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Speaker 1: Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making

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Speaker 1: it impossible to function as a society and to know

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Speaker 1: what is true and what is false. The good news

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Speaker 1: is that they're failing and they know it. That is

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Speaker 1: why we're building something new. Be part of creating a new, better, healthier,

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Speaker 1: member today at breakingpoints dot com. Your hard earned money

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Speaker 1: is going to help us build for the midterms and

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Speaker 1: the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage

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Speaker 1: of what is sure to be one of the most

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Speaker 1: pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for?

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Speaker 1: Go to Breakingpoints dot com to help us out. Good morning, everybody,

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Speaker 1: Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.

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Speaker 1: What do we have, Crystal Indeed, we do many wonderful

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Speaker 1: interesting stories to cover. Of course we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about CNN. Plus we have Sarah Fisher on and not

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Speaker 1: to give it away, but we do have a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a surprise for something that we've purchased on

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Speaker 1: behalf of the entire Breaking Points community, so stay tuned

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Speaker 1: for that. We also have election results in France that

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Speaker 1: are actually really interesting to unpack. On the one hand,

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Speaker 1: mccron wins re election, so it's sort of status quo

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Speaker 1: and by a much more sizable margin than what had

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Speaker 1: initially been predicted by the polls. However, Lapenn did better

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Speaker 1: than the far right has ever done before, so we'll

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Speaker 1: dig into all of that. Also, looking like Elon Musk

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Speaker 1: is in fact going to take over Twitter. Amazing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, well, so this is you know, reports as

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Speaker 1: of this morning, but we'll break it all down. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we'll break it all down for you. We also have

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Speaker 1: now a movement from the CDC and the DOJ on

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Speaker 1: mass They are going to appeal that ruling Soccer was right,

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Speaker 1: I was wrong. But they did it, of course in

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Speaker 1: the worst possible way, So we'll give you all those details.

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Speaker 1: We also have starting this morning, workers on Staten Island

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Speaker 1: at another Amazon facility are going to be voting on

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Speaker 1: union election. Bernie Sanders and AOC were at that location

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Speaker 1: yesterday for a big rally, so we have those details

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Speaker 1: for you as well. And very excited to announce yet

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Speaker 1: another Breaking Points partner, Jordan Sheridan and Status Kup. They're

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Speaker 1: going to be providing us with exclusive on the ground footage.

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Speaker 1: He was there And by the way, Jordan was there

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Speaker 1: from the beginning with regards to Amazon Union election, one

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Speaker 1: of the only reporters and news outlets that actually took

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Speaker 1: the chance seriously that they could actually prevail there. He

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Speaker 1: was there on the ground at the rally yesterday and

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Speaker 1: sent us some exclusive footage that we're going to take

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Speaker 1: a look at in the show. So very excited about that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we've been relying on Jordan for years. One of the

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Speaker 1: things that we've heard from you and that we want

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Speaker 1: to make sure that we're spending your hard earned money

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Speaker 1: correctly on is having an on the ground presence at

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Speaker 1: some of the places that are completely undercovered and that

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Speaker 1: you care about. So Jordan will be doing this for us,

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Speaker 1: you know, basically on a continual basis, not just on Amazon,

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Speaker 1: but on whatever story strikes everybody's fancy across the country.

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Speaker 1: So there we go, all the administrative stuff out of

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Speaker 1: the way. We got actually more even more free tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: We can't overwhelm everybody, h we have to party going

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Speaker 1: on out. But I do want to say about Jordan. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm really excited about the whole ecosystem that

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Speaker 1: we're building out here and all the partners and relationships

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Speaker 1: that we have, and I hope you guys seem to

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Speaker 1: have really enjoyed the content. I know Maximilian Alvarez put

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Speaker 1: his first piece up over this weekend that people seem

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Speaker 1: to really love, Max being such a thoughtful person. Jordan

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Speaker 1: adds another whole dementsion. Yes, because for the first time

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Speaker 1: now we'll have capability to have actual on the ground reporting,

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Speaker 1: exclusive footage. So that's something we've been looking for and

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Speaker 1: we're really excited to add into the mix to make

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Speaker 1: this a more complete and holistic experience for you. Extending

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Speaker 1: Universe is expanding soon we'll have our own shootoffs. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's start with Ukraine. So Ukraine, I know it seems

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Speaker 1: like it never ends, but there's some bigger news that

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Speaker 1: came out this morning. Let's put this up there on

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Speaker 1: the screen, which is Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Secretary

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Speaker 1: of State Anthony Blinkin both visited Kiev this morning and

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Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense in particular making some big news where

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Speaker 1: he says specifically that he wants to see in the

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Speaker 1: United States policy is that they want to see the

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Speaker 1: Russian military week here's a direct quote. We want to

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Speaker 1: see Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the

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Speaker 1: kinds of things that has done in Ukraine. It has

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Speaker 1: already lost a lot of military capability and a lot

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Speaker 1: of troops, and we want to see them not have

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Speaker 1: the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability. So that

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Speaker 1: is military speak for we want to continue to see

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Speaker 1: the Russian suffer as much as they possibly can in Ukraine. Now, look,

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Speaker 1: obviously I agree with the sentiment. However, whenever it comes

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Speaker 1: to official statement of US policy, it cuts against what

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Speaker 1: we have been been speaking about Crystal, which is that

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Speaker 1: the United States is not currently offering any sort of

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Speaker 1: hope or even really want of a peace process. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: obviously we have to support Ukraine. If Ukraine doesn't want peace,

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Speaker 1: then like that's what it is. But in terms of

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Speaker 1: what we should want, we should want an end to

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Speaker 1: the conflict. And the US is now pretty much explicitly

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Speaker 1: declaring this as a proxy through which they want to

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Speaker 1: see as official statement of US policy by the Biden

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Speaker 1: administration to quote unquote weaken the Russian military. What does

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Speaker 1: that mean? Well, it means, as we have seen what

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Speaker 1: a company their visit, hundreds of millions of more dollars

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Speaker 1: that had been sent to the Ukrainians in terms of

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Speaker 1: military aid. That's right, It means that it also means

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Speaker 1: making Russia a permanent pariah status. You know, keeping these

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Speaker 1: incredibly onerous sanctions on that, of course, are wildly indiscriminate,

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Speaker 1: not just targeting Putin and his Kremlin leadership and his

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Speaker 1: oligarchic Bret buddies, but the entire population. And so what

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Speaker 1: the official policy of the United States government, which has

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Speaker 1: been clear for a little while, but you know, this

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Speaker 1: makes it even more official, is basically, we are going

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Speaker 1: to make Russia pariah. We're going to try to bleed

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Speaker 1: them dry. And what Biden had said originally that Putin

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Speaker 1: cannot remain in power, and what Aids had been leaking

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Speaker 1: and saying privately that basically the only end game is

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Speaker 1: to push amount of power that is now becoming very

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Speaker 1: close to official US government policy and the impact of

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Speaker 1: our actions. Look, it's not all about us, but you know,

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Speaker 1: we're kind of a big player at all of this

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Speaker 1: and have significant influence of the over the direction of

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Speaker 1: this conflict. We have never been further away from any

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Speaker 1: sort of negotiated settlement and to these hostilities. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: that means for civilians in Ukraine, it means continued decimation, destruction,

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Speaker 1: and death. And that's what's so sad about this whole situation.

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Speaker 1: One hundred percent. And you look at it in the

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Speaker 1: context of the war, it looks like Putin is also

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Speaker 1: responding very much in kind. Let's put this up there

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Speaker 1: on the screen. Michael Kaufman, the military analyst who we

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Speaker 1: really respect. He put up that map that those who

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Speaker 1: are watching can see in terms of where the front

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Speaker 1: line in the battle is. But the real end result

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Speaker 1: that you can say from Michael is that he says

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Speaker 1: that this is very likely the decisive period of the war,

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Speaker 1: beyond what happened in the first three weeks, and that

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Speaker 1: the Russian military here is basically exhausting what remains of

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Speaker 1: its offensive potential. I want to emphasize this. They're exhausting

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Speaker 1: their offensive potential in the context of how they're selling

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Speaker 1: the war to the Russian population, Absent a full scale mobilization,

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Speaker 1: absent bringing in troops from other parts of the kind

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Speaker 1: tree in a full blown war, footing a kin to

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Speaker 1: basically what the Ukrainians are. They're calling it like a

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Speaker 1: special action at home, not war, although apparently sometimes the

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Speaker 1: Russian anchors slip up and they're like, it's a war.

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Speaker 1: No debate the war. Yeah, yeah, in the heat, in

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Speaker 1: the heat of battle, everybody acknowledges it's a war. But

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Speaker 1: within what they have, what Kaufman and others are pointing to,

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Speaker 1: is that they're very likely the last of the offensive capability,

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Speaker 1: which look, I mean we should not underestimate. Yes, they've

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Speaker 1: made a joke of themselves on the world stage, but

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Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that they're not going to be able

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Speaker 1: to put up a fierce fight and a court increasing

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Speaker 1: Western intelligence assessments. You take that of what you will

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Speaker 1: you know in terms of what they assess, in terms

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Speaker 1: of what Putin is thinking. Let's put this up there

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Speaker 1: on the screen, they say, and this is from the

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Speaker 1: Financial Times, which first broke the news. So this is

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Speaker 1: from British intelligence. Vladimir Putin abandons hopes of Ukraine deal

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Speaker 1: and shifts to a land grab strategy. This would make

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Speaker 1: sense given the complete basic breakdown of talks over the

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Speaker 1: last couple of weeks. The Turkey talks basically went no

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Speaker 1: where escalation on the ground is continued. You saw the

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Speaker 1: strategic withdrawal from the city of Kiev, and now you

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Speaker 1: basically see a full scale war for the eastern part

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Speaker 1: of the country and of control that Putin is now

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Speaker 1: looking at this as a pure land grab in order

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Speaker 1: to try and grab as much land as he possibly can,

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Speaker 1: which is going to ensure an intense amount of death

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Speaker 1: and unfortunately an intense amount of fighting on the parts

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Speaker 1: of the Russians, because if this is the last of

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Speaker 1: their offensive capability, you can be sure that they are

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Speaker 1: going to be grabbing as much as they possibly can

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Speaker 1: before we even try to reach a negotiated settlement. And

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Speaker 1: in terms of the parts of the Ukrainians, they've put

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Speaker 1: up a fierce and you know, a fierce, fierce resistance.

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Speaker 1: But we did see you know, one of the major

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Speaker 1: cities there in Ukraine already fall and who knows how

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Speaker 1: much longer they can hold out in that part of

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Speaker 1: the country, which is already at in a civil war

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Speaker 1: for the last eight years. Yeah, Kaufman, really, he's very

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Speaker 1: clear he doesn't want a hazard of guests as to

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Speaker 1: what happens in eastern Ukraine and which side is ultimately

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Speaker 1: going to get the upper hand. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: to your point about you know, will there be a

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Speaker 1: broader military immobilization from Russia where they actually are telling

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Speaker 1: their populations weren't preparing for that. There's a very ominous

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Speaker 1: sign this morning that you know, I'm not going to

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Speaker 1: hazard a guess as to what exactly is going on there,

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Speaker 1: but there are reports of explosions at a gas facility

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Speaker 1: inside the Russian porters, So you know, they could spin

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Speaker 1: that as this was a Ukrainian attack. Perhaps it actually

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Speaker 1: was a Ukrainian attack and say this is a direct

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Speaker 1: attack on our soil. Now it's time we have to

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Speaker 1: fully mobilize and fully go to war again. Don't know

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Speaker 1: that that's the direction it's going in. I'm just saying

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Speaker 1: those are the reports that are out there this morning,

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Speaker 1: and it's a very ominous development with regards to Putin

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Speaker 1: and this report that you know, he was kind of

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Speaker 1: interested in a deal, was going back and forth and

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Speaker 1: now has sort of decided that noe, We're just going

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Speaker 1: to go for this land grab strategy. I mean, part

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Speaker 1: of what he has always wanted as a key priority

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Speaker 1: here is not just the Eastern region, but also this

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Speaker 1: land bridge to CRIMEA. So that seems to be the

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Speaker 1: direction that they are ultimately moving in and the fact

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Speaker 1: that the deal is effectively off the table, now, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's just an extremely sad state of affairs, and I

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Speaker 1: think it's an indictment of US policy and US actions

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Speaker 1: with regard to Ukraine. They said there was hope for

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Speaker 1: a deal. This is one of the sources who were

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Speaker 1: speaking to the Financial Times. Putin was going back and forth.

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Speaker 1: He needs to find a way to come out of

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Speaker 1: this as a winner. And then you contrast that to

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Speaker 1: ron Klain saying, no, we have no interest in giving

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Speaker 1: Putin any sort of face saving off ramp and the

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Speaker 1: administration's increasingly clear posture that their official policy is basically,

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Speaker 1: you know, cold war with Russia to the end, and

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Speaker 1: it is a it presages a new and very sad

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Speaker 1: and dangerous, frankly world order that we're moving into. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you know, whenever you have a situation where one

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Speaker 1: side needs to say face, who knows what that looks like,

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Speaker 1: Like you said, maybe there's some attack that they have staged,

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Speaker 1: maybe it's even a Ukrainian attack. These longer the hostile

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Speaker 1: go on, the longer that this type of situation in

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Speaker 1: the worst case scenario can unfold. Who knows how Putin

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Speaker 1: views the US policy saying we want to see Russia weekend.

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Speaker 1: I can guarantee you they're gonna be playing that all

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Speaker 1: over their TV all day long. This is exactly what

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Speaker 1: they want. They want to humiliate US, they want to

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Speaker 1: destroy US, which is definitely going to consolidate their population.

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Speaker 1: In terms of US policy, we shipped hundreds of millions

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Speaker 1: more dollars in military aid over just the last week,

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Speaker 1: you know, several different appropriations of weapons that are heading

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Speaker 1: over there. So look, this is entering a new phase, unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: one we basically predicted from the beginning, which is we're

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Speaker 1: very likely to see a massive stalemate. You know, World

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Speaker 1: War One people thought the same thing. They're like, well,

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Speaker 1: we've lost enough people now, so now we got to

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Speaker 1: come out of this thing on top. We have to

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Speaker 1: go and grab this land. You know, Alsace Lorraine was

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Speaker 1: a really worth two hundred you know, two million people

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Speaker 1: who were died over that soil. Pretty much everybody agrees

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Speaker 1: not but the same traps of war, the same leaders,

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Speaker 1: in the same hubris. We are sadly in the same

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Speaker 1: situation as we found out then and in almost every

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Speaker 1: war since. Now it's all a game of attrition and

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Speaker 1: we'll see how it works out, but it's sad. Let's

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Speaker 1: update you on the election results out of France, because

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Speaker 1: I find this really fascinating and based on your response,

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Speaker 1: you all are pretty intrigued by it as well. So

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Speaker 1: this was the second and final round of the French

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Speaker 1: presidential runoffs, and it pitted Emmanuel Macrol, who of course

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Speaker 1: is the incumbent, against Marine le Pen who is a

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Speaker 1: far right president. She and her father have been running

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Speaker 1: for president for quite some time now, so there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of nervousness among establishment types because the polls

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Speaker 1: were really quite tight there for a while, and there

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Speaker 1: was a big question of who melon chon, who was

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Speaker 1: the third place sort of lefty candidate of like France's

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Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders. To make a very casual comparison here, who

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Speaker 1: would his voters go ahead and support or would they

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Speaker 1: show up to vote at all? Because there were protests

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Speaker 1: in the street among students in particular, saying basically, we

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Speaker 1: don't want either of these candidates. We hate both of

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Speaker 1: these people, a sentiment that I think us here in

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Speaker 1: America can very much understand with regards to the type

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Speaker 1: of choices we have been offered in our presidential politics

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Speaker 1: as well. So we have official results, as go ahead

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Speaker 1: and put this first element up on the screen from

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Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal. Emmanuel Macron has in fact won

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Speaker 1: a second term in the presidential election, you know. They

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Speaker 1: go on to say, he's now under pressure to unite

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Speaker 1: millions of French who cast ballots for his rivals in

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Speaker 1: the election's first round of voting. Because it's very important

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Speaker 1: to note that when you combine the vote for the

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Speaker 1: far left and far right candidates, more than fifty percent

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Speaker 1: of the vote went against the sort of establishment neoliberal

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Speaker 1: direction of France. So that's the first part. Let's put

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Speaker 1: this next, this next tear sheet up on the screen.

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Speaker 1: From Lamont. They talk here about you've got the official results,

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Speaker 1: fifty seven point four percent for Mcron, forty two point

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Speaker 1: six percent for La Penn, so not particularly close in

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Speaker 1: the end. But they talk about here how large the

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Speaker 1: numbers of abstentions actually were. The extension rate was on

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Speaker 1: course for about twenty eight percent. That means people who

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Speaker 1: just said neither right, I don't want either of these people.

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Speaker 1: I'm staying home, I'm casting a blank ballot, I'm not

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Speaker 1: picking either one of these candidates. Twenty eight percent. That

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Speaker 1: would be the highest in any presidential election second round

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Speaker 1: runoff since nineteen sixty nine. So clearly voters not in

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Speaker 1: love with these choices. And by the way, perhaps part

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Speaker 1: of the reason why is because they report high on

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Speaker 1: mccron's to do list once he's you know, back in office,

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Speaker 1: is pinched reform, raising the French retirement age, so cutting

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Speaker 1: back on social benefits. This has been there been, you know,

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Speaker 1: his tenure has been already racked with protests. They had

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Speaker 1: the Yellow vest movement against gas tax increases. He's been

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Speaker 1: in terms of economics, you know, just standard neoliberal and

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Speaker 1: very dissonant from some of the social welfare traditions in France.

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Speaker 1: So go ahead and put this next piece up on

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Speaker 1: the screen. That just has the margin fifty eight forty two,

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Speaker 1: so again not that close end you can see. Go

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Speaker 1: ahead and put the next tweet up on the screen.

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Speaker 1: You can see as we got closer to election day

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Speaker 1: that the area where it was sort of like the

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Speaker 1: tightest there on the screen. April tenth, that was right

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Speaker 1: during the first round of voting, and ever since then,

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Speaker 1: mcron has been gaining and gaining and gaining. So his

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Speaker 1: message of basically like, listen, you may not like me

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Speaker 1: all that much, but we got to be a bulwark

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Speaker 1: against the right seems to have worked. I know also

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Speaker 1: that there were a lot of attacks from him on

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Speaker 1: La Penn over her ties to Russia, you know, as

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Speaker 1: the Ukraine conflict continues to unfold. So that's what the

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Speaker 1: lay of the land looks like there. It's pretty fascinating. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in terms of Macron, I mean, he was an incredibly

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Speaker 1: unpopular politician, but that's actually kind of par for the course. Now. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: some US people are trying to read into this, one

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Speaker 1: of them being the White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain,

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Speaker 1: put up this tweet. He says, quote an interesting observation.

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Speaker 1: Just FYI, President Macron appears to have secured a double

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Speaker 1: digit VIC over Lapen at a time when his approval

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Speaker 1: rating is thirty six percent. Now that's incredibly low, iq

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Speaker 1: and dumb for a variety of means. Number One, last

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Speaker 1: time I checked, we live in an electoral college, not

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Speaker 1: a direct democracy in terms of national popular vote, and

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Speaker 1: I think Biden would have to have a fifty two

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Speaker 1: to a fifty four percent margin just to win the

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Speaker 1: electoral college. So that's number one. Number two, we don't

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Speaker 1: have a runoff system a lah what we happened previously,

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Speaker 1: so that might actually cut across. But third, you really

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Speaker 1: want to celebrate the fact that the guy won. And

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Speaker 1: you know, look, on the one hand, Macron, it was

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Speaker 1: a blowout. On the other, I mean, he comes into

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Speaker 1: a much weaker position. His party does not look well

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Speaker 1: poised when the upcoming parliamentary elections France is obviously, you know,

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Speaker 1: ensconsin turmoil, So you really want to celebrate a win

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Speaker 1: on that and just acknowledging how unpopular we are looks

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Speaker 1: completely ridiculous. Now, in terms of the election itself, you

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Speaker 1: were talking about with the crossover vote, let's put this

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Speaker 1: up there, forty two percent of first round Melanchon voters

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Speaker 1: actually back to Krone in the election. Now, forty two

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Speaker 1: percent could be looked at as a lot, or it

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Speaker 1: could be looked at as really not that much, given

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Speaker 1: the fact that Melanchone actually said nobody should vote for

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Speaker 1: Marine Lapenn, so a high level of abstention, and this

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Speaker 1: was the lowest rate forty two for Melonchon voters, packing

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Speaker 1: Macron and seventeen percent backing Lapenn. So many more went

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Speaker 1: with Macron, but you can see quite a number just

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Speaker 1: said nah, yeah, blank, none of the above. I think

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Speaker 1: that's what's really nuts. And like I said, in terms

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Speaker 1: of his National Assembly what he looks poised to win.

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Speaker 1: Who knows in terms of how this works out, But

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Speaker 1: the polls there seem more accurate. Let's put this up there,

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Speaker 1: which is sixty six percent say they do not want

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Speaker 1: him to obtain a majority of seats in the National Assembly,

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Speaker 1: which would all but spell doom for that pension reform

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Speaker 1: and all of that. Now in terms of the in

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Speaker 1: terms of deeper in terms of the election get in

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Speaker 1: the context of Lapenn, there's a lot going on here.

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Speaker 1: Let's put with Taniel who we had on the show.

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Speaker 1: I actually kind of disagree with his point here as

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Speaker 1: important one of caution is the highest that the far

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Speaker 1: right has gotten In two thousand and two, Jean Marie

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Speaker 1: Lapenn got eighteen percent. Five years ago, Lapenn got thirty four.

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Speaker 1: This time Lapenn gets forty one to forty three. Now,

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Speaker 1: I guess you could say that it is an accomplishment

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Speaker 1: in order to get to forty one to forty three,

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Speaker 1: But in the context of any other politics getting beat

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Speaker 1: by fifty you know, what is it, fifty six to

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Speaker 1: forty three. That's terrible. I mean that's a complete blowout.

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Speaker 1: So really, the story to me is what we said

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Speaker 1: from the beginning. The story is that the center left

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Speaker 1: and the center right in France are dead. There is

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Speaker 1: a weird neolib constituency in Macron, but he still created

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Speaker 1: his own party. He's got elements of the right, he's

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Speaker 1: got elements of the left, he's got elements of the center.

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Speaker 1: He destroyed the center left. Lapenn also just remains really

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Speaker 1: just a complete non starter figure for a large portion

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Speaker 1: of the French population. They're willing to begrudgingly vote for him.

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Speaker 1: And in terms of the right, the gaullest center right

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Speaker 1: party which ruled France for I don't even know for decades. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: dead gone. That's the story to me, which is that

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Speaker 1: you see these two independent candidates which are now assembling

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Speaker 1: new coalitions, and how that shakes out in the history

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Speaker 1: of France. This is we're going to look back on

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Speaker 1: this period and say this was a big, big moment

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Speaker 1: in their history as to how a new coalition in

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Speaker 1: a new center is evolving. It's really fascinating and it is.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of temptations to make analogies with American politics,

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Speaker 1: and I think some of them are apt. Certainly we

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Speaker 1: can see it in you a reflection our own politics

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Speaker 1: of having these two choices that you know, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of people who aren't terribly excited about having, you know,

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Speaker 1: the message of basically like, look, you may not love me,

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Speaker 1: but you got to be super scared of this person

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Speaker 1: over here, so you got to suck it up and

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Speaker 1: suck it up and vote for Macron in this case right,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately that won the day. So similar to Biden

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Speaker 1: versus Trump, that message was compelling enough for Macron not

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Speaker 1: just to win, but win here by a comfortable margin.

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Speaker 1: I think there's also something to be said about the

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Speaker 1: fact that his political stres looks sort of like what

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Speaker 1: Biden's political strategy looks like right now, which is basically

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Speaker 1: to piss off your own base. So mccraln, since he's

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Speaker 1: come into office, has on cultural issues in particular, decidedly

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Speaker 1: moved to the right, thinking like this will be a

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Speaker 1: bulwark against the Penn and against other right candidates. But

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Speaker 1: instead what he did is just pissed off everybody on

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Speaker 1: the left, so that you ended up having this you know,

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Speaker 1: large abstention among the left wing that you know, would

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Speaker 1: want to stand against the right, and so it ended

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Speaker 1: up making the election closer than it might have been

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Speaker 1: had he not gone down that path. And then I

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Speaker 1: also think that you see, you know, this hollow neoliberalism

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Speaker 1: that everyone hates. I shouldn't say everyone, but many people

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Speaker 1: really hate. That's basically rejected by the population. That leads

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Speaker 1: Macron to have thirty six percent approval rating, very similar

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Speaker 1: again to Joe Biden. But that message of yeah, but

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Speaker 1: the alternative is worse is enough for people to sort of,

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Speaker 1: you know, suck it up and deal with a lot

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Speaker 1: of things that they ultimately don't like. The story below

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Speaker 1: the presidential level, at the national assembly also super fascinating

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Speaker 1: because at the presidential level, you're right, the center right

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Speaker 1: in the center left parties that dominated French politics for

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Speaker 1: decades are like they got decimated. They weren't even a

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Speaker 1: factor in this president either of the presidential runoffs. Now

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Speaker 1: at the national assembly level, it is a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a different picture, but you see melon Sean the

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Speaker 1: left in France quite emboldened right now too, because even

431
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:36,760
Speaker 1: though they didn't make the runoff, he didn't make the runoff,

432
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:39,720
Speaker 1: he came a lot closer than he was ultimately being predicted.

433
00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:43,719
Speaker 1: And because you have this large sentiment in favor of

434
00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:46,480
Speaker 1: sort of a bulwark against Macron and some of the

435
00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:50,159
Speaker 1: economic policies that he wants to pursue, they're really hoping

436
00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:53,720
Speaker 1: to make some big gains at the National Assembly level.

437
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:56,280
Speaker 1: So I do think it's really interesting. I think it's

438
00:21:56,400 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 1: very telling that clearly ron Klain is taking you know,

439
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:02,440
Speaker 1: biden chief of staff ron Klaane is taking something from

440
00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:05,159
Speaker 1: this basically saying like, look, we don't have to do

441
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:09,639
Speaker 1: any better. We don't have to deliver on material politics

442
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:12,560
Speaker 1: for people, or you know, stop pissing people off or

443
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,800
Speaker 1: actually governed. Well, you all can really not be too

444
00:22:15,840 --> 00:22:17,960
Speaker 1: into Joe Biden and think he's doing a terrible job

445
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:19,800
Speaker 1: and we still think we got a decent shot to

446
00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:22,520
Speaker 1: win the election because Trump is that much worse. That's

447
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:25,920
Speaker 1: a very very depressing state of politics that frankly, we've

448
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:27,640
Speaker 1: been living in for quite some time now. I've been

449
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:30,120
Speaker 1: living in this for a while, you know, in terms

450
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:33,160
Speaker 1: of what plagues the West, that looks to be basically

451
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:36,920
Speaker 1: the same story Germany, France, the UK and here. It's

452
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 1: not like Boris Johnson is super popular either, No, no,

453
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:42,639
Speaker 1: he's not. What a sad state of affairs that we

454
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:45,360
Speaker 1: leave it really actually is, I mean, when you think

455
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:48,560
Speaker 1: of it, it really is an indictment of the whole

456
00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:52,119
Speaker 1: neoliberal project over the past forty years that you know,

457
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:54,720
Speaker 1: we're I don't know if you guys saw this news item.

458
00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders is still thinking of maybe I should run

459
00:22:57,040 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 1: for president, and God bless him. I mean, I certainly

460
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 1: so poor like the program and the agenda and what

461
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:05,680
Speaker 1: he has meant to the movement. But the fact that

462
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 1: you have no standard bear that can follow us, that

463
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:11,760
Speaker 1: you have no bench that would that you would seriously

464
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: look around and be like, I guess I gotta do

465
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:18,239
Speaker 1: it again is also in that you know, on the

466
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:21,199
Speaker 1: neoliberal side, the best they think they can do is

467
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:24,639
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, I mean, Kamala Harris completely disaster. So it

468
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 1: is kind of an indictment of the whole project that

469
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:28,359
Speaker 1: we've been engaged in here for number of decades. And

470
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:30,240
Speaker 1: look over on the I mean, after Trump, like, who

471
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:32,000
Speaker 1: is it? Right, It's like a clown car of a

472
00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:34,160
Speaker 1: bunch of people who want to try and fill his shoes.

473
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 1: So you know, it's an ever present story, unfortunately potential

474
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:42,159
Speaker 1: eat good news depending on how you feel about it.

