Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday.
Speaker 3: We have an amazing show for everybody today. Well, we
Speaker 3: have Crystal.
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do many interesting stories to dig into this morning.
Speaker 1: We got a bunch of new battleground state polls. What
Speaker 1: is the state of this race? Continuing to look very
Speaker 1: difficult for Joe Biden. We've also got some interesting numbers
Speaker 1: about how people feel about the economy and how the
Speaker 1: economy has treated them. Also and some new important housing
Speaker 1: numbers there as we also break all of that down
Speaker 1: for you. Got a little update on that Red Lobster story.
Speaker 1: Seems we've been snookerd. It was not endlesstrimp that took
Speaker 1: Red Lobster under. It was classic corporate rating, private equity,
Speaker 1: corporate greed, all of those sorts of things, So we'll
Speaker 1: get into that and show you exactly what actually happened
Speaker 1: with Red Lobster. Trump is trying to clean up some
Speaker 1: comments he made about birth control restrictions. This continues to
Speaker 1: be a huge source of potential danger for the Republican
Speaker 1: Party and for Trump specifically and trying to retake.
Speaker 4: The White House.
Speaker 1: So we will talk about that and how Americans feel
Speaker 1: about it. We also have a bunch of updates out
Speaker 1: of Israel and Gaza in particular. Hamas still very strong,
Speaker 1: very present, the US apparently sounding alarms that many people
Speaker 1: like us have been sounding for many months that hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, when you slaughter a bunch of children
Speaker 1: and women and civilians and annihilate everything, all you're going
Speaker 1: to do is make people more motivated to join Hamas.
Speaker 1: And now we have reporting that indicates they have gained
Speaker 1: thousands of new recruits.
Speaker 4: Just over the past several months.
Speaker 1: At the same time, three new countries are recognizing the
Speaker 1: state of Palestine and Israel. BB in particular is completely
Speaker 1: freaking out and punishing Palestinians for the actions of these
Speaker 1: three countries, and that peer situation as predicted, completely ineffective.
Speaker 1: No aid breaching, starving gosins from the peer At this point.
Speaker 1: Ken Klippenstein has been covering this very closely from the beginning,
Speaker 1: so he is going to join us to break down
Speaker 1: what exactly is going on there.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, that's right, all right, before we get to
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Speaker 3: very very much.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and start with twenty twenty four and
Speaker 2: these polls where the situation continues to be bad for
Speaker 2: Joe Biden and it all shockingly comes down to the economy.
Speaker 3: Who could have known that.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen. So here
Speaker 2: we have from Bloomberg and Mourning consult in more head
Speaker 2: to head pulling just confirming basically every single other poll
Speaker 2: that is out there and the same story. So let's
Speaker 2: keep this up here, please, just so I can read
Speaker 2: off of it. This is the head to head matchups
Speaker 2: Donald Trump Joe Biden in the state of Arizona forty nine,
Speaker 2: forty four, Georgia forty seven, forty four, Michigan forty six
Speaker 2: for Biden, forty five for Trump. One of the only
Speaker 2: states whereas Biden is actually leading. Biden and Trump tied
Speaker 2: in the state of Nevada. In this particular one. In
Speaker 2: North Carolina, Trump is up by seven. In Pennsylvania, Trump
Speaker 2: is up by two, and in Wisconsin, Trump is up
Speaker 2: by one.
Speaker 3: Now, basically all of.
Speaker 2: This comports with the general election polling that we've seen
Speaker 2: from various other high quality pollsters.
Speaker 3: Crystal and in fact.
Speaker 2: This morning, the Cook Political Report put out its own
Speaker 2: state by state polling, which includes RFK Junior and lo
Speaker 2: and behold, there is only one swing state in the
Speaker 2: entire country where Biden is even tied with Trump, and
Speaker 2: that is Wisconsin. According to them, Trump is up by
Speaker 2: a minimum of three in every single other state. The
Speaker 2: most shocking of one is he is up by nine
Speaker 2: in the state of Nevada, up by eight if you
Speaker 2: include RFK Junior. Ooh, that's the state that he won,
Speaker 2: by the way.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if you're in cote mode for
Speaker 1: the Biden team, these are a little bit less bad
Speaker 1: than the New York Times one yes, which chat him
Speaker 1: losing by I think thirteen points in Arizona. Some of
Speaker 1: these are a little bit, you know, a little closer.
Speaker 1: He's in the ball game, certainly in those industrial Midwestern states.
Speaker 1: And there's some interesting ironies here into the way that
Speaker 1: this map is shaping up, because one of the things
Speaker 1: you do see consistently across the swing state polling is
Speaker 1: that Biden is tending to hang in there a little
Speaker 1: bit better in those industrial Midwestern states Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Why because the demographic is older, and wider. Now that
Speaker 1: is the polar opposite of the way the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: has been portraying themselves, the demographics they've been going after.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about since the Obama coalition, where
Speaker 1: the thought was, Okay, we do well with young people,
Speaker 1: we do well with a diverse electorate.
Speaker 4: Now they're most solid.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's most solid and consistent base of support is
Speaker 1: old white people, and those are the states that he
Speaker 1: does the best in. So, I mean, it is a
Speaker 1: real reversal of the trends that things have been having,
Speaker 1: and now things can change, but consistent in this polling
Speaker 1: and the polling you just referenced, Sager, is that those
Speaker 1: new swing states of you know, the sun Belt, Georgia, Arizona,
Speaker 1: Nevada has been a swing state and has been pretty
Speaker 1: solidly Democratic actually for a while, in part because of
Speaker 1: the machine that Harry Reid built and the strength of
Speaker 1: unions there, but because those are also places that have
Speaker 1: more young and more working class demographic in particular in Nevada,
Speaker 1: they are the states that Biden seems to be in
Speaker 1: the most trouble in. So you know that even as
Speaker 1: the margins are a little different, pulled the poll, that
Speaker 1: trend seems to be fairly consistent.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and that is a shocking development.
Speaker 2: This is an inversion of all of the traditional rules
Speaker 2: of Obama era politics, and we're basically watching young black
Speaker 2: and Hispanic voters drift at least marginally much more towards Trump,
Speaker 2: which is what is accelerating his lead in the Sun
Speaker 2: Belt states. That's how you explain why Florida is not
Speaker 2: even considered a swing state anymore. In fact, a lot
Speaker 2: of the dynamic economies, especially down in the Sun Belt,
Speaker 2: we've seen huge population in growth. A lot of those
Speaker 2: people are turunding much more Republican, while the industrial Midwest,
Speaker 2: the strong support of older white voters, boomers basically who
Speaker 2: have especially becoming more democratic, and also the college educated,
Speaker 2: is what is keeping him in the game at all.
Speaker 2: Because remember, he can win those states and not actually
Speaker 2: have to win any of the Sun Belt, and he
Speaker 2: could still see the presidency.
Speaker 1: And I should clarify a little bit, Joe Biden will
Speaker 1: still win young people, he will still overwhelmingly win black voters,
Speaker 1: he will still win Latino voters.
Speaker 4: What I'm speaking to.
