Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 1: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent
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Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 1: Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 1: What do we have, Christol? Indeed, we do truly a
Speaker 1: jam packed show. This morning. We have news with regards
Speaker 1: to the oldest serving senator, Senator Dianne Feinstein, about what
Speaker 1: exactly is going to go on with her and what
Speaker 1: exactly is going on with her. We also have some
Speaker 1: revelations about potentially who the leaker of those classified documents are,
Speaker 1: as the media is like out for blood, calling for
Speaker 1: them to be found and hunted down and dealt with
Speaker 1: and whatever. So we've got to catch the trader, as
Speaker 1: one Msnbccia Gooul said, So we've got all of that
Speaker 1: for you. Also some additional revelations from those documents. This
Speaker 1: morning about the US presence inside of Ukraine. What the
Speaker 1: official line from the Pentagon is on that. Also the
Speaker 1: very latest with regards to twenty twenty four. Yet another contender,
Speaker 1: Tim Scott, entering the race. Yet another individual who cannot
Speaker 1: bring himself to say one negative word about Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: who is the front runner kicking sideways in that race. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: Jim Scott is kicking sideways forwards or whatever. Anyway, we
Speaker 1: also have some updates where some developments in that dominion
Speaker 1: lawsuit against Fox News. More bad news for Fox News there,
Speaker 1: and we're going to react to this viral Elon Musk
Speaker 1: interview with the BBC. You got a couple parts that
Speaker 1: we want to show you there as NPR says that
Speaker 1: they are no longer going to post on Twitter because
Speaker 1: of the what do you say, state ye, state affiliated
Speaker 1: affiliated me? That's the word I was looking for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So a lot to get to this morning before any
Speaker 1: of that though. Spotify video, Yeah, that's right. You know,
Speaker 1: we've been taking a couple of days off from talking
Speaker 1: about this because we've been dealing with highly classified information.
Speaker 1: Still are, but don't forget that. You can watch the
Speaker 1: full video on Spotify for our premium subscribers, you could
Speaker 1: sign up at Breakingpoints dot com. It's you guys are
Speaker 1: taking great and big advantage of it. I could see
Speaker 1: the numbers from Spotify, and I know that it's really
Speaker 1: an easy way and better way in some ways to
Speaker 1: consume the show. Not necessarily the earliest, but still fantastic
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Speaker 1: up at Breakingpoints dot com as a premium member and
Speaker 1: support all of our work here and everything we've been
Speaker 1: doing in the last week. But let's talk about Diane Finstein. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we wanted to give you a quick update on
Speaker 1: this situation. So last we heard from Diane Feinstein, she
Speaker 1: announced that she was not going to run for reelection
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. Well that was about two months ago.
Speaker 1: She has not cast a single vote or been in
Speaker 1: the Senate since then. Now this cause is of course
Speaker 1: umber of problems, but most crucially, she is on the
Speaker 1: Senate Judiciary Committee. Her vote is required to confirm any
Speaker 1: federal judges anywhere in the country. So, in terms of
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's push to get his people on the bench
Speaker 1: in an aggressive way, the same way that Trump did
Speaker 1: when he was in office. Feinstein has basically her being
Speaker 1: unavailable in home in California receiving treatment has kept them
Speaker 1: from being able to do any of that. So yesterday
Speaker 1: this really sort of came to a head when congress
Speaker 1: and Rocanna, who of course is also from the California delegation,
Speaker 1: put on a statement calling on her to retire. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is really pretty extraordinary. Go ahead and put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. From Congressman Conna, he says, it's
Speaker 1: time for Senator Feinstein to resign. We need to put
Speaker 1: the country ahead of personal loyalty. While she has had
Speaker 1: a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she could
Speaker 1: no longer fulfill her duties. Not speaking out undermines our
Speaker 1: credibility as elected representatives of the people. Now, as we
Speaker 1: have talked about here before, for the last number of years,
Speaker 1: the Democratic establishment, including Nancy Pelosi, starting with Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: really covered for Dianne Feinstein and defended her, wouldn't speak
Speaker 1: a word of criticism, certainly did the opposite of pressuring
Speaker 1: her to resign. They actually propped her up in the
Speaker 1: last election. So shortly after Congressman Conna puts out this statement.
Speaker 1: Feinstein puts out a statement of her own, saying she
Speaker 1: is not going to resign, but she is going to
Speaker 1: step down from the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that statement,
Speaker 1: she provided no timeline for her return to the capitoal
Speaker 1: I'm reading from the Washington Post reporting right now, which
Speaker 1: she said, quote has been delayed due to continued complications
Speaker 1: related to my diagnosis. She said she planned soccer to
Speaker 1: work from home until her medical team said it was
Speaker 1: safe for her to travel, but she conceded that she
Speaker 1: understood her absence could delay the work of the Judiciary Committee,
Speaker 1: which she once was poised to chair. So quote, I've
Speaker 1: asked Leader Schumer to ask the Senate to allow another
Speaker 1: Democratic Senator to temporarily serve until I'm able to resume
Speaker 1: my committee work. So not resigning, as she showed how
Speaker 1: I've done long ago, frankly, but she is going to
Speaker 1: step down from the Judiciary Committee so they can move
Speaker 1: forward with confirming judges. This is outrageous. You are not
Speaker 1: doing your job. You are ill and infirm, honest like
Speaker 1: outside of public service. We feel bad for you. It's
Speaker 1: sad when anybody's in their twilight years. And is no
Speaker 1: longer at the top of their game. She lost her
Speaker 1: mind a long time ago. I mean, we brought everybody
Speaker 1: this story here, how she forgot that she had put
Speaker 1: out a statement saying that she wasn't going to run
Speaker 1: her own staff had to remind her of that. So
Speaker 1: many stories have now come out about how she has
Speaker 1: completely lost it in terms of her memory. Her staff
Speaker 1: has to tell her how to vote on separate elections.
Speaker 1: And you know what again bugs me the most about
Speaker 1: this is now that she's stepping down from the Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 1: That is the only ostensible, actual responsibility that she has
Speaker 1: in a Senate being on the Judiciary com Yeah, now,
Speaker 1: what are you doing. You're just at home, negligent for
Speaker 1: constituent services. For there are thirty nine point five million
Speaker 1: people who live in California. Senators are supposed to be
Speaker 1: helping their local businesses, their constituents, veterans get benefits, all
Speaker 1: this stuff. There is no way in hell that she
Speaker 1: is actively engaged in this when she's quote working for
Speaker 1: most she probably has no want her to be. Quite frankly, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the other thing. If you're a business and you
Speaker 1: need like a tax credit or something like you want
Speaker 1: to call Finestein to get that done for you. So basically,
Speaker 1: California has only one working senator. They have so forty
Speaker 1: million people only have one guy in the Senate who
Speaker 1: can actually do anything from them. People in vermont have
Speaker 1: better service than that, give them the action up. I mean,
Speaker 1: even what's a tinier state, Montana. People in Montana have
Speaker 1: more representation than the people of California right now in
Speaker 1: terms of getting stuff done. This is craziness, Like she
Speaker 1: has to go. And the reason why people don't want
Speaker 1: to say anything is because all these other senators are
Speaker 1: just as elderly infirmed. I mean Mitch McConnell, the guy
Speaker 1: hasn't been seen in like a month after he had
Speaker 1: a fall. Look, this is all sad. It's sad when
Speaker 1: eighty year old people fall, we can feel bad for them.
Speaker 1: But when they we publicly pay their salaries and they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing jobs on behalf of us, then yeah,
Speaker 1: we get to sound a little bit agist like I
Speaker 1: and I'm so sick of tap dancing around like sensitivities
Speaker 1: on this. Yeah, there's a difference in private and public life.
Speaker 1: That's right. It's not ageist when the person just literally
Speaker 1: can't do their job, right. I mean, this is just
Speaker 1: about like, are you there, are you literally like doing
Speaker 1: the very basics of what this job requires, which the
Speaker 1: very basics is being present and taking votes on this
Speaker 1: critical committee, which she's been unable to do for two
Speaker 1: months now. So just as a reminder, you know, back
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, the California Democratic Party, who no doubt
Speaker 1: saw the way that she was declining, and also because
Speaker 1: her politics had become really out of step with the
Speaker 1: California public overall, which has moved more to the left,
Speaker 1: and she's this very sort of like centrist, corporatist old
Speaker 1: school type, they endorsed her primary challenge to California Democratic
Speaker 1: parties and you know, we're ready to go in a
Speaker 1: different direction. And the National Democrats, again led by Obama
Speaker 1: I think she was the first Senate candidate that he
Speaker 1: endorsed in that twenty two election cycle, came in over
Speaker 1: the top and said, no, we went Diane Feinstein. This
Speaker 1: is on them. I mean, Pelosi continues to cover for her.
Speaker 1: She has never admitted what is really going on here.
Speaker 1: And so now you have this situation where, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of Californian is very concerned about what's going
Speaker 1: on in Judiciary and the types of votes that are
Speaker 1: being taken on reproductive rights and all sorts of other issues,
Speaker 1: and they have no representation from one of their two senators.
Speaker 1: So I mean, it's good that she's stepping down from
Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee, but it's insane that it has gotten
Speaker 1: to this point. And you know, I have so much
Speaker 1: contempt for her staffers. I'm sorry too, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: You're letting this persist come on? Like absolutely, this is
Speaker 1: the most populous state in the country already, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of proportionally they are underrepresented, and then you
Speaker 1: effectively have just one senator to represent this entire gigantic state.
Speaker 1: So anyway, it's a very telling, sad, absurd, ridiculous situation.
Speaker 1: But the very latest we could tell you this morning
Speaker 1: is she is stepping down for the Judiciary Committee, but
Speaker 1: I guess continues to plan to serve out the rest
Speaker 1: of her term doing absolutely nothing. If she had any
Speaker 1: scrap of decency left, she would resign. And you know,
Speaker 1: she's worth like one hundred million dollar. I cannot understand,
Speaker 1: Oda NAPA. Invite your grandchildren and hang out for the
Speaker 1: remaining time you have on this earth. Why are you
Speaker 1: subjecting the rest of us to your bs? But they're
Speaker 1: such egomaniacs, it doesn't even enter their head. Right, Let's
Speaker 1: get to the main stuff that we have in the show.
Speaker 1: Some breaking news this morning on the way that the
Speaker 1: media is handling this leaker. They seem intent on making
Speaker 1: sure that this person both gets prosecuted and trying to
Speaker 1: basically uncover who it is as possible. Now, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say that isn't technically a good act of journalism.
Speaker 1: It certainly is newsworthy. It's newsworthy and it's in the
Speaker 1: public eye. But there is a vehemence to which they
Speaker 1: want to unmask this person as soon as possible, to
Speaker 1: try and get them prosecuted. Not usually how we handle
Speaker 1: leakers here in the press, but whenever you're against the
Speaker 1: regime narrative, I guess that's what they've decided to do.
Speaker 1: The Washington Post hunted down and found a member of
Speaker 1: a private discord community around a gun YouTuber where this
Speaker 1: original leaker seems to have originated from. The leaker itself
Speaker 1: is said to have been posting hundreds of classified documents
Speaker 1: on this discord. Basically that found community during the pandemic
Speaker 1: in which they were He was basically trying to prove
Speaker 1: to all of them that he was a big deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was cool. But he started out hand transcribing intel,
Speaker 1: then just eventually just started taking pictures of classified documents
Speaker 1: on the discord before they had migrated to other channels
Speaker 1: and eventually surface to the level where people like us
Speaker 1: were able to report on it. So The Washington Post
Speaker 1: sat down for a video interview with one of the
Speaker 1: members of the discord. The man's face is well, I
Speaker 1: guess teenager's face is blurred because apparently he's under the
Speaker 1: age of eighteen. He's going to give us a little
Speaker 1: bit of insight into who this person was and possible
Speaker 1: some of his motivations. Let's take a listen. I was
Speaker 1: first midware of these documents. I want to say about
Speaker 1: six to eight months ago. I was in a discord
Speaker 1: server by the name of Dougshaker Central, and in this
Speaker 1: channel there was classified documents being posted by a user
Speaker 1: who I refer to as og. From this point, the
Speaker 1: documents were often listed as Ukraine versus Russia. At first, however,
Speaker 1: it slowly spiraled into just intelligence about everything. I would
Speaker 1: not call it giobisl blower in the slightest. I don't
Speaker 1: think that there was a goal nor some sort of
Speaker 1: accomplishment that he was looking for and sharing these documents.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's some anti government sentiment, but that's not
Speaker 1: Unlike most right wingers in the modern day and age,
Speaker 1: og was not hostile to the US government. However, he
Speaker 1: had disagreed with several occasions such as Waco and Ruby Ridge,
Speaker 1: and thought that the government is overreaching in several aspects.
Speaker 1: There was no heavy snowd in like conspiracy here. Like
Speaker 1: some people may believe, he is not a Russian operative.
Speaker 1: He is not a Ukrainian operative. I'll go as far
Speaker 1: to say he's not even on the east side of
Speaker 1: the world. Any claims that he is a Russian operative
Speaker 1: or pro Russian is categorically false. He is not interested
Speaker 1: in helping any foreign agencies with their attack on the
Speaker 1: US or other countries. All right, So what can we
Speaker 1: take away from that? By the way, Waco Ruby Ridge
Speaker 1: sounds like my kind of guy. Whoever this person is
Speaker 1: now in terms of his motivation, it just seems clear
Speaker 1: like there was no like higher motive. It was just
Speaker 1: like proven to my friend basically cool. Yeah, he's like
Speaker 1: shit posting and being like, hey, I'm actually cool. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess who amongst us hasn't been anonymous online and
Speaker 1: wanted to be like, no, actually, I really am a
Speaker 1: big deal, guys. I totally promise. Here's some classified intel
Speaker 1: to prove my bona fides. I mean, taking away from it,
Speaker 1: I guess what can we say? First of all, it
Speaker 1: confirms a couple of things in the background we've seen
Speaker 1: in the background before that there was a hunting magazine
Speaker 1: taking the background of some of the photos, and I
Speaker 1: had said here before, I'm like, whoever this guy is,
Speaker 1: I'm like, he did not do a good job, because
Speaker 1: you can you can see all kinds of paraphct gorilla
Speaker 1: gorilla glue, it choose a metal ruler, hunting magnet. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, step one, Like, it's obviously the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice is just gonna subpoena the IP address of every
Speaker 1: single person who is in this. If they didn't use
Speaker 1: a VPN or tour or something like that, you're screwed
Speaker 1: already from that. Then all they got to do is
Speaker 1: go to your house and be like, oh, well, so
Speaker 1: do you subscribe to this hunting vagazine. Yes, your your closet,
Speaker 1: right closet, what are your shoes like? Like Like, oh, do
Speaker 1: you have a metal ruler? Like literally hanging out on
Speaker 1: your desk? So yeah, whoever this gentleman is, he didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily take the best steps. Let's go and put the
Speaker 1: tear sheet up here on the screen. Uh. Their takeaway
Speaker 1: is quote leaker of US secret documents worked on a
Speaker 1: military base. His friend says, So, I mean, what can
Speaker 1: we I don't know whatever even to take this for granted,
Speaker 1: because it seems that this person has been posting all
Speaker 1: of these photos and videos and text messages and all
Speaker 1: this stuff on this discord for a number of years now.
