 1: a leading interventionist role abroad to ensure not only its

1077
00:59:03,400 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 1: own security but that of other nations. And there's always

1078
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:14,000
Speaker 1: been some degree of resentment, animosity, in patience with what

1079
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:18,800
Speaker 1: we now call the Blob. What's interesting here, and this

1080
00:59:18,960 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: gets at what we'll get into in a second, is

1081
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:23,960
Speaker 1: how you say the word establishment. This is actually why

1082
00:59:24,120 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 1: the word blob is better than the word establishment, because wait,

1083
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:34,040
Speaker 1: Ben Rhodes, President Obama, even Joe Biden are identifiable as

1084
00:59:34,160 --> 00:59:37,400
Speaker 1: figures who weren't aligned with the blob on foreign policy.

1085
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:39,080
Speaker 1: So I think it's just really important to note that.

1086
00:59:39,480 --> 00:59:41,360
Speaker 1: So I think it's surprising then, and this is the

1087
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:44,040
Speaker 1: way you frame the article that it's pretty easy to

1088
00:59:44,160 --> 00:59:47,959
Speaker 1: argue that three months into the war in Ukraine were

1089
00:59:48,240 --> 00:59:51,520
Speaker 1: a day passed Russia's Victory Day Parade, which is commemorating

1090
00:59:51,800 --> 00:59:54,120
Speaker 1: victory in World War Two. It seems like the hawkish

1091
00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:57,560
Speaker 1: instinct is back, despite everything that's happened in the past

1092
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:00,720
Speaker 1: twenty years, and despite the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Speak to

1093
01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:03,200
Speaker 1: that part there, speak to the way that this ruie

1094
01:00:03,200 --> 01:00:07,080
Speaker 1: seams have shifted the narrative in DC. Honestly, I'm not

1095
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:12,080
Speaker 1: that surprised. These things go in cycles. After the Vietnam

1096
01:00:12,200 --> 01:00:17,120
Speaker 1: War in the nineteen seventies, there were substantial elements in

1097
01:00:17,200 --> 01:00:21,400
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, you know, that turned against war wars abroad,

1098
01:00:22,200 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: and there was the Vietnam syndrome. Even during the Reagan administration,

1099
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:30,000
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan was very reluctant to send American troops abroad.

1100
01:00:30,120 --> 01:00:33,320
Speaker 1: He conducted proxy wars in the nineteen eighties to help

1101
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:36,960
Speaker 1: bring down the Soviet Union. It wasn't until the Berlin

1102
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 1: Wall fell in nineteen eighty nine that America began to

1103
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:47,400
Speaker 1: embark upon a more unilateralist approach. And that was evident

1104
01:00:48,400 --> 01:00:52,320
Speaker 1: in Bill Clinton's willingness to go into the Balkans and

1105
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 1: bomb the Serbs. You had then George George Herbert Walker

1106
01:00:59,240 --> 01:01:03,320
Speaker 1: Bush I teen eighty nine had invaded Panama. Things were starting,

1107
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:05,920
Speaker 1: We were starting to get a little frisk gear. And

1108
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:11,040
Speaker 1: then all after nine to eleven, the neo conservatives have

1109
01:01:11,720 --> 01:01:16,680
Speaker 1: a blueprint for reforming the Middle East. It was a

1110
01:01:16,760 --> 01:01:20,240
Speaker 1: new It was supposed to end the Vietnam syndrome. Now

1111
01:01:20,320 --> 01:01:24,000
Speaker 1: you would have the dominoes falling in America's favor in

1112
01:01:24,040 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 1: the Middle East, and you would have democracies in Iran

1113
01:01:27,360 --> 01:01:33,120
Speaker 1: and elsewhere. After invading Iraq, however, we know the results,

1114
01:01:33,360 --> 01:01:40,520
Speaker 1: so everything went awry in a rock. Intervention abroad started

1115
01:01:40,520 --> 01:01:45,480
Speaker 1: to become discredited, particularly after Barack Obama, on the advice

1116
01:01:45,520 --> 01:01:49,760
Speaker 1: of Susan Rice and Samantha Power, went into Libya and

1117
01:01:49,880 --> 01:01:54,840
Speaker 1: toppled Kadafi and that just unleashed more chaos because all

1118
01:01:54,880 --> 01:01:58,840
Speaker 1: those weapons in Libya started flowing into Syria, and then

1119
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:04,440
Speaker 1: Syria went up in flames. So intervention abroad became discredited,

1120
01:02:05,840 --> 01:02:08,360
Speaker 1: and Joe Biden actually reflected that, as I tried to

1121
01:02:08,360 --> 01:02:11,360
Speaker 1: point out in the piece, by pulling out of Afghanistan

1122
01:02:11,520 --> 01:02:15,240
Speaker 1: and people in Washington went crazy. My personal view was

1123
01:02:15,320 --> 01:02:18,400
Speaker 1: that Biden did the right thing that no matter what,

1124
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:23,680
Speaker 1: pulling out of Afghanistan would have been extremely difficult. He

1125
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:28,439
Speaker 1: got pilloried for following through and doing what Donald Trump

1126
01:02:28,520 --> 01:02:32,440
Speaker 1: had promised to do but didn't. Now, however, the shoes

1127
01:02:32,520 --> 01:02:36,960
Speaker 1: on the other foot, Vladimir Putin in a way is

1128
01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:40,320
Speaker 1: emulating what George W. Bush did in the Middle East.

1129
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:45,680
Speaker 1: Now he's on the attack, going into Ukraine. We are

1130
01:02:45,800 --> 01:02:51,000
Speaker 1: funding the proxy war. The Ukrainians are essentially our proxies.

1131
01:02:51,640 --> 01:02:54,880
Speaker 1: So yes, in Washington, the attitude is shifted, and its

1132
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:59,920
Speaker 1: shifted back towards regime change. Because if as I tried

1133
01:02:59,960 --> 01:03:03,000
Speaker 1: to point out my Peace and Politico, if you look

1134
01:03:03,040 --> 01:03:06,680
Speaker 1: at what places like the Atlantic Council or other places

1135
01:03:06,760 --> 01:03:11,360
Speaker 1: in Washington are saying, the mindset is moving back towards

1136
01:03:11,440 --> 01:03:16,560
Speaker 1: the idea that America should be the international leader and

1137
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:21,640
Speaker 1: that it can use its military power to shift the

1138
01:03:21,720 --> 01:03:26,840
Speaker 1: correlation of forces in our favor against China against Russia.

1139
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:30,840
Speaker 1: You know, it's really interesting the way you set up

1140
01:03:30,880 --> 01:03:33,720
Speaker 1: this history, and it's really important that people understand this

1141
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:37,760
Speaker 1: because look, I'll just I'll be frank, I'm like you said,

1142
01:03:38,040 --> 01:03:41,040
Speaker 1: I'm a think tank person. I'm decently hawkish, But I

1143
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:43,800
Speaker 1: think the clear takeaway from the past twenty years is

1144
01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:48,080
Speaker 1: when American power it's unconstrained. When it's two thousand and

1145
01:03:48,160 --> 01:03:50,960
Speaker 1: three and your approach is I can do basically whatever

1146
01:03:51,040 --> 01:03:54,360
Speaker 1: I want because it doesn't matter if French, Russia, et

1147
01:03:54,400 --> 01:03:56,760
Speaker 1: cetera opposes the Security Council, we can impose our will.

1148
01:03:57,160 --> 01:04:01,000
Speaker 1: You're going to obviously have decades of over But now,

1149
01:04:01,400 --> 01:04:05,600
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, there's Russia, there's China. There seams that

1150
01:04:05,640 --> 01:04:10,320
Speaker 1: we're operating under much more Cold warlike restraint in terms

1151
01:04:10,360 --> 01:04:12,640
Speaker 1: of US actions. So, like, let's say, whether you're hawkish

1152
01:04:12,720 --> 01:04:16,800
Speaker 1: or you're not hawkish, how far do you think hawks

1153
01:04:16,840 --> 01:04:21,160
Speaker 1: in the American foreign policy system? How far can they go? Right?

1154
01:04:21,240 --> 01:04:23,920
Speaker 1: So it's not two thousand and three, and even in

1155
01:04:23,960 --> 01:04:27,120
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties there were limits on hawkishness. So, like

1156
01:04:27,240 --> 01:04:29,440
Speaker 1: you said, you're going to have a proxy war in Afghanistan,

1157
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:31,680
Speaker 1: but there's no thought at all that you're going to

1158
01:04:31,720 --> 01:04:34,080
Speaker 1: put US boots on the ground there. How should we

1159
01:04:34,160 --> 01:04:39,439
Speaker 1: think about that dynamic very carefully? As I think Joe

1160
01:04:39,520 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: Biden is one of the interesting aspects of this when

1161
01:04:43,680 --> 01:04:47,720
Speaker 1: you ask how far can the hawks go? The hawks

1162
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:52,720
Speaker 1: are mainly outside the administration. I don't think that Jake

1163
01:04:52,880 --> 01:04:58,200
Speaker 1: Sullivan or others on the National Security Council are jonesing

1164
01:04:58,920 --> 01:05:07,000
Speaker 1: for a direct confrontation with Russia. However, people in the

1165
01:05:07,080 --> 01:05:10,240
Speaker 1: think tank community in Washington, some of them served in government.

1166
01:05:11,760 --> 01:05:13,800
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you know to degree to which

1167
01:05:13,840 --> 01:05:17,280
Speaker 1: they truly believe. They pooh poohed the risk of a

1168
01:05:17,360 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 1: nuclear war, which you know is intellectually not an illegitimate stance.

1169
01:05:25,360 --> 01:05:29,880
Speaker 1: You can say that the risks are low or nonexistent.

1170
01:05:30,680 --> 01:05:34,440
Speaker 1: I don't share that view. I think we can push

1171
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:39,880
Speaker 1: Russia very hard, but I wouldn't try to go for

1172
01:05:40,040 --> 01:05:43,600
Speaker 1: unconditional surrender, the question being I mean, do you want

1173
01:05:43,640 --> 01:05:48,680
Speaker 1: to promote the collapse of Russia itself? When you back

1174
01:05:48,720 --> 01:05:50,840
Speaker 1: them into a corner, then you do run the risk

1175
01:05:51,720 --> 01:05:59,200
Speaker 1: of them potentially using tactical nuclear weapons, either against the

1176
01:05:59,240 --> 01:06:02,440
Speaker 1: Baltic States or in Ukraine. I don't think. I don't

1177
01:06:02,440 --> 01:06:05,000
Speaker 1: think we're going to get to that situation. I think

1178
01:06:05,280 --> 01:06:07,800
Speaker 1: in a way, maybe the Hawks serve as a useful

1179
01:06:08,280 --> 01:06:11,840
Speaker 1: foil for Biden to allow him to look more moderate.

