Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 3: What do we have personal.
Speaker 4: Indeed, we do. It is Super Tuesday.
Speaker 1: We're going to break it all down for you, what
Speaker 1: to expect, what states are voting, how you can vote
Speaker 1: uncommitted or with another protest.
Speaker 4: Vote if you live in a Super Tuesday state.
Speaker 1: And we also have a few key figures who are
Speaker 1: sounding warning alarms for Joe Biden. Not that that's an
Speaker 1: unusual thing at this point, but we'll give you that
Speaker 1: as well. Speaking of Joe Biden, he gave a rare
Speaker 1: interview to the New Yorker, and we learned something about
Speaker 1: why those interviews are so rare, Some very lot going
Speaker 1: on interesting comments that many people note of so we
Speaker 1: will bring that to you. We also are following a
Speaker 1: really important story. States are starting to fight back against
Speaker 1: rental companies colluding to raise your rents. Some key action there,
Speaker 1: so we'll tell you what is going on. This follows
Speaker 1: up on a report we covered from Pro Publica previously
Speaker 1: about this company that uses an algorithm to set rental prices.
Speaker 4: But since they're getting fed.
Speaker 1: In all of this rental information, it is effectively collusion.
Speaker 4: So we'll give you all of those details.
Speaker 1: Really important one for you and your life. We're also
Speaker 1: taking a look at reactions which are pouring in after
Speaker 1: that Scotus ruling we covered yesterday saying Trump can stay
Speaker 1: on the ballot, saying that that provision in the constitution,
Speaker 1: not that it doesn't necessarily apply, but it has to
Speaker 1: go through Congress.
Speaker 4: So we will react to all of that.
Speaker 1: Yesterday, we also got a UN report on sexual violence
Speaker 1: on October seventh.
Speaker 4: We'll break that down for you.
Speaker 1: Ryan's got another bombshell once again, completely undercutting that New
Speaker 1: York Times reporting on October seventh, and actually the UN
Speaker 1: report itself debunks a key narrative from that piece as well,
Speaker 1: So we'll break that down for you and we've got
Speaker 1: Congressman Rocana here in the studio to talk about Biden's
Speaker 1: Israel policy.
Speaker 4: So a lot to get to you this morning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And on Thursday, we've got our live
Speaker 2: stream coming up. We've got a promotional graphic we can
Speaker 2: go and put it up there on the screen. So
Speaker 2: we will have a live stream that began shortly before.
Speaker 2: We'll do a pre show. Then we'll go into the
Speaker 2: state of the Union wall watch it together, we'll react
Speaker 2: on the other side. Until we have an exclusive premium
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Speaker 3: Like I said, I love.
Speaker 4: A good logistic event.
Speaker 1: Sure we are actually got Auto b the four of
Speaker 1: us spending a lot of quality time together this week,
Speaker 1: because Saga and I are also going to join Ryan
Speaker 1: only right tomorrow to react to whatever happens tonight on
Speaker 1: Super Tuesday, so look out for that as well. And
Speaker 1: speaking Super Tuesday, let's go ahead and put up on
Speaker 1: the screen the map of the states that are voting today,
Speaker 1: including my home state of Virginia. We've got, i believe,
Speaker 1: sixteen states and one territory that are voting today. This
Speaker 1: one you can see the number of delegates allocated per state. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this is all about winning those delegates. The two parties
Speaker 1: actually have different systems in terms of how they apportion
Speaker 1: the delegates. The Democratic Party does a lot of like
Speaker 1: proportional delegation, so that's how Uncommitted was able to pick
Speaker 1: up a couple of delegates in the state of Michigan.
Speaker 1: One interesting question tonight will be whether or not Uncommitted
Speaker 1: or similar choices on the ballot in some of these states,
Speaker 1: is able to pick up additional delegates to go to
Speaker 1: the Democratic National Convention. And as you can see, California
Speaker 1: and Texas the big delegate rich prizes on the ballot. Tonight,
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this next map up on the screen.
Speaker 4: We showed you this yesterday, but just to refresh.
Speaker 1: This is courtesy of Eton Germentum, who did all of
Speaker 1: the work of figuring out which states allow an uncommitted vote,
Speaker 1: which ones you can write in some sort of protests vote,
Speaker 1: and those are actually counted. Some of the states you
Speaker 1: cannot vote uncommitted, but they will count blank ballots. Some
Speaker 1: states you cannot vote uncommitted. It does have right ins,
Speaker 1: but they don't actually count those right ins unless they'refore
Speaker 1: quote unquote qualified candidates. So a few of the states
Speaker 1: that do have that uncommitted option on the ballot that
Speaker 1: are on that are voting today. You got Minnesota, you
Speaker 1: got Colorado, you got North Carolina, you got Vermont. You've
Speaker 1: got a number of states that will be where voters
Speaker 1: will be able to very directly register that protest vote.
Speaker 1: So that is certainly something we will be paying attention to.
Speaker 1: You know, granted, there's been very little lead time terms
Speaker 1: of organizing, but it'll be interesting to see whether some
Speaker 1: of the momentum coming out of Michigan and the national
Speaker 1: attention that that movement garnered, and the sense that the
Speaker 1: Biden administration does feel some pressure from the results from
Speaker 1: Michigan that could really impact the way that people turn
Speaker 1: out to night Zager and let me just put up
Speaker 1: this tear sheet just the basics of Super Tuesday. Want
Speaker 1: to know about Super Tuesday and why it matters. As
Speaker 1: they said, voters in sixteen different states in one territory
Speaker 1: going to be choosing who they want to run for president.
Speaker 1: Some states are also choosing who should run for governor
Speaker 1: or senator for their state, and some district attorneys too.
Speaker 4: In addition to.
Speaker 1: The presidential contest, there is also an important race in
Speaker 1: California to replace Dianne Feinstein. California has an unusual primary system.
Speaker 1: All of the candidates, regardless of party, appear on the
Speaker 1: same ballot, and then the top two vote getters go
Speaker 1: on to run in the quote unquote general election. Adam
Speaker 1: Schiff has actually been propping up the Republican candidate to
Speaker 1: try to make sure that he is the only Democrat
Speaker 1: on the ballot come this fall. So that will be
Speaker 1: another thing to watch tonight. That is very significant.
Speaker 2: Who would have thought Super Tuesday the more interesting story
Speaker 2: would be on the Democratic side.
Speaker 3: It's not exactly one that we.
Speaker 2: Would have predicted a couple of months ago, but because
Speaker 2: the Republican Convention is or at least the Republican election
Speaker 2: contest is just so basically not even in question now
Speaker 2: at this point the Democratic side, not necessarily that the
Speaker 2: result is in question, but protest vote and how both
Speaker 2: of those fit into the overall election. The number of delegates,
Speaker 2: as you said, you've got thirty five percent on the
Speaker 2: Republican side up for grabs and thirty six percent on
Speaker 2: the Democrat side that are up for grabs. So neither
Speaker 2: side is going to quinch going to get the number
Speaker 2: of delegates necessarily that they need.
Speaker 3: Exactly to win.
Speaker 2: Apparently the earliest that that could happen is March twelfth
Speaker 2: and March nineteenth for Joe Biden, which I basically expect
Speaker 2: is going to be somewhere around there and that we
Speaker 2: can all stop this nonsense with Nikki Haley at least.
Speaker 2: But that's really what we're all looking for now, are
Speaker 2: voting patterns, the level of victory. It'll be a big
Speaker 2: question about Trump's electoral margin. Not necessarily that I think
Speaker 2: it matters as much for the general election, Crystal, but
Speaker 2: that's the big media thing. They're like, oh, if he's
Speaker 2: underplaying his polls and saying, you know, Visa v.
Speaker 3: Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: So we can get real looks into the coalitions of
Speaker 2: the faithful that do come out for primaries and just
Speaker 2: be like, Okay, let's start to think about how.
Speaker 3: This is really going to play out in the general election.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's more data, exactly, It's more information.
Speaker 1: I guess the other thing to watch for tonight is
Speaker 1: is Nicki Haley stay in this race.
Speaker 4: After Super Tuesday.
Speaker 1: She had originally sort of indicated, you know, she was
Speaker 1: in it for the long haul than after the I
Speaker 1: believe one of the recent contests, maybe in Michigan.
Speaker 4: I don't know, my memory fails me, but she.
Speaker 1: Said, you know, she sort of committed through Super Tuesday,
Speaker 1: but not really beyond that. So I think we're on
Speaker 1: Nikki Haley dropout watch as well as we go through
Speaker 1: the Super Tuesday results and see how she fares.
Speaker 4: I do think it'll be interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of these states there hasn't been
Speaker 1: a whole lot of primary polling because the result is
Speaker 1: so certain on both sides of the ledger. But it
Speaker 1: will be interesting to see if that trend continues of
Speaker 1: Trump underperforming his polls, which is very different dynamic than
Speaker 1: what we used to see from Trump back in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen and beyond. So something to watch for anyway, Like
Speaker 1: I said, more data.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: So Michael Moore, of course, famous filmmaker, has continued to
Speaker 1: push the uncommitted protests vote. He was one of the
Speaker 1: key figures helping to push that protest vote to over
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand voters in the state of Michigan. Quite
Speaker 1: an extraordinary performance for that protest movement, especially given the
Speaker 1: short amount of time and the tiny amount of money
Speaker 1: that was put behind it. He joined AMSMBC to continue
Speaker 1: to talk about why this movement is important.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 2: Do you think Donald Trump is the threat that he
Speaker 2: is and Joe Biden is gambling by aligning himself closely
Speaker 2: with Net and Yahoo at the risk of American.
Speaker 5: Democracy, absolutely, and gambling by aligning himself with an authoritarian
Speaker 5: in Tel Aviv, somebody who who is facing a number
Speaker 5: of felonious charges, who was supposed to stay on trial
Speaker 5: this past fall, and that all got shoved aside because
Speaker 5: now there's a war.
Speaker 1: So one thing that's been interesting here, Sager, is you
Speaker 1: have a number of people who are voting uncommitted or
Speaker 1: it's equivalent in whatever state you know that they are
Speaker 1: able to vote in. Some of them are not going
Speaker 1: to vote for Biden. They're done right there. There's an
Speaker 1: abandoned Biden movement that started in Michigan and they're like, listen,
Speaker 1: he's backing a genocide.
Speaker 4: It's too far, it's already too late. Forget about it.
Speaker 1: But the more sort of like liberal argument from people
Speaker 1: like Michael Moore is we're actually trying to help Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: We're trying to push him in the right direction because
Speaker 1: at the moment he's risking everything. I mean, Michael Moore
Speaker 1: is one hundred percent voting for Joe Biden in the
Speaker 1: fall right and despises Donald Trump. I think he's very clear, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he despises Donald Trump. He's going to be voting for
Speaker 1: Joe Biden in the fall, et cetera. And so their
Speaker 1: message is we're trying to push this man in the
Speaker 1: right direction so he doesn't throw everything away for this
Speaker 1: psycho right wing Netanya government. And I do think that
Speaker 1: that because they've been able to stitch together both the
Speaker 1: people are a little more radicalized and like forget it.
Speaker 4: I'm not voting for Joe Biden and the people who
Speaker 4: are still like am but lesser evil, and I don't
Speaker 4: want Trump, et cetera.
Speaker 1: The fact that they've been able to keep that together
Speaker 1: and keep that messaging focus for an MSNBC type audience
Speaker 1: is interesting to me.
Speaker 3: Definitely.
Speaker 2: You know, I think back to you weren't here for this,
Speaker 2: Ryan and I interviewed the right ceasefire guy in right,
Speaker 2: I'm sure, yeah, I mean, I encourage.
Speaker 3: People to go watch it.
Speaker 2: This could not be the most cookie cutter, like a
Speaker 2: Democrat Boomer At the end, he loves Biden, didn't want
Speaker 2: to vote.
Speaker 3: For anybody else.
Speaker 2: He literally ended our segment Crystal by saying thank you
Speaker 2: to the Capitol Police for their actions on January sixth.
Speaker 2: At first, I mean, we honestly thought he was trolling,
Speaker 2: but I was like, oh no, he's one hundred percent serious.
Speaker 2: But my point is is that, I mean, this is
Speaker 2: the bespectacle live Boomer. Yeah, in a certain way, you
Speaker 2: have to admire him if you put aside the damage
Speaker 2: they've done to the country, and you're just like, wow, Okay,
Speaker 2: so you know, this is certainly not the demographic that
Speaker 2: people in the media may think are the.
Speaker 3: Types who would come against it.
Speaker 2: I thought it was very illuminating for me personally just
Speaker 2: to say, Okay, well that's interesting because, as you said,
Speaker 2: it's probably more Michael mooreliging. I mean, part of the
Speaker 2: reason why it's so remarkable for Michael Moore is and
Speaker 2: if people remember, he was literally on our show in
Speaker 2: what was like November of maybe October of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: talking about how Bill Barr was going to like personally
Speaker 2: go and steal ballot boxes to rig the election.
Speaker 3: I was like, man, this is some crazy shit.
Speaker 2: But my point just being like, this is a person
Speaker 2: who actually believes Trump is like a militant fascist who's
Speaker 2: going to overthrow the government and have a coup day Todd,
Speaker 2: if he's willing to mount a campaign against him, yeah,
Speaker 2: I would certainly take notice of that.
Speaker 4: Well, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Michael Moore is actually being far more consistent with what
Speaker 1: Democrats claim they believe than the Democrats are themselves. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what he's saying is like, you say all this
Speaker 1: rhetoric about how our literal democracy in our country is
Speaker 1: at stake on the ballot, and you are throwing you
Speaker 1: can see the electoral damage. You know, the electoral damage,
Speaker 1: and you continue to persist, why why, and so he
Speaker 1: and many others. Their push is, we are trying to
Speaker 1: push you in a direction that will perhaps improve your
Speaker 1: chances against Donald Trump in the fall. At the same time,
Speaker 1: another voice that you know you should always pay attention
Speaker 1: to when it comes to swing states, especially in the
Speaker 1: industrial Midwest, is Debbie Dingle, Congressman, longtime congresswoman. She famously
Speaker 1: was sounding the alarms prior to twenty sixteen when everybody
Speaker 1: on the Democratic side with oh, Hilary's going to win.
Speaker 1: It's going to be easy. She barely even needs to campaign.
Speaker 1: This is going to be fine. Donald Trump is a joke,
Speaker 1: popping champagne on the plane before the election results even
Speaker 1: come in, et cetera. She was saying, no, there's a
Speaker 1: real problem here. And she has been consistently prescient in
Speaker 1: a lot of her predictions. And you know, she's keeping
Speaker 1: things pretty diplomatic and mild here, but she's also sounding
Speaker 1: an alarm again about Biden's performance in Michigan and taking
Speaker 1: note of the significance of that uncommitted vote.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 6: Michigan is a purple state, and I've been saying that
Speaker 6: for a long time. We are a state that frequently
Speaker 6: votes uncommitted. President Obama got a highly got a significant
Speaker 6: I'm committed vote in two twelve.