Speaker 1: He bragged to the group his name is OG or
Speaker 1: is known as OG, that he had worked on a
Speaker 1: military base. But the current speculation around that level of
Speaker 1: intelligence crystal is it does appear to have come from
Speaker 1: somebody on the Joint Staff, because and the Joint Staff's
Speaker 1: office is here in Washington. Look, it's possible he was
Speaker 1: part of a targeting unit or something like that which
Speaker 1: is supporting Ukraine operations or some sort of intelligence base
Speaker 1: which is outside here at DC. But some of the
Speaker 1: immediacy through which people have been talking about. This level
Speaker 1: of documents and the like full scale readouts that this
Speaker 1: person was getting seems to have been working on the
Speaker 1: staffs for somebody at the very very very high up
Speaker 1: on the food chain in the military bureaucracy. Listen. I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't know all the details yet, but if you
Speaker 1: take this all at face value, it's pretty wild to
Speaker 1: me that this was done like very casually, as you know,
Speaker 1: with the young man they interviewed there says, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously he would have known that it was illegal. But
Speaker 1: if you were doing this in this kind of a
Speaker 1: casual manner and continuing to escalate and posting these pictures
Speaker 1: with things obviously in the background, really might have known
Speaker 1: that it was illegal. But I do not think that
Speaker 1: you understood the gravity of what you were doing and
Speaker 1: that it would trigger you know, an entire like whole
Speaker 1: of media and whole of government which hunt to find you.
Speaker 1: So that's the part that's just really wild and extraordinary
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, when we think of past whistleblowers,
Speaker 1: they were very intentional in their actions. They you know,
Speaker 1: had sort of clear political goals, whether it was just
Speaker 1: you know, transparency and exposing secrets or you know, holding
Speaker 1: the government to account. But this seems really have to
Speaker 1: have been a leak in search of clout. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's this is the first in the modern era, and
Speaker 1: so it's it's just kind of a wild phenomenon that
Speaker 1: you could have this undertaken so incredibly casually. So we'll see,
Speaker 1: you know what else the media is able to dig
Speaker 1: up about this guy. I have to believe the government
Speaker 1: basically already knows who it is, though, right, Well, here's
Speaker 1: the other issue is that this teenager apparently has a
Speaker 1: video that you can want of Og the original poster,
Speaker 1: at a shooting range with a rifle. Now, according to
Speaker 1: the post quote, he yelled racial and anti Semitic slurs.
Speaker 1: I want to see the video first before we start
Speaker 1: branding this guy a racist. But I mean, basically, from
Speaker 1: what they could say is Og had a dark view
Speaker 1: of the government. The young members said he spoke of
Speaker 1: the United States and law enforcement as a sinister force
Speaker 1: that sought to suppress its citizens and keep them in
Speaker 1: the dark, and he ranted about government overreach. So I
Speaker 1: guess it's not even necessarily fair to say it was
Speaker 1: only clout chasing. I think he was upset by some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that he said. It's very possible that
Speaker 1: he was against much of what was going on with
Speaker 1: the Ukraine War and he wanted to make known what
Speaker 1: exactly was really going on on the ground. And again,
Speaker 1: I think we owe this person a great service, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately he seems to have not taken any care at all.
Speaker 1: He was doing video calls. Apparently apparently the people recognized
Speaker 1: the background of his house in some of the photos
Speaker 1: that were distributed. So I think you're right, whoever this
Speaker 1: guy is, like he's either in a jail cell or
Speaker 1: you know, like what happened with Edward Snowden where there
Speaker 1: are twelve cargo vans outside his house and who are
Speaker 1: all happen to be doing electrical work in this neighborhood
Speaker 1: at the same time. Yeah, I mean, in a sense
Speaker 1: like it's interesting to know what his motivations could have been,
Speaker 1: you know, which could be a mix of Yeah, basically
Speaker 1: like trying to prove he's badass to this small discord server,
Speaker 1: which seems at least what the teenager said. Yes, that
Speaker 1: seems to have been the primary like impetus for him
Speaker 1: posting information and then continuing to escalate to really prove
Speaker 1: to them like, no, no, I really am that badass,
Speaker 1: mixed with obviously this like anti government you know, ideology
Speaker 1: under the surface. But you know, in a sense also
Speaker 1: it really doesn't matter what his motivations were, because he has,
Speaker 1: in my view, done a great service in exposing the
Speaker 1: lies that the US government has been telling and exposing
Speaker 1: you know, the reality on the ground of this war,
Speaker 1: and providing us with some useful information that can help
Speaker 1: us make what are absolutely critical decisions moving forward about
Speaker 1: US involvement in this war. So, you know, on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating to know who this is and like
Speaker 1: what was going on and how did these things end
Speaker 1: up on some like random tiny discord server. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, it really doesn't matter his reasons for, you know,
Speaker 1: being a whistleblower here exposing these secrets, you know. To
Speaker 1: Glenn Greenwald reacting to this, immediately, he says, quote, the
Speaker 1: democracy dies in darkness. Washington Post now does the job
Speaker 1: of the US security state, hunting down its leakers, doing
Speaker 1: everything to expose their identity. Says everything about the real
Speaker 1: function and the ideology of these media corporations. Glenn actually
Speaker 1: points out that the Washington Post did the same thing
Speaker 1: with Edward Snowden. While they gleefully used part of the
Speaker 1: archives that he obtained, published those documents and got a
Speaker 1: Paulitz surprise. They demanded he'd be imprisoned and never pardoned,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately that already seems to be the case with
Speaker 1: the initial media reaction. You know, we have here a
Speaker 1: snap reaction from MSNBC where they go to one of
Speaker 1: their retired CIA officers who immediately is like, we have
Speaker 1: to catch and hunt down this trader. This is how
Speaker 1: the media. Our job is to expose classified information and secrets,
Speaker 1: regardless of what the consequences are. The consequences are the
Speaker 1: job of the US government that is not. Our job
Speaker 1: is to produce information. This is how a news network
Speaker 1: immediately reacted to this. Let's take a listen. Officials believe
Speaker 1: the documents are most likely authentic, though some may have been.
Speaker 1: Doctor Aswing right now retired to CIO. So Mark Paul Moreopolos,
Speaker 1: he's an NBC News security and intelligence analyst. Also the
Speaker 1: Washington Post, David Ignati is still with us as well. Mark. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's pretendure to CIA briefing. You have thirty seconds to
Speaker 1: explain to your superiors. What the hell's going on here?
Speaker 1: What the hell's going on here? So I think it's
Speaker 1: a potentially serious compromise. We don't know yet. Key points are,
Speaker 1: we have to catch the trader. Number two kind of
Speaker 1: re establish or reassure our allies, our bilateral relationships. So
Speaker 1: number one, we have to catch the trader. He doesn't
Speaker 1: even get into the substance. He doesn't even work for
Speaker 1: the CIA anymore, at least allegedly. I don't know. You
Speaker 1: never really leave the agency. I'm not sure there is
Speaker 1: a such thing as a former CIA. But look, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is there. This is what they want. They're doing
Speaker 1: the job of the FBI, like hunting down this person
Speaker 1: and trying their best. You know, if I was a
Speaker 1: Washington Post, you know what I would do. I'd be like,
Speaker 1: hey man, you want to give me some of them,
Speaker 1: more of those documents you're taking these green shots in
Speaker 1: that discord server while you were over there, And then
Speaker 1: I would publish every goddamn story I could, and then
Speaker 1: maybe we can talk about who that's such is. That's
Speaker 1: such a great point because we know that there were
Speaker 1: way more documents. There were three hundred originally posted in
Speaker 1: this discord server. The most that any news outlet has
Speaker 1: at this point is like fifty So like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're the Washington Post and you basically track down, okay,
Speaker 1: who this is and what the server, why isn't that
Speaker 1: your focus? And I think you know what has been
Speaker 1: clear in the media's very selective coverage of these documents
Speaker 1: is number one, they're concerned first and foremost seems to
Speaker 1: be for the sanctity of the security state and making
Speaker 1: sure that they're all okay, and like that our intelligence
Speaker 1: and the CIA won't be compromised and whatever. And number two,
Speaker 1: the stories and the framing of what they do report
Speaker 1: on is really cherry picked. I mean, they intentionally focus
Speaker 1: on the pieces that can be used to justify a
Speaker 1: more hawkish response. You know, they reiterate over and over again, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's doctored on the Russian casualty numbers, not ever really
Speaker 1: making it clear that, okay, that happened after the fact.
Speaker 1: And that's the only doctored element that has been pointed
Speaker 1: out by anyone at this point. So there's that piece.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing they like to emphasize is
Speaker 1: like how deep our intel was into the Russian like
Speaker 1: military apparatus and how cool our spies are. So it's
Speaker 1: you can see by the fact that we've covered pieces
Speaker 1: just here, our little Breaking Points team that the gigantic
Speaker 1: New York Times, Washington Posts, like NBC Fox seeing to
Speaker 1: any of these people that none of them picked up on,
Speaker 1: because we're actually interested in what these documents reveal, not
Speaker 1: just quote unquote catch the trader, I mean unbelievable. Look,
Speaker 1: I've tried to get in touch with some of the
Speaker 1: guys on the discord. It's actually pretty hard to find
Speaker 1: if we had the journalistic resources, and clearly they you know,
Speaker 1: charted a plane and flew immediately. If we had the resource,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, all right, let's sit down, man, Like
Speaker 1: what do you got, Like, let's go through it all.
Speaker 1: Then our team and all that we would go. We
Speaker 1: would report every single story and then maybe we would
Speaker 1: get to who the leaker is, although you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure I wouldn't necessarily want that on my conscience,
Speaker 1: but if you look at how it fits with the
Speaker 1: Washington Post editorial board itself, let's go and put this
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. Guys, they say the most
Speaker 1: damaging part of the leak Ukraine documents. Is the leak itself? Oh,
Speaker 1: do tell the trove of the leak documents? Some mark
Speaker 1: top secret is a sensational intelligence brief, a highly damaging one,
Speaker 1: more than the juicy tidbits, most of which entail detailed
Speaker 1: information of the Ukraine War. The most sensational and damaging
Speaker 1: aspect of the story may be the fact of the
Speaker 1: leak itself. And on that score, how and why these
Speaker 1: documents came to see the light of day. Little is
Speaker 1: known if most of these documents are genuine. They say
Speaker 1: it is with pair alterations intended. Of course, they try
Speaker 1: and point to that, but really, you know, what does
Speaker 1: the editorial board come out to. They say that the
Speaker 1: leak itself was very damaging for the Ukraine War, and
Speaker 1: thus they basically come to the conclusion, you know that
Speaker 1: this person has done immense damage to US and Ukrainian
Speaker 1: national security. I mean, yeah, the only reason that this
Speaker 1: person has done any damage is because he told us
Speaker 1: the truth when they were lying to us. That's that's
Speaker 1: the He did damage to their lies. So they basically
Speaker 1: prefer the lies over the trip. Have you ever seen
Speaker 1: a meta organization that wants less info? What's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: You want to sit there as a Pentagon scribe and
Speaker 1: just print the bs that they tell you what comes
Speaker 1: through this the rest of the world. Many of our
Speaker 1: allies don't agree with us. Number two, Zelensky actually does
Speaker 1: want long range missiles to strike directly inside of Ukraine.
Speaker 1: What Number three, that the situation in Ukraine is way
Speaker 1: more dire than they tell us, and that they the
Speaker 1: US tells us. And also here's the other part. I
Speaker 1: don't know why people aren't going with this. The Russians
Speaker 1: are doing terribly. That's another thing that out of this thing,
Speaker 1: they're embarrassing for everyone it is, and I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: another part that was included in these documents is Russia
Speaker 1: is actually open to Brazil's offer of helping to negotiate
Speaker 1: a piece with a host of you know, unaligned countries.
Speaker 1: So there is a lot of really important information here,
Speaker 1: but that seems not to be the primary focus of
Speaker 1: the media. They say in that editorial piece that the
Speaker 1: US authorities will urgently need to track trace the leak's providence.
Speaker 1: The Justice Department has launched an investigation intended to do
Speaker 1: just that. You know, going back to that MSNBC clip,
Speaker 1: the Morning Joe clip with like the Cia Gooual, who's
Speaker 1: immediately like catch the Trader. The other guest that they
Speaker 1: have on there is David Ignatia, who has a column
Speaker 1: in also the Washington Post that uses what came out
Speaker 1: to again like sort of cherry pick this and and
Speaker 1: call for a more hawkish approach in Ukraine, which is
Speaker 1: something we've seen in a number of places. I've his
Speaker 1: piece pulled up here. He says that our defense production
Speaker 1: capability should be the quote trump card for the US.
Speaker 1: In World War Two, the US converted manufacturing plans across
Speaker 1: the country to make tanks, planes, and aircraft carriers that
Speaker 1: simply overwhelmed Japan and Germany. No similar mobilization has taken
Speaker 1: place this time. Why not? Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has
Speaker 1: met several times with defense contractors. But why hasn't President
Speaker 1: Biden appointed the equivalent of FDR's War Production Board. Do
Speaker 1: you get literally calling for a World War II style
Speaker 1: mobilization to supply Ukraine in this proxy war we're fighting
Speaker 1: with Russia, Like that's what they're using these documents to
Speaker 1: call for catching the Trader and to call for a
Speaker 1: dramatic World War II level mobilization. Why hasn't Biden done
Speaker 1: what it takes like FDR did in World War Two.
Speaker 1: I mean, to me, this is just insanity. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, you read even more of the column Crystal
Speaker 1: that you're referencing the David Ignatius column, and he's like,
Speaker 1: Lloyd Austin needs to explain to the American people why
Speaker 1: he's not doing more to in Ukraine. He even references
Speaker 1: you know, one of the maps that we actually saw.
Speaker 1: We didn't even I didn't even see it was all
Speaker 1: that noteworthy. If anything is responsible, it's basically says US
Speaker 1: spy drones or should not fly over Crimea to avoid
Speaker 1: any sort of incident over Russia. He's like, why are
Speaker 1: we doing that? That's too cautious, And I'm like, too cautious.