475
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:44,680
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and move on here. Elon Musk, So

476
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:46,879
Speaker 1: there is breaking news this morning. This is what we

477
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:49,040
Speaker 1: had last night. Cut, let's put it up there on

478
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:51,960
Speaker 1: the screen. Your Twitter is re examining Elon must bid

479
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,080
Speaker 1: and it may be more receptive to the deal. Now

480
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: since that time, we actually have some breaking news that

481
00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 1: came out this morning that a deal could be signed

482
00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:01,919
Speaker 1: as soon as to day. Now, what they say is

483
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: that the Twitter is very likely to accept Musk's forty

484
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:10,160
Speaker 1: three billion dollar offer. Now this came after Elon actually

485
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: secured funding officially per an SEC filing. Let's put that

486
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. Now. What they said is

487
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 1: that he secured the forty six point five billion dollars

488
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 1: in funding. He was meeting with activists and bigger investors

489
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 1: all over the weekend. Reports Crystal that over the last

490
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: couple of hours that they had been on the phone

491
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 1: in the wei hours of the day, that they were

492
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: negotiating the fine points of the deal in terms of

493
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:37,760
Speaker 1: what the deal actually looks like we still don't one

494
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: hundred percent know. The reason that this is significant is

495
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:43,679
Speaker 1: that the big question mark around Musk was does he

496
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:47,359
Speaker 1: actually have the dollars? And that question was of course

497
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 1: solved whenever he put forward the SEC filing officially saying

498
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 1: that he had the money. And then you point to

499
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:55,400
Speaker 1: the fact that a deal could come as soon as

500
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:59,160
Speaker 1: today with serious negotiations that are happening, the original poison

501
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 1: pill appears who have been tossed out the window. I

502
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: think what this comes from is that they were very skeptical,

503
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 1: and I think rightfully so, given his past actions on Tesla.

504
00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 1: They're like, we don't think that he has the money.

505
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 1: So when he came forward with that letter saying, look,

506
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: here's forty six to five, I've got the cash, let's go,

507
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:18,679
Speaker 1: then I think they were forced from a fiduciary responsibility

508
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:21,959
Speaker 1: in order to actively consider the deal. And given that

509
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 1: their stock is not doing all that well and this

510
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:27,680
Speaker 1: is a significant premium upon their stock, they have really

511
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 1: no choice without facing a massive amount of lawsuits. That's

512
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 1: the analysis that we basically gave everyone at the top.

513
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:36,359
Speaker 1: We're like, look, I mean, from a shareholder perspective, you

514
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: can't not do right by the shareholders, but given them

515
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:42,199
Speaker 1: a twenty percent premium, and this would make it so

516
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 1: that Musk outright owning the company, keeping it private, and

517
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: then being able to enforce whatever content policy he wants

518
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: without the whims of the public markets. It really is,

519
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 1: I mean, it's going to be extraordinary if it actually

520
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 1: goes through. Well, the one potential legal avenue that they

521
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: had to argue that we could reject this deal, that yes,

522
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: it's at a premium, but it may not be in

523
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 1: the best interest of the shareholders because ultimately he has

524
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: values that are separate and apart from just the financial

525
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 1: performance of the company. So that was one thing that

526
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:14,680
Speaker 1: people had floated of basically how they can get out

527
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: of this bind of their legal requirement to act in

528
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: the best interests of the shareholders. I think you're correct though, that,

529
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: you know, that just became sort of untenable once the

530
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: money was on the table and it was this significance

531
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 1: of a premium over where the stock price has been.

532
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 1: I just, you know, at a macro level, I think

533
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: we should always keep in mind with this story, what

534
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 1: a dim state of affairs it is that our sort

535
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:42,200
Speaker 1: of public square and speech is subject to the whims

536
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:47,199
Speaker 1: of a small handful of elite overclass, right like, in

537
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: whatever their whims are good, bad, and dem of whether

538
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: you have to agree with this one or that one

539
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:53,919
Speaker 1: or the other one. That's not a good place for

540
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: us to be in that we have to like hope

541
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: that this particular billionaire and what they feel like doing

542
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: today is going to be ultimately good for the functioning

543
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: of our democracy. I think that's a sad state of

544
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 1: affairs with regards to Musk himself, you know, I mean,

545
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 1: I am hopeful that his content moderation policies will be

546
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 1: more in line with the healthy functioning of a democracy

547
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: less censorious, less in that direction, especially the direction Twitter

548
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: has moved in since Jack stepped down as CEO, which

549
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: has been very troubling. So, you know, am I hopeful

550
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,120
Speaker 1: that this particular billionaire might be a little bit better

551
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:30,120
Speaker 1: on those things. Yes, there may be some other decisions

552
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:32,399
Speaker 1: that we ultimately don't like. I personally am not a

553
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: fan of the idea of adding the edit button, something

554
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 1: that he has purportedly I've been interested in. The edit

555
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 1: button is a terrible idea. Everybody has gone viral, Okay,

556
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:44,440
Speaker 1: anybody who is in the game this business has gone

557
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 1: viral and has misspelled something, perhaps done something wrong. Guess what,

558
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: you know what the best thing to do is. And

559
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:51,200
Speaker 1: this is my policy if I tweet something which is

560
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: wrong or I did incorrect. Anytime I delete a tweet,

561
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,159
Speaker 1: I delete it and then I screenshot it and I

562
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 1: say this is why I deleted it. Because if you

563
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 1: just reply and be like, hey, I got this wrong,

564
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:03,440
Speaker 1: the fake news or the fake part of it could

565
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 1: still go viral. And with an edit button, it will

566
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: make it so that we could potentially have a tweet

567
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: that goes viral for one hundred thousand somebody edits it

568
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:12,199
Speaker 1: and you look at it and you think that the

569
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: edited version is why it went or if somebody gets

570
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: dunked on, look, this is very or like what if

571
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: you retweet something yeah, and then it gets edited says

572
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: something that you don't agree with exactly that you don't

573
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 1: want to, you know, endorse if your retweets equal endorsements.

574
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: So I'm not a fan of that ed button. I

575
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: also just like the like humanizing aspect of seeing all

576
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: of our fuck ups and like spellings and autocorrects and

577
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So that part of it, I'm very

578
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: opposed to, But I would say that's a smaller issue

579
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: than you know, the speech issues because Twitter. Why this

580
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: matters so much and why we followed it so closely,

581
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: and why there's been such a panic and freak out

582
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: among a large set of sort of elite journalists in particular,

583
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: is because Twitter really is disproportionately powerful in terms of

584
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: impacting elite discourse. It is not, by far, it is

585
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 1: not the most widely used social media platform, but when

586
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: you're talking about journalists and opinion makers, this is where

587
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: they go to say their piece. This is where they

588
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: go oftentimes to like gap which maybe they should do

589
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: a lot less, but to gather information about how people

590
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: are feeling about different things. So that's why it matters

591
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: so much to the functioning of our democracy. It's funny too,

592
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: in terms of what you're saying. You know, snapchats earnings

593
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: and reports came out they have one hundred and fifteen

594
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: million more daily active users than Twitter. Really, Yeah, ask yourself.

595
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: Does Snapchat punch at the same level of cultural relevance

596
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: as Twitter? No? And actually it fits really with our

597
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: show as well. People ask me all the time, they like,

598
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: how come you guys aren't more active on Twitter. I'm like, dude,

599
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: I don't care about Twitter. The majority of the people

600
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: who watch our show and consume our content do so

601
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: on YouTube, to a limited extents on Instagram, and then

602
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 1: to a far more limited extent on TikTok, where we

603
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: have those channels. That's it, that's where the vast majority

604
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:02,959
Speaker 1: of people actually are. As in I care about reaching

605
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: the maximum amount of people people, not necessarily being you know,

606
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: amongst elite cachet because that's a much smaller audience. And

607
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: for this show we talk about populous things and about

608
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 1: things that are affecting real people's lives. Majority of real

609
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: people are not on Twitter. Many people don't even have

610
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: a Twitter account. The only time that we really engage

611
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 1: on Twitter is either a in order to make an

612
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: announcement just because it's sufficient, or b in order to

613
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 1: you know, penetrate the in order to penetrate elite discourse.

614
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: When I talk about media and stuff like that, I'm

615
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: doing it very pointedly at the specific media elites who

616
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:37,959
Speaker 1: I know shadow follow me or follow me because I'm

617
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: subtreeting them. Whereas here on the show, I don't care

618
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 1: about any of those people. I know they're going to

619
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: watch anyway, and fine, free country. What I want to

620
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 1: do is reach the majority of the people, and that's

621
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 1: what we do here. So in terms of the usages

622
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 1: of social media platforms, it's just important to note Twitter

623
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: is important for elites, and the reason why that that

624
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 1: matters is because elites run your life, my life, and

625
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: all of ours. So the content policies on that platform

626
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 1: have an outsize impact. At the same time, it doesn't

627
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: matter for a lot of people because it's not even

628
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: on the platform in the first place. I would just

629
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: say I really hope that it works out from a

630
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: content perspective. Musk's strategy saying I don't care about the

631
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: economics at all, really, in my opinion, is the only

632
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: way to run Twitter. Twitter is not a very good business.

633
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 1: It's probably a couple billion dollars a year profit based

634
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: upon advertising, but it's long term prospects of adding daily

635
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: active users and changing the product. The core product is

636
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: what it is. There's not a lot of innovation really

637
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: to be had, and I think that's fine, but the

638
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 1: problem is that doesn't work with the stocks right, you

639
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: could have a situation where your product could grow by

640
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 1: twenty percent or something like that. Your stock still goes

641
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: down because it's, oh, Wall Street expected twenty five percent.

642
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 1: So keeping it private, in my opinion, probably the best

643
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: move possibly. I mean, I personally would like to see

644
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: like total government takeover that we have, you know, I mean,

645
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: because honestly that at least then at least you have

646
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 1: some democratic accountability. I Mean, what I'm really interested in

647
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: with all these platforms is I think the more neutral

648
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: they can be, the better. And I mean that both

649
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: from a content moderation standpoint. You know, you have a

650
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: set of rules. They should be as hands off as possible,

651
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:14,719
Speaker 1: and then they have to be religiously applied consistently, and

652
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: there isn't a single platform out there that meets that

653
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:20,479
Speaker 1: standard right now. And then the other piece, which is

654
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 1: less relevant for Twitter, but still relevant, is what content

655
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:27,719
Speaker 1: is being served to people, and you know, seeing and

656
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: having transparency of how those algorithms ultimately work, because that

657
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 1: shapes what you see and how people communicate, how they

658
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 1: even how their brains work. That shapes all of that

659
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: so incredibly. And so the fact that on YouTube, for example,

660
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: we have no insight that is just a total black box,

661
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 1: zero insight into how they're picking content to serve and

662
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 1: what that recommendation algorithm looks like. I think that's really

663
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: damaging as well. So you know, on Twitter, they move

664
00:32:57,480 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: to this system where you know, they used to just

665
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: show you whatever came up in your feed next, and

666
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: now you have to choose, like actively, you have to

667
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: choose that option because the default is we're going to

668
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 1: pick for you what we think you'd be into. And

669
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: you know, the facts of the matter is they're actually

670
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: pretty good at that. Like oftentimes I find that feed

671
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 1: that they sort of curated for me to be very useful,

672
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 1: but it also makes the platform less neutral and makes

673
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: it so that they have more control over what things

674
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 1: are getting seen, what things are going viral, what things

675
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 1: you feel like are most central and most important, and

676
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 1: ultimately I think that's a direction that is a problem

677
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: for democracy. Yeah, on at least one thing in musk

678
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: cap he is saying he wants to make the algorithm transparent,

679
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 1: and I think that would be great. That would be great.

680
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: I mean I want to see that on I would

681
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 1: love to see that on every platform because then at

682
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: least you have the information and it would be you know,

683
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 1: better if we had sort of democratic accountability and had

684
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,719
Speaker 1: these things run more like public utilities, because I do

685
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: think that they are critical in structure in terms of

686
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: the function of our society. But at the very least,

687
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: just like with the Stock Act, if you have that transparency,

688
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:11,439
Speaker 1: then people can do the reporting, they can expose what's

689
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 1: really going on, and then you can have some sort

690
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: of populous democratic backlash to demand things be moved in

691
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: a different direction, to demand, for example, that you don't

692
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: have CNN and Fox News and MSNBC propped up to

693
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 1: the extent that they very clearly are by YouTube. It's

694
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: an interesting conversation around tech two. I was talking with

695
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,280
Speaker 1: the friend of mine, shri Ram Krishnan. He's a venture capitalist.

696
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:34,320
Speaker 1: He actually used to work at Twitter for Jactors Dorsey

697
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: and one of that he put out a video we

698
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: put a recommendation on which is that if we could

699
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 1: control our own algorithm more, What I mean is you

700
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: could opt as a user into the default recommendation algorithm

701
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:46,760
Speaker 1: give me the stuff that's going to make me engage

702
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 1: the most. But now that's the default because of advertising.

703
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:51,959
Speaker 1: But if you move away to a different business model,

704
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:54,319
Speaker 1: or if you just give that up altogether. Let's say

705
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: that we wanted to choose the consecutive timeline. You and

706
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: I work in news. I don't care about the recommendation algorithm.

707
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 1: I want to know what's happening right now, so I

708
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:04,919
Speaker 1: could I could opt into that. You could also opt into,

709
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: like an entertainment algorithm. You could opt into different ones

710
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: that the company could select and give you different options

711
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 1: over your user experience. I think that would be a

712
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:15,840
Speaker 1: lot more empowering for the user, and it moves more

713
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: in a direction of like the tech should work for us,

714
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: not we should work in the tech. Well. The other

715
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: big central problem that was written about in the book

716
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:30,839
Speaker 1: Stolen Focus is the advertising driven model. Yes, because that

717
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:33,719
Speaker 1: makes the whole incentive. How do we not to how

718
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:36,800
Speaker 1: do we satisfy you and make you have a good, pleasant,

719
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 1: like edifying experience? How do we keep you here, keep

720
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:46,280
Speaker 1: you clicking, keep you agitated? Right, That's that's the whole

721
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,919
Speaker 1: ecosystem because it is driven by ad dollars. The more

722
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: time you're there and the more emotions like good, bad,

723
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 1: are and different that you're having about the content that

724
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 1: you're serving, the better it is for sort of the

725
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 1: you know, capitalist advertise system, and so which is again

726
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: why we thought really carefully about our business model to

727
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 1: move it, you know, away from depending on ad dollars

728
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:13,879
Speaker 1: and tours, depending on membership fees, because that just gives

729
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 1: you a different set of incentives than if you're just

730
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,319
Speaker 1: wanting people to click and be mad or be disgusted

731
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 1: or be fearful. So I think that, like super advertising

732
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:28,439
Speaker 1: driven model, is another really pernicious problem at the core

733
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 1: of all of these social media played. If we were

734
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,919
Speaker 1: just straight YouTubers, our only goal would be to put

735
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:36,240
Speaker 1: out videos with as much clickbait or whatever as possible

736
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 1: and just keep time on platform and the retention rate

737
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 1: as high as possible. Sometimes you do a clip that's

738
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:42,919
Speaker 1: only three minutes, you know why, because only three minutes

739
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: worth of stuff to say, Dragging it out for a

740
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 1: long period is not good for the user and it's

741
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: not good for us. It's worse content. But that's what

742
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 1: the incentives actually look like. So yeah, you know, it

743
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:53,799
Speaker 1: just gives you a good behind the scenes into what

744
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:55,799
Speaker 1: that would look like with an alternative funding model, with

745
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 1: the direct a subscription, we can give you the best

746
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: product that we want to get right different, And I

747
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: think the distance between what YouTube promotes and what actual

748
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: human beings would choose for themselves was really demonstrated by

749
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 1: when we asked our premium subscribers, what do you want

750
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:16,280
Speaker 1: us to talk about? Right, and it was wildly different

751
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:19,760
Speaker 1: than what you know, the YouTube sort of algorithm would

752
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: push to people and would ultimately reward. So for me,

753
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:26,840
Speaker 1: I think that says it all about the distance between

754
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: what these platforms are actually serving you and creating and incentivizing,

755
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: versus what people would actually enjoy and find to be

756
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 1: useful in their lives. Some good news, okay, as I

757
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 1: previewed before, we have election number two at another Amazon

758
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 1: facility on Staten Island that voting begins this morning. My

759
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 1: understanding is it will complete this week, so we may

760
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: know by the end of the week whether the new

761
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 1: Amazon labor union will go too. For two. I do

762
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 1: think this is you know, I don't think we should

763
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 1: take this for granted whatsoever. It's a very different facility,

764
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: as Chris told me and has told said publicly, it's

765
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: the sorting facility. You have a lot more part timers,

766
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: so the concerns are different. That's a much more difficult

767
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:12,839
Speaker 1: workforce ultimately to organize. Also, because this may not even

768
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 1: be their main bread and butter. They may have two

769
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 1: other jobs, but another job, you know, something else that

770
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: is their sort of main source of income. So there

771
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 1: are a lot of challenges here. Not to mention, of course,

772
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 1: Amazon's over the tough union busting, which reportedly they ramped

773
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:31,360
Speaker 1: up considerably after the stunning victory at JFK eight the

774
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:36,920
Speaker 1: Staten Island warehouse. So big news from yesterday is now

775
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:40,439
Speaker 1: the left politicians are fully engaged in the fight, now

776
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 1: that they have seen that this is a live issue

777
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:44,800
Speaker 1: and that Chris Malls and Derek Palmer and all the

778
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 1: rest of the folks at Amazon Labor Union are in

779
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,480
Speaker 1: fact capable of winning. Let's put this up on the screen.

780
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: We had Bernie and AOC. They're on the ground in

781
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 1: Staten Island, still not in her district. Interestingly, sorry I

782
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 1: couldn't resist, but listen, let me just because obviously, you know,

783
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:04,279
Speaker 1: I got into a back and forth with AOC was

784
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: sort of trying to, you know, take a little bit

785
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 1: of credit for the initial when when she had not

786
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 1: only not been involved, but she'd actively stood these workers up.

787
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 1: And she pushed back of like, this isn't even in

788
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 1: my district. This is all I wanted. Look, I'm glad

789
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:19,839
Speaker 1: to see her show up and engaged in the fight now,

790
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 1: and we have to provide some accountability to these politicians.

791
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: And this is not coming for me. This is from

792
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: Chris Mall's. Typically, the only consequence would be on the

793
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: other side. If she did show up and then it

794
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 1: ended up in some sort of like embarrassing defeat, that

795
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: would be the concert she'd be worried about, you know,

796
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 1: just to damage my credibility and my strength and my brand,

797
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: all of those things. So if you push back when

798
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 1: they don't show up, you have to have some consequences

799
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:49,360
Speaker 1: and some costs on the other side for failing to

800
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,799
Speaker 1: back workers and stand up and support them in the

801
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 1: first place. So I am very glad to see that

802
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: she has joined this fight. And you know, they they

803
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: said ultimately. Eric Palmer had a great quote here. He says,

804
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 1: starting this movement in the beginning, we did not have

805
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 1: the support that we do now, and now that we've won,

806
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: I'm just glad that everyone's finally waking up and realizing

807
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: the power that we have. We've woken the country up,

808
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 1: and I want us to continue on this journey. Sugar. Yeah,

809
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: and luckily, thanks to our new partnership with Jordan Sheridan.

810
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:21,800
Speaker 1: We have some exclusive footage of an interview with Derek Palmer.

811
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen. You know, after the win, you know,

812
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:25,799
Speaker 1: it's been a historical win. You know, a lot of

813
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: workers are now motivated. You know, they've come to me

814
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 1: congratulating me, texts, email calls, you know. So I think

815
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 1: the todd is definitely shifting after that win. You know,

816
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 1: the labor movement, you know, was kind of sleep and

817
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 1: now it's definitely awakened for sure. And now we're getting

818
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:43,760
Speaker 1: that support from the community as well, and workers actually

819
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 1: want to get involved with organizing them, which is the goal.

820
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 1: So I only see it spreading like wildfire throughout the

821
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:53,919
Speaker 1: United States. I wanted to ask you because Bernie had

822
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 1: mentioned when he spoke that before he spoke, you guys

823
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:01,439
Speaker 1: privately met and he was he didn't know the full

824
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: extent of the union busting. Uh. Do you know, do

825
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: you think a lot of the politicians kind of like

826
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:09,680
Speaker 1: maybe know some bad things are going on, but don't

827
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:12,839
Speaker 1: know like how bad in terms of the threats retaliation. Yeah,

828
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 1: you know they hear, you know, they hear the stories,

829
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 1: but you know it's nothing like being on the grounds

830
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: talking to workers, you know, so they can really get

831
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,720
Speaker 1: the full scope of what's going on here. And obviously

832
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 1: there was some criticism of AOC kind of flaked on

833
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 1: you during the campaign. What does it say to you

834
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: that she showed up because obviously a lot of people

835
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: are saying now she's trying to ride their coat tails.

836
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 1: But I think it's helpful to actually winning to have

837
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 1: her out here to her Yeah, I mean, you know what,

838
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: AOC gets a lot of scrutiny, but you know, it

839
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: was it was all the politicians, let's be real, who

840
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 1: didn't show up. But you know now that they're here,

841
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:48,720
Speaker 1: you know they're they're motivated, and you know, ultimately AOC

842
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 1: once was best for workers as well as Bernie Sanders.

843
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 1: So their support here means a lot. And moving forward,

844
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:57,319
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're all, they're all in. You know,

845
00:41:57,400 --> 00:41:59,720
Speaker 1: we we had a nice conversation back there at the Hilton,

846
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: and you know they want to support one hundred ten percent. Hey,

847
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: I'm with Charles. You're a supporter of Amazon Labor Union.

848
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 1: You know, I've covered this for about a year. I've

849
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 1: never seen so much press and support here. Can he

850
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 1: kind of talk about what got you involved in supporting

851
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 1: the workers here and what did you think of Bernie

852
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: and AOC speaking. I think this speech was right on

853
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: time for me. I am a union called the eue

854
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:28,959
Speaker 1: U now Electrical ringom Machine works in America. I'm based

855
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:30,839
Speaker 1: in Virginia, so we came all the way up here

856
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 1: on two on Thursday of this past week the health support.

857
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 1: So we've been doing a phone bank and we've been

858
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,359
Speaker 1: out in the parking lot talking to workers and all that.

859
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:41,719
Speaker 1: And right now for me, I'm actually helping organize city

860
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 1: workers down there. So the show goes around, it's across

861
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 1: the board. So we recognized that a victory for Amazon

862
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: is a victory for the label Moon as a whole,

863
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:52,800
Speaker 1: saying with Starbus and all these other places. Andy jasse

864
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 1: who's Amazon CEO, don't full it. Bezos is still driving

865
00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:00,840
Speaker 1: the bus. But Andy Jassey was on CNBC to the

866
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 1: victory here. He said, a place like Amazon empowers employees.

867
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 1: If they see something they could do better for customers

868
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 1: or for themselves, they could just go meet in a room,

869
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:13,839
Speaker 1: decide how to change it, and change it. You guys,

870
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:15,120
Speaker 1: you didn't have to do this. All you had to

871
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 1: do was go meet in a room and change it yourself. No,

872
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's ridiculous. It's bullshit, Frankly. I mean

873
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 1: we had a number of meetings with Felipe, with assistant

874
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 1: managers to try to get things changed. I mean, this

875
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 1: whole thing started right with Chris's walkout. Before he led

876
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: the walkout, he was trying to meet with managers every day.

877
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: He was in HRST every day trying to just get

878
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:42,720
Speaker 1: them to make changes about COVID or just tell people

879
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: that COVID was being spread around, and they wouldn't do it. So,

880
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,439
Speaker 1: I mean these CEOs and bosses like they can go

881
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:52,239
Speaker 1: on the news and spread all the lives they want,

882
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 1: but the workers know the truth. Yeah, I mean that

883
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 1: idea that, oh you could have just talked to us,

884
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 1: we would have totally and drastic come on, that's so

885
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 1: silly and ultimately ridiculous. Great footage from Jordan, by the way,

886
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: and if you guys miss the beginning of the show

887
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:11,000
Speaker 1: when we announced this, So Jordan's status cook new Breaking

888
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 1: Points partner. He's going to be giving us more exclusive

889
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 1: footage from his trips on the road. He also does

890
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:20,360
Speaker 1: great investigative journalism, very excited about being able to add

891
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:22,919
Speaker 1: that piece to the ecosystem here, and you can see

892
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: how valuable it ultimately is to actually hear from the

893
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 1: workers who made this victory possible and how they feel

894
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: ultimately about all of this. There's been a lot of

895
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: debate over maybe it wasn't a bad thing ultimately that

896
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: the politicians didn't show up the first time around. They

897
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 1: were able to kind of sneak under the radar, was

898
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 1: able to not be a partisan thing. But we also

899
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 1: have to respect the fact the workers themselves see this

900
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 1: is very helpful and very energizing. Look, it's up to them.

901
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:49,799
Speaker 1: They get to decide what they think is helpful and

902
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 1: what is not helpful. I do think personally it was

903
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: a benefit to them in the first one. This one

904
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:55,760
Speaker 1: is going to be different. We'll see how it goes.

905
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: I think voting start right now, right, Yes, that's right,

906
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 1: voting starts right now. It's literally happening right now, right.

907
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 1: We'll find out, I know one when we're filming this,

908
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 1: so you guys can get a little peak behind the scenes,

909
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 1: so we will see how it plays out. In terms

910
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:10,919
Speaker 1: of the tech side of this, crystal this is really nuts.

911
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen, which is

912
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: that the largest subreddit for Amazon workers has banned the

913
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: word union and it has forty three thousand, five hundred

914
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: members who decided to censor union related posts for, according

915
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: to them, due to an influx of spam and outright

916
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 1: malicious posts. Very interesting, isn't it that censorship is always

917
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 1: yielded based upon protecting the community. Yeah, whenever it's the

918
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 1: word union. Well, and so some members of that community,

919
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 1: because they have it on basically like autosensorship, So if

920
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:48,160
Speaker 1: they just see the word union, then a bot takes

921
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: it down automatically. So some of the members have started

922
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 1: using onion instead of union to get around it, so

923
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: they're not going to be stopped. But yeah, this is

924
00:45:57,280 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 1: really significant because obviously, listen, when you're working for Amazon

925
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: in those warehouses, I mean you can ask Chris or

926
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:08,280
Speaker 1: any of these folks. It really is relentless the pace,

927
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:11,279
Speaker 1: So you have very little time to talk to your

928
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: co workers. You know, you've got bosses and supervisors and

929
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: that multi thousand dollars a day paid union consultants listening

930
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:22,240
Speaker 1: listening over your shoulder to every word that you're ultimately saying.

931
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: So online spaces like this are really important for organizing

932
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:30,279
Speaker 1: and building solidarity. So for them to decide, oh, this

933
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 1: is too controversial, we have to take it down, it

934
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: really is very unfortunate. And I thought there was a

935
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 1: good quote in this article from Vice Too speaking to

936
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 1: one of the pro union Amazon workers who said, listen,

937
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 1: when you ban the discussion of unions at a place

938
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 1: with no unions, you are anti union because you're preserving

939
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: the anti union status quo. And I thought that was

940
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 1: a really good way to put it here. Ultimately, and

941
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:57,400
Speaker 1: by the way, don't forget, we saw something very similar

942
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 1: when Verizon workers who now basically, by the way, have

943
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:03,400
Speaker 1: been successful some retail Verizon worker has been successful and

944
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:06,839
Speaker 1: ultimately unionizing. But we saw the same thing with a

945
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 1: significant Verizon worker forum where they also said, ah, this

946
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: is we can't talk about this ultimately anymore. So this

947
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 1: is a disturbing trend that we're seeing in a number

948
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 1: of spaces as the worker momentum game speed. Yeah. I

949
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:21,439
Speaker 1: just think when you put it together and you really

950
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:24,239
Speaker 1: think about how exactly this works out. I've warned so

951
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:27,839
Speaker 1: long that content moderation policy will always be used by

952
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 1: the establishment in order to push back in this distance

953
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 1: every time. But I remember during the fact checking you

954
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 1: know era, and it was like, oh, we need fact

955
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 1: checks on Trump tweets. I was like, okay, just wait

956
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,799
Speaker 1: until AOC runs against Chuck Schumer or something in a

957
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 1: debate and then she tweets something about Medicare for all

958
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: and somebody at Twitter or you know previously before Elon

959
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 1: must possibly own it that they go and tend to

960
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:50,719
Speaker 1: slap a fact check on it. That literally happened with

961
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, just so you're aware. So do you

962
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 1: want them to set fact checking policy for the entire nation?

963
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,280
Speaker 1: I don't. So whenever it comes to this content moderation,

964
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: as long it is, as long as it within the

965
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 1: first bounds of the First Amendment, I think it's ludicrous

966
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: to try and crack down because it will always be used.

967
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 1: In this type of environment. People really need to be

968
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:09,839
Speaker 1: worry of it. It always comes for the people who

969
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 1: are dissidentced. Yes, that is exactly right. There's also some

970
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:16,319
Speaker 1: big news with the Starbucks unionization drive, which has just

971
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 1: been picking up steam by the day. It really is

972
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: pretty incredible. Let's with Stephen Greenhouse's tweet here up on

973
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 1: the screen, so Barista's out of Starbucks in Leesburg, Virginia

974
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:29,279
Speaker 1: voted overwhelmingly twenty three to one to unionize. According to

975
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:32,720
Speaker 1: the NLRB's count, this means that despite Starbucks' fierce anti

976
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 1: union efforts, the union's overall record increases to twenty nine

977
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:41,799
Speaker 1: wins versus three losses. So they did suffer one very

978
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:45,240
Speaker 1: close defeat down in Florida, it was fourteen to thirteen.

