Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
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Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Crystal?
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do. Lots of interesting things are taking a
Speaker 1: look at this morning. First of all, Donald Trump racking
Speaker 1: up some endorsements in Florida that are pretty embarrassing for
Speaker 1: Ronda Santis. And also a new pullout on the Democratic
Speaker 1: primary side that I think a lot of folks will
Speaker 1: be surprised at, including the current occupant of the White House.
Speaker 1: Break that down for you as well. We've got new
Speaker 1: details about the Kevin McCarthy debt sealing proposal. Is that
Speaker 1: going to be a go or no go? I'm going
Speaker 1: to say no go, but we'll give you those details
Speaker 1: as well. Some developments with regards to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: So number one another wrinkle of Diane Feinstein being unable
Speaker 1: to do her job. It really limits what Democrats can
Speaker 1: do with regards to the ethics complaints against Justice Thomas.
Speaker 1: So that's one piece. The other piece is the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court pushing off a decision on what they're going to
Speaker 1: do about the abortion pill. So we've got that for you. Also,
Speaker 1: Iowa passing a new child labor law. This is the
Speaker 1: latest state in what has become a trend nationwide. Soig's
Speaker 1: staying to look at some UFO footage and testimony.
Speaker 3: Been hearing yesterday.
Speaker 1: I'll let him break that down for me and for
Speaker 1: all of you as well. And Grant Paulson, someone I
Speaker 1: actually grew up with. He's going to be taking a
Speaker 1: look at whether the Saudis are trying to buy the
Speaker 1: Washington football team, which would really be something, right, So
Speaker 1: we'll get all the details there and find out what
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Speaker 2: Shortly Breakingpoints dot Com if you can. All right, let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and start with the show. Just an absolutely
Speaker 2: amazing statistic which will surprise nobody who watches this show,
Speaker 2: but will surprise many people in the Republican establishment. Trump
Speaker 2: is wiping the floor with Ron DeSantis in endorsements, not
Speaker 2: only endorsements from elected officials GOP nationwide, but also in
Speaker 2: his own home state of Florida. Let's go ahead and
Speaker 2: put this up on the screen. This was accurate as
Speaker 2: of Wednesday night in terms of GOP presidential endorsements from
Speaker 2: either congressmen, governors, or other statewide or national elected officials.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has now racked up sixty one presidential endorsements,
Speaker 2: actually sixty three as of this morning because of some
Speaker 2: late breaking developments, and now three endorsements for Governor Ron DeSantis,
Speaker 2: including people like Chip Roy and a few other members
Speaker 2: of Congress. But those who are actually really on the
Speaker 2: other side of Trump's are not saying they aren't important,
Speaker 2: just noting just an overall number figure. But really a
Speaker 2: certain incidents sticks out more than any about why people
Speaker 2: who are even representing the state of Florida are not
Speaker 2: going with Ron de Santis, and it actually speaks very
Speaker 2: much to his own political abilit as a politician, not
Speaker 2: just at the national level in the way you might
Speaker 2: think about it, like speaking, but in the wheeling and
Speaker 2: dealing from behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: This specifically involved Greg Stuby.
Speaker 2: He's a Congressman from Florida, he's a republic Let's go
Speaker 2: put this up there on the screen. He actually endorsed
Speaker 2: Donald Trump immediately after a meeting with Ron DeSantis' as
Speaker 2: big as an f as there is, and here's what
Speaker 2: he had to say.
Speaker 3: They actually asked him like, why did you do this?
Speaker 2: He says, quote DeSantis never once reached out to me
Speaker 2: during my five years in Congress, nor replied to my
Speaker 2: multiple attempts to connect. Stevie recalled a recent news conference
Speaker 2: dealing with damage from Hurricane Ian where the governor's aides
Speaker 2: initially invited him to stand along DeSantis, only to tell
Speaker 2: him he would not be part of the event whenever
Speaker 2: he showed up. Trump, on the other hand, was the
Speaker 2: first person that Stube remembers calling him in the ICU
Speaker 2: to wish him well after he was injured in a
Speaker 2: January tree trimming incident.
Speaker 3: To this day, I have not heard from Governor to Santas.
Speaker 3: He says.
Speaker 2: Things suddenly changed last week when Trump started rolling out
Speaker 2: for Florida congressional leader's endorsements. He says, quote, for the
Speaker 2: first time ever, I hear from DeSantis's political person. For Stube,
Speaker 2: the outrage was too little, too late. He continues to
Speaker 2: have sharp words for DeSantis, criticizing his robust political travel
Speaker 2: schedule amid a busy legislative season. Floridians want him focused
Speaker 2: on Florida. I mean, look, when you've got your home
Speaker 2: state and this isn't just one guy, just so people know,
Speaker 2: like we've got significant numbers. I am. Here's the endorsement
Speaker 2: that I reference. Is going to put this up there.
Speaker 2: Specifically about that, he even literally says Trump is the
Speaker 2: only person that can reverse the disastrous policies of the
Speaker 2: Biden administration. And in the tweet Crystal that he announced,
Speaker 2: he said, just had a great meeting with Ron DeSantis,
Speaker 2: Proud to endorse President Trump. That is as big of
Speaker 2: a slap in the face as it gets. And at
Speaker 2: this current point, guys, Trump is absolutely wiping the floor
Speaker 2: with DeSantis in Florida. Put this up there, Vern Buchanan
Speaker 2: late last night, so I alluded to, is now the
Speaker 2: eighth Republican to endorse Trump?
Speaker 1: Eighth Florida Florida Republican.
Speaker 3: To endorse Trump.
Speaker 1: One day after DeSantis.
Speaker 2: Visited Capitol Hill to speak with GOP president or sorry,
Speaker 2: with GOP elected officials. I don't know what more evidence
Speaker 2: that people need, not only just in terms of the voters,
Speaker 2: but also in terms of his hold on the institutional GOP.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing. These people, none of them has
Speaker 1: a courageous vote in your body. They're all finger in
Speaker 1: the wind, right, every one of them. I mean, think
Speaker 1: back to right after the midterms when DeSantis has this
Speaker 1: big night in Florida, wins easily. It's the only state
Speaker 1: in the country where Republicans do really, really well in
Speaker 1: New York being you know, secondary to that, and Trump,
Speaker 1: you know, looked like his candidates didn't do well. He
Speaker 1: had a whole stench around him. And he announces right
Speaker 1: after that, and even Matt Gates couldn't find it in
Speaker 1: his heart to make his way to Trump's presidential announcement.
Speaker 1: You'll call apparently there were weather issues. Now we checked
Speaker 1: the weather. I was like, perfectly sunny here, perfectly sunny
Speaker 1: down in Florida, but he had to come up with
Speaker 1: an excuse not to be there. Now you can see
Speaker 1: they're looking at the polls, they're looking at the mood,
Speaker 1: they're looking at the landscape that we're looking at, saying listen,
Speaker 1: it's going to be Trump focused media, it's going to
Speaker 1: be indictments, it's going to be trials, it's going to
Speaker 1: be you know, all about Trump's legal quandaries and situation.
Speaker 1: There is no oxygen left over for anyone, including Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 1: And then you layer on top of that. You know,
Speaker 1: you talked about Stuby and how there was no hour,
Speaker 1: which is astonishing to me. I mean, this is someone
Speaker 1: who is your home state congressional delegation. I'm shocked that
Speaker 1: they're not buddies, like usually that's the way these things work.
Speaker 1: And then with Vern Buchanan, they note that DeSantis did
Speaker 1: not come to Buchanan's aid when he was in a
Speaker 1: fight to Share the Ways and Means Committee earlier this year.
Speaker 1: It did not go unnoticed. Now, listen, these people are egomaniacs.
Speaker 1: Should any of this matter, No, it shouldn't. That they're
Speaker 1: like how much they flatter your ego and you know,
Speaker 1: in Bernie's words, like he's not gonna call you and
Speaker 1: wish you happy birthday. That's just stuff. Shouldn't matter what
Speaker 1: it does, but it does. And if you're playing DeSantis
Speaker 1: is really trying to play kind of an inside game.
Speaker 1: I know they would object to that, but that's the
Speaker 1: reality of where his support primarily lies. You have to
Speaker 1: be extra good at this type of just basic blocking
Speaker 1: and tackling political outreach exactly for moments like this. So,
Speaker 1: you know, to make the Bernie contrast, Bernie at least
Speaker 1: had a big grassroots based going for him. He was
Speaker 1: truly an outsider, so you might have forgiven him a
Speaker 1: little bit for not doing the like typical political outreach.
Speaker 1: But even for him, this ended up being a problem
Speaker 1: for him in terms of the Democratic primary that he
Speaker 1: didn't even try to change the dynamic in South Carolina
Speaker 1: with the elected officials, with with Jim Clyburn, they are
Speaker 1: in particular, so it's even an issue for a candidate
Speaker 1: like Bernie Sanders. It's definitely an issue for a candidate
Speaker 1: like Ronda Santis who's trying to play the inside track.
Speaker 2: He can only be an outsider whenever you're a guy
Speaker 2: like Trump who is independently famous and you have a
Speaker 2: genuine base.
Speaker 3: Of people who support you.
Speaker 2: Remember, you know, not even what was it Jeff Sessions
Speaker 2: I think was the first GOP official to endorse Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe he was a congressman, I forget exactly, but the
Speaker 2: point was they had no endorsements, but he was winning
Speaker 2: in the primary. DeSantis is not winning in the primary,
Speaker 2: so you have to trade it for him to get endorsements.
Speaker 2: The reason why I think it's important, especially from the
Speaker 2: state of Florida, it has to be a united front
Speaker 2: of get I turned Florida into a dark red state.
Speaker 2: Every single person from Florida knows that if they cross me,
Speaker 2: they're going to suffer consequences. Guess what they all crossed you,
Speaker 2: Stuby in particular, he didn't even stab in the back.
Speaker 2: He stabbed you in the eye and he didn't care.
Speaker 2: And you know this also gets to again some base
Speaker 2: political instincts. Let's go think about some of the governors
Speaker 2: who were elected president and what made them all different
Speaker 2: and what made them good politicians. How exactly did Governor
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton from Arkansas No offense Arkansas, but let's just say,
Speaker 2: you know, not the most important state in the Union.
Speaker 2: How did he become the nineteen ninety two presidential nominee
Speaker 2: and eventually become the president. He was a fantastic politician
Speaker 2: who stayed up until two am every single night calling
Speaker 2: every state legislator in Arkansas. The whole state was united
Speaker 2: behind him. After he solidified his control over the state.
Speaker 2: Then he got himself ahead of like the Democratic Governors
Speaker 2: Association is constantly on a plane, you know, scratching backs
Speaker 2: and helping fundraise for Jerry. You know, people in California,
Speaker 2: people in wherever, a all across the country. Became a
Speaker 2: national figure that way. Whenever he ran for president, he
Speaker 2: not only had name id, he had institutional backing. That
Speaker 2: stuff matters whenever you're trying to have more of an
Speaker 2: upswing campaign. That especially I think for a guy like
Speaker 2: Ron de Santis, who so many of the for DeSantis
Speaker 2: to get to fifty one percent, he needs to unite
Speaker 2: that never and but also people who like Trump might
Speaker 2: be willing to move on from Trump. There's no evidence,
Speaker 2: in my opinion that those people even really exist, but
Speaker 2: let's say.
Speaker 3: That they do.
Speaker 2: A key part of that would be getting people with
Speaker 2: credibility in the base, people like your congressman and other
Speaker 2: to go ahead and support him.
Speaker 3: Doesn't exist yet.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is the Bill Clinton point is a
Speaker 1: good one because, I mean, put aside his terrible politics
Speaker 1: and policies, all those things, he was a political sourvietor.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and there was nothing that he was better at.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was famous for having a photographic memory
Speaker 1: for people's names, their faces, and a little bit of
Speaker 1: their backstory. So you could see, you know, someone he
Speaker 1: saw once at some event, he'd see them again and it's, oh, Susie,
Speaker 1: how are you? How's your son doing? You know, how's
Speaker 1: how's Kansas? The rough it I mean, it would have
Speaker 1: these few little details like a rolodex in his brain.
Speaker 1: And so what that meant, All of that outreach and
Speaker 1: all of that sowing the seeds that he did before
Speaker 1: his presidential race meant that when he did have a
Speaker 1: little bit of good fortune in the race, wanted to
Speaker 1: come on board. Whereas DeSantis now has the opposite situation.
Speaker 1: When he's a little bit down, people are looking for
Speaker 1: the opportunity to stab him in the back. You see
Speaker 1: this in media all the time too, Like you can
Speaker 1: tell who has been a jerk in terms of like
Speaker 1: media personalities by whose staff is ready to leak on
Speaker 1: them the minute that they have the opportunity to. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing with politicians, like if you you know,
Speaker 1: invited someone to your event saying they're going to stand
Speaker 1: with you, and then you don't, that's humiliating for that person.
Speaker 1: You don't think they're going to be looking for every
Speaker 1: opportunity to try to stick it to you when they
Speaker 1: had a chance, and Stebe certainly found his moment here.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's an extraordinary just example of how
Speaker 1: the political wins have shifted where people clearly think things
Speaker 1: are going at this point. And it's especially devastating for
Speaker 1: someone who was thinking that they were going to have
Speaker 1: a lot of institutional support behind them, and that was
Speaker 1: really their play in order to win. Clearly that game
Speaker 1: plan has fallowed.
Speaker 2: Apart certainly did Let's go and move on to the
Speaker 2: next one. A fascinating twist in American political history. The
Speaker 2: son of Robert Francis Kennedy, Robert Francis Kennedy Junior, prominently
Speaker 2: known for speaking out about vaccines and specifically comings of
Speaker 2: prominence around COVID, has now announced his official entrance into
Speaker 2: the Democratic primary for twenty twenty four. And before you laugh,
Speaker 2: he's actually making more of a dent than people think.
Speaker 2: Here is a little bit from his announcement yesterday. Let's
Speaker 2: take a listen, and the.
Speaker 4: Coup de gras was the lockdown. Lockdown was the biggest
Speaker 4: shift in wealth in human history. And I'm going to
Speaker 4: tell you about that in a second. And I blame
Speaker 4: President Trump for the lockdown. I do not believe that
Speaker 4: everybody at the CIA as a bad person. My daughter
Speaker 4: in law, Amillis, who is who is one of the
Speaker 4: top officers on this campaigns her entire career as a
Speaker 4: Clendensteine agent or the CIA as a spy, and the
Speaker 4: weapons of matter's destruction program and some of the most
Speaker 4: dangerous parts of the earth. And I have never met
Speaker 4: anybody with such courage. This is what happens when you
Speaker 4: censored somebody for eighteen years.