Speaker 1: They have people in the military who are trying to
Speaker 1: not get us into a full scale war. They should
Speaker 1: be applauded for that. And actually, you know, if anything
Speaker 1: that's good on the Biden administration, one of the two
Speaker 1: things that we learn that validates some of the Biden
Speaker 1: admins is that caution is worthy. And also don't ever
Speaker 1: give Zelensky long range missiles or jets, because we know
Speaker 1: exactly what the hell he's going to do with them correct,
Speaker 1: and it also listened if there were a handful of
Speaker 1: David ignacious style takes in the media, balanced on the
Speaker 1: other side by people who were saying some of the
Speaker 1: things that were saying, like, hey, the only thing that
Speaker 1: held Zelenski back from long range attacks deep inside of
Speaker 1: Russia was the fact we didn't give him the long
Speaker 1: range missiles that he's been begging us for for a
Speaker 1: year now. Maybe we should like consider the way that
Speaker 1: this could ask lea out of control. And look, here's
Speaker 1: China's red lines. Maybe we should consider what that means
Speaker 1: as well. If you also had those voices there too,
Speaker 1: you could say, okay, this is like a healthy ecosystem.
Speaker 1: There's a debate going on. You're looking at these documents
Speaker 1: trying to parts the media only ever pushes in the
Speaker 1: hawkish direction. I have seen no one making any of
Speaker 1: the points that we're making within the corporate mainstream media.
Speaker 1: They only ever apply pressure in a hawkish direction. Liberal media,
Speaker 1: conservative media. Largely. It is really consistent across the board.
Speaker 1: You've got MSNBC with their CIA dude, catch the Trader.
Speaker 1: You've got side by side with David inging Asius on
Speaker 1: the same very same program than warning Joe like e
Speaker 1: Lait table setter for Washington program saying, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we're being way too cautious about not getting into World
Speaker 1: War three. So that's how you end up with the
Speaker 1: foreign afairs landscape that we have. It's only ever goes
Speaker 1: in one direction, and that has never been more clear
Speaker 1: than it is right now. Yeah, it really is. And look,
Speaker 1: you know they want blood. The fact that this guy
Speaker 1: is anti government and likes guns. Brother, it's going to
Speaker 1: be a rough goya. Unfortunately, let's go to the next
Speaker 1: part here, which extends to what the fallout from this
Speaker 1: is going to look like. Let's go and put this
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. Quote. US intelligence agencies may
Speaker 1: change how they monitor social media chat rooms after missing
Speaker 1: leaked US documents for weeks. Quote. President Biden and other
Speaker 1: officials were dismayed when they learned the docs have been
Speaker 1: online for at least a month. Nobody is happy about this,
Speaker 1: said one official. The Biden administration is now looking at
Speaker 1: expanding how it monitors social media sites and chat rooms
Speaker 1: after US Intel agencies fail to spot Pentagon documents circulating online.
Speaker 1: So their response to this is, now we need to
Speaker 1: crawl every discord server, every private chat just watch. They
Speaker 1: are going to come after They're going to come after encryption.
Speaker 1: They're going to be looking for even more back doors
Speaker 1: into things like WhatsApp, into any private reddit, private chat rooms.
Speaker 1: You should now assume everything is infiltrated outside of like
Speaker 1: poor proton mail and I guess the signal protocol, although
Speaker 1: I guess they can, you know, even try and go
Speaker 1: after that one. This is terrifying. I mean, they're really
Speaker 1: what they're talking about here is creating a dragnet for
Speaker 1: the entire Internet just to look for classified information. But
Speaker 1: what have we learned in the history of the post
Speaker 1: nine eleven security state that's may never just stop there.
Speaker 1: Once they get everything, then they'll be able to read
Speaker 1: metadata and pull to the extent that you know, they
Speaker 1: don't even have this stuff. They're going to possibly you know,
Speaker 1: hire more people to trawl through gaming chat rooms and
Speaker 1: fort fortnite groups and all this stuff Minecraft because that's
Speaker 1: where some of this originated. They're literally talking about a
Speaker 1: massive expansion of the US surveillance state, and we all
Speaker 1: know it's going to happen, and you don't even get
Speaker 1: to vote for it. That's the most insane part all,
Speaker 1: we'll just do it. We'll never even hear about it
Speaker 1: until another brave whistleblower exposes helped our civili have been
Speaker 1: casually violated, like over and over again, and then the
Speaker 1: media will demand the hashtag catch the trader in order
Speaker 1: to reveal that person's identity as well, they say. According
Speaker 1: to one congressional official, the intelligence community is now grappling
Speaker 1: with how it can scrub platforms like Discord in search
Speaker 1: of relevant material to avoid a similar leak in the future.
Speaker 1: Now they do have at the very bottom of the article,
Speaker 1: they do have some like, you know, people who actually,
Speaker 1: like mildly care about civil liberties, one of whom, a
Speaker 1: former intelligence official, said, if the administration tries to check
Speaker 1: online chatrooms more closely, will have to navigate legal safeguards
Speaker 1: design to protect Americans privacy and freedom of expression. Watching
Speaker 1: a public chat room is fair game, but law enforcement
Speaker 1: agencies don't have the legal authority to monitor a private
Speaker 1: online chat room without probable cause. Another person who was
Speaker 1: former General Counsel of the NSA said, we do not have,
Speaker 1: nor do we want, a system where the US government
Speaker 1: monitors private internet chats. Now, the former officials may feel
Speaker 1: that this is over the line. But we have seen
Speaker 1: many times how the US government will find loopholes. I mean,
Speaker 1: one thing that they'll do classically is like, well, the
Speaker 1: government can't do it, but what if we hire a
Speaker 1: private contractor and they do it for us instead? Like,
Speaker 1: does that is that okay? Then? I mean we've literally
Speaker 1: seen them go to that those sorts of lengths and tactics.
Speaker 1: Make no mistake about it, whether or not you know,
Speaker 1: they're overblowing how devastating this is to the intelligence gathering
Speaker 1: and our allies and all this stuff. They are absolutely
Speaker 1: the pentagon, the CIA. They are absolutely humiliated by this
Speaker 1: leep and they will take extraordinary measures to try to
Speaker 1: make sure that it never happens again. Number one, and
Speaker 1: that number two. You can't have material like this just
Speaker 1: sitting out there on some discord server without them knowing
Speaker 1: about it immediately. So God only knows what they're going
Speaker 1: to do behind the scenes. But you should be very
Speaker 1: very very uncomfortable with all. I mean, the moment I
Speaker 1: saw this, I said, this is it. You know, private
Speaker 1: chats are gone, you know, to the extent that they're
Speaker 1: even safe now even with you know, there's a I
Speaker 1: recommend this they're on your iPhone. You can use something
Speaker 1: called lockdown mode, which is meant to try and stop
Speaker 1: like the Pegasus Israeli systems they've used in the past.
Speaker 1: It can be a pain in the ass. But honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm I think anybody who is involved in anything even
Speaker 1: remotely sensitive now at this point you're doing a disservice.
Speaker 1: Not too they are coming after you. They will read
Speaker 1: all and everything private communications that you have, and even
Speaker 1: just your run of the mill VPN is not even
Speaker 1: enough now at this point. It's terrifying really, whenever you
Speaker 1: think about it. I thought about it a lot too,
Speaker 1: whenever we were handling the classes. Oh yeah, I was like, man,
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those where you just don't
Speaker 1: know and they could throw it right back at you.
Speaker 1: And you know, we look at what with Julian Assange
Speaker 1: like in terms of going after people and saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, even asking for people to leak you information
Speaker 1: is supposedly now a federal crime. So anyway, I'll still
Speaker 1: say it. Listen, if you have access to anymore, we
Speaker 1: only have fifty some of these docs. If you have
Speaker 1: access to any two fifty we'll produce. We will never
Speaker 1: try it out and we will do our best to
Speaker 1: publish every scrap of news that is inside of it.
Speaker 1: So if you have it, OG, if you're listening, OG,
Speaker 1: if you're listening, we would love to see all of
Speaker 1: it and we will protect you. All right, Let's go
Speaker 1: to Ukraine and go to the second part here. Another
Speaker 1: important story that has come out, one of the initial
Speaker 1: ones that we were able to discuss, is that US
Speaker 1: special forces were actually present inside of Ukraine along with
Speaker 1: French and British special forces. It's leaked several days ago.
Speaker 1: Counterpoints actually covered on the very first day of the League. Well,
Speaker 1: that wasn't just a part of the League. It has
Speaker 1: now been officially confirmed by the Pentagon. Let's go and
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. The Embassy confirms
Speaker 1: that the Pentagon has US special forces on the ground
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. They say, quote, I will not talk about
Speaker 1: specific of numbers and that kind of thing. To get
Speaker 1: to your question. There is a small US military presence
Speaker 1: at the embassy in conjunction with the Defense Attache's office
Speaker 1: to help us work quote on accountability of the material
Speaker 1: that is going in and out of Ukraine. So they
Speaker 1: are attached to that embassy and to that defense attache. Now,
Speaker 1: if you believe that they're just staying inside the embassy,
Speaker 1: I think that you're an idiot. Also, if you think
Speaker 1: that we really care at all about transparency in terms
Speaker 1: of making sure weapons get to where they are, I
Speaker 1: also think you're an idiot, because, well, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: We have no Inspector General's office that requires any transparency
Speaker 1: on this whatsoever. The Treasury Department doesn't even have a
Speaker 1: unit that is looking at this. They're monitoring social media
Speaker 1: to make sure to try and see where weapons are.
Speaker 1: What do we also know from that crazy article that
Speaker 1: we talked about here about the grifters in Ukraine who
Speaker 1: just show up and are like US citizens who want
Speaker 1: to fight, and some of these things they're getting access
Speaker 1: to full, brand new automatic weapons. Who do you think
Speaker 1: that's coming from. You think you just get crates of
Speaker 1: weapons that magically appear inside of Ukraine and we have
Speaker 1: no idea who gets their hands on. So the idea
Speaker 1: that this is what they're ostensibly doing is bs. We
Speaker 1: already know that the former Ukrainian Defense secretary official you know,
Speaker 1: is currently getting under indictment or whatever inside of Ukraine
Speaker 1: for over purchasing weapons and overpaying for military supplies, which again,
Speaker 1: you know, he's not the one foot in the bill.
Speaker 1: It's US who are floating the bill for all this,
Speaker 1: So I just think it's ludicrous. The fact that they
Speaker 1: even confirmed that they're on the ground though, is again
Speaker 1: one of the extraordinary services that this leaker gave us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, because we would not know it for sure.
Speaker 1: We all suspected, but we don't know it for sure. Yes,
Speaker 1: it comes out. Their theory here is that we sent
Speaker 1: like army rangers over to be like glorified auditors. Like, okay,
Speaker 1: get out of Sure, that's an insult to that, it's
Speaker 1: an insult to everyone's intelligence. And you know, it's amazing
Speaker 1: there's like very little pushback on any of that, but
Speaker 1: any of this with the Pross but whatever. The other
Speaker 1: thing to keep in mind here is that, yeah, from
Speaker 1: the leak, it wasn't just the US, it was also
Speaker 1: notably France. Now France just came out and outright lined
Speaker 1: and said, no, we don't have any money on the
Speaker 1: ground there whatsoever. Yeah, they didn't come up with They're like, well,
Speaker 1: they're just auditing. They're like hanging out of the Embassy
Speaker 1: of prom they're not actually engaged in the war. They're
Speaker 1: just like they're making tea and like checking the doing
Speaker 1: the bookkeeping or whatever. So yeah, it's really important that
Speaker 1: Americans understand what we're doing. How many people where are
Speaker 1: they that there is a presence on the ground. This
Speaker 1: has never been acknowledged before. So yeah, the fact that
Speaker 1: this forced the government's hand to at least, you know,
Speaker 1: admit the partial, bare bones truth ten percent of the
Speaker 1: truth here is a significant service that's been done. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you know, in terms of also where even if
Speaker 1: they are just in the ambassy, let's believe that. One
Speaker 1: of the things that came out of the documents is
Speaker 1: that the Pentagon is running all of Ukraine's military operations.
Speaker 1: They are doing battle damage assessment on strikes they are
Speaker 1: going through and the logistically, you know, supplying their weapons depots.
Speaker 1: If those guys are on the ground in defense attach
Speaker 1: a role that doesn't even necessarily minimize what exactly that
Speaker 1: they're doing, which is they're basically running the war like
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians are. The Ukrainians are doing the fighting and
Speaker 1: the dying, and that is very brave. But the high
Speaker 1: level strategy and all that, it's not happening in Kiev,
Speaker 1: it's happening in the Pentagon, and then these guys are
Speaker 1: basically carrying all that stuff out. I really wish, you know,
Speaker 1: some of this stuff we could show, Like we're talking
Speaker 1: about slides and slides and slides of the US military
Speaker 1: doing after action reports on all these Ukrainian ops. This
Speaker 1: is not even our fight, and we're doing this All
Speaker 1: this stuff like that is what those guys are actively engaging.
Speaker 1: So just because you're not there pulling a trigger, if
Speaker 1: you're there and you're doing spotting and you're helping with
Speaker 1: ISR and all this other support stuff, you're probably even
Speaker 1: more vital to the war effort than some boot who's
Speaker 1: on the ground. And even if they're just doing the
Speaker 1: auditing from THEBC, what do you think is going to
Speaker 1: happen if a few of these service members on the
Speaker 1: ground special Operations forces? What do you think is going
Speaker 1: to happen if they get killed and like dragged through
Speaker 1: the streets or god forbid, horrible? What do you think
Speaker 1: that the David ignatious is and the CIA Gooule that
Speaker 1: we've showed you earlier from thement, what do you think
Speaker 1: they're going to say we should do in response to that.
Speaker 1: So this is a tremendous risk in terms of potential escalation.
Speaker 1: It's very revelatory in terms of our real role in
Speaker 1: guiding this war. We've had little scraps of reporting previously
Speaker 1: about the way that our intelligence is absolutely I mean,
Speaker 1: all these weapons systems that we're shipping, many of these
Speaker 1: things like they have to then rely on us to
Speaker 1: do the back office work in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: making these things work and understanding where to target and
Speaker 1: who to target and all of that. So we are
Speaker 1: so much deeper in this than the American people have
Speaker 1: been told or realized, and you get just little glimpses
Speaker 1: here of what's really going on. Yeah, absolutely, So keep
Speaker 1: you guys updated on that story. I doubt we'll literally
Speaker 1: ever hear about it again. Yeah, let's go to the
Speaker 1: next part here, this one thanks to our friend Diegor
Speaker 1: in Moscow flagging what is a story that the Western
Speaker 1: press is almost entirely miss. Let's go ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. Russian lawmakers are currently
Speaker 1: in the end stage processes of allowing electronic draft notices. Now,
Speaker 1: why does that matter? The bill which is going on
Speaker 1: at second and third readings needs to pass the Upper
Speaker 1: House of Parliament and be signed into law by President
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin effectively does away with the in person delivery
Speaker 1: of notices to conscripts and reservists who are called up
Speaker 1: for duty. A lot of the ways that passed Russian
Speaker 1: men were able to avoid the draft is they just
Speaker 1: stayed away from their addresses, can't find you. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like a subpoena if you're not technically served, you know,
Speaker 1: or whatever in person here in the US, and you
Speaker 1: haven't technically been served by a court of law, and
Speaker 1: that's why people, you know, dodge process servers and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Well, what this would do is it would
Speaker 1: do away with the in person requirement and say that
Speaker 1: any notice issued by local military conscription office will doesn't
Speaker 1: just have to be sent by mail, but will be
Speaker 1: considered valid the moment that they are put onto a
Speaker 1: state portal for electronic services. Recipients who do not show
Speaker 1: up will then be prohibited from leaving Russia, will have
Speaker 1: their driver's license suspended, and will be barred from selling
Speaker 1: their apartments in other assets, and otherwise. They are basically
Speaker 1: fully ramping up the digital surveillance state and they will
Speaker 1: put a digital drag net on you the moment that
Speaker 1: they want your ass to be drafted. So this puts you,
Speaker 1: it puts things on the line for a future draft.
