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: the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,
Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Crystal?
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do. Many interesting things developing this morning. We've
Speaker 1: got new details in that second Trump assassination attempt, a
Speaker 1: new questions for the Secret Service.
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris actually did.
Speaker 1: Another solo sit down interview, so we want to dig
Speaker 1: into those less than satisfying answers that she gave. Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan with some interesting commentary on the debate. Bill Maher
Speaker 1: was some interesting commentary on the election. Dave Portnoy was
Speaker 1: some interesting commentary on weed. Of course, we couldn't miss
Speaker 1: that one given Soccer's interest in the subject. Some very
Speaker 1: serious things developing with regard to foreign policy, both in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: and Israel, both of which point in the direction of
Speaker 1: further terrifying escalation. So we did not want to miss that.
Speaker 1: And we've got a new guest on the show today.
Speaker 1: He runs an election model, taking a look at all
Speaker 1: the polls and feeding them in and seeing what he
Speaker 1: thinks is going to happen this November.
Speaker 4: So we're excited to talk to him as well.
Speaker 3: Yes we are.
Speaker 2: And before we get to any of that, thank you
Speaker 2: to all of our premium subscribers. We're going to be
Speaker 2: doing our Ask Me Anything later today. We do it
Speaker 2: live from our studio here and we broadcasted exclusively on locals,
Speaker 2: so if you want to go ahead and subscribe and
Speaker 2: be a part of that Breakingpoints dot com. Before we
Speaker 2: get to all the stories that Crystal just laid out,
Speaker 2: we actually had a major breaking story that just happened
Speaker 2: this morning.
Speaker 3: Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: We wanted to make sure we gave people some of
Speaker 2: the details because this story know many are interested in.
Speaker 3: Sean P.
Speaker 2: Diddy Combs has been arrested in Manhattan after a grand
Speaker 2: jury indictment. So it was literally just happened late last night.
Speaker 3: Sehn P. Didy Combs was taken into.
Speaker 2: Custody by the US Southern District of New York and
Speaker 2: by the US Marshall Service at about eight thirty pm
Speaker 2: at the hotel where he was staying, the Park Hyatt
Speaker 2: on fifty seventh Street. The indictment and the charges against
Speaker 2: him remain sealed by the federal government, but we do
Speaker 2: know that this was an investigation that was led by
Speaker 2: the Homeland Security Department, specifically HSI, which often investigates sex
Speaker 2: trafficking cases.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: The March raids that we all brought everybody live coverage
Speaker 2: of at the time, demonstrated that they were converging on
Speaker 2: his mansion in Los Angeles. He was then later, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of speculation as to exactly where he
Speaker 2: was and whether.
Speaker 3: He was fleeing.
Speaker 2: They could be seen carrying out electronics and all of
Speaker 2: this is in the context of a lot of the
Speaker 2: lawsuits and videos that have come out about Combs since
Speaker 2: I guess the last couple of years, past relationships, violence,
Speaker 2: and many of the other stories that have been alleged
Speaker 2: against him. But obviously him as a titanic development, not
Speaker 2: only in the case against him, but kind of looking
Speaker 2: at the entire music industry, something that's been trailing in
Speaker 2: for almost thirty years, and very very interested to see
Speaker 2: what is in that unsealed or in that currently sealed
Speaker 2: indictment against him. Southern District of New York again a
Speaker 2: very i guess, probably one of the most important jurisdictions
Speaker 2: in all of law enforcement in the United.
Speaker 1: States, no doubt. It's one of the most high profile
Speaker 1: federal courts. Probably excuse me. Between that and the Alexandria
Speaker 1: Federal District Court, which handles a lot of terrorism cases,
Speaker 1: those are probably the two most significant and powerful jurisdictions
Speaker 1: in the country. Just to remind people of some of
Speaker 1: the horrifying details here, This whole saga and learning about
Speaker 1: some of the horrible things that have been alleged and
Speaker 1: in fact were caught and revealed on video started when
Speaker 1: R and B singer Cassie came forward with a series
Speaker 1: of horrifying allegations, including things that would be tantamount to
Speaker 1: sex trafficking. In addition, you know, are being drugged and
Speaker 1: forced into horrible things. Her being beaten video was eventually
Speaker 1: revealed from a hotel security camera that fit perfectly to
Speaker 1: a t Some of the horrors that she described. Now
Speaker 1: he immediately settled, but that really opened the floodgates. And
Speaker 1: so this individual, who you know, as a millennial, he
Speaker 1: was sort of the pinnacle of pop and hip hop culture.
Speaker 1: You know, what we have learned about him and the
Speaker 1: criminal behavior that is now alleged to have occurred across
Speaker 1: multiple women across multiple states over years and years and
Speaker 1: years has been shocking and horrifying. So, you know, everybody
Speaker 1: deserves their day and core, but what's already in the
Speaker 1: public sphere is pretty damning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the videos alone, not to mention the testimony and
Speaker 2: some of the things he's only already either not admitted
Speaker 2: to or settled in cases have been outrageous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: And then these always raise the questions too of Okay, well,
Speaker 1: he had a lot of handlers around him, He had
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, other stars who were around him,
Speaker 1: and allegedly, you know, at some of these parties where
Speaker 1: these rapes and sexual assaults and druggings, et cetera occurred.
Speaker 4: So who knew what when? How big was the circle?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Was this one of those apparently open secrets in Hollywood
Speaker 1: and pop culture that everyone just turned a blind eye
Speaker 1: to or perhaps participated in, or perhaps enabled, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Those are some of the questions that go beyond Sean Diddycombs.
Speaker 1: Not that this wouldn't be a gigantic and horrifying story
Speaker 1: just on its own with him being the only perpetrator involved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great point, And what it does mean is that
Speaker 2: it will face a lot of inquiries into his businesses
Speaker 2: in the past, going all the way back to the
Speaker 2: early nineteen nineties, including some of the allegations that are
Speaker 2: against him. The HSI involvement is what really put you know,
Speaker 2: put a lot of flags on the case because it
Speaker 2: demonstrated this specifically a sex trafficking investigation, and of course
Speaker 2: you know, the charges and the years that those hold
Speaker 2: could be really stunning when we eventually see what the
Speaker 2: end result of this. Like we said, Crystal, you know,
Speaker 2: Sean Combs maintains his innocence. He say, quote, he's an
Speaker 2: imperfect man, but that does not mean that he is
Speaker 2: a criminal. And they say that he remains innocent of
Speaker 2: the charges. We don't yet know what those charges are,
Speaker 2: and when we get full details, we'll bring it to
Speaker 2: Everybody wanted to make sure they got that arrest in
Speaker 2: the show. Let's go ahead and move on then to
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and to some of the new revelations that
Speaker 2: we have about this attempted assassination of Donald Trump at
Speaker 2: his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. We now
Speaker 2: have body camera footage that has been released showing Ryan
Speaker 2: Rout's arrest by the authorities. Remember, Ryan Routh was on
Speaker 2: the golf course, he was spotted by Secret Service agents.
Speaker 2: Secret agents actually took a shot at him. He was
Speaker 2: able to drop his rifle fleet get into his vehicle,
Speaker 2: which was parked nearby, drive away to a different county.
Speaker 2: It was only because a bystander nearby took a picture
Speaker 2: of his license plate and the make of the car
Speaker 2: that they were able to apprehend him so quickly. They
Speaker 2: eventually corner him on a road. And here's how that
Speaker 2: all went down. Let's go ahead and take a listen.
Speaker 2: We're gonna play some of this. So what we can
Speaker 2: see here is Ryan Routh. He's here, He's got a
Speaker 2: shirt up over his head, likely so that they could
Speaker 2: make sure that he didn't have anything that was on
Speaker 2: his person, and then he's getting arrested. There he could
Speaker 2: see that they basically cornered him on a road and
Speaker 2: made sure that they were able to arrest him without incident.
Speaker 2: So he did appear in court yesterday, and some of
Speaker 2: the details that are now alleged in the criminal complaint
Speaker 2: are absolutely crazy. This really does tell the story of
Speaker 2: the secret Service failure. So in the criminal complaint that
Speaker 2: was filed by federal prosecutors, the affidavit says from T
Speaker 2: mobile phone records indicate that Ryan Round's mobile phone was
Speaker 2: quote located in the vicinity of the area along the
Speaker 2: tree line from one fifty nine am until approximately one
Speaker 2: thirty one pm, so he was in and around the
Speaker 2: Trump golf course for a stunning twelve hours quote. The
Speaker 2: affidavit also says local law enforcement told them Ralph was
Speaker 2: driving a Nissan with the license plate belonging to a
Speaker 2: FOD truck that had been reported stolen. So there are
Speaker 2: so many sketchy things that are going on right now
Speaker 2: with respect to mister Ralph Christl because not only in
Speaker 2: the criminal complaint, I was just reading some more details
Speaker 2: this morning. He was under investigation multiple times by the
Speaker 2: FBI as a convicted felon known in possession of a firearm.
Speaker 2: In fact, federal authorities were flagged to him about him
Speaker 2: multiple years ago, including from a nurse who was returning
Speaker 2: from Ukraine and she told customs officers returning to the
Speaker 2: United States, she said, you need to watch out for
Speaker 2: this guy. He is crazy, he's violent, he's a problem.
Speaker 2: So this was not just on the radar, but now
Speaker 2: to federal authorities at multiple different levels, from his Ukraine
Speaker 2: work to his gun possession. We know a little bit
Speaker 2: from the gun charges. You know, the serial number on
Speaker 2: the rifle that was found that he allegedly was trying
Speaker 2: to use, that was filed off perhaps, you know, showing
Speaker 2: that it is an illegal weapon that was purchased. But
Speaker 2: there's a lot of sketchy questions that remain around Ralph.
Speaker 2: How was he funding his lifestyle? Was funding his multiple
Speaker 2: trips back and forth from Ukraine? So lots of weird
Speaker 2: stuff that's currently happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's so noteworthy that there were multiple people
Speaker 1: who interacted with this guy, and some of this was
Speaker 1: in the public domain. We were talking about it yesterday
Speaker 1: where they were warning they're saying, this guy does not
Speaker 1: represent Ukraine, he is not recruiting foreign fighters like he's
Speaker 1: basically a fraud and a con. Don't take him seriously.
Speaker 1: And then the new information that we learned is that
Speaker 1: going beyond that, it wasn't just hey, this guy is,
Speaker 1: you know, a huckster. It was this man is dangerous.
Speaker 1: The things he's saying are crazy, and you need to be,
Speaker 1: like federal authorities, you need to be watching out for him.
Speaker 1: So the more we learn about that, uh, the more
Speaker 1: interesting that tale is going to be. You know, with
Speaker 1: regard to the Secret Service response here, I feel a
Speaker 1: little differently about the Secret Service response in this instance
Speaker 1: versus Butler. It's very clear Secret Service just fell down
Speaker 1: on the job in Butler and came within an inch,
Speaker 1: you know, within half an inch of former President Trump
Speaker 1: being murdered in front of a giant rally crowd on
Speaker 1: national television. It was just by luck, fortune, fate, or
Speaker 1: whatever that he happened to turn his head at that moment.
Speaker 1: In this instance, you had a you know, a very
Speaker 1: sharp eyed Secret Service agent who was scouting ahead and
Speaker 1: was able to spot him, and you know, they were
Speaker 1: able to fire off shots and then ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: down the road they got kind of lucky with their
Speaker 1: ability to apprehend him before he could get any shots off.
Speaker 4: Whatsoever.
Speaker 1: I'm open to two explanations for how they came within,
Speaker 1: you know, another such a close call on the president's
Speaker 1: former president's life this time. One is that there was
Speaker 1: another Secret Service failure, you know, when he's in the
Speaker 1: woods for twelve hours, that there wasn't a sufficient job
Speaker 1: done scouting the golf course ahead of Trump going out
Speaker 1: and playing.
Speaker 4: That's one possible explanation.
Speaker 1: Another possible explanation kind of falls on Congress or perhaps
Speaker 1: on the agency heads, that there have been insufficient resources
Speaker 1: allocated to the Secret Service such that they're doing the
Speaker 1: best job they can and did the best job they
Speaker 1: could in the circumstances, but simply didn't have the tools
Speaker 1: and the resources to be able to avoid such a
Speaker 1: close call. But I'll tell you, you know, it's very
Speaker 1: noteworthy to me. I'm not an expert. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear people who are an expert kind of way in
Speaker 1: on this. But they really got lucky in that bystander
Speaker 1: taking a picture of his license plate and their ability
Speaker 1: to then you know, work with local law enforcement to
Speaker 1: apprehend this guy down the road, because imagine a situation
Speaker 1: where there's an ongoing man cunt for this individual or
Speaker 1: where you know, potentially theoretically he is never found. I
Speaker 1: think we were very close to that scenario unfolding if
Speaker 1: not for the quick thinking of a near dot nearby,
Speaker 1: you know, passerby.
Speaker 2: You're right, I mean, look, would they have eventually found him,
Speaker 2: most likely fingerprints on the weapon, you know, some of
Speaker 2: the personal details and other things, maybe his phone rerecords
Speaker 2: they could have used, but it might have taken a
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 3: And who knows. He's an unstable individual.
Speaker 2: He literally wanted to kill the presidents and got close
Speaker 2: to him, so possibly had I mean, they didn't charge
Speaker 2: him with guns inside of the car, but again, you know,
Speaker 2: when you have an unstable person like that who is
Speaker 2: literally on the run, they could do anything. So we
Speaker 2: certainly did get lucky. I agree with you on the
Speaker 2: institutional level, you know, not faulting the individual agents who
Speaker 2: were there on the ground, but it is clear resources wise,
Speaker 2: it's just different. So again I can give my own
Speaker 2: personal experience having had to cover some of these golf
Speaker 2: things when Trump was president. I know for a fact
Speaker 2: that the golf course was entirely shut down and patrolled
Speaker 2: when they were president. In fact, from what I understand,
Speaker 2: if he had had the same level of presidential detail
Speaker 2: that was normal. Then the golf course would have been
Speaker 2: secured in a different way and nobody would have been
Speaker 2: allowed to camp out there for twelve hours. And the
Speaker 2: only reason again that they even were able to were
Speaker 2: able to see him was because they were scouting one
Speaker 2: hole ahead whenever he was there, as opposed to shutting
Speaker 2: the entire thing down. This gets to resources right now.
Speaker 2: The Secret Service is telling us Trump now has the
Speaker 2: highest level of possible protection. That includes he had a
Speaker 2: phone call, I believe with President Biden yesterday where Biden
Speaker 2: basically talked to him about.
Speaker 3: The same thing.