Speaker 1: Is which parts of his previous co are drifting away
Speaker 1: and those younger and more diverse parts of the coalition
Speaker 1: are the parts that are drifting away, most of them
Speaker 1: to the couch, some of them to third party candidates,
Speaker 1: some of them to Trump. But the part of his
Speaker 1: base that has remained them both solid are older white voters. Again,
Speaker 1: Republicans overall will still win that demographic, but of the
Speaker 1: portion of them that voted for Joe Biden last time,
Speaker 1: that's the piece that has remained the most rock solid
Speaker 1: through this period, while other parts have drifted away. And
Speaker 1: obviously the election last time was extremely close, so he
Speaker 1: can't afford any drift. If anything, he needs to pick
Speaker 1: up some disaffected suburban Republicans who's still been hanging in
Speaker 1: there for whatever reason. But I am sort of doubtful
Speaker 1: that there's a lot more of them.
Speaker 2: To gain it thinking of the disaffected suburban Republican who
Speaker 2: voted for it. Nikki Haley, she gave a talkie yesterday
Speaker 2: where she was asked, are you going to vote for Trump?
Speaker 3: Here's what she had to say.
Speaker 5: As a voter, I put my priorities on a president
Speaker 5: who's going to have the backs of our allies and
Speaker 5: hold our enemies to account, who would secure the border.
Speaker 5: No more excuses, a president who would support capitalism and freedom,
Speaker 5: a president who understands we need less debt, not more debt.
Speaker 5: Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I have
Speaker 5: made that clear many, many times. But Biden has been
Speaker 5: a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump. Having
Speaker 5: said that, I stand by what I said in my
Speaker 5: suspension speech. Trump would be smart to reach out to
Speaker 5: the millions of people who voted for me and continue
Speaker 5: to support me, and not assume that they're just going
Speaker 5: to be with him, And I genuinely hope he does that.
Speaker 3: Okay, So there it is. Crystal Nikki will be voting
Speaker 3: for Trump.
Speaker 2: Will I will say this for everybody who has got
Speaker 2: an anti war dream like I do, and has hopes
Speaker 2: possibly for a second Trump administration. The thing that should
Speaker 2: always give you the most positive The neo cons are
Speaker 2: very comfortable with him coming back into power. In fact,
Speaker 2: Michael Tracy's been doing a great job on this. Trump
Speaker 2: was recently asked about some people who potentially would work
Speaker 2: in his administration, and he listed Mike Pompeo, Tom Cotton,
Speaker 2: and even possibly Nicki Haley.
Speaker 3: Now she might forget vice president. He's ruled her out
Speaker 3: for that. So everybody out there, let me just you.
Speaker 2: Know, preempty I told you sos and say they're rallying
Speaker 2: to Trump because they believe that they can at the
Speaker 2: very least snooker him and most likely he's just apathetic
Speaker 2: in terms of governance and they can get their access
Speaker 2: to the government again.
Speaker 3: So it's very possible, you.
Speaker 2: Know, not only that these suburban people would vote for
Speaker 2: Trump because of an endorsement, you know, something like this,
Speaker 2: but also that the traditional machine behind him, you know,
Speaker 2: of the traditional Republican Party, who you know doesn't like
Speaker 2: him stylistically, still believes they can get a lot of
Speaker 2: what they want from him.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is the man He had John
Speaker 1: Bolton and Mike bombay Ow in his administration last time.
Speaker 4: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Still williamselves with Donald trumping some anti war hero has
Speaker 1: always been nonsense to me. But you know, with regard
Speaker 1: to Nikki Haley specifically, this is as many politicians, if
Speaker 1: not all politicians are, as an incredibly craven person. So
Speaker 1: why does she make this decision? There were two possible
Speaker 1: lanes open for her. One was to say, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to vote for Trump and try to remain relevant
Speaker 1: in the like Republican political sphere. And I think probably
Speaker 1: the fact that she's being floated for potential cabinet positions,
Speaker 1: some people even talking about for her for vice president
Speaker 1: and Trump shot that down. I'll think that is an
Speaker 1: active likely scenario. But she feels like she still got
Speaker 1: a lane in the Trump administration. In the Trump world,
Speaker 1: we've seen before people you know, Ted Cruz and others
Speaker 1: who've been vociferously opposed to Trump and said extremely you know,
Speaker 1: aggressive things against him, et cetera, et cetera. Lindsay, once
Speaker 1: they make nice, they're welcome back in. So she sees
Speaker 1: a lane for herself there, and she thought that was
Speaker 1: more fruitful than the other turn, which would be to
Speaker 1: go you know, full sort of like anti Trump, never
Speaker 1: Trump resistance liberal quote unquote that lane and try to
Speaker 1: get some media gig or whatever, double down on her
Speaker 1: corporate board sitting, et cetera.
Speaker 4: So she apparently thinks.
Speaker 1: It's more fruitful for her to go in the direction
Speaker 1: of potentially being in a Trump administration. And so you
Speaker 1: can't read into this any sort of like actual principle
Speaker 1: or moral It's all about, like what is the craven
Speaker 1: political calculation.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: The other question is there's been a lot of chatter
Speaker 1: saga about she's still getting votes in these prime like
Speaker 1: a good number of votes in these primaries, some of them.
Speaker 1: And so the question was, oh, are these voters, like,
Speaker 1: do they really just hate Trump and they're just gonna not,
Speaker 1: you know, come into the fold. And then the reverse
Speaker 1: of that analysis would be, Okay, well, now that Nicky's
Speaker 1: endorsed him, they'll come right along. And I just can't
Speaker 1: see that those individuals were like particularly tied.
Speaker 4: Into Nicki Halee anyway.
Speaker 1: So in terms of electoral impact is what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say, I don't think this woman has any sway
Speaker 1: with any actual set of voters. So I don't think
Speaker 1: her endorsement actually matters except that it makes her in
Speaker 1: a position where she could potentially be in a Trump
Speaker 1: cabinet position.
Speaker 2: Later, well said, that's right, and then let's turn to
Speaker 2: what again is animating all of this, which is the economy.
Speaker 3: Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: I mean, what we see here is there is an
Speaker 2: inability right now of the intelligensia in Washington to understand
Speaker 2: why Americans put huge blame on Biden for the economy,
Speaker 2: so they like to point out how statistically they are wrong. So,
Speaker 2: for example, in this recent poll from The Guardian, they
Speaker 2: say fifty five percent of Americans believe the economy is shrinking,
Speaker 2: fifty six percent that the US is experiencing a recession,
Speaker 2: and it says though the broadest measure of the economy
Speaker 2: GDP has been growing, it's like, hm, well, how is
Speaker 2: it distributed? Forty nine percent believe that the S and
Speaker 2: P five hundred stock market is down for the year,
Speaker 2: although the index is up twenty four percent and twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three and is up more than twelve percent this year.
Speaker 2: It says forty nine percent believe the economy is unemployment
Speaker 2: is at a fifty year high, even though the unemployment rate
Speaker 2: has been under four percent and near fifty year low. Overall,
Speaker 2: Americans put blame on Biden for the state of the economy,
Speaker 2: with fifty eight percent of those polls saying the economy
Speaker 2: is worsening doing too mismanagement from the presidential administration. The
Speaker 2: reason I cannot stand stuff like this Crystal is again
Speaker 2: is it's continuing to try and tell people that to
Speaker 2: deceive their lying eyes and look, I agree, who out
Speaker 2: there knows what the S and P five hundred is
Speaker 2: up for the year? What are they really being asked here?
