Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
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Speaker 2: Let's get to the showing. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 3: We have an amazing show for everybody today, Extra amazing.
Speaker 1: Christ Yes, extra amazing. Get to that in just a moment.
Speaker 1: Lots of big breaking news this morning. So we have
Speaker 1: the latest fallout, new comments from Putin on that whole
Speaker 1: attempt to coup wasn't an attempted coup. We'll get into
Speaker 1: all of that. We also have some response from the
Speaker 1: White House with regards to new hunter By allegations and
Speaker 1: interesting commentary from the View that we could not resist
Speaker 1: bringing to you as well. Big week for Supreme Court decisions,
Speaker 1: expecting some huge ones. We're going to preview those. This
Speaker 1: comes amid new allegations of corruption with regards to Justice Alito.
Speaker 1: Break that down for you. Black Rock, which has been
Speaker 1: a leader and so called ESG. They're CEO saying they're
Speaker 1: taking a step back from that, saying he's actually ashamed
Speaker 1: of having been associated with it. So that's kind of interesting,
Speaker 1: could have some big implications. Fox News totally reshuffling their
Speaker 1: primetime lineup after Tucker Carlson's firing slash exit, and excited
Speaker 1: for our guest today, Josh Dizaza, who is talking about
Speaker 1: the human costs of AI. While we see just the
Speaker 1: tech part, there are actually a lot of human beings
Speaker 1: behind the scenes that make it all work. And so
Speaker 1: he has a new report on all of that. But
Speaker 1: we also have some big news here at breaking points. Guys,
Speaker 1: we did it. We did it million subs and actually
Speaker 1: actually we kind of shot by. We did kind of amazing.
Speaker 3: You guys really do step up whenever whenever.
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Speaker 2: Here's the thing we realized, we never asked anybody to
Speaker 2: ever subscribe.
Speaker 3: We usually to the YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: We usually just do the premium sub ask.
Speaker 2: It's going to look really nice behind you, Crystal. I've
Speaker 2: already been warned that the plaque is one point five
Speaker 2: times bigger than the silver plaque.
Speaker 3: It's going to be pretty.
Speaker 1: Size to take up a whole shop for sure.
Speaker 3: Back there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so as you can see, I think probably over
Speaker 2: we'll have to figure it out.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but it's a good problem to have.
Speaker 3: It's a good problem to have whose head it will
Speaker 3: go behind.
Speaker 1: We're going to have some longer reflections on the smilestone,
Speaker 1: what it means to us, what I hope it means
Speaker 1: to all of you guys who supported us along this journey.
Speaker 1: As of right now, we're at one million, twenty one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty three, which makes me happy because one
Speaker 1: of my greatest nightmares would be the like across the.
Speaker 3: Red right and then and then then dip below.
Speaker 1: It was so embarrassing. So I feel comfy that we're
Speaker 1: going to be good.
Speaker 2: We don't encourage now, don't don't give people any idea
Speaker 2: that's true, that is true.
Speaker 1: I'm just manifesting my greatest fears here. But anyway, like
Speaker 1: I said, we're on our reflections on this later in
Speaker 1: the show, so stay tuned for that, a little bit
Speaker 1: of a retrospective. That are amazing producers who helped us
Speaker 1: get to the spot put together for us. So we'll
Speaker 1: get to that towards the end of the show. But
Speaker 1: before we jump into the topics I just laid out
Speaker 1: for the day. We also just had some breaking news
Speaker 1: last night. You guys know, obviously the latest Trump indictment
Speaker 1: has to do with his handling of those classified documents.
Speaker 1: One of the key pieces of evidence that we know
Speaker 1: that investigators were able to obtain was a tape in
Speaker 1: which he was said to have been basically bragging about, hey,
Speaker 1: here's some classified documents. See these classified documents, and even
Speaker 1: go so far as to say when I was president,
Speaker 1: I could have declassified these, but I didn't. They're still secret,
Speaker 1: they're still confidential. CNN was able to get their hands
Speaker 1: on that actual tape, on that recording, so we are
Speaker 1: able to listen to it this morning and get a
Speaker 1: sense of how that all went down.
Speaker 3: Let's say a listen, these are bad shick people.
Speaker 1: That was your cue, you know, against you.
Speaker 5: When Millie's talking about, oh, you're going to try to
Speaker 5: they were trying to do that before you even were.
Speaker 6: Born in that's right, well with Millie, let me see that.
Speaker 7: I'll show you an example.
Speaker 6: He said that I wanted to attack an Isn't it amazing?
Speaker 6: I have a big pilot heap is this name just
Speaker 6: killing my blood.
Speaker 4: This was him.
Speaker 6: They presented me. This is off the record, but they
Speaker 6: presented me this. This was him, This was the Defense
Speaker 6: Department in him. We looked at him.
Speaker 7: This was him.
Speaker 6: This wasn't done by me. This was him. All sorts
Speaker 6: of stuff. Pages were on over and let's see, yere
Speaker 6: I just isn't that amazing? This totally wins my case?
Speaker 6: You know, except it is like, high God, there's a
Speaker 6: secret for me. Look at this. You're attack And.
Speaker 1: Hillar even put that out all the time.
Speaker 6: She sent it to Anthony Wiers By the way, isn't
Speaker 6: that incredible?
Speaker 3: God?
Speaker 6: Was just because we're talking about it, and you know
Speaker 6: he said he wanted to attack, and what.
Speaker 7: The military given to me.
Speaker 6: I think we can probably this president Now I can't,
Speaker 6: but this is this is so cool. We heard and
Speaker 6: you probably almost didn't believe me, but now you believe me.
Speaker 6: It's incredible, right, It brings him so.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's classic.
Speaker 3: That is the most vintage Trump.
Speaker 1: Right, quintessential Trump that you can imagine, complete with the
Speaker 1: like I.
Speaker 3: Remember my favorite was bring the cokes in please.
Speaker 2: That that is actually I've literally witnessed the diet coke
Speaker 2: button more than a couple of times. If anybody is interested,
Speaker 2: that's exactly how they talk to him.
Speaker 3: Behind the scenes. They constantly have to be.
Speaker 1: So a fantic. Oh it's I mean, that part is
Speaker 1: humiliating for whoever that's not it's just so embarrassing. But okay, So,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's kind of hilarious because it's classic Trump.
Speaker 1: Second of I do find it ironic that he has
Speaker 1: this line in there where he's like, this totally wins
Speaker 1: my case, you know. And of course he's talking about
Speaker 1: he thinks that General Milly had claimed that Trump wanted
Speaker 1: to go to war with a run. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's true or not. I do know that he
Speaker 1: took some very hawkish and provocative actions with regard to Iran,
Speaker 1: including pulling out of the nuclear deal, but we'll put
Speaker 1: that to the side. And what he's showing these individuals
Speaker 1: in his office purportedly are war plans that the Pentagon
Speaker 1: has developed for directly attacking Iran. Now, listen, he seems
Speaker 1: to think that this means that Milly himself was directly
Speaker 1: in favor of attacking Ran. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't.
Speaker 1: But he also seems to not understand that the Pentagon
Speaker 1: draws up plans for like literally every possibility and contingency.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm not saying that the Pentagon isn't hawkish
Speaker 1: with regard to Iran, but that piece is funny. But
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, it's just as devastating to his case
Speaker 1: as it was reported to be in the media. And
Speaker 1: that's really the key takeaway. He says, these are classified,
Speaker 1: secret documents. He says, I could have declin classified them,
Speaker 1: but I didn't. You hear the papers literally shuffling in
Speaker 1: the background as he shows them around, tells people to
Speaker 1: take a look at him. So that's what we got.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the biggest problem for Trump ultimately is that
Speaker 2: he admitted that.
Speaker 3: They weren't declassified at the time.
Speaker 2: And you know, the bigger problem is I've seen a
Speaker 2: lot of legal analysis around executive privilege, about the supreme
Speaker 2: power of the president, about the ability to declassify. But
Speaker 2: Trump has two problems on his side. Number One, whenever
Speaker 2: he was president, he tweeted that there was a declassification crystal.
Speaker 2: His Justice Department then argued in a court of law
Speaker 2: that that did not count him simply waving his hands
Speaker 2: and saying these are declassified. They said that only declassification
Speaker 2: can happen through a formal review process. So number one,
Speaker 2: it undercuts his argument. Number two, and this is actually
Speaker 2: the biggest problem is that remember, under the terms of
Speaker 2: the indictment, this is a very simple process crime. As
Speaker 2: in they said, these are classified documents. He can't contest
Speaker 2: now the classification regime on that based on the US government.
Speaker 3: It's possible this might go to the.
Speaker 2: Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court is going to heavily
Speaker 2: rely on existing US government procedure and also under the
Speaker 2: Trump and the Biden administration. And then finally, in terms
Speaker 2: of the obstruction, given the further tapes and evidence that
Speaker 2: we've seen here before in terms of what was listed
Speaker 2: out in the indictment about his ability also in the
Speaker 2: Fox News interview when he specifically admitted to holding on
Speaker 2: to some things after they were given over, that actually
Speaker 2: validates some of the obstruction charges. So Trump's best defense,
Speaker 2: Crystal is just political is I'm being politically persecuted.
Speaker 3: This is a political prosecution.
Speaker 2: This is illegitimate and hoping that you can get somebody
Speaker 2: on that South Florida jury to agree. And let's be real,
Speaker 2: I mean that is very much a possibility, or maybe
Speaker 2: a hung jury or a mistrial something like that. But
Speaker 2: the issue, the biggest problem is that within the merits
Speaker 2: of the way that the raw is written, it is
Speaker 2: a very very difficult case for him right now, and
Speaker 2: that tape is exactly why it so hard.
Speaker 1: Probably his best chance to avoid these charges was for
Speaker 1: them to not be filed at all, for him to
Speaker 1: sort of bully or convince or cajole or persuade the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice to not file these indictments because listen,
Speaker 1: based on the evidence that is available in the public sphere,
Speaker 1: and listen entitled to mount his own defense, and we'll
Speaker 1: hear what they have to say about it. They haven't
Speaker 1: said much about it thus far, but it looks like
Speaker 1: a pretty open and shutcase. So that means that his
Speaker 1: most rational logical strategy is the political to hope that
Speaker 1: he makes it back into the White House and is
Speaker 1: able to pardon himself. Just quickly, before we jump into
Speaker 1: the latest with regards to Russia, there were a couple
Speaker 1: of other developments with regards to Trump and his potential
Speaker 1: legal trouble. As we've been saying, this is probably not
Speaker 1: the last indictment that he is even going to face.
Speaker 1: Their continuing investigations both in Fulton County and also Jack
Speaker 1: Smith continues to investigate what happened on January sixth and
Speaker 1: fake elector schemes with regards to that, you had half
Speaker 1: a dozen secret Secret Service agents I'm running from NBC
Speaker 1: News right now have testified before the grand jury that
Speaker 1: will decide whether to indict former President Trump for his
Speaker 1: alleged role in the January sixth, twenty twenty one riot
Speaker 1: at the Capitol. In addition to that, you also had
Speaker 1: a number of fake electors who took a deal for
Speaker 1: immunity in order to testify. With regard to that January
Speaker 1: sixth probe as well, I've seen a lot of experts.
Speaker 1: I don't have any special knowledge of this, but I
Speaker 1: have seen a lot of experts who say that charges
Speaker 1: are very likely coming on this front as well. And
Speaker 1: you know that's before we even get into what's going
Speaker 1: on down in Fulton County, where I think charges are
Speaker 1: expected to So that's the lay of the land. The
Speaker 1: judge who was in charge of the document's case said
Speaker 1: the trial is set to start on August fourteenth. Hard
Speaker 1: to say what the ultimate timeline will be how long
Speaker 1: this will unfold. Certainly the Trump side is going to
Speaker 1: try to slow things down and keep things going as
Speaker 1: long as possible to try to get to the election
Speaker 1: before any of this is resolved. That sager, that's what
Speaker 1: we know this Mangy, Yeah, that's what we know.
Speaker 2: And we'll keep everybody updated while this is all goes on.
Speaker 2: But the tape itself is just more evidence of he's
Speaker 2: got some problems. That are he's got some legal trouble
Speaker 2: at the very very least. Okay, let's go ahead to
Speaker 2: the next part here.
Speaker 3: This is important.
Speaker 2: Putin has actually broken his silence finally on the Wagner
Speaker 2: coup and has given us a little bit more information
Speaker 2: about what the official response from the regime will be.
Speaker 3: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: So here were some of the bullet points that were
Speaker 2: compiled here by an Estonian blogger. I have gone and
Speaker 2: I looked at the official translation. It does look to
Speaker 2: be it does look to be accurate. So he says, quote,
Speaker 2: any attempts to start a mutiny will fail. Our mutiny
Speaker 2: would have been suppressed anyway. Perpetrators must have known this
Speaker 2: by betraying their country. They also lied and forced others
Speaker 2: to kill their soldiers. All enemies abroad and national traders
Speaker 2: wanted us to fight each other.