Speaker 2: But now a Secret Service, you know, seeing two attempted
Speaker 2: assassinations in the span of just sixty days is terrible
Speaker 2: look for them, and it is very scary too whenever
Speaker 2: we have an active candidate for president of the United States. Also, though,
Speaker 2: now we're getting back into the rhetoric wars, let's put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. Trump returning to Twitter
Speaker 2: at least for this one. He says the rhetoric lies,
Speaker 2: as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala
Speaker 2: during the rigged and highly parts and ABC debate and
Speaker 2: ridiculous lawsuits designed. I can't even read this, there's so
Speaker 2: many comments, but I'll just get to this. It is
Speaker 2: because because of the communist left rhetoric, the bullets are
Speaker 2: flying and it will only get worse, allowing millions of
Speaker 2: pieces from places unknown to invade and take over our countries.
Speaker 2: And on part of wals stay blah blah blah, we
Speaker 2: must love our nation. Come in legally, he turns it
Speaker 2: into a migrant thing. But I have I said this
Speaker 2: after last time, and I continue to maintain it. I'm
Speaker 2: just going to stay in defense of we think reasonable
Speaker 2: position that just because people have quote unquote heated rhetoric
Speaker 2: does not mean that they are responsible. I think that
Speaker 2: for what a deranged person like Ryan Routh does. I
Speaker 2: don't think that applies in the case of people being
Speaker 2: like we need to end and stop Donald Trump, or
Speaker 2: even calling him a dictator or fascist. It's a free country,
Speaker 2: we have free speech. I don't think that that's necessarily
Speaker 2: inciting violence, and I don't think it's the same whenever
Speaker 2: those same charges are leveled against you know, right wing politicians.
Speaker 2: So this always annoys me, you know, this whole like
Speaker 2: we need to tone down the rhetoric while they're literally
Speaker 2: ramping up the rhetoric on their own side.
Speaker 3: And I just think.
Speaker 2: It's very foolish because guys like we like, we have
Speaker 2: a general social contract. Most normal people understand whenever you say,
Speaker 2: quote unquote we need to stop him, it doesn't entail
Speaker 2: a literal assassination that applies to quote unquote comrade Kamala,
Speaker 2: communist Kamala. The Democrats are having an invasion of our country.
Speaker 3: That's the same thing.
Speaker 2: So anyways, this has always annoyed me, I said after
Speaker 2: the last attempt assassination, and I will continue to say
Speaker 2: it here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, I don't think Republicans really want this
Speaker 1: election to be contested on who has the more heated
Speaker 1: or reasonable rhetoric, right, I mean, the last time around,
Speaker 1: there was at least like five minutes where Trump was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be the unity candidate and we're it's
Speaker 1: going to be a totally different Trump. And maybe about
Speaker 1: twenty minutes into his RNC convention speech, that was out
Speaker 1: the window and it was back to the same old,
Speaker 1: same old. Like you know, Donald Trump did come up
Speaker 1: with a fake electors scheme. He did give that speech
Speaker 1: and tell people to come to DC, and that it
Speaker 1: was going to be wild. He did watch as those
Speaker 1: rioters breached the capitol and you know, assaulted police officers
Speaker 1: and all of those things, and he just watched and
Speaker 1: wouldn't say anything for hours and hours. So it's entirely reasonable, appropriate,
Speaker 1: et cetera, to say, based on his past behavior, he
Speaker 1: is a threat to democracy, and so to then you know,
Speaker 1: turn around, you can't say that about him because it's inciting.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, we're just you know, it's a very
Speaker 1: reasonable even if you disagree, it's a very reasonable conclusion
Speaker 1: and charge to levy at Donald Trump. And of course,
Speaker 1: I mean his rhetoric, even within this one tweet where
Speaker 1: he's saying that it's, you know, the democratic rhetoric is
Speaker 1: too hot. He's then going on and painting an existential threat.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's you know, it's it's sort of ridiculous,
Speaker 1: and especially when you dig into the specifics of these cases,
Speaker 1: the first assassination attempt in particular, which you know, we
Speaker 1: know more about at this point than we do the
Speaker 1: second assassination attempt, and what the potential motivations are. Although
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's fairly reason to assume it
Speaker 1: had something to do with Ukraine, since this guy was
Speaker 1: like obsessively into Ukraine. But the first one, this guy
Speaker 1: didn't seem he was looking at, you know, where various
Speaker 1: political figures of both parties were gonna be. He seemed
Speaker 1: like he just wanted his moment of notoriety, that it
Speaker 1: was all about just getting his name into the history
Speaker 1: books and really had nothing to do with political ideology
Speaker 1: as best as we can tell. I mean, still, even
Speaker 1: after the reports that they've done and the information that
Speaker 1: they've learned, they still haven't really they haven't asserted any
Speaker 1: motive outside of what we could all glean from, you know,
Speaker 1: just the fact that he's searching all kinds of different
Speaker 1: high level political and cultural figures that he could go
Speaker 1: out and potentially take a shot at. So in any case, yeah,
Speaker 1: this discourse, obviously, I found it as ridiculous and sort
Speaker 1: of silly as you do.
Speaker 2: Right because, like, look on the Thomas Crooks thing, we
Speaker 2: don't know a lot, but yeah, I mean, current evidence
Speaker 2: points in that direction. And there's an important point there.
Speaker 2: It's about the individual. It's not about quote unquote the
Speaker 2: rhetoric of Democrats or Republicans. You know, there is individual
Speaker 2: responsibility here. These people have agency, even if they may
Speaker 2: be drained. It doesn't necessarily fall on what you know
Speaker 2: somebody said earlier.
Speaker 3: Now, should we have better rhetoric.
Speaker 2: Maybe, although you know, I'm not really gonna I hate
Speaker 2: tone policing just in general, especially whenever we try and
Speaker 2: gate it around an election. No, elections are actually very
Speaker 2: high stakes. We should argue sometimes they are existential and
Speaker 2: the eye of the beholder. I think he's totally fine
Speaker 2: to say so, no matter where you fall. Let's go
Speaker 2: to the next part here, continuing with Ryan Routh. Ryan,
Speaker 2: interesting guy appearing here in court on these federal gun charges.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen. He claims
Speaker 2: he is indigent and he is now currently being represented
Speaker 2: by a public defender, meaning he has no funds. I
Speaker 2: again just find a lot of the funding behind him.
Speaker 2: Very just mystifying. Because he is a current resident of Hawaii.
Speaker 2: He clearly has enough money to like jet set across
Speaker 2: the ocean back and forth from Ukraine to come here
Speaker 2: to Washington. He was previously in North Carolina, allegedly was
Speaker 2: running a business with his son. And you know, I
Speaker 2: don't have any experience buying illegal weapons, but from what
Speaker 2: I understand from reading, they generally cost like five times
Speaker 2: retail costs, So several thousand dollars invested in the rifle
Speaker 2: that he purchased. Where is all this stuff coming from?
Speaker 2: Like maybe it was a credit card. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I'd be very interested to see that. Right now,
Speaker 2: those gun charges are the only ones that have been
Speaker 2: filed against Ralph. From what I understand, it would be
Speaker 2: quite difficult to charge him with attempted murder or attempted assassination,
Speaker 2: but it is possible, though the federal prosecutors will move
Speaker 2: to do so. Staying with like who Ryan was, As
Speaker 2: you just said, he was a fanatic. He genuinely was
Speaker 2: a Ukraine like just a pro nuclear war in favor
Speaker 2: of Ukraine. Wanted to make sure that America did everything possible,
Speaker 2: sending patriot missol defense systems. There's multiple photos of him
Speaker 2: at protests and others begging F sixteens, no fly zone,
Speaker 2: all of these things over the last couple of years.
Speaker 3: In fact, somebody recently flagged this.
Speaker 2: He appears to have been in an Azov battalion propaganda
Speaker 2: video from twenty twenty two. We can play some of
Speaker 2: this so that people can see, let's just roll a
Speaker 2: little bit. This Azov Battalion, of course, is the far
Speaker 2: right literal neo Nazis who are attached to the Ukrainian military.
Speaker 3: But there he was.
Speaker 2: That's a picture of him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a you know, probably a lot to
Speaker 2: say there in terms of what it means for Ukraine.
Speaker 2: But like I said, and I'll cut the Ukrainian slack
Speaker 2: in this, Uh, the International Legion has completely denounced him.
Speaker 2: All these foreign fighters who were there, they're like, we
Speaker 2: have nothing connected to this guy. In fact, there are
Speaker 2: multiple instances of us calling him a grifter and a liar.
Speaker 3: We saw this morning.
Speaker 2: Like I said, there were people who were in Ukraine
Speaker 2: coming back to the United States telling federal authorities you
Speaker 2: got to watch out.
Speaker 3: For this guy.
Speaker 2: He is crazy and flagging and trying to get US
Speaker 2: authorities to do something about it. It does appear that
Speaker 2: while he was in Kiev, he did have some contacts
Speaker 2: and was able to funnel some foreign fighters into the
Speaker 2: Ukrainian military. At least one person has said that, so
Speaker 2: his ties, you know, to the Ukrainian state, to the
Speaker 2: International Legion, foreign fighters. It's not as cut and dry
Speaker 2: as some people may want to say, I think the
Speaker 2: obvious explanation is just crazy, but that doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: he also didn't have some contact with them. But he
Speaker 2: certainly was not part and parcel a foreign fighter or
Speaker 2: something like that in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: As best we can tell, and his social media posts
Speaker 1: before his Twitter account was taken down, there were a
Speaker 1: bunch of them that were like, I will fight and
Speaker 1: die for Ukraine. I want to go to Ukraine to
Speaker 1: fight and die. And the best syndications are that he
Speaker 1: tried to do that and they rejected him.
Speaker 4: They were like, no, we don't want to.
Speaker 1: And then you had a bunch of people who interacted
Speaker 1: with him throwing up these warning signals. So yeah, he
Speaker 1: was whatever vibes he was given off, whatever things he
Speaker 1: was saying. In the context of the Ukrainian conflict, there
Speaker 1: were plenty of people involved who are extraordinarily pro Ukraine
Speaker 1: who were like, absolutely not. And by the way, let
Speaker 1: me alert the federal authorities because this dude is an
Speaker 1: absolute maniac. I'm not sure if you mentioned this or not,
Speaker 1: but I just wanted to make sure to get in
Speaker 1: the detail with regards to the gun charges and the
Speaker 1: legal angle of this is interesting because I was thinking
Speaker 1: about that. He didn't get any shots off. It was
Speaker 1: the Secret Service firing at him, So that's probably what
Speaker 1: makes it more difficult to charge him with attempted assassination.
Speaker 1: Now we can all read the tea leaves of when
Speaker 1: you're hiding in the woods at the former president's golf
Speaker 1: course for twelve hours with a sniper rifle and scope
Speaker 1: and a O pro camera to record it all, we
Speaker 1: can probably all guess what intentions you ultimately had. But
Speaker 1: I would assume that that's the reason why it would
Speaker 1: be difficult to prove those more egregious charges versus the
Speaker 1: gun charges. And part of what we learned yesterday as
Speaker 1: well is that the serial number on his rifle was
Speaker 1: at least partially scratched out. So that is why we
Speaker 1: don't have details. You know, usually we get pretty quickly
Speaker 1: the details of like, oh, this is where the gun
Speaker 1: came from. He bought it legally, he bought it illegally,
Speaker 1: It was somebody else's. It's still over stolen, as in
Speaker 1: the case of the Georgia school shooting. His dad bought
Speaker 1: it for him for Christmas or whatever. We don't have
Speaker 1: those details yet because of the serial number being scratched
Speaker 1: out and making it much more difficult to track the
Speaker 1: origin of this particular weapon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Like I said, though he was a convicted felon by
Speaker 2: many you know, reasonable standards, should not have had a
Speaker 2: fire arm. I'm talking about legally, and FBI literally investigated it.
Speaker 2: That's part of what I find missedifying. And it just
Speaker 2: always comes back. It's like known to FBI. It's almost
Speaker 2: a meme at this point, known to federal authorities. Twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: Tipster calls the FBI says, hey, this guy's a convicted felon.
Speaker 2: Remember in his past two thousand and two, barricaded himself
Speaker 2: inside of an office with a fully automatic weapon. So
Speaker 2: that's it, You're done. FBI is called by Tipster Honolulu.
Speaker 2: FBI office investigates and drops the case, closes it. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's pretty egregious in my opinion, on top of all
Speaker 2: of the investigations, that all of the flags done specifically
Speaker 2: by people returning from Ukraine begging the FBI and federal
Speaker 2: authorities are like, you need to keep an eye on
Speaker 2: this guy. There is something wrong with him. Let's go
Speaker 2: ahead and put the last one up there. And that's
Speaker 2: just what we referenced earlier, Secret Service under scrutiny here
Speaker 2: after this potential a second attempt on Donald Trump's life,
Speaker 2: Congress and others are now calling for investigations. But Congress,
Speaker 2: by all accounts, is also getting very fed up. I
Speaker 2: just saw a statement from or a senator yesterday that
Speaker 2: said that I think it was Richard Blumenthal, so Democrat
Speaker 2: from Connecticut, saying that the Homeland Security Department has been
Speaker 2: derelict in its duty in sharing information with Congress. And
Speaker 2: I mean all of the current indications, not only in
Speaker 2: terms of these attempted assassinations from resources, but also at
Speaker 2: the institutional level, point to an absolute cluster inside of
Speaker 2: this organization.
Speaker 3: Right now.
Speaker 2: We had those leaked you know, text messages and others
Speaker 2: that we had flagged earlier. But you know, there's clearly
Speaker 2: there is something deeply rotten inside of the Secret Service,
Speaker 2: and that's that is existentially dangerous to our country because
Speaker 2: it's not just Donald Trump. It could be Kamala Harris,
Speaker 2: could be Joe Biden, it could be any of these
Speaker 2: figs or the members of the family, people in the
Speaker 2: executive branch, people like Jake Sullivan or others. There are
Speaker 2: all kinds of sketchy and weird people. As we learn
Speaker 2: from Ryan Ralph and mister Crooks who tried to assassinate
Speaker 2: Donald Trump earlier. These people are swarming Washington and just
Speaker 2: orbiting the political system, waiting for an opportunity. So they
Speaker 2: need to be vigilant at all times. And it genuinely
Speaker 2: is dangerous to see stuff like this.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a horrible landscape to acknowledge, But we've
Speaker 1: got a country that is kind of a tinder box
Speaker 1: where the politics, do you know, tend towards the sense
Speaker 1: of existential stakes, where there's just the numbers, a massive
Speaker 1: amount of guns. So you know, whatever they're doing in
Speaker 1: terms of Secret Service protection for all of their protectees,
Speaker 1: they need to up the ante. And I said this yesterday,
Speaker 1: I fear that this is kind of a terrifying new
Speaker 1: normal because once one person demonstrates what's possible, then a
Speaker 1: lot of other lunatics start to get ideas in their
Speaker 1: head as well. And with regard to the specifics of
Speaker 1: this instance and the fact that you know, still even
Speaker 1: after the first assassination attempt, president, former President Trump was
Speaker 1: not getting the level of protection that the current president gets.