1180
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:16,000
Speaker 1: What he's doing right now is pretty aggressive, and Biden

1181
01:06:16,080 --> 01:06:18,720
Speaker 1: has toughened up since the beginning of the crisis. So

1182
01:06:18,880 --> 01:06:22,640
Speaker 1: of the Europeans. The interesting thing is, like what you

1183
01:06:22,720 --> 01:06:26,000
Speaker 1: were talking about just now, is that we are back

1184
01:06:26,120 --> 01:06:31,920
Speaker 1: to this kind of Reaganite proxy war, and it'll be

1185
01:06:32,000 --> 01:06:35,600
Speaker 1: interesting to see, you know, how successful can we be

1186
01:06:36,040 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 1: in the in Ukraine we probably do have foots in

1187
01:06:38,960 --> 01:06:42,560
Speaker 1: the ground in the sense of CIA forces, you know,

1188
01:06:43,360 --> 01:06:45,560
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. I'm sure there are things going on that

1189
01:06:45,640 --> 01:06:50,160
Speaker 1: we don't know about. So I think the real big

1190
01:06:50,320 --> 01:06:53,360
Speaker 1: question then, and I'm glad that you make clear that

1191
01:06:53,440 --> 01:06:55,960
Speaker 1: the hawks aren't in the administration, because whenever I talk

1192
01:06:56,040 --> 01:06:59,920
Speaker 1: to people, hormoe dubbish than I am. I keep repeating

1193
01:07:00,920 --> 01:07:04,720
Speaker 1: the folks in the actual administration, it's Joe Biden's n

1194
01:07:04,840 --> 01:07:07,200
Speaker 1: sc right, So like, once again, this is the administration

1195
01:07:07,320 --> 01:07:11,120
Speaker 1: that pulled out of Afghanistan. Folks in the community, you're talking,

1196
01:07:11,440 --> 01:07:13,640
Speaker 1: we're not happy about this, about this decision. But do

1197
01:07:13,720 --> 01:07:16,280
Speaker 1: you think to your point is, if we are switching

1198
01:07:16,360 --> 01:07:19,439
Speaker 1: to a more hawkish mindset in Washington, do you think

1199
01:07:19,640 --> 01:07:22,920
Speaker 1: let's say after the midterms, there's usually staff resets after that.

1200
01:07:23,280 --> 01:07:25,760
Speaker 1: Let's say Joe Biden is reelected, we haven't even talked

1201
01:07:25,800 --> 01:07:28,600
Speaker 1: about Republicans for a second. Let's say Trump comes back.

1202
01:07:28,680 --> 01:07:32,680
Speaker 1: He's I think famously kind of wishy washy on these things.

1203
01:07:32,960 --> 01:07:35,400
Speaker 1: You know, on the one hand, he'll talk you know,

1204
01:07:35,600 --> 01:07:39,080
Speaker 1: rhetorically in a let's say more isolation this direction. On

1205
01:07:39,120 --> 01:07:42,360
Speaker 1: the other hands, he'll push Kim Jong one very aggressively,

1206
01:07:42,800 --> 01:07:44,880
Speaker 1: some wou'd say, to the brink of actual conflicts. So

1207
01:07:45,080 --> 01:07:49,400
Speaker 1: how should we think of how the more hawkish turn bipartisanly?

1208
01:07:49,400 --> 01:07:51,840
Speaker 1: As you make clear an Article two will affect future

1209
01:07:52,240 --> 01:07:55,040
Speaker 1: let's say post midterm and then whoever comes in in

1210
01:07:55,120 --> 01:08:02,120
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. I think that if the Republicans do

1211
01:08:02,280 --> 01:08:07,000
Speaker 1: well in the midterms and Putin is on his heels

1212
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:10,760
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, we are going to see a more hawkish

1213
01:08:10,760 --> 01:08:15,440
Speaker 1: foreign policy, particularly towards China, and on the issue of Taiwan.

1214
01:08:16,880 --> 01:08:21,120
Speaker 1: You'll continue to see a build up in Europe of NATO,

1215
01:08:22,479 --> 01:08:26,479
Speaker 1: and the United States will probably be feeling pretty cocky

1216
01:08:28,600 --> 01:08:32,280
Speaker 1: over a win in Ukraine, precisely because it is kind

1217
01:08:32,280 --> 01:08:34,719
Speaker 1: of a date or it was perceived as a David

1218
01:08:34,840 --> 01:08:41,719
Speaker 1: versus Goliath battle. Now there are countervailing forces. If jd

1219
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:48,879
Speaker 1: Vance enters the Senate, you'll have an explicitly isolationist senator,

1220
01:08:50,160 --> 01:08:54,200
Speaker 1: and you have others in the Senate that may drift

1221
01:08:54,240 --> 01:08:57,599
Speaker 1: towards that. Now Josh Holly is very hawkish on China,

1222
01:08:59,000 --> 01:09:02,439
Speaker 1: but Tom Cotton is more of a traditional national security

1223
01:09:02,479 --> 01:09:08,760
Speaker 1: republican hawk. Overall, I think that the hawks are now

1224
01:09:08,840 --> 01:09:13,520
Speaker 1: the dominant voice in Washington, DC, and that the realists

1225
01:09:13,880 --> 01:09:18,439
Speaker 1: who preached caution are on the back foot and will

1226
01:09:18,520 --> 01:09:22,839
Speaker 1: be probably over the next decade. So two last questions

1227
01:09:22,920 --> 01:09:28,560
Speaker 1: than one. What is your understanding of Joe Biden in

1228
01:09:28,640 --> 01:09:30,840
Speaker 1: these foreign policy contexts? So this is the history that's

1229
01:09:30,880 --> 01:09:33,679
Speaker 1: just really really interesting. So Joe Biden when he's vice president,

1230
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:37,960
Speaker 1: he opposes the surgeon to Afghanistan. He I think, to

1231
01:09:38,120 --> 01:09:41,519
Speaker 1: his discredit, but history is complicated. Is opposed to the

1232
01:09:41,600 --> 01:09:43,800
Speaker 1: bin Laden raid in the form that it eventually took,

1233
01:09:44,320 --> 01:09:46,519
Speaker 1: and he pulls out of Afghanistan in a way that

1234
01:09:46,960 --> 01:09:51,320
Speaker 1: much of democratic and republican let's say, establishment figures wouldn't

1235
01:09:51,360 --> 01:09:53,879
Speaker 1: have done. Yet, like you said, he's now escalating in Ukraine.

1236
01:09:54,160 --> 01:09:56,840
Speaker 1: How do you, just as a person who analyzes these situations,

1237
01:09:56,880 --> 01:09:59,800
Speaker 1: analyze him? I don't just mean like psychologically, just I mean,

1238
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:04,719
Speaker 1: how should we understand him? I think Biden was shaped

1239
01:10:04,720 --> 01:10:08,040
Speaker 1: by the Cold War. We can't forget that. He is old,

1240
01:10:08,200 --> 01:10:12,840
Speaker 1: as we're told constantly, so he remember, he is dedicated

1241
01:10:13,160 --> 01:10:16,760
Speaker 1: to these alliances. He's also dealt with a lot of

1242
01:10:16,880 --> 01:10:20,800
Speaker 1: foreign autocrats over his career. So the way I read him,

1243
01:10:22,080 --> 01:10:26,400
Speaker 1: I think he's tougher than Obama in foreign policy. I

1244
01:10:26,520 --> 01:10:31,440
Speaker 1: also think he's pretty pragmatic. You know, all of these presidents,

1245
01:10:31,600 --> 01:10:36,639
Speaker 1: when we're talking about Reagan, Trump, Biden, they also react

1246
01:10:37,040 --> 01:10:42,400
Speaker 1: to events their political animals, So you know, we can

1247
01:10:42,560 --> 01:10:49,439
Speaker 1: foice these intellectual categories upon them, realist, neo conservative, hawk,

1248
01:10:49,720 --> 01:10:55,080
Speaker 1: so forth. In the end, all of our presidents have

1249
01:10:55,200 --> 01:10:58,800
Speaker 1: been sane enough to avoid to be fearful of the

1250
01:10:58,840 --> 01:11:03,320
Speaker 1: prospect of nuclear war. So I think Biden approached the

1251
01:11:03,439 --> 01:11:09,280
Speaker 1: Ukraine crisis probably overly cautious. They offered Zelenski, you know,

1252
01:11:09,600 --> 01:11:12,920
Speaker 1: they were going to spirit him out of Kiev. He

1253
01:11:13,040 --> 01:11:17,400
Speaker 1: stayed and fought, And now that Ukraine looks like a winner,

1254
01:11:18,560 --> 01:11:23,240
Speaker 1: Biden ramped up pretty quickly to support Ukraine. He toughened

1255
01:11:23,320 --> 01:11:26,599
Speaker 1: up American foreign policy. So I guess you could argue

1256
01:11:27,640 --> 01:11:31,479
Speaker 1: we're getting our sea legs back to an extent. You know,

1257
01:11:31,600 --> 01:11:36,600
Speaker 1: we're testing, we're probing. Putin's speech yesterday to me was

1258
01:11:36,680 --> 01:11:40,519
Speaker 1: the speech of a beaten man. The United States is

1259
01:11:40,640 --> 01:11:47,719
Speaker 1: winning and it has not won abroad in a long time. Well, Jacob,

1260
01:11:47,800 --> 01:11:50,760
Speaker 1: this has been incredibly helpful. There's a million different ways

1261
01:11:50,760 --> 01:11:52,559
Speaker 1: to this to go, but we'll keep it to this timing.