Speaker 4: But it is one.
Speaker 6: Issue that needs to be paid attention to. I've got
Speaker 6: a lot of people that are hurting in my district.
Speaker 6: So first of all, I'm always the wrong person to
Speaker 6: talk to about polling because I told the world, and
Speaker 6: many of my Republican friends didn't leave me either, that
Speaker 6: Donald Trump was going to win Michigan and thus won
Speaker 6: the election in two sixteen. If you look at the
Speaker 6: polling now that we're even looking at, there have been
Speaker 6: three national polls that have showed Biden up, President Biden
Speaker 6: up or tied with Donald Trump. The numbers and all
Speaker 6: these different polls in the last but he's done well.
Speaker 6: I think I do believe that President Biden is getting
Speaker 6: that sense of urgency.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's her take at this point.
Speaker 1: So listen, we'll see how it all unfolds tonight, if
Speaker 1: there are any surprise performances, if there are places where
Speaker 1: you know, uncommitted or similar protest efforts have a significant result,
Speaker 1: And just once again to reiterate how widespread the problem
Speaker 1: throughout the Democratic base is for Joe Biden. You know,
Speaker 1: it was not just the college kids and the Arab
Speaker 1: Americans who had something to say through their uncommitted protests
Speaker 1: vote in Michigan. There was a widespread support for that
Speaker 1: movement throughout the state, rural, urban, suburban, etc. And it'll
Speaker 1: be interesting to see if that trend persists.
Speaker 2: There's been a big debate around strategy Crystal, how can
Speaker 2: the Democrats pull it out against Trump. One strategy is
Speaker 2: just to ignore the polling. The other is to look
Speaker 2: for silent indicators that may seem like things are better
Speaker 2: than they seem. But on MSNBC, what is his name,
Speaker 2: Donnie Dewish. We're not exactly sure where he came from
Speaker 2: or how it became a political analyst, but he's on
Speaker 2: Morning Joe, and nonetheless he's on the President's favorite television show.
Speaker 2: He's come up with the new strategy about how to
Speaker 2: make sure that Biden does beat Trump in the upcoming
Speaker 2: general election. Let's take a listen to his analysis.
Speaker 7: I'm afraid, you know, I've been one of the most
Speaker 7: outspoken guy. You know, it's interesting somebody said to me,
Speaker 7: are you afraid of if he gets re elected And
Speaker 7: I hadn't thought about it, and like he's coming after Joe,
Speaker 7: He's going to come after me, he might come after you.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is.
Speaker 7: What people are not comprehending. And here's the campaign that
Speaker 7: Democrats need to run. And I've been thinking about this
Speaker 7: a lot. There are four people that need to step forward, Kelly, Mattis,
Speaker 7: McMaster and Millie and there needs to be a general campaign.
Speaker 7: Where are these generals who have worked with him need
Speaker 7: to turn to the American public and turn to Cameron
Speaker 7: and say, you don't understand how scary this can be.
Speaker 7: We really can go over a cliff here. These people,
Speaker 7: patriots need to start to stand up because that's what
Speaker 7: America listens to. I think if you do the right
Speaker 7: campaign with those four guys and you continue to put
Speaker 7: the message out, you're going to lose control of your bodies.
Speaker 8: Women.
Speaker 7: Immigration will even get worse as it did the first
Speaker 7: time with Donald Trump. Our democracy is really, really really
Speaker 7: online here and our way of life will change.
Speaker 3: Get people, scare the shit out of people, Scare the
Speaker 3: shit out of people.
Speaker 2: Aspiring strategy very inspiring, Crystal, and also it's definitely like
Speaker 2: it's never been done before.
Speaker 3: It's not like we've heard all that rhetoric all this
Speaker 3: time around.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot going on here, but it fits
Speaker 2: with a general pan againstide the Biden administration and the
Speaker 2: Biden admin did a long profile with Evan Osno's he's
Speaker 2: a reporter over at the New Yorker, and they gave
Speaker 2: us a little preview into their electoral strategy. So let's
Speaker 2: go and start with their first one. Here's Joe Biden's
Speaker 2: last campaign. Trailing Trump in the polls and facing doubts
Speaker 2: about his age, the President of voices defiant confidence in
Speaker 2: his prospects for re election. The most noteworthy quote, I
Speaker 2: thought came from Tom Donellan. Tomlin is a longtime Biden advisor.
Speaker 2: He's a real whisperer. And here's the strategy. He says,
Speaker 2: quote by November, he predicted the focus will become overwhelming
Speaker 2: on democracy. I think the biggest images in people's minds
Speaker 2: are going to be of January sixth. So he sees
Speaker 2: a parallel crystal to the race between George W. Bush
Speaker 2: and John Kerry at the time Donald and says he
Speaker 2: worked for Kerry. The Democratic Priorty didn't want to believe
Speaker 2: it was a nine to eleven election. Instead, the party
Speaker 2: wanted to focus on an array of issues like other things,
Speaker 2: but it all came.
Speaker 3: Back to nine to eleven.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm just going to say I think nine to
Speaker 2: eleven was a little bit more pertinent and different in
Speaker 2: two thousand and four because we were in the middle
Speaker 2: of a mass of war in Iraq.
Speaker 3: But maybe that's just me.
Speaker 2: Now here's let's lay out how Donalin arrived.
Speaker 3: At this conclusion.
Speaker 2: Many of us, including at this desk, were poop pooing
Speaker 2: that strategy ahead of the twenty twenty two midterms. It
Speaker 2: ended up being tremendously impactful. That said, that was also
Speaker 2: a combination of abortion. We will never actually know what
Speaker 2: the real impact of stop the Steel and abortion was.
Speaker 2: I still believe that abortion was far more influential than
Speaker 2: a lot of stop the Stone.
Speaker 3: I would have loved to be able to see an election.
Speaker 2: Without abortion on the ballot that was purely about kind
Speaker 2: of maga kukery. Now, I'm not going to say it
Speaker 2: didn't have any impact, but I think it was relatively
Speaker 2: marginal as opposed to abortion.
Speaker 3: That said, are you really going to bank it all on?
Speaker 2: Frankly, what barely saved you last time from twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two and two more years removed from the date, Why
Speaker 2: do you possibly think it is as relevant as nine
Speaker 2: to eleven was in two thousand and four, when, as
Speaker 2: I said, we were still litigating at a very you know,
Speaker 2: like a real degree where our troops were dying in
Speaker 2: the middle of a war and we were still in
Speaker 2: the you know, all this morass in Afghanistan. How can
Speaker 2: you possibly think that those two are still so linked
Speaker 2: in like the American consciousness.
Speaker 3: When people are going to go to the polls, it's
Speaker 3: March fifth.
Speaker 2: Right now, it feels, you know, a million miles away
Speaker 2: January sixth now add several months to that for election day.
Speaker 3: I think it's an incredibly full hearty strategy.
Speaker 1: It just seems like there is an unbelievable amount of
Speaker 1: complacency and arrogance among the Biden people, and that they've
Speaker 1: drawn these lessons from both his ability to win the
Speaker 1: primary and the Democratic primary back in twenty twenty with
Speaker 1: a lot of assistance from you know, Obama and the.
Speaker 4: Media and whatever.
Speaker 1: But he was able to pull that off against the
Speaker 1: odds and people in counteramount, et cetera, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: you combine that with the over performance in the midterms.
Speaker 1: I mean, they still didn't win the House, but they
Speaker 1: did much better than the predictions. They did much better
Speaker 1: than incumbent presidents usually do in midterm elections. And they've
Speaker 1: just decided that data doesn't matter, criticism doesn't matter, that
Speaker 1: they can just stay the course and block everything out
Speaker 1: and it's going to be just fine.
Speaker 4: And so I mean that's what you see from here now.
Speaker 1: Listen, we haven't seen any affirmative We're down the State
Speaker 1: of the Union.
Speaker 4: This week.
Speaker 1: Maybe Biden will lay out some more affirmative, positive looking
Speaker 1: vision of what the second term would look like.
Speaker 4: That's possible, we'll see, but he ain't done it yet.
Speaker 1: And it's very clear that they're leaning into basically the
Speaker 1: Donnie Deutsch strategy of let's just scare the shit out
Speaker 1: of people and hope it works one more time.
Speaker 4: Maybe it will, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, the you know, Republicans don't do themselves any
Speaker 1: favors with all of the like wacky shit that they're
Speaker 1: doing all the time, not just January six. And I
Speaker 1: think for my assessment of the midterms, it was you
Speaker 1: can't really pull apart the factors of Stop the Deal
Speaker 1: and that sort of cookery in January sixth, and abortion
Speaker 1: and the level of extremism with regard to that issue.
Speaker 1: It just made the entire party seem like they were
Speaker 1: fringe wackos. So I think it all sort of plays
Speaker 1: in together. Maybe that works again, but I don't know
Speaker 1: how you look at these poles not just a one off,
Speaker 1: not just an outlier, not just an occasional poll, but
Speaker 1: literally every pole that comes out and not say, you
Speaker 1: know what, we may be thinking about this wrong. We
Speaker 1: need to reassess, we need to come up with some
Speaker 1: ideas of how to actually defeat Trump. And we're going
Speaker 1: to talk more about the Scotus ruling here in a bit.
Speaker 1: But I also think they need a wake up call
Speaker 1: that the legal system is not going to save them.
Speaker 1: It's not going to come to their rescue. It's not
Speaker 1: clear that it's going to change significant votes from Trump
Speaker 1: to Biden. They are going to have to figure this
Speaker 1: out themselves. And right now there's just nothing but arrogance
Speaker 1: and complacency coming from everybody around him.
Speaker 2: You also see almost frankly delusional promises Biden.
Speaker 3: Let's put this up there on the screen. This was
Speaker 3: what really struck me.
Speaker 2: Whenever they asked Biden what exactly he was going to
Speaker 2: do in a second term, he says, quote, I will
Speaker 2: pass Roe versus Way a raid as the law of
Speaker 2: the land. Democrats would then need to win control of
Speaker 2: the House of Representatives and gain seats in the Senate,
Speaker 2: but he expressed confidence a few more elections like we've
Speaker 2: seen placed with states would suffice you're seeing the country changing,
Speaker 2: reiterating his position on Row, I've never been more supportive
Speaker 2: of it's my body.
Speaker 3: I could do what I want with it.
Speaker 2: But I have been supportive of the notion that this
Speaker 2: is probably the most rational allocation of my responsibility that
Speaker 2: all the major religions have signed on and debated over
Speaker 2: the last thousand years.
Speaker 3: So very convoluted.
Speaker 2: Quote frankly there from Biden almost abandoning the libertarian framing
Speaker 2: and kind of putting in his own what is it
Speaker 2: putting in his own religious interests? I guess within that,
Speaker 2: But I mean, at a baseline level, Crystal, you can't
Speaker 2: say that you're going to pass Roe versus Wade when
Speaker 2: the last time that Democrats had a filibuster proof majority
Speaker 2: and control the House of representatives under Barack Obama who
Speaker 2: also said that he would do it. They didn't do it,
Speaker 2: so why would they believe you. Also, as I understand it,
Speaker 2: maybe I'm wrong. Mathematically in the terms of the Senate math,
Speaker 2: it's actually impossible for them to get a filibuster proof majority.
Speaker 3: He supports a filibuster.
Speaker 2: Thus, how can you claim that with a straight face.
Speaker 2: There's not a single Republican in the United States Senate
Speaker 2: that would sign on to specifically Row. Now, maybe a
Speaker 2: fourteen week or whatever. Maybe I'd still doubt it, But
Speaker 2: my point is is like, this is a do and
Speaker 2: that's the only promise he's got, and it's a fake
Speaker 2: one if you know anything about how the political system
Speaker 2: is structured, I am.
Speaker 4: Just really struck by.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, presidents put on all kinds of delusional promises.
Speaker 4: That's par for the course.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm actually surprised they don't talk about that more.
Speaker 1: This is honestly the first time I've even really heard
Speaker 1: him mention that he hasn't even an intention of codifying
Speaker 1: Roe as the law of the land. So your point
Speaker 1: is apt that he has no actual strategy for getting
Speaker 1: that done. And part of the reason he has no
Speaker 1: strategy for getting that done. Is is evidenced in the
Speaker 1: other part of the quote where he's like, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: whole pro choice thing is not really my bag. It's
Speaker 1: my body, my choice. That's not really ever been my thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, do you understand how this issue has saved
Speaker 1: your party's ass now in multiple elections, that this is
Speaker 1: like the only reason why you all did okay in
Speaker 1: the midterms and did all right in these special elections,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And you know, like pour cold water on
Speaker 1: it and make it very clear to everyone involved that
Speaker 1: you don't really care. You're not going to fight for it,
Speaker 1: and you'll, sure, you'll throw out some empty words and
Speaker 1: empty promises, but it doesn't go any beyond that. Now,
Speaker 1: I think most people who are voting on this issue
Speaker 1: are not actually voting on like, oh, I think the
Speaker 1: Democrats are really going to like restore my rights. They're
Speaker 1: voting on the Republicans are going to make things even worse.
Speaker 1: And the Republicans have demonstrated that they want to make
Speaker 1: things even worse in states across the country. You know
Speaker 1: the IVF situation in Alabama, there was a bill that
Speaker 1: would have codified access and protect IVF at the federal
Speaker 1: level that Republicans blocked. So I think that's where probably
Speaker 1: more of the energy is, because people just have so
Speaker 1: little hope that any of the party's really going to
Speaker 1: deliver for them, let alone a man who just comes
Speaker 1: out and is basically like, yeah, pro choice, I'm just
Speaker 1: not really that's not really my thing. So I think
Speaker 1: that's where the energy is. But this certainly doesn't help
Speaker 1: his prospects, and as part of why they don't let
Speaker 1: him do interviews very often because he says stuff like.
Speaker 3: This, It's like, what are you talking about.
Speaker 2: It's also interesting because that type of messaging might has
Speaker 2: he even then I think about it. Something I go
Speaker 2: back and watch all the time just to remind myself
Speaker 2: of a different world is Bill Clinton's acceptance speech of
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety two Democratic Convention. It's on YouTube if
Speaker 2: anybody wants to go and watch it, and he's adamant.
Speaker 2: He says safe, legal, and rare over and over again.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a perfect secular messaging in my opinion,
Speaker 2: and some what came across to me with Biden is
Speaker 2: I still think in his mind he's living in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, where he's living in like a very Christian
Speaker 2: country with a moral majority and all that still exists.
Speaker 3: It's like, bro, you know, half this country is.