979
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: Other than that, the Starbucks Workers United movement has been

980
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: just racking up victories one after another after another since

981
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:57,320
Speaker 1: the very early days. There were a couple of early losses,

982
00:48:57,360 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: and since then they seem to have just picked up

983
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,760
Speaker 1: tremendous in spite of the fact they brought back Howard Schultz,

984
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:05,920
Speaker 1: and you know, they're clearly upping the ante in terms

985
00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:09,279
Speaker 1: of their union busting firing workers. That's the other big

986
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:12,840
Speaker 1: piece that happened here is the NLRB has now gone

987
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 1: to court to demand that some of the fired workers

988
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 1: be reinstated immediately because they're you know, they're saying this

989
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 1: was done illegally. They're continuing to they're continuing to look

990
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: into a number of these firings which seem to be

991
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:29,799
Speaker 1: direct retaliation for union organizing. But it's pretty extraordinary. And

992
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 1: you know, a number of these victories to SAGAR have

993
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: been unanimous. Yes, like this one is twenty three to one,

994
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:38,760
Speaker 1: so it is very close to animous. But a number

995
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:41,680
Speaker 1: of these have been one hundred percent of the voting

996
00:49:41,719 --> 00:49:44,600
Speaker 1: workers said yes we want a union in spite of

997
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 1: everything they've been subjected to, which I think is just

998
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 1: extraordinary and also speaks to how a lot of these

999
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:53,600
Speaker 1: union busting tactics right now in this climate are just

1000
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 1: not working and completely backfired. It's pretty interesting to me

1001
00:49:56,880 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 1: because what I see is that Starbucks is kind of

1002
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:01,399
Speaker 1: the perfect rounds. You know, I hate to say about

1003
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 1: on Amazon, like you were saying, with a high turnover workforce,

1004
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:05,919
Speaker 1: which is already company policy, and then you have short

1005
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 1: term contract worker, it's gonna be difficult, right especially in

1006
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,360
Speaker 1: order to keep it sustained. But Starbucks, from what I

1007
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:12,319
Speaker 1: can tell based when you told me they have longer

1008
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:14,120
Speaker 1: term employment, they don't have as much of turnover in

1009
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:17,240
Speaker 1: terms of the workforce, more educated, more sympathetic toward union,

1010
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:19,799
Speaker 1: and could make it so that the company's values, which

1011
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:22,879
Speaker 1: always sold itself as like progressive, yeah, backfire because their

1012
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:26,280
Speaker 1: workforce is disproportionately more likely to be receptive to that message.

1013
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 1: It seems like it could be and is taking force

1014
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:32,040
Speaker 1: as a national wide move. I mean, any food service

1015
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:35,640
Speaker 1: is going to have high turnover, including Starbucks, but what

1016
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:38,239
Speaker 1: you see, I think with the Starbucks workers is a

1017
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 1: disproportionate number of Bernie Burrows and Bernie gals. There was

1018
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:45,359
Speaker 1: an article early on, I think by the New York

1019
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 1: Times that interviewed a number of the early organizers and

1020
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:51,680
Speaker 1: quite a few of them said I volunteered for the

1021
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 1: Sanders campaign and that changed how they were thinking about this.

1022
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 1: I mean, it just was like raised awareness around what

1023
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:00,719
Speaker 1: they could do and how they could pushback. And of

1024
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 1: course Bernie throughout his career has been strong supporter standing

1025
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:07,439
Speaker 1: with labor. On that note, we do have a little

1026
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:10,080
Speaker 1: bit of footage at Bernie of Bernie at the rally

1027
00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:11,799
Speaker 1: for Amazon. I have to say, I don't know if

1028
00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:13,640
Speaker 1: you guys saw. There were some pictures. I posted one

1029
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 1: of them to my Instagram shameless plug. Crystal Envall checking them,

1030
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:23,120
Speaker 1: but these incredible photos of Chris Mall's with Bernie Sanders,

1031
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:27,399
Speaker 1: which really were, you know, pretty extraordinary to see. And

1032
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 1: you'll see the sort of like warmth between the two

1033
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:31,239
Speaker 1: of them at the rally. Let's take a look at

1034
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:33,880
Speaker 1: a little bit of that. But I'm so proud to

1035
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 1: be standing here with my brothers and sisters and my

1036
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:40,440
Speaker 1: comrades in the community, US here to support. Without further ado, though,

1037
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:44,239
Speaker 1: I want to bring up Senator Sanders from Vermont who Joe,

1038
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 1: who came here to stand us out there with these

1039
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 1: Amazon workers today. Thank you, senator and Bernie seemed to

1040
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:56,759
Speaker 1: be very well received there. But you just love to

1041
00:51:56,760 --> 00:52:00,799
Speaker 1: see that like across the generations, across races, Linchen, all

1042
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:03,279
Speaker 1: of it. I mean, that's that's a labor movement at

1043
00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 1: its best, and that's what solidarity really means at its best.

1044
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 1: So listen, these politicians were late showing up, but better

1045
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 1: late than umber. They showed up. Yeah, and I think

1046
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:13,239
Speaker 1: that's what matters. We'll see how it turns out on

1047
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 1: the vote. Joining us now is the great Sarah Fisher

1048
00:52:17,719 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 1: of Axios. Sarah, welcome to the show. We really appreciate

1049
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:24,839
Speaker 1: you joining us. Hey, thanks for having me. Love this show.

1050
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:27,440
Speaker 1: Thank you very thank you. Really appreciate your reporting. You

1051
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:29,239
Speaker 1: were one of the best, Sarah. You were one of

1052
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:31,120
Speaker 1: the first to really give us some insight into the

1053
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:33,040
Speaker 1: downfall of CNN Plus, let's go ahead and put this

1054
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. You first had the instance

1055
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:38,759
Speaker 1: that they were inside the chaotic collapse there, You first

1056
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:41,840
Speaker 1: had the reporting that they were suspending marketing operations, and

1057
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:43,400
Speaker 1: then you were one of the first of the story

1058
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:46,240
Speaker 1: in terms of talking about the demise. Sarah, I've always

1059
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:49,480
Speaker 1: respected you as just a great analyst of inside media

1060
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: companies and what's happening here? What exactly happened with the

1061
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:57,520
Speaker 1: death of this product that they poured three hundred million

1062
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:02,439
Speaker 1: dollars into. Yeah, it's a great question. So about two

1063
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:06,279
Speaker 1: years ago, CNN executives thought, we really need to get

1064
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 1: ahead of the linear TV decline. Let's launch a bigger

1065
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 1: foray into streaming. Now, you have to remember CNN has

1066
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: experimented with streaming for a really long time. They started

1067
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 1: CNN Pipeline in the two thousands. They had CNN Go,

1068
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:22,720
Speaker 1: which is an app that still exists, but it really

1069
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 1: just allows you to stream the live cable network through

1070
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: authenticating your cable log in. They had great, big Story

1071
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 1: which ended up shutting down a few years ago, and

1072
00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:36,239
Speaker 1: so they never really nailed a smart streaming direct to

1073
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:39,080
Speaker 1: consumer app, and so executives said we're going to do it.

1074
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:41,239
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, they start to make a lot

1075
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:45,200
Speaker 1: of moves towards that. At this point, they hired Alex McCallum,

1076
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:48,000
Speaker 1: a product whiz from The New York Times. They acquired

1077
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: an app called Canopy, which sort of supported news aggregation apps,

1078
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:55,040
Speaker 1: and they were ready to build. But the one thing

1079
00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 1: they may not have seen coming was that their parents'

1080
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 1: parent company, AT and T was being straddled with so

1081
00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:04,680
Speaker 1: much debt from its media acquisitions that it was looking

1082
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:08,440
Speaker 1: to spin off WarnerMedia, which is CNN's parent, and in

1083
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:10,880
Speaker 1: May we found out that the decision was made to

1084
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:13,480
Speaker 1: spin it off and merge it with Discovery, which is

1085
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:18,440
Speaker 1: run by David Zaslov. The challenge here became Discovery Streaming

1086
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 1: BEBT was to build one giant general entertainment app by

1087
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:28,040
Speaker 1: combining HBO Max and Discovery Plus. But they didn't really

1088
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 1: have in their long term vision standalone, smaller subscription apps.

1089
00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 1: And that's because they've tried that. Before Discovery had launched

1090
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:38,600
Speaker 1: Golf TV, they had a food network app that were

1091
00:54:38,640 --> 00:54:41,640
Speaker 1: all subscriptions and they were tough to build. And so

1092
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 1: when it came time for the merger to close. You

1093
00:54:44,800 --> 00:54:47,399
Speaker 1: had a bunch of different things that made Discovery very

1094
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:53,040
Speaker 1: wary about introducing CNN Plus. First, in February, CNN's longtime

1095
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:56,360
Speaker 1: leader Jeff Zucker had to resign in a shocking resignation,

1096
00:54:57,239 --> 00:55:00,560
Speaker 1: and that really put Discovery executives on you know, he

1097
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:02,560
Speaker 1: was the person that would be leading the charge. He's

1098
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:04,799
Speaker 1: no longer going to be there. And then leading up

1099
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 1: to the merger, at and T was very conservative. They

1100
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk to Discovery because they were afraid

1101
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:14,839
Speaker 1: of regulatory's scrutiny, and so Discovery didn't have great visibility

1102
00:55:14,880 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 1: into what was happening at CNN Plus. And by the

1103
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: time they did in April, when that merger closed, what

1104
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:24,719
Speaker 1: they saw was CNN had poured hundreds of millions of

1105
00:55:24,719 --> 00:55:27,960
Speaker 1: dollars into an app that they worried would not become

1106
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 1: profitable within the four year timeline that CNN had sketched out.

1107
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:34,800
Speaker 1: And instead of waiting to make the decision whether or

1108
00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 1: not they were going to support this effort or not,

1109
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 1: Discovery execs thought that what would be safest would be

1110
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:43,600
Speaker 1: just to pull the plug early, and that way they

1111
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:45,839
Speaker 1: could stay heartache down the line. And so it's an

1112
00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:48,439
Speaker 1: unfortunate thing. You know, hundreds of jobs are likely going

1113
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 1: to be lost, a lot of hundreds of millions of

1114
00:55:51,239 --> 00:55:54,560
Speaker 1: dollars were already spent and wasted. But I guess the

1115
00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:57,800
Speaker 1: silver lining here is that Discovery took quick and decisive

1116
00:55:57,800 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 1: action as opposed to dragging this thing on months. Yeah,

1117
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 1: I mean you sort of have to respect the fact

1118
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:04,400
Speaker 1: that they, you know, looked at the writing on the

1119
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:07,920
Speaker 1: wall and the early numbers which were reported by you

1120
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 1: and others, which were very poor, you know, fewer than

1121
00:56:10,719 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 1: ten thousand people watching in a day, which is you know,

1122
00:56:13,640 --> 00:56:17,160
Speaker 1: really pathetic, especially when you have that level of spend

1123
00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:21,799
Speaker 1: on marketing. But why did CNN push forward with this

1124
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:24,440
Speaker 1: and decide to keep the launch date where it was

1125
00:56:24,560 --> 00:56:27,240
Speaker 1: to start with? When you know it wasn't a secret.

1126
00:56:27,239 --> 00:56:28,960
Speaker 1: We talked about it here. I know you reported on

1127
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 1: as well that Discovery preferred to go in this direction,

1128
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:35,040
Speaker 1: that it was likely to that the CNN Plus streaming

1129
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 1: service would be bundled inside of a larger streaming offering.

1130
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:43,480
Speaker 1: So why did they push forward anyway knowing that you

1131
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 1: know this was very much a possibility. Well, I think

1132
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:49,319
Speaker 1: you have to look at the number we reported that

1133
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:51,880
Speaker 1: there were one hundred and fifty thousand people that decided

1134
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:54,080
Speaker 1: to pay within those two and a half weeks. I

1135
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 1: don't think CNN executives saw that as a huge failure.

1136
00:56:57,800 --> 00:57:01,600
Speaker 1: I think the challenge is, like any type of subscription streaming,

1137
00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:04,880
Speaker 1: you have to inject a lot of capital upfront before

1138
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:07,320
Speaker 1: you can get the payoff later, and that includes marketing.

1139
00:57:07,640 --> 00:57:09,759
Speaker 1: And so it wasn't necessarily that they thought this thing

1140
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:12,480
Speaker 1: was going to be so awful, although you're right some

1141
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:15,960
Speaker 1: of the daily viewership numbers were low. I think it

1142
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:17,800
Speaker 1: was just that the amount of money they would need

1143
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:20,040
Speaker 1: to continue to spend to get the numbers to go

1144
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 1: up would be exorbitive. And that's what Discovery was afraid of. Remember,

1145
00:57:24,120 --> 00:57:27,440
Speaker 1: they're running what is a legacy, profitable cable business. It's

1146
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:30,760
Speaker 1: a different model than something like Netflix or even like

1147
00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:33,320
Speaker 1: an uber, where you can afford to inject a lot

1148
00:57:33,360 --> 00:57:36,600
Speaker 1: of capital upfront for some sort of payoff late. And

1149
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:39,120
Speaker 1: so I think that's the reason why there was a discrepancy.

1150
00:57:39,240 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 1: CNN wanted to move forward one. I think there was

1151
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 1: a little bit of you know, sort of emotional decision

1152
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:48,240
Speaker 1: making there, right, they wanted to stake a claim in

1153
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:51,439
Speaker 1: CNN's digital future before the merger. But I also think

1154
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:54,680
Speaker 1: too is that they thought that this was probably successful

1155
00:57:54,680 --> 00:57:57,760
Speaker 1: in a white discovery just did not right. I mean, Sarah,

1156
00:57:58,040 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 1: what is the broader cable industry look at this and

1157
00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 1: what's their takeaway? I mean, this is something which is

1158
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:05,120
Speaker 1: a big problem for them, and I talk about it

1159
00:58:05,120 --> 00:58:07,400
Speaker 1: all the time, which is that their main value add

1160
00:58:07,480 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 1: on linear is live TV, which they're not allowed to

1161
00:58:10,160 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 1: put on streaming, and a lot of their content on streaming.

1162
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:15,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll say editorially, you don't have to say it.

1163
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:18,040
Speaker 1: I don't think it's very good. So what exactly are

1164
00:58:18,080 --> 00:58:21,040
Speaker 1: they trying to do to plan for their future? Because

1165
00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:23,400
Speaker 1: I'm not a genius, you know, anybody can look at

1166
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:27,280
Speaker 1: the upcoming negotiation for live TV, streaming and linear and

1167
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:29,680
Speaker 1: say they're in a real problem in terms of what

1168
00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:33,840
Speaker 1: their future is going to look like. So everyone's obviously

1169
00:58:33,880 --> 00:58:38,600
Speaker 1: going about streaming as their future, but they're doing different strategies.

1170
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:42,640
Speaker 1: So one strategy is that direct to consumer subscription model,

1171
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:46,200
Speaker 1: and some cable networks have been absolutely brilliant about spinning

1172
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:49,600
Speaker 1: that forward, most notably HBO. You know, HBO is a

1173
00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:53,000
Speaker 1: premium cable network able to spin into a smart direct

1174
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:57,320
Speaker 1: to consumer subscription. The other option is free and as supportive.

1175
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:00,000
Speaker 1: And I think it's notable that Netflix said this power

1176
00:59:00,160 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 1: earnings that they're going to experiment with an ad supported tier.

1177
00:59:03,680 --> 00:59:05,600
Speaker 1: And that's just because if you take a look at

1178
00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:10,240
Speaker 1: consumers spend, consumers have said consistently over the past few years,

1179
00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:13,120
Speaker 1: even throughout the pandemic, they're only willing to spend around

1180
00:59:13,160 --> 00:59:16,560
Speaker 1: forty dollars a month on subscription streaming services. Other than that,

1181
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:19,200
Speaker 1: it's going to have to be free, ad supported, and

1182
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:20,760
Speaker 1: so I think what's going to be the future for

1183
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:24,400
Speaker 1: CNN Discovery is actually probably going to double down on

1184
00:59:24,520 --> 00:59:28,200
Speaker 1: CNN's free ads supported app. You have to remember CNN's

1185
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:30,920
Speaker 1: core digital app is one of the most widely consumed

1186
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:33,040
Speaker 1: news apps in the world. It's one of the most

1187
00:59:33,080 --> 00:59:36,040
Speaker 1: widely trafficked, so they'd actually be wise to put some

1188
00:59:36,160 --> 00:59:39,440
Speaker 1: video on there, sell some premium video ads against it.

1189
00:59:39,840 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 1: I think for other major cable networks, it really depends

1190
00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:46,440
Speaker 1: on sports or not. If you're really invested in last sports,

1191
00:59:46,440 --> 00:59:48,640
Speaker 1: this is a tough one. I think ESPN's done a

1192
00:59:48,680 --> 00:59:51,680
Speaker 1: pretty good job. You put some rights on streaming, some

1193
00:59:51,800 --> 00:59:53,280
Speaker 1: on linear, and you kind of have to do a

1194
00:59:53,280 --> 00:59:56,360
Speaker 1: balancing app. But if you don't have sports at this point,

1195
00:59:56,600 --> 00:59:59,200
Speaker 1: the pretty much the biggest strategy is get as much

1196
00:59:59,320 --> 01:00:01,760
Speaker 1: of your content as you can on streaming, whether it's

1197
01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:05,440
Speaker 1: TRU an AD supported streaming venor or subscription. And even

1198
01:00:05,480 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 1: if it's not the most profitable part of your business

1199
01:00:07,640 --> 01:00:10,000
Speaker 1: net right now, what you will have done is you

1200
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:13,480
Speaker 1: will have planted the seeds, have consumer familiar acity, have

1201
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:16,680
Speaker 1: advertised relationships so that one day when that cable bundle

1202
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:18,760
Speaker 1: sort of does collapse, so you're at least ready to

1203
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:21,440
Speaker 1: take on the future. Yeah. I think that's well said.

1204
01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things that irritated me. I

1205
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:26,560
Speaker 1: saw some hot takes that were like, oh, you know,

1206
01:00:26,640 --> 01:00:29,960
Speaker 1: subscription based streaming news just doesn't work, And I think

1207
01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:32,240
Speaker 1: we're here to tell you that that's not the case.

1208
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:37,320
Speaker 1: But you know, it is noteworthy that look, CNN, Fox

1209
01:00:37,400 --> 01:00:41,400
Speaker 1: and MSNBC all have their own streaming efforts. CNN Plus

1210
01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:43,720
Speaker 1: was the highest spend and the splashies roll on and

1211
01:00:43,800 --> 01:00:46,760
Speaker 1: so it got a lot of attention that the numbers weren't,

1212
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:50,400
Speaker 1: you know, very impressive, and of course it collapsed almost instantly.

1213
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:53,680
Speaker 1: But the MSNBC streaming service and the Fox News streaming

1214
01:00:53,720 --> 01:00:57,080
Speaker 1: service also don't seem to be exactly doing Gangbusters. So

1215
01:00:57,160 --> 01:00:59,720
Speaker 1: what do you think it is about their formulas that

1216
01:00:59,840 --> 01:01:03,720
Speaker 1: just doesn't seem to have much consumer appealed. I don't

1217
01:01:03,760 --> 01:01:05,920
Speaker 1: know the answer to that because I don't know the numbers.

1218
01:01:06,120 --> 01:01:10,040
Speaker 1: Like Fox has never revealed many people subscribe to Fox Nation,

1219
01:01:10,320 --> 01:01:13,680
Speaker 1: I don't know how many people are viewing MSNBC's Peacock portal.

1220
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:15,600
Speaker 1: But what I will tell you is you bring up

1221
01:01:15,600 --> 01:01:18,160
Speaker 1: a good point, which is we sort of have this

1222
01:01:18,280 --> 01:01:23,320
Speaker 1: Barbell phenomenon. On one end you have massive scale and

1223
01:01:23,560 --> 01:01:27,400
Speaker 1: really general interest services, and then the other you have niche.

1224
01:01:27,520 --> 01:01:30,200
Speaker 1: And I would put breaking points in Niche Niece is

1225
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 1: doing excellim. Now, if you can cater to a very high,

1226
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:37,800
Speaker 1: highly engaged audience, they're going to spend a lot of

1227
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 1: time with you, They're willing to give you a lot

1228
01:01:39,520 --> 01:01:41,360
Speaker 1: of money, and they're going to be very engaged because

1229
01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:44,200
Speaker 1: they like the very specific thing that you're providing for them.

1230
01:01:44,880 --> 01:01:47,080
Speaker 1: The problem is when you try to hit the middle.

1231
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:50,280
Speaker 1: If you're not super broad and scaled, or you're not

1232
01:01:50,480 --> 01:01:53,120
Speaker 1: super niche, you're going to have an issue. Now when

1233
01:01:53,160 --> 01:01:57,280
Speaker 1: it comes to interment or leisure. It's pretty understandable where

1234
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:00,000
Speaker 1: that barbell lies. They're going to be very, very very

1235
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:04,080
Speaker 1: niche entertainment subscription services that do well. My favorite example

1236
01:02:04,160 --> 01:02:07,200
Speaker 1: is Crunchy Role, which is bought by Sony Theater to

1237
01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:10,280
Speaker 1: anime fans. Great example of the niche service that does well.

1238
01:02:10,680 --> 01:02:13,480
Speaker 1: The problem with news is niece is really hard to

1239
01:02:13,480 --> 01:02:17,400
Speaker 1: figure out. You either lean into personality programming, which you

1240
01:02:17,440 --> 01:02:21,480
Speaker 1: guys aren't necessarily political personality programming. You don't have necessarily

1241
01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:25,360
Speaker 1: a political take, but you do have very strong personalities.

1242
01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:27,440
Speaker 1: I mean, your brands are ones that I've been following

1243
01:02:27,440 --> 01:02:30,520
Speaker 1: since the hilth and people know you as two distinct people,

1244
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: and so that was why I would put you in niche.

1245
01:02:33,160 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 1: In the news sector, if you're not B to B,

1246
01:02:35,640 --> 01:02:39,040
Speaker 1: you know, catering to someone's professional news, if you're not

1247
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 1: sort of personality programming like you guys are, then you

1248
01:02:41,920 --> 01:02:45,080
Speaker 1: have to be massive and broad. And the challenge with

1249
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:47,640
Speaker 1: CNN is they actually should have been could have been

1250
01:02:47,680 --> 01:02:51,480
Speaker 1: massive and broad, but the way that the subscription streaming

1251
01:02:51,480 --> 01:02:53,800
Speaker 1: service was rolled out, I don't think they had the

1252
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:56,280
Speaker 1: broadest apeel possible. You could blame that on marketing. You

1253
01:02:56,280 --> 01:02:58,440
Speaker 1: can bring them that on competition. I don't know what

1254
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:00,560
Speaker 1: it was, but it didn't go as broad as it

1255
01:03:00,560 --> 01:03:02,680
Speaker 1: probably would have needed to have gone. I think that's

1256
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:06,120
Speaker 1: really very interesting analysis. Sarah, thank you so much. Thank

1257
01:03:06,160 --> 01:03:08,120
Speaker 1: you for the great reporting that we have relied on

1258
01:03:08,200 --> 01:03:10,440
Speaker 1: here on this show many many times. Appreciate it. We

1259
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:12,440
Speaker 1: rely on you a lot. Everybody goes subscribe to Sarah's

1260
01:03:12,440 --> 01:03:14,320
Speaker 1: newsletter will have a link down there in description. I

1261
01:03:14,400 --> 01:03:16,160
Speaker 1: read it all the time. So thank you very much.

1262
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:18,600
Speaker 1: We appreciate it. Thank you. I was just going to say,

1263
01:03:18,640 --> 01:03:20,440
Speaker 1: I feel the same way like when I have a

1264
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:23,120
Speaker 1: question about how real people are thinking about things, I

1265
01:03:23,160 --> 01:03:29,440
Speaker 1: call you Siggert, and so I appreciate it. Well, the

1266
01:03:29,480 --> 01:03:32,720
Speaker 1: appreciation goes both ways. Appreciate it very much. Take care, Sarah. Now.

1267
01:03:32,880 --> 01:03:35,320
Speaker 1: At the same time, though, speaking of people who have

1268
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:38,720
Speaker 1: this job and who are in the liberal media, these

1269
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:43,920
Speaker 1: people are freaking out about Elon's acquisition, and specifically about

1270
01:03:43,960 --> 01:03:47,240
Speaker 1: the free speech aspect. As usual, we can count on

1271
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:50,960
Speaker 1: the one, the only, Brian Stelter for having the absolute

1272
01:03:51,160 --> 01:03:54,680
Speaker 1: worst take possible on this in immediate reaction. Let's take

1273
01:03:54,680 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 1: a listen. Look, who knows I think that's a that's

1274
01:03:57,880 --> 01:04:01,200
Speaker 1: a That's an example of a question for Twitter, which

1275
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:05,400
Speaker 1: is if you if you get invited to something where

1276
01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 1: there are no rules, where there is total freedom everybody,

1277
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:11,800
Speaker 1: do you actually want to go to that party? Or

1278
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:13,760
Speaker 1: are you going to decide to stay home? And that's

1279
01:04:13,760 --> 01:04:16,600
Speaker 1: a question for Twitter users. Some Twitter users might love

1280
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:19,320
Speaker 1: the idea there's going to be absolutely no moderation and

1281
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:21,400
Speaker 1: no rules at all. Others might not want to be

1282
01:04:21,400 --> 01:04:23,320
Speaker 1: anywhere near that. Am I Am I crazy about? No? No,

1283
01:04:23,320 --> 01:04:25,680
Speaker 1: You're rid? And what happens to the advertising? I mean,

1284
01:04:25,720 --> 01:04:28,800
Speaker 1: if there's no moderation or little moderation to the advertiser,

1285
01:04:28,880 --> 01:04:31,560
Speaker 1: stay away, what does that do to the business prospects

1286
01:04:31,600 --> 01:04:35,680
Speaker 1: for Twitter itself? And that's very much that that party

1287
01:04:35,800 --> 01:04:38,240
Speaker 1: sounds like a banger, Crystal. I don't know. You know,

1288
01:04:38,280 --> 01:04:40,480
Speaker 1: there's one thing when I get invited to a party,

1289
01:04:40,560 --> 01:04:42,440
Speaker 1: the first thing I want to know if there are

1290
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:45,200
Speaker 1: going to be rules in place, right, because otherwise I'm out?

1291
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:49,040
Speaker 1: I actually like, I genuinely at this point have affection

1292
01:04:49,120 --> 01:04:52,960
Speaker 1: for Brian's Telter because he is trying so hard, Sager,

1293
01:04:53,040 --> 01:04:57,040
Speaker 1: he is trying so hard. He spent time workshopping this

1294
01:04:57,080 --> 01:05:00,400
Speaker 1: whole party analogy thing in his head, and never once

1295
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:02,640
Speaker 1: did it occur to him that actually people do want

1296
01:05:02,640 --> 01:05:07,080
Speaker 1: to go to parties. It's silly to start with, because

1297
01:05:07,120 --> 01:05:10,320
Speaker 1: it's not like Twitter's going to have no rules or

1298
01:05:10,320 --> 01:05:13,960
Speaker 1: that there are, you know, no rules already bounding and

1299
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:17,680
Speaker 1: guiding the limits of free speech. You cannot directly threaten

1300
01:05:17,760 --> 01:05:20,520
Speaker 1: somebody as one, you know example, So it's not like

1301
01:05:20,640 --> 01:05:24,480
Speaker 1: it's going to be completely and crazy and anything, absolutely

1302
01:05:24,520 --> 01:05:28,760
Speaker 1: anything goes. But yeah, the faces around the table, I

1303
01:05:28,760 --> 01:05:30,880
Speaker 1: don't know if you paid attention, they were like ranging

1304
01:05:30,960 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 1: from contempt, confusion to just like humoring this poor guy

1305
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:38,160
Speaker 1: before the other dude actually makes a decent important say.

1306
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:40,520
Speaker 1: The whole reason that the content moderation is what it

1307
01:05:40,600 --> 01:05:44,040
Speaker 1: is has been to satisfy the advertisers. So if you

1308
01:05:44,160 --> 01:05:47,560
Speaker 1: take that piece out of it, and that's less important,

1309
01:05:47,600 --> 01:05:49,720
Speaker 1: not that it's going to be completely unimportant, but if

1310
01:05:49,720 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 1: it's less important and you're actually just trying to figure

1311
01:05:52,360 --> 01:05:55,600
Speaker 1: out what is the right and consistent content moderation pill,

1312
01:05:55,680 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 1: you're much more likely to come up with something that

1313
01:05:57,760 --> 01:06:01,280
Speaker 1: is beneficial for everybody. Is just trying to make it

1314
01:06:01,320 --> 01:06:04,880
Speaker 1: safe for a bunch of squeamish corporate advertisers. One hundred percent.

1315
01:06:04,880 --> 01:06:07,400
Speaker 1: And you know you can also keep this with the rest. Also,

1316
01:06:07,440 --> 01:06:08,880
Speaker 1: I love how you put it that way. In Texas,

1317
01:06:08,960 --> 01:06:12,560
Speaker 1: we just say bless your heart, Brian. Yeah, that's exactly

1318
01:06:12,600 --> 01:06:16,200
Speaker 1: the sentiment. It's a sentiment that you're putting forward. Let's

1319
01:06:16,240 --> 01:06:19,400
Speaker 1: put these up there on the screen. Some hilarious ones

1320
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:23,240
Speaker 1: from our friend Shu. She says today on Twitter feels

1321
01:06:23,280 --> 01:06:26,040
Speaker 1: like the last evening in a Berlin nightclub at the

1322
01:06:26,120 --> 01:06:29,680
Speaker 1: twilight of Wymart, Germany. My god. Another one. I am

1323
01:06:29,720 --> 01:06:32,800
Speaker 1: frightened by the impact on society and politics of Elon

1324
01:06:32,880 --> 01:06:35,880
Speaker 1: Musk acquires Twitter. He seems to believe on social media

1325
01:06:35,920 --> 01:06:39,320
Speaker 1: anything goes. For democracy to survive, we need more content,

1326
01:06:39,520 --> 01:06:43,120
Speaker 1: content moderation, not less. Another if Elon Musk has actually

1327
01:06:43,200 --> 01:06:45,520
Speaker 1: purchased his Twitter, it could result in World War three

1328
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:50,120
Speaker 1: and the destruction of our planet. And finally, dear Prague Agerwall,

1329
01:06:50,160 --> 01:06:52,280
Speaker 1: if you're reading this right now, the world needs to

1330
01:06:52,320 --> 01:06:55,280
Speaker 1: know you are stronger, smarter, and more tenacious than Elon Musk.

