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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. Good morning, everybody,

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Speaker 1: Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.

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Speaker 1: What do we have personal need? We do? Quite a

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Speaker 1: bomshell dropped yesterday afternoon, actually just before we were about

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Speaker 1: to plan to show the US intelligence agencies agreeing basically

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Speaker 1: with Russia's assessment of who detonated that car bomb and

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Speaker 1: assassinated one of their citizens. Sort of, I guess right wing.

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Speaker 1: Would you call our intellectual daughter of journalists? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: There's pundit anyway, we'll get into all of that. Quite

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Speaker 1: a studying revelation though, as we continue to have concerns

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Speaker 1: about whether Russia is going to ultimately detonate tactical nuclear

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Speaker 1: weapon and what all of that would mean. At the

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Speaker 1: same time, this is also massive news OPEC meeting deciding

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Speaker 1: to cut production by quite a significant amount that is certainly,

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Speaker 1: almost certainly going to show up in terms of heightened

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Speaker 1: gas prices for you. The Biden administration responding at this

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Speaker 1: point was some pretty strong words, but markedly different tone

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Speaker 1: and approach towards Saudi Arabia from them. Also some political

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Speaker 1: fall on, some comments that actually were quite good from

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Speaker 1: Rocana another Senator Chris Murphy as well, so will bring

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Speaker 1: you all of the political font and what that means.

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Speaker 1: They also are moving towards easing some sanctions to potentially

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Speaker 1: reopen relations with Venezuela. So a lot of movement there

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Speaker 1: in terms of gas. At the same time, we still

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Speaker 1: have our eye on those protests unfolding in or Ron.

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Speaker 1: Will give you an update there and some details about

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Speaker 1: what some of the underlying causes might be. There was

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Speaker 1: a significant work stoppage at that Staten Island warehouse at

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Speaker 1: Amazon Warehouse, and Amazon has now suspended fifty workers there

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Speaker 1: over that. So we'll bring those details our own. Jared

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Speaker 1: and Chariton has been reporting on that. And we've got

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Speaker 1: a little update for you on Taylor Lorenz spreading COVID

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Speaker 1: anti vaxx misinformation, anti vax miss information. So this is

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Speaker 1: the yes, right, the provoilas came from her, So it's

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Speaker 1: loud right, She's she's the Hall Monitor. So the Hall Monitor,

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Speaker 1: I guess, can do whatever they want. Sager's looking at

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk potentially buying Twitter and the freak ount over that,

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Speaker 1: I'm looking at comedian Bill Burd's kind of surprising comments

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Speaker 1: about socialism and about capitalism. Have an interesting guest on

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Speaker 1: to talk about what is going on with men new

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Speaker 1: theme on the show lately. But before we get to

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Speaker 1: any of that, live show, live show, put it up

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Speaker 1: there on the screen, Chicago. We are planning it right now.

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Speaker 1: We've got an awesome segment. It's gonna be a lot

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Speaker 1: of audience interaction. As we said, go ahead and buy

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Speaker 1: your tickets there. We've got the last remaining tickets. I

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Speaker 1: think that people are really really going to enjoy the show.

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Speaker 1: We've got some fun stuff planned that we've learned from

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Speaker 1: our debut in Atlanta, and then we're going to announce

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Speaker 1: the new dates very very soon for the rest of

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Speaker 1: the country. But like we said, if you're in the Midwest,

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Speaker 1: i'd highly recommend coming to this show because it's very

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Speaker 1: unlikely that we're going to do other dates just scheduling

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Speaker 1: in the way that this all works out. Number two counterpoints.

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Speaker 1: Throw that one up there on the screen. They did

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Speaker 1: a fantastic job yesterday. They really did. I was looking

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Speaker 1: through some of their topics. I just love some of

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Speaker 1: the things that they I wouldn't even think to cover,

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Speaker 1: you know, Emily's monologue, things like that, which are just

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Speaker 1: very unique to them as people. But they also touch

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Speaker 1: on the news. You guys seem to really enjoy it.

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Speaker 1: The show did quite well, so we've got that discount

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Speaker 1: going on right now. Ten percent off on the annual

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Speaker 1: membership really helps us fund both that and then obviously

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Speaker 1: our new hire, which was made entirely possible by the

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Speaker 1: expansion that you guys are funding, So thank you all

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Speaker 1: very much. As a link down in the description that

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Speaker 1: you can take advantage. Yeah, one of the things I

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Speaker 1: was a little bit nervous about when their show launched.

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Speaker 1: Was that like we'd be stepping on each other's toes

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Speaker 1: in terms of covering the same topics. Really not. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they just they do have a different lens. Different things

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Speaker 1: pop up and are interesting to them, and they also

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Speaker 1: have slightly different ideologies than we do. So I think

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Speaker 1: it's been a really great addition to the ecosystem. You

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Speaker 1: helping support us and make that happen, make the new

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Speaker 1: hire happen, and all of those good things. Okay, with

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Speaker 1: all that being said, let's get to the name. Let's

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Speaker 1: get to the big bombshell. Really, let's go and put

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Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. A major leak in

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Speaker 1: the New York Times dropping yesterday, very coordinated and let's

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Speaker 1: read it all very carefully. Headline US believes Ukrainians were

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Speaker 1: behind an assassination in Russia. Subhead American officials said they

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Speaker 1: are not aware of the plan ahead of the time

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Speaker 1: for attack that killed Daria Dugina, and they had admonished

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Speaker 1: Ukraine over it. So let's go and take a trip

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Speaker 1: down memory lane. A couple of months ago, we covered

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Speaker 1: the story in August that Daria Dugina, who is the

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Speaker 1: daughter of Alexander Dugan, who himself is is difficult. I

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Speaker 1: don't even think calling him light left or right wing

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Speaker 1: is really all that useful in the US political CONTEXTU

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Speaker 1: ultra nationalist, revanchist Russian who believes in restoring the glory

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Speaker 1: of the Russian Zardom and Empire. That's probably then very

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Speaker 1: anti European Union, very socially conservative, but not even necessarily

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Speaker 1: in the context we would understand more in the like

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Speaker 1: Russian Orthodox Church and the fusion of the state, something

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Speaker 1: that you would have to go like one hundred years

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Speaker 1: back in order to really understand in Russian context anyway,

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Speaker 1: So this is a bent intellectual quote unquote in Russia

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Speaker 1: for quite some time, frankly, probably overstated by the West

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Speaker 1: and even by the Ukrainians in terms of his influence.

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Speaker 1: He's been sidelined before by Putin, but they like to

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Speaker 1: keep him around because he always justifies their invasions of Georgia.

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Speaker 1: He was beating the drum for years about invading Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: saying it's not a real country, etc. So you could

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Speaker 1: think of him as I don't even really know if

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Speaker 1: he has a US analog whoever, the most neokan of

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Speaker 1: neocons was in the middle of the Iraq War. Think

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Speaker 1: about it, like the guy who has defending Bush and five.

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Speaker 1: That's basically the equivalent of who Alexander Dugan is. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: his daughter, as we said, was blown up in a

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Speaker 1: car bombing in Moscow, a Moscow suburb. Now it was

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Speaker 1: believed at the time that he was the target, and

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Speaker 1: that his daughter actually had gotten into the car and

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Speaker 1: as she was driving down the road that her car

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Speaker 1: blew up. As she was russ she was only twenty

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Speaker 1: nine years old. Lots of speculation about what happened, including

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Speaker 1: here on this show. At that time, we had a

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Speaker 1: couple of theories. Number one was this could be a

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Speaker 1: false flag by the Russian state authorities. You take out

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Speaker 1: somebody who was supposedly sympathetic, you blame it on the Ukrainians,

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Speaker 1: and then you say this is a pretext for eventual

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Speaker 1: escalation against Ukraine. And by the way, after his daughter

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Speaker 1: was killed, what do you think Alexander Dugan called for immediately? Right?

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Speaker 1: So that was one theory, and again there was really

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Speaker 1: no way to know, and it's not like you would

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Speaker 1: put that against the Russians. The Russians, though at the time,

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Speaker 1: adamantly claimed and look, it's not like they have a

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Speaker 1: lot of credibility, so you should take it for what

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Speaker 1: it is. They were like, no, we believe this was

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Speaker 1: the Ukrainian intelligence services. They had pictures that they had

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Speaker 1: released of the so called assassin. They said that she

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Speaker 1: had was an employee of Ukrainian intelligence who had crossed

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Speaker 1: from Estonia into Russia. Well, I think it was from

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Speaker 1: Ukraine into Russian and then fled to Estonia. That's right,

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Speaker 1: So Ukraine, Ukraine, Russia, Russia, Estonia. Estonia matters also because

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Speaker 1: it's a NATO country. And as to whether they even

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Speaker 1: knew about it in the first place anyway, Basically what

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Speaker 1: we said and most people said at the time is

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Speaker 1: we'll never know. Well, now, I guess if you are

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Speaker 1: to believe them, and of course this is always the issue,

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Speaker 1: who do you take the word for the Russian FSB

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Speaker 1: CIA when the Ukrainian intelligences, when they agreed each other,

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Speaker 1: then you might be able to say this is probably

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Speaker 1: what happens. Possible, Yeah, it's very possibly. Credulous. I'm trying

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Speaker 1: to treat everybody as skeptically as I can anyway. I

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Speaker 1: think the fact that this article exists in and of

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Speaker 1: itself is very noteworthy because it says that the United

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Speaker 1: States intelligence agencies have concluded the parts of the Ukrainian

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Speaker 1: government that's another key part, were authorized the car bomb

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Speaker 1: attack near Moscow in August that killed Daria Dugina. That

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Speaker 1: intelligence assessment was made not necessarily declassified, but was made

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Speaker 1: widely available to the US intelligence community last week. That

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Speaker 1: tells me something very important, Crystal, which is that they

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Speaker 1: have had this assessment now for quite some time. It's

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Speaker 1: October sixth, This happened on August twenty First, why now,

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of questions. One of the time old

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Speaker 1: tactics in the US intelligence community is if you want

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Speaker 1: something to leak, you just make it more available to

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Speaker 1: as many people as possible. And that is exactly what

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Speaker 1: happened here, because almost immediately after it was made widely

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Speaker 1: available and ends up on the front page of the

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Speaker 1: New York Times. So what can we take away from this?

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Speaker 1: It says specifically in here that the US was not

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Speaker 1: aware of the attack, would do, was not aware, took

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Speaker 1: no part in the attack, and had privately admonished the

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Speaker 1: Ukrainians for doing something like this. Also, what came away

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Speaker 1: and actually is very important to me, is they also

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Speaker 1: said there it is possible that Zelenski himself did not

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Speaker 1: know about this, and they allude in the piece to

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Speaker 1: competing centers of power in the Ukrainian government, as in

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Speaker 1: intelligence services that may or may not actually answer to

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Speaker 1: mister Zelenski. This is a country in the middle of

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Speaker 1: a war. They know before this, it's not a secret

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Speaker 1: that they had a lot of corruption. Zelenski himself has

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Speaker 1: already fired two of the most senior people in the

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Speaker 1: Ukrainian government long ago, like independent militias have just recently

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Speaker 1: been incorporated into the overall armed forces exactly. The parties

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Speaker 1: also have had its political turmoil, more and less hawkish fashion, faction,

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Speaker 1: different ideologies, all of those things. This is a classic

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Speaker 1: hall mark of state, you know, basically in the middle

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Speaker 1: of an existential conflict, especially one without robust institutions like Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: which was already had corruption problems as the beginning of this. Now,

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Speaker 1: I think that the major takeaway from this to me,

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Speaker 1: and I'm curious what you think is they are releasing

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Speaker 1: this and leaking this now because Ukraine a either has

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Speaker 1: already done something just as highly provocative or was on

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Speaker 1: the verge of doing something highly provocative. And this is

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Speaker 1: kind of a bat signal to be sent out into

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Speaker 1: the world and just be like, hey, we know what

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Speaker 1: you did. Clearly. Also, they said that they had admonished them.

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Speaker 1: If the Ukrainians had listened to the so called admonishment,

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Speaker 1: I don't think that this piece would have showed up.

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Speaker 1: They probably said screw off, or they continued to deny it.

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Speaker 1: Hence the leak that comes out that really cast them.

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Speaker 1: This is one of the first stories I have ever

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Speaker 1: seen that really admonishes the Ukrainians for going into a

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Speaker 1: territory which is incredibly dangerous. I mean they carried out

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Speaker 1: if we are to believe this an assassination inside of Russia,

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Speaker 1: not just inside of Russia, against a high profile figure

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Speaker 1: in Moscow, in the capital of Russia. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: cannot think of something that is more provocative in that.

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Speaker 1: And it also opens the question of like, well, what

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Speaker 1: other covert operations are the Ukrainians doing that the US

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Speaker 1: may or may not have approved of it. Also, the

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Speaker 1: second thing I just want to highlight before I'll get

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Speaker 1: to what your takeaway is, Crystal, is They said that

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Speaker 1: the US officials remain frustrated that Ukraine refuses to share

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Speaker 1: intelligence or military plans, especially covert operations inside of Russia.

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Speaker 1: And they also said crystal that often, especially before this

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Speaker 1: latest round of offensive by the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians did

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Speaker 1: not want to share military plans. They did not want

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Speaker 1: Washington to get insight, specifically because a they didn't want

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Speaker 1: us to either a just aid or not. They wanted

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Speaker 1: us to just take their word for it, and they

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Speaker 1: liked to keep us in the dark as possible while

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Speaker 1: the techs continue to roll on in to keep our

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Speaker 1: in put to an absolute low and let them do

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Speaker 1: whatever they please. So lots of commentary on that front

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Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, well, indeed, I mean the first thing

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Speaker 1: to say about this is that this is utter madness.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about a political assassination of a civilian,

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Speaker 1: a Russian civilian on Russian soil. Like the level of

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Speaker 1: escalation that that represents is dramatic. And I know that

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Speaker 1: a lot of people on there will be like, come on,

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Speaker 1: like Russia invaded their country, like they're getting bombed. This

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Speaker 1: isn't like you're going to freak out over this. This

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Speaker 1: is all in the context of trying to avoid a

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Speaker 1: nuclear war. So again, an attack directly on Russian soil,

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Speaker 1: a political targeted assassination on Russian soil of a Russian

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Speaker 1: civilian in Moscow, where then the assassin flees to a

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Speaker 1: NATO country, Estonia. This is this is mind blowing, bombshell

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Speaker 1: stuff in terms of this report and sort of what

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Speaker 1: I have the most confidence is true and what I

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Speaker 1: have the least confidence is true. When you have the

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Speaker 1: official Russian line lining up with the official US line,

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Speaker 1: I think you can put a lot of credence in that.

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Speaker 1: And the Ukrainians have not really outright denied that they

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Speaker 1: were involved in this either, so I think that's all

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Speaker 1: important to keep in mind. So that's the piece that

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Speaker 1: I actually have the most confidence in the parts about oh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the US really the intelligence community trying to

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Speaker 1: pay themselves very well here. We had no idea, we

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Speaker 1: had no involvement. The parts about it out maybe Zelenski

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Speaker 1: didn't know, trying to sort of keep his hands clean

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Speaker 1: in all of this because of course he's been held

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Speaker 1: up as you know, the Churchill of the whole situation.

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Speaker 1: Those are the pieces that maybe it's true, maybe it's

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Speaker 1: not true. I'm a little bit more skeptical of that part.

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Speaker 1: I think you're right about the likely intent of this leak,

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Speaker 1: because all of these leaks that you know from directly

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Speaker 1: from the intelligence community, they all have some sort of

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Speaker 1: political intent behind them. I think probably you're right that

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Speaker 1: the most likely thing here is that the US is

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Speaker 1: getting increasingly pissed off off that the Ukrainians are freelancing

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Speaker 1: and in this sort of like adventurous, incredibly dangerous, potentially

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Speaker 1: escalatory way and are not scaling those things back, and

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Speaker 1: so this was a way to really try to ultimately

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Speaker 1: smack them down. I think it's also really worth underscoring

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Speaker 1: the fact that we covered that report a while ago.

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Speaker 1: It was the only some of the only like a

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Speaker 1: little bit critical coverage that we've seen from the New

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Speaker 1: York Times about how the US was openly admitting they

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Speaker 1: had more insight into what Russia was doing, because, of course,

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Speaker 1: we have decades and decades of decades of infiltrating them

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Speaker 1: and spying on them and all sorts of assets there,

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Speaker 1: and we really were kind of blind about what the

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Speaker 1: Ukrainians were doing and what their plans were. Now, after

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Speaker 1: that report, there were subsequent reports that were like, Oh,

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Speaker 1: we worked that all out and that's all fixed. No, No,

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Speaker 1: that does not seem to be the case. That does

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Speaker 1: not seem to be the case. And so from a

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Speaker 1: US domestic perspective, think of the insanity we're engaged in

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Speaker 1: right now. I mean, we're going to talk about more

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Speaker 1: military aid flowing there. We've helped them with intelligence, We've

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Speaker 1: helped them with cyber capabilities. I mean, we are all

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Speaker 1: in on this war effectively in all but you know

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Speaker 1: the reality of boots on the ground and we don't

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Speaker 1: know what their plans are. They're hiding things from us,

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Speaker 1: They're engaging these sorts of like targeted assassinations without our knowledge.

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Speaker 1: That is wild stuff and it should not be permitted

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Speaker 1: to continue. And ultimately, like Biden loves to pretend like, oh,

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Speaker 1: we're hands off and they're just going to do No, No,

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Speaker 1: we have so much sway and so much influence in

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Speaker 1: terms of what is happening there. They could not have

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Speaker 1: gotten anywhere close to where they are now with on

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Speaker 1: our arms, our training, and our intelligence. We have incredible

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Speaker 1: influence over what and how they prosecute this war, and

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Speaker 1: we ought to be using it because this is complete insanity. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I just want to pick a tug on that thread,

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Speaker 1: which is, Look, if Ukraine wants to put itself in

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Speaker 1: a position where they are going to assassinate people on Moscow,

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Speaker 1: be my guest, But then the risk is all yours

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Speaker 1: and it's not ours. Yes, And unfortunately though they want

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Speaker 1: to take the most provocative action and then socialize the

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Speaker 1: risks to US and to all of NATO. That is

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Speaker 1: the issue, and also the issue remains if we are

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Speaker 1: going to continue giving them essentially ninety eight percent of

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Speaker 1: what they ask for, then what good is any admonishment?

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Speaker 1: I mean, frankly, the Ukrainians kind of remind me of

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Speaker 1: the Israelis right now, where they're like, yeah, they're not

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Speaker 1: going to do anything. They're like, we got too much pressure.

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Speaker 1: They're like, we can do basically whatever we want. You know,

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Speaker 1: we can you know, we can have sovereign territory if

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Speaker 1: they wanted to, like the Israelis violate the law, have

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Speaker 1: the UN or even the US intelligence community privately admonish them,

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Speaker 1: but at a public level, like they know that they

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Speaker 1: could basically get away with it, and you know, that's

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Speaker 1: basically what happened. Let's put this on the screen. I mean, effectively,

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Speaker 1: days after the US supposedly admolished the Ukrainians, the US

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Speaker 1: announced another six hundred and twenty five million dollars in

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Speaker 1: new military aid for Ukraine, again more than the country

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Speaker 1: of Germany and France in total, just so everybody's aware,

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Speaker 1: and that military package is all after the annexing of

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Speaker 1: the four regions. There is some speculation crystal in behind

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Speaker 1: the scenes from people I spoke to, is that one

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Speaker 1: of the reasons that this came out is because President

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Speaker 1: Biden had a very long phone call with President Zelenski

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Speaker 1: just right before that they released this aid Tuesday. It

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Speaker 1: was on Tuesday, and during that phone call it was

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Speaker 1: right after they announced this aid. Though it is positive

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Speaker 1: that he probably brought up this US intel and he

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Speaker 1: was like, hey, maybe you should cut this out, and

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Speaker 1: you know, I don't think that they would leak it

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Speaker 1: without some authorization at the highest levels of government. That

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Speaker 1: there was at least a feeling that the Ukrainians were

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Speaker 1: going too far. We're not listening, We're telling us to

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Speaker 1: effectively screw off. So this really just highlights the du

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Speaker 1: ally of Washington policy. On the one hand, we give

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Speaker 1: Ukraine almost ninety eight percent of what it wants, support

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Speaker 1: all but their most maximalist of maximalist names. And on

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Speaker 1: the other we're like, hey, stop assassinating people inside of Russia. Now, look,

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Speaker 1: as you said, the Russians do this stuff all the

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Speaker 1: time to their own citizens and in Ukraine. So it's

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Speaker 1: not like we're saying that Russia has been unfairly given

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Speaker 1: something that it never does. No. I mean, they've probably

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Speaker 1: done this on an even bigger scale. But it does

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Speaker 1: really remind me. I know, this is hoky, but like

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Speaker 1: of that Dark Knight quot where it's like you either

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Speaker 1: die hero or just live long enough to you know,

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Speaker 1: it's like, why become even a part of your enemy?