1262
01:11:53,000 --> 01:11:54,880
Speaker 1: Really appreciate it and thank you for joining us on

1263
01:11:54,960 --> 01:12:00,360
Speaker 1: Breaking Points. Welcome back to Breaking Points. I'm right, grim

1264
01:12:00,439 --> 01:12:02,920
Speaker 1: d c. Bureocchi for the intercept that as promised, we're

1265
01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:07,000
Speaker 1: here with some partnership content here with my colleague Ken Klippenstein,

1266
01:12:07,000 --> 01:12:09,760
Speaker 1: who's going to talk about a big story that he

1267
01:12:10,120 --> 01:12:13,720
Speaker 1: broke this week about the CIA, the CIA director and

1268
01:12:13,800 --> 01:12:16,240
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia. So tell me a little bit about what

1269
01:12:16,400 --> 01:12:19,479
Speaker 1: you found. Yeah, So, CI director William Burns, about whom

1270
01:12:19,479 --> 01:12:23,240
Speaker 1: there's been relatively little reporting so far, has been in

1271
01:12:23,360 --> 01:12:26,559
Speaker 1: a world wind tour of the Middle East, which included

1272
01:12:26,600 --> 01:12:29,600
Speaker 1: a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which in

1273
01:12:29,680 --> 01:12:31,800
Speaker 1: itself is a kind of concession to the Crown Prince

1274
01:12:31,880 --> 01:12:35,839
Speaker 1: because Burns himself is a former diplomat who's very respected

1275
01:12:36,160 --> 01:12:38,040
Speaker 1: in the region and even talking to, you know, critics

1276
01:12:38,080 --> 01:12:41,000
Speaker 1: of the administration in interviews for this story, people sort

1277
01:12:41,000 --> 01:12:42,640
Speaker 1: of conceded, yes, he's very good at his job, as

1278
01:12:42,640 --> 01:12:45,240
Speaker 1: were well connected. So a meeting of that sort is

1279
01:12:45,320 --> 01:12:47,920
Speaker 1: kind of like a gift to MBS and also a

1280
01:12:47,960 --> 01:12:52,200
Speaker 1: little unusual, right, The CIA director is not a diplomat exactly.

1281
01:12:52,479 --> 01:12:54,719
Speaker 1: And when I spoke to folks in both the intelligence

1282
01:12:54,760 --> 01:12:57,880
Speaker 1: community and the national security world for this story, a

1283
01:12:57,920 --> 01:12:59,639
Speaker 1: lot of them were angry about that. They were saying,

1284
01:12:59,720 --> 01:13:02,560
Speaker 1: this is not how you're supposed to do diplomacy, and so,

1285
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:04,599
Speaker 1: you know, the question arose, so then why are they

1286
01:13:04,720 --> 01:13:06,240
Speaker 1: doing it this way? And what I was told is

1287
01:13:06,240 --> 01:13:08,200
Speaker 1: that there are a few advantages to using a CIA

1288
01:13:08,280 --> 01:13:12,800
Speaker 1: director to conduct essentially covert foreign policy, covert diplomacy, and

1289
01:13:12,920 --> 01:13:15,080
Speaker 1: one big one is discretion. It means that it's not

1290
01:13:15,120 --> 01:13:19,280
Speaker 1: going to come out except for except for here it is.

1291
01:13:19,360 --> 01:13:21,720
Speaker 1: So let's let's step back and talk about why this

1292
01:13:21,840 --> 01:13:24,880
Speaker 1: is important. And obviously, one reason is important is climate change.

1293
01:13:24,920 --> 01:13:28,640
Speaker 1: Other reasons is important is gas prices. But the geopolitical

1294
01:13:28,680 --> 01:13:34,400
Speaker 1: implications of it are profound because after the butchering and

1295
01:13:34,479 --> 01:13:38,080
Speaker 1: the bone sawing of Jamal Kasselgi Washing Post journalists who

1296
01:13:38,160 --> 01:13:41,400
Speaker 1: also was planning. I've mentioned this before on starting to

1297
01:13:41,439 --> 01:13:43,800
Speaker 1: write columns for the Intercept before he I don't know

1298
01:13:43,840 --> 01:13:45,920
Speaker 1: if I've told you that before before he was before

1299
01:13:45,960 --> 01:13:51,679
Speaker 1: he was killed by MBS in a Turkish consulate. After that, finally,

1300
01:13:52,120 --> 01:13:56,880
Speaker 1: Washington turns against Saudi Arabia, but the question of how

1301
01:13:56,960 --> 01:14:00,200
Speaker 1: significant that turn is is now being answered. You had

1302
01:14:00,280 --> 01:14:03,479
Speaker 1: Joe Biden during the presidential campaign saying that he would

1303
01:14:03,560 --> 01:14:06,519
Speaker 1: not meet with Muhammed Ben Salmon, who's the crown Prince.

1304
01:14:06,800 --> 01:14:09,559
Speaker 1: He's the de facto ruler, but he's not the king,

1305
01:14:10,160 --> 01:14:11,960
Speaker 1: so he's the he's not the official ruler. And so

1306
01:14:12,040 --> 01:14:14,400
Speaker 1: Biden says, I will talk to the actual king, not

1307
01:14:14,560 --> 01:14:17,560
Speaker 1: to MBS. And he called him a pariah, and we

1308
01:14:17,680 --> 01:14:20,680
Speaker 1: still hear that all the time. And so as a

1309
01:14:20,760 --> 01:14:23,840
Speaker 1: result MBS he said, fine, you don't want to talk

1310
01:14:23,880 --> 01:14:26,120
Speaker 1: to me, how do you like four dollars a gallon

1311
01:14:27,000 --> 01:14:29,960
Speaker 1: at the pump? And so what have been the Biden

1312
01:14:29,960 --> 01:14:34,719
Speaker 1: administration's efforts so far to stick to there, he's a pariah,

1313
01:14:34,760 --> 01:14:37,120
Speaker 1: We're not talking to him. While also trying to get

1314
01:14:37,160 --> 01:14:39,759
Speaker 1: gas prices down. What do they do up to burns

1315
01:14:39,760 --> 01:14:43,479
Speaker 1: because burns feels like like almost a hail Mary attempt.

1316
01:14:44,040 --> 01:14:45,880
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly what it is. And from what

1317
01:14:45,960 --> 01:14:48,799
Speaker 1: I'm told at the meeting, they explicitly discussed oil prices

1318
01:14:48,840 --> 01:14:51,120
Speaker 1: in request he increased them, not just because of the

1319
01:14:51,200 --> 01:14:55,160
Speaker 1: soaring inflation rate, which that contributes to in the United States.

1320
01:14:55,479 --> 01:14:58,640
Speaker 1: But this sort of underlies all of international trade. And

1321
01:14:59,000 --> 01:15:02,360
Speaker 1: because oil everything costs that everything needs energy exactly, you

1322
01:15:02,479 --> 01:15:04,080
Speaker 1: drive up the price of energy, you drive with the

1323
01:15:04,120 --> 01:15:06,599
Speaker 1: price of everything. Yeah, right, This is becoming a particularly

1324
01:15:06,600 --> 01:15:09,280
Speaker 1: acute issue for the Democrats as we move into midterms.

1325
01:15:09,320 --> 01:15:11,760
Speaker 1: You know, there's any amount of political science research that

1326
01:15:11,880 --> 01:15:15,559
Speaker 1: suggests that just consumer prices, gas prices, oil prices coming

1327
01:15:15,600 --> 01:15:17,840
Speaker 1: into an election has a you know, very significant effect

1328
01:15:17,880 --> 01:15:21,200
Speaker 1: on voter behavior. So I think that's exactly what that was,

1329
01:15:22,040 --> 01:15:24,360
Speaker 1: a hail Mary of sorts, and so they discussed it.

1330
01:15:24,439 --> 01:15:26,720
Speaker 1: My understanding is that there was an agreement on that

1331
01:15:27,040 --> 01:15:30,439
Speaker 1: was not an agreement, yes, on the oil production increase.

1332
01:15:30,520 --> 01:15:34,120
Speaker 1: But this is also becoming a geopolitically important topic because

1333
01:15:34,439 --> 01:15:37,160
Speaker 1: this is a bonanza of profits for Russia if they

1334
01:15:37,240 --> 01:15:41,920
Speaker 1: invade Ukraine and just gives so much more operating space

1335
01:15:41,960 --> 01:15:43,160
Speaker 1: to be able to do things that they wouldn't have

1336
01:15:43,160 --> 01:15:45,360
Speaker 1: the resources to do otherwise. And so I think that's

1337
01:15:45,400 --> 01:15:47,760
Speaker 1: why we're seeing even more urgency than there has been

1338
01:15:48,040 --> 01:15:49,639
Speaker 1: in the past to try to change that. But again,

1339
01:15:49,680 --> 01:15:51,400
Speaker 1: it seems like they haven't come into any sort of

1340
01:15:51,439 --> 01:15:53,840
Speaker 1: agreement about it, and you've written about how twice in

1341
01:15:53,920 --> 01:15:58,479
Speaker 1: the past MBS has actually helped out an American president

1342
01:15:58,640 --> 01:16:01,479
Speaker 1: in an election year. Talk about that. Yeah, I'm nervous.

1343
01:16:01,479 --> 01:16:02,680
Speaker 1: Whenever I do the stories, I always had this sort

1344
01:16:02,680 --> 01:16:04,479
Speaker 1: of glib response. They're like, oh, the prision can't control

1345
01:16:04,479 --> 01:16:06,920
Speaker 1: oil prices, that kind of thing. It's like, well, he

1346
01:16:07,000 --> 01:16:09,040
Speaker 1: did to some extent in the past. So in the

1347
01:16:09,080 --> 01:16:13,439
Speaker 1: case of Donald Trump, he influenced oil production in both directions.

1348
01:16:13,720 --> 01:16:17,040
Speaker 1: During the coronavirus pandemic to protect domestic shale production, which

1349
01:16:17,120 --> 01:16:19,799
Speaker 1: was creating in terms of the revenue that they were developing,

1350
01:16:19,920 --> 01:16:24,120
Speaker 1: he asked MBS to decrease production. NBS didn't want to initially,

1351
01:16:24,160 --> 01:16:25,519
Speaker 1: and then he threatened. He said, well, I'm going to

1352
01:16:25,560 --> 01:16:28,000
Speaker 1: pull the military out, and good luck defending yourself against

1353
01:16:28,000 --> 01:16:30,640
Speaker 1: the Iranians and against all these other regional adversaries. Lo

1354
01:16:30,720 --> 01:16:32,600
Speaker 1: and behold, MBS suddenly said, you know, sees the light

1355
01:16:32,600 --> 01:16:34,639
Speaker 1: and says, okay, yeah, that's great, we can decrease production.