Speaker 2: You know, Christian to the point where like they don't
Speaker 2: go to church and it's mostly entirely cultural. If you
Speaker 2: were to question an articul like really jig down into
Speaker 2: their real beliefs, their agnostic at best and mostly just
Speaker 2: secular and or non believers, deeply more socially libertarian than
Speaker 2: at any time in modern history. I've never believed that safe,
Speaker 2: legal and rare is like the most popular messaging today
Speaker 2: than it was in nineteen ninety two when Bill Clinton
Speaker 2: won that election. So it's interesting to me to see
Speaker 2: him kind of torture himself through this and then the
Speaker 2: final part that we had to pull here, Let's please
Speaker 2: put this up there because it's just you can't even
Speaker 2: make it up now. In terms of proving his prowess
Speaker 2: about saying that the White House by allaying criticism that
Speaker 2: the White House is quote insular or dismisses of reality,
Speaker 2: Jeff Zeitz, who is the chief of staff, has pointed
Speaker 2: to Biden's reputation of quote soliciting opinions from critics as
Speaker 2: he says, just the other day, he picked up the
Speaker 2: phone and he called Larry Summer.
Speaker 4: What a bold move. No president's ever done that before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he would be I believe he would be.
Speaker 2: Trump definitely never called Larry Summers. Oh, he probably met
Speaker 2: with him. So let's Obama definitely. Obama employed Larry Summers.
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton employed Larry Summers.
Speaker 3: George W. Bush.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't put it past him to talk to Larry Summers.
Speaker 2: So how many presidents in a row?
Speaker 5: Then?
Speaker 4: Does that make that?
Speaker 3: Doesn't make you unconventional.
Speaker 2: That's like you know, going to a Georgetown cocktail party
Speaker 2: soliciting foreign policy advice and saying that you're going outside
Speaker 2: of the normal things.
Speaker 4: Like dissenting voices like I don't think that's how works.
Speaker 2: Maybe want to update the boomer press or silent generation President,
Speaker 2: I apologize, he said. Biden's other occasional calls ranged from
Speaker 2: columnist Thomas Friedman to sentiment to Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 2: He says, that's how you pressure test decisions. What world
Speaker 2: is this if? When I connect the abortion this man
Speaker 2: is in the nineteen eighties, that's where he is.
Speaker 1: You can't you couldn't possibly name three more staid architects
Speaker 1: of the status quo than those three men.
Speaker 4: I mean it really like that. That's the list of
Speaker 4: people that.
Speaker 1: Comes out of your mouth is actually quite extraordinary. And
Speaker 1: you know, Sience has come in. You replaced ron Klain.
Speaker 1: Clain had some better ties with the progressive world. He
Speaker 1: was pushing, you know, the big stimulus. At the beginning
Speaker 1: of the miministration. There was a lot more sort of
Speaker 1: connectivity with a more aggressive like SDR style, Not that
Speaker 1: he ever became anywhere close to living up to that,
Speaker 1: but that was more of the vision. Sience is this
Speaker 1: corporate establishment sold out tool.
Speaker 3: And it's worth like two hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And so you know there has been basically since
Speaker 1: he's come in, Biden hasn't really done anything that has
Speaker 1: been good. So that's effectively the tenure of Jeff Science.
Speaker 1: And you know that he's the one saying, oh well,
Speaker 1: Biden's douent. Grays is seeking out all these dissenting voices
Speaker 1: and pressure testing his decisions with Larry Summers, Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 1: and Thomas Friedman. It is so revealing, so revealing, and
Speaker 1: also incredibly hilarious.
Speaker 2: Let's get to why all of this is a problem.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is actually seriously remarkable because it demonstrates the underlying
Speaker 2: strength that Trump has. This is more from the New
Speaker 2: York Times Sana pol They say, quote, no matter race, age,
Speaker 2: or gender, more voters say Trump's policies helped than Biden's.
Speaker 2: So do you think Joe Biden or Donald Trump's policies
Speaker 2: have helped you personally? Joe Biden eighteen percent, Trump's policies
Speaker 2: forty percent. You know what really is underlying in this crystal.
Speaker 2: If you look at some of the interviews, those COVID checks,
Speaker 2: people remember the hell out of that. They remember deeply
Speaker 2: some of those COVID stimulus checks. So for all the
Speaker 2: people out there, but you know Biden, he did, but
Speaker 2: it was at the end. And I think that they're
Speaker 2: pairing inflation, probably more so with the tail end, whereas
Speaker 2: they remember low gas prices plus really buy that.
Speaker 3: I mean what I say maybe right.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying like, if you have both presidents that
Speaker 1: sent out COVID jacks, I don't think that you can
Speaker 1: really ascribe that to you know, this difference. I think
Speaker 1: that a big problem for Biden is first of all,
Speaker 1: people remember things through rose color glasses, so you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of cuts against normally there's like an incumbency advantage.
Speaker 1: This is a very weird election because you basically have
Speaker 1: two incumbents going up against each other. And in some ways,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is benefiting from the way that memories have faded,
Speaker 1: whereas last time around, when he was in office and
Speaker 1: we were in the midst of COVID and people were
Speaker 1: miserable and they were like, you know, very frustrated with
Speaker 1: him and his like you know, remember those bizarre press
Speaker 1: conferences and the like the bleach and all that insanity.
Speaker 1: At the end of like people were disgusted with that,
Speaker 1: and that was a huge boon to Joe Biden, I
Speaker 1: think is what helped push him over the line.
Speaker 4: I honestly think a big part of this too is
Speaker 4: people just.
Speaker 1: They don't have any confidence that anything that has potentially
Speaker 1: improved for them, which there are you know, there is
Speaker 1: data now that say says that on some metrics, people
Speaker 1: are doing better economically than they were, say a year
Speaker 1: or two years ago, But they don't give Biden credit
Speaker 1: for that because they see that he is like old
Speaker 1: and doddering, and they have zero confidence that he's able
Speaker 1: to deliver on anything. So they're not attributing like if
Speaker 1: their position gets a little bit better. They're not like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's thanks to Joe Biden. It's you know, it's in
Speaker 1: spite of Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: So to me, that's a big part of what's going
Speaker 4: on here.
Speaker 1: And that was one of the things that both Azer
Speaker 1: Client and Aate Silver I think pointed to in their
Speaker 1: pieces about why the Democratic Party should ditch Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: They're like, the economic numbers are improving and his approval
Speaker 1: rating is not, and that's a problem for him because
Speaker 1: that means there's basically nothing you can do to sort
Speaker 1: of get people convinced that you're good for the country
Speaker 1: because they've just decided you're too frickin' old and you
Speaker 1: can't get anything done.
Speaker 2: Well, what really struck me, if can we put that
Speaker 2: tear sheet please back up on the screen, be five,
Speaker 2: just because I want to really point to a number.
Speaker 2: There is the hurt you personally. Do you see that
Speaker 2: one Biden's policies forty three percent say hurt me personally?
Speaker 2: Twenty five percent of Trump policy And that was pretty insane,
Speaker 2: considering this is the man who appointed Supreme Court justices
Speaker 2: on Row versus Way, and he says not made much
Speaker 2: of a difference relatively tied at thirty nine and thirty four.
Speaker 2: What struck me also is that within gender, if you
Speaker 2: look at help me personally, both men and women highly
Speaker 2: rate Trump dramatically. Really, Seventeen percent and eighteen percent men
Speaker 2: and women respectively say that Biden policies helped forty one
Speaker 2: percent and thirty nine percent say that they did help
Speaker 2: for men and women, so almost a twenty points spread
Speaker 2: there in Trump's favor. By ethnicity, it's the same thing.
Speaker 2: Forty four percent say that Trump helped them, twenty six
Speaker 2: percent of White's, twenty six percent of Blacks, thirty seven
Speaker 2: percent of Hispanics.
Speaker 3: By age, you actually see a huge.
Speaker 2: Benefit to Trump amongst the forty five to sixty four demographic.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, by the way America, those are the people who vote.
Speaker 2: Forty eight percent say that Trump's policies help them. Twenty
Speaker 2: one percent say that Biden's policies help them. Same amongst
Speaker 2: the boomers sixty five plus thirty eight percent versus twenty
Speaker 2: percent on Biden. So base I mean age, gender, wherever
Speaker 2: you look, you know, a huge portion of this. Also,
Speaker 2: I'm starting to think about when I look at these numbers,
Speaker 2: is I think interest rates play a big role in this.
Speaker 3: Way that people have, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you think about that number, the forty
Speaker 2: five to sixty four, these are the four oh one
Speaker 2: K generation, you know, the four oh one K millionaires.
Speaker 3: I mean, let's be honest.
Speaker 2: The stock market was booming under Trump, and more so
Speaker 2: the interest rate policies, inflation and all of the basically
Speaker 2: the chaos of the last couple of years, on top
Speaker 2: of increasing borrowing costs for folks who may be putting
Speaker 2: off retirement or you know, trying to take it a loan,
Speaker 2: trying to fund a business or something like that. That
Speaker 2: is really going to screw you both at the lowest end,
Speaker 2: like a eighteen to twenty nine year old and a
Speaker 2: forty five to sixty four year old. Just because you
Speaker 2: can compare the literal gain from previously to now sixty
Speaker 2: five plus, I mean, you know a lot of folks
Speaker 2: who were retired. They did get a nine percent inflation
Speaker 2: increase in Social Security, which Biden did try to take
Speaker 2: credit for. If you remember that he was like Social
Speaker 2: security increased under me. It's like, yeah because of inflation, dude,
Speaker 2: not because of anything that you did, But okay, go
Speaker 2: for it. Point just being that I think I think
Speaker 2: interest rates had a massive impact on the psychological way
Speaker 2: that we thought about the economy, especially for you know,
Speaker 2: just anecdotally friends who are buying houses. You know, the
Speaker 2: prices really remain very, very high, and with the mortgage
Speaker 2: rates where they are some six to seven percent, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, don't look at your mortgage balance would be
Speaker 2: my advice, just because you're going to see how much
Speaker 2: you're pain and interest versus how much principle that you're
Speaker 2: really putting down on your house.
Speaker 3: I think that was a big part of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, huge part of it too that we see Crystal
Speaker 2: is about the flipover Nate silver Vary Astuteley.
Speaker 3: Let's put this up there.
Speaker 2: In his latest says Biden's problem is with swing voters,
Speaker 2: not his base. He points to that graphic that you
Speaker 2: can see in front of you for her watching. It
Speaker 2: shows us political party identification, and it actually shows the
Speaker 2: political party identification for Republicans and Democrats is near all
Speaker 2: time lows, both at twenty seven and twenty seven percent.
Speaker 2: The independent number is actually at forty three. Now, what
Speaker 2: he shows also is that amongst those independent voters, they
Speaker 2: are shifting hard against Joe Biden. And in fact, one
Speaker 2: of the crazy things that he pointed out is that
Speaker 2: some ten percent of people who voted for Joe Biden
Speaker 2: in the twenty twenty election are now affirmatively saying they
Speaker 2: are going to vote.
Speaker 3: For Trump, not that they are undecided.
Speaker 2: More so, only less than one percent of the people
Speaker 2: who voted for Trump are saying that.
Speaker 3: They are willing to switch to the other side.
Speaker 2: So huge swing voter problem there where you know, if
Speaker 2: you combine the coalitional issues plus the swing voter issues,
Speaker 2: Biden is I mean, he's looking more and more cooked
Speaker 2: by the day with all the caveats. Y.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, I mean that was actually Nate silverspiece
Speaker 1: kind of irritated me because what you just said is
Speaker 1: accurate that he has problems in both of these areas,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think you can look at the disgust
Speaker 1: over the Israel policy and how dramatically opposed not just
Speaker 1: young people in these few demographic groups, but the overall
Speaker 1: majority of the of Joe Biden voters from twenty twenty
Speaker 1: disagree with him on Israel, some so strongly that they
Speaker 1: are not coming back. Some so strongly that they're willing
Speaker 1: to go out and vote uncommitted in order to launch
Speaker 1: this protest. I mean so strongly that they're terrified of
Speaker 1: even showing up on a college campus because they know
Speaker 1: they're going to be met with protests. So I don't
Speaker 1: think you can look at that and be like, Eh,
Speaker 1: the base is fine. No't worry about the base. It's
Speaker 1: both like you have a base problem. You need those
Speaker 1: people who are like core democratic constituencies to show up
Speaker 1: for you. You need you know, the like modern traditional
Speaker 1: democratic coalition which is really relying on young people.
Speaker 4: You need those people to be willing.
Speaker 1: To come out and vote for you and not to
Speaker 1: stay home and not to go vote for Gornell West
Speaker 1: or Jill Stein. And you also need to win independence.
Speaker 1: So it kind of irritated me how he like pitted
Speaker 1: these true groups against each other, like you have to
Speaker 1: pick one or the other. Joe Biden has problems with both.
Speaker 1: He needs to win over both, perhaps with independence.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The thing that would really you know, push them in
Speaker 1: his direction is if he had more affirmative, positive vision
Speaker 1: in terms of the economy that they actually had confidence
Speaker 1: in him delivering, which I think is a major problem
Speaker 1: for there's nothing you.
Speaker 4: Can do about his age.
Speaker 1: It is what it is, which is I think a
Speaker 1: big part of the reason why it's these numbers are
Speaker 1: unlikely to.
Speaker 3: Move, I would say one of the biggest reasons.
Speaker 4: But he also has real problems with the Democratic.
Speaker 1: Base, and you need all of those pieces in order
Speaker 1: to win, especially given how close closely divided the country is,
Speaker 1: how close we expect this election to ultimately be. So
Speaker 1: I kind of I've actually kind of found this column
Speaker 1: irritating and annoying.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, he's pointing to a legitimate issue. He's not
Speaker 2: pointing to all of the issues. We can all wins
Speaker 2: and losses are multifaceted. He can't point to any one thing.
Speaker 2: I think this points that when you are losing so
Speaker 2: many grounds in battles on different fronts, it makes it
Speaker 2: so that you are it's very difficult to try and calibrate,
Speaker 2: to try and think about where you're going to go,
Speaker 2: what exactly you're going to do, and then where we
Speaker 2: connected to what we started off this story with, which
Speaker 2: is the Biden strategy of January six, I'm not seeing
Speaker 2: a whole lot of January six hope in these numbers.
Speaker 2: It didn't show up last time either, So like, let's
Speaker 2: at least give them credit for this. Yeah, No, Hampshire
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, these people got fifth, They're cooked. There's no
Speaker 2: way they're going to win. Guess what they end up
Speaker 2: winning South Carolina Boom.
Speaker 3: The guys literally the.
Speaker 2: Democratic president or a Democratic nominee. I mean, he eventually
Speaker 2: wins the election. Same thing in twenty twenty. Story is
Speaker 2: he's done. There's no way. All history is against him.