Speaker 4: It almost seems.
Speaker 1: To me like a bureaucratic box checking issue where it's like, well,
Speaker 1: here's our standard for you know, if you're this person,
Speaker 1: you get that level of protection.
Speaker 4: If you're that person, you get this level.
Speaker 1: Here's our protocols, here's what we do, rather than flexibly
Speaker 1: thinking about, wow, the risk landscape has just dramatically increased
Speaker 1: for this particular individual protect perhaps for all protectees overall.
Speaker 1: So we need to go beyond what would be what
Speaker 1: we've typically done in the past for a former president
Speaker 1: or for a you know, current candidate. We actually need
Speaker 1: to do as much as we possibly can now. Again,
Speaker 1: Secret Service doesn't have unlimited funds. One of the issues
Speaker 1: that Ken Klippenstein, who has done fantastic reporting on this,
Speaker 1: talks about a lot, is that they've been stretched in
Speaker 1: so many different directions and pulled in so many different
Speaker 1: directions into areas that you would never think that the
Speaker 1: Secret Service was involved with whatsoever and so.
Speaker 4: And that's not all their fault.
Speaker 1: That also could be you know, the agency had certainly,
Speaker 1: but also could be things that Congress has mandated. There
Speaker 1: needs to be an executive branch and a legislative branch
Speaker 1: effort to refocus this agency on the most critical core
Speaker 1: part of their mission, and to acknowledge that the risk
Speaker 1: is dramatically elevated, certainly for former President Trump, but I
Speaker 1: would say probably for all of the protectees that you
Speaker 1: know are under their care. So we wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure to get to this. Kamala Harrison did sit for
Speaker 1: another solo interview with results that I would say are
Speaker 1: indicative of perhaps why she doesn't say for that many
Speaker 1: of these interviews. So let me just give you a
Speaker 1: little bit of what went down here. So this video
Speaker 1: is going to start off with her response to an
Speaker 1: answer about how specifically she would go about lowering prices.
Speaker 4: Let's take a lisson.
Speaker 5: I grew up a middle class kid. My mother raised
Speaker 5: my sister and me. She worked very hard. She was
Speaker 5: able to finally save up enough money to buy our
Speaker 5: first house when I was a teenager.
Speaker 2: I grew up in a.
Speaker 5: Community of hardworking people, you know, construction workers and nurses
Speaker 5: and teachers. And I try to explain to some people
Speaker 5: who may not have had the same experience. You know,
Speaker 5: if a lot of people will relate to this, you know,
Speaker 5: I grew up in a neighborhood of folks who were
Speaker 5: very proud of their lawn, you know. And I was
Speaker 5: raised to believe and to know that all people deserve
Speaker 5: dignity and that we as Americans have a beautiful character
Speaker 5: to build in. My goal is three million new homes
Speaker 5: by the end of my first term. In addition to
Speaker 5: help people who just want to get their foot in
Speaker 5: the door literally and so giving first time home buyers
Speaker 5: a twenty five thousand dollars down payment assistance. A new
Speaker 5: approach is to expand the child tax credit to six
Speaker 5: thousand dollars for young families for the first year of
Speaker 5: their child's life. And people want a leader who has
Speaker 5: common sense and tries to find common ground. I'm supported
Speaker 5: by over two hundred Republicans who worked for both Presidents Bush,
Speaker 5: John McCain, met Romney.
Speaker 1: So she gets around to talking about some of her
Speaker 1: policy plans, but sacer, I don't know why this is
Speaker 1: hard like, so she gets asked, Okay, what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: I come from a middle class background, and people loved
Speaker 1: their lawns, and don't we have great values. It's like
Speaker 1: you have good policy proposals that you put out that.
Speaker 4: Are really really popular.
Speaker 1: I don't know why there isn't in her playbook, in
Speaker 1: her list of talking points right out of the gate,
Speaker 1: I'm going to crack down on price gouging. I'm going
Speaker 1: to crack down on you know, the prescription drug prices.
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring them down. And then you know,
Speaker 1: the housing stuff is really good, the child tax credit,
Speaker 1: it's really good.
Speaker 4: I don't know why there isn't. Just like a dut
Speaker 4: dout dut.
Speaker 1: And then if you want to zoom out and do
Speaker 1: your let me tell you about my values and where
Speaker 1: I come from and why these are the things that
Speaker 1: I believe in and committed to. That's fine, But you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to nitpick here. But I do think
Speaker 1: this is the one piece that is really missing for
Speaker 1: a lot of voters, even a lot of voters who
Speaker 1: watched the debate and were like, she did way better
Speaker 1: than Trump, and I cannot stand Trump, and she made
Speaker 1: him look like a fool, and he made himself look
Speaker 1: like a fool.
Speaker 4: But I really still want to.
Speaker 1: Get that core of like who are you and what
Speaker 1: specifically are you committed to doing on day one.
Speaker 4: For some reason, this is the most difficult question for her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, well, I mean I think there's a
Speaker 2: when you say why, I think the answer is is
Speaker 2: that she doesn't believe it. These are things or she
Speaker 2: doesn't believe anything, And that's actually the number one knock
Speaker 2: against her. She's so used to having to lean into
Speaker 2: her identity and others that it appears to be the
Speaker 2: default answer. Keep in mind, this is only a ten
Speaker 2: minute interview and we gave you, literally, I guess, to
Speaker 2: the highlights. But the point that you're making is that
Speaker 2: if you calibrate to what And this is where I
Speaker 2: always say with Americans, like, look, you could say a
Speaker 2: lot about our country, but people genuinely into it and
Speaker 2: cut to the truth very quickly in a way that
Speaker 2: a lot of pundits are not able to. They are like, listen,
Speaker 2: I think you are better than Trump character wise. I
Speaker 2: probably trust you a little bit more on a few
Speaker 2: different things. But what are you actually going to do?
Speaker 2: That was the number one question amongst all of those
Speaker 2: swing voters. I do not know what she stands for?
Speaker 2: And this is a Hillary esque mistake. Hillary made her
Speaker 2: campaign all about her and also being about not Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Where here with Kamala she's personalizing her story. Again, Fine,
Speaker 2: if you're maybe giving a campaign speech or something.
Speaker 3: But this is a direct question about prices.
Speaker 2: I do think again that the major problem is like
Speaker 2: she doesn't believe things, or she has a the copy
Speaker 2: and paste from her campaign website from the Joe Biden
Speaker 2: campaign promises it does tell you something. She's got the
Speaker 2: Biden people on her staff. Maybe she does believe it,
Speaker 2: if you were to say generally, but the deep specifics,
Speaker 2: the preparation, this is exactly why she doesn't do a
Speaker 2: lot of these So, I mean not I don't find
Speaker 2: it mystifying in that this is kind of how she's
Speaker 2: always been. It also is concerning just from a general
Speaker 2: like candidate level, where we know that you can deliver
Speaker 2: a decent performance if you want, like at the debate.
Speaker 2: So do you just not think or prepare for these things?
Speaker 2: And if you do, is this really the best that
Speaker 2: you can come up with? This was very old school
Speaker 2: behavior from her. I thought for her it really is
Speaker 2: all about preparation. When she really takes something serious locks in,
Speaker 2: she can be fantastic. I mean, she was fantastic in
Speaker 2: that debate. She I have watched it now two times
Speaker 2: and it is amazing. She does exactly what she wants
Speaker 2: to do in that debate, in every single answer, it
Speaker 2: was masterful in a way. But when she doesn't lock
Speaker 2: in and preparees much, then you get, you know, a
Speaker 2: very sort of middling and stumbling performance like this. And
Speaker 2: you know, to go back to this piece because I've
Speaker 2: been thinking about this, because you look at Trump, like
Speaker 2: his answer on healthcare in the debate was I have
Speaker 2: concepts of a plan.
Speaker 4: His answer when he.
Speaker 1: Got asked about childcare was utterly incomprehensible and somehow involved
Speaker 1: like Avantee and Marco Rubio and tariffs, and was like
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? But people have a sense
Speaker 1: of what makes Trump tick, like the things that he
Speaker 1: actually has a consistent passion for, like immigration is one
Speaker 1: of them. Like you may not know the specifics of
Speaker 1: what he actually will do on immigration, you know, is
Speaker 1: he actually going to do the mass deportation He didn't
Speaker 1: last time around, but he did some other stuff that
Speaker 1: I found pretty terrible, But you know that is core
Speaker 1: to him, without even getting the white paper and really
Speaker 1: knowing all the details of how it's gonna work. And
Speaker 1: I think Tariff's yeah, you could also put into that
Speaker 1: bucket as well. You know, you look at like a
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders, like you know what that man is all about.
Speaker 1: You know what he's thinking about when he gets up,
Speaker 1: you know what he's thinking about when he goes to bed. So,
Speaker 1: even to go back to your Hillary Clinton comparison, like
Speaker 1: Hillary had all kinds of white papers, and she wouldn't
Speaker 1: have flubbed that answer like Okay, what are you going
Speaker 1: to do to bring down costs? She would have wrapped
Speaker 1: off or like here's my plan and here's my white paper,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But again on that like you know,
Speaker 1: examination of the soul, people would be like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I don't know what really drives her outside of her
Speaker 1: own ambition. And so Kamala Harris has a similar issue,
Speaker 1: not just because she's changed her position. Okay, Drums changed
Speaker 1: his positions a lot. You're allowed to change your position,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you've got new information, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But when you could when you add that together with
Speaker 1: this sense of like I don't know what the thing
Speaker 1: is for you, like I don't know what is what
Speaker 1: is driving you in the political realm outside of your
Speaker 1: own desire to be in this office. I think that's
Speaker 1: where where it continues to be the biggest question mark
Speaker 1: for her honestly at this point, and you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know that it's really fixable. The only advice I
Speaker 1: could give to them is just like pick something with
Speaker 1: childcare housing, Like just pick something and just relentlessly talk
Speaker 1: about it. Just fake it like that's your passion, you know,
Speaker 1: and no one's buying this. Small business is my passion.
Speaker 4: By the way, it's not small business. It's clearly not
Speaker 4: your passion.
Speaker 1: But yeah, pick something, lean into it, talk about it
Speaker 1: a lot, feign some passion. That's probably the best she
Speaker 1: could do, because that's the piece that's really missing. And
Speaker 1: then it becomes blatantly obvious in a question like this
Speaker 1: or the ones she got from Dana Bash what's your
Speaker 1: day one agenda that she similarly kind of fumbled around
Speaker 1: with or eventually yes landing on her policy proposals, but
Speaker 1: didn't have that burning like this is the number one
Speaker 1: goal of the next administration, at least not that came
Speaker 1: across in that interview.
Speaker 2: I think that's a very as dude answer. People in
Speaker 2: general are pretty good at intuiting what makes people tick.
Speaker 2: I guarantee people who watch the show knows what the
Speaker 2: two of us makes us tick. And what there's a
Speaker 2: lot of passion in But that's important. People can intuit
Speaker 2: something in the way that you can with anybody, your boss,
Speaker 2: or anybody who you're looking at or you're watching. So
Speaker 2: what we see here with Kamala is that tick answer.
Speaker 2: When you're not immediately burning to do something, then it
Speaker 2: does tell us that it's almost kicks in, like oh,
Speaker 2: I should probably now mention my three million new homes.
Speaker 2: But she didn't actually answer that question about prices. She
Speaker 2: didn't really say the word inflation. She didn't acknowledge necessarily
Speaker 2: pain that people are in or try to paint a
Speaker 2: bigger picture.
Speaker 3: It started with herself.
Speaker 2: You got basically you're trying to dance around the issue,
Speaker 2: but you're not actually zeroing in.
Speaker 3: And voters understand that.
Speaker 2: So if she loses, a big part of this will
Speaker 2: be why because people felt, at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I didn't truly understand what she was going to do
Speaker 2: for me. Trump also really does benefit from the fact
Speaker 2: that he was president and people have a lot of
Speaker 2: rose colored glasses about what those four years were, Like
Speaker 2: I mean rose colored. It almost implies that they're incorrect.
Speaker 2: They remember fondly what prices, gas and all other stuff
Speaker 2: looked like under the Trump administration, and they feel there's
Speaker 2: been a lot of chaos and price inflation since then.
Speaker 3: That is just empirical, it's reality.
Speaker 2: Kamalin needs actually do a good job to try and
Speaker 2: actually diminish those colored glasses and say no, remember the chaos,
Speaker 2: and he's actually bringing that. He only cares about himself,
Speaker 2: often the best hit that she had on him during
Speaker 2: the debate. So in general, this is why she won't
Speaker 2: do the interviews. But I mean, well, actually, you know,
Speaker 2: I apologize. She will do one more interview. Whether it's
Speaker 2: an actual interview, we'll see.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So this is and this is kind of funny.
Speaker 1: So she's doing this live event with Oprah Winfrey. We
Speaker 1: can put this up on the screen. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a campaign function, it's not it's not a real interview.
Speaker 1: But she's doing what's described as a live stream rally
Speaker 1: with Oprah Winfrey, who of course endorsed Kamala and spoke
Speaker 1: at the DNC.
Speaker 4: She gets her speech.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, it was like very cliched, but because
Speaker 1: she's Oprah, she like made it work. You know, she
Speaker 1: just has so much charisma that you're like, I want
Speaker 1: to hear what you are saying, even when it's just
Speaker 1: a bunch of problem political cliches.
Speaker 4: But anyway, you know.
Speaker 1: I think the strategy basically makes sense, and she's done
Speaker 1: enough now to lower the temperature on the like when
Speaker 1: are you going to sit for an interview? When are
Speaker 1: you going to sit for an interview when you know
Speaker 1: you need to sit for an interview. She's done a
Speaker 1: couple like local news, like the one we just showed
Speaker 1: you that was a Philadelphia local news journalist. I think
Speaker 1: she did a radio interview like. She's done a few
Speaker 1: things enough for them to be able to point to
Speaker 1: to be like, see, she's accessible and it's not her wheelhouse.