1356
01:16:34,720 --> 01:16:36,519
Speaker 1: That's fine. He did that. And then prior to that,

1357
01:16:37,640 --> 01:16:39,760
Speaker 1: both times being in election seasons. In twenty twenty and

1358
01:16:39,800 --> 01:16:42,120
Speaker 1: then in twenty eighteen during the midterm elections, he asked

1359
01:16:42,160 --> 01:16:46,600
Speaker 1: him to increase oil production. NBS agreed to do so,

1360
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:49,040
Speaker 1: and it's only now that he's choosing right to do

1361
01:16:49,160 --> 01:16:51,760
Speaker 1: so in response to the President's requests. So you also

1362
01:16:51,840 --> 01:16:58,559
Speaker 1: reported that Burns brought up these sensitive negotiations between Saudi

1363
01:16:58,560 --> 01:17:03,400
Speaker 1: Arabia and China over ICBMs. Yes, so what have we

1364
01:17:03,520 --> 01:17:05,320
Speaker 1: known about that and what did you what did you learn?

1365
01:17:05,439 --> 01:17:09,120
Speaker 1: So this is another angle to the US READ relationship

1366
01:17:09,160 --> 01:17:13,919
Speaker 1: that has intense interest to Washington, that being MBS repeatedly

1367
01:17:14,000 --> 01:17:17,479
Speaker 1: making very public overtures to both the Russians in the

1368
01:17:17,560 --> 01:17:21,400
Speaker 1: middle of this invasion of Ukraine and also the Chinese,

1369
01:17:22,080 --> 01:17:25,599
Speaker 1: which they floated that maybe we'll sell oil in Yuan,

1370
01:17:26,040 --> 01:17:27,800
Speaker 1: which would be China has been asking for it for

1371
01:17:27,840 --> 01:17:29,640
Speaker 1: a long time. Profound change. I mean, that would just

1372
01:17:29,680 --> 01:17:32,960
Speaker 1: totally undercut the whole system of economic dominance at the

1373
01:17:33,040 --> 01:17:35,679
Speaker 1: US up my own tay, unlikely I think to happen

1374
01:17:35,800 --> 01:17:40,800
Speaker 1: because China has capital controls, and so you would then

1375
01:17:41,000 --> 01:17:45,920
Speaker 1: be taking money that China then still completely controls, and

1376
01:17:46,080 --> 01:17:48,960
Speaker 1: so it's just not as useful to you to have

1377
01:17:49,120 --> 01:17:50,680
Speaker 1: you on as it is to have dollars. You'd be

1378
01:17:50,760 --> 01:17:53,880
Speaker 1: taking a massive hit. So China would have to do

1379
01:17:54,040 --> 01:17:57,360
Speaker 1: a lot in order to make it worth your while. However,

1380
01:17:57,560 --> 01:18:01,720
Speaker 1: maybe that a lot means an ICBM, right, So you know,

1381
01:18:01,920 --> 01:18:05,320
Speaker 1: the economic component has been well known and pretty well reported.

1382
01:18:05,360 --> 01:18:08,280
Speaker 1: What's what's less well known is the Chinese to Saudi

1383
01:18:08,400 --> 01:18:15,320
Speaker 1: military relationship, which you know they are using Chinese scientists.

1384
01:18:15,640 --> 01:18:17,519
Speaker 1: There's a program going on where they try to enrich

1385
01:18:17,680 --> 01:18:21,560
Speaker 1: uranium for the Saudi nuclear program. And now my understanding

1386
01:18:21,640 --> 01:18:25,880
Speaker 1: from several intelligence sources is that they are trying to

1387
01:18:26,000 --> 01:18:30,080
Speaker 1: import completed ballistic missiles from China and this is causing

1388
01:18:30,200 --> 01:18:32,640
Speaker 1: a lot of irritation in both the CIA and the

1389
01:18:32,680 --> 01:18:36,000
Speaker 1: State Department because the relationship traditionally has been, you know,

1390
01:18:36,200 --> 01:18:40,880
Speaker 1: US provides military assistance and sales, not one of these

1391
01:18:40,920 --> 01:18:43,840
Speaker 1: geopolitical adversaries. And so a lot of people on the

1392
01:18:44,200 --> 01:18:48,560
Speaker 1: progressive left have said, like, well, hey, why do you

1393
01:18:48,600 --> 01:18:51,519
Speaker 1: want them to pump more oil? Pumping more oil is

1394
01:18:51,640 --> 01:18:54,639
Speaker 1: just going to burn the planet that much faster. Why

1395
01:18:54,800 --> 01:18:57,160
Speaker 1: why are you still worked up about these negotiations between

1396
01:18:57,160 --> 01:19:02,040
Speaker 1: the Biden administration and Saudi Arabia over oil production. Shouldn't

1397
01:19:02,080 --> 01:19:05,840
Speaker 1: we be glad that muhammadban Salmon is becoming a Green

1398
01:19:05,920 --> 01:19:10,000
Speaker 1: New Deal guy? Uh, what's your what's your response to that. Well,

1399
01:19:10,000 --> 01:19:12,120
Speaker 1: I'm of two minds because I think that keeping oil

1400
01:19:12,160 --> 01:19:16,800
Speaker 1: prices high does incentivize alternative energy and a shift towards that.

1401
01:19:17,080 --> 01:19:19,640
Speaker 1: But at the same time, the the system that we have,

1402
01:19:19,760 --> 01:19:22,720
Speaker 1: the infrastructure that we have in place, depends on that. Uh,

1403
01:19:23,280 --> 01:19:25,840
Speaker 1: you know, oil as a commodity, and you can't just

1404
01:19:26,000 --> 01:19:29,599
Speaker 1: completely you know, remove your extricate yourself from it without

1405
01:19:29,640 --> 01:19:32,160
Speaker 1: having set up the infrastructure for a new oil system,

1406
01:19:32,160 --> 01:19:35,280
Speaker 1: which we just don't have. So the effect, unfortunately, if if,

1407
01:19:35,439 --> 01:19:37,519
Speaker 1: if this persists in the way that it has been,

1408
01:19:37,560 --> 01:19:40,160
Speaker 1: I think is going to be a recession. So I'm

1409
01:19:40,160 --> 01:19:42,240
Speaker 1: sort of two minds about the question, right, And not

1410
01:19:42,360 --> 01:19:43,800
Speaker 1: to put you on too much of a spot, because

1411
01:19:43,800 --> 01:19:46,000
Speaker 1: I know you're not an opinion journalist. You're go out

1412
01:19:46,040 --> 01:19:48,160
Speaker 1: and get the facts, and yeah, the world can do

1413
01:19:48,240 --> 01:19:51,200
Speaker 1: what they do what they want with the facts. But

1414
01:19:51,760 --> 01:19:55,080
Speaker 1: you know, it is it is it is the case that,

1415
01:19:55,320 --> 01:19:58,960
Speaker 1: like you said, there, we don't have the structure yet, right,

1416
01:19:59,360 --> 01:20:01,479
Speaker 1: That's why they're posing a Green New Deal. They haven't

1417
01:20:01,479 --> 01:20:03,639
Speaker 1: even written the text of what a Green New Deal

1418
01:20:04,000 --> 01:20:08,120
Speaker 1: would look like, let alone you know, even get the credits,

1419
01:20:08,240 --> 01:20:11,720
Speaker 1: the different energy credits through because of mansion. So far,

1420
01:20:11,800 --> 01:20:13,680
Speaker 1: we'll see, we'll see where that, we'll see there where

1421
01:20:13,680 --> 01:20:16,120
Speaker 1: that goes. And so if you don't have it, all

1422
01:20:16,200 --> 01:20:20,439
Speaker 1: you're doing is creating suffering around the world. Now, yes,

1423
01:20:20,600 --> 01:20:24,560
Speaker 1: it is it's true that the higher gas prices go,

1424
01:20:24,720 --> 01:20:27,360
Speaker 1: the more people use less and then and then try

1425
01:20:27,400 --> 01:20:31,200
Speaker 1: to and try to move off of fossil fuels. But

1426
01:20:31,360 --> 01:20:33,519
Speaker 1: the studies also show that if people think that it's

1427
01:20:33,560 --> 01:20:36,680
Speaker 1: going to be transitory and people can identify like, oh,

1428
01:20:36,800 --> 01:20:39,080
Speaker 1: this is why this particular thing is happening, it's not

1429
01:20:39,200 --> 01:20:41,160
Speaker 1: like they're going to instantly go out and buy a Tesla.

1430
01:20:41,360 --> 01:20:44,760
Speaker 1: And most people can't instantly go out and buy it

1431
01:20:44,840 --> 01:20:47,880
Speaker 1: and buy a Tesla, and so all you end up

1432
01:20:47,960 --> 01:20:53,479
Speaker 1: doing is empowering, ironically kind of the the the allies

1433
01:20:53,520 --> 01:20:55,840
Speaker 1: of the fossil fuel industry, because then they say, oh,

1434
01:20:55,880 --> 01:20:59,360
Speaker 1: look gas is four dollars a gallon under Democrats, got

1435
01:20:59,479 --> 01:21:01,599
Speaker 1: to put us in and we're going to drill more

1436
01:21:02,720 --> 01:21:04,040
Speaker 1: and do all these other things that are going to

1437
01:21:04,080 --> 01:21:06,639
Speaker 1: get priced. It's clearly the messaging part of the oil

1438
01:21:06,640 --> 01:21:09,880
Speaker 1: industry is, hey, look we didn't we didn't fracken enough,

1439
01:21:09,920 --> 01:21:11,680
Speaker 1: and that's why we have these problems. Rather than this

1440
01:21:11,920 --> 01:21:15,840
Speaker 1: entire suite of geopolitical problems. We need more subsidies exactly. Yeah, yeah,

1441
01:21:16,439 --> 01:21:21,240
Speaker 1: And so so what does it say that Blincoln in

1442
01:21:21,280 --> 01:21:24,000
Speaker 1: the State Department, we're kind of cut out of this

1443
01:21:25,479 --> 01:21:28,280
Speaker 1: this trip to Riatt, And do we know anything more

1444
01:21:29,080 --> 01:21:32,519
Speaker 1: about the kind of long term goals of this type

1445
01:21:32,560 --> 01:21:35,600
Speaker 1: of diplomacy, Because it's coming on the back end of

1446
01:21:35,680 --> 01:21:39,000
Speaker 1: the Abraham Accords, which were described as a peace deal,

1447
01:21:40,000 --> 01:21:42,320
Speaker 1: but as as we as we know, they did not

1448
01:21:42,439 --> 01:21:46,479
Speaker 1: involve the Palestinians. Peop were like, wow, Jared Kushner solved

1449
01:21:46,520 --> 01:21:50,080
Speaker 1: the problem. Yeah, he solved it by pretending that the

1450
01:21:50,120 --> 01:21:54,000
Speaker 1: Palestinians don't exist, and by getting kind of Saudi Arabia,

1451
01:21:54,040 --> 01:21:56,960
Speaker 1: the UAE and some others to also say, okay, fine,

1452
01:21:57,280 --> 01:22:01,639
Speaker 1: the Palestinians don't exist. Palestinians actually turns out do still exist.