Speaker 2: They pulled it out. So let's not give them, you know,
Speaker 2: let's let's give him some credit for their strategy. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of it has to do with their
Speaker 2: opposing force rather than anything that they do.
Speaker 3: They're banking on the same thing.
Speaker 2: I would just say, first of all, it's a very
Speaker 2: very small sample size.
Speaker 3: And number two is that that's a hell of a risk.
Speaker 2: It's a hell of a risk because if it's just
Speaker 2: one thing goes the other way. I mean, I just
Speaker 2: always think of whenever you're trying to win anything in life,
Speaker 2: you've got to do everything, and you're humanly possible to
Speaker 2: cover all of your bases and then also hope that
Speaker 2: your opponent makes a mistake. They're very much like in
Speaker 2: our opponent is such an idiot, it'll take care of it.
Speaker 4: Ary strategy, right exactly.
Speaker 3: That's how you lose.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I don't think it's going to work out
Speaker 2: for them, will say, we certainly will.
Speaker 3: Let's move on to the next part.
Speaker 2: There's some very inspiring story, actually some very interesting state
Speaker 2: government action against raising rent prices. So we've talked to
Speaker 2: here previously about algorithmic basically programs consortiums and companies that
Speaker 2: have been buying up real estate and that landlords can
Speaker 2: then self enter into where they can collude with each
Speaker 2: other to set rental markets and to increase aggregate prices
Speaker 2: above where normal rent inflation is.
Speaker 3: We're now actually seeing.
Speaker 2: A report out of the state of Arizona where the
Speaker 2: Attorney General is suing Real Page, which is a company
Speaker 2: and organization and landlords and accusing them of conspiring to
Speaker 2: illegally raise rents. We have a bit of a taste
Speaker 2: from a local news report there on the ground that
Speaker 2: we just wanted to play for all of you.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 9: It's a story many value renters know all too well,
Speaker 9: major spikes in their own rent.
Speaker 4: To six and i'mlike, Okay, that's that's what it's the
Speaker 4: the next year they raise that. I think it was
Speaker 4: like two hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 9: State Attorney General Chris Mays feels these price hikes aren't
Speaker 9: a coincidence, but possibly a conspiracy.
Speaker 10: I don't think it's a stretch to say that people
Speaker 10: were made homeless by the scheme.
Speaker 9: A recent lawsuit from Mazes pointing the finger at the
Speaker 9: software company real Page for collecting leasing data and using
Speaker 9: that information to collude with at least nine land order
Speaker 9: management companies, all in order to keep rent prices high
Speaker 9: and create a rental monopoly in both the Phoenix and
Speaker 9: Tucson area.
Speaker 10: The companies were actually talking about the algorithm and how
Speaker 10: much money it was going to make them to their investors.
Speaker 2: So what's really interesting is if you look at some
Speaker 2: of the data included, they say, according to the Attorney
Speaker 2: General's office, thirty six percent of Phoenix households are renters.
Speaker 2: They have seen a seventy six percent rent increase from
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. Meanwhile, in Tucson, thirty seven percent of households
Speaker 2: remain renters with a thirty percent rent increase, they say.
Speaker 2: Several tenants who rent from these companies were named in
Speaker 2: the lawsuit, say that while price went up, quote, no
Speaker 2: physical changes happened in their living areas.
Speaker 3: They keep getting money from.
Speaker 2: Everybody, but I don't know what they are doing with
Speaker 2: all that money, said one renter, who did not want
Speaker 2: to be identified. So they'd said, I would say these
Speaker 2: last two years or last two or three years, it
Speaker 2: was a headache. I mean, one of the things they're
Speaker 2: pointing to, and it's not only the large landlord organizations,
Speaker 2: but is the company itself real Page, which allows property
Speaker 2: management you know, companies and others to enter and to
Speaker 2: basically enter into some sort of price fixing scheme. And
Speaker 2: you know, my advice too, is this lady's a Democrat,
Speaker 2: you know, and this is how you get reelected, you know,
Speaker 2: and elected by the way, in a red state. Just
Speaker 2: if you're wondering about the things that real good governance
Speaker 2: and things really people will pay attention to. If you're
Speaker 2: able to stop a seventy six percent increase in rent, yet,
Speaker 2: that's that's pretty impactful. You know, you shouldn't forget that,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: What Arizona has impressed me on a couple of fronts,
Speaker 1: this being one. Another one is going after those Saudi
Speaker 1: backed firms that were buying up all the land and
Speaker 1: stuck and dry all the water, and they're buying up
Speaker 1: for pennies on the dollar a bunch of medical debt
Speaker 1: and dismissing it, discharging it so that the residents of Arizona,
Speaker 1: you know, can be a you can get some relief
Speaker 1: from this overhang and burden of medical debt, which is
Speaker 1: really interesting, which we should actually cover on another day.
Speaker 1: But you know, to get to this particular story we
Speaker 1: covered in the past, Pro Publica did a whole expose
Speaker 1: a on this company real page and their software which
Speaker 1: is called yield Star, and they brag about how they're
Speaker 1: able to squeeze their tenants and how they're able to
Speaker 1: effectively collude. As you said, So what happens is all
Speaker 1: of these landlord companies, you know, they buy access to
Speaker 1: the yield Star software. Part of that is they have
Speaker 1: to enter in all of their information, so yield Star
Speaker 1: has all of this non public information and then they
Speaker 1: use that to algorithmically, algorithmically maximize the amount of profit
Speaker 1: by setting the rents for these companies. So rather and
Speaker 1: then the individual you know, you go to rent an
Speaker 1: apartment or whatever, and the individual property manager is setting
Speaker 1: the rents based on what they can tell of the
Speaker 1: market and what will sustain and also based on that
Speaker 1: like human interaction of I don't want to price this
Speaker 1: person out of a home. Instead of that, they use
Speaker 1: an algorithm that has all of this non public information.
Speaker 1: So the allegation here is that this is price fixing
Speaker 1: because you have even though there's like this intermediary, this
Speaker 1: tech intermediary, you still have the reality of all of
Speaker 1: these companies colluding with their private information to be able
Speaker 1: to maximize and set rents.
Speaker 4: At the highest possible price.
Speaker 1: And in markets where this becomes incredibly dominant, you have
Speaker 1: this one company setting the rents for basically the entire
Speaker 1: market with disastrous results for tenants. What's interesting, too, is
Speaker 1: one of the main architects behind yield Star this isn't
Speaker 1: his first trip to the price fixing rodeo. He apparently
Speaker 1: was Alaska Airlines director of revenue Management. Reading from pro
Speaker 1: publican now, when it and other major airlines began developing
Speaker 1: price stting software in the nineteen eighties, they had to
Speaker 1: enter into a consent decree to unwind this price fixing
Speaker 1: scheme that they had there. He moved on from that
Speaker 1: to apparently price fixing in the apartment market rental market,
Speaker 1: because he has so much experience in that direction. But
Speaker 1: just to give you a sense of some of what
Speaker 1: they were saying about this software and what it does,
Speaker 1: one of the people involved said, the net effect of
Speaker 1: driving revenue and pushing people out, meaning pushing them out
Speaker 1: of the apartment, was ten million dollars in income. I
Speaker 1: think that shows keeping the heads in the beds above
Speaker 1: all else is not always the best strategy. What they're
Speaker 1: alluding to there is the fact that they found, through
Speaker 1: this algorithm and through their price fixing ability, that it
Speaker 1: was actually more profitable for a lot of apartment complexes
Speaker 1: to set prices so high that they actually had some vacancies,
Speaker 1: that they pushed people out in this person's words, and
Speaker 1: didn't keep the heads in the beds all for maximizing
Speaker 1: absolute revenue. And they also to point to the fact
Speaker 1: that when it is you know, a human being who
Speaker 1: was sending these setting these rents and providing the incentives
Speaker 1: and the brakes, et cetera, that they find it difficult
Speaker 1: to be as cold hearted as profit maximization would demand.
Speaker 1: So it's a significant issue. I think they are one
Speaker 1: hundred percent correct. The DOJ actually weighed in on this,
Speaker 1: which I found really interesting too. They said they filed
Speaker 1: a statement in support of these tenets. They said automating
Speaker 1: an anti competitive scheme does not make it less anti competitive.
Speaker 4: Specifically, the FED said.
Speaker 1: That algorithms themselves are not illegal to use, but rather
Speaker 1: the way it was being used, with competitors knowingly combining
Speaker 1: their sensitive non public pricing and supply information in an
Speaker 1: algorithm they rely upon in making pricing decisions with the
Speaker 1: knowledge and expectation that other competitors will do the same.
Speaker 1: That signal signals to me if the Biden DOJ is
Speaker 1: paying attention to this, that they may have a bigger
Speaker 1: problem than just this Arizona tendancy.
Speaker 3: Well, I would certainly hope.
Speaker 2: So there's also some state by state legislation we can
Speaker 2: put C three pleas up on the screen.
Speaker 3: The Colorado actually now has.
Speaker 2: A bill that's just been introduced to prevent landlords from
Speaker 2: using algorithms to scent rent. They say that currently, quote,
Speaker 2: renting an apartment in Metro Denver has become so difficult
Speaker 2: for the average the average person that the state lawmakers
Speaker 2: are now trying to prevent these landlords from using the
Speaker 2: real page yield star or the yard revenue IQ to
Speaker 2: fix that market to their disadvantage. The law seeks to
Speaker 2: broadly define a prohibited algorithmic device that says one or
Speaker 2: more algorithms to perform calculations of data, and then if
Speaker 2: a landlord is found to have used as prevented device,
Speaker 2: it would allow Tennis to take civil action. Now, I
Speaker 2: think one of those things, one of the things I
Speaker 2: come back to is with this is that it really
Speaker 2: does come down to entering that non public information because
Speaker 2: if you think about it, if you go on MLS
Speaker 2: data or apartments, dot com, Zillo or whatever, you can
Speaker 2: see what the rental market around you is. This is
Speaker 2: about getting it before it actually is rent and is
Speaker 2: making it less of a guessing game, and then also
Speaker 2: making sure that nobody can undercut your competition.
Speaker 3: So it really does.
Speaker 2: Enter in the realm of collusion and takes away that,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of free market aspect of what the
Speaker 2: rental market kind of should be, which is people kind
Speaker 2: of guessing and thinking and looking.
Speaker 3: Around their local area.
Speaker 2: One of the strengths that people always talk about with
Speaker 2: small local landlords is that their you know, community members
Speaker 2: whatever is that they're you know, one to five properties
Speaker 2: something like that, and it's not the resources of a
Speaker 2: giant corporation, which is what you should be afraid of.
Speaker 2: But this effectively kind of makes them a lobbying block
Speaker 2: and a price fixing cartel, which is what we should
Speaker 2: be afraid of in the first place. As to why
Speaker 2: I oppose corporate you know, most corporate land ownership in
Speaker 2: general whenever it comes to rental tenants, because they just
Speaker 2: try and squeeze every single dollar there is.
Speaker 6: Out of you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and this goes beyond that, even because part
Speaker 1: of the allegation here is that because you have, especially
Speaker 1: in certain cities, you have the overwhelming bulk of the
Speaker 1: market participating in this scheme, they are all they are
Speaker 1: effectively acting as a cartel. And the way that works
Speaker 1: is you've set a price arbitrarily high, and you have
Speaker 1: this agreement that no one's going to come and undercut,
Speaker 1: because what would bust this up in a typical free
Speaker 1: market if someone comes in season market opportunities like oh well,
Speaker 1: I can undercut these people with a lower price, I
Speaker 1: can fill out my apartments much more easily and so
Speaker 1: and then that you know, causes them to have a
Speaker 1: problem with their own buildings. If you have them all
Speaker 1: participating in this scheme, then you've got everybody sort of
Speaker 1: like agreeing to charge these high prices and no one
Speaker 1: undercutting them and causing a problem for their cartel price
Speaker 1: fixing algorithmic scheme. That's the allegation here. So it is
Speaker 1: encouraging to see a little bit of pushback in a
Speaker 1: few different states. Hopefully this will be a model for
Speaker 1: the country. And to your point, Sager, listen, one of
Speaker 1: the bright spots in the Biden administration has certainly been
Speaker 1: the focus on anti trust. You know, there have been
Speaker 1: some really great appointments like Lenacon who've been much more
Speaker 1: a grassive and trying to sort of not reimagine but
Speaker 1: actually restore actual anti true trust and push from the
Speaker 1: government and break up some of these large monopolies that
Speaker 1: have so dominated our economy. We know, we've seen the
Speaker 1: energy around house. I mean, it's obvious the pricing of rents,
Speaker 1: the pricing of homes, how much pain this is for
Speaker 1: everybody at a variety of income levels. This would be
Speaker 1: a great thing for the Biden administration to lean into
Speaker 1: and talk up and really do something about, because I
Speaker 1: think this particular case will really be a trial balloon
Speaker 1: of if they're able to succeed at the judicial level
Speaker 1: proving that this is anti competitive behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we'll see story. They're definitely very interested in.
Speaker 2: I know it impacts a lot of you guys out there.
Speaker 2: You know, rent inflation is one of the biggest drivers
Speaker 2: of overall CPI, and it's one of the problem things
Speaker 2: that has a huge issue in terms of stuck in
Speaker 2: your money away your savings rate and all that. I know,
Speaker 2: it's really really difficult out there, so we'll continue to
Speaker 2: track it. We broke down the news for everybody yesterday
Speaker 2: about the Supreme Court decision. The TLDR is that the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court ruled nine to zero unanimously the Colorado wrongly
Speaker 2: took Donald Trump off of the ballot by claiming that
Speaker 2: they had violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The split decision was
Speaker 2: five to four, where the majority, the slim majority of
Speaker 2: the court ruled that in the future, any process that
Speaker 2: would lead to the removal of a candidate from about
Speaker 2: must come from specifically congressional action, as in, they had
Speaker 2: to pass a law as they lay out in the
Speaker 2: fourteenth Amendment, that lays out the exact candidate, the qualifications,
Speaker 2: the types, and the rules as to which would govern
Speaker 2: it that currently does not exists as we understand it.
Speaker 3: So this kind of punched the ball to Congress.
Speaker 2: The dissent came from all of the liberal justices, where
Speaker 2: the three justices said that they should have narrowly considered
Speaker 2: the Colorado question and not set a new standard.
Speaker 3: And then Amy Coney Barrett, as I.
Speaker 2: Understand it, yeah, didn't join the liberal dissent, but didn't
Speaker 2: join the majority opinion either.
Speaker 3: So I don't it was.
Speaker 4: Her thing was weird.
Speaker 1: I don't even I don't understan but it was basically
Speaker 1: like she actually agreed with the liberals that the decision
Speaker 1: which went far too far.
Speaker 4: But then her whole thing.