Speaker 1: I got a lot to talk about.
Speaker 4: They shouldn't shut me up that long, because now I'm
Speaker 4: gonna really let loose on him for the next eighteen months.
Speaker 5: They're gonna hear a lot.
Speaker 2: There you go, a little bit of a taste made
Speaker 2: COVID a big centerpiece going after the Biden administration, and
Speaker 2: even Donald Trump kind of running at him almost from
Speaker 2: what I guess would be coded right today, although who knows,
Speaker 2: I guess it would have been coded left fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: Somebody who's really been more on the fringes of the
Speaker 2: American political system for eighteen years, but coming to obviously
Speaker 2: to prominence at least with some portion of the public.
Speaker 3: Because let's go in put.
Speaker 2: This up there on the screen, Robert Francis Kennedy Junior
Speaker 2: has now got some fourteen percent of support Crystal in
Speaker 2: the primary. There were several hundred people there at the
Speaker 2: announcement that he had yesterday, And in terms of the
Speaker 2: dent that he's making, I mean, I think that people
Speaker 2: forget first of all, obviously the Kennedy name, Kennedy, magic,
Speaker 2: et cetera. But I don't think people realize his book,
Speaker 2: I think was the real Anthony Founcer was one of
Speaker 2: the best selling books in the country for like.
Speaker 3: Almost a year.
Speaker 2: It sold at least, at very least hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of copies, lots of copies. He certainly made the rounds
Speaker 2: and you know podcasts and all that, and you know,
Speaker 2: quite a bit of people even know who he was
Speaker 2: before that, just given name ID. And on top of that,
Speaker 2: a lot of media, probably more media covered this event
Speaker 2: even than Mary Anne Williamson in terms of his announcement,
Speaker 2: again because of the Kennedy name. So between earned media
Speaker 2: between a genuine like pop culture or at very least
Speaker 2: like public recognition, I'm not going to say necessarily had
Speaker 2: quote as a shot. But he could be more of
Speaker 2: a menace, I think than a lot of people are
Speaker 2: going to give him credit for.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to say here. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: with regard to the poll, it is a little bit
Speaker 1: of a weird poll because they didn't pull likely primary voters.
Speaker 1: They pulled people who voted for Biden in the last
Speaker 1: general election, which is just kind of an unusual universe
Speaker 1: to pull. And it's very likely actually a broader and
Speaker 1: less overtly democratic based political than a primary poll would be.
Speaker 1: I mean this, and so it is a bit of
Speaker 1: a strange universe. But still when you have Joe Biden
Speaker 1: only garnering sixty seven percent of his own voters that
Speaker 1: already selected him one time, and you have you know,
Speaker 1: over you have over thirty percent that are either going
Speaker 1: to RFK junior marian or like yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: or not yeah exactly. I think it speaks to how
Speaker 1: vulnerable Biden really is and how much the media tries
Speaker 1: to cover for him, because every article that's written about
Speaker 1: Joe O'biden, it always says in there they've always got
Speaker 1: out of the line in there. No serious primary candidate
Speaker 1: has emerged. Okay, by whose measure? Because y'all sure treat
Speaker 1: Tim Scott who's at like one percent, and Nikki Haley
Speaker 1: and you know, potentially Mike Pence and all these other
Speaker 1: flew of Republican candidates, you take them seriously, Well, they're
Speaker 1: pulling lower, it appears, than either RFK Junior or Marian Williamson,
Speaker 1: both of whom are let's put their politics aside, how
Speaker 1: are you feel about them for a moment. I'll get
Speaker 1: to that and how I feel about them in just
Speaker 1: a second, But both of whom are best selling authors,
Speaker 1: very well known, have their own base of support, separate
Speaker 1: and apart from the current political moment. So to just
Speaker 1: dismiss them like, oh, they don't have a shot and
Speaker 1: no one's going to pay attention and no one cares
Speaker 1: about them, I think this is evidence very much to
Speaker 1: the contrary not to mention every poll when you ask
Speaker 1: Democratic voters do you want not the general public Democratic
Speaker 1: voters do you want Shoe Biden to be your nominee? Again,
Speaker 1: they're like, eh, thank you for your servicer, thank you
Speaker 1: for defeating Donald Trump. Can we have some other options here?
Speaker 1: So listen, RFK Junior has come to prominence. He's really
Speaker 1: made it his recent life's work to be he would
Speaker 1: object to this characteristic, but he's an anti vaxxer. He's
Speaker 1: been one of the primary people, you know, tying autism
Speaker 1: to the increase in the vaccine schedule. There's no evidence
Speaker 1: of that, and the fact that vaccines exist and autism exists,
Speaker 1: to me, is not remotely proof. So I have issues
Speaker 1: with his dances. I don't agree with him on some
Speaker 1: of those things. Do I think that means he should
Speaker 1: be censored, shut up, not allowed to be on a
Speaker 1: presidential debate stage. Absolutely not. And you know, I want
Speaker 1: to give credit to you. I was listening to some
Speaker 1: of his interviews in advance of this segment. I was
Speaker 1: listening to a long interview he did with Megan Kelly.
Speaker 1: I thought she handled it perfectly. You know, she was
Speaker 1: very tough with him, challenging him on the science backing
Speaker 1: what he was saying. She made sure to fact check.
Speaker 1: She took her time to record the interview and then
Speaker 1: go back get comment from people, look at the research,
Speaker 1: and she was able to present that that's the way
Speaker 1: that you deal with claims that are not scientifically based
Speaker 1: or that you disagree with that's the way you approach it. Now,
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, for all their supposed care and concern
Speaker 1: for democracy, they don't even want to let these people
Speaker 1: on a debate stage, even though both of them have
Speaker 1: already achieved way beyond the polling criteria that would be
Speaker 1: reasonable to allow them on a stage to debate against
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. So if the Biden team is so confident
Speaker 1: in his abilities and so sure that these are not
Speaker 1: serious candidates, let them on a stage and have a debate,
Speaker 1: and let's let the American people decide.
Speaker 2: I agree with you. And it just gets to the
Speaker 2: numbers question that I referenced earlier. Go ahead and put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen once again. Here you
Speaker 2: can see hardcover frontlist fiction RFK has already sold about
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand copies of the book that was Just
Speaker 2: or Sorry. He sold three hundred thousand copies of the
Speaker 2: book before January of twenty twenty two. That book remained
Speaker 2: at the top of the chart. So look, we don't
Speaker 2: have a way to know the exact number, but I
Speaker 2: would guess probably a million books that he was able
Speaker 2: to sell throughout the pandemic. And that's how people That
Speaker 2: is like it's like a Titanic best that's like Dan
Speaker 2: Brown novel level like success or at the very least
Speaker 2: in a year. So again, ignored by the media, basically
Speaker 2: ignored mostly by everybody. But I don't think you know,
Speaker 2: you cannot deny a serious political people that want to
Speaker 2: look at things objectively, see a fourteen percent bump in
Speaker 2: the or at the very least in the general electorates
Speaker 2: millions of books sold and say this person again. I'm
Speaker 2: not saying they have a shot, but they will demand attention,
Speaker 2: and I think rightfully so as you said, Look, if
Speaker 2: you're so afraid, yeah, if you want to challenge him,
Speaker 2: then have him on the stage and te him he's
Speaker 2: an idiot.
Speaker 3: You can do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people have done that before. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but if you're afraid, that says more about you.
Speaker 1: I think it's also interesting the way that originally you
Speaker 1: said he's now coded right when Steve Bannon was oouncing
Speaker 1: he his praise is saying, we love this guy. You know,
Speaker 1: he's done interviews with Tucker Carlson and whatever. He's more
Speaker 1: embraced in a lot of ways by right wing media
Speaker 1: now than he is by the left. But that's That's
Speaker 1: what's interesting to me is that, you know, the coding
Speaker 1: of being a vaccine opponent has really shifted over the years.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was he was like sort of in
Speaker 1: this la liberal lefty anti vax moment, and now that
Speaker 1: has become coded very you know, hard right wing, and
Speaker 1: it's certainly you know, opposition of lockdowns and all of
Speaker 1: those things, even though yeah, he does critique Trump and
Speaker 1: Biden alike, so interesting figure in that way as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, he originally is an environmental lawyer. Still, as
Speaker 1: an environmental lawyer went after a lot of companies for
Speaker 1: the sort of toxins that they would put into the environments.
Speaker 1: I don't want to undermine that work that he's done,
Speaker 1: even as obviously a disagree and I'm opposed to his
Speaker 1: views as with regards to the vaccines. But you know,
Speaker 1: for me, the bottom line here is you now have
Speaker 1: in this poll, which again it's a weird universe, and
Speaker 1: I would say probably a significant amount of his support
Speaker 1: is just people who are like, I don't like Biden.
Speaker 1: Here's a Kennedy name. Sounds good to me, right, But
Speaker 1: fourteen percent in this universe of voters, and Mariam's at
Speaker 1: fourteen percent in battleground with battleground state voters in a
Speaker 1: different poll. So you already have two contenders who are
Speaker 1: putting double digits on the board against Biden, and yet
Speaker 1: the media still wants to tell you now now he's safe,
Speaker 1: no serious contenders, etc. Listen, maybe maybe and very likely, right,
Speaker 1: very likely that Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee, no
Speaker 1: doubt about it. But to completely invisibilize these people, to
Speaker 1: try to shut down any opportunity for people to evaluate
Speaker 1: their choices, to try to shut down any opportunity to
Speaker 1: have the three of these individuals on a stage and
Speaker 1: be able to work through the processes of democracy that again,
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party claims so much to care about. I
Speaker 1: think it's disgraceful and I think it's hypocritical.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I completely agree, Crystal.
Speaker 1: All right, we have some updates for you on the
Speaker 1: whole debt ceilings sit situation. You will recall Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: and the Republicans, both in the House and the Senate,
Speaker 1: have decided to once again use the debt ceiling as
Speaker 1: a hostage taking mechanism to get things through that they
Speaker 1: could not otherwise get through. We have been waiting for
Speaker 1: McCarthy to put some details down about what exactly the
Speaker 1: Republican Caucus is proposing, because you know, you've got more
Speaker 1: moderate figures who represent Biden swing districts in New York
Speaker 1: that are very uncomfortable with a lot of hard cuts,
Speaker 1: and you have Freedom Caucus members who were, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the dissidents who really were pushing Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: to make some extreme deals in order to even claim
Speaker 1: his speakership. So he's in a precarious position. The Republican Caucus,
Speaker 1: which only has a four set majority in the House,
Speaker 1: is in a precarious position. So yesterday McCarthy put out
Speaker 1: a somewhat more detailed outline of their approach on the
Speaker 1: debt ceiling, although there's still a lot of details that
Speaker 1: continue to be left out, which is noteworthy in and
Speaker 1: of itself. Let's put Jake Sherman's tweets up on the screen. Now.
Speaker 1: This is how McCarthy characterized what is in this bill.
Speaker 1: He says that his bill provides four point five trillion
Speaker 1: dollars in savings. Sherman says, we don't have a bill, yes,
Speaker 1: so we can't know whether that's true or not. It's
Speaker 1: also not scored, So we're trusting the GOP's math as
Speaker 1: to whether the amount of savings, etcetera, etcetera pre twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two spending levels, budget increase capped one percent per year,
Speaker 1: clawback billions of dollars of unspent COVID money, repeal funding
Speaker 1: for IRS agents, green tax credit repeal, prohibits, student loan
Speaker 1: quote giveaway for the wealthy HR one Rains Act, which
Speaker 1: I looked at what that was, but I'm forgetting now
Speaker 1: work requirements for social programs and prevent executive overreach whatever
Speaker 1: that means. Do you remember what the Rains Act is?
Speaker 1: Or Government Loopholes Bill, Government Loopholes Bill? Okay, put the
Speaker 1: washtpost up on the screen. This has some more of
Speaker 1: the details. You know, the things that are targeted here.
Speaker 1: It's not going to surprise anyone. Some of the big
Speaker 1: cuts are to Medicare Medicaid sorry, and to food stamps
Speaker 1: or snap. Medicare and Social Security are left off the table,
Speaker 1: as well as any cuts to the military budget. Pentagon
Speaker 1: cuts or originally floated those are no longer being talked
Speaker 1: about here, and there's a significant limiting of who would
Speaker 1: be eligible for both Medicaid and for food stamps and
Speaker 1: increasing work requirements. The expectation is that more than ten
Speaker 1: million people could be kicked out of the food stamp
Speaker 1: program if these provisions are put into place. That amounts
Speaker 1: to one in four current SNAP beneficiaries. In the case
Speaker 1: of Medicaid, gop led states have introduced similar work mandates
Speaker 1: in the past, and they also have seen significant drops
Speaker 1: in enrollment, which is where the money savings would come from.
Speaker 1: The Other thing that's really noteworthy here, Sager, is they
Speaker 1: really take an ax to like all of the green energy,
Speaker 1: including electric vehicles. I wonder if some of those things,
Speaker 1: you know, the subsidies for electric vehicles. I wonder if
Speaker 1: some of those things might be controversial in some of
Speaker 1: these Republican districts where jobs are related to the EV industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just not sure. I've never actually thought that
Speaker 2: the base really agrees. All they have to do is
Speaker 2: sell it not on evs necessarily, but more in terms
Speaker 2: of spending, especially stuff like food stamps, is where they
Speaker 2: would really most people at the very least, you know,
Speaker 2: don't want to be seeing cuts with that program. What
Speaker 2: they're going to be able to do rhetorically is they
Speaker 2: can phrase this as standing up to Biden. The specifics
Speaker 2: honestly don't matter because at the same time, like, none
Speaker 2: of this is real.
Speaker 3: This isn't actually.
Speaker 1: Going to get like a fantasy.
Speaker 2: This is what's always annoying, you know, and it's always
Speaker 2: difficult for us to characterize. We're like, look, technically, on paper,
Speaker 2: this is what they say they're going to do. I
Speaker 2: also literally lived here how many times we're like, this
Speaker 2: is the plan in which we're going to repeal Obamacare,
Speaker 2: and then whenever it actually came to a chance, they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: none of that is actually what we're going with.