Speaker 1: A lot of guys were able to dodge the past
Speaker 1: draft by getting out of the country, avoiding their places,
Speaker 1: selling their apartments. They were just like, it's not going
Speaker 1: to work, and I'm out of here now. Nope, if
Speaker 1: your name is in the registry, you're done. You're driving.
Speaker 1: You can't drive, can't go anywhere, can't leave the country,
Speaker 1: can't sell anything. They'll probably cut you off. You for
Speaker 1: a bank account. They're sending you to the front line
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. I mean, it's a tragedy actually, you know
Speaker 1: when you consider it, and it's one of those where
Speaker 1: apparently we haven't been noticing. But it also just shows you,
Speaker 1: like the will of the Russian government here does not
Speaker 1: appear to be breaking. They are very much setting the
Speaker 1: stage for a second draft if they need one, and
Speaker 1: that you know, look, that's thousands, tens thousands of young men. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who Look, I mean, they probably don't care about Ukraine
Speaker 1: either way, and they're just getting you know, thrown into
Speaker 1: a meat grinder like this and they're fighting and dying.
Speaker 1: You know, for Vladimir Putin's ego, it's just a tragedy.
Speaker 1: It really is. So Jegor, who is one of those
Speaker 1: military age men, who is now you know, part of
Speaker 1: this whole disaster, he says. So basically, legally a totality
Speaker 1: of adult men in Russia are now a draft fodder
Speaker 1: for Putin. The mobilization law is still acting with this.
Speaker 1: He can order to draft anyone in any numbers, and
Speaker 1: people can't run. It will be made very difficult to
Speaker 1: hide if you do fail to report to the draft office.
Speaker 1: So it's not only the minute they post they no
Speaker 1: longer have to find you. The minute they post this
Speaker 1: like electronic draft. Notice, that's it. You've legally been officially
Speaker 1: served and you can't leave the country. And if you
Speaker 1: don't come to the draft board within twenty days, then
Speaker 1: they're going to forbid you to drive a car, receive loans,
Speaker 1: sell and buy real estate and so on a whole
Speaker 1: list of prohibitions. The other thing about this that's worth noting,
Speaker 1: I mean, this doesn't it doesn't guarantee that there's going
Speaker 1: to be another draft, But I think you can kind
Speaker 1: of read the writing on the wall of where he's
Speaker 1: going with this and why they're setting all of this up.
Speaker 1: But the other thing that was shocking is that this
Speaker 1: just this really came out of nowhere. You know, it's
Speaker 1: basically like in one day as fast through the Duma
Speaker 1: and like said to be made into law. So really
Speaker 1: caught people off guard and was quite shocking within Russia
Speaker 1: again according to Yegor and his impression of what's going
Speaker 1: on there. So this is a massive, you know, escalation
Speaker 1: in terms of the population. It's also a reminder Russia
Speaker 1: has a lot more people and a lot more men
Speaker 1: that Putin is willing to just like throw into the
Speaker 1: human meat grinder and horror of this war apparently with
Speaker 1: you know, little regard for their lives or their injuries
Speaker 1: or you know, the pain of their families. So as
Speaker 1: horrific as as that situation is, it is a reminder that,
Speaker 1: you know, time is not on Ukraine's side in terms
Speaker 1: of thinking of how this war is going to be
Speaker 1: brought to a conclusion. Russia continues to have an advantage
Speaker 1: in terms of ability, you know, defense production. They certainly
Speaker 1: have an advantage in terms of manpower. Yes, their war
Speaker 1: efforts have been less than impressive thus far. But you
Speaker 1: can also see in these documents the way that Ukraine
Speaker 1: is really sort of struggling to hold this thing together.
Speaker 1: And the analysis is that neither side is going to
Speaker 1: be able to get beyond in the spring offensive a stalemate.
Speaker 1: So at what point do you say, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: actually the strongest position that Ukraine may be in for
Speaker 1: a while in order to try to negotiate an end
Speaker 1: to this war, some sort of diplomatic resolution that could
Speaker 1: you know, bring hopefully a lasting peace. And you know,
Speaker 1: these things are never easy. It would be ugly, there
Speaker 1: would be trade offs that shouldn't be made, but that
Speaker 1: basically have to be made. But when you see the
Speaker 1: just rob resources advantage that Russia has, I think there's
Speaker 1: some hard decisions that have to be made here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean on Russia too. You know, that could rip
Speaker 1: the country in half. Even more so you know in
Speaker 1: terms of domestic turmoil, if they do a full scale
Speaker 1: draft like that again maybe nic it wouldn't be something
Speaker 1: good I think for an anybody who's involved here. All
Speaker 1: let's talk about politicz All right, let's get to some
Speaker 1: domestic politics here. As Counterpoints brought you yesterday, we now
Speaker 1: sort of officially have another candidate in the race for
Speaker 1: the Republican nomination, Senor Tim Scott of South Carolina. So
Speaker 1: fresh off the announcement that he'd formed his presidential exploratory Committee,
Speaker 1: he went on with Fox and Friends and got asked
Speaker 1: in most obvious question of all time, one that everyone
Speaker 1: has basically stumbled on, how are you going to actually,
Speaker 1: you know, how are you going to defeat Trump? Since
Speaker 1: he is the clear frontrunner here. Let's take a listen
Speaker 1: to what he has to say. Are you answering my
Speaker 1: question about how you beat Donald Trump by saying that
Speaker 1: your personal story is what's going to sell you to
Speaker 1: the American people. What I'm saying in response to your
Speaker 1: question is that the field of play is focusing on
Speaker 1: President Biden's failures. What Americans want to see is a
Speaker 1: contrast between the radical left and the blueprint to ruin
Speaker 1: America and why our policies actually work. I believe that
Speaker 1: Psalms one thirty nine tells us that we are all
Speaker 1: uniquely and fearfully made. If we focus on our uniqueness,
Speaker 1: we focus on our path to where we are. I
Speaker 1: believe we give the voters a choice on so they
Speaker 1: can decide how we move forward as opposed to trying
Speaker 1: to have a conversation about how to beat a Republican.
Speaker 1: I think we're better off having a conversation about beating
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. So focus on our uniqueness. That's his answer.
Speaker 1: That is as lame as I'm not kicking sideways, I'm
Speaker 1: kicking forward. You're running against Trump, dude, So what do
Speaker 1: you have against Trump? Also? Trump literally endorsed you. That's
Speaker 1: the most hilarious part. Trump has endorsed him, I think
Speaker 1: twice and throughout the entire time, Like Tim Scott kissed
Speaker 1: Trump's ass all throughout his presidency to get the first
Speaker 1: step back passed, and now, like, what credible? This is
Speaker 1: the funny thing too, about Tim Scott. What case do
Speaker 1: you have, man? Trump actually did what you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: You know, anything that you wanted done got done because
Speaker 1: you kissed Trump's ass and then he endorsed you. What
Speaker 1: credible case do you have to actually succeed him? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just think this is a tremendous exercise
Speaker 1: in ego because he has only one constituency. It's basically
Speaker 1: the liberal media who likes Tim Scott and likes to
Speaker 1: prop him up, and also his own colleagues. His colleagues
Speaker 1: think that he's like God's gift to politics. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I think he's fine. He seems like a
Speaker 1: genuinely nice guy, probably a good neighbor, but as a politician, like,
Speaker 1: I don't see the skill at all. And I listened
Speaker 1: to the people South Carolina. I think they agree with you.
Speaker 1: I feel like Nicky Haley had kind of a liberal
Speaker 1: media glow at one point. I feel like anybody who
Speaker 1: associated themselves with Trump whatsoever, like any sort of liberal
Speaker 1: media curiosity has long been gone. And I think that's
Speaker 1: true for Tim Scott. I think it's true for Nicky
Speaker 1: Haley as well. I am reminded of before he officially
Speaker 1: announced his presdential exploratory, he went on with Sean Hannity,
Speaker 1: and Hannity was the one he was on there a
Speaker 1: streak for a while. That's the one where he got
Speaker 1: the Nicky Haley like I'm not kicking sideways, I'm kicking forland.
Speaker 1: That's oh so bad. And he asked him Scott at
Speaker 1: the time, like, Okay, so you know what differences do
Speaker 1: you have on a policy level with former President Trump.
Speaker 1: Here's this quote, probably not very many at all. I'm
Speaker 1: so thankful that we had President Trump and office. Frankly,
Speaker 1: the policies that we were able to pass from twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen to twenty twenty more monumental. Thank god we went
Speaker 1: into COVID with a strong economy, so that is you know,
Speaker 1: his official take on his policy disagreements with the former
Speaker 1: president is like, you know, the other irony is that
Speaker 1: oftentimes these people, to the extent they do have policy
Speaker 1: difference from Trump, they're actually worse. As we've talked about,
Speaker 1: less electable, like more to the right, with less popular
Speaker 1: positioning on things like Medicare and social security, and Tim
Speaker 1: Scott has a died in the role both social and
Speaker 1: fiscal conservative you know, Reagan, Republican or whatever, very similar
Speaker 1: to positioning as sort of like Mike Pence. But the
Speaker 1: other thing we were debating is do you think that
Speaker 1: people like this really think they can win or do
Speaker 1: you think see I do too, I actually do think
Speaker 1: they have that level of delusion. And then the other
Speaker 1: piece that you can't take for granted is they have
Speaker 1: a whole circle of aids and especially consultants who Tim
Speaker 1: Scott will raise a good amount of money, millions of
Speaker 1: dollars that he's going to spend on TV ads that
Speaker 1: TV consultants, media consultants are going to get a hefty
Speaker 1: slice of. So they have no interest in telling him
Speaker 1: the truth. They want to prop him up, tell them, oh,
Speaker 1: you have a laying and look, people are looking for
Speaker 1: something different or whatever. They're telling him. So they have
Speaker 1: a vested financial interest in basically lying to this man
Speaker 1: about what his chances are, and he has a vested
Speaker 1: ego interest in believing what they're selling him. I do
Speaker 1: not think people can underestimate what it is like to
Speaker 1: be one of these types of politicans, like a Tim Scott,
Speaker 1: especially beloved by the donor class. His entire life is
Speaker 1: lived inside of a bubble, interacting with geriatric boomer senators
Speaker 1: who think they're like, oh, well, he's such a wels
Speaker 1: you know, well spoken black Republican, like he can win
Speaker 1: the black vote. That's literally how they think. On top
Speaker 1: of billionaire donors who probably tell him the same thing.
Speaker 1: That is his level of socialization, that is his entire life, like,
Speaker 1: that's the bubble that he lives in. I mean, anybody
Speaker 1: who lived in that type of reality, of course, they're
Speaker 1: going to think that they could win, and then he know,
Speaker 1: going back to South Carolina where it's like somewhat of
Speaker 1: a popular politician, although we're about to get to not
Speaker 1: all that popular. Yeah, where you know again you people
Speaker 1: kiss your ass and constituent services meetings and yeah, you
Speaker 1: can easily see how your ego becomes out of control. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is a hefty dose of conservative identity poolitics or anything.
Speaker 1: They've already no doubt about it. Yeah. So there was
Speaker 1: a poll out of South Carolina of the Republican primary.
Speaker 1: All right, how are voters in his own home state
Speaker 1: feeling about this potential run. Let's go put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. You will not be shocked to learn
Speaker 1: Donald Trump number one at forty one percent. Ron DeSantis
Speaker 1: number two at twenty percent. Nikki Haley, the former governor
Speaker 1: of the state of South Carolina, is in third there
Speaker 1: at eighteen percent. Tim Scott in fourth in his own
Speaker 1: home state at seven percent. He's not even the top
Speaker 1: ranked South Carolinian, even close to it in this pole
Speaker 1: of his home state. I think this was the poll
Speaker 1: that I was looking at. It had favorability ratings for
Speaker 1: a variety of politicians, including some of the prominent South
Speaker 1: Carolina politicians like Tim Scott, like Lindsay Graham, like Nikki Haley.
Speaker 1: He does have a high approval rating in the state.
Speaker 1: People are sort of like, yeah, he's fine. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean, like what I said, he's a nice guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean they're like, oh, we want you to
Speaker 1: be president. They may feel like, okay, yeah, he's fine,
Speaker 1: he's like, you know, a good enough center whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: but that does not mean that they want you in Escana,
Speaker 1: she don't. Yeah, South Carolina's a number three state here.
Speaker 1: Trump is forty one percent in the number three primary. Like,
Speaker 1: am I the only person who feels like I'm taking
Speaker 1: crazy nails looking at this, Like forty that's a lot,
Speaker 1: and look at Santa's The's still twenty points behind. It
Speaker 1: ain't like Nicki Haley's even all that popular. She's losing
Speaker 1: to somebody who's not even in the race, and then
Speaker 1: Tim Scott's losing to her, right right. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: like it's an amazing situation because you do get a
Speaker 1: little window into the bubbles that these people are in
Speaker 1: and the you know, self interested financial incentives of the
Speaker 1: consultant class that's around them. How disconnected the republic looking
Speaker 1: to owner classes from the base of the party, and
Speaker 1: that even now, I mean even now at this point. Listen,
Speaker 1: right after the midterms, when things went really poorly for Trump,
Speaker 1: there was very clear referend in there and they went
Speaker 1: great for Ron De Santis down in Florida, and it
Speaker 1: seemed like Trump was at this sort of like weakest moment.