1453
01:22:02,520 --> 01:22:06,840
Speaker 1: Shrine Ackley, you know killed that killed by by what

1454
01:22:06,920 --> 01:22:09,960
Speaker 1: appears to be by Israeli forces this week, you know,

1455
01:22:10,320 --> 01:22:14,000
Speaker 1: during a raid in Janine. And so the Abraham Accords,

1456
01:22:14,720 --> 01:22:17,439
Speaker 1: I think, incorrectly described as a peace deal, more accurately

1457
01:22:17,520 --> 01:22:21,519
Speaker 1: described as basically a business deal with layered over with

1458
01:22:21,760 --> 01:22:25,120
Speaker 1: with geopolitics, and the business deal is all right, these

1459
01:22:25,200 --> 01:22:29,120
Speaker 1: countries are going to recognize and normalize relations with Israel.

1460
01:22:29,200 --> 01:22:33,000
Speaker 1: Israel's going to share it's surveillance technology. They have some

1461
01:22:33,120 --> 01:22:36,320
Speaker 1: of the most sophisticated kind of cyber hacking and other surveytions.

1462
01:22:36,439 --> 01:22:39,439
Speaker 1: Is of a great interest to authoritarian regimes like Sadera

1463
01:22:39,479 --> 01:22:42,080
Speaker 1: Abia that really don't want any sort of yeah, and

1464
01:22:42,200 --> 01:22:44,400
Speaker 1: not even democracy, just like dissent in general. And it

1465
01:22:44,479 --> 01:22:49,000
Speaker 1: appears that is Israeli h that is Israeli technology, perhaps

1466
01:22:49,080 --> 01:22:53,080
Speaker 1: rooted through the UA was was central to hacking the

1467
01:22:53,439 --> 01:22:56,559
Speaker 1: jamal Ka Shogi's phone, the phone of Jamalka Showgi's fiance

1468
01:22:56,880 --> 01:22:59,160
Speaker 1: people all of the world too. I mean it's journalists

1469
01:22:59,320 --> 01:23:02,559
Speaker 1: and right exactly, so those are the abraham of courts,

1470
01:23:03,080 --> 01:23:07,000
Speaker 1: and so then it's not as if the bidenministration is

1471
01:23:07,040 --> 01:23:08,720
Speaker 1: just a band in the Abraham at courts. That's kind

1472
01:23:08,760 --> 01:23:12,880
Speaker 1: of the foundation of where we're going forward now from here,

1473
01:23:12,960 --> 01:23:17,040
Speaker 1: which is this kind of alliance between the UAE, Saudi

1474
01:23:17,080 --> 01:23:21,040
Speaker 1: Arabia and Israel. And so how does the CIA director's

1475
01:23:21,120 --> 01:23:24,560
Speaker 1: trip to Saudi Arabia can fit into what's next for

1476
01:23:24,720 --> 01:23:28,200
Speaker 1: this kind of regional relationship. Right, So, to answer your

1477
01:23:28,200 --> 01:23:31,040
Speaker 1: first question, what does it say about Blincoln and the

1478
01:23:31,080 --> 01:23:33,599
Speaker 1: State Department. It shows that Biden was not serious when

1479
01:23:33,640 --> 01:23:37,480
Speaker 1: he was campaigning on I think he said empowering diplomacy

1480
01:23:37,560 --> 01:23:40,519
Speaker 1: in a way that the Trump administration, you know rightly

1481
01:23:40,560 --> 01:23:42,680
Speaker 1: in his criticism, did not do and needed to do.

1482
01:23:43,360 --> 01:23:45,360
Speaker 1: It shows that, I mean, it's a zero some thing

1483
01:23:45,479 --> 01:23:48,200
Speaker 1: when they're when you're empowering the CIA. You know, as

1484
01:23:48,520 --> 01:23:50,960
Speaker 1: one intelligence official said to me, CI is can to

1485
01:23:51,000 --> 01:23:53,280
Speaker 1: look for the CIA. Maybe they'll try to help you

1486
01:23:53,360 --> 01:23:55,000
Speaker 1: on some issues, but you know, they have their own

1487
01:23:55,040 --> 01:23:57,240
Speaker 1: set of interests that are just fundamentally different than what

1488
01:23:57,280 --> 01:23:59,640
Speaker 1: the state departments and what diplomats are. And I think

1489
01:23:59,680 --> 01:24:01,720
Speaker 1: that this second thing that it shows is a deteriorting

1490
01:24:01,880 --> 01:24:07,160
Speaker 1: relationship between top Biden administration officials and NBS. So we

1491
01:24:07,200 --> 01:24:09,120
Speaker 1: have a report in the Wall Street Journal several months

1492
01:24:09,120 --> 01:24:14,080
Speaker 1: ago that described Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, bringing

1493
01:24:14,160 --> 01:24:16,519
Speaker 1: up Kaushogi in a meeting with MBS, and MBS screaming

1494
01:24:16,520 --> 01:24:18,599
Speaker 1: at him and saying, you can forget about oil production

1495
01:24:19,320 --> 01:24:21,840
Speaker 1: and minus Shanny. Is that that's more or less the

1496
01:24:21,960 --> 01:24:24,160
Speaker 1: nature of the relationship between him and blink In and

1497
01:24:24,200 --> 01:24:28,720
Speaker 1: between other top Biden administration officials for whatever reason that

1498
01:24:29,120 --> 01:24:32,120
Speaker 1: enmity didn't exist between the CI director and him and

1499
01:24:32,479 --> 01:24:33,800
Speaker 1: minus Shanny is that that's a big part of the

1500
01:24:33,840 --> 01:24:35,960
Speaker 1: reason they tapped him to do this. But as you

1501
01:24:36,000 --> 01:24:37,920
Speaker 1: point out, this is regional in nature. There have been

1502
01:24:37,960 --> 01:24:41,600
Speaker 1: other reports of Burns handling diplomacy. There was just a

1503
01:24:41,680 --> 01:24:44,080
Speaker 1: report yesterday, I think that he traveled to Brazil to

1504
01:24:44,160 --> 01:24:47,560
Speaker 1: meet with Bolson Arrow and my sources tell me that

1505
01:24:47,640 --> 01:24:49,800
Speaker 1: in addition to a meeting with MBS, he also met

1506
01:24:49,840 --> 01:24:52,679
Speaker 1: with the Crown Prince of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed.

1507
01:24:53,000 --> 01:24:55,559
Speaker 1: He also went to a Doha and cutter he went

1508
01:24:55,600 --> 01:24:58,840
Speaker 1: to Oman And if I was to care, I mean

1509
01:24:58,880 --> 01:25:02,320
Speaker 1: they're the the meetings different in key respects, but the

1510
01:25:02,479 --> 01:25:04,960
Speaker 1: common thread here is kind of like what you were

1511
01:25:04,960 --> 01:25:09,240
Speaker 1: getting at before, which is pushing them towards some kind

1512
01:25:09,320 --> 01:25:15,519
Speaker 1: of a regional agreement that I think looks similar in

1513
01:25:15,560 --> 01:25:18,240
Speaker 1: a lot of respects to the Abraham Accords. Right, And

1514
01:25:18,360 --> 01:25:20,640
Speaker 1: how does the Iran deal kind of fit into all

1515
01:25:20,680 --> 01:25:23,559
Speaker 1: of this, Because we keep seeing that we're ninety five

1516
01:25:23,600 --> 01:25:27,080
Speaker 1: percent of the way towards an Iran deal could be struck,

1517
01:25:27,360 --> 01:25:30,080
Speaker 1: any moment could fall could also just fall apart. This

1518
01:25:30,200 --> 01:25:33,320
Speaker 1: is the nuclear deal that Obama struck with Iran over

1519
01:25:33,400 --> 01:25:37,160
Speaker 1: the objections of Israeli, UAE, and Saudi Arabia that then

1520
01:25:37,200 --> 01:25:41,200
Speaker 1: Trump walked out on, not because he opposed the deal

1521
01:25:41,320 --> 01:25:44,040
Speaker 1: at all, but because it was Obama's Like he just like,

1522
01:25:44,080 --> 01:25:47,040
Speaker 1: what what did Obama do? I'm gonna I'm gonna try

1523
01:25:47,080 --> 01:25:50,000
Speaker 1: to rip it out root and branch, and so he

1524
01:25:50,120 --> 01:25:54,800
Speaker 1: walks out of that. Now we're walking back into it, awkwardly,

1525
01:25:54,920 --> 01:25:57,439
Speaker 1: so because Russia is one of the countries that were

1526
01:25:58,080 --> 01:26:01,439
Speaker 1: negot that is on our side of the negotiations with Iran,

1527
01:26:01,479 --> 01:26:05,400
Speaker 1: because everybody Europe, Russia, US, we all have the same

1528
01:26:05,640 --> 01:26:09,920
Speaker 1: interest in preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And

1529
01:26:10,040 --> 01:26:14,320
Speaker 1: so how does the progress of that redeal kind of

1530
01:26:14,479 --> 01:26:19,200
Speaker 1: play into this kind of regional deal that you're writing

1531
01:26:19,400 --> 01:26:22,240
Speaker 1: what'sten about, essentially about these Gulf Arab states. If you

1532
01:26:22,280 --> 01:26:26,080
Speaker 1: look at the messaging around the reinstatement of the JCPOA,

1533
01:26:26,280 --> 01:26:28,479
Speaker 1: the Iran deal, it's a lot less hostile than it

1534
01:26:28,560 --> 01:26:30,280
Speaker 1: was last time around. And I think the reason for

1535
01:26:30,360 --> 01:26:32,800
Speaker 1: that is a recognition of that there needs to be

1536
01:26:32,920 --> 01:26:37,040
Speaker 1: some kind of regional stability. So if you talk to

1537
01:26:37,080 --> 01:26:40,000
Speaker 1: folks close to the governments in those regions. What they'll

1538
01:26:40,000 --> 01:26:43,120
Speaker 1: tell you is that Iran's drone swarm attack on a

1539
01:26:43,160 --> 01:26:46,400
Speaker 1: Saudi oil facility, I think in twenty nineteen was a

1540
01:26:46,760 --> 01:26:50,519
Speaker 1: huge sea change in the region's understanding. It was almost

1541
01:26:50,600 --> 01:26:52,400
Speaker 1: like the defeat of the Spanish Harmonic because it was