Speaker 3: Everything is new on the table.
Speaker 2: So to the extent that this is real in any way, like,
Speaker 2: let's just not take it all that seriously, it's.
Speaker 3: An opening bid.
Speaker 2: I mean, really, what does it tell us they want
Speaker 2: to extract cuts effectively across the board in all federal
Speaker 2: programs outside of Social Security and of Medicare. And if
Speaker 2: they do touch programs which people rely on, especially large
Speaker 2: constituencies that are live in red states, it will be
Speaker 2: politically unpopular. But it will also remain politically unpopular if
Speaker 2: you are seen as throwing people off or not working
Speaker 2: with people specifically in the time of inflation. That's not
Speaker 2: really one where people want. People want many people actually
Speaker 2: agree with reigning in the national debt, with reigning and spending,
Speaker 2: but whenever you ask them, what they really want are
Speaker 2: cuts to things like the military budget or they want,
Speaker 2: you know, to see like less spending on things that
Speaker 2: don't have to do with everyday services right now? More like, yeah,
Speaker 2: like how many times have we talked here about you know,
Speaker 2: outrageous F thirty five programs and things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's where and where.
Speaker 1: A lot of money is. Yeah, if you want to
Speaker 1: be real about this, I mean generally speaking in terms
Speaker 1: of the pulling people, Okay, do we need to lower
Speaker 1: the deficit? Do we need to lower the debt? They're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds good. When you ask them about okay, do
Speaker 1: you want to cut this program, they're like, hell no,
Speaker 1: you want to cut that prop? Hell no? Right. The
Speaker 1: only thing people really want to cut is like foreign aid,
Speaker 1: which amounts to like tiny, little, teeny sliver of the
Speaker 1: budget and will make no difference whatsoever with regard to
Speaker 1: the debt and the deficit. Yeah, if you are leaving
Speaker 1: social security and Medicare and the military off the table,
Speaker 1: then you are limiting yourself to making really draconian cuts
Speaker 1: in you know, the small percentage of the federal budget
Speaker 1: that is ultimately left because the bulk of the money
Speaker 1: goes to those programs. And guess what, So Security and
Speaker 1: Medicare are extremely popular. They're also extremely successful and very
Speaker 1: effective at, you know, mitigating senior poverty in particular, and
Speaker 1: Medicare obviously, you know, very successful as a healthcare program,
Speaker 1: very popular as well, and by the way, cheaper on
Speaker 1: a cost per per person basis than private health insurance.
Speaker 1: We'll put that aside for another day. So, yeah, they've
Speaker 1: kind of limited themselves in terms of what they can do.
Speaker 1: And the important piece here too is even within the
Speaker 1: Republican Caucus, a lot of the details here of where
Speaker 1: and how these cuts are going to be made, they're
Speaker 1: left up to the various committees. So he's still trying
Speaker 1: to pull this bit of a slide of hand, where
Speaker 1: by not having all of the details sketched own, he's
Speaker 1: hoping to keep his own caucus together to put pressure
Speaker 1: on the Biden White House. And you know, I just
Speaker 1: don't know how successful that is ultimately going to be.
Speaker 1: There's also a line of thinking that the whole debt
Speaker 1: ceiling thing is a bit of a far citiiturade. The
Speaker 1: only thing it's really used for is these, in my view,
Speaker 1: unconsciable hostage shaking tactics where you're like, I'm willing to
Speaker 1: tank the entire global economy in order to kick more
Speaker 1: people off of healthcare and like cut food stamp benefits
Speaker 1: for people. So there's a line of thinking that there
Speaker 1: are some work around here that the Biden administration could deploy.
Speaker 1: We've talked about minting the trillion dollar coin. But put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. This is Nathan Tankas, one
Speaker 1: of the people an economists who's one of the people
Speaker 1: who's been thinking about some of these options. Put the
Speaker 1: next hair sheet up on the screen here, So he
Speaker 1: says Biden can steamroll Republicans on the debt ceiling and
Speaker 1: FED chair j. Palell will not interfere. So what's key
Speaker 1: in what he's arguing here is there's always been a
Speaker 1: question whether it's mint the coin or one of the
Speaker 1: other workarounds that are essentially sort of like accounting gimmicks.
Speaker 1: Would the FED go along with it? And last we
Speaker 1: discussed the mint the coin thing. Nathan Tankas was one
Speaker 1: of the people that was like, well, here's what you do.
Speaker 1: You'd have to like send the military to the FED
Speaker 1: and like force them. Were like, I don't know about
Speaker 1: that one. However, you feel about that? Can you imagine
Speaker 1: the Biden administration doing that? No, you cannot. Well, in
Speaker 1: this article he lays down actually Fed chair pal kind
Speaker 1: of showed his hand a while back indicating that he
Speaker 1: would follow along with what with the sort of workarounds
Speaker 1: like mint the coin in his you know, own FED
Speaker 1: chair way, and so the whole military option wouldn't be necessary.
Speaker 1: And he's encouraging the Biden administration to use one of
Speaker 1: these workarounds in order to just completely short circuit this
Speaker 1: whole process and deny McCarthy and the Republicans any sort
Speaker 1: of leverage around the debt ceiling. Now will they do that,
Speaker 1: I don't know. At the very least, they should very
Speaker 1: credibly threaten to do it, because that would undercut the
Speaker 1: Republicans position here. But we all know these are like
Speaker 1: hardcore institutionalists without a lot of spines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I just keep going back to. I
Speaker 2: think we're going to have to see some sort of
Speaker 2: cross I mean, look, the Biden administration is never going
Speaker 2: to agree to cut its EV tax credits, like it's.
Speaker 1: Just not happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exist, this.
Speaker 1: Is your signature achievement.
Speaker 3: I actually think they might.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, given his track record, I definitely
Speaker 2: think I could see him caving on work increasing work
Speaker 2: requirements for welfare and for food stamps. I don't think
Speaker 2: there's no way he's going to cave on his signature benefit.
Speaker 2: So I get. But again I come back to picking
Speaker 2: and choosing in just why I think some sort of
Speaker 2: sequestration seems to be the most likely scenario is there's
Speaker 2: no genuine agreement what many Republicans Freedom Caucus them cared
Speaker 2: more at the time and probably still care today as
Speaker 2: the overall dollar figure rather than you know, rather than
Speaker 2: like which particular programs. And this is also an easy
Speaker 2: way for them to say, well, the Biden administration is
Speaker 2: forcing our hand, so we are going to have to
Speaker 2: have some sort of defense budget cuts, which a lot
Speaker 2: of Freedom Caucus people secretly do agree with. They just
Speaker 2: can't say it because it goes against the donor class.
Speaker 2: We will see, we still have several months. He's going
Speaker 2: to blink, who can what can even pass? As you said,
Speaker 2: important thing too, is do all the Republicans even.
Speaker 3: Agree on this. There's not a lot of evidence for that.
Speaker 2: You know, Nancy Mace came out and said that she
Speaker 2: wouldn't vote for it.
Speaker 3: That's one. You only need a couple more. You're dead out.
Speaker 3: What are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: Right? Well, and that's what I was trying to say
Speaker 1: about the eedy tax credits is, you know, the electric
Speaker 1: vehicle industry, in the auto industry in general, the significant
Speaker 1: part of the American economy, and a lot of these
Speaker 1: some of these congress people are going to represent districts
Speaker 1: where the EV industry is really important to them in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, jobs and future economic growth. So
Speaker 1: are they going to be cool with cutting out all
Speaker 1: of those benefits because that's one part where they really
Speaker 1: take an ax to every green energy credit, but in
Speaker 1: particular the EV subsidies that make those cars more affordable
Speaker 1: for consumers to buy, you know, best case scenario. So
Speaker 1: that could be an issue. Last time we covered this
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, we're talking about how the New York Republicans
Speaker 1: are very uncomfortable with the food stamp cuts. Are they
Speaker 1: going to go along with, you know, with one in
Speaker 1: four recipients being kicked out in the program Medicaid obviously, also,
Speaker 1: you know successful and popular. Is that going to be
Speaker 1: okay with people? And then there's all sorts of things
Speaker 1: that are not the top lines, that are these little
Speaker 1: individual you know, programs that you rarely hear about that
Speaker 1: are important to say West Virginia, are important to other
Speaker 1: places around the country. And because they've taken Medicare, social Security,
Speaker 1: and the military off the table, all of that stuff
Speaker 1: is going to have to get cut. So I think
Speaker 1: the White House's strategy is the right one so far,
Speaker 1: which is just to say nothing. Say basically, send me
Speaker 1: a clean debt ceiling. That's it. End a story, and
Speaker 1: watch the Republicans try to work this out among themselves
Speaker 1: and see if they can even get to the finish
Speaker 1: line with their own debt ceiling. Bill I saw Biden
Speaker 1: had some quote yesterday that was like, they're trying to
Speaker 1: get me to agree to all kind of wacko stuff
Speaker 1: in order to Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think wacko notions he said, is that a turn
Speaker 2: of race particularly articulate, He.
Speaker 1: Got his point across. So anyway, I think the White
Speaker 1: House strategy is more or less day silent and see
Speaker 1: if the Republicans can figure this out with fair confidence
Speaker 1: that they probably won't be able.
Speaker 2: That's the correct one. Also, there's a reason that nobody
Speaker 2: in the Senate has even said a word about this.
Speaker 2: The ultimate test is, is Canny pass it? If he
Speaker 2: passes it? Okay, Now, you're an actual serious negotiating partner.
Speaker 2: If you're not, well, then we're just going to continue
Speaker 2: to laugh at you. So all I stay tuned. We'll
Speaker 2: see how it works out.
Speaker 1: Yes, by the way, it was House Republicans are threatening
Speaker 1: to default on the debt unless I agree to all
Speaker 1: this wacko nonsense nonsense. That was the quote. That's the latest.
Speaker 1: Serle I asked, Okay, we've got a couple of stories
Speaker 1: with regard to the Supreme Court that we wanted to
Speaker 1: bring to you this morning, both of which are really significant.
Speaker 1: So we were actually waiting for a decision from the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court with regard to that abortion pill ruling. You
Speaker 1: had two contradictory rulings. You had a Texas judge that
Speaker 1: said the abortion pill, which is now used for more
Speaker 1: than fifty percent of abortions nationwide, that it should be banned,
Speaker 1: not only in states where abortion is banned but in
Speaker 1: all states, so California and Texas alike. You also had
Speaker 1: a judge from Washington State that said the status quo
Speaker 1: with regard to this pill should remain in place. So
Speaker 1: you got conflict here, and that made it almost guaranteed
Speaker 1: that this thing was going to head up to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. They had set a deadline for themselves of
Speaker 1: last night at midnight to make this decision. But what happened.
Speaker 1: They decided to extend that deadline, go ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. Supreme Court on Wednesday extended
Speaker 1: for two days a pause on a lower court ruling
Speaker 1: that it sought to limit access to the abortion pill
Speaker 1: myf of pristone, ensuring that the drug would continue to
Speaker 1: remain widely available for now. In a brief order, Justice
Speaker 1: Samuel Alito announced that the pause would lapse on Friday
Speaker 1: now at midnight, giving the Court more time to consider
Speaker 1: the case, though it could act before then. And they
Speaker 1: kind of read the tea leaves here and say the
Speaker 1: fact that the Court did not meet that earlier deadline
Speaker 1: suggest there might be disagreement among the justices in their
Speaker 1: first major case about abortion access since the conservative majority
Speaker 1: in June upended the constitutional right to an abortion. It
Speaker 1: could also indicate there might be a descent in the case.
Speaker 1: Could also indicate none of that. I mean, it's very
Speaker 1: hard to read into these things, but you know, I
Speaker 1: did know you're kicking it to Friday. That's like Friday
Speaker 1: news dump, right and midnight plastic timing. If you're trying
Speaker 1: to bury something, you don't want to get a lot
Speaker 1: of press around. And you know the fact that it's
Speaker 1: taking a while for them to work through this, that
Speaker 1: could indicate that there is real disagreement between some of
Speaker 1: the more liberal justices and some of the more conservative
Speaker 1: justices and that this is a difficult one for them
Speaker 1: to make a decision on. One thing that's noteworthy here,
Speaker 1: I think as well, is in the Dobbs decision, which
Speaker 1: overturned Row versus Wide. They really made a big show
Speaker 1: of saying, like, Okay, this is great. Now the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court is out of the abortion We're going to leave
Speaker 1: it to the states, and we're going to let them
Speaker 1: do what they want to do in accordance with their
Speaker 1: democratic process, et cetera. You know, if they back this
Speaker 1: Texas judge who is saying we want to ban this
Speaker 1: pill for every state across the entire country. Well, that's
Speaker 1: not exactly leaving it up to the states, now, is it.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 2: I also think that the reason why this is also
Speaker 2: outside of it is because it focuses on FDA procedure
Speaker 2: and whether it has been valid for what is it, Yes,
Speaker 2: eighteen years, twenty three twenty three years, that's right, twenty
Speaker 2: three years. So effectively, I mean the judges, the judges
Speaker 2: ruling in the case in Texas. What he said that
Speaker 2: these people who they challenged the approval of the pill
Speaker 2: more than two decades ago. So if I had to guess, Crystal,
Speaker 2: a lot of this is going to focus Unfortunately, because
Speaker 2: this is how the law works, is not really going
Speaker 2: to focus on the merits of what we're talking about
Speaker 2: in your popularity. They're going to focus on the process
Speaker 2: of approval and appeals. And as I understand it, the
Speaker 2: way that the Texas judge had issued the order is
Speaker 2: he had said that the original approval itself was wrong.
Speaker 2: Whereas I think that the court is going to focus
Speaker 2: both maybe on that narrow legal question, but also on
Speaker 2: the overall question of the validity of the overall approval
Speaker 2: of the legal process through which that all happened.
