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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here

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Speaker 1: and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade

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Speaker 1: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent

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Speaker 1: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,

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Speaker 1: it means the absolute world to have your support. What

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Speaker 1: are you waiting for? Become a premium subscriber today at

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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have

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Speaker 1: an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have

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Speaker 1: bristl Indeed we do. Boy, oh boy, do we have

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Speaker 1: a show for you today. So we're going to jump

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Speaker 1: in this morning with one of the indictments against a

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Speaker 1: Sam Bankman freed has been unsealed from the SEC. So

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Speaker 1: we will give you everything you need to know about

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Speaker 1: exactly what is in there, and it is comprehensive, it

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Speaker 1: is in depth. They went all in, so we'll get

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Speaker 1: to that. We also have new Twitter files broken by

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Speaker 1: Barry Weiss that we will get into as well, with

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Speaker 1: the communications specifically that led to Donald Trump being banned

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Speaker 1: from Twitter and some of the glaring inconsistencies in the

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Speaker 1: way that Twitter applied their policies or didn't apply their policies.

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Speaker 1: We also have a massive breakthrough in terms of potential

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Speaker 1: clean energy. This is something that scientists have been working

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Speaker 1: on for decades. I went in deep on this yesterday

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Speaker 1: to try to understand exactly what it is and what

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Speaker 1: it means. How long until this could actually be commercially viable,

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Speaker 1: So we'll talk about that. We've also got new nuclear

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Speaker 1: threats from Vladimir Putin. What does all of that mean?

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Speaker 1: And we have a delicious clip of R and C

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Speaker 1: chair ro Romney McDaniel getting pressed on, hey, isn't Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump kind of a problem for the Republican Party? She,

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Speaker 1: of course, very uncomfortable, and we're really lucky. I would

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Speaker 1: like to say that we planned for the SBF indictment

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Speaker 1: to drop today, and we have coffee Zilla on, who

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Speaker 1: has been one of the most effective commentators, both in

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Speaker 1: terms of directly interviewing SBF, but also in terms of

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Speaker 1: seeing this guy as the fraud that he absolutely was

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Speaker 1: long before the mainstream press ultimately caught on. So very

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Speaker 1: excited to talk to him this morning. But let's jump

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Speaker 1: into that now. Unsealed indictment. Just got the indictment this

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Speaker 1: morning from the SEC or just say SEC complaint. The

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Speaker 1: actual indictment from the Southern District of New York is

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Speaker 1: yet to be released. So here we have the initial

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Speaker 1: SEC filing complaint against Samuel Bankmanfreed, and let's just go

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Speaker 1: through it, and it starts out with this. From at

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Speaker 1: least May of twenty nineteen through November of twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: Bankmin Freed engaged in a scheme to defraud equity investors

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Speaker 1: in FTX to crypto asset trading platform which he was

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Speaker 1: a CEO and co founder that he was also defrauding

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Speaker 1: the platform's customers. He raised one point eight billion from investors,

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Speaker 1: including US investors, who bought an equity stake in FTX,

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Speaker 1: believing that FTX had appropriate controls and risk management measures.

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Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to those investors and to customers, Bankman Freed was

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Speaker 1: orchest trading a massive years long fraud, diverting billions of

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Speaker 1: dollars to the trading platform's customer funds for his own

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Speaker 1: personal benefit to help grow his crypto empire and crystal

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Speaker 1: He was also I would be remiss. I did a

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Speaker 1: breaking segment on this last night, but let's put it

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Speaker 1: up there on the screen. Regardless, he was arrested last

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Speaker 1: night by Behamian authorities, taken into custody with the expectation

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Speaker 1: of the US Department of Justice filing for extradition. Go

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Speaker 1: to the next one there please as well. This is

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Speaker 1: what we're awaiting still continually in actual indictment by the

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Speaker 1: US Attorney's Office from the Southern District of New York

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Speaker 1: with the expected charge of wirefraud. But the SEC complaint

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Speaker 1: that we're going through and have in front of us

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Speaker 1: right now Crystal is just damning in its own right.

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Speaker 1: You can see they're personally holding him responsible for a

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Speaker 1: year's long, multi billion dollar fraud. Yeah, so just to clarify,

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Speaker 1: this is the SEC's civil charges of fraud. There will

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Speaker 1: be additional criminal charges against him. Those are expected later today,

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Speaker 1: as you said, from the Southern District of New York,

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Speaker 1: and the expected charges there are wirefraud. But what we

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Speaker 1: wanted to do is to actually go through the first

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Speaker 1: bit where the government really lays out their case here,

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Speaker 1: because it's very understandable and it has a lot of

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Speaker 1: incredibly key details. In that very first paragraph that Saber

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Speaker 1: read the thing that jumps out at me is the

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Speaker 1: fact that this has been going on for a long time.

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Speaker 1: They say, since at least May of twenty nineteen. SBF

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Speaker 1: has basically been lying to and defrauding his customers. Now,

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Speaker 1: just to back up for a second, for those of

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Speaker 1: you who are forgetting the details or haven't followed closely

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Speaker 1: the details, SBF was involved in two different firms. One

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Speaker 1: of them is called FTX that was basically like a

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Speaker 1: sort of crypto brokerish where people felt like they could

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Speaker 1: park their money, including their fiat currency, and then it

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Speaker 1: would be safe. Maybe they get an interest rate return,

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Speaker 1: but if they were putting their money there, they had

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Speaker 1: an assurance terms of service from that platform that that

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Speaker 1: money would be there, it would be safe, it would

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Speaker 1: not be used to gamble on other ventures. So what

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Speaker 1: did he do. He used it to gamble on other

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Speaker 1: ventures through his other firm, Alameda, which is sort of

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Speaker 1: like a crypto hedge fund, which apparently did a terrible

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Speaker 1: job of trading and lost a whole bunch of money,

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Speaker 1: and the whole house of cards basically collapses when crypto

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Speaker 1: valuations start to plummet and go way down. So he

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Speaker 1: has long maintained like Alameda, even though this is the

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Speaker 1: firm he started, this was his original baby woman that

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Speaker 1: he used to were currently dated or on and off

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Speaker 1: or whatever is in charge of that. He likes to pretend, oh,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going on there, totally armslike relationship.

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Speaker 1: In all these interviews with the media he's been doing,

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Speaker 1: he's pretended like he had no idea what was actually

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Speaker 1: happening there. What the government lays out here is that

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Speaker 1: he was in direct control. He knew what was going on.

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Speaker 1: They in fact implemented direct mechanisms to make sure that

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Speaker 1: there was no transparency around the fact that these customer

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Speaker 1: funds were being siphoned and played with on the Alameda side.

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Speaker 1: And so this initial piece here just indicates this has

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Speaker 1: been going on for years and years. This is not

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Speaker 1: a new development. He's been defrauding customers basically the whole time, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: and they really are damning will continue in the second

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Speaker 1: paragraph here. Throughout the period, Bankment, free To portrayed himself

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Speaker 1: as responsible to leader of the crypto communities, touted the

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Speaker 1: importance of regulation and accountability. He told the public, including investors,

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Speaker 1: that FTX was innovative and responsible customers around the world

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Speaker 1: believed his lies and sent billions to FDx, believing their

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Speaker 1: assets were secure. But from the start he improperly diverted

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Speaker 1: customer assets to his privately held crypto hedge fund, Alamter Research,

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Speaker 1: and then use those customer funds to make undisclosed venture investments,

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Speaker 1: lavish real estate purchases, and large political donations. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that is just truly the smoking gun. Because what they

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Speaker 1: show and continue as you read on further into the

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Speaker 1: indictment in their expansion on this civil complas is that

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Speaker 1: he was actually both originating loans from Alameda in his

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Speaker 1: responsibility as an executive at the platform, and also was

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Speaker 1: the borrower of the loan. So he was originating over

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Speaker 1: a billion dollars in loans to himself without any proper accounting,

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Speaker 1: without any actual accountability. Furthermore, guys, he was doing this

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Speaker 1: with stolen customer funds. He's basically taking FTX money, transferring

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Speaker 1: it to Alameda, then borrowing personally against it, using that

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Speaker 1: cash actual FIAT dollars to make massive real estate investments

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Speaker 1: for himself for his parents in order to fund his

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Speaker 1: lavish lifestyle. He's not the only one. Other FTX employees

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Speaker 1: also borrowed up to half a billion dollars. Like the

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Speaker 1: amount of cash that they were siphoning off of Alameda

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Speaker 1: Research with customer funds is mind boggling when you're reading this.

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Speaker 1: And the other thing that I took note of in

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Speaker 1: this piece is basically all of his pr pls and

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Speaker 1: his positioning himself with the media and with politicians here

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Speaker 1: is like the good guy of crypto, and oh I

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Speaker 1: want regulation, and oh I'm this great philanthropist. Here it

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Speaker 1: comes back to bite them because they say, basically, you

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Speaker 1: were full of it. This was all of farce. It

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Speaker 1: was all a ruse. And in fact, while you were

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Speaker 1: portraying yourself as the golden boy of crypto and getting

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Speaker 1: these puff pieces in the media, what you were really

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Speaker 1: doing was stealing money from your customers to fund your

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Speaker 1: own lavish lifestyle. So it's not just that you were

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Speaker 1: stealing the money to engage in these risky bets. I

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Speaker 1: mean that's bad enough to start with. You were also

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Speaker 1: directly taking those funds for yourself to purchase property, to

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Speaker 1: fund your lifestyle, to buy multimillion dollar property for your parents,

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Speaker 1: something that he also denied having any knowledge of. All

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Speaker 1: I had no idea what happened, And let's recall too,

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Speaker 1: to your Pointzager about how he wasn't the only executive

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Speaker 1: that was, you know, cashing in using the customer funds

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Speaker 1: when this whole thing starts to collapse. Were reports that

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Speaker 1: millions upon millions of dollars were withdrawn from FTX, So

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Speaker 1: whatever assets were remaining there that perhaps customers could have

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Speaker 1: been able to withdraw to be made whole in the

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Speaker 1: end of this thing, those appear to have been siphoned

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Speaker 1: off at the end as well as they all just

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Speaker 1: did their final cash grad to get out of this thing. Yep,

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Speaker 1: next paragraph here. Bankman Freed hid all of this from

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Speaker 1: FTX equity investors, including US investors, from who he sought

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Speaker 1: billions of dollars in additional funds. He repeatedly cast FTX

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Speaker 1: as innovative and conservative trailblazer. He told investors that FTX

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Speaker 1: had top notch, sophisticated, automated risk measures in place to

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Speaker 1: protect assets, that those assets were safe, and that Alameda

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Speaker 1: was just another platform customer with no special privileges. Those

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Speaker 1: statements were false and misleading. In truth, Bankman Freed exempted

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Speaker 1: Alameda from the risk mitigation measures and provided Alameda with

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Speaker 1: significant special treatment on the FTX platform, including a quote

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Speaker 1: virtually unlimited line of credit funded directly by the platform's customers.

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Speaker 1: So there it is, which is that he lied to

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Speaker 1: US investors. And let's all be honest here. The sec

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Speaker 1: in the Department of Justice is not going after a

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Speaker 1: bankman freed just for simply ripping off customers. They're going

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Speaker 1: after him because some of the biggest billionaires and venture

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Speaker 1: capitalists in the United States got scammed out of billions

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Speaker 1: of dollars when he lied to them. And that's also

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Speaker 1: where they have him dead to rights on any sort

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Speaker 1: of wire fraud charge when they knowingly prove that he

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Speaker 1: lied to these investors when he was seeking their capital.

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Speaker 1: You wire it through a US bank. Well, it's actually

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Speaker 1: not that hard to get you correct, bord of law

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Speaker 1: now correct? Yeah, I mean that's a lot of people

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Speaker 1: sort of speculate, Oh, he may not go to prison

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Speaker 1: because he funded political donations and all of this. It's

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Speaker 1: actually quite the opposite. Yes, they were friendly with him

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Speaker 1: when they were getting that cash that is now dried up,

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Speaker 1: and now he has publicly humiliated and embarrassed that and

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Speaker 1: they will not stand for that. They I mean, this

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Speaker 1: man is going to prison, make no bones about it.

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Speaker 1: Let's just say that's allegedly blah blah blah, but he's

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Speaker 1: going to prison. And just some of the specificity around

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Speaker 1: what they're talking about here, how Alameda was given special

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Speaker 1: treatment on the platform. They had a multi billion dollar

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Speaker 1: liability that again SBF claimed in interviews, I had no

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Speaker 1: idea it was this big. I had no idea really

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Speaker 1: what was going on. Well, they had a special internal

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Speaker 1: account in the FTX database, and this is further down

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Speaker 1: in the complaint that wasn't tied to Alameda but was

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Speaker 1: instead called FIAT at ftx dot com. Characterizing the amount

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Speaker 1: of customer funds sent to Alameda as an internal FTX

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Speaker 1: account had the effect of concealing Alameda's liability in ftx's

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Speaker 1: internal systems. So that's the crucial detail about how exactly

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Speaker 1: they hid the fact that they were siphoning off billions

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Speaker 1: in customer funds to funnel to Alameda. They didn't have

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Speaker 1: like something on their books that said al stolen funds

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Speaker 1: that we shifted to Alameda. Instead, they used this sort

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Speaker 1: of like covert terminology that in fact did reflect an

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Speaker 1: internal accounting of how much money had been siphoned from

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Speaker 1: customer accounts into these risky speculative bets over at Alameda.

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Speaker 1: And also that's what enabled them to take these personal

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Speaker 1: loans and fund their extravagant lifestyle. This was the mechanism

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Speaker 1: by which they did that. Absolutely. Okay, let's go to

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Speaker 1: the next paragraph. While he spent lavishly on office space

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Speaker 1: and condominiums in the Bahamas and sank billions of customer

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Speaker 1: funds into speculative venture investments, his house of cards began

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Speaker 1: to crumble when the prices of crypto assets plummeted in

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Speaker 1: May of twenty twenty, Alameda lenders demanded repayment on billions

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Speaker 1: and loans. Despite the fact that Alameda had by this

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Speaker 1: point already taken billions of dollars of FTX customer assets,

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Speaker 1: it was still unable to satisfy loan obligations. Bankman Freed

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Speaker 1: then directed FTX to divert billions more in customer assets

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Speaker 1: to Alameda to ensure that the Alameda maintained its lending

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Speaker 1: relationships and that money could continue to flow in from

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Speaker 1: lenders and other investors. So it is not only the fraud,

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Speaker 1: it's the collapse of the assets that leads to initial

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Speaker 1: customer funds being used to float his hedge fund, and

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Speaker 1: then even more customer funds to be used. And again

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Speaker 1: it's all to satisfy not just Alameda out of the

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Speaker 1: goodness of his heart. It's because Alameda was the center

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Speaker 1: of his wealth, it was the center of his loans.

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Speaker 1: It was a center really of the criminal or alleged

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Speaker 1: criminal enterprise that was happening here because it was the

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Speaker 1: originator of the billions of dollars in personal cash to

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Speaker 1: so many of but not only SBF, but many of

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Speaker 1: the koachy and the people who are around him. That

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Speaker 1: is exactly, exactly correct. And you know, just to reiterate again,

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Speaker 1: the expectation spelled out in the terms of service for

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Speaker 1: customers who had their money sitting supposedly safely in their

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Speaker 1: accounts on FTX is that it would not be used

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Speaker 1: for any of this. So it's just outright clear direct fraud.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure SBF thought he could keep the balls in

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Speaker 1: the air, keep the effectively Ponzi scheme going, and then

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Speaker 1: once the bottom fell out of crypto prices, they started

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Speaker 1: to scramble. They started pulling even more customer cash to

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Speaker 1: keep Alameda solvent. And that's when the whole thing comes

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Speaker 1: tumbling down. Yeah, and then finally the last paragraph. But

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Speaker 1: bankmin Freed did not stop there. Even as it was

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Speaker 1: increasingly clear that Alameda and FTX could not make customer's hole,

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Speaker 1: he continued to misappropriate FTX funds and throughout the summer

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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, directed hundreds of millions more in

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Speaker 1: FTX customers to Alameda, which he then used for additional

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Speaker 1: venture investments and for loans to himself and other FTX executives.