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Speaker 1: And because then at what point do you remain the

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Speaker 1: moral high ground? Because of course Ukraine was invaded, a

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Speaker 1: sovereign country, didn't do anything to Russia in order, you know,

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Speaker 1: it didn't do anything to them. But you know, embracing

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Speaker 1: these horrific tactics of targeted political assassination is both incredibly

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Speaker 1: risky for your own nation and highlights how existential they

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Speaker 1: think the stakes are. And if they think it's that

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Speaker 1: way again, that's fine for you, but your risk should

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Speaker 1: remain yours. We are now in a situation where, and

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Speaker 1: I think you probably agree with this, I don't see

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Speaker 1: a situation where, if things escalate to the nuclear level,

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Speaker 1: even quote unquote tactical, that we don't somehow get dragged

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Speaker 1: into this wor I see those imagine it. I really can't.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's very hard to imagine that there isn't

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Speaker 1: then an escalatory chain that leads at the very least

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Speaker 1: to us being directly involved, let alone you know, and

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Speaker 1: certainly could possibly lead to all out nuclear war, which

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Speaker 1: is the thing that we should. I mean, this is

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Speaker 1: I really do sort of feel like I'm taking crazy

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Speaker 1: pills here, because we're literally in a we have never

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Speaker 1: since the Cuban missile crisis been this close to a

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Speaker 1: nuclear exchange, and it's like it's sort of like the

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Speaker 1: you know, the plot of don't look up whereever. It's

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Speaker 1: just like continuing to go about their business, and media

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Speaker 1: is like barely paying attention. And I mean this is

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Speaker 1: none of this has really been laid down explained to

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Speaker 1: the American people. What an incredibly precarious, dangerous situation we're in.

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Speaker 1: And why this struck me in particular is because it

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Speaker 1: was a reminder of the fact that within the Zolenski

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Speaker 1: government and domestic political you know hothouse, there are factions

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Speaker 1: that look at nuclear weapons sort of the way that

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Speaker 1: Putin in the Russians seem to, which is also believing like, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it wouldn't be the end of the world,

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Speaker 1: it's worth risking that potentiality. And I say that because

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Speaker 1: Yegor actually pointed out to me there's, you know, a

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Speaker 1: sort of influential commentator ally of Zelenski who outright said like, oh,

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Speaker 1: the West is so afraid of nuclear weapons, We're not

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Speaker 1: that afraid of it, like all full of bluster. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there is that faction, and there's even more of a

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Speaker 1: faction that from the beginning has been very interested in

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Speaker 1: trying to escalate this word to force us in on

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Speaker 1: the Ukrainian side. I don't need I can't even blame

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Speaker 1: them for that, because that's just like rational when you're

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Speaker 1: facing an existential threat. I want my big brother to

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Speaker 1: come in fully on my side and stop messing around

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Speaker 1: with this, like limiting what weapons we can get and

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Speaker 1: play and cute like they're not involved here. I want

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Speaker 1: them all the way in and so when I see

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Speaker 1: this sort of you know, dangerous adventurism with a political

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Speaker 1: assassination on Russian soil, it reminded me that, you know,

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Speaker 1: for them, if there is that escalation, it's not all

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Speaker 1: bad in their view. That should be another like dire

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Speaker 1: warning for us and reminder that we have to be

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Speaker 1: really really careful about protecting not just us interests, like

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Speaker 1: the interests of the world as a whole. And that's

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Speaker 1: what this really ultimately underscored for me, because this is

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Speaker 1: it's just an incredibly, incredibly dangerous situation and the fact

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Speaker 1: that we have gone this far with the US still

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Speaker 1: having a lot of blind spots about what exactly the

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Speaker 1: Ukrainians are up to, that should be deeply, deeply troubling

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Speaker 1: to everyone who's looking at this. That's right, and let's

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Speaker 1: put this on the screen finally, just for people who

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Speaker 1: are interested. This was the official blame by Moscow on

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Speaker 1: Ukraine in that death. As we said, the circumstances are,

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Speaker 1: they accused the Ukrainian intelligence agent of crossing from Ukraine

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Speaker 1: into Russia and effectively then fleeing into Estonia. Estonia, of

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Speaker 1: course matters because at that time they said there would

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Speaker 1: be a reason for the Russian Federation to take actions

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Speaker 1: against the Estonian state. Estonia is of course a NATO

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Speaker 1: country and has been one of the biggest beaters for war,

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Speaker 1: which we're about to get to. So there's also could

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Speaker 1: involve a NATO intelligence service, which itself would also be

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Speaker 1: a tremendous danger given the fact that Article five even

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Speaker 1: if the United States did not know about this and

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Speaker 1: admonish them, remember we are bound by blood all the

429
00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:55,680
Speaker 1: way up until the borders of the Baltics with Article five.

430
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 1: That's why I mean, I've gotten some pushback to be like, no,

431
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 1: there's no way the US. I'm like, no, I don't understand,

432
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:03,200
Speaker 1: Like this is just like nineteen fourteen, like in terms

433
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:05,160
Speaker 1: of the alliances, like we are at a trip wire.

434
00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:08,640
Speaker 1: These are Senate ratified treaties. It's there's no debate, there's

435
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 1: it's automatic. Like if they go in, we're in. If

436
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:14,760
Speaker 1: there is some sort of escalation or something like, we

437
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of say into how exactly it's

438
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: all going to play out, just because the escalation ladder

439
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:21,879
Speaker 1: goes up very very quickly. And that gets to the

440
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 1: next part. Let's go ahead and put this on the

441
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:27,120
Speaker 1: screen just to highlight how the Baltics feel. Poland says

442
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:30,080
Speaker 1: that has been now approaching the United States. And this

443
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:32,640
Speaker 1: makes sense because the Polish foreign minister was just here

444
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 1: about storing nuclear weapons inside of Poland. US provided nuclear

445
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:42,480
Speaker 1: weapons Poland is boosting. Obviously, it's military spending, they say.

446
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:44,800
Speaker 1: And this is from according to their president, that the

447
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:46,960
Speaker 1: US and NATO have said they have while they have

448
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:49,680
Speaker 1: said they have no plans to deploy nuclear weapons in

449
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:53,119
Speaker 1: Poland ever since they joined the NATO alliance after the

450
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: fall of the Soviet Union, that they have risen and

451
00:23:56,720 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: asked this at the highest levels of Washington. President Duda

452
00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:03,720
Speaker 1: of Poland says, quote the problem is we don't have

453
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:07,480
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. In a Polish newspaper that was published on Wednesday,

454
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 1: quote there is always a potential opportunity to participate in

455
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: nuclear sharing. This would effectively be a return to the

456
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 1: Cuban missile crisis days like whenever the Soviets were trying

457
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:22,120
Speaker 1: to store ICBMs in Cuba, ninety miles off the coast

458
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: of the United States. And also highlights one of the

459
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:28,160
Speaker 1: original protests by Vladimir Putin. I'm not saying he made

460
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 1: this in good faith, but I'm just saying, look, the

461
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: guy invaded Ukraine. We should at least listen to what

462
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 1: he said. What he pointed out you and I cover

463
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 1: this story at the time was that ballistic missile defense

464
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 1: system that we do have in Poland. And he was

465
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 1: saying that this is a provocative action, and it was

466
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 1: almost like a It's almost reminds a little bit of

467
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:47,920
Speaker 1: like the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, and like what exactly

468
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:50,920
Speaker 1: they wanted away from them and why they justified the

469
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 1: Cuban deployment in the first place. Anyway, we're all saying

470
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:57,160
Speaker 1: these are purely defensive, and they said these could easily

471
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: be converted into being offensive and strike within our orders

472
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:02,400
Speaker 1: very quickly. Yeah, that was part of the rub. That's

473
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: why it matters. Anyway. The point is here is that

474
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:10,400
Speaker 1: our Baltic allies in NATO are the most hawkish when

475
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: it comes to this war. They have, per their GDP,

476
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: have actually spent a tremendous amount of money. Again not

477
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: that much overall, but to be fair to them, you know,

478
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:21,199
Speaker 1: per their very small GDPs, they've also taken in a

479
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: lot of refugees Poland and refugees and the number one

480
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:26,640
Speaker 1: location for Ukraine and we can't ignore. I mean, these

481
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 1: people lived under Soviet Communism and were slaves to the

482
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,439
Speaker 1: Russian Empire before that for a very long time. Like

483
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 1: as I said, you know, it's Poland and Warsaw is

484
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: one of the saddest places that you can go because

485
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 1: you'll go to like some museum and they're like, yeah,

486
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 1: and then we heroically resisted against the Nazis and then

487
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: we were conquered by the Soviets and and you're like,

488
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 1: oh geez, and you're like yeah, and then we were

489
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:48,199
Speaker 1: finally free in nineteen eighty nine. And you know, you

490
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 1: go to the tomb of the Unknown Soldier there and

491
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 1: Warsaw and you're like, he was killed by Russia. He

492
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 1: was killed by Russia. He was killed by Russia. This

493
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 1: is a freedom fighter, he was killed by Russia. So anyway,

494
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:58,479
Speaker 1: the hate runs deep, and I get it. I mean,

495
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:00,880
Speaker 1: I genuinely do. If I was Polish, I probably feel

496
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: the same way. However, of course, their collective interest is

497
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 1: not necessarily the same as ours, and so they are

498
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 1: very much beating the drum and are the forefront of

499
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 1: saying no if there is any tactical nuclear explosion in Ukraine,

500
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,640
Speaker 1: all out war on behalf of NATO. Polish for Foreign

501
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:22,880
Speaker 1: Minister is the first person to come out and say absolutely,

502
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: we will have a pure conventional military response. We will

503
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 1: attack Russia if they go ahead and launch a tactical

504
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: nuclear strike. Second, also a lot of noteworthy comments from

505
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: the President of Estonia, Baltic nation, also in Estonia, dealing

506
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 1: and talking in English in an interview, specifically about how

507
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 1: the West should respond, should putin use tactical nuclear weapons

508
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. Let's take a listen to what she said.

509
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: They were claiming that there are little grained men. Now

510
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:56,640
Speaker 1: they're openly attacking another country, and this is a totally

511
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: new perspective. They are threatening with new their weapons. There

512
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 1: has to be a very strong response. If this pays off,

513
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: then we'll use it again and again. Because this pays off,

514
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:12,479
Speaker 1: and we say that, Okay, now we are afraid, and

515
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,680
Speaker 1: now we do what you say. You don't negotiate with terrorists,

516
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: and terrorism is to terrorize us to make different decisions,

517
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: not help Ukraine, not make the decisions that we would

518
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:30,679
Speaker 1: otherwise make because we are afraid. Well, I think that

519
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: this is Look, I think it's a valid point, and

520
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: it bears really parsing which is, what does the world

521
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 1: look like if somebody uses nuclear blackmail. Well, we have

522
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 1: had a test case. I talked about this previously during

523
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 1: the New Cuban Missile crisis. We actually did have a

524
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 1: secret nuclear quid pro quote. We're like, look, you take

525
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 1: those missiles out of Cuba. A couple months later later,

526
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 1: these Jupiter missiles in Turkey, they'll just so happen to

527
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:56,400
Speaker 1: go away. Now, to be fair, those missiles actually were obsolete,

528
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 1: So the Soviets did kind of get duped, but in

529
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 1: their minds they did feel as if they got some

530
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: quid pro quo. I also think that it really matters,

531
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 1: and this is why I believe very strongly in red

532
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: lines in Senate ratified treaties and in alliances, which is

533
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 1: that look, if this were to be used against a

534
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:17,640
Speaker 1: NATO country, obviously the answer is no. And also if

535
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:19,880
Speaker 1: you do go to war with the NATO country, there's

536
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 1: not a question. It's in the gray areas where we

537
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 1: actually have no obligation of defense. There's been a recent resuscitation,

538
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,359
Speaker 1: by the way Missus Bear's discussing. So there was this

539
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: thing called the Buddhist Budapest Memorandum in the nineteen nineties

540
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: after the fall of the Soviet Union, where the United States,

541
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 1: Russia and there was one other country I can't remember

542
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: exactly what it was effectively guaranteed Ukrainian security and said

543
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't attack Ukraine unless they had there was

544
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 1: some imminent threat. Now, obviously Russia is already violated the

545
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: Budapest by Mirandum, but people are saying, oh, well, that

546
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: is the reason why the US has to come to

547
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: Ukraine's defense. First of all, the Budapest Memorandum was a

548
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: statement of policy by the administration. It was never ratified

549
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: by the US Senate, and it is not the actual

550
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: word as an actual treaty is like NATO. And what

551
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: I love about that is that people who are like,

552
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: we have to defend them are the same who are like, yeah,

553
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: just because of Soviet just because a US Secretary of

554
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: State told Gorbachev that NATO would never expand it doesn't

555
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: mean that we had to because he didn't bind our

556
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 1: hands in the treaty. See, people, it can go both

557
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: ways in terms of what exactly means. Look, you could

558
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 1: say morally, we have an obligation find but that does

559
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: not how That's not how the law works. And that's

560
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: not how alliances worked. My point here being that whenever

561
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 1: we are talking, especially about nuclear weapons, and I'm not

562
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: saying it's a good precedent to set, but we have

563
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: certain realities that we have to face. North Korea launched

564
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: a second ballistic missile yesterday. People in Japan are freaking out.

565
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: They had a twenty six hundred mile overfly over the Japanese. Eez,

566
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: their TVs were all blaring. And you know why we

567
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: don't invade or bomb North Korea Because they have nukes.

568
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: They could literally nuke California. They have the capability and frankly,

569
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: they have the will if we wanted to. I'm not

570
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: saying it's a good situation, but it's one of those

571
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: things that we've basically just had to learn to live with.

572
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: The moment that they developed an ICBM that was capable

573
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 1: of hitting the United States, the strategic situation changes. We

574
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 1: have to deal with the reality of the ground while

575
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: balancing the downside risk. And I think that that is

576
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: exactly highlights why this type of rhetoric can both have

577
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: a point but does not consider the reality, which is

578
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: that in Ukraine we do not have an obligation to

579
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: defend Ukraine. We have decided to out of the goodness

580
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: of US policy because of Americans, I think are good

581
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: people and they don't want to see a sovereign nation

582
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: get invaded, and as all the norm reasons, the global order, etc. Sure,

583
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: I think it's a fine policy for arming, you know,

584
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, but when we have to balance

585
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: it then with well, in the event that somebody uses nukes,

586
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 1: we then have to get into a again against a

587
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: non NATO country of which we have no treaty obligation

588
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 1: to defend, and then the US must then enter into

589
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 1: a war where we will then probably have to use

590
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: nukes to prevent nuclear proliferation. Yeah, it just becomes badness

591
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: very quickly. I just to me, what I hear from

592
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 1: the Estonian Prime Minister and what I hear from a

593
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: lot of people, is this sort of sloganeering, you know,

594
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: like we don't negotiate with terrorists or throughout the word appeasement.

595
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: And when everybody think of Neville Chamberlain and World War

596
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: two and all of that, listen, this has not gone

597
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: well for Russia. So even if I think at this

598
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: moment it's fanciful, the idea that you could have any

599
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: sort of delcs, fire pitstreat whatever. I think we're not

600
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: in a place where that's likely to happen in the

601
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 1: near term, which is, you know, a tragedy in and

602
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: of itself. But the idea that Russia would end up

603
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 1: getting anything out of what they did, there's this argument

604
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: that like, oh, well, that's just going to embolden them

605
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: to do this again, or some other country to go

606
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: and take over territory and just you know, use the

607
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: fact that they're a nuclear power that they want it,

608
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 1: and you know that Russia got their way last time

609
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: to go ahead and then take over whatever they want.

610
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: I think that that's incredibly I think it's incredibly facile

611
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: thinking because to believe that, you would have to think

612
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: that this has been a win for Russia and a

613
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: win specifically for Putin and his regime, when in reality,

614
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: I mean, he's been exposed as incredibly weak. Their military

615
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: has been humiliated over and over again, you know, even

616
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: just from the practicality of being able to like you know,

617
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: rebuild the military and try this over again, Like they

618
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 1: weren't even able to do the build up in the

619
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: first place. So now that they've had this mass casualties,

620
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: and so much of their equipment loss and all of

621
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 1: this stuff. Like even the idea that they would practically

622
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 1: be able to do this again in some other place,

623
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:48,480
Speaker 1: I think is a little bit simplistic and facile. So

624
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 1: to imagine that, you know, Russia coming away with anything

625
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 1: even like acknowledging them in crime, or like sort of

626
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: de facto allowing them to have crimea that that's going

627
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 1: to ultimately overall institute a win for them, I think

628
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: it's silly. Their economy has crush, their international pariah, their

629
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: own citizens are fleeing. Putin's power as weak as it

630
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 1: has ever been. His regime is legitimately like under threat

631
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 1: to what extent we don't really know, but there's no

632
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: doubt that this has created a lot of domestic turmoil

633
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 1: and instability for him. So this has not gone well.

634
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: There is no country with any sort of sane rationality

635
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 1: that would look at the situation and be like, that

636
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: was great for them, and I would love to repeat

637
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: what they just did, So I think that's really important

638
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 1: to keep in mind. The other piece of this, that

639
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 1: again I think is a little bit facile, is to

640
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: pretend like you can just hand wave away nuclear weapons

641
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: and like, we don't negotiate with terrors. This is the

642
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 1: reality of a nuclear armed world. Now, if you don't

643
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: like that, and I don't, then the thing to do

644
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: is to work to not have a nuclear armed world.

645
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: But we have to live in the world as it

646
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 1: exists today. Yes, of course, our reaction to this whole

647
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: conflict is going to be shaped by the fact that

648
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 1: Russia has a nuclear trump card. That is just the

649
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,760
Speaker 1: way that it is. So to casually wave that away

650
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 1: with a lot of sloganeering, I think is I think

651
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: if you even dig one layer below that, you see

652
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 1: how quickly that sort of logic ultimately falls apart. Yes,

653
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 1: they have nuclear weapons. We have to factor that in

654
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: because personally, I would like the world and humanity to continue.

655
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 1: And right now we are in the most dangerous situation

656
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: in terms of nuclear escalation we have ever been in

657
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 1: my entire life, and that is something that we have

658
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: to think very carefully about and strategically about, even if

659
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: it means that, you know, at the end of the day,

660
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 1: whenever we do get to a place where there can

661
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 1: be a ceasefire, some sort of diplomacy and some sort

662
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: of negotiated Settlementich is the only way this ultimately ends.

663
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:50,880
Speaker 1: Even if there is some concession to Russia that ultimately

664
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:53,759
Speaker 1: we don't like and the Ukrainians don't like, that is

665
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: a better outcome than nuclear war. I mean to me,

666
00:34:57,400 --> 00:34:59,359
Speaker 1: it's just very simple when you look at it. Yeah,

667
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 1: I think that's right, Crystal. All right, we have one

668
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: more piece here, which is how Ukraine is doing on

669
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 1: the battlefield right now. Let's go ahead and put this

670
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:07,840
Speaker 1: up on the screen. Let's put it up there. This

671
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,919
Speaker 1: is very important. The reason is that we have said

672
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: before that the actual fighting season is beginning to come

673
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 1: to its most critical phase. So officials lawmakers in Ukraine

674
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: are saying that there is one last critical battle that

675
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:25,880
Speaker 1: they have the time for to reclaim any territory, especially

676
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: in the south of the country, before the muddy and

677
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: the fighting season is brought to an end because of

678
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 1: the weather conditions. Again, very time honor tradition when fighting

679
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: in this part of the world in World War Two

680
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: and in World War One and in Napoleon's invasion. The

681
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 1: Ukrainian gains that they've had right now, there are two

682
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 1: things that they need to do. Number One, they need

683
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:47,719
Speaker 1: to fortify their supply lines and hang on to the

684
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:50,239
Speaker 1: territory that they've claimed, too, they need to make sure

685
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:53,320
Speaker 1: that they're not vulnerable to any sort of Russian counter offensive.

686
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 1: Given the state of the Russian forces, I don't think

687
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 1: they have to worry too much about that. But three,

688
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 1: the thing is is that the next month or so

689
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: is going to be the most critical phase of the war.

690
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: Said that too also after the very first successful offensive,

691
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 1: which is they have very limited time to make the

692
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: extensive gains that they have been able to. And it

693
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:18,400
Speaker 1: is during that period of instability of annexation by Putin

694
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:20,839
Speaker 1: where things are going to be most up in the air,

695
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 1: and the risk of nuclear confrontation, of any confrontation with

696
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 1: the West is going to be higher. So anyway, I

697
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: thought it was important that we warned people Crystal that

698
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: right now really is the most critical time. Also really spooky,

699
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 1: not just because it's October. In I think we are

700
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,399
Speaker 1: ten days away from the sixtieth anniversary of the Cuban

701
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: missile crisis, which is crazy. I remember I was like,

702
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:44,760
Speaker 1: wait a second, I was like, the Cuban missile crisis

703
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 1: was an October of nineteen sixty two, so I don't

704
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: know what it is about October, But you know, spooky,

705
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 1: not only because of Halloween and lots of hallmarks of many, many,

706
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 1: many failed campaigns where a lot of people died, not

707
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: on the Ukrainian side, but on all of those who

708
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 1: have ever fought in this part of the world. That

709
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:05,719
Speaker 1: this time of year is when there is just when

710
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:08,720
Speaker 1: there's war in that part of the world, the most death,

711
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 1: the most risk, and the highest risk of confrontation appears

712
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: to be emanating. So we should all be very very

713
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: paying close attention as we move. Most estimates, say like

714
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 1: mid November or so, is whenever things are going to

715
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: turn for the worse in terms of weather conditions. Yeah,

716
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:29,319
Speaker 1: and even as it's unlikely that the Russian mobilization is

717
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,880
Speaker 1: really going to turn the tide in this war, we

718
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: also shouldn't completely rule that out. And so now it's

719
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 1: also the time before all of those new recruits new conscripts,

720
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: are mobilized into the field and trained up and really

721
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: ready to go. So it's another reason why this is

722
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 1: sort of a critical moment for the Ukrainians before winter hits.