Speaker 1: Yes, So in terms of what they actually put out
Speaker 1: as their justification for their decision, no doubt that's what
Speaker 1: it's going to focus on. In terms of their actual
Speaker 1: thinking behind the scenes, they will certainly be weighing the
Speaker 1: politics of it, the public perception and the popularity of
Speaker 1: this pill, and all of those sorts of things. But
Speaker 1: you're absolutely correct to point out that if they do
Speaker 1: decide to agree with this Texas judge who says that
Speaker 1: it should be ban nationwide, that is an extraordinary new precedent,
Speaker 1: which would basically say the Supreme Court now has the
Speaker 1: decision sort of above and beyond the FDA to decide
Speaker 1: what sort of treatments are popular, and especially since this
Speaker 1: has been in use for decades. And by the way,
Speaker 1: and I went through this in the monologue I did
Speaker 1: about it, the science around whether or not this pill
Speaker 1: is safe is really not controversial. There were like one
Speaker 1: hundred and one studies done on it, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of women who took this pill. There was one death
Speaker 1: in all of those hundreds of thousands that had anything
Speaker 1: to do with it, and it was related to an infection.
Speaker 1: With regard to the abortion, it is as safe as
Speaker 1: like aspirin. So what the judge in Texas ruled is
Speaker 1: that because this is not like a fun thing to
Speaker 1: go through, you're basically forcing a miscarriage. And since women
Speaker 1: went through discomfort while they were going through this process,
Speaker 1: that's what he chalked up to it. It's not really
Speaker 1: as safe as the FDA is ultimately saying. So this
Speaker 1: would really open up all sorts of potential avenues for
Speaker 1: challenging other drugs that have been authorized by the FDA
Speaker 1: and putting that in the hands of these unelected judges
Speaker 1: instead of the representatives that you know. Listen, we've got
Speaker 1: our issues with the FDA. I'm not saying that they're
Speaker 1: a perfect organization whatsoever, but there's at least a democratic
Speaker 1: process with regard to that's the agency that is supposed
Speaker 1: to sort through the evidence, and that we have some
Speaker 1: sort of transparency into how they're making these decisions.
Speaker 2: Right, So that was actually going to be Look, I
Speaker 2: want I hate the FDA. I think we should burn
Speaker 2: much of it to the ground and completely revamp the
Speaker 2: way that we approve drugs and all of that. But
Speaker 2: I want a more democratic process. Yes, I don't actually
Speaker 2: want to go I don't trust these judges as much
Speaker 2: I trust as judges as much as I trust the FDA,
Speaker 2: which is I don't trust period. Really, what we need
Speaker 2: is more actual democratic, small d control and transparencies into
Speaker 2: the way that the drug companies, the FDA have a
Speaker 2: revolving door, the types of studies that they have, the
Speaker 2: scientific journals, and this entire industrial complex that exists outside
Speaker 2: of our plane view, where if we got real pictures
Speaker 2: into some of this data.
Speaker 3: And this isn't about just the abortion pill.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about all drugs and all vaccines too, by
Speaker 2: the way, which is the actual data needs to be
Speaker 2: made very much more available to people for independent analysis
Speaker 2: pre approval. But that's very separate, I think from the
Speaker 2: abortion pill question, which also, as you said, you know,
Speaker 2: we do have decades now of people who are using it.
Speaker 2: So in terms of and this isn't even about how
Speaker 2: you morally feel about the issue, we're literally talking about
Speaker 2: whether they improperbly circumvented their approval process by discounting adverse
Speaker 2: reaction to the drug. Like we're not talking about whether
Speaker 2: it's murder, and like the anti abortion groups are not
Speaker 2: bringing the case on those grounds, And I don't think
Speaker 2: people understand that they think this is like a religious ruling.
Speaker 2: I'm like technical in the way that it was made.
Speaker 2: It had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 1: Yes, that as well said, in terms of how the
Speaker 1: public feels about this, you will not be surprised to
Speaker 1: learn that roughly two and three go ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen from the Hill. Roughly two
Speaker 1: and three respondents in a new poll said that the
Speaker 1: abortion drug mif of pristone should remain available in states
Speaker 1: where abortion is legal, following that Texas federal judge's decision
Speaker 1: to block the pill nationwide earlier this month. This was
Speaker 1: a CBS News poll was released just in the past
Speaker 1: week found that sixty seven percent said it should remain
Speaker 1: available in those states where abortion is legal, only thirty
Speaker 1: three percent said it should not. There is a partisan
Speaker 1: split on this issue, but you know, even among Republicans,
Speaker 1: they're basically split fifty to fifty. You've got forty six percent,
Speaker 1: forty six percent saying it should be available, fifty four
Speaker 1: percent saying it should not be available. So there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a tilt towards the Texas judges ruling
Speaker 1: with regard to the Republican party. Close to fifty to
Speaker 1: fifty terms of Democrats and Independence is ain't close at all.
Speaker 1: Eighty four percent of Democrats and seventy two percent of
Speaker 1: Independence say it should remain available. And that in a nutshell,
Speaker 1: is the issue that Republicans have with regard to all
Speaker 1: facets of abortion and the current landscape, which is that
Speaker 1: even within their own base, their own base is not
Speaker 1: all on board with like the level of extremism that
Speaker 1: is represented in this ruling, and that's represented in some
Speaker 1: of the laws that are being passed passed in states
Speaker 1: and certainly which would be represented by a nationwide abortion ban,
Speaker 1: which is being pushed by plenty of Republicans, including you know,
Speaker 1: potential presidential candidate Mike Pence. They are not only is
Speaker 1: their whole base not really on board with it, but
Speaker 1: Independence and certainly Democrats, but Independence being the key group here,
Speaker 1: they are not on board with it at all either.
Speaker 1: Every persuadable voter is effectively on the other side of
Speaker 1: this issue from Republicans, and that's why you see this
Speaker 1: and it's very motivating too. That's the sort of deadly
Speaker 1: combo here is it's unpopular and people are highly motivated
Speaker 1: by it, which is why we've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: the election results that we've seen in recent months and years.
Speaker 3: I think you're right.
Speaker 2: And it also relates very much to our next story,
Speaker 2: which we will not drop, about the judges and how
Speaker 2: they get there in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, so we have been covering Justice Thomas and
Speaker 1: the way that he has received literally millions of dollars
Speaker 1: in gifts and trips and feti and whatever from this
Speaker 1: billionaire named Harlan Crowe who also and this one was
Speaker 1: perhaps the most explosive, bought Clarence Thomas's mother's house. This
Speaker 1: was his childhood home. While his mother is still living
Speaker 1: there too. By the way, she's living there rent free
Speaker 1: courtesy of this billionaire. And none of this was disclosed.
Speaker 1: And this is not a close call in terms of disclosure.
Speaker 1: This is very clear cut. If you have a real
Speaker 1: estate transaction over one thousand dollars, you are supposed to
Speaker 1: report it. He did not do that. When you pile
Speaker 1: that on top of there have been previous issues in
Speaker 1: the past, not disclosing reimbursements for trips, not disclosing his
Speaker 1: wife's employment, you know, which was both significant because it
Speaker 1: was ideological and because she was earning significant salaries from
Speaker 1: that employment. He's had to revise his financial disclosure over
Speaker 1: and over again, and never because it was like, oh
Speaker 1: my bad, I found something that should have been in there.
Speaker 1: It's all under pressure once he gets caught, which I
Speaker 1: think is also really noteworthy. So there was a thought of, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to investigate this guy. But Democrats are actually
Speaker 1: really limited in what they can do. Why because Diane
Speaker 1: Feinstein sits on the Judiciary Committee and she has not
Speaker 1: been present at work for quite a while now. Not
Speaker 1: only that, but you know, her original idea it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you could just replace me on that committee. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to resign, of course, because why would she. She's
Speaker 1: doing such a bang up job here. But you know,
Speaker 1: you guys can replace me on the committee. Well, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: have to get the Republicans to agree to that, and
Speaker 1: lo and behold put this up on the screen. They
Speaker 1: are not going to allow that to happen, because why
Speaker 1: would they. I mean, honestly, why would they. They don't
Speaker 1: want these judges to be confirmed through the Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 1: They don't want them to be passed through the Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 1: They don't want Clarence Thomas to be investigated, So why
Speaker 1: would they give the Democrats an assist? The headline here
Speaker 1: from PBS News our Republicans block temporary replacement for Senator
Speaker 1: Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee. South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham,
Speaker 1: who's the top Republican on that committee, objected to a
Speaker 1: resolution offered by Chuck Schumer that would have allowed another
Speaker 1: senator to take Feinstein's place on the panel while the
Speaker 1: Democrat recuperates from a case of shingles. So that is
Speaker 1: the lay of the land right now. Republicans certainly not
Speaker 1: going to cooperate. You have this vacancy on the Judiciary
Speaker 1: Committee and is really hamstring Democrats' ability to get anything.
Speaker 2: Done right, and yet the entire party and institutional power
Speaker 2: structure is defending her, including one Karijian Pierre from the
Speaker 2: White House.
Speaker 3: Take a listen.
Speaker 2: This is a decision for her to make when it
Speaker 2: comes to the future, her future.
Speaker 7: That is something that she gets to make and should
Speaker 7: be allowed to do that.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't know it was her decision to make.
Speaker 2: That's true if you're in, you know, like a private job.
Speaker 2: It's not true when you're in a public job and
Speaker 2: you're eighty nine years old. You're not showing up to work,
Speaker 2: You're holding up the process. You're an active thorn in
Speaker 2: the side of ongoing efforts that are vitally important, allegedly
Speaker 2: to the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: We're at large, So what's happening here?
Speaker 2: It's like, why do we all just pretend that this
Speaker 2: is all on her and we're trying to be nice?
Speaker 2: You know. Somebody even said the worst defense I saw was, well,
Speaker 2: sometimes we have colleagues that have been gone for a
Speaker 2: year and we didn't kick them out. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: why not? That's one sixth of your whole job, and
Speaker 2: like that's crazy.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and I mean this is an extraorinary situation too,
Speaker 1: because you're like, is she going to be able to
Speaker 1: come back at all? We don't know, right, I Mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's the question, is do we know if she'll
Speaker 1: even be able to return to do the job whatsoever.
Speaker 1: The other thing I can't help but think of listening
Speaker 1: to Kreeane Jean Pierre there is can you imagine the
Speaker 1: Republicans allowing something like this to happen and hamstring their
Speaker 1: ability to push judges through You think Mitch McConnell would
Speaker 1: allow anything to get in his way of getting his
Speaker 1: judges on the bench. Not a chance in hell. But
Speaker 1: the Democrats are so weak with this stuff, and so oh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all about these individual politicians like narcissistic
Speaker 1: personal journey and then I want to hurt this lady's
Speaker 1: feelings and putting that above the needs and interests of
Speaker 1: their own base and by the way, the whole country.
Speaker 1: When you talk about holding a justice to account and
Speaker 1: launching an investigation that is critical to root out any
Speaker 1: sort of corrupt dealings that may have gone undiscovered thus far,
Speaker 1: to give you the details on that part, put this
Speaker 1: next piece up on the screen here in terms of
Speaker 1: why Feinstein's absence is a problem in terms of any
Speaker 1: sort of Clarence Thomas invest litigation. So Democratic Aids says,
Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee cannot issue a subpoena as part of
Speaker 1: a Clarence Thomas inquiry that would require a majority on
Speaker 1: the panel, and Democrats do not have it without her,
Speaker 1: so that option is out of the question. So they
Speaker 1: are talking about launching some sort of an inquiry, but
Speaker 1: in terms of actually issuing a subpoena to get Justice
Speaker 1: Thomas or anyone else for that Hartland Crawl or anyone else,
Speaker 1: but for that matter, to testify, you need Diane Feinstein, right, So,
Speaker 1: how much, how effective, and how much teeth is your
Speaker 1: little inquiry going to have if you can't even compel
Speaker 1: people to come and testify to what happened and what
Speaker 1: they know about this. So it's a real issue here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just such a joke all the way around.
Speaker 2: And actually you found this crystal. Even the media is
Speaker 2: beginning to report about how quote countless countless Democratic senators
Speaker 2: actually agreed. This comes from Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota,
Speaker 2: who is a Democrat, speaking on NBA News last night.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: But this is not about us. This is about our country,
Speaker 8: and we have a crisis of honesty in Congress. I
Speaker 8: think that's fair to say, and I'm tired of serving
Speaker 8: with people who say one thing privately and refuse to
Speaker 8: say the same thing publicly. If you took a survey
Speaker 8: of those in the Congress, both the House and Senate
Speaker 8: on this subject, I know what the results would be,
Speaker 8: and my colleagues know. But we have a culture of
Speaker 8: protecting ourselves at the expense of the country.
Speaker 1: In the Congress. Senators just to be clear, Congressman.
Speaker 8: Countless, absolutely, yes, absolutely, Okay, are.
Speaker 1: You prepared to name any of them here?
Speaker 8: No, I'm not going to hurde other people. They know
Speaker 8: who they are.
Speaker 9: You know that.
Speaker 8: My colleague Grocana, member of the California delegation, went first.
Speaker 8: I wasn't going to do this first, even though I
Speaker 8: felt this for some time. And again, this goes to
Speaker 8: a deeper problem, Kristen about members of Congress being honest.
Speaker 1: Culture of protecting ourselves at the expense of the country,
Speaker 1: well said, and yeah, behind the scenes, every one of them,
Speaker 1: including Nancy Pelosi, who's out there smearing Rokana and anyone
Speaker 1: else's sexist for daring to question whether Diane Feinstein should
Speaker 1: still be serving in this Senate seat. All of them
Speaker 1: want her to step down. They just don't want to
Speaker 1: say it publicly. So yeah, I mean that's what connorson
Speaker 1: Conna told us when he was here. He was like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, they're all like, thank you, we agree.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, we'll come out and say it. Come
Speaker 1: out and say it. There's one way that you could
Speaker 1: change the dynamics here if you had overwhelming pressure from
Speaker 1: the Democratic Caucus. There is a chance she would actually
Speaker 1: step down, but instead they're all too cowardly.
Speaker 2: You're totally right. It's a complete disgrace, this entire situation.
Speaker 2: It's one of those clear situations where everybody knows what's
Speaker 2: going on and nobody's saying it. And that is what
Speaker 2: makes Americans feel crazy. Yeah, how different and special that
Speaker 2: these people apparently are when they're supposed to be representing us.