Speaker 1: She does much better in a rally situation with the
Speaker 1: prompt red to go. Trump is giving her a tremendous
Speaker 1: gift if he sticks by his I don't want a
Speaker 1: debate again, although you know, given how well she performed
Speaker 1: in the first one, I don't think she should necessarily
Speaker 1: be afraid of a second debate either, although I think
Speaker 1: it would be difficult for her to match her performance
Speaker 1: there and for Trump to match the low of his
Speaker 1: performance there as well.
Speaker 4: But you know, I think.
Speaker 1: They basically are correct that this is probably the right
Speaker 1: strategy given the candidate that they have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think that's correct.
Speaker 2: I think at the end of the day, we now
Speaker 2: know who she is and Americans at this point are
Speaker 2: they're going to have to make their peace with it
Speaker 2: or not.
Speaker 3: And that's risky. That's really what it is.
Speaker 6: Is.
Speaker 2: Poll after Pole tells us that this is a risky strategy,
Speaker 2: that this is difficult. A lot of the ball is
Speaker 2: actually in Trump's court to see how he is going
Speaker 2: to do this. Is he going to seize the narrative
Speaker 2: and is he going going to try and put it
Speaker 2: in more advantageous directions for him? In that contrast and
Speaker 2: the way that he takes press questions or even in
Speaker 2: terms of the issues that are highlight here or not.
Speaker 2: The less that it is about him personally, and the
Speaker 2: more that it's going to be about issues than that
Speaker 2: contrast on Kamala will be difficult because it will remind
Speaker 2: people that she doesn't necessarily stand for anything. But you know,
Speaker 2: it really comes back to how Kamala too, is going
Speaker 2: to is she just going to continue this Oprah Winfrey
Speaker 2: kind of vibes strategy. Look, some of the polls are
Speaker 2: in her favor. There's been a lot of decent ones
Speaker 2: that have come out for her in the last couple
Speaker 2: of days, Pennsylvania actually showing her up by a couple
Speaker 2: of points. So it is highly possible that this is
Speaker 2: exactly what is that this is exactly the way that
Speaker 2: she does win the election, and that also demonstrates both
Speaker 2: her strengths and weaknesses as a candidate, and very very
Speaker 2: much so. What I think at previous more than anything,
Speaker 2: is she is going to struggle in the presidency. You
Speaker 2: can not get away with this when you are president.
Speaker 2: Just at a baseline, even if you try to keep
Speaker 2: the press away, look at Biden, they did their best.
Speaker 2: You will be revealed. The job genuinely requires it. Even
Speaker 2: if you're trying not to do a press conference. One day,
Speaker 2: you're going to be sitting with five European leaders and
Speaker 2: you're going to have a dementia incident.
Speaker 3: And wander off to go look at a parachute, and.
Speaker 2: America is gonna be like, what the hell is going
Speaker 2: off over here? So buckle up because that is not
Speaker 2: going to be good for you if you win the job.
Speaker 4: So Trump obviously did himself.
Speaker 1: He meant the big opportunity in the debate to make
Speaker 1: this race a you know, a contract or even a
Speaker 1: referendum on Kamala Harris and Joe Biden versus a referendum
Speaker 1: on the most negative parts of himself. Kamala Harris wants
Speaker 1: to use the debate to shift the focus to him
Speaker 1: into the parts of his personality that people find to
Speaker 1: be the most odious, and she succeeded overwhelmingly. You know,
Speaker 1: at this point, it's undeniable when you look at the
Speaker 1: polling ship post debate, when you look at the number
Speaker 1: of people who said they thought she won the debate,
Speaker 1: including a significant chunk of Republicans, when you look at
Speaker 1: her favorability ratings going up and Trump's going down post debate,
Speaker 1: when you look at, you know, how people felt they
Speaker 1: answered questions on the very issues. So it's you know,
Speaker 1: the verdict is fairly clear in terms of how that
Speaker 1: debate went for Donald Trump. And one of the people
Speaker 1: who noted this was Joe Rogan who made some interesting
Speaker 1: comments about how he thought this debate went.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 7: Did you watch the debate?
Speaker 6: Brod forgot?
Speaker 7: Let me tell you before I say anything, I just
Speaker 7: want to say, whoever's helping her, whoever's coaching her, whoever's
Speaker 7: the puppet master run the strings. Yeah, you had a
Speaker 7: fucking amazing job. Say job, they did an amazing job.
Speaker 7: From the moment Biden drops out, forcing Biden to drop
Speaker 7: out right, whatever they're doing, whoever's writing those speeches, getting
Speaker 7: her deliverum, coaching her, she's nailing it. She nailed that
Speaker 7: one speech.
Speaker 4: She's like, say it to my family, Yeah, she nailed it.
Speaker 7: And then last night to me when I was like,
Speaker 7: oh my god, this is jiu jitsu, where she was like,
Speaker 7: if you go to his rallies, his crowds are boring,
Speaker 7: attired crowds are the best crowds. I have the number
Speaker 7: one crowd.
Speaker 6: He couldn't help himself.
Speaker 8: And she got him.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, it's so obvious what happened.
Speaker 4: And they really like even more than.
Speaker 1: The content preparation, it was as somebody else said this
Speaker 1: that I'm borrowing from, but it was like a psychological
Speaker 1: preparation for exactly what was going to get him where
Speaker 1: he couldn't resist.
Speaker 4: And it truly is an amazing moment.
Speaker 1: When she gets asked this difficult question about immigration, she
Speaker 1: does a little you know, blah, blah blah. I prosecuted
Speaker 1: transnational gangs, et cetera, et cetera. But let's talk about
Speaker 1: his rallies. The moderator, David Muir comes back to him
Speaker 1: and actually asked him a follow up question on immigration,
Speaker 1: and he says.
Speaker 4: I'll get to that, but I got to talk about
Speaker 4: the rallies.
Speaker 1: And from there on out, she had him dancing to
Speaker 1: whatever beat she wanted him to dance to. And I've
Speaker 1: never seen anything like it, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: where it was so clear what her strategy was and
Speaker 1: it was executed well, but where he just could not
Speaker 1: resist taking the bait and doing exactly what she wanted
Speaker 1: him to do. In every instance, it was unbelievable to
Speaker 1: watch it unfold.
Speaker 2: The Rogan check in is an important one because you know, look,
Speaker 2: Joe is no lover of Kamala. He also is generally
Speaker 2: like more apolitical and is just an observer. Tom Segura
Speaker 2: as well, who these people are comedians. So you know,
Speaker 2: in a sense, I like to hear the same thing
Speaker 2: where you and I are political nerds.
Speaker 3: Like you said you watched it twice.
Speaker 2: I mean we're looking at every detail and trying to
Speaker 2: parse or trying to find something, but it is validating
Speaker 2: in the sense that the casual observer is like, man,
Speaker 2: she really got him on that. And the rally size,
Speaker 2: I mean, we shouldn't forget that became a meme in
Speaker 2: this country. If we remember the whole Sean Spicer thing,
Speaker 2: Melissa McCarthy, it was the first time SNL was relevant
Speaker 2: in like twenty years. People were actually sharing the skit,
Speaker 2: the podium stuff. I mean, it was a national story
Speaker 2: and people were laughing. I remember too, traveling around in
Speaker 2: November twenty seventeen and everyone was joking about the rally
Speaker 2: stuff and with Sean Spice or who's a household name,
Speaker 2: And I started to think about that and I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: you know, you forget too that these memetic incidents become
Speaker 2: imprinted in a way that the normal person can laugh.
Speaker 3: Because what does it illustrate.
Speaker 2: It illustrates Trump's weakest link, which is his own narcissism
Speaker 2: in the center of self. And worse is it amplifies
Speaker 2: the consistent democratic message of he doesn't care about you,
Speaker 2: he only cares about himself. So he really is at
Speaker 2: his best when he's fired up about immigration or tariffs,
Speaker 2: because at least there it's about something that has to
Speaker 2: do with US policy, or about opposition to US elites
Speaker 2: with rally size.
Speaker 3: There's no pretending it's literally just about you. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's the problem.
Speaker 1: Well, he's both at his best and worse apparently when
Speaker 1: it comes to immigration because the pets thing.
Speaker 4: We won't get back into the big debate we had yesterday,
Speaker 4: but I mean.
Speaker 1: I think you more or less agree that it didn't
Speaker 1: work out. It's not going to work out for them politically.
Speaker 1: And I saw more polling yesterday that even a like
Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of Republican and said that the pets dogs
Speaker 1: cats saying comments were quote unquote weird, which again is
Speaker 1: what Democrats want the public to be thinking about Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and JD. Van So even when he was on
Speaker 1: his topic of choice, he didn't use the time to
Speaker 1: talk about it in a way that is appealing to
Speaker 1: the people that might be won over. He used it,
Speaker 1: you know, in a way that fed into a democratic
Speaker 1: narrative about the ticket and sparked an entire you know,
Speaker 1: we won't go back over it, but I think I
Speaker 1: made my views on this pretty clear yesterday.
Speaker 2: The debate has been there in terms of the polling
Speaker 2: My thing is, I think you're probably right.
Speaker 3: I just have no idea.
Speaker 2: I just because of Kasir Khan, because of access Hollywood,
Speaker 2: because of living through these moments where they're like this there,
Speaker 2: this is going to get him.
Speaker 3: Charlottesville is never going to happen. All of this.
Speaker 4: I'm just you know, Charlottesville was bad for him, though.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Charlottesville was a big part of
Speaker 1: why he ends up losing in twenty twenty. His approval
Speaker 1: rating took a giant hit, and I think Charlottesville January sixth,
Speaker 1: like those moments where he was truly unhinged. I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear at this point are part of why
Speaker 1: not only he lost in twenty twenty as a sitting
Speaker 1: income at president, which yet he overperformed his polls but
Speaker 1: he still lost, and why they dramatically underperformed in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, the more that it was his candidates who
Speaker 1: embraced some of these more you know, fringe, extreme outrageous
Speaker 1: moments the worst they performed. So, you know, I do
Speaker 1: think that some of the moments, it's not like nothing mattered,
Speaker 1: somethings didn't matter, because he did end up losing.
Speaker 3: Absolutely things matter. He barely lost.
Speaker 2: I just I've been burned too many times to take
Speaker 2: any of these conventional wisdom. And I genuinely A'm just
Speaker 2: a we'll see. Why don't we get to Bill Maher because.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well this is yeah exactly though this segues well
Speaker 1: to Bill Maher, who made a pretty bold prediction in
Speaker 1: his show last week.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna make this a very momentous night with a
Speaker 9: prediction because.
Speaker 6: And I think I have the credibility for this.
Speaker 9: Prediction because I have been called a Trump alarmist for
Speaker 9: a very long time.
Speaker 6: They were wrong.
Speaker 8: I was right.
Speaker 6: He wasn't going to leave power.
Speaker 9: We okay, But ever since then, and since the Hollywood
Speaker 9: Access taper, he said I'm going to grab him by
Speaker 9: the pussy, and he survived that. Every time he's been
Speaker 9: done crazy shit and gotten his stelf in trouble. I said, no, no,
Speaker 9: it's not over. I've said that. I've argued with people.
Speaker 9: Brett Stevens, my good friend. He's on the show next week.
Speaker 9: He said at one point a few years ago, the
Speaker 9: Trump thing. I said no, no, no, tonight, I'm saying
Speaker 9: I think it's over.
Speaker 6: I just want to bring up I mean, now, let's
Speaker 6: see that one person.
Speaker 9: Even before we were around, there was a guy named
Speaker 9: Joe McCarthy in the early fifties and he had a
Speaker 9: hold on America and it blew out in about two years, right,
Speaker 9: two three years. He was the biggest thing, and then
Speaker 9: it was just and I feel like eating the dogs
Speaker 9: were at this point. I think, I feel like we're
Speaker 9: at the Captain Quig with the strawberries. We're at Denzel
Speaker 9: at the end of training day. I'm a king ring
Speaker 9: up last.
Speaker 4: I just think he's gonna raise What do you think
Speaker 4: sagara about that?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, Bill's history is a little off in
Speaker 2: terms of McCarthy. McCarthy lasted a lot longer than I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not wrong. The peak was definitely there for two
Speaker 2: or three years. What Bill is alluding to is this
Speaker 2: idea of like a have you No decency Sir? Movement,
Speaker 2: which you know has been cast as the general end
Speaker 2: of McCarthyism. But the idea that he's trying to get
Speaker 2: at is that this is the official breaking point get
Speaker 2: it for the American electorate with Trump, and.
Speaker 3: I just don't see evidence of that.
Speaker 2: Also that coincide with a genuine like down spiral for McCarthy,
Speaker 2: not in the way that like, oh Trump is spiraling.
Speaker 2: He's still like, you know, it's with it. McCarthy was
Speaker 2: a literal alcoholic and came to death. Maybe I'm taking
Speaker 2: it a little bit too literally, but it is important
Speaker 2: to just think about, Like what he's trying to say
Speaker 2: is this, There was this phenomenon.
Speaker 3: It took over the whole country.
Speaker 2: It was massively popular, it had its hold on American politics,
Speaker 2: and then this was the breaking moment. People at the
Speaker 2: time intuited actually that that probably was the end. And
Speaker 2: I don't intuit that yet, just because I can't when
Speaker 2: the man still has a toss up fifty to fifty
Speaker 2: chance of being elected president of the United States again,
Speaker 2: and if we look and we at the polling and
Speaker 2: how much closer he is today, the possibility of his
Speaker 2: victory looms larger than it did in twenty twenty and
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: So I just don't think it's really as accurate.
Speaker 2: But look, maybe Bill is right. If Trump loses by
Speaker 2: five by five points like nationally, which I don't think
Speaker 2: will happen but as possible, then yeah, absolutely, But I'm
Speaker 2: not really sure we're there yet.
Speaker 1: Here's what I find compelling. I don't you know, I
Speaker 1: don't look to Bill Maher to like have his finger
Speaker 1: on the pulse of the country at this point in
Speaker 1: his trajectory.
Speaker 4: I don't think anyone should.