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Speaker 1: All the while, he continued to make misleading statements to

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Speaker 1: investors but ftx's financial condition and risk management. Even in

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Speaker 1: November twenty twenty two, faced with billions of dollars in

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Speaker 1: demands that FTX could not fulfill, Bankmin Freed misled investors

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Speaker 1: from whom he needed money to plug a multi billion

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Speaker 1: dollar hole. His brazen multi year scheme came to an

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Speaker 1: end when FTX, Alameda, and their tangled web of affiliated

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Speaker 1: entities filed for bankruptcy on November eleven, twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 1: So it's only been a month since the entire collapse.

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Speaker 1: I think it just becomes increasingly clear here that given

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Speaker 1: the data and the bank statements and other things that

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Speaker 1: they are privy to. This did not all just crumble

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Speaker 1: from in that one week, faithful week of November for SBF.

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Speaker 1: It was a long long time coming. It really does.

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Speaker 1: I was reading a book about recently about the Madeoff case.

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Speaker 1: This is a lot like Madoff in terms of his

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Speaker 1: ability to keep it going. All he really needed was

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Speaker 1: enough assets to commingle and stuff around. His own personal

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Speaker 1: wealth was derived much from the fraud itself, and Bankment

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Speaker 1: Free seems to have orchestrated just a house of lives

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Speaker 1: that you know, it came undone by truly what is

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Speaker 1: a fluke. I think it probably would have eventually come

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Speaker 1: to light. Madoff himself knew that it would, you know,

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Speaker 1: almost twenty years before it did. But it could have

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Speaker 1: kept going for a long time if coin Telegraph had

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Speaker 1: not did a great job exactly. That is an amazing

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Speaker 1: thing to think about. There is a different universe in

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Speaker 1: which crypto prices don't collapse. He was able to keep

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Speaker 1: the scheme going. He's sort of able to get out

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Speaker 1: of this thing. He continues to be hailed as a

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Speaker 1: genius in a visionary and be feded in DC and

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Speaker 1: given media puff pieces that was a real possibility until

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Speaker 1: the bottom fell out in terms of crypto prices. There's

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Speaker 1: a couple more things to note in terms of the

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Speaker 1: details that are further down in this complaint. First of all,

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Speaker 1: they use both his tweets against him. You guys might

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Speaker 1: recall he put out a tweet infamously that was like,

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Speaker 1: we've got plenty of money, anyone can withdraw, no problem.

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Speaker 1: We didn't ever bet with customer funds. He then deleted

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Speaker 1: that tweet and they halted withdrawals and like filed for

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Speaker 1: bankruptcy immediately. So that was clearly a lie and Andrew

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Speaker 1: and he knew it at the time, allegedly. And they

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Speaker 1: also use some of the statements now that he's made

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Speaker 1: in the media as he's been on his little press

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Speaker 1: tour to try to, you know, try delusionally to rescue

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Speaker 1: his reputation here and try to avoid any sort of

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Speaker 1: legal scrutiny. Those statements some of them were used against

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Speaker 1: him in this complaint as well. Well. And then the

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Speaker 1: last thing I want to point out is the SEC

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Speaker 1: obviously put out a press release along with filing these charges,

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Speaker 1: and you know, they obviously go after Sam Bankman freed

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Speaker 1: and what he did at FTX and Alameda. They call

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Speaker 1: it a house of cards on a foundation of deception,

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Speaker 1: while telling investors it was one of the safest buildings

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Speaker 1: in crypto. There's also, though a bit of a warning

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Speaker 1: shot at other crypto fraudsters, because they say the alleged

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Speaker 1: fraud committed by mister Bankman Freed is a clarion call

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Speaker 1: to crypto platforms that they need to come into compliance

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Speaker 1: with our laws. Compliance protects both those who invest on

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Speaker 1: and those who invest in crypto platforms with time tested safeguards,

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Speaker 1: such as properly protecting customer funds, separating conflicting lines of business.

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Speaker 1: It also shines a light into trading platform conduct for

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Speaker 1: both investors through disclosure and regulators through examination authority. To

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Speaker 1: those platforms that do not comply with our securities laws,

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Speaker 1: the SEC's Enforcement Division is ready to take action. There's

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Speaker 1: been a little bit of a turf war between some

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Speaker 1: of the different regulatory bodies Commodity Futures Trading Commission and

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Speaker 1: the SEC in particular. There have been a lot of

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Speaker 1: debates about whether you need new regulations in order to

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Speaker 1: sort of bring crypto to heal. What Gunsler is saying

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Speaker 1: here basically is no, we have actually all the laws

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Speaker 1: we need to be able to come after you. If

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Speaker 1: you are perpetrating fraud, we will come after you. Be warned.

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Speaker 1: And this is quite a warning shot across the bow

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Speaker 1: for other people who are engaged in these types of schemes. Yep.

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Speaker 1: So there you go, guys. That's everything that we have

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Speaker 1: as of right now. We're still waiting on the DOJ indictment.

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Speaker 1: The only major question that I still have is why

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Speaker 1: didn't they let him testify? You know, because he was

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Speaker 1: about to testify under oath today before Congress, which would

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Speaker 1: have been let me kind of back at So it's possible.

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Speaker 1: So he was saying he wouldn't come to the US

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Speaker 1: because he was afraid of getting arrested. I think we have,

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Speaker 1: by the way that tweet where he said, quote, I

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Speaker 1: don't think that I'll be arrested. That's right. Yesterday, right

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Speaker 1: before he was arrested, he said, I don't think I

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Speaker 1: will be arrested. He said he didn't want to come

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Speaker 1: here because he was afraid of the paparazzi and because

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Speaker 1: I thought it would be too much of a media circus. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think we have almost certainly he got the notification.

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Speaker 1: He's like, you're going to be indicted, just so you're aware. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and maybe he's going to try and fight this in

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Speaker 1: Behavian extradition court, although the Prime Minister of the Bahamas

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Speaker 1: himself is like, look, we're ready to get this guy

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Speaker 1: the hell out of here. So I wouldn't count I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't count on any of that. I do wish they'd

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Speaker 1: let him testify under oath. They were about to grill him.

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Speaker 1: Several Republican legislators actually kind of pissed off about it

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Speaker 1: because they had questions ready. It's an interesting question. I think.

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Speaker 1: If I don't know, it could be a media event. Also,

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Speaker 1: as an SDNY wanted the credit to go after him

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Speaker 1: before he was taken into custody, or to take him

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Speaker 1: into custody first, and not like Congress take the credit. Regardless,

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Speaker 1: it's going to be good. We're going to have some

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Speaker 1: fun times. I think covering the story. The last thing

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Speaker 1: I'll say about this is remember that we covered that

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Speaker 1: story about how there were a number of legislators, both

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Speaker 1: Republican and Democrat, many of whom had received sam Pekman

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Speaker 1: read contributions, who basically had told regulators to layoff of

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Speaker 1: SBF and FTX, and you know that may end up

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Speaker 1: being incredibly faithful. It's something to really keep an eye

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Speaker 1: on here in terms of did they call off these

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Speaker 1: regulators so they were unable to or they decided they

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Speaker 1: were bullied and pressured into not pursuing charges, not digging

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Speaker 1: deeply into what was going on here until the whole

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Speaker 1: thing had already collapsed. I also wonder if they had

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Speaker 1: already started to develop some of this information before the

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Speaker 1: whole thing collapse, because this is this is very comprehensive.

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Speaker 1: It is you know, obviously long overdue in the sense

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Speaker 1: that it would be better to catch the fraudster before

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Speaker 1: all the funds are gone and missing and all the

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Speaker 1: customers screwed over. But in terms of post collapse, this

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Speaker 1: is actually relatively quick and timely in terms of the

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Speaker 1: SEC and the Department of Justice. So it'll be interesting

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Speaker 1: to know, you know, how that trajectory of how this

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Speaker 1: all ultimately unfolded. There you go, All right, let's move

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Speaker 1: on to the Twitter files. We thought we were going

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Speaker 1: to be leading the show with this one. It is noteworthy,

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Speaker 1: of course in itself, but SBF the biggest story. Let's

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Speaker 1: go ahead and put this up there on the screen.

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Speaker 1: Barry wis now releasing the latest element of the Twitter files.

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Speaker 1: This is from January eighth. The reason we're going to

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Speaker 1: spend some time here is January eighth was the day

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Speaker 1: that Donald Trump was officially banned for all time from Twitter.

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Speaker 1: It was the total deplatforming along with the beginning of

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Speaker 1: the Parla saga. And one of the things that we

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Speaker 1: found really interesting in the correspondence that Barry releases here

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Speaker 1: in the Twitter files is the total capricious nature through

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Speaker 1: which they arrived at this process. So, as you saw

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Speaker 1: in that screenshot, directly, Twitter executives were admitting, quote, it's

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Speaker 1: pretty obvious he's going to try and thread the needle

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Speaker 1: of incitement without violating the rules. Other staffers were pressuring saying, quote,

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Speaker 1: we have to do the right thing and ban this account.

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Speaker 1: And I think the reason why that's important is that

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Speaker 1: on the morning of January eight, Crystal, it was a

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Speaker 1: tacit acknowledgement not one tweet by Trump had technically violated

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Speaker 1: their terms of service, and from that day forward it

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Speaker 1: was basically social pressure from within the company that led

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Speaker 1: them to rewrite their rules to ban Trump and arrive

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Speaker 1: at the decision to do so. Yeah, because what we

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Speaker 1: had learned up to this point is they had basically

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Speaker 1: gotten an agreement from Jack that Okay, if he's got

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Speaker 1: a strike against him, if he violates any of the

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Speaker 1: terms of service at all, we're allowed to ban him.

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Speaker 1: And so they're closely watching hoping that he's going to

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Speaker 1: step over the line. There's a kind of internal debate

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Speaker 1: where they're trying to really make a stretch case for like,

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Speaker 1: maybe this theoretically could have been an incitement to violence,

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Speaker 1: and even internally they're like, no, I really, there's no

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Speaker 1: way you can really argue that either of these tweets

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Speaker 1: actually violates the terms of service. So then, even though

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Speaker 1: you know, they had already kind of laid down this

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Speaker 1: one off path of we're going to ban him if

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Speaker 1: he violates any of the terms of service, again, he

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Speaker 1: doesn't even meet that threshold, but they still decide to

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Speaker 1: go ahead and ban him. Yeah, so let's go to

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Speaker 1: the next one, and it actually shows you the level

429
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,760
Speaker 1: of histrionics that were going on in there. Joel Roth,

430
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:11,959
Speaker 1: of course, says multiple tweets have quoted the banality of evil,

431
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:17,480
Speaker 1: suggesting that people implementing our policies are like Nazis following orders.

432
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,040
Speaker 1: Just amazing the way that they see themselves. On the

433
00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:23,119
Speaker 1: morning of January eighth, let's go to the next one there, please.

434
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:26,640
Speaker 1: A few minutes later, Twitter employees on the quote Scaled

435
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:32,400
Speaker 1: Enforcement Team suggests Trump's tweet may have violated Twitter's glorification

436
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 1: of violence policy. That's if you are able to interpret

437
00:23:36,119 --> 00:23:40,960
Speaker 1: the phrase American patriots to refer to the rioter. So again,

438
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 1: they are just coming up with scheme after scheme. They're like, well,

439
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:47,560
Speaker 1: he didn't violate this rule, he didn't violate that one. Well,

440
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:49,920
Speaker 1: maybe we can get him on this one. My own

441
00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: favorite was actually this one dissenter in the chat. We

442
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,440
Speaker 1: don't actually know who it is, but a very poignant

443
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 1: comment that they made. This was actually January seventh, the

444
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:02,440
Speaker 1: day before it up there when he says or she says,

445
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:06,399
Speaker 1: maybe because I'm from China, I deeply understand how censorship

446
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:10,159
Speaker 1: can destroy the public conversation to which he or she

447
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:13,200
Speaker 1: is immediately shot down. I understand this fear, but I

448
00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 1: think it's important to understand censorship by government is different

449
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 1: than censorship of the government. The first Amendment in this

450
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:22,400
Speaker 1: country with similar concepts specifically to prevent the government from

451
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 1: silencing people implicitly then saying well we are not subject

452
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: to that now tech real. Of course, that's libery and argument.

453
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,880
Speaker 1: It means a ludicrous argument also because on the one

454
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:34,760
Speaker 1: hand they're trying to say that they have this immense

455
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 1: social responsibility, almost like a quasi government institutional responsibility, and

456
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 1: on the other hand they're like, well, we're not the government,

457
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 1: so we can do whatever you want. I'm like, well,

458
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:44,840
Speaker 1: you can't have it both ways, Like you either do

459
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: have social responsibilities a lah government meaning that you need

460
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:50,919
Speaker 1: democratic input, or you don't. And that means that you

461
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: know you or you're the government and you know you're

462
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 1: one of those which should and should be governed by

463
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:58,200
Speaker 1: the will of the people. They really are just trying

464
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:01,640
Speaker 1: to split both ways here. People use the even outside

465
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: of Twitter, they use this like, well, the First Amendment

466
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:05,959
Speaker 1: is just about the government, like this is a private company.

467
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:07,680
Speaker 1: They can do what they want. And it's like, yeah,

468
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 1: we all know they can do what they want. The

469
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,640
Speaker 1: question is number what should they be able to do

470
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: whatever they want? Should you have power concentrated in the

471
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:19,359
Speaker 1: hands of whether it's Jack or whether it is Elon,

472
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: like is that a good state of affairs? That's question

473
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 1: number one. And then it's also a question of okay,

474
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 1: you have if you we accept that you have this power,

475
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: how should you be wielding it in a way that

476
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: is most consistent and you know, the best ultimately for

477
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 1: our democracy and for free speech. And I see that

478
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:40,720
Speaker 1: both of these arguments being used very selectively and very hypocritically,

479
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: depending on people's level of comfort with the current head

480
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: of Twitter. So when it was Jack and his team

481
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 1: making these decisions, and liberals felt more comfortable than they

482
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: were all in on the like it's a private company,

483
00:25:53,600 --> 00:25:55,680
Speaker 1: they can do what they want. And now that it's

484
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: like Elon doing it, there's a totally different attitude towards it.

485
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: And both sides of so flipped on this one. But

486
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't just I think this is important

487
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 1: because the international context, not just from this one Twitter

488
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,840
Speaker 1: employee who was like, I'm in China and I kind

489
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,640
Speaker 1: of get why this is really a problem. The decision

490
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: to ban Trump really landed with a lot of dismay

491
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: from leaders around the world. And these aren't people who

492
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 1: were like buddy buddy with Trump, but they also could

493
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: understand from the outside looking in. You're banning the president

494
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 1: of the United States. You are banning a world leader.

495
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: This is a major issue. Let's go and put this

496
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 1: next piece up on the screen, they say, Barry says.

497
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:38,919
Speaker 1: Outside the United States, Twitter's decision of ban Trump raised alarms,

498
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: including with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Prime Minister Augla Merkel,

499
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:47,399
Speaker 1: and Mexico's President Andre Smanuel Lopez Obrador. Macrone told an

500
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 1: audience he didn't quote want to live in a democracy

501
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 1: where the key decisions were made by private players. I

502
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:56,840
Speaker 1: want it to be decided by a law, voted by

503
00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 1: your representative, or by regulation governance, noncratically discussed and approved

504
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:06,480
Speaker 1: by democratic leaders. That is a very accurate reflection of

505
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 1: my view of how these things should be handled as well.

506
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 1: And like I said, I think it's important to remember

507
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 1: if you're able to take yourself out of the American context,

508
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 1: there was a lot of global concern from world leaders

509
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 1: about how this decision went down and what it meant

510
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: for democracy. Yeah, I think that's it. I mean, it

511
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 1: just shows you that it was a world important ramification decision.