Speaker 1: There's just a bunch of liars too, and that's that's
Speaker 1: it is what we're disgusting. This cover up has been
Speaker 1: going on for years now at this point, all right,
Speaker 1: I wanted to cover something that's unfolding. An IOA was
Speaker 1: part of actually kind of a trend of rolling back
Speaker 1: child labor law regulations, and I think Iowa is the
Speaker 1: state that has now passed the most aggressive rollback of
Speaker 1: child labor regulation. Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: More Perfect Union did a deep dive into this, including
Speaker 1: a video that I recommend you all check out, which
Speaker 1: tracks the roots of where this rollback came from. In surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of business interests, including the National Restaurant Association,
Speaker 1: a lot of locally powerful business interests in the state
Speaker 1: as well, say the say breaking. The Iowa Senate passed
Speaker 1: a child labor law before dawn today. The bill lets
Speaker 1: fourteen year olds work six hour night shifts, fifteen year
Speaker 1: olds work on assembly lines, and sixteen and seventeen year
Speaker 1: olds serve alcohol. The Senate went through the night and
Speaker 1: voted on child labor at four fifty two am. I
Speaker 1: think it's important to note a couple of things here. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, because you have a relatively tight labor market,
Speaker 1: that's why all of these business interests have suddenly become
Speaker 1: like obsessively focused in rolling back child labor protections so
Speaker 1: that they can keep paying the low wages they become
Speaker 1: accustomed to paying, and not increase wages whatsoever to you know,
Speaker 1: try to attract actual adults who should be working in
Speaker 1: some of these very dangerous jobs. Right. It's also important
Speaker 1: to note I always minimum wages still seven to twenty
Speaker 1: five an hour. So if you can't attract the workers
Speaker 1: you need for your business without hiring a fourteen year
Speaker 1: old to work the overnight shift, maybe you should try
Speaker 1: increasing your wages and see what happens. Then. Child labor
Speaker 1: law violations have been up thirty seven percent since the pandemic.
Speaker 1: So even without these rollbacks, companies are taking upon themselves
Speaker 1: to violate child labor law or look the other way
Speaker 1: at the very least. And so there's been a huge
Speaker 1: spike in companies getting caught employing kids, including migrant kids,
Speaker 1: by the way, exploiting the fact that they're in a
Speaker 1: vulnerable situation. There's a big New York Times expose about that.
Speaker 1: So it's a very disturbing direction that these states are
Speaker 1: going in, something that honestly, I mean, is sort of
Speaker 1: shocking to see how far they're willing to go. And listen,
Speaker 1: I had summer jobs when I was fifteen years old
Speaker 1: as well, you know, but they weren't working in like
Speaker 1: a meat packing plant cleaning bone saws, or an assembly
Speaker 1: line or construction sites. That's another thing they want to
Speaker 1: open up to younger and younger kids. Was like lifeguarding
Speaker 1: and working at a like little fishing tackle store, right exactly.
Speaker 1: That was the sort of thing that I was doing
Speaker 1: over the summer when I was fifteen years old, not
Speaker 1: like working in a meat packing plant, which no fourteen
Speaker 1: or fifteen year old has a business store.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we had parsed and say that like
Speaker 2: if it involves dangerous work, specifically overnight, then I don't
Speaker 2: think that that's really anything that we should know. But
Speaker 2: the one you know, you and I were talking about
Speaker 2: this yesterday, like sixteen seventeen year old serving alcohol, it's
Speaker 2: like whatever, you know, especially the bill I even says
Speaker 2: it says that you can if they could do it
Speaker 2: with the written permission of a parent or guardian. That's
Speaker 2: good work in many cases, like especially if you're most
Speaker 2: of the time you wouldn't even be serving as a bartender,
Speaker 2: assuming you'd be serving as like a bar back and
Speaker 2: then participating in a pool tips, so you know, the
Speaker 2: wages and the money you can even get from that
Speaker 2: would actually be kind of decent. And I do think
Speaker 2: this should probably be available to sixteen and seventeen year olds.
Speaker 3: But I think the issue is.
Speaker 2: That the over like the animus behind the bill is
Speaker 2: about trying to circumvent wages for adults, correct, And that's
Speaker 2: the problem, which is that they are basically trying to
Speaker 2: do a backdoor way to pay people even less and
Speaker 2: open up the labor pool in an even worse case.
Speaker 2: You know, we're not even just talking about like illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2: We're talking about straight up children, and like, that's where
Speaker 2: I think some people should have the objection here, which
Speaker 2: is we shouldn't be there's one thing to want to
Speaker 2: care for kids and want them to do well and
Speaker 2: give them access to job, which I do agree with.
Speaker 2: Even in construction, you knows if you're not working as position.
Speaker 3: Like, I think that's fine.
Speaker 2: Construction is period, it depends, It depends on the job
Speaker 2: that you're doing. My point is that giving an apprenticeship
Speaker 2: and all that is one thing. Trying to game wage law, though,
Speaker 2: is actually a whole other one.
Speaker 1: To me, there are two pieces that are really important here.
Speaker 1: Number One, the type of dangerous jobs that they want
Speaker 1: to open up to fourteen and fifteen year olds, to me,
Speaker 1: is absolutely insane. Number Two, the fact that they want
Speaker 1: to increase the number of hours that they can work
Speaker 1: per week. And we're not talking about just like during
Speaker 1: the summer. We're talking about during the school year. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of research about how anything over basically
Speaker 1: like twenty hours a week really starts to be very
Speaker 1: detrimental to kids' grades, ability to focus, ability to get
Speaker 1: the work done in terms of their school work, which
Speaker 1: is obviously the most critical thing that you should be,
Speaker 1: you know, dealing with and focusing on setting yourself up
Speaker 1: for the future when you're fourteen and fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: And then the other piece is, you know, allowing them
Speaker 1: to work later at night. Again that has a major
Speaker 1: impact on their ability to like focus and do what
Speaker 1: they need to do during the day at school. So
Speaker 1: those are the pieces that are to me unconscionable. I
Speaker 1: kind of tend to agree with you on the sixteen
Speaker 1: and seventeen year olds serving alcohol. I do want to
Speaker 1: give the other side of that though, to play Devil's advocate,
Speaker 1: which is like, Okay, well this is going to put
Speaker 1: like sixteen year olds in bars with a bunch of intoxicated.
Speaker 2: Adults, eighteen year olds in bars with intoxicated adults.
Speaker 1: It's a difference between sixteen and eighteen though. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I kind of tend to agree with
Speaker 1: you on that one. Maybe I'd like to see some
Speaker 1: more restrictions about Like I wouldn't want them serving as
Speaker 1: like a bartender, right, so maybe put some more guardrails
Speaker 1: around that one. But in terms of assembly lines, meat
Speaker 1: packing plants, construction, allowing them into these very dangerous jobs
Speaker 1: long hours during the school week. And this again is
Speaker 1: not about the interests of these children or their parents
Speaker 1: or anybody other than the corporate interests who want to
Speaker 1: keep late wages as low as possible. And let me
Speaker 1: that's why I pulled this statistic, which I think is
Speaker 1: important context and backdrop here. Put this next piece up
Speaker 1: on the screen, which is that we actually had just now,
Speaker 1: median inflation adjusted weekly earnings of full time wage and
Speaker 1: salary workers were up in the first quarter of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, per the latest report, for the first time
Speaker 1: in two years, real wage growth has exited negative territory.
Speaker 1: So to translate that from kind of econ speak here,
Speaker 1: this is the first time, even when accounting for inflation,
Speaker 1: in quite a long time, that you've had actual wage growth.
Speaker 1: So of course every corporate interest in the entire country
Speaker 1: is like, oh my god, we can't have that. We
Speaker 1: got to keep being able to pay them pennies at
Speaker 1: seven to twenty five an hour, and we got to
Speaker 1: keep our fat profit margins, which continue to be at
Speaker 1: literal record levels. So what's our solution since unemployment is
Speaker 1: super low, Well, I guess we're going to have to
Speaker 1: bring fourteen and fifteen year olds into the workforce and
Speaker 1: allow them to work longer hours and overnight shifts and
Speaker 1: in dangerous areas.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, in general, I just think an easy workaround to
Speaker 2: this would be like make sure you raised the minimum
Speaker 2: wage to something decent and then sure so like if
Speaker 2: kids want to work as bar backs, it's like, that's
Speaker 2: great in terms of as long as you're not trying
Speaker 2: to circumvent and pay less. Mostly I'm good with it
Speaker 2: as long as they're not in a dangerous position. I'm
Speaker 2: curious what other people think. I honestly don't know. Comment
Speaker 2: let us know what you think. All right, let's talk
Speaker 2: about UFOs big hearing that happened yesterday and led mostly
Speaker 2: by Senator Kirston Jill Brand. I have many critiques of
Speaker 2: Jill Brand, but on the UFO issue, she does genuinely
Speaker 2: seem to be passionate about it. She's been calling hearing,
Speaker 2: she's been very involved in a lot of people in
Speaker 2: the community feel as if she's actually trying to get
Speaker 2: to the bottom of this. I hear the same thing
Speaker 2: about Senator Rubio and a few other members of Congress
Speaker 2: who do seem again to actually want to get to
Speaker 2: the bottom. Now, there was some interesting testimony from the
Speaker 2: head of the new aa ARO office. I'll tell you
Speaker 2: what that means afterwards, but here's the main takeaway in
Speaker 2: terms of what they want us to know a little
Speaker 2: bit of a dual message around possible alien activity.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 10: Arrow has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity,
Speaker 10: off world technology or objects that defy the known laws
Speaker 10: of physics. For those few cases that have leaked to
Speaker 10: the public previously and subsequently commented on by the US government,
Speaker 10: I encourage those who hold alternative theories or views to
Speaker 10: submit to research to credible, peer reviewed scientific journals. Arrow
Speaker 10: is working very hard to do the same. That is
Speaker 10: how science works, not by blog or social media. ERO
Speaker 10: is developing and implementing its science plan. It has to
Speaker 10: do so grounded in a solid foundation of scientific theory
Speaker 10: across the entire range of hypotheses that have been presented
Speaker 10: for what UAP are. That range spans adversary breakthrough technology
Speaker 10: on one hand, known objects and phenomena in the middle,
Speaker 10: all the way to the extreme theories of extraterrestrials.
Speaker 2: So what did we learn from that? What I thought
Speaker 2: was interesting is at the very beginning is like, we
Speaker 2: have no evidence extraterrestrial activity defy laws of physics. And
Speaker 2: then a second thing, He's like, well, part of our
Speaker 2: hypothesis is that it could be extraterrestrial. It's one of
Speaker 2: those where they're trying again. They always try it together.
Speaker 2: We have no evidence that it is. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: you don't have any evidence that it isn't now in
Speaker 2: terms of what the possible terrestrial explanations are, I did
Speaker 2: think it was important for me to raise this. This
Speaker 2: has actually come from the Washington Post. Washing Posts finally
Speaker 2: got around actually looking at some of those leaks. One
Speaker 2: of the things that they talk about, Crystal is that
Speaker 2: the Chinese are currently reading a supersonic spy drone unit,
Speaker 2: which would go, let me see here, three times faster
Speaker 2: than the speed of sound, a high altitude spy drone
Speaker 2: one that has not yet been seen by adversary or technology,
Speaker 2: and clearly, if seen by the naked eye or somebody
Speaker 2: who's not in the military, would be amazed by you know,
Speaker 2: something is going mock three and is a high altitude drone,
Speaker 2: not man possibly a smaller object. So you could easily
Speaker 2: conceive of a civilian situation where you would think like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, that's something that we had a note about.
Speaker 3: But let's also remember many of.
Speaker 2: The videos that we have looked at happened well before
Speaker 2: this said drone doesn't even think it supposedly hasn't yet
Speaker 2: been deployed yet, so it's not like you can explain
Speaker 2: past incidents. You also have no evidence of Russian technology
Speaker 2: that comes even close to this. My personal view is
Speaker 2: well or in the fight. You know of their lives
Speaker 2: in Ukraine, So if they had some crazy tech, like,
Speaker 2: don't you think they would use it?
Speaker 3: They did.
Speaker 2: They used the hypersonic missile for no reason, you know,
Speaker 2: even though they didn't have an attack.
Speaker 3: A nuke on it.
Speaker 2: They have all kinds of stuff, you know, outside of
Speaker 2: nuclear technology. They've basically thrown everything they have at Ukraine.
Speaker 2: I just presume, like, if you're in a war which
Speaker 2: is depleting you supposedly, and you have tens of thousands
Speaker 2: of people to die, that you would reach for something
Speaker 2: that's not non nuclear and which is you know, a
Speaker 2: major step forward in terms of technology. You would think
Speaker 2: haven't seen anything like that. Those are really the only
Speaker 2: two countries even possibly capable of creating something like this.
Speaker 1: Well unless it's our own program that. Yeah, that's another
Speaker 1: policy on look.
Speaker 2: I mean that one is a counterfactual where there's just
Speaker 2: literally no way to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's what they I mean, it is annoying
Speaker 1: how they play. This is the same rhetorical game that
Speaker 1: they played, and like the media writeups of the analysis
Speaker 1: of these objects to be like, well, there's no evidence
Speaker 1: it's extracharge, but then there's also they can't point to
Speaker 1: any evidence of what it actually is. So you're really
Speaker 1: not ruling anything out here. It's very unhelpful. That's Wiley,
Speaker 1: it's just gaslighting effect.
Speaker 2: Next video is very important because this is one that
Speaker 2: was captured over the Middle East from twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: where you can see clear drone footage of people who
Speaker 2: are on the ground and then a metallic spherical object
Speaker 2: that zooms through the frame and then is actually followed
Speaker 2: by the camera of which they have no idea what
Speaker 2: this thing is here, go ahead and watch it for yourself.
Speaker 11: You'll see it come through the top of the screen.
Speaker 11: There it goes, and then the camera will slew to
Speaker 11: follow it. You'll see it pop in and out of
Speaker 11: the screw field of view.
Speaker 6: There.
Speaker 11: This is essentially all of the data we have associated
Speaker 11: with this event from some years ago. It is going
Speaker 11: to be virtually impossible to fully identify that just based
Speaker 11: off of that video.
Speaker 2: They don't know what it is. They have no clue,
Speaker 2: they have no explanation. And look, you think it. You
Speaker 2: think we don't see consumer drones over Iraq all the
Speaker 2: time or the Middle East. I covered the Battle of Isis,
Speaker 2: I said, had all kinds of crazy Chinese made like
Speaker 2: DGI drones and stuff like that. That they were we
Speaker 2: know what a drone looks like. We know what a
Speaker 2: Chinese drone looks like. We know what Russian drone looks like.