723
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: That's right, all right, we have other gigantic world news,

724
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: which is oh back, that's gone, but this up on

725
00:37:55,640 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 1: the screen. Opak Plus has agreed to deep oil product cuts,

726
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: the Biden administration calling it short sighted. They are On Wednesday,

727
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: they decided to curb supply in what writers here describes

728
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: as an already type market, causing one of the biggest

729
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:15,400
Speaker 1: clashes with the West, as the US administration called it

730
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: a surprise decision short sighted. Opex de facto leader Saudi

731
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: Arabia said the cut of two million barrels per day,

732
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 1: equal to two percent of global supply, was necessary to

733
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,400
Speaker 1: respond to rising interest rates in the West in a

734
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 1: weaker global economy. The Kingdom robuffed criticism that they were

735
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 1: colluding with Russia, which is included in that OPEC plus group,

736
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 1: to drive prices higher, and said the West was often

737
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:43,839
Speaker 1: driven by quote wealth arrogance. When criticizing the group, there

738
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:47,279
Speaker 1: are some like technicalities in here that basically they say, well,

739
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: won't really be fully two million barrels per day because

740
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 1: we were already underproducing. But there is no doubt that

741
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,839
Speaker 1: this is a gigantic cut, that it is very very

742
00:38:56,960 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 1: very likely to drive up oil price infact already has,

743
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: and that it is likely to hit your gas prices

744
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 1: at the pump as well. The estimate we have here

745
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 1: from a guy who's an analyst for gas. Body, let's

746
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: go and put this up on the screen. Is that

747
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: it will likely increase US gas prices by fifteen to

748
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 1: thirty cents per gallon. So that is a significant hike

749
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 1: just from the doings of basically this one nation, Saudi Arabia.

750
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: There are I mean, I think it's clear that there

751
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: are three things going on here. Number One, they're looking

752
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: out for their own financial interests. They want oil prices

753
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:34,800
Speaker 1: at one hundred dollars a barrel because they want the

754
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:37,359
Speaker 1: money the money. Number Two, I think they do want

755
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 1: to help Russia be able to avoid those price caps

756
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 1: and be able to continue earning revenue that allows them

757
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: to float their war effort. And number three, they hate

758
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 1: the Biden administration and higher gas prices are terrible for

759
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 1: him in terms of the midterms. So, I mean, you

760
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:57,760
Speaker 1: want to talk about like election interference, forget about Russian

761
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:02,640
Speaker 1: Facebook memes. This is some direct foreign election interference in

762
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: our midterm elections coming up here. Yeah. No, I mean,

763
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: it's definitely true. It just really is humiliating for Biden

764
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:12,640
Speaker 1: on two levels. One, he went to Riod to go

765
00:40:12,719 --> 00:40:15,920
Speaker 1: kiss MBS's ass, and MBS was still like, nah, dude,

766
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 1: that's not going to happen. They called at Riodd apparently

767
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,400
Speaker 1: Secretary of State, the highest levels of the administration. They

768
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:27,239
Speaker 1: were like, do not do this publicly asking them not

769
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:29,400
Speaker 1: to do it. What's even more of a betrayal is

770
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: not only the Saudis, is the UAE, who also depends

771
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: on us for a tremendous amount of weapons, economic aid,

772
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,399
Speaker 1: supposedly great friends and allies. And they were like, yeah,

773
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:41,799
Speaker 1: we're going with the Saudis and the Russians on this.

774
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: One Number one is greed, but two we clearly they

775
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 1: don't listen to us. I mean, this is there is

776
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 1: no other way to describe it as just a completely

777
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 1: one sided relationship. We give them security and hundreds hundreds

778
00:40:57,560 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: of billions of dollars in weapons, and then they do

779
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: whatever they want, whatever they want. They clearly do not

780
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:06,759
Speaker 1: think rightfully that the Biden administration will do anything to them,

781
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 1: And I think I don't think that they're really all

782
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:11,319
Speaker 1: that incorrect. Really, I think I don't think we can

783
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: overstate this beyond impact here, which is, yeah, like we said,

784
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:16,720
Speaker 1: fifteen thirty cents a gallon, I'm not going to diminish

785
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:19,399
Speaker 1: that that's terrible. That's actually high, and that also leaves

786
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 1: us one refinery shock away from five dollars gas again

787
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: in this country, So don't estimate that. In fact, let's

788
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: take a look. So national gas price right now is

789
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: three hundred and eighty six three dollars and eighty six

790
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,760
Speaker 1: dollars a gallon. California is at six forty, but apparently

791
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: it's going to go down spot futures there looking like

792
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: it will normalize around five. The point being though, which

793
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,319
Speaker 1: is that if gas across the country goes up by

794
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 1: thirty cents, congratulations, the entire country's over four again, which

795
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: I don't think is a win at all. And you know,

796
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 1: it leaves you one supply shock away, one hurricane away

797
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 1: from having five dollars gas, maybe even six seven dollars

798
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 1: gas in California. Put that on the line. The other

799
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: thing is is that put this on the screen, which

800
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: is that Opek just dealt a serious blow crystal to

801
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,960
Speaker 1: the EU plan to try and put a cap on

802
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 1: Russian oil. Now, we talked about why that cap is

803
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 1: pretty much dumb in the first place. Wasn't really going

804
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 1: to do anything but by reducing the supply, the EU

805
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:16,840
Speaker 1: price cap, which was on Thursday. Actually, right today is

806
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,839
Speaker 1: supposed to get voted on the final package that the

807
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,960
Speaker 1: entire block could agree to. That price cap no longer

808
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 1: makes any sense whenever you're going to cut some production

809
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: back even more and the price cap will be out

810
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:30,759
Speaker 1: of step even more so with the market price than

811
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 1: it already was. And if they do go ahead with it, hey,

812
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: the Russians will be like, Okay, we're just not going

813
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:38,719
Speaker 1: to sell you all that much, and you're just going

814
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:40,799
Speaker 1: to make the Chinese and the Indians who are still

815
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: buying it a market discount, but you know, still paying

816
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:45,399
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of money. They're going to get an

817
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 1: even better deal on Russian oil than ever before. Well,

818
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,320
Speaker 1: I mean that's so the price cap thing was always

819
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 1: a little bit difficult to imagine that it was going

820
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:56,920
Speaker 1: to work out anyway, and now this makes it so

821
00:42:57,040 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 1: much less likely. You really need China and India to

822
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:01,719
Speaker 1: go along with it in order for it to actually

823
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 1: really work out, and now that looks like it's not

824
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 1: going to happen, and it makes it much much much

825
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:11,280
Speaker 1: less likely that India and China are going to subject

826
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: themselves to that. So yeah, I mean, Opek blew up

827
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:19,440
Speaker 1: the price cap idea, they are blowing up Biden's midterm chances,

828
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: they are enriching themselves and just completely thumbing their nose

829
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:26,920
Speaker 1: at the Biden administration. And you know, not to do

830
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: a victory dance here, but we've been saying all along

831
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: that this was a foolish way for the Biden administration

832
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 1: to try to deal with Saudi Arabia, and you know

833
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: clearly that has ultimately borne out. You also have, at

834
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: the same time, you know, some political response here at home.

835
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: We'll get to the Biden administration's response, which was actually

836
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 1: very interesting and seemed to signal that they may be

837
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 1: shifting more to the tactics that we've been advocating for

838
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:54,720
Speaker 1: from the beginning. But you had Congress and Rokana coming

839
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: out really strong with some comments about just what he

840
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: thought of the Saudi and what they're doing here and

841
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: how we should respond. Let's go ahead and put this

842
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 1: up on the screen, he says in an interview with CNN,

843
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:10,759
Speaker 1: who do they think they are? Slams Saudi Arabia as

844
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 1: a third rate power and calls for the president to

845
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:16,759
Speaker 1: retaliate if OPEK slashes oil production, which of course they

846
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 1: just did by cutting off Saudi access to aviation parts,

847
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 1: Raytheon and Boeing. Let me just read you a little

848
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:26,760
Speaker 1: bit more of what he says here. He says, it's outrageous.

849
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 1: The Saudis need to be dealt with harshly. They are

850
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,280
Speaker 1: a third rate power. We are the most powerful country

851
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 1: in the world. I do not know why we count

852
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 1: out of them. He called on the President to make

853
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: it clear to the Saudis that the US will cut

854
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:43,360
Speaker 1: off the kingdom's aviation parts supply and prevent Raytheon and

855
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:47,239
Speaker 1: going from selling to them. Quote, they are not our allies.

856
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: They are hurting the American people and we need to

857
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: be tough with them. The President needs to make it

858
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:56,480
Speaker 1: clear we will cut off their supply. We could ground

859
00:44:56,640 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: their air force in a day. True at this At

860
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:03,839
Speaker 1: the same time, Senator Chris Murphy also is calling for

861
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: who has long been a critic also of Saudi in

862
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:09,719
Speaker 1: our relationship with them. He is calling for a wholesale

863
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 1: rethink of our relationship. Let's take a listen. I think

864
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: it is a mistake on their part, and I think

865
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: it's time for a wholesale, real reevaluation of the US

866
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 1: alliance with Saudi Arabia. What's the point of looking the

867
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:29,880
Speaker 1: other way as the Saudi's chop up journalists repress political

868
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 1: speech inside Saudi Arabia If when the ships are down,

869
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:37,400
Speaker 1: the Saudis effectively choose the Russians instead of the United States.

870
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:40,919
Speaker 1: I mean, to me, the thing that Rokanna said, which

871
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 1: was so clear, is they are not our allies. Like

872
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: that is so clear. So what are we doing propping

873
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 1: up their atrocities in Yemen and propping them up wholesale

874
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 1: like this is complete insanity at this point, and it

875
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: should absolutely end. I think they're both absolutely correct, of course.

876
00:45:57,880 --> 00:45:59,480
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been waiting a long time to hear

877
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 1: at Congress and say anything like that. And just to

878
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 1: give people some clarity, the United States has promised Saudi

879
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:07,920
Speaker 1: Arabia over one hundred billion dollars in weapons over five years.

880
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia purchases twenty five percent of all arms produced

881
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 1: in the United States. They are entirely reliant on US

882
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 1: for military advisors, economically at the management level. Look, I've

883
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 1: said before I lived in the Gulf. These people can't

884
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:25,040
Speaker 1: even run their own countries without US if we wanted to,

885
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: So that gives US a tremendous amount of leverage. If

886
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:30,319
Speaker 1: we want to use it. We just don't use it,

887
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,359
Speaker 1: I guess because we're too addicted to the money and

888
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:36,920
Speaker 1: if you know, willing to get slapped around. As Chris

889
00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:39,840
Speaker 1: Murphy said, even when the chips are down, they side

890
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 1: with Russia. They're like, oh, we'll help Russia out. Absolutely,

891
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 1: you know it helps it. Helping Russia also helps their

892
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:48,239
Speaker 1: own pocket books. But the Saudis and the UAE, just

893
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:52,440
Speaker 1: so people know, have been making a killing off of Russia.

894
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: Here's why they buy Russian oil. They burn it for

895
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: domestic capacity, and then they sell us all the oil

896
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:01,239
Speaker 1: they can pump out of their ground US so we

897
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,239
Speaker 1: pay a high price, and on the arbitrage they're making

898
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:07,840
Speaker 1: an absolute killing. Apparently in Sharjah and some of the

899
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 1: other ports in the UAE, they're taking the Russian oil,

900
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 1: mixing it up, putting a fake label on it, and

901
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:15,840
Speaker 1: then they just sell it to the entire world market.

902
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,720
Speaker 1: Everybody's making a cut. The Russians getting money, the UAE

903
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:21,279
Speaker 1: is making money. Only people getting ripped off are the

904
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: people in this country. And in California paying six dollars

905
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:27,000
Speaker 1: and forty cents a Gale by the way. But of course,

906
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 1: but I'm saying, the average consumer in the West is

907
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 1: getting ripped off when all of these guys are making

908
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: an absolute killing, And it just bears the question of like,

909
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 1: what's the point of this alliance? It reminds me of

910
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 1: what I was talking about in the Ukraine block. I'm like,

911
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 1: what kind of country are you when you get somebody

912
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars and then they don't tell

913
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:48,320
Speaker 1: you what they're doing, and they also put you in danger.

914
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 1: And then like Saudi hundreds of billions of dollars, right,

915
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 1: and then they don't tell they don't go against you

916
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 1: and publicly slap you on the World States first. I mean,

917
00:47:57,320 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 1: that's what it ultimately is. And so the bidom Ininistration

918
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: did put out a response, and it has one paragraph

919
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: in here that's noteworthy, in particular that Jeff Stein picked

920
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: up on let's go and put this up on the screen.

921
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 1: So in the White House response he says, key paragraph

922
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: here in the statements suggests maybe us interest in exploring nopeck,

923
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 1: I'll explain that what that is in a minute, or

924
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:20,760
Speaker 1: repealing sovereign immunity from anti trust legislation that protects OPEC

925
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 1: producers who manipulate energy prices would be a huge response.

926
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 1: So NOPECK is a bill that actually could open OPEC

927
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: producers up to antitrust lawsuits. Right now, they're immune from that.

928
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 1: So basically that would sort of take the gloves off

929
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:37,279
Speaker 1: and allow us to sue OPEC producers directly, and that

930
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:39,280
Speaker 1: would be you know, that would be quite a shift

931
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:41,480
Speaker 1: in terms of response. Jef Stein calls it a big

932
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 1: response here, and let me actually pull up the paragraph

933
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:48,440
Speaker 1: because you know, it's it's sort of like coded diplomatic

934
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 1: language that you have to read into in order to

935
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 1: see what he's talking about. But what they say is,

936
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:56,760
Speaker 1: in light of today's action, the Biden administration will also

937
00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:01,560
Speaker 1: consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce

938
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: ope's control over energy prices. So what Jeff is reading

939
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:07,720
Speaker 1: into that, I think correctly, is sort of like holding

940
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 1: out the threat of moving forward with this bill called

941
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 1: NOPECK that would open them up to anti trust legislation.

942
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the to me, the response

943
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:21,399
Speaker 1: should be exactly what Rocanna says, like, Okay, well, then

944
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 1: good luck with supporting your military. We're done, We're out

945
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 1: of here enjoy that we should move forward with no

946
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: pack and you know, open them up to anti trust lawsuits.

947
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:33,840
Speaker 1: We also should do the deal with Iran and do

948
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:36,399
Speaker 1: the deal with Venezuela as well, which actually there's news

949
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: on this morning. Yeah, I'm a big news on that front.

950
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:40,760
Speaker 1: I totally agree. I mean, at the same time, Crystal,

951
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:42,759
Speaker 1: I'm not going to hold my breath. There's no way

952
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:44,719
Speaker 1: they're going to do this. I just I think that

953
00:49:44,719 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 1: the Saudis have such a tremendous hole the Biden administration.

954
00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 1: They talked a big game, they still went to riod

955
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 1: and now they've been slapped in the face. Will they

956
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:55,839
Speaker 1: learn history says probably not. Well, continue the last piece

957
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:58,839
Speaker 1: before we move on to news regarding to Venezuela is

958
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 1: you know the US public would support them. They should

959
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:04,719
Speaker 1: decide to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Let's go

960
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:06,279
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen. Now. This is

961
00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:09,640
Speaker 1: from a fairly hawkish outfit, which I think actually is interesting.

962
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:12,319
Speaker 1: So when survey takers were asked if the US should

963
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:15,360
Speaker 1: continue its sale of weapons to Saudi more than two

964
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:20,800
Speaker 1: thirds responded negatively. Although most Democratic and Republican respondents oppose

965
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 1: the continuation of ARM sales to Saudi Arabia. Democratic oppositions

966
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:27,400
Speaker 1: more pronounced nearly three quarters of Democrats, so it was

967
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 1: Biden's own party opposed ARM sales three quarters to Saudi Arabia.

968
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 1: Thirty eight percent somewhat disagree, thirty seven percent strongly disagree,

969
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:37,719
Speaker 1: roughly twenty eight percent of Republicans somewhat disagree, and roughly

970
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:41,600
Speaker 1: thirty four percent strongly disagree. So you have bipartisan support

971
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:44,360
Speaker 1: among the population for this policy. This is a holy,

972
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:49,719
Speaker 1: holy mainstream view everywhere except this little beltway circle that

973
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:51,919
Speaker 1: we live in right here. Yeah, of course, I mean,

974
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 1: anybody who's normal would hear what we just said about

975
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:57,200
Speaker 1: any of these countries who take us money and then

976
00:50:57,239 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 1: do whatever they want. They're like, well, why do we

977
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:02,279
Speaker 1: give them money? What do we instead? In Washington? They're

978
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,280
Speaker 1: like no, but you don't understand, Like what about Iran

979
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:07,879
Speaker 1: And we're about to talk about Iran? Yeah, what about this?

980
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:10,880
Speaker 1: And you know, norms and all most people aren't stupid,

981
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 1: like they know whenever somebody's getting taken advantage of, and

982
00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 1: that's clearly exactly what's happening. And meanwhile, Jackson, Mississippi doesn't

983
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: have clean drinking water. Ports. Okay, so let's get to

984
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 1: this piece on Venezuela. Now, we brought you the news

985
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:23,759
Speaker 1: the other day which I thought was quite noteworthy that

986
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:27,279
Speaker 1: we actually had this prisoner exchange, which was you know,

987
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 1: it was some of our oil executives and it was

988
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 1: some of Maduro's actually like relatives. So this seemed pretty

989
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:35,879
Speaker 1: noteworthy in a step four in the relationship. We wondered

990
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,239
Speaker 1: if it had further significance. Apparently it did. Let's put

991
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 1: this up on the screens in the Wall Street Journal.

992
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:45,000
Speaker 1: US looks to ease Venezuela sanctions, enabling Chevron to pump oil.

993
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: The proposed deal would require Crocus to open talks with

994
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:51,360
Speaker 1: political opponents with the aim of free elections in twenty

995
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: twenty four. Let me read you a little bit of this.

996
00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 1: They say, in exchange for the significant sanctions relief, the

997
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 1: government of Venezuela and President Nicolas Madora Moduro would resume

998
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:04,359
Speaker 1: long suspended talks with the country's opposition to discuss conditions

999
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:07,320
Speaker 1: needed to hold free and fair presential elections in twenty

1000
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:11,360
Speaker 1: twenty four. People with knowledge said the US, Venezuela's government

1001
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:14,600
Speaker 1: and some Venezuelan opposition figures have also worked on a

1002
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 1: deal that would free up hundreds of millions of dollars

1003
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 1: in Venezuela and state funds frozen in American banks to

1004
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:22,680
Speaker 1: pay for imports of food, medicine, and equipment for the

1005
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: country's battered electricity grid and municipal water systems. Any shift

1006
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: in US policy that brings back Western oil companies would

1007
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:33,960
Speaker 1: send a psychological signal to the market that more supply

1008
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:37,799
Speaker 1: is on the way. One analyst said, so, I think

1009
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:40,319
Speaker 1: some of the wording here is really important because I

1010
00:52:40,320 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: saw a headline that was like sanctions relief in exchange

1011
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:45,920
Speaker 1: for free and fair elections, and I was like, I

1012
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 1: can't imagine that free and fair elections are actually going

1013
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 1: to happen here, nor do I think. I mean, we're

1014
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:53,120
Speaker 1: not demanding the Saudi's have free and fair elections now,

1015
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:54,719
Speaker 1: are we. So though, it's not like this is an

1016
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 1: even handed approach, but the language here is they're going

1017
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 1: to reopen talks with the opposition. So that to me

1018
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:05,800
Speaker 1: seems like a you know, there's a significant distinction between

1019
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:07,560
Speaker 1: all right, we just have to reopen the talks and

1020
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: we're actually going to have free and fair elections. I mean,

1021
00:53:09,520 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: you know, we've been long advocating here they should do

1022
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:14,400
Speaker 1: this deal. It has limitations in terms of what it

1023
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 1: will actually do in terms of oil supply. The infrastructure

1024
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 1: here is sort of decayed and degraded. The amount of

1025
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 1: oil that would actually come on the market is somewhat

1026
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:25,720
Speaker 1: in doubt. But what they're pointing to is the fact

1027
00:53:25,719 --> 00:53:28,080
Speaker 1: that it's really important to keep in mind with regard

1028
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:30,920
Speaker 1: to the oil market and all kinds of commodity markets,

1029
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:34,920
Speaker 1: that it's not just this basic economic syle. Here's the

1030
00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 1: supply and here's the demand, and that's the price. The

1031
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:42,520
Speaker 1: price is really determined based on what speculators think that

1032
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: the price is going to be, and even beyond that,

1033
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:49,319
Speaker 1: what speculators think other speculators are going to think the

1034
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 1: price is going to be. And so that's why even

1035
00:53:51,680 --> 00:53:54,320
Speaker 1: something like this, when they talk about a psychological signal,

1036
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:56,399
Speaker 1: and a lot of this is algorithmically driven to it's

1037
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 1: not even like human beings thinking about this. There's an

1038
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:02,319
Speaker 1: anticipate that it will have some sort of impact on

1039
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 1: other speculators. So there are bests put in that regard

1040
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:07,960
Speaker 1: that can help ease the pressure on prices ultimately. So

1041
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 1: that's what they're looking at. You yeah. I mean I

1042
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:11,840
Speaker 1: think it's a look as you said, which is that

1043
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: the idea that we're supposed to buy oil only from

1044
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:17,840
Speaker 1: good countries is ludicrous. I mean, I don't know why

1045
00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:20,919
Speaker 1: a barbarous regime which cuts people's heads off is any

1046
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:24,320
Speaker 1: better or worse than a communist regime which is ruined

1047
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 1: a once prosperous country. I don't know. I don't particularly care.

1048
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 1: I just want some oil that's cheap, and beyond that,

1049
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:31,120
Speaker 1: I want to get to a place where we don't

1050
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:32,759
Speaker 1: have to buy oil from any of these places, just

1051
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 1: so we never have to be put in this position.