Speaker 1: You know, then maybe I could buy here's your lane,
Speaker 1: and here now you have had time to see the
Speaker 1: way this is all going to play out, with the
Speaker 1: indictments and the rallying around Trump and the way he
Speaker 1: sucks up all of the oxygen. He makes everything about him,
Speaker 1: and the whole Republican primary is a litmus test about
Speaker 1: how you feel about this man, who, by the way,
Speaker 1: is going to be very likely the nominee. You've had
Speaker 1: a chance now to take all of that in, and
Speaker 1: still you're moving forward. I don't know. It's amazing levels
Speaker 1: of delusion and lack of connection to reality within the rebubble,
Speaker 1: especially whenever we're talking about Trump, who is not backing down, No,
Speaker 1: not backing down. So let's get to that. This was
Speaker 1: an interesting piece that we wanted to talk about from
Speaker 1: Benji Sarlin over some of four. Put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. So he is warning, like, listen, even if
Speaker 1: Trump loses, let's say he loses the primary or wins
Speaker 1: the loses the general election, why are you assuming that
Speaker 1: that's going to be it for him? That he's just
Speaker 1: gonna Oh, that's that's so sad that I lost. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna go home to mar A Lago and enjoy
Speaker 1: my grandchildren or whatever. His headline here is, don't assume
Speaker 1: this is Donald Trump's last run. And I think he
Speaker 1: makes some good points here. He says. It might seem
Speaker 1: a little early, even absurd to bring this up now,
Speaker 1: but a refusal to acknowledge Trump's comeback ambitions after twenty
Speaker 1: twenty may have caused his Republican critics their last best
Speaker 1: chance to cut off his past denomination in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Everyone in the party should proceed with eyes wide open now,
Speaker 1: however they decide to handle him this cycle. Let's start
Speaker 1: with one simple fact. President Biden will turn eighty two
Speaker 1: just two weeks after election day twenty twenty four. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump will be the same age on election day twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight. God is the ultimate decider when it comes
Speaker 1: to their political futures, but age alone is no guarantee
Speaker 1: against another run. Another fact, Trump is extremely predictable, does
Speaker 1: not acknowledge defeat. He lashes down at the people he
Speaker 1: blames for sabotaging him, and he responds to setbacks by
Speaker 1: trying to immediately prove his dominance. Again, there is little
Speaker 1: reason to think a loss would prompt a different reaction
Speaker 1: this time. What did you think of this star? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think it is correct, and I
Speaker 1: do think that I've just always said I think the
Speaker 1: Trump era ends the day that Donald Trump dies, because
Speaker 1: even if he's not the nominee, he will still be
Speaker 1: the driving force behind the party. The counterfactual I've been
Speaker 1: talking a lot about recently is Reagan. Reagan got out
Speaker 1: of office and basically pieced out. He retired from politics.
Speaker 1: He didn't actively engage. This is what a world would
Speaker 1: look like if Reagan had decided to stay engaged basically
Speaker 1: up until the end. Reagan actually did not particularly like
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush, didn't agree with a lot of
Speaker 1: what he was doing, but said, I'm going to do
Speaker 1: my duty. I'm not going to talk against the president.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to actively get involved in Republican races,
Speaker 1: and he kept his mouth shut and kind of let
Speaker 1: his legacy stand as he was also mentally declining. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's not including when he was exclusive right part
Speaker 1: of the issue right, which is one of those things
Speaker 1: where he was willing to acknowledge that with grace and
Speaker 1: this kind of go away, whereas Trump is not willing
Speaker 1: to do that at all. Trump is like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be engaged basically up until the end, up until
Speaker 1: I decide. I don't think a scrap of evidence exists
Speaker 1: that says that even if he was on mental decline
Speaker 1: that he would stop. I mean, I think he would
Speaker 1: probably just become even more engaged. Is that what they
Speaker 1: say when you're older, like you just revert to like
Speaker 1: your most base tendencies. So probably, yeah, mostly that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So the thing is with Trump is there's no reason
Speaker 1: to think that he would just back out in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, like and even if he did, he would
Speaker 1: endorse somebody, and he would keep the game going up
Speaker 1: until the last moment and make everybody kiss his ass
Speaker 1: up until the end. And it all just depends on
Speaker 1: whether the base is still going to care about that
Speaker 1: from what we know right now, Yeah, they do. They
Speaker 1: aren't going to care what he has to say. Maybe
Speaker 1: they don't, Maybe they don't in twenty twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: It's certainly possible. It's a long way away, but you
Speaker 1: know where things currently stand. Why wouldn't you if you're
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. He loves attention more than anything else on
Speaker 1: the planet. That's what he would do well. And we
Speaker 1: talked about it right after January sixth. You know, there
Speaker 1: was a real sort of like shock within a lot
Speaker 1: of Republicans. It comes out in the Fox News text.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about Fox News in a
Speaker 1: minute about how like horrified some of the hosts were,
Speaker 1: politicians like Kevin McCarthy even messaging him on that day,
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell coming out and you know, decrying what happened
Speaker 1: and being pretty, you know, pretty decently strong language against
Speaker 1: Trump on all of that. And the public public opinion
Speaker 1: was overwhelmingly disgusted with January sixth and what happened and
Speaker 1: Trump's role in it and all of that, and maybe
Speaker 1: maybe there was an opening there if a Republican party
Speaker 1: really wanted to move on from Trump. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: Republican elites here, because there's no sun in the base
Speaker 1: really wants to move on from. But Republican elites at
Speaker 1: that point they at least had a hand to play.
Speaker 1: They could have if they acted in concert, tried to
Speaker 1: you know, barrow him from running from office again or
Speaker 1: you know, directly impeaching or at least settling on an
Speaker 1: narrative about January sixth and consistently like messaging it that
Speaker 1: was unfavorable to Donald Trump. But instead, after like a
Speaker 1: week or two of making some noises about being unhappy
Speaker 1: about it, they either stopped talking about it or they
Speaker 1: basically adopted whatever his framing of the day was. And
Speaker 1: so to the extent that there was an opening there,
Speaker 1: and I think that's probably the biggest opening that there
Speaker 1: has been for the Republican Party to rid itself of Trump.
Speaker 1: They you know, they folded and they hoped you would
Speaker 1: just go away. And that's kind of what Benji is
Speaker 1: getting at here, is like you see it playing out again.
Speaker 1: I mean, we just played you Tim Scott being like, eh,
Speaker 1: I'm not even willing to say the word Trump. Ron
Speaker 1: DeSantis over and over again, not even willing to say
Speaker 1: the word Trump, Nikki Haley, I'm not kicking sideways. Like
Speaker 1: to this day, they're still unable to reckon with the
Speaker 1: fact that you either got to do something to get
Speaker 1: rid of this dude or else you just should accept
Speaker 1: that he is going to be the Republican Party until
Speaker 1: the day that he dies. And there seems to be
Speaker 1: no awareness of that, no recognition of that, no ability
Speaker 1: or willingness to do anything about it. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: this is going to be the play that just continues
Speaker 1: to repeat itself over and over again. I think that's right.
Speaker 1: Fox News, as you know, they are in some serious
Speaker 1: legal trouble here with regard to the election lives that
Speaker 1: they platformed in the wake of twenty twenty, and especially
Speaker 1: with regards to what they said about the dominion voting systems,
Speaker 1: or at least what they allowed on their air about
Speaker 1: dominion voting systems. Now, we have already covered here some
Speaker 1: of the very embarrassing text messages that have come out
Speaker 1: about how Tucker Carlson really feels about Donald Trump, about
Speaker 1: how they knew that basically some of these things that
Speaker 1: were being said were total bullshit. They thought Sidney Powell
Speaker 1: was a crazy person because she is a crazy person,
Speaker 1: but then they would put her on air and like
Speaker 1: take her seriously like she wasn't well. Now, the latest
Speaker 1: shooter drop, let's put this up on the screen, is
Speaker 1: that the Delaware Superior Court judge who was overseeing this
Speaker 1: defamation lawsuit multi billion dollar by the way, defamation lawsuit
Speaker 1: against Fox, they just sanctioned Fox and their parent company,
Speaker 1: Fox Corporation for withholding evidence in the dominion defamation suit.
Speaker 1: And the judge said that he's considering further investigation and censure.
Speaker 1: So basically what happened here is lawyers for Dominion Voting
Speaker 1: Systems came into court and played recordings of a Fox
Speaker 1: News producer in twenty twenty that was not handed over
Speaker 1: to them during discovery until like a week ago. So
Speaker 1: this process has been going on now for like over
Speaker 1: a year and they just were given this latest recording
Speaker 1: which has in her deposition, she says she's a former
Speaker 1: producer for Fox host Maria Barbaroma and Tucker Carlson. She
Speaker 1: sued Fox News and said her deposition was coerced and amended.
Speaker 1: Filing Tuesday. She said she had recorded conversations with Rudy
Speaker 1: Giuliani Sidney Palell and others. And again those are the
Speaker 1: recordings that Dominion was just given access to. The Other
Speaker 1: piece here, which is kind of weird is they lied
Speaker 1: about whether Rupert Murdoch was actually like what level of
Speaker 1: title he held at Fox News because they wanted to
Speaker 1: sort of insulate him, like, oh, Ruper didn't really have
Speaker 1: anything to do with what was going on at Fox News,
Speaker 1: even though some of the messages from him would indicate otherwise.
Speaker 1: But they out and out hid what his actual role
Speaker 1: was at Fox News, which is like sort of crazy
Speaker 1: because how did you think that that wasn't going to
Speaker 1: come out? Yeah? I agree, I mean I think one
Speaker 1: of the weird things that really comes out throughout this
Speaker 1: entire thing is Rupert Murdoch unable to reconcile kind of
Speaker 1: the empire that he built and also putting the company
Speaker 1: in significant like legal jeopardy and also financial damage because
Speaker 1: at this point Dominion has gotten and gained so much
Speaker 1: ground Crystal they feel no need to reach any sort
Speaker 1: of settlement outside of the one billion or so dollar
Speaker 1: Ranger suing for one point six billion, and now the
Speaker 1: reputational damage to Fox not only from the text, but
Speaker 1: what is coming from the trial after being censored. Now
Speaker 1: is they very male may have to call Tucker Hannity
Speaker 1: and some of the top talent to the stand in
Speaker 1: open court, which would be a disaster growth. Yeah, under
Speaker 1: oath same and it would be a disaster too for
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch. I mean again the damage that this would
Speaker 1: occur to the overall brand too. It's already like having
Speaker 1: schism with Trump. I think is already you know, well
Speaker 1: passed what settlement is. And apparently people inside the company
Speaker 1: are furious with him for not just settling the case
Speaker 1: for exactly the reasons that I'm talking about. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: he just maybe he just doesn't care. Like he's worth
Speaker 1: like fifty sixty billion dollars, so I don't know what
Speaker 1: a billion six. Also, he's very elderly. He's old to
Speaker 1: an infirm and has had major health issue. Let me
Speaker 1: read this part also from the profile. Yeah, nuts face
Speaker 1: up on the screen. This is from a Gabe Sherman
Speaker 1: over at Vanity Fair who has this in depth profile
Speaker 1: of Rupert Murdoch and the real crux of what he's
Speaker 1: talking about here is the sort of succession drama that's
Speaker 1: playing out within the Murdoch empire because he has these
Speaker 1: two sons, Lachlan and James, who are kind of at
Speaker 1: war with one another. Ruper really pitted them at war
Speaker 1: with one another over control of the organization. Lachlan is
Speaker 1: more ideologically aligned with Fox News. James is more like
Speaker 1: resistance friendly and wants to do a bit of a
Speaker 1: U turn one in terms of the way that you know,
Speaker 1: the type of content that Fox puts down, the type
Speaker 1: of positions that they take. So there's this behind the
Speaker 1: scenes war as Murdoch is very aged and everybody's looking
Speaker 1: towards Okay, what happens when this guy is kind of
Speaker 1: how old he is not well known. Here's what they say.
Speaker 1: Quote Murdoch has suffered a broken back, seizures, two bounds
Speaker 1: of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, and a torn achilles tendon, as
Speaker 1: well as a terrible bout with COVID nineteen. So he's
Speaker 1: ninety one or ninety two years old. That is brutal.
Speaker 1: So that also gets to you know, a decision making
Speaker 1: and whether he's even in the right state of mind
Speaker 1: to be doing this. Yeah, yeah, if I were one
Speaker 1: of obviously it's tough, you know, when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: your dad and all that. But the bottom line is
Speaker 1: that for Fox itself, like this is a this is bad,
Speaker 1: especially with what's going on right now. Well then with
Speaker 1: the judge the money quote from that Gabe Sherman piece
Speaker 1: is the dominion lawsuit is the worst crisis of the
Speaker 1: network I've seen. And Gabriel Sherman, by the way, he's
Speaker 1: done in depth, you know, Yeah, he wrote the Roger
Speaker 1: Ails biography I talk about all the time right exactly
Speaker 1: in their own words. Fox hosts have been exposed as propagandist.
Speaker 1: Here's a quote from a senior Fox staffer. He said,
Speaker 1: if we lose this suit, it's effing bad. As far
Speaker 1: as Murdoch himself goes, you know, the picture that comes
Speaker 1: out is someone who's kind of lost control over the empire,
Speaker 1: at least the Fox News portion of the empire in
Speaker 1: a way because he initially, you know, really didn't like
Speaker 1: some of the election fraud stuff. He wanted them to
Speaker 1: sort of tamp down on it. It is basically overruled
Speaker 1: by the hosts who saw the ratings going down. They
Speaker 1: were worried about One America News and they worried about Newsmax,
Speaker 1: and so after this brief flirtation after the election of
Speaker 1: actually being like, well, no, Joe Biden really did win.
Speaker 1: Then they did, you know, an about face and started
Speaker 1: leaning into ur let's have Sidney pal on, let's have
Speaker 1: Rudy Guliani on, Let's make sure we give credence to
Speaker 1: some of the nonsense that was, you know, the most
Speaker 1: insane of the stop to steal stuff they say. According
Speaker 1: to Dominion's court filings, Murdoch protected Fox News ratings by
Speaker 1: allowing the network's host and guests to propote a batshit
Speaker 1: crazy theory that algorithms inside Dominion machines secretly switch votes
Speaker 1: to Biden to steal the election somehow at the behest
Speaker 1: of the Venezuelan government. There's a couple other pieces here
Speaker 1: that are very interesting, which relate to the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four discussion we were just having, which is, according to
Speaker 1: this Murdoch actually wanted a post Trump future, as many
Speaker 1: Republican aligned elites do. Shortly before the twenty twenty election,
Speaker 1: according to a source, Murdoch invited Flora Governor Ron De
Speaker 1: Santis and his wife Casey for lunch at Murdoch's vineyard.