Speaker 1: Was like, but what we really should talk about is
Speaker 1: how we came to a unanimous decision.
Speaker 4: That's what's really important. It's like what it was weird.
Speaker 3: You could tell she was a mom of seven, because
Speaker 3: that's like a very mom.
Speaker 4: It was a very moment.
Speaker 1: That's so true, Like we all came together. Let's just
Speaker 1: focus on the positive here eyes.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks boy. Yeah, usually not the right answer anyway.
Speaker 2: So immediately though, that sparked panic and responses here in Washington.
Speaker 2: The most noteworthy was won by Congressman Jamie Raskin, who
Speaker 2: said he will immediately join with several others to introduce
Speaker 2: legislation in the House of Representatives to bar Donald Trump
Speaker 2: the ballot.
Speaker 3: Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 8: I am working with a number of my colleagues, including
Speaker 8: Wi Wasserman Schultz and Eric Swalwell, to revive legislation that
Speaker 8: we had to set up a process by which we
Speaker 8: could determine that someone who committed insurrection is disqualified by
Speaker 8: section three the fourteenth Amendment. And the House of Representatives
Speaker 8: already impeached Donald Trump for participating in insurrection by inciting it,
Speaker 8: so the House is already pronounced upon that.
Speaker 2: Interesting, So Jamie Raskin has introducing the bill here obviously,
Speaker 2: he says that he's joining with who is at Eric
Speaker 2: Swollwell and a few others Tank Creases. Now this may
Speaker 2: be a hot take that people wouldn't expect this, but
Speaker 2: you know what, it's through the normal legislative channel.
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, it doesn't have a chance
Speaker 3: in house. It doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2: But hey, it's keeping with the procedure that was laid
Speaker 2: out by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: So I say, go for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I actually I saw a bunch of
Speaker 1: concerns like freaking out or maybe it was like they're
Speaker 1: just literally doing what the Supreme Court to them to do.
Speaker 1: So I didn't see why there was such a like
Speaker 1: thing about this particular as you said, I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: we should see this basically as a messaging bill.
Speaker 4: There's no expect they don't.
Speaker 1: Have control of the House, they don't have a filibuster
Speaker 1: proof majority in the Senate, so this is not going
Speaker 1: anywhere anytime soon. But it was directly responsive to the
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I saw.
Speaker 2: Hey, thank you, Jamie Raskin. You know why you're following
Speaker 2: what the court told you to do.
Speaker 3: Go for it. That's the democratic process.
Speaker 2: You can introduce it in the House, you ask you
Speaker 2: debate it, they can bring it to the floor if
Speaker 2: you want, you can send it over to the Senate.
Speaker 4: Crystal Marry, I'm sure Mike Johnson will get right on that.
Speaker 2: So might wrong the you need two thirds as ascribed
Speaker 2: by the Amendment.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing now, because well, I mean, this
Speaker 1: gets into the ruling itself, which in my opinion was
Speaker 1: kind of bullshit, especially this aspect of it, because okay,
Speaker 1: so they based this, you know, this reading that, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this has to go through Congress, and that's the process.
Speaker 1: They based it on the last line in the amendment,
Speaker 1: section three of the fourteenth Amendment, where it says Congress may,
Speaker 1: by a vote of two thirds of each House, remove
Speaker 1: such a disability. The amendment doesn't say anything about Congress
Speaker 1: being the body that has to affirm the disability. They
Speaker 1: just made that up because, I mean, that's how the
Speaker 1: court system works.
Speaker 4: It's not surprising to me.
Speaker 1: It was exactly what I thought that they would do,
Speaker 1: because they're cowards and they didn't want to be the
Speaker 1: ones like responsible for upending the election whatever, and they
Speaker 1: also wanted to sort of just like settle this question.
Speaker 4: And push it off.
Speaker 1: And so they've made it so that even in a
Speaker 1: scenario where someone Donald Trump or someone else was actually
Speaker 1: found guilty of insurrection.
Speaker 4: Through a jury of their peers through the.
Speaker 1: Criminal justice system, that that doesn't count so long as
Speaker 1: they have enough of a political majority to block this
Speaker 1: sort of legislation. So No, two thirds isn't prescribed. Two
Speaker 1: thirds only has to do with removing the ban. There's
Speaker 1: literally nothing in the amendment about affirming the ban, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, part of why this went through the court system.
Speaker 2: I'm not a legal scholar, I'm not a federal society
Speaker 2: any person, so I can only speak to the politics.
Speaker 2: But I support this one percent. And I'll tell you
Speaker 2: which is that. That was my laptop charger.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I will say that.
Speaker 2: It's all the question for all time, and I'm happy
Speaker 2: about that because enough of this nonsense, like we can't
Speaker 2: have competing.
Speaker 3: Decision of insurrection and what is it and is it not?
Speaker 2: I mean, for you know, it's a genuine democratic question,
Speaker 2: as happened after.
Speaker 3: The Civil War.
Speaker 2: If you go back to our original debate on the
Speaker 2: subject after the Civil War, if you serve for the
Speaker 2: Confederate States of America, you cannot serve in government unless
Speaker 2: you are removed by the unless that disability is removed
Speaker 2: as it was in eighteen seventy six record in the
Speaker 2: history I have here in front of me that you
Speaker 2: can no longer serve great It's simple. Do you serve
Speaker 2: in the Confederate States Army. Did you fight and take
Speaker 2: up rebellion against the government here? I mean, it's not
Speaker 2: really clear. You know, we don't have a real congressional
Speaker 2: legal standard. Is what is an insurrection?
Speaker 3: What is is riot? As an insurrection is over is
Speaker 3: it a coup d'etar the're trying to overthrow? The governments?
Speaker 2: Are like genuine democratic questions that need to be resolved
Speaker 2: through the democratic process, either by voting or through Congress.
Speaker 2: Now is Congress, you know, broken and inefficient? Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was in eighteen seventy two too. It has been for
Speaker 2: two hundred some years. So for me, I'm happy because
Speaker 2: I'm sick of all of this like fake interpretation of
Speaker 2: the fourteenth Amendment or whatever.
Speaker 3: Nobody knows. It's like we are none of us are
Speaker 3: lawyers or others.
Speaker 2: The Court, i think correctly kicked it to Congress and said,
Speaker 2: you guys, figure it out.
Speaker 3: What is insurrection? What's not insurrection?
Speaker 2: And if you can't figure it out, then we're going
Speaker 2: to air on the side of democracy, which is what
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, these you know, these courts.
Speaker 2: What's some freaking DC Appellate Court is going to set
Speaker 2: the stand for President of the United States.
Speaker 3: That's nuts. That's just as nuts as the Texas.
Speaker 2: Fifth the what's it called the Fifth Circuit that made
Speaker 2: that crazy ruling. What am I thinking about the abortion pill?
Speaker 2: Minifit press drone something like that? So whatever, all right,
Speaker 2: people can look it up. The Texas abortion judge who
Speaker 2: can just say, oh, this one abortion pill is outlawed?
Speaker 3: That's bullshit. You can't have national policy that's like that.
Speaker 2: So anyway, for me, you can't allow the legal system
Speaker 2: to weigh in on some high it's a highly important
Speaker 2: democratic question of who can run for president.
Speaker 3: Of the npser.
Speaker 1: I will remind you that states have the power and
Speaker 1: that was affirmed in this decision. Yeah, to decide who's
Speaker 1: eligible for the ballot based on all of the other
Speaker 1: constitutional requirements. So I don't really see how this is different.
Speaker 1: But I mean, listen, like I said, it's not a
Speaker 1: legal decision, it's a political decision. It's a political I
Speaker 1: support them because the decision like, oh, we're going to
Speaker 1: come up with this process. They try to ground it
Speaker 1: because they have their you know, bullshit originalists like cloak
Speaker 1: that they put on whenever it's convenient for them, and
Speaker 1: they immediately take it off when it's not convenient for them,
Speaker 1: So they try to ground it in this last line
Speaker 1: of the amendment, which says nothing. The amendment says nothing
Speaker 1: about the process by which you determine whether someone engaged
Speaker 1: in insurrection or not.
Speaker 4: They don't say that. They just talk about, okay, well.
Speaker 1: If someone is found to an engagement insurrection is removing
Speaker 1: the ballot. Here's how you can override that through two
Speaker 1: thirds vote in Congress. So they try to use that
Speaker 1: to say, oh, well, that must mean that they meant
Speaker 1: that Congress doesn't charge the whole Well, it doesn't say that,
Speaker 1: so I mean, it's completely invented. Let's just be clear
Speaker 1: about that. It's this is the way they wanted to
Speaker 1: resolve it. They wanted to resolve the question. They did
Speaker 1: not want to have, you know, the idea of someone
Speaker 1: being kicked off the ballot and like really resting on them.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about the conservatives and the liberals now
Speaker 1: at this point, they didn't want that in their hands.
Speaker 1: They're fundamentally basically cowards. They always look for like the
Speaker 1: you know, the least sort of bombshell thing they can
Speaker 1: do outside of the abortion decision. But that was a
Speaker 1: long time coming and a sort of a different deal,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. And so they invented this process
Speaker 1: that isn't actually grounded either in the history or the
Speaker 1: text or the way that this thing has been used.
Speaker 4: Before they invented it.
Speaker 1: So listen, like I said, am I surprised, no, because
Speaker 1: I think almost all their decisions are basically political in
Speaker 1: their interests, based on their ideology or based on their present,
Speaker 1: their desire to preserve the legitimacy of the court, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So they invented this process, and it is now what
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 3: I will grant you that there is no basis for this.
Speaker 2: Okay, there's no history with any And I am not
Speaker 2: an originals.
Speaker 3: I am not a textualist, you know any of this.
Speaker 2: Like also the legal Frankly, when my friends who are
Speaker 2: lawyers talk like this, my eyes completely glaze over. I
Speaker 2: can only speak to the political question. I think it
Speaker 2: was a good political decision. Obviously, I see enough why.
Speaker 4: I just don't see why.
Speaker 1: Go going through Congress, which is obviously I mean that's
Speaker 1: the definition of a political body. Why that's superior to
Speaker 1: going through like to saying you know, okay, it has
Speaker 1: to go through the court system and someone has to
Speaker 1: be found guilty of insurrection by a jury of their
Speaker 1: peers like it.
Speaker 4: That's a piece where I'm like, I don't.
Speaker 1: See why they settled on this versus you know, some
Speaker 1: other standard. Again, they just sort of invented it because
Speaker 1: at bottom, because they know this will never happen. They
Speaker 1: know that there's no chance that this Congress is going
Speaker 1: to come anywhere close to, you know, deeming that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump or anyone else for that matter, engaged in an insurrection,
Speaker 1: So they can kill the idea that this is relevant,
Speaker 1: even though if you read the plain text of this,
Speaker 1: if it applies to anyone, it applies to Donald J.
Speaker 4: Trump.
Speaker 1: They can avoid having to actually make a decision on
Speaker 1: whether he engaged in insurrection. They can kick the can
Speaker 1: to another body. But they can also effectively kill, you know,
Speaker 1: the possibility that this is relevant at all, but with
Speaker 1: their hands staying clean.
Speaker 2: So that's why they do This is where I'm doing
Speaker 2: part because I don't see the clear insurrection or any
Speaker 2: of that in there at all. I think that the
Speaker 2: Amendment was written for a very specific purpose to bar
Speaker 2: people who were genuine traders who took up arms against
Speaker 2: their country in the United States Civil War, and then
Speaker 2: to make sure that they couldn't serve in government and
Speaker 2: recreate the Jim Crow South.
Speaker 3: Oops had happened anyways, But the.
Speaker 2: Point is is that that was the point by the
Speaker 2: radical Congress that passed the fourteenth Amendment. I think we
Speaker 2: should stay within that. I think the bar should literally
Speaker 2: be that high to ban you from office. I think
Speaker 2: you should basically have taken up arms against your country,
Speaker 2: fought and killed your own countrymen, sold them out, and
Speaker 2: literally fought for a rival army, as these Joe's gentlemen
Speaker 2: did against the Confederates. Other than that, it's up to
Speaker 2: the people, and you guys get to decide. That's say
Speaker 2: for the ballot.
Speaker 4: It doesn't say treason.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even say it says you can have engaged
Speaker 1: in insurrection or rebellion, or given aid or comfort to
Speaker 1: the enemies thereof I mean, listen, he tried to overturn
Speaker 1: a democratic election. You know, all of the election maneuvering
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. There's a reason why even Trump's lawyers
Speaker 1: didn't try to make the case that he didn't engage
Speaker 1: in insurrection and had nothing to do with any of it.
Speaker 1: So in addition, you know, yes, that was the context
Speaker 1: that this was originally put into place, but it is
Speaker 1: not the only context in which it has been used.
Speaker 1: So I don't accept that this is just like, you know,
Speaker 1: some dead piece of the Constitution has no relevance going
Speaker 1: forward post Civil War. I don't think that makes any
Speaker 1: logical sense.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's dead.
Speaker 2: I think if people want to figure out what rises
Speaker 2: to the barrier of the US Civil War, you are
Speaker 2: welcome to pass a law through Congress in which we
Speaker 2: will all commonly understand, as united people, was an act
Speaker 2: of such terrible you know, taking up arms against our government.
Speaker 3: That we will bar you. Otherwise, leave it to the
Speaker 3: people and they can decide.
Speaker 2: You know, if enough people agree with you on January sixth,
Speaker 2: as some did on twenty twenty two, don't vote for Trump,
Speaker 2: be my guest.
Speaker 3: It's a free country.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's really what it comes down to in
Speaker 2: this particular instance. And again, this is why the history
Speaker 2: of it matters. I think you're engaging in a bit
Speaker 2: of textualism. Is the reason that they had to pass
Speaker 2: this is that the South was unreconstructed, and they would
Speaker 2: have reelected and traders to basically they would have re
Speaker 2: elected genuine traders and unreconstructed Southerners to represent them in
Speaker 2: the Congress and then to use their senatorial and congressional
Speaker 2: ability to block rights for freed slaves in the South.
Speaker 3: That was the actual intent of this entire thing.
Speaker 2: So that's again where we have to kind of raise
Speaker 2: the bar to for what we assume where we should
Speaker 2: come to the point where no government or all governments
Speaker 2: representative should do their absolute best and not stand in
Speaker 2: the way of democracy and allow it to ultimately flourish
Speaker 2: for the people. And I don't think that anything Trump
Speaker 2: has done has ever risen to the level of literally
Speaker 2: taking the armor nowhere.
Speaker 1: But nowhere in here does it say that it has
Speaker 1: to well in nor does it say like the bar
Speaker 1: is the Civil War and anything below that doesn't count
Speaker 1: doesn't say any of that. I mean, you know, they're
Speaker 1: very intentional about the way that they wrote and conceived of,
Speaker 1: you know, these various parts of the Constitution. So you know,
Speaker 1: I am very reluctant to put limits on who can
Speaker 1: run for office.