Speaker 1: You know, what actually stuck with me from our debate
Speaker 1: night coverage Soccer was the point that you made about
Speaker 1: how now we know how he's going to spiral, right,
Speaker 1: He's gonna double down on the Laura Loomers and Corey Lewandowski,
Speaker 1: the people that the Chris Lasovita and the Susie Wilds
Speaker 1: are going to be on the ounce. Whether they, you know,
Speaker 1: get actually fired or he just doesn't listen to them anymore,
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter in terms of the outcome. And he's
Speaker 1: losing time to reset this race, and I think he
Speaker 1: does need to reset this race. There's another pull out
Speaker 1: this morning Morning Consult that has Coma with a six
Speaker 1: point national lead. That's a that's a doubling in her
Speaker 1: national lead with that particular Polster post debate, and with
Speaker 1: the exception of one pole, that's been a pretty consistent
Speaker 1: post debate trend. Now you could say, okay, well, that
Speaker 1: you know, might be a temporary bump. Sure, but you
Speaker 1: have to see some sort of evidence that your opponent
Speaker 1: is going to be able to adjust and shift. And
Speaker 1: all we've seen is the contrary is him, you know,
Speaker 1: going in on his worst instincts, surrounding himself with the
Speaker 1: worst possible people he could surround himself with. And again,
Speaker 1: like some people in some states are literally voting now,
Speaker 1: it is September seventeenth, you know, it is very short
Speaker 1: period of time before election day.
Speaker 4: Trump himself has closed the door.
Speaker 1: And again this shows the foolishness of his tactics to
Speaker 1: another debate. He's out, you know, tweeting how much he
Speaker 1: hates Taylor Swift, et cetera, et cetera. So it's more,
Speaker 1: I it's hard for me to see how he adjusts
Speaker 1: and is able to make a more compelling case. Then
Speaker 1: you know that this one moment or this one instant
Speaker 1: incident is going to be the thing. And then I
Speaker 1: also just look like, you know, he won in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen and it was shocking, right, and the poles were
Speaker 1: wrong and it was crazy, et cetera, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: ever since then, like you know, there's this sense that
Speaker 1: he's just got some sort of political magic that nobody
Speaker 1: else understands. But if you just look flat at the record,
Speaker 1: they did poorly in twenty eighteen, he lost in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: they did poorly in twenty twenty two, and now here
Speaker 1: you are in twenty twenty four, and it's hard to
Speaker 1: see what's different. And it's easy to see that he
Speaker 1: is not the same candidate he was in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: He's lost a step in terms of his co personal coherence,
Speaker 1: and he is aging, although not as like noticeably as Biden.
Speaker 1: And he's lost a step in terms of his sense
Speaker 1: of the electorate and having his finger on the pulse.
Speaker 1: So that's why you know, I don't think Bill Maher
Speaker 1: is entirely off face to sense this as a pivot point,
Speaker 1: because it was one of the best opportunities for Trump
Speaker 1: to really seize the narrative in this race in a
Speaker 1: way that benefits him, and he utterly failed to do it.
Speaker 2: Very possible, Crystal, he also did that. To return to
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, he surrounded himself with loyalists. All the Republicans
Speaker 2: denounced him. Everybody said he was going to lose what
Speaker 2: was Kelly Aott and others were like nope, I'm unindorsing him.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna write in Mitt Romney and he won.
Speaker 2: So the problem too that Trump learned actually from that time,
Speaker 2: and part of the reason I said that is he
Speaker 2: has learned to actually trust his instincts. He has learned
Speaker 2: that his base instincts, on top of surrounding himself by loyalists,
Speaker 2: can and often does pay off for him. Now, obviously
Speaker 2: that did not work in twenty twenty, and that's part
Speaker 2: of the reason the January sixth insanity was as bad
Speaker 2: as it was. And I'm not talking about the actual
Speaker 2: riot at the Capitol. I'm talking about Mike Lindell and
Speaker 2: the Overstock CEO in the Oval office with Sidney Powell
Speaker 2: doing the whole fake elect or stuff.
Speaker 5: That was.
Speaker 2: Honestly, that's way worse in my opinion, just not only
Speaker 2: in terms of what the overall effect would have been.
Speaker 2: That's actually if you look, is what he's being charged
Speaker 2: with federally. And so this it's been a downside, it's
Speaker 2: been an upside, but it's one where how old is
Speaker 2: he seventy nine maybe seventy eight. He's not going to change.
Speaker 2: That's why I made that prediction. So you know, either
Speaker 2: things will go like they did in twenty sixteen. But
Speaker 2: it is very possible that Bill is right, and right
Speaker 2: mostly in the sense of if he spirals that or
Speaker 2: if he continues to surround himself, if he continues to
Speaker 2: keep this strategy going in he reminds people that he
Speaker 2: reminds and shows people in the highest flagship moment of
Speaker 2: politics of his modern career, that he made it more
Speaker 2: about himself his rallies and was easily baited as opposed
Speaker 2: to talking about issues that matter. Most Americans actually are
Speaker 2: voting on issues, or at least how they feel about issues,
Speaker 2: and that will be the biggest disconnect.
Speaker 3: So both of these canons have big.
Speaker 1: Problems, and he's losing ground to her right now on
Speaker 1: who would handle the economy better, and that should be
Speaker 1: you know, he should own that space every day, all
Speaker 1: day long. There is another difference that I mentioned yesterday
Speaker 1: but I think is very significant, which is with twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: which is, however you feel about Kamala Harris, or however
Speaker 1: I feel about Kamala Harris, her favorability is pretty good.
Speaker 1: It's basically even, which you know, doesn't sound amazing, but
Speaker 1: in modern politics actually is kind of amazing, and back
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, he was running against a deeply unpopular
Speaker 1: candidate in Hillary Clinton, who had negative favorability rating of
Speaker 1: like minus sixteen, certainly in the double digits. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that that matters and is quite significant as well.
Speaker 1: I also am starting to think, you know, in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and I mean we said this at the time, so
Speaker 1: it's not like this is really a change of tune
Speaker 1: for us, but there's this narrative that's taken hold that,
Speaker 1: like Joe Biden was such an amazing, perfect candidate in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, the guy barely campaigned like he was. You know,
Speaker 1: he had the excuse of COVID, but we talked all
Speaker 1: the time about the basement strategy was like invisible for
Speaker 1: obvious reasons because his decline, while he was in a
Speaker 1: much better condition than he is today, it was already
Speaker 1: market it was already noticeable. And he did not run
Speaker 1: on any affirmative economic agenda. The good stuff that they
Speaker 1: ended up doing, he did not talk about at all
Speaker 1: in the campaign. It was purely referendum on Trump paid
Speaker 1: communications and I'm going to hide myself. And there was
Speaker 1: very little enthusiasm in favor of the Democratic ticket. All
Speaker 1: of the enthusiasm on the Democratic side was an anti
Speaker 1: Trump vote, so you know, and even that was enough
Speaker 1: to defeat Donald Trump at that point. So you know.
Speaker 1: I just I've been readjusting some of my priors about
Speaker 1: how extraordinary or powerful a political figure Donald Trump actually is,
Speaker 1: because outside of winning in twenty sixteen, the record has
Speaker 1: not been a winning one.
Speaker 2: Certainly possible, Crystal. Let's move on to mari Wana. I
Speaker 2: had to put this one in the show. Dave Portnoy
Speaker 2: kicked the hornets nest I guess on Twitter. He recently
Speaker 2: put out video endorsing the Florida Amendment three, which would
Speaker 2: legalize marijuana in the state.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: Listen, It's Sunday afternoon, football on TV. Pizza on the
Speaker 8: way in Massachusetts, smoking a little weed, just enjoying my day. Florida.
Speaker 8: You can't do this in my Miami house. You can't
Speaker 8: do this. Why freedom? It's about freedom. Half the states
Speaker 8: allow this legal marijuana. Florida. I want to be able
Speaker 8: to watch football, eat pizza, and smoke. We're all adults here.
Speaker 8: Twenty one plus. Make your own decisions. It's on the ballot.
Speaker 8: Vote yes on three. Legalize recreational weed. Come on, where
Speaker 8: are we Florida? Wake up? Wake up. Don't tell what
Speaker 8: other people want to do in their own house. We're
Speaker 8: grown adults. It's safe, it's legal. Over half the states
Speaker 8: in the country have it. Why don't we in Florida.
Speaker 8: I'm a Florida resident. I want to be able to
Speaker 8: smoke in my house, watching football, eating pizza like a human.
Speaker 8: I can do it in Massachusetts. Make it legal on
Speaker 8: ballot A vote yes on three in Florida.
Speaker 6: Thank you?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 4: Amen? Amen?
Speaker 2: Brother, Okay, this is bullshit because nobody in the state
Speaker 2: of Florida is getting arrested for smoking weed in their house.
Speaker 2: In fact, weed addicts. By the way, I put this
Speaker 2: out yesterday. If you all just stay home and eat pizza,
Speaker 2: be my guest. Nobody cares about what you do at home.
Speaker 2: When you smoke outside, whenever you smoke behind the wheel
Speaker 2: of a car because it's chill. When you smoke around
Speaker 2: children in public pararks, yeah, I think that's a problem.
Speaker 2: And that's the issue is they think that it's fine
Speaker 2: to pollute public spaces. Just light up outside. I just landed,
Speaker 2: by the way, recently, Denver airport. People next to me
Speaker 2: are smoking weed while waiting for a rental car. We
Speaker 2: need smoke weed while waiting for a rental car while
Speaker 2: we're about to break the law. Everybody just thinks it's
Speaker 2: totally fine. We get behind the wheel and they're totally intoxid. So, frankly,
Speaker 2: this is a bullshite understanding of what legal weed would
Speaker 2: mean for the state of Florida, because it's really more
Speaker 2: about public consumption and being some of us.
Speaker 3: Nobody's get at home, nobody zero.
Speaker 1: Dave Portnoy happened to believe in a little concept called freedom.
Speaker 8: There's no.
Speaker 3: One's violating your freedom at home.
Speaker 4: Zero that you don't believe in freedom, That's what's sad
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what I'm talking about, Like it's it's
Speaker 2: just total propaganda by these weedheads and uh like, who
Speaker 2: is coming to Dave Portnoy's Miami house and arresting them
Speaker 2: for marijuana they will for blowing up cocaine. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not ridiculous because that the point is that that's
Speaker 2: not actually what is happening. What's happening is it would
Speaker 2: legalize high potency THC, which would be violely a bit
Speaker 2: widely available commercially in the state.
Speaker 3: It would be a boon for big banks.
Speaker 4: It would be regulated.
Speaker 2: It would be so regulated like it is in Colorado.
Speaker 4: Teenagers regulated well more dangerous.
Speaker 2: In the state of Colorado, high potency THC is poisoning children.
Speaker 3: Er visits are up.
Speaker 2: They have massive amounts of traffic debts, and the amount
Speaker 2: of tax revenue does not even compare to what they
Speaker 2: initially promised. It is almost certainly being overwhelmed in emergency
Speaker 2: services and higher police or public safety needs.
Speaker 3: And the entire city smells like shit.
Speaker 2: So if that's the trade that you would like in Miami,
Speaker 2: in Miami Beach, in Tampa, in Jacksonville.
Speaker 3: Be by the way, I don't live in Florida. You
Speaker 3: people do whatever you want.
Speaker 2: I visit probably once a year, and I'm like, why
Speaker 2: did I come to this place exactly, So let's put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. In terms of the polls,
Speaker 2: the polls currently disagree on the fate of Florida marijuana
Speaker 2: legalization initiative. Among those who have been surveyed, sixty six
Speaker 2: percent said that they would vote yes. Only thirty three
Speaker 2: percent say say no. I will just put it on
Speaker 2: the table I don't generally make predictions. I think it
Speaker 2: is going to pass just because I think marijuana legalization
Speaker 2: is unfortunately incredibly popular, So it's.
Speaker 3: Very popular people.
Speaker 4: Most Americans agree with me and Dave Portnoy and believe
Speaker 4: in freedom.
Speaker 3: Be my guest, you want to ruin public you.
Speaker 1: Know, just a technical thing that it has to get
Speaker 1: sixty percent to pass. I believe it is the margin.
Speaker 1: And so there was one poll from Florida Atlantic University
Speaker 1: that had it at fifty six percent, but you still
Speaker 1: had some fifteen percent who said that they didn't know
Speaker 1: how they would vote on the measures.
Speaker 4: I agree with you. I think it's pretty likely little
Speaker 4: past you had.
Speaker 1: Trump come out and endorse it amount in fact it
Speaker 1: so the more interesting thing to me not that I
Speaker 1: don't always find your views on the topic.
Speaker 4: Very interesting saga, but.
Speaker 1: There is an interesting divide in the GOP coalition between
Speaker 1: the what something the phenomena you've talked about, the barstool
Speaker 1: conservatives of course being chief among them, and the JD.
Speaker 1: Vance style conservatives, who are you know, social conservatives who
Speaker 1: are deeply concerned about like degeneracy and the decline of
Speaker 1: the culture, et cetera.
Speaker 4: Et cetera.
Speaker 1: And there was a unifying and there's still to some
Speaker 1: extent is but part of what brought them together was
Speaker 1: this like backlash against democratic wokeness right and the like
Speaker 1: you know, the the PC police and the policing of
Speaker 1: word language and all that stuff, and it sort of
Speaker 1: united them because the portnoid types are like, leave me
Speaker 1: the fuck alone, like I'm gonna say what I want
Speaker 1: to say, and the JD. Vans types are like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're I don't want to use him specifically, but that
Speaker 1: genre of conservative it's not that there's so much opposed
Speaker 1: to some censorship or restrictions in their direction, but they
Speaker 1: didn't like that particular like liberal institutional wokeness being codified
Speaker 1: in corporations and those sorts of things, because it's obviously
Speaker 1: on the other side of the culture war for them.
Speaker 1: So there was like a unifying theme there. The salience
Speaker 1: of that issue, I think anyone would say, has declined.
Speaker 1: It's not a major battleground in terms of this presidential election.
Speaker 1: It's not something Trump really ever talked about. Ron Santis
Speaker 1: really leaned into it. We saw how well that worked
Speaker 1: out for him, et ceter uh. And so you're getting
Speaker 1: more instances where this divide is on display. The other
Speaker 1: one that I can think of is the abortion argument,
Speaker 1: where Pornoy came out and you know, was relatively pro
Speaker 1: choice in his commentary, and there was again a backlash
Speaker 1: against him from more of the like you know, social
Speaker 1: conservative Jandie Vance wing of the party. And so that's
Speaker 1: that's actually what's interesting to me here about some of
Speaker 1: the backlash of poor Noy's comments is exposive a fissure
Speaker 1: between the social conservatives and the barstool conservatives within the
Speaker 1: GOP coalition that hadn't been on huge display until you know, recently.
Speaker 2: Let me take off my own hat and be descriptive.