512
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: And they also show directly put this up there that

513
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:36,160
Speaker 1: in June of twenty eighteen. Twitter specifically decided, I think correctly,

514
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 1: not to take down the Iranian Iatola's tweet that quote

515
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: israelis a malignant cancer's tumor in the West Asian region

516
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:46,200
Speaker 1: that has to be removed and eradicated. It is possible,

517
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: and it will happen. They didn't delete the tweet or

518
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: ban the Iyatola specifically, and Jack defended it for this

519
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 1: reason that the words of the Ayatola are within the

520
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 1: public interests. They belong in the public spare. You can

521
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:04,399
Speaker 1: find it abhorrent, you can find it disgusting, but we

522
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 1: are better off understanding and knowing the direct thoughts of Iatola,

523
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: Homini or Donald Trump or and I mean I would

524
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 1: even say, hey, Kim Jong Oon, you should join Twitter

525
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: like any of these people. Yeah, just to be able

526
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 1: to get some sort of insight. I mean I remember

527
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 1: thinking that during Trump I was just like, what an

528
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:22,400
Speaker 1: extraordinary insight into the leader of the free world's brain

529
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: that you get to see every single day, for better

530
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 1: or for worse, not always then Yeah, I often hated it,

531
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 1: Yeah said, I mean, look, transparency, input and knowledge of

532
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: what's happening there. That's a rare thing that we have

533
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: in the year twenty whatever it was like twenty nineteen.

534
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: I was like, and I think we're obviously generally better

535
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 1: off for it. A lot of American stylas tweets they

536
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 1: got to decide. Fully they I think they knew exactly

537
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: who Donald Trump was when they cast their vote, either

538
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: for him or for against him. I think that's a

539
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: good thing, don't you. Yeah, yeah, And you know that

540
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: also just underscores how inconsistently applied their any of their

541
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 1: rules were. You know, what they would do is they

542
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 1: would basically make a decision, and by they I pretty

543
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: much Manuel Roth and Vajeia Gotti, who seemed to have

544
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: been really driving this train at least based on the

545
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 1: files that have been revealed. And I would like to say,

546
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 1: I would like this whole process better if they just

547
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: sort of put everything out and let other independent journalists

548
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: be able to go through it and you know, see

549
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: what storylines and what information is relevant. That's something that

550
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: Jack has called for as well. But you know, it

551
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: really shows you that they would basically make a decision

552
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: and then they would try to come up with some

553
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: justification to you know, to back it up. It wasn't

554
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: like we're applying our terms of service consistently, and here's

555
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: what they say, and here's how the tweet violates it,

556
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: and now here's our decision out the other end. Listen

557
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 1: those decisions. Even if you are trying to follow what

558
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: your rules and what your previous precedents in terms of

559
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 1: service are, there are going to be gray areas. It's

560
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 1: going to be complex. I'm not saying that it would

561
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: be cut and dry, but what really comes through consistently

562
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: in these Twitter files is they are making it up

563
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: as they go al based on their own ideological inclinations,

564
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 1: based on what they feel is public pressure, based on

565
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: what they feel is employee pressure, and then trying to

566
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: come up with a rationalization after the fact. And they

567
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: even basically acknowledge as much. But it's never been more

568
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 1: clear than with the banning of Donald Trump. When you

569
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: have other leaders like the leader of Iran who's out

570
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: there saying death to Israel and you're like, yeah, that's fine,

571
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 1: and you have this very sort of coded call for

572
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: patriots and thing things like come to DC. It's going

573
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: to be wild, and that gets you ultimately banned. So

574
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: that's the piece that I think is really clear and again,

575
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: the bottom line here that I always want to come

576
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: back to is whether you like Jack Moore or whether

577
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: you like Elon Moore, wherever you find yourself on the

578
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 1: ideological spectrum. Actually think mccron put it really well, do

579
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 1: you feel comfortable having this kind of power to control

580
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: speech concentrated in the hands of a few with zero

581
00:30:56,800 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: democratic accountability? To me, that is the core of this

582
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: whole question. And then also the piece that we discussed

583
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: yesterday about how Twitter was in literally weekly meetings with

584
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 1: the FBI. So you have a completely unaccountable process being

585
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: backed up and pressured by the government, none of which

586
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: we knew at the time. It's a very very disturbing

587
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: setup events. Absolutely, and just to show you the slippery slope.

588
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: The very next day, this is actually my favorite part

589
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: of the Twitter files, put the final one up there.

590
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 1: They decided they were going to start express eagerness to

591
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: ban quote medical misinformation as soon as possible. So the

592
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 1: moment that they got Trump, they immediately started going after

593
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: the COVID regime or started enforcing the COVID regime on

594
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 1: their platform and to immediately institute more censorship on the

595
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:45,959
Speaker 1: COVID front. So I actually like I've said previously one

596
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: of the Twitter files, I'm looking forward most two. It

597
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: actually has more to do with COVID, the lab leak theory,

598
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: some of the Alex Bearnson casework and more. And I

599
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: think that we are all going to find out a

600
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: hell of a lot about that. So let's go to

601
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: the next part here. Censorship. This also mattered significantly because

602
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: for all the talk now of Twitter, of the Twitter files,

603
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: of the censorship and the idiocy that was going on inside,

604
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 1: Elon is increasingly making it a regime where he is

605
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: really the only person who is going to decide, let's

606
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: go and put this up there on the screen. And

607
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: why I think it matters. So the Twitter Tough head

608
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 1: of Trust and Safety, the new head, says that the

609
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: platform is emphasizing moving swiftly, swiftly to address problematic content,

610
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 1: even if it means figuring out some specifics later. So

611
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 1: why does that matter? What did we just cover? The

612
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: capricious nature no principles, no policies, basically an invention based

613
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: upon the ideological nature of Joel Roth and Vijayagade to

614
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 1: come up with policies that govern the entire world's at

615
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: least political discourse, and unfortunately he seems to be moving

616
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 1: in that direction. And I don't even know if I

617
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: prefer either model, because I'm curious what you think at

618
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: the end of the day, all these truft and safety councils. Also,

619
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: it's bullshit, like you know, you can include like right,

620
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 1: no one's ever going to decide. When Facebook tried to

621
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 1: do this Mark Zuckerberg, he remember he created that whole

622
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: democracy government. Yeah, and then they kicked it back to him.

623
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: They're like, no, dude, Like it's your company, Like you

624
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: decide whether Trump is on the platform, yeah or not? Like, well,

625
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: shits Supreme Court, right, He's like his fake Supreme Court exactly.

626
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: And I'm like, look, maybe it's a good thing to

627
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 1: just know. It's like, actually, it is all in the

628
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: hands of Elon under Jack. It was all in his

629
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: hands too. You can like it or you can hate it.

630
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:35,320
Speaker 1: I think we should change it. But it does show

631
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 1: you that the new boss is basically moving in the

632
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: same direction. Like you may like his current orientation. But

633
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that a lot of

634
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: people were pointing to one of the previous leaks that

635
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 1: came out after the Twitter files is that almost immediately

636
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: after Elon took over the platform, they applied the same

637
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 1: shadow banning to the Elon jet account, which tracked his

638
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 1: private jet or you know, I don't think it's a

639
00:33:56,240 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: surprised that the Chappelle video was immediately taken down by

640
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: the main account that put it out. Luckily there were

641
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 1: other people who ripped it, who put it out there.

642
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: We were able to put it out on our show.

643
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 1: But it does just underscore like the Capristian's nature of

644
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:11,760
Speaker 1: which all of these platforms are being governed, and Elon

645
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,920
Speaker 1: really moving in that direction. So look, I mean, at

646
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I don't know what else

647
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: that can be done. What I would say is I

648
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:21,240
Speaker 1: wish that they would just sit down, Like I understand

649
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: you have to run a company, but you need to

650
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:25,720
Speaker 1: sit down and publish like a manifesto almost of sorts.

651
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 1: She'd be like, these are the principles that we believe in.

652
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 1: This is how we're going to govern our platform. But

653
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: when you move in an ad hoc basis like they

654
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 1: are right now, that's how you end up getting Kathy

655
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: Griffin band. Yeah, no reason, right, you know, comedy is

656
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:38,960
Speaker 1: legal now on Twitter. It's like why, Yeah, I think

657
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:40,879
Speaker 1: it should be, you know, but you have to come

658
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: up with real policies and then enforce them in the future. Well,

659
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:46,319
Speaker 1: and we already know that he basically is operating in

660
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 1: exactly the same way that the you know one off

661
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 1: like based on my own personal inclinations, way that Twitter

662
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 1: was operating previously, because we've seen that in his decision

663
00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: to keep Alex Jones band and to ultimately you know,

664
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: ban Kanye West as well. I mean, he argued, Listen,

665
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:08,640
Speaker 1: the things no one here is defending Nazism. Kanye West,

666
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: the things he's been saying have been absolutely abhorrent, disgusting.

667
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 1: Sharing swastika's is deplorable. However, Musk argued that West sharing

668
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 1: an image that included a swastika was a quote, incitement

669
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: to violence. We have a lot of Supreme Court First

670
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 1: Amendment precedent that says, no, it is not. It's not

671
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:31,800
Speaker 1: even close to that. So again, you are just using

672
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,239
Speaker 1: your own sort of personal decision making what offends you,

673
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:39,080
Speaker 1: what you think is over the line versus anything approaching

674
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: a standard or consistent principle. Incitement to violence is exactly

675
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: the thing that they tried to use to justify banning

676
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: Trump from the platform, which also if you just looked

677
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 1: at the tweets, you couldn't argue that they were a

678
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 1: direct incitement to violence in the same way that you

679
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 1: can't argue that Kanye's tweet was a direct incitement to violence.

680
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:00,800
Speaker 1: You can say they're terrible, you can see they're deplorable,

681
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,319
Speaker 1: you can say they're disgusting. That doesn't mean that it constitutes,

682
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 1: under the First Amendment case law, a direct incitement to violence.

683
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,879
Speaker 1: And again, we have had really clear case law on

684
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 1: this front. So if you're a free speech warrior and

685
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:14,959
Speaker 1: you're going with the First Amendment, you wouldn't have banned

686
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: Kanye West. You would have allowed Alex Jones likely back

687
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 1: on the platform. And it's because of your own personal

688
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 1: views and how those particular acts struck you personally that

689
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: you ended up making those decisions. And as you know,

690
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of either one of these people.

691
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:32,720
Speaker 1: I don't enjoy defending them and their right to speak.

692
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: But if you are being consistent with your principles, that

693
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 1: is the way that Elon would have handled these things.

694
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:39,800
Speaker 1: And let's put the final one up there from Elon himself.

695
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:42,240
Speaker 1: He's actually spelled this out about the new Twitter policy

696
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 1: is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Even

697
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 1: on freedom of speech. And the problem was he's like

698
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: negative and hate speech will be max d boosted and

699
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: demonetized in no ads or other revenue to Twitter. Who

700
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 1: decides what's negative? Who decides what's hate? Is it the

701
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: elon jet account? Is it not? We're back the same boss,

702
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: you know, old boss, same as the new boss. Like,

703
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 1: what is happening here? I think it's a massive problem.

704
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:05,399
Speaker 1: They need to go back to what they originally said.

705
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 1: Otherwise they're just going to find themselves in the same boat,

706
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: and you're just going to have as much of a

707
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: you know, a complete and total just you're going to

708
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: have more capricious decision making. Elon saying Kanye's tweet was

709
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 1: an incitement of violence because it made him inside of violence. Like, dude,

710
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 1: that is not what That's not the way this works, ludism,

711
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: that's not the story. But it is insightful into how

712
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 1: exactly they intend on running the platform there, Crystal, Yeah,

713
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 1: I mean listen, Ultimately, there is no private solution to

714
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: this problem. There's only a public solution to this problem.

715
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 1: It is what Chrome laid down. You have to have

716
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 1: some sort of democratic check. The government has to be

717
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: more involved at least, you know, listen, the government's far

718
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 1: from perfect. We are critics here all the time, but

719
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 1: at least you have a process where you can get

720
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: some sort of transparency, where there is some sort of

721
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 1: democratic input, where it is not just solely subject to

722
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:57,799
Speaker 1: the whims and personal proclivities of one individual and how

723
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: they feel on that particular day. So, you know, there

724
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: have been sort of like competing debates about how to

725
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:05,839
Speaker 1: deal with this issue of content moderation in the new

726
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,359
Speaker 1: digital public square, whether it's at Twitter, whether it's at

727
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:12,799
Speaker 1: Facebook or any other property. And one idea was, well,

728
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 1: we just need to start new companies that have like,

729
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:19,360
Speaker 1: better people with better ideology running them. I think we

730
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:22,360
Speaker 1: have seen already to this point with Elon at the Helm,

731
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 1: that model is never going to work. You just can't

732
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: have this much power. If you accept that these platforms matter,

733
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 1: and I think that they do, you cannot consolidate this

734
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: much power in the hands of any one person or

735
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:37,399
Speaker 1: small group of people. It is going to end up

736
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: being very poorly run and a very bad decision for

737
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: our democracy. Well said Big Science Breakthrough that Sager and

738
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 1: I are both I think a little bit nerding out

739
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: on and excited about. There has been long, decades long

740
00:38:56,680 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: efforts to try to generate fusion energy, which right now

741
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 1: we have nuclear fission, which is you break things apart.

742
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: Fusion would be you bring atoms together that is sufficient

743
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 1: enough to cause a net energy gain. Decades long efforts

744
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 1: to achieve this, and I'll tell you why it matters

745
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 1: a lot in a moment. Let's go and put this

746
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: Financial Times they broke the news major breakthrough by US

747
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 1: scientists boost clean power hopes. Let me go ahead and

748
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: read you the beginning of this. US government scientists have

749
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:36,360
Speaker 1: made a breakthrough in the pursuit of limitless zero carbon

750
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: power by achieving a net energy gain in a fusion

751
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: reaction for the first time, according to three people with

752
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 1: knowledge of preliminary results. Physicists have since the fifties sought

753
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 1: to harness the fusion reaction that powers the Sun and

754
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: other stars of course as well, but no group had

755
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: been able to produce more energy from the reaction than

756
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:58,840
Speaker 1: it consumes. That's the milestone that's known as net energy

757
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: gain or target gain, which would help prove the process

758
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: could provide a reliable, abundant alternative to fossil fuels and

759
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: conventional nuclear energy. Again, to reiterate, there are private companies

760
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:13,840
Speaker 1: and a lot of actually investor money that has gone

761
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 1: to trying to achieve this end. They have not accomplished this.

762
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: First US taxpayer dollars funded public research that led to

763
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 1: this massive technological breakthrough that could in the future lead

764
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 1: to a clean source of limitless energy. I mean, which

765
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 1: would be an entire, entire revolution. Just a couple more

766
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 1: things here. Fusion reactions emit no carbon, they produce no

767
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 1: long lived radioactive waste, which of course the problem with

768
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: nuclear energy, and a small cup of the hydrogen fuel

769
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: could theoretically power a house for hundreds of years. One

770
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 1: of the stats that I saw was that a cup

771
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 1: of seawater could provide the same amount of energy as

772
00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:00,759
Speaker 1: an entire barrel of oil. That is what we're talking

773
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: about here. Ultimately, it's described as the holy Grail of

774
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:08,520
Speaker 1: clean energy. And if they can make this commercially viable,

775
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:10,600
Speaker 1: which we continue to be a long way from, this

776
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 1: could be a whole energy revolution on the scale of

777
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: like the Industrial revolution. Yeah, I mean, look, I hope.