1052
00:54:34,680 --> 00:54:36,799
Speaker 1: But if we're going to have so much hypocrisy in

1053
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:39,680
Speaker 1: our oil markets and more, we might as well just say, hey,

1054
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 1: we'll buy it from anybody. We've got an enemy over here,

1055
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 1: we might as well buy some Venezuela and oil. The

1056
00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:45,960
Speaker 1: fact that it took so long, he's also just so

1057
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:48,360
Speaker 1: absurd and just shows you why the US political system

1058
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:51,439
Speaker 1: is so rotted with brain worms. Nobody squeaks a word

1059
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 1: when MBS is what he is and we buy oil

1060
00:54:54,560 --> 00:54:56,880
Speaker 1: from him. But you know, buying oil from Venezuela is

1061
00:54:56,880 --> 00:54:59,680
Speaker 1: like the most objectionable thing on the planet. I mean,

1062
00:54:59,719 --> 00:55:02,799
Speaker 1: I also I do want to say, like the sanctions

1063
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:06,920
Speaker 1: that the Trump administration imposed have been brutally devastating for

1064
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:09,839
Speaker 1: the like human beings who live in Venezuela. I mean,

1065
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 1: the economy was already for a variety of reasons, and

1066
00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: in particular the fact that the that oil prices had

1067
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:21,839
Speaker 1: gone down so significantly during COVID, which meant that you know,

1068
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:24,479
Speaker 1: the money that the Venezuelan government really relies on sort

1069
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:26,799
Speaker 1: of dried up, and then they're hit with sanctions on

1070
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 1: top of that, and that just caused really total economic collapse,

1071
00:55:31,160 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 1: and not without like even if you're like, well I

1072
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:35,480
Speaker 1: don't give a shit about them, it's not us. You know,

1073
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:38,439
Speaker 1: it has a lot of domestic political reverberations here as well,

1074
00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 1: because obviously we've seen a huge flood of migrants coming

1075
00:55:41,600 --> 00:55:46,440
Speaker 1: from Venezuela because of that economic fallout. So in my opinion,

1076
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 1: even you know, beyond the oil situation, which is obviously

1077
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:52,680
Speaker 1: significant in terms of gas prices you pay at the pump, like,

1078
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 1: there is a real humanitarian justification for finding ways to

1079
00:55:57,000 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 1: ease these sanctions which have been absolutely devast statingly brutal

1080
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:04,040
Speaker 1: on those populations. Also sort of like how like kind

1081
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 1: of destabilize some of the surrounding countries there as well.

1082
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:09,440
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I hope it moves speedily and it

1083
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:11,920
Speaker 1: actually gets going. I think it'd probably be good for

1084
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,280
Speaker 1: everybody if that were to be the case. Will Washington

1085
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,800
Speaker 1: sabotage it? Probably? Honestly, like we're at a decent place.

1086
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 1: But as you said on infrastructure, there's a long way

1087
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:22,560
Speaker 1: to go before any oil actually starts shipping out of

1088
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:25,360
Speaker 1: that country, you know, even for Chevron to resume drilling

1089
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:28,360
Speaker 1: operations and more. You we've talked about how refinery capacity

1090
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:31,640
Speaker 1: is low, how actually Venezuela and oil is difficult to refine.

1091
00:56:32,080 --> 00:56:34,839
Speaker 1: This stuff takes years and years to build. So we're

1092
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 1: not out of the woods in any way. But this

1093
00:56:36,719 --> 00:56:38,839
Speaker 1: is the type of creative diplomacy which I still will

1094
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:41,640
Speaker 1: support from the Biden ministry. I mean, even if you're

1095
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:44,359
Speaker 1: just looking at purely our interests, do the deal with them,

1096
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 1: do the deal with iron, say fuck you to the Saudist.

1097
00:56:47,200 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 1: And that's to meet her off the clear path word

1098
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:56,239
Speaker 1: right now. So let's talk about her on because there

1099
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:57,880
Speaker 1: is clearly a lot going on there. We wanted to

1100
00:56:57,920 --> 00:56:59,719
Speaker 1: keep our eye on the protest obviously got doctor Tree

1101
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:02,479
Speaker 1: to part on to break down what was happening there

1102
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:04,959
Speaker 1: and how widespread they were. You know, this started all

1103
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:07,719
Speaker 1: because of a young woman who was accused of like

1104
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:11,839
Speaker 1: not wearing her job properly by the morality police, which

1105
00:57:11,960 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 1: like just pause for a second and think of the

1106
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:17,480
Speaker 1: insanity that such a thing even exist. Died in their custody.

1107
00:57:17,960 --> 00:57:20,160
Speaker 1: You know, the family really believes that she was basically

1108
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: beaten to death. They deny it, but you take that

1109
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:25,520
Speaker 1: for what it's worth. So those protests continual leants go

1110
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen. They truly are

1111
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:32,200
Speaker 1: you know, nationwide. They're concentrated in urban centers, no doubt

1112
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:34,680
Speaker 1: about it. Protests, you know, movements often are. But you

1113
00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 1: have a top Iranian official here warning that protests could

1114
00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:40,200
Speaker 1: destabilize the country. I think that's basically being used as

1115
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:43,560
Speaker 1: a justification for what has been a brutal crackdown. You've

1116
00:57:43,560 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 1: had estimates vary, but I've seen at least fifty deaths

1117
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 1: in these protests. Fifty people killed in these protests. Aron's

1118
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:55,280
Speaker 1: parliamentary speaker warn Sunday the protests over the death of

1119
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:57,880
Speaker 1: a young woman of police custody could destabilize the country

1120
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:01,080
Speaker 1: and urged security forces to deal harsh with those he

1121
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:05,280
Speaker 1: claimed in danger public order. As countrywide unrest entered its

1122
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:08,280
Speaker 1: third week, posts on social media show they were scattered

1123
00:58:08,280 --> 00:58:11,080
Speaker 1: anti government protests in Tehran and running clashes with security

1124
00:58:11,160 --> 00:58:14,600
Speaker 1: forces in other towns. Sunday, Iranian State TV has reported

1125
00:58:14,600 --> 00:58:16,919
Speaker 1: at least forty one protesters and police have been killed

1126
00:58:16,920 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 1: since the demonstrations began September seventeenth. An AP count of

1127
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:23,480
Speaker 1: official statements by authorities tallied at least fourteen dead, with

1128
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:26,920
Speaker 1: more than fifteen hundred demonstrators arrested. Again, talies vary because

1129
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:29,440
Speaker 1: other numbers I saw set at least fifty. So there's

1130
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:35,840
Speaker 1: clearly been like significant loss of life here among protesters mostly,

1131
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:39,320
Speaker 1: but also among some police officers. Now, there's a few

1132
00:58:39,320 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 1: things to say about this. One thing that I think

1133
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:46,520
Speaker 1: is remarkable, Sager and noteworthy here is that this started

1134
00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:50,360
Speaker 1: with the Iranian middle class, which has been you know,

1135
00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:55,080
Speaker 1: sort of economically devastated over the past number of years.

1136
00:58:55,400 --> 00:59:01,080
Speaker 1: But it has truly spread across class groups, rural and

1137
00:59:01,240 --> 00:59:04,480
Speaker 1: urban centers, and also among ethnic groups. And all of

1138
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:07,960
Speaker 1: that is quite remarkable, obviously because of the circumstances that

1139
00:59:08,040 --> 00:59:10,600
Speaker 1: sort of kick these protests off. They've also really centered

1140
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:13,240
Speaker 1: women and been led in large part by women, and

1141
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:16,160
Speaker 1: I think it's really noteworthy that they've continued as long

1142
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:20,840
Speaker 1: as they have, even in spite of this clearly brutal crackdown.

1143
00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:23,120
Speaker 1: The other piece of context we wanted to put up

1144
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:25,920
Speaker 1: here that I thought was interesting breakdown from Let's go

1145
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 1: and put the Wall Street Journal piece up on the screen. Here,

1146
00:59:28,240 --> 00:59:32,120
Speaker 1: they say Iran's crippled economy sustains protests after religious police

1147
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:34,520
Speaker 1: lit flame, the country's middle class is shrinking for the

1148
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:38,720
Speaker 1: first time in decades, and US sanctions corruption and amid

1149
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:43,960
Speaker 1: US sanctions, corruption and economic mismanagement. You know, they interviewed

1150
00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 1: some folks who are directly involved in the protest. They

1151
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:49,720
Speaker 1: talked to a fifty two year old homemaker who's been

1152
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:53,320
Speaker 1: protesting in Tehran, taking off her job, waiving it with

1153
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:55,800
Speaker 1: crowds of other women, and she says, the roots of

1154
00:59:55,840 --> 00:59:58,680
Speaker 1: these protests is the economic problems. And you now see

1155
00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 1: the eruption. She and her husband, who are small food

1156
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:04,280
Speaker 1: business owner of run out of savings and inflation threatens

1157
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 1: their middle class lifestyle. They once own several properties, but

1158
01:00:07,600 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 1: they've had to sell them to raise cash. She says

1159
01:00:10,760 --> 01:00:12,720
Speaker 1: she used to buy a new car every two years,

1160
01:00:12,720 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 1: trading the old model for a new one. She recently

1161
01:00:14,880 --> 01:00:17,600
Speaker 1: had to sell her only car for cash to pay

1162
01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:21,000
Speaker 1: off loans. Some of the numbers underscoring this, the middle

1163
01:00:21,040 --> 01:00:26,000
Speaker 1: class is under pressure from fifty percent inflation. Think about that,

1164
01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:29,400
Speaker 1: fifty percent inflation, a currency that failed to the lowest

1165
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:32,120
Speaker 1: levels ever this year. That means anything you import is

1166
01:00:32,160 --> 01:00:34,640
Speaker 1: going to be way, way, way more expensive. That continues

1167
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:37,520
Speaker 1: to feed that fifty percent inflation. Today, more than a

1168
01:00:37,560 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 1: third of around lives in poverty compared with twenty percent

1169
01:00:40,160 --> 01:00:42,120
Speaker 1: just in twenty fifteen, and the middle class has shrunk

1170
01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:44,640
Speaker 1: to comprise less than half the country. And that is

1171
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:47,560
Speaker 1: the stunning reversal. As well. The Iranian middle class has

1172
01:00:47,600 --> 01:00:49,640
Speaker 1: been sort of like famously robust for a long time.

1173
01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 1: Of course, I mean, I think that that's actually very noteworthy,

1174
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:54,480
Speaker 1: which is that at the same time that you are

1175
01:00:54,680 --> 01:00:58,000
Speaker 1: getting crippled economically, it's like you have somebody getting beaten,

1176
01:00:58,480 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 1: possibly to death by this so called morality, and you're

1177
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:03,600
Speaker 1: just like, okay, log, what's the whole point? You know,

1178
01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:06,080
Speaker 1: with a lot of these types of regimes. That guarantee

1179
01:01:06,120 --> 01:01:07,600
Speaker 1: is always, Yeah, you might have to live with some

1180
01:01:07,640 --> 01:01:10,320
Speaker 1: of our crazy stuff that the you know, the more

1181
01:01:10,480 --> 01:01:13,600
Speaker 1: religious people support, but you'll be allowed to make money

1182
01:01:13,640 --> 01:01:15,920
Speaker 1: and you'll be probably you're we're gonna have good schools,

1183
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 1: you're gonna have good health care, you're going to be

1184
01:01:17,800 --> 01:01:19,880
Speaker 1: able to come with doctor or a lawyer, and you're

1185
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:22,040
Speaker 1: gonna have a stability for your family. There's a complicated

1186
01:01:22,040 --> 01:01:23,760
Speaker 1: People are like, well, you know, I'm not a lover

1187
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:26,080
Speaker 1: of the regime, but I'm doing fine. It's like, well,

1188
01:01:26,120 --> 01:01:29,520
Speaker 1: if you're not doing fine and you're getting oppressed, you're like, well,

1189
01:01:29,560 --> 01:01:31,479
Speaker 1: why should I have to put up with this at all?

1190
01:01:31,520 --> 01:01:33,520
Speaker 1: And you have two things that happen here too. I mean,

1191
01:01:33,560 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 1: you have this total economic collapse, which is partly global economy,

1192
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:40,680
Speaker 1: partly US sanctions, and partly because of you know, decisions

1193
01:01:40,720 --> 01:01:44,720
Speaker 1: of the Iranian government themselves. Then you have a new

1194
01:01:44,800 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 1: hardline president. So you know, whereas previously, you know, women

1195
01:01:49,640 --> 01:01:51,360
Speaker 1: could kind of wear their hood job. This is my

1196
01:01:51,440 --> 01:01:54,120
Speaker 1: understanding based on the reporting, however, they want now you're

1197
01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:59,120
Speaker 1: to have this like harder line morality, police crackdown. And

1198
01:01:59,200 --> 01:02:02,240
Speaker 1: so when you couple those things together, yeah, you're like,

1199
01:02:02,520 --> 01:02:04,640
Speaker 1: what the hell what am I getting out of this deal?

1200
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:07,160
Speaker 1: This is this is a nightmare. It's an economic nightmare,

1201
01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:10,000
Speaker 1: and it's like a sort of like social cultural nightmare

1202
01:02:10,040 --> 01:02:13,680
Speaker 1: as well. And the level of like violence and brutality

1203
01:02:13,760 --> 01:02:15,520
Speaker 1: and all of that, so you can see how that

1204
01:02:15,560 --> 01:02:17,640
Speaker 1: would lead to it being a powder keg we have.

1205
01:02:17,840 --> 01:02:20,240
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this show this little bit of

1206
01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:23,960
Speaker 1: footage here. These are girls who this is actually speaker

1207
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:30,560
Speaker 1: from the IRGC, their paramilitary and the tweet that accompanied

1208
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:33,360
Speaker 1: this video. Here all these girls who took off their

1209
01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 1: had job and they're waving at him and they're screaming

1210
01:02:35,240 --> 01:02:37,880
Speaker 1: at him basically to go home, go away, they say,

1211
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:42,000
Speaker 1: get lost. So this is at at an all girls school,

1212
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:45,120
Speaker 1: and it's just one example of the type of protests,

1213
01:02:45,240 --> 01:02:48,360
Speaker 1: quite courageous in fact, that have been going on around

1214
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 1: the country. And you know, I know it's a little

1215
01:02:50,320 --> 01:02:53,840
Speaker 1: complicated because Iran is one of the like official bad

1216
01:02:53,880 --> 01:02:57,680
Speaker 1: guy regimes of US government, and so there's also always

1217
01:02:58,360 --> 01:03:01,160
Speaker 1: always a speculation of like, are you know, as the

1218
01:03:01,200 --> 01:03:05,320
Speaker 1: CIA involved in like creating this discontent and all of

1219
01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:07,520
Speaker 1: these things, But it seems pretty clear this was a

1220
01:03:07,680 --> 01:03:11,240
Speaker 1: very organic movement that the fuse was lit by this

1221
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:14,280
Speaker 1: event of police violence, that you know, there was already

1222
01:03:14,320 --> 01:03:16,920
Speaker 1: all this like economic discontent and kindling there. And the

1223
01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:18,680
Speaker 1: last thing I want to say is I do see

1224
01:03:18,680 --> 01:03:20,960
Speaker 1: some people who are like, I'll see, this justifies the sanctions.

1225
01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:23,200
Speaker 1: This is what we wanted to get, And I think

1226
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:26,320
Speaker 1: that's absurd, Like it's immoral to punish a population and

1227
01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:28,400
Speaker 1: try to strangle them with the hope of like maybe

1228
01:03:28,440 --> 01:03:30,240
Speaker 1: they'll rise up and get rid of the regime. Yeah.

1229
01:03:30,240 --> 01:03:31,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think there's much else to say

1230
01:03:31,680 --> 01:03:33,400
Speaker 1: except like I wish them the best and I hope

1231
01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:37,000
Speaker 1: it leads to some societal change in Iran. You know, look,

1232
01:03:37,040 --> 01:03:38,680
Speaker 1: I mean they've got long odds. I think we got

1233
01:03:38,720 --> 01:03:40,680
Speaker 1: to be really clear. Yeah, we should be honest, which

1234
01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:42,680
Speaker 1: is that at the end of the day, the Iranian

1235
01:03:42,720 --> 01:03:45,680
Speaker 1: regime has been willing to use deadly force to a

1236
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:49,000
Speaker 1: historic degree in order to have its preservation. Kind of

1237
01:03:49,000 --> 01:03:52,800
Speaker 1: a long standing tradition with authoritarian governments. That being said,

1238
01:03:52,840 --> 01:03:55,000
Speaker 1: you know, it works until it doesn't work. So maybe

1239
01:03:55,240 --> 01:03:57,760
Speaker 1: this is the one case. I have my doubts. It's

1240
01:03:57,760 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 1: been going on for a long time, but it is

1241
01:03:59,680 --> 01:04:03,360
Speaker 1: import that we understand like what exactly is being protested

1242
01:04:03,800 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 1: over there, And I don't live in Iran, I don't

1243
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:09,520
Speaker 1: know how widespread it actually is. From what is leaking

1244
01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:12,480
Speaker 1: out and what is being brought attention to, it seems

1245
01:04:12,520 --> 01:04:15,720
Speaker 1: like some portion of the public of which we should

1246
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:19,240
Speaker 1: obviously support, you know, in any way that we possibly can.

1247
01:04:19,320 --> 01:04:21,720
Speaker 1: So Yeah, like I said, I wish them the absolute best.

1248
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:25,920
Speaker 1: I've lived in Islamic theocracies before, and it is stifling.

1249
01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 1: It's horrific. I will never forget that. It made me

1250
01:04:29,800 --> 01:04:33,880
Speaker 1: such an appreciator of just our society. Like watching women,

1251
01:04:34,080 --> 01:04:37,520
Speaker 1: you know, completely clad in the nikab walking ten steps

1252
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:40,880
Speaker 1: behind their husbands, and like hearing stories about the way

1253
01:04:40,920 --> 01:04:43,080
Speaker 1: that they're treated at home, and they have no rights.

1254
01:04:43,120 --> 01:04:44,960
Speaker 1: They can't leave the country, you know, just for context,

1255
01:04:45,040 --> 01:04:47,600
Speaker 1: these living katar, I mean, even some of these princesses,

1256
01:04:47,680 --> 01:04:50,760
Speaker 1: like they're wealthy, but they have no they have no authority.

1257
01:04:50,800 --> 01:04:52,680
Speaker 1: They can't even get on a plane with that the

1258
01:04:52,720 --> 01:04:55,880
Speaker 1: permission of their fathers or their husbands, like married off

1259
01:04:55,920 --> 01:04:58,720
Speaker 1: against their will. It really is horrific. I can't even

1260
01:04:58,760 --> 01:05:01,200
Speaker 1: believe that it exists in the year twenty twenty two,

1261
01:05:01,320 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 1: so to the extent that still exists in Iran, which

1262
01:05:03,240 --> 01:05:06,080
Speaker 1: is certainly does with these so called morality police. I

1263
01:05:06,080 --> 01:05:07,800
Speaker 1: wish them the best. I don't think any human being,

1264
01:05:07,880 --> 01:05:10,160
Speaker 1: especially women, deserves to live like yeah, no, I mean

1265
01:05:10,200 --> 01:05:12,160
Speaker 1: there's no doubt about that. And the last piece that

1266
01:05:12,280 --> 01:05:15,240
Speaker 1: I will say, which I mean maybe it's I don't

1267
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:17,400
Speaker 1: know how you feel about me saying it, but it's

1268
01:05:17,440 --> 01:05:20,000
Speaker 1: also bears keeping in mind that, like you know, we

1269
01:05:20,080 --> 01:05:22,240
Speaker 1: had the Arab Spring, there was a lot of hope

1270
01:05:22,280 --> 01:05:24,960
Speaker 1: that you would have these more like reformists, more sort

1271
01:05:24,960 --> 01:05:30,280
Speaker 1: of open, liberal, tolerant democratic regimes, and unfortunately it didn't

1272
01:05:30,320 --> 01:05:34,160
Speaker 1: work out. And you know, you have a situation in

1273
01:05:34,200 --> 01:05:38,360
Speaker 1: Iran where in a previous set of protests several years back,

1274
01:05:38,800 --> 01:05:42,320
Speaker 1: they basically, like forcibly disbanded the labor unions and a

1275
01:05:42,320 --> 01:05:46,000
Speaker 1: lot of the sort of like civil society organizations that

1276
01:05:46,120 --> 01:05:48,840
Speaker 1: could form the bedrock of if you were going to

1277
01:05:48,880 --> 01:05:51,040
Speaker 1: have an actual revolution of new government and all those

1278
01:05:51,040 --> 01:05:53,400
Speaker 1: sorts of things. So that just makes the odds that

1279
01:05:53,520 --> 01:05:56,040
Speaker 1: much more difficult. But we don't want to lose lose

1280
01:05:56,040 --> 01:05:58,320
Speaker 1: sight of their struggle, because you do have people who

1281
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 1: are really you know, courageously fighting right now and for

1282
01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:03,640
Speaker 1: a very just cause, Yeah, I think that's very true. Okay.

1283
01:06:03,680 --> 01:06:06,040
Speaker 1: At the same time, there are doings at Amazon, and

1284
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:08,160
Speaker 1: this is pretty interesting as well. It's going to put

1285
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:11,240
Speaker 1: this up on the screen ironically from a Washington Post

1286
01:06:11,360 --> 01:06:14,000
Speaker 1: reporter who is quite a good labor reporter though, Lauren

1287
01:06:14,080 --> 01:06:18,400
Speaker 1: Gurley for Bezos's papor there. So she says, scoop, Amazon

1288
01:06:18,440 --> 01:06:21,120
Speaker 1: has suspended fifty warehouse workers. The number I saw this

1289
01:06:21,200 --> 01:06:24,920
Speaker 1: morning is actually eighty now and union organizers who participated

1290
01:06:24,960 --> 01:06:28,200
Speaker 1: in a work stoppage last night in Staten Island following

1291
01:06:28,240 --> 01:06:31,040
Speaker 1: a fire. That suspension occurs less than ten days out

1292
01:06:31,080 --> 01:06:34,400
Speaker 1: from a union election at an Amazon warehouse in Albany.