Speaker 2: They're obviously more popular, like ten times more. And in fact,
Speaker 2: this is the issue is that by you mean the
Speaker 2: barcal people I said this, I look, I think barstool
Speaker 2: conservatism will be the future. I think that is exactly
Speaker 2: what the GOP will eventually look like. There will have
Speaker 2: to be some sis to Soljia moment on abortion or
Speaker 2: the abortion abortion question will be just resolved Democrats whenever
Speaker 2: they nationalize it, and the pro life people can shut
Speaker 2: up forever after that period. It's very likely that this
Speaker 2: is the direction that things will trend just because it's
Speaker 2: way more popular.
Speaker 3: People are a lot more secular. They don't like telling
Speaker 3: people what to do.
Speaker 2: And if you notice, like, for example, let's put the
Speaker 2: other side of who these people might have in terms
Speaker 2: of their political talent, like Ron DeSantis. Yeah, Ron de
Speaker 2: Santas is popular in Florida, but he lost massively in
Speaker 2: the GOP primary. And listen to the way that he
Speaker 2: talks about the issue. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3: This is just yesterday.
Speaker 10: And what I tell people is your default on amending
Speaker 10: the Constitution should be no right. They should have to
Speaker 10: prove to you a really high bar why you would
Speaker 10: put something in the constitution which effectively can't be changed.
Speaker 10: Same thing with this Amendment three. You know the Amendment three.
Speaker 10: The media will refer to it as marijuana recreational legalization.
Speaker 10: That's not entirely true. It's a partial legalization because this
Speaker 10: has been put in by basically one big weed company
Speaker 10: that spents seventy five eighty million dollars. And yes, they
Speaker 10: write in there that you have a right to possess
Speaker 10: and use up to three ounces of marion, which the
Speaker 10: law enforcement tells me maybe fifty to one hundred joints,
Speaker 10: so that's more than any other state in the country.
Speaker 10: So they're putting that in the constitution. So yes, you
Speaker 10: do have that right, but only if you buy it
Speaker 10: from them. You can't grow it in your backyard. You
Speaker 10: got to buy it from them. So they're creating in
Speaker 10: our constitution a big weed cartel. And not only that,
Speaker 10: they're giving themselves protection from any civil liability at all
Speaker 10: at any point in the distribution or cultivation process. That's
Speaker 10: not in the ballot summary.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, empirically, he's right, but that's like the
Speaker 2: most boring way that you could possibly address this.
Speaker 1: Well, It's also what I took note of is like
Speaker 1: when you just argued against it, you went at it
Speaker 1: directly basically like this is bad, and here's why you
Speaker 1: can fell. He knows he's on losing grounds because he
Speaker 1: makes all these like proced vidural arguments about like well
Speaker 1: maybe we should mess with the constitution, you know, which
Speaker 1: again isn't a weed specific argument. It's just like a
Speaker 1: you know, appeal to sort of tradition and sense of
Speaker 1: people's fear of change. Then he does this kind of
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu and like, oh, well, this is really a
Speaker 1: giveaway to corporations. None of it is a direct argument
Speaker 1: against the thing that people are actually voting on. And
Speaker 1: so to me, it's very telling that he knows he's
Speaker 1: looking at these full numbers. He knows he's on not
Speaker 1: on you know, solid grounds here in terms of public opinion,
Speaker 1: which is why he has to do all of these
Speaker 1: sort of ancillary arguments rather than making a direct appeal
Speaker 1: as you did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, I mean this is part of the problem.
Speaker 2: Let's continue in this vein. Let's put the next one
Speaker 2: up on the screen. Matt Walsh put out a tweet says,
Speaker 2: can you point to any state or city where life
Speaker 2: has been in anywhere measurably improved after legalizing marijuana? Where
Speaker 2: are the success st is? Just give me one please.
Speaker 2: But Jason Whitlock, you know, kind of also crystallizing what
Speaker 2: you're talking about here. This is why single people and
Speaker 2: people with hout kids shouldn't vote. We to think selfishly,
Speaker 2: with no concern to what we're leaving the next generation.
Speaker 2: Married people with kids should be the only voters. We
Speaker 2: should prioritize families. We want to fix our broken culture.
Speaker 2: Maybe you can agree or you can disagree, but that's
Speaker 2: not popular. I'll just put it that way, and that's
Speaker 2: the issue. We have to live in the realm of
Speaker 2: representative democracy. So look, you're correct. I made a very
Speaker 2: fourth right argument about it. But a lot of people
Speaker 2: don't even want to talk about the issue or get
Speaker 2: into this whole like, oh, people, kids shouldn't vote. The
Speaker 2: truth is that Portnoy is like a hedonist individualist. I
Speaker 2: would hope he does not take exception to that, because
Speaker 2: I would say, that's descriptive, that's not necessarily a bad thing,
Speaker 2: that's a very popular thing. It's a very American character.
Speaker 2: Actually I don't necessarily agree with it whenever it comes
Speaker 2: to marijuana, but descriptively, it is so obvious to me
Speaker 2: that things are going in that direction. It also is why,
Speaker 2: for example, Portnoy you know, went after JD. Vance about
Speaker 2: this idea of like having higher taxes or whatever for
Speaker 2: people who are seeing goal why he also but also
Speaker 2: why it's very important remember that he was pro Trump
Speaker 2: in twenty and fifteen, not for policy positions, for quote
Speaker 2: telling it like it is. And so I always pointed
Speaker 2: that I think is a very important precursor of where
Speaker 2: politics and all of that will trend how someone can
Speaker 2: be simultaneously pro choice and also like pro Trump.
Speaker 3: Anti woke left and all that.
Speaker 2: It seems incoherent if you think about politics in a
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety sense, but in a twenty twenty four cents,
Speaker 2: I actually think it's starting to make perfect sense.
Speaker 1: Fortnite really is sort of the living embodiment of the
Speaker 1: antithesis of JD. Vance's politics.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1: Putting aside, you know, whatever policy proposals he puts out there,
Speaker 1: which you know I am. For example, on child tax credit, right,
Speaker 1: they had a child tax credit vote in the Senate
Speaker 1: and he didn't bother his show up for it. He
Speaker 1: certainly didn't like lead the charge to reinstate the child
Speaker 1: tax credit after the after it expired, you know, from
Speaker 1: the the COVID era provisions, et cetera. And I think,
Speaker 1: and you can tell me Zaga, because you know him
Speaker 1: and his ideology better than I do, that it's because
Speaker 1: he doesn't actually believe that policy is really central to
Speaker 1: the goals that he wants to accomplish.
Speaker 4: It's more about.
Speaker 1: Using culture to kind of enforce a certain cultural lifestyle
Speaker 1: that he thinks is the ideal based on his experience,
Speaker 1: his childhood, his religion, et cetera. And so you know,
Speaker 1: when Jadie Vance is out there talking about like we
Speaker 1: need to punish the childless or we need to you know,
Speaker 1: or flirting with this idea that Woodlock puts down there
Speaker 1: that hey, you know, your vote should count more if
Speaker 1: you have kids than if you don't, it's exactly because
Speaker 1: he thinks very negatively about the lifestyle of that Dave
Speaker 1: Portnoy has chosen, and he thinks that that should be
Speaker 1: effectively shamed. And I don't not try to use that
Speaker 1: like in an overly pejorative way, but effectively shamed out
Speaker 1: of existence or minimized. And yes, policy is one lever
Speaker 1: for that, but it's not just about rewarding people with families.
Speaker 1: It's about actively, like trying to disincentivize the lifestyle of
Speaker 1: Dave Portnoy.
Speaker 4: And so that's, you know, part of what I was
Speaker 4: thinking about.
Speaker 1: When you're hearing him talk about this and the way
Speaker 1: he's approaching to smoke of the blunt on the camera
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's like very weird that that person and
Speaker 1: Jade Vance exist in the same party, because they are
Speaker 1: diametrically opposed.
Speaker 4: In their view of the world and their approach to politics.
Speaker 2: I would the only thing I would really quibble is
Speaker 2: that it's not about culture to culture, it's actually about
Speaker 2: policy to culture. Like so for example, this whole like
Speaker 2: child tax credit debate, it's not about the child tax
Speaker 2: credit on its face, it's about increasing well First of all,
Speaker 2: it's actually about winning an intra party fight as opposed
Speaker 2: to working with the left, as in it needs to
Speaker 2: be a victory within the Republican Party to try and
Speaker 2: get them to vote for it, as opposed to working
Speaker 2: with the left to get something done. Second, is really,
Speaker 2: I mean really is about It's it's difficult to call
Speaker 2: it social engineering because also like leftist policy is also
Speaker 2: a form of social engineering. Like if you have a
Speaker 2: child tax the major disagreement at least between ProChile tax
Speaker 2: credit people on the right and left, is whether you
Speaker 2: should have means tests or single mothers like that is,
Speaker 2: if you do, that's a form of social engineering. If
Speaker 2: you don't, that's also a form of engineering. The point
Speaker 2: is is that it's about using tax policy to create
Speaker 2: a society that you have an objective view is the
Speaker 2: ideal way that you should live, and that if anything
Speaker 2: really describes like the major difference with Portnoyism or type
Speaker 2: of people who might be like him and JD is
Speaker 2: that like Portanoiism is really, like I said, it's about
Speaker 2: individuality libertarian. It is deeply socially and economically libertarian. Right,
Speaker 2: So it's just it's about small business, it's about individuality,
Speaker 2: it's about maximizing the ability of this self to achieve
Speaker 2: whatever it desires, as opposed to more of like a
Speaker 2: Judeo Christian way that JD would look at it, or
Speaker 2: even there's non religious ways to look at it too,
Speaker 2: which is like, no, the family is the individual. Unit
Speaker 2: is the unit which should be maximized, not the individual.
Speaker 2: That's a long time debate in America. Actually, it's a
Speaker 2: big divide not just between social libertarian and Republican or
Speaker 2: even conservatives, but Christians and non Christians or secular there's
Speaker 2: various secular debates like within this. So that's kind of
Speaker 2: the way that I've been looking at this. But I
Speaker 2: have no doubt that Portnoy and his vision or not
Speaker 2: even vision, his lifestyle like what he perpetuates and all
Speaker 2: that that is more popular amongst men today. I don't
Speaker 2: think that's necessarily a good thing, but I'm not stupid.
Speaker 2: I know where things are trending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I just I guess with JD. And I
Speaker 1: am interested your thought if this is accurate. You know,
Speaker 1: he talks a lot about, you know, the goals of
Speaker 1: family creation and centering the family, and you know, making
Speaker 1: it more difficult to get out of marriages, and you know.
Speaker 4: That that might be important bed rock.
Speaker 3: And I don't know religion it I know people around
Speaker 3: him have said it.
Speaker 1: He didn't, but anyway, yeah, I mean, he he has
Speaker 1: floated that it perhaps would be better if people had
Speaker 1: a more difficult time getting out of divorces. But in
Speaker 1: any case, but he doesn't talk a lot about He
Speaker 1: leans into the goals, but he doesn't talk a lot
Speaker 1: about the specific policies. And perhaps that's because, you know,
Speaker 1: it would be difficult to sign on to some of
Speaker 1: those policies in a Republican context, because some of them
Speaker 1: just sound like, you know, lefty progressive policies. But I
Speaker 1: suspect it's more about he is not afraid of using
Speaker 1: government to push in the direction that he wants to see,
Speaker 1: in the anti Portnoy direction, we'll say, but he believe
Speaker 1: he's more in the power of culture to change the
Speaker 1: things that he wants to change. And by the way,
Speaker 1: he's not necessarily wrong about that we were talking before.
Speaker 1: You know, if your goal is to increase the birth rate,
Speaker 1: which is one of his goals, if you have this
Speaker 1: like pro natalist approach and you look around the world,
Speaker 1: there's literally nowhere that any policy has actually worked to
Speaker 1: achieve that goal, and so then you have to look
Speaker 1: at Okay, well, then we need a more religious society
Speaker 1: where it's like, you know, a religious goal like part
Speaker 1: of your whole ethos, and culture is centered around kids
Speaker 1: and family versus a government prescription. And so that's that's
Speaker 1: my sense, that's my evolving sense of why he actually
Speaker 1: isn't all that interested in policies because he thinks cultural
Speaker 1: impetus and you know, pushing in an anti portnite direction
Speaker 1: is probably a more.
Speaker 4: Effective way to go. And why so interested in like
Speaker 4: the culture war over the sort of economic pieces that
Speaker 4: he sometimes talks about.
Speaker 2: That's not my sense, just because a lot of his
Speaker 2: staff are look Matt Iglesias today said, my sense amongst
Speaker 2: Democrats is that he has the most serious policy staff
Speaker 2: amongst Republicans on the Hill.
Speaker 3: So I don't think that's true. In fact, I think
Speaker 3: he's very well versed in policy.
Speaker 2: I think part of the reason you don't necessarily want
Speaker 2: to take a policy position is because it can be
Speaker 2: unpopular within your own party, and maybe you learn a
Speaker 2: thing or two from Donald Trump and Kamala Is. Hey,
Speaker 2: you know, the more breathing space you give yourself, the better.
Speaker 2: I would also say this, he's not the principle you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, He's learned the hard way on
Speaker 2: abortionne Like if you were running his own campaign, I
Speaker 2: think it would actually be quite different, at least in
Speaker 2: terms of what you're talking about. But with Trump, the
Speaker 2: vague being vague is probably a net benefit.
Speaker 3: You don't necessarily want to talk specifics.
Speaker 2: You don't want to give the opposition something they can
Speaker 2: hit you on in terms of a difference between him
Speaker 2: and Trump. So I don't think that that's correct on
Speaker 2: the policy front. I think it has much more to
Speaker 2: do with it a dynamics of being a vice president
Speaker 2: and also being within the Republican Party where there are
Speaker 2: huge civil wars like going on, like if they do win,
Speaker 2: there will be a assive fight on this come Tax
Speaker 2: Cuts and Jobs Act season on where and how to
Speaker 2: pay for it. And actually that'll be a little bit
Speaker 2: more interesting, honestly, about how it will really manifest when
Speaker 2: the two sides of them actually have power Senate Republicans
Speaker 2: and somebody like Vance in the White House, and then
Speaker 2: which way Donald Trump is going to go?
Speaker 4: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: Well, anyway, that's my intrigue with regard to to Portnoy
Speaker 1: and Vance is how they are truly like antithesis of
Speaker 1: each other in terms of politics, and yet today somehow
Speaker 1: exist in the same coalition.
Speaker 2: Well, Dick Cheney and AOC are in the same coalition too,
Speaker 2: which is part of the fun parts.