1542
01:26:52,439 --> 01:26:54,559
Speaker 1: this recognition of whoa, not only can they blow up

1543
01:26:54,560 --> 01:26:56,840
Speaker 1: our economy, they can blow up the world economy by

1544
01:26:56,920 --> 01:27:00,120
Speaker 1: spending very little money with these drone systems to be

1545
01:27:00,160 --> 01:27:02,160
Speaker 1: able to do that. And I think after that there's

1546
01:27:02,160 --> 01:27:05,440
Speaker 1: a lot more recognition of like, Okay, maybe the Jcboa

1547
01:27:05,520 --> 01:27:07,880
Speaker 1: wasn't so maybe the Irandi wasn't something bad after all. Yeah,

1548
01:27:08,200 --> 01:27:12,639
Speaker 1: Abu Dhabi too, you had some probably Iranian supplied Houthy

1549
01:27:12,760 --> 01:27:16,920
Speaker 1: drones that finally were able to get into you know,

1550
01:27:17,080 --> 01:27:21,479
Speaker 1: ue airspace, and I think three or four civilians were

1551
01:27:21,560 --> 01:27:25,800
Speaker 1: killed eventually through some some drone drone strikes just because

1552
01:27:25,840 --> 01:27:28,840
Speaker 1: they're they're not the most sophisticated drones. Well, the US

1553
01:27:28,920 --> 01:27:31,920
Speaker 1: has extremely sophisticated drone strikes, and ninety percent of the

1554
01:27:31,960 --> 01:27:34,799
Speaker 1: people that we kill our civilians, So you can imagine

1555
01:27:34,800 --> 01:27:38,280
Speaker 1: that the you know that the Houthi drone strike on

1556
01:27:38,400 --> 01:27:41,720
Speaker 1: Abu Dhabi which isn't really a military target, right what

1557
01:27:41,800 --> 01:27:45,639
Speaker 1: they're what they're doing. And but nor are the UA

1558
01:27:45,800 --> 01:27:49,599
Speaker 1: or Saudi Arabia restricting them themselves to military targets. They've

1559
01:27:49,640 --> 01:27:53,320
Speaker 1: been they've been using famine and indiscriminate bombing and torture

1560
01:27:53,360 --> 01:27:56,360
Speaker 1: as as a as a mechanism of their of their

1561
01:27:56,400 --> 01:27:59,400
Speaker 1: war effort. So I think you're right that the attacks

1562
01:27:59,760 --> 01:28:01,960
Speaker 1: on the oil fields in Saudi Arabia. There there was

1563
01:28:02,000 --> 01:28:05,559
Speaker 1: an attack right before the Formula one race in Saudi Arabia,

1564
01:28:06,200 --> 01:28:09,080
Speaker 1: and you had all of these F one drivers and

1565
01:28:09,640 --> 01:28:11,720
Speaker 1: owners being like wait a minute, or in the ul

1566
01:28:12,080 --> 01:28:14,439
Speaker 1: you look at the effect the economy, the stock market

1567
01:28:14,479 --> 01:28:18,200
Speaker 1: there plummeted after that because there was this fiction of that,

1568
01:28:18,400 --> 01:28:19,760
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have to worry about anything because

1569
01:28:19,800 --> 01:28:21,320
Speaker 1: Auran hasn't really done anything in the past. Well, it

1570
01:28:21,320 --> 01:28:23,000
Speaker 1: turns out they haven't don anything past because they chose

1571
01:28:23,080 --> 01:28:25,000
Speaker 1: not to. It doesn't mean that they can't, you know, right,

1572
01:28:25,200 --> 01:28:27,439
Speaker 1: it would it would be as if the US were

1573
01:28:27,520 --> 01:28:31,040
Speaker 1: kind of waging a little guerrilla war on Canada for

1574
01:28:31,240 --> 01:28:35,800
Speaker 1: five five six years and assuring everybody that hey, this

1575
01:28:35,920 --> 01:28:37,479
Speaker 1: is this is just a thing that we're doing. Don't

1576
01:28:37,520 --> 01:28:39,760
Speaker 1: worry you can still come to the World Series and

1577
01:28:40,200 --> 01:28:43,040
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there there's a drone strike in

1578
01:28:43,080 --> 01:28:46,679
Speaker 1: Boston and people are killed, or in Manhattan. You would

1579
01:28:46,760 --> 01:28:50,040
Speaker 1: you could see how despite the fact that that's only

1580
01:28:50,600 --> 01:28:52,920
Speaker 1: that's a small number of deaths compared to the hundreds

1581
01:28:52,920 --> 01:28:56,560
Speaker 1: of thousands that have died in Yemen, because it shatters

1582
01:28:56,640 --> 01:29:00,479
Speaker 1: this myth right that they're immune from the islands that

1583
01:29:00,640 --> 01:29:03,639
Speaker 1: they're perpetrating in Yemen. That, right, all of a sudden,

1584
01:29:03,680 --> 01:29:06,040
Speaker 1: people are well, you know what, I think we're actually

1585
01:29:06,080 --> 01:29:09,000
Speaker 1: going to have the conferences that we were planning for there.

1586
01:29:09,080 --> 01:29:11,360
Speaker 1: We're gonna have that in Barcelona, yeah, or because there's

1587
01:29:11,360 --> 01:29:13,080
Speaker 1: a lot of places that we can have, right, So

1588
01:29:13,160 --> 01:29:16,200
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of incentive to reinstate. And

1589
01:29:16,280 --> 01:29:21,160
Speaker 1: you're seeing other indications that being overtures to Venezuela, which

1590
01:29:21,200 --> 01:29:23,519
Speaker 1: you couldn't imagine like a few years ago, you know,

1591
01:29:23,560 --> 01:29:27,479
Speaker 1: I mean, this shows how desperate they are to not

1592
01:29:27,720 --> 01:29:31,800
Speaker 1: just move away from Saudi Ua oil, which has become

1593
01:29:31,840 --> 01:29:34,000
Speaker 1: fraught for the reasons I've described, but to try to

1594
01:29:34,120 --> 01:29:38,080
Speaker 1: you know, have some other oil supply that you relying

1595
01:29:38,160 --> 01:29:41,080
Speaker 1: to kind of mitigate the effects of angry MBS or

1596
01:29:41,240 --> 01:29:44,679
Speaker 1: angry NBZ and so to me, it's sort of surprising

1597
01:29:44,760 --> 01:29:47,080
Speaker 1: that they haven't reincaved the Iran deal at this point.

1598
01:29:47,200 --> 01:29:49,519
Speaker 1: But and I think if you talk to people close

1599
01:29:49,600 --> 01:29:53,360
Speaker 1: to the negotiations, they'll that they seem sort of I

1600
01:29:53,439 --> 01:29:56,240
Speaker 1: don't know. I wouldn't say, like, you know, it's confident

1601
01:29:56,280 --> 01:29:57,960
Speaker 1: that it's not going to happen, but they're by no

1602
01:29:58,080 --> 01:30:00,960
Speaker 1: means convinced that that it will come to pass. It's

1603
01:30:00,960 --> 01:30:04,480
Speaker 1: still very much in the air right So in conclusion,

1604
01:30:04,640 --> 01:30:08,080
Speaker 1: things that are good peace, clean energy, things that are

1605
01:30:08,120 --> 01:30:12,080
Speaker 1: bad oil war. War is great for business until it's not.

1606
01:30:13,040 --> 01:30:15,320
Speaker 1: And I think in the region is finding out the

1607
01:30:15,400 --> 01:30:18,960
Speaker 1: hard way yes when it gets to be not great reporting.

1608
01:30:19,920 --> 01:30:21,880
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming by on Breakpoints, and thanks

1609
01:30:21,920 --> 01:30:24,160
Speaker 1: to crystalin Saga for having us here. What we're going

1610
01:30:24,240 --> 01:30:26,479
Speaker 1: to try to do is when we have big stories,

1611
01:30:27,080 --> 01:30:29,120
Speaker 1: interesting stories that we think you guys are going to

1612
01:30:29,160 --> 01:30:34,000
Speaker 1: be interested in, we'll pop by here and tell you

1613
01:30:34,040 --> 01:30:39,920
Speaker 1: about them. Thanks Ken, good to be with you. Hey,

1614
01:30:40,320 --> 01:30:43,960
Speaker 1: I'm Matt Stoler, author of monopoly focused newsletter Big and

1615
01:30:44,080 --> 01:30:46,719
Speaker 1: an anti trust policy analyst. I have a great segment

1616
01:30:46,760 --> 01:30:49,559
Speaker 1: for you today on this Big Breakdown it's about Wall Street,

1617
01:30:49,600 --> 01:30:52,160
Speaker 1: and it's a story you probably haven't heard about. Now,

1618
01:30:52,200 --> 01:30:54,040
Speaker 1: you're going to notice a theme in these segments, which

1619
01:30:54,080 --> 01:30:56,000
Speaker 1: is that I think that the basic problem with the

1620
01:30:56,040 --> 01:30:59,120
Speaker 1: American economy, actually with American society in general, is that

1621
01:30:59,240 --> 01:31:02,120
Speaker 1: most of our institute us are dedicated to cheating people.

1622
01:31:02,760 --> 01:31:05,920
Speaker 1: And this story is right on point. Okay, so you

1623
01:31:06,000 --> 01:31:08,639
Speaker 1: remember the Wells Fargo fake account scandal in twenty sixteen,

1624
01:31:09,360 --> 01:31:12,439
Speaker 1: the giant bank. It set unrealistic sales goals for its

1625
01:31:12,479 --> 01:31:17,320
Speaker 1: employees to acquire customers, so their employees just lied and

1626
01:31:17,439 --> 01:31:20,120
Speaker 1: started opening up fake accounts for people who didn't want them.

1627
01:31:20,360 --> 01:31:23,080
Speaker 1: It led to fees, It irritated millions of customers. It

1628
01:31:23,200 --> 01:31:26,080
Speaker 1: was a huge deal when it was uncovered. There were

1629
01:31:26,160 --> 01:31:32,360
Speaker 1: congressional hearings, widespread media coverage, and regulatory crackdowns. Two million

1630
01:31:32,560 --> 01:31:37,040
Speaker 1: fake accounts secretly created, fifty three one hundred employees fired,

1631
01:31:37,320 --> 01:31:41,080
Speaker 1: Wells Fargo fined one hundred and eighty five million dollars. Now,

1632
01:31:42,080 --> 01:31:45,320
Speaker 1: so that was just kind of one of many reports

1633
01:31:45,360 --> 01:31:46,680
Speaker 1: on it at the time. I want to bring you

1634
01:31:46,840 --> 01:31:49,360
Speaker 1: back to the halcion days of twenty sixteen so you

1635
01:31:49,400 --> 01:31:52,160
Speaker 1: can see what it was like. But Okay, so what happened?