778
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 1: So this is one of those where I also just

779
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: want to put in a thread here for public research,

780
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:25,799
Speaker 1: because this was something built called the National Ignition Facility,

781
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: and it was designed to actually to test nuclear weapons

782
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 1: by simulating explosions to advance fusion energy research or for

783
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 1: advancing nuclear testing, but then was repurposed for the three

784
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 1: and a half billion dollar Facility for Fusion Energy Research,

785
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 1: where they were able to build. I think it's the

786
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 1: world's largest laser, which is kind of cool, yeah, which

787
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 1: they use to bombard the plasma. I don't understand the

788
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: science as much, and I've been looking much more on

789
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,439
Speaker 1: the business end, and we should be careful, right, which

790
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 1: is Look, even the initial data, it's relatively unclear. Yes

791
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 1: they did get that net energy gain, but it's going

792
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 1: to be very closed. It does, unfortunately take a hell

793
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: of a lot of power to power of the world's

794
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 1: most powerful laser. Said as you said, look, are we,

795
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: you know, a decade away from this, Probably not, But

796
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 1: are we one hundred billion dollars away from getting the

797
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,799
Speaker 1: first facility off the ground with some real testing. Yeah,

798
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: I think we are. I think we are at that point,

799
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 1: and that's a very hopeful story. I mean, if you

800
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 1: can see, the Pentagon budget is like eight hundred billion dollars.

801
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: So this thing only costs three and a half billion

802
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 1: to build this facility. Let's say we throw one hundred

803
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: billion at this or something. With new federal research, we

804
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,399
Speaker 1: could be living in a whole new world maybe what

805
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: forty to fifty years from now. Economies of scale take

806
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 1: a long time to develop, but initial government research and

807
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: I hope what we can see is I don't want

808
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: this thing to get a culture ward the way that

809
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 1: nuclear war nuclear energy was, even though I still believe,

810
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:51,399
Speaker 1: you know, cost effective wise and all that. Oh, where

811
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 1: we are today, we have to continue to lean into

812
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 1: nuclear right like nuclear in the interim fusion in the future,

813
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:00,399
Speaker 1: that'd be I like that slog. Yeah, sure we could

814
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,239
Speaker 1: go for the things that we should watch out and

815
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,720
Speaker 1: look for. Are. We have got to encourage more public

816
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 1: research dollars towards this because it is still you know,

817
00:43:08,840 --> 00:43:11,319
Speaker 1: the breakthrough is there in terms of the experiment, but

818
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: now we have to replicate the experiment multiple times, possibly

819
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:18,400
Speaker 1: in different facilities, build even more throw possibly like contests

820
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 1: and things at this to get different physics departments and

821
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: all that involved. So that's the frontier I think that

822
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,320
Speaker 1: we're moving into right now. Yeah, you know, My dad

823
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 1: is a physicist, long retired, but physicists nonetheless. I was

824
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: talking to him about this last night. He was super

825
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 1: excited and let me try to explain the science as

826
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 1: best as my feeble brain possibly can. So, as I

827
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 1: said before, the reaction that they're trying to achieve here,

828
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 1: and that they did achieve here is what ultimately powers

829
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:50,879
Speaker 1: the Sun and other stars. And the reason they are

830
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 1: able to pull it off and we have not been

831
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: able to up to this point is because they have

832
00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:00,799
Speaker 1: the benefit of having a large amount of math, and

833
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 1: it's that pressure that basically creates the heat that makes

834
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:07,880
Speaker 1: it possible for this reaction to form this plasma and

835
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:10,839
Speaker 1: have this net energy gain that just sort of continues.

836
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 1: So there's two methods that scientists have been using to

837
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: try to achieve this net energy gain. One of them is,

838
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:22,920
Speaker 1: like Soccer said, using giant lasers to basically, like you know,

839
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: super heat things up, which means move the particles faster.

840
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: That's the one that's been successful here. The other method

841
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 1: that's being tried in other places is basically using super

842
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 1: powerful electromagnets. That's the other method to try to achieve

843
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: this gain. And so that's really the central challenge that

844
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:44,320
Speaker 1: they've been trying to figure out. Now, the hopeful indication

845
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: here is that they're actually still crunching the data. There

846
00:44:47,080 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 1: is going to be an announcement from the government of

847
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: the Department of Energy, led by Jennifer Granholm sometime today,

848
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 1: so we'll see the specifics of what they said. But

849
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: they said, actually one of the challenges with getting the

850
00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 1: measurements is that the net energy gain was more more

851
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 1: than they expected and actually broke some of the instruments.

852
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 1: So that seems like a hopeful indication that they even

853
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:06,839
Speaker 1: went above and beyond. It appears there may have been

854
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: a second experiment that also was able to replicate this

855
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 1: net energy gain. However, put this next piece up on

856
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 1: the screen. This is from Power mag They see US

857
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: officials set to announce this fusion energy breakthrough. As I mentioned,

858
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: Jennifer Graham Holme, who is Energy Secretary, has said she's

859
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:25,800
Speaker 1: going to make an announcement of a major scientific breakthrough

860
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: in all expectations or this is going to be it.

861
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:31,279
Speaker 1: But they go on to talk about the challenge of

862
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:36,879
Speaker 1: commercializing fusion. They said it includes developing machinery that could

863
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:39,840
Speaker 1: affordably turn the fusion reaction into power that could be

864
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:43,400
Speaker 1: deployed to the grid. Scientists have said that building equipment

865
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 1: large enough to create fusion power at scale requires materials

866
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,720
Speaker 1: that are difficult to produce. In addition, the fusion reaction

867
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 1: creates neutrons that significantly stress equipment and could potentially destroy

868
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: that equipment, So there are a lot of challenges still ahead.

869
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 1: One scientist I saw quoted said, listen, is this going

870
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,799
Speaker 1: to be a significant part of climate crisis abatement in

871
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 1: the next twenty to thirty years. No, it is not.

872
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:09,759
Speaker 1: So keep in mind this is more of a long

873
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 1: term hope for the future. Clean energy trans completely transformational,

874
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 1: hopefully in our lifetimes, and this is a major step forward.

875
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 1: There was one other piece that I just wanted to

876
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: bring you on the front of clean energy, which is

877
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 1: we've talked here before about how the US has really

878
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:30,839
Speaker 1: gotten majorly behind the game in terms of securing the

879
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 1: mineral elements needed for evs and electric vehicle batteries. In particular,

880
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 1: China has been very aggressive in securing these mining rights.

881
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:43,720
Speaker 1: The Obama administration dropped the ball, the Trump administration dropped

882
00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 1: the ball. It looks like the Biden administration is trying

883
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 1: to do a little bit of a better job. Let's

884
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 1: go ahad and put this up on the screen. This

885
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:53,280
Speaker 1: from Axios. They say that the headline here is exclusive

886
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 1: behind Biden's overseas mining funding. They are trying to fund

887
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 1: roughly a dozen different mineral projects overseas and a bid

888
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 1: for more resources used in lower carbon technologies. Supporting more

889
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 1: mining overseas could ease a raw material squeeze hurting electric

890
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:10,879
Speaker 1: vehicles in particular. They also talk about the politics could

891
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,400
Speaker 1: have a side effect, giving Biden's foes fodder against him

892
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: for rejecting minds at home. That to me is kind

893
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 1: of a side show from the main key piece here,

894
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 1: which is there at least making some moves to secure

895
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 1: the type of minerals that we would need to have

896
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:27,239
Speaker 1: a larger scale up of electric vehicle technology. I don't

897
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: know if this is sufficient. I sort of doubt that

898
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:31,800
Speaker 1: it is, but you can see the you know, again,

899
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,960
Speaker 1: they like dabble in some good things, dabble in a

900
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 1: little bit of industrial policy that we just haven't had

901
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 1: in this country in a very long time. Yeah, mineral

902
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: rights are very important, and electric batteries and all that

903
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: lithium ion deposits across South America, Mexico. There's some major

904
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:51,919
Speaker 1: Titanic battles happening in Chile with respect to mining rights

905
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: and government and all that. So this is some interesting

906
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 1: stuff that's down the table. If that treaty does end

907
00:47:56,960 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 1: up passing, which we'll maybe we'll do a little bit

908
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 1: of a segment on it. It comes to news, it

909
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:04,800
Speaker 1: becomes more newsworthy. But there's a lot of really interesting

910
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 1: things that are happening at the governmental level to try

911
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 1: and secure the ground through which companies can then begin

912
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:14,600
Speaker 1: establishing a domestic or more of a less China reliant

913
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 1: electric battery supply chain, because right now, at least for

914
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 1: the next decade, we are locked in almost one hundred

915
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 1: percent with China, which is not a good place to be.

916
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:24,799
Speaker 1: You want to bet the feature on electric vehicle great

917
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 1: planning from our political way to go, guys. Okay, Next up,

918
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: we have some important news on the Ukraine Russia's war

919
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: in Ukraine front. This is one of these significant sort

920
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: of tea leaves of how Putin feels things are going

921
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:41,719
Speaker 1: and how he's doing. Let's go and put this up

922
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: on the screen. He canceled this annual press conference. You

923
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:48,520
Speaker 1: can see that on the right side of the screen.

924
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 1: I think that'll be the rightest you guys are looking

925
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:53,600
Speaker 1: at it. As Anias grows over. Ukraine wore this again

926
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:58,399
Speaker 1: from the Financial Times. They say is usually a large

927
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 1: scale event, lasting for several hours, attended by hundreds of journalists.

928
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:05,560
Speaker 1: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said on Monday the conference will

929
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:07,320
Speaker 1: not happen before the new year. We hope that the

930
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 1: president will still find an opportunity to talk to journalists.

931
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: The reason it's a big deal is Putin usually loves

932
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: this thing, right he usually loves doing it. It's a

933
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:16,759
Speaker 1: big deal. He brings in all these journalists he loves

934
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:19,719
Speaker 1: holding for if he goes over the time limit, and

935
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 1: so for him to be like, no, we're just we're

936
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:25,480
Speaker 1: not going to do it right now, it seems noteworthy.

937
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 1: There's two potential theories here. One is things are obviously

938
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:32,000
Speaker 1: going very poorly for them in terms of this war,

939
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:35,400
Speaker 1: and maybe he just feels like he doesn't really have

940
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 1: the information even for sort of like friendly handpicked journalists

941
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 1: that he wants to go with right now. The other,

942
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: more conspiratorial but also possible potential here is that he

943
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 1: is really sick I mean, there have been some indications

944
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 1: that his health is failing, and so it could be

945
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 1: he is physically not up to the task, could be

946
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:01,800
Speaker 1: some combination of the both of both, but that's basically

947
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:03,759
Speaker 1: the speculation I'm seeing at this point. Yeah, I think

948
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: I have to err on the side of humiliation on

949
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:08,640
Speaker 1: his part because the issue is I think that's most

950
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:12,800
Speaker 1: like state media. They are criticizing him, They are airing

951
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 1: stories questioning the strategy. The conscription was a horrific domestic disaster.

952
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:21,279
Speaker 1: I think there's just no way around that. You had

953
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:24,440
Speaker 1: mass fleeing of the country, you had an activation of

954
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 1: the Russian populace, or like hey, listen, like you can

955
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: do whatever you want in Ukraine, but like when you're

956
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: gonna start shipping my ass over there, this is a

957
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:34,880
Speaker 1: whole other story. And people's brothers, uncles getting just thrown

958
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:38,360
Speaker 1: back into the service. These were major stories inside of Russia.

959
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 1: So I think that's what it's all about, you know.

960
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 1: I just don't believe that he would cancel this for

961
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 1: any other reason because he loves doing it so much.

962
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 1: I mean, I've watched and covered it almost every year

963
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:50,800
Speaker 1: since it's happened. It's an extraordinary event because you know,

964
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:53,520
Speaker 1: usually also there's foreign journalists there and you'll even kind

965
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:55,759
Speaker 1: of take them on for him to cancel this, and

966
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:58,440
Speaker 1: especially everything that we know about what's happening inside of

967
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: Ukraine does certainly matter. Yeah, and so yeah, I got

968
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:03,560
Speaker 1: to look at it within that context. That is my

969
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:06,080
Speaker 1: assumption as well. I think that is the most likely

970
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:09,840
Speaker 1: explanation here. And yeah, I mentioned this before, but there's

971
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 1: decently reliable public polling that at the beginning of the

972
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 1: quote unquote special military operation, the Russian public was for it.

973
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:20,120
Speaker 1: They were a majority for it. There was a you know,

974
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 1: a maybe thirty percent minority that were against it, but

975
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:26,520
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly public opinion was in favor of it. Those numbers

976
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:28,840
Speaker 1: have basically completely flipped. And I think you're right that

977
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:32,720
Speaker 1: the conscription was the real turning point because up until

978
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 1: that point there had been such an effort to sort

979
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 1: of protect the Russian people from the realities of this war,

980
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:41,560
Speaker 1: from the hardships of this war. You'll recall when the

981
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 1: conscription was initially announced, Putin was out like inaugurating a

982
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,359
Speaker 1: ferris wheel or something like that. That was the link

983
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 1: that they were going to to try to maintain normalcy

984
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:53,520
Speaker 1: for their people when they were when his hand was

985
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 1: forced and they basically had to go forward with this

986
00:51:56,400 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 1: fairly significant wave of conscription that really left everyone in

987
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,359
Speaker 1: the country who was a military age man, or even

988
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:07,360
Speaker 1: could vaguely be defined as such, or anyone who knew

989
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 1: or loved a military age man, really left the entire

990
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:16,080
Speaker 1: population feeling very uncomfortable and very uncertain. And then it's like, yeah,

991
00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 1: maybe I supported the idea of this in theory, but

992
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:21,320
Speaker 1: in my willing to die for it? Am I willing

993
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:23,880
Speaker 1: to send my loved ones to die for it? Not

994
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: so much so that has amounted, you know, resulted in

995
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:29,680
Speaker 1: a major flip in public opinion with the Russian people

996
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:31,920
Speaker 1: based on the pulling that we can see that seems

997
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 1: to be relatively credible and independent. At the same time,

998
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 1: you have more sort of reckless and frankly terrifying nuclear

999
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: rhetoric coming from Vladimir Putin. Let's go and put this

1000
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:45,240
Speaker 1: Bloomberg tear sheet up on the screen. He said Russia

1001
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:51,320
Speaker 1: might consider formally adding the possibility of a preventive nuclear

1002
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:55,640
Speaker 1: first strike to disarm an opponent to its military doctrine.

1003
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:58,759
Speaker 1: That was just days after he warned that the risk

1004
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 1: of atomic war is right. Quote, we're thinking about this.

1005
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:06,440
Speaker 1: If we are talking about a disarming strike, perhaps we

1006
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:09,960
Speaker 1: should think about using the approaches of our American partners,

1007
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 1: he said, citing what he called US strategies to use

1008
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:15,880
Speaker 1: high accuracy missiles for preventive strike. He always does this.

1009
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:17,640
Speaker 1: He always says like, well, the US did it, so

1010
00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:20,319
Speaker 1: now maybe we should do it too. On Wednesday, he

1011
00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: said the risk of atomic warfare is rising and called

1012
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:29,000
Speaker 1: Russia's arsenal a deterrent factor in conflicts. So listen, how

1013
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: do you take these threats? Well, we have already and

1014
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:36,239
Speaker 1: Ukraine has already caught crossed a number of the supposed

1015
00:53:36,360 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: red lines that Putin has laid out before. You know,

1016
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 1: the attacks on the Crimea bridge, the wanting to take

1017
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:45,200
Speaker 1: back Crimea, you know, attacks on the territory that they

1018
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:49,400
Speaker 1: supposedly had, you know, annexed attacks now inside of Russia,

1019
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:54,319
Speaker 1: and there hasn't been a nuclear escalation. So do you

1020
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:56,360
Speaker 1: look at that and say, well, it's just sayber rattling,

1021
00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 1: or do you have to continue to take him seriously

1022
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, this is a

1023
00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 1: desperate man who's back is against the wall and running

1024
00:54:04,200 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 1: out of options, and with a domestic populace that is

1025
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:08,840
Speaker 1: none too impressed with how this is all going and

1026
00:54:08,880 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 1: who the hell knows what he's ultimately going to do.