Speaker 2: What are they actually being asked? Do I feel as
Speaker 2: if I have more money today than I did previously?
Speaker 2: And the answer to that, as we definitively showed what
Speaker 2: was in our Monday show for the net worth chart,
Speaker 2: is you have point seven percent more under Biden your
Speaker 2: net worth where under Trump you had up to twenty Now,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of reasons for that, but you know,
Speaker 2: empirically these people are correct now whenever they say I
Speaker 2: feel the economy is shrinking, they're not looking to the
Speaker 2: top line GDP number As to whether you know the
Speaker 2: SEP five hundred market cap is.
Speaker 4: Up almost completely irrelevant right live.
Speaker 3: Yea, it is irrelevant to their life.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, it matters and like some broad thing,
Speaker 2: but like, what does it really matter? Do I have
Speaker 2: more spending power today than I did before? The answer
Speaker 2: to that, again, no, especially whenever we look at inflation
Speaker 2: compared to wages. The same with unemployment, They're like, well,
Speaker 2: unemployment is near a fifty year low. I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: you know a lot of people dropped out of the workforce.
Speaker 2: We know that for sure. That's one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why the way unemployment is calculated is very problematic. And
Speaker 2: two there's another question to that, Do I like my job?
Speaker 2: Do I actually feel as if I am working what
Speaker 2: I want to do? People don't think of things in
Speaker 2: terms of technicalities. The way that they feel, I actually
Speaker 2: think is much more real, you know, compared to whatever
Speaker 2: these stats are. So tell me which is wrong. The
Speaker 2: stats are the way that millions and millions of people
Speaker 2: feel about the economy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the stock market one stuck out to me in
Speaker 1: particular because there's a good reason why most Americans are
Speaker 1: not particularly in touch with what's going on the stock market.
Speaker 1: It's because ninety three percent, this is a new number,
Speaker 1: ninety three percent of all stocks were owned by the
Speaker 1: top ten percent of Americans.
Speaker 4: That's a new record high.
Speaker 1: So it shouldn't be a surprise that most people like
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's not performing well for me. And
Speaker 1: so you know, I'm gonna just assume, which is like
Speaker 1: sort of sweet, that the stock market is somehow correlated
Speaker 1: to how I'm doing in my life, and I'm seeing
Speaker 1: some problems here, so there must be some problems there.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: Of course that's not the way it actually works, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's an interests. It is very emblematic of this
Speaker 1: effort to sort of like gotcha the American people and
Speaker 1: convince them that actually Biden's been great. They just don't
Speaker 1: understand and they don't get it for their own lives.
Speaker 1: And obviously there are many other, much more relevant indicators
Speaker 1: of how people are doing under the Biden administration that
Speaker 1: are pointing in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2: Now, I wonder why people would feel as if things
Speaker 2: aren't going so well.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: Home sales fell again in April after high mortgage rates
Speaker 2: are dampening activities. Sales are previously owned homes have decreased
Speaker 2: from the prior months to a seasonally adjusted annual rate
Speaker 2: of four point one four million.
Speaker 3: And if we go to the next one, what do
Speaker 3: we have?
Speaker 2: Another shocking development, aspiring homeowners face the lowest home buying
Speaker 2: affordability since nineteen eighty five. The median household now needs
Speaker 2: more than forty percent income to cover payments on a
Speaker 2: median price homes. You know, include things like I don't know,
Speaker 2: health insurance, which also continues to go up, education inflation.
Speaker 2: Whenever it comes to tuition, and you're looking at a
Speaker 2: mass unaffordability crisis that was already crisis, only ten times
Speaker 2: worse with the gasoline of inflation. Even the people over
Speaker 2: at CNN can understand this whenever they're not writing for
Speaker 2: the Bit or they're writing for the business press.
Speaker 3: Let's put this stuff there.
Speaker 2: High inflation made finances worse for sixty five percent of
Speaker 2: Americans last year.
Speaker 3: So how many of these, you know, do we need?
Speaker 2: And this is by the way, from the FED, from
Speaker 2: the Economic well Being of US Households Report for twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, seventy two percent of adults at a record
Speaker 2: higher saying they're quote doing just okay, it's actually below
Speaker 2: what the pre these highs were whenever finances were better,
Speaker 2: and in terms of inflation being made worse, over sixty
Speaker 2: five percent have been attributably done worse due to their
Speaker 2: financial state. So people are skipping meals, they're skipping medical care.
Speaker 2: Credit card data is in an all time high. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're talking about childcare, inflation, education, and flight. Basically, there's
Speaker 2: inflation in every sector of the economy which you need
Speaker 2: to just survive, like at a very basic level, including
Speaker 2: food and gas. Somebody sent me Los Angeles photo of
Speaker 2: seven dollars and twenty cents a gallon. Now, I'm sure
Speaker 2: that is an outlier, but that's still nuts, Like, how
Speaker 2: does that even possibly exist?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there are some efforts under way by the
Speaker 1: Biden administration to sell more oil into the market to
Speaker 1: try to lower gas prices because they realize this is
Speaker 1: a big political.
Speaker 4: Problem for them.
Speaker 1: One of the things that that article from CNN pointed
Speaker 1: out that I thought was really interesting is the people
Speaker 1: who have fared the worst are people who have young
Speaker 1: children in particular require childcare. And any of you guys
Speaker 1: who have kids know childcare is extremely expensive. It is
Speaker 1: a huge burden on family budgets, and you know, it
Speaker 1: makes sense. Not only has the price of childcare continued
Speaker 1: to go up, but you also had this period during
Speaker 1: COVID where it was very difficult and it was a
Speaker 1: juggling act. But you know, you had parents at home
Speaker 1: war so they were able to take some of that
Speaker 1: cost burden off. You had the child tax Credit in place,
Speaker 1: you had the other COVID social safety net pieces, and
Speaker 1: so for families in particular, and specifically families with young children,
Speaker 1: financially that was a huge help, and you've now seen
Speaker 1: obviously all of that stripped away and real deterioration of
Speaker 1: finances for families with kids. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: to say economically. Obviously, I think people tend to, you know,
Speaker 1: attribute more blame or credit for the economy to the
Speaker 1: president than he is. Not a magician, there's no magic
Speaker 1: wand but it is also accurate to say that there
Speaker 1: have been some massive economic missteps under this Biden administration.
Speaker 1: Number one, I think the rolling back of the COVID
Speaker 1: social safety net without keeping any of those pieces in place,
Speaker 1: not fighting for the social safety net part of the
Speaker 1: build Back Better agenda so that people felt a direct
Speaker 1: impact in their lives during this administration was a huge mistake.