Speaker 4: This is why I pose the term even term limits.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I think if people want to elect
Speaker 1: some deadbeat congressman for thirty five terms and who's you know,
Speaker 1: getting wheeled in a wheelchair. Like, I think that we
Speaker 1: should have democratic mechanisms so people have better understanding of
Speaker 1: what that means. I think we should have money on
Speaker 1: a politics so there's not such an incumbency advantage of
Speaker 1: just like corporations flooding their campaign coffers so they're there forever.
Speaker 1: But I support the right of the people to vote
Speaker 1: for that. For again, one hundred and ten year old,
Speaker 1: who's like sobering on themselves if that's what they want. Okay,
Speaker 1: unpopular opinion, but that's how I feel. I don't think
Speaker 1: we should have age limits in the Constitution, either either
Speaker 1: at the higher end or at the lower end. I
Speaker 1: think I believe fundamentally in that democratic process. To me,
Speaker 1: this is an exception because I do think that the
Speaker 1: country has an interest in banning from office people who
Speaker 1: actively seek to undermine the basic tenants of that country,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what Donald Trump did. So again, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised by the decision. I do think that
Speaker 1: the legal questions involved were very complex, But you know,
Speaker 1: part of why they crafted the decision the way that
Speaker 1: they did, they kicked it to a body that they
Speaker 1: know is not is going to be unable to act.
Speaker 1: Is because if you read this on its face, a
Speaker 1: lot of people are going to feel this applies to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. They didn't want to deal with that messiness,
Speaker 1: so they effectively punted. And that's where we are as
Speaker 1: a political decision. They made up the criteria here, and
Speaker 1: that's the rest.
Speaker 3: That's the problem. You could use that against anything a
Speaker 3: political understanding.
Speaker 2: You could say that any Democrat who didn't vote to
Speaker 2: certify the election in twenty sixteen engage in the same
Speaker 2: sort of behavior, and I would not approached that. I
Speaker 2: want those people to run. I want the bar to
Speaker 2: be so incredibly high. If you believe that Trump is bad,
Speaker 2: then for a vote against him, you know it's your right.
Speaker 3: As this says.
Speaker 2: And I got to disagree on the age lines though,
Speaker 2: because it's in the Constitution in terms of how young
Speaker 2: you got to be.
Speaker 1: So at that point, people who's to January sixth, it's
Speaker 1: fine to run for office. But if you're like, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty four or whatever, people want to vote for you,
Speaker 1: that's not okay.
Speaker 3: Well no, I don't think it's okay.
Speaker 2: I think it's in the Constitution and so clearly the
Speaker 2: framers or whatever you know, going to.
Speaker 3: Spit a little bit.
Speaker 4: Okay, but we're talking about what should be.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I would have put it on philosophical grounds.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't support it, Yeah, I would not. That said, now,
Speaker 2: given where we are with age, it's a little bit
Speaker 2: more complicated, especially with a captured political system where we
Speaker 2: are right now. In terms of mental faculties, I mean
Speaker 2: this gets still like all basic fundamental questions like driver's licenses.
Speaker 3: Should people who are over eighty be allowed to drive? Honestly,
Speaker 3: I think the answer should be no or use.
Speaker 4: I think it depends on capability.
Speaker 3: I've seen too many of these. I've seen too many.
Speaker 4: Of these folks, eight year olds down there all right.
Speaker 2: Listen, I think they should well, at the very least,
Speaker 2: they should be subjected to a very very strenuous test,
Speaker 2: and we as a people should be like actually accept
Speaker 2: and think about what that should look like. Basically, every
Speaker 2: year after seventy two you're asked us to go to
Speaker 2: the DMV and you need to retry. And that's the
Speaker 2: thing is that there are you know, complicated questions here
Speaker 2: also in terms of public safety and like your impact
Speaker 2: on others. Now, I generally err on the side of democracy.
Speaker 2: But if we're going to have age limits, like you said,
Speaker 2: for what is it twenty five? I think for the House, Yeah,
Speaker 2: what is it thirty?
Speaker 8: For this?
Speaker 3: It thirty five for president, which I think is actually
Speaker 3: too low.
Speaker 4: But you think that's too low, way too high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think it should be. I don't really
Speaker 2: think there should be anything there at all. My point
Speaker 2: is that if we're going to have that, then I
Speaker 2: don't think it's really fair at all that we don't
Speaker 2: have old ones.
Speaker 4: I don't think we should have any of them.
Speaker 1: I also agree with Jank that naturalized citizens should have
Speaker 1: the right to run for president the United States, and
Speaker 1: Jank's argument on it is you know, does have some
Speaker 1: legal basis, but putting aside the legal argument, because there
Speaker 1: was a court ruling that basically said naturalized citizens should
Speaker 1: have all the rights of natural born citizens and to
Speaker 1: not do so is discriminatory. So using that basis, you
Speaker 1: can then say, you know, this interpretation is you know,
Speaker 1: is illegal or unconstitutional.
Speaker 4: But putting aside the legal.
Speaker 1: Questions, which I'm admittedly no expert on whatsoever, I think
Speaker 1: just as a matter of principle, I do think that
Speaker 1: they should be able to run for office. I think
Speaker 1: Jank should be able to run for a president if
Speaker 1: you want so. Again, this is all just to say
Speaker 1: I am reluctant to put limits on who people can
Speaker 1: vote for and limiting their democratic choices, I think is
Speaker 1: a big promise. Part of why, you know, I have
Speaker 1: an issue with the two party system and the fact
Speaker 1: that our choices are so constraints. Why I have an
Speaker 1: issue with money in politics, the way that constraine choices,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But in this instance, I do think that
Speaker 1: the state really does have an interest in keeping people
Speaker 1: from high office who actively subvert the basic principles of
Speaker 1: the country, which is why I support this.
Speaker 2: But you know, obviously, see where where we are, we're
Speaker 2: not even disagreement. We're only an agreement on disagreement on
Speaker 2: the standard and through which the Megan is okay something
Speaker 2: that should be.
Speaker 3: On okay debates.
Speaker 2: Aside, there's still been quite a bit of a liberal
Speaker 2: media meltdown that we've seen. The view, of course, can
Speaker 2: always be promised to have a good reaction. Let's take
Speaker 2: a lesson welcome back.
Speaker 11: You know, the thing that bothers me about this, and
Speaker 11: I know it's probably the right decision, but I don't
Speaker 11: like that we've normalized this man. Yeah, it has really
Speaker 11: irritated the pool atomy. Yeah, that we have normalized him
Speaker 11: and his bad behavior. I get that the law says, listen,
Speaker 11: it would be really rough and it should be the
Speaker 11: Congress that makes these decisions. And yet that's not how
Speaker 11: we've been acting. We keep saying stage laws would keep
Speaker 11: giving people the right to make these changes, and then
Speaker 11: they make a change and they said, well, we don't
Speaker 11: want this, and everybody says, well, no, of course, we
Speaker 11: shouldn't want this.
Speaker 3: But the problem is, why have we normalized?
Speaker 12: Look, if Joe Biden had one count against him, not
Speaker 12: ninety one, he could not be the Democratic presidential candidate.
Speaker 12: If Joe Biden had committed sexual assault and we had
Speaker 12: heard him, he could not be running for president. If
Speaker 12: Joe Biden had been found liable for sexual assault to
Speaker 12: the two of eighty three million dollars, he could not
Speaker 12: be running for president. If Joe Biden had been found
Speaker 12: liable for half a million dollars for fraud, he could
Speaker 12: not be the Democratic candidate for president.
Speaker 2: You can't you can you can always count on these ladies.
Speaker 2: Chris and I were talking while that clip was praying,
Speaker 2: and we're like, do we.
Speaker 3: Know what trying?
Speaker 4: I don't really totally understand that.
Speaker 3: Totally totally indecipherable to me.
Speaker 2: I do love her outfit, though, it's very like California
Speaker 2: vineyard energy. That's that irritates the pooh out of me.
Speaker 2: Is just just too good. Yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't know what else to say. It's just it is
Speaker 2: funny to me to see the way that these ladies react.
Speaker 2: And there was also Chris, I don't know if you
Speaker 2: saw this. There should genuinely be a little bit of
Speaker 2: a scandal happening. From a legal perspective. The number of
Speaker 2: people who are quote unquote respected legal scholars who predicted
Speaker 2: Nino in the opposite direction or who said that the
Speaker 2: case was very good, people like David French or some
Speaker 2: of the guys in the Atlantic Federalist Society and others,
Speaker 2: is kind of astounding, actually, because the game the Court
Speaker 2: went against them.
Speaker 1: I didn't really see people predicting the Supreme Court would
Speaker 1: actually uphold it. I saw several very possible I didn't
Speaker 1: see that. But what I saw war is people basically
Speaker 1: making the case that.
Speaker 4: They should uphold it, which is different.
Speaker 3: I agree with you right.
Speaker 1: Versus a prediction of what's actually going to happen. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's my position. I think they should have uphold it
Speaker 1: uppeld it. But I was under no illusion whatsoever that
Speaker 1: that would happen. But you know what I take. So
Speaker 1: first of all, let me comment on the specifics of
Speaker 1: their comments. It's interesting, Woody says, Lissa is probably the
Speaker 1: right decision. Then she goes on to make some point
Speaker 1: about the states in the Congra that I.
Speaker 4: Didn't really get.
Speaker 1: And then you had Anna and Navarro make a point
Speaker 1: which is partially accurate that I do think it's true
Speaker 1: Trump gets away with things that literally no other politician
Speaker 1: in curing Joe Biden with I mean, she is right
Speaker 1: that listen, Joe Biden has faced his own incredible allegations
Speaker 1: of sexual assault that should have been taken a lot
Speaker 1: more seriously at the time and should continue to be
Speaker 1: taken a lot more seriously. But if he was actually
Speaker 1: found liable for sexual assault, even in a civil case,
Speaker 1: that would.
Speaker 4: Be a huge deal. We would never hear the end
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 1: It probably would be a deal breaker for him and
Speaker 1: most other politicians. I mean, you kind of see this
Speaker 1: right now with Robert Menendez and these corruption charges which
Speaker 1: look very real. And by the way, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the guys who's accused of basically bribing him has
Speaker 1: already pled guilty, so the writing is on the wall there.
Speaker 1: But you know, he wasn't able to survive that, not
Speaker 1: even close. Even after being this new Jersey fixture for
Speaker 1: so long. He immediately plummeted to like three percent in
Speaker 1: the polls once these details emerged. So it is just
Speaker 1: true that Trump, for whatever reason, you know, his charisma
Speaker 1: is big personality, his showmanship, whatever it is, he gets
Speaker 1: away with stuff that other politicians don't. And it's not
Speaker 1: just Trump, I mean, you know Bill Clinton, it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. Like he had this political talent that enabled
Speaker 1: him to get away with things that other politicians wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to get away with. And Joe Biden does
Speaker 1: not have that political skill, especially not at this point
Speaker 1: in his life. So what I sensed in this clip
Speaker 1: and in the next one we're going to show is
Speaker 1: a healthy beginning of acceptance that the legal system is
Speaker 1: not going to save the Democrats. And I actually think
Speaker 1: like that needs to be the assumption. There's been a
Speaker 1: lot of wish casting around these polls that show, oh,
Speaker 1: while you know, if if he's found guilty of this
Speaker 1: or if he's found guilty of that, then this many
Speaker 1: voters would flip to Joe Biden. They've really been betting
Speaker 1: on that. But between this Scotus ruling and the pushback
Speaker 1: of the January sixth trial because of the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: deciding they're going to take up these immunity claims, number
Speaker 1: of the Georgia case getting pushed back, the Florida case
Speaker 1: getting pushed back by the judge. There, there's beginning to
Speaker 1: creep in an awareness and understanding that they're going to
Speaker 1: have to win this election on their own terms.
Speaker 4: The legal system is not going to save them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Trump really is like the uber mention, like the
Speaker 2: Nietzschean uber mensh like who is immune to.
Speaker 3: The laws of God and of man?
Speaker 2: And look, you could take that whichever way you want.
Speaker 2: It's been deciphered ever since Nietzche wrote about it. But
Speaker 2: my point, I think that the point that you're making
Speaker 2: about the legal system is one that is beginning to
Speaker 2: real is really to hit home as well. We actually
Speaker 2: saw some of this on CNN with Larry Sabato, the Polster.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to what he said, jinning up
Speaker 3: this insurrectionist like rhetoric.
Speaker 13: Of course he does. He'll never change because it's worked
Speaker 13: for him and it may work again. You know, in
Speaker 13: the end, Jim, you can't save the people from themselves.
Speaker 13: If they're determined to reelect him after he organized that insurrection,
Speaker 13: arguably our first coup deeta, then there's nothing to stop
Speaker 13: the people from doing that. Now, in particular, the legal
Speaker 13: system may intervene, but I doubt it. He'll probably he's
Speaker 13: certainly going to be on the ballot. He's certainly going
Speaker 13: to be the Republican nominee. We'll know that for sure tomorrow,
Speaker 13: if we don't already know it. And that's the way
Speaker 13: it is.
Speaker 3: There, you go, Chrystal, that's what, that's where, that's where.
Speaker 2: I think, that is exactly the way that a lot
Speaker 2: of people are internalizing. And because I do think there
Speaker 2: has been quite a bit of cope and false hope
Speaker 2: and other things where people genuinely did believe that the
Speaker 2: legal system was going to save them. Keith Overman apparently
Speaker 2: being one of them. This up there just because it's funny.
Speaker 2: Can't help but take a look at what Keith has
Speaker 2: to say. He says, the Supreme Court has betrayed democracy.
Speaker 2: It's members, including Jackson, Cagan and Soda may Or have
Speaker 2: proved themselves inept at reading comprehension. Collectively, the Court, in quotes,
Speaker 2: has shown itself to be corrupt and illegitimate.
Speaker 3: It must be dissolved.
Speaker 2: It's funny because there are two sides of the coin here.
Speaker 2: I think that the Larry Saboteau one is the realm
Speaker 2: of what you continue to highlight. Is this is it
Speaker 2: Now you're playing in the system. You have to beat him,
Speaker 2: You actually have to try, and all the side plots
Speaker 2: in the world they're not going to save you in
Speaker 2: a way that I think many people have come to
Speaker 2: believe actually the courts or any of these other systems
Speaker 2: would do the job for them, as opposed to the
Speaker 2: campaign that now must be undertaken.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, especially listen, I think Biden world continues to
Speaker 1: be extremely delusional that just you know, running against Trump
Speaker 1: is going to be enough for them to secure victory.
Speaker 4: So let's put that aside. But the sort of like.