1027
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:12,520
Speaker 1: I look, I'll just reiterate what I always say with

1028
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:14,839
Speaker 1: these things. It's only been ten months, doesn't Actually that's

1029
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 1: actually not a long time. Consider what the first ten

1030
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 1: months of World War two looked like, and if you

1031
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:21,080
Speaker 1: were trying to judge that outcome based upon what the

1032
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:23,719
Speaker 1: eventual one was, you'd look like an idiot based on that.

1033
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:26,040
Speaker 1: So we have no idea I think in general, changing

1034
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 1: the nuclear doctrine, yeah, that would be really bad. That

1035
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:31,040
Speaker 1: would be a major escalation. Now, on the one hand,

1036
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:33,759
Speaker 1: nuclear doctrine in Russia is fake because it's all up

1037
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,440
Speaker 1: to Putin and he gets to decide regardless. But to

1038
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:39,680
Speaker 1: remove any of the official guardrails. These are long standing

1039
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:44,000
Speaker 1: policies which nations, responsible nations supposedly publish in order to

1040
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 1: reassure the world like, no, this is not something that

1041
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:49,200
Speaker 1: we're going to do. In the US, we even have

1042
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 1: strategic ambiguity where we don't really even lay it out

1043
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:54,240
Speaker 1: one way or the other. But for them to remove

1044
00:54:54,280 --> 00:54:58,320
Speaker 1: it straight up, that is that's not good. The Chinese

1045
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 1: have that, So there you go. It just underscores my

1046
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 1: contention all along that we should be doing everything we

1047
00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 1: possibly can to wrap this war up as soon as possible,

1048
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:11,359
Speaker 1: and the US has a lot to say about that.

1049
00:55:11,560 --> 00:55:16,200
Speaker 1: We are very much engaged in this thing. So that's

1050
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 1: all I say about that. That's all we can really do. Yes, right,

1051
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:21,839
Speaker 1: all right. We've also got a little update for you

1052
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:24,480
Speaker 1: on how it's going over the Republican Party in terms

1053
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:27,919
Speaker 1: of moving on from Trump. Right, the election results were

1054
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 1: as clear as they could possibly be in terms of

1055
00:55:31,120 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 1: an indictment of his impact on the party, at least

1056
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 1: in terms of electoral results. All of the Republicans effectively

1057
00:55:38,080 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 1: who distanced themselves from him, like Brian Kemp, like Raethensberger,

1058
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:43,400
Speaker 1: even DeSantis, who's kind of tried to keep a bit

1059
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:46,720
Speaker 1: of an arm's length, they did very well. The candidates

1060
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:48,919
Speaker 1: who were most closely tied to him, and especially most

1061
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:53,000
Speaker 1: tied to his top the steel conspiracy bullshit, they crashed

1062
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:57,560
Speaker 1: and burned almost unanimously throughout the country. So interesting exchange

1063
00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:01,640
Speaker 1: on Fox News with Stuart Varney pressing current R and

1064
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:05,319
Speaker 1: C chair Ron and Romney McDaniel about whether, Hey, isn't

1065
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:08,439
Speaker 1: this kind of simple? Isn't Trump ultimately your problem? Let's

1066
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:11,000
Speaker 1: hear what she had to say. Would you publicly say

1067
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:14,759
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump bears any responsibility for some of the

1068
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:16,959
Speaker 1: losses in the midtimy elections. Would you say that pot

1069
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:19,719
Speaker 1: I don't like this. I don't like these parceling out

1070
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:22,040
Speaker 1: because he supported Ted budd who won, and he supported

1071
00:56:22,120 --> 00:56:24,120
Speaker 1: jd Vance who won. I think there's a lot of things.

1072
00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:25,879
Speaker 1: That's why I've put together an after action report. We've

1073
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 1: got to look at jobs. But here's the one thing

1074
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:29,760
Speaker 1: that I think people should be talking about the amount

1075
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:31,879
Speaker 1: of tickets splitting, the amount of Republicans that went out

1076
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:33,439
Speaker 1: and voted for a Republican at the top of the ticket.

1077
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:36,319
Speaker 1: Look at Arizona, the top vote is a Republican. Look

1078
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:38,760
Speaker 1: at Georgia. We had eight of nine state wide races

1079
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:41,399
Speaker 1: won by Republicans. But why are Republicans going and voting

1080
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:43,160
Speaker 1: for one Republican and not the other? Trump have to

1081
00:56:43,160 --> 00:56:46,000
Speaker 1: work hard to bring those that means turnout those question

1082
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:49,319
Speaker 1: and the answer Trump, isn't it. I'm saying I'm not

1083
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:50,759
Speaker 1: into the blame game right now. I think we've got

1084
00:56:50,800 --> 00:56:52,759
Speaker 1: to do an analysis. I think it's too quick and

1085
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:55,239
Speaker 1: I think you can't parcel out well, this endorsement helped

1086
00:56:55,239 --> 00:56:57,040
Speaker 1: this one. In this it's the whole message. It's what

1087
00:56:57,080 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 1: did each candidate do, what was their turnout? But most importantly,

1088
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:02,360
Speaker 1: how do we get independents to support Republicans and how

1089
00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 1: do we get Republicans to support other Republicans? And this

1090
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 1: infighting within our party is never going to help that.

1091
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:09,120
Speaker 1: We need Trump voters, we need McCain voters, we need

1092
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:11,120
Speaker 1: Romney voters, and then some if we're going to beat

1093
00:57:11,120 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: the Democrat. Come on, yes, it's eight out of nine.

1094
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:18,520
Speaker 1: It's actually very simple. Why eight out of nine Republicans

1095
00:57:18,520 --> 00:57:22,040
Speaker 1: in Georgia one? These people are there's such clowns like

1096
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:24,600
Speaker 1: I don't might always theory with this, I'm like, why

1097
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:27,000
Speaker 1: even go on? You know when even the Fox guy

1098
00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 1: has to be like yo, come on, like this is

1099
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: obviously I'm not into the blame game. It's humiliating. And

1100
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:36,200
Speaker 1: here's when he's president. Okay, I get it, you know

1101
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:38,240
Speaker 1: he's the president. Like, you know, you gotta suck. He's

1102
00:57:38,240 --> 00:57:40,440
Speaker 1: not even the president anymore. Yeah, like, well what are

1103
00:57:40,480 --> 00:57:43,840
Speaker 1: you doing? I mean and obviously the RNC is going

1104
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:47,520
Speaker 1: to be really important for his presidential run this time around.

1105
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that the whole campaign launch has like

1106
00:57:49,960 --> 00:57:52,760
Speaker 1: gone particularly well for him, but it's in moments like

1107
00:57:52,800 --> 00:57:54,960
Speaker 1: this that you see like they're not ready to move

1108
00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:57,320
Speaker 1: on and they're still terrified of this guy. They're still

1109
00:57:57,360 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 1: afraid of him and what his followers will ultimately do.

1110
00:58:01,120 --> 00:58:03,800
Speaker 1: She knows that if she says it's his fault, Hill

1111
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:07,280
Speaker 1: truth out, like she's got to go and you may

1112
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:09,880
Speaker 1: well be done, Like that might be it for you,

1113
00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:14,360
Speaker 1: even though the message of this selection Visa VI Trump

1114
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:16,800
Speaker 1: could not possibly have been more clear. And you're right

1115
00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:19,840
Speaker 1: to put to Georgia. I mean in Georgia, every other

1116
00:58:19,920 --> 00:58:23,120
Speaker 1: revoke can one except for herschel Walker, Like gee, I

1117
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:27,439
Speaker 1: wonder what the differentiating factor was here? All of these

1118
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:30,800
Speaker 1: candidates that were backed by Trump, that backed his conspiracies,

1119
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 1: all the more closely tied they were to him and

1120
00:58:33,080 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 1: that stuff the worst they ultimately fared. It was so clear,

1121
00:58:36,560 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 1: so consistent across the board. And you had not just

1122
00:58:40,680 --> 00:58:42,880
Speaker 1: her in this moment, which I really enjoyed watching, you

1123
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:45,280
Speaker 1: had Josh Hawley come out with the piece that was

1124
00:58:45,320 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 1: attempting to say I wasn't really Trump yet JD Vance

1125
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:50,280
Speaker 1: really going over the top, being like Trump is not

1126
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:53,440
Speaker 1: to blame. Listen, they have yet to come up with

1127
00:58:53,560 --> 00:58:56,720
Speaker 1: anything approaching a credible answer that does not involve sort

1128
00:58:56,760 --> 00:58:59,320
Speaker 1: of the problems with the former president of the United States.

1129
00:58:59,360 --> 00:59:01,720
Speaker 1: But good life moving on for them, because they clearly

1130
00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: are not really ready to do that. We'll see. I

1131
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:08,080
Speaker 1: have so many minds and such a different and difficult concert.

1132
00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:09,520
Speaker 1: There's a poll actually just came out while we were

1133
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:12,320
Speaker 1: doing the show Crystal about Republican voters becoming a lot

1134
00:59:12,360 --> 00:59:15,280
Speaker 1: more split on Trump. But really, to me, the crazy

1135
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:17,680
Speaker 1: one was they did the top line like Trump viet Biden,

1136
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:20,280
Speaker 1: and right now they have Biden forty seven and Trump

1137
00:59:20,360 --> 00:59:22,920
Speaker 1: at forty whereas they have DeSantis at forty seven and

1138
00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:25,760
Speaker 1: Biden at forty three. But the problem is is that,

1139
00:59:25,840 --> 00:59:28,720
Speaker 1: you know, the GOP electorate is relatively split. So look,

1140
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:31,479
Speaker 1: he's got them caught. They can't move on, as he said,

1141
00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:35,600
Speaker 1: because he'll, you know, truth out whatever happens. He has

1142
00:59:35,640 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: them in a real pickle. And you know, even DeSantis himself,

1143
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:41,040
Speaker 1: he hasn't said a word. In some ways that's beneficial,

1144
00:59:41,080 --> 00:59:43,760
Speaker 1: but you can't beat somebody when you can't say anything

1145
00:59:43,800 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: bad about them. That's not how it work works, folks,

1146
00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:49,280
Speaker 1: especially whenever you're gonna have a whole host of other

1147
00:59:49,320 --> 00:59:51,360
Speaker 1: candidates who run too. So I think it's a Night

1148
00:59:51,400 --> 00:59:54,160
Speaker 1: Mars scenario for them all the way around, and it's

1149
00:59:54,200 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 1: one of their own making, you know, really, absolutely, ig

1150
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:02,840
Speaker 1: aready looking at well. The World Cup is nearing its

1151
01:00:02,920 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 1: end right now, and even though I honestly don't care

1152
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:06,680
Speaker 1: about soccer, I'm still looking forward to the Battle of

1153
01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:09,720
Speaker 1: Tours rematched between Morocco and France. You would think at

1154
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 1: this point that all the scandals are over. We already

1155
01:00:12,360 --> 01:00:14,439
Speaker 1: know that the Qatar never should have gotten the World

1156
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:16,480
Speaker 1: Cup in the first place, and the only reason FIFA

1157
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:18,880
Speaker 1: was willing to look past their inadequacies, their culture, and

1158
01:00:18,920 --> 01:00:21,440
Speaker 1: their inability was because they were lucky enough to be

1159
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:24,240
Speaker 1: born on a pile of natural gas money. But even

1160
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:27,600
Speaker 1: now today, more than a decade after the initial bribery,

1161
01:00:27,680 --> 01:00:30,919
Speaker 1: which we have well documented here took place, there's still more.

1162
01:00:31,160 --> 01:00:34,840
Speaker 1: So let's dig in. The entire European Parliament was stunned

1163
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:39,600
Speaker 1: yesterday when Belgian authority seized some six hundred thousand dollars

1164
01:00:39,640 --> 01:00:42,440
Speaker 1: in cash from a member of the EU Parliament as

1165
01:00:42,520 --> 01:00:46,160
Speaker 1: part of a broader investigation into qatar buying influence in

1166
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:49,280
Speaker 1: Europe in support of its World Cup status. The charges

1167
01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:53,600
Speaker 1: hit four separate EU Parliament members and affiliated people and

1168
01:00:53,720 --> 01:00:57,720
Speaker 1: exposed even more corruption in the ongoing saga. The bribes

1169
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:00,760
Speaker 1: appear to have been paid in part to secure visa

1170
01:01:00,760 --> 01:01:03,919
Speaker 1: free travel to Europe for Qatari citizens as some sort

1171
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 1: of reciprocity which was about to be voted on in parliament.

1172
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:10,600
Speaker 1: Belgian prosecutors said quote third parties in political and or

1173
01:01:10,640 --> 01:01:14,320
Speaker 1: strategic positions within the European Parliament were paid large sums

1174
01:01:14,320 --> 01:01:18,560
Speaker 1: of money or substantial gifts to influence Parliament's decisions. Qatar

1175
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:22,400
Speaker 1: immediately denied the accusation, but the emerging facts are damning

1176
01:01:22,440 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 1: for them and for the EU Parliament as a whole.

1177
01:01:25,080 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 1: The allegation center around Eva Kylie. She is a vice

1178
01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:31,320
Speaker 1: president of the EU Parliament who was stripped of her

1179
01:01:31,360 --> 01:01:34,160
Speaker 1: duties in the legislature and within the Greek Socialist Party.

1180
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:37,640
Speaker 1: In fact, she now seems was taken actually took and

1181
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:41,920
Speaker 1: gave a speech in the EU Parliament previously hailing Qatar

1182
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:45,640
Speaker 1: as a quote front runner in labor rights and said

1183
01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:49,080
Speaker 1: other European Parliament members who were criticizing the country quote

1184
01:01:49,120 --> 01:01:52,120
Speaker 1: accuse everyone that talks to them or engaging in corruption,

1185
01:01:52,400 --> 01:01:54,800
Speaker 1: but still takes their gas. She might have been right

1186
01:01:54,880 --> 01:01:57,080
Speaker 1: on the gas run, but it turns out she was

1187
01:01:57,160 --> 01:02:00,760
Speaker 1: actually literally getting paid when she made that statement. Incredible.

1188
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:03,480
Speaker 1: The details of the crime are hilarious. She was literally

1189
01:02:03,480 --> 01:02:06,520
Speaker 1: detained with quote bags of cash and was brought before

1190
01:02:06,560 --> 01:02:09,520
Speaker 1: a judge under a charge of being caught basically red handed.

1191
01:02:09,760 --> 01:02:12,280
Speaker 1: The total amount of cash sees includes six hundred thousand

1192
01:02:12,280 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 1: euros at home, several hundred thousand and a suitcase and

1193
01:02:14,840 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 1: a hotel room at Brussels, and another one hundred and

1194
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:20,600
Speaker 1: fifty k at her house. Her own father was seized

1195
01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:23,720
Speaker 1: leaving a hotel room with cash in a suitcase. Qatar

1196
01:02:23,840 --> 01:02:25,520
Speaker 1: for the record says it had nothing to do with

1197
01:02:25,560 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 1: bribing her in this incident, but the Belgian prosecutors allude

1198
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:31,480
Speaker 1: to a quote Gulf country and the Belgian media is

1199
01:02:31,520 --> 01:02:34,360
Speaker 1: clearly reporting it without any pushback from the Belgian state.

1200
01:02:34,600 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: The scandal actually goes deeper as another one of those

1201
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:41,040
Speaker 1: who was charged in a quote nonprofit called quote Fight Impunity,

1202
01:02:41,760 --> 01:02:45,600
Speaker 1: that man, Pierre Antonio Panzieri, was a previous member of

1203
01:02:45,640 --> 01:02:49,440
Speaker 1: the EU Parliament who has actually chaired delegations to the

1204
01:02:49,440 --> 01:02:51,640
Speaker 1: Middle East in the past, and appears to have been

1205
01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 1: at the center of a criminal ring which influenced decision

1206
01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:58,720
Speaker 1: making within the EU Parliament itself, dispersing cash and gifts

1207
01:02:58,760 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 1: on behalf of the Katari government. The Italian media says

1208
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:04,000
Speaker 1: his wife and daughter were also to detained in connection

1209
01:03:04,080 --> 01:03:06,600
Speaker 1: with the case, revealing that he too was likely on

1210
01:03:06,680 --> 01:03:09,120
Speaker 1: the take. And that's just what we know so far.