Speaker 1: And so one thing I've been saying for a while is,
Speaker 1: you know, when you look at the big picture in
Speaker 1: the long term, actually like some of the things the
Speaker 1: Biden administration is doing there DJ is trying to break
Speaker 1: up live nation. There's been great action in two places,
Speaker 1: in particular regard to labor is a huge improvement, not
Speaker 1: saying it's perfect, huge improvement in that direction and giving
Speaker 1: workers more power and a more even landscape. That's great,
Speaker 1: But again that doesn't hit immediately for the majority of
Speaker 1: Americans right now. And second of all, some of the
Speaker 1: you know, industrial policy that could pay dividends longer term,
Speaker 1: but in the short term may even have negative impacts
Speaker 1: on Americans. So some of the medium to long term agenda, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think is good, and I think, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: pay off if it's pursued over the long term, although
Speaker 1: I don't think it's enough. But the short term micro
Speaker 1: picture was completely abandoned and ignored, such that when you
Speaker 1: look at people's bank accounts, when we look at the
Speaker 1: net worth chart that you were showing before Soccer, it's
Speaker 1: really clear. And then of course you add on top
Speaker 1: of that inflation. Now, the argument in the beginning was, oh,
Speaker 1: the inflation is one hundred percent because of these social
Speaker 1: safety net programs over COVID, Well, we now know that
Speaker 1: just wasn't true. There may have been some contrivers. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say that was absolutely irrelevant, but you
Speaker 1: had a number of other stories that were far more important.
Speaker 1: One supply chain issues and two corporate greed. Great inflation.
Speaker 1: We now know there was a price fixing scandal in
Speaker 1: the oil industry. Why aren't they talking about that? Why
Speaker 1: aren't they talking about that? And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: tools that the president could use to go after that,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of rhetorical tools using the bully
Speaker 1: pulpit to talk about that, but they don't. So people
Speaker 1: are just left with the understandable and clear cut impression
Speaker 1: that this administration has failed them economically and they're just
Speaker 1: not wrong, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: That they care more about other countries than they do
Speaker 2: are yeah, which I think is true true.
Speaker 3: At this point.
Speaker 1: The fair thing to say about that is that's clearly
Speaker 1: both parties, right.
Speaker 4: But this is the guy who's in the White Office
Speaker 4: right now. So what are you gonna do?
Speaker 3: I have this great thing in front of me.
Speaker 2: It just came out this morning from Gallup and it
Speaker 2: is the percent change in the number of people from
Speaker 2: Biden in twenty twenty who said can manage the government
Speaker 2: effectively to today. In twenty twenty, it was fifty two percent.
Speaker 2: Today it's thirty nine, So a minus thirteen point difference
Speaker 2: in terms of people who think that the government can
Speaker 2: be managed effectively.
Speaker 3: For Trump.
Speaker 2: Trump is actually up by a single point now. He
Speaker 2: was at forty eight percent in twenty Twenty's up now
Speaker 2: to forty nine, so he's had no net drop while
Speaker 2: Biden has had a thirteen percent drop. He's also had
Speaker 2: a drop in several of the areas which matter a
Speaker 2: lot to him. Is likable minus nine displays good judgment
Speaker 2: in a crisis. Minus nine is strong and decisive leader.
Speaker 2: Minus eight cares about people like me. Minus seven is
Speaker 2: honest and trustworthy.
Speaker 3: Minus six.
Speaker 2: Trump is basically static on all of those. He's only
Speaker 2: changed on cares about people like you, and is honest
Speaker 2: and trustworthy, which, hey, you know, I don't think he's
Speaker 2: ever going to win either.
Speaker 3: That's getting a bright Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, your point is one that we brought up before
Speaker 1: in terms of people tend to think of like, okay,
Speaker 1: well what's dragging bi and down? Is it the economy
Speaker 1: or is it the you know, Ukraine, Gaza, unconditional support
Speaker 1: for Israel.
Speaker 4: And I've come to think those.
Speaker 1: Two things are much much more linked than is typically
Speaker 1: understood because number one on the attributes you're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, part of why people don't think he's like
Speaker 1: caring and compassion anymore is because they see this endless
Speaker 1: slaughter that he's funding and fueling and shipping bombs to
Speaker 1: et cetera. But also that sense, and I think this
Speaker 1: is the most normy and very real and very like
Speaker 1: legitimate reaction, which is, we see where your priorities lie,
Speaker 1: we see where you're sending money, we see where your
Speaker 1: focus is.
Speaker 4: We see the.
Speaker 1: Way that you're, you know, marshaling all the resources for
Speaker 1: this country that.
Speaker 4: We don't live in.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, I'm telling you I'm struggling and you're doing
Speaker 1: nothing about it. So those two things are really tied together.
Speaker 1: This sense however you feel, however these voters feel about
Speaker 1: Israel and Gaza, etc. The sense of you care more
Speaker 1: about that than you do about me, I think is
Speaker 1: I think it's real.
Speaker 4: I think it's legitimate. I think they're correct.
Speaker 1: It's hard to it's honestly hard to deny when you
Speaker 1: hear the like visceral emotional language, even that Biden uses
Speaker 1: horrors were committed on October seventh, like people deserve to
Speaker 1: be humanized. I'm not saying that, but where's that same
Speaker 1: visceral emotional language when it comes to Americans who are
Speaker 1: struggling and are looking at this and are like, that's
Speaker 1: great that you care about them, but like, how about
Speaker 1: a little bit of that for me, and how about
Speaker 1: fighting for me in the same way you fight to
Speaker 1: ship two thousand pound bombs to you know, carpa bomb
Speaker 1: babies in Gaza.
Speaker 3: Just this morning, new report out.
Speaker 2: Anthony Blinkoln, Secretary of State, just returned from Kiev in
Speaker 2: tears over what he saw in Kiev, as we have
Speaker 2: watched basically an entire rollback of the Ukrainian counter offensive.
Speaker 2: The Russians, by the way, just if anybody's tracking it,
Speaker 2: now taken more territory than the Ukrainian counter offensive in
Speaker 2: just the last couple of months. And he's like, you
Speaker 2: know what, now we got to use US weapons to
Speaker 2: strike inside of That's to the emotion part, that's what
Speaker 2: they care about. They care more about the integrity of
Speaker 2: Eastern Ukraine than your ability to buy groceries.
Speaker 3: And you can call that, you know, rhetorical.
Speaker 2: And all that, but I don't know how you can't
Speaker 2: look at the policy and not say it's true.
Speaker 3: And more and more people are feeling it.
Speaker 2: We always love these segments, you know, over at the
Speaker 2: view they're trying to grapple with some of the things
Speaker 2: that are happening in the country.
Speaker 3: Charlemagne comes on and previously we covered this.
Speaker 2: He's before he said I'm not going to endorse Biden
Speaker 2: this time around. I don't like either candidates and he
Speaker 2: really gets read the Riot Act by Sonny Houstin and
Speaker 2: it's a very revealing episode between the two.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: Let's get real. Now. You have a massive platform reaching
Speaker 6: millions of listeners, and you and I talked about this
Speaker 6: before you endorsed Joe Biden back in twenty twenty, but
Speaker 6: this time around you say you're not going to endorse anybody.
Speaker 3: Charlemagne.
Speaker 6: Now is not the time, in my opinion, to set
Speaker 6: this one out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just say that.
Speaker 7: I never said I was sending it out. Now, what's
Speaker 7: You're going to definitely voting in November. But what I
Speaker 7: like to focus on is issues, not individuals, like you.
Speaker 3: Know when you why not endorse huh? Why not endorse Biden?