Speaker 1: Liberal commentariot right now is because they've take experienced a
Speaker 1: few blows in a row or I think starting to
Speaker 1: grapple with that fact.
Speaker 4: Now that may not be a permanent state of affairs,
Speaker 4: because we do have that.
Speaker 1: New York criminal trial, the sort of stepchild charge is beginning.
Speaker 1: He had no offense to step children. By the way,
Speaker 1: I'm not going.
Speaker 4: To get it like canceled for that that. You're not
Speaker 4: supposed to say that anymore.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I want to enter the Mamala debate about Kamala whatever.
Speaker 3: This is a whole other Well.
Speaker 1: I thought there was a whole piece in the New
Speaker 1: York Times about the toxic nature of.
Speaker 4: The boy mom phenomenon.
Speaker 1: So that's another a bunch of moms like get really
Speaker 1: into being quote unquote boy moms. And this one mom
Speaker 1: apparently who has a boy and a girl, posted something
Speaker 1: that seemed to indicate that she was more into her
Speaker 1: son than and her daughter. It sparked this whole mom
Speaker 1: war situation.
Speaker 2: Actually, I support that mom more anyway, make a mom
Speaker 2: being your whole identity, that's a.
Speaker 4: Whole I agree with that. I wholeheartedly agree with that. Anyway.
Speaker 1: With regards to this, I think that we may see
Speaker 1: the resurgence of some hope that the legal system is
Speaker 1: going to say the ones that criminal trial in New
Speaker 1: York starts, because you know, they just can't help themselves
Speaker 1: and there's no faith that the Biden administration, the Biden
Speaker 1: campaign is actually up to defeating this man. So they
Speaker 1: got to hang their hat on something, and I guess
Speaker 1: that's all they got, all right, guys. So a report
Speaker 1: came out yesterday that we wanted to spend some time
Speaker 1: taking a look at. This was a UN report that
Speaker 1: sought to confirm or rebut charges of systematic rape Baijamas
Speaker 1: on October seventh. Obviously, it's a very fraught topic, one
Speaker 1: that we've delved into before.
Speaker 4: Before I jump in, I just want to say.
Speaker 1: I don't enjoy nitpicking these things, whether there was no
Speaker 1: rape or some rape or systematic rape or whatever.
Speaker 4: But the reason we do it.
Speaker 1: Is because the atrocities that were committed on that day
Speaker 1: and the inflation and invention of additional atrocities committed on
Speaker 1: that day, have been a key part of the propaganda
Speaker 1: effort to justify now Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
Speaker 4: Now let me also say.
Speaker 1: Even if all of the beheaded babies and all of
Speaker 1: the things that were spread were actually true, it still
Speaker 1: wouldn't justify atrocities in response. But that's the reason why
Speaker 1: it's important to dig into these things. So in any case,
Speaker 1: I want to start by setting the context of what
Speaker 1: this report actually is and what it's not. This is
Speaker 1: the words of the woman Pamela Patton, the Secretary General's
Speaker 1: Special Representative on Sexual Violence and Conflicts. She was in
Speaker 1: charge of putting together this report. This is how she
Speaker 1: framed what this report actually is. Let's put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. She said her trip into Israel to
Speaker 1: investigate these claims was not intended to be investigative. Other
Speaker 1: UN agencies have that mandate, she said, but to quote
Speaker 1: give voices to victims and survivors and find ways to
Speaker 1: offer them support, including justice and accountability. So she says
Speaker 1: this wasn't intended to be investigative. There are other bodies
Speaker 1: that have that mandate. In fact, in part of the report,
Speaker 1: she calls on Israel to allow those bodies to conduct
Speaker 1: a full investigation, which they have not done. She also
Speaker 1: called on them to allow a full investigation into allegations
Speaker 1: of sexual violence directed from Israelis towards Palestinians. Of course,
Speaker 1: Israel said no to that as well. So in any case,
Speaker 1: that's to set the stage for what this report actually
Speaker 1: is and what it is not. In addition, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and put the next piece up on the screen.
Speaker 1: The report contains a boatload of caveats as to the
Speaker 1: limits of what they were able to ascertain and how
Speaker 1: much evidence quote unquote they were able to gather.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to read from the report.
Speaker 1: Bear with me, guys, you know, I want to read
Speaker 1: from the text so that no one can you know,
Speaker 1: so this is not being taken on a context and
Speaker 1: we can't be accused of this, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: give you a sense of some of the context here
Speaker 1: and some of the caveats that were offered.
Speaker 4: She writes.
Speaker 1: The national authorities face numerous challenges in the collection of
Speaker 1: evidence in pursuit of their investigations, so the crimes committed
Speaker 1: during the October seventh attacks, including challenges of course, nation
Speaker 1: and information sharing between governmental agencies, with very specific challenges
Speaker 1: related to crimes of sexual violence. These included limited survivor
Speaker 1: and witness testimony, limited forensic evidence due to the large
Speaker 1: number of casualties, and dispersed crime scenes in a context
Speaker 1: of persistent hostilities, the loss of potentially valuable evidence due
Speaker 1: to the interventions of some inadequately trained volunteer first responders,
Speaker 1: the prioritization of rescue operations, and the recovery, identification and
Speaker 1: burial of a deceased in accordance with religious practices over
Speaker 1: the collection of forensic evidence. Further, a significant number of
Speaker 1: their covered bodies had suffered destructive burned damage, which made
Speaker 1: the identification of potential crimes of sexual violence impossible. The
Speaker 1: mission team also faced specific challenges in gathering and verifying
Speaker 1: information on the occurrence of conflict related sexual violence. The
Speaker 1: main challenge was the limited number of an access to
Speaker 1: survivors and victims of sexual violence and to survivors and
Speaker 1: witnesses of the October seventh attacks. While the mission team
Speaker 1: was able to meet with some released hostages as well
Speaker 1: as with some survivors and witnesses of the attacks, it
Speaker 1: did not meet with any survivor or victim of sexual
Speaker 1: violence from October seventh. So pretty noteworthy here that they
Speaker 1: are indicating that they were unable to meet with a
Speaker 1: single actual victim of sexual violence from October seventh.
Speaker 4: We know from other reporting.
Speaker 1: In the New York times attempt to report all of
Speaker 1: this out, that they were unable to locate or speak
Speaker 1: with a single actual victim of October seventh attacks. They
Speaker 1: talk about the challenges of forensic evidence. There is also
Speaker 1: no forensic evidence that they were able to use in
Speaker 1: the production of this report, and so you know, very
Speaker 1: limited in terms of the actual data and evidence that.
Speaker 4: They were able to collect.
Speaker 1: In addition, let's go to the next here, so they said,
Speaker 1: despite concerted efforts encouraging them to come forward, the mission
Speaker 1: team was made aware of a small number of survivors
Speaker 1: who are undergoing specialized treatments, still experiencing an overwhelming level
Speaker 1: of trauma. Further, the internal displacement of several communities from
Speaker 1: the Gods of Periphery to other locations, rere lication of survivors,
Speaker 1: and the deployment of October seventh first responders from military
Speaker 1: forces to combat hindered access to first hand information. They
Speaker 1: go on later in the report to add what is
Speaker 1: maybe one of the most important lines in the report. So,
Speaker 1: as a result of the aforementioned challenges, which are the
Speaker 1: ones I just described, along with other ones that they
Speaker 1: include in the report, must be noted that.
Speaker 4: The information gathered by the mission.
Speaker 1: Team was in large parts source from Israeli national institutions.
Speaker 1: This is due to the absence of UN entities operating
Speaker 1: Israel lack of cooperation by the State of Israel with
Speaker 1: relevant UN bodies with an investigative mandate. Nevertheless, the mission
Speaker 1: team took every step in line with UN methodology to
Speaker 1: mitigate issues of source reliability before drawing conclusions in the
Speaker 1: scope of this report. And Sugar, I want to just
Speaker 1: get your reaction to this initial piece about the limits
Speaker 1: of the report, the caveats that were put into it,
Speaker 1: and the fact that at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: much like in this was the same thing that not
Speaker 1: Shorts revealed in her and the same thing that happened
Speaker 1: with the New York Times report. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, they weren't able to really glean much other
Speaker 1: than what the Israeli authorities were telling them about what
Speaker 1: happened on that day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the biggest problem that they have is
Speaker 2: circumstantial evidence, quote unquote.
Speaker 3: That's really the thing that it relies on.
Speaker 2: That's just I mean, imagine, would you convict somebody of
Speaker 2: rape in the United States on circumstantial evidence? Ask yourself
Speaker 2: how exactly that works. The reason this matters is, let's
Speaker 2: go back, is that if you talk to it, I've
Speaker 2: done this. If you talk to people who are in
Speaker 2: the wild, normal people who has their thoughts on the war,
Speaker 2: if the pro Israel and number two one and two
Speaker 2: things are going to talk to you about his rape
Speaker 2: and beheaded babies, and it's like, that's why you have
Speaker 2: to scrutinize some of these claims. Think about it in
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian context too. If Ghost of Kiev and Snake.
Speaker 3: Island and all of that is real, then these are
Speaker 3: valiant warriors standing up and able to fight off the Russians.
Speaker 2: If it's a World War One style attrition thing on Bachmutt,
Speaker 2: well maybe that's going to change the way that the
Speaker 2: average normy American is going to think about the battlefield.
Speaker 3: So these stories, there is myths, these legends.
Speaker 2: How all of them, Why and when we should litigate
Speaker 2: and be responsible around it.
Speaker 3: That's why it comes down to. So let's just lay
Speaker 3: that out there.
Speaker 2: For all of the you know, anti Semitism and all
Speaker 2: these other ridiculous excuses I would treat by the way,
Speaker 2: if there was a let's say I think they have
Speaker 2: claimed this mass, what is it mass sexual violence against
Speaker 2: Palisen's Maybe let's see. You know, you have every incentive
Speaker 2: in the world to lie. Got to see some evidence,
Speaker 2: got to see some first hand testimony, got to see
Speaker 2: some interviews.
Speaker 3: And all of that.
Speaker 2: I believe the report actually calls on the Israelis to
Speaker 2: allow that investigation also, and.
Speaker 4: The Israelis said, now, all right, well there you go.
Speaker 2: So my point, if we just come back to this,
Speaker 2: is I have not seen a shred of physical, real
Speaker 2: evidence about the claim of like systematic use of rapist
Speaker 2: a weapon of war.
Speaker 3: So my opinion it probably just didn't happen. We'll see.
Speaker 2: But based upon all of this, Sheryl Sandberg's involvement, and
Speaker 2: you know, with the documentary, et cetera, they are trying
Speaker 2: to will this into existence to justify the emotional you know,
Speaker 2: guard rails so people can put up about the way
Speaker 2: that the war has been conducted.
Speaker 3: And I think we should call that like we see it.
Speaker 2: I don't have a particular dog or anything, and that
Speaker 2: I honestly don't feel particularly passionate, you know, about some
Speaker 2: of this, But it's like the evidence and everything that
Speaker 2: we've gone through the debunking of the New York Times
Speaker 2: report itself in the un The reason why all of
Speaker 2: the attention and all this focuses is on this is
Speaker 2: because it is so emotively powerful such to justify. And
Speaker 2: I would just say in general, whenever mass rape is
Speaker 2: used as a systematic weapon of war, you don't have
Speaker 2: to you know, have a whatever reporter or like you'll
Speaker 2: know because look, and I pointed to what are the
Speaker 2: times in history the sack of Germany by the Soviet army.
Speaker 2: I mean, we had literally millions of rapes that happened
Speaker 2: at that time, and you saw the physical evidence. Nine
Speaker 2: months later, then you saw the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Speaker 2: where I believe it was like almost like thirty percent
Speaker 2: when it was horrible.
Speaker 3: You know again what was happening.
Speaker 2: It was immediate, there was physical evidence, there was video
Speaker 2: evidence in all of this, the level of parsing.
Speaker 3: And all of this that has happened. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to say nobody, you know, was attacked.
Speaker 2: It would be I think you've said this, It would
Speaker 2: be crazy if somebody, if nobody was attacked, right, right,
Speaker 2: But in terms of the campaign that they are alleging.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think that had happened.
Speaker 2: And I don't really know why they even have to
Speaker 2: do this, because fifteen hundred people or whatever were killed,
Speaker 2: or however many, I don't know what the twelve actually number,
Speaker 2: twelve or twelve hundred whoever.
Speaker 3: Whatever the real number is.
Speaker 2: Whatever, it is a lot of people who were innocents
Speaker 2: were slaughtered on that day for no reason. That's enough,
Speaker 2: and it should be. But you know, they're the ones
Speaker 2: who are trying to make it get into a thing.
Speaker 2: The media too, in particular, So if they're going to
Speaker 2: play that game, then you know, we gotta parse every
Speaker 2: single claim too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would I would encourage people to actually
Speaker 1: read this report because the media presentation of the report
Speaker 1: does not include a lot of the layers of caveats
Speaker 1: and limitations that were laying out.
Speaker 4: For you basically what the report says. I mean to
Speaker 4: echo what she said.
Speaker 1: I do find it extraordinary that at this point, if
Speaker 1: there actually was systematic rape, not some amount, but systematic
Speaker 1: rape as a weapon of war, that we don't have
Speaker 1: one single survivor, we don't have one single instance of
Speaker 1: forensic evidence at this point.
Speaker 4: Now, I find I find that extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Israel is very interested in getting this story out, you know,
Speaker 1: they've made a concerted pr effort. That's part of what
Speaker 1: that New York Times piece was all about. You had
Speaker 1: not Schwartz herself talking about, how, you know, pushing someone
Speaker 1: to cooperate with them in that reporting by saying this
Speaker 1: is important for Israeli haspara in other words, propaganda. So
Speaker 1: this is a very important part of the narrative to
Speaker 1: the Israeli government. If they had this evidence to share
Speaker 1: with the UN, you can one hundred percent bet that
Speaker 1: they would now what the UN t here was able
Speaker 1: to look at and why their conclusion was that there
Speaker 1: are quote reasonable grounds based on circumstantial evidence to believe
Speaker 1: that conflict related sexual violence occurred at several locations on
Speaker 1: October seventh.
Speaker 4: They were looking at, you know.