1331
01:06:55,480 --> 01:06:58,000
Speaker 1: He thinks he can beat you. The free world needs

1332
01:06:58,040 --> 01:07:01,240
Speaker 1: to know he is wrong. Yours true, a lifelong and

1333
01:07:01,360 --> 01:07:06,840
Speaker 1: long verified Twitter user. What a loser using your verified status?

1334
01:07:06,880 --> 01:07:10,600
Speaker 1: It's not that cool, bro, trust me. The Verge also

1335
01:07:10,680 --> 01:07:12,960
Speaker 1: came in with a hilarious take. Let's put this up

1336
01:07:12,960 --> 01:07:16,160
Speaker 1: there on the screen. They say how to deactivate your

1337
01:07:16,200 --> 01:07:20,400
Speaker 1: Twitter account, which is just absolutely incredible. Obviously they're one

1338
01:07:20,440 --> 01:07:23,720
Speaker 1: of those tech hall monitor type outlets. Well, and there

1339
01:07:23,720 --> 01:07:27,880
Speaker 1: are plenty of liberals on Twitter who were like, I'm

1340
01:07:27,920 --> 01:07:32,960
Speaker 1: not going to I'm quitting Twitter. Actually Sean King actually

1341
01:07:33,000 --> 01:07:34,800
Speaker 1: did it, which, you know, props to Sean K. Yeah,

1342
01:07:34,920 --> 01:07:37,760
Speaker 1: finally a little bit. He had a big following too,

1343
01:07:37,840 --> 01:07:41,360
Speaker 1: so it's a real loss. But yeah, I mean it's listen,

1344
01:07:42,560 --> 01:07:45,360
Speaker 1: there were so many bad tastes all the way around.

1345
01:07:45,400 --> 01:07:47,840
Speaker 1: I don't know if you also saw this, but Richard Hanania,

1346
01:07:47,840 --> 01:07:49,920
Speaker 1: who is you know, we've had him on the show before.

1347
01:07:49,960 --> 01:07:52,040
Speaker 1: He's like definitely you know, on the right in terms

1348
01:07:52,080 --> 01:07:55,560
Speaker 1: of his politics and definitely not terrified of you on

1349
01:07:55,640 --> 01:08:00,560
Speaker 1: taking over. He tweeted on something sarcastically, Yeah, I mean,

1350
01:08:00,800 --> 01:08:04,880
Speaker 1: like Elon Musk doesn't even have a master. Are we

1351
01:08:04,960 --> 01:08:07,960
Speaker 1: going to trust this man with our democracy? And there

1352
01:08:08,000 --> 01:08:11,040
Speaker 1: were literally thousands of people he thought he was being

1353
01:08:11,080 --> 01:08:13,640
Speaker 1: serial right, and he continued to like in the thread,

1354
01:08:13,680 --> 01:08:16,840
Speaker 1: make it more and more ridiculous and they still did

1355
01:08:16,880 --> 01:08:18,680
Speaker 1: not get the joke. So you had people who just

1356
01:08:18,800 --> 01:08:22,280
Speaker 1: like you know, couldn't see sarcasm where there was obvious sarcasm.

1357
01:08:22,479 --> 01:08:24,719
Speaker 1: You had clearly, you know, the liberals that were highlighting

1358
01:08:24,760 --> 01:08:28,439
Speaker 1: here completely freaking out, who obviously were so much less

1359
01:08:28,439 --> 01:08:31,640
Speaker 1: concerned when Jeff Bezos bought one of the most significant

1360
01:08:31,680 --> 01:08:34,479
Speaker 1: and important news gathering organizations in the entire country, which

1361
01:08:34,479 --> 01:08:37,519
Speaker 1: he still owns. But that was fine, and in fact,

1362
01:08:37,560 --> 01:08:40,559
Speaker 1: not only was it fine, but if you, like Bernie Sanders,

1363
01:08:40,560 --> 01:08:43,480
Speaker 1: do point out that this could be a problem for democracy,

1364
01:08:43,880 --> 01:08:47,599
Speaker 1: you were roundly mocked, shame, disparaged, et cetera, et cetera.

1365
01:08:47,720 --> 01:08:51,120
Speaker 1: How dare you attack our news outlets? So there was,

1366
01:08:51,240 --> 01:08:53,479
Speaker 1: you know, there was that reaction. And then I think

1367
01:08:53,520 --> 01:08:57,080
Speaker 1: there's for the segment of the right that has been

1368
01:08:57,280 --> 01:09:00,160
Speaker 1: rightly concerned about elite power and control, that is, it's

1369
01:09:00,240 --> 01:09:03,840
Speaker 1: just completely celebratory about the idea of handing their fate

1370
01:09:03,880 --> 01:09:05,880
Speaker 1: over to a billionaire that they happen to have more

1371
01:09:05,880 --> 01:09:09,840
Speaker 1: affectionate feelings for, which, again, you know, it's certainly not

1372
01:09:09,920 --> 01:09:12,680
Speaker 1: an answer to our bigger problems. Will it potentially be

1373
01:09:12,720 --> 01:09:15,880
Speaker 1: marginally better, Maybe we'll wait and see. But if you're

1374
01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:18,960
Speaker 1: pinning all your hopes on, like let's have a different

1375
01:09:19,080 --> 01:09:21,760
Speaker 1: better billionaire than I don't think you're going to end

1376
01:09:21,840 --> 01:09:23,439
Speaker 1: up ultimately in a good place. Yeah, I think you're

1377
01:09:23,479 --> 01:09:25,760
Speaker 1: right to try and add some substance to this. It's

1378
01:09:25,760 --> 01:09:28,680
Speaker 1: a really interesting poll that Teddy Scheiffer actually tweeted out

1379
01:09:28,680 --> 01:09:30,519
Speaker 1: over puck News. He does great work. By the way,

1380
01:09:30,600 --> 01:09:32,559
Speaker 1: let's put this up there on the screen, is that

1381
01:09:32,680 --> 01:09:35,960
Speaker 1: there's a poll here highlighted by Data for Progress and

1382
01:09:36,160 --> 01:09:39,200
Speaker 1: at Recode. This is in February of twenty twenty one.

1383
01:09:39,320 --> 01:09:42,240
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is actually very popular across the board, So

1384
01:09:42,600 --> 01:09:46,840
Speaker 1: his favorability and unfavorability for Democrats is fifty two twenty two,

1385
01:09:47,000 --> 01:09:50,720
Speaker 1: meaning he has high favorability and pretty unknown on favorability

1386
01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:53,960
Speaker 1: amongst Republicans is actually favorability is lower, it's forty eight

1387
01:09:54,160 --> 01:09:57,400
Speaker 1: and twenty five. Amongst men it's sixty one sixty six

1388
01:09:57,520 --> 01:10:00,320
Speaker 1: twenty one. Women is thirty seven twenty seven. Don't really

1389
01:10:00,320 --> 01:10:02,599
Speaker 1: have an opinion, it seems amongst young people is very

1390
01:10:02,640 --> 01:10:05,200
Speaker 1: popular fifty four to twenty two and at forty five

1391
01:10:05,200 --> 01:10:07,880
Speaker 1: plus at forty eight to twenty five. So what he

1392
01:10:07,920 --> 01:10:09,680
Speaker 1: says here, and I think is really true. Is the

1393
01:10:09,680 --> 01:10:11,960
Speaker 1: real schism is really not a public opinion on Musk

1394
01:10:12,040 --> 01:10:15,400
Speaker 1: between Democrats and Republicans, it's between men and women. Yeah,

1395
01:10:15,439 --> 01:10:18,880
Speaker 1: that's right. Really when you point out the favorability, I

1396
01:10:18,920 --> 01:10:22,400
Speaker 1: just think it bears repeating that normal people think of

1397
01:10:22,479 --> 01:10:26,280
Speaker 1: Elon in the context of Tesla and the context of SpaceX.

1398
01:10:26,560 --> 01:10:28,559
Speaker 1: They may have seen some of his antics, but they

1399
01:10:28,560 --> 01:10:32,080
Speaker 1: respect him as probably the greatest entrepreneur in the US

1400
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:34,880
Speaker 1: over the last twenty years, and they don't really think

1401
01:10:34,880 --> 01:10:38,080
Speaker 1: about him beyond the help. That's the thing. Normal people

1402
01:10:38,200 --> 01:10:40,720
Speaker 1: probably just don't think that hard about it, Like I've

1403
01:10:40,720 --> 01:10:44,200
Speaker 1: really he's fine, super evolveview on like all of the

1404
01:10:44,200 --> 01:10:48,439
Speaker 1: things that he's done or said or etc. It is funny. Yeah,

1405
01:10:48,479 --> 01:10:50,600
Speaker 1: it was interesting to me that there was basically no

1406
01:10:50,720 --> 01:10:56,040
Speaker 1: partisan di vibe whatsoever. It was very very closely matched Democrat,

1407
01:10:56,080 --> 01:11:00,519
Speaker 1: Independent and Republican. The big schism was dudes, really of them.

1408
01:11:00,520 --> 01:11:04,200
Speaker 1: Elon Musk comn not so sure and he does, I mean,

1409
01:11:04,280 --> 01:11:06,400
Speaker 1: just as his like public persona. I don't know, there's

1410
01:11:06,439 --> 01:11:11,160
Speaker 1: something about him that's like magical to men, you know,

1411
01:11:11,439 --> 01:11:14,679
Speaker 1: especially young men under the age of let's say fifty

1412
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:18,280
Speaker 1: or forty or something. Like that. That is definitely where

1413
01:11:18,320 --> 01:11:21,360
Speaker 1: his key demo and his like core superpowers live. Well,

1414
01:11:21,400 --> 01:11:23,040
Speaker 1: he's like a teenager in a lot of ways. I

1415
01:11:23,040 --> 01:11:25,200
Speaker 1: mean that's kind of how he behaves. Yeah, I mean

1416
01:11:25,240 --> 01:11:27,240
Speaker 1: he's very childlike. If you read his like I said,

1417
01:11:27,240 --> 01:11:29,559
Speaker 1: he reads biography, he literally talks about he's like his

1418
01:11:29,680 --> 01:11:32,599
Speaker 1: dream was to be a wizard whenever he was a child.

1419
01:11:33,040 --> 01:11:35,599
Speaker 1: He had a very tough childhood, to be fair, apparently

1420
01:11:35,640 --> 01:11:37,600
Speaker 1: his dad was kind of a psycho and really I

1421
01:11:37,600 --> 01:11:39,519
Speaker 1: didn't treat him very well, him and his brother, and

1422
01:11:39,800 --> 01:11:42,559
Speaker 1: put a lot of Sure, you should go and read

1423
01:11:42,560 --> 01:11:45,320
Speaker 1: the book. He was not treated well. Apparently was very

1424
01:11:45,360 --> 01:11:47,920
Speaker 1: emotionally abusive as a father. But really what they put

1425
01:11:47,960 --> 01:11:50,280
Speaker 1: it into him is he was he was a huge nerd.

1426
01:11:50,320 --> 01:11:51,720
Speaker 1: I mean, that's really the only thing that comes out

1427
01:11:51,760 --> 01:11:53,640
Speaker 1: of it. He was bullied terribly whenever it was in

1428
01:11:53,720 --> 01:11:56,000
Speaker 1: high school. It was obsessed with computer games and coding,

1429
01:11:56,040 --> 01:11:58,240
Speaker 1: and that's why he became the computer scientist that he

1430
01:11:58,280 --> 01:12:00,559
Speaker 1: eventually became. But what you learn about him is that

1431
01:12:00,640 --> 01:12:04,160
Speaker 1: he's quite an impulsive person. He's a lot like a child.

1432
01:12:04,600 --> 01:12:07,040
Speaker 1: He said, his dream and now that he's a billionaire,

1433
01:12:07,080 --> 01:12:09,240
Speaker 1: is to be as much like a wizard as possible

1434
01:12:09,360 --> 01:12:12,360
Speaker 1: whenever he was interviewed most recently. So I think that's

1435
01:12:12,360 --> 01:12:14,360
Speaker 1: why it appeals to like the I mean, look at

1436
01:12:14,360 --> 01:12:16,080
Speaker 1: the end of the day, that the man did manifest

1437
01:12:16,320 --> 01:12:18,519
Speaker 1: several of his actual visions, which is a lot more

1438
01:12:18,560 --> 01:12:21,040
Speaker 1: than many people can say in life. So I think

1439
01:12:21,080 --> 01:12:23,559
Speaker 1: that you point to an interesting phenomenon there about what

1440
01:12:23,640 --> 01:12:26,880
Speaker 1: the actual divide is and probably why where it actually

1441
01:12:26,880 --> 01:12:29,880
Speaker 1: cuts ideologically, But it just points to the fact that

1442
01:12:30,120 --> 01:12:33,720
Speaker 1: these liberal, you know, media folks, the establishment types, are

1443
01:12:33,760 --> 01:12:35,800
Speaker 1: just so freaked out because I think at the end

1444
01:12:35,800 --> 01:12:37,960
Speaker 1: of the day, they know that their ability to pressure

1445
01:12:38,000 --> 01:12:41,000
Speaker 1: Twitter in order to censor exactly as they want is over.

1446
01:12:41,360 --> 01:12:44,160
Speaker 1: And that is where the real power that they've had

1447
01:12:44,160 --> 01:12:46,880
Speaker 1: over the last several years has come from. Well, they

1448
01:12:46,920 --> 01:12:51,040
Speaker 1: have this whole ideology that the way to combat ideas

1449
01:12:51,040 --> 01:12:53,720
Speaker 1: that they consider to be bad or dangerous ideas is

1450
01:12:53,800 --> 01:12:57,040
Speaker 1: just to shut them out, to censor them, you know,

1451
01:12:57,080 --> 01:12:59,960
Speaker 1: push them out of polite society, and that you know.

1452
01:13:00,000 --> 01:13:02,800
Speaker 1: So I think there's a genuine fear and belief that

1453
01:13:03,320 --> 01:13:05,400
Speaker 1: like that's the way that we can keep this whole

1454
01:13:05,400 --> 01:13:08,280
Speaker 1: thing together. I just happened to think that's not only wrong,

1455
01:13:08,439 --> 01:13:12,040
Speaker 1: but extremely counterproductive and leads you down the path of

1456
01:13:12,120 --> 01:13:14,920
Speaker 1: ultimately destroying the democracy that you think you're trying to protect.

1457
01:13:15,400 --> 01:13:20,160
Speaker 1: And so their ideology depends on the ability to you know,

1458
01:13:20,360 --> 01:13:23,599
Speaker 1: to have their ideology reinforced and have people who don't

1459
01:13:23,640 --> 01:13:25,720
Speaker 1: agree with that pushed out of the public square. So

1460
01:13:26,240 --> 01:13:28,639
Speaker 1: I think that's why there's such a free count here

1461
01:13:28,800 --> 01:13:31,720
Speaker 1: versus you know, what is Jeff Bezos, who is definitely

1462
01:13:31,760 --> 01:13:34,360
Speaker 1: not on the left in any meaningful sense, but is

1463
01:13:34,400 --> 01:13:37,200
Speaker 1: going to be anti Trump, is going to be you know,

1464
01:13:37,280 --> 01:13:39,839
Speaker 1: with them more or less when it comes to social issues.

1465
01:13:40,400 --> 01:13:44,200
Speaker 1: They didn't perceive that as a threat, even though you know,

1466
01:13:44,280 --> 01:13:47,920
Speaker 1: anyone who's being consistent here should just see that billionaires

1467
01:13:47,960 --> 01:13:52,120
Speaker 1: controlling our news, gathering, our public squares is a big

1468
01:13:52,160 --> 01:13:55,000
Speaker 1: problem in society, whether you happen to be comfortable with

1469
01:13:55,040 --> 01:13:59,400
Speaker 1: that billionaire or not. I saw another poll similar to

1470
01:14:00,280 --> 01:14:03,960
Speaker 1: this data for progress Pole that actually was an internal

1471
01:14:04,040 --> 01:14:07,400
Speaker 1: poll of Twitter employees. Yeah, because a lot of the

1472
01:14:07,800 --> 01:14:10,360
Speaker 1: narrative around Twitter employees is like they're freaking out, Oh

1473
01:14:10,439 --> 01:14:12,240
Speaker 1: my god, they hate Elin and they can't you know,

1474
01:14:12,320 --> 01:14:14,439
Speaker 1: they were so worried about he's going to destroy Twitter

1475
01:14:14,439 --> 01:14:17,320
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. And I don't doubt that because,

1476
01:14:17,360 --> 01:14:19,280
Speaker 1: like you said, they're likely to be layoffs and they're

1477
01:14:19,320 --> 01:14:21,240
Speaker 1: not sure what this means for their stockholdings, and is

1478
01:14:21,240 --> 01:14:23,200
Speaker 1: the headquarters are even going to stay in San Francisco

1479
01:14:23,240 --> 01:14:24,560
Speaker 1: and are they going to be able to continue to

1480
01:14:24,560 --> 01:14:26,320
Speaker 1: work from home. I don't doubt that there are a

1481
01:14:26,360 --> 01:14:30,200
Speaker 1: lot of concerns and angst around what it means literally

1482
01:14:30,280 --> 01:14:32,439
Speaker 1: for them and their livelihoods in their day to day.

1483
01:14:32,880 --> 01:14:36,360
Speaker 1: But in terms of sentiment around elon this particular poll,

1484
01:14:36,600 --> 01:14:40,400
Speaker 1: internally it was completely divided. You had, you know, an

1485
01:14:40,479 --> 01:14:43,240
Speaker 1: equal amount that liked him, an equal amount that didn't

1486
01:14:43,320 --> 01:14:45,439
Speaker 1: like him, and a group in the middle that was like, ah,

1487
01:14:45,600 --> 01:14:47,840
Speaker 1: not sure, we'll see. My guess would be that the

1488
01:14:47,880 --> 01:14:50,960
Speaker 1: technologists and the engineers are probably the ones who are

1489
01:14:50,960 --> 01:14:53,120
Speaker 1: most excited about him because they're more familiar with what

1490
01:14:53,160 --> 01:14:55,599
Speaker 1: he did a tessela IT SpaceX. And my guess would

1491
01:14:55,640 --> 01:14:57,720
Speaker 1: be that the like that lady who went on Joe

1492
01:14:57,800 --> 01:14:59,880
Speaker 1: Rogan's podcast of a jay Agade, the head of Like

1493
01:15:00,080 --> 01:15:01,920
Speaker 1: Us to Safety, is probably freaking out because I hope

1494
01:15:01,920 --> 01:15:04,280
Speaker 1: that she gets fired. That's exactly the people. Those are

1495
01:15:04,280 --> 01:15:06,880
Speaker 1: the people who are the chief sensors. So the I

1496
01:15:06,880 --> 01:15:09,639
Speaker 1: would split the company into like, the technologists are probably

1497
01:15:09,680 --> 01:15:14,320
Speaker 1: excited about Elon, and then the hr industrial diversity, industrial

1498
01:15:14,320 --> 01:15:16,880
Speaker 1: complex within the company is the ones who are freaking

1499
01:15:16,920 --> 01:15:19,200
Speaker 1: out the most. But look, maybe I'm wrong. I mean,

1500
01:15:19,200 --> 01:15:21,599
Speaker 1: because you could also imagine a scenario where the people

1501
01:15:21,600 --> 01:15:24,280
Speaker 1: who are involved in content moderation have hated the fact

1502
01:15:24,320 --> 01:15:28,640
Speaker 1: that they've been constrained by corporate advertisers and their concerns.

1503
01:15:28,640 --> 01:15:30,920
Speaker 1: So who knows what the breakdown is. But I did

1504
01:15:30,920 --> 01:15:34,320
Speaker 1: find that interesting that the internal sentiments around him we're

1505
01:15:34,400 --> 01:15:37,240
Speaker 1: not We're actually very evenly divided, at least according to

1506
01:15:37,280 --> 01:15:38,559
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah, I think a lesson of the show

1507
01:15:38,600 --> 01:15:40,240
Speaker 1: is always as things are a lot more complicated than

1508
01:15:40,240 --> 01:15:42,000
Speaker 1: people think. Okay, let's move on. This is a very

1509
01:15:42,040 --> 01:15:44,920
Speaker 1: important report here. Let's put it up there on the screen,

1510
01:15:45,240 --> 01:15:49,520
Speaker 1: which is interestingly enough, says how US Saudi relations reached

1511
01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:52,400
Speaker 1: the breaking as to why we're naming this show what

1512
01:15:52,439 --> 01:15:55,360
Speaker 1: it is. What they point to here is that Saudi

1513
01:15:55,479 --> 01:16:01,360
Speaker 1: Prince MBS confronted Jake Sherman, the nationals Security Advisor of

1514
01:16:01,479 --> 01:16:05,000
Speaker 1: the United States, and began yelling at him. And what's

1515
01:16:05,160 --> 01:16:09,040
Speaker 1: very important in this report is that Saudi Prince MBS

1516
01:16:09,080 --> 01:16:13,000
Speaker 1: basically said we will never speak about this again. Now.

1517
01:16:13,320 --> 01:16:18,640
Speaker 1: He was so so upset about mister Sullivan that he

1518
01:16:18,840 --> 01:16:22,439
Speaker 1: shouted at him and basically said that he would be

1519
01:16:22,479 --> 01:16:25,120
Speaker 1: banishing for him from the room and that the US

1520
01:16:25,240 --> 01:16:29,720
Speaker 1: could forget about its request to boost oil production. So

1521
01:16:30,200 --> 01:16:33,000
Speaker 1: that is the significant part of all of this, which

1522
01:16:33,040 --> 01:16:35,840
Speaker 1: is that whenever, and also I love the description he

1523
01:16:35,960 --> 01:16:39,640
Speaker 1: was wearing shorts yes seaside palace or he felt was

1524
01:16:39,800 --> 01:16:42,519
Speaker 1: very disrespectful. Of course, right, this is how they this

1525
01:16:42,600 --> 01:16:45,040
Speaker 1: is how they played. This is alpha move. Like I

1526
01:16:45,040 --> 01:16:46,599
Speaker 1: don't even have to get dressed up for you. I'm

1527
01:16:46,600 --> 01:16:48,320
Speaker 1: just going to be here relaxing in my show. I

1528
01:16:48,400 --> 01:16:51,200
Speaker 1: have heard stories about MBS and about the way that

1529
01:16:51,240 --> 01:16:53,920
Speaker 1: he would treat US diplomats and like he would specifically

1530
01:16:53,960 --> 01:16:56,080
Speaker 1: make them come on his yacht or whatever in the

1531
01:16:56,080 --> 01:16:58,559
Speaker 1: south of France in order to show his fake Mona

1532
01:16:58,600 --> 01:17:03,840
Speaker 1: Lisa or his fake Leonard and try and pull all

1533
01:17:03,880 --> 01:17:06,600
Speaker 1: of these meetings. That's another story for another time. But

1534
01:17:06,880 --> 01:17:09,519
Speaker 1: I think that the important part is that shouting at

1535
01:17:09,600 --> 01:17:14,040
Speaker 1: him and specifically tying any criticism on the Jamal Kashogi

1536
01:17:14,120 --> 01:17:17,679
Speaker 1: killing to US oil production just shows the Saudis demand

1537
01:17:17,800 --> 01:17:21,160
Speaker 1: total subservience from the Americans. We are supposed to do

1538
01:17:21,360 --> 01:17:23,800
Speaker 1: anything that they want. Oh they want our weapons, give

1539
01:17:23,800 --> 01:17:25,920
Speaker 1: it to them. Don't say a damn thing about Yemen.

1540
01:17:26,000 --> 01:17:28,200
Speaker 1: If you talk about Yemen, you're done. This is one

1541
01:17:28,240 --> 01:17:30,479
Speaker 1: of those things which is an absolute redline for them.

1542
01:17:30,520 --> 01:17:34,080
Speaker 1: Oh you want to talk about Jamal Kashoge, Oh it's over.

1543
01:17:34,200 --> 01:17:36,040
Speaker 1: We are never going to have this discussion, and you

1544
01:17:36,080 --> 01:17:38,880
Speaker 1: can forget about it. And it's a problem because they

1545
01:17:38,960 --> 01:17:42,600
Speaker 1: have the basically one of the only OPEC nations that

1546
01:17:42,680 --> 01:17:45,679
Speaker 1: are able in order to immediately spin up production. Because

1547
01:17:45,720 --> 01:17:48,479
Speaker 1: we've talked about here, America is a major, you know,

1548
01:17:48,800 --> 01:17:52,640
Speaker 1: oil producing nation in its own right, but our infrastructure

1549
01:17:52,680 --> 01:17:55,000
Speaker 1: is not such that it would take six to nine

1550
01:17:55,040 --> 01:17:57,000
Speaker 1: months in order to make sure that we want to.

1551
01:17:57,080 --> 01:18:00,519
Speaker 1: The Saudis could pump more tomorrow now, can complete over

1552
01:18:00,600 --> 01:18:02,799
Speaker 1: this history, and they have total control over the industry.

1553
01:18:02,800 --> 01:18:04,519
Speaker 1: And they've even said they're like, oh, yeah, we can

1554
01:18:04,560 --> 01:18:06,240
Speaker 1: do it. Well, we're not going to They've agreed to

1555
01:18:06,280 --> 01:18:09,320
Speaker 1: a quote modest increase, and you can just see the

1556
01:18:09,360 --> 01:18:12,439
Speaker 1: economic effect that this is having on all Americans. Let's

1557
01:18:12,439 --> 01:18:14,000
Speaker 1: put this up there. I had this cut from the

1558
01:18:14,040 --> 01:18:17,519
Speaker 1: triple a gas price national average, I mean the national

1559
01:18:17,560 --> 01:18:20,519
Speaker 1: average of gas as we cut this was four dollars

1560
01:18:20,640 --> 01:18:23,280
Speaker 1: and twelve cents a gallon. That's a lot of money. Okay,

1561
01:18:23,320 --> 01:18:26,640
Speaker 1: It's not four fifty four thirty like it was a

1562
01:18:26,680 --> 01:18:28,559
Speaker 1: couple of months ago. So that Yeah, the hot the

1563
01:18:28,600 --> 01:18:31,799
Speaker 1: all time high it recorded was four dollars and thirty

1564
01:18:31,800 --> 01:18:34,080
Speaker 1: three cents a gallon, which was last month. But I

1565
01:18:34,080 --> 01:18:36,720
Speaker 1: mean it's only dropped by twenty cents. That's still an

1566
01:18:36,880 --> 01:18:40,560
Speaker 1: enormous tax on the average American. In California, Crystal, the

1567
01:18:40,600 --> 01:18:43,519
Speaker 1: average price is five dollars and sixty eight cents a gallon.

1568
01:18:43,760 --> 01:18:47,440
Speaker 1: I mean, the lowest prices are in the three seventies,

1569
01:18:47,479 --> 01:18:51,320
Speaker 1: three sixties in the South and in the Southwest, but

1570
01:18:51,720 --> 01:18:54,519
Speaker 1: here also in the DMV. I get lucky if I

1571
01:18:54,560 --> 01:18:57,160
Speaker 1: get four dollars twelve cents a gallon, which is the

1572
01:18:57,200 --> 01:18:59,720
Speaker 1: national average. I mean, that is an immense amount of

1573
01:18:59,720 --> 01:19:03,839
Speaker 1: money that Americans are outlaying every week to these oil companies.

1574
01:19:03,880 --> 01:19:07,400
Speaker 1: And because specifically of the Saudis. Yeah, although the truth

1575
01:19:07,760 --> 01:19:10,280
Speaker 1: is at this point it has there was a time

1576
01:19:10,320 --> 01:19:12,640
Speaker 1: when I had a lot to do with the Saudis

1577
01:19:12,960 --> 01:19:16,720
Speaker 1: withholding production and basically serving you know, as Russian that's

1578
01:19:16,760 --> 01:19:18,439
Speaker 1: what the Russians want them to do. And there were

1579
01:19:18,479 --> 01:19:21,000
Speaker 1: all these little like diplomatic slights of the White House

1580
01:19:21,040 --> 01:19:22,920
Speaker 1: was trying to line up a phone call with MBAs,

1581
01:19:22,920 --> 01:19:25,400
Speaker 1: they kept pushing them off. Ultimately they cancel, and then

1582
01:19:25,400 --> 01:19:27,280
Speaker 1: the very next day is taking a call with Putin.