Speaker 3: And they failed.
Speaker 2: The majority of Wagner commanders are patriots. They were used
Speaker 2: covertly against their brothers in arms. I have made steps
Speaker 2: now to avoid large bloodshed. This needed time, including letting
Speaker 2: those who made a mistake change their mind and see
Speaker 2: the consequences that will lead to Interesting in terms of well,
Speaker 2: it's interesting too about whether this was a negotiation or
Speaker 2: whether this was a very heavy hand that Putin made
Speaker 2: it known via Lukashenko to pregosion behind the scenes of Hey, man,
Speaker 2: like you and everybody you're with, you're about to get vaporized.
Speaker 2: So it's like, is that something that you want to choose.
Speaker 2: Let's be very real here, I'm gonna kill you and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna kill your entire family. And that was why
Speaker 2: the FSB had opened that investigation investigation against him. The
Speaker 2: reason why that this silence broken and all of that
Speaker 2: everybody's reading between the tea leaves is that let's put
Speaker 2: this up there, please on the screen. The Financial Times
Speaker 2: had a decent write up on this is that at
Speaker 2: the same time, though crystal. There have been signs of
Speaker 2: weakness from behind the Russian curtain. You've seen that the
Speaker 2: FSB dropped its investigation now the FSB's successor to the KGB,
Speaker 2: the Security Services dropped its investigation into Progosion. That was
Speaker 2: very much seen almost as like it's like a pass right,
Speaker 2: you know, he no longer is an active wanted criminal
Speaker 2: inside of Russia. There are reports now actually coming out
Speaker 2: this morning that Progosian has actually landed in Minsk, in Belarus,
Speaker 2: you know, verifying some of the exile reporting now that
Speaker 2: had come out there Lukashenko and some of the behind
Speaker 2: the scenes in terms of how this will all happen,
Speaker 2: is that it seems that the Wagner forces themselves will
Speaker 2: then be drafted into the Russian Ministry of Defense and
Speaker 2: come under the full command and control. So overall this
Speaker 2: is a total loss for Progosion. But then on the
Speaker 2: Putin side, he did have to give something. The man
Speaker 2: who challenged his authority and came within two hundred kilometers
Speaker 2: has lived to see another day.
Speaker 3: Now, will he see a few.
Speaker 2: More days, We'll see. Will he live to the end
Speaker 2: of his days in a nice comfy bed. Personally, I
Speaker 2: doubt it, but still, I mean, if you are an oligarch,
Speaker 2: people like Oleg Deripaska and others who have voiced not
Speaker 2: anti war sentiments, but they've made, you know, kind of
Speaker 2: statements that cast in that direction, you got to feel
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot more in Bolden now because
Speaker 2: previly they thought you were you're a dead man if
Speaker 2: you come somewhere even close to this and you've literally
Speaker 2: had an arm mutiny and the man lived to tell
Speaker 2: the tale.
Speaker 1: Maybe, I mean, it's it's interesting because there are people
Speaker 1: who have you know, been put in prison for posting
Speaker 1: anti war sentiments on Facebook, right, But then you have Progosian,
Speaker 1: who you know, directly challenging the Putin regime marching to
Speaker 1: Moscow and by the way, killing some number of Russian
Speaker 1: soldiers and downing planes in the process, who was let
Speaker 1: off the hook? So you said this right away, Soccer,
Speaker 1: which is very likely you're going to have a greater
Speaker 1: crackdown on descent domestically because you know, Putin is showing
Speaker 1: weakness right now and really can't afford that. I thought
Speaker 1: it was really interesting talking to Yegor yesterday his assessment
Speaker 1: for what it's worth, and he's you know, he lives
Speaker 1: in Moscow. He's sort of socialist writer, thinker, analysts, et cetera.
Speaker 1: His view is, in the short term, it won't really
Speaker 1: change anything. As you said, Sager, Wagner is being incorporated
Speaker 1: into the minstry of defense, Progosion is going away, Putin
Speaker 1: is reasserting control over more or less the entire military.
Speaker 1: That you still have the Cheschens out there, so that's
Speaker 1: another matter. But he's more or less asserting reasserting control
Speaker 1: all of the top level people as far as we know,
Speaker 1: including Shoygu who Progotionion was, you know, really despised him
Speaker 1: and going after relentlessly. All of them seemed to be
Speaker 1: keeping their jobs for now as best we can tell.
Speaker 1: So short term may not change a lot. Long term,
Speaker 1: you know, is this the crack that ends the regime here?
Speaker 1: It's impossible to say. To go back to what Pregotioni
Speaker 1: said in his eleven minute statement, which was kind of funny.
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, he said that their march
Speaker 1: towards the capital, and the way they were able to
Speaker 1: do this so effectively and in his view, like barely
Speaker 1: any blood spilled, et cetera, was a master class. That
Speaker 1: was his words in the way that the assault on
Speaker 1: Caves should have gone from the beginning, and the assault
Speaker 1: on Ukraine should have gone from the beginning. So he
Speaker 1: described the Wagner Group's actions there as a masterclass in
Speaker 1: military tactics. He also claimed, somewhat unbelievably, quote, we didn't
Speaker 1: have the goal of toppling the existing regime, which is
Speaker 1: lawfully elected, as we have said many times. He didn't
Speaker 1: refer to Putin by name though. Instead he wanted to
Speaker 1: quote prevent the destruction of the paramilitary group and to
Speaker 1: hold you account those who quote, with their unprofessional actions,
Speaker 1: made a huge amount of mistakes during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Speaker 1: So I mean this is both a personal face saving
Speaker 1: and attempt and also an attempt for Putin to save
Speaker 1: face because you know, if you are letting someone who
Speaker 1: directly threatened your regime off the hook, Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty bad look here, So tempt it face saving all
Speaker 1: the way around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of cope. I think that is happening.
Speaker 2: And yeah, like let's be clear, in terms of the
Speaker 2: Ukraine counter offensive, there has been no change currently to
Speaker 2: the status quote minor movements on the front line, but
Speaker 2: in terms of like any major breakthrough, any of that
Speaker 2: hasn't materialized. There hasn't been a mass defection in terms
Speaker 2: of Russian troops, and everything does currently seem to be
Speaker 2: on course. But extraordinary events have just happened, and that
Speaker 2: will shape Russia really to its core. And I think
Speaker 2: that in terms of Putin, this will validate his worst
Speaker 2: fears of all time. And I actually think a crackdown
Speaker 2: domestically while that is likely, it may we may even
Speaker 2: see even more of a crackdown in the military because
Speaker 2: their apparatchis and political officers are loyal to Shogu and
Speaker 2: to Garisimov, even though those guys are terrible at their
Speaker 2: jobs and would never have risen to those level in
Speaker 2: the United States or any sort of meritocratic system.
Speaker 3: They're basically mafia bosses.
Speaker 2: The issue really for them is that whenever they are
Speaker 2: promoting people from within, they're largely loyal to the two
Speaker 2: of them, and those two have then been loyal to Putin.
Speaker 2: But Putin may come through and demand even more loyalty tests.
Speaker 2: I think from the future. It's actually very much what
Speaker 2: Stalin did in the nineteen thirties. It's one of the
Speaker 2: reasons the Russian army was not well prepared for the
Speaker 2: you know what happened during the Nazi invasion. The Czars
Speaker 2: did the same thing, like almost any time there's some
Speaker 2: sort of rebellion from within the armed forces, they do
Speaker 2: a good job or they do usually a job of
Speaker 2: making it more political, but overall that usually makes the
Speaker 2: force less good at actually fighting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there are some signs that Ukraine was
Speaker 1: able to gain some ground while Russia was dealing with
Speaker 1: all of this, And you know, I think it's entirely
Speaker 1: plausible that Russia suffers militarily just because the Wagner group
Speaker 1: was some of their more effective fighting forces. And some
Speaker 1: proportion of Wagner is going to be incorporated to the
Speaker 1: Ministry of Defense, but some proportion of it is just
Speaker 1: going to be done, go home, et cetera. So you know,
Speaker 1: we'll see how it all shakes out. I will say,
Speaker 1: just getting some of the contexts from Yegor in terms
Speaker 1: at least of how he personally views this all unfolding
Speaker 1: domestically in Russia, Pregosion had become a real social media sensation,
Speaker 1: and he had been propped up in some ways by
Speaker 1: Russian state media as this like patriot of the war,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But in his view, in Yegor's view, that
Speaker 1: support was really soft, and he disc Progosition as being
Speaker 1: high on his own farts, meaning he, you know, he
Speaker 1: was too big for his britches. He really overestimated how
Speaker 1: much support he had, thought he was a big man,
Speaker 1: thought he could pull this off. And then probably as
Speaker 1: he's marching down the road and he's not seeing he's
Speaker 1: not encountering a lot of resistance, but he's also not
Speaker 1: seeing the Russian National Guard like rallying to his defense,
Speaker 1: he realized, with his reportedly like twenty five hundred men
Speaker 1: that he had with him, there was no way in
Speaker 1: hell he was going to actually be able to take Moscow.
Speaker 1: There are also reports that, you know, there were some
Speaker 1: threats made to his family that may have been quite
Speaker 1: persuasive to him, and so that's what brings him to
Speaker 1: the negotiating table. I don't know if it was the
Speaker 1: right move for Putin to strike this deal with Progosion,
Speaker 1: because I do think that it reveals some real chinks
Speaker 1: in the armor here. But you know, you just want
Speaker 1: to be really careful about being too certain about oh,
Speaker 1: this spell's the end of the regime, and this is
Speaker 1: you know, weakness, and now the Ukrainians are going to
Speaker 1: be able to counter et cetera. Nobody really knows how
Speaker 1: it will all shake out, and so it's just best
Speaker 1: to look at the situation for what it is today
Speaker 1: and try to see what happens tomorrow going forward.
Speaker 2: You know, Peter's ion actually has always said it really well.
Speaker 2: He's like, look, the first year and a half, it's
Speaker 2: always a shit show. He's like, then he's like, somehow
Speaker 2: they throw as many bodies as possible into the grinder,
Speaker 2: and then they usually ended up pulling it out. So,
Speaker 2: if history is our guide, we seem to be currently
Speaker 2: in that shit show category.
Speaker 3: Show, yeah, we are currently within that. Let's go to
Speaker 3: the next part here.
Speaker 2: President Biden trying to put away some concerns that the
Speaker 2: West may have had something to do with progotionis cop effort.
Speaker 2: He was talking about it at the top of a
Speaker 2: White House event yesterday in his first public comments. Here's
Speaker 2: what he had to say.
Speaker 4: We had to make sure we gave putin no excuse, say,
Speaker 4: we gave putin no excuse to blame this on the West,
Speaker 4: to blame this on NATO. We made clear that we
Speaker 4: were not involved, we had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 4: This was part of a struggle within the Russian system.
Speaker 2: Making clear we have nothing to do with the crystal.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're having many reporting whatever that we had.
Speaker 2: Of course, there was some of that about whether we
Speaker 2: had some information about the forthcoming coup, whether it was
Speaker 2: actually gonna happen or not. But obviously, as we actually
Speaker 2: read earlier today in the show, Putin is still blaming
Speaker 2: the West and others for encouraging the military coup.
Speaker 3: Now he probably is gonna do that no.
Speaker 2: Matter what, whatever actually the details are. I do think
Speaker 2: it is interesting though, to look and to see whether
Speaker 2: and how Putin will continue to message, because I actually
Speaker 2: think it is a mistake to blame this on the
Speaker 2: West and not point out Pregosians. Actually worst thing that
Speaker 2: he did, which is all intel currently indicates that whenever
Speaker 2: he was whining about not having enough ammunition and going
Speaker 2: after the best ministry, he had all the animo that
Speaker 2: he needed and he was hoarding it so it could
Speaker 2: mount to coup. I mean, if you were wanted like
Speaker 2: a benefit for a public message, you're like this guy
Speaker 2: literally took weapons that he could have been using to
Speaker 2: protect Russian lives and use them to mount a coup
Speaker 2: against our government that already failed. So that's something that
Speaker 2: if you know, if the Russian regime were smart, I
Speaker 2: think that's what they would lean into and would message.
Speaker 1: You know. It's fascinating how this all went down, as
Speaker 1: best as we understand it. So the reporting is the
Speaker 1: us knew in advance and chose to do nothing, which
Speaker 1: I think, you know, at least that's their line is
Speaker 1: that they did nothing and there's no evidence to suggest otherwise.
Speaker 1: MO would be open to that evidence if it presents itself.
Speaker 1: I think that was a wildly dangerous gamble, insanely dangerous gamble,
Speaker 1: and I think it's reflective of the attitude of a
Speaker 1: lot of the blob here in Washington, and we saw
Speaker 1: it expressed online from you know, former Russian ambassador Michael
Speaker 1: McFall as one example, that they were actively cheering for
Speaker 1: this war. Criminal mercenary, maniac head of a private army
Speaker 1: to take control of nuclear superpower like that is insane.