Speaker 2: We know what consumer drones look like. We could they
Speaker 2: could easily rule it out and say we know exactly
Speaker 2: what that is.
Speaker 3: They have no idea what the hell is going on here.
Speaker 2: It fits with the Mozel orb photo that Jeremy Corbel
Speaker 2: has released. Apparently this is the second one that hadn't
Speaker 2: previously been seen. Now, look, is it proof?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean it's interesting, and I think the most important
Speaker 2: thing is we don't know what it is. I just
Speaker 2: wish that they would be more honest. I also thought
Speaker 2: that doctor Kirkpatrick or I forgot to tell everyone AAR
Speaker 2: is the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, you know, pentagons
Speaker 2: speak for UFOs. But the thing that annoyed me in
Speaker 2: his initial talk, he's like, this is not going to
Speaker 2: be solved by social media. This is not going to
Speaker 2: be He's like calling up basically people like us, people
Speaker 2: like other in the UFO community for building hype around it.
Speaker 2: It's like, here's the thing, man, we can't trust you
Speaker 2: to do any rigorous analysis, not after years of cover ups,
Speaker 2: not after years of lies. Really, all you can all
Speaker 2: we can trust, in my opinion, are the people outside
Speaker 2: looking at this independently. Also, it's not just the people
Speaker 2: who believe it's aliens, people like you know, even Mick
Speaker 2: West and other UFO debunkers. At least they are working
Speaker 2: in a frame where they're being honest, they're being opened.
Speaker 2: They're trying to put things out there and then taking
Speaker 2: videos and analyzing them in their own way. Even if
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily agree with what they're saying, it's at
Speaker 2: least out here in a public domain, in a public sphere.
Speaker 2: You know, honestly, if you're a quote unquote UFO skeptic,
Speaker 2: nobody's done you more service. Then people like him who
Speaker 2: are out there giving you, you know, things that you
Speaker 2: can say of why you don't believe in the phenomenon.
Speaker 2: It's not the government that's actually helping you out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well okay, so if it's not going to be
Speaker 1: solved by the like social media UFO, yeah, community, who
Speaker 1: that's the answer? No one, right. They don't like people
Speaker 1: digging around and doing their own thinking about this, doing
Speaker 1: their own research about this. Obviously, they're very agressive about
Speaker 1: shutting down any attempts that they possibly can, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they want to keep control of whatever this investigation ultimately
Speaker 1: amounts to.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, we just need more info.
Speaker 2: And you know, part of the thing piss me off
Speaker 2: here is he dangles like this one little video of
Speaker 2: this twenty twenty two from the twenty twenty two report
Speaker 2: from the Middle East drones, like we already know based
Speaker 2: on former public officials, they are sitting on s troves
Speaker 2: of videos, a photos, of evidence of so many different
Speaker 2: fascinating and interesting things that they cannot explain even you know,
Speaker 2: in ones where they have claimed that they could solve
Speaker 2: it through whether related incidents. It's like, we can't just
Speaker 2: take your word for it. You have to prove that.
Speaker 2: You have to prove exactly how you determined that this
Speaker 2: was a mirror photo or a collade or you know,
Speaker 2: an optical illusion or something you can't like, we cannot
Speaker 2: just take these people's word for it. So I think
Speaker 2: in every case we need a lot more transparency.
Speaker 3: You know, even this, I love how they're like blurring.
Speaker 2: Things out in the frame. I'm like, nobody cares. I'm
Speaker 2: sorry about It's not going to do any damage, I
Speaker 2: think to national security. So more info, more hearings. Thank you,
Speaker 2: Senator Jill Brand. Yeah, thank you people in the community
Speaker 2: who flagged these videos and some of this testimony for me.
Speaker 2: I thought it'd be an interesting update for all of you.
Speaker 1: If this is what they're willing to share, you can
Speaker 1: only imagine what they are secret.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We had one more piece we wanted to add to
Speaker 1: the show last minute because our friends over the Lever
Speaker 1: broke a really big story that actually has now been
Speaker 1: picked up this morning the New York Times in regards
Speaker 1: to that Fox News settlement with dominion voting systems, which
Speaker 1: I should say we sort of predicted it was going
Speaker 1: to ultimately have it because there was no way Fox
Speaker 1: was going to allow like their entire prime time lineup
Speaker 1: to have to go and you know, sit under oath
Speaker 1: and testify about whatever the hell was going on during
Speaker 1: the Stop the Steal era. So this settlement seven hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty seven million dollars sounds like a lot, right,
Speaker 1: Well maybe not so much. Why because they are able
Speaker 1: to deduct take a tax deduction on a significant amount
Speaker 1: of this payout. And that's the piece that the lever uncovered.
Speaker 1: Kudos to them, Our great partners put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. So they say Fox can claim tax right
Speaker 1: off for defamation settlement. The company says it can deduct
Speaker 1: the cost of its seven hundred and eighty seven million
Speaker 1: dollars payment to Dominion over its election lies. Let me
Speaker 1: read you a little bit of the details here that
Speaker 1: they uncovered Fox's massive settlement with private equity back voting
Speaker 1: machine company Dominion Voting Systems. Didn't just spare the conservative
Speaker 1: news organization from a lengthy public defamation trial or a
Speaker 1: full public reckoning for its election lise, it could also
Speaker 1: mean a tax break as large as two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirteen million dollars. On Tuesday, Fox News and their parent
Speaker 1: company agreed to that defamation settlement as the largest known
Speaker 1: defamation payment in US history. So again you're going like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's a lot. Is significant. It's going
Speaker 1: to deter them from doing the same thing all over again. However,
Speaker 1: thanks to an arcane line in the tax code, Fox
Speaker 1: can deduct that settlement payment from its income taxes. According
Speaker 1: to a company spokesperson and tax experts consulted by the Lever,
Speaker 1: that's because federal law allows taxpayers to write off many
Speaker 1: legal costs, providing that they are ordinary and necessary business expenses.
Speaker 1: The IRS has repeatedly affirmed that for major corporations, paying
Speaker 1: out settlements is just part of the cost of doing business,
Speaker 1: and that's how they all look at this stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: whether it's this, whether it's big Pharma. Not to mention,
Speaker 1: Fox may also have insurance that covers significant part of this.
Speaker 1: So not only are they able to do a tax
Speaker 1: write off over this as like the US taxpayer sort
Speaker 1: of like footing the bill for their own impropriety during
Speaker 1: the election, but also they may have insurance that covers
Speaker 1: a lot of this. So what does this ultimately amount
Speaker 1: to them? Probably not that much.
Speaker 2: And while they wouldn't be able to write off the
Speaker 2: part that's from insurance. They would then be able to
Speaker 2: deduct any increase in your premium that you would have
Speaker 2: from Now, I want people to think about when you
Speaker 2: do something that's not even your fault. This actually happened
Speaker 2: to me. My fiance was in the jeep that I
Speaker 2: had and it was t boned. Now the person, the
Speaker 2: person was clearly at fault, but you know she disputed it.
Speaker 2: The insurance company, you know whatever, no contact. So my
Speaker 2: premiums went up, Like, and it's not even my fault.
Speaker 2: Do I get to do I get to pay like?
Speaker 2: Or do I get to write off the increase of
Speaker 2: their premium?
Speaker 12: No?
Speaker 2: And that's when you're not even at fault. And let's
Speaker 2: say also, let's say you know, you do something stupid
Speaker 2: and you know, you dig somebody, you're back into somebody,
Speaker 2: et cetera, and you then have an increase in your
Speaker 2: prem do you get to write off that?
Speaker 9: Like?
Speaker 12: No?
Speaker 2: Why do these corporations get multi billion dollar write offs
Speaker 2: and all this stuff when average people who may even
Speaker 2: have an insurance premium go up through zero fault of their.
Speaker 3: Own don't get to do anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's completely ridiculous.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also the fact that the corporation putting aside this like
Speaker 1: Fox situation, but the corporation, the corporate entity always absorbs
Speaker 1: all the blows and there's like very little, almost never
Speaker 1: is there any personal accountability for executives, like for example,
Speaker 1: in the two thousand and eight financial crash, for the
Speaker 1: executives who were making the decisions behind the scenes, they
Speaker 1: just skate scot free. The corporate insurance handles it, they
Speaker 1: write off it's a big tax deduction, and then next
Speaker 1: time around, you know what, this this was successful for
Speaker 1: their business. Ultimately, they kept their audience. They sort of
Speaker 1: pushed off the Newsmax and one American news threat. You
Speaker 1: don't think they're going to do these same exact calculus
Speaker 1: all over again. Based on this math, it seems like
Speaker 1: it's working out for them. And the other indicator that
Speaker 1: the New York Times, which cites the Levers reporting, I
Speaker 1: mean again, kudo's the lever Because you got all these
Speaker 1: giant news outlets, none of them pursued this angle of
Speaker 1: the story, which is incredibly important for understanding how this
Speaker 1: all unfold and what it will mean for Fox News
Speaker 1: and other media organizations going forward. So they cite their
Speaker 1: reporting here, but they also note that, you know, Fox's
Speaker 1: stock is barely budge since the deal was announced on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: so their shareholders don't think this is a problem, this
Speaker 1: historic seven hundred and eighty seven million dollar defamation settlement.
Speaker 1: Their show shareholders are shrugging this off as no big
Speaker 1: deal again, just cost of doing business. So quite extraordinary,
Speaker 1: quite revealing of exactly who our society is set up
Speaker 1: to benefit, who basically can get away with anything, with
Speaker 1: any sort of behavior and pay literally no cost here.
Speaker 2: Right, well, said Crystal. Very well, sir, and funny. Kudos
Speaker 2: to the lever for exposing this. What a bs you know, SYSM. Yeah,
Speaker 2: sometimes I just look, it just makes me so angry,
Speaker 2: you know, to think about it. I'm like, like I
Speaker 2: get to write. Imagine if you could write off.
Speaker 3: Increase of your premiums.
Speaker 2: Think about that. Can imagine if you could do.
Speaker 1: This like Purdue Farm, all the farm that like, know
Speaker 1: that they're injuring people, know that people are getting addicted, whatever.
Speaker 1: And but again they just see it as like, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna you know, we'll have the profits on this side,
Speaker 1: We'll be able to write write off any settlements. We
Speaker 1: have to come to with the families or with the
Speaker 1: governments or whoever. So cost of doing business, I guess
Speaker 1: it's worth it, or the banks. I could go on
Speaker 1: and on. Yeah, yes, man, all right, Sager are looking.
Speaker 2: At There's been a lot written about Elon Musk's interview
Speaker 2: with Tucker Carlson, almost none of it having to do
Speaker 2: with the interview and most about going on the show
Speaker 2: in the first place, but perhaps the most interesting part
Speaker 2: focused on AI and the original motivations for Elon's involvement
Speaker 2: with open AI in the past, and sparks by a
Speaker 2: shocking conversation with the co founder of Google, Larry Page
Speaker 2: that he revealed Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: The reason open I exists at all is that Larry
Speaker 5: Paige and I used to beak close friends, and I
Speaker 5: to day his house in Palo Alto, and I talk
Speaker 5: to him late to the night about AI safety, and
Speaker 5: at least my perception was that Larry was not taking
Speaker 5: AI safety seriously enough and.
Speaker 6: What did he say about it? He really seemed to be.
Speaker 5: One sort of digital superintelligence's basically digital god, if.
Speaker 6: You will, as soon as possible, if he wanted that.
Speaker 5: Yes, he's made many cooler statements over the years that
Speaker 5: the whole build Google is what's called a GI artificial
Speaker 5: general intelligence or official superintelligence. But no, and I agree
Speaker 5: with him that there's great potential for God, but there's
Speaker 5: also potential for bad. And so if you've got some
Speaker 5: radical new technology, you want to try to take a
Speaker 5: set actions that maximize probably it will do good, minimize
Speaker 5: probably will do bad things.
Speaker 2: There's a lot going on there. So Larry Page wants
Speaker 2: to create a digital god without regard for its possible
Speaker 2: effect on humanity.
Speaker 3: This is terrifying.
Speaker 2: And now that we've seen multiple stories of large life
Speaker 2: which model programs like Chatchipt and bing Sydney do just
Speaker 2: weird and bonker stuff like try to make it journalists
Speaker 2: fall in love with them, or make up sexual assault
Speaker 2: allegations against someone. All of us can kind of agree
Speaker 2: we do need control over AI. The problem is that
Speaker 2: when we say control, not all of us are agreeing
Speaker 2: on the same thing. For example, here is Elon's view
Speaker 2: of what is wrong with AI, and specifically Chatchipt.
Speaker 12: The intention with OPII was observing good, but it's not
Speaker 12: clear whether it's actually doing good or whether it's I
Speaker 12: Can's helpless point except that I'm worried about the fact
Speaker 12: that it's it's been trained to be poletically corrected, which
Speaker 12: is something another way of being saying on truthful things.
Speaker 5: Yes, so that's not a bad sign.
Speaker 12: That's really a path too.
Speaker 6: I just ope.
Speaker 2: So there's more. In that interview where Elon talks about
Speaker 2: how Open Eye is now closed it's a multidillion dollar
Speaker 2: organization with Microsoft for profit. It lays out the case
Speaker 2: actually pretty well, and in fact, the objection is that
Speaker 2: AI is not programmed to be truthful enough, and as
Speaker 2: political correctness hardwired into it. Now, imagine a world where
Speaker 2: you do go to a future Google or a Bing
Speaker 2: for an answer to your question, and you get one
Speaker 2: that seems right but is actually completely distorted version of
Speaker 2: the truth vetted for you by the mainstream media and
Speaker 2: the politically correct. And we already live in a reality
Speaker 2: that somewhat resembles that, but the Internet at least empowers
Speaker 2: some of us to fight back. This would simply completely
Speaker 2: solidify total control for them. The problem that we really have, though,
Speaker 2: is that when the other side talks about AI safety
Speaker 2: and regulation, they don't actually care about any of this.
Speaker 2: In fact, their objection is that chatch ept and AI
Speaker 2: is not politically correct enough, and they actually want the
Speaker 2: government to set the terms exactly of how politically correct
Speaker 2: they should be. Take the new so called AI Bill
Speaker 2: of Rights. It's released by the Biden administration recently. The
Speaker 2: document lays out the Biden administration's vision of how AI
Speaker 2: should be governed, including quote, safe and effective systems, algorithmic discrimination, data, privacy,
Speaker 2: notice and explanation, human alternatives, consideration, and fallback on their face,
Speaker 2: all lost on fine like corporate speak. But the one
Speaker 2: that immediately raises my eyebrow is algorithmic discrimination.