1583
01:19:27,560 --> 01:19:29,519
Speaker 1: So there's all kinds of that kind of stuff that's

1584
01:19:29,560 --> 01:19:33,040
Speaker 1: ultimately going on here. But you know, oil prices per

1585
01:19:33,080 --> 01:19:37,200
Speaker 1: barrel have dropped a lot, not thanks to anything that

1586
01:19:37,439 --> 01:19:39,639
Speaker 1: Biden or anyone else has done, but because of the

1587
01:19:39,720 --> 01:19:44,000
Speaker 1: new lockdowns in China, you know, curbing demands significantly. And

1588
01:19:44,080 --> 01:19:47,120
Speaker 1: as we covered here before on this show, the sad

1589
01:19:47,200 --> 01:19:50,040
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is that when oil prices by

1590
01:19:50,040 --> 01:19:53,519
Speaker 1: the barrel go up, gas prices skyrocket immediately. But when

1591
01:19:53,560 --> 01:19:55,840
Speaker 1: they go down again, it takes a long time for

1592
01:19:55,920 --> 01:19:58,360
Speaker 1: them to come back down because all of the like

1593
01:19:59,120 --> 01:20:01,519
Speaker 1: gas station opera are trying to make what they can

1594
01:20:02,120 --> 01:20:04,519
Speaker 1: and benefit from the distance between what they're paying for

1595
01:20:05,080 --> 01:20:07,040
Speaker 1: oil and what they can charge you at the pump.

1596
01:20:07,120 --> 01:20:09,080
Speaker 1: So I just want to be clear, there's like a

1597
01:20:09,080 --> 01:20:12,360
Speaker 1: complex picture of why gas prices continue to be high

1598
01:20:12,439 --> 01:20:15,280
Speaker 1: right now. But the more important point here about the

1599
01:20:15,320 --> 01:20:19,160
Speaker 1: Saudis is listen, I want to see our country have

1600
01:20:19,400 --> 01:20:23,000
Speaker 1: good relations around the world period, even with regimes that

1601
01:20:23,120 --> 01:20:26,000
Speaker 1: I don't particularly care for, and that definitely includes the

1602
01:20:26,040 --> 01:20:29,320
Speaker 1: Saudi regime, which has been extraordinarily nefarious, which you know,

1603
01:20:29,400 --> 01:20:32,000
Speaker 1: the war in Yemen has been a moral atrocity that

1604
01:20:32,000 --> 01:20:36,679
Speaker 1: we have been completely complicit in. However, in the while

1605
01:20:36,680 --> 01:20:38,559
Speaker 1: in the micro it has caused some pain at the

1606
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:41,439
Speaker 1: pump for American consumers that I do not want to diminish.

1607
01:20:41,560 --> 01:20:44,240
Speaker 1: In the macro, us having a more arms light distance

1608
01:20:44,240 --> 01:20:47,599
Speaker 1: from Saudi Arabia is a good thing. And you know,

1609
01:20:47,640 --> 01:20:51,520
Speaker 1: it's interesting what it happened over because you had progressives

1610
01:20:51,560 --> 01:20:54,599
Speaker 1: who were kind of out on their own making the kit,

1611
01:20:54,640 --> 01:20:56,800
Speaker 1: and some other civil libertarians who I want to give

1612
01:20:56,800 --> 01:20:59,559
Speaker 1: credit to exactly who were kind of out on their

1613
01:20:59,600 --> 01:21:02,640
Speaker 1: own with regards to the Yemen war and trying to

1614
01:21:02,640 --> 01:21:06,240
Speaker 1: take a stand there. And then it was once the

1615
01:21:06,320 --> 01:21:11,439
Speaker 1: Jamal Kashogi killing happened that really started to galvanize public

1616
01:21:11,479 --> 01:21:16,640
Speaker 1: opinion and bipartisan sentiment, including with mainstream Democrats against the

1617
01:21:16,680 --> 01:21:19,679
Speaker 1: Saudi regime. And that really did serve as a kind

1618
01:21:19,680 --> 01:21:23,280
Speaker 1: of a tipping point. So it's revealing here that it

1619
01:21:23,360 --> 01:21:27,280
Speaker 1: was those comments from Jake Sullivan bringing up Kaushogi that

1620
01:21:27,439 --> 01:21:31,519
Speaker 1: causes MBS to totally freak out and scream at him

1621
01:21:32,200 --> 01:21:35,880
Speaker 1: because you know, it's look, it was horrific what they

1622
01:21:35,880 --> 01:21:39,440
Speaker 1: did to Kushogi. But that's only one of many abuses

1623
01:21:39,479 --> 01:21:42,160
Speaker 1: that we should be concerned about the day from the

1624
01:21:42,200 --> 01:21:45,760
Speaker 1: Saudi government. But that was the thing that really sort

1625
01:21:45,760 --> 01:21:50,280
Speaker 1: of turned American public opinion and elite political opinion and

1626
01:21:50,320 --> 01:21:53,320
Speaker 1: cause them to question what this relationship with Saudi was

1627
01:21:53,360 --> 01:21:55,479
Speaker 1: ultimately like. So I do think that that was kind

1628
01:21:55,520 --> 01:21:57,400
Speaker 1: of a pivot point in this relationship. Yeah, and we

1629
01:21:57,400 --> 01:21:59,599
Speaker 1: shouldn't dismiss this side of those with this up there

1630
01:21:59,720 --> 01:22:02,839
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg rising oil prices, this is just from yesterday.

1631
01:22:02,920 --> 01:22:05,000
Speaker 1: They are a boon to the Saudi economy. I mean,

1632
01:22:05,080 --> 01:22:07,280
Speaker 1: they are making bank in a way that they have

1633
01:22:07,400 --> 01:22:09,880
Speaker 1: not made in a long time. The IMF set its

1634
01:22:09,960 --> 01:22:12,880
Speaker 1: estimate for the country's economic growth is going up by

1635
01:22:13,000 --> 01:22:16,759
Speaker 1: three percentage points to seven point six percent. That's China

1636
01:22:16,960 --> 01:22:20,879
Speaker 1: level growth for a country that produces and does nothing

1637
01:22:21,040 --> 01:22:25,280
Speaker 1: but pump oil. That's in pretty amazing. Despite all of

1638
01:22:25,320 --> 01:22:27,840
Speaker 1: their propaganda about all their other fake business that they have.

1639
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:29,599
Speaker 1: They're an oil country and they'll continue to be an

1640
01:22:29,600 --> 01:22:32,040
Speaker 1: oil country until the day that it runs out. And

1641
01:22:32,120 --> 01:22:34,240
Speaker 1: the reason it matters is because they don't have a

1642
01:22:34,240 --> 01:22:36,000
Speaker 1: whole lot of incentive here. The only reason that they

1643
01:22:36,040 --> 01:22:39,560
Speaker 1: would do so is through some sort of diplomatic diplomatic

1644
01:22:39,560 --> 01:22:41,599
Speaker 1: agreement with the United States in order to drop oil.

1645
01:22:41,640 --> 01:22:43,479
Speaker 1: And they know that they have us over a barrel.

1646
01:22:43,479 --> 01:22:46,080
Speaker 1: And what's worse is that they have great relationship with

1647
01:22:46,160 --> 01:22:49,639
Speaker 1: Jared Kushner because they are banking that a return from

1648
01:22:49,640 --> 01:22:52,120
Speaker 1: the Kushner and Trump regime would make it so that

1649
01:22:52,160 --> 01:22:53,559
Speaker 1: it would be great for them. They're like, this is

1650
01:22:53,560 --> 01:22:55,880
Speaker 1: the real foreigner interference that people should be talking perc

1651
01:22:56,080 --> 01:22:58,040
Speaker 1: Ken Clippentein's been saying that for a while too, by

1652
01:22:58,040 --> 01:23:00,519
Speaker 1: the way, which is absolutely foreign interference. Same thing whenever

1653
01:23:00,600 --> 01:23:02,400
Speaker 1: China would do the you know, spot they'd try and

1654
01:23:02,479 --> 01:23:05,639
Speaker 1: raise spot prices for agricultural goods in the Midwest ahead

1655
01:23:05,640 --> 01:23:07,720
Speaker 1: of the election because they were upset about tariffs. So

1656
01:23:07,760 --> 01:23:09,759
Speaker 1: these are the types of foreign interference with the country

1657
01:23:09,840 --> 01:23:12,639
Speaker 1: the media never wants to actually talk about, but has

1658
01:23:13,000 --> 01:23:16,599
Speaker 1: very real political ramifications here in the US. We should

1659
01:23:16,600 --> 01:23:18,519
Speaker 1: all just be aware. Look like, no matter how what

1660
01:23:18,560 --> 01:23:20,360
Speaker 1: you think, I don't want to be screwed with by

1661
01:23:20,400 --> 01:23:22,600
Speaker 1: the people who are probably more responsible for nine to

1662
01:23:22,640 --> 01:23:25,720
Speaker 1: eleven than anybody but Osama bin Laden. And you know,

1663
01:23:25,880 --> 01:23:28,000
Speaker 1: it's disgusting that we've been kissing their ass for the

1664
01:23:28,080 --> 01:23:31,920
Speaker 1: last twenty years and allowing all of this Saudi cash

1665
01:23:32,040 --> 01:23:34,680
Speaker 1: swimming around in our country, even the Twitter deal. We

1666
01:23:34,720 --> 01:23:38,759
Speaker 1: talked about that with Elon going against the Kingdom Holding Company.

1667
01:23:38,920 --> 01:23:40,400
Speaker 1: I mean, by the way, I'm aware that the Kingdom

1668
01:23:40,439 --> 01:23:42,640
Speaker 1: Holding Company does not actually tied to the Kingdom, But

1669
01:23:42,840 --> 01:23:45,120
Speaker 1: if you think that that Prince isn't directly subject to

1670
01:23:45,120 --> 01:23:47,960
Speaker 1: the whims of NBS, given that he was literally imprisoned

1671
01:23:48,000 --> 01:23:50,720
Speaker 1: by NBS, then you're an idiot. And I just think

1672
01:23:50,760 --> 01:23:53,840
Speaker 1: that we should not allow the Saudi royal family members

1673
01:23:53,920 --> 01:23:56,680
Speaker 1: or rich people to throw any weight around in this

1674
01:23:56,720 --> 01:23:59,799
Speaker 1: country whatsoever. And this ties to you know, my conversations

1675
01:23:59,840 --> 01:24:03,520
Speaker 1: right nuclear and all of that, and why exactly that's necessary.

1676
01:24:03,560 --> 01:24:05,479
Speaker 1: But you can just look at this and it's really

1677
01:24:05,520 --> 01:24:08,559
Speaker 1: gross that they are printing money hand or fists. They're

1678
01:24:08,600 --> 01:24:11,320
Speaker 1: screwing with us, and we continue to sell them weapons

1679
01:24:11,400 --> 01:24:14,240
Speaker 1: and give them preferential treatment in the diplomatic world. They

1680
01:24:14,240 --> 01:24:16,160
Speaker 1: don't deserve it. Screw them, yes, So we should say

1681
01:24:16,240 --> 01:24:18,519
Speaker 1: that's a part of the Biden administration that's been really

1682
01:24:18,560 --> 01:24:22,479
Speaker 1: pathetic is even after some of these displays of contempt,

1683
01:24:22,800 --> 01:24:25,360
Speaker 1: they still are doing what they want them to do,

1684
01:24:25,520 --> 01:24:27,559
Speaker 1: thinking that like, oh well, maybe if we appease them

1685
01:24:27,560 --> 01:24:29,160
Speaker 1: a little bit more and give them what they want,

1686
01:24:29,240 --> 01:24:32,639
Speaker 1: then they'll lessen their hostile posture. This Wall Street Journal

1687
01:24:32,800 --> 01:24:35,000
Speaker 1: report that we started this block with admits that the

1688
01:24:35,040 --> 01:24:38,040
Speaker 1: administration they aren't even bothering to ask anymore for them

1689
01:24:38,080 --> 01:24:40,080
Speaker 1: to lift production because they've just given up on it

1690
01:24:40,160 --> 01:24:44,120
Speaker 1: ultimately being a possibility. That's how you know, that's how

1691
01:24:44,160 --> 01:24:46,960
Speaker 1: intransigen ultimately and arrogant I think the Saudi regime is.

1692
01:24:46,960 --> 01:24:52,640
Speaker 1: At this point. Let's get too Sager's part in this

1693
01:24:52,760 --> 01:24:55,439
Speaker 1: whole saga. Go ahead, throw this element out there on

1694
01:24:55,479 --> 01:24:58,960
Speaker 1: the screen. So as I was just saying, these executives

1695
01:24:59,000 --> 01:25:01,599
Speaker 1: really deserve a lot of screw, and so Sager on

1696
01:25:01,640 --> 01:25:05,599
Speaker 1: Twitter provided a little bit of that scrutiny, saying, Vajia

1697
01:25:05,720 --> 01:25:08,960
Speaker 1: Gaddy is that asser listening? The top censorship advocate at

1698
01:25:08,960 --> 01:25:11,679
Speaker 1: Twitter who famously gas led the world on Joe Rogan's

1699
01:25:11,680 --> 01:25:14,720
Speaker 1: podcast True and Censored. The Hunter Biden laptop story is

1700
01:25:14,880 --> 01:25:17,439
Speaker 1: very upset about the Elon must takeover, and he includes

1701
01:25:17,439 --> 01:25:20,200
Speaker 1: in there a Politico story that says Twitter's top lawyer

1702
01:25:20,240 --> 01:25:23,680
Speaker 1: reassures staff and cries during meeting about most takeover. This

1703
01:25:23,800 --> 01:25:26,720
Speaker 1: is reporting from Politico, Okay, this is like he's just

1704
01:25:27,240 --> 01:25:29,839
Speaker 1: showing the world what happened here and having some commentary

1705
01:25:29,840 --> 01:25:32,479
Speaker 1: about it. I can't stand Vijia Gotte. Haven't been able

1706
01:25:32,520 --> 01:25:35,600
Speaker 1: to stand her since twenty eighteen when she appeared on

1707
01:25:35,640 --> 01:25:38,719
Speaker 1: The Joe Rogan Experience with Jack Dorsey spent ninety percent

1708
01:25:38,800 --> 01:25:41,080
Speaker 1: of the time gaslighting all of us and Tim Poole

1709
01:25:41,080 --> 01:25:43,880
Speaker 1: as well about the censorship policies over there. So I

1710
01:25:43,920 --> 01:25:45,720
Speaker 1: found it amusing, and I'm going to talk about this

1711
01:25:45,720 --> 01:25:49,080
Speaker 1: in my monologue. Was it mean? Yeah, okay, okay, but

1712
01:25:49,160 --> 01:25:50,840
Speaker 1: it was me. I won't even defend you that pick

1713
01:25:50,920 --> 01:25:52,840
Speaker 1: us back up on the screen. This is not even

1714
01:25:52,880 --> 01:25:56,160
Speaker 1: that mean. Okay, I agree, but I'm the standards of Twitter.

1715
01:25:56,240 --> 01:25:58,200
Speaker 1: I actually think you're being a little too hard on yourself.

1716
01:25:58,240 --> 01:25:59,800
Speaker 1: Put that part back up on the screen, because you've

1717
01:25:59,800 --> 01:26:01,840
Speaker 1: got another part. We've got it. Get here. So you say,

1718
01:26:01,880 --> 01:26:04,439
Speaker 1: she famously gasled world true. Since with the Hunter Biden

1719
01:26:04,520 --> 01:26:09,200
Speaker 1: laptop story, true is very upset also true, just completely factual,

1720
01:26:09,520 --> 01:26:12,320
Speaker 1: point by point based on the reporting from Politico. So

1721
01:26:12,360 --> 01:26:15,160
Speaker 1: then something very unexpected happens. I did not expect this.

1722
01:26:15,400 --> 01:26:19,040
Speaker 1: Elon Musk himself replies and says, also in a pretty

1723
01:26:19,080 --> 01:26:22,400
Speaker 1: neutral Tony Haurry, suspending the Twitter account of a major

1724
01:26:22,439 --> 01:26:27,400
Speaker 1: news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate.

1725
01:26:27,439 --> 01:26:29,960
Speaker 1: And I don't know who at this point really disagrees

1726
01:26:30,000 --> 01:26:32,760
Speaker 1: with who can disagree with that? I couldn't believe it.

1727
01:26:32,880 --> 01:26:35,599
Speaker 1: But guys, what ends ups happening here is the most

1728
01:26:35,680 --> 01:26:40,320
Speaker 1: legitimately insane thing ever been a part of. So Elon

1729
01:26:40,400 --> 01:26:41,640
Speaker 1: replies to me, and I was like, oh, that's kind

1730
01:26:41,680 --> 01:26:45,040
Speaker 1: of interesting. My phone literally that won't stop buzzing. People

1731
01:26:45,080 --> 01:26:47,880
Speaker 1: wrote up his comments all of that. Then in the

1732
01:26:47,920 --> 01:26:51,040
Speaker 1: next couple of hours, a narrative begins to develop that

1733
01:26:51,160 --> 01:26:56,880
Speaker 1: Elon and me are responsible for targeted harassment against this woman,

1734
01:26:57,160 --> 01:27:01,200
Speaker 1: Vijiaya Gade, because apparently some ran no accounts said she

1735
01:27:01,280 --> 01:27:04,880
Speaker 1: should be fired and said some racist stuff against her. Obviously,

1736
01:27:05,120 --> 01:27:08,240
Speaker 1: I do not condone anything racist against Vajaia Goada. You

1737
01:27:08,320 --> 01:27:11,320
Speaker 1: may not have noticed, but I'm Indian. Furthermore, I did

1738
01:27:11,320 --> 01:27:14,519
Speaker 1: some investigation. I called my mom. Now, according to my mom,

1739
01:27:14,800 --> 01:27:18,479
Speaker 1: Vijaiyagada is not only are we both Indian, she is

1740
01:27:18,640 --> 01:27:21,880
Speaker 1: also a Telugu person as in we are from the

1741
01:27:21,920 --> 01:27:25,719
Speaker 1: same region of India. Furthermore, I actually have a cousin

1742
01:27:25,960 --> 01:27:29,559
Speaker 1: with the last name who is similar to Vijayagada, so

1743
01:27:29,600 --> 01:27:32,320
Speaker 1: we may even be related. So maybe you're just a

1744
01:27:32,400 --> 01:27:35,640
Speaker 1: self hating Indian. That's why Indiana. So not only are

1745
01:27:35,680 --> 01:27:38,440
Speaker 1: we both Indian, we are from the same region of India,

1746
01:27:38,520 --> 01:27:41,160
Speaker 1: and our families from the same region of India. And

1747
01:27:41,560 --> 01:27:43,760
Speaker 1: I might actually be related to the lady. Okay, so

1748
01:27:43,840 --> 01:27:46,080
Speaker 1: let's go. Let's put that out of the way. Yeah.

1749
01:27:46,120 --> 01:27:49,360
Speaker 1: And so then the news media decides this is an

1750
01:27:49,360 --> 01:27:53,040
Speaker 1: angle we can pursue because they don't necessarily love being

1751
01:27:53,200 --> 01:27:56,440
Speaker 1: like overtly in favor of no, we want the censorship.

1752
01:27:56,520 --> 01:27:58,439
Speaker 1: What if they have free speech? Oh my god, because

1753
01:27:58,479 --> 01:28:00,639
Speaker 1: you know these places like to pretend that they're pre

1754
01:28:00,720 --> 01:28:03,160
Speaker 1: speech outlets and in favor of such things. So now

1755
01:28:03,160 --> 01:28:06,200
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, we've we've got an angle. Got you

1756
01:28:06,880 --> 01:28:11,559
Speaker 1: targeted harassment of a female executive brought on by these

1757
01:28:11,640 --> 01:28:15,400
Speaker 1: powerful figures, etcetera, etcetera. So Washington Post decides to go

1758
01:28:15,479 --> 01:28:19,679
Speaker 1: forward with this story Elon Musk boost criticism of Twitter

1759
01:28:19,760 --> 01:28:23,720
Speaker 1: executives prompting online attacks, and let me read to you

1760
01:28:23,960 --> 01:28:28,479
Speaker 1: the framing of this, which is so incredibly dystopian and

1761
01:28:28,720 --> 01:28:33,000
Speaker 1: gas lady and dishonest. So they say, Elon Musk is

1762
01:28:33,080 --> 01:28:36,679
Speaker 1: using his powerful Twitter account to bolster right wing users

1763
01:28:36,960 --> 01:28:41,600
Speaker 1: who sharply criticized two company company executives, exposing them to

1764
01:28:41,720 --> 01:28:45,720
Speaker 1: the online masses who join in the attacks, exposing them

1765
01:28:45,760 --> 01:28:49,000
Speaker 1: to the online masses. Again, these are powerful, very powerful

1766
01:28:49,000 --> 01:28:51,920
Speaker 1: individuals that we're talking about here. It started with a

1767
01:28:51,960 --> 01:28:56,439
Speaker 1: Tuesday tweet from political podcast host Sager and Jetty Always

1768
01:28:56,479 --> 01:28:59,040
Speaker 1: read to do that. Twitter users quickly piled on to

1769
01:28:59,160 --> 01:29:02,559
Speaker 1: the criticism of Gotti, including calling on must to fire

1770
01:29:02,600 --> 01:29:05,840
Speaker 1: her and using racist language to describe her. Gotte was

1771
01:29:05,880 --> 01:29:08,760
Speaker 1: born in India, Indian immigrated to the US as a child.

1772
01:29:09,160 --> 01:29:12,080
Speaker 1: One user said she would quote go down in history

1773
01:29:12,160 --> 01:29:16,400
Speaker 1: as an appalling person. How could you say such a thing?

1774
01:29:16,560 --> 01:29:18,680
Speaker 1: I actually found it kind of revealing that that was

1775
01:29:18,720 --> 01:29:22,840
Speaker 1: the worst response that they could find here. She's so mild. Yeah,

1776
01:29:22,840 --> 01:29:24,920
Speaker 1: I know people said horrible things about me. Guess what,

1777
01:29:25,040 --> 01:29:27,439
Speaker 1: I don't care, you know whatever, that's what comes with

1778
01:29:27,520 --> 01:29:30,160
Speaker 1: this business. And the people who criticized me, which prompted

1779
01:29:30,160 --> 01:29:32,680
Speaker 1: those whatever, it's part of the game. I'm not going

1780
01:29:32,760 --> 01:29:34,920
Speaker 1: to be like, you're a racist for coming after me.

1781
01:29:35,160 --> 01:29:37,280
Speaker 1: So what really pissed me off, though, Crystal, was not

1782
01:29:37,360 --> 01:29:40,240
Speaker 1: just the framing of this was inside of the article

1783
01:29:40,560 --> 01:29:43,400
Speaker 1: they wrote, and they they've since updated it. They said

1784
01:29:43,640 --> 01:29:47,240
Speaker 1: Jetti did not immediately respond for requests to comment. And

1785
01:29:47,439 --> 01:29:50,400
Speaker 1: so I'm literally just spending my Wednesday morning. I came

1786
01:29:50,439 --> 01:29:53,000
Speaker 1: back from the gym. It's like seven thirty or whatever.

1787
01:29:53,040 --> 01:29:55,120
Speaker 1: I'm like scrolling and I say, and I said, whoah,

1788
01:29:55,280 --> 01:29:58,679
Speaker 1: I've never been nobody's contacted me. I checked my Instagram,

1789
01:29:58,720 --> 01:30:01,240
Speaker 1: I checked my email, I checked my phone. Nothing. So

1790
01:30:01,280 --> 01:30:03,960
Speaker 1: then I called our producer, James. And here's what James

1791
01:30:03,960 --> 01:30:05,679
Speaker 1: tells me. Let's go ahead and put this up there

1792
01:30:05,680 --> 01:30:10,280
Speaker 1: on the screen. This Washington Post lady emails James, not

1793
01:30:10,400 --> 01:30:15,639
Speaker 1: even me at two six am, and she says, here, hi, there.

1794
01:30:15,880 --> 01:30:18,799
Speaker 1: We are quickly writing up his tweets tonight about Vijaiya

1795
01:30:18,840 --> 01:30:22,040
Speaker 1: Gotte with the peg that Musk is piling on some questions.

1796
01:30:22,040 --> 01:30:24,599
Speaker 1: Here are questions. Listen to this, Hil, Does he have

1797
01:30:24,960 --> 01:30:28,960
Speaker 1: any concern that mentioning a specific Twitter executive could result

1798
01:30:29,000 --> 01:30:32,160
Speaker 1: in attacks on that exec What are the responsibilities here?

1799
01:30:32,320 --> 01:30:35,439
Speaker 1: For example, one of the commenters made racist tweets events

1800
01:30:35,439 --> 01:30:38,160
Speaker 1: Gode and others said she should be fired. Number two,

1801
01:30:38,520 --> 01:30:41,439
Speaker 1: What does he hope to accomplish by calling out Gode

1802
01:30:41,800 --> 01:30:44,439
Speaker 1: and getting Elon involved? So there's a lot going on.

1803
01:30:45,520 --> 01:30:48,240
Speaker 1: Number One, everybody in this town has my phone number,

1804
01:30:48,400 --> 01:30:51,240
Speaker 1: including half of the people who work in her newspaper. Yes,

1805
01:30:51,320 --> 01:30:53,559
Speaker 1: it's not that hard to find. By the way, please

1806
01:30:53,560 --> 01:30:57,320
Speaker 1: don't call me randomly, But it's really not that difficult.

1807
01:30:57,560 --> 01:30:59,519
Speaker 1: I was a reporter. I know a lot of the

1808
01:30:59,520 --> 01:31:02,360
Speaker 1: people here. She could easily have gotten it, and many

1809
01:31:02,360 --> 01:31:04,559
Speaker 1: of her colleagues have contacted me and have spoken to

1810
01:31:04,600 --> 01:31:08,080
Speaker 1: me many times in the past. Number Two, emailing somebody

1811
01:31:08,080 --> 01:31:11,160
Speaker 1: for comment at two oh six am Eastern time is

1812
01:31:11,320 --> 01:31:14,080
Speaker 1: complete BS. And what time did they go live? That's

1813
01:31:14,080 --> 01:31:16,040
Speaker 1: the story. They went live with the story late like

1814
01:31:16,080 --> 01:31:20,439
Speaker 1: six am. I'm awake. You could I was literally away.

1815
01:31:20,479 --> 01:31:22,000
Speaker 1: I got up at five that day in order to

1816
01:31:22,040 --> 01:31:23,840
Speaker 1: go work out. You could have called me. I would

1817
01:31:23,880 --> 01:31:25,759
Speaker 1: have given you a comment, I would have been happy

1818
01:31:25,800 --> 01:31:28,719
Speaker 1: to do so. I'm actually pretty accessible whenever people write

1819
01:31:28,800 --> 01:31:32,679
Speaker 1: about breaking points. So seven hours after Elon Musk replied

1820
01:31:32,720 --> 01:31:35,639
Speaker 1: to me, they contact me for the story. Now let's

1821
01:31:35,640 --> 01:31:39,920
Speaker 1: get to the actual questions here. Vijaiyagade was paid seventeen

1822
01:31:40,120 --> 01:31:43,800
Speaker 1: million dollars last year. She literally appeared on the Joe

1823
01:31:43,840 --> 01:31:47,120
Speaker 1: Rogan podcast and is the top policy executive at Twitter.

1824
01:31:47,240 --> 01:31:50,360
Speaker 1: She's a public figure. I'm allowed to criticize public figures.

1825
01:31:50,360 --> 01:31:52,920
Speaker 1: In fact, that's literally my job, and under the guise

1826
01:31:53,000 --> 01:31:55,720
Speaker 1: of the First Amendment, which I've prized and which I

1827
01:31:55,720 --> 01:31:57,720
Speaker 1: think is very important for me being able to do

1828
01:31:57,760 --> 01:31:59,640
Speaker 1: the work that I do, that is well within the

1829
01:31:59,640 --> 01:32:02,880
Speaker 1: bounds of both accepted in legal speech, but also I

1830
01:32:02,880 --> 01:32:07,280
Speaker 1: would think even within the respectability industrial compent, going after

1831
01:32:07,320 --> 01:32:10,719
Speaker 1: somebody on a substantive issue is not out of Bounce,

1832
01:32:10,760 --> 01:32:14,479
Speaker 1: who is very powerful, very powerful. Her title is Twitter's

1833
01:32:14,560 --> 01:32:17,920
Speaker 1: is very dystopian title, Twitter's legal policy and trust leaders.

1834
01:32:18,120 --> 01:32:20,320
Speaker 1: So she's the head of the Ministry of Information. Right,

1835
01:32:20,400 --> 01:32:24,120
Speaker 1: So my craticism of her on a policy matter that

1836
01:32:24,200 --> 01:32:28,080
Speaker 1: she has publicly spoken about, how am I responsible for

1837
01:32:28,160 --> 01:32:31,040
Speaker 1: what some random ass Twitter account says to her, and

1838
01:32:31,120 --> 01:32:34,920
Speaker 1: same with Elon. He didn't say anything crazy about Visjhaiagada.

1839
01:32:35,000 --> 01:32:37,680
Speaker 1: He replied to a tweet and criticized her on a

1840
01:32:37,880 --> 01:32:40,840
Speaker 1: policy matter that she was directly involved in. She's the

1841
01:32:40,880 --> 01:32:44,200
Speaker 1: person who censored the Elon Musk story. Now Number two,

1842
01:32:44,360 --> 01:32:47,880
Speaker 1: in turn is her second question. She accuses me of

1843
01:32:47,960 --> 01:32:52,080
Speaker 1: bringing in Elon. I've never spoken to Elon Musk in

1844
01:32:52,120 --> 01:32:56,280
Speaker 1: my entire life. We've had no connection. He's never tweeted

1845
01:32:56,320 --> 01:32:58,840
Speaker 1: at me before. I've never spoken to him. I've never

1846
01:32:58,880 --> 01:33:01,960
Speaker 1: corresponded with him. I've never corresponded with anyone at Tesla.