Speaker 1: Things like women, photographs of women who were unclothed from
Speaker 1: the waist down, things like that which are suggestive but
Speaker 1: not conclusive. They also talk in this report about how
Speaker 1: some of the initial reports coming out from first responders
Speaker 1: and paramedics on the scene, the reason that they assumed
Speaker 1: that sexual assault must have occurred to whatever victim they
Speaker 1: were looking at is because they were untrained in some
Speaker 1: of the body's responses after death. That you know leads
Speaker 1: to certain you know, these fencing positions, especially when fire
Speaker 1: is involved, that you know, could appear like the person
Speaker 1: was fending off some sort of assault and other bodily
Speaker 1: changes that these paramatics were not or whether they're paras
Speaker 1: or other volunteers or first response whoever they were, were
Speaker 1: not trained in understanding, so they misinterpret. That's something that
Speaker 1: they found here. Something I'm going to talk more about
Speaker 1: in a moment is they actually say that some of
Speaker 1: the rape allegations widely reported in the media, especially at
Speaker 1: Kibbutz bi a re turned out to be unfounded. Put
Speaker 1: a pin in that because that was one of the
Speaker 1: instances that the New York Times highlighted in their now
Speaker 1: undermine and debunked report. So let me go ahead and
Speaker 1: put up on the screen the next piece, which is
Speaker 1: a summation of their conclusions, so you can see what
Speaker 1: they did find and claim and what they did not.
Speaker 1: And again they themselves admit this is all predominantly based
Speaker 1: on official Israeli government sources. So they say, based on
Speaker 1: the totality of information gathered from multiple independent sources at
Speaker 1: different locations, there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict
Speaker 1: related sexual violence occurred at several locations across the Gods
Speaker 1: of Periphery, including the form of rape and gang rape
Speaker 1: during the October seven, twenty twenty three attacks. Credible circumstantial
Speaker 1: information which may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence,
Speaker 1: including general mutilation, sexualized torture, or cruel inhuman and degrading treatment,
Speaker 1: was also gathered. They were more definitive with regards to
Speaker 1: hostages because they were able to speak directly to some
Speaker 1: of the released hostages. This is a very small portion
Speaker 1: of the report, but they say with regards the hostage
Speaker 1: as the mission team found clear and convincing information that
Speaker 1: some hostages taken to Gaza and subjected to various forms
Speaker 1: of conflict related sexual violence, as reasonable grounds to believe
Speaker 1: such violence may be ongoing. This part is maybe the
Speaker 1: most significant conclusion or lack of conclusion in the report.
Speaker 1: It gets zero attention in the media whatsoever, but listen
Speaker 1: to this carefully. The mission team was unable to establish
Speaker 1: the prevalence of sexual violence and concludes that the overall magnitude, scope,
Speaker 1: and specific attribution of these violations require a fully fledged investigation.
Speaker 1: A comprehensive investigation would enable the information base to be
Speaker 1: expanded in locations which the mission team was not able
Speaker 1: to visit and to build required trust with survivors victims
Speaker 1: of conflict related sexual violence who may be reluctant to
Speaker 1: come forward at this point. Now, the reason why this
Speaker 1: is so significant, Sagur is because this speaks directly to
Speaker 1: the allegation not that there were isolated instances of sexual violence,
Speaker 1: but that this was a systematic weapon of war. And
Speaker 1: they say they were unable to establish that. They were
Speaker 1: unable to establish it. So after all of the you know,
Speaker 1: the reporters who on the ground, all of the Israeli
Speaker 1: efforts to you know, create this narrative around systematic use
Speaker 1: of rape, as you know, sexual violence in conflict on
Speaker 1: October seventh, this team was not able to establish that.
Speaker 1: And then the other part of the report that also
Speaker 1: got no attention from the media whatsoever, was that they
Speaker 1: found that within the occupied Palestinian territory, the mission team
Speaker 1: received information from institutiontional and civil society sources, as well
Speaker 1: as through direct interviews about some forms of sexual violence
Speaker 1: against Palestinian men and women in detention settings, during house
Speaker 1: raids and at checkpoints. By the way, there's already been
Speaker 1: un investigations into that, but Israel has refused to cooperate.
Speaker 1: Israel rejects they say, the report's called to investigate Palestinian
Speaker 1: claims regarding sexual violence by Israeli elements. So that is
Speaker 1: the sort of bottom line of what we got from
Speaker 1: this report. Just like I said, I would be very
Speaker 1: aware of the limits of this report, as spelled out
Speaker 1: in the report itself. Be very aware of the fact
Speaker 1: that this continues to be primarily based on Israeli sources.
Speaker 1: Be aware of the fact that they say that they
Speaker 1: were unable to speak to a single victim, they had
Speaker 1: no forensic evidence, and they also were unable to determine
Speaker 1: that systematic rape happened on that day. And so I
Speaker 1: would listen more closely to the report than the media
Speaker 1: characterization of what this report continues as well.
Speaker 3: Oh read it for yourself. You know it's free.
Speaker 2: You can literally go and read it any time you want.
Speaker 2: Nothing that we're saying here is like cherry picked. As
Speaker 2: you said, you put a lot of effort into pulling
Speaker 2: all of the quotes, and if you want to go
Speaker 2: check the work, be my guest. You know there's a
Speaker 2: link right out there you could google you and report.
Speaker 2: You can read the full thing, et cetera, because none
Speaker 2: of the stories that I even read that looked at
Speaker 2: even close to a job of what you just laid out,
Speaker 2: which is it makes sense, it takes a long time.
Speaker 2: How long was that maybe ten minutes, you know, fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: That's welcome to nuanced and the world that actual war
Speaker 2: that we have had to cover.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, all right, so let's talk about this specific
Speaker 1: instance that this report says was unfounded, which is with
Speaker 1: regards to often repeated media claims of multiple rapes at
Speaker 1: Kibbutz Beery. So this is significant because in the New
Speaker 1: York Times now you know, discredited and very controversial piece
Speaker 1: Screams without Words, which we have been covering here, which
Speaker 1: Ryan Iss team at the Intercept and other reporters in
Speaker 1: c squorel have been doing a great.
Speaker 4: Job breaking down.
Speaker 1: They talked about three specific instances of rape. One was
Speaker 1: the woman Galubdush, the so called woman in the black dress.
Speaker 1: We've already talked about how her family immediately came out
Speaker 1: after the story and said, no, we don't agree. We
Speaker 1: have actual evidence in the other direction that she wasn't
Speaker 1: really we had no idea that this was what you
Speaker 1: were even talking to us about, and you need to
Speaker 1: stop lying. So that one fell apart, the other two
Speaker 1: were both at this Kibbutz Biori. So let me put
Speaker 1: up on the screen what the un report says about
Speaker 1: what happened at Kibbutz Beery as far as they were.
Speaker 4: Able to ascertain.
Speaker 1: The mission team conducted a visit to Kibbutz Biory and
Speaker 1: was able to determine that at least two allegations of
Speaker 1: sexual violence widely repeated in the media were unfounded due
Speaker 1: to either new superseding information or.
Speaker 4: Inconsistency in the facts gathered.
Speaker 1: They go on to say these included a highly publicized
Speaker 1: allegation of a pregnant woman who's wo had reportedly been
Speaker 1: ripped open before being killed with her feet is stabbed
Speaker 1: while still inside her. Other allegations, including of objects intentionally
Speaker 1: inserted into female genital organs, could not be verified by
Speaker 1: the mission team do in Part two limited and low
Speaker 1: quality imagery, So they say, the often repeated allegations of
Speaker 1: sexual violence you know that the media has been talking
Speaker 1: about are unfounded. Okay, So let me now put up
Speaker 1: on the screen what the New York Times had said
Speaker 1: in their screams without words report about what happened at
Speaker 1: Kibbut's Beery, they said, and again, this is two of
Speaker 1: the three instances of rape that they specifically cite in
Speaker 1: this report. A paramedic in an Israeli commando unit said
Speaker 1: he had found the bodies of two teenage girls in
Speaker 1: a room in beery. One was lying on her side,
Speaker 1: he said, box of shorts ripped bruises by her groin.
Speaker 1: The other was brawled on the floor, face down, he said,
Speaker 1: pajama pants pulled to her knees, bottom exposed, seamen smeared
Speaker 1: on her back. Because his job was to look for survivors,
Speaker 1: he said, he kept moving did not document the scene.
Speaker 1: Neighbors of the two girls killed, who were sisters thirteen
Speaker 1: and sixteen, said their bodies had been found alone, separated
Speaker 1: from the rest of their family. Now The New York
Speaker 1: Times faced with this UN report, saying that the Kibbutzpiury
Speaker 1: rapes were unfounded and their own rapidly crumbling quote unquote
Speaker 1: report on this instance.
Speaker 4: They said in their write up of the UN report.
Speaker 1: That two specific allegations of sexual violence in Kibbitzpiury that
Speaker 1: were widely repeated by the media were unfounded. First responders
Speaker 1: told the Times they had found bodies of women with
Speaker 1: signs of sexual assault, aught those to kibbutzm But the
Speaker 1: Times in its report didn't refer to these specific allegations
Speaker 1: that the un said were unfounded. So that's their defense
Speaker 1: is like, oh, well, they looked into some other stuff.
Speaker 1: The stuff we reported is different from what they looked into.
Speaker 1: Oh really, well, Ryan has another report along with Jeremy
Speaker 1: Skatehill at the Intercept.
Speaker 4: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: They went back to talk to the folks at Kibbutzpiri
Speaker 1: to see what they had to say about all of
Speaker 1: and lo and behold, the spokesperson for that Kibbutz rejects
Speaker 1: the story in The New York Times and says, and
Speaker 1: I quote they were not sexually abused me. Read a
Speaker 1: little bit from Ryan's article. He says the Times article
Speaker 1: described three alleged victims of sexual assault, for whom it
Speaker 1: reported specific biographical information. One, as I said before, is
Speaker 1: known as the woman in the black dress, gal Abdush.
Speaker 1: Some of her family members have contested the claims made
Speaker 1: by the Times. The other two alleged victims were unnamed
Speaker 1: teenage sisters from Kibbutz Biery, whose precise ages were listed
Speaker 1: in New York Times, making it possible to identify them.
Speaker 1: When asked about the claims made by The Times, this
Speaker 1: spokesperson for the kibbutz independently raised their name. You're talking
Speaker 1: about the Shabi girls, she said, No, they just they
Speaker 1: were shot. I'm saying just but they were shot and
Speaker 1: were not subjected to sexual abuse. The spokesperson also disputed
Speaker 1: the graphic and highly detailed claims of the Israeli Special
Speaker 1: Forces paramedic who served as the source of the allegation,
Speaker 1: which was published in The Times, The Post, CNN and
Speaker 1: other media outlets. Quote It's not true, she told the Intercept,
Speaker 1: referring to the paramedics claims about the girls. They were
Speaker 1: not sexually abused. They also in this story even dispute
Speaker 1: you know that detail about oh, they were separate from
Speaker 1: the rest of the family. Apparently they died with their
Speaker 1: alongside their mother. Again, this is all horrifying. You don't
Speaker 1: need to add any extra horse. This is horrifying that
Speaker 1: they were murdered, these two young girls and with their
Speaker 1: mother and others at the kibbutz. But they're saying the
Speaker 1: specific detail is not accurate. The Times responded to the
Speaker 1: intercept and said, we stand by the story and are
Speaker 1: continuing to report on the issue of sexual violence on
Speaker 1: October seventh.
Speaker 4: So that's where we are, Cyber.
Speaker 2: I think that's all you that you really need to know. Crystal,
Speaker 2: that's that's wild. I would courage again people go read
Speaker 2: for themselves.
Speaker 3: If the Kibbitz woman, if what if the Kibbutz seem.
Speaker 2: Or whatever the ones to say it's not true, They've
Speaker 2: got no reason in the world to lie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so listen to them, you know.
Speaker 2: And again this is why these claims a bear scrutiny,
Speaker 2: and I think it's shameful.
Speaker 3: Honestly. The New York Times ran it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she even said that she believes that sexual
Speaker 1: violence was widespread on October seventh, So she believes right
Speaker 1: the Israeli narrative that that is the case. So you know,
Speaker 1: she's not some like you know, she's bought into the
Speaker 1: overall picture. But with the specifics regarding these two girls,
Speaker 1: that New York Times report was based on the word
Speaker 1: of one paramedic, which again goes against their own reporting guidelines.
Speaker 4: That they're supposed to have two sources.
Speaker 1: They are sticking to their story even though the Kibbutz
Speaker 1: itself is saying this did not happen. All of these
Speaker 1: details are inaccurate, and you know, there were questions about
Speaker 1: this story that were raised even before The Times put
Speaker 1: out their piece, and yet they neglected to provide their
Speaker 1: readers with the conflicting accounts that had already been published.
Speaker 1: So I mean, we really are at this point talking
Speaker 1: about Judith Miller level or caliphate level collapse at the
Speaker 1: time in terms of this, and that their reaction is
Speaker 1: not to fix the report, you know, retract the report,
Speaker 1: which is I think at this point what is really
Speaker 1: you know, called for issue an apology, fire all the
Speaker 1: people who were involved and putting this thing together, and
Speaker 1: especially the higher ups who put these two totally green.
Speaker 1: I mean barely had any experienced reporters on the ground
Speaker 1: doing the overwhelming bulk of the investigation in Adam Sella
Speaker 1: and a not Schwartz. Whoever made that decision. I mean,
Speaker 1: they should be out one hundred percent because that judgment
Speaker 1: call is just astonishing that they chose to go forward
Speaker 1: with this again in violation of their own basic standards
Speaker 1: and you can see, you know, some of the people
Speaker 1: who work at the Times who actually care about it
Speaker 1: being a credible institution.
Speaker 4: Part of why they're.
Speaker 1: Leaking to Ryan and others is because they're so discussed
Speaker 1: and disturbed by the incredible breach of journalistic duty here
Speaker 1: and by the undercutting of the Times reputation.
Speaker 4: It really is extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Every single piece that drops just you know, it's just incredible.
Speaker 1: This has been It's so radicalizing for me to see
Speaker 1: the way that this was all just invented.
Speaker 3: You know, my bed is Crystal. I think they're going
Speaker 3: to win a Pulitzer Prize for the story.
Speaker 1: Well, I actually think I actually think that's part of
Speaker 1: why they're sticking by it, because exactly they published this
Speaker 1: right at the end of the year to make sure
Speaker 1: it got in under the deadline for awards like the Pulitzer.
Speaker 1: It's part of their you know, award winning submission or whatever.
Speaker 1: And so if they were to retract it, what does
Speaker 1: it mean for the award they already won for this
Speaker 1: quote unquote reporting, What.
Speaker 4: Does it mean for that?
Speaker 1: What does it mean for their Pulitzer prospects, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So I actually do think that's a part of the
Speaker 1: reason why they're going so hard instant but and that
Speaker 1: is it's just such an embarrassment. It's just such a
Speaker 1: complete embarrassment for them all.
Speaker 4: Guys.
Speaker 1: Congressman's running a little behind schedule, busy man that he is,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna go ahead and film the interview with him.
Speaker 1: We'll post it later today, but wanted to get the
Speaker 1: show out to all of you. Remember, Soccer and I
Speaker 1: will be joining Emily and Ryan tomorrow for Counterpoints, so
Speaker 1: we will see you there.