Speaker 1: That is insane. Listen, maybe he would dot his eyes
Speaker 1: and cross his t's with regard to protecting the nuclear
Speaker 1: arsenal and not be wild and unhint, but you have
Speaker 1: no idea. And so it looks like it worked out
Speaker 1: in you know, the West favor here, looks like the
Speaker 1: gamble paid off. But how many of these gambles are
Speaker 1: we going to take? How many of these gambles have
Speaker 1: we already taken? With regards to how we have approached
Speaker 1: this conflict, I just think it's absolutely insane now with
Speaker 1: regards to the build up to this moment what Progotion claimed.
Speaker 1: So I went through some of this context yesterday, but
Speaker 1: just to reiterate a bit, they were already there was
Speaker 1: already a loss of attention between Progotion, Shoigu and increasingly,
Speaker 1: you know, potentially with Putin as well, because Progotion was
Speaker 1: just you know, he was really unleashed. He was extremely
Speaker 1: repeatedly critical of the Russian military leadership. Putin seemed to
Speaker 1: recognize they have somewhat of a problem here, so they
Speaker 1: were looking to curtail Wagner's power and to try to
Speaker 1: bring them under the umbrella of the Ministry of Defense,
Speaker 1: which means that Wagner's would basically be under Shoigu, which
Speaker 1: to him was a real red line. Apparently, so what
Speaker 1: he did in addition to hoarding the am Osaga, apparently
Speaker 1: to plan this not totally not a coup, was claimed
Speaker 1: that there was a direct military attack on Wagner forces.
Speaker 1: There's no evidence to support that whatsoever, but that's what
Speaker 1: he used as his pretext, and he claimed in his
Speaker 1: eleven minute address that we talked about before that like, oh,
Speaker 1: we were totally listen. We weren't happy about becoming out
Speaker 1: of the Ministry of Defense, but it was fine. We
Speaker 1: were packing up our stuff, we were getting too ready
Speaker 1: to leave, and then you know, innocent us over here,
Speaker 1: they came and they attacked us. So what are we
Speaker 1: going to do? That was his claim of how all
Speaker 1: this started. But yeah, I think our posture here was
Speaker 1: wildly irresponsible and downright terrifying, and we're just lucky that
Speaker 1: it worked out the way that it did.
Speaker 2: I've been mulling it over and thinking, I'm just I
Speaker 2: do think it was a tough gambit at the time.
Speaker 2: I genuinely don't know now what I've been thinking about
Speaker 2: in terms of the warning, but I do think I
Speaker 2: think that a good opportunity about.
Speaker 1: We'll make the other case, So okay, there for what thats.
Speaker 2: The case for not doing anything is you have no
Speaker 2: idea is that they're going to blame you already in
Speaker 2: the first place. And also who would have ever actually
Speaker 2: thought they would get as far as they did, right,
Speaker 2: So they're like, hey, they'll you know, piss pootin off,
Speaker 2: but it's nothing's really gonna happen. So they never in
Speaker 2: their wildest dreams could have imagined that the Russians would
Speaker 2: be so incompetent to let them get two hundred klometers
Speaker 2: from Moscow. I understand in terms of that, but I'm
Speaker 2: thinking now on the back end, this is a perfect
Speaker 2: opportunity for engagement to go to them and be like, look, man,
Speaker 2: you just got humiliated in the national stage.
Speaker 3: Just call it. Call it in Ukraine. We'll put pressure
Speaker 3: on the Ukrainians.
Speaker 2: Let's all just we'll come together and we'll try it
Speaker 2: in the same and you can sail off in the sunset.
Speaker 2: You'll actually look better, you'll be stronger, you won't have
Speaker 2: as many problems.
Speaker 1: So ques you have done that though, once you have
Speaker 1: the intelligence, but before the attempted coup actually happens, as
Speaker 1: pop say, listen, you know this is this guy's a
Speaker 1: problem for you. We know he's planning this who who
Speaker 1: knows how this is going to go. Let's you know,
Speaker 1: let's get to the negotiating table before and before all
Speaker 1: of this unfold.
Speaker 2: I think the problem is he probably would have just
Speaker 2: said okay, that's nice, and then he would have taken
Speaker 2: the information. He would chopped his head off and he
Speaker 2: would have been like yeah, and he was a trader
Speaker 2: or whatever to the regime. And also the West was
Speaker 2: behind it, even though they're the ones who who are
Speaker 2: the ones who warned us about it? So I just
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 3: Look, we are where we are, where we are right now?
Speaker 2: Is I do think this is a good opportunity for
Speaker 2: Emmanuel Macron or somebody to get over there or to
Speaker 2: get on the phone with these people and just be like, look,
Speaker 2: you don't want to be in this situation. Macrone is
Speaker 2: actually even he's probably the perfect one because he keeps
Speaker 2: saying Russian needs to be defeated but not destroyed in terms.
Speaker 3: Of the Putin rgue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Mcputin would see him at the very least
Speaker 2: is a credible person whenever it comes to this, and
Speaker 2: he would say I can go to the West, I
Speaker 2: can go to Biden, I can go to the UK
Speaker 2: and I can go to all of them and I
Speaker 2: can say that we can try and put some pressure
Speaker 2: here to try and bring this into a clothes but
Speaker 2: you gotta you got to pull out, or you got
Speaker 2: to call it, or you got to give us something
Speaker 2: so that we can make sure that we keep this
Speaker 2: all temperature down. But without any sort of engagement like this,
Speaker 2: the most likely option and scenario from the Russians is
Speaker 2: to double triple down and to try and achieve some
Speaker 2: sort of military victory to justify the current chaos and
Speaker 2: the problems and the cost of what's going on in Ukraine.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's w I thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's very likely that Putin sees the outcome
Speaker 1: of this war as completely existential to him right personally,
Speaker 1: and that's why, you know, it seems it's I want
Speaker 1: to be hopeful that you could achieve some sort of
Speaker 1: negotiated settlement in the near term, but it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to see. I mean, he's going to need some
Speaker 1: sort of face saving, some sort of way to back
Speaker 1: on the corner that he's put himself in. And yeah,
Speaker 1: not a good set effects.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, let's go to the next part here on Ukraine.
Speaker 2: We're always, of course paying attention to what also is
Speaker 2: happening with the Zelenski government and how they're handling themselves
Speaker 2: in terms of their democratic or in terms of their
Speaker 2: democratic processes.
Speaker 1: Let's go to put this up fighting for as democracy
Speaker 1: a well.
Speaker 2: President Zelenski is now saying that Ukraine will hold elections
Speaker 2: after the war ends. He says that elections in Ukraine
Speaker 2: can be held in twenty twenty four only if martial
Speaker 2: law is ended by them. Martial law currently in effect
Speaker 2: under the Ukrainian constitution after the invasion of Russia. So
Speaker 2: they invasion by Russia, they say that, Zelenski says, according
Speaker 2: to that constitution, no elections can even be held in
Speaker 2: the country while martial law remains in In fact, he
Speaker 2: expressed hope that there would be paced priests in Ukraine
Speaker 2: next year and that life could return to normal. The
Speaker 2: next parliamentary elections would normally actually be held October of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, so coming up here in the fall
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty three, and then this presidential election would
Speaker 2: take place in the spring of twenty twenty four. The
Speaker 2: Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament actually said that the issue
Speaker 2: of parliamentary elections was quote not on the agenda, since that,
Speaker 2: according to law, they could not be held during martial law.
Speaker 3: Now I'll say why, I think that this is a mistake.
Speaker 2: We had an election here with a very important election
Speaker 2: here in the United States, in the middle of our
Speaker 2: great Civil War in eighteen sixty four, Argua believe, the
Speaker 2: most important election ever in American history, because it affirmed
Speaker 2: actually at the time that this was a rebellion, that
Speaker 2: this was not something that was going to interfere with
Speaker 2: our democratic process. You know.
Speaker 3: Lincoln, of course.
Speaker 2: You know, he suspended Habeas Corpus, and he did a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff which you know, certainly doesn't look all
Speaker 2: that great in terms of democratic norms, but insisted on
Speaker 2: holding both the midterm elections and some the gubernatorial elections
Speaker 2: from eighteen sixty three and then in eighteen sixty four
Speaker 2: as well, even with the full knowledge he believed he
Speaker 2: would lose. He believed up until I forget what great
Speaker 2: victory happened.
Speaker 3: It's blanking.
Speaker 2: I think it's Sherman's marchis Atlanta, That's what it was.
Speaker 2: The seizure of Atlanta. I believe that happened before the
Speaker 2: election or sometime around the election, was that there was
Speaker 2: a thought and a knowledge within that government that they
Speaker 2: were going to lose, and that when they did lose,
Speaker 2: that the war aims that because Lincoln was running at
Speaker 2: that time against General McClellan, who was much more of
Speaker 2: a peacenick and Democrat who wanted to sign an agreement
Speaker 2: with the South, that they were like, not only are
Speaker 2: we going to lose, we're actually gonna get somebody in
Speaker 2: office who is against everything that we're for.
Speaker 3: And they held the election anyways.
Speaker 2: And the reason why I think that's so important to
Speaker 2: think about is that you know, Ukraine is in the
Speaker 2: midst of an external threat, and you know that that
Speaker 2: is genuinely existential. They do have conquered territory, but it's
Speaker 2: not unprecedented, you know, for countries in the middle of wars,
Speaker 2: and specifically democratic countries to hold elections at that time.
Speaker 2: So I understand, you know, the whole constitution and all that,
Speaker 2: but I also do think it's a little bit convenient
Speaker 2: specifically also because Ukraine has taken a lot of steps
Speaker 2: to quash and to go after opposition parties, pro Ukraine
Speaker 2: voices or pro Russian voices and all of that within
Speaker 2: its country. At the end of the day, some sort
Speaker 2: of settlement here, and the idea of Ukraine as a polity,
Speaker 2: as a sovereign nation is they did have a significant
Speaker 2: Russian speaking population. So if they want to make the
Speaker 2: case as being some sort of like multi lingual sema,
Speaker 2: you know, like multinationality country that you know, should survive
Speaker 2: and exist in the future, elections are a very key
Speaker 2: part of that, you know, in terms of the democracy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right, And I mean the point
Speaker 1: of highlighting this story and this suspension of any sort
Speaker 1: of even semblance of democracy, which this is just the
Speaker 1: latest step in a number of zagara's alluding to crackdowns
Speaker 1: on any sort of political parties that would voice any
Speaker 1: kind of dissent, corraling of media and all those sorts
Speaker 1: of actions is not to demonize Ukraine. It's just to
Speaker 1: make sure that people aren't falling for the propaganda that
Speaker 1: this is, you know, perfect democracy, and what we're doing
Speaker 1: is really just standing up for democracy and that there
Speaker 1: aren't some warts involved with what's going on with the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian government as well. I just want people to be
Speaker 1: clear eyed about what the real goals are here from
Speaker 1: the US, who we are really supporting and what the
Speaker 1: actual reality within Ukraine is. I think that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what the irony is. I think
Speaker 2: Zelenski would be elected. He's dramatically popular.
Speaker 1: Insanely popular, as far as we could tell her.
Speaker 2: Anyway, before all of it, there are a lot of
Speaker 2: correct questions about corruption to this comedian even be in
Speaker 2: charge all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're in from the perfect thune. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: he's a very different from the media representation of him now.
Speaker 2: Inside of Ukraine or at least what's left the Ukraine,
Speaker 2: this man is a hero. He probably would win like
Speaker 2: ninety something percent of the vote. I don't know why
Speaker 2: you wouldn't want to hold an election right now, but
Speaker 2: maybe there's some democratic stuff going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: Still thought it was important to bring everybody that story.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead to the next part here. Hunter Biden.
Speaker 2: President Biden making his very first comments on the Hunter
Speaker 2: Biden Plea agreement and all of the controversy around that
Speaker 2: since the release of the IRS whistleblower the text, and
Speaker 2: the allegations against him. Asked specifically by a Fox News
Speaker 2: reporter as he was exiting a White House event, were
Speaker 2: you a liar, mister, President whenever you said that you
Speaker 2: didn't have any business dealings with Hunter. Here's what he
Speaker 2: had to say. Okay, So I know that's very difficulty here.
Speaker 2: I also have deep sympathy for I have been that
Speaker 2: person before, and it's a very tough gig. So she
Speaker 2: was on the middle of a rope line as President
Speaker 2: Biden was leaving I think that's the East Room and
Speaker 2: walking through the walking to the Grand Hallway or whatever
Speaker 2: it's called. And while she says, she's word, did you lie?
Speaker 2: And all he said was no. So that's the first
Speaker 2: public comment that he's made.
Speaker 1: She's saying, did you lie that you had never spoken
Speaker 1: to your son about his business dealings? Right? Right?