Speaker 1: As they dined outside on steak. This is again before
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election. Murdoch told DeSantis then that Fox
Speaker 1: News would support him for president in twenty twenty four. Right, So,
Speaker 1: a couple things that are obvious from that statement. Number one,
Speaker 1: the idea that Fox News is just like, oh, fair
Speaker 1: and balanced and we're fine. No, this is a this
Speaker 1: has always been an explicitly political organization, you know, above
Speaker 1: and beyond anything else. As number one, like to actively
Speaker 1: tell him like, no, I'm going to from the top down,
Speaker 1: We're going to back you in twenty twenty four is
Speaker 1: pretty wild. That's how Roger Ayles used to run the
Speaker 1: company too, with George W. Books. Oh yeah, aad cruise absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you know, I think the real story is that
Speaker 1: they just have less influence. Now, well, that's the other
Speaker 1: piece of this is he can say all he wants like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, Fox News is behind Ron DeSantis, and we've
Speaker 1: shown you the evidence of they have been behind Rond DeSantis.
Speaker 1: But it does it doesn't matter, does not, movingly doesn't
Speaker 1: matter at Yeah, and I don't think that would have
Speaker 1: been true in another era. They had so much influence
Speaker 1: with the base and they really set the narrative. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a commentary on just the media landscape
Speaker 1: that exists now. You just can't have that tight control anymore,
Speaker 1: and people are gonna they are gonna make up their
Speaker 1: minds to themselves if they are hearing from you. Ronda
Speaker 1: Stances is the great They Okay, he's fine, but you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm also watching Newsmax or watching One American News,
Speaker 1: or I'm looking at Facebook or Daily Wire or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I'm I still like the guy that was here before,
Speaker 1: and the fact that you've got your hosts selling me
Speaker 1: Ronda Santis doesn't really matter to me. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: my takeaway too. I'm not going to do any succession spoilers,
Speaker 1: but there is a part in season three where like
Speaker 1: the idea is is that Logan Roy is like this
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch character, and they're like, we're gonna go pick
Speaker 1: the next president. And the idea was that like behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, like the Fox News whatever, it's representative, it's
Speaker 1: called ATN and so the show they're like, we're gonna
Speaker 1: go and pick that, and I remember watching it and
Speaker 1: being like this is old, Like this is not how
Speaker 1: it works anymore. This is maybe two thousand and eight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can make a case for that. But today I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is this actually is wrong, Like that's just not
Speaker 1: how it works in terms of how the base is
Speaker 1: able to get its information. Yeah, they're on True Social
Speaker 1: or on YouTube like you know, some Tim Poole show,
Speaker 1: like a million other places. Yeah, that they can get it.
Speaker 1: They don't need Fox to tilt the thing for them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they'll never get over that. I think the last
Speaker 1: piece that we just added in because it is also revealing,
Speaker 1: is MSBC got their hands on some audio of an
Speaker 1: actual Trump campaign official, oh right, telling a Fox News
Speaker 1: producer that there were no problems with the dominion voting machines. Okay, again,
Speaker 1: a Trump campaign person telling Fox News no issueses that
Speaker 1: dominion voting machines. Take a listen to this. Are any
Speaker 1: of the machines? I know it was on War Room
Speaker 1: the other day with Steve ben And have any of
Speaker 1: the machines been looked at? He had said that one
Speaker 1: was looked at in Georgia. I'd have to check on
Speaker 1: that in terms of Georgia. I know during the audit
Speaker 1: they did check on those machines. They're really good. If
Speaker 1: you just go off the record for one secure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: should come. I would. I don't want us to say
Speaker 1: it if it's not. That's why we're talking. I would,
Speaker 1: I would. I think they have looked at the machines
Speaker 1: when the when the Secretary of State did its audit, Uh,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of I think a fair bit
Speaker 1: of looking at the machines. You know, the audit came
Speaker 1: in pretty ear and close to what the machine count
Speaker 1: was with the receipts, so you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: the outcome of those, but are understanding again the sort
Speaker 1: of Secretary of State's office is that there weren't any
Speaker 1: physical issues with machines of those inspections, and that was
Speaker 1: from December fifth of twenty twenty, just to give you
Speaker 1: a sense of the timeline here. But yeah, no physical
Speaker 1: issues with the dominion footing machines. And this is highly
Speaker 1: relevant for the legal case because dominion has to prove
Speaker 1: that they knew this was wrong. It's like the actual malice.
Speaker 1: So that would they call like they knew that it
Speaker 1: was wrong and incorrect and a bunch of lies and
Speaker 1: they pushed it forward anyways, So that's why audio like
Speaker 1: this is relevant to the legal case. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just humiliating funny too that he has to go off
Speaker 1: the record to be like, yeah, we looked at the
Speaker 1: machiet I know, right to admit that the yeah you
Speaker 1: that guy was on TV talking about how they need
Speaker 1: to do an audit. Well they did and there's nothing there.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, anyway, embarrassing nonetheless for all of the parties
Speaker 1: who are involved. Yes, speaking of embarrassing, Elon Musk sat
Speaker 1: down for this was like on Twitter spaces first, right,
Speaker 1: but also but there was also video for the BBCs,
Speaker 1: So you guys might have seen this initial initially in
Speaker 1: just audio format and then you might have seen the
Speaker 1: full video. But there's a particular moment from this BBC
Speaker 1: interview that did not go particularly well for the interviewer.
Speaker 1: With regards to hate speech. Let's take a listen to
Speaker 1: that content you don't like or or hateful. What do
Speaker 1: you to subscribe a hateful thing? Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: just content that will solicit a reaction to something that
Speaker 1: may include something that is slightly racist or slightly sexist,
Speaker 1: those kinds of those kinds of things. So you think
Speaker 1: something is slightly sexist, it should be banned. No, what
Speaker 1: you're saying, I'm not saying anything I'm just curious what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say, what you mean by hateful content content.
Speaker 1: I'm asking for specific examples and if and you just
Speaker 1: said that if something is slightly sexist, that's hateful content,
Speaker 1: and does that mean that it should be bad? When
Speaker 1: you've asked me, you've asked me whether my feed, whether
Speaker 1: it's got less or more, I'd say it's got slightly more.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm asking for examples. Can you name one example?
Speaker 1: I honestly don't you. Honestly, I don't name a single example.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why, because I don't actually use that
Speaker 1: for you feed anymore, because I just don't sickly like it.
Speaker 1: You actually a lot of people, a lot of people
Speaker 1: are quite similar. I only well, you said you've seen
Speaker 1: more hateful content. You can't name a single example, not
Speaker 1: even one. I'm not sure I've used that feed for
Speaker 1: the last three or four weeks. And although, how did
Speaker 1: you see the hapel content content? Because I've been I've
Speaker 1: been using I've been using Twister since you've taken it
Speaker 1: over for the last six months, because then you must
Speaker 1: have at some point seeing that you for you hateful content.
Speaker 1: I'm asking for one example right, and you can't give
Speaker 1: us some more And I'm saying, then, I say so
Speaker 1: that you don't know what you're talking about. Honestly, that
Speaker 1: wide messed up so bad when he lied and claimed that,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I've been seeing more hateful content in my feed,
Speaker 1: Like you didn't have to do that. You could have
Speaker 1: just like, if you're going to make a big claim
Speaker 1: like that number one, you need to have some example.
Speaker 1: Here's the video, here's the data from a reputable source.
Speaker 1: And but the and Elon clearly smells blood. The minute
Speaker 1: that he said, oh yeah, in my feed, I've seen
Speaker 1: more hateful content, is like, oh, really, tell me about it.
Speaker 1: But it does. I mean, first of all, so there's
Speaker 1: a couple other pieces of this interview that we want
Speaker 1: to show you, but one of the things that portion
Speaker 1: underscored for me is that they go after some of
Speaker 1: the mistakes and flaws of Elon's ownership of Twitter in
Speaker 1: all the wrong ways. Like the real critique of Elon's
Speaker 1: Twitter handling is first of all, I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: been like it's a chaos, It's total chaos. Things are breaking,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work as well, it's full of ads, like
Speaker 1: the user experience is way worse. But then the other
Speaker 1: thing is he claimed he was going to run it
Speaker 1: in this free speech manner, and he just hasn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: he just banned substack links and went to war with
Speaker 1: Matt tayev over like, so the idea that he was
Speaker 1: going to buy this and have this like consistent free
Speaker 1: speech principled approach, he just has failed at that. And
Speaker 1: so their inability to prosecute that case leaves them on
Speaker 1: very weak ground with regard to what they're actually trying
Speaker 1: to say here. Oh yeah, so, I mean, there's just
Speaker 1: no question. And also Glenn Greenwall flagged this. Really what
Speaker 1: he was doing is he was parroting the report by
Speaker 1: a place called the Institution for Strategic Dialogue. It's going
Speaker 1: to put this up there on the screen. After he
Speaker 1: was caught lying, he finally pretends he has no view.
Speaker 1: He's just repeating the claims of ISD global, which has
Speaker 1: said that Twitter is more hateful and you know, lo
Speaker 1: and behold this. Isd global is funded by a bunch
Speaker 1: of European defense ministries and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
Speaker 1: and the O mid Yard Group, the Open Society Foundation,
Speaker 1: the Soros, people like government and other technology companies Google, Facebook, Microsoft, YouTube.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is part of the problem with the
Speaker 1: disinformation industrial complex, which we will actually have a whole
Speaker 1: guest on to talk about today, is just that it's
Speaker 1: this architecture of like NGOs, non governmental organizations, which just
Speaker 1: create these fake statistics which their mouthpieces in the tech
Speaker 1: press can use as evidence. Like if you have examples
Speaker 1: cited in your feed that you can show him, that's
Speaker 1: one thing. But to just say it with no like,
Speaker 1: with no evidence and then immediately back down, you just
Speaker 1: look like a fool, and you are a fool. You
Speaker 1: are a fool. Also, any I mean even if you
Speaker 1: did have like a personal anecdote, that's not really evidence,
Speaker 1: Like Sarah, I could have a personal anecdote of careful
Speaker 1: stuff that was in my feed before Elon probably over. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it also exposes that a lot of the
Speaker 1: people who have these, you know, concerns about misinformation and
Speaker 1: want are on the side of more censorship from social
Speaker 1: media companies, they don't have a deeply formed, coherent view
Speaker 1: of about it. So when Elon's like, so you want
Speaker 1: anything that's like mildly sexist to be banned, I mean,
Speaker 1: who's going to decide that I think even at one
Speaker 1: point in the interview is like what is the BBC
Speaker 1: going to decide? Like Who's going to decide it? And
Speaker 1: that does kind of get to the know the core
Speaker 1: issues here. Jack Dorsey had I thought a thoughtful post
Speaker 1: about what he viewed to some of his failings of
Speaker 1: Twitter in the way he would do things differently, and
Speaker 1: the core of his argument was vesting these sorts of
Speaker 1: powers of who gets to say what and what stays
Speaker 1: up and how you're going to handle all of these
Speaker 1: genuinely complex free speech issues. It's too much of a
Speaker 1: responsibility and too much of a burden put on any
Speaker 1: one individual. And so the whole setup in construction of
Speaker 1: these social media companies where they claim all the power
Speaker 1: for themselves to be the judge, jury, and executioner, that
Speaker 1: whole setup is really bankrupt and you're never going to
Speaker 1: solve these problems as long as that is the core
Speaker 1: model of the social media companies. Now, there are some
Speaker 1: that have, like you know, experimented with Master John's the
Speaker 1: only one that I know of that has less of
Speaker 1: like hierarchical approach. I've never been on mass down, so
Speaker 1: I don't really fully understand it. But there are some
Speaker 1: sort of like experiments out there for how to do
Speaker 1: this differently. But obviously the main platforms right now of
Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook, et cetera, they all rely on this
Speaker 1: centralized control and it ends up being a disaster. And
Speaker 1: so let me show you another piece here that, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, is a lot less of a good look
Speaker 1: for Elon Musk, where he's asked about Twitter banning a
Speaker 1: BBC documentary that is critical of Narendra Modi. Let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to that. We then believe that some of
Speaker 1: those some of that content was taken off Twitter, was
Speaker 1: that the behest of the Indian government. I'm not aware
Speaker 1: of that. Sure, I don't know. I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: You know what's exactly happened in some content sitution. The
Speaker 1: rules of the idea for what can appear on social
Speaker 1: media quite strict, and we can't go beyond the worst
Speaker 1: of But do you get that if you do not
Speaker 1: intentialized countries around the world to some people passing more
Speaker 1: draconian laws. No, but what if we have a choice
Speaker 1: of either our people go to prison or we apply
Speaker 1: with the laws. We'll comply with the laws. The same
Speaker 1: goes with the BBC, so he tries to just play them, Oh,
Speaker 1: I have no idea what you're trying. Come on, I
Speaker 1: ready know this has been an obviously know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, Actually that that stance is not one
Speaker 1: that the US government has looked kindly to or the
Speaker 1: US public, and often that has been part of the problem,
Speaker 1: which is that we look at it and we'll be
Speaker 1: like we're, oh, well, we're just complying with local regulation,
Speaker 1: where it's like, well, okay, we'll hold on a second.
Speaker 1: Like your whole thing is about values and prison It's like,
Speaker 1: so are you saying that you just value like business more.
Speaker 1: If you do, then say that that's actually fine, but
Speaker 1: just be honest about what you're doing well. And that
Speaker 1: is what he seems to be hinting at, is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just got to follow the loss. So if they
Speaker 1: need governments, then that's got to be taken down. Then
Speaker 1: it's got to be taken down. But then you think about, okay,
Speaker 1: so if there's like Twitter in Afghanistan, are you going
Speaker 1: to follow like what the Taliban I mean allows on Twitter.
Speaker 1: If you're in Saudi, are you going to like follow
Speaker 1: what you know? Ksa says is allowed on Twitter, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they answer the answer seems to be yes.
Speaker 1: But that is far from the free speech promotion that
Speaker 1: he sold when he purchased Twitter. That allows, you know,
Speaker 1: authoritarian regimes to censor in any way that they want.
Speaker 1: Allows really the US government if they come in and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you got to take this down, then hey, it's the
Speaker 1: local you know, local law. They've got the right to
Speaker 1: do it. Who's to say against them? So I thought
Speaker 1: that was a much more interesting and revelatory line of
Speaker 1: questioning there from this journalist. And just to show you
Speaker 1: like he knows what he's talking about here, this is
Speaker 1: not some new issue just put on his radar. He
Speaker 1: had actually responded to a question about this Indian Modi
Speaker 1: documentary before put this up on the screen, so he
Speaker 1: had gotten a question about it, and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the first I've heard of it. It's not possible
Speaker 1: for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight
Speaker 1: while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things. So
Speaker 1: very defensive here and sort of uses the same dodge
Speaker 1: of like, oh, I had no idea this was going on, okay,
Speaker 1: but now you do know what's going on. So what
Speaker 1: are you going to do about it, because it is
Speaker 1: a pretty significant, high profile example of you taking an
Speaker 1: action that is at odds with the at least the
Speaker 1: stated principles that you bought the platform with. Yes, absolutely
Speaker 1: totally agree. At the same time, this is just a
Speaker 1: little funny coda here. Put this up on the screen
Speaker 1: so you know MPR had been designated what do they
Speaker 1: say state affiliated media on Twitter. NPR has now quit
Speaker 1: Twitter after what they say being falsely labeled as state
Speaker 1: affiliated media. They sent a message to their journalist explaining
Speaker 1: the decision. They said would be a disservice to the
Speaker 1: serious work you all do here to continue to share
Speaker 1: it on a platform that is associating the Federal Charter
Speaker 1: for Public Media with an abandoning of aial independence or standards.