Speaker 7: Because if I'm sitting here telling my listeners that, you know,
Speaker 7: you have somebody out there who is a threat to democracy.
Speaker 7: You have somebody out there who said they want to,
Speaker 7: you know, suspend the constitution to overthrow the results of
Speaker 7: an election. You saw this person, you know, try to
Speaker 7: lead an attempted coup of this country, and I'm telling
Speaker 7: people that this guy is a threat of democracy. Have
Speaker 7: you ever read Project twenty five. There's only two candidates
Speaker 7: out there, So if I'm saying that about this individual,
Speaker 7: the choice is clear, right.
Speaker 8: But one of the things that we've been talking about
Speaker 8: is the fact that getting facts out through the media
Speaker 8: has been very seems to be very difficult.
Speaker 4: Because I feel like facts, yeah, yes, but.
Speaker 3: We need you to do it on ashot.
Speaker 7: Well, I think, well, the reality is I think both
Speaker 7: candidates are trash. So because I'm but I am going
Speaker 7: to vote in November, and I'm going to vote my
Speaker 7: best interest, and I'm going to vote who I think,
Speaker 7: you know, can preserve democracy. So if I think both
Speaker 7: candidates are trash and I don't feel like, you know,
Speaker 7: endorsing one, would you rather be endorse an individual or
Speaker 7: endorse the fact that, hey, we need to go out
Speaker 7: here and protect democracy. And you know, when you look
Speaker 7: at somebody like President Biden feels like his base is
Speaker 7: pretty pissed off at him for a number now.
Speaker 3: Help him out?
Speaker 4: Well, no, I actually.
Speaker 7: The form of you know, first lady called a play
Speaker 7: one time and she said, you know, when they go low,
Speaker 7: we go high. I think you got to rip that
Speaker 7: play up when they go low, you got to take
Speaker 7: it to the PA.
Speaker 2: All right, So there we go, he says, both candidates
Speaker 2: are now clearly he's liberally he's going to vote for Biden.
Speaker 2: But it's funny too because on that one he basically
Speaker 2: says it. He's like, look, it's only two you know,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say he's basically making a lesser of two
Speaker 2: evils argument. Fine, whatever, It's like, why is that not
Speaker 2: enough for you? They still can't even take that. They're like,
Speaker 2: you must bow before the gods, and you must pledge
Speaker 2: your fealty and put up your sword and be like,
Speaker 2: I am for you, President Biden. It's one of those
Speaker 2: where if you always those ladies are like, all right, whatever,
Speaker 2: it sounds like you're gonna bo for Biden. So you know,
Speaker 2: we'll take it, like is that what you're saying? He'll
Speaker 2: try and dodge around it and move on. But it's
Speaker 2: just not enough them.
Speaker 3: I don't get it. Well.
Speaker 1: It's also like the focus on haranguing people who they
Speaker 1: don't think are like, you know, towing the line hard
Speaker 1: enough over maybe harangue the Biden administration over their policy failures.
Speaker 1: That have led to people abandoning them in droves. Maybe
Speaker 1: do a little bit of that, but we don't really
Speaker 1: see that. And there's a difference between saying, listen, this
Speaker 1: is how I'm going to vote for, but you look
Speaker 1: at the landscape and make your own choices and saying,
Speaker 1: I am not only voting for Joe Biden, but I
Speaker 1: am advocating that you do so, and here's why. And
Speaker 1: I'm using my own credibility, which Charlotte Mane obviously has
Speaker 1: a lot of credibility, especially you know with his audience.
Speaker 1: I'm putting my credibility on the line to say it
Speaker 1: is worth it for you to get off the couch
Speaker 1: and go out and support this candidate, that it's going
Speaker 1: to matter for you. And when he explained why he
Speaker 1: wasn't endorsing this time around, he said, basically, he felt
Speaker 1: like he got burned, like things were promised that didn't
Speaker 1: come through, that there was no fight even to try
Speaker 1: to because everyone can understand like politics is, you can't
Speaker 1: just snap your fingers and get everything done. We get that,
Speaker 1: but he felt like there wasn't even a fight to
Speaker 1: get done many of the things that were promised. So
Speaker 1: I think It's very understandable then to say, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to do I put my credibility on the
Speaker 1: line for you last night.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to do that again.
Speaker 1: Because I don't think you deserve it. So I do
Speaker 1: think there's a big distinction between listen, this is who
Speaker 1: I'm voting for. You guys make up your own minds,
Speaker 1: and actively advocating for one candidate. So you know, the
Speaker 1: fact that they can't even wrap their minds around not
Speaker 1: aggressively advocating for Joe Biden at this moment is is
Speaker 1: very revealing of how narrow and cramped the conversation.
Speaker 3: Is on that show.
Speaker 2: No, you're right, and that's and also, yeah, what's Alyssa
Speaker 2: fair doing over They're just sitting in the corner like
Speaker 2: you're supposed to actually have some sort of She's.
Speaker 4: So meek on that.
Speaker 1: I feel like everything she says comes with like a
Speaker 1: tone of apology.
Speaker 2: Hope money, he's worth it. I hope it is all right.
Speaker 2: Let's go to the next part. Red Lobster. So there's
Speaker 2: some may a couple that we got to do over
Speaker 2: here because we fell for red lobster propaganda.
Speaker 3: Now, I will say there were some inklings of that.
Speaker 2: But this was according to the financials that were released
Speaker 2: by the company before their Chapter eleven bankruptcy. But now
Speaker 2: that we actually have access to the financial documents, something
Speaker 2: is very very clear. It's not Endless Shrimp that killed them.
Speaker 2: It was private equity that destroyed them. Let's put this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. Great report from the American
Speaker 2: Prospect where they write specifically how several observers have attributed
Speaker 2: to this to Endless Shrimp promotional deal, which the company
Speaker 2: had hoped it might have been a hit, but broadly speaking,
Speaker 2: the deal was a disaster that had raised costs for
Speaker 2: individual restaurants without compensating increase in revenue. The company's current
Speaker 2: management are eager to pin its demise on Endless Shrimp,
Speaker 2: which totaled eleven million dollars in losses, but upon filing
Speaker 2: for bankruptcy, they also launched an internal investigation where in
Speaker 2: their majority shareholder, Thai Union Group, who is there also
Speaker 2: their main seafood supplier. So it appears crystal that actually
Speaker 2: what happened is that this private equity giant in this
Speaker 2: new group, Tie Union, was dumping excess product into Red
Speaker 2: Lobster via Endless Shrimp basically bilking and destroying the company with.
Speaker 3: Private equity rating.
Speaker 2: They talk here about how they sold off huge parts
Speaker 2: of its most important assets, totaling some one point five billion,
Speaker 2: and that financially they basically did what all private equity
Speaker 2: raiders do. You come in, you sell off anything that
Speaker 2: you possibly can in terms of profit, You pay yourselves
Speaker 2: nice big bonuses.
Speaker 3: Then it's a bust out operation.