1636
01:31:52,160 --> 01:31:55,360
Speaker 1: So the CEO Wells Fargo resigned during the scandal. A

1637
01:31:55,400 --> 01:31:59,200
Speaker 1: few years later, another Wells Fargo sn CEO resigned over

1638
01:31:59,280 --> 01:32:01,920
Speaker 1: the same scandal. The bank has paid around a three

1639
01:32:01,960 --> 01:32:04,640
Speaker 1: billion dollars in total fines and settlements. The whole thing

1640
01:32:04,760 --> 01:32:06,880
Speaker 1: was so embarrassing that the Federal Reserve, which is not

1641
01:32:07,000 --> 01:32:09,840
Speaker 1: known for being tough on banks, playstate quote unquote growth

1642
01:32:09,920 --> 01:32:12,960
Speaker 1: cap on Wells Fargo saying that it's not allowed to

1643
01:32:13,000 --> 01:32:15,800
Speaker 1: hold more than one point five one point nine to

1644
01:32:15,840 --> 01:32:18,680
Speaker 1: five trillion dollars in assets. Now, believe it or not,

1645
01:32:18,880 --> 01:32:22,080
Speaker 1: that's actually a penalty, and the bankers were extremely unhappy

1646
01:32:22,120 --> 01:32:24,360
Speaker 1: about it. The FED, you know, impacted their bonuses and

1647
01:32:24,400 --> 01:32:26,200
Speaker 1: all the rest of it, and the FED was actually

1648
01:32:26,280 --> 01:32:29,920
Speaker 1: being somewhat stern. Okay, now, you might think that would

1649
01:32:29,920 --> 01:32:32,519
Speaker 1: be that, okay, problem solved, But one of the little

1650
01:32:32,560 --> 01:32:35,320
Speaker 1: noticed consequences of that scandal is that the powerful and

1651
01:32:35,520 --> 01:32:38,400
Speaker 1: highly secretive bank regulator, it's called the Office of the

1652
01:32:38,439 --> 01:32:42,360
Speaker 1: Comptroller of the Currency formed during the Civil War. It

1653
01:32:42,479 --> 01:32:44,479
Speaker 1: was then run by a man named Tom Curry, and

1654
01:32:44,680 --> 01:32:48,080
Speaker 1: he ordered an industry wide review of bank account openings.

1655
01:32:48,880 --> 01:32:53,439
Speaker 1: That review ended in twenty seventeen, and it found that, surprise, surprise,

1656
01:32:53,800 --> 01:32:57,200
Speaker 1: it wasn't just Wells Fargo. Other banks had aggressive sales

1657
01:32:57,240 --> 01:33:00,120
Speaker 1: cultures and we're doing these kinds of things too. You

1658
01:33:00,160 --> 01:33:04,439
Speaker 1: probably haven't heard this. Why not? Well, Donald Trump got

1659
01:33:04,479 --> 01:33:07,760
Speaker 1: elected and he appointed a man named Keith Nereka. Here's

1660
01:33:07,800 --> 01:33:12,639
Speaker 1: what this guy looks like to run the powerful bank regulator,

1661
01:33:13,000 --> 01:33:15,360
Speaker 1: the occ offic of Comptroller of the Currency. It's the

1662
01:33:15,439 --> 01:33:17,559
Speaker 1: one that I mentioned before, and it's an important regulator

1663
01:33:17,640 --> 01:33:19,120
Speaker 1: and they hide in the shadow. So I want to

1664
01:33:19,200 --> 01:33:21,080
Speaker 1: make sure that you know who they are so that

1665
01:33:21,200 --> 01:33:25,280
Speaker 1: they feel some accountability. Okay. Naraka did not make the

1666
01:33:25,400 --> 01:33:29,200
Speaker 1: findings public, and last week The Capital Form, which is

1667
01:33:29,200 --> 01:33:33,479
Speaker 1: an influential newsletter that focuses on fraud and mergers, reported

1668
01:33:33,520 --> 01:33:35,759
Speaker 1: that one of the banks that had a similar scandal

1669
01:33:35,800 --> 01:33:39,280
Speaker 1: as Wells Fargo is TD Bank. Employees at TD Bank

1670
01:33:39,320 --> 01:33:42,080
Speaker 1: were opening up accounts that customers didn't want in order

1671
01:33:42,160 --> 01:33:46,759
Speaker 1: to hit overly aggressive sales targets, particularly for overdraft protection,

1672
01:33:46,880 --> 01:33:50,040
Speaker 1: but for other things too. Now this is big money,

1673
01:33:50,120 --> 01:33:52,160
Speaker 1: or at least it was big money for TD Bank.

1674
01:33:52,240 --> 01:33:55,360
Speaker 1: So according to the FDIC, which is another bank regulator,

1675
01:33:55,720 --> 01:33:58,720
Speaker 1: in one quarter in twenty sixteen, thirty five percent of

1676
01:33:58,840 --> 01:34:01,800
Speaker 1: TD Bank's non interest income came from these kinds of

1677
01:34:01,840 --> 01:34:04,960
Speaker 1: consumer charges, and that is by far the highest percentage

1678
01:34:05,040 --> 01:34:08,280
Speaker 1: among big banks. This was a driver of profits and

1679
01:34:08,479 --> 01:34:11,839
Speaker 1: bonuses for TD Bank and its executives. Okay, so, according

1680
01:34:11,840 --> 01:34:16,040
Speaker 1: to the Capital Forum, TD Bank established quote high pressure

1681
01:34:16,120 --> 01:34:19,920
Speaker 1: insteative programs that encouraged sales above all else. It was

1682
01:34:19,960 --> 01:34:22,320
Speaker 1: a points system. If you get someone to open account

1683
01:34:22,520 --> 01:34:25,640
Speaker 1: or cross sell them other products like overdraft protection over

1684
01:34:25,720 --> 01:34:28,240
Speaker 1: raft protections, you get points. But it wasn't like you

1685
01:34:28,439 --> 01:34:32,120
Speaker 1: open an account and there we go. That's fine. That

1686
01:34:32,400 --> 01:34:34,160
Speaker 1: account only had to be open for ninety days. So

1687
01:34:34,240 --> 01:34:36,840
Speaker 1: if somebody closed that account right and then opened a

1688
01:34:36,920 --> 01:34:40,080
Speaker 1: new one, you got more points. Points led to bonuses,

1689
01:34:40,240 --> 01:34:42,799
Speaker 1: and if you didn't get enough points, sometimes you got fired.

1690
01:34:43,640 --> 01:34:47,280
Speaker 1: Not surprisingly, employees would do things like mislead customers about

1691
01:34:47,280 --> 01:34:50,120
Speaker 1: the costs and benefits of overdraft protection, or if you

1692
01:34:50,240 --> 01:34:53,000
Speaker 1: reported a missing debit card or debit card that didn't work,

1693
01:34:53,360 --> 01:34:55,840
Speaker 1: bank employees would encourage you to close the account and

1694
01:34:55,960 --> 01:34:58,400
Speaker 1: open a new one instead of just replacing the missing card.

1695
01:34:58,960 --> 01:35:02,000
Speaker 1: Call center workers who yielded customer complaints also had to

1696
01:35:02,080 --> 01:35:04,760
Speaker 1: sell services and they would sometimes finish paperwork for a

1697
01:35:04,800 --> 01:35:08,120
Speaker 1: new account or service even if a customer didn't give consent.

1698
01:35:08,560 --> 01:35:11,599
Speaker 1: Sometimes they just open up a new account even if

1699
01:35:11,640 --> 01:35:15,880
Speaker 1: the person who called didn't want it and declined. You

1700
01:35:16,000 --> 01:35:20,680
Speaker 1: want to be ethical, said one employee, But you have

1701
01:35:20,800 --> 01:35:23,559
Speaker 1: to reach your goals. Managers have the same pressure. They

1702
01:35:23,640 --> 01:35:28,040
Speaker 1: don't ask question if you're reaching your goal. Okay. And

1703
01:35:28,120 --> 01:35:30,720
Speaker 1: of course the bank made it incredibly easy to open

1704
01:35:30,760 --> 01:35:33,519
Speaker 1: new accounts, easier in fact, than if you had an

1705
01:35:33,520 --> 01:35:36,679
Speaker 1: account and you were cashing a check. So this scandal

1706
01:35:36,720 --> 01:35:40,000
Speaker 1: has all the hallmarks of what Wells Fargo was caught doing.

1707
01:35:40,000 --> 01:35:42,400
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a little bit different, but it's basically similar.

1708
01:35:42,400 --> 01:35:45,120
Speaker 1: It's basically the same thing. So why are we only

1709
01:35:45,240 --> 01:35:48,160
Speaker 1: now finding about this at this point in twenty twenty two,

1710
01:35:48,240 --> 01:35:51,719
Speaker 1: even though you know regulators knew about it in twenty seventeen.

1711
01:35:52,200 --> 01:35:55,679
Speaker 1: Well Narenka chose not to make td banks problems public.

1712
01:35:55,960 --> 01:35:59,120
Speaker 1: He didn't even find the bank. Instead, he issued a

1713
01:35:59,280 --> 01:36:05,280
Speaker 1: private reprimand known as a Matter Requiring Attention, asking TD Bank,

1714
01:36:05,600 --> 01:36:10,000
Speaker 1: asking TD Bank to make sure it wasn't cheating customers. Now,

1715
01:36:10,120 --> 01:36:12,519
Speaker 1: to call this a corrupt parking ticket would be to

1716
01:36:12,760 --> 01:36:15,760
Speaker 1: insult corrupt parking tickets. Just to give you a little

1717
01:36:15,800 --> 01:36:22,599
Speaker 1: bit of a sense, the OCC considers banks their clients right,

1718
01:36:22,640 --> 01:36:25,040
Speaker 1: even though they're the bank regulator. So in twenty twenty,

1719
01:36:25,720 --> 01:36:27,360
Speaker 1: this is not the first time the TD Bank has

1720
01:36:27,400 --> 01:36:29,800
Speaker 1: been caught for something like this. In twenty twenty, in

1721
01:36:29,920 --> 01:36:32,639
Speaker 1: a separate scandal, TD Bank paid one hundred twenty million

1722
01:36:32,680 --> 01:36:37,320
Speaker 1: dollars to settle charges of cheating customers over overdraft protection

1723
01:36:37,439 --> 01:36:40,320
Speaker 1: the same sort of the same product line. So there

1724
01:36:40,360 --> 01:36:42,840
Speaker 1: are so many outrageous things about the scandal. For instance,

1725
01:36:42,880 --> 01:36:45,479
Speaker 1: at this very moment, TD Bank is actually trying to

1726
01:36:45,520 --> 01:36:48,080
Speaker 1: get bigger. They're trying to buy First Horizon, a ninety

1727
01:36:48,120 --> 01:36:51,879
Speaker 1: billion dollars bank headquartered in Tennessee and spread across the Southeast.