Speaker 1: They're giving a two week grace period so staff who
Speaker 1: run the Twitter accounts can revise their social media strategies,
Speaker 1: and they say that individual NPR journalists and staffers can
Speaker 1: decide for themselves whether they are going to stay on
Speaker 1: the platform or not. What's also hilarious is that PBS
Speaker 1: is now joining NPR their brethren over being upset that
Speaker 1: they are labeled as government funded media. Guys, it's called
Speaker 1: the Public Broadcasting Network. It's like, how can you deny that?
Speaker 1: It's not, like, how is that some sort of besmirching
Speaker 1: of your editorially independence. You can claim you're editorially independent,
Speaker 1: most people don't believe you, saying with NPR, it's like, well, look,
Speaker 1: you do get the vast majority of your funding from
Speaker 1: the government, So I mean it's sorry vast majority. You
Speaker 1: get a portion of your funding from the government. In
Speaker 1: the case of PBS, you get a significant portion. NPR
Speaker 1: has literally said that federal funding for NPR is vital
Speaker 1: to their operations despite outside you therefore are state funded media.
Speaker 1: There's simply no guest around it. And they really what
Speaker 1: it is is that they can't stand being labeled this
Speaker 1: way because it just exposes who they are, Like they
Speaker 1: want to have their cake and eat it too. They
Speaker 1: don't want to be cast as state funded, and they
Speaker 1: want to claim that they're editorially completely independent, funding wise
Speaker 1: from anything that keeps them from reporting on power, Like
Speaker 1: that's just truly not the case. And so I don't
Speaker 1: know why they answers the problem with the truth. Well,
Speaker 1: what I would really like to see personally is corporate
Speaker 1: affiliated right media labeled because that is, I mean, those
Speaker 1: companies get the bulk of their revenue from advertising and
Speaker 1: are like deeply conflicted, and so I would love to
Speaker 1: see some labeling to that regard. Not that people don't
Speaker 1: you know, people don't really need these labels, like they
Speaker 1: know what's going on here. There was an exchange in
Speaker 1: that BBC interview because BBC was also labeled state affiliated Media,
Speaker 1: and Elon was floating like maybe I'll change the label
Speaker 1: to publicly funded media or something like that. He was like,
Speaker 1: you would that make you feel better? So anyway, that's
Speaker 1: where things stand right now. As I guess Elon is
Speaker 1: mulling weight whether he might shift the title somewhat or
Speaker 1: which wants to hold your guns? We don't need NPR
Speaker 1: on two. We'll be consistent, be consistent about it though,
Speaker 1: because that's the thing is, it's like very selectively applied
Speaker 1: as a troll to the companies that he felt like
Speaker 1: targeting and going after. But like I said, if you
Speaker 1: want to do something genuinely useful, I would label all
Speaker 1: the corporate mainstream media corporate affiliated press. Label them all right? Sorry,
Speaker 1: really looking at well. Biden's EPA announced an ambitious new
Speaker 1: target yesterday requiring two thirds of new car sales in
Speaker 1: the United States to be fully electric by twenty thirty two.
Speaker 1: The nine year effective moonshot actually starts even earlier than
Speaker 1: it sounds, because the order requires that a minimum of
Speaker 1: fifty four percent of all new cars be fully electric
Speaker 1: by twenty thirty. This represents a titanic shift in the
Speaker 1: US automative policy that sounds nice on paper and today, though,
Speaker 1: I really want to dive into and see if this
Speaker 1: is realistic and even advantageous. Let's start with the present day.
Speaker 1: How many electric cars are on the road present? Presently,
Speaker 1: electric cars make up five point six percent of all
Speaker 1: cars and trucks sold in twenty twenty two, up from
Speaker 1: one point eight percent just two years earlier. While that
Speaker 1: certainly is parabolic, we are still talking about what is
Speaker 1: effectively a niche market and turning it into the dominant
Speaker 1: mode of new transportation in less than a decade. Is
Speaker 1: this feasible in any way? Now? The answer is kind
Speaker 1: of yes. But the unfortunate part is that Biden has
Speaker 1: not done really anything else to prepare the world or
Speaker 1: America for this. First thing, what is the most important
Speaker 1: part of an electric vehicle? The battery. Who makes those batteries,
Speaker 1: what goes in them? Not only is it not us,
Speaker 1: but we are losing by several orders of magnitude. Today,
Speaker 1: China produces seventy six percent of globally lithium ion battery
Speaker 1: cells worldwide, including those going to most US electric vehicles.
Speaker 1: The US is number two in rare earths. But we
Speaker 1: have a major problem. Chinese reserves of rare earth minerals
Speaker 1: required for evs actually outstripped the entire production of what
Speaker 1: America made just last year. We have no reserves. Worse,
Speaker 1: if you look at the countries that do have them,
Speaker 1: we are not exactly on the best terms, including Brazil, Russia,
Speaker 1: and India. Why would they sell it to US and
Speaker 1: not China. We have less economies of scale for production.
Speaker 1: We have less EV sales than China, which dominates sixty
Speaker 1: percent of the global market. It's not like America is
Speaker 1: an easy place to actually build anything whenever it comes
Speaker 1: to mining. And critics of my position will say, well, Soger,
Speaker 1: this presumes lithium ion batteries remains the standard for evs.
Speaker 1: But here's the issue. We're so far behind on EV technology.
Speaker 1: We don't even really have a chance with the second generation.
Speaker 1: China already makes up sixty percent of the world EV market,
Speaker 1: and it is investing heavily in a battery supply chain
Speaker 1: that both ditches lithium and includes sodium because they are first. Quote,
Speaker 1: in two years, China will have ninety six percent of
Speaker 1: the world's capacity to make sodium batteries. Now, it may
Speaker 1: sound like we may make up the ground, but it
Speaker 1: is not easy. They have been investing this for over
Speaker 1: a decade, graduates of top universities or studying this tech.
Speaker 1: They state subsidize the companies that make these batteries to
Speaker 1: undercut any private Western competition, and they have a stranglehold
Speaker 1: even on the largest EV makers here in the United States,
Speaker 1: like Elon Musk, who is currently building a new facility
Speaker 1: in Shanghai and appears to have no qualms of doing
Speaker 1: business with the CCP. Building an alternative EV supply chain
Speaker 1: that we would control requires an investment of minimum of
Speaker 1: hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars.
Speaker 1: Right now, the Biden EV future looks like one where
Speaker 1: the dominant mode of transportation in this country is completely
Speaker 1: reliant on a country that is our main geopolitical rival
Speaker 1: that sounds really dumb to me. Again, it can be avoided,
Speaker 1: but only with a serious Apollo style program requiring national
Speaker 1: buy in and absolute gobs of state funded infrastructure, which
Speaker 1: last time I looked at the US Senate, probably not
Speaker 1: going to happen. Next, let's look at the other problem.
Speaker 1: Where will we charge these evs? Right now, there are
Speaker 1: approximately one hundred and forty five thousand gas stations in
Speaker 1: the United States, which is actually historic low. With evs,
Speaker 1: we have about five three hundred chargers That sound like
Speaker 1: a lot, but it is actually not because the average
Speaker 1: fill time on a car at a gas station is
Speaker 1: only two minutes, meaning that you can service thousands of
Speaker 1: customers per day. Even on a level two charger. On average,
Speaker 1: it takes about four to ten hours to charge a
Speaker 1: car from empty to full. You can get around this
Speaker 1: with things like Tesla superchargers, which will get you a
Speaker 1: decent range in twenty minutes, but the numbers on them
Speaker 1: for publicly available dismal. There are approximately twenty eight thousand
Speaker 1: fast chargers distributed across the US. The Biden administration only
Speaker 1: has current plans to fund approximately five thousand more factory
Speaker 1: in the twenty minutes or so that it will take
Speaker 1: for the average EV battery to fill up here, and
Speaker 1: you are looking at a catastrophic mismatch in infrastructure that
Speaker 1: exists today to make this a part of day to
Speaker 1: day life. Now. Of course, this is not the only
Speaker 1: way to charge your car. You can do so at home,
Speaker 1: but this also cost money. Right now, the average cost
Speaker 1: of an L two charger at home is around one
Speaker 1: thousand dollars between hardware and installation, sometimes much more. Cost
Speaker 1: that the consumer has to absorb and requires a significant
Speaker 1: upfront investment from that consumer. And that brings us to
Speaker 1: our final problem. While it certainly would be better for
Speaker 1: the climate if we switch from gas powered vehicles to
Speaker 1: electric vehicles, even if that power comes from natural gas,
Speaker 1: any so called transition to electric future cannot be sustained
Speaker 1: on the current power grid. A shift of two thirds
Speaker 1: of all cars to the grid would dramatically increase the
Speaker 1: price of power across the United States for average home
Speaker 1: basic appliances, let alone the car that you now have
Speaker 1: to charge, which means we need cheap and abundant energy
Speaker 1: available nationwide. I have spent hours on the show laying
Speaker 1: out why the only real way to accomplish this is
Speaker 1: wide scale available in nuclear power, but here again, the
Speaker 1: government is the worst obstacle. The newest reactor in the
Speaker 1: US just came online in June twenty sixteen. The one
Speaker 1: before that came online in May nineteen ninety six. There
Speaker 1: is one plant in Georgia that is coming online soon,
Speaker 1: which means the grand total of nuclear reactors to come
Speaker 1: online in the last twenty or thirty years is three.
Speaker 1: That Georgia place that I mentioned is a cautionary tale.
Speaker 1: It started construction at nine and has taken more than
Speaker 1: a decade to build, with huge cost overruns and very
Speaker 1: little support from the federal government. Any electric future that
Speaker 1: we live in will again require a separate Apollo program
Speaker 1: just to provide clean, reliable power. On top of the infrastructure,
Speaker 1: need to build EV batteries and then keep the supply
Speaker 1: chain here in the US. I don't want to sound
Speaker 1: like a doomer. Our country certainly has had the capacity
Speaker 1: to do some of these things in the past, but
Speaker 1: the past is the past. Our political system right now
Speaker 1: has no consensus, and the genuine seriousness that it would
Speaker 1: require to pull something off like this is way outside
Speaker 1: the capacity of an aged man. Like Joe Biden and
Speaker 1: Secretary Pete. Maybe we can fix it, but honestly, I
Speaker 1: doubt it within the next ten years. More likely, this
Speaker 1: could be a colossal boondoggle which would inadvertently spike the
Speaker 1: price for the poorest consumers on electricity and increase demand
Speaker 1: on the existing grid for all Americans. Again, I hope
Speaker 1: to be wrong, but laying it all this way, see
Speaker 1: another way. What do you think, Crystal? I mean, it's
Speaker 1: again and if you want to hear my reaction to
Speaker 1: Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Crystal,
Speaker 1: what are you taking a look at? Well? Guys, Perhaps
Speaker 1: no effort is more personal to President Joe Biden, or
Speaker 1: more consistently touted by the President himself, than his efforts
Speaker 1: to cure cancer. Inspired by the untimely death of his
Speaker 1: son bo Biden initially launched the so called cancer moonshot
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen when he was Vice President. Now in
Speaker 1: the White House, they have established another admirable set of
Speaker 1: goals quote to reduce the death rate from cancer by
Speaker 1: at least fifty percent over the next twenty five years
Speaker 1: and improve the experience of people and their families living
Speaker 1: with and surviving cancer, and by doing this and more,
Speaker 1: end cancer as we know it today. But as Professor
Speaker 1: Anthony Zincas has been pointing out right now as we speak,
Speaker 1: our for profit healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, they are not
Speaker 1: even capable of supplying existing cancer drugs for patients who
Speaker 1: are suffering with that disease right now today, NBC News
Speaker 1: has some of the details. They say cancer drug shortages
Speaker 1: are creating dire circumstances for some patients. In some cases,
Speaker 1: other drugs are available, but they may not work as well.
Speaker 1: In other cases, patients may die waiting for the medications
Speaker 1: that they need. According to that report, four different cancer
Speaker 1: drugs are in shortage right now, causing rationing, the use
Speaker 1: of inferior treatments and leading, as they say, there in
Speaker 1: some instances, to avoidable death. NBC interviewed a man named
Speaker 1: Roger who is suffering with an aggressive form of prostate
Speaker 1: cancer stage four. After chemotherapy was unsuccessful, his doctor recommended
Speaker 1: a new advanced drug specifically for prostate cancer, which is
Speaker 1: made by Novartis, But that is one of the drugs
Speaker 1: that's in short supply, so rather than receiving the potentially
Speaker 1: life saving care that he needs right now. He has
Speaker 1: been put on a wait list, which is expected to
Speaker 1: delay his treatment by several critical months. He told NBC quote,
Speaker 1: I definitely need that drug. It's the only way I
Speaker 1: see my life. But it's not just cancer drugs. A
Speaker 1: Senate subcommittee recently released a report on the growing scourge
Speaker 1: of critical drug shortages, and they held hearings on this matter.
Speaker 1: Corns to that report, at the end of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: a full two hundred and ninety five individual drugs were
Speaker 1: in shortage. In a single year. From twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty two, drug shortage is spiked by thirty percent,
Speaker 1: and because drug makers have few requirements to inform the
Speaker 1: government of upcoming shortages or explain the causes, regulators, doctors,
Speaker 1: and patients are often completely in the dark about when
Speaker 1: a drug might be available or whether it's going to
Speaker 1: be available at all. Listen to how one of the
Speaker 1: witnesses at that hearing described the whore that this creates
Speaker 1: for doctors and for patients. We are lucky enough to
Speaker 1: live in a country where cutting at research has massively
Speaker 1: reduced cancer related deaths, but cancer drug shortages represent a
Speaker 1: tragedy that's happening in slow motion. For example, etopicide is
Speaker 1: a cancer drug that's been on the market for over
Speaker 1: forty years and typically cost it less than fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a vile. It is given to patients for nearly a
Speaker 1: dozen different kinds of cancer, But in twenty eighteen, due
Speaker 1: to a manufacturing delay, this drug was on shortage across
Speaker 1: the country. Which of our patients with can or should
Speaker 1: get it? How can we prioritize between American lives? Should
Speaker 1: our limited vials go to an older woman who is
Speaker 1: just diagnosed with lung cancer, a young man who's already
Speaker 1: been successfully taking it for testicular cancer, or a baby
Speaker 1: with neuroblastoma, an aggressive cancer for which this drug is recommended,
Speaker 1: but others might substitute. Our hospital, like others across the country,
Speaker 1: struggled to make decisions based on projective availability, which patients
Speaker 1: were already under our care, and our best guess at
Speaker 1: how many new patients would be diagnosed in the coming weeks.