1847
01:33:02,240 --> 01:33:05,000
Speaker 1: I think the closest connection that we would have is

1848
01:33:05,000 --> 01:33:07,920
Speaker 1: that we also know Joe Rogan, right, Okay, So just

1849
01:33:08,000 --> 01:33:11,040
Speaker 1: so people are completely aware, maybe he knows why I

1850
01:33:11,080 --> 01:33:13,120
Speaker 1: am big, which is a large group of people. The

1851
01:33:13,200 --> 01:33:16,519
Speaker 1: people who know Joe don't. Maybe he knows, m'am. I

1852
01:33:16,560 --> 01:33:20,360
Speaker 1: literally have no idea. So I didn't bring Elon. What

1853
01:33:20,439 --> 01:33:22,800
Speaker 1: was I hoping to accomplish? Was she hope to accomplish

1854
01:33:22,880 --> 01:33:27,479
Speaker 1: by calling out Gade and getting Elon involved? What is

1855
01:33:27,520 --> 01:33:29,679
Speaker 1: anyone hope to accomplish? When I'm sending it, I'm making

1856
01:33:29,720 --> 01:33:32,680
Speaker 1: a comment on a policy matter, but I think this

1857
01:33:32,760 --> 01:33:35,640
Speaker 1: is the perfect example. This is how they try to

1858
01:33:35,680 --> 01:33:39,599
Speaker 1: smear you. I make a substantive point. Some random people

1859
01:33:39,640 --> 01:33:43,880
Speaker 1: say something, Now, me and Elon are racists and are

1860
01:33:43,960 --> 01:33:47,400
Speaker 1: responsible for the harassment that this lady is experiencing. By

1861
01:33:47,400 --> 01:33:49,599
Speaker 1: the way, I decry the harassment, okay, and any racist

1862
01:33:49,640 --> 01:33:52,479
Speaker 1: harassment against her would be equally applicable to me. So

1863
01:33:52,640 --> 01:33:55,760
Speaker 1: obviously that's nothing. So all of this, as you said

1864
01:33:55,760 --> 01:33:57,800
Speaker 1: at the top, they are just covering up for the

1865
01:33:57,840 --> 01:34:00,720
Speaker 1: fact that they agree with censorship. And to let me

1866
01:34:00,760 --> 01:34:02,599
Speaker 1: just take you a little bit behind the scenes because

1867
01:34:02,600 --> 01:34:04,439
Speaker 1: I found out a little bit more since all of

1868
01:34:04,439 --> 01:34:07,120
Speaker 1: this happened via gote. I don't have a confirmation on this,

1869
01:34:07,200 --> 01:34:09,320
Speaker 1: but I'm just telling you she has very very close

1870
01:34:09,360 --> 01:34:11,519
Speaker 1: relationships with a lot of these reporters. In fact, the

1871
01:34:11,600 --> 01:34:14,320
Speaker 1: Washington Post reporter wrote this story was going and liking

1872
01:34:14,360 --> 01:34:16,640
Speaker 1: a bunch of tweets about how Vajaia Goda is like

1873
01:34:16,680 --> 01:34:19,000
Speaker 1: some saint, you know, come back to Earth and how

1874
01:34:19,040 --> 01:34:21,559
Speaker 1: she know she's somebody who's been really helping people out.

1875
01:34:21,760 --> 01:34:24,160
Speaker 1: And it has been known to me via cutout. So

1876
01:34:24,200 --> 01:34:26,479
Speaker 1: I'm not going to reveal my sources that Vijaia is

1877
01:34:26,600 --> 01:34:28,800
Speaker 1: very very close with the entire tech press, which is

1878
01:34:28,800 --> 01:34:31,840
Speaker 1: why they are going after this. So what she involved

1879
01:34:31,920 --> 01:34:35,040
Speaker 1: in maybe creating this entire narrative. I'll let you take

1880
01:34:35,040 --> 01:34:38,040
Speaker 1: that supposition for you. That's the thing that is so

1881
01:34:38,560 --> 01:34:40,800
Speaker 1: dishonest here. I mean, first of all, I think it

1882
01:34:40,880 --> 01:34:45,200
Speaker 1: really reveals what dishonest Hackey actors they are that they

1883
01:34:45,240 --> 01:34:49,280
Speaker 1: would email James at two am for comment and then

1884
01:34:49,320 --> 01:34:51,799
Speaker 1: make it sound like, oh, you just couldn't be bothered

1885
01:34:51,840 --> 01:34:54,360
Speaker 1: to respond or to be happy to respond response. I

1886
01:34:54,360 --> 01:34:56,519
Speaker 1: mean that just is a little window into how these

1887
01:34:56,520 --> 01:35:00,960
Speaker 1: people actually operate. And then yeah, this isn't straight She

1888
01:35:00,960 --> 01:35:02,840
Speaker 1: she wants to present this as just like a straight

1889
01:35:02,920 --> 01:35:05,960
Speaker 1: news report, but clearly this is Adrea. You're obviously friends

1890
01:35:05,960 --> 01:35:10,000
Speaker 1: with the very Jonny Is advocacy here, and listen, the

1891
01:35:10,000 --> 01:35:12,519
Speaker 1: same standard could be applied, you know, turn it right

1892
01:35:12,560 --> 01:35:15,760
Speaker 1: back around. How could the Washington Post, you know, call

1893
01:35:15,840 --> 01:35:18,479
Speaker 1: you on and target you for harassment and sager? Are

1894
01:35:18,520 --> 01:35:21,519
Speaker 1: you okay? I mean, you know, it's it's just it

1895
01:35:21,560 --> 01:35:24,880
Speaker 1: reminds me a lot of actually what they did with

1896
01:35:24,880 --> 01:35:27,559
Speaker 1: with Bernie Sanders and like the whole Bernie Brow narrative

1897
01:35:27,680 --> 01:35:30,639
Speaker 1: and trying to blame Bernie for any like bad thing

1898
01:35:30,720 --> 01:35:34,040
Speaker 1: that some random supporter of his ultimately said it was

1899
01:35:34,120 --> 01:35:36,800
Speaker 1: equally ridiculous. And it's why I was really disappointed when

1900
01:35:36,840 --> 01:35:39,320
Speaker 1: he actually sort of gave into that narrative at one point,

1901
01:35:39,600 --> 01:35:41,920
Speaker 1: because now you can see the way this gets weaponized

1902
01:35:42,000 --> 01:35:45,759
Speaker 1: all the time, and it always gets weaponized to protect

1903
01:35:45,920 --> 01:35:49,040
Speaker 1: really powerful people. I mean, this is someone who is

1904
01:35:49,479 --> 01:35:53,720
Speaker 1: so clearly a public figure, like not a question mark whatsoever,

1905
01:35:54,000 --> 01:35:56,720
Speaker 1: who is also extraordinarily wealthy and has all of the

1906
01:35:56,760 --> 01:36:00,160
Speaker 1: privileges and protections that comes with that class status as well,

1907
01:36:00,680 --> 01:36:05,120
Speaker 1: and whose influence really matters. So for you know, a

1908
01:36:05,160 --> 01:36:08,519
Speaker 1: private citizen or a journalist or anyone else to have

1909
01:36:08,560 --> 01:36:11,280
Speaker 1: an opinion on that that you expressed, I mean it

1910
01:36:11,320 --> 01:36:13,719
Speaker 1: was like a little bit snarky, but it honestly was really,

1911
01:36:14,000 --> 01:36:18,400
Speaker 1: you know, totally within bounds of public discussion of issues

1912
01:36:18,479 --> 01:36:21,439
Speaker 1: that are very fraught and very important. To make that

1913
01:36:21,520 --> 01:36:24,960
Speaker 1: into some nefarious thing, I just it's like your right

1914
01:36:25,080 --> 01:36:28,200
Speaker 1: to be completely indignant in the way that they handled

1915
01:36:28,240 --> 01:36:29,880
Speaker 1: all of this, And I think we should also say

1916
01:36:30,000 --> 01:36:33,559
Speaker 1: like they were not the only ones. Insider also wrote

1917
01:36:33,600 --> 01:36:36,320
Speaker 1: it up in a really sleazy and dishonest way. They

1918
01:36:36,360 --> 01:36:42,040
Speaker 1: called you a right wing activist. Okay, I mean, I

1919
01:36:42,120 --> 01:36:46,200
Speaker 1: can't stand it's just but you know, it's very clearly

1920
01:36:46,240 --> 01:36:49,120
Speaker 1: the language is chosen to make you sound like some

1921
01:36:49,400 --> 01:36:53,960
Speaker 1: nefarious actor who's tried this stirruption. You're in kahots. You

1922
01:36:53,960 --> 01:36:56,160
Speaker 1: know that's the sort of insinuation here from the watch.

1923
01:36:56,200 --> 01:36:59,519
Speaker 1: You're in kahoots with Elon to target this harassment at

1924
01:36:59,520 --> 01:37:02,640
Speaker 1: this bhole person. Give me a break. It's ridiculous. No,

1925
01:37:02,680 --> 01:37:05,000
Speaker 1: it really pissed me off because, like you said, it's spawned. Actually,

1926
01:37:05,040 --> 01:37:07,680
Speaker 1: that Washington Post story then spawned Business Insider and a

1927
01:37:07,680 --> 01:37:10,360
Speaker 1: bunch of other outlets are referring to me either as

1928
01:37:10,680 --> 01:37:14,479
Speaker 1: a right wing activist or conservative YouTuber. I'm like, guys,

1929
01:37:14,720 --> 01:37:18,560
Speaker 1: why do we have to apply any of these like adjectives?

1930
01:37:18,640 --> 01:37:21,200
Speaker 1: Why can't it just be host of Breaking Points a

1931
01:37:21,280 --> 01:37:24,200
Speaker 1: popular political show. I mean, what's wrong with that? It's

1932
01:37:24,280 --> 01:37:27,360
Speaker 1: right left show, even incredibly diverse audience. Ask people who

1933
01:37:27,400 --> 01:37:29,560
Speaker 1: actually know me, who actually listen to me, none of

1934
01:37:29,600 --> 01:37:32,280
Speaker 1: them would use that moniker whenever they're trying to describe me.

1935
01:37:32,360 --> 01:37:35,599
Speaker 1: But beyond that, it's not even exactly how they refer

1936
01:37:35,640 --> 01:37:38,479
Speaker 1: to me. It's the tactics and like guys, this is

1937
01:37:38,520 --> 01:37:41,120
Speaker 1: what I want to show you, the inside the two

1938
01:37:41,200 --> 01:37:45,280
Speaker 1: am emails, the ridiculous questions. They rely on you not

1939
01:37:45,439 --> 01:37:48,439
Speaker 1: knowing how the sausage is made. And it comes back

1940
01:37:48,479 --> 01:37:50,719
Speaker 1: to the Taylor of Lorenz point I made. Listen, lady,

1941
01:37:50,840 --> 01:37:53,479
Speaker 1: if you like Vijaya Gade, write an op at about it,

1942
01:37:53,479 --> 01:37:55,920
Speaker 1: be like Sager and jedti's a dishonest hack. I honestly

1943
01:37:55,960 --> 01:37:58,080
Speaker 1: wouldn't care. I'd be like, Okay, fine, whatever, I disagree

1944
01:37:58,080 --> 01:38:00,040
Speaker 1: with you. I would probably do something here about it.

1945
01:38:00,080 --> 01:38:03,120
Speaker 1: But to do this all within a news story is

1946
01:38:03,200 --> 01:38:06,200
Speaker 1: just so incredibly dishonest. It shows you why we're trying

1947
01:38:06,240 --> 01:38:08,040
Speaker 1: to do the work that we are here, both or

1948
01:38:08,160 --> 01:38:11,479
Speaker 1: to expose this, but trying to build something so apart

1949
01:38:11,479 --> 01:38:14,519
Speaker 1: from this. And it does really relate to the to

1950
01:38:14,600 --> 01:38:17,559
Speaker 1: Taylor Lorenz because this is like the tactic that she

1951
01:38:17,800 --> 01:38:20,920
Speaker 1: uses all the time to shield herself from criticism and

1952
01:38:21,080 --> 01:38:25,320
Speaker 1: the weaponizing of these like of identity too, to again

1953
01:38:25,360 --> 01:38:29,040
Speaker 1: shield powerful actors from scrutiny. I mean Taylor. The thing

1954
01:38:29,080 --> 01:38:31,559
Speaker 1: that makes it so ridiculous with her as everyone wants

1955
01:38:31,560 --> 01:38:35,760
Speaker 1: to sort of like infantilize her. It's like, how could

1956
01:38:35,800 --> 01:38:38,920
Speaker 1: you do this to this young woman. First of all,

1957
01:38:39,080 --> 01:38:42,040
Speaker 1: she's we don't know exactly how old she is agent,

1958
01:38:42,160 --> 01:38:44,439
Speaker 1: but she's not that young at this point. It's like

1959
01:38:44,560 --> 01:38:48,080
Speaker 1: nearly forty. And second all, this is a well paid,

1960
01:38:48,880 --> 01:38:51,960
Speaker 1: prominent journalist at one of the top outlets in the

1961
01:38:52,160 --> 01:38:56,160
Speaker 1: entire country, in a tremendous position of power. And I

1962
01:38:56,160 --> 01:38:58,920
Speaker 1: don't doubt that there has been ugliness directed her way.

1963
01:38:58,960 --> 01:39:01,200
Speaker 1: And I do not want that for her or anyone

1964
01:39:01,240 --> 01:39:05,479
Speaker 1: else whatsoever. But to make yourself the like you're the

1965
01:39:05,640 --> 01:39:09,280
Speaker 1: victim in this country, Like do you know anyone who

1966
01:39:09,280 --> 01:39:13,080
Speaker 1: has suffered anything real in your life? Like, look around

1967
01:39:13,080 --> 01:39:16,360
Speaker 1: at this nation and think about all of the pain

1968
01:39:16,439 --> 01:39:18,800
Speaker 1: and suffering that is going on, and you're gonna make

1969
01:39:18,800 --> 01:39:21,120
Speaker 1: it about yourself, and you're the victim in the story.

1970
01:39:21,479 --> 01:39:25,240
Speaker 1: That's why these things are so disturbing because ultimately, again

1971
01:39:25,720 --> 01:39:29,280
Speaker 1: it is used to make sure you cannot critique the powerful.

1972
01:39:29,400 --> 01:39:34,320
Speaker 1: And so this is a perfect example of how they

1973
01:39:34,439 --> 01:39:38,320
Speaker 1: use these tactics really cynically to try to shut down

1974
01:39:38,400 --> 01:39:42,200
Speaker 1: what is a legitimate debate and discussion about the policies

1975
01:39:42,200 --> 01:39:44,360
Speaker 1: that should govern our public spare and last thing I'll

1976
01:39:44,400 --> 01:39:46,920
Speaker 1: say on this is I'm lucky. Hey, I got this show.

1977
01:39:47,040 --> 01:39:49,680
Speaker 1: I have you guys, I have the premium subscribers like I.

1978
01:39:50,120 --> 01:39:52,640
Speaker 1: My livelihood is not going to be affected by this.

1979
01:39:52,920 --> 01:39:54,599
Speaker 1: But let's say I still were Let's say we still

1980
01:39:54,600 --> 01:39:56,680
Speaker 1: worked at the Hill. This is a problem, all right,

1981
01:39:57,040 --> 01:39:59,679
Speaker 1: this is a real problem point. But if I still

1982
01:39:59,680 --> 01:40:03,120
Speaker 1: worked in a normal corporation or media company, this is

1983
01:40:03,160 --> 01:40:04,880
Speaker 1: a real issue in terms of the way that you're

1984
01:40:04,880 --> 01:40:07,559
Speaker 1: getting described and your colleagues and hey, you know, why

1985
01:40:07,600 --> 01:40:10,600
Speaker 1: are you being unprofessional all of this. I have the

1986
01:40:10,720 --> 01:40:14,160
Speaker 1: liberty in order to expose all of it and just say,

1987
01:40:14,360 --> 01:40:17,400
Speaker 1: here's what they said to me, here's the email. This

1988
01:40:17,479 --> 01:40:20,559
Speaker 1: is complete bs, I can fully express myself. So I

1989
01:40:20,640 --> 01:40:22,760
Speaker 1: just want to say another thank you to everybody who

1990
01:40:22,800 --> 01:40:24,719
Speaker 1: listens to the show, to all the people who support

1991
01:40:24,720 --> 01:40:27,640
Speaker 1: the show. I am only able to do what I

1992
01:40:27,680 --> 01:40:30,960
Speaker 1: am able to because I know that you're my boss

1993
01:40:31,000 --> 01:40:33,759
Speaker 1: and not anybody else. Because we're still working in media.

1994
01:40:33,960 --> 01:40:36,800
Speaker 1: This is a real problem. But let me say, I

1995
01:40:36,920 --> 01:40:39,599
Speaker 1: have no doubt that our audience is going to, you know,

1996
01:40:39,720 --> 01:40:43,800
Speaker 1: almost one hundred percent support what you know. The fact

1997
01:40:43,840 --> 01:40:45,519
Speaker 1: that you were clearly in the right of the washing

1998
01:40:45,600 --> 01:40:48,120
Speaker 1: post is ridiculous here. But this is not without a

1999
01:40:48,160 --> 01:40:51,519
Speaker 1: cost for us either because we're very dependent, you know,

2000
01:40:51,600 --> 01:40:54,240
Speaker 1: in terms of the YouTube world. Oh, we're dependent on

2001
01:40:54,360 --> 01:40:56,800
Speaker 1: whether they dm us to be a trustworthy news source

2002
01:40:56,920 --> 01:40:59,799
Speaker 1: or not, and how the algorithm deals with our videos

2003
01:40:59,800 --> 01:41:02,120
Speaker 1: and how much they serve them and all of those things.

2004
01:41:02,200 --> 01:41:05,439
Speaker 1: So it's not without a cost and a price when

2005
01:41:05,479 --> 01:41:09,280
Speaker 1: the mainstream comes after you and tries to sideline you

2006
01:41:09,479 --> 01:41:13,560
Speaker 1: as some crank, some bullies, some troll, etc. Are we

2007
01:41:13,600 --> 01:41:16,240
Speaker 1: a conservative YouTube show? Ask yourself that are we a

2008
01:41:16,240 --> 01:41:20,720
Speaker 1: conservative YouTube show? That's bs okay and just the way. Yeah. Look,

2009
01:41:20,800 --> 01:41:22,519
Speaker 1: I mean I don't want to belabor the point, but

2010
01:41:23,080 --> 01:41:26,160
Speaker 1: it has real costs to us. Not as much because

2011
01:41:26,200 --> 01:41:28,519
Speaker 1: we rely on our premium subs and on our audience,

2012
01:41:28,920 --> 01:41:31,479
Speaker 1: but you know, this really could have been a big

2013
01:41:31,560 --> 01:41:33,080
Speaker 1: problem for all of us. So anyway, I want to

2014
01:41:33,080 --> 01:41:35,240
Speaker 1: thank you all once again just grabbing my back and

2015
01:41:35,240 --> 01:41:37,000
Speaker 1: it gives me the confidence in order to speak out

2016
01:41:37,080 --> 01:41:39,280
Speaker 1: against you. This was I mean, this was not a

2017
01:41:39,320 --> 01:41:42,280
Speaker 1: borderline case. There was really no nuance here. You're very

2018
01:41:42,320 --> 01:41:46,200
Speaker 1: clearly well within the bounds of public debate and discussion,

2019
01:41:46,280 --> 01:41:49,280
Speaker 1: and the Washington Post has lost their minds in a

2020
01:41:49,439 --> 01:41:56,080
Speaker 1: very dishonest and nasty way, the Biden administration is thinking

2021
01:41:56,200 --> 01:41:59,840
Speaker 1: about maybe canceling some student loan debt. Let's go ahead

2022
01:41:59,840 --> 01:42:02,080
Speaker 1: and this Wall Street Journal article up on the screen.

2023
01:42:02,120 --> 01:42:05,240
Speaker 1: They say Biden seriously considering student loan forgiveness. Official say

2024
01:42:05,240 --> 01:42:07,840
Speaker 1: President may be warming to take executive action to a

2025
01:42:07,960 --> 01:42:10,920
Speaker 1: race at least some loan debts. Some Democrats believe a

2026
01:42:10,960 --> 01:42:15,559
Speaker 1: move would motivate young voters in midterms. Basically, what happened

2027
01:42:15,840 --> 01:42:18,679
Speaker 1: is he was in one of these caucus meetings and

2028
01:42:19,160 --> 01:42:22,439
Speaker 1: didn't detail his plans, but responded positively when lawmakers pushed

2029
01:42:22,479 --> 01:42:25,439
Speaker 1: him to forgive ten thousand dollars in student debt, the

2030
01:42:25,479 --> 01:42:28,719
Speaker 1: people said, suggesting they would be happy with his final decision.

2031
01:42:28,720 --> 01:42:31,599
Speaker 1: He also indicated he's open to further extending the current

2032
01:42:31,640 --> 01:42:34,000
Speaker 1: pause on student loan payments, which is set to expire

2033
01:42:34,000 --> 01:42:37,320
Speaker 1: on August thirty first. Obviously, this is a massive issue

2034
01:42:37,360 --> 01:42:41,120
Speaker 1: just because the astronomical amounts of debt that are held

2035
01:42:41,320 --> 01:42:44,400
Speaker 1: by student loan debt holders about forty million people. Forty

2036
01:42:44,439 --> 01:42:47,280
Speaker 1: million people, oh, around one point six trillion dollars in

2037
01:42:47,280 --> 01:42:50,080
Speaker 1: federal student debt. That makes up around ninety percent of

2038
01:42:50,080 --> 01:42:53,360
Speaker 1: student debt outstanding. So just pointing out there this Obviously,

2039
01:42:53,400 --> 01:42:55,960
Speaker 1: whatever Biden would do would only apply to the debt

2040
01:42:56,000 --> 01:42:58,400
Speaker 1: that's held by the government that makes up about ninety

2041
01:42:58,439 --> 01:43:02,160
Speaker 1: percent of student debt. Outstanding the politics of this, let's

2042
01:43:02,160 --> 01:43:04,479
Speaker 1: go ahead and put this insider report up on the screen.

2043
01:43:04,920 --> 01:43:08,240
Speaker 1: So the reason that they are at long last considering

2044
01:43:08,280 --> 01:43:12,400
Speaker 1: this move is because young people are not happy with

2045
01:43:12,400 --> 01:43:15,639
Speaker 1: the Biden administration and are extraordinarily apathetic about whether they're

2046
01:43:15,680 --> 01:43:18,080
Speaker 1: going to vote in the mid terms. But you have

2047
01:43:18,160 --> 01:43:21,320
Speaker 1: a Harvard poll that found eighty five percent of young

2048
01:43:21,360 --> 01:43:24,800
Speaker 1: Americans wanting Biden to take some form of action on

2049
01:43:24,960 --> 01:43:28,200
Speaker 1: student debt. The flip side of that is in this

2050
01:43:28,200 --> 01:43:30,519
Speaker 1: Harvard pole, which is actually interesting worth digging into in

2051
01:43:30,520 --> 01:43:33,040
Speaker 1: and of itself, but they found forty two percent of

2052
01:43:33,120 --> 01:43:36,200
Speaker 1: voters under thirty don't believe their votes make a real difference.

2053
01:43:36,240 --> 01:43:38,680
Speaker 1: And part of that is because, you know whatever, and

2054
01:43:38,720 --> 01:43:41,080
Speaker 1: we're going to debate the merits of this particular proposal

2055
01:43:41,120 --> 01:43:43,280
Speaker 1: in a moment. But whatever you think of it, Biden

2056
01:43:43,320 --> 01:43:45,800
Speaker 1: did promise to do something on student loan debt. Has

2057
01:43:45,840 --> 01:43:48,280
Speaker 1: all of the power at his disposal to do something

2058
01:43:48,320 --> 01:43:51,040
Speaker 1: about student loan debt. Made that promise on the campaign

2059
01:43:51,080 --> 01:43:53,360
Speaker 1: trail very popular with young voters, and then here we

2060
01:43:53,439 --> 01:43:55,840
Speaker 1: are and he still hasn't done it. So, gee, I

2061
01:43:55,880 --> 01:43:58,240
Speaker 1: wonder why so many young voters feel like their votes

2062
01:43:58,280 --> 01:44:01,679
Speaker 1: don't make a real difference. And again to the question

2063
01:44:01,840 --> 01:44:04,559
Speaker 1: of you know how this may impact them politically, go

2064
01:44:04,560 --> 01:44:07,400
Speaker 1: ahead and put this up on the screen. Biden's approval

2065
01:44:07,560 --> 01:44:12,519
Speaker 1: with voters under thirty now drops to forty one percent. Now,

2066
01:44:12,600 --> 01:44:15,800
Speaker 1: this was one of the strongest groups that helped to

2067
01:44:15,880 --> 01:44:19,640
Speaker 1: elect him president. You know, he won young voters overwhelmingly.

2068
01:44:20,120 --> 01:44:23,519
Speaker 1: At the beginning of his presidency, his highest approval ratings

2069
01:44:23,880 --> 01:44:27,360
Speaker 1: came among this youngest demographic, and now, as I covered

2070
01:44:27,400 --> 01:44:31,240
Speaker 1: last week, that has completely flipped. So actually Biden's approval

2071
01:44:31,320 --> 01:44:35,320
Speaker 1: rating is best with the oldest age demographic and worst

2072
01:44:35,680 --> 01:44:39,880
Speaker 1: with young voters. So they're looking at the midterms saying, guys,

2073
01:44:39,960 --> 01:44:42,760
Speaker 1: it looks like we are completely screwed. What can we

2074
01:44:42,880 --> 01:44:46,000
Speaker 1: possibly do? Joe Manchin continues to jerk us around and

2075
01:44:46,040 --> 01:44:48,240
Speaker 1: build back better, and that seems like as hopeless as

2076
01:44:48,240 --> 01:44:50,960
Speaker 1: it ever has. So this is something in our power. Jeez,

2077
01:44:51,000 --> 01:44:53,760
Speaker 1: maybe we should actually do something at this point. Now,

2078
01:44:53,800 --> 01:44:55,400
Speaker 1: I do think the politics here are a little bit

2079
01:44:55,439 --> 01:44:59,719
Speaker 1: more complicated. For one thing, young voters not particularly reliable

2080
01:44:59,760 --> 01:45:03,400
Speaker 1: mid term voters are or otherwise, but particularly in the midterms.

2081
01:45:03,640 --> 01:45:07,760
Speaker 1: I do think that there is you know, the backlash

2082
01:45:07,800 --> 01:45:10,000
Speaker 1: or the argument against this is basically like, well, what

2083
01:45:10,040 --> 01:45:14,040
Speaker 1: about people who aren't college you know college student loan folders? Right?

2084
01:45:14,160 --> 01:45:18,480
Speaker 1: And the other question which our friend Philip asked Densaki

2085
01:45:18,560 --> 01:45:21,040
Speaker 1: is about, Okay, well what about people who you know

2086
01:45:21,360 --> 01:45:23,960
Speaker 1: worked hard in their parents, Grimpton stated, And they actually

2087
01:45:23,960 --> 01:45:26,160
Speaker 1: paid off their student loan debt. Aren't they kind of

2088
01:45:26,160 --> 01:45:28,040
Speaker 1: getting a raw deal? Let's take a listen to that question.

2089
01:45:28,439 --> 01:45:31,439
Speaker 1: All up on the student loan illness. You said that

2090
01:45:31,520 --> 01:45:33,880
Speaker 1: the president is looking at a range of options with

2091
01:45:33,920 --> 01:45:37,360
Speaker 1: regards to canceling some student debt. But is the president

2092
01:45:37,360 --> 01:45:40,599
Speaker 1: looking at any options for those students and parents who

2093
01:45:40,840 --> 01:45:43,200
Speaker 1: saved and sacrificed so that they wouldn't have to take

2094
01:45:43,240 --> 01:45:46,200
Speaker 1: out such massive loans as they looking at including them

2095
01:45:46,479 --> 01:45:49,599
Speaker 1: in relief retroactively? How would they be made whole if

2096
01:45:49,640 --> 01:45:51,400
Speaker 1: there was some sort of canceling debt? You mean for

2097
01:45:51,439 --> 01:45:53,599
Speaker 1: people who have paid off all of their student loans,

2098
01:45:54,240 --> 01:45:56,840
Speaker 1: made sacrifices so that they wouldn't have to take out

2099
01:45:56,840 --> 01:45:59,360
Speaker 1: some of those loans. It's a good question. What I

2100
01:45:59,360 --> 01:46:02,200
Speaker 1: can tell you at this point is that there's legislation

2101
01:46:02,320 --> 01:46:04,439
Speaker 1: he'd be happy to sign for individuals who have ten

2102
01:46:04,439 --> 01:46:08,000
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in existing student debt. If Congress wanted to

2103
01:46:08,000 --> 01:46:09,599
Speaker 1: send that to him, he'd be happy to sign. And

2104
01:46:09,600 --> 01:46:12,519
Speaker 1: he's looking at executive actions and authorities. But I don't

2105
01:46:12,520 --> 01:46:14,960
Speaker 1: have anything to preview on that front. So I think

2106
01:46:15,000 --> 01:46:18,320
Speaker 1: those two things are potentially politically potent. Both the questions

2107
01:46:18,320 --> 01:46:21,000
Speaker 1: fair question. Well, it's definitely a fair question. I will

2108
01:46:21,040 --> 01:46:23,880
Speaker 1: point out on the substance, and I want to get

2109
01:46:23,880 --> 01:46:25,320
Speaker 1: your thought on the politics and then we can talk

2110
01:46:25,360 --> 01:46:27,600
Speaker 1: more about, like you know, who actually would benefit in

2111
01:46:27,640 --> 01:46:31,080
Speaker 1: some of the details behind this, But you already do

2112
01:46:31,200 --> 01:46:35,519
Speaker 1: have subsidies for people who are higher wealth and able

2113
01:46:35,560 --> 01:46:38,640
Speaker 1: to save in advance for their kids college. So you

2114
01:46:38,760 --> 01:46:42,400
Speaker 1: have covered out and five twenty nine education savings accounts

2115
01:46:42,640 --> 01:46:45,000
Speaker 1: so that you can have tuition functioning as a tax

2116
01:46:45,040 --> 01:46:49,480
Speaker 1: advantage intergenerational transfer. So you actually do already have subsidies

2117
01:46:49,520 --> 01:46:52,280
Speaker 1: in place for those parents that Phil is talking about

2118
01:46:52,280 --> 01:46:56,080
Speaker 1: there who are able to save in advance for their kids' education.