1293
01:06:34,480 --> 01:06:38,200
Speaker 1: She says, so, basically what happened here, this is the

1294
01:06:38,240 --> 01:06:42,000
Speaker 1: warehouse that is now organized, which you know, means that

1295
01:06:42,080 --> 01:06:44,280
Speaker 1: workers have more of a say. Then, they have more

1296
01:06:44,320 --> 01:06:47,040
Speaker 1: power in their workplace, and they feel themselves able to

1297
01:06:47,480 --> 01:06:51,000
Speaker 1: band together and assert their demands for their own like

1298
01:06:51,040 --> 01:06:55,200
Speaker 1: safety and work working conditions. So a fire, a significant

1299
01:06:55,240 --> 01:06:59,160
Speaker 1: fire broke out at a trash compactor, and let's go

1300
01:06:59,160 --> 01:07:02,720
Speaker 1: ahead and show we have Chris Mall's tweeted this this out.

1301
01:07:02,760 --> 01:07:12,360
Speaker 1: Let's take a look. Yeah, so for those of you

1302
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:14,800
Speaker 1: who are just watching. You can see the fire. You

1303
01:07:14,800 --> 01:07:16,880
Speaker 1: can see you know, like the conveyor belts and everything

1304
01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:19,320
Speaker 1: at the Amazon warehouse, and you can see these workers,

1305
01:07:19,360 --> 01:07:21,560
Speaker 1: like you know, freaking out and saying we got to evacuate.

1306
01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:25,680
Speaker 1: They were evacuated. The day shift workers were told they

1307
01:07:25,720 --> 01:07:28,919
Speaker 1: could they could go, and the night shift workers though,

1308
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:31,720
Speaker 1: were told they have to go back to work. These

1309
01:07:31,760 --> 01:07:33,880
Speaker 1: workers did not feel that it was safe. There were

1310
01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:36,320
Speaker 1: a lot of like toxic fumes in the air. They

1311
01:07:36,320 --> 01:07:40,040
Speaker 1: found it very difficult ultimately to breathe, and so let's

1312
01:07:40,080 --> 01:07:41,880
Speaker 1: go and put this next piece up on the screen.

1313
01:07:42,160 --> 01:07:46,439
Speaker 1: So they went forward with a work stoppage. Amazon says

1314
01:07:46,440 --> 01:07:49,200
Speaker 1: it was a small group of workers. Reports say that

1315
01:07:49,360 --> 01:07:51,480
Speaker 1: it was somewhere between one hundred and six hundred and

1316
01:07:51,520 --> 01:07:55,320
Speaker 1: fifty workers who participated in this wildcat sit downstrike marched

1317
01:07:55,360 --> 01:07:58,760
Speaker 1: the manager's office to delivered demands and now some sizable

1318
01:07:58,760 --> 01:08:03,080
Speaker 1: portion of them have been suspended, all because they found

1319
01:08:03,080 --> 01:08:06,640
Speaker 1: the working conditions unsafe and did not want to continue.

1320
01:08:06,640 --> 01:08:09,320
Speaker 1: At the same time, there have now been put this

1321
01:08:09,440 --> 01:08:12,200
Speaker 1: up on the screen from Jordan. There was another fire

1322
01:08:12,640 --> 01:08:15,440
Speaker 1: down at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, and then just

1323
01:08:15,520 --> 01:08:20,639
Speaker 1: this morning he texted me there was another fire, this

1324
01:08:20,720 --> 01:08:24,040
Speaker 1: one in I believe this is in Albany that the

1325
01:08:24,080 --> 01:08:27,240
Speaker 1: latest fire was as well. So, I mean, what the

1326
01:08:27,280 --> 01:08:30,639
Speaker 1: hell is going on here ultimately with these workers being

1327
01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:33,000
Speaker 1: put at risk? Like why can you not keep these

1328
01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:35,639
Speaker 1: facilities safe? Why can you not listen to the workers,

1329
01:08:35,720 --> 01:08:37,960
Speaker 1: And then why are you retaliating in this way against

1330
01:08:37,960 --> 01:08:40,759
Speaker 1: workers who are who were actually told by a manager

1331
01:08:40,800 --> 01:08:44,000
Speaker 1: And this is recorded on video Stephen Greenhouse tweeting this

1332
01:08:44,000 --> 01:08:46,200
Speaker 1: out this morning. We're actually told like, if you feel unsafe,

1333
01:08:46,240 --> 01:08:48,639
Speaker 1: you can go home. And then they say, okay, we're

1334
01:08:48,680 --> 01:08:50,720
Speaker 1: not going back to work, and then they're suspended. Wow.

1335
01:08:50,760 --> 01:08:54,559
Speaker 1: So they're literally getting effectively retaliated against for not wanting

1336
01:08:54,600 --> 01:08:58,920
Speaker 1: to be around chemical fires. Yes, yes, they're at work,

1337
01:08:59,080 --> 01:09:01,160
Speaker 1: Yes yeah, I mean, I mean the video speaks for

1338
01:09:01,200 --> 01:09:03,920
Speaker 1: itself in my opinion, which is like there's literally the

1339
01:09:03,960 --> 01:09:07,559
Speaker 1: places on fire. It's terrifying. They also don't necessarily have

1340
01:09:07,680 --> 01:09:10,840
Speaker 1: very good workplace protections. Some of these people are on

1341
01:09:10,880 --> 01:09:12,720
Speaker 1: a contract basis, so it's not like they're going to

1342
01:09:12,760 --> 01:09:15,560
Speaker 1: get all. They don't have the benefits or the fallbacks

1343
01:09:15,560 --> 01:09:17,720
Speaker 1: that a lot of others do. Also, we should know,

1344
01:09:17,760 --> 01:09:21,160
Speaker 1: you know, we're entering the holiday season. Ish whenever ramp

1345
01:09:21,560 --> 01:09:24,640
Speaker 1: things ramp up significantly. I think Amazon and Walmart and

1346
01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:27,839
Speaker 1: all their other seasonal workforce explodes by like forty percent

1347
01:09:27,960 --> 01:09:30,280
Speaker 1: or something in these times in order to keep up

1348
01:09:30,479 --> 01:09:32,479
Speaker 1: with demand. So what type of training do they have,

1349
01:09:32,600 --> 01:09:36,479
Speaker 1: Like they're around like unsafe equipment. Look, it just it

1350
01:09:36,479 --> 01:09:39,439
Speaker 1: will always highlight to me of there's a cost. You know.

1351
01:09:39,479 --> 01:09:41,479
Speaker 1: I go on Amazon and it's like it can be

1352
01:09:41,520 --> 01:09:43,439
Speaker 1: delivered to you today, and I'm like, wow, that's nuts.

1353
01:09:43,479 --> 01:09:45,360
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, this is why, Like this is

1354
01:09:45,400 --> 01:09:47,559
Speaker 1: the reason why. Yeah, because of all the corners they

1355
01:09:47,680 --> 01:09:49,679
Speaker 1: cut it. And I mean it's also really clear here

1356
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:52,439
Speaker 1: like they want to send a message to not just

1357
01:09:52,600 --> 01:09:56,280
Speaker 1: these workers who dared defy them and unionize, but also

1358
01:09:56,320 --> 01:09:58,639
Speaker 1: to all of the other Amazon warehouse around the country

1359
01:09:58,920 --> 01:10:02,919
Speaker 1: that are thinking of unionizing, and that warehouse in Albany

1360
01:10:03,479 --> 01:10:08,120
Speaker 1: their election is mere days away. So they've indefinitely suspended.

1361
01:10:08,720 --> 01:10:13,360
Speaker 1: According to Amazon labor union's lawyer, at least eighty workers

1362
01:10:13,560 --> 01:10:16,320
Speaker 1: for not returning to work that again, in spite of

1363
01:10:16,360 --> 01:10:19,320
Speaker 1: the fact that there was a fire with chemicals in

1364
01:10:19,360 --> 01:10:22,439
Speaker 1: the air, and an Amazon manager on video told the workers,

1365
01:10:22,520 --> 01:10:25,320
Speaker 1: if you feel unsafe, please leave. So that's how they

1366
01:10:25,320 --> 01:10:28,240
Speaker 1: treat their workers there. It's so terrible, it really is.

1367
01:10:28,280 --> 01:10:30,439
Speaker 1: And I also think it's a media story in that look.

1368
01:10:30,479 --> 01:10:32,920
Speaker 1: I mean, props, I guess to this Washington Post person

1369
01:10:33,000 --> 01:10:35,280
Speaker 1: for bringing this up. But in general, you know, we

1370
01:10:35,400 --> 01:10:40,280
Speaker 1: just spend so little. We spend time litigating like media

1371
01:10:40,360 --> 01:10:45,080
Speaker 1: corporation beefs with each other. We spend time reading about

1372
01:10:45,120 --> 01:10:48,400
Speaker 1: like five people in a tech company who feel unsafe

1373
01:10:48,479 --> 01:10:50,880
Speaker 1: because an email. Guess. And I'm not going to say

1374
01:10:50,880 --> 01:10:53,120
Speaker 1: that's not important, Like sure, you know, I enjoy reading

1375
01:10:53,120 --> 01:10:56,679
Speaker 1: them for like Shoden Freud perspectives. But Amazon's second largest

1376
01:10:56,720 --> 01:10:59,240
Speaker 1: employer in the United States, very on track to become

1377
01:10:59,520 --> 01:11:02,600
Speaker 1: one of the largest, and the day to day experience

1378
01:11:02,640 --> 01:11:06,719
Speaker 1: of most people in their jobs is not represented in media.

1379
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:08,880
Speaker 1: And I think that is like the metal level of

1380
01:11:08,880 --> 01:11:10,920
Speaker 1: like why it's so important to look at this, which

1381
01:11:10,960 --> 01:11:13,080
Speaker 1: is that most people who work in white collar have

1382
01:11:13,320 --> 01:11:16,200
Speaker 1: never even been in an experience where a fire is

1383
01:11:16,240 --> 01:11:18,960
Speaker 1: possible at work, and if there was, they'd have like

1384
01:11:19,000 --> 01:11:21,760
Speaker 1: an hr training session where they're like listening to each

1385
01:11:21,760 --> 01:11:24,920
Speaker 1: other about how traumatic the entire thing was. Here they're like,

1386
01:11:25,160 --> 01:11:27,840
Speaker 1: screw you, get get back to work right after the

1387
01:11:27,840 --> 01:11:29,680
Speaker 1: fire back. I don't think back in there. I don't

1388
01:11:29,680 --> 01:11:31,640
Speaker 1: think most white collar workers have ever been in a

1389
01:11:31,680 --> 01:11:35,639
Speaker 1: situation like that. The reason we've always covered Amazon almost

1390
01:11:35,640 --> 01:11:39,240
Speaker 1: obsessively is because it is so ignored, but also because

1391
01:11:39,320 --> 01:11:41,600
Speaker 1: it's like as important to the US economy as the

1392
01:11:41,640 --> 01:11:43,960
Speaker 1: US government is. It really is the number of people

1393
01:11:44,000 --> 01:11:45,960
Speaker 1: they employ, the way it shapes the economy, the way

1394
01:11:45,960 --> 01:11:47,720
Speaker 1: it shapes their tax laws, the way you know, the

1395
01:11:47,840 --> 01:11:50,479
Speaker 1: way they lobby for the perks that they want, the

1396
01:11:50,479 --> 01:11:55,200
Speaker 1: way they reshape the towns themselves and cities themselves is

1397
01:11:55,439 --> 01:11:59,160
Speaker 1: so incredibly significant to all of our lives and certainly

1398
01:11:59,200 --> 01:12:02,720
Speaker 1: to work class people. So another sign of the way

1399
01:12:02,760 --> 01:12:05,400
Speaker 1: they treat their workforce. And look, I think it's also

1400
01:12:05,920 --> 01:12:08,240
Speaker 1: an important lesson to and why it matters to have

1401
01:12:08,360 --> 01:12:11,400
Speaker 1: a union, because now these workers there will be a

1402
01:12:11,439 --> 01:12:14,080
Speaker 1: grievance process. They won't be just like out of luck,

1403
01:12:14,120 --> 01:12:16,920
Speaker 1: and that's that they'll be able to have some sort

1404
01:12:16,920 --> 01:12:19,240
Speaker 1: of concerted effort to fight back. Here and even the

1405
01:12:19,280 --> 01:12:21,840
Speaker 1: fact that they felt bold enough, like there's probably no

1406
01:12:21,880 --> 01:12:23,920
Speaker 1: other Amazon warehouse in the country where they would have

1407
01:12:24,000 --> 01:12:26,559
Speaker 1: had the boldness to actually band together and say, hey,

1408
01:12:26,920 --> 01:12:28,880
Speaker 1: this isn't right. We're not going back to work, this

1409
01:12:29,040 --> 01:12:32,800
Speaker 1: isn't safe. That all comes from having that solidarity together.

1410
01:12:32,920 --> 01:12:37,120
Speaker 1: Absolutely correct, Okay, move on the fun block, the fun story.

1411
01:12:37,360 --> 01:12:39,320
Speaker 1: I'm really obsessed with this just because I think it

1412
01:12:39,479 --> 01:12:42,400
Speaker 1: is so funny and it reveals like exactly what type

1413
01:12:42,439 --> 01:12:46,320
Speaker 1: of COVID misinformation is okay and what's not. So let's

1414
01:12:46,320 --> 01:12:49,000
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen effectively, and let's

1415
01:12:49,040 --> 01:12:50,519
Speaker 1: keep it up there for a little bit. Guys. What

1416
01:12:50,600 --> 01:12:52,439
Speaker 1: happened is is that the New York Post wrote a

1417
01:12:52,479 --> 01:12:56,640
Speaker 1: story about how Howard Stern, who apparently is a massive germophobe,

1418
01:12:57,000 --> 01:13:01,000
Speaker 1: left his bunker to dine with friends for the first

1419
01:13:01,040 --> 01:13:06,120
Speaker 1: time since twenty twenty. And that happened a couple of

1420
01:13:06,200 --> 01:13:09,920
Speaker 1: days ago, which means that he was basically inside and

1421
01:13:10,080 --> 01:13:14,799
Speaker 1: isolated from people for over two years, which is crazy.

1422
01:13:15,120 --> 01:13:19,080
Speaker 1: And Helene Owen, who is a Washington Post columnist, says, quote,

1423
01:13:19,240 --> 01:13:21,760
Speaker 1: at some point, we need to have a conversation about

1424
01:13:21,800 --> 01:13:24,759
Speaker 1: the people still too afraid to leave their homes because

1425
01:13:24,800 --> 01:13:28,000
Speaker 1: of COVID. I personally know of two such cases. This

1426
01:13:28,160 --> 01:13:31,640
Speaker 1: is not a healthy way to live. I don't possibly

1427
01:13:31,680 --> 01:13:34,320
Speaker 1: know how you could disagree with that. And yet the

1428
01:13:34,479 --> 01:13:39,840
Speaker 1: Washington Post is Taylor Lorenz Leadmark Hall monitor. As you said,

1429
01:13:40,560 --> 01:13:46,400
Speaker 1: she replies, what an absurd, insensitive thing to post. Thousands

1430
01:13:46,560 --> 01:13:51,040
Speaker 1: are dying per week, millions are disabled. Here's the key part.

1431
01:13:51,360 --> 01:13:56,800
Speaker 1: We have zero effective drugs that prevent infection immuno compromise

1432
01:13:56,920 --> 01:14:01,160
Speaker 1: people don't deserve condescending comments about being too afraid of

1433
01:14:01,200 --> 01:14:04,960
Speaker 1: a virus that can kill or severely disable us. Again,

1434
01:14:05,000 --> 01:14:07,080
Speaker 1: she claims to be immunal compromises. I don't know if

1435
01:14:07,120 --> 01:14:10,240
Speaker 1: she is or not. A lot of people say things online.

1436
01:14:10,320 --> 01:14:13,439
Speaker 1: But let's take that with whatever the grain of salt

1437
01:14:13,439 --> 01:14:16,120
Speaker 1: that you must, and let's take and examine that claim.

1438
01:14:16,760 --> 01:14:21,920
Speaker 1: A there is zero effective drug for immunocompromised people. Now,

1439
01:14:21,920 --> 01:14:24,760
Speaker 1: hold on a second. What you're saying there, then, is

1440
01:14:24,800 --> 01:14:30,200
Speaker 1: that not just vaccination that packs lovid. All the therapeutics

1441
01:14:30,240 --> 01:14:33,000
Speaker 1: that we have at our disposal, all of the different

1442
01:14:33,120 --> 01:14:37,160
Speaker 1: drugs and research that have gone into mitigating COVID, preventing

1443
01:14:37,160 --> 01:14:40,760
Speaker 1: COVID infection, all of that have not barn out whatsoever.

1444
01:14:41,280 --> 01:14:43,920
Speaker 1: And it's just completely untrue. Put this up there from

1445
01:14:44,000 --> 01:14:46,280
Speaker 1: Zanek to effecta who works over at the New York Times.

1446
01:14:46,400 --> 01:14:49,439
Speaker 1: She said in a very clear subtweet quote. There seems

1447
01:14:49,439 --> 01:14:51,960
Speaker 1: to be a lot of misinformation going around that immuno

1448
01:14:52,040 --> 01:14:54,920
Speaker 1: compromise people don't benefit at all from vaccines or existing

1449
01:14:54,960 --> 01:14:59,600
Speaker 1: COVID therapies. That is absolutely false and a very dangerous

1450
01:14:59,640 --> 01:15:02,720
Speaker 1: false to spread. Such people might not even realize the

1451
01:15:02,760 --> 01:15:05,960
Speaker 1: many options that they have. First of all, we have

1452
01:15:06,439 --> 01:15:09,040
Speaker 1: a lot of data to show immunal compromise people generate

1453
01:15:09,200 --> 01:15:12,479
Speaker 1: antibodies after vaccination, they may need more in terms of

1454
01:15:12,520 --> 01:15:16,000
Speaker 1: booster dosages, et cetera. Two, they have shown that there's

1455
01:15:16,040 --> 01:15:18,920
Speaker 1: a specific drug that has already been available for more

1456
01:15:18,960 --> 01:15:23,000
Speaker 1: than a year called ebusheld, which has been repeatedly shown

1457
01:15:23,280 --> 01:15:26,920
Speaker 1: to bring many immunal compromise people back to non immunal

1458
01:15:26,920 --> 01:15:31,000
Speaker 1: compromised person levels for six months or more at a time,

1459
01:15:31,520 --> 01:15:36,559
Speaker 1: even when adjusted to variants. In addition, monocul antibodies if

1460
01:15:36,600 --> 01:15:39,920
Speaker 1: they were to be infected, and of course packs loavid

1461
01:15:40,120 --> 01:15:42,839
Speaker 1: if they're also infected, in order to mitigate the disease.

1462
01:15:43,040 --> 01:15:46,600
Speaker 1: The point being that guess what, even if you're immunal compromised,

1463
01:15:46,760 --> 01:15:48,680
Speaker 1: you might have to take it more seriously and you

1464
01:15:48,760 --> 01:15:52,800
Speaker 1: might have to have a frontline treatment more immediately than

1465
01:15:52,840 --> 01:15:55,080
Speaker 1: if you or I were to get COVID, but you

1466
01:15:55,120 --> 01:15:59,920
Speaker 1: can still exist in society as before. I mean, effect

1467
01:16:00,479 --> 01:16:04,240
Speaker 1: your risk of contracting COVID is basically the same as

1468
01:16:04,320 --> 01:16:07,439
Speaker 1: if you can you get any virus whenever you are

1469
01:16:07,479 --> 01:16:09,840
Speaker 1: immunal compromise. Yes, is it more of a risk than

1470
01:16:09,920 --> 01:16:13,160
Speaker 1: ever or than most of the general population. Sure, But

1471
01:16:13,240 --> 01:16:15,400
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you should be living as some

1472
01:16:15,680 --> 01:16:19,519
Speaker 1: like strange hermit who doesn't leave their house for two

1473
01:16:19,600 --> 01:16:22,120
Speaker 1: and a half years, especially a guy like Look, people

1474
01:16:22,160 --> 01:16:23,920
Speaker 1: are free to do what they want. I mean, that's

1475
01:16:23,920 --> 01:16:25,200
Speaker 1: what I was going to say, is the Senate. If

1476
01:16:25,200 --> 01:16:28,200
Speaker 1: you're Howard's, you might live in your like mansion for

1477
01:16:28,520 --> 01:16:31,439
Speaker 1: by yourself or to Okay, do whatever you do you

1478
01:16:31,520 --> 01:16:33,280
Speaker 1: that's fine. If your tailor runs and you make this

1479
01:16:33,600 --> 01:16:36,680
Speaker 1: same choice, okay, that's fine. But don't like try to

1480
01:16:36,720 --> 01:16:39,240
Speaker 1: persuade other people this is what they should be doing.

1481
01:16:40,760 --> 01:16:42,760
Speaker 1: I'm actually glad she tweeted it, though, because I didn't

1482
01:16:42,760 --> 01:16:45,000
Speaker 1: know some of this information about how effective some of

1483
01:16:45,040 --> 01:16:47,240
Speaker 1: these treatments are for immunal compromised people. And I think

1484
01:16:47,280 --> 01:16:49,400
Speaker 1: it's important also in terms of you know, there is

1485
01:16:49,439 --> 01:16:51,519
Speaker 1: this small faction that is still very committed to like

1486
01:16:51,560 --> 01:16:53,960
Speaker 1: we should still be in lockdown and we should still

1487
01:16:54,000 --> 01:16:56,719
Speaker 1: be like banning indoor dining and things of that nature.