1211
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:12,720
Speaker 1: Early in the morning, actually Belgian authorities rated even more

1212
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:17,240
Speaker 1: offices throughout the EU Parliament, including nineteen different homes and offices,

1213
01:03:17,240 --> 01:03:20,960
Speaker 1: including other members. Six others have now been arrested, though

1214
01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:23,480
Speaker 1: they're aware of awaiting their names. In a way, it

1215
01:03:23,520 --> 01:03:25,760
Speaker 1: doesn't even matter. It just shows us what we knew already.

1216
01:03:25,960 --> 01:03:28,880
Speaker 1: In many ways, a lot of these Western legislative bodies,

1217
01:03:28,920 --> 01:03:31,040
Speaker 1: they're totally for sale to the highest bidder, no matter

1218
01:03:31,280 --> 01:03:34,680
Speaker 1: who you are. So probably the most significant corruption scandal

1219
01:03:34,720 --> 01:03:36,919
Speaker 1: in years for the European Union, and at the center

1220
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:39,160
Speaker 1: of it is a country which has it all figured out.

1221
01:03:39,560 --> 01:03:41,640
Speaker 1: In a way, I don't blame the Kataris. They got

1222
01:03:41,640 --> 01:03:43,640
Speaker 1: this far by buying people off to overlook how they

1223
01:03:43,680 --> 01:03:46,360
Speaker 1: run their society. They literally bribe their way to the

1224
01:03:46,360 --> 01:03:48,680
Speaker 1: World Cup. For those who may have forgotten, we have

1225
01:03:48,920 --> 01:03:52,480
Speaker 1: literally had people on tape accepting bribes in those instances.

1226
01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:55,320
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, the US Department of Justice revealed that

1227
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:58,520
Speaker 1: both Russia and Qatar straight up bribe FIFA officials to

1228
01:03:58,600 --> 01:04:01,800
Speaker 1: secure hosting rights for the Cup, including outright payments for

1229
01:04:01,840 --> 01:04:05,040
Speaker 1: their votes. The scandal has even been admitted to by FIFA,

1230
01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:07,880
Speaker 1: including listening off names of those and of course, even

1231
01:04:07,920 --> 01:04:10,520
Speaker 1: after the payments were made public by the FBI, they

1232
01:04:10,560 --> 01:04:13,200
Speaker 1: still continue to stand by Qatar. I can't be the

1233
01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:15,640
Speaker 1: only one who saw the EU parliament members comments and

1234
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:18,400
Speaker 1: didn't immediately then remember the past FIFA president or the

1235
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:24,400
Speaker 1: current FIFA president's justification for Qatar's World Cup. I'm European, actually,

1236
01:04:24,440 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 1: I am European, not just I feel European. I think

1237
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:31,960
Speaker 1: for what we Europeans have been doing in the last

1238
01:04:31,960 --> 01:04:35,400
Speaker 1: three thousand years around the world, we should be apologizing

1239
01:04:35,440 --> 01:04:40,120
Speaker 1: for next three thousand years before starting to give model

1240
01:04:40,160 --> 01:04:46,200
Speaker 1: lessons to people today. I have very strong feelings. I

1241
01:04:46,200 --> 01:04:57,440
Speaker 1: can tell you that today I feel Katari. Today, I

1242
01:04:57,480 --> 01:05:13,480
Speaker 1: feel arap today, I feel African today. I feel gay today,

1243
01:05:13,520 --> 01:05:22,840
Speaker 1: I feel disabled today, I feel a migrant worker. Still astonishing.

1244
01:05:23,080 --> 01:05:27,040
Speaker 1: Will this change absolutely anything? No? Probably not. Qatar still

1245
01:05:27,040 --> 01:05:30,160
Speaker 1: got the World Cup. They still and they caught this time.

1246
01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:32,720
Speaker 1: Even if they do change, it's not like other countries

1247
01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:35,000
Speaker 1: aren't doing this stuff all the time too. The only

1248
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:37,440
Speaker 1: way it could really change is with US. I mean,

1249
01:05:37,520 --> 01:05:39,640
Speaker 1: it's just kind of stunning, Crystal, Like they straight up

1250
01:05:39,680 --> 01:05:42,880
Speaker 1: bribe this EU parliament member, she gets seized with all

1251
01:05:42,960 --> 01:05:45,520
Speaker 1: this cash in her house. And if you want to

1252
01:05:45,520 --> 01:05:49,160
Speaker 1: hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber

1253
01:05:49,160 --> 01:05:55,640
Speaker 1: today at Breakingpoints dot com. You've got another European monologue, Crystal,

1254
01:05:56,080 --> 01:05:58,760
Speaker 1: what is it? Indeed, so last week, while we were

1255
01:05:58,800 --> 01:06:02,160
Speaker 1: on the road, the German government executed a mass raid,

1256
01:06:02,360 --> 01:06:05,800
Speaker 1: arresting twenty five people and involving some three thousand security

1257
01:06:05,800 --> 01:06:08,440
Speaker 1: personnel to disrupt what they described as a plot to

1258
01:06:08,640 --> 01:06:13,320
Speaker 1: overthrow their government. Now the detail seemed absolutely fantastical. Some

1259
01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:18,000
Speaker 1: minor hereditary aristocrat self styled as Prince Heinrich, the eighth

1260
01:06:18,040 --> 01:06:20,840
Speaker 1: of Royce, was allegedly meant to be installed as a

1261
01:06:20,920 --> 01:06:24,040
Speaker 1: new German Kaiser by a group of extremists who subscribed

1262
01:06:24,080 --> 01:06:28,400
Speaker 1: to something called the Reichsberger movement. This movement supposedly had

1263
01:06:28,400 --> 01:06:30,640
Speaker 1: a whole government and waiting that they imagine was going

1264
01:06:30,680 --> 01:06:33,160
Speaker 1: to take the reins of power once their coup was successful.

1265
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:38,000
Speaker 1: So basically some sort of weird imperial fantasy turned into

1266
01:06:38,080 --> 01:06:41,520
Speaker 1: a violent coup plot. And somehow this also had something

1267
01:06:41,520 --> 01:06:44,959
Speaker 1: to do with QAnon. I had so many questions. First

1268
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:48,440
Speaker 1: of all, who is this dude, Prince Heinrich the Eighth. Well,

1269
01:06:48,480 --> 01:06:51,000
Speaker 1: here's the official photo that everyone seems to be going with.

1270
01:06:51,040 --> 01:06:54,720
Speaker 1: You've got glasses, receding hairline, ear low length gray hair,

1271
01:06:54,840 --> 01:06:57,440
Speaker 1: blue eyes staring into the camera with they sort of

1272
01:06:57,440 --> 01:07:01,680
Speaker 1: self satisfied look, tired in Paisley to Paisley pocket square,

1273
01:07:01,720 --> 01:07:04,840
Speaker 1: and a window pane tweed jacket. In other words, if

1274
01:07:04,880 --> 01:07:08,320
Speaker 1: I pictured elderly fake German prince in my head, this

1275
01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:11,080
Speaker 1: is pretty much exactly what my mind might generate. And

1276
01:07:11,120 --> 01:07:13,560
Speaker 1: apparently the man really loved this beige tweed jacket with

1277
01:07:13,640 --> 01:07:15,760
Speaker 1: red window pain pattern because he was wearing it for

1278
01:07:15,800 --> 01:07:18,120
Speaker 1: his arrest photo as well, as you can see here

1279
01:07:18,400 --> 01:07:20,560
Speaker 1: this time, paired with a blue shirt open at the

1280
01:07:20,600 --> 01:07:24,520
Speaker 1: neck and sienna colored corduroy pants. Now his ancestors reigned

1281
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:26,760
Speaker 1: over the city of Gira, which is located in the

1282
01:07:26,760 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 1: modern eastern German state of Thuringia. The history of House

1283
01:07:30,440 --> 01:07:32,960
Speaker 1: Royce goes back at least seven hundred years and includes

1284
01:07:33,040 --> 01:07:36,440
Speaker 1: overseeing the reconstruction of Gira after a devastating fire. The

1285
01:07:36,480 --> 01:07:39,960
Speaker 1: family's roots in Thuringia end up being kind of significant

1286
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:42,440
Speaker 1: because this is also the area where the far right

1287
01:07:42,520 --> 01:07:45,080
Speaker 1: AfD party has found the most traction and has been

1288
01:07:45,120 --> 01:07:48,640
Speaker 1: somewhat of a hotbed of the Reisberger conspiracy movement. The

1289
01:07:48,680 --> 01:07:51,920
Speaker 1: Fake Prince's family while they had already disassociated themselves with

1290
01:07:52,000 --> 01:07:54,880
Speaker 1: him due to his political beliefs this summer, a spokesperson

1291
01:07:54,880 --> 01:07:57,160
Speaker 1: for the House Royce said quote, I am afraid that

1292
01:07:57,200 --> 01:08:00,360
Speaker 1: he is now a conspiracy theorist, a confused old man man.

1293
01:08:00,560 --> 01:08:03,160
Speaker 1: This distancing might have been due to a poorly received

1294
01:08:03,160 --> 01:08:05,880
Speaker 1: speech of the World webformants with the Switzerland that was

1295
01:08:05,920 --> 01:08:09,280
Speaker 1: titled Experienced the Rise and Fall of the Blue Blooded Elite,

1296
01:08:09,440 --> 01:08:12,800
Speaker 1: in which he peddled his conspiracies with some anti Semitism

1297
01:08:12,840 --> 01:08:15,040
Speaker 1: thrown in for good measure. Got to give it to

1298
01:08:15,120 --> 01:08:18,000
Speaker 1: this guy. He is always on brand, so Heinrich the

1299
01:08:18,040 --> 01:08:22,240
Speaker 1: eighth was still able, however, to operate a successful business

1300
01:08:22,280 --> 01:08:24,960
Speaker 1: as a high end real estate broker in Frankfurt, that

1301
01:08:25,080 --> 01:08:27,840
Speaker 1: was the location of his arrest. He split his time

1302
01:08:28,000 --> 01:08:31,040
Speaker 1: there in f and between a hunting lodge in his

1303
01:08:31,160 --> 01:08:34,920
Speaker 1: ancestral homeland, sort of small castle fortress looking place. New

1304
01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:37,800
Speaker 1: York Times described it as crenelated, which apparently is what

1305
01:08:37,840 --> 01:08:40,880
Speaker 1: those prototypical castle looking walls are called. It was here

1306
01:08:40,920 --> 01:08:43,680
Speaker 1: that he allegedly plotted the now aborted coup, and this

1307
01:08:43,880 --> 01:08:46,200
Speaker 1: lodge also offers a clue as to how the fake

1308
01:08:46,240 --> 01:08:48,960
Speaker 1: prince went down the extremist rabbit hole. He and his

1309
01:08:49,040 --> 01:08:51,439
Speaker 1: family members have been engaged in a variety of lawsuits

1310
01:08:51,479 --> 01:08:54,120
Speaker 1: against the state of Germany to reclaim their family's former

1311
01:08:54,200 --> 01:08:57,519
Speaker 1: land and property holdings, to include this hunting lodge. All

1312
01:08:57,560 --> 01:09:00,400
Speaker 1: of these holdings were nationalized by the Soviets. These lawsuits

1313
01:09:00,439 --> 01:09:03,000
Speaker 1: were mostly unsuccessful, and in the end he was actually

1314
01:09:03,080 --> 01:09:06,040
Speaker 1: forced to buy back the family's ancestral hunting lodge, which

1315
01:09:06,040 --> 01:09:09,320
Speaker 1: had been serving as a state run hostile. Simmering resentments

1316
01:09:09,360 --> 01:09:11,919
Speaker 1: over these losses and his family's loss of noble status

1317
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:16,240
Speaker 1: could have fueled his turn toward fantastical imperial conspiracies. That

1318
01:09:16,320 --> 01:09:18,800
Speaker 1: all brings me to my second question, what the hell

1319
01:09:18,920 --> 01:09:23,160
Speaker 1: is the Reichsberger movement. So Reichsberger means citizens of the Empire,

1320
01:09:23,360 --> 01:09:26,120
Speaker 1: so basically it's the German version of the so called

1321
01:09:26,200 --> 01:09:29,640
Speaker 1: sovereign citizen movement. Here. The basic belief is that the

1322
01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:33,000
Speaker 1: post World War two German government is illegitimate, it's fake,

1323
01:09:33,280 --> 01:09:35,600
Speaker 1: and it's in fact just a corporate entity set up

1324
01:09:35,600 --> 01:09:38,759
Speaker 1: by the US and other allies. The movement combines anti

1325
01:09:38,800 --> 01:09:42,599
Speaker 1: government ideology with this nostalgia for a glorious imperial past.

1326
01:09:42,960 --> 01:09:46,160
Speaker 1: Adherents have been known to harass local officials, refuse to

1327
01:09:46,160 --> 01:09:50,360
Speaker 1: pay taxes, and refuse to obtain driver's licenses. They've also

1328
01:09:50,400 --> 01:09:53,160
Speaker 1: been known to file mountains of frivolous claims and courts

1329
01:09:53,160 --> 01:09:55,439
Speaker 1: in an attempt to gum up the workings of the state. Again,

1330
01:09:55,520 --> 01:09:58,040
Speaker 1: this all sounds a lot like sovereign citizens here in

1331
01:09:58,040 --> 01:09:59,680
Speaker 1: the US. Let me give you a little bit of

1332
01:09:59,720 --> 01:10:02,360
Speaker 1: a sense the rhetoric that they use. A local journalist

1333
01:10:02,479 --> 01:10:04,639
Speaker 1: in the town where the fake prints had that hunting lunch,

1334
01:10:04,920 --> 01:10:08,000
Speaker 1: he described a Reichsberger affiliated letter which went out to

1335
01:10:08,040 --> 01:10:11,080
Speaker 1: local citizens and it read, do you also have the

1336
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:13,840
Speaker 1: feeling that something in this country is not right. Did

1337
01:10:13,880 --> 01:10:16,320
Speaker 1: you know that you actually are not in possession of

1338
01:10:16,360 --> 01:10:20,120
Speaker 1: any citizenship, that you are actually stateless and possessed no rights.

1339
01:10:20,520 --> 01:10:22,920
Speaker 1: Interviews by The New York Times with locals actually found

1340
01:10:22,920 --> 01:10:25,680
Speaker 1: some sympathy for the sense of unease and disconnection, if

1341
01:10:25,720 --> 01:10:28,120
Speaker 1: not so much with the violent coup plants. Now there

1342
01:10:28,160 --> 01:10:31,679
Speaker 1: are an estimated twenty thousand or so Reichsberger believers in Germany.

1343
01:10:31,920 --> 01:10:34,040
Speaker 1: Seems like until recently they were seen as just sort

1344
01:10:34,080 --> 01:10:36,720
Speaker 1: of a goofy nuisance, small group of harmless craigs cause

1345
01:10:36,760 --> 01:10:39,559
Speaker 1: playing state craft. But according to media reports which also

1346
01:10:39,600 --> 01:10:42,240
Speaker 1: have some echoes and what we've experienced here, they cross

1347
01:10:42,360 --> 01:10:46,400
Speaker 1: pollinated with other extremists and conspiracy movements during COVID lockdowns,

1348
01:10:46,439 --> 01:10:49,080
Speaker 1: while also at the same time becoming a lot more radical.