Speaker 1: As a doctor who's devoted my life to fighting cancer,
Speaker 1: it's hard to express how horrible that is. In this
Speaker 1: particular case, we had enough drug for our long and
Speaker 1: testicular cancer patients, and our heroic pharmacist was able to
Speaker 1: scrape together enough atopicide from the bottom of the leftover
Speaker 1: vials to also treat the infant patient. But our pharmacist
Speaker 1: should not be desperately trying to squeeze out a few
Speaker 1: last drops when a life may be on the line. Now,
Speaker 1: the causes of these shortages will not be remotely surprising
Speaker 1: to you. It's the same story we see in a
Speaker 1: whole lot of industries, only of course, with lives on
Speaker 1: the line. Industry consolidation is meant that when a single
Speaker 1: drug maker stops making a drug or has some sort
Speaker 1: of supply or factory issue, the result can be absolutely devastating.
Speaker 1: In the name of market fundamentalism, we have also allowed
Speaker 1: damn near our entire pharmaceutical supply chain to become dependent
Speaker 1: on ingredients or processes from foreign countries, most notably China
Speaker 1: and India. Eighty percent of the factories that make active
Speaker 1: ingredients for pharmaceuticals are located outside of the US. That's
Speaker 1: the reason why this hearing was actually held by a
Speaker 1: Senate committee focused on homeland security. Our drug shortage issue
Speaker 1: is so dire it is actually a national security issue.
Speaker 1: According to CNN, a single factory in Shanghai that made
Speaker 1: a necessary material for radiological scans shut down. It literally
Speaker 1: nuked half the US supply of that critical substance. A
Speaker 1: VA hospital doc told them that the shortage hit them
Speaker 1: immediately and they were faced with making some horrific choices,
Speaker 1: but whether they had enough to do a needed cancer
Speaker 1: screen or heart disease scan. Many of the drugs in
Speaker 1: short supply are generics, which provide a lower profit margin
Speaker 1: than the patent protected drugs. Since Big Pharma is unable
Speaker 1: to have a monopoly over these drugs and unconscoantly priced
Speaker 1: gouge us in some cases, they just decide to stop
Speaker 1: producing them altogether. Now, the neoliberal or libertarian or Pharmachhill
Speaker 1: answer to all of this would be to basically bribe
Speaker 1: the drug makers to make the drugs that we need,
Speaker 1: give out price gouging monopolies for the generics, or use
Speaker 1: Medicare or tax credits to artificially prop up the prices.
Speaker 1: Use an endless stream of corporate subsidies to inflate an
Speaker 1: already wildly profitable industry just to induce them to keep
Speaker 1: from killing babies with cancer. Bribe them with even more
Speaker 1: subsidies to manufacture drugs here rather than overseas. Meanwhile, you're
Speaker 1: just allowing pharma to blackmail the American people and the
Speaker 1: US government. Nice cancer drug, you got there, shame if
Speaker 1: something happened to it. Let me just state the absolute obvious.
Speaker 1: This is an insane way to run a healthcare system.
Speaker 1: You simply cannot let profit incentives determine who gets care,
Speaker 1: what drugs get made, who lives, who dies, who spends
Speaker 1: the rest of their lives under a crushing burden of
Speaker 1: medical debt. And a cursory glance at this current system
Speaker 1: tells you that it is already anything but a free market. Already,
Speaker 1: public money has been used to fund every single new
Speaker 1: drug molecule over the past two decades. Why because drug
Speaker 1: companies aren't interested in saving lives. They're interested in extracting profit,
Speaker 1: so they would rather spend their research and development money
Speaker 1: crafting a new formulation of viagara that they can use
Speaker 1: to extend the patent, or not performing research at all
Speaker 1: but engaging in all out law fair to protect their
Speaker 1: monopoly price gouging powers for another few years. But listen,
Speaker 1: I understand if you aren't ready to just fully nationalize
Speaker 1: the industry. Our government has certainly got a long way
Speaker 1: to prove they're really up to the task of effectively
Speaker 1: managing production and distribution. So how about we start with
Speaker 1: a pharma public option. Join the ranks of other nations
Speaker 1: which have recognized that some essential medicines are too critical
Speaker 1: to be left to the whims of the greedy psychopaths
Speaker 1: who run the pharmaceutical industry, Countries that have also decided
Speaker 1: that the public should benefit from the medicines our tax
Speaker 1: dollars are used to invent in the first place. As
Speaker 1: stat News Rights quote, publicly owned manufacturers at the state, local,
Speaker 1: and regional levels could make new medicines developed by a
Speaker 1: national R and D institute and also produce low cost generics.
Speaker 1: These manufacturers would then work with publicly owned wholesale distributors
Speaker 1: to assure the medications are available at hospitals and retail
Speaker 1: pharmacies nationwide, all at the same low price. It could
Speaker 1: even leverage existing public institutions like the US Postal Service
Speaker 1: and the Veterans Health Administration, both of which have important
Speaker 1: experience in pharmaceutical distribution, to ensure that cost effective medications
Speaker 1: are delivered directly to patients and clinics in every community. Listen,
Speaker 1: Big Pharma wants to compete in these markets. Great if
Speaker 1: they prefer to make the fortieth version of Viagar instead,
Speaker 1: so be it. Remember back a while ago when there
Speaker 1: was a whole fear mongering campaign about Obamacare and supposedly
Speaker 1: socialized medicine creating death panels. Will now hospitals struggling with
Speaker 1: these shortages are forced into actual literal death panels, trying
Speaker 1: away the ethics as we heard of how to ration
Speaker 1: a limited supply of life saving drugs plot twist, capitalism
Speaker 1: actually brought to the death planels. Never again, should we
Speaker 1: allow people who are already going through the worst moments
Speaker 1: of their lives to have to work worry about whether
Speaker 1: the drug that would save their life is profitable enough
Speaker 1: to make. And I am shocked that this isn't a
Speaker 1: bigger story. And if you want to hear my reaction
Speaker 1: to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints
Speaker 1: dot com. Joining us now is Jacob Siegel. He is
Speaker 1: a senior editor at Tablet Magazine and is the author
Speaker 1: of a fascinating a new piece Let's go and put
Speaker 1: it up there on the screen. It's a guide to
Speaker 1: understanding the hoax of the century, thirteen ways of looking
Speaker 1: at disinformation. It's an important rundown both on the history
Speaker 1: of the disinformation wars but also kind of the architecture
Speaker 1: of the disinformation industrial complex that exists today. Jacob, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining the show. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me so just it's a very long piece,
Speaker 1: but I do recommend that people go and read it.
Speaker 1: Give us first the genesis of why you decided to
Speaker 1: write this and some of the most shocking things that
Speaker 1: you were able to uncover and kind of string together
Speaker 1: for people. Well, I started working on it a few
Speaker 1: years ago, so it's been a long time in the making.
Speaker 1: And the origins really were in what appeared to be
Speaker 1: the mass manufactured of narratives in the United States, and
Speaker 1: just being an American and being a spectator and observing
Speaker 1: the way in which there was both this production of
Speaker 1: these pseudo events to borrow a phrase coined by Daniel Borston,
Speaker 1: things like, for instance, the Russian bounty story from Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: which you may recall, which was just an entirely false story,
Speaker 1: obviously political narrative that was planted in the press, so
Speaker 1: observing that on the one hand, and observing on the
Speaker 1: other hand, this new regime of censorship that was capable
Speaker 1: of purging from the public record, you know, things that
Speaker 1: were not simply controversial, but also things that were vital,
Speaker 1: for instance, about health issues around COVID and the pandemic,
Speaker 1: or for that matter, around the twenty twenty election and
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden's laptops. So it was this machinery that had
Speaker 1: become more and more overt in American life. And seeing
Speaker 1: these two things, the production of these pseudo events and
Speaker 1: mass narratives on the one hand, and then on the
Speaker 1: other hand, the mass censorship that was taking place, and
Speaker 1: recognizing that they were two sides of the same coin,
Speaker 1: that was the genesis of the piece. So take us
Speaker 1: back to the roots of the current misinformation moment, because
Speaker 1: I feel like it sort of gets glossed over now,
Speaker 1: but I remember quite vividly the whole red scare Kremlin
Speaker 1: stooge discourse was used obviously against Trump and Trump supporters,
Speaker 1: but it was also used to try to call the
Speaker 1: populist uprising of the Bernie Sanderson anybody you know. Bernie
Speaker 1: was seen as like doing Russia's bidding. Anybody supported Bernie
Speaker 1: was called like a Krumlin stooge and all of these
Speaker 1: sorts of things. So what happens that enables that discourse
Speaker 1: to be turned into this entire sort of like industrial ecosystem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. It was virtually identical language used with the
Speaker 1: two sort of populist insurgencies on left and right, Bernie
Speaker 1: on the left, obviously Trump on the right. And the
Speaker 1: proximate origins of this are in military and defense establishment
Speaker 1: theories around what's called hybrid warfare. And this really starts
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen with the invasion of Crimea and also
Speaker 1: the Euromaidan movement in Ukraine, which the US backs and
Speaker 1: Russia opposes, and the popularization of this idea of hybrid warfare,
Speaker 1: which essentially posits that there is a new form of
Speaker 1: warfare also sometimes you know, lumped in with fourth generation warfare,
Speaker 1: in which conventional and unconventional tactics are mixed together in
Speaker 1: a kind of larger information space, globalized information space enabled
Speaker 1: obviously by the Internet. And so Russia is seen as
Speaker 1: utilizing this method of warfare not only to pursue immediate
Speaker 1: tactical aims, but also to demoralize target populations, to seduce
Speaker 1: fellow travelers in the West, and even in some Eastern
Speaker 1: European countries, as it were. And so this idea of
Speaker 1: hybrid warfare, which has some legitimacy as some basis in
Speaker 1: terms of new tactics, new operational techniques being employed in warfare,
Speaker 1: as some legitimacy in terms of the kind of ways
Speaker 1: in which the Internet opens up this new space for
Speaker 1: proper baganda and for information operations very quickly, and from
Speaker 1: the beginning, as early as twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, there
Speaker 1: are people who are pointing to the kind of capaciousness
Speaker 1: of this concept, the amorphousness of it, the ways in
Speaker 1: which it can be used to mean anything, And in
Speaker 1: particular there are Eastern European security officials pointing to it
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, this excessive focus on hybrid warfare is
Speaker 1: actually taking away from the real sort of you know,
Speaker 1: beans and bullets, aspects of war that matter, and turning
Speaker 1: it into this sort of abstract, vague political concept. So
Speaker 1: that's there from the beginning, and some of those same
Speaker 1: critical us in particular, though it's also NATO people involved, intelligence,
Speaker 1: defense counter terrorism officials who are talking about hybrid warfare,
Speaker 1: then begin to talk about in the context of two
Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen sort of emergence of the Trump presidential campaign,
Speaker 1: and then really in twenty sixteen it picks up. They
Speaker 1: begin to talk about the Trump campaign and the Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders campaign as extensions of hybrid warfare essentially, and they're
Speaker 1: pointing to memes that are being spread online and saying,
Speaker 1: in particular, there's a former FBI officer named Clint Watts
Speaker 1: who becomes a prominent counter terrorism official later re emerges
Speaker 1: in relation to Hamilton sixty eight the Russian influence detecting
Speaker 1: dashboard online, But before that, before Hamilton sixty eight, Watts
Speaker 1: is one of the key people who's pushing this idea
Speaker 1: that you know, as he says explicitly in a piece
Speaker 1: for The Daily Beast where I used to work, he
Speaker 1: says that basically that trumpkins as he calls them, and
Speaker 1: Russian trolls have become more or less indistinguishable. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think all of this is so important in terms of
Speaker 1: the history because it sets the stage also for state action.
Speaker 1: So can you describe where governments begin to get involved,
Speaker 1: They begin to start funding this stuff, and it gets
Speaker 1: laundered both through government to non governmental agencies, and then
Speaker 1: gets perpetrated as fact and repeated by journalists. It's like
Speaker 1: two sides of the same coin, that's right. The key
Speaker 1: event there occurs in December of twenty sixteen with the
Speaker 1: it's actually the authorization for the twenty seventeen NDAA, which
Speaker 1: is the Defense Authorization Bill. There is a bill that's
Speaker 1: a part of that, called the Countering Foreign Disinformation and
Speaker 1: Property and Act that gets signed into law by President
Speaker 1: Obama December of twenty sixteen and really is the first
Speaker 1: major piece of law and policy authorization that creates the
Speaker 1: architecture for this what is effectively an information operation that
Speaker 1: you know, is nominally aimed at defending against foreign threats,
Speaker 1: but is always from its inception because of what I
Speaker 1: just pointed out, because of this blurring that you get
Speaker 1: from the proponents of hybrid warfare theory and people like
Speaker 1: Clint Watts who are blurring the lines between you know,
Speaker 1: Russian trolls, Russian influence operations, and American political actors. Even
Speaker 1: though this is nominally directed against foreign disinformation threats, it's
Speaker 1: always in fact really sort of omnidirectional and in practice
Speaker 1: it's really directed against domestic political actors. In the United States,
Speaker 1: you get the creation of the Global Engagement Center and
Speaker 1: the State Department, which becomes the central governmental hub for
Speaker 1: coordinating and leading these counter disinformation experts. And then the GEC,
Speaker 1: in its own mandate and its own mission statements, is
Speaker 1: talking from the beginning about leading a whole of society
Speaker 1: effort that will involve bringing together actors from the tech industry,
Speaker 1: actors from the ango sphere, basically all of the most
Speaker 1: influential and powerful, powerful sectors of American society in terms
Speaker 1: of controlling the kind of messaging apparatus on the one
Speaker 1: hand and the communication structure on the other hand. So
Speaker 1: that's all baked in from the very beginning. Well, I
Speaker 1: think what's really important about the piece is, you know,
Speaker 1: the media piece is the most apparent. It's sort of
Speaker 1: at the surface, it's what we see. We've certainly talked
Speaker 1: about the media role here, but you kind of dive
Speaker 1: a level deeper at all of the architecture that has
Speaker 1: been constructed that is, you know, deeply troubling. I think,
Speaker 1: no matter where you are in the political spectrum to
Speaker 1: our civil liberties. So Jacob, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: spending some time with us. Thanks man, appreciate it. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. That's a pleasure. Thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for watching. We really appreciate it. Thank you for
Speaker 1: continue to support us, signing up for a premium and
Speaker 1: watching the full show on Spotify for our premium members
Speaker 1: taking advantage. We've got fun things cooking over here that
Speaker 1: we're working towards every day. We can reveal some of
Speaker 1: it very very soon, and we will see you all
Speaker 1: next week. Love you guys, See you next week.