1488
01:16:57,120 --> 01:17:00,360
Speaker 1: And immuno compromised people is kind of like the card

1489
01:17:00,360 --> 01:17:02,479
Speaker 1: that they pull out, like, well what about these people?

1490
01:17:02,560 --> 01:17:05,360
Speaker 1: And so I think it is important to know that

1491
01:17:05,439 --> 01:17:09,040
Speaker 1: there are in fact effective therapeutics that of course, you know,

1492
01:17:09,120 --> 01:17:11,599
Speaker 1: we want to be like considerate of everyone and make

1493
01:17:11,640 --> 01:17:16,200
Speaker 1: sure we're like taking everybody's health concerns seriously, but it's

1494
01:17:16,200 --> 01:17:20,479
Speaker 1: sometimes portrayed like an instant death sentence for people who

1495
01:17:20,520 --> 01:17:24,720
Speaker 1: are immunocompromised, and that's just clearly that's clearly not scientifically

1496
01:17:24,840 --> 01:17:27,240
Speaker 1: or factually based. So important to know that, yeah, there

1497
01:17:27,240 --> 01:17:29,360
Speaker 1: are a lot of drugs that are available. Also our

1498
01:17:29,439 --> 01:17:32,360
Speaker 1: lifestyle intervention that's available, a lot of immuno compromise people

1499
01:17:32,400 --> 01:17:34,120
Speaker 1: could just lose the less, lose some weight and they

1500
01:17:34,120 --> 01:17:36,000
Speaker 1: would be much better. Most people could be better off

1501
01:17:35,920 --> 01:17:38,559
Speaker 1: if they're losing some weight. There's many different things that

1502
01:17:38,840 --> 01:17:41,439
Speaker 1: if you want to have the discussion, we certainly can.

1503
01:17:41,520 --> 01:17:43,800
Speaker 1: But at a societal level, we long accepted that there

1504
01:17:43,800 --> 01:17:46,559
Speaker 1: are viruses, the flu virus, et cetera. Not I mean

1505
01:17:46,680 --> 01:17:49,479
Speaker 1: so many different neurovirus and any of these things. We've

1506
01:17:49,479 --> 01:17:53,160
Speaker 1: got every one of those viruses in my household there. Yeah,

1507
01:17:53,160 --> 01:17:57,360
Speaker 1: I know Crystal's got small children apparently are like such idea, like,

1508
01:17:57,439 --> 01:18:00,559
Speaker 1: oh my god, I do think it's a thing Peach like, Oh,

1509
01:18:00,560 --> 01:18:04,000
Speaker 1: it's disgusting. I think especially my youngest is in kindergarten

1510
01:18:04,040 --> 01:18:06,400
Speaker 1: this year, and I do think it's there's something with

1511
01:18:06,439 --> 01:18:09,040
Speaker 1: like this the first year with everyone's like fully unmasked

1512
01:18:09,120 --> 01:18:12,479
Speaker 1: and so they're getting every single it's hard to even

1513
01:18:12,479 --> 01:18:16,160
Speaker 1: distinguish between from one virus to the next of everything

1514
01:18:16,160 --> 01:18:18,960
Speaker 1: that they've had. But anyway, we're all good. Everybody this

1515
01:18:19,000 --> 01:18:20,680
Speaker 1: week is healthy, so it's good and actually in the

1516
01:18:20,680 --> 01:18:22,920
Speaker 1: long run probably better right for good for the immune

1517
01:18:22,960 --> 01:18:25,760
Speaker 1: system all that going. I think a lot of my

1518
01:18:25,840 --> 01:18:27,960
Speaker 1: early travel to Asia as a child, I've got an

1519
01:18:27,960 --> 01:18:30,559
Speaker 1: iron stomach as a result. I'm sure. I bet that

1520
01:18:30,560 --> 01:18:32,360
Speaker 1: does have a lot to do. It's got to have something.

1521
01:18:32,680 --> 01:18:35,240
Speaker 1: You can't deny it. Anyway. The point is is that

1522
01:18:35,439 --> 01:18:37,880
Speaker 1: this is a perfect view into the hypocrisy of the

1523
01:18:37,920 --> 01:18:41,320
Speaker 1: type of COVID misinformation which you are allowed to spread

1524
01:18:42,479 --> 01:18:45,760
Speaker 1: into questions. Didn't even get the little flag flag know

1525
01:18:46,080 --> 01:18:49,680
Speaker 1: nothing other than the utter ridicule of her colleagues and

1526
01:18:49,720 --> 01:18:52,439
Speaker 1: the general eye rolls of the public. That's why I

1527
01:18:52,400 --> 01:18:54,400
Speaker 1: have used to that by now, Oh yeah, she probably

1528
01:18:54,439 --> 01:19:00,280
Speaker 1: is all right, zare look at let me start with this.

1529
01:19:00,439 --> 01:19:02,280
Speaker 1: I don't think Twitter is really going to change that

1530
01:19:02,360 --> 01:19:04,479
Speaker 1: much from where it is right now. If Elon does

1531
01:19:04,600 --> 01:19:07,519
Speaker 1: actually buy it, the single biggest change might be an

1532
01:19:07,600 --> 01:19:10,639
Speaker 1: invitation for Trump to come back. Beyond that, impact though,

1533
01:19:10,800 --> 01:19:12,840
Speaker 1: is not about wa who will come back, but is

1534
01:19:12,880 --> 01:19:16,160
Speaker 1: more likely about what won't happen in the future. The

1535
01:19:16,240 --> 01:19:19,120
Speaker 1: problem with Twitter and at censorship regime, which has really

1536
01:19:19,120 --> 01:19:21,760
Speaker 1: been embraced by all of the big tech companies, is

1537
01:19:21,800 --> 01:19:24,200
Speaker 1: that we all know that their so called policies are

1538
01:19:24,200 --> 01:19:27,080
Speaker 1: completely fake. They say they have a policy, then some

1539
01:19:27,240 --> 01:19:30,200
Speaker 1: activist says, yeah, but I'm being harmed because somebody said

1540
01:19:30,240 --> 01:19:33,520
Speaker 1: something mean about me. Then a professional cadre of journalists

1541
01:19:33,640 --> 01:19:36,559
Speaker 1: jump on the batwagon. The tech companies say days later

1542
01:19:36,720 --> 01:19:39,040
Speaker 1: they have updated their policy and they are now banning

1543
01:19:39,080 --> 01:19:42,040
Speaker 1: whomever the activists and the journalists want them to. Cycles

1544
01:19:42,080 --> 01:19:44,719
Speaker 1: have basically been on repeat since Alex Jones was banned.

1545
01:19:44,880 --> 01:19:47,800
Speaker 1: Look no further than the latest moral panic sparked by

1546
01:19:47,840 --> 01:19:50,720
Speaker 1: the questionable Keffels against Kili farms for how it is

1547
01:19:50,800 --> 01:19:54,080
Speaker 1: still alive and well today. There really are only two

1548
01:19:54,200 --> 01:19:56,880
Speaker 1: losers when it comes to Elon's purchase of Twitter. One

1549
01:19:56,960 --> 01:19:59,360
Speaker 1: is Elon himself, who entered into a deal at the

1550
01:19:59,400 --> 01:20:01,320
Speaker 1: top of the market and is about to pay over

1551
01:20:01,439 --> 01:20:04,439
Speaker 1: double what Twitter is actually worth. I have not and

1552
01:20:04,479 --> 01:20:07,200
Speaker 1: will not bet against him, but he certainly does have

1553
01:20:07,240 --> 01:20:09,960
Speaker 1: a titanic task ahead of him, just as big as

1554
01:20:09,960 --> 01:20:12,960
Speaker 1: a for getting the first SpaceX rocket before him off

1555
01:20:13,040 --> 01:20:15,400
Speaker 1: the ground. It will almost certainly lose a lot of

1556
01:20:15,439 --> 01:20:17,720
Speaker 1: money for years to come if he ever does make

1557
01:20:17,760 --> 01:20:21,400
Speaker 1: it back at all. Two, though, the losers, are the journalists,

1558
01:20:21,400 --> 01:20:25,960
Speaker 1: specifically a certain brand of them who identify as misinformation specialists.

1559
01:20:26,240 --> 01:20:29,200
Speaker 1: It's difficult to describe exactly what these people do because

1560
01:20:29,200 --> 01:20:31,640
Speaker 1: it is so banal it almost can't be real, and

1561
01:20:31,840 --> 01:20:34,160
Speaker 1: it's a job with so much power. At their core

1562
01:20:34,360 --> 01:20:37,640
Speaker 1: is basically enforcers for whatever the current cause celeb is.

1563
01:20:37,960 --> 01:20:40,479
Speaker 1: If the zeitgeist has decided a certain group is bad,

1564
01:20:40,720 --> 01:20:43,640
Speaker 1: it's their job to prove they are bad through journalism,

1565
01:20:43,880 --> 01:20:46,840
Speaker 1: and by that I mean writing fake articles, quoting fake

1566
01:20:46,920 --> 01:20:50,600
Speaker 1: experts who advocate for censorship, and hounding tech companies for

1567
01:20:50,760 --> 01:20:53,479
Speaker 1: comment until they ban the person that they want gone,

1568
01:20:54,040 --> 01:20:56,840
Speaker 1: so predictably, the people most upset are the people who

1569
01:20:56,840 --> 01:20:59,320
Speaker 1: are going to lose this power. Let's get acquainted with them.

1570
01:20:59,479 --> 01:21:02,160
Speaker 1: Perhaps the worst defender, aside from Taylor Lorenz, is one

1571
01:21:02,240 --> 01:21:05,280
Speaker 1: Ben Collins over at NBC News. Collins threw a fit

1572
01:21:05,320 --> 01:21:07,799
Speaker 1: when the News broke that Elon would, after all, buy Twitter,

1573
01:21:08,000 --> 01:21:10,559
Speaker 1: saying quote, I do think this site can and will

1574
01:21:10,640 --> 01:21:13,960
Speaker 1: change dramatically if Musk gets full control, adding if it

1575
01:21:14,000 --> 01:21:17,360
Speaker 1: gets done early enough, it could actually affect the midterms.

1576
01:21:17,720 --> 01:21:21,400
Speaker 1: Really continue, Ben, He adds quote, he can elevate any

1577
01:21:21,439 --> 01:21:24,839
Speaker 1: idea or person he wants, their recommendations and UX choices.

1578
01:21:25,040 --> 01:21:28,040
Speaker 1: There will be no oversight on this private company, So

1579
01:21:28,120 --> 01:21:31,000
Speaker 1: who wants to tell him? The true insanity of collins

1580
01:21:31,080 --> 01:21:34,719
Speaker 1: protests is a few admissions. First is that content moderation

1581
01:21:34,840 --> 01:21:37,439
Speaker 1: policies on one of the largest social platforms on Earth

1582
01:21:37,640 --> 01:21:40,719
Speaker 1: can and probably could sway the election. If that remains

1583
01:21:40,760 --> 01:21:44,280
Speaker 1: true of Musk, if he buys it, then by definition

1584
01:21:44,360 --> 01:21:48,200
Speaker 1: it is already the case, in which case cases like

1585
01:21:48,280 --> 01:21:52,200
Speaker 1: censoring that Hunter Biden laptop story, removing or censoring elected

1586
01:21:52,280 --> 01:21:57,000
Speaker 1: government officials is itself election interference. In fact, the only

1587
01:21:57,040 --> 01:21:59,679
Speaker 1: story to arise so far from the corporate press coverage

1588
01:21:59,720 --> 01:22:02,519
Speaker 1: of Ulon's Musk decision to buy Twitter is how much

1589
01:22:02,560 --> 01:22:05,519
Speaker 1: the mask has come off in the ramifications of these

1590
01:22:05,560 --> 01:22:08,160
Speaker 1: decisions that they have been in charge now for some time.

1591
01:22:08,520 --> 01:22:11,560
Speaker 1: Politico arguably had the most to the point headline of

1592
01:22:11,600 --> 01:22:14,559
Speaker 1: all of them, quote Musk to buy Twitter after all

1593
01:22:14,680 --> 01:22:18,200
Speaker 1: in reversal that will reshape twenty twenty four, consider that

1594
01:22:18,479 --> 01:22:21,000
Speaker 1: to date that argument has been simple. Twitter is a

1595
01:22:21,000 --> 01:22:24,080
Speaker 1: private company. It can do whatever it wants. Content moderation

1596
01:22:24,160 --> 01:22:26,639
Speaker 1: on the platform is about protecting users if you allege

1597
01:22:26,680 --> 01:22:30,000
Speaker 1: it has electoral ramifications or anything else here conspiracy theorists.

1598
01:22:30,080 --> 01:22:32,200
Speaker 1: And yet here they are now saying it out in

1599
01:22:32,240 --> 01:22:35,360
Speaker 1: the open because now we might have electoral ramifications that

1600
01:22:35,400 --> 01:22:38,559
Speaker 1: they don't control. What's so telling to me are the

1601
01:22:38,560 --> 01:22:41,720
Speaker 1: people that highlight to quote as to why this is dangerous.

1602
01:22:41,960 --> 01:22:44,360
Speaker 1: The first person quoted in the story, some guy named

1603
01:22:44,360 --> 01:22:47,479
Speaker 1: Evan Feini, the deputy senior campaign director at the Color

1604
01:22:47,520 --> 01:22:49,719
Speaker 1: of Change, which is a so called civil rights group.

1605
01:22:49,920 --> 01:22:53,040
Speaker 1: He tells political quote free speech is bad because the

1606
01:22:53,120 --> 01:22:56,439
Speaker 1: quote the changing of policies around misinformation election adds content

1607
01:22:56,439 --> 01:22:59,439
Speaker 1: and undoing bands will be harmful effects on black users

1608
01:22:59,439 --> 01:23:02,439
Speaker 1: and voters, adding the deal going through was already going

1609
01:23:02,520 --> 01:23:04,840
Speaker 1: to be harmful. The deal going through in this moment

1610
01:23:04,880 --> 01:23:08,280
Speaker 1: amplifies the harms that are going to unfold. The next

1611
01:23:08,280 --> 01:23:11,640
Speaker 1: person they quote also posits this quote. When hate harassment

1612
01:23:11,640 --> 01:23:14,519
Speaker 1: campaigns run on Twitter, especially those that target women and

1613
01:23:14,560 --> 01:23:17,280
Speaker 1: women of color in particular, we know that those campaigns

1614
01:23:17,320 --> 01:23:19,240
Speaker 1: are designed to shut people up and to actually shut

1615
01:23:19,320 --> 01:23:23,000
Speaker 1: down free speech. It's like whoa chord salent, It's only unprovable.

1616
01:23:23,240 --> 01:23:25,160
Speaker 1: They just assert these things. It's going to be bad

1617
01:23:25,200 --> 01:23:28,200
Speaker 1: for minorities because that's what's on our new national religion dictates.

1618
01:23:28,400 --> 01:23:31,680
Speaker 1: Going against it thus is heresy, in fact, electorally, the

1619
01:23:31,680 --> 01:23:34,480
Speaker 1: smartest take I've seen yet. This is great for Democrats.

1620
01:23:34,760 --> 01:23:36,920
Speaker 1: Letting Trump back on Twitter would be good for the

1621
01:23:36,960 --> 01:23:39,519
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. Even going so far as to let outright

1622
01:23:39,600 --> 01:23:43,160
Speaker 1: racists would probably be good too. Why Because censorship most

1623
01:23:43,240 --> 01:23:47,479
Speaker 1: pernicious action is removal from conversation. Sometimes having a bad

1624
01:23:47,560 --> 01:23:50,879
Speaker 1: conversation and staring something right in the face is exactly

1625
01:23:50,880 --> 01:23:53,439
Speaker 1: what spurs people to action. Trump being off Twitter is

1626
01:23:53,479 --> 01:23:55,360
Speaker 1: the best thing that ever happened to him. No more

1627
01:23:55,360 --> 01:23:59,439
Speaker 1: facelift tweets about Mika Brazinski no more insight into his

1628
01:23:59,560 --> 01:24:02,960
Speaker 1: bizarre obsessions. The only things that bleed through into public

1629
01:24:03,000 --> 01:24:06,479
Speaker 1: discourse are his political attacks, not his moronic musings about

1630
01:24:06,520 --> 01:24:09,479
Speaker 1: cable news ratings when he literally had the most important

1631
01:24:09,560 --> 01:24:12,639
Speaker 1: job in the world. Twitter was a perfect view into

1632
01:24:12,640 --> 01:24:16,160
Speaker 1: how vacuous and obsessed with trivial drama that he actually was.

1633
01:24:16,479 --> 01:24:19,439
Speaker 1: People should see that and make up their mind. I

1634
01:24:19,560 --> 01:24:22,280
Speaker 1: believe this to be the case with all public discourse.

1635
01:24:22,640 --> 01:24:25,880
Speaker 1: Allowing speech and grappling with it in its entirety is

1636
01:24:25,960 --> 01:24:29,439
Speaker 1: actually the best way to achieve social consensus. We deserve

1637
01:24:29,479 --> 01:24:32,400
Speaker 1: to see who Trump really is. We deserve to see

1638
01:24:32,400 --> 01:24:35,360
Speaker 1: who any elected official is. To the extent that they

1639
01:24:35,400 --> 01:24:38,880
Speaker 1: allow us to see them. It actually makes us better citizens,

1640
01:24:38,920 --> 01:24:41,840
Speaker 1: even if we don't like it on occasion. You can't

1641
01:24:41,960 --> 01:24:45,560
Speaker 1: hide things because you don't you don't like in a democracy,

1642
01:24:45,760 --> 01:24:49,160
Speaker 1: because eventually people will make their will known. I'd rather

1643
01:24:49,240 --> 01:24:52,400
Speaker 1: it be known always instead of just to surprise every

1644
01:24:52,400 --> 01:24:54,599
Speaker 1: single time we have an election, where do these people

1645
01:24:54,640 --> 01:24:57,240
Speaker 1: even come from? We ask? That's always a good and

1646
01:24:57,280 --> 01:24:59,879
Speaker 1: if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue,

1647
01:25:00,000 --> 01:25:06,160
Speaker 1: become a Premium subscriber today at breakingpoints, dot com. All right, Chris, well,

1648
01:25:06,200 --> 01:25:08,040
Speaker 1: what are you taking a look at? Well? Friends, When

1649
01:25:08,080 --> 01:25:10,439
Speaker 1: we look at problems on the show, frequently they circle

1650
01:25:10,479 --> 01:25:13,760
Speaker 1: back to one dictate. Follow the money. Can think about

1651
01:25:13,840 --> 01:25:15,880
Speaker 1: the two thousand and eight financial crash, the Iraq War,

1652
01:25:16,000 --> 01:25:18,280
Speaker 1: the politicians that sell us out, the addiction crisis, the

1653
01:25:18,280 --> 01:25:22,080
Speaker 1: holiday industrial Midwest, the war hungry military industrial complex, the

1654
01:25:22,160 --> 01:25:25,280
Speaker 1: lying partisan media, the climate crisis, all the way down

1655
01:25:25,360 --> 01:25:28,000
Speaker 1: to let's say, Kim Kardashian scanning her fans in a

1656
01:25:28,000 --> 01:25:30,960
Speaker 1: crypto scheme, or to a tongue of Iiloa sent back

1657
01:25:30,960 --> 01:25:34,080
Speaker 1: into the field to risk his life after suffering a concussion,

1658
01:25:34,439 --> 01:25:36,680
Speaker 1: risking it all. Why because the coaches in have an

1659
01:25:36,760 --> 01:25:39,800
Speaker 1: NFL brass care more about the almighty dollar than about

1660
01:25:39,800 --> 01:25:43,439
Speaker 1: the human beings whose lives and how they've been entrusted with. Now, normally,

1661
01:25:43,600 --> 01:25:45,519
Speaker 1: when we talk about these issues, I'll talk about the

1662
01:25:45,520 --> 01:25:48,559
Speaker 1: corrupting influence of money. I'll inveigh against the dangers of

1663
01:25:48,560 --> 01:25:52,280
Speaker 1: putting profits over everything else, including health, family, peace, and

1664
01:25:52,439 --> 01:25:54,719
Speaker 1: human life. But there is a name for the system

1665
01:25:54,760 --> 01:25:57,080
Speaker 1: that puts profits above any other value, and the name

1666
01:25:57,080 --> 01:25:59,920
Speaker 1: of that system is capitalism. Now, you might call it unchecked.

1667
01:26:00,000 --> 01:26:02,599
Speaker 1: You're unfettered capitalism. You might argue that we're just doing

1668
01:26:02,600 --> 01:26:05,720
Speaker 1: capitalism the wrong way perhaps, But at the core of

1669
01:26:05,760 --> 01:26:08,280
Speaker 1: all these issues, which have been allowed to fester and

1670
01:26:08,320 --> 01:26:13,600
Speaker 1: grow into a destabilizing, possibly world ending mess, is capitalism,

1671
01:26:13,920 --> 01:26:18,200
Speaker 1: and specifically capitalism of the type ushered in by the Reagan, Clinton, Bush,

1672
01:26:18,280 --> 01:26:21,760
Speaker 1: Obama neoliberal era. Now I have just found out I

1673
01:26:21,800 --> 01:26:24,519
Speaker 1: have an unlikely ally in my assessment of the situation.

1674
01:26:24,760 --> 01:26:28,080
Speaker 1: Comedian Bill Burr Take a listen as he responds to

1675
01:26:28,160 --> 01:26:30,920
Speaker 1: a message that he received from a conservative fan who

1676
01:26:30,960 --> 01:26:35,360
Speaker 1: was upset that Burr had favorably mentioned socialism last week.

1677
01:26:35,400 --> 01:26:40,439
Speaker 1: You mentioned you don't know why people demonize socialism. I

1678
01:26:40,520 --> 01:26:43,120
Speaker 1: was really taken aback at that statement. Oh Jesus Christ.