Speaker 2: That's did you lie about never speaking one hundred about
Speaker 2: his business doing. The reason why that that's important is
Speaker 2: that a he took the chance only to answer that
Speaker 2: question in the middle of a very crowded room whenever
Speaker 2: there's a lot of noise, and he was still refused
Speaker 2: to address it in any press podium. In terms of
Speaker 2: the reaction currently from the White House, they have still
Speaker 2: refused to give any comment, and they were asked about
Speaker 2: it yesterday again and they still are unable to provide
Speaker 2: any answer around ethics about President Biden about his knowledge
Speaker 2: of the deal and the whistleblower.
Speaker 3: Here's what Karine Jean Pierre had to say.
Speaker 8: If the President communicated to members of his family not
Speaker 8: to conduct business on White House grounds, can you tell
Speaker 8: us about any kinds of guardrails that are up.
Speaker 5: So look, I'm going to be again very mindful because
Speaker 5: this is all connected to a case that the DJ
Speaker 5: is currently overseeing. So I'm not going to comment on
Speaker 5: that specifically. But as you know, and we have laid
Speaker 5: out very early on in this administration when it comes
Speaker 5: to ethics, when it comes to how we all kind
Speaker 5: of move about and how have we respect clearly the
Speaker 5: government ethics here. This is a president, this is an
Speaker 5: administration has been incredibly transparent on that.
Speaker 2: This administration is very transparent and that that is why
Speaker 2: the only thing that we have to say about corrupt
Speaker 2: business dealings irs whistleblowers is.
Speaker 3: He is his son. Did you notice that yesterday?
Speaker 2: Every time that he was taught or she was talking
Speaker 2: about it, She's like, this is his son, this is
Speaker 2: his son. They were like, are you going to ask
Speaker 2: him about it? And she said no, I don't have
Speaker 2: any plans. How do you have no plans to ask
Speaker 2: him about it? You're getting up there and getting hammered
Speaker 2: every day being you know, asking questions around a very
Speaker 2: specific government irs whistleblower allegation of foreign corruption against our
Speaker 2: number one adversary on the global stage, and you have
Speaker 2: nothing to say about it, and then have it straight
Speaker 2: faced say that you're the most transparent you know, administration
Speaker 2: whatever in history and they're so ethical in your conduct.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just outrageous the way that they're trying
Speaker 2: to quash this.
Speaker 1: Crystal Well, that's also a lie. Like I don't know
Speaker 1: if she's like questioned Biden on it, but clearly it right.
Speaker 3: So now you're likely.
Speaker 1: Extensively behind the scenes and how to handle it. It's
Speaker 1: also interesting she mentioned that this is the subject, you know,
Speaker 1: that Hunter is the subject of an ongoing dog investigation,
Speaker 1: because there had been some question about that. Hunter's lawyer
Speaker 1: actually said that the investigation was over, but the DJ
Speaker 1: saying no, no, no, we're still we're still looking into
Speaker 1: some things. So she's seeming to at least agree with
Speaker 1: the DJ that the investigation into Hunter isn't over. So
Speaker 1: I found that interesting as well, but clearly in terms
Speaker 1: of their press strategy. They are hoping that they can
Speaker 1: keep any questions about Hunter and his business dealings and
Speaker 1: any sort of potential linkages with the current president of
Speaker 1: the United States. They are hoping that they can corral
Speaker 1: this into partisan conservative media and make it easy to
Speaker 1: dismiss as just a smear tactic and you know, political
Speaker 1: campaign tactic to damage the president before his reelection. That's
Speaker 1: what they're really hoping, and up till you know, the
Speaker 1: past few days, they really were successful at that there
Speaker 1: was very little There was no interest from the mainstream
Speaker 1: press about anything with regard to potential Hunter Biden business dealings,
Speaker 1: and frankly, there wasn't as much evidence of you know,
Speaker 1: potential interplace between Joe Biden and Hunter Biden with regard
Speaker 1: to this Chinese business deal or anything else. I think
Speaker 1: it's going to be very difficult for them to keep
Speaker 1: this now corralled into partisan conservative press. And the reason is,
Speaker 1: I mean, we've already kind of seen the dam has broken.
Speaker 1: The fact that you had Karine Jean Pierre facing difficult
Speaker 1: questions from CNN, from NBC, from CBS, from basically every
Speaker 1: mainstream outlet that felt that they had kind of been
Speaker 1: played on this story, I think makes it difficult to
Speaker 1: imagine that they're actually going to be able to get
Speaker 1: through this whole incident without having to seriously respond to it,
Speaker 1: seriously deal with it, and without it you know, dinging
Speaker 1: Biden in a lot of ways. So where Democrats really
Speaker 1: they do themselves no favors, listen a lot of Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: both parties in Washington seem to think that, you know,
Speaker 1: when it's their own side, that this sort of corruption
Speaker 1: is just par for the course, it's just part of
Speaker 1: how Washington operates, and that they really don't feel bad
Speaker 1: about it. They don't see any with that. They think
Speaker 1: that's just like the natural order of business. But rightly,
Speaker 1: the American people see it very very differently. And so
Speaker 1: if you're going to run another campaign against Trump, which
Speaker 1: they're signaling that they want to run basically the same
Speaker 1: playbook as twenty twenty, you know, it's the soul of
Speaker 1: the nation argument that he was making last time around,
Speaker 1: It's going to be very similar playbook this time around
Speaker 1: as well. It hurts your credibility when you don't have
Speaker 1: clean hands. I mean, Trump is corrupt to sal He's
Speaker 1: taking money right now directly from the Saudi's through live golf.
Speaker 1: His son in law is you know, taking billions from
Speaker 1: them as well. There's other Gulf state entanglements, a development
Speaker 1: deal in Oman like this is as that's as corrupt
Speaker 1: as it gets. You undermine your ability to effectively make
Speaker 1: that case against Trump when you yourself have these kind
Speaker 1: of messy business dealings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how are you going to talk with a straight
Speaker 2: face about Jared Kushner and corruption and return to normalcy
Speaker 2: and all of that and have one of the most
Speaker 2: transparently ridiculous and corrupt dealings in modern presidential history excepting Trump.
Speaker 2: Then you're just you know, in many ways, you're just
Speaker 2: as bad. And you know, I want to emphasize what
Speaker 2: you said. On the media front, these they do look
Speaker 2: like fools. They you know, all the hallmarks of Russian
Speaker 2: disinformation on the Russian lap, on the Hunter Biden.
Speaker 3: Lap, Russian laptop. Almost even I had a slip.
Speaker 2: There myself under Biden laptop. They said, add all the
Speaker 2: hallmarks of Russian disas. Then they refuse to even report
Speaker 2: on the laptop until after the election itself a form
Speaker 2: of you know, election interference. Then after that, what do
Speaker 2: they do? They wait almost two something years into biden
Speaker 2: presidency until an actual government whistleblower has to come forward
Speaker 2: with cold hard facts and evidence of text messages for
Speaker 2: them to actually ask him about it at the podium.
Speaker 2: And I think that's why I get pissed off of
Speaker 2: Crystal is because all of the evidence has been there
Speaker 2: since October of twenty twenty, since the day the laptop
Speaker 2: came out and Tony Bobolinski came out as well and
Speaker 2: verified the email talking about ten percent for the big guy.
Speaker 2: There has been a direct allegation that Biden was involved
Speaker 2: with the business dealings. He was never, never, to my knowledge,
Speaker 2: asked specifically about any of these allegations in any mainstream
Speaker 2: press interview, in any press conference that has come forward.
Speaker 2: And he's now running for re election to president of
Speaker 2: the United States and now facing questions that have been
Speaker 2: known now in the public sphere for literally years and years,
Speaker 2: and in fact even pre laptop beisma, and all of
Speaker 2: that has been known since two thousand and twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: I believe since that came forward. So I do think
Speaker 2: it is a huge black mark on the press and
Speaker 2: their conduct with respect to this.
Speaker 3: Now in terms of the press.
Speaker 1: Are they going to redeem themselves soccer?
Speaker 3: Yeah, shit, will they redeem themselves? We just couldn't resist
Speaker 3: this particular.
Speaker 2: Fight because this does sum up the way that the
Speaker 2: elite liberal press does feel about the Hunter Biden story.
Speaker 3: They're trying to spin it in every which way they can.
Speaker 2: Both Nicholas Christoph and now Anna Navarro over at The
Speaker 2: View have settled on the line, which is that the
Speaker 2: real story behind Hunter Biden is the love of a
Speaker 2: father between a son. Here's what she had to say.
Speaker 9: I've known Joe Biden since he was a senator for
Speaker 9: about twenty some years. I can't tell you how much
Speaker 9: his life has been marked by losing not one child,
Speaker 9: but two children. And once you've lost a child, I
Speaker 9: think you are absolutely determined. It's even more urgent. It's
Speaker 9: even a bigger issue that you will not.
Speaker 3: Lose another one.
Speaker 9: The Hunter Biden's story the scandal that it's also the
Speaker 9: story of a father's love. And Joe Biden has never
Speaker 9: and will never give up on his son's Hunter and
Speaker 9: will never treat him lesser than And so he is
Speaker 9: a father first, take it or leave it. That's who
Speaker 9: he is. That is part of his heart. There was
Speaker 9: three hundred and eighty people at this dinner. It's not
Speaker 9: like Hunter was sitting at Merrick Garland's lap.
Speaker 3: It was a bunch of people.
Speaker 9: And I think part of the reason that Hunter Biden
Speaker 9: has been able to get out addiction is because Joe
Speaker 9: Biden embraced him entirely the entire time, when he was
Speaker 9: vice president, when he was candidate, when he was out
Speaker 9: of office, and now as president.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 2: So it's just all about fatherly love. I mean, here's
Speaker 2: why people should be mad. You know, if you're a
Speaker 2: normal person and your dad is not the president of
Speaker 2: the United States the vice president of the United States,
Speaker 2: you would have been locked up long ago. Your father's
Speaker 2: love wouldn't have been able to get you out of
Speaker 2: some terrible jams in our criminal justice system, and very
Speaker 2: likely you would be in a real hard way right now.
Speaker 2: You'd probably be bankrupt now. Instead, his fatherly love effectively
Speaker 2: allowed Hunter to drift off of his name for his
Speaker 2: entire life, to enable his addiction, to get out of scrapes,
Speaker 2: to literally act like a thug in these text messages,
Speaker 2: blackmailing foreign governments to pay him off, and then use
Speaker 2: that love now to try and shield yourself from legitimate
Speaker 2: questions around these dealings. Yeah, is the most disgusting form
Speaker 2: of cynicism that we have seen yet. And there's no
Speaker 2: here's the thing. You think Trump doesn't love his children.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he does. It's still gross. Well maybe I
Speaker 2: don't know, but some of them.
Speaker 3: I love some of them.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's not an excuse for acting back,
Speaker 2: if anything, you know, having that has always been a problem,
Speaker 2: like Bill Clinton's pardoning of Roger Clinton, her Jimmy what
Speaker 2: was his screw up names brother, Billy Carter, I think right,
Speaker 2: I don't know, whatever, Yeah, I mean, the point though,
Speaker 2: is that it has always been called out as wrong
Speaker 2: and as bad whenever you use the public service in
Speaker 2: your office in order to Billy Carter, Yeah, in order
Speaker 2: to give benefits to the people who.
Speaker 3: You are related to.
Speaker 1: I mean, I really think this clip is so overfeeling
Speaker 1: because she actually says up front, like I've known Joe
Speaker 1: Biden for decades, and clearly that sense of personal friendship
Speaker 1: has in addition to the partisan valance of this, but
Speaker 1: the fact that so many of these media figures know
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, they've know bien Joe Biden for years, they
Speaker 1: have warm fuzzies about him, They have personal stories about him,
Speaker 1: and he is a good politician in terms of I mean,
Speaker 1: this was the problem Bernie Sanders couldn't like throw a
Speaker 1: punch at him because he felt warmly towards Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: That is in some ways his superpower. And it's very
Speaker 1: common also in DC, where you have all of these
Speaker 1: incestuous relationships and then it colors the way that supposed
Speaker 1: journalists and analysts are able to cover events. So Anna
Speaker 1: Navarro makes what I think is a very common mistake
Speaker 1: here and in New York of viewing this all through
Speaker 1: the most charitable possible lens because of her own personal
Speaker 1: relationship here, Whereas if you had the same set of
Speaker 1: facts with regards to Donald Trump and Kushner or Amanka
Speaker 1: or whatever, and you don't have the personal relationship and
Speaker 1: you don't have the partisan allyship, you'd have a very
Speaker 1: different commentary. You'd have a very different assessment of what
Speaker 1: that meant, because instead of giving the absolute most charitable reading,
Speaker 1: he would give the absolute most nefarious reading. Now you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you could say, like, well, Trump has kind of
Speaker 1: proven himself to be a pretty nefarious actor, so some
Speaker 1: of that is fair. But Jobia has also proven over
Speaker 1: the long years of his tenure here in Washington to
Speaker 1: have a lot of to allow a lot of drifting
Speaker 1: off of his name. I mean, I'm talking from the
Speaker 1: very beginning, and I will never forget when we would
Speaker 1: Brian Graham on Rising back in the early days, and
Speaker 1: he had like an encyclopedic knowledge of every documented corrupt
Speaker 1: business deal that was from his brother and his you know,
Speaker 1: family members and children whatever, trading on the Byden name
Speaker 1: to try to personally enrich himself. So it's not like
Speaker 1: there's no track record of this stuff and it would
Speaker 1: come out of the blue. At the most he was
Speaker 1: directly involved in these deals, he was getting the ten percent,
Speaker 1: he was personally, you know, financially benefiting. There's a sort
Speaker 1: of a second possibility, which is that Hunter it's also
Speaker 1: texted about like helping to support the whole family financially,
Speaker 1: that even if Biden wasn't Joe Biden wasn't directly getting
Speaker 1: a cut, that he was secondarily benefiting from these business
Speaker 1: deal Hunter was doing by you know, helping to fund
Speaker 1: his own lifestyle and whatever, you know, whatever he needed.