Speaker 2: You saddle it with a bunch of debt and with
Speaker 2: a bunch of costs that it can't possibly make, and
Speaker 2: you drive the company into bankruptcy. And it is now
Speaker 2: very clear from all of the details in here specifically
Speaker 2: that the endless Shrimp promotion was actually a front by
Speaker 2: the majority investor group to dump excess products, all while
Speaker 2: stripping the company for everything that is not strapped down
Speaker 2: to the floor. And of course, you know, the people
Speaker 2: who suffer are the employees. You know, like I said previously,
Speaker 2: people were abruptly told at fifty something red Lobster locations
Speaker 2: just the day of the like, hey, every single person
Speaker 2: here is fired.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're completely screwed.
Speaker 2: And so this is much more a tale of corporate
Speaker 2: greed into the way that private equity works in our
Speaker 2: economy than endless shrimp. It turns out dless shrimp was
Speaker 2: just the front that they wanted people to believe. Whenever
Speaker 2: we dig deeper, it is a much more complex story.
Speaker 1: Endless strimp costs them like eleven million dollars. I was thinking, like, jeez,
Speaker 1: they must have been really hard about eleven million dollars
Speaker 1: star putting them under. I mean, obviously that's a lot
Speaker 1: of money for a regular person. For a gigantic corporation,
Speaker 1: you think that's like a little blip. Turns out that's right.
Speaker 1: They already are in for like eleven million dollars just
Speaker 1: in the bankruptcy legal fees. To give you a sense
Speaker 1: of the scale here. No, there's there's a long story.
Speaker 1: There's there's a lot of villains in this story. The
Speaker 1: first blow for Red Lobster comes when the fishing industry consolidates,
Speaker 1: and you have similar types of monopoly consolidation in the
Speaker 1: fishing industries you see in a lot of industries. And
Speaker 1: there's a backstory to how that happened. There was some
Speaker 1: government action that was intended to combat over fishing that
Speaker 1: had a very deleterious effect on the industry because of
Speaker 1: the way they went about it. In any case, you
Speaker 1: have this massive consolidation and then monopolies.
Speaker 4: Do what they do, they jack up prices. Well, for
Speaker 4: Red Lobster, the whole key to their.
Speaker 1: Business model is being able to buy seafood through their
Speaker 1: mass purchasing power at relatively low cost and sell it
Speaker 1: to their customers at a cost that is reasonable and
Speaker 1: affordable to them, and being able to do that at
Speaker 1: scale so that you can make enough.
Speaker 4: That it works.
Speaker 1: So when the costs of the fish, the seafood itself
Speaker 1: started to go up, they got in trouble. And it
Speaker 1: was Darden Restaurant Group that was the original founder and owner.
Speaker 1: So when they get into trouble, what do they do.
Speaker 1: They sell to Golden Gate Capital, giant private equity firm.
Speaker 1: That's when things really start to go sideways. And that
Speaker 1: happened in twenty fourteen. And the big problem here was
Speaker 1: that they did what has apparently become very common with
Speaker 1: these private equity plays, is that they sold off all
Speaker 1: of the Red Lobster real estate out from under them.
Speaker 1: What that means and then they're, you know, Red Lobster,
Speaker 1: the restaurant locations are having to lease it back at
Speaker 1: these high rates that even when the market goes down
Speaker 1: and rents are going down, they're still locked in at
Speaker 1: these higher prices, and that was really the thing that
Speaker 1: started to kill them. Then you had this other side
Speaker 1: story with Tai Union comes in and buy some share
Speaker 1: and there there's a conflict of interest there because they're
Speaker 1: the shroop supplier, and so Asaga was saying, they're trying
Speaker 1: to dunk their excess product, and there looks like they're
Speaker 1: jacketing up the prices on Red Lobster too to try
Speaker 1: to squeeze every penny that it's worth out of it.
Speaker 1: But the big story here is about corporate rating and
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, these bad decisions were made
Speaker 1: so that the private equity company and their shareholders could
Speaker 1: get paid off in the show short term, but at
Speaker 1: the long term expense of Red Lobster making it so
Speaker 1: that listen, it is true consumer you know, food trends
Speaker 1: have changed, so Red Lobster probably needed to adjust their
Speaker 1: business model, but because of this real estate deal, they
Speaker 1: didn't have any cash or flexibility to be able to
Speaker 1: do that and shift with the times and be able
Speaker 1: to you know, create a restaurant experience that would really.
Speaker 4: Fit with modern consumers.
Speaker 1: So now we have yet another hole in the suburban
Speaker 1: real estate landscape occupied by Red Lobster, and you know,
Speaker 1: the workers getting screwed, and a lot of loyal customers
Speaker 1: who still really enjoy Red Lobster are going to be
Speaker 1: sad to see those go from their neighborhood.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, let's put this up on the screen for example.
Speaker 2: And this is still proliferating, you know, as we said,
Speaker 2: because you actually have to read these financial documents to
Speaker 2: see the true missteps. There's Red Lobster files for bankruptcy
Speaker 2: after missteps, including All you Can Eat Shrimp. What we
Speaker 2: now know is that it was basically rigged from the
Speaker 2: very beginning, and that this private equity deal, this Golden
Speaker 2: Gate company, which did some one point five billion dollar
Speaker 2: sale lease backs artificially inflate the books of the company
Speaker 2: on top of some restructured debt is really what killed it,
Speaker 2: on top of greedy executives.
Speaker 3: With All you Can Eat Shrimp.
Speaker 2: I mean, what's really becoming clear is it's a very
Speaker 2: convenient and it's a fun story.
Speaker 3: Obviously.
Speaker 2: That's why you know, I jumped on it, and I
Speaker 2: didn't know enough, especially of the background, until you got
Speaker 2: the full financials. Whenever you see it, you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is the story of every nice place in America
Speaker 2: that's just been wrecked over the last decade. All right, now,
Speaker 2: two part some discussion, let's discuss let's put this up there.
Speaker 2: So I personally viewed this with some derision. I thought
Speaker 2: it was just another like dumbass woke MSNBC article, But
Speaker 2: we have since learned there may be something to it.
Speaker 2: It says why Red Lobster's downfall hits differently for black communities.
Speaker 2: So this is an op ed there, and it says
Speaker 2: a recent announcement, you know, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Basically, it says that Bill.
Speaker 2: Darden opened the very first Red Lobster south of Orlando, Florida,
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight after Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated,
Speaker 2: as he had done with his first restaurant. He opened
Speaker 2: apparently during the height of Jim Crow segregation in Georgia,
Speaker 2: and insisted that Red Lobster always be fully integrated. So
Speaker 2: that's a nice history of the company. But basically what
Speaker 2: they are arguing here is that this one hits particularly
Speaker 2: hard because, according to him, that black people like Red
Speaker 2: Lobster more than any other racial group. Now, I will
Speaker 2: just say I don't think that that is true, just
Speaker 2: based on my own personal observation. It may be true
Speaker 2: in some regional markets, but we are talking about a
Speaker 2: restaurant with over seven hundred locations, and just where I'm from,
Speaker 2: which is the last place I went to with Red Lobster,
Speaker 2: it was full of everyth nast, every ethnicity that College Station,
Speaker 2: Texas can bring to bear.
Speaker 3: So that's all I say on the matter.
Speaker 4: So it's so fraud because.
Speaker 1: If you validate this particular like racial lens to the
Speaker 1: Red Lobster thing, honestly, it's very easy to delve into
Speaker 1: offensive racial stare. For example, let me read you this
Speaker 1: line from the article Black consumers are among the most loyal. Sure,
Speaker 1: we like fish and a good deal. Red LSS represented
Speaker 1: something like the strip mall version of the beloved fish Fry.
