Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
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Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 1: Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 1: What do we have Crystal big show this morning. You
Speaker 1: guys may be aware there was a huge jump of
Speaker 1: highly classified documents coming straight from the Pentagon with regards
Speaker 1: to the US's efforts in the Ukraine War and a
Speaker 1: lot else besides, all over the world. We were able
Speaker 1: to obtain that set of documents and have done some
Speaker 1: deep research into them ourselves. So we're going to be
Speaker 1: breaking down some of the most significant revelations purported revelations
Speaker 1: from these documents. So we'll get to all of that.
Speaker 1: There's some other big stories breaking though, as well. Big
Speaker 1: battle between Elon Musk and Twitter versus Substack, major fallout there.
Speaker 1: Matt Taibi's involved. We'll give you all the details there. Also,
Speaker 1: Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is working to partner man
Speaker 1: who was convicted of killing a protester. That's a really
Speaker 1: tricky one. Will tell you everything we know about that
Speaker 1: situation and a huge internal Republican battle between Laura Lumer
Speaker 1: and Marjorie Taylor. Green got all the messy details there
Speaker 1: for you as well. But we did want to start
Speaker 1: with those leaked documents, which are quite extraordinary. Yes, we
Speaker 1: have some extraordinary reporting we're able to offer here everybody.
Speaker 1: I know that there are some images specifically around Ukraine
Speaker 1: and others that are generally widely available, but there is
Speaker 1: actually a full set of the full documents that were
Speaker 1: originally posted on that discord server that we were able
Speaker 1: to obtain from a confidential source. Now, we've gone through
Speaker 1: our own reporting process over here at Breaking Points, and
Speaker 1: we've pulled out a couple of stories that have already
Speaker 1: been reported by the MSM. We reported them out ourselves,
Speaker 1: but we also were able to bring you guys two
Speaker 1: exclusive stories here at BP. We reached out to the
Speaker 1: White House and the Pentagon for comment. We did get
Speaker 1: our response from the Pentagon and we're redirected from the
Speaker 1: National Security Council back to the DoD and the intelligence
Speaker 1: community for statements. So for all intents and purposes, the
Speaker 1: White House is not weighing in here. And with those caveats,
Speaker 1: this set of documents extraordinary set of documents, as I said,
Speaker 1: some of which has already been out there, but much
Speaker 1: of which is really not. And from what I can
Speaker 1: glean based upon our confidential source, bas upon the full
Speaker 1: set of the documents that we were able to obtain,
Speaker 1: this is pretty rarefied custodies. So that we're very happy
Speaker 1: to be able to provide so much of it to you,
Speaker 1: and to not just talk about it in a cable
Speaker 1: news bye. Yeah, actually spend some time. And I also
Speaker 1: want to say thank you so much to the premium
Speaker 1: subs and others. It's very sensitive for people like us,
Speaker 1: independent people to be handling extraordinarily highly classified materi and
Speaker 1: so to know that you guys have our back in
Speaker 1: the case that you know, somebody decides to take our
Speaker 1: videos down or there's already censorship requests which we will
Speaker 1: get to yeah in a little bit, we know that
Speaker 1: we have all of you. So thank you to everybody
Speaker 1: who is a premium Stubb or who can help us
Speaker 1: out Breakingpoints dot com supporting journalism like what we're doing here.
Speaker 1: Let me know, let me just say before we jump
Speaker 1: into characterizing some of the some of the information that
Speaker 1: was contained in these documents, there is a report that
Speaker 1: one piece the casualty Dummersion will break this down for you, specifically,
Speaker 1: was altered. But the Pentagon, in their statement to us,
Speaker 1: is not actually denying the veracity of these claims. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of mainstream outlets that are reporting on
Speaker 1: the claims contend therein some of the information that is
Speaker 1: in the documents is sort of like verified in real
Speaker 1: time by what actually happened on the ground, So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of reason to believe that the information is accurate,
Speaker 1: but no one has been able to fully verify the
Speaker 1: veracity of the information contained in the documents. But again,
Speaker 1: the Pentagon is not denying that these documents are highly
Speaker 1: classified and came from official government sources. So that's just
Speaker 1: to sort of set the stage here. We've tried to
Speaker 1: handle this as carefully and responsibly as we possibly can,
Speaker 1: and again to echo west Acres, I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: guys for backing us up and enabling us to do
Speaker 1: this kind of reporting, which is incredibly concess right. Two
Speaker 1: big goals here, don't get the door doocked down by
Speaker 1: the FBI. Number two, which is make sure that we
Speaker 1: handle it a responsibly, make sure that we try our
Speaker 1: best to confirm it although the pending on effectively did
Speaker 1: through some of what they have given us. And then
Speaker 1: really most importantly is give people the best information possible
Speaker 1: that obviously the government did not want out there. The
Speaker 1: biggest story to the Ukraine and Russia conflict that has
Speaker 1: come out of these documents has been floating around out there,
Speaker 1: but remains probably the most consequential slide of the several
Speaker 1: images that have come out from what we assume is
Speaker 1: a very very highly classified from the top intelligence briefing
Speaker 1: circulating sometime in the last couple of months. Let's gohea
Speaker 1: and put this up there on the screen. What we're
Speaker 1: basically able to offer you is our assessment here of
Speaker 1: the documents would show that breaking point two breaking points
Speaker 1: show a rapidly approaching supply issues for the Ukrainian air
Speaker 1: defense capabilities. They say that the US believes that the
Speaker 1: risks of increase Russian air capabilities is going to rise
Speaker 1: in the coming months ahead of the Ukrainian anticipated Spring offensive.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to spend some time here. This has
Speaker 1: also been now reported by the Washington Posts and the
Speaker 1: New York Times. But what has come out of these
Speaker 1: documents is that the Soviet S three hundred and book
Speaker 1: air defense systems make up eighty nine percent of Ukrainian
Speaker 1: protection against most fighter aircraft and some bombers above twenty
Speaker 1: thousand feet, and in fact, that is what is stopping
Speaker 1: from Russia from establishing air superiority over all of Ukraine. Now,
Speaker 1: according to the projections inside of these documents, one set
Speaker 1: of these miss was to be fully depleted by May third,
Speaker 1: the other one mid April. So obviously it's April tenth
Speaker 1: the day that we're able to go ahead and bring
Speaker 1: you this. And we are very very rapidly approaching the
Speaker 1: exact date through which the initial projections that were provided
Speaker 1: one or two months ago, based upon what we can
Speaker 1: glean from these docks, at which some ninety percent of
Speaker 1: Ukrainian air defense capabilities are going to run out. There
Speaker 1: are a couple of problems actually that come here for
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians in terms of their air defense capabilities, because
Speaker 1: many of these are Soviet era missile systems, which we
Speaker 1: are not necessarily producing in the same mass producible way
Speaker 1: for our defense supply chain. A lot of it is
Speaker 1: older stock and others that either we had or other
Speaker 1: NATO allies had that they were able to provide for them.
Speaker 1: Included in the slide actually is an area called risks,
Speaker 1: And in the risks what they talk about are the
Speaker 1: increased amount of Russian capabilities, the lesser reliance now on
Speaker 1: Iranian made shahed basically drones, and also the ability for
Speaker 1: them not necessarily to establish full air superiority, but move
Speaker 1: more in the direction of being able to strike Ukrainian
Speaker 1: infrastructure targets. So, really, what we can glean not only
Speaker 1: from the slide which is basically out there, but there
Speaker 1: are a couple of other slides in there where they
Speaker 1: discuss this is that the precarious situation for the conflict
Speaker 1: is much more I think than any of us wherever
Speaker 1: led to belief on two fronts. Number One, obviously the
Speaker 1: US has been lying to us. But the crazy part
Speaker 1: that really comes out of these docks is how much
Speaker 1: crystal we are spying on the Ukrainians. Because it is
Speaker 1: very clear that they are not giving us the full explanation.
Speaker 1: In fact, in many of the assessments and others, they're
Speaker 1: specifically referencing information stockpile numbers and others that we are
Speaker 1: gaining through confidential informants and through spying purposes, not from notification,
Speaker 1: because it appears the Ukrainians don't really want us to
Speaker 1: know what their supply rate is, to the extent that
Speaker 1: until they're like, hey, give us more, and then really, second,
Speaker 1: they don't really want us to know how bad things got.
Speaker 1: In one point, which we will discuss in Bakmud, they
Speaker 1: came down to a single supply line road that they
Speaker 1: had an entire briefing saying that we are very close
Speaker 1: to full encirclement by Russian forces. Obviously that didn't happen
Speaker 1: because it was a couple of months ago, but it
Speaker 1: just shows you that there are things are hanging by
Speaker 1: a thread there to a degree which both the Ukrainians
Speaker 1: and the US are not telling the American people about.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to say about this. First of all,
Speaker 1: some of the picture that emerges from these documents has
Speaker 1: been hinted at in previous news reports. So we had
Speaker 1: some previous news reports that were like, yeah, the ammunition situation,
Speaker 1: like they're really running through a lot of ammo and
Speaker 1: specific concerns about the air defenses. We had no idea
Speaker 1: that it was this dire of a situation where we're like,
Speaker 1: you're going to be out of these sorts of air
Speaker 1: defense projectiles by mid April and early May, a timeframe
Speaker 1: which is right upon us now. So that is a
Speaker 1: stunning revelation. Another thing that comes out of taking a
Speaker 1: look at these documents is again something that had been
Speaker 1: hinted at in the past, which is that we actually
Speaker 1: have in some ways better capability to understand I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the US government to understand what's going on with
Speaker 1: the Russian side because of decades and decades of development
Speaker 1: of spying capabilities with regard to Russia than we do
Speaker 1: with our own Ukrainian allies, who of course we have,
Speaker 1: you know, supported to the hilt and sent them all
Speaker 1: sorts of you know, expensive weaponry and continue to escalate
Speaker 1: what we're willing to send them, and in many ways
Speaker 1: we have no idea what is going on with them,
Speaker 1: So we're trying to develop in real time. It would
Speaker 1: appear our own confidential sources and informants to be able
Speaker 1: to spy on our own Ukrainian allies because they have
Speaker 1: not been upfront. And let me say also one of now,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad we have this picture that's emerging, because
Speaker 1: I personally think the information we have about this war
Speaker 1: effort the better. But there's also no doubt that if
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians have been reluctant in the past to share
Speaker 1: with the US about what they're up to, they're gonna
Speaker 1: be even more reluctant now because they're going to say
Speaker 1: what anything we tell you was likely to end up
Speaker 1: on a discord server and you know, being shared on
Speaker 1: Russian telegram channels. So yeah, we're going to stand by
Speaker 1: our position of basically not really telling you what exactly
Speaker 1: is going on. All of this is profoundly important. One
Speaker 1: question I asked myself as I was reading this, because
Speaker 1: you always want to say, like, am I getting played here?
Speaker 1: Is this like Russian misinformation that's being put out? Is
Speaker 1: it Ukrainian? Is it American misinformation? This is an intentional
Speaker 1: leak from the administration because with regard to this particular report,
Speaker 1: you can already see in some of the mainstream press
Speaker 1: framing the push they're going to make, which is that's
Speaker 1: why we've got to ramp up support. That's why, in particular,
Speaker 1: we need to send fighter jets because this Soviet era stuff,
Speaker 1: this is not something we can reproduce. So the only
Speaker 1: answer he really is to provide Ukrainians with fighter jets.
Speaker 1: So if it was just this piece that had been
Speaker 1: leaked here, I would actually be really skeptical of the
Speaker 1: intent of putting this information out there. But you'll see
Speaker 1: as we go through the further reporting, a lot of
Speaker 1: this is profoundly embarrassing for the Americans, some of it
Speaker 1: is profoundly embarrassing for the Ukrainians. Some of it is
Speaker 1: profoundly embarrassing for the Russians as well, not to mention
Speaker 1: some of our allies. We're going to talk about reporting
Speaker 1: with regard to South Korea, very embarrassing for Israel. There
Speaker 1: are some stories in here that are really really quite
Speaker 1: extraordinary in terms of the recent protest activity in Israel.
Speaker 1: So the fact that it embarrasses everyone in some certain
Speaker 1: way to me is an indication. Now there's no guarantees,
Speaker 1: but it's an indication that this was a genuine leak
Speaker 1: that the US government did not want that out there.
Speaker 1: And that's also underscored by the fact that the Pentagon
Speaker 1: is going to quite extraordinary lengths to make sure that
Speaker 1: this is taken down from every channel it is available
Speaker 1: currently on the UA. Yeah, that's right. Actually to reference
Speaker 1: the part that's profoundly embarrassing for the Russians, Let's go
Speaker 1: and put this next one up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: This was from a slide that was included on the
Speaker 1: assessment of the Kia figures that killed in action. According
Speaker 1: to the US assessment, Russia had lost between thirty five thousand,
Speaker 1: thirty five point five thousand, between forty three thousand and
Speaker 1: five hundred. Now Ukrainians, according to them, had lost between
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand and seventeen thousand, five hundred. The reason why
Speaker 1: this figure is important is that this slide was actually
Speaker 1: initially doctored. Basically, it was taken the original slide It
Speaker 1: was posted on this Minecraft discord server, which is a
Speaker 1: whole discussion for another day. Then that slide was repurposed
Speaker 1: by Russian propagandis on telegram who actually photoshopped the figure
Speaker 1: to lessen the number of Russian Kia who were killed
Speaker 1: and to inflate the Ukrainian number. The original figure based
Speaker 1: upon the docks which we have, which are the originals themselves,
Speaker 1: show between thirty five thousand and forty three thousand KIA.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously that is a gigantic number. The US
Speaker 1: lost some fifty something thousand troops in all of Vietnam,
Speaker 1: and in fact, I mean, if you compare that to
Speaker 1: some of their past wars, you know, especially since World
Speaker 1: War Two, there's no heiden you know, that amount of
Speaker 1: dead people. If we think back to Afghanistan, one of
Speaker 1: the initial triggers against the for the collapse of the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union was lack of faith in the Soviet system
Speaker 1: by the Russian people, as more and more of them
Speaker 1: were not allowed to publicize the deaths of their sons
Speaker 1: and their uncles who were being killed in Afghanistan, not
Speaker 1: being allowed to publicly grieve. They've tried to get away
Speaker 1: that around that somewhat by celebrating these guys as heroes,
Speaker 1: but of course they are being subjected to a traumatic
Speaker 1: internal repression campaign to lessen the figures for overall KIA.
Speaker 1: I mean, and of course you have to take this
Speaker 1: agree in Saul. This is what the US intelligence community believes.
Speaker 1: But as you said, Crystol these are highly classified internal documents.
Speaker 1: There's probably no real reason to lie internally. This is
Speaker 1: what we believe. We do not though, of course, have
Speaker 1: a solid figure. There's simply no way to know the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian figure though sixteen thousand to seventeen thousand, five hundred.
Speaker 1: I sent these around to some military analysts that I trust.
Speaker 1: One of them flagged to me that even though that
Speaker 1: figure could be half. Of course, the defensive is always
Speaker 1: going to have less casualties than the offensive. But secondary
Speaker 1: Russia has the ability to replace many of its troops.
Speaker 1: Ukraine does not. Part of the reason why much of
Speaker 1: their fighting age population has actually fled the country, and
Speaker 1: you're seeing reports of forty fifty year old Ukrainians who
Speaker 1: are having to re enlist in the military in order
Speaker 1: to fight, and also why they're preventing military age males
Speaker 1: from leaving the country itself. So you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like if you think about the Civil the American
Speaker 1: Civil War, which a lot of people know the South
Speaker 1: had less people, but one of the reasons why they
Speaker 1: were able to be victorious in many ways because obviously
Speaker 1: it's easier to be defensive, but one of the things
Speaker 1: that did them in in the end was that they
Speaker 1: were not able to replace many of their soldiers who,
Speaker 1: even though they may be higher quality and on the defensive, eventually,
Speaker 1: if enough of them die, you don't have enough new recruits,
Speaker 1: you're going to succomon. You're going to have to be
Speaker 1: defeated on the battlefield. And I think there's a couple
Speaker 1: important things to say here. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: the numbers that are being shared confidentially apparently according to
Speaker 1: these documents among high level government officials, are not actually
Speaker 1: what has been shared with the American publics. I think
Speaker 1: that's important to keep in mind. Another important thing to
Speaker 1: keep in mind here is, according to the underlying source document,
Speaker 1: these casualty assessments are given with low confidence, so even
Speaker 1: internally they're saying, you know, we're not one hundred percent
Speaker 1: on these and they could be sort of wildly off.
Speaker 1: So that's important to keep in mind. The other piece
Speaker 1: that I wanted to underscore here with regards to what
Speaker 1: you're originally setting up sober that these numbers were doctored
Speaker 1: and then I believe shared on telegram the doctored numbers
Speaker 1: That actually happened significant time, maybe a month after the
Speaker 1: initial leak to that discord server occurred. And it also
Speaker 1: is important to note in terms of US trying to
Speaker 1: gauge the accuracy of the information contained in all of
Speaker 1: these documents, which again we have not been able to confirm,
Speaker 1: is that this is the only error that has been
Speaker 1: reported thus far. It's the only thing that the Pentagon
Speaker 1: is pointing reporters to, It's the only thing that the
Speaker 1: mainstream press is also pointing to. Is just these figures
Speaker 1: being doctored on this telegram channel channel about a month later.
Speaker 1: Now does that mean that everything else is one hundred
Speaker 1: percent accurate? Now you can't say that. But we're just
Speaker 1: trying to give you as much information as possible so
Speaker 1: you can judge for yourself know how seriously to take
Speaker 1: the information that is in these documents. So, as far
Speaker 1: as we know thus far, this is the one error
Speaker 1: that they've been able to really concretely nail down where
Speaker 1: the documents were altered in a way to be more
Speaker 1: favorable to Russia. Let's go to the next one, and
Speaker 1: this is probably one of our most significant finds as
Speaker 1: far as we know. This is being exclusively reported by US.
Speaker 1: Included in one of the slides here is that leaked
Speaker 1: documents show that the US assesses that elements of the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian Intelligence Service were behind in attacked on a Russian
Speaker 1: plane in Bells in February. Now why does this matter
Speaker 1: because what they point to actually in the original slide
Speaker 1: is they say that the Ukrainian intelligence services, according to them,
Speaker 1: violated internal orders on operations outside of Ukraine and conducted
Speaker 1: this attack on the Russian plane. Now, side by side,
Speaker 1: what we have over there is Belarus actually saying that
Speaker 1: Ukrainians were behind a February drone attack, specifically on the
Speaker 1: type of plane that we're talking about here, So we
Speaker 1: can put side by side that the Belarussians and the
Speaker 1: Russians blamed the Ukrainian services for doing this. There wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily a denial from Kiev, but there also was a
Speaker 1: bit of a hush up over it that was enough
Speaker 1: to significant enough to be actually be included in the
Speaker 1: internal US assessment. And it raises a real question how
Speaker 1: much control does Zelenski actually have over the Ukrainian intelligent services.
Speaker 1: And perhaps this is credence to the idea that there
Speaker 1: are a bunch of just rogue elements inside of the
Speaker 1: government are basically doing whatever they want. We know about
Speaker 1: the bombings inside of Russia of the pro war blogger
Speaker 1: of Dugan's daughter, prob the Crimean bridge. Dare I say
Speaker 1: the nord Stream attack, which you know was supported by
Speaker 1: somebody that one I don't think anybody at the top
Speaker 1: wouldn't have known about. But the question though remains, you know,
Speaker 1: whenever Ukraine does something, who is doing it? Because it
Speaker 1: seems clear here what comes out of the docks from
Speaker 1: not only US spying on them and their deep amount
Speaker 1: of secrecy, but their own command and control does not
Speaker 1: seem to be as solid as we you know, Si
Speaker 1: Lenscape presents himself as a leader here and obviously in
Speaker 1: the Western press and to his own people, but obviously
Speaker 1: there are elements of the government there that you know,
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily listen to him and knew who knows
Speaker 1: what they're going to drag them into and by extension
Speaker 1: us too. That's yes. So Number one, it could be
Speaker 1: that they're just sort of like Rogan lawless, which you know,
Speaker 1: Americans will be familiar with the way that Rogan lawless
Speaker 1: intelligence agencies can act on their own and prosperate their
Speaker 1: own foreign policy. That's number one. Number two is it
Speaker 1: could be sort of intentional on Zelenski's part to keep
Speaker 1: his own hands clean when they're engaging in you know,
Speaker 1: what are effectively, in some instances international acts of terrorism potentially,
Speaker 1: So there's you know, that potential piece. But the most
Speaker 1: important part for US audience is we are deeply enmeshed
Speaker 1: in this war effort. You know, I would say that
Speaker 1: we are engaged in a proxy war versus Russia. Now
Speaker 1: that Biden administration would very much dispute that, but it's
Speaker 1: certainly the way that the Russians view it, and it's
Speaker 1: certainly the way that the Chinese view it as well,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into here as well. When any of
Speaker 1: these acts, whether it's the bombings in Russia, whether it
Speaker 1: is blowing up the Crimean Bridge, when it's whatever the
Speaker 1: hell happened with the Orange Dream, when it's this sort
Speaker 1: of attack on Belarussian soil, all of these things have
Speaker 1: potential massive impacts in terms of possible escalation. And might
Speaker 1: I remind you we are still dealing with a nuclear
Speaker 1: armed superpower, and we're also still dealing with you know,
Speaker 1: China kind of on the sidelines deciding how involved directly
Speaker 1: they're going to get into this conflict. So these are
Speaker 1: not little incidents. These are massively potentially impactful, and so
Speaker 1: you have to ask the question how much control does
Speaker 1: Zelenski have over his own intelligence services? And you know,
Speaker 1: if Zelenski doesn't even have control of them, forget about
Speaker 1: us having any say or even advance visibility into what
Speaker 1: they're planning and what they're going to actually engage in.
Speaker 1: So this is an extraordinary revelation. And I also think
Speaker 1: it is very telling that this isn't a piece that
Speaker 1: has been picked up widely in the Western press yet,
Speaker 1: because it's very unflattering for our own involvement and the
Speaker 1: way that we have involved ourselves in this conflict. I
Speaker 1: want to read from one particular slide here, which, as
Speaker 1: I referenced before, about the US assessment of the ongoing campaign.
Speaker 1: They say that Russia's grinding campaign of addrition in the
Speaker 1: Donbass region is likely heading towards a stalemate Moscow's goal
Speaker 1: to recapture the entire region in twenty twenty three. Now,
Speaker 1: that's what the mainstream media went with. But here's the
Speaker 1: part where it comes clear to all of us that
Speaker 1: we're able to draw the conclusion that we're spying on
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians. This is the US intelligence communities speaking to
Speaker 1: the commanders. We would have higher confidence in our assessment
Speaker 1: if we could accurately estimate the endurance of Ukraine's operations
Speaker 1: on the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Dinetzk fronts. We cannot account
Speaker 1: for the toll that Ukraine's August counter offensive in eastern
Speaker 1: Southern Frances have taken on Russian troop morale and others.
Speaker 1: And they continue to reference not having full scale interest,
Speaker 1: a full scale like inquiry into the actual Ukrainian troop
Speaker 1: strength and what they were doing, both on the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: and the Russian side. That's just a little picture behind
Speaker 1: the scenes of how they are not able to actually
Speaker 1: see fully what the Ukrainians are doing ergo, that means
Speaker 1: that they're not sharing the information with US. And in
Speaker 1: many of these cases, throughout the docs they reference confidential
Speaker 1: information and sources. Well, and let me say this, I
Speaker 1: can't really blame the Ukrainians. I understand they're trying to
Speaker 1: do what they need to do. They want to paint
Speaker 1: the picture as best they can to keep the supplies
Speaker 1: flowing and have their greatest chance to be able to
Speaker 1: succeed in their war effort. But we are not just
Speaker 1: like helpless bystanders here. We have a lot of leverage
Speaker 1: that we could use if it was important to us
Speaker 1: to actually understand what is happening on the ground, or
Speaker 1: to actually understand the type of you know, international acts
Speaker 1: that the Ukrainian intelligence services may be considering engaging in,
Speaker 1: if that was important to us. We have so much
Speaker 1: leverage because their war effort, which comes out very clearly
Speaker 1: in these documents, is wholly dependent on Western NATO support,
Speaker 1: primarily from the United States of America. So we clearly
Speaker 1: have not used the leverage that we have to try
Speaker 1: to obtain a fullsome understanding of what is happening on
Speaker 1: the ground here, which I think is important for the
Speaker 1: American people to understand. That I have reference to too.
Speaker 1: Another one of the craziest documents inside of these, which
Speaker 1: you know we've discussed, we didn't make a full graphic
Speaker 1: for it was really just literally the headline of it.
Speaker 1: Inside of their preference of their briefing is Ukrainian forces
Speaker 1: in Bakmut almost encircled plans to send an elite unit
Speaker 1: to stabilize catastrophic situation. They don't tell us about any
Speaker 1: of this, none of it. They literally say they were
Speaker 1: almost encircled by Russian forces and they had a single
Speaker 1: tenuous supply road and when the military internally as we're
Speaker 1: describing this as quote a catastrophic situation, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that you can say that it's obviously a disaster.
Speaker 1: Now it didn't, you know, the Russians didn't end up
Speaker 1: winning in that particular instance. But overall throughout this what
Speaker 1: you see are the precarity of Ukrainian defenses, both at
Speaker 1: the ground level and in the air level, and the
Speaker 1: Kia figures, but also the toll that has happened with Russia.
Speaker 1: They know their inability to make any real gain so
Speaker 1: far throughout their possible spring offensive, and also just the
Speaker 1: significantly high Kia figure that comes through. It's a chaotic
Speaker 1: situation on the ground there where we were being lied
Speaker 1: to on almost all fronts, the NATO front, the Russian front,
Speaker 1: and the Ukrainian front. I think it's important that all
Speaker 1: of us have as much fulsome information into that as possible.
Speaker 1: So we did our best to give everybody all of that.
Speaker 1: And we're going to go to the second part here,
Speaker 1: which we can pretty much exclusively bring to you. The
Speaker 1: mainstream media has not been reporting this. One of them
Speaker 1: is a slide included in a US intelligence assessment with
Speaker 1: respect to how China is going to deal with the
Speaker 1: Ukraine situation and the situation through which they may increase
Speaker 1: the amount of aid to rush US. Let's go and
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. This is basically
Speaker 1: an internal US assessment of what of the US believes
Speaker 1: China's red lines would be. So let me go ahead
Speaker 1: and read all of this that we wrote here. So
Speaker 1: the documents show that a highly classified US intelligence assessment
Speaker 1: that Beijing is likely to use any at by Ukraine
Speaker 1: deep inside of Russia to rhetorically attack NATO and may
Speaker 1: influence their decision to provide lethal aid to Moscow. The
Speaker 1: documents show that the US believes China would see any
Speaker 1: Ukrainian attack on Moscow as evidence that Washington is directly
Speaker 1: responsible for escalating the conflict and would further justify their
Speaker 1: decision to provide lethal aid if they choose to do so. Now,
Speaker 1: the reason why I think that this internal assessment is
Speaker 1: so important, Crystal, even though it's been basically ignored for
Speaker 1: some reason it seems by the media is that inside
Speaker 1: of this you can see the direct red lines is
Speaker 1: that Beijing has any Ukrainian attack on Moscow that uses
Speaker 1: US or NATO members weapons, that's a red line for
Speaker 1: directly responsible conflict. That would give them possible justification for
Speaker 1: providing Russia with lethal aid any increase. And I'm looking
Speaker 1: directly at the text from the slide itself of the
Speaker 1: scale and the scope of material that the US is
Speaker 1: providing them in terms of possible fighter jet and others
Speaker 1: that would be a trigger as well. But really what
Speaker 1: you see is that China is looking at this situation
Speaker 1: washing the Ukrainians very closely, and that also any attack
Speaker 1: on anything that Russian leaders see as a strategic attack
Speaker 1: would also be a trigger for Beijing. So this is
Speaker 1: one where the direct red lines that the US intelligence
Speaker 1: community believes of what China's red lines in the conflict
Speaker 1: are a highly significant piece of information that we're able
Speaker 1: to bring to you guys exclusively. And we have also
Speaker 1: a statement from the Department of Defense that we can
Speaker 1: read to everybody that is just kind of global about
Speaker 1: the actual response gold Crystal. This is go ahead and
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen, guys. This is what
Speaker 1: they've been sending to every newscount let I saw the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal had the exact same comment here, but
Speaker 1: we want to read it to you in full. They
Speaker 1: say that Apartment of Defense continues to review and assess
Speaker 1: the validity of the photograph documents that are circulating on
Speaker 1: social media sites and that appear to contain sensitive and
Speaker 1: highly classified material. An interagency effort has been stood up
Speaker 1: focused on assessing the impact these photograph documents could have
Speaker 1: on US national security and on our allies and partners.
Speaker 1: Over the weekend, US officials have engaged with allies and
Speaker 1: partners and have informed relevant congressional committees of jurisdiction about
Speaker 1: the disclosure. The Department of Defense's highest priority is the
Speaker 1: defense of our nation and our national security. We have
Speaker 1: referred this matter to the Department of Justice, which has
Speaker 1: opened a criminal investigation. We're going to get more in
Speaker 1: a moment into the criminal investigation here, and also their
Speaker 1: efforts to suppress any of these documents on social media.
Speaker 1: But what jumps out right away here is they're not
Speaker 1: actually denying the variety of the documents. In fact, in
Speaker 1: a way they are somewhat confirming it because they say
Speaker 1: that they're photograph documents that are circulating that appear to
Speaker 1: contain sensitive and highly classified material, and they are continuing
Speaker 1: to review and assess the validity of what they describe
Speaker 1: as those photographed docums. So again, really highly significant. They
Speaker 1: are not actually outright denying the accuracy of the information
Speaker 1: contained in these documents. Yeah. So that was in response
Speaker 1: not only to our question, but at the media's question.
Speaker 1: I specifically listed all of the information that we were
Speaker 1: able to report to everybody here, to the Department of Defense,
Speaker 1: the White House, and everybody was involved. They were given
Speaker 1: the full ability to deny it and to spin us
Speaker 1: and to call us and tell us that it's not
Speaker 1: true if they wanted. They took the opportunity not to
Speaker 1: do so, and just to provide this global statement kind
Speaker 1: of yea on what it is. So I think that
Speaker 1: you can generally take away from that what you will.
Speaker 1: We also had a quote from a Quincy Institute expert
Speaker 1: that we reached out to in order to try and
Speaker 1: give some context on these documents. That's right. So George Bbe,
Speaker 1: who's the director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute
Speaker 1: for Responsible Staycraft, I asked him what he made of
Speaker 1: the Chinese China piece here. Specifically, let's go and put
Speaker 1: this first piece up on the screen first. He said,
Speaker 1: these judgments seem quite reasonable. The proposition that Chinese age
Speaker 1: to Russia will vary according to the severity of attacks
Speaker 1: on Russia, and I would add on Beijing's assessment of
Speaker 1: how close Russia might be to failure on the battlefield
Speaker 1: strikes me as correct. He continues to put the next
Speaker 1: slide up on the screen. The fact that this analysis
Speaker 1: is focused on the potential impact of Ukrainian strikes on
Speaker 1: China's aid decision suggests Washington is worried that Beijing could
Speaker 1: intervene much more decisively to help Russia under some circumstances,
Speaker 1: which in turn implies that the level of any Chinese
Speaker 1: military aid has not yet reached alarming levels. And in
Speaker 1: some ways, I thought that was maybe the most significant takeaway.
Speaker 1: I've been trying to square these documents, these leaked documents,
Speaker 1: with what has been reported in the press, and in
Speaker 1: recent weeks we have seen a number of reports that
Speaker 1: China is quote considering providing lethal aid to Russia and
Speaker 1: has not decided what they're going to do on that matter.
Speaker 1: What we didn't know is what sort of metrics China
Speaker 1: was potentially using to determine whether or not they were
Speaker 1: going to provide lethal further lethal aid or lethal ad
Speaker 1: at all, because there's no evidence that they provided lethally
Speaker 1: to this point whatsoever. So this gives us an insight
Speaker 1: potentially into the pretty logical notion that hey, if Russia
Speaker 1: looks like they're not doing too well in the battlefield,
Speaker 1: and if Ukraine is striking within Russia, then it makes
Speaker 1: it much more likely that China is going to fully
Speaker 1: come to the table on Russia's side, which again could
Speaker 1: really fundamentally change the dynamics of this conflict. That's why
Speaker 1: I thought this was the most significant piece that we
Speaker 1: were able to report to all of you exclusively, and
Speaker 1: again thank you to our premium members for giving us
Speaker 1: the confidence to do so. But the reason why is because,
Speaker 1: as you said, Crystal, this would fundamentally change the balance
Speaker 1: of power in the conflict itself, because then they would
Speaker 1: have another nuclear arms superpower on their side providing them
Speaker 1: with lethal weapons. But secondary, this shows us that the
Speaker 1: risk of escalation not only lies in how Moscow will respond,
Speaker 1: it's how Beijing will re spond as well, and the
Speaker 1: increasing alliance between the two nations would endanger our position
Speaker 1: not necessarily in Europe, but also possibly in East Asia
Speaker 1: if they get you know, even more involved and intricate,
Speaker 1: involved deeply inside of the conflict, providing Russia with the aid.
Speaker 1: This also shows you the years long risks that continue
Speaker 1: the longer that this goes on, where we would embroil
Speaker 1: US possibly and not only NATO, you know, in some
Speaker 1: sort of proper conflict with Russia, but that China is
Speaker 1: not necessarily going to sit here on the sidelines. It's
Speaker 1: clear here that the US believes that China does see
Speaker 1: that they have some skin in the game in propping
Speaker 1: up Russia and making sure that doesn't just go away,
Speaker 1: and that if they saw a direct role of Washington
Speaker 1: in some sort of attack on Moscow or on any
Speaker 1: strategically important Russian leader or others, which is not outside
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian realm of possibility what we already know in
Speaker 1: their assassination campaign, that it very likely could trigger Beijing's
Speaker 1: total insertion into the conflict and would abandon any piece. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is why we have paid a lot
Speaker 1: of attention to the extracurricular activities. Let's say of