1349
01:10:49,280 --> 01:10:51,839
Speaker 1: I mean, it kind of makes sense. A bunch of angry,

1350
01:10:51,880 --> 01:10:55,200
Speaker 1: disillusioned people, cut off from social ties, put under economic pressure,

1351
01:10:55,479 --> 01:10:57,400
Speaker 1: way too much time on their hands to spend going

1352
01:10:57,439 --> 01:11:00,360
Speaker 1: down deep internet rabbit holes, so no wonder that some

1353
01:11:00,479 --> 01:11:02,200
Speaker 1: crazy shit is going to come out the other end

1354
01:11:02,240 --> 01:11:05,000
Speaker 1: of that toxic brew. Which finally brings me to the

1355
01:11:05,080 --> 01:11:07,400
Speaker 1: alleged q and on links and what any of this

1356
01:11:07,479 --> 01:11:09,320
Speaker 1: has to do with the US other than my own

1357
01:11:09,520 --> 01:11:13,479
Speaker 1: personal fascination. So the government's post raid press release claimed

1358
01:11:13,560 --> 01:11:17,200
Speaker 1: that q andon ideology had helped you inspire this group

1359
01:11:17,320 --> 01:11:20,400
Speaker 1: of would be insurrectionists. But most of the reporting I've

1360
01:11:20,400 --> 01:11:22,280
Speaker 1: seen on this link is actually kind of vague. I'm

1361
01:11:22,280 --> 01:11:24,000
Speaker 1: not saying it's not there, but based on what I've

1362
01:11:24,000 --> 01:11:26,639
Speaker 1: been able to glean in my rather obsessive Internet research,

1363
01:11:26,960 --> 01:11:29,840
Speaker 1: it's mostly that all of these fringe, radical and conspiracy

1364
01:11:29,880 --> 01:11:32,880
Speaker 1: movements have intermingled online to sort of choose your own

1365
01:11:32,920 --> 01:11:36,240
Speaker 1: adventure of global cabala plots where everyone feels like they

1366
01:11:36,240 --> 01:11:39,000
Speaker 1: have access to some secret, special knowledge, that they're part

1367
01:11:39,040 --> 01:11:41,240
Speaker 1: of a group of global truth hunters putting together the

1368
01:11:41,280 --> 01:11:44,080
Speaker 1: pieces of a forbidden puzzle, just as here in the US,

1369
01:11:44,240 --> 01:11:46,640
Speaker 1: q Andon mixed with the anti lockdown protests, mix with

1370
01:11:46,680 --> 01:11:49,519
Speaker 1: Stop this Deal, mixed with Proud Boys, mixed with oath keepers, etc.

1371
01:11:49,880 --> 01:11:52,559
Speaker 1: Et cetera. And I guess to me that is really

1372
01:11:52,600 --> 01:11:55,320
Speaker 1: the most interesting part. How do you end up, for example,

1373
01:11:55,439 --> 01:11:58,920
Speaker 1: storming the Capitol on January sixth, genuinely believing you are

1374
01:11:58,960 --> 01:12:02,640
Speaker 1: acting as a PA or dedicating your life to the

1375
01:12:02,760 --> 01:12:06,360
Speaker 1: nonsensical musings of the eight chan administrator who is pretending

1376
01:12:06,400 --> 01:12:10,280
Speaker 1: to be some deep government insider previewing an inevitable coming storm.

1377
01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:13,519
Speaker 1: Or how do you end up planning intricate details of

1378
01:12:13,560 --> 01:12:16,280
Speaker 1: a plot to re establish the Kaiser from the hunting

1379
01:12:16,320 --> 01:12:19,839
Speaker 1: lodge of a self styled aristocrat. Well, I would guess

1380
01:12:19,880 --> 01:12:23,320
Speaker 1: to say it's pretty complex. But researchers say that people

1381
01:12:23,320 --> 01:12:26,120
Speaker 1: who are suffering some sort of identity crisis, they tend

1382
01:12:26,120 --> 01:12:30,000
Speaker 1: to be more vulnerable to conspiratorial or extreme ideology. That

1383
01:12:30,120 --> 01:12:33,320
Speaker 1: identity crisis could be triggered by, let's say, an influx

1384
01:12:33,360 --> 01:12:36,360
Speaker 1: of refugees that cynical politicians warn will upend your culture

1385
01:12:36,360 --> 01:12:38,840
Speaker 1: and destroy your way of life. Could be triggered by

1386
01:12:38,880 --> 01:12:41,719
Speaker 1: a personal financial calamity of the type of befel millions

1387
01:12:41,800 --> 01:12:44,840
Speaker 1: during the Great Recession. Could be triggered by a pandemic

1388
01:12:44,920 --> 01:12:48,360
Speaker 1: that cuts you off from your work and your social outlets. Research,

1389
01:12:48,400 --> 01:12:51,160
Speaker 1: in fact, shows that financial crises, from the eighteen seventies

1390
01:12:51,200 --> 01:12:55,839
Speaker 1: on they have consistently triggered surges and right wing authoritarian movements.

1391
01:12:56,160 --> 01:12:59,120
Speaker 1: There is some indication that the Reichsberger movement has preyed

1392
01:12:59,160 --> 01:13:02,800
Speaker 1: on those facing it and facing financial struggle. Believers tend

1393
01:13:02,800 --> 01:13:05,400
Speaker 1: to be older, single males who are socially isolated. It

1394
01:13:05,439 --> 01:13:08,040
Speaker 1: also jumped down to me right away that these fringe

1395
01:13:08,080 --> 01:13:11,000
Speaker 1: and far right movements in Germany are concentrated in former

1396
01:13:11,160 --> 01:13:14,040
Speaker 1: East Germany, where the economy is lagged and many are

1397
01:13:14,080 --> 01:13:18,000
Speaker 1: nostalgic for the communist pre unification era. Every year, the

1398
01:13:18,000 --> 01:13:21,000
Speaker 1: Garment actually produces an annual report on the status of

1399
01:13:21,080 --> 01:13:25,479
Speaker 1: German Unity. In twenty nineteen, that report found that fifty

1400
01:13:25,560 --> 01:13:28,719
Speaker 1: seven percent of citizens in Eastern Germany felt like second

1401
01:13:28,720 --> 01:13:32,400
Speaker 1: class citizens. Just thirty eight percent of those asked in

1402
01:13:32,439 --> 01:13:37,040
Speaker 1: the East see reunification as a success, including only get

1403
01:13:37,080 --> 01:13:42,080
Speaker 1: this twenty percent of people under forty. That is a

1404
01:13:42,240 --> 01:13:45,880
Speaker 1: stunning statistic. It would appear that the promised capitalist dream

1405
01:13:45,880 --> 01:13:48,639
Speaker 1: has failed to materialize for East Germany, just as it's

1406
01:13:48,640 --> 01:13:51,000
Speaker 1: failed to materialize for a lot of people right here.

1407
01:13:51,280 --> 01:13:53,840
Speaker 1: The same time, it is stripped local communities, bear turned

1408
01:13:53,920 --> 01:13:58,240
Speaker 1: us from connected citizens into atomized consumers, and subjected us

1409
01:13:58,280 --> 01:14:01,479
Speaker 1: to financial crises that plunge our societies into these sort

1410
01:14:01,520 --> 01:14:05,480
Speaker 1: of doom loops, thus preparing fertile ground for desperate conspiracies

1411
01:14:05,520 --> 01:14:08,559
Speaker 1: to grow and burst from online chat rooms right into

1412
01:14:08,560 --> 01:14:11,479
Speaker 1: the real world. The truth is the real plot against

1413
01:14:11,520 --> 01:14:13,679
Speaker 1: the people. It's out in the open for all to see.

1414
01:14:13,720 --> 01:14:16,479
Speaker 1: You don't need a conspiracy theory. A system that puts

1415
01:14:16,520 --> 01:14:19,960
Speaker 1: profit over people and corporate power over democratic power, and

1416
01:14:20,040 --> 01:14:24,799
Speaker 1: I fully support a peaceful revolution to overthrow that system.

1417
01:14:25,080 --> 01:14:28,200
Speaker 1: And Sager, I know you are a student of history.

1418
01:14:28,400 --> 01:14:30,439
Speaker 1: I know you found this all very interesting as well.

1419
01:14:30,520 --> 01:14:32,200
Speaker 1: So what do you make of this whole thing? And

1420
01:14:32,240 --> 01:14:34,919
Speaker 1: if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

1421
01:14:34,920 --> 01:14:41,120
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Very

1422
01:14:41,200 --> 01:14:43,280
Speaker 1: excited about this. We've got a great guest to join

1423
01:14:43,360 --> 01:14:45,640
Speaker 1: us on the show today, coffee Zilla. So if you

1424
01:14:45,720 --> 01:14:48,320
Speaker 1: might know him, he's a journalist. He's a fantastic job

1425
01:14:48,600 --> 01:14:50,479
Speaker 1: over on his YouTube channel, which we'll have a link

1426
01:14:50,520 --> 01:14:53,760
Speaker 1: in the description exposing crypto scams, but really being at

1427
01:14:53,760 --> 01:14:56,720
Speaker 1: the forefront of the SBF scandal from day one. And

1428
01:14:56,760 --> 01:14:59,439
Speaker 1: what a fourtuitous day for you to join us. Copies Zilla,

1429
01:14:59,479 --> 01:15:03,400
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, man, We appreciate it. Thanks for

1430
01:15:03,439 --> 01:15:06,479
Speaker 1: having me. Yeah, we've got him getting arrested. It's an

1431
01:15:06,479 --> 01:15:09,080
Speaker 1: incredible day for sure. Okay, So I think one of

1432
01:15:09,080 --> 01:15:10,679
Speaker 1: the things we wanted to start with so you could

1433
01:15:10,720 --> 01:15:13,439
Speaker 1: recap for the audience. Is when you did a video

1434
01:15:13,640 --> 01:15:16,760
Speaker 1: I accidentally got SBF to admit to fraud. So why

1435
01:15:16,800 --> 01:15:18,600
Speaker 1: don't you dig into some of the details there and

1436
01:15:18,640 --> 01:15:21,120
Speaker 1: maybe even take it back to what set your BS

1437
01:15:21,240 --> 01:15:23,320
Speaker 1: radar off with SBF from the very beginning when you

1438
01:15:23,320 --> 01:15:28,920
Speaker 1: started covering him many months ago. Yeah, so months ago

1439
01:15:29,400 --> 01:15:32,640
Speaker 1: he was on a podcast with Matt Levine where he

1440
01:15:32,720 --> 01:15:37,160
Speaker 1: was saying that basically everything's a Ponzi scheme. All of

1441
01:15:37,240 --> 01:15:40,240
Speaker 1: defis a Ponzi scheme. It was kind of an incredible admission,

1442
01:15:40,560 --> 01:15:42,639
Speaker 1: and at the time I said, look, here's this crypto

1443
01:15:42,760 --> 01:15:46,960
Speaker 1: ceo that everyone loves who's basically glorifying Ponzi schemes as

1444
01:15:47,000 --> 01:15:49,960
Speaker 1: if it's a legitimate business. And Matt Levin famously said,

1445
01:15:50,000 --> 01:15:52,519
Speaker 1: you know, sounds like you're in the Ponzi business and

1446
01:15:52,560 --> 01:15:56,200
Speaker 1: business is good now. Later, when all of this collapsed,

1447
01:15:56,360 --> 01:15:58,000
Speaker 1: I tried to get an interview with him. He didn't

1448
01:15:58,040 --> 01:15:59,240
Speaker 1: want to talk to me, although he talked to a

1449
01:15:59,280 --> 01:16:02,080
Speaker 1: lot of journalists, So instead I snuck up on a

1450
01:16:02,120 --> 01:16:07,120
Speaker 1: Twitter space and managed to basically kind of trick him

1451
01:16:07,120 --> 01:16:10,320
Speaker 1: into talking to me. At first, he ran away the

1452
01:16:10,360 --> 01:16:13,640
Speaker 1: first couple calls, but finally I nailed him down and

1453
01:16:13,680 --> 01:16:18,160
Speaker 1: I got him to admit that there was fungibility between accounts.

1454
01:16:18,200 --> 01:16:21,760
Speaker 1: This is a really important point. Basically, Sam Bankman Freed

1455
01:16:21,880 --> 01:16:24,800
Speaker 1: was never supposed to have control over customer funds. It

1456
01:16:24,840 --> 01:16:26,799
Speaker 1: was supposed to be separated per their term of service.

1457
01:16:27,000 --> 01:16:29,360
Speaker 1: And what he admitted to me was that was never

1458
01:16:29,600 --> 01:16:33,720
Speaker 1: the case. There was what they called generalized withdrawals the

1459
01:16:33,840 --> 01:16:37,800
Speaker 1: day of the bankruptcy, the days leading up to the bankruptcy,

1460
01:16:37,880 --> 01:16:40,680
Speaker 1: which meant fundamentally, your funds were never safe. They were

1461
01:16:40,760 --> 01:16:44,479
Speaker 1: always being used by Sam and Alameda to make risky

1462
01:16:44,520 --> 01:16:48,479
Speaker 1: trading decisions, absolutely scandalous. And today you saw the results

1463
01:16:48,520 --> 01:16:52,240
Speaker 1: of that. Obviously you have the DOJ announcing that they're

1464
01:16:52,240 --> 01:16:56,000
Speaker 1: about to they're about to really release their charges on him.

1465
01:16:56,160 --> 01:17:00,519
Speaker 1: You're very strategic about the way that you went about

1466
01:17:00,600 --> 01:17:04,719
Speaker 1: questioning him because you had seen him very successfully dodge

1467
01:17:04,760 --> 01:17:08,559
Speaker 1: other interviewers who were relatively skilled over at the New

1468
01:17:08,640 --> 01:17:11,479
Speaker 1: York Times and with George Stephanopolis. Can you talk about

1469
01:17:11,520 --> 01:17:15,160
Speaker 1: some of the tactics that he would use to deflect

1470
01:17:15,160 --> 01:17:19,880
Speaker 1: scrutiny in these other interviews that he was doing. Absolutely so,

1471
01:17:20,120 --> 01:17:23,080
Speaker 1: what he was really good at was he was able

1472
01:17:23,120 --> 01:17:27,480
Speaker 1: to deflect by going to a bunch of complicated financial

1473
01:17:27,520 --> 01:17:30,400
Speaker 1: instruments that he knew very well, and by doing that

1474
01:17:30,520 --> 01:17:33,320
Speaker 1: he could get the interviewer sort of off their game.

1475
01:17:33,439 --> 01:17:37,280
Speaker 1: So he would invoke Alameda Research, which was his trading

1476
01:17:37,280 --> 01:17:41,200
Speaker 1: firm which he started, he owned, but ultimately had nothing

1477
01:17:41,200 --> 01:17:44,720
Speaker 1: to do with. He would say he knew nothing about right,

1478
01:17:44,800 --> 01:17:46,920
Speaker 1: he would say, I knew nothing about Alameda. I was

1479
01:17:46,960 --> 01:17:49,320
Speaker 1: not the CEO, So anything that happened there is not

1480
01:17:49,400 --> 01:17:52,240
Speaker 1: my fault. So an interview with an interviewer would say,

1481
01:17:52,280 --> 01:17:54,720
Speaker 1: you know what happened at FTX. It looks like there's

1482
01:17:54,720 --> 01:17:57,280
Speaker 1: a bunch of money stolen, And he said, well that

1483
01:17:57,439 --> 01:17:59,639
Speaker 1: was with what was going on with Alameda. We had

1484
01:17:59,680 --> 01:18:03,960
Speaker 1: this issue, we had an accounting error, and each interviewer

1485
01:18:04,040 --> 01:18:09,280
Speaker 1: just kind of kept getting trapped in this mire of excuses.

1486
01:18:09,320 --> 01:18:12,000
Speaker 1: So what I decided to do was really focus on

1487
01:18:12,439 --> 01:18:17,080
Speaker 1: FTX itself, ignore Alameda completely, and say, look, even if

1488
01:18:17,120 --> 01:18:20,599
Speaker 1: you just take what happened on FTX, that's fraud because

1489
01:18:20,880 --> 01:18:22,920
Speaker 1: customers should have been backed one to one. Let's say

1490
01:18:22,920 --> 01:18:26,840
Speaker 1: your grandma put a bitcoin on FTX, that money should

1491
01:18:26,840 --> 01:18:29,680
Speaker 1: still be there even if they didn't have money for

1492
01:18:29,720 --> 01:18:33,799
Speaker 1: everyone else who was on their riskier side of the trading,

1493
01:18:33,920 --> 01:18:37,000
Speaker 1: so they didn't have the money. He eventually admitted they

1494
01:18:37,000 --> 01:18:41,040
Speaker 1: didn't have the money, and that by itself is definitively fraud.