Speaker 1: That's a possibility, but at the very least it's clear
Speaker 1: he allowed his own son to trade off his name
Speaker 1: in a way that is highly detrimental to public trust
Speaker 1: and overtly corrupt. Like if you can't, if you can't
Speaker 1: admit that, then you just are not an honest actor.
Speaker 2: I one hundred percent agree. I think it's disgusting, and
Speaker 2: I think it's you know, it's even worse. I think
Speaker 2: that only people like us will even be able to
Speaker 2: point this out. You know, we're happily do segments here
Speaker 2: on Jared Kushner as well. We do it all the time.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately that's just not how our medio ecosystem is,
Speaker 2: and that's really why the country is so broken. It
Speaker 2: really is because of an attitude like that. Anyway, speaking
Speaker 2: of a market action or eruption.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we've got another story about Justice Alito and
Speaker 1: uh shady dealings that our friends at the Intercept wrote up.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this up on the screen. This
Speaker 1: has to do actually with a business transaction of his wife.
Speaker 1: The headline here from the Intercept with journalist Daniel Bugislaw
Speaker 1: here has the byeline Samuel Alito's wife leased land to
Speaker 1: an oil and gas firm while the Justice fought the
Speaker 1: EPA A deal made by Alita's wife with an energy
Speaker 1: company paints recent Supreme Court decisions on the environment in
Speaker 1: a damning light. So here's the backstory. Alito's wife, who
Speaker 1: I believe inherited a fair amount from her family, decided
Speaker 1: to see if one hundred and sixty acre plot of
Speaker 1: land in Oklahoma would produce oil in a lease filed
Speaker 1: with the Grady County Clerk. The wife of Alita who
Speaker 1: entered into an agreement with Citizen Energy three for revenue
Speaker 1: generated from oil and gas obtained from a plot of
Speaker 1: hard scrabble she inherited from her late father. They talked
Speaker 1: to ethics experts about the implications of this, which I
Speaker 1: do want to say, I don't think there's quite as
Speaker 1: direct to connect here as there is with like the
Speaker 1: private jet allegations, where you have him accepting private jet
Speaker 1: travel from this rich billionaire who immediately has multiple cases
Speaker 1: that come up in front of the Supreme Court that
Speaker 1: Alito does not refuse himself from, et cetera. I don't
Speaker 1: think the correction the connection is quite as direct here,
Speaker 1: but I think it speaks to an overall atmosphere, an
Speaker 1: overall permissive atmosphere, and the types of financial entanglements that
Speaker 1: they almost see as just commonplace and par for the course.
Speaker 1: So they asked this Jeffauser, who's founder and director of
Speaker 1: the Revolving Door Project, about this financial arrangement. He said,
Speaker 1: there need not be a specific case involving the drilling
Speaker 1: rights associated with a specific plot of land for Aledo
Speaker 1: to understand what outcomes in environmental cases would buttress his
Speaker 1: family's net wealth. Alito does not have to come across
Speaker 1: like a drunken Paul Thomas Anderson character gleefully confessing to
Speaker 1: drinking our collective milkshakes in order to be a real
Speaker 1: life run of the mill political villain. Just to give
Speaker 1: you a sense of a few of the cases that
Speaker 1: are relevant to you, know, oil drilling, et cetera. In
Speaker 1: May Alito pandam majority decision in Second versus EPA, which
Speaker 1: radically scaled back the Clean Water Act. Prior to targeting
Speaker 1: the Clean Water Act, Alito had also joined the court's
Speaker 1: other conservative justices in attacking another set of EPA powers
Speaker 1: under the Clearing Air Act in West Virginia versus EPA.
Speaker 1: That twenty twenty two ruling gutted the EPA's ability to
Speaker 1: regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plans, So listen, quite
Speaker 1: possible this is Alito's ideological cleaning, and that he would
Speaker 1: have made these decisions regardless of his own personal financial
Speaker 1: stake here. But even the appearance of corruption is a problem,
Speaker 1: especially when you're talking about the highest court of the land.
Speaker 1: They should be holding themselves to the highest of standards,
Speaker 1: and instead they appear to have no standard whatsoever.
Speaker 3: This is why I get very angry.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm hearing from a lot of right wing
Speaker 2: friends and they're like, why are you validating these attacks
Speaker 2: on the court, And I'm like, look, this isn't about abortion,
Speaker 2: this isn't about any of that. And by the way,
Speaker 2: if you want to uphold any of those decisions, it
Speaker 2: is then up to you to conduct yourself in the highest,
Speaker 2: most ethical manner so that everyone cannot accuse you of
Speaker 2: making a decision that did not have any financial interest
Speaker 2: to you. Remember Joshice John Roberts's wife making somewhat ten
Speaker 2: million dollars acting as a legal recruiter. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: so obviously something that would benefit about that he that
Speaker 2: obviously would benefit her prospects as a recruiter. Her freaking
Speaker 2: husband is the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. Now, listen,
Speaker 2: maybe she'd make five million on the outside without him.
Speaker 2: But you know, even the appearance of it is bad enough.
Speaker 2: And it's one of those where when you sign up
Speaker 2: for life, you need to sign up for a lifetime
Speaker 2: of holding yourself up to this ethical standard. If you
Speaker 2: want to leave and make a ton of money.
Speaker 3: Be our guest. Nobody is stopping you.
Speaker 2: You're the ones who want to have it both ways.
Speaker 2: The problem, too, is we are entering a time of
Speaker 2: very divisive Supreme Court decisions where again, if you want
Speaker 2: to have legitimacy in the court, then you have to
Speaker 2: uphold yourself in a manner stuff that nobody can attack
Speaker 2: your standing and give Let's give it people an example
Speaker 2: here of some of these decisions to put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen, one of which I'm personally looking
Speaker 2: forward to, the most affirmative action appears to be coming down.
Speaker 1: The seaon probably come down. While that really makes Emily
Speaker 1: Emily hold.
Speaker 2: Up par well, you know, I guess it would be
Speaker 2: affirmative action, you know, to have somebody still do yet,
Speaker 2: all right, so affirmative action very likely to go. Student
Speaker 2: loan forgiveness very likely to be struck down at the
Speaker 2: High Court. There's an interesting case I think about religious
Speaker 2: liberty and gay rights that they are talking about here
Speaker 2: and the right or the openness to the public to
Speaker 2: have to provide services to all customers. It kind of
Speaker 2: hearkens back to the Master Cake, the bake shop and
Speaker 2: the wedding cake one that was previously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I sort of felt like I sort of felt
Speaker 1: like this at already even I thought.
Speaker 3: The same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I'm crazy. I was just like, I don't understand.
Speaker 2: How are we right back to the way place that
Speaker 2: we started?
Speaker 1: So we are on this specific one. It's about a
Speaker 1: Christian graphic artist in Colorado who wants to make wedding
Speaker 1: websites but doesn't want to have to make wedding websites
Speaker 1: for gay couples. So yeah, it just seems to me
Speaker 1: like the identical to the Master.
Speaker 3: Literally or whatever it was called.
Speaker 1: The piece. Yeah, anyway, so that one is that one's
Speaker 1: on them, then.
Speaker 2: Why are they even hearing it? It's obviously you and
Speaker 2: I aren't lawyers. And one to me another one here
Speaker 2: is a religious rights case, another case that would end
Speaker 2: as a victory case of a Christian mail carrier who
Speaker 2: refused to work on Sundays when he was required to
Speaker 2: deliver Amazon packages.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that's an interesting one because there's actually a little
Speaker 1: more sort of partisan overlap there. So the expectation is
Speaker 1: that some of the liberal justices might vote in favor
Speaker 1: of that mail carrier as well, because the view is that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's no excuse for an employer to say, like, oh,
Speaker 1: it cost us a little extra money for you to
Speaker 1: be able to uphold your you know, to practice your religion.
Speaker 1: That's not a good excuse at least as the course
Speaker 1: have found before. So the expectation is there may be
Speaker 1: actually some overlap there in terms of the detachment.
Speaker 2: But probably the single most important case for our future,
Speaker 2: Crystal is the independent state legislature theory.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mean, do you want to do Yeah,
Speaker 3: break down here, let.
Speaker 1: Me let me let me take a crack at this one,
Speaker 1: because I road deeply into it.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So this has to do with jerry mandering in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: where basically there was a conflict between the Republican state
Speaker 1: legislature and the congressional lines that they wanted to draw,
Speaker 1: and the state Supreme Court, which struck down those congressional
Speaker 1: lines and said that they violated, that they were unconstitutional effectively,
Speaker 1: and so what the North Carolina legislature is arguing is
Speaker 1: the independent state what do they call it, independent state
Speaker 1: legislature legislature theory, which is effectively that listen, we get
Speaker 1: to say as a legislature how our elections are conducted
Speaker 1: in state courts have nothing to do with it. They
Speaker 1: don't get to say this at all. This has always
Speaker 1: been a sort of fringe legal theory that is hung
Speaker 1: out there that Supreme Court has never once validated, although
Speaker 1: there was a concurring opinion in the bushfi Gore case
Speaker 1: where one of the justices did assert the independent state
Speaker 1: legislature theory, So there is that hanging out there, but
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly this has been kind of a French theory. Okay,
Speaker 1: why is this really important? It matters in terms of
Speaker 1: state voting rights. If your state constitution and the state
Speaker 1: courts can't protect your voting rights, is just subject to
Speaker 1: the whims of whatever politicians are elected to the legislature. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that's kind of open season that could cause a lot
Speaker 1: of problems, and cause a lot of problems pretty immediately.
Speaker 1: There's also a possibility that because this independent state legislature
Speaker 1: theory was floated last time in twenty twenty with some
Speaker 1: of the fake elector schemes and the idea that the
Speaker 1: legislators didn't actually have to listen to the will of
Speaker 1: the people who they voted for in their state, they
Speaker 1: could appoint their own slate of electors. That's where that
Speaker 1: thinking all came from. So if the Supreme Court here
Speaker 1: sides with the independent state legislature theory, the idea is,
Speaker 1: next time you have a close election, if the state
Speaker 1: goes one way and the legislature wants to go another way,
Speaker 1: you have legislators that won't listen to the will the people.
Speaker 1: Instead will just say, yeah, you voted for Biden, but
Speaker 1: we actually want to see Trump electors, So we're just
Speaker 1: going to go ahead and do that, and the courts
Speaker 1: will have essentially validated that approach. Now, I want to say,
Speaker 1: there are legal experts that don't think that would be
Speaker 1: the ramifications here, that don't think that would be the implications,
Speaker 1: But there's a real danger that we could be going
Speaker 1: down that path.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So that's why I wanted to flag it for everybody
Speaker 2: in terms of what coming down the path and why
Speaker 2: it could have could have a big impact on the
Speaker 2: future and all those questions that we had in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty about whether the alternative elector's scheme and all that
Speaker 2: was even possible or legal. So if they do rule
Speaker 2: this way, it actually could open the door for even
Speaker 2: more Supreme Court fights.