1679
01:26:43,479 --> 01:26:47,400
Speaker 1: Every country that has tried socialism has failed, and it's

1680
01:26:47,439 --> 01:26:49,680
Speaker 1: responsible for tens of millions of deaths. All right, So

1681
01:26:49,680 --> 01:26:52,680
Speaker 1: would you say capitalism is working and it is not?

1682
01:26:53,400 --> 01:26:54,960
Speaker 1: You know, when, like, what is it, like ninety nine

1683
01:26:54,960 --> 01:26:56,639
Speaker 1: percent of the wealth is in like fucking two percent

1684
01:26:56,640 --> 01:26:59,000
Speaker 1: of the people's hands, all of these tense cities. You're

1685
01:26:59,000 --> 01:27:01,200
Speaker 1: telling me this is working. You don't think capitalism is

1686
01:27:01,240 --> 01:27:06,120
Speaker 1: responsible for tens of millions of deaths anyway? Russia, Germany, China,

1687
01:27:06,160 --> 01:27:09,400
Speaker 1: Cuba and most recently Venezuela have tried or right now

1688
01:27:09,560 --> 01:27:12,479
Speaker 1: are socialist countries. As far as I know, whatever Cuba

1689
01:27:12,520 --> 01:27:14,880
Speaker 1: was trying to do, we prevented them from doing with

1690
01:27:14,920 --> 01:27:16,920
Speaker 1: a fucking embargo or whatever the hell we did. We've

1691
01:27:16,960 --> 01:27:19,639
Speaker 1: been fucking with them for sixty years. So I think

1692
01:27:19,680 --> 01:27:22,479
Speaker 1: you're looking at like, you know, like what a lot

1693
01:27:22,479 --> 01:27:24,240
Speaker 1: of people do is you look at your own country

1694
01:27:24,640 --> 01:27:26,680
Speaker 1: through rose colored glasses, the same way you look at

1695
01:27:26,720 --> 01:27:29,040
Speaker 1: your own sports team, like, oh, my team doesn't cheat,

1696
01:27:29,160 --> 01:27:33,800
Speaker 1: but your team does. You're you're really, you're really sort

1697
01:27:33,840 --> 01:27:36,000
Speaker 1: of looking the other way with what capitalism has done

1698
01:27:36,000 --> 01:27:41,360
Speaker 1: to other countries. All the sweatshop labor, all the wars

1699
01:27:41,400 --> 01:27:44,080
Speaker 1: we've fought in over air quote freedom where most of

1700
01:27:44,120 --> 01:27:47,120
Speaker 1: it is about, you know, natural resources. All of these

1701
01:27:47,120 --> 01:27:50,360
Speaker 1: fucking countries where we've gone in and you know, stuck

1702
01:27:50,400 --> 01:27:52,559
Speaker 1: in heads of the government that are going to do

1703
01:27:52,560 --> 01:27:54,080
Speaker 1: what we want to do so we can fucking take

1704
01:27:54,080 --> 01:27:56,080
Speaker 1: advantage of them. I mean to sit there and look

1705
01:27:56,080 --> 01:27:59,080
Speaker 1: at capitalism like the kids, you know, I don't know, dude,

1706
01:27:59,280 --> 01:28:01,639
Speaker 1: He goes on by the mocking the listener for pointing

1707
01:28:01,640 --> 01:28:04,880
Speaker 1: out ills of communism that have all been replicated under capitalism,

1708
01:28:04,920 --> 01:28:08,800
Speaker 1: things like racist scapegoating, government surveillance, genocide, destruction of the

1709
01:28:08,800 --> 01:28:11,240
Speaker 1: middle class. But a really key point here that I

1710
01:28:11,240 --> 01:28:14,000
Speaker 1: think is worth reiterating is this idea from Burr that

1711
01:28:14,040 --> 01:28:16,559
Speaker 1: we look at our own country and our own systems

1712
01:28:16,600 --> 01:28:19,280
Speaker 1: through rose colored glasses. We've been schooled our whole lives

1713
01:28:19,280 --> 01:28:22,320
Speaker 1: in the worst of what happened under authoritarian communists, primarily

1714
01:28:22,320 --> 01:28:24,679
Speaker 1: a Soviet Union, of course. And I am not here

1715
01:28:24,720 --> 01:28:27,439
Speaker 1: to stand for any authoritarians on the left or the right,

1716
01:28:27,520 --> 01:28:29,519
Speaker 1: nor am I interest in rewriting history with regards to

1717
01:28:29,560 --> 01:28:32,719
Speaker 1: failures of full scale government central planning. But what Burr

1718
01:28:32,760 --> 01:28:35,520
Speaker 1: is saying is absolutely true. We're trained to keep blinders

1719
01:28:35,520 --> 01:28:38,080
Speaker 1: on when it comes to seeing the ills of American society,

1720
01:28:38,080 --> 01:28:41,160
Speaker 1: which are in part at least caused by capitalism. There's

1721
01:28:41,200 --> 01:28:44,160
Speaker 1: in DC and New Museum it's called the Victims of Communism.

1722
01:28:44,200 --> 01:28:45,680
Speaker 1: And I wish I was kidding when I tell you

1723
01:28:45,720 --> 01:28:49,360
Speaker 1: that the park right across the street houses a sizable

1724
01:28:49,520 --> 01:28:52,880
Speaker 1: homeless encampment, dozens of tents lined up, people suffering with

1725
01:28:52,920 --> 01:28:56,000
Speaker 1: mental health issues, addiction issues, all sorts of things who've

1726
01:28:56,000 --> 01:28:58,759
Speaker 1: been chewed up and spit out by our society. Many

1727
01:28:58,840 --> 01:29:02,240
Speaker 1: days you can see these victims of capitalism literally sitting

1728
01:29:02,240 --> 01:29:05,439
Speaker 1: on the steps of the Victims of Communism museum. I

1729
01:29:05,439 --> 01:29:08,479
Speaker 1: cannot think of a more perfect encapsulation of our cultural

1730
01:29:08,520 --> 01:29:11,240
Speaker 1: blindness to the rock caused by our own system, which

1731
01:29:11,280 --> 01:29:14,479
Speaker 1: we live with every single day. But since it's the

1732
01:29:14,479 --> 01:29:16,880
Speaker 1: water that we swim in, sometimes we just can't see it.

1733
01:29:17,360 --> 01:29:20,320
Speaker 1: Let's just do one super clear example here of what

1734
01:29:20,360 --> 01:29:23,240
Speaker 1: I mean, which is to dig into the opioid addiction crisis.

1735
01:29:23,240 --> 01:29:25,000
Speaker 1: Now you probably know the outlines of the story. We've

1736
01:29:25,040 --> 01:29:28,120
Speaker 1: covered it a lot here, but basically, the Sackler family,

1737
01:29:28,200 --> 01:29:31,080
Speaker 1: owners of Purdue Pharma, start selling oxy, pushing it as

1738
01:29:31,080 --> 01:29:33,800
Speaker 1: a non addictive painkiller. That assessment, by the way, that

1739
01:29:33,840 --> 01:29:37,080
Speaker 1: it was non addictive, that was based on basically nothing,

1740
01:29:37,200 --> 01:29:40,200
Speaker 1: and given a rubber stamp by a government regulator who

1741
01:29:40,240 --> 01:29:43,360
Speaker 1: then went and turned around to work for Purdue Pharma.

1742
01:29:43,760 --> 01:29:47,679
Speaker 1: There's that almighty dollar again. Doctors who get frequent visits

1743
01:29:47,720 --> 01:29:50,639
Speaker 1: and goodies and trips and dinners from farmer reps, they

1744
01:29:50,680 --> 01:29:53,759
Speaker 1: start prescribing Oxy for kids who get sports injuries, laborers

1745
01:29:53,800 --> 01:29:56,800
Speaker 1: who suffer from chronic pain, and its use becomes commonplace,

1746
01:29:56,880 --> 01:29:59,759
Speaker 1: especially in places that were devastated by job loss thanks

1747
01:30:00,080 --> 01:30:03,759
Speaker 1: to capitalism. The Sacklers knew almost immediately after that drug

1748
01:30:03,800 --> 01:30:06,839
Speaker 1: was introduced in nineteen ninety six that oxy was addictive

1749
01:30:06,920 --> 01:30:10,280
Speaker 1: and was being routinely abused, including being crushed and snorted,

1750
01:30:10,560 --> 01:30:13,960
Speaker 1: that doctors were sometimes selling prescriptions, that the drug was

1751
01:30:14,000 --> 01:30:17,000
Speaker 1: being stolen routinely from pharmacies and then sold on the street.

1752
01:30:17,479 --> 01:30:20,479
Speaker 1: But they did worse than nothing. They buried the evidence.

1753
01:30:20,800 --> 01:30:23,479
Speaker 1: They doubled down on that popular drug that was making

1754
01:30:23,520 --> 01:30:27,559
Speaker 1: them billions of dollars, pushing it rather than backing off.

1755
01:30:27,920 --> 01:30:30,000
Speaker 1: We all know what happened next. We ended up with

1756
01:30:30,040 --> 01:30:33,479
Speaker 1: the worst overdosed crisis in our nation's history. Desk from

1757
01:30:33,479 --> 01:30:36,680
Speaker 1: opioid skyrocketed as those who started with oxy switched to

1758
01:30:36,680 --> 01:30:40,160
Speaker 1: heroin and then fentanyl, living a plan, leaving a behind

1759
01:30:40,200 --> 01:30:43,760
Speaker 1: a trail of misery, pain and death. Now you could

1760
01:30:43,760 --> 01:30:46,559
Speaker 1: say the Sacklers are evil, no argument for me there.

1761
01:30:46,840 --> 01:30:49,920
Speaker 1: But in another way, they're also totally unremarkable. They are

1762
01:30:49,960 --> 01:30:53,680
Speaker 1: creatures birthed by capitalism, a system that is designed to

1763
01:30:53,720 --> 01:30:57,559
Speaker 1: put money before lives. After all, they were far from

1764
01:30:57,560 --> 01:30:59,719
Speaker 1: the only ones who got in on this multi billion

1765
01:30:59,760 --> 01:31:05,240
Speaker 1: dollar Grift, Johnson and Johnson, McKinsey, Consulting, End International, TIVA,

1766
01:31:05,360 --> 01:31:08,920
Speaker 1: and on and on and on, all major companies that

1767
01:31:09,000 --> 01:31:13,040
Speaker 1: profited from their role in creating the opioid crisis. No

1768
01:31:13,240 --> 01:31:17,120
Speaker 1: drug cartel could possibly have done to this country what

1769
01:31:17,200 --> 01:31:21,160
Speaker 1: these blue chip American multinationals did. Some of these are

1770
01:31:21,200 --> 01:31:23,840
Speaker 1: public companies too. That means that they are actually duty

1771
01:31:23,840 --> 01:31:26,919
Speaker 1: bound by their responsibility to their shareholders to push dangerous

1772
01:31:26,960 --> 01:31:29,679
Speaker 1: pills on the population if it means getting a little

1773
01:31:29,680 --> 01:31:32,719
Speaker 1: bit better return on investment. Think of how utterly discussing

1774
01:31:32,800 --> 01:31:34,519
Speaker 1: that is. And yet that's not a bug of our

1775
01:31:34,520 --> 01:31:38,200
Speaker 1: capitalist system. It's a feature capitalism created. The jobless misery,

1776
01:31:38,320 --> 01:31:40,880
Speaker 1: the profitable pilton on the pain, the cover up to

1777
01:31:40,920 --> 01:31:43,799
Speaker 1: keep it going for decades, and the perfect excuse personal

1778
01:31:43,840 --> 01:31:47,760
Speaker 1: responsibility to keep those suffering treated as criminals rather than

1779
01:31:47,840 --> 01:31:50,960
Speaker 1: humans who are worthy of care. Now, I think conservatives

1780
01:31:50,960 --> 01:31:52,720
Speaker 1: would tend to look at this series of events and

1781
01:31:52,760 --> 01:31:55,559
Speaker 1: they would focus on the individual failings, the greedy sacklers,

1782
01:31:55,600 --> 01:31:58,719
Speaker 1: the corrupt regulators, the drug traffickers who brought in the fentanyl,

1783
01:31:59,040 --> 01:32:01,400
Speaker 1: even those who allowed themselves to become addicted. As the

1784
01:32:01,479 --> 01:32:03,439
Speaker 1: right is tended to view addiction as a moral and

1785
01:32:03,479 --> 01:32:07,040
Speaker 1: criminal issue rather than as a public health issue. That's why,

1786
01:32:07,080 --> 01:32:09,599
Speaker 1: to the extent there's a right wing critique of corporations now,

1787
01:32:09,640 --> 01:32:13,080
Speaker 1: it centers on the individual ideologies held by corporate executives

1788
01:32:13,280 --> 01:32:16,320
Speaker 1: rather than that overall system as a whole. The woke

1789
01:32:16,560 --> 01:32:20,599
Speaker 1: hr executive, for one example. The answer they would argue

1790
01:32:20,640 --> 01:32:23,559
Speaker 1: to this whole problem comes from locking up the bad guys,

1791
01:32:23,680 --> 01:32:26,719
Speaker 1: bolstering those institutions that would improve the morality and values

1792
01:32:26,720 --> 01:32:30,040
Speaker 1: of the population, primarily the church and the family, while

1793
01:32:30,080 --> 01:32:33,320
Speaker 1: attacking those institutions they believe are degrading public values, like

1794
01:32:33,360 --> 01:32:36,800
Speaker 1: elite universities. Now. Listen, guys, I literally live in the

1795
01:32:36,840 --> 01:32:38,960
Speaker 1: town where I grew up in. I'm close to my parents.

1796
01:32:39,040 --> 01:32:42,280
Speaker 1: I believe family and community are absolutely critical to human thriving.

1797
01:32:42,520 --> 01:32:44,560
Speaker 1: And by the way, I do think that capitalism is

1798
01:32:44,600 --> 01:32:47,360
Speaker 1: also destroying those institutions of meaning. But I'll save that

1799
01:32:47,360 --> 01:32:50,800
Speaker 1: piece for another day. But while individuals certainly have agency

1800
01:32:50,840 --> 01:32:53,320
Speaker 1: in their lives and should be accountable for their actions,

1801
01:32:53,479 --> 01:32:58,000
Speaker 1: as a people, we are utterly powerless before the overwhelming

1802
01:32:58,000 --> 01:33:00,920
Speaker 1: forces that our economic system has unleashed. How are you

1803
01:33:00,920 --> 01:33:02,880
Speaker 1: going to faith and family your way out of every

1804
01:33:02,920 --> 01:33:05,080
Speaker 1: job in your town being shipped overseas so that profit

1805
01:33:05,120 --> 01:33:07,120
Speaker 1: margins can go up a tick. How are you going

1806
01:33:07,160 --> 01:33:09,400
Speaker 1: to bootstrap your way out of a system of surveillance

1807
01:33:09,439 --> 01:33:12,320
Speaker 1: capitalism that is constantly devising new ways to colonize your

1808
01:33:12,360 --> 01:33:14,880
Speaker 1: mind and keep you glued to your screens. How are

1809
01:33:14,880 --> 01:33:17,679
Speaker 1: you going to personal responsibility your way out of endless

1810
01:33:17,720 --> 01:33:20,720
Speaker 1: wars to feed a profit hungry military industrial complex that

1811
01:33:20,800 --> 01:33:24,599
Speaker 1: is literally content to risk nuclear war if it means

1812
01:33:24,600 --> 01:33:27,800
Speaker 1: a better earnings call. Problem is in wokeness or college kids,

1813
01:33:27,880 --> 01:33:30,600
Speaker 1: or trans teens or public school teachers. It's capitalism that

1814
01:33:30,600 --> 01:33:34,919
Speaker 1: wants to turn you into that generic, unthinking, profitable, sheeplike consumer.

1815
01:33:35,439 --> 01:33:37,280
Speaker 1: Now liberals, of course, they've got their own version of

1816
01:33:37,320 --> 01:33:40,120
Speaker 1: the personal responsibility narrative. By the way, the problem is

1817
01:33:40,160 --> 01:33:43,439
Speaker 1: the deplorables, or the Karens or the toxic masculinity. If

1818
01:33:43,479 --> 01:33:46,160
Speaker 1: there were more women and people of color running these corporations,

1819
01:33:46,200 --> 01:33:48,839
Speaker 1: then the government wouldn't be so horrible, the corporations wouldn't

1820
01:33:48,840 --> 01:33:51,519
Speaker 1: be so horrible, et cetera, et cetera, etc. This all,

1821
01:33:51,560 --> 01:33:54,960
Speaker 1: of course, is a distraction from the real issues. We

1822
01:33:55,120 --> 01:33:58,320
Speaker 1: can do better than accepting the deaths of despair and

1823
01:33:58,360 --> 01:34:01,519
Speaker 1: the skyrocketing cost and the destroyd middle class, and the

1824
01:34:01,640 --> 01:34:04,840
Speaker 1: endless wars and the murderous healthcare system that we have now.

1825
01:34:05,120 --> 01:34:07,519
Speaker 1: There are a lot of options on the path between

1826
01:34:07,600 --> 01:34:09,920
Speaker 1: the corporate run state we live in now and some

1827
01:34:10,120 --> 01:34:15,120
Speaker 1: stolen style authoritarian central planning nightmare. In fact, persuading Americans

1828
01:34:15,200 --> 01:34:18,559
Speaker 1: that our only options are Stollin or the Kochs is

1829
01:34:18,600 --> 01:34:21,400
Speaker 1: a pretty key way that the radical and deadly status

1830
01:34:21,479 --> 01:34:24,519
Speaker 1: quo is preserved for all those who profit from it.

1831
01:34:25,120 --> 01:34:29,400
Speaker 1: Bilbur has it absolutely right time to take the blinders

1832
01:34:29,439 --> 01:34:33,200
Speaker 1: off on the victims of capitalism who are all around us.

1833
01:34:33,560 --> 01:34:36,720
Speaker 1: And Sager went a little deep there, and if you

1834
01:34:36,720 --> 01:34:39,479
Speaker 1: want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a

1835
01:34:39,520 --> 01:34:45,360
Speaker 1: premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Joining us now

1836
01:34:45,439 --> 01:34:49,240
Speaker 1: is author Nicholas Eberstadt. He's the author of a fantastic book,

1837
01:34:49,320 --> 01:34:51,240
Speaker 1: Men Without Work. Let's gohea and put it up there

1838
01:34:51,560 --> 01:34:54,360
Speaker 1: on the screen, which actually has a new introduction which

1839
01:34:54,360 --> 01:34:56,360
Speaker 1: is part of the reason that we all wanted to talk.

1840
01:34:56,600 --> 01:35:01,160
Speaker 1: Men Without Work, which demonstrates a crisis of male wages

1841
01:35:01,240 --> 01:35:04,240
Speaker 1: of unemployment, talks about some of the reasons so just

1842
01:35:04,280 --> 01:35:06,920
Speaker 1: for contacts. Nick. We actually recently had Richard Reeves on

1843
01:35:07,040 --> 01:35:09,200
Speaker 1: to discuss his book of Boys and Men, and we've

1844
01:35:09,200 --> 01:35:12,400
Speaker 1: got a tremendous response from our audience, and it's something

1845
01:35:12,400 --> 01:35:14,680
Speaker 1: we want to tug on a little bit more. I

1846
01:35:14,800 --> 01:35:16,800
Speaker 1: was familiar with your work now for quite some time,

1847
01:35:16,840 --> 01:35:19,719
Speaker 1: So just describe maybe the original thesis of the book,

1848
01:35:19,720 --> 01:35:22,320
Speaker 1: and then why it becomes even more relevant in the

1849
01:35:22,320 --> 01:35:26,000
Speaker 1: aftershock of the COVID, after the COVID lockdowns and the

1850
01:35:26,120 --> 01:35:29,400
Speaker 1: economy that we're all living in in twenty twenty two. Sure. Well,

1851
01:35:29,400 --> 01:35:32,000
Speaker 1: it's a problem that's been hiding in plain sight for

1852
01:35:32,080 --> 01:35:37,760
Speaker 1: almost two generations. We've been seeing this previously invisible crisis

1853
01:35:37,800 --> 01:35:41,240
Speaker 1: of the collapse of work for men, mainly driven by

1854
01:35:41,360 --> 01:35:45,200
Speaker 1: an exit from the workforce of prime age men of

1855
01:35:45,360 --> 01:35:48,559
Speaker 1: twenty five to fifty four year olds. Let's say it's

1856
01:35:48,640 --> 01:35:53,400
Speaker 1: been almost a straight line up from sixty five to

1857
01:35:53,439 --> 01:35:55,920
Speaker 1: the present. I put out the first edition of this

1858
01:35:56,000 --> 01:36:01,120
Speaker 1: book in twenty sixteen, and the unnerving, eerie thing is

1859
01:36:01,560 --> 01:36:05,040
Speaker 1: the line I calculated for the exit from the workforce,

1860
01:36:05,280 --> 01:36:09,160
Speaker 1: which is almost straight, has just continued right on from

1861
01:36:09,200 --> 01:36:11,680
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen to the present. So we've got more than

1862
01:36:11,760 --> 01:36:15,719
Speaker 1: seven million prime age guys neither working nor looking for work.

1863
01:36:16,160 --> 01:36:20,240
Speaker 1: For every guy who's unemployed, they're over four who are

1864
01:36:20,320 --> 01:36:23,640
Speaker 1: neither working nor looking for work today. And that is

1865
01:36:23,680 --> 01:36:27,080
Speaker 1: why male work rates are now kind of at about

1866
01:36:27,200 --> 01:36:32,160
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven levels. We have a depression scale problem

1867
01:36:32,240 --> 01:36:35,000
Speaker 1: of work for men on our hands right now. And

1868
01:36:35,080 --> 01:36:37,800
Speaker 1: that's obviously not the only thing going wrong in our

1869
01:36:37,800 --> 01:36:41,960
Speaker 1: workforce right now. So do we know what men are

1870
01:36:42,320 --> 01:36:46,360
Speaker 1: those men are doing instead of working in regular jobs.