Speaker 1: But we like being treated equally even more. But I
Speaker 1: will say we consulted with Colvin, who happened to be
Speaker 1: African American member, fantastic member of our production crew, and
Speaker 1: he said, I'm feeling this article. I agree this is
Speaker 1: a And I will say, independent of seeing this article
Speaker 1: in MSNBC, which of course we both saw we're like
Speaker 1: TONBC to find some like neoliberal, identitarian racial lens to
Speaker 1: what this story of corporate capture and greed whatever. But
Speaker 1: I will say even before we discussed this, it was
Speaker 1: clear that Colvin, of the whole team here was definitely taken.
Speaker 1: The red lobster hit the hardest.
Speaker 2: So why again, I think it's regional, which is, we
Speaker 2: live in an area which is very black, like in
Speaker 2: Maryland in the DMV, we have a much i think
Speaker 2: black per cap.
Speaker 1: There's a very large black middle class in this area too,
Speaker 1: you know, not quite comparable to but it's similar to
Speaker 1: like around Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, but you know, growing up here,
Speaker 1: my personal experience comports with the article, you know, the
Speaker 1: arguments that are being made here.
Speaker 4: So in any case, that's what I mean.
Speaker 2: I just think it's regional. I think I think it's America.
Speaker 2: It's like olive Garden. You know, everybody loves alive garden.
Speaker 3: Is the food good? No, it is a place to go,
Speaker 3: That's it. TG Fridays.
Speaker 1: They're not going to do the like, you know, the
Speaker 1: the corporate reading part of the story, right they you know,
Speaker 1: they apply their lens. But anyway, I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it's illegitimate. It just was a funny editor.
Speaker 3: It's like black people love a deal. Everybody loves a deal. Okay,
Speaker 3: I like a deal. What are you doing any people
Speaker 3: love deals too?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: You think we don't screw up some chain restaurants. It's like,
Speaker 3: come on, man, to go to a New Jersey. Yeah,
Speaker 3: what is it?
Speaker 2: What's the town called Edison? Go to an Edison, New
Speaker 2: Jersey red lobster. I bet you find some Indians in there.
Speaker 2: Speaking of the election, head Ted Poles and all that,
Speaker 2: what is the single only thing that could save Biden
Speaker 2: at the point from dementia, from the economy. Its abortion,
Speaker 2: and it is the topic of possibly birth control. Now,
Speaker 2: Trump supposedly is supposed to know this, and yet keep
Speaker 2: sticking his foot in his mouth every single time that
Speaker 2: he's asked about this issue. Previously, he was asked on
Speaker 2: a local TV interview they said, hey, are you going
Speaker 2: to do anything about red states that want to monitor
Speaker 2: women's pregnancies? And he said, well, we're just going to
Speaker 2: leave it to the states. You're like what, And this
Speaker 2: time around he's asked, are you open at all to
Speaker 2: banning contraception?
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to.
Speaker 6: Say, the whole issue of contraceptives.
Speaker 7: Do you support any restrictions on a person's right to contraception?
Speaker 8: Well, we're looking at that, and I'm going to have
Speaker 8: a policy on that very shortly. And I think it's
Speaker 8: something that you'll find interesting. And i'd say it's another
Speaker 8: issue that's very interesting, but you will. You will find it,
Speaker 8: I think very smart.
Speaker 3: We're looking at that and you will find it very smart.
Speaker 3: Why don't you just say no? Next question?
Speaker 1: Well classic, I mean, how many times have you heard
Speaker 1: him doing this that we're going to have something that
Speaker 1: you're really gonna love. I think you're gonna find it
Speaker 1: very smart. Like, you just haven't thought about it. You
Speaker 1: have no freaking clue what your position is, what you
Speaker 1: want to say about it. So you're like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: really looking at that very strongly.
Speaker 3: Okay. So then he decided to walk it back. Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's put this Heilbart on the screen.
Speaker 2: He then posted on truth Social in all caps, I
Speaker 2: would never advocate imposing restrictions on birth control and calls
Speaker 2: the reports based on his interview a Democrat fabricated lie.
Speaker 2: And this is why I'm just shocked by it. Where
Speaker 2: in general, I trust his political instincts basically on anything
Speaker 2: other than something he really cares about, like stop the steal.
Speaker 3: I trust that he would.
Speaker 2: Be smart enough not to ever say anything like this
Speaker 2: because he's given a boon to the Biden administry. Biden
Speaker 2: campaign immediately put this out Gavin News, every large Democratic
Speaker 2: Twitter account. Here we have a statement from the Biden campaign.
Speaker 2: It's not enough for Trump that women's lives we can
Speaker 2: put at risk, Doctors being threatened with jail trime, and
Speaker 2: extreme bands are being enacted with no exceptions for rape
Speaker 2: or incess. He wants to rip away our freedom for
Speaker 2: access to birth control too. And this is one where
Speaker 2: not even the Alabama most right wing Mississippi state legislatures
Speaker 2: and all these people are putting anything like this on
Speaker 2: the floor. It should have been the most easy and
Speaker 2: basic layup. I would also note that interview took place
Speaker 2: at a CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 3: That is not the place to be.
Speaker 2: Making comments about contraception. Considering that John Fetterman won some
Speaker 2: five to six percent on the heels of the Row
Speaker 2: versus Way backlash and first state wide, very clearly that
Speaker 2: is a major issue in the state. Of Pennsylvania. It's
Speaker 2: you know, they got popular democratic governor. You don't need
Speaker 2: to be messing with anything like this.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you say, none of these states are
Speaker 1: considering banning versonpectively. It's not exactly true, though, because it depends,
Speaker 1: I guess, on how you define birth control, Like do
Speaker 1: you define the morning after pill as birth control as
Speaker 1: many people do, And then in any of the states
Speaker 1: where you have fetal personhood and heartbeat bills that would
Speaker 1: be banned. I mean, it's like the similar, similar conundrum
Speaker 1: with IVF, and so I was surprised that he hadn't
Speaker 1: thought through what he wanted to say here. But I
Speaker 1: think he has realized that he tried to do the
Speaker 1: whole just like leave it up to the states, and
Speaker 1: then the states did a bunch of crazy stuff on abortion.
Speaker 1: So he doesn't really want to say that anymore. But
Speaker 1: he also doesn't want to say, oh, we should codify
Speaker 1: this at the federal level because he's not quite comfortable
Speaker 1: with what that would mean for the Republican base and
Speaker 1: what the implications.
Speaker 3: Of that are.
Speaker 1: So he just tries to dodge, but obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: leaves the door open for it. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: he's a mess on these issues, but there's also no
Speaker 1: good place for him to be. One thing that I
Speaker 1: thought really noteworthy in that New York Times article that
Speaker 1: we had up is they note that in a March
Speaker 1: poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which focuses on health policy,
Speaker 1: about just under half of adults said they considered the
Speaker 1: right to use contraception a secure right likely to remain
Speaker 1: in place. Because listen, we know what the numbers are
Speaker 1: going to be, and we actually have some numbers we
Speaker 1: can put up here in a minute, we'll just hold
Speaker 1: off on that on Obviously, birth control is overwhelmingly popular accepted.