Speaker 3: Yeah, come twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: All kinds of legal battles could ensue depending on what
Speaker 1: direction that goes in. So in Sager's absence, Emily and
Speaker 1: I will be covering all of these cases as they
Speaker 1: come down. But obviously, with afirmative actions, student loans, gay rights,
Speaker 1: voting rights, all of this potentially coming down very soon,
Speaker 1: it is going to be a pretty blockbuster set of
Speaker 1: days here. All right, Let's get to this next story,
Speaker 1: which I just think is really interesting. All Right, So
Speaker 1: there's been the whole thing going on about so called
Speaker 1: e SG, which I completely understand if you have no
Speaker 1: idea what that is, and you could not care less,
Speaker 1: But it basically is this idea that corporations and banks
Speaker 1: and funds and whatever, rather than just focusing exclusively on
Speaker 1: shareholder value, they're also going to incorporate these goals of
Speaker 1: conscious capitalism and trying to do better on environmental, social,
Speaker 1: and governance goals. Now, as I have explained and we've
Speaker 1: discussed extensively in the past, there is a sort of
Speaker 1: right wing critique of this, which is like about wocism
Speaker 1: and they should just be maximizing shareholder value and how
Speaker 1: dare you insert your values into these business decisions. That's
Speaker 1: the Zacharamaswami argument. Argument that I make and others on
Speaker 1: the left make about ESG is that this is all
Speaker 1: fake corporate virtue signaling, that it's effectively greenwashing, and you
Speaker 1: don't really mean any of it, including on your like
Speaker 1: fake diversity metrics or diversity trainings that you're doing, that
Speaker 1: all of it is again just sort of like surface
Speaker 1: level corporate virtue signaling. So one of the leaders in
Speaker 1: the whole ESG quote unquote movement has been the head
Speaker 1: of Black Rock, Larry Finks. So let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen, because he made some
Speaker 1: very interesting comments here about his view of ESG. He
Speaker 1: said at the Aspen Ideas Festival gross that Florida Governoran
Speaker 1: DeSantis's decision to pull two billion dollars in assets had
Speaker 1: hurt his firm. In twenty twenty two, and to be clear,
Speaker 1: DeSantis pulled those funds because of these ESG woke concerns
Speaker 1: from the right, but he also made clear las year
Speaker 1: was his company's best with netflows of two hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars from UIST clients, and don't worry, guys, they're doing
Speaker 1: just fine. But what he said that was so interesting
Speaker 1: is quote, I'm ashamed of being part of this conversation.
Speaker 1: When I write these investment letters, which his investment letters
Speaker 1: are very closely watched and widely right, et cetera, it
Speaker 1: was never meant to be a political statement. They were
Speaker 1: written to identify long term issues to our long term investors.
Speaker 1: Then later in the conversation he kind of walked back
Speaker 1: those comments. He was pressed on it, and he said
Speaker 1: I never said I was ashamed. He literally did say
Speaker 1: he was the shame. I'm not ashamed. I do believe
Speaker 1: in conscientious capitalism. I'm not going to use the word
Speaker 1: ESG because it's been misused by the far left and
Speaker 1: the far right. So Sager, what do you think of this?
Speaker 2: Well, and the very same breath, he goes, instead, we'll
Speaker 2: talk about decarbonization, We'll talk about governance or social issues.
Speaker 2: So it basically just described ESG without using the term ESG. Look,
Speaker 2: I think ESG is a cancer for a variety of
Speaker 2: the reasons that you just said. I do actually believe
Speaker 2: it is a cover for a lot of woke bs
Speaker 2: and virtue signaling, which is genuinely bad because it's also
Speaker 2: stuff that is implemented in your name, even if you're
Speaker 2: invested in funds or stuff that you have no idea about.
Speaker 2: This isn't just for rich people, although predominantly, you know,
Speaker 2: some forty percent of Americans have a stock in their
Speaker 2: retirement portfolio, so you inadvertently could be funding something that
Speaker 2: you don't agree with. So that's number one. Number two though,
Speaker 2: in terms of the left critique that you're absolutely correct
Speaker 2: about is how does Tesla not.
Speaker 3: Rank as an ESG company now?
Speaker 2: And then do you know, do you know the reason
Speaker 2: why while Tesla doesn't and Exxon does, or Shell Gas,
Speaker 2: it's literally because they game the scores around, you know,
Speaker 2: climate conscious. My favorite example was I believe this was
Speaker 2: Shell was offloaded some mind to some African company, least
Speaker 2: released it through a subsidiary, and by selling off something
Speaker 2: and decreasing their carbon score up to their ESG score,
Speaker 2: and was ranked as like some great company. Come on,
Speaker 2: oil and gas company is ranking higher than the biggest
Speaker 2: electric car company in the world.
Speaker 3: Ludicrous. So obviously the entire thing is fake.
Speaker 2: The problem that I see right now is that for
Speaker 2: a long time, one of the reasons why ESG was
Speaker 2: not pushed back by by a lot of the capitol.
Speaker 3: Class is there doing really well.
Speaker 2: But right now we're in a tech recession at the
Speaker 2: very least, and so the problem is that tech companies,
Speaker 2: of course are going to rank very very high on ESG.
Speaker 2: They don't really make anything, you know, software is a
Speaker 2: service and all that very very high stock price. The
Speaker 2: issue though, is that the oil and gas companies they're.
Speaker 3: Doing super well.
Speaker 2: So now we're in a place where investors actually have
Speaker 2: to try and pick between ESG and making money, and
Speaker 2: when they do, they're like, well, this whole ESG thing,
Speaker 2: like maybe maybe we'll just go with a few maybe
Speaker 2: the S and the G will go.
Speaker 1: I think that is the key point here is that
Speaker 1: it was always fake.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the thing is, so it's fake, but
Speaker 3: it has had a real impact.
Speaker 2: And I think that's kind of what I want to emphasize,
Speaker 2: is like there are genuine social problems that have been
Speaker 2: a result of ESG, like DEI programs that we've seen implemented.
Speaker 1: Again, those things are fake. We know they don't work.
Speaker 1: It's just like they make just like a giveaway to
Speaker 1: the consultant class. But I want to push I want
Speaker 1: to push back on. Listen, the consultant class already has
Speaker 1: a million grifts. DEI is just one of them, right,
Speaker 1: I want to push back on the idea that you
Speaker 1: started that it is in any way different that people
Speaker 1: would be supporting you know, social goals or whatever that
Speaker 1: with their funds accidentally that they don't actually support. That
Speaker 1: happens all the time. I mean, that's the reality of
Speaker 1: do you think that people who have their money in
Speaker 1: a pension fund that supports, you know, some company that's
Speaker 1: like union busting and exploiting their labor, like, they don't
Speaker 1: support those values either. So the fact that the default
Speaker 1: in capitalism is like ruthless exploitation and that's not seen
Speaker 1: as a problem, there's no pushback on that. There's no
Speaker 1: thought of like, oh my god, people are supporting things
Speaker 1: with their money that they don't really actually support, you know.
Speaker 1: I just think that there's a lopsidedness to the conversation
Speaker 1: in terms of the you know, the bottom line being
Speaker 1: the money making here. Put this up on the screen
Speaker 1: because I think this speaks to the virtue signaling piece.
Speaker 1: Blackrock one of their top folks in terms of running
Speaker 1: their ESG efforts. They actually became a whistleblower and were like,
Speaker 1: this is all bullshit greenwashing. All it does is give
Speaker 1: people like a happy, fuzzy feeling that oh, corporate America
Speaker 1: can fix the problems and don't worry about it. They've
Speaker 1: got it in conscientious capitalism. It's the wave of the
Speaker 1: future and we're all good to go. They said, this
Speaker 1: is nonsense. There as you were saying, Sager, they can
Speaker 1: easily gain the system to make the numbers come out,
Speaker 1: so it looks like their carbon neutral, looks like they're
Speaker 1: meeting their environmental goals whatever. But actually research has showed
Speaker 1: that so called ESG companies and funds actually do worse
Speaker 1: on environmentalism than non ESG funds. So I guess in
Speaker 1: that way, Sager, you are right that they have it
Speaker 1: has like actually been bad because they use this cloak
Speaker 1: in order to you know, appear like they're doing all
Speaker 1: the right things. And they're good on all these issues,
Speaker 1: when in reaction, they're able to be even worse than
Speaker 1: the companies that are not pretending.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's no. I me. I agree certainly
Speaker 3: on the latter.
Speaker 2: I think my point on the former though, is that
Speaker 2: you know, just because you've never had representation doesn't mean
Speaker 2: it's a good thing.
Speaker 3: You know, I actually do.
Speaker 2: I don't think well in terms of pension fund the example, like,
Speaker 2: in terms of a pension fund having no say or.
Speaker 3: Whatever, I think they should.
Speaker 2: I think people should have more impact and have thought
Speaker 2: into the stuff that they're investing in. So this is
Speaker 2: one of my bigger problems a lot with index funds,
Speaker 2: the lack of governance around some of them.
Speaker 3: You know what we have.
Speaker 2: I think I've done something on the past here about Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: You know, Bloomberg will include major Chinese multinational corporations that
Speaker 2: are industrial inside of its index fund that people will
Speaker 2: invest in the index fund. They don't even have any idea. Yeah,
Speaker 2: how much research do people really do when they, you know,
Speaker 2: invest in etio. My point is is that people should
Speaker 2: have the ability to not go on autopilot and have
Speaker 2: the US economy basically auto invest in stuff that you
Speaker 2: don't not only don't agree with, but is also bad
Speaker 2: for the country. I mean, you have to be a
Speaker 2: freak weirdo like me to actually go and read the
Speaker 2: perspective special.
Speaker 1: Sure well, And I don't want to ascribe to you
Speaker 1: the views of like Vivek Ramaswami. I would not be
Speaker 1: fair because it doesn't reflect you know, what you actually think.
Speaker 1: But I think it's fair to say on the right,
Speaker 1: the concern only goes in one direction. It's not this
Speaker 1: consistent like we should have transparency and people should know
Speaker 1: what they're investing in. It's you know, a value judgment
Speaker 1: about these particular things, and so DeSantis, for example, pulling
Speaker 1: funds from Black Rock, Ramaswami setting up his own fund
Speaker 1: that is being used to force companies to not care
Speaker 1: about these values. It's not that they want things to
Speaker 1: be neutral. It's that they have their own ideological agenda
Speaker 1: that they want to be represented by corporate America, that
Speaker 1: they felt like used to be reflected by corporate America,
Speaker 1: and you know, is not one hundred percent anymore. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, my big takeaway from all of this is
Speaker 1: that it's very surface. It's a very surface level conversation.
Speaker 1: And I think that's reflected by the fact that Larry Fink,
Speaker 1: who has been a leader in talking about this and
Speaker 1: you know and creating this whole space, can so easily
Speaker 1: walk away from it and be like, yeah, we're not
Speaker 1: doing that anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm over at amazing, but I'm still going to talk
Speaker 3: about social If this.
Speaker 1: Was such a core part this are your values and
Speaker 1: your consciente capitalism, whatever, you wouldn't be freaked out by
Speaker 1: a few presidential candidates or whatever calling out wokeness and
Speaker 1: saying esg and like demonizing the phrase you know, your
Speaker 1: core values, I think would supersede that. But apparently not
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 3: There is no core value on Wall Street except the.
Speaker 1: Dollar, the dollar, the almighty dollar. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to the big changes at Fox News post Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 1: They made a big announcement yesterday, put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. So they've got a reshuffling and an addition
Speaker 1: to their primetime lineup. So now the evening programming is
Speaker 1: going to go Laura Ingram, she was later in the evening.
Speaker 1: They're bumping her up to seven PM. Then filling in
Speaker 1: Tucker slot, you have Jesse Waters, so that's the big
Speaker 1: announcement is that Jesse Waters is taking over for Tucker
Speaker 1: at eight. Then you're gonna have Sean Hannity staying at nine,
Speaker 1: and you have Gutfeld moving into primetime at ten PM.
Speaker 1: This comes as post Tucker Fox News has been kind
Speaker 1: of struggling. Also, you know, MSNBC saw a big bump
Speaker 1: with the indictment news that they went all in on,
Speaker 1: and especially since CNN has sort of like lost faith
Speaker 1: with the liberal resistance types. So MSNBC has really benefited
Speaker 1: from that. However, Fox News has and I think we
Speaker 1: have this put this up on the screen. Fox News
Speaker 1: has regained their number one primetime spot, but Sager, they
Speaker 1: still are down like a third in primetime viewership post Tucker.
Speaker 1: So I think there's I personally think it's unlikely that
Speaker 1: Jesse Water is ever going to really you know, IOWA
Speaker 1: feel about Tucker obviously not a fan for a whole
Speaker 1: variety of reason. Also not a fan of Jesse Waters
Speaker 1: or literally any of the other people that I just mentioned.
Speaker 1: I think it's unlikely he's going to fill those shoes
Speaker 1: and be able to reclean those ratings. I also just
Speaker 1: think that that type of cable News stardom, as we've
Speaker 1: discussed in the past, is really on its way. It's
Speaker 1: just people have other options exactly.
Speaker 2: This just confirms what I really thought all along. They're
Speaker 2: purely in managed decline mode. They're not in the moonshot
Speaker 2: mode anymore. Tucker actually at the time was much more
Speaker 2: of a moonshot. They literally brought him out. He wasn't
Speaker 2: in the existing primetime lineup. They brought him in supposed
Speaker 2: to slott him into the ages.
Speaker 1: He go straight from weekend Fox.