Speaker 4: Of the strange bedfellows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go to the next one. Ukraine definitely wanted
Speaker 2: to make sure that we highlighted this. Let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and play some of Vladimir Putin's comments on the news
Speaker 2: that the US may allow NATO provided missiles to strike
Speaker 2: even deeper inside of Russia. So let's play the video
Speaker 2: and I'm going to read it. Putin says, this is
Speaker 2: their directive. Molment, of course, fundamentally changes the essence, the
Speaker 2: very nature of the conflict. He continues, this will mean
Speaker 2: that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are
Speaker 2: at war with Russia. If this is the case, considering
Speaker 2: the change in the very nature of this conflict, we
Speaker 2: will make corresponding decisions based on the threats that will
Speaker 2: be created for US. So that was direct quotes here
Speaker 2: from Vladimir Putin in reaction to some of the news
Speaker 2: and the debates that are coming out about US policy
Speaker 2: versus Ukraine. Let's put the next one up there on
Speaker 2: the screen, because this is the most important decision probably
Speaker 2: that we'll be made in this war so far. Anthony
Speaker 2: blinkoln Our Secretary of State, hints that the United States
Speaker 2: will lift arms restrictions on Ukraine using long range arms
Speaker 2: inside of Russia.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: The decision is understood to have already been made in private,
Speaker 2: as the Secretary of State says in Kiev.
Speaker 3: The US will continue to adapt its policy.
Speaker 2: Allegedly they're keeping this on the back burner and there
Speaker 2: is no official decision, but right now there will be
Speaker 2: a change in restriction on Ukraine's use of missiles which
Speaker 2: have a range of approximate one hundred and ninety miles
Speaker 2: to quote avoid reckless or unnecessary attacks, which is kind
Speaker 2: of a ridiculous way of framing it. Considering that Ukraine
Speaker 2: literally invaded Russia and continues to actually hold some of
Speaker 2: the territory that has not been disputed prior.
Speaker 3: To this war.
Speaker 2: The point is just that the slow bubbling things that
Speaker 2: are happening inside of Ukraine continue to be massively unstable
Speaker 2: and detrimental to the overall international order and have the
Speaker 2: risk of spiraling totally out of control in a highly
Speaker 2: predictable manner. And if you put it on the backdrop
Speaker 2: of everything that is happening, if you look at Kursk,
Speaker 2: for example, Russian advances putin and Russian resolve to continue
Speaker 2: the war, there has been basically zero change to the
Speaker 2: overall strategic status quo as a result of Ukraine being
Speaker 2: allowed to use these weapons. And yet the Ukraine lobby
Speaker 2: and Kamala and all of their the advisors in the
Speaker 2: White House, Biden and others, they just continue to direct
Speaker 2: in this post. Three years ago, it was totally off
Speaker 2: the table, this idea of giving Ukraine long range missiles
Speaker 2: to strike inside of Russia. Now we're just keep on
Speaker 2: upping the ante from tanks to F sixteen's to now
Speaker 2: to these missiles. It's just totally ridiculous. You know, the
Speaker 2: way that we whitewashed past policy and concerns of the past,
Speaker 2: and arguably give it to them at a time where
Speaker 2: it's not going to make even that much of a difference.
Speaker 2: The overall end to the war will not change all
Speaker 2: that much. So how many more square miles of territory
Speaker 2: is it worth it? Wall Street Journal has a story
Speaker 2: up this morning say that the unofficial death toll is
Speaker 2: somewhere in the nature of one million.
Speaker 3: As a result of this war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and those are with the fake CIA numbers about
Speaker 2: Ukrainian dead.
Speaker 3: So what's the real number? A million?
Speaker 2: Five, you know, something like that. That's a disaster for them,
Speaker 2: for Russia, for the world.
Speaker 4: Just absolutely horrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, listen, I guess what people say in
Speaker 1: response is, Okay, Putin's made a lot of threats before
Speaker 1: and hasn't necessarily followed through on them. So yeah, he's
Speaker 1: full of bluster about how this will be a declaration,
Speaker 1: NATO declaration of war against Russia, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But these probably just bluffing and it's like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: can we at least talk about it, like, can we
Speaker 1: at least really focus the American people's attention on what
Speaker 1: would be obviously an extraordinary escalation on you know, these
Speaker 1: threats from Putin and what we should make of them,
Speaker 1: and you know, at least have a fulsome debate about
Speaker 1: where this is going, because you know, we've used this
Speaker 1: term sleepwalking from the beginning of this war, and it
Speaker 1: just feels more and more accurate of now the initial
Speaker 1: horror and attention is gone. There's very little coverage of
Speaker 1: what's going on and what each of these individual decisions mean,
Speaker 1: and yet they're so incredibly consequential. That's what's really disturbing.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I'm thinking is, you know, we
Speaker 1: know how difficult it is for American presidents to bring
Speaker 1: conflicts to a close, because as long as it's ongoing,
Speaker 1: you can you live in the like, you know, perfect
Speaker 1: fantasy land whereas Lenski regains all control and Putin is vanquished,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, even though that's obviously not going
Speaker 1: to be reality. The moment you have a conclusion, then
Speaker 1: there is a hard and fast outcome which we can
Speaker 1: then use to debate whether, I don't know, we should
Speaker 1: have spent years fighting this war rather than engaged in
Speaker 1: the peace negotiations, which were available to us at the
Speaker 1: beginning of this conflict before a million people were killed.
Speaker 1: So that's the logic of ongoing conflicts and endless wars.
Speaker 1: And of course the other logic of it is that
Speaker 1: you have many people who profit directly off of it,
Speaker 1: and no one really profiting directly off of peace except
Speaker 1: for the people who benefit from not being having their
Speaker 1: home land destroyed and fighting and dying. So, you know,
Speaker 1: Biden right now, he's a lame duck president. His political
Speaker 1: standing outside of whatever blowback it has on Kamala, Harris,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, his political standing really doesn't matter anymore.
Speaker 4: So like, take the hit, bring this thing to a.
Speaker 1: Close, end it, because if it goes into the next administration,
Speaker 1: whether it's Kamala or Trump, they're both gonna look at
Speaker 1: the same calculus and say, listen, what behooves us is
Speaker 1: to just kind of keep this thing on a slow
Speaker 1: burn and maintain the status quote indefinitely and kick the
Speaker 1: can down the road.
Speaker 2: Yes, and let's put this next one up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. It now appears that if you look at
Speaker 2: poll everyone says, oh, nothing without Ukraine or nothing for
Speaker 2: Ukraine without Ukraine. I mean, look at this, guys. Look
Speaker 2: more Ukrainians today want a negotiated peace to the end
Speaker 2: of the war than at any time before. It's actually
Speaker 2: the men who have been drafted and forced into the
Speaker 2: Ukrainian military who are the only ones who say that
Speaker 2: we should quote fight until it liberates all territory to
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety one borders. But the highest number than
Speaker 2: ever before say that they should negotiate with Russia to
Speaker 2: achieve peace to quote, seek a compromise to end the
Speaker 2: war through negotiations. Now it's only forty three percent. You
Speaker 2: still got fifty four percent, but that is much higher
Speaker 2: than previous polls of the war have found. And what
Speaker 2: they say is that it's clear when you take into
Speaker 2: consideration the death and the population projections, this is if
Speaker 2: the longer it goes, the more in benefit of Russia.
Speaker 2: So for example, you know, population projections of Russia and
Speaker 2: Ukraine up until twenty one hundred are both dismal. But
Speaker 2: for Russia they'll still have well over one hundred million people.
Speaker 2: For the Ukrainians, it starts trending down from a height
Speaker 2: of fifty million around the Soviet Union collapse to like
Speaker 2: five million. You were talking about a tenfold reduction of
Speaker 2: the overall population of the country, because not only if
Speaker 2: so many people have been killed, so many people have fled,
Speaker 2: that's a disaster. No civilization can survive that, or at
Speaker 2: least in the way that they want to, because its
Speaker 2: entire war is supposedly all about protecting their identity and
Speaker 2: their sovereignty, etc. So it's clear, like if you want,
Speaker 2: if you want the outcome that you allegedly want, then
Speaker 2: it's pretty clear what you should do. Biden could easily
Speaker 2: help you get there. Biden will not do it because
Speaker 2: for Ukraine, or I mean for Biden, NATO and Ukraine
Speaker 2: is like a religion. It's like the only thing that
Speaker 2: still fires his synapses. So we're locked in, locked that.
Speaker 4: In Zionism, which we're about to get to.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, yeah, good point, Yeah, good point. All right,
Speaker 3: let's get to it.
Speaker 1: So a lot of very significant developments coming out of Israel.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put this first image up on
Speaker 1: the screen. This is some video that was released by
Speaker 1: the Hoofis of a hypersonic missile that they are calling
Speaker 1: Palestine two. They are claiming that this is the missile
Speaker 1: that hit the outskirts of Tel Aviv on Saturday, so
Speaker 1: you can see it there and indication you know, they're
Speaker 1: trying to flex their muscle and proved to be a
Speaker 1: significant threat to the population of Israel's going and put
Speaker 1: the next piece up on the screen. This is from
Speaker 1: the Washington Post talking about this attack. The headline here
Speaker 1: who They's fire missile from yam and into central Israel,
Speaker 1: warn of more strikes. In the report, they say they
Speaker 1: claimed responsibility for a surface to surface missile attacking central
Speaker 1: Israel on Sunday morning, marking a continued escalation between the
Speaker 1: Iranian backed group and Israel. Caused no direct injuries, though
Speaker 1: they did respond with emergency services and treated nine people
Speaker 1: who were injured on their way to shelters after sirens sounded.
Speaker 1: The Houfi military spokesman described it as a hypersonic ballistic
Speaker 1: missile targeting military operations. The IDF said in a statement
Speaker 1: the missile was hit by an interceptor as a result
Speaker 1: of which the target fragmented but was not destroyed. In
Speaker 1: that same article from the Washington Post, they also had
Speaker 1: another piece of significant news, which is that the IDF
Speaker 1: is now actually admitting that it was their ice airstrikes
Speaker 1: that killed three different Hostriges back in November. This is
Speaker 1: something that had been long suspected, but now long after
Speaker 1: the fact, they're finally acknowledging that this is actually the case.
Speaker 1: But Soccer with regard to the you know, the Hoothi's
Speaker 1: really trying to up the ante here and demonstrating some
Speaker 1: more sophisticated weaponry. Obviously, this raises the stakes or for
Speaker 1: Israel in terms of their prosecution of this continued war.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is scary.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I don't know whether it was actually
Speaker 2: hypersonic or any of that. I don't know the actual
Speaker 2: technical details, but you should not dismiss this as deeply
Speaker 2: unstable in the system, because what it means is that
Speaker 2: they have a much more important capability that may not
Speaker 2: be as easily defeated by even the United States or
Speaker 2: all the other countries that intervened last time around, and
Speaker 2: that if they wanted, they could quite easily use it
Speaker 2: to inflict a lot more damage than we've seen previously.
Speaker 2: I attracked a lot of this stuff during North Korea
Speaker 2: and the development of their own nuclear missiles and their
Speaker 2: ICBMs capable of hitting the United States and everyone. You know,
Speaker 2: there's constantly just a want to just be like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's not that big of a deal, and it's like,
Speaker 2: you don't understand how what this really means for the
Speaker 2: overall strategic picture. Part of why you know, accepting and
Speaker 2: trying to create a piece negotiation with them was so important.
Speaker 2: And that's what I see as a vital here is
Speaker 2: that this really does actually change the game, not only
Speaker 2: in terms of US assets in the region and our
Speaker 2: own even ability to you know, fight something like this
Speaker 2: where we've bonded them several times, we've had spend billions
Speaker 2: of dollars trying to stop this.
Speaker 3: It hasn't actually worked all that well.
Speaker 2: And then for Israel itself, you know, look at a
Speaker 2: certain hopefully eventually they will become responsible entirely for their
Speaker 2: own security, and if they do, this is exactly what
Speaker 2: would pose like real existential threats to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the Houthis went on their way to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we have the technology to be able to evade your
Speaker 1: iron dome interceptors. So this, you know, sense that you're
Speaker 1: only able to inflict damage in one direction, we are
Speaker 1: going to put that at jeopardy and attempt to impose
Speaker 1: a greater cost on you and on your country. At
Speaker 1: the same time this has gone, you know, relatively unnoticed
Speaker 1: in the US press. But this is there are extraordinary
Speaker 1: developments in terms of the Israeli war cabinet and their
Speaker 1: stated clear desire to escalate the war in Lebanon. We
Speaker 1: could put this up on the screen. So Netanna, who
Speaker 1: is apparently considering strongly and reports indicate very likely to
Speaker 1: fire his defense chief Yoav Galant now and replace him
Speaker 1: with a more far right figure who has been vehemently
Speaker 1: opposed to any sort of a hostage deal. So you know,
Speaker 1: Yoev Glant is also facing likely international criminal court indictments.
Speaker 1: You know, he is also obviously a war criminal. He
Speaker 1: has said some absolutely heinous things about Palestinians, some criminal
Speaker 1: things about Palestinians, including you know, he's the one who
Speaker 1: announced we're gonna treat them like animals, We're going to
Speaker 1: cut off all the food, water, et cetera. But he
Speaker 1: has been a voice inside the cabinet that has been
Speaker 1: receptive to the idea of at least having a ceasefire
Speaker 1: and a hostage deal. So you have Gallant, reportedly, according
Speaker 1: to Harats, is at least somewhat opposed to a massive
Speaker 1: widening of the war into Lebanon and a huge escalation
Speaker 1: there vis a vi Hezbola, and that appears to be
Speaker 1: the triggering descent that is leading net Yahoo to consider
Speaker 1: firing him and just wholly embracing and publicly embracing this
Speaker 1: further right figure who again called a hostage deal quote surrender.
Speaker 1: There's a hostage pro hostage group that said that appointing
Speaker 1: this far right figure would represent a quote death sentence
Speaker 1: for the hostages and a complete abandonment of those in captivity.
Speaker 1: And let me put this one next piece up on
Speaker 1: the screen before I get your reaction, saga. This is
Speaker 1: from the New York Times. Well, sorry, this is harat,
Speaker 1: but the New York Times also had this reporting that,
Speaker 1: you know, the US is meeting with Gallant, meeting with
Speaker 1: net Yahoo, and they're saying, hey, we don't want this
Speaker 1: wider war in Lebanon. Guys, don't do it, we don't
Speaker 1: want you to do it, et cetera, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: net Yahu was just like, no, we're going to do it.
Speaker 1: We're going to do whatever it takes. He wants to
Speaker 1: officially expand the war goals to include this, you know,
Speaker 1: escalation viz a vi Lebanon. So once again, you know,
Speaker 1: similar to the Ukraine situation, we see a conflict we're
Speaker 1: directly engaged in that we're funding, that we're arming, et cetera,
Speaker 1: that is spiraling in escalatory directions that the US President
Speaker 1: is supposedly opposed to but utterly unwilling to do anything
Speaker 1: to forestall this very dangerous direction.