2119
01:46:56,560 --> 01:46:59,080
Speaker 1: So in fact, you know, the system is kind of

2120
01:46:59,160 --> 01:47:01,479
Speaker 1: unfair right now, towards those who don't have the ability

2121
01:47:01,560 --> 01:47:03,479
Speaker 1: to save in advance and have to take out these

2122
01:47:03,720 --> 01:47:06,240
Speaker 1: massive student loans. But on the politics of it, I

2123
01:47:06,320 --> 01:47:10,920
Speaker 1: think it is overwhelmingly popular with young voters, who disproportionately

2124
01:47:10,920 --> 01:47:13,559
Speaker 1: are the ones who are burdened by the student loan debt,

2125
01:47:13,560 --> 01:47:16,040
Speaker 1: who feel their futures are constrained by the amount of

2126
01:47:16,120 --> 01:47:19,280
Speaker 1: debt that they oftentimes graduate college with, who were sold

2127
01:47:19,280 --> 01:47:21,639
Speaker 1: this bill of goods of like, you know, the answer

2128
01:47:21,720 --> 01:47:23,639
Speaker 1: to everything is to get a college education. I think

2129
01:47:23,640 --> 01:47:27,000
Speaker 1: that's particularly true of Black Americans who were told basically

2130
01:47:27,040 --> 01:47:28,840
Speaker 1: like this is the way to build wealth, this is

2131
01:47:28,880 --> 01:47:31,600
Speaker 1: the way to close the racial wealth gap, and ultimately,

2132
01:47:31,840 --> 01:47:34,599
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't end up being the certain ticket

2133
01:47:34,640 --> 01:47:36,599
Speaker 1: that they thought it would be, and because the costs

2134
01:47:36,640 --> 01:47:40,759
Speaker 1: are so outrageous, they've been saddled with something for life.

2135
01:47:40,800 --> 01:47:43,160
Speaker 1: So for young voters, do I think it will help,

2136
01:47:43,320 --> 01:47:45,920
Speaker 1: maybe marginally at this point, but I do think the

2137
01:47:45,960 --> 01:47:48,360
Speaker 1: overall politics are a little more fraudt than maybe people

2138
01:47:48,400 --> 01:47:51,000
Speaker 1: would want to, people with my ideological view would want to.

2139
01:47:51,000 --> 01:47:52,960
Speaker 1: I'm glad you you could say that, because I do

2140
01:47:53,000 --> 01:47:54,880
Speaker 1: think that this is an important point. More than half

2141
01:47:54,920 --> 01:47:57,000
Speaker 1: of young people did not go to college. And so look,

2142
01:47:57,040 --> 01:47:59,599
Speaker 1: I believe ultimately I think the people who got saddled

2143
01:47:59,600 --> 01:48:02,040
Speaker 1: with students at got sold a bill of goods. But

2144
01:48:02,120 --> 01:48:04,000
Speaker 1: you know who, I blame the bill of goods for

2145
01:48:04,320 --> 01:48:07,680
Speaker 1: the university system. So bailing out the university system who

2146
01:48:07,760 --> 01:48:10,760
Speaker 1: continues to builk these kids not have any you know,

2147
01:48:10,880 --> 01:48:13,679
Speaker 1: actual stake in how they're doing, and also not change

2148
01:48:13,760 --> 01:48:16,880
Speaker 1: university financing. Let's be honest to where is the major

2149
01:48:16,920 --> 01:48:20,519
Speaker 1: bloat coming in university budgets. There's increasing tuition, diversity and

2150
01:48:20,600 --> 01:48:23,960
Speaker 1: inclusion initiative, so we should all bail out the diversity

2151
01:48:23,960 --> 01:48:27,160
Speaker 1: departments of Yale Harvard. That's true, but I don't genuinely

2152
01:48:27,240 --> 01:48:31,040
Speaker 1: don't know that I know administration overall, So I don't

2153
01:48:31,040 --> 01:48:33,160
Speaker 1: know that I have seen any numbers that back up

2154
01:48:33,200 --> 01:48:35,080
Speaker 1: that the overwhelming amount of the blow as well, let's

2155
01:48:35,080 --> 01:48:37,519
Speaker 1: just say it's all administration. You can ask yourself where

2156
01:48:37,520 --> 01:48:40,240
Speaker 1: most administrative costs new cost is being outlaid to it?

2157
01:48:40,280 --> 01:48:42,080
Speaker 1: I say, is both my parents working here. There's an

2158
01:48:42,200 --> 01:48:45,519
Speaker 1: escalation and administration for many, many, many years. Oh absolutely,

2159
01:48:45,560 --> 01:48:47,160
Speaker 1: I'm talking in the last ten years, which is also

2160
01:48:47,160 --> 01:48:49,200
Speaker 1: when the highest spike has also been So I think

2161
01:48:49,520 --> 01:48:54,080
Speaker 1: I think the most valid critique and the most good

2162
01:48:54,080 --> 01:48:57,280
Speaker 1: faith critique here is the idea of like, Okay, but

2163
01:48:57,360 --> 01:48:59,760
Speaker 1: what what then? Yeah, you do this, you do this

2164
01:48:59,800 --> 01:49:02,760
Speaker 1: one time thing now for me personally, because I do

2165
01:49:02,800 --> 01:49:06,040
Speaker 1: think that this is such an outrageous situation and a

2166
01:49:06,080 --> 01:49:08,000
Speaker 1: relatively new one too. I mean, it's easy for us

2167
01:49:08,040 --> 01:49:10,600
Speaker 1: to forget because we've always come of age during a

2168
01:49:10,600 --> 01:49:14,080
Speaker 1: time when college tuition is fucking insane. But this is

2169
01:49:14,160 --> 01:49:17,760
Speaker 1: actually a really new phenomenon of it being so insanely

2170
01:49:17,840 --> 01:49:20,800
Speaker 1: expensive that no one could hope to be very few

2171
01:49:20,840 --> 01:49:23,560
Speaker 1: people could hope to be able to actually afford it upfront.

2172
01:49:23,880 --> 01:49:27,360
Speaker 1: And since it is such a burden, that really does

2173
01:49:27,400 --> 01:49:30,320
Speaker 1: weigh down younger generations. And we've talked here about how

2174
01:49:30,520 --> 01:49:32,439
Speaker 1: you know, this sets everybody back from being able to

2175
01:49:32,439 --> 01:49:34,240
Speaker 1: own a home, from being able to start a family.

2176
01:49:34,439 --> 01:49:37,760
Speaker 1: Student loan debt really puts this weight on top of

2177
01:49:37,760 --> 01:49:42,000
Speaker 1: both millennials and gen z that it is worth some

2178
01:49:42,040 --> 01:49:45,439
Speaker 1: sort of solution, even if it is, you know, not

2179
01:49:45,479 --> 01:49:48,040
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of what you would ultimately want. So

2180
01:49:48,360 --> 01:49:50,519
Speaker 1: what I would say is, don't let the perfect be

2181
01:49:50,600 --> 01:49:52,920
Speaker 1: the enemy of the good. This is the tool that

2182
01:49:53,000 --> 01:49:56,559
Speaker 1: is at their disposal. This would provide tremendous relief for

2183
01:49:56,760 --> 01:49:59,200
Speaker 1: you know, millions and millions of people, And so I

2184
01:49:59,240 --> 01:50:01,760
Speaker 1: do think it's worth pursuing, even as I acknowledge it's

2185
01:50:01,800 --> 01:50:04,519
Speaker 1: nowhere near a complete solution without those other reforms that

2186
01:50:04,560 --> 01:50:06,560
Speaker 1: you're talking. My point would be, first of all, I

2187
01:50:06,560 --> 01:50:08,320
Speaker 1: think would be a political disaster because I think a

2188
01:50:08,360 --> 01:50:10,320
Speaker 1: lot of people will feel slighted. But two is it like?

2189
01:50:10,400 --> 01:50:12,120
Speaker 1: And I should also be clear, I actually believe in

2190
01:50:12,280 --> 01:50:15,080
Speaker 1: very four student loan forgiveness. However, it has to be

2191
01:50:15,120 --> 01:50:17,640
Speaker 1: paired with the complete change in the financing system of

2192
01:50:17,680 --> 01:50:20,479
Speaker 1: the universities. Number two, we can never let this happen again.

2193
01:50:20,680 --> 01:50:22,240
Speaker 1: I was looking at some of the data. Even if

2194
01:50:22,240 --> 01:50:24,160
Speaker 1: you wipe out one point nine trillion dollars in debt,

2195
01:50:24,200 --> 01:50:26,080
Speaker 1: the debt load in about five to ten years would

2196
01:50:26,080 --> 01:50:27,800
Speaker 1: also be one point nine trillion. So what we're going

2197
01:50:27,840 --> 01:50:30,120
Speaker 1: to wipe it out debt again. But we can't do

2198
01:50:30,160 --> 01:50:32,320
Speaker 1: that because we're just bailing out the university system. So

2199
01:50:32,360 --> 01:50:34,840
Speaker 1: but that's just an argument for you know, Okay, you

2200
01:50:34,920 --> 01:50:37,720
Speaker 1: do this, and then you have to actually reform. You

2201
01:50:37,760 --> 01:50:39,519
Speaker 1: have to have you know, I personally think we should

2202
01:50:39,560 --> 01:50:42,960
Speaker 1: have free public college, public university at this point are

2203
01:50:43,000 --> 01:50:46,519
Speaker 1: at least very affordable. So that's just an argument for

2204
01:50:46,880 --> 01:50:49,360
Speaker 1: this isn't the end all be all. This is just

2205
01:50:49,400 --> 01:50:53,800
Speaker 1: the beginning. But I think it's I think again to say, well,

2206
01:50:53,840 --> 01:50:56,880
Speaker 1: it's not perfect and it doesn't actually solve the whole problem,

2207
01:50:57,160 --> 01:51:00,519
Speaker 1: so let's just forget about it. Well, that's that denies

2208
01:51:00,560 --> 01:51:02,800
Speaker 1: a lot of people relief right now that would be

2209
01:51:02,960 --> 01:51:06,240
Speaker 1: very beneficial to them. And so we have some stats

2210
01:51:06,280 --> 01:51:08,040
Speaker 1: that you know, kind of make points in both directly.

2211
01:51:08,080 --> 01:51:10,200
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put the next piece up on

2212
01:51:10,240 --> 01:51:12,920
Speaker 1: the screen there from Brookings. This is interesting because a

2213
01:51:12,960 --> 01:51:15,080
Speaker 1: lot of the help would go to people who are

2214
01:51:15,160 --> 01:51:20,000
Speaker 1: relatively high income who went to graduate school if you did,

2215
01:51:20,520 --> 01:51:23,600
Speaker 1: you know, and this is if you did complete debt cancelation.

2216
01:51:23,760 --> 01:51:27,200
Speaker 1: So what Bind's talking about at most is ten thousand dollars.

2217
01:51:27,400 --> 01:51:30,479
Speaker 1: Even that's uncertain. And they've also floated, like you know,

2218
01:51:30,560 --> 01:51:33,240
Speaker 1: it may be income based. So some of this debate

2219
01:51:33,280 --> 01:51:35,519
Speaker 1: may be a little bit moot. But you know, they

2220
01:51:35,520 --> 01:51:37,240
Speaker 1: point out that in this piece, which I actually hadn't

2221
01:51:37,240 --> 01:51:40,200
Speaker 1: really thought about that. In fact, the way to think

2222
01:51:40,200 --> 01:51:43,000
Speaker 1: about it is, okay, well, how much of this debt?

2223
01:51:43,240 --> 01:51:46,000
Speaker 1: How much is this debt as a percentage of your income,

2224
01:51:46,320 --> 01:51:49,679
Speaker 1: because obviously, if you're someone who's earning a relatively low income,

2225
01:51:50,000 --> 01:51:52,880
Speaker 1: you're going to experience that ten thousand dollars in debt

2226
01:51:52,960 --> 01:51:55,680
Speaker 1: as a much heavier burden than someone who's at the

2227
01:51:55,760 --> 01:51:59,680
Speaker 1: high end of the income threshold. And the person who

2228
01:51:59,720 --> 01:52:02,320
Speaker 1: wrote this analysis made the case of like you know,

2229
01:52:02,479 --> 01:52:06,080
Speaker 1: sales tax is widely considered a regressive tax because it

2230
01:52:06,120 --> 01:52:08,800
Speaker 1: takes up more of your income if you are a

2231
01:52:08,840 --> 01:52:11,760
Speaker 1: low income person. Even the wealthy people, because they spend

2232
01:52:11,760 --> 01:52:14,760
Speaker 1: more money, they pay more of the tax. So it

2233
01:52:14,800 --> 01:52:18,200
Speaker 1: really is important to think about it in relation to

2234
01:52:18,439 --> 01:52:20,920
Speaker 1: a percent of income. And then also we'll get to

2235
01:52:20,960 --> 01:52:23,719
Speaker 1: in a moment, it also is very different. The picture

2236
01:52:23,800 --> 01:52:26,240
Speaker 1: is very different when you're thinking about income versus when

2237
01:52:26,280 --> 01:52:29,760
Speaker 1: you're thinking about total wealth. And one thing we've talked

2238
01:52:29,800 --> 01:52:32,559
Speaker 1: here a lot about recently is how much the sort

2239
01:52:32,600 --> 01:52:36,280
Speaker 1: of asset and wealth economy is even more important indicator

2240
01:52:36,320 --> 01:52:39,439
Speaker 1: at this point than thinking about just what your income is,

2241
01:52:39,479 --> 01:52:41,360
Speaker 1: because you could have a relatively low income, but if

2242
01:52:41,360 --> 01:52:43,679
Speaker 1: you've got you know, if you own a home, for example,

2243
01:52:43,760 --> 01:52:46,320
Speaker 1: then you're in a much better position. So people have

2244
01:52:46,479 --> 01:52:49,800
Speaker 1: high levels of student loan debt that really puts a

2245
01:52:49,920 --> 01:52:52,360
Speaker 1: huge burden on them in terms of being able to

2246
01:52:52,520 --> 01:52:54,880
Speaker 1: buy a home or have that asset creation that puts

2247
01:52:54,880 --> 01:52:57,040
Speaker 1: them into middle class life. So that's why I think,

2248
01:52:57,479 --> 01:52:59,240
Speaker 1: even as it's not you know, one hundred percent or

2249
01:52:59,280 --> 01:53:01,439
Speaker 1: perfect solution or all that I would see, all that

2250
01:53:01,479 --> 01:53:04,000
Speaker 1: I would want to see, having at least some student

2251
01:53:04,040 --> 01:53:06,960
Speaker 1: loan debt relief will really be significant for a generation

2252
01:53:07,040 --> 01:53:09,040
Speaker 1: that has just kind of screwed over again and again

2253
01:53:09,080 --> 01:53:10,680
Speaker 1: and again their entire life. Let's put the next one

2254
01:53:10,760 --> 01:53:12,799
Speaker 1: up there on the screen, because this is also important.

2255
01:53:13,080 --> 01:53:15,519
Speaker 1: So take a look actually at that pie chart, because

2256
01:53:15,800 --> 01:53:19,200
Speaker 1: the largest amount of the benefit only sixty percent of

2257
01:53:19,200 --> 01:53:21,800
Speaker 1: household bottom sixty percent receive only thirty four percent of

2258
01:53:21,840 --> 01:53:24,400
Speaker 1: the benefit because of the outstanding load of the amount

2259
01:53:24,439 --> 01:53:26,880
Speaker 1: of debt, and people cannot conceive of just how much

2260
01:53:26,960 --> 01:53:29,920
Speaker 1: debt these lawyers and these doctors are holding. And once again,

2261
01:53:30,000 --> 01:53:32,559
Speaker 1: I just am completely against the idea of bailing out

2262
01:53:32,680 --> 01:53:35,240
Speaker 1: these low rate law schools which are charging sixty to

2263
01:53:35,280 --> 01:53:38,240
Speaker 1: one hundred grand, really criminalizing a lot of these students

2264
01:53:38,280 --> 01:53:40,920
Speaker 1: and setting them up for a lifelong Are you supposed though,

2265
01:53:40,960 --> 01:53:43,400
Speaker 1: even to the more like ten thousand dollars or if

2266
01:53:43,400 --> 01:53:45,640
Speaker 1: it's income comany, it depends because once again even on

2267
01:53:45,680 --> 01:53:47,479
Speaker 1: the ten thousand. You know, here's another point which is

2268
01:53:47,560 --> 01:53:49,400
Speaker 1: part of the reason why the student debt is so

2269
01:53:49,479 --> 01:53:52,360
Speaker 1: high amongst the bottom quintile, because the bottom quintile is

2270
01:53:52,360 --> 01:53:54,920
Speaker 1: also disproportionately more likely not to have gone to college

2271
01:53:55,000 --> 01:53:57,479
Speaker 1: or not graduated from college. So the data does show

2272
01:53:57,560 --> 01:54:00,519
Speaker 1: us that if you actually graduate, you're mostly on track

2273
01:54:00,560 --> 01:54:02,000
Speaker 1: in order to pay off your debt if you went

2274
01:54:02,000 --> 01:54:04,760
Speaker 1: to a public university. However, the people who get most

2275
01:54:04,800 --> 01:54:07,320
Speaker 1: screwed who take out loans and then they drop out.

2276
01:54:07,360 --> 01:54:10,040
Speaker 1: So actually, those people I'm the most concerned about, I'd

2277
01:54:10,080 --> 01:54:12,559
Speaker 1: be most in favor of wiping out their debt because

2278
01:54:12,600 --> 01:54:14,799
Speaker 1: they have none of the benefit all of the saddle.

2279
01:54:14,920 --> 01:54:17,200
Speaker 1: So that's really tough. Like I said, and I think

2280
01:54:17,200 --> 01:54:19,320
Speaker 1: about this a little bit like Wall Street. Look, there

2281
01:54:19,400 --> 01:54:21,760
Speaker 1: was a decent case to bail out Wall Street, right, like, Hey,

2282
01:54:21,760 --> 01:54:23,680
Speaker 1: we got to bail out Wall Street. People need be

2283
01:54:23,680 --> 01:54:26,439
Speaker 1: able to make payroll, we need a financial system, all

2284
01:54:26,479 --> 01:54:29,840
Speaker 1: of that, But did we deal with the underlying problem. No,

2285
01:54:30,120 --> 01:54:32,080
Speaker 1: we actually have a probably more of a criminal Wall

2286
01:54:32,080 --> 01:54:34,280
Speaker 1: Street system than we do today than before because we

2287
01:54:34,680 --> 01:54:38,560
Speaker 1: saw the stular borrowers are not equivalent to Wall Street

2288
01:54:38,600 --> 01:54:40,360
Speaker 1: ghules who deserve to go to part right. But but

2289
01:54:40,400 --> 01:54:42,120
Speaker 1: the whole point was at the time is how are

2290
01:54:42,120 --> 01:54:44,400
Speaker 1: people going to make payroll? Normal ask people need to

2291
01:54:44,440 --> 01:54:47,600
Speaker 1: get their paychecks. People all this That's why we did it. Ultimately,

2292
01:54:47,800 --> 01:54:49,600
Speaker 1: in the first place, there was a case, a decent

2293
01:54:49,640 --> 01:54:51,600
Speaker 1: case at the time, that real people's lives were going

2294
01:54:51,640 --> 01:54:54,440
Speaker 1: to be affected by a complete bank collapse, which was correct.

2295
01:54:54,680 --> 01:54:56,840
Speaker 1: But and I think the correct case at the time,

2296
01:54:56,880 --> 01:54:58,760
Speaker 1: which I know you agree with, is we had to

2297
01:54:58,840 --> 01:55:01,800
Speaker 1: change the underlying system, which we did not do. But

2298
01:55:02,560 --> 01:55:04,520
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a good analogy because you're talking

2299
01:55:04,520 --> 01:55:07,080
Speaker 1: about bailing on people who profoundly did not deserve it.

2300
01:55:07,440 --> 01:55:10,440
Speaker 1: This is talking about people who profoundly do deserve it,

2301
01:55:10,480 --> 01:55:13,760
Speaker 1: who were really like sold a bill of goods, you know,

2302
01:55:13,880 --> 01:55:17,640
Speaker 1: walk down this rosy path of just take on the debt,

2303
01:55:17,800 --> 01:55:20,080
Speaker 1: go to college, this is a way to build wealth,

2304
01:55:20,400 --> 01:55:22,400
Speaker 1: and then we're stuck with a bill that is just

2305
01:55:22,440 --> 01:55:24,400
Speaker 1: completely insane and which, by the way, if we're just

2306
01:55:24,440 --> 01:55:26,800
Speaker 1: being real, many of them will never pay. I mean

2307
01:55:26,840 --> 01:55:29,760
Speaker 1: that's part of it too, is like the amount of

2308
01:55:29,800 --> 01:55:33,720
Speaker 1: debt that has been loaded on top of these generations.

2309
01:55:33,760 --> 01:55:36,040
Speaker 1: It's just going to be with them hanging like a

2310
01:55:36,200 --> 01:55:40,920
Speaker 1: rock around their neck for their entire lives. So yeah,

2311
01:55:41,040 --> 01:55:44,000
Speaker 1: it's you know, I would like to see us reform

2312
01:55:44,040 --> 01:55:46,240
Speaker 1: our systems so that we have free public college. I

2313
01:55:46,240 --> 01:55:49,280
Speaker 1: would like to have debt completely wipe down, but I

2314
01:55:49,320 --> 01:55:54,640
Speaker 1: would support even a limited forgiveness so that people can

2315
01:55:54,760 --> 01:55:57,640
Speaker 1: start to get ahead again, because you know, the real

2316
01:55:57,720 --> 01:56:01,080
Speaker 1: path to the American dream this point is to be

2317
01:56:01,120 --> 01:56:02,920
Speaker 1: able to own a home. And if you've got this

2318
01:56:03,040 --> 01:56:05,520
Speaker 1: debt burden on top of you, if your entire life,

2319
01:56:05,560 --> 01:56:08,880
Speaker 1: it makes it so difficult for you to be able

2320
01:56:08,920 --> 01:56:12,640
Speaker 1: to ever become part of the asset ownership plus, which

2321
01:56:12,640 --> 01:56:16,200
Speaker 1: is why we see millennials and Gen z so consistently screwed.

2322
01:56:16,560 --> 01:56:20,400
Speaker 1: We have some this is Let's put Matt Bernigg's analysis

2323
01:56:20,480 --> 01:56:23,240
Speaker 1: up on the screen here because this is interesting as well.

2324
01:56:24,000 --> 01:56:26,720
Speaker 1: He's got just some numbers about what is the current

2325
01:56:26,760 --> 01:56:29,680
Speaker 1: student debt situation. You could see there just how much

2326
01:56:29,880 --> 01:56:33,160
Speaker 1: money is owed somewhere between one point one trillion and

2327
01:56:33,200 --> 01:56:35,320
Speaker 1: one point sixty five trillion. Let's go ahead and put

2328
01:56:35,320 --> 01:56:37,360
Speaker 1: the next piece up on the screen. The next chart

2329
01:56:37,360 --> 01:56:39,520
Speaker 1: that we have here So this makes the case you're

2330
01:56:39,560 --> 01:56:42,000
Speaker 1: making Zaga of if you look at the sheriff's student

2331
01:56:42,040 --> 01:56:45,160
Speaker 1: debt owed by each income quintile, it actually goes up

2332
01:56:45,440 --> 01:56:48,440
Speaker 1: as you become wealthier. But he points out another way

2333
01:56:48,480 --> 01:56:50,520
Speaker 1: of thinking about it is if you look at the

2334
01:56:50,920 --> 01:56:54,440
Speaker 1: sheriff student debt by wealth rather than income, go ahead

2335
01:56:54,480 --> 01:56:56,600
Speaker 1: and put this next piece up on the screen. The

2336
01:56:56,680 --> 01:57:00,520
Speaker 1: dynamic actually flips. And that's partly because if you are

2337
01:57:00,560 --> 01:57:04,040
Speaker 1: weighed down by student debt, then you know, undoubtedly you're

2338
01:57:04,080 --> 01:57:06,960
Speaker 1: going to have less wealth overall because that student debt

2339
01:57:07,040 --> 01:57:09,080
Speaker 1: is putting a tremendous burden on you and bringing your

2340
01:57:09,080 --> 01:57:11,000
Speaker 1: wealth down to really low levels. So you have here

2341
01:57:11,480 --> 01:57:17,240
Speaker 1: the least wealthy fifth quintile has fifty five percent of

2342
01:57:17,280 --> 01:57:20,360
Speaker 1: the share of student debt. So I think, you know

2343
01:57:20,440 --> 01:57:23,200
Speaker 1: that's a really important distinction to make too. Is it's

2344
01:57:23,240 --> 01:57:25,760
Speaker 1: one thing to think about income flows in, but not

2345
01:57:25,920 --> 01:57:28,840
Speaker 1: everybody who is, you know, earning the same level of

2346
01:57:28,840 --> 01:57:30,920
Speaker 1: income is in the same boat in terms of their

2347
01:57:30,960 --> 01:57:33,160
Speaker 1: overall wealth and ability to own assets. Yeah, and let's

2348
01:57:33,160 --> 01:57:34,840
Speaker 1: put the next one up here, just to be entirely

2349
01:57:34,840 --> 01:57:37,320
Speaker 1: clear about what the Biden people are actually considering. So

2350
01:57:37,400 --> 01:57:40,320
Speaker 1: a source familiar Tel's NBC that they are thinking no

2351
01:57:40,400 --> 01:57:42,640
Speaker 1: decision is made and that any loan cancelation would be

2352
01:57:42,640 --> 01:57:45,120
Speaker 1: linked to income. So, according to the people I've spoken to,

2353
01:57:45,320 --> 01:57:47,960
Speaker 1: a ten k up to ten k capped by income

2354
01:57:48,280 --> 01:57:50,480
Speaker 1: is the most likely scenario. Look, I mean, I guess

2355
01:57:50,520 --> 01:57:52,720
Speaker 1: I would be okay with it, but actually think it

2356
01:57:52,720 --> 01:57:55,640
Speaker 1: would be dramatically unpopular. And one of the reasons why

2357
01:57:55,680 --> 01:57:58,400
Speaker 1: I'm against this type of ad hoc type policy is

2358
01:57:58,440 --> 01:58:00,640
Speaker 1: we have to have everybody have some in here. So

2359
01:58:00,720 --> 01:58:02,680
Speaker 1: I would be much more in favor of a ten

2360
01:58:02,720 --> 01:58:05,680
Speaker 1: thousand dollars type wipeout as long as we restructure the

2361
01:58:05,680 --> 01:58:08,920
Speaker 1: incentive systems for all younger Americans. So think about how

2362
01:58:08,960 --> 01:58:12,240
Speaker 1: many working class young people over the last couple of

2363
01:58:12,280 --> 01:58:15,080
Speaker 1: years have been saddled down by credit card debt and others.