Speaker 2: And so he was on Fox and Friends, Weekend Fox
Speaker 2: and Friends, which is the true doul drums then was
Speaker 2: I think he was slotted in at like six o'clock,
Speaker 2: right in the middle of the O'Reilly mess, and then
Speaker 2: they moved him around, you know, specifically also when Meghan
Speaker 2: Kelly left, and to make him the eight PM. So
Speaker 2: the point though, is that with Jesse Waters, this is
Speaker 2: a known quantity on the Fox News program that somebody's
Speaker 2: literally been on for twenty something years.
Speaker 3: Who look, I think he's had a shot now.
Speaker 2: And if he was gonna be a star, he would
Speaker 2: have been a star already at this point. He was
Speaker 2: the anchor, I guess of the five and The problem
Speaker 2: is that by slotting him in there, you're basically just accepting, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're gonna drop by a third, and we're just gonna
Speaker 2: roll with it.
Speaker 3: We're just gonna keep going down this path.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: Waters, Look again, I think the guy.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing about Jesse Waters. He's not original. There's
Speaker 2: nothing original about him. He's about his cookie cutter as
Speaker 2: Sean Hannon. He tries to borrow from some of the
Speaker 2: Tucker playbook to at least go in some interesting directions,
Speaker 2: and I think, unfortunately, you know, just in the long run,
Speaker 2: like that's just not going to work for the cable
Speaker 2: news platform itself if you're thinking from the perspective of Murdoch,
Speaker 2: who's actually running it. But you still got a multi
Speaker 2: billion dollar enterprise on your hand, so you might as
Speaker 2: well just you know, keep the trains on time running.
Speaker 2: This is what MSNBC has done with Alice Wagner. This
Speaker 2: is now what they're doing over at Fox, I mean
Speaker 2: over at CNN, they're like basically not even trying anymore
Speaker 2: to try and you know, trying to get more people
Speaker 2: to watch you know, whatever the hell was going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah over there.
Speaker 2: So this is this is it, Like this is what
Speaker 2: decline looks like. So in that way, I guess we
Speaker 2: should celebrate. I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're still going to have a lot of cultural power.
Speaker 1: Like I don't want people to delude themselves about that.
Speaker 1: All of these networks are going to continue to have
Speaker 1: a lot of cultural power because the last people that
Speaker 1: will be watching these shows are like the denizens of
Speaker 1: the city that we live in, and you know, unfortunately
Speaker 1: they have a lot of power. So it still matters
Speaker 1: a lot would have said on these airwaves. But you know,
Speaker 1: the other piece is if you are someone who is
Speaker 1: original and you know, creative and is saying things that
Speaker 1: aren't being said elsewhere. Number One, that's a risk for
Speaker 1: cable news. They like people who sound the same and
Speaker 1: are predictable in their you know, who they're outraged at
Speaker 1: and how they portray things, et cetera. That's easier for them,
Speaker 1: it's easier for their audience to make sure that everybody's
Speaker 1: staying in line, easier for their political allies and their advertisers,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But also, like, if you are going to
Speaker 1: take that shot of doing something different, there's just so
Speaker 1: many other places that you can go where You're going
Speaker 1: to be able to aren't a good living, You're going
Speaker 1: to be able to have a lot more freedom, not
Speaker 1: have the bullshit that comes with being on cable news
Speaker 1: and having a corporate boss and the whims of your
Speaker 1: fate hanging, you know, by the arbitrary decisions of some
Speaker 1: random person and a c suite. So yeah, another sign
Speaker 1: of the times, more evidence that every single one of
Speaker 1: these cable news networks is looking at the writing on
Speaker 1: the wall and they are are saying that the best
Speaker 1: they can hope for is just to you know, hold
Speaker 1: on to what they've got for as long as possible.
Speaker 2: Right, And actually, one major sign that things in terms
Speaker 2: of the Tucker direction are done, let's put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. Sources apparently saying that Fox terminated
Speaker 2: all of Tucker's former staff. They still, though, want them
Speaker 2: remaining employees to continue working until mid July. According to
Speaker 2: a former Tucker staffer, They say that they were told
Speaker 2: that they had to keep producing the Fox News Tonight
Speaker 2: show until the show ends in July, at which point
Speaker 2: they will be tournament terminated.
Speaker 3: If they do not.
Speaker 2: Comply, then they will lose all of their severance. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, so pretty unceremonious in terms of getting kicked
Speaker 2: to the curb because they were seen as too loyal
Speaker 2: to the previous talent.
Speaker 3: I guess Jesse.
Speaker 2: Waters will bring in his waters world, you know whatever,
Speaker 2: the old guys from the O'Reilly's staff to come and
Speaker 2: run it.
Speaker 3: So good luck Jesse. I guess I don't think he's
Speaker 3: going to work out.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the big story of the day, which is,
Speaker 1: as we tease the beginning, we have officially hit one
Speaker 1: million subscribers. In fact, we kind of shot past it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we certainly did.
Speaker 1: We gave ourselves a little bit of wiggle room.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: Looks like we're right now at one million, two thousand.
Speaker 1: Let me refresh here, make sure it's accurate. Get us
Speaker 1: the one million, two three hundred and thirty. And we
Speaker 1: cannot say thank you enough to you guys for being here,
Speaker 1: for some of you from back Rising days coming on
Speaker 1: board right when we launched, and also for getting us
Speaker 1: over a million so we could give Sager a proper
Speaker 1: send off for wedding ceremony number one.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that very much, everybody for stepping up, not
Speaker 2: just for me, I mean, this is even just about us.
Speaker 3: I think it's about everyone. I mean, we're in a
Speaker 3: very unique position.
Speaker 2: I've been thinking about this a lot, which is we
Speaker 2: eat Crystal have not now built one channel to a million.
Speaker 3: We have built two channels to a million. And very
Speaker 3: few people in.
Speaker 2: This life can say that they've done any thing like that,
Speaker 2: specifically in four years, which I think is crazy.
Speaker 3: And you know, it was a huge risk.
Speaker 2: There were multiple times where we didn't know if this
Speaker 2: was going to work, you know, should we leave, should
Speaker 2: we not leave. There were multiple people who told us
Speaker 2: that we would be okay. But it's one thing to
Speaker 2: hear it on the end of a phone and one
Speaker 2: thing to actually see it materialize. And you know, we
Speaker 2: were deeply worried about our ability to recoup the subscriber
Speaker 2: base that we had built over at the Hill. Obviously
Speaker 2: that was delaid pretty soon, you know, after we launched.
Speaker 2: But again it was a gamble and it was one
Speaker 2: which ultimately did pay off, of which we're very lucky,
Speaker 2: and we owe everybody who stepped up for us and
Speaker 2: for in a four year period, actually exactly four years.
Speaker 3: I was looking back.
Speaker 2: I sent you that photo yesterday from June of two
Speaker 2: thousand and nineteen was the first time that we were
Speaker 2: officially kind of hosting Rising together, and that time we
Speaker 2: had six thousand YouTube subscribers six thousand the day that
Speaker 2: we started over at the Hill, so I mean I
Speaker 2: basically count that as zero. We built that the day
Speaker 2: we left was one point three five million. And then
Speaker 2: you know, to be here, you know, four years later,
Speaker 2: almost to the day, having built two channels to a million,
Speaker 2: is you know, a testament really to the people who
Speaker 2: believe so much in the way that we do our show.
Speaker 2: And there are you know, so many people who we've
Speaker 2: heard from about one million, who are like I subscribed,
Speaker 2: I created like seven Gmail accounts, like I got my
Speaker 2: mom to subscribe, I got my dad to subscribe, my
Speaker 2: sister whatever.
Speaker 3: I mean, that just shows us how much it means
Speaker 3: to you and to you all of you.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're just so thankful. Our producers put this
Speaker 2: together a little montage. Let's go and put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen.
Speaker 1: That's me day one, the old set, that was the
Speaker 1: original that.
Speaker 3: Was the original one.
Speaker 2: There was you you know, if you could see there,
Speaker 2: there's ourp that was our New York show, Marshall and Kyle.
Speaker 2: That was our first count points. That was our play
Speaker 2: button that arrived actually right when we launched. And then
Speaker 2: there we go the obviously the brand new set, there's
Speaker 2: the there's the graphic, the official one.
Speaker 1: Million, brilliant foresight to actually record shout out to our
Speaker 1: social I recorded as well, but I did it in
Speaker 1: the most boomer way pop of using my phone to
Speaker 1: record the screen on my laptop. But yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to There's a lot I want to say. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, as you were alluding to soccer, the
Speaker 1: most painful part of leaving Rising was after I mean,
Speaker 1: we worked really hard to build that channel and now
Speaker 1: to walk away from when we just had not that
Speaker 1: long ago, hit a million subscribers. That was that hurt.
Speaker 1: That definitely hurt. That was definitely one of the hardest
Speaker 1: parts of walking away from there, because you know, you
Speaker 1: hope that things are going to work out, but there
Speaker 1: was a real chance that we were never going to
Speaker 1: see that number again. And to do it on our
Speaker 1: own terms, to do it independent instead of under a
Speaker 1: corporate brand, it means so much more. And you know,
Speaker 1: the show has shifted and changed a lot as the
Speaker 1: news has developed, as what you all have been looking
Speaker 1: for has changed. Thank you so much for sticking with
Speaker 1: us through all of that, whether it was the height
Speaker 1: of a political cycle, whether it was during COVID, whether
Speaker 1: it was during the Ukraine War, any of the crazy
Speaker 1: twist and turns of our politics that you all have
Speaker 1: shown up to hear what we have to say. I
Speaker 1: cannot say enough how seriously we take that and how
Speaker 1: much it means to us. So thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. I also want to say shout out to
Speaker 1: our whole crew that have been amazing. I mean it's
Speaker 1: been a lot for everybody, building the set, figuring out
Speaker 1: the tech, figuring out the lights, figuring out the sound,
Speaker 1: all of that, and these guys have been, you know,
Speaker 1: working long hours to make this all look as great
Speaker 1: as it possibly can. We're still continuing to learn and
Speaker 1: tweak and grow on that front. And special shout out
Speaker 1: to our producers, Griffin and Mack. I said this to
Speaker 1: them privately, but I'll say it publicly as well. It
Speaker 1: is no accident that we're able now to accelerate and
Speaker 1: achieve this miles own with them on board, and you
Speaker 1: know they haven't even been here a full year yet,
Speaker 1: but the impact that both of them have had on
Speaker 1: the show, on the level of professionalism, on what we're
Speaker 1: able to do and focus on because they have so
Speaker 1: much of the rest of the operation handled has truly
Speaker 1: been second to none. Of These guys are absolutely incredible
Speaker 1: and so thank you guys out there. Thank you to
Speaker 1: Mac and Griffin. Thanks to all of you premium subscribers,
Speaker 1: YouTube subscribers are all playing your part and helping to
Speaker 1: fund their salaries, fund this operation, fund the new set,
Speaker 1: and get us to this point.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the premiums in particular, you guys had our back
Speaker 2: from day one. You gave us the confidence, the ability
Speaker 2: to invest continuing the show, to hire the best talent
Speaker 2: possible that we could find out there, and to find
Speaker 2: people who care as much about the show as you do.
Speaker 2: And that's what you know, the two of us we
Speaker 2: hammer home every day, which is like these there are
Speaker 2: real people behind the screen.
Speaker 3: They care a lot about the show.
Speaker 2: They've invested in this and every single one of us
Speaker 2: is going to work our asses off to make sure
Speaker 2: that they get the best possible experisperience that they deserve,
Speaker 2: that they paid for, and to be able to spread
Speaker 2: it to everyone that they possibly can. So look, we
Speaker 2: will never ever ever take anything that we do for granted,
Speaker 2: some of this still doesn't even feel real. You know
Speaker 2: what it's like now, I swear I was just doing
Speaker 2: the show. We're starting a rising like yesterday. I can't
Speaker 2: believe it's for every time I.
Speaker 1: Look at the show now, it's still like, whoa look
Speaker 1: at her set set?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's nuts, you know, to just let it all
Speaker 3: sink in.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to be too self indulgent or
Speaker 2: whatever about this, And that's why I think we should
Speaker 2: just focus the bulk of our Thanks to everybody who
Speaker 2: has watched this rising.
Speaker 1: You've got an end of the deal to hang hold
Speaker 1: up there.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: So I said I would do it, and I will
Speaker 2: be back my very first show.
Speaker 3: I'm probably gonna be pre jet lagged, so forgive me.
Speaker 3: I will be in full Indian garb and in sneakers
Speaker 3: and uh maybe i'll even while I'm in India.
Speaker 2: I'll tweet out some images and let people decide what
Speaker 2: the garb should be, which one I should go with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'll make it a.
Speaker 2: More of inexperience. I'll let the premiums decide about that.
Speaker 2: I'll send it to Griffin. I'll send everybody some options.