1728
01:36:52,080 --> 01:36:55,400
Speaker 1: That's right, TD Bank wants to become more powerful and

1729
01:36:55,560 --> 01:36:59,920
Speaker 1: control more customers. But the worst part is TD Bank,

1730
01:37:00,240 --> 01:37:03,479
Speaker 1: according to the Capital Forum, is still pushing customers into

1731
01:37:03,560 --> 01:37:06,519
Speaker 1: products they don't need. That's right, the bad incentives are

1732
01:37:06,640 --> 01:37:10,280
Speaker 1: still apparently in place. It also looks like this scandal

1733
01:37:10,439 --> 01:37:14,879
Speaker 1: isn't isolated to TD Bank. In twenty twenty, the Consumer

1734
01:37:14,960 --> 01:37:18,320
Speaker 1: Financial Protection Bureau and this is under Trump right, sued

1735
01:37:18,400 --> 01:37:22,040
Speaker 1: Fifth Third Bank for engaging in this same activity. Right,

1736
01:37:22,160 --> 01:37:24,640
Speaker 1: So if it happened under Trump and Trump Trump did

1737
01:37:24,720 --> 01:37:26,680
Speaker 1: and things, some things that were good, some things that

1738
01:37:26,720 --> 01:37:29,280
Speaker 1: were bad, but he did not like consumer protection. So

1739
01:37:29,400 --> 01:37:31,720
Speaker 1: if you got sued in twenty twenty under Trump, that

1740
01:37:31,920 --> 01:37:35,080
Speaker 1: was really bad. Now, of course TEDD Bank denied all

1741
01:37:35,120 --> 01:37:37,760
Speaker 1: of it. As most banks, you know, they are wary

1742
01:37:37,800 --> 01:37:39,639
Speaker 1: of being the next Wells Fargo. They don't want to apologize,

1743
01:37:39,680 --> 01:37:41,400
Speaker 1: they don't want to emit fault. They just denied, deny,

1744
01:37:41,479 --> 01:37:45,320
Speaker 1: deny until they're under oath. But what happened to Narako,

1745
01:37:45,320 --> 01:37:47,880
Speaker 1: who is the bank regulator who covered all this up, Well,

1746
01:37:47,920 --> 01:37:51,200
Speaker 1: he returned to his law firm, Simpson, Thatcher and Bartlett,

1747
01:37:51,240 --> 01:37:53,760
Speaker 1: which is kind of a comically named law firm that

1748
01:37:53,840 --> 01:37:55,560
Speaker 1: I mean, you could imagine all the evil things that

1749
01:37:55,640 --> 01:37:57,280
Speaker 1: that law firm probably did if it was in the

1750
01:37:57,360 --> 01:38:03,320
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Look at his work highlights on his firm's website. Okay,

1751
01:38:03,400 --> 01:38:07,360
Speaker 1: so highlighted that. Yes, he is bragging that he helped

1752
01:38:07,400 --> 01:38:10,559
Speaker 1: TD Bank, which he regulated, do a major merger deal

1753
01:38:10,600 --> 01:38:14,960
Speaker 1: with Charles Schwab, and his law firm actually represents TD

1754
01:38:15,080 --> 01:38:19,120
Speaker 1: Bank in its attempted acquisition of First Horizon. But with

1755
01:38:19,200 --> 01:38:21,479
Speaker 1: this scandal in the open, there could be a bit

1756
01:38:21,640 --> 01:38:24,760
Speaker 1: of trouble for TD Bank. At the very least, TD

1757
01:38:24,880 --> 01:38:28,160
Speaker 1: Bank will probably have some trouble getting its merger approved

1758
01:38:28,200 --> 01:38:30,759
Speaker 1: by the Federal Reserve and the OCC. Now, the OCC

1759
01:38:30,960 --> 01:38:33,800
Speaker 1: is run by a cautious bureaut named Michael Sue, who

1760
01:38:33,920 --> 01:38:36,240
Speaker 1: can be scared into pressure by public scrutiny. I don't

1761
01:38:36,360 --> 01:38:38,400
Speaker 1: like Sue. I don't think much of him, and we

1762
01:38:38,439 --> 01:38:40,639
Speaker 1: shouldn't expect that much. But he is kind of a coward.

1763
01:38:40,720 --> 01:38:44,000
Speaker 1: So if this gets exposed, he will be He probably

1764
01:38:44,040 --> 01:38:48,320
Speaker 1: will do something. But more importantly, I expected other regulators.

1765
01:38:49,120 --> 01:38:52,400
Speaker 1: The fearce head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under Biden,

1766
01:38:52,479 --> 01:38:55,000
Speaker 1: this guy named Roe hit Chopra. He might step in,

1767
01:38:55,240 --> 01:38:57,280
Speaker 1: and members of Congress could get interested in the scandal

1768
01:38:57,360 --> 01:39:01,000
Speaker 1: as well. Now, I don't like partisan, and I'm not

1769
01:39:01,040 --> 01:39:03,479
Speaker 1: going to get partisan most of the time in these segments.

1770
01:39:03,560 --> 01:39:05,880
Speaker 1: But in this case, the scandal really does belong to

1771
01:39:06,000 --> 01:39:08,960
Speaker 1: the Republican Party for two reasons. Now, okay, First, I

1772
01:39:09,080 --> 01:39:11,800
Speaker 1: am no fan of how Obama handled the banks. To

1773
01:39:11,880 --> 01:39:13,960
Speaker 1: say the least, I worked in Congress during the crisis.

1774
01:39:14,080 --> 01:39:16,040
Speaker 1: It was a disaster. I am on record on this

1775
01:39:16,280 --> 01:39:18,559
Speaker 1: you can if you follow my work. It was really

1776
01:39:18,600 --> 01:39:22,679
Speaker 1: really bad. But it was Obama's Controller of the Currency

1777
01:39:22,800 --> 01:39:25,839
Speaker 1: who ordered the investigation of fake accounts across the industry,

1778
01:39:26,040 --> 01:39:28,720
Speaker 1: and it was also Trump's Office of the Controller of

1779
01:39:28,800 --> 01:39:33,439
Speaker 1: the Currency who covered it up. Also, Biden was trying

1780
01:39:33,520 --> 01:39:36,280
Speaker 1: to put a really tough bank regulator at the OCC.

1781
01:39:36,439 --> 01:39:38,160
Speaker 1: This is one of the good things he was trying

1782
01:39:38,200 --> 01:39:41,360
Speaker 1: to do. Her name is salle Olmerova, but she was

1783
01:39:41,439 --> 01:39:44,080
Speaker 1: blocked by Republicans in the Senate at the behesta the

1784
01:39:44,120 --> 01:39:46,200
Speaker 1: banking industry. Of course, there were a couple of Democrats

1785
01:39:46,280 --> 01:39:49,639
Speaker 1: that participated in that, but it was largely the Republican

1786
01:39:49,720 --> 01:39:52,519
Speaker 1: party that blocked her. Now, I'm sympathetic to the notion

1787
01:39:52,600 --> 01:39:55,120
Speaker 1: that conservatives are rethinking their views of corporate power. I

1788
01:39:55,200 --> 01:39:57,000
Speaker 1: love a lot of the anti trust stuff. I like

1789
01:39:57,080 --> 01:39:59,000
Speaker 1: some of the things that they're trying to do in

1790
01:39:59,240 --> 01:40:03,519
Speaker 1: other areas, But so far they still do whatever the

1791
01:40:03,560 --> 01:40:07,559
Speaker 1: banking industry asked them to do when it really matters. Still,

1792
01:40:08,120 --> 01:40:11,560
Speaker 1: regardless of partisanship, there is a broader problem here, the

1793
01:40:11,680 --> 01:40:15,479
Speaker 1: fact that these kinds of annoying, deceptive practices are semi

1794
01:40:15,600 --> 01:40:19,400
Speaker 1: routine across the banking industry, or at least still happening

1795
01:40:19,520 --> 01:40:23,200
Speaker 1: years after we saw huge scandal with Wells Fargo and

1796
01:40:23,280 --> 01:40:26,559
Speaker 1: the fact that regulators knew for years that TD Bank

1797
01:40:26,640 --> 01:40:29,240
Speaker 1: was doing this really speaks to the erosion of the

1798
01:40:29,320 --> 01:40:31,760
Speaker 1: rule of law in America since the financial crisis of

1799
01:40:31,840 --> 01:40:35,160
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, to the powerful laws really are

1800
01:40:35,760 --> 01:40:38,519
Speaker 1: just suggestions. So we can see lots of scandals. We

1801
01:40:38,560 --> 01:40:40,760
Speaker 1: can see lots of problems right now of everything from

1802
01:40:40,800 --> 01:40:44,200
Speaker 1: a baby formula shortage is to a crypto crash, but

1803
01:40:44,360 --> 01:40:46,800
Speaker 1: all of them come down to the same thing, which

1804
01:40:46,880 --> 01:40:50,519
Speaker 1: is that the American economy American society is based on

1805
01:40:50,600 --> 01:40:53,240
Speaker 1: the idea that most of our institutions are dedicated to

1806
01:40:53,360 --> 01:40:56,720
Speaker 1: cheating people and that is no way to run a democracy.

1807
01:40:57,320 --> 01:40:59,759
Speaker 1: Thanks for watching this Big Breakdown on the Breaking Points channel.

1808
01:41:00,000 --> 01:41:01,680
Speaker 1: If you'd like to know more about big business and

1809
01:41:01,720 --> 01:41:04,120
Speaker 1: how our economy really works, you can sign up below

1810
01:41:04,160 --> 01:41:06,560
Speaker 1: for my market power focused newsletter Big It's in the

1811
01:41:06,640 --> 01:41:10,040
Speaker 1: description it's really good. I highly recommend it. Have a

1812
01:41:10,080 --> 01:41:10,439
Speaker 1: good one.