2364
01:58:15,080 --> 01:58:17,240
Speaker 1: If you even look at the polling data on why

2365
01:58:17,280 --> 01:58:19,720
Speaker 1: people aren't getting married or having children, the number one

2366
01:58:19,720 --> 01:58:22,320
Speaker 1: reason is financing. So again, in a country where fifty

2367
01:58:22,320 --> 01:58:24,160
Speaker 1: five percent of people don't even go to college, don't

2368
01:58:24,200 --> 01:58:26,560
Speaker 1: even try, they also have an immense amount of debt,

2369
01:58:26,600 --> 01:58:28,760
Speaker 1: I would be much more in favor of Okay, let's

2370
01:58:28,800 --> 01:58:31,760
Speaker 1: say ten k kapa by income. Those people all is

2371
01:58:31,800 --> 01:58:34,000
Speaker 1: here frame it is like a new start, a new deal,

2372
01:58:34,120 --> 01:58:37,200
Speaker 1: some sort of thing for those folks. Because universal systems

2373
01:58:37,240 --> 01:58:40,120
Speaker 1: like social security and medicare where everybody in a generation

2374
01:58:40,160 --> 01:58:43,400
Speaker 1: actually universally benefits from something is just much more preferable

2375
01:58:43,400 --> 01:58:45,600
Speaker 1: to me, because right now this is class warfare. I mean,

2376
01:58:45,680 --> 01:58:48,680
Speaker 1: let's be honest, Like these people are disproportionately Democrats, so

2377
01:58:48,720 --> 01:58:51,800
Speaker 1: it's a bailout also of their own voters. And also

2378
01:58:51,960 --> 01:58:53,800
Speaker 1: it's just I don't think it's right to have the

2379
01:58:53,960 --> 01:58:57,280
Speaker 1: educated class get a bailout when young working class folks

2380
01:58:57,360 --> 01:59:00,640
Speaker 1: who actually pay taxes are getting nothing from it. All

2381
01:59:00,680 --> 01:59:02,880
Speaker 1: depends on what problem you're trying to solve, right If

2382
01:59:02,920 --> 01:59:04,800
Speaker 1: the problem you're trying to solve is just like people

2383
01:59:04,840 --> 01:59:08,080
Speaker 1: have been screwed overall, and so they should get help overall.

2384
01:59:08,240 --> 01:59:11,720
Speaker 1: Like honestly, like, I'm totally good sending out a ten

2385
01:59:11,720 --> 01:59:13,800
Speaker 1: thousand dollars check to everybody in the country and having

2386
01:59:13,840 --> 01:59:17,080
Speaker 1: a happen on a routine basis and you know, redistribution

2387
01:59:17,200 --> 01:59:19,720
Speaker 1: so that we have you know, massive transfer well to

2388
01:59:19,720 --> 01:59:22,440
Speaker 1: make the country less unequal. I am one hundred percent

2389
01:59:22,480 --> 01:59:25,839
Speaker 1: on board with that. I don't hear that particular argument

2390
01:59:25,880 --> 01:59:29,160
Speaker 1: coming from many conservatives. Mostly they just want to argue

2391
01:59:29,200 --> 01:59:32,760
Speaker 1: against any help for anybody. And so you know that

2392
01:59:32,960 --> 01:59:35,000
Speaker 1: if the problem you're trying to solve is people are

2393
01:59:35,000 --> 01:59:37,680
Speaker 1: poor and they need help overall, in general, they've been screwed. Okay,

2394
01:59:37,680 --> 01:59:40,560
Speaker 1: that's one problem that requires a universal solution. If the

2395
01:59:40,600 --> 01:59:43,160
Speaker 1: problem you're trying to solve is people have been screwed over,

2396
01:59:43,240 --> 01:59:48,600
Speaker 1: specifically by the college education system and the massive tuition bills,

2397
01:59:48,960 --> 01:59:51,640
Speaker 1: then this makes more sense as a solution. And by

2398
01:59:51,680 --> 01:59:54,040
Speaker 1: the way, you know, the younger you go on on

2399
01:59:54,160 --> 01:59:57,520
Speaker 1: the demographics scale, the more likely you are to have

2400
01:59:57,560 --> 02:00:03,080
Speaker 1: gone to college. So like gen Z, overwhelming majority do

2401
02:00:03,320 --> 02:00:05,600
Speaker 1: some college. They may not graduate with a four year

2402
02:00:05,640 --> 02:00:07,840
Speaker 1: college degree, which gets your point of like, those are

2403
02:00:07,840 --> 02:00:10,840
Speaker 1: the people who really get screwed. But you know, to

2404
02:00:11,280 --> 02:00:13,800
Speaker 1: paint this as like, oh, it's just for the educated class.

2405
02:00:13,840 --> 02:00:16,080
Speaker 1: I don't think that's fair because you have so many

2406
02:00:16,120 --> 02:00:19,000
Speaker 1: young people now who do go to college because they've

2407
02:00:19,000 --> 02:00:20,680
Speaker 1: been sold this is the only way you can even

2408
02:00:20,720 --> 02:00:24,040
Speaker 1: have a chance at succeeding in American society. So listen

2409
02:00:24,200 --> 02:00:26,720
Speaker 1: to your point. What we're likely looking at here is

2410
02:00:26,960 --> 02:00:30,560
Speaker 1: going to be probably very limited. If it happens ultimately

2411
02:00:30,680 --> 02:00:33,080
Speaker 1: at all, and I think that will limit some of

2412
02:00:33,080 --> 02:00:35,240
Speaker 1: the Republican attacks on it as well, because if it

2413
02:00:35,280 --> 02:00:37,600
Speaker 1: is constrained by income, that makes it much harder to paint.

2414
02:00:37,640 --> 02:00:40,960
Speaker 1: It is just like a wealthy class bailout. But you know,

2415
02:00:41,040 --> 02:00:44,040
Speaker 1: I think it would be at least some help to

2416
02:00:44,520 --> 02:00:47,280
Speaker 1: a lot of people in generations that have been pretty

2417
02:00:47,360 --> 02:00:49,200
Speaker 1: much agreed. We'll see how works out, we will see

2418
02:00:49,200 --> 02:00:52,120
Speaker 1: what happens. Join us now is the executive editor at

2419
02:00:52,120 --> 02:00:54,360
Speaker 1: The American Prospect, the one and only David Day. And

2420
02:00:54,440 --> 02:00:57,880
Speaker 1: great to see David. Good to be here. First of all,

2421
02:00:57,920 --> 02:01:00,320
Speaker 1: I have to just say that I cannot say enough

2422
02:01:00,400 --> 02:01:02,880
Speaker 1: what great work you guys do over the American Prospect.

2423
02:01:02,920 --> 02:01:05,000
Speaker 1: We really lean on it in the show. You guys

2424
02:01:05,040 --> 02:01:08,400
Speaker 1: do in depth analysis that nobody seems to, you know,

2425
02:01:08,440 --> 02:01:10,240
Speaker 1: dig into the numbers the way that you guys do.

2426
02:01:10,320 --> 02:01:11,720
Speaker 1: So I just want to applaud you for the work

2427
02:01:11,720 --> 02:01:14,080
Speaker 1: that you're doing first and foremost. But second of all,

2428
02:01:14,520 --> 02:01:18,200
Speaker 1: we'll get to the news here. Unexpectedly this morning, we

2429
02:01:18,280 --> 02:01:21,120
Speaker 1: have a new report that says that the US economy

2430
02:01:21,160 --> 02:01:24,120
Speaker 1: the GDP shrank at a one point four percent annual

2431
02:01:24,280 --> 02:01:26,760
Speaker 1: rate in the first quarter that is according to the

2432
02:01:26,800 --> 02:01:30,880
Speaker 1: Commerce Department, that is its first contraction since early in

2433
02:01:30,920 --> 02:01:34,080
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Just the news just came out, so I

2434
02:01:34,120 --> 02:01:35,920
Speaker 1: know you're just sorting through it as we are, But

2435
02:01:36,040 --> 02:01:38,440
Speaker 1: what do you make of these numbers? Yeah, I mean,

2436
02:01:38,480 --> 02:01:41,800
Speaker 1: I think the expectation was for pretty slow growth, for

2437
02:01:41,920 --> 02:01:45,000
Speaker 1: something around one percent, so this is a surprise of

2438
02:01:45,040 --> 02:01:49,320
Speaker 1: the downside. I think there are a couple factors. Number One,

2439
02:01:49,840 --> 02:01:54,160
Speaker 1: the first quarter we had Omicron, which really at the

2440
02:01:54,200 --> 02:01:59,240
Speaker 1: beginning of the year was a significant, you know, lead

2441
02:01:59,280 --> 02:02:02,560
Speaker 1: weight on the economy. And then for the last month

2442
02:02:02,600 --> 02:02:04,760
Speaker 1: you had the war in Ukraine and what that did

2443
02:02:04,800 --> 02:02:10,240
Speaker 1: to gas prices. And I think overall you're seeing the

2444
02:02:10,240 --> 02:02:15,120
Speaker 1: effects of inflation on consumer spending. But also, you know,

2445
02:02:15,160 --> 02:02:18,160
Speaker 1: my understanding is that a lot of this has to

2446
02:02:18,200 --> 02:02:22,680
Speaker 1: do with inventory reductions. Can you explain that. Yeah, Yeah,

2447
02:02:22,720 --> 02:02:25,400
Speaker 1: there's a weird thing about GDP where if you end

2448
02:02:25,520 --> 02:02:28,080
Speaker 1: up having a lot of build up of inventory that

2449
02:02:28,200 --> 02:02:30,760
Speaker 1: kind of counts as as part of your gross domestic

2450
02:02:30,800 --> 02:02:34,200
Speaker 1: product because it's sitting there in a warehouse, and if

2451
02:02:34,200 --> 02:02:37,640
Speaker 1: you have less, then it counts less. So sometimes GDP

2452
02:02:37,800 --> 02:02:41,360
Speaker 1: is a little noisy as that goes, And this is

2453
02:02:41,400 --> 02:02:44,920
Speaker 1: also the first advanced estimate, and we'll get a more

2454
02:02:44,960 --> 02:02:48,840
Speaker 1: fine grained understanding of it and it could change from there.

2455
02:02:49,000 --> 02:02:53,400
Speaker 1: But yeah, sometimes you get these weird swings because of inventory.

2456
02:02:54,160 --> 02:02:57,600
Speaker 1: So the other one here is about exports, David, which

2457
02:02:57,680 --> 02:03:00,200
Speaker 1: also you know, links back to what we were going

2458
02:03:00,240 --> 02:03:03,080
Speaker 1: to be talking about with you. I mean, so, why

2459
02:03:03,160 --> 02:03:07,080
Speaker 1: are exports contracting in our trade deficit ballooning, because that

2460
02:03:07,120 --> 02:03:09,760
Speaker 1: also seems to be a significant part of the reduction

2461
02:03:09,840 --> 02:03:13,440
Speaker 1: here in GDP. Yeah, that's I mean, it's it's a

2462
02:03:13,480 --> 02:03:21,520
Speaker 1: good question. Obviously, as demand has increased for goods just

2463
02:03:21,600 --> 02:03:27,440
Speaker 1: basic goods, necessities and and durable goods like furniture, washing

2464
02:03:27,480 --> 02:03:31,960
Speaker 1: machines or whatever. You almost can see it, like, Okay,

2465
02:03:31,960 --> 02:03:34,920
Speaker 1: we don't make any of that stuff. So if the

2466
02:03:35,000 --> 02:03:38,640
Speaker 1: demand increases, the trade deficit is going to increase. People

2467
02:03:38,640 --> 02:03:41,240
Speaker 1: are going to eat the same amount of food. Agriculture

2468
02:03:41,280 --> 02:03:46,200
Speaker 1: is largely our biggest export, So unless people are consuming

2469
02:03:46,320 --> 02:03:49,880
Speaker 1: massive amounts of food, that's going to stay pretty pretty even.

2470
02:03:50,240 --> 02:03:54,920
Speaker 1: But if people are consuming more durable items, just more

2471
02:03:55,160 --> 02:03:58,960
Speaker 1: more stuff that's going to come in from overseas. So

2472
02:03:59,520 --> 02:04:01,920
Speaker 1: that's one way to think about it. So, David, you

2473
02:04:02,000 --> 02:04:04,560
Speaker 1: had a great piece kind of evaluating where we are

2474
02:04:04,560 --> 02:04:06,680
Speaker 1: in terms of the supply chain crisis, where we are

2475
02:04:06,680 --> 02:04:09,080
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, as inflation just continuing to

2476
02:04:09,120 --> 02:04:10,840
Speaker 1: go up and up and up. Are there any signs

2477
02:04:10,840 --> 02:04:12,880
Speaker 1: of that abating and any sectors. Let's go ahead and

2478
02:04:12,920 --> 02:04:15,000
Speaker 1: put this tear sheet up on the screen. It says

2479
02:04:15,000 --> 02:04:18,160
Speaker 1: supply chains are easing or they're not. Our system is

2480
02:04:18,200 --> 02:04:21,120
Speaker 1: so unstable that we could be seeing endless waves of

2481
02:04:21,160 --> 02:04:25,720
Speaker 1: supply dysfunction with dangerous impacts on the economy. You point

2482
02:04:25,760 --> 02:04:28,760
Speaker 1: to the fact that you've got variables pointing in sort

2483
02:04:28,800 --> 02:04:31,960
Speaker 1: of every direction that enable you to look at this

2484
02:04:32,160 --> 02:04:34,800
Speaker 1: a number of different ways. And you also talk about

2485
02:04:34,840 --> 02:04:37,800
Speaker 1: something called the bull whip effect, which is what could

2486
02:04:37,800 --> 02:04:41,560
Speaker 1: cause us sort of careening from one problem to another problem,

2487
02:04:41,600 --> 02:04:43,200
Speaker 1: back and forth. Can you just break some of that

2488
02:04:43,240 --> 02:04:46,280
Speaker 1: down for us, Yeah, I mean the bullwhip effect is

2489
02:04:46,320 --> 02:04:54,000
Speaker 1: this sort of standard understanding of supply chains where it

2490
02:04:54,120 --> 02:04:58,280
Speaker 1: takes time from when you order something if you're a retailer,

2491
02:04:58,520 --> 02:05:03,240
Speaker 1: to actually getting to you and conditions could change in

2492
02:05:03,280 --> 02:05:06,160
Speaker 1: that time period, and that's the bull whip. It's the

2493
02:05:06,240 --> 02:05:08,920
Speaker 1: time for the whip, the crack and then you know,

2494
02:05:09,760 --> 02:05:13,280
Speaker 1: move back, Uh, and and and straighten out again. So

2495
02:05:14,000 --> 02:05:20,880
Speaker 1: uh for example, a lot of companies, fearing that they're

2496
02:05:20,880 --> 02:05:22,680
Speaker 1: not going to be able to get all of their supply,

2497
02:05:22,800 --> 02:05:24,280
Speaker 1: but they might be able to get some of it,

2498
02:05:24,640 --> 02:05:29,280
Speaker 1: they over ordered or double ordered uh in in you know,

2499
02:05:29,360 --> 02:05:33,160
Speaker 1: the past six months, hoping that they'd get something that

2500
02:05:33,200 --> 02:05:38,480
Speaker 1: they'd have to be able to sell. And by the

2501
02:05:38,640 --> 02:05:44,680
Speaker 1: time they actually start getting that stuff, then the demand

2502
02:05:44,760 --> 02:05:49,400
Speaker 1: has shrunk because of inflation, and there's there's now you've

2503
02:05:49,400 --> 02:05:53,680
Speaker 1: gone from shortage to glut. And there was a sense,

2504
02:05:54,000 --> 02:05:56,840
Speaker 1: especially in the beginning of April. I mean, the the

2505
02:05:56,840 --> 02:06:00,520
Speaker 1: GDP number comes out now and we were a month

2506
02:06:00,600 --> 02:06:07,040
Speaker 1: into beyond where the GDP is measuring, So April in particular,

2507
02:06:08,240 --> 02:06:13,320
Speaker 1: you started to see this softening in freight, particularly trucking,

2508
02:06:14,280 --> 02:06:18,440
Speaker 1: where there just weren't as many orders being asked for

2509
02:06:18,760 --> 02:06:22,680
Speaker 1: to you know, move goods and things like that. And

2510
02:06:22,760 --> 02:06:25,800
Speaker 1: you're seeing what could be what has been described by

2511
02:06:26,240 --> 02:06:31,320
Speaker 1: some experts as a recession in trucking. And that's because

2512
02:06:31,320 --> 02:06:36,280
Speaker 1: of lower consumer spending, right, but the goods are already

2513
02:06:36,320 --> 02:06:38,240
Speaker 1: on the way by the time we get the lower

2514
02:06:38,280 --> 02:06:41,280
Speaker 1: consumer spending, and so you could end up with this

2515
02:06:41,440 --> 02:06:44,320
Speaker 1: glut from these retailers that have a bunch of inventory

2516
02:06:44,360 --> 02:06:46,760
Speaker 1: they can't sell. Now that's like sort of you know,

2517
02:06:46,920 --> 02:06:50,240
Speaker 1: happening on the you know, it's kind of happening in

2518
02:06:50,280 --> 02:06:54,680
Speaker 1: real time. But the other part of this that cuts

2519
02:06:54,720 --> 02:06:59,480
Speaker 1: against that whole concept is the fact that Shanghai has

2520
02:06:59,520 --> 02:07:01,920
Speaker 1: been locked down for three weeks and now we're seeing

2521
02:07:02,000 --> 02:07:06,720
Speaker 1: Beijing potentially going into lockdown. Shanghai is more important as

2522
02:07:06,760 --> 02:07:12,040
Speaker 1: manufacturing goes because it's more of a hub you could see.

2523
02:07:12,280 --> 02:07:14,400
Speaker 1: You know, you have factories that have been shut down

2524
02:07:14,400 --> 02:07:18,840
Speaker 1: for a month, and for basic items, for things that

2525
02:07:18,880 --> 02:07:23,560
Speaker 1: people just ordinarily consume, that's going to create shortages, and

2526
02:07:23,600 --> 02:07:27,200
Speaker 1: it could create shortages of component parts for manufacturing in

2527
02:07:27,240 --> 02:07:30,120
Speaker 1: other parts of the world. And so the bull whip

2528
02:07:30,160 --> 02:07:32,960
Speaker 1: is going to whip back, right, I mean, you have

2529
02:07:33,120 --> 02:07:35,960
Speaker 1: this shortage, you went to glut, and now you might

2530
02:07:36,000 --> 02:07:40,960
Speaker 1: go back to shortage, and it's just an indicator of

2531
02:07:41,040 --> 02:07:45,600
Speaker 1: the essential instability of the way that our commerce and

2532
02:07:45,720 --> 02:07:49,400
Speaker 1: logistics systems work. Right now, Well, that's the point is

2533
02:07:50,040 --> 02:07:52,680
Speaker 1: this is none of this has to be built that way.

2534
02:07:53,120 --> 02:07:56,480
Speaker 1: It's just that you know, this micro thin like ability

2535
02:07:56,520 --> 02:07:59,760
Speaker 1: to have a slightly higher profit margin trumped any sort

2536
02:07:59,800 --> 02:08:03,440
Speaker 1: of focus on resiliency that would keep us from careening

2537
02:08:03,480 --> 02:08:07,000
Speaker 1: from crisis to crisis to crisis and having such fragility

2538
02:08:07,280 --> 02:08:09,760
Speaker 1: built in, which is really what's been exposed over the

2539
02:08:09,760 --> 02:08:13,560
Speaker 1: past couple of years. David. I'm also wondering are we

2540
02:08:13,640 --> 02:08:17,360
Speaker 1: seeing impacts from the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates and

2541
02:08:17,400 --> 02:08:19,520
Speaker 1: indicating they're going to do that at at least the

2542
02:08:19,520 --> 02:08:22,960
Speaker 1: same pace, potentially at even more accelerated pace, and also

2543
02:08:23,080 --> 02:08:26,120
Speaker 1: indicating that they're planning to sell, you know, get unload

2544
02:08:26,160 --> 02:08:29,880
Speaker 1: assets from their balance sheet at a pretty good clip

2545
02:08:29,920 --> 02:08:32,360
Speaker 1: as well. Are we seeing an impact from that policy

2546
02:08:32,360 --> 02:08:36,040
Speaker 1: play out here too? I think not direct effects yet

2547
02:08:36,080 --> 02:08:39,280
Speaker 1: because they've only raised a quarter point at this point.

2548
02:08:39,320 --> 02:08:43,000
Speaker 1: There's an expectation of a half pointer, maybe even the

2549
02:08:43,280 --> 02:08:49,560
Speaker 1: point seventy five point rise in May. But expectations are

2550
02:08:49,640 --> 02:08:52,680
Speaker 1: trending in that direction, and that particularly comes through the

2551
02:08:52,800 --> 02:08:57,360
Speaker 1: channel of mortgages. Mortgage rates are over five percent and

2552
02:08:57,440 --> 02:08:59,440
Speaker 1: so it costs a lot more to buy a home.

2553
02:09:00,360 --> 02:09:03,040
Speaker 1: We're starting to see that play out and some softening

2554
02:09:03,600 --> 02:09:09,240
Speaker 1: of housing markets. But to get back to your point,

2555
02:09:09,320 --> 02:09:12,960
Speaker 1: I think there's one very key thing that you can

2556
02:09:13,000 --> 02:09:17,560
Speaker 1: say about the Federal Reserves intention to increase these interest

2557
02:09:17,640 --> 02:09:22,040
Speaker 1: rates to break the back of inflation. And that's to

2558
02:09:22,640 --> 02:09:26,800
Speaker 1: ask the question, what are increased interest rates? How are

2559
02:09:26,840 --> 02:09:30,960
Speaker 1: they going to end the lockdown in Shanghai? How are

2560
02:09:31,000 --> 02:09:34,120
Speaker 1: they going to stop the five hundred ships that are

2561
02:09:34,160 --> 02:09:38,240
Speaker 1: currently off the coast of Shanghai Harbor. How are they

2562
02:09:38,240 --> 02:09:41,960
Speaker 1: going to shrink that number? They're not. I mean, we

2563
02:09:42,040 --> 02:09:47,440
Speaker 1: have a supply problem, and the FED is targeting demand essentially,

2564
02:09:47,880 --> 02:09:51,640
Speaker 1: is the issue to me, and I think what we've

2565
02:09:51,680 --> 02:09:57,680
Speaker 1: seen is not only the chaos that can arise from

2566
02:09:58,520 --> 02:10:03,040
Speaker 1: a pandemic, the fact that we're in kind of a

2567
02:10:03,080 --> 02:10:05,920
Speaker 1: world where there are these threats to supply shocks at

2568
02:10:05,920 --> 02:10:09,800
Speaker 1: every turn. I mean, the war in Ukraine has been

2569
02:10:10,080 --> 02:10:15,880
Speaker 1: a much bigger spur, particularly on food prices, wheat being

2570
02:10:15,920 --> 02:10:21,560
Speaker 1: a very major commodity export out of Ukraine. We've seen

2571
02:10:21,560 --> 02:10:25,960
Speaker 1: that be a much bigger deal and of course oil

2572
02:10:26,520 --> 02:10:30,920
Speaker 1: than than what we saw in the two years leading

2573
02:10:31,000 --> 02:10:37,840
Speaker 1: up to the pandemic. Climate issues have been periodically problems

2574
02:10:38,040 --> 02:10:42,160
Speaker 1: for supply. Last year in China, the Yantsee River flooding

2575
02:10:42,560 --> 02:10:45,880
Speaker 1: led to a lot of production delays. A heat wave

2576
02:10:46,440 --> 02:10:50,760
Speaker 1: led because of the way in which China's energy sector

2577
02:10:50,800 --> 02:10:54,920
Speaker 1: goes led to shutdowns at factories of electricity for several weeks,

2578
02:10:55,200 --> 02:10:58,520
Speaker 1: and that led to shutdowns we've seen like freak fires.

2579
02:10:58,720 --> 02:11:02,960
Speaker 1: There was a fire in Japan that reduced a lot

2580
02:11:02,960 --> 02:11:06,880
Speaker 1: of semiconductor capacity, and then there was a fire early

2581
02:11:06,960 --> 02:11:10,320
Speaker 1: this year in Berlin at the factory that makes the

2582
02:11:10,360 --> 02:11:17,560
Speaker 1: machines that make semiconductors. Right, So I mean there we don't.

2583
02:11:18,040 --> 02:11:22,560
Speaker 1: I mean, we've been able to make the very long

2584
02:11:22,720 --> 02:11:28,400
Speaker 1: intermediated supply chains work for I mean work to the extent,

2585
02:11:28,480 --> 02:11:30,959
Speaker 1: not really for workers, but at least for cheap prices

2586
02:11:31,240 --> 02:11:35,320
Speaker 1: for a long time. But I feel like the threats

2587
02:11:35,720 --> 02:11:39,560
Speaker 1: to this are rising. The hidden risks that this kind

2588
02:11:39,600 --> 02:11:43,880
Speaker 1: of system draws out have risen over the last several years,

2589
02:11:43,880 --> 02:11:49,440
Speaker 1: whether it's through more political unrest, climate and extreme weather

2590
02:11:49,480 --> 02:11:56,360
Speaker 1: events and now a pandemic, and I think it demands

2591
02:11:56,560 --> 02:11:59,200
Speaker 1: a rethink of this system. I think that we are

2592
02:11:59,280 --> 02:12:01,560
Speaker 1: all living through that in real time. David, thank you

2593
02:12:01,600 --> 02:12:03,160
Speaker 1: so much for breaking it down. Great to see you,

2594
02:12:03,200 --> 02:12:06,360
Speaker 1: thank you, absolutely, thank you, pleasure, thank you guys so

2595
02:12:06,480 --> 02:12:08,680
Speaker 1: much for watching. We really appreciate it. And I'll just

2596
02:12:08,680 --> 02:12:10,800
Speaker 1: read it orate it one more time. Look, I mean,

2597
02:12:10,920 --> 02:12:12,400
Speaker 1: you know when the Washington Posts and then we're coming

2598
02:12:12,440 --> 02:12:15,520
Speaker 1: after me and by extension you by demeaning us, definitely,

2599
02:12:15,560 --> 02:12:19,280
Speaker 1: and yeah go denigrating. I would associate myself such a

2600
02:12:19,360 --> 02:12:23,320
Speaker 1: villainous character. All I could think about was thank God

2601
02:12:23,440 --> 02:12:26,480
Speaker 1: that we have you guys, our audience, our supporters, and

2602
02:12:26,520 --> 02:12:28,880
Speaker 1: the premium subs. By building the business the way that

2603
02:12:28,880 --> 02:12:30,600
Speaker 1: we did, it makes us as we can actually stand

2604
02:12:30,680 --> 02:12:33,000
Speaker 1: up to them. So thank you all so much for

2605
02:12:33,120 --> 02:12:36,000
Speaker 1: your support at this time. It really does mean more

2606
02:12:36,000 --> 02:12:37,960
Speaker 1: than you can ever know. We really appreciate it. And

2607
02:12:38,120 --> 02:12:40,480
Speaker 1: you know where look for your hard earned money. We

2608
02:12:40,560 --> 02:12:42,800
Speaker 1: are using it as best as we possibly can. We've

2609
02:12:42,840 --> 02:12:45,960
Speaker 1: got all these new partnerships. We got Jordan Sheridan who's

2610
02:12:46,000 --> 02:12:47,720
Speaker 1: on the ground. We're just talking to him. He's got

2611
02:12:47,720 --> 02:12:50,000
Speaker 1: a new place he's gonna be visiting, traveling for us.

2612
02:12:50,000 --> 02:12:52,200
Speaker 1: Got an exclusive footage. We're gonna have a highlight reel

2613
02:12:52,240 --> 02:12:54,200
Speaker 1: of all of his interviews. It's going to drop over

2614
02:12:54,200 --> 02:12:57,000
Speaker 1: the weekend. Marshall's been doing great interviews. Kyle's clips have

2615
02:12:57,080 --> 02:12:59,760
Speaker 1: been doing great as well. We've got Maximilian Alvarez. Matt

2616
02:12:59,760 --> 02:13:01,960
Speaker 1: Stole is coming into the studio right whenever we're done

2617
02:13:01,960 --> 02:13:04,320
Speaker 1: today to film something new for all of you. James

2618
02:13:04,400 --> 02:13:07,760
Speaker 1: Lee's video is fantastic, so yeah, all of it is

2619
02:13:07,800 --> 02:13:10,240
Speaker 1: just geared towards how can we give you the best

2620
02:13:10,280 --> 02:13:13,120
Speaker 1: possible value for your money. Now, we've got the newsletter

2621
02:13:13,160 --> 02:13:15,840
Speaker 1: going as well a written description of everything we talk

2622
02:13:15,880 --> 02:13:17,720
Speaker 1: about in the show, so we're just going to keep

2623
02:13:17,760 --> 02:13:19,920
Speaker 1: on building here. Guys. Thank you all so much. Yeah,

2624
02:13:19,960 --> 02:13:22,680
Speaker 1: we have never I think been more grateful for you

2625
02:13:22,760 --> 02:13:24,680
Speaker 1: all because it does provide you piece of more Like

2626
02:13:24,800 --> 02:13:26,400
Speaker 1: the watching post thing is a pain in the ass,

2627
02:13:26,400 --> 02:13:28,560
Speaker 1: and it's not cost free because the more that we

2628
02:13:28,600 --> 02:13:31,800
Speaker 1: get pushed down of like mainstream respectability obviously you know

2629
02:13:31,840 --> 02:13:34,320
Speaker 1: that determines our treatment with Algor them all those sorts

2630
02:13:34,360 --> 02:13:36,720
Speaker 1: of things. But it really does give you peace of

2631
02:13:36,800 --> 02:13:40,200
Speaker 1: mind that you know, yeah, we're going to be fine

2632
02:13:40,240 --> 02:13:42,120
Speaker 1: and we know you guys are gonna back us up

2633
02:13:42,120 --> 02:13:45,120
Speaker 1: and back Sagger up. So we have never been more grateful.

2634
02:13:45,240 --> 02:13:46,920
Speaker 1: We love you guys. We got a lot of great

2635
02:13:46,960 --> 02:13:49,000
Speaker 1: content to post for you this weekend, so make sure

2636
02:13:49,040 --> 02:13:50,480
Speaker 1: you watch out for that and we'll see you back

2637
02:13:50,480 --> 02:13:51,640
Speaker 1: for a full show on Monday,