Speaker 2: It is a problem, and it is exactly I mean,
Speaker 2: this is what we take our eye off the ball,
Speaker 2: and there's still crazy developments that are happening. You know,
Speaker 2: there were not that far away from the anniversary of
Speaker 2: October seventh, and everything that's happened there and the instability
Speaker 2: inside the Israeli cabinet have major effects for all of us.
Speaker 2: All so none of the political leaders that we have
Speaker 2: are really all of that like concerned about constraining any
Speaker 2: of this. And so in both cases, you know, we
Speaker 2: either have one party or the other who is default
Speaker 2: allowing things like this that cannot go. You can't put
Speaker 2: it all back in the box. And we're seeing one
Speaker 2: of our producers just send us a story this morning.
Speaker 2: It appears there was some major Israeli operation against a
Speaker 2: bunch of Hezbola terrorists inside of Lesbanon or appears. I
Speaker 2: think it looks like they're pagers exploded. I mean it's
Speaker 2: literally like something out of science fiction. That's what I'm
Speaker 2: just taking a look at. So don't have all of
Speaker 2: the details. The point though, is that stuff like this
Speaker 2: inside of Lebanon just continues the spiral and the only
Speaker 2: question is is like how much of the cost of
Speaker 2: this are we going to bear? And we generally know
Speaker 2: the answer to that almost one hundred percent, almost one
Speaker 2: hundred percent.
Speaker 4: That we will pring for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we're coming up on almost a year here,
Speaker 1: and no one's even really talking about US fire deal anymore.
Speaker 1: It's just collapses off the table. And there was maybe
Speaker 1: a week or so ago there were these reports about
Speaker 1: there was some debate within the Biden administration like should
Speaker 1: we still keep trying with the ceasefire deal or should
Speaker 1: we just basically like give up because bb very clearly
Speaker 1: does not want a ceasefire deal and the whole thing
Speaker 1: is so utterly absurd and pathetic, Like if you are
Speaker 1: the United States of America, you are the American president,
Speaker 1: if you want a ceasefire deal, like all you have
Speaker 1: to do is stop shipping the bombs that enable this
Speaker 1: continued direction. So instead of that, they're just putting it
Speaker 1: again on autopilot, where we're just continue to ship bombs
Speaker 1: that are used to slaughter, annihilate, and destroy with ever
Speaker 1: broadening horizons. You know, there have been multiple threats that
Speaker 1: Bay Root's going to be turned into Gaza throughout the
Speaker 1: course of this war, and we're unwilling to change course
Speaker 1: or do anything stop this slide in this direction. And
Speaker 1: you know, it is horrifying on a moral dimension, it's
Speaker 1: terrifying on a just national security dimension.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very true. All right, we got a good guest
Speaker 3: standing by let's get to it.
Speaker 1: We're excited to be joined this morning by Logan Phillips.
Speaker 1: He is the founder of Race to the White House,
Speaker 1: which is an electoral prediction model. Great to see you, Logan,
Speaker 1: Good to see you, man.
Speaker 6: Hey, great to see you guys too. Thanks for having
Speaker 6: me on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, so first time on the show.
Speaker 1: Just give people a little bit of a sense of
Speaker 1: who you are and how this model is designed and
Speaker 1: how it functions.
Speaker 11: Yeah, So I forecast elections for Race to the White
Speaker 11: House and track pulling for every major federal race in
Speaker 11: the country, and the goal of my site in addition
Speaker 11: to ideally getting these predictions right, is to help make
Speaker 11: sense of the chaos and make it as easy for
Speaker 11: people to understand which races are the most competitive and
Speaker 11: in the presidential race, which states are most likely to
Speaker 11: determine the outcome. And so my goal is to make
Speaker 11: it so anyone who comes to the site for the
Speaker 11: first time within thirty or seconds or so, have a
Speaker 11: much better sense of.
Speaker 6: This central factors are going to determine the race.
Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and put up on the screen
Speaker 1: the graphic of where things stand right now in terms
Speaker 1: of the electoral college. Your prediction is that there is
Speaker 1: a fifty six point nine percent chance the Kamala wins
Speaker 1: the forty two point eight percent chance that Trump wins.
Speaker 1: Those are still pretty good odds for Trump, even with
Speaker 1: Kamala somewhat favored there. And you've got projected electoral votes
Speaker 1: Kamala at two point eighty four point four and Trump
Speaker 1: at two fifty three point six. How should we think
Speaker 1: about those odds and what are some of the factors
Speaker 1: that are leading your model to give Kamala a bit
Speaker 1: of an edge here?
Speaker 11: Yeah, I would say that basically means it's a toss
Speaker 11: of the problem here is that we have two different factors.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 11: We have the national polling, which is pretty competitive, and
Speaker 11: would say maybe up until about a few days ago
Speaker 11: when Kamala got a little bit of post debate bounced
Speaker 11: that Donald Trump would be favored if we look at
Speaker 11: what happened in the twenty twenty electoral map, which was
Speaker 11: heavily biased to Republicans in terms of the electoral college.
Speaker 11: But then the state poles for Kamala Harris have been
Speaker 11: really really strong. You know, in some states like Michigan, Wisconsin,
Speaker 11: she's usually been doing better in the state poles than
Speaker 11: even the national polls.
Speaker 6: And so the question here is which is real.
Speaker 11: Has Kamala really is doing that much better than Joe
Speaker 11: Biden to the point that the electoral college disadvantage is
Speaker 11: significantly smaller, And if that's the case, then she is
Speaker 11: outright favorite to win.
Speaker 6: And I think because you have.
Speaker 11: That disparity, it's probably part of the reason why some
Speaker 11: models like Nate Silver's show Donald Trump favored, because they're
Speaker 11: probably assuming a lot more about the twenty twenty electoral
Speaker 11: map still being in place. But this is definitely a
Speaker 11: really close election. Now Harris will at least in my model,
Speaker 11: start to edge ahead if she has the same type
Speaker 11: of bounce in the state poles that we're seeing in
Speaker 11: the national polls. There's just been a real dirf of
Speaker 11: pulling outside of some GOP aligned pollsters since the debate.
Speaker 2: So logan, give us a sense of you were talking
Speaker 2: there about the difference between you and Nate Silver. A
Speaker 2: lot of people obviously wonder about the individual mechanics. As
Speaker 2: close as you can to relatable speak. Just give us
Speaker 2: a sense of what the differences and the factors that
Speaker 2: you look at that can help people assess whenever the
Speaker 2: looking let's say your model at a different model, what
Speaker 2: are the types of things that you wait, how much
Speaker 2: weight to give them?
Speaker 3: And give us your overall thought process.
Speaker 11: Yeah, so I think across the board from was all
Speaker 11: of our models, there's a few different things it does.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 11: First, you try to assess what the national environment is,
Speaker 11: and for me, I use polling, I use the economy.
Speaker 11: Those are by far the two most important. I also
Speaker 11: look at how special elections have been going lately, on
Speaker 11: which party has been overperforming expectations, and a tiny like
Speaker 11: one percent of it is fundraising. And after we have
Speaker 11: a sense of what the national environment is. We try
Speaker 11: to turn that into state numbers, right, So we look
Speaker 11: at how states have voted in recent elections relative to
Speaker 11: the popular vote. So if it's been a little bit
Speaker 11: to the left, a little bit to the right, you'd assume,
Speaker 11: like if it's a state that's two points to the left,
Speaker 11: Democrats are up by four Nationally they vote for Harris
Speaker 11: by six points. Bind that with the state poles to
Speaker 11: give an overall projection for each state. And then the
Speaker 11: final component, which I think is honestly one of the
Speaker 11: most important, is you try to figure out how likely
Speaker 11: are you to be wrong in every state? Right, So
Speaker 11: that's based off of like the information we have and
Speaker 11: how far away we are from election day, how often
Speaker 11: average would the model be.
Speaker 6: And to do that you got to look at electoral history.
Speaker 11: For me, I look at like every election since the
Speaker 11: nineteen sixties, and that helps us get a sense of
Speaker 11: the chance of an upset. And then the final additional
Speaker 11: part after you project the lead for each state, is
Speaker 11: you then simulate all the states together to figure out
Speaker 11: what the chance Kamala and Trump have nationwide. And so
Speaker 11: you have to see, like some you know, if you
Speaker 11: over perform in Michigan, You're probably going to overperform in
Speaker 11: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin too, So you try to calculate how
Speaker 11: correlated each state is as well.
Speaker 1: How are you thinking about a potential polling miss so
Speaker 1: you know, twenty sixteen, Trump support is understated, support is understated.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty two, Republican support is overstated. You have a
Speaker 1: special elections. It seemed like Democratic support was understated. So
Speaker 1: you know, just looking at the track record as a
Speaker 1: lay person, it seems like you got a lot of
Speaker 1: contradictory indications. How are you thinking about that in terms
Speaker 1: of your statistical modeling.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's such a great question.
Speaker 11: It's very easy to fall into the trap after twenty
Speaker 11: twenty and twenty sixteen to just assume it's going to
Speaker 11: go against Donald Trump. I think that's what RCP did
Speaker 11: to a degree in twenty twenty two, and it really
Speaker 11: backfired for them because the reality is that past polling
Speaker 11: misses aren't usually predictive directionally of future polling misses. But
Speaker 11: I do think it's fair to say after twenty twenty
Speaker 11: and twenty sixteen, which you know, we're both really bad
Speaker 11: misses for presidential polls, especially twenty twenty, that we can
Speaker 11: have a little more inserting than we would normally. Polling
Speaker 11: is way harder than it used to be. The response
Speaker 11: rate for polls that are calling people is drastically lower,
Speaker 11: and it makes basic sense for all of us, right
Speaker 11: because if you're getting a phone call from and to number,
Speaker 11: more often than not it's going to be someone not
Speaker 11: even trying to sell you something, but trying to scam
Speaker 11: you into something. And so as a result, pollsters have
Speaker 11: to find new and creative ways to reach vhoters. Sometimes
Speaker 11: they're doing online polls, that's a huge part of how
Speaker 11: polls work now. Sometimes they're text poles, but overall they're
Speaker 11: still kind of figuring out how to adjust to the
Speaker 11: new world. So for my models, I increase the uncertainty
Speaker 11: quite a bit. I think that the odds of a
Speaker 11: miss are higher right now, but I'm not going to
Speaker 11: say that it's necessarily going to go four against Trump.
Speaker 11: I mean there's also capitalist incentives here, right. Pollster's goal
Speaker 11: is to make money, is to get as accurate as
Speaker 11: possible by make more money. If they do well on
Speaker 11: that front, the whole industry will be badly off and
Speaker 11: have a lot less trust in them if they underrate
Speaker 11: Trump specifically. So on one hand, they couldn't miss them
Speaker 11: because they've done it before. On the other hand, they
Speaker 11: could overcorrect too.
Speaker 2: Right, So factoring in twenty twenty two, like you were
Speaker 2: just talking about, what were the what was the mistake
Speaker 2: that pollsters made because a lot of people forget you know,
Speaker 2: after twenty sixteen, there was a lot of discussion about
Speaker 2: not pulling up white collar workers, white working class workers
Speaker 2: specifically after twenty twenty. I believe the excuse was that
Speaker 2: there were too many older Democrats at home. They were responding.
Speaker 2: It was like a polling response bias. Twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard a particularly good actual analysis of what
Speaker 2: went wrong. So what in your opinion, what is what
Speaker 2: wrong with the polls for there?
Speaker 11: Well, I would just say, you know, in fantis to polsters,
Speaker 11: twenty twenty two is a pretty good year for them.
Speaker 11: There's usually going to be a bias against one party
Speaker 11: or the other, and that year was against Democrats.
Speaker 6: But overall they were pretty good.
Speaker 11: They lightly underrated youth turnout, and honestly, my gut feeling
Speaker 11: is that overall they all had to make corrections. After
Speaker 11: the last two presidential cycles, and they may have overdone
Speaker 11: it a little bit just because it was in their
Speaker 11: incentives to not under great Republicans again, but it was
Speaker 11: still pretty good year for them.
Speaker 1: Okay, what do you make of this is something I
Speaker 1: hear from like the resistance Libs, right, which you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes they have a point, so we like to take
Speaker 1: them seriously. They're making a good argument that there's been
Speaker 1: an influx of these Republicans aligned polsters who are more
Speaker 1: interested in their capitalist incentive. We may say is more
Speaker 1: about setting a pro Republican narrative than it is about
Speaker 1: being wholly accurate. And you know, so for people who
Speaker 1: want to discount and eat Silver's model, looking at you know,
Speaker 1: which has Donald Trump still favors, kind of like the
Speaker 1: inverse of where your model sits. That's one of the
Speaker 1: things that they'll point to is that he takes those
Speaker 1: that flood of GOP aligned polls sort of too seriously
Speaker 1: in terms of his modeling.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's a huge concern.
Speaker 11: In twenty twenty two, I had to call a bit
Speaker 11: of an audible and start increasing the penalty to partisan
Speaker 11: posters once they really started to flood the average. There's
Speaker 11: a lot more polls for the presidential SOULCI if it
Speaker 11: gets at that point. That's certainly been the case lately
Speaker 11: in the post debate state poles because they say be
Speaker 11: the only ones releasing pols. I would say for all
Speaker 11: these polsters, as with anyone has power influence, right, you
Speaker 11: got to think about what their incentives are, and just
Speaker 11: like you said, right, their goal is to try to
Speaker 11: change the narrat If that's true for any internal poll.
Speaker 11: No campaign is going to release a poll just for
Speaker 11: the heck of it. If they have a poll that
Speaker 11: it's a Democratic line polster that's showing them way worse
Speaker 11: than everyone else, maybe the race closer than everyone else,
Speaker 11: it might be using it for fundraising purposes, and then
Speaker 11: they just put it out there publicly so they can
Speaker 11: cite it in ads. Right, there's usually going to be
Speaker 11: some type of agenda.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I really enjoy talking to you, Logan. Thanks
Speaker 2: for coming on man, and we'll continue to check out
Speaker 2: your website.
Speaker 4: Yeah, great to meet you, Legan, our pleasure.
Speaker 6: Thanks me.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, we'll see you later about to film
Speaker 2: our AMA and broadcast it live. So if you want
Speaker 2: to be able to join things like that, Breakingpoints Dot
Speaker 2: com from premium subscribers, Otherwise, we'll see you all later.