Speaker 3: Let's read further like clockwork.
Speaker 2: The first sentence of the document includes the buzzword d
Speaker 2: jore equity. If you have not yet heard of equity,
Speaker 2: I encourage you all to go watch my previous monologue
Speaker 2: on Tuesday about how it effectively in many cases entails
Speaker 2: being so woke you're racist, forcing people towards desired social outcomes.
Speaker 3: But let's continue.
Speaker 2: Sentence number two reads, quote, Algorithmic discrimination occurs when automated
Speaker 2: systems contribute to unjustified different treatment or impacts disfavoring people
Speaker 2: based on their race, color, ethnicity, sex, including pregnancy, childbirth
Speaker 2: related medical conditions, gender identity, intersex status, sexual orientation, religion, age,
Speaker 2: national origin, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other
Speaker 2: possible classification.
Speaker 3: Protected by law.
Speaker 2: Quite a mouthful.
Speaker 3: I'm glad that they fit all of them in there.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Now, this is per the Biden administration, how AI should
Speaker 2: quote include proactive equity assessments as part of the system
Speaker 2: design and would constantly need to be independently evaluated by
Speaker 2: the government to ensure that companies are producing equitable AI outcomes.
Speaker 2: In other words, that's social engineering. That's more political correctness.
Speaker 2: That is some sort of weird nineteen eighty four language
Speaker 2: board full of nonprofits and governments who get to decide
Speaker 2: which group is now not allowed to be criticized and
Speaker 2: then program that into AI. This is what they mean
Speaker 2: when they say regulation. If you didn't want more evidence
Speaker 2: of what the left establishment actually wants for the new
Speaker 2: AI regime, look at this. This is a new declaration
Speaker 2: from Open Philanthropy. It's a technology nonprofit. It's funded by
Speaker 2: several left wing, left aligned multi billionaires in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 2: Some of their new propositions for AI regulation sound fine
Speaker 2: like software export controls, but some hint at total dystopia.
Speaker 2: One proposition, for example, is to have some sort of
Speaker 2: government implanted chip and inside AI systems.
Speaker 3: The chip would.
Speaker 2: Monitor the AI at all times and shut it off
Speaker 2: if they deem it to be going off rag. Now again,
Speaker 2: you can actually world where that could be justified. But
Speaker 2: you could also see one where would be one of
Speaker 2: the greatest tools for control ever devised. Number four, too,
Speaker 2: is about licensing. All companies that want to work on
Speaker 2: AI create some sort of registry. Here, again, we have
Speaker 2: an easily gamable system. Consider we already have two of
Speaker 2: the largest companies on planet Earth competing in this space,
Speaker 2: Microsoft and Google. You think they won't fight tooth and
Speaker 2: nail to make sure the only ones with a license.
Speaker 2: Note I am just trying to poke holes in every
Speaker 2: argument here. I don't have any idea what to think.
Speaker 2: On the one hand, I am terrified of a Matrix
Speaker 2: like scenario unchecked and unchecked power. On the other, terrified
Speaker 2: if some oligarchic arrangement where a few tech companies controlled
Speaker 2: by the government a nonprofit industrial complex have a monopoly
Speaker 2: on information and use it to push their social agenda
Speaker 2: on the American people and really the world. They're equally
Speaker 2: terrifying to me, and my view is one I've laid
Speaker 2: out here yesterday. But I see people, very few people
Speaker 2: pushing for AI should be pro human, should have enforcement
Speaker 2: mechanisms with them, and to assure they're always being working
Speaker 2: towards a tool, not towards supplant us. I think AI
Speaker 2: should be required to stay within the balance of the
Speaker 2: First Amendment here in the United States, and only the
Speaker 2: First Amendment should also be required not.
Speaker 3: To deviate from it.
Speaker 2: In other words, no equity manipulation, nonsense, the truth, and
Speaker 2: robust actual competition meaning rigorous antitrust enforcement to ensure that
Speaker 2: what happened to the Internet from nineteen ninety to twenty
Speaker 2: ten does ever happen again. Centralized control of the next
Speaker 2: generation of tech in the hands of very few in
Speaker 2: the ideologically captured personally, I really don't think that's going
Speaker 2: to happen. The most likely scenario is the one that
Speaker 2: really exists today social media and tech, total ideological regulatory capture,
Speaker 2: effective control over the most powerful sector of the economy.
Speaker 2: But at the very least, let's hope and try to
Speaker 2: make sure that doesn't go that way again, because if
Speaker 2: it does, we could really all be in for a
Speaker 2: bad time. It's really hard, Crystal right, because you can
Speaker 2: see there's downside to everything there.
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagres's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a pre Damium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 3: What are you taking a look at?
Speaker 1: Well, guys, smelling blood in the water. Former President Trump
Speaker 1: has opened up a new front in his war against
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, torching him relentlessly over the Florida governor's ongoing
Speaker 1: battle with Disney, and especially the humiliating spectacle of DeSantis
Speaker 1: getting outplayed by the mouse. Now, before I get into
Speaker 1: this whole thing, let me just promise by preface by
Speaker 1: saying there is no one to root for here. DeSantis
Speaker 1: is hitting an unaccountable giant corporation in Disney, but he's
Speaker 1: doing it in the dumbest possible way for the dumbest
Speaker 1: possible reasons. Disney has humiliated Dasantis, which is kind of
Speaker 1: satisfying to see, but their power does legitimately deserve to
Speaker 1: be checked and their hollow virtue signaling exposed. Trump is
Speaker 1: also torching DeSantis, which is also kind of satisfying, but
Speaker 1: in doing so is standing on the side of unchecked
Speaker 1: corporate power. So it is all a bit tangled here.
Speaker 1: I suppose that is what makes the story interesting to me, though,
Speaker 1: all right, quick refresher on how we got here. Desanta's
Speaker 1: passed the Don't Say Gay Bill, which was basically a
Speaker 1: way to set signal his anti grumor cred in the
Speaker 1: right wing culture war. Dujore. Disney, with a large gay
Speaker 1: fan base, has long billed itself as LGBTQ friendly. Under pressure,
Speaker 1: they belatedly put out some weak ass statement against the
Speaker 1: bill and cut off GP donations. Spotting an opportunity to
Speaker 1: bolster his anti woke cred, DeSantis and his alleys then
Speaker 1: went on the attack against Disney and their so called wokeness.
Speaker 1: In particular, DeSantis targeted the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which
Speaker 1: has since the sixties basically allowed Disney to govern itself,
Speaker 1: including taxing themselves, loving bonds, green lighting infrastructure, running fire
Speaker 1: and police stations. Even provided Disney with the rights to
Speaker 1: build a nuclear power plant should they ever desire to
Speaker 1: do so. Unaccountable taxpayer backed corporate power is indeed wrong
Speaker 1: and bad. But after patting himself on the back for
Speaker 1: his big alpha male energy, DeSantis took his eye off
Speaker 1: the ball, and the giant corporation did what giant corporations
Speaker 1: do in America. They took power, and a publicly noticed meeting,
Speaker 1: the still Disney backed Reedy Creek Board granted a massive
Speaker 1: development deal to Disney. This effectively handed all control of
Speaker 1: the region back to the big corporation mere weeks before
Speaker 1: DeSantis cronies were set to take control of that board. Now,
Speaker 1: Disney's maneuver immediately turned what had been a winning hand
Speaker 1: for DeSantis with the GOP base into a potentially disastrous catastrophe.
Speaker 1: He scrambled to respond with some fake blusters, suggesting perhaps
Speaker 1: the building state prison next to Disney take a listen
Speaker 1: to that.
Speaker 13: You're not going to have Disney have its own government
Speaker 13: in Central Florida. They're going to live under the same
Speaker 13: laws as everybody else.
Speaker 3: What should we do with this land?
Speaker 13: And so you know, it's like okay, I mean people
Speaker 13: have said, you know, maybe maybe have another maybe create
Speaker 13: a state park, maybe try to do more amusement parks.
Speaker 13: Someone even said like maybe you need another state prison.
Speaker 6: Who knows.
Speaker 13: I mean, I just think that the possibilities are our
Speaker 13: end list.
Speaker 1: I wasn't the only one who can smell the desperation
Speaker 1: here and every single DeSantis and me immediately pounced twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four hopeful Nikki Haley and potential presidential can ends,
Speaker 1: Chris Christy and chrisni Sanu Nu they all got in
Speaker 1: on the action. So Nunu accused DeSantis of just going
Speaker 1: after a headline saying the fight convolutes the entire Republican message.
Speaker 1: Hailey's super pac called it an embarrassing blow and mocked
Speaker 1: DeSantis's desperate attempt to regain the alpha position by suggesting
Speaker 1: he might build a prison next to Disney. Nikki Haley,
Speaker 1: I guess kicking sideways there. After all, here in part
Speaker 1: is what Chris Christy had to say.
Speaker 9: I'm all for the use, the appropriate use of governmental
Speaker 9: power to achieve latable goals. And when you're the governor
Speaker 9: of a state, and our governorship is constitutionally the most
Speaker 9: powerful governorship of the country, the New Jersey governorship has
Speaker 9: enormous authority, and I loved using the levers of that
Speaker 9: authority to be able to accomplish things. But can you
Speaker 9: put someone in that position or have a composition to president.
Speaker 9: If you're going to use those levers, you've got to
Speaker 9: look around the corners to see what the result of
Speaker 9: that will be for him to have taken the action
Speaker 9: he took against Disney and did not have foreseen that
Speaker 9: Disney was going to do what they did in response,
Speaker 9: which was to completely take over the millions and millions
Speaker 9: of acres, and his any decisions of that before they
Speaker 9: got the authority. Well, I'll tell you this much, that's
Speaker 9: not the guy I want sitting at cars for President
Speaker 9: g and negotiating our next agreement with China. We're sitting
Speaker 9: at cars for Putin and trying to resolve with having Ukraine.
Speaker 9: If you can't see around the corner that Bob Ig're
Speaker 9: creating for you.
Speaker 1: So for their park, Disney had already troll DeSantis showed
Speaker 1: they were not remotely deterred by announcing they will host
Speaker 1: the largest LGBTQ plus conference in the world at their
Speaker 1: Florida park just this summer. Now, to be honest, even
Speaker 1: though Disney busting DeSantis is embarrassing, the governor is clearly
Speaker 1: struggling to figure out how to improve his now very
Speaker 1: poor position. I still would have bet on the Disney
Speaker 1: fight being a net benefit for the governor. With the
Speaker 1: Republican base base that really couldn't care less about what
Speaker 1: Nikki Hiali or Chris Christy or christ the New New
Speaker 1: things about this or any other matter really, But now
Speaker 1: the big dog has weighed in the way that only
Speaker 1: he can. In a post on truth social Trump trash,
Speaker 1: DeSantis writing Dysanctus is being absolutely destroyed by Disney. His
Speaker 1: original pr plan fizzled, so now he's going back with
Speaker 1: a new one in order to save face. Disney's next
Speaker 1: move will be the announcement that no more money will
Speaker 1: be invested in Florida because of the governor. In fact,
Speaker 1: they could even announce a slow withdrawal or sale of
Speaker 1: certain properties or the whole thing watch that would be
Speaker 1: a killer. In the meantime, this is also unnecessary a
Speaker 1: political stunt. Ron should work on the squatter mess. Now.
Speaker 1: The political dynamics of this, to me are kind of fascinating.
Speaker 1: The more upscale chamber of commerce part of the Republican
Speaker 1: Party that is Governor DeSantis's more natural base, they don't
Speaker 1: like his move here because it's anti business. And the
Speaker 1: more downscale populist part of the Republican Party that probably
Speaker 1: initially liked the anti Disney fight is the most likely
Speaker 1: to be swayed by Trump trashing DeSantis over it and
Speaker 1: basically calling him a cock. And let's face it, the
Speaker 1: GOP base is basically held together by vibes and aesthetics
Speaker 1: at this point, so if you get branded a cuck
Speaker 1: and a loser, the details really won't matter all that much.
Speaker 1: At its core, the whole situation reveals how confused, listless,
Speaker 1: and chaotic the Republican Party is right now. The new
Speaker 1: goal of standing out up to quote unquote wont capital
Speaker 1: exists very uneasily along the other longtime goal of giving
Speaker 1: giant corporations literally everything they could possibly want at every turn,
Speaker 1: and so lacking any coherent organizing philosophy, the center of
Speaker 1: gravity and political sentiment generally moves whoever wins the latest
Speaker 1: alpha male dickswinging contest. Whatever happens with Disney, that is
Speaker 1: not a fight that DeSantis can win. I'm clearly not
Speaker 1: the only one who sees it that way. As we
Speaker 1: covered earlier, Trump just rolled down a whole newslate of
Speaker 1: endorsements from Florida Republicans. Florida Republicans six members now eight
Speaker 1: of Florida's congressional delegation are officially backing Trump, including several
Speaker 1: who are not hard Trump loyalists, and should have been
Speaker 1: imminently gettable for DeSantis. I suppose they can read the
Speaker 1: vibes in the polls as well as anyone else. As
Speaker 1: DeSantis once said, just look at the scoreboard. So, Sager,
Speaker 1: I just read this morning that apparently, you know, DeSantis
Speaker 1: is trying to make some legislative moves to roll back
Speaker 1: that deal.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 2: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 1: Very excited to introduce our next guest, who I actually
Speaker 1: grew up with but has become a big time sports
Speaker 1: radio host. He's always been a huge sports fan, and
Speaker 1: especially a huge Washington sports fan, Grant Paulson. He is
Speaker 1: host of the Grant and Danny Show on one of
Speaker 1: six to seven the Fan, and he joins us now
Speaker 1: to talk about whatever is happening with the latest commander's
Speaker 1: sale story. So great to see you, Grant.
Speaker 6: Welcome, Great to you, man, Great to you, good, good
Speaker 6: to meet you. Yes, absolutely happy to be here. How
Speaker 6: are you guys?
Speaker 2: Very good?
Speaker 1: So Dan Snyder has been like the worst NFL owner
Speaker 1: in history, and the team is now up for sale,
Speaker 1: which you know. I'm a long time suffering Washington sports
Speaker 1: fan as you are as well, and so I've been
Speaker 1: following a little bit loosely what is going on here?