1871
01:36:46,400 --> 01:36:48,960
Speaker 1: And also I was curious in the statistics, do things

1872
01:36:49,000 --> 01:36:51,720
Speaker 1: like you know, driving for uber, these sort of like

1873
01:36:51,800 --> 01:36:56,479
Speaker 1: gig economy type of work is that included in the

1874
01:36:56,479 --> 01:36:59,680
Speaker 1: statistics of men who are working that's supposed to be

1875
01:36:59,760 --> 01:37:04,680
Speaker 1: in looted Cristal, I mean in principle, in practice, some

1876
01:37:04,720 --> 01:37:08,200
Speaker 1: of it may be missed. In practice, some moonlighting may

1877
01:37:08,240 --> 01:37:11,160
Speaker 1: be missed. But the scale of the problem I think

1878
01:37:11,280 --> 01:37:14,519
Speaker 1: is basically pretty for real. I think the scale of

1879
01:37:14,520 --> 01:37:17,360
Speaker 1: the problem isn't artificial. And so do we have a

1880
01:37:17,400 --> 01:37:20,679
Speaker 1: sense of what they're doing with their days instead of work.

1881
01:37:21,400 --> 01:37:24,360
Speaker 1: So about a tenth, maybe a little more than a

1882
01:37:24,400 --> 01:37:26,720
Speaker 1: tenth of these guys who are not in the workforce

1883
01:37:26,760 --> 01:37:31,280
Speaker 1: are really full time students. The way they behave, the

1884
01:37:31,280 --> 01:37:33,400
Speaker 1: way they act is more or less like people who

1885
01:37:33,400 --> 01:37:36,720
Speaker 1: are employed, not surprisingly because they're expecting to get back

1886
01:37:36,760 --> 01:37:40,599
Speaker 1: into the workforce. For the overwhelming majority, though, the people

1887
01:37:40,680 --> 01:37:45,439
Speaker 1: who are neither employed nor in education and training, you've

1888
01:37:45,479 --> 01:37:49,240
Speaker 1: got a really dispiriting picture that is being painted by them.

1889
01:37:49,560 --> 01:37:53,280
Speaker 1: By their self reported answers to surveys about how they

1890
01:37:53,360 --> 01:37:57,360
Speaker 1: spend their time, they basically say that they don't do

1891
01:37:57,479 --> 01:38:02,720
Speaker 1: civil society, that they don't do work or charity or volunteering.

1892
01:38:03,720 --> 01:38:08,200
Speaker 1: They say that they do remarkably little help around the house,

1893
01:38:08,640 --> 01:38:12,920
Speaker 1: either with people at home or with housework. What they

1894
01:38:13,000 --> 01:38:17,280
Speaker 1: report doing most is watching. We can't tell from the

1895
01:38:17,280 --> 01:38:19,280
Speaker 1: surveys what they're watching. We can't tell what type of

1896
01:38:19,320 --> 01:38:22,439
Speaker 1: devices or what the content is, but like two thousand

1897
01:38:22,560 --> 01:38:25,639
Speaker 1: hours a year, as if it were a full time job.

1898
01:38:26,000 --> 01:38:30,519
Speaker 1: And before the pandemic, they also reported almost half of

1899
01:38:30,560 --> 01:38:34,920
Speaker 1: these men reported that they were taking pain medication every day,

1900
01:38:35,000 --> 01:38:38,200
Speaker 1: some type of pain medication. So we've got a kind

1901
01:38:38,240 --> 01:38:41,719
Speaker 1: of a tableau suggesting that people are kind of prepping

1902
01:38:41,840 --> 01:38:45,680
Speaker 1: for deaths of despair in too many cases. And so

1903
01:38:45,760 --> 01:38:49,000
Speaker 1: what are the downstream social effects of this, Like, why

1904
01:38:49,040 --> 01:38:52,240
Speaker 1: is this. Why should people care? In essence, well, what

1905
01:38:52,360 --> 01:38:54,960
Speaker 1: socialized costs are all of us incurring as a result

1906
01:38:54,960 --> 01:38:58,000
Speaker 1: of this crisis? You know, I've thought about that a lot, Cigar,

1907
01:38:58,120 --> 01:39:00,840
Speaker 1: and as far as I can tell, there's absolutely nothing

1908
01:39:00,840 --> 01:39:03,639
Speaker 1: good that comes out of this. It leads to this

1909
01:39:03,840 --> 01:39:08,920
Speaker 1: huge gap in our workforce, means slower economic growth. It

1910
01:39:08,960 --> 01:39:12,920
Speaker 1: also means bigger income and wealth gaps in our society.

1911
01:39:13,400 --> 01:39:17,559
Speaker 1: It probably means more dependence upon social programs and social

1912
01:39:17,720 --> 01:39:22,440
Speaker 1: welfare over the long term, more pressure on fragile families,

1913
01:39:22,680 --> 01:39:29,800
Speaker 1: less social mobility, less involvement in society and trust in institutions.

1914
01:39:29,960 --> 01:39:32,040
Speaker 1: There's just you to do the three sixty There is

1915
01:39:32,160 --> 01:39:34,880
Speaker 1: nothing good that comes out of us. And what do

1916
01:39:34,960 --> 01:39:38,719
Speaker 1: you see as the spark that set this process in motion?

1917
01:39:38,800 --> 01:39:41,040
Speaker 1: Because I believe you said it's basically a straight line,

1918
01:39:41,080 --> 01:39:43,200
Speaker 1: since I think you said in nineteen sixty five. So

1919
01:39:43,960 --> 01:39:47,200
Speaker 1: what starts to happen that changes the dynamic that leads

1920
01:39:47,200 --> 01:39:49,599
Speaker 1: to this sort of you know, not just dropping out

1921
01:39:49,640 --> 01:39:52,880
Speaker 1: of the workforce, but becoming a sort of observer of

1922
01:39:53,000 --> 01:39:57,040
Speaker 1: society rather than a participant in altogether. It's a really

1923
01:39:57,120 --> 01:40:00,240
Speaker 1: profound question, Crystal. And since this has been going on,

1924
01:40:00,360 --> 01:40:03,400
Speaker 1: for over half a century. I mean it's an established

1925
01:40:03,520 --> 01:40:07,320
Speaker 1: historical fact, a big fact, and like other big established

1926
01:40:07,400 --> 01:40:13,000
Speaker 1: historical facts, it's probably got a lot of influences intertwined there.

1927
01:40:13,400 --> 01:40:15,559
Speaker 1: I can point to a couple of things. I mean,

1928
01:40:15,720 --> 01:40:19,479
Speaker 1: one has been the uh, you know, the erosion of

1929
01:40:19,640 --> 01:40:23,360
Speaker 1: the previous family order in the United States, because the

1930
01:40:23,439 --> 01:40:25,479
Speaker 1: men who are never married or don't have kids at

1931
01:40:25,479 --> 01:40:27,760
Speaker 1: home are way less likely to be involved in the

1932
01:40:27,760 --> 01:40:33,560
Speaker 1: workforce too. Another is the expansion of social welfare benefits.

1933
01:40:33,680 --> 01:40:37,599
Speaker 1: Our system is very stingy, I've been told by anybody

1934
01:40:37,640 --> 01:40:40,800
Speaker 1: I talked to in Europe or other affluent societies in

1935
01:40:40,840 --> 01:40:46,040
Speaker 1: the world, but there can still be perverse disincentives, especially

1936
01:40:46,080 --> 01:40:50,080
Speaker 1: in our I think on our disability archipelago of programs

1937
01:40:50,640 --> 01:40:56,240
Speaker 1: to infantilize people who who shouldn't be affected that way

1938
01:40:56,720 --> 01:41:00,640
Speaker 1: we've seen. We've also seen the explosion of crime and

1939
01:41:00,680 --> 01:41:03,880
Speaker 1: the explosion of punishment. This is a really big one.

1940
01:41:04,040 --> 01:41:10,360
Speaker 1: Our government does not collect any decent data on our

1941
01:41:10,479 --> 01:41:14,160
Speaker 1: invisible XCOM population, but we have reason to think that

1942
01:41:14,160 --> 01:41:18,120
Speaker 1: there are now twenty five million American adults who have

1943
01:41:18,200 --> 01:41:21,080
Speaker 1: a felony in their background. And you know that mass

1944
01:41:21,080 --> 01:41:23,639
Speaker 1: incarceration is the problem we talk about, it's like two

1945
01:41:23,640 --> 01:41:27,160
Speaker 1: million people. That's less than a tenth of this big

1946
01:41:27,200 --> 01:41:31,320
Speaker 1: problem I'm mentioning. So about one in seven adult guys,

1947
01:41:31,360 --> 01:41:36,720
Speaker 1: by my calculation, has a felony in his background, and

1948
01:41:37,160 --> 01:41:39,439
Speaker 1: that has to be a big part of what we're

1949
01:41:39,479 --> 01:41:42,519
Speaker 1: seeing here. Are we seeing a similar trend in other

1950
01:41:42,920 --> 01:41:46,559
Speaker 1: developed nations or the US alone in this In every

1951
01:41:46,920 --> 01:41:52,639
Speaker 1: rich country you see some decline in prime male labor

1952
01:41:52,680 --> 01:41:57,759
Speaker 1: force involvement. There is no other country in the rich

1953
01:41:58,040 --> 01:42:02,519
Speaker 1: democratic world that has had such a steady plunge as hours.

1954
01:42:02,680 --> 01:42:05,960
Speaker 1: I mean, of the two big rich countries in the world,

1955
01:42:06,000 --> 01:42:08,439
Speaker 1: the ones that are closest to being twins or Canada

1956
01:42:08,479 --> 01:42:12,160
Speaker 1: in the US, and our decline is way worse than Canada's.

1957
01:42:13,240 --> 01:42:16,439
Speaker 1: And so in terms of solutions, what do you propose

1958
01:42:16,760 --> 01:42:19,920
Speaker 1: are there? Is it just socializing the conversation, getting people

1959
01:42:19,960 --> 01:42:22,439
Speaker 1: to debate it, getting people to acknowledge these facts because

1960
01:42:22,439 --> 01:42:25,519
Speaker 1: I don't see them really represented in our culture at all. No,

1961
01:42:25,680 --> 01:42:30,479
Speaker 1: I mean, this is an invisible crisis. Still, it baffles

1962
01:42:30,479 --> 01:42:32,840
Speaker 1: me why people aren't talking about this. I mean, maybe

1963
01:42:32,840 --> 01:42:35,839
Speaker 1: because the guys are too often dying deaths of despair

1964
01:42:36,040 --> 01:42:38,160
Speaker 1: and they're not burning cars or seeming to be a

1965
01:42:38,200 --> 01:42:42,320
Speaker 1: menace to society in terms of big solutions, I forgot

1966
01:42:42,360 --> 01:42:45,400
Speaker 1: my magic wand today, so I can't fix the family

1967
01:42:45,479 --> 01:42:48,480
Speaker 1: and do other sorts of fundamental changes in our society.

1968
01:42:48,800 --> 01:42:53,200
Speaker 1: But government can still do things. We've got this gigantic

1969
01:42:53,280 --> 01:43:00,000
Speaker 1: vocational skill gap because our broken education system isn't prepared

1970
01:43:00,080 --> 01:43:02,880
Speaker 1: aring everybody the way they should to have a marketable

1971
01:43:02,880 --> 01:43:06,519
Speaker 1: skill when they graduate from K through twelve or from college.

1972
01:43:07,360 --> 01:43:10,080
Speaker 1: We need, I think, to have a work first principle

1973
01:43:10,400 --> 01:43:14,559
Speaker 1: in our social welfare programs. That might turn out to

1974
01:43:14,600 --> 01:43:17,600
Speaker 1: be more expensive, but even if it were more expensive,

1975
01:43:17,640 --> 01:43:20,680
Speaker 1: I think the consequences would be better for our society,

1976
01:43:20,920 --> 01:43:24,240
Speaker 1: and we should be shining a spotlight on our invisible

1977
01:43:24,479 --> 01:43:29,320
Speaker 1: XCOM population. We can't have evidence based policies for getting

1978
01:43:29,400 --> 01:43:33,240
Speaker 1: these millions and millions of Americans back into employment and

1979
01:43:33,320 --> 01:43:37,000
Speaker 1: families and societies if we don't have the evidence. One

1980
01:43:37,000 --> 01:43:40,000
Speaker 1: thing that I think is important distinction that you have

1981
01:43:40,120 --> 01:43:42,880
Speaker 1: been making, which I think really matters, is you know,

1982
01:43:42,960 --> 01:43:45,080
Speaker 1: to me, like work is not everything. There are a

1983
01:43:45,080 --> 01:43:48,160
Speaker 1: lot of ways to find meaning in life that's outside

1984
01:43:48,160 --> 01:43:51,000
Speaker 1: of like a nine to five job. But what you're

1985
01:43:51,040 --> 01:43:53,800
Speaker 1: pointing to as a larger crisis of just sort of

1986
01:43:53,960 --> 01:43:57,960
Speaker 1: total disconnection. And as you're saying, I can't imagine that

1987
01:43:57,960 --> 01:44:01,040
Speaker 1: that ends in any good place, certainly for the individual men,

1988
01:44:01,479 --> 01:44:04,240
Speaker 1: for the people who are around them who may depend

1989
01:44:04,320 --> 01:44:07,559
Speaker 1: on them for various things, or for society as a whole.

1990
01:44:07,720 --> 01:44:11,120
Speaker 1: Do we have any sort of historical models of what

1991
01:44:11,160 --> 01:44:15,800
Speaker 1: this looks like? Well, yeah, I mean back in the

1992
01:44:15,880 --> 01:44:20,040
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds there was a sociologist called Emil Burkheim who

1993
01:44:20,120 --> 01:44:24,160
Speaker 1: talked about anomy and atomization. He did a lot of

1994
01:44:24,200 --> 01:44:27,840
Speaker 1: work on suicide and things like that. I mean, you

1995
01:44:27,880 --> 01:44:29,559
Speaker 1: can go I mean, if you want to kind of

1996
01:44:30,000 --> 01:44:32,360
Speaker 1: play fancy pants, you can go all the way back

1997
01:44:32,400 --> 01:44:38,080
Speaker 1: to Aristotle and talk about how he noticed that human beings,

1998
01:44:38,160 --> 01:44:42,240
Speaker 1: we're social creatures, that they needed to be part of

1999
01:44:42,320 --> 01:44:46,400
Speaker 1: society to thrive, and that part of our human nature

2000
01:44:46,439 --> 01:44:49,120
Speaker 1: I don't think has changed in twenty five hundred years.

2001
01:44:49,439 --> 01:44:52,840
Speaker 1: So you've got people who are dropped out of work,

2002
01:44:53,200 --> 01:44:57,040
Speaker 1: dropped out of family, dropped out of community, dropped out

2003
01:44:57,080 --> 01:45:02,040
Speaker 1: of faith. Why do we think this experiment could end well? Ever? Yeah,

2004
01:45:02,120 --> 01:45:04,400
Speaker 1: I think that's really well said. Last question for you. You

2005
01:45:04,240 --> 01:45:06,160
Speaker 1: You talked about some of these sort of like the

2006
01:45:06,240 --> 01:45:10,000
Speaker 1: sticks in particular of you know, having a work requirement

2007
01:45:10,280 --> 01:45:14,120
Speaker 1: for welfare programs. I'm a little bit skeptical of that,

2008
01:45:14,200 --> 01:45:17,000
Speaker 1: especially because of the evidence around universal basic income that

2009
01:45:17,000 --> 01:45:19,280
Speaker 1: shows there isn't really a drop off and like interest

2010
01:45:19,400 --> 01:45:21,960
Speaker 1: or working when you receive those payments. We'll put that

2011
01:45:22,280 --> 01:45:26,120
Speaker 1: debate aside. What about just making work more appealing. I mean,

2012
01:45:26,240 --> 01:45:28,360
Speaker 1: during the time period you're talking about, you've had union

2013
01:45:28,439 --> 01:45:32,040
Speaker 1: rates massively declining over some significant portion of those decades.

2014
01:45:32,080 --> 01:45:35,640
Speaker 1: You've actually had male wages going down. So you know,

2015
01:45:35,880 --> 01:45:38,880
Speaker 1: it's not crazy for guys to look at that and say,

2016
01:45:38,920 --> 01:45:40,920
Speaker 1: like this is just not worth it, Like I can

2017
01:45:40,960 --> 01:45:43,320
Speaker 1: work my ass off and still not be able to

2018
01:45:43,600 --> 01:45:47,360
Speaker 1: buy a house, have a family, like live that American dream,

2019
01:45:47,560 --> 01:45:51,000
Speaker 1: So why should I bother? Well, I think we had

2020
01:45:51,040 --> 01:45:53,400
Speaker 1: a little bit of a kind of a natural experiment

2021
01:45:53,520 --> 01:45:58,000
Speaker 1: during the pandemic in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one.

2022
01:45:58,560 --> 01:46:03,120
Speaker 1: Immigration to the United States was severely disrupted. There was

2023
01:46:03,160 --> 01:46:06,200
Speaker 1: all of this argument about our immigrants stealing American jobs.

2024
01:46:07,960 --> 01:46:12,800
Speaker 1: The native US born work rate for guys did not

2025
01:46:12,920 --> 01:46:14,760
Speaker 1: go up or for anybody else to not go up

2026
01:46:14,840 --> 01:46:17,240
Speaker 1: during that period. It's still way lower than it was

2027
01:46:17,320 --> 01:46:24,000
Speaker 1: before the pandemic. We had a more rapid increase in wages,

2028
01:46:24,240 --> 01:46:29,719
Speaker 1: especially for the lower occupational skill levels in twenty twenty one,

2029
01:46:29,880 --> 01:46:32,320
Speaker 1: than we'd had in a long time, and it didn't

2030
01:46:32,360 --> 01:46:35,519
Speaker 1: seem to have a big effect of bringing people back.

2031
01:46:35,840 --> 01:46:39,280
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a very good argument for having higher

2032
01:46:39,320 --> 01:46:42,040
Speaker 1: wages because we want to have a prosperous society and

2033
01:46:42,080 --> 01:46:44,840
Speaker 1: we want to have escalators that work for people. The

2034
01:46:45,160 --> 01:46:49,840
Speaker 1: troubling thing is that there's reason to think that once

2035
01:46:49,880 --> 01:46:53,320
Speaker 1: people drop out of the labor force, especially guys from

2036
01:46:53,360 --> 01:46:57,120
Speaker 1: this prime age group, that they tend to remain long

2037
01:46:57,280 --> 01:47:00,960
Speaker 1: timers long terms. That is much that has not been

2038
01:47:00,960 --> 01:47:03,439
Speaker 1: true with women so much. I mean, we have the

2039
01:47:03,880 --> 01:47:08,000
Speaker 1: existence proof of moms who go out of the workforce

2040
01:47:08,040 --> 01:47:10,559
Speaker 1: and go back in, but they have a very different

2041
01:47:10,600 --> 01:47:13,519
Speaker 1: set of skills. They don't get any sick days or

2042
01:47:13,600 --> 01:47:18,760
Speaker 1: vacation days from their kids. Right there, the reliable, dependable

2043
01:47:18,920 --> 01:47:22,960
Speaker 1: people that employers want. The sorts of habits that people

2044
01:47:23,120 --> 01:47:27,120
Speaker 1: develop if they're guys on the couch with pain medication

2045
01:47:27,600 --> 01:47:32,479
Speaker 1: is not what employers are looking for. Wow, really interesting subject,

2046
01:47:32,520 --> 01:47:33,560
Speaker 1: you know, I think we're just going to have to

2047
01:47:33,640 --> 01:47:35,600
Speaker 1: keep diving into it. And I appreciate your work. Just

2048
01:47:35,600 --> 01:47:38,000
Speaker 1: putting the data out there. You know, data in itself

2049
01:47:38,080 --> 01:47:40,599
Speaker 1: is way for us to spark the conversation. So thanks

2050
01:47:40,680 --> 01:47:45,160
Speaker 1: very much, sir, Thank you for joining Ureatastic. Thank you

2051
01:47:45,200 --> 01:47:47,439
Speaker 1: guys so much for watching. We really appreciate your support.

2052
01:47:47,640 --> 01:47:49,720
Speaker 1: It's just been amazing to watch. If you can god

2053
01:47:49,800 --> 01:47:51,559
Speaker 1: and join us in Chicago, we've got a great show

2054
01:47:51,600 --> 01:47:54,160
Speaker 1: plan for everybody. Link is down in the description. If

2055
01:47:54,200 --> 01:47:56,400
Speaker 1: you can continue to support the expansion because of all

2056
01:47:56,400 --> 01:47:59,439
Speaker 1: of our premiumsbscribers, hired somebody new. We're going to be

2057
01:47:59,439 --> 01:48:03,160
Speaker 1: revealing that sometime soon, and we've got Counterpoints, which is

2058
01:48:03,200 --> 01:48:06,200
Speaker 1: just doing phenomenally well. We really appreciate just watching the

2059
01:48:06,240 --> 01:48:09,080
Speaker 1: show grow purely as a result of your enthusiasm, so

2060
01:48:09,120 --> 01:48:11,919
Speaker 1: we can't thank you enough. Link is down the description. Otherwise,

2061
01:48:11,960 --> 01:48:13,680
Speaker 1: great content for you the weekend, and we'll see you

2062
01:48:13,760 --> 01:48:32,760
Speaker 1: on Monday. Love you guys, See you Monday.