Speaker 2: You guys can decide what it's going to be, and
Speaker 2: that's what I'll do. I'll show up in the show
Speaker 2: that I made a commitment to everybody man in my word,
Speaker 2: I've eaten a sock here on I've what else have
Speaker 2: I done?
Speaker 8: I wore a.
Speaker 2: Hoodie with a suit, which is one of the most
Speaker 2: heinous things I've ever done, crime against fashion. I'm ready
Speaker 2: to do it again, to wear my Indian gar with sneakers,
Speaker 2: which I don't think anyone should do, but people apparently
Speaker 2: wanted to see it. I'm told that was one of
Speaker 2: the main reasons that many people.
Speaker 1: And we'll do what it takes you. I'll do any
Speaker 1: shame in our game.
Speaker 2: If it makes feel happy, then so be it. So
Speaker 2: that's what we care about the most here over at
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 3: That's it. Thank you, guys, We appreciate you. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Great guest standing by. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1: Excited to speak with a new guest on the show today.
Speaker 1: We have Josh Jess. He is investigations editor for The
Speaker 1: Verge and he just wrote a fascinating new story in
Speaker 1: partnership with New York Magazine on the human costs of AI, Josh.
Speaker 3: Great to have you, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's our pleasure. Let's go and put your piece
Speaker 1: up on the screen so folks can take a look
Speaker 1: at the tear sheet. Here, you were able to report
Speaker 1: on the human beings who are doing a lot of
Speaker 1: the legwork behind the AI that a lot of us
Speaker 1: are engaging with in our lives, sometimes without even realizing it.
Speaker 1: The headline here is AI is a lot of work.
Speaker 1: As the technology becomes ubiquitous, a vast tasker underclass is
Speaker 1: emerging and not going anywhere. So just tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about what you found.
Speaker 10: So AI is trained on data, but before that can happen,
Speaker 10: humans need to go in and curate or label, or
Speaker 10: sometimes tailor make that data. The system behind this data
Speaker 10: production or annotation as it's often called, is super opaque.
Speaker 10: There's data vendors, private companies, or platforms where people from
Speaker 10: all around the world do this work. They often don't
Speaker 10: know who they're working for. So I wanted to find
Speaker 10: out more about how that system works and how it's
Speaker 10: changed as.
Speaker 7: AI has developed.
Speaker 10: As we've seen kind of the move toward these lars
Speaker 10: language models like chat cheapt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so tell us a little bit about like
Speaker 2: how this will expand in the future as chat, GPT
Speaker 2: and other lms become ubiquitous. We've seen the Googles, I
Speaker 2: believe this Google AI chief came out and said, Oh,
Speaker 2: we're going to come out with something soon that's going
Speaker 2: to crush chat, chept and all of this. It's not
Speaker 2: all software, it's millions of humans. As you describe, what
Speaker 2: does that look like?
Speaker 10: Yeah, so it looks like if you've I'm sure you've
Speaker 10: done capture before.
Speaker 7: I don't approve you're not a robot.
Speaker 10: I think that's also data annotation, and so it's sort
Speaker 10: of a very sophisticated form of that, at least the
Speaker 10: image labeling stuff. It's you know, tracing outlines of traffic
Speaker 10: cones at a pixel level to frame by frame for
Speaker 10: self driving cars, and then with texts, it's chatting with
Speaker 10: chatbots and then critiquing their responses based on a bunch
Speaker 10: of different criteria. There's also so elements of it where
Speaker 10: you're writing, you're sort of pretending to be the chatbot
Speaker 10: that you know the engineers want to have, and you're
Speaker 10: giving good answers for questions writing computer code if you
Speaker 10: want it to be able to program, and so that's
Speaker 10: all sort of the launch process. And there's a conception
Speaker 10: often that you know, you just do this work, you
Speaker 10: need this work to sort of get started, and then
Speaker 10: the model is good enough that it doesn't need the
Speaker 10: humans anymore. What I found is that there's a growing
Speaker 10: recognition that's not really how it works.
Speaker 7: One, you know, if you want to keep getting.
Speaker 10: Better AI, you need more people doing new, often trickier
Speaker 10: forms of annotation. And then also because these systems are
Speaker 10: really brittle, like they struggle in situations that aren't represented
Speaker 10: in their training data. Whenever they're encountering something like that,
Speaker 10: or the world changes, or you know, there's an event
Speaker 10: in the news that now people are talking about, you
Speaker 10: need humans to go in and sort of add more data, annotate.
Speaker 7: The data, kind of keep these systems up to date.
Speaker 10: And so one of the things that we're seeing is
Speaker 10: these systems are out and the world more, they're running
Speaker 10: into more of these educases, and you need more humans
Speaker 10: kind of standing by to help them out.
Speaker 1: So you talk to some of the people who do
Speaker 1: this as their work. They don't even really call it jobs,
Speaker 1: you say, they call themselves taskers, Like what is the
Speaker 1: day to day reality of existence for these individuals.
Speaker 7: It varies a lot. So I talked to a lot
Speaker 7: of this work.
Speaker 10: It's done on these kind of game platform things where
Speaker 10: you sign up and you know, it's one of these
Speaker 10: ins that offers work from home. You maybe take some
Speaker 10: tests that qualify you for certain tasks, and there will
Speaker 10: be some project it has some intecutable code name like pillbox,
Speaker 10: Bratwurst or something is something you know, maybe maybe you're
Speaker 10: talking to the chatbot and it's there and you're getting
Speaker 10: paid a couple cents or maybe a few dollars for
Speaker 10: every task that you do, and you don't really know
Speaker 10: how long it's going to last. So if there's something
Speaker 10: that's paying well, people tend to just sort of do
Speaker 10: it as much as they can, work the longest hours
Speaker 10: they possibly can, you know, possibly stay up for days
Speaker 10: to do it, because at some point the data won't
Speaker 10: be needed anymore for a while anyway, and the project
Speaker 10: will end and then you'll have to, you know, hopefully,
Speaker 10: in the best case scenario, you have to learn how
Speaker 10: to do a new task and start working on that.
Speaker 10: In the worst case, there's just nothing and then you're
Speaker 10: out of work for some unknown amount of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was kind of my question is that obviously
Speaker 2: this is a vulnerability, and since these people are all
Speaker 2: about automation and software, are they trying to automate these
Speaker 2: people out of existence?
Speaker 7: Josh, very yet, very much.
Speaker 10: So there's I mean, this data is also very expensive,
Speaker 10: and so there's a lot of work being done to
Speaker 10: automate it. And if you look at the history of
Speaker 10: machine learning development, it's kind of always being automated away.
Speaker 10: But then it's also you know, that doesn't mean that
Speaker 10: you don't need annotation anymore.
Speaker 7: It just means you need a different type of annotation.
Speaker 10: So like the early image recognition stuff, you know, people
Speaker 10: went through and they labeled cats and dogs and airplanes
Speaker 10: and buses or whatever. That is all. You know, that's easy.
Speaker 10: Now that's all automated away. But then it enables self
Speaker 10: driving cars and that requires even more people doing even
Speaker 10: more technical and tricky annotation and labeling because the stakes
Speaker 10: are higher and the world was complicated and trying to
Speaker 10: get a self driving car to navigate it is extremely difficult.
Speaker 1: So it seems to me, like I mean, the fears,
Speaker 1: some of the worries with AI and especially with you know,
Speaker 1: some of the large language models, is that it will
Speaker 1: automate out of existence a number of at this point,
Speaker 1: you know, fairly well paying white collar jobs. Part of
Speaker 1: why I think there's been so much attention in the
Speaker 1: media is because it's sort of like an existential threat
Speaker 1: to the professional class that the media represents, which you know,
Speaker 1: as understand what was important story. It seems like what
Speaker 1: you're documenting here is it's not that job are going
Speaker 1: to go away. It's that instead of having these white
Speaker 1: collar jobs, that part might be automated out of existence. Instead,
Speaker 1: you're swapping these you know, relatively well paid jobs where
Speaker 1: you have some amount of power in your workplace, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And it's not just completely anonymous. You're not just completely
Speaker 1: like in a vacuum alone crunching these tasks for this
Speaker 1: sort of like global underclass that has zero power in
Speaker 1: terms of what they're doing day to day, zero predictability,
Speaker 1: zero labor rights certainly zero like union rights or ability
Speaker 1: to collectively organize. Is that kind of the bigger picture
Speaker 1: of what you're getting at here.
Speaker 7: I think that's the risk.
Speaker 10: Yeah, And then I think that's why it's important to
Speaker 10: be aware that this is happening behind the seams with
Speaker 10: these systems, because it's not it's not going to be
Speaker 10: a you know, a robot comes and replaces you at
Speaker 10: your job. I think will be something like this where
Speaker 10: maybe you're now part of this global digital assembly line
Speaker 10: and you do one piece of annotation passed off to
Speaker 10: some other system that goes somewhere else, some other human
Speaker 10: No one knows who is where, and so it's quite
Speaker 10: difficult to push for better conditions and you bear the
Speaker 10: cost of all the kind of precarity.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, when there's no work, you're not getting paid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is the gig economy on steroids. Basically,
Speaker 1: you don't even know who your fellow taskers are. You
Speaker 1: have no connection with them, no communication with them whatsoever.
Speaker 1: The other part that really intrigued me, Josh, as you
Speaker 1: were talking about part of the annotating and training for
Speaker 1: the chatbots is like giving them examples of what are
Speaker 1: good answers. That doesn't sound easy. That sounds like it'd
Speaker 1: be tricky to do, that sounds like and it's not
Speaker 1: straightforward like it seems like there would be a lot
Speaker 1: of subjective interpretations and judgment calls that would have to
Speaker 1: be made there, so talk about that and what the
Speaker 1: potential impacts there are.
Speaker 7: It's definitely really tricky because.
Speaker 10: You're trying to sort of give these systems examples of
Speaker 10: what you want them to do, but they don't always
Speaker 10: take the right lesson from it, I guess you could say,
Speaker 10: and so you need to, you know, at the simplest level,
Speaker 10: with something like here's an example of a question. Now
Speaker 10: I need to answer it accurately in sort of the
Speaker 10: right kind of style, uh whatever else, you know, only
Speaker 10: containing information that's containing the prompt or or whatever.
Speaker 7: And then the system learns to mimic it.
Speaker 10: But maybe you know, it doesn't actually learn how to
Speaker 10: fact check or you know, think logically. It just sort
Speaker 10: of learns how to sound really similar to end up
Speaker 10: with these systems that you know are just like extremely
Speaker 10: good at sounding plausible, which is super dangerous. I mean,
Speaker 10: it has sometimes hilarious outcomes and potentially quite quite dangerous
Speaker 10: outcomes that these things are just extremely good bullshitters.
Speaker 7: And so that's a little bit what the risk is there.
Speaker 7: But it's also just difficult work.
Speaker 10: It's like you it's sort of like it's kind of
Speaker 10: like taking a really tricky standardized test where it's like this.
Speaker 10: It's binds nature subjective because it's language and you're partiguing
Speaker 10: some written text on a bunch of different criteria.
Speaker 7: But if it doesn't line up with however your.
Speaker 10: Third level employer is doing quality assurance, then you can
Speaker 10: get banned and you don't really know why.
Speaker 2: Well, well, it was a really interesting interview, Josh. I
Speaker 2: encourage everybody to go and read the piece. We're going
Speaker 2: to link down in the description by the magazine too.
Speaker 2: I guess if all that stuff helps. And we appreciate
Speaker 2: your time, man, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks Josh, great to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you guys so much for watching. We
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: The next time you see me, it'll be an Indian
Speaker 2: garbine and sneakers. I guess I'll be technically married and
Speaker 2: not under any technical law, but I guess under higher law.
Speaker 3: Right, that's the one that counts. Actually, what really counts.
Speaker 2: As the happiness of my grandparents, so all are over
Speaker 2: ninety years old. They're very happy that to be able
Speaker 2: to have this ceremony there, and I want to thank
Speaker 2: my fiance and her family also for making it work.
Speaker 2: It's not the easiest journey, so I've got a flight
Speaker 2: tonight to New Delhi.
Speaker 3: I'm excited, I guess to be on it.
Speaker 2: I'm going to miss everybody here on the show, but
Speaker 2: Emily's going to do a great job, and I'm really
Speaker 2: glad that we got to do a million together.
Speaker 3: Crystal.
Speaker 1: Congratulations to you. Congratulations the whole Breaking Points community and
Speaker 1: family on a million subscribers. I'm actually going to be
Speaker 1: in for Ryan tomorrow and then so Emily and I
Speaker 1: are going to be doing a share tomorrow Counterpoints, and
Speaker 1: we'll be doing the show on Thursday as well. So
Speaker 1: I will see you tomorrow and Sager will see you
Speaker 1: whenever he decides I will.
Speaker 3: I'll be back. I think it's July eighth or something
Speaker 3: like something like that. I'll be back, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: Love you guys. We'll both see soon.