Speaker 1: My understanding is it looked like they had a deal
Speaker 1: and things were kind of proceeding normally, and then there
Speaker 1: was this curveball thrown in at the last minute of
Speaker 1: an all cash offer, where I was like, but where
Speaker 1: is this money actually coming from? And there are now
Speaker 1: rumors put this up on the screen that this all
Speaker 1: cash offer maybe coming from Saudi Arabia. So give us
Speaker 1: the details of what exactly is going on here, Grant.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So, for a little while, as you said, it
Speaker 7: did seem like this was going to be a moderately
Speaker 7: normal sale, although there's not a whole lot normal about it.
Speaker 7: Very rarely do owners sell teams that they don't want
Speaker 7: to sell. But what has happened here is that Dan Snyder,
Speaker 7: either by way of force or some force, is being
Speaker 7: told he can no longer own the Commander's best we
Speaker 7: could tell by way of the National Football League and
Speaker 7: other owners. After he is being investigated by an all
Speaker 7: the way up to the house Oversight Committee Virginia, Maryland
Speaker 7: has investigated him. There was an ESPN report that the
Speaker 7: FBI was looking into possible bank fraud because he didn't
Speaker 7: have his minority owners sign off on a loan they
Speaker 7: were supposed to sign off on before he bought them
Speaker 7: out to buy the entire team.
Speaker 6: He owned sixty percent.
Speaker 7: Now he owns one hundred percent after buying those owners
Speaker 7: out for forty percent. So there have been so many investigations,
Speaker 7: so many headaches for the league recently that they want
Speaker 7: Dan Snyder, who as you said, has done a very
Speaker 7: poor job running the team on the field and off
Speaker 7: the field for twenty four years out. So he is
Speaker 7: in the process of selling and it looks like we
Speaker 7: are almost at the finish line with an actual bid
Speaker 7: and real money from Josh Harris, who owns the Philadelphia
Speaker 7: seventy six ers in the NBA, New Jersey Devil's in
Speaker 7: the NHL. There's a billionaire he's working with, Mitchell Rails
Speaker 7: out of DC. These two guys are combined with former
Speaker 7: basketball icon and legend Magic Johnson and thirteen other people
Speaker 7: to try to buy this team out of nowhere. Though
Speaker 7: there is a gentleman named Brian Davis, who is a
Speaker 7: former star basketball player in college at Duke, who had
Speaker 7: a cup of coffee in the NBA, who apparently has,
Speaker 7: as you said, engaged now in trying to buy this
Speaker 7: team with what he says is his money. He claims
Speaker 7: he can offer seven billion dollars in cash. He claims
Speaker 7: he can additionally offer another two billion dollars to do
Speaker 7: some different things that need to be done with the
Speaker 7: stadium and some other financing. And he says he currently
Speaker 7: has ten billion dollars in the bank account that that
Speaker 7: he recently got from what he calls not investors, but partners.
Speaker 7: And so, as you guys can imagine, when there's no
Speaker 7: recent record via Forbes or any kind of valuation of
Speaker 7: this person being worth this kind of money. Oprah Winfrey's
Speaker 7: worth two billion, Tiger Woods is worth a little over
Speaker 7: a billion, Donald Trump's worth two point five. You look
Speaker 7: at some of the people and what they're worth, and
Speaker 7: then this guy says he's got ten billion dollars who
Speaker 7: nobody's heard of?
Speaker 6: How is this a thing?
Speaker 7: And so when you start digging into that, there are
Speaker 7: major questions.
Speaker 3: Okay, got it?
Speaker 2: And so then in terms of the bidding process, forgive me.
Speaker 2: I'm not entirely familiar.
Speaker 3: Are they like?
Speaker 2: Is Snyder required to entertain all bids? Is this more
Speaker 2: of a media process? I had read previously like Bezos
Speaker 2: was interested but because Snyder didn't like Bezos. It's not
Speaker 2: like a shareholder corporation as I understand it, where they
Speaker 2: have to entertain all bids regardless of whether they like
Speaker 2: them or not.
Speaker 7: So you're correct, it's not that different, maybe than selling
Speaker 7: your house initially, where Dan Snyder can sell to he
Speaker 7: wants to. Here's the problem with that, though twenty four
Speaker 7: NFL owners, there are thirty one of them, because the
Speaker 7: Packers don't technically have one, twenty four of the thirty
Speaker 7: one are going to have to sign off on whoever
Speaker 7: this new owner is to welcome them into their club. So,
Speaker 7: as an example, when Dan Snyder bought the team over
Speaker 7: two decades ago, there was actually a person that had
Speaker 7: agreed to buy the team from the previous owner, John
Speaker 7: ken Cook, who didn't get approved by the National Football League.
Speaker 7: They said no to that person. Snyder swooped in and
Speaker 7: got universally accepted as an owner, which I'm sure they
Speaker 7: regret now.
Speaker 6: But yet he could sell to whoever he wants to.
Speaker 7: I guess theoretically as long as he thinks the money
Speaker 7: is legit, or maybe as he gets ready to pack
Speaker 7: up shop he's already it seems like living in or
Speaker 7: going to be living in London, maybe taking his money
Speaker 7: and leaving. He could say, you guys ran me out
Speaker 7: of here. The fans hate me. I don't care what
Speaker 7: kind of shambles I leave you in. I'll sell to
Speaker 7: whoever I want. The problem with that is that the
Speaker 7: League would never approve someone who just fell into billions
Speaker 7: of dollars. And we actually had this guy, Brian Davis
Speaker 7: on our radio station yesterday for a thirty plus minute
Speaker 7: interview that was somewhere between fascinating and riveting and comical.
Speaker 7: Where I mean, there are just so many unanswered questions
Speaker 7: where he has said he sold his intellectual property for
Speaker 7: fifty billion dollars, which again just common sense would say,
Speaker 7: if George Lucas is worth five billion dollars, how is
Speaker 7: this person that nobody knew a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 7: somehow selling his intellectual property for fifty billion, which he
Speaker 7: explains away is he has a business that creates business
Speaker 7: and he was able to get someone to buy in
Speaker 7: on a very small scale at a big amount, which
Speaker 7: now makes them worth this much larger amount when you
Speaker 7: extrapolated out, it just doesn't make a lot of sense,
Speaker 7: but it has been a fascinating diversion to It looks
Speaker 7: like a sale to the Harris Rails group that could
Speaker 7: be happening imminently.
Speaker 1: Huh. So the Saudi rumors that they're the ones who
Speaker 1: are really behind this, which you know, makes some logical sense.
Speaker 1: Obviously they've invested in what I would characterize is basically
Speaker 1: it's like sportswashing with the big live golf play. Are
Speaker 1: those just rumors or is there anything to back that up?
Speaker 6: So so far they're just rumors.
Speaker 7: I mean, he point blank on the radio yesterday said
Speaker 7: that that wasn't the case, and what was kind.
Speaker 6: Of an awkward exchange.
Speaker 7: Right, Let's start with the fact that when he initially
Speaker 7: said he had this money, I think everyone believed.
Speaker 6: That he didn't. He has, what I.
Speaker 7: Have been told by folks in the media been able
Speaker 7: to at least partially try to prove that this money
Speaker 7: is in an account somewhere. Okay, so he claims not
Speaker 7: only that he has the money, but then the idea
Speaker 7: was well if you have money, it's not your money.
Speaker 7: Who are you trying to buy this team on behalf
Speaker 7: of He says, it is my money.
Speaker 6: This is his opinion. He says, this is my.
Speaker 7: Money they paid me for essentially my company. I can
Speaker 7: now do what I want with this cash. So the
Speaker 7: thought was, Okay, who is backing this and it's an anonymity,
Speaker 7: we don't know. I think that's where some of the
Speaker 7: rumors the thoughts came from. As you said, based on
Speaker 7: the landscape right now, based on what we're seeing with
Speaker 7: the live tour, people suggested maybe it is Saudi Arabian.
Speaker 6: He adamantly said it wasn't.
Speaker 7: And his comment on the radio, which was I thought
Speaker 7: very weird, was that the money came from white people,
Speaker 7: as he put it. He then said that he said
Speaker 7: it was a Jewish Italian and Sicilian was what he suggested.
Speaker 1: That was his words, but is a weird way to
Speaker 1: characterize it.
Speaker 6: It was very odd.
Speaker 7: I will say again, the interview was something. It was
Speaker 7: really good radio. I don't I don't know what else
Speaker 7: it was, but it left a lot of people with
Speaker 7: a lot of questions. But he says he doesn't want
Speaker 7: people saying it's it's from Saudi Arabian money. He said
Speaker 7: it's not the case. But he also claims, I mean,
Speaker 7: he claimed a lot of things. He said that, you
Speaker 7: know again, intellectual properties worth fifty billion. He's already been
Speaker 7: paid ten billion for it. Now here's the big question.
Speaker 7: I think there's there's two parts of this. Number One,
Speaker 7: does he actually have the money? He says it come clean?
Speaker 7: Number Two, would the league, ever, let's say he does
Speaker 7: have the money, let's say somethhow he got the money.
Speaker 7: Would the league sell the team to this person? And
Speaker 7: that's where, guys, all along my answer has been no.
Speaker 7: I will badly apologize to him very loudly in a
Speaker 7: megaphone when he buys the team.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to start writing that apology.
Speaker 1: Yeah wow, And Grant, finally, a bigger picture question take
Speaker 1: us through, like what has happened to this franchise. I mean,
Speaker 1: this one used to be one of the most valuable,
Speaker 1: if not the most valuable sports franchise in the entire world.
Speaker 1: As you said, the tenure under Snyder has just been
Speaker 1: one disaster effectively after another, both on the field and
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of personnel, in the way that
Speaker 1: the business side has been run like, what is the
Speaker 1: state of this enterprise at this point?
Speaker 6: It's incredible.
Speaker 7: I mean, Chris, I won't bore people too much with
Speaker 7: the football element of this, but I will say that
Speaker 7: you could literally teach a four hundred level course and frankly,
Speaker 7: somebody should on how not to run a business by
Speaker 7: just wining to what has become of this organization. When
Speaker 7: we were growing up in the DC area two plus
Speaker 7: decades ago, this team was one of the most successful
Speaker 7: pillars of a sport that owns a day of the week, right,
Speaker 7: I mean, the Washington Redskins brand as a three time
Speaker 7: Super Bowl champion was iconic in sports. It was right
Speaker 7: there with any of the big teams, the Yankees and
Speaker 7: the Dodgers.
Speaker 6: He takes over this team.
Speaker 7: They are among the elite in ticket sales and attendance,
Speaker 7: and they have a new stadium, and they are among
Speaker 7: the best. It's a top ten media market in the
Speaker 7: country in TV ratings. They have been dead last the
Speaker 7: last two seasons in attendance and specifically this last year
Speaker 7: dead last. Think about that their TV numbers have dropped
Speaker 7: off and cratered so much that there are times in
Speaker 7: their TV window in the DC area where they get
Speaker 7: outdrawn by the Ravens in Baltimore or a random AFC.
Speaker 7: I mean, these things would be utterly unfathomable. And it's
Speaker 7: most specifically, and I think directly because of people's hatred
Speaker 7: for this owner. They have decided, I will not put
Speaker 7: a penny in this person's pocket. I'm not going to
Speaker 7: buy tickets, I'm not going to buy gear. Subsequently, they
Speaker 7: have had to change their name, which is a massive
Speaker 7: story both in and outside of sports obviously, but there
Speaker 7: are plenty of fans who have left and will never
Speaker 7: come back because of that. That just happened within the
Speaker 7: last few years and also can be tied back to
Speaker 7: probably Dan Snyder, who, rather than having the name and
Speaker 7: just proceeding quietly this losing team, he was very vocal
Speaker 7: they would never change the name. In a USA Today
Speaker 7: story said right in all caps, will never change the
Speaker 7: name and basically egged on the idea that wouldn't happened.
Speaker 6: He lost that battle, but a couple.
Speaker 7: Of years ago, forty plus employees came forward to say
Speaker 7: they've been harassed. Some have an alleged assault directly against
Speaker 7: Dan Snyder sexually. This has been a person that for decades,
Speaker 7: the only team in the NFL that hasn't won eleven
Speaker 7: games while he's on the team. They have two playoff
Speaker 7: wins in his twenty four seasons. One of them was
Speaker 7: his first year taking over when someone else built the roster.
Speaker 7: Just one playoff win since. On the field, horrific, and
Speaker 7: it's been better on the field where they were arguably
Speaker 7: the worst team in the league under his watch. Ben
Speaker 7: Off the field, whereas I said, he's been investigated over
Speaker 7: the last few months by Congress Virginia Maryland DC, and
Speaker 7: apparently according to the ESPN, you know, the FBI has
Speaker 7: been looking into some of his practices financially, so you know,
Speaker 7: the allegations are bountiful, and fans just kind of got
Speaker 7: fed up of trying to explain themselves.
Speaker 6: To be in the bunt of a joke.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I can result I can say for
Speaker 1: myself personally, and I used to be a religious watcher
Speaker 1: of Redskins, grew up in the whole fandom, super committed.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just becomes exhausting. Really, this is not
Speaker 1: worth my time, It's not worth my emotional investment. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm done here, got other things that I need to
Speaker 1: do with my life.
Speaker 7: Sports are supposed to be fun, right, Like, people listen
Speaker 7: to my show occasionally because either something in the world
Speaker 7: or news or politics whatever.
Speaker 6: Sometimes can get to be too much.
Speaker 7: So you come to me for a little bit of
Speaker 7: a diversion and we'll talk about the Nats throwing a
Speaker 7: good game or the Redskins now Commanders winning a football game.
Speaker 7: It got to a point, to your point where it
Speaker 7: was exhausting, it was work like being a fan of
Speaker 7: the team literally stopped being fun. And when that happens
Speaker 7: as a sports entity, you are done and dance night.
Speaker 1: So true, so true. Grant Paulson, Pride of King George County, Virginia.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you and listen to your show?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm on social at Grant H. Paulson.
Speaker 7: If you like sports and movie and food takes those
Speaker 7: are my three category that I stink too.
Speaker 2: Congrats on your success. We really appreciate you joining us.
Speaker 3: Man thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so great to see you.
Speaker 6: Same to you, guys. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: Yeah you too.
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