Speaker 1: It is a very fringe minority at this point that
Speaker 1: says this should be banned, let alone even just like
Speaker 1: made more difficult to access. The overwhelming majority people say
Speaker 1: it should be easier to access.
Speaker 4: But so that's one question. The other question is do people.
Speaker 1: Actually feel like this is at stake or do they
Speaker 1: just feel like this is some sort of like BS
Speaker 1: democratic scare mongering that your rights are going to be
Speaker 1: taken away when they don't really buy it. So it
Speaker 1: was surprising to me that you actually have a majority
Speaker 1: of people who say, now, I actually think this is
Speaker 1: at risk. I actually think it's a danger that we
Speaker 1: could end up in a situation where birth control access
Speaker 1: is curtailed, restricted, or outright band. That's what makes these
Speaker 1: Trump comments, you know, particularly potent, is that you have
Speaker 1: a really unpopular position combined with an actual existing fear
Speaker 1: among the electorate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think you're right.
Speaker 2: Let's put some of those numbers just to get hit
Speaker 2: at home for everybody, and you can see it quite clearly.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is as basically as bad as it gets,
Speaker 2: you know, for for Republicans, the easier to people who
Speaker 2: want birth control pills to be easier to access is
Speaker 2: seventy four percent. More difficult access is five It is
Speaker 2: actually less popular than banning IVF. Just so everybody understands,
Speaker 2: including you know, it's like abortion. As you can see,
Speaker 2: fifty one percent want easier to access. Only twenty eight
Speaker 2: percent want more difficult to access. But twenty eight percent
Speaker 2: is not nothing. That's you know, roughly like a fourth
Speaker 2: or so of the country, plus or minus whatever the
Speaker 2: margin of error is. This is basically within the margin
Speaker 2: of error and has a easier to access net even
Speaker 2: amongst Republicans at fifty six percent. So just again, how
Speaker 2: everybody understands how fringe of a position this is, and
Speaker 2: why if there is anything that's going to sink Trump,
Speaker 2: it is going to be this issue. And coming back
Speaker 2: to you know, I guess you know, we can add
Speaker 2: some of our polling caveats here. Even though I do
Speaker 2: think I would probably give the odds to Trump right now.
Speaker 2: Is you know, you look at these state by state poles.
Speaker 2: You see a state in Arizona, and you see carry
Speaker 2: Lake down by thirteen percent and Trump up by five
Speaker 2: eighteen percent of people were really going to split ticket
Speaker 2: eighteen percent. I don't know, man, Not in my lifetime,
Speaker 2: not since twenty ten, have people been splitting tickets like that.
Speaker 2: This whole idea of you know, oh, I like my
Speaker 2: local guy and the local Democrats different than the national Democrat.
Speaker 2: That's very gone. You know, in our politics. It's been
Speaker 2: a long time since anything.
Speaker 5: Like that happened.
Speaker 3: I mean, I just yeah, I don't know, I just
Speaker 3: want to.
Speaker 4: I just don't know.
Speaker 1: It would be a massive reversal of modern political trends,
Speaker 1: which started even before twenty ten, but it really started
Speaker 1: to consoliate in twenty ten that politics was no longer local.
Speaker 4: All of these like blue dog.
Speaker 1: Democrats who were hanging in there in these very conservative districts.
Speaker 1: They got wiped out because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: people were like, okay, sure, like especially with some of
Speaker 1: the pork barrel type politics going away where it was
Speaker 1: no longer as easy to insert like my bridge project
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 3: In that too, they banned your marks for right decades,
Speaker 3: so it.
Speaker 1: Was, you know, less, there was less for them to
Speaker 1: be able to bring and be like, well, this is
Speaker 1: why you should vote me, even though you despise Democrats.
Speaker 1: People were like, yeah, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you're voting for Nancy Pelosi for speaker.
Speaker 4: So sorry, I'm going with the other team.
Speaker 1: That has been consistently the trend fewer and fewer swing
Speaker 1: voters and fewer and fewer ticket splitting voters. We have
Speaker 1: seen a little bit of a reversal of that, like
Speaker 1: trend going a little bit in the opposite direction in
Speaker 1: the past two elections. But to have it swing that
Speaker 1: much where I have that many split ticket voters, and like,
Speaker 1: do people really feel.
Speaker 4: That negatively about you? I just I don't know. I
Speaker 4: just genuinely don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be extremely humble about any prognostication in
Speaker 1: this election cycle, because you know, the midterms, we heard
Speaker 1: something very similar about it was the acadomic numbers, and
Speaker 1: that was gonna be the big deal. I really believe that,
Speaker 1: because I think material politics, et ceterat. It didn't turn
Speaker 1: out to work out that way. Now this time you
Speaker 1: got Joe Biden on the top of the ticket. Maybe
Speaker 1: at a presidential election it's different. I just genuinely don't know.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing to throw into the mix,
Speaker 1: of course, is all of these special elections which seem
Speaker 1: to be going really well for the Democrats. So does
Speaker 1: that mean anything for Joe Biden or is that completely
Speaker 1: disconnected from him?
Speaker 4: Again? Who knows.
Speaker 1: But the fact that Trump tried to clean this up,
Speaker 1: I mean it doesn't matter at this point because he
Speaker 1: said the thing it can be run in ads.
Speaker 4: He opened the door to it.
Speaker 1: Democrats got everything that they wanted out of that little
Speaker 1: local news conversation that he had.
Speaker 4: So this is a strategy. Puts C three up on
Speaker 4: the screen, this Arris sheet.
Speaker 1: Democrats are trying to make everything out of this that
Speaker 1: they possibly can't.
Speaker 4: Who can blame them?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is very potent, very real for voters.
Speaker 1: They're going to hold a bunch of votes trying to
Speaker 1: tee up contraception as access as a campaign issue. And
Speaker 1: you know, Republicans do themselves no favors by they'll vote
Speaker 1: against this. You would think like something that literally five
Speaker 1: percent of the country is like, let's make contraception, contraception
Speaker 1: harder to access, and Republicans will vote with that five
Speaker 1: percent of the country. But they say, oh, well, we
Speaker 1: worry about what this means for you know, is this
Speaker 1: open the door to the morning after pill and not
Speaker 1: being an infringement on state rights, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And they don't want to give Democrats any sort of
Speaker 1: a political sense of a win, so they'll vote against this,
Speaker 1: and Democrats will use those votes on the record to say, look,
Speaker 1: these people want to take away your birth control. Can
Speaker 1: they get people really energized around that issue?
Speaker 4: Do they focus on it?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I mean it's a wise and
Speaker 1: correct political play, There's no doubt about that. I also
Speaker 1: say that in some states this has become relevant as well.
Speaker 1: In Virginia in particular, there was legislation that was passed
Speaker 1: through the House and the Senate to protect access to contraception,
Speaker 1: and the Republican governor vetoed it. So Virginia is looking
Speaker 1: like a swing state this time. Even though I've Biden
Speaker 1: won to buy ten points last time. We've got polls
Speaker 1: that show that it's very close. These sorts of things
Speaker 1: could come into play as well.
Speaker 3: Absolutely,