1495
01:18:41,080 --> 01:18:43,120
Speaker 1: You cannot tell people in your term of service that

1496
01:18:43,160 --> 01:18:45,040
Speaker 1: you're going to keep their money safe and then not

1497
01:18:45,200 --> 01:18:47,000
Speaker 1: do it. So by focusing in on that, I was

1498
01:18:47,040 --> 01:18:49,360
Speaker 1: able to get around a lot of his kind of

1499
01:18:49,400 --> 01:18:53,679
Speaker 1: excuses of going into Alameda, going into these complicated instruments. Basically,

1500
01:18:53,680 --> 01:18:55,880
Speaker 1: the SEC agrees with you, because they nailed him for

1501
01:18:56,040 --> 01:18:58,240
Speaker 1: exactly what you said in a complaint that we read

1502
01:18:58,520 --> 01:19:00,320
Speaker 1: on our show this morning. I want to go little

1503
01:19:00,360 --> 01:19:03,760
Speaker 1: level deeper. You've been exposing kind of crypto frauds, scammers

1504
01:19:03,800 --> 01:19:06,280
Speaker 1: really just online in the broader universe for quite a

1505
01:19:06,280 --> 01:19:08,280
Speaker 1: long time. It's something that I think that the mainstream

1506
01:19:08,320 --> 01:19:11,719
Speaker 1: media really misses until it just explodes into a multi

1507
01:19:11,720 --> 01:19:14,880
Speaker 1: billion dollar catastrophe. Why do you think that is? Why

1508
01:19:15,000 --> 01:19:17,840
Speaker 1: is it that these obvious you know, multi billionaires in

1509
01:19:17,880 --> 01:19:21,480
Speaker 1: this case, multimillionaires and many other cases which you've exposed

1510
01:19:21,479 --> 01:19:23,479
Speaker 1: now for a long time, Why do they seem to

1511
01:19:23,479 --> 01:19:26,240
Speaker 1: fly under the radar when they're obviously so influential with

1512
01:19:26,280 --> 01:19:32,240
Speaker 1: younger people and on the internet large I think a

1513
01:19:32,280 --> 01:19:35,200
Speaker 1: lot of mainstream journalists just haven't caught up with the

1514
01:19:35,200 --> 01:19:38,400
Speaker 1: crypto world, and I think they're struggling to catch up

1515
01:19:38,800 --> 01:19:41,120
Speaker 1: even now. In the case of Sam Bankman, freedom was

1516
01:19:41,160 --> 01:19:43,920
Speaker 1: a bit different because he was actually funding a lot

1517
01:19:43,920 --> 01:19:47,839
Speaker 1: of these institutions. You had him actually giving grants to journalists,

1518
01:19:47,880 --> 01:19:51,080
Speaker 1: You had him working sort of hand in hand with journalists.

1519
01:19:51,200 --> 01:19:54,559
Speaker 1: So it's no surprise they didn't see it. Right. A

1520
01:19:54,560 --> 01:19:57,160
Speaker 1: lot of these people are still struggling to see the fraud.

1521
01:19:57,200 --> 01:19:59,400
Speaker 1: You have some puff pieces going out there. Don't get

1522
01:19:59,400 --> 01:20:02,920
Speaker 1: me wrong, there's some great mainstream pieces about Sam Bankman freed,

1523
01:20:03,000 --> 01:20:05,880
Speaker 1: but a lot of them missed this. And the question is, Okay,

1524
01:20:05,920 --> 01:20:08,840
Speaker 1: it's some combination of maybe they don't understand crypto, but

1525
01:20:08,920 --> 01:20:11,080
Speaker 1: also how much of it is Well, he was the

1526
01:20:11,120 --> 01:20:14,360
Speaker 1: poster child, he was the guy from Jane Street who

1527
01:20:14,400 --> 01:20:16,719
Speaker 1: was so smart, and he was helping all the journalists.

1528
01:20:16,760 --> 01:20:19,000
Speaker 1: He was a huge democratic funder. How much did that

1529
01:20:19,000 --> 01:20:21,000
Speaker 1: play a role in it. It's hard to know. I mean,

1530
01:20:21,040 --> 01:20:24,479
Speaker 1: we see this across industries, not just in terms of

1531
01:20:24,520 --> 01:20:27,960
Speaker 1: finance or tech, but certainly in terms of politics. A

1532
01:20:27,960 --> 01:20:30,759
Speaker 1: lot of times the journalists get cozy with the subjects

1533
01:20:30,800 --> 01:20:33,639
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be holding to account, and their career

1534
01:20:33,680 --> 01:20:37,080
Speaker 1: depends more on access to that person than it does on,

1535
01:20:37,400 --> 01:20:40,160
Speaker 1: you know, potentially exposing them, and so it creates a

1536
01:20:40,200 --> 01:20:42,120
Speaker 1: bad incentive structure where it's like they want to be

1537
01:20:42,120 --> 01:20:44,080
Speaker 1: in the club rather than they really want to be

1538
01:20:44,280 --> 01:20:47,599
Speaker 1: covering and holding the club ultimately to account. I am

1539
01:20:47,640 --> 01:20:51,600
Speaker 1: curious though, I mean your YouTube channel. Your description of

1540
01:20:51,640 --> 01:20:54,840
Speaker 1: it is I uncover scams, fraudsters and fake gurus that

1541
01:20:54,880 --> 01:20:58,640
Speaker 1: are praying on desperate people with deceptive advertising, which is

1542
01:20:58,640 --> 01:21:02,000
Speaker 1: an incredible space that you've carved out for yourself. Like

1543
01:21:02,439 --> 01:21:05,200
Speaker 1: what are some of the tactics that you use to

1544
01:21:05,680 --> 01:21:08,840
Speaker 1: Like when does your BS radar go off? What are

1545
01:21:08,840 --> 01:21:12,559
Speaker 1: some of the commonalities between these various crooks that you

1546
01:21:12,640 --> 01:21:16,640
Speaker 1: are ultimately exposing and revealing, And what sort of characteristics

1547
01:21:16,680 --> 01:21:19,040
Speaker 1: does Sam Bankman Freed share with some of those other

1548
01:21:19,080 --> 01:21:23,680
Speaker 1: individuals you've covered. Sure, Yeah, I'd love to talk about that.

1549
01:21:24,600 --> 01:21:28,439
Speaker 1: A lot of the tactics and methods people used to

1550
01:21:28,479 --> 01:21:32,120
Speaker 1: gain this, like a status with people or gript on people.

1551
01:21:32,520 --> 01:21:34,800
Speaker 1: It's a lot on quick status, but I mean a

1552
01:21:34,800 --> 01:21:37,320
Speaker 1: lot of these guys might be. It goes off whenever

1553
01:21:37,560 --> 01:21:40,800
Speaker 1: somebody comes out of nowhere, seemingly no pedigree and all

1554
01:21:40,840 --> 01:21:43,479
Speaker 1: of a sudden is taking the world by storm. They

1555
01:21:43,760 --> 01:21:47,760
Speaker 1: seem to have wealth from nowhere. They advertising some get

1556
01:21:47,840 --> 01:21:50,760
Speaker 1: rich quick scheme and really FDx was kind of doing that.

1557
01:21:50,840 --> 01:21:54,120
Speaker 1: I mean they were offering people like high interest rate loans.

1558
01:21:54,120 --> 01:21:56,920
Speaker 1: They said they were low risk. You have Sam Bankman

1559
01:21:56,920 --> 01:21:59,799
Speaker 1: Freed himself, who although he came from a great school,

1560
01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:03,280
Speaker 1: he came from MIT, he had some pedigree, he really

1561
01:22:03,320 --> 01:22:06,120
Speaker 1: didn't do much before FTX, and all of a sudden,

1562
01:22:06,120 --> 01:22:08,679
Speaker 1: he's the smartest guy on the block. He's telling people

1563
01:22:08,720 --> 01:22:12,040
Speaker 1: they have no risk. He's telling people he's making money

1564
01:22:12,080 --> 01:22:15,400
Speaker 1: without any kind of risk associated. It just didn't make sense.

1565
01:22:15,760 --> 01:22:19,200
Speaker 1: And then you just have his talk about Ponzi schemes favorably.

1566
01:22:19,600 --> 01:22:22,920
Speaker 1: That was a huge red flag. So it's these types

1567
01:22:22,960 --> 01:22:26,719
Speaker 1: of things that kind of set it off with his case.

1568
01:22:26,760 --> 01:22:28,280
Speaker 1: I think it's just a lot of people missed it

1569
01:22:28,360 --> 01:22:31,719
Speaker 1: because they were blindsided by all the other rubber stamping

1570
01:22:31,760 --> 01:22:34,040
Speaker 1: that goes on. I mean, this is something a bit

1571
01:22:34,080 --> 01:22:37,439
Speaker 1: different with Sam is so many people had checked him off.

1572
01:22:37,439 --> 01:22:40,200
Speaker 1: He had sequoia Capital, you have Blackrock, You have a

1573
01:22:40,240 --> 01:22:42,479
Speaker 1: lot of people doing so called who are supposed to

1574
01:22:42,520 --> 01:22:45,880
Speaker 1: be doing due diligence, who really didn't do it. But

1575
01:22:46,600 --> 01:22:49,200
Speaker 1: a lot of those same tactics that I see over

1576
01:22:49,240 --> 01:22:53,639
Speaker 1: and over with like deceptive marketing, predatory marketing. You saw

1577
01:22:53,680 --> 01:22:57,120
Speaker 1: that with SBF, and he actually admitted in an interview

1578
01:22:57,479 --> 01:23:00,200
Speaker 1: that that's actually why he talked a lot about you know,

1579
01:23:00,320 --> 01:23:01,560
Speaker 1: or at least it was part of the reason he

1580
01:23:01,600 --> 01:23:05,120
Speaker 1: talks so much about charity, about all this effective altruism

1581
01:23:05,400 --> 01:23:07,800
Speaker 1: was it was part of brand building. And I think

1582
01:23:07,840 --> 01:23:10,719
Speaker 1: that's such an important point. Is what are our blind

1583
01:23:10,760 --> 01:23:15,439
Speaker 1: spots as an institutions as this, you know, the Fourth

1584
01:23:15,479 --> 01:23:18,840
Speaker 1: of State, as journalists to people like this. Who else

1585
01:23:18,840 --> 01:23:22,320
Speaker 1: should everybody be paying attention to, because obviously you called

1586
01:23:22,400 --> 01:23:25,080
Speaker 1: SBF from the beginning, Are there any others that people

1587
01:23:25,120 --> 01:23:30,760
Speaker 1: should watch out for? I mean, certainly it's hard to

1588
01:23:30,760 --> 01:23:34,080
Speaker 1: say like one person without you know, making a whole

1589
01:23:34,120 --> 01:23:37,840
Speaker 1: story about it. But for sure, anybody who pops up

1590
01:23:37,920 --> 01:23:41,200
Speaker 1: out of nowhere who claims to have the whole crypto

1591
01:23:41,280 --> 01:23:44,320
Speaker 1: industry on a string has it all figured out. And

1592
01:23:44,360 --> 01:23:47,360
Speaker 1: we've seen this time and time again. It's usually there's

1593
01:23:47,640 --> 01:23:51,320
Speaker 1: undisclosed risk. So that was a big thing this year,

1594
01:23:51,680 --> 01:23:55,040
Speaker 1: and in crypto in general. People have been saying, oh,

1595
01:23:55,400 --> 01:23:58,240
Speaker 1: it's different. You can get eight percent a year no

1596
01:23:58,400 --> 01:24:01,160
Speaker 1: risk with crypto, or it's eight percent of years easy

1597
01:24:01,200 --> 01:24:04,479
Speaker 1: to get with crypto. It's different from the fiat markets. Listen,

1598
01:24:04,520 --> 01:24:08,679
Speaker 1: anytime anyone's promising you huge amounts of money for no risk,

1599
01:24:09,400 --> 01:24:11,439
Speaker 1: run you know. If you don't understand it, if you

1600
01:24:11,439 --> 01:24:15,760
Speaker 1: don't understand why there's risk associated, there's something hidden there.

1601
01:24:15,760 --> 01:24:18,200
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what you've seen in the crypto industry

1602
01:24:18,640 --> 01:24:21,519
Speaker 1: is over and over and over again. These people who

1603
01:24:21,560 --> 01:24:25,120
Speaker 1: are promising high rates of return, they blow up because

1604
01:24:25,120 --> 01:24:27,360
Speaker 1: they had something that they were trying to hide. Eventually

1605
01:24:27,360 --> 01:24:29,960
Speaker 1: comes out. Well, some things are too good to be true.

1606
01:24:30,040 --> 01:24:33,120
Speaker 1: Would have been useful advice for zograpy months last fifty

1607
01:24:33,120 --> 01:24:36,760
Speaker 1: five block by I'm rather I'm sorry to hear it.

1608
01:24:36,760 --> 01:24:38,760
Speaker 1: It's all right, it's all right. I'm here, I'm here

1609
01:24:38,760 --> 01:24:40,160
Speaker 1: to live another day. I'm here to talk to us.

1610
01:24:40,439 --> 01:24:42,479
Speaker 1: Been watching your channel more often. That's one of the

1611
01:24:42,520 --> 01:24:44,519
Speaker 1: reasons we wanted to have you on. Such an amazing

1612
01:24:44,600 --> 01:24:46,400
Speaker 1: job that you've been doing over there. I encourage everybody

1613
01:24:46,479 --> 01:24:48,400
Speaker 1: to go and to subscribe. You do a really good

1614
01:24:48,479 --> 01:24:51,680
Speaker 1: job breaking it down for anybody who's just coming into it,

1615
01:24:51,760 --> 01:24:56,040
Speaker 1: really entertaining, great interview style, breaking news journalism, and I

1616
01:24:56,080 --> 01:24:59,000
Speaker 1: consider you in the highest regard in the story. So congratulations. Yeah,

1617
01:24:59,040 --> 01:25:02,920
Speaker 1: thank you so much, super grateful for your time. Thanks, guys,

1618
01:25:03,000 --> 01:25:05,080
Speaker 1: appreciate you having me on absolutely linked down in the

1619
01:25:05,120 --> 01:25:07,960
Speaker 1: description to go in subscribe to his channel. Okay, guys,

1620
01:25:08,200 --> 01:25:10,080
Speaker 1: thank you so much for watching. We really appreciate it.

1621
01:25:10,080 --> 01:25:12,479
Speaker 1: Thanks shout out to our premium subscribers who are enabling

1622
01:25:12,760 --> 01:25:14,960
Speaker 1: our big expansion in twenty twenty three. You've got some

1623
01:25:14,960 --> 01:25:17,640
Speaker 1: stuff cooking that we're going to reveal to everybody in

1624
01:25:17,760 --> 01:25:20,160
Speaker 1: like a little rear and review like we did last year,

1625
01:25:20,200 --> 01:25:21,920
Speaker 1: which is a lot of fun. We've also got another

1626
01:25:21,920 --> 01:25:25,120
Speaker 1: announcement which we will tease on Thursday. Everybody will be excited.

1627
01:25:25,439 --> 01:25:28,120
Speaker 1: It might sound familiar, but it is still fun to

1628
01:25:28,160 --> 01:25:31,120
Speaker 1: say out loud regardless. Okay, I think that's it. We'll

1629
01:25:31,160 --> 01:25:34,200
Speaker 1: have great partner content counterpoints on Thursday, and obviously we'll

1630
01:25:34,200 --> 01:25:35,840
Speaker 1: be here on Thursday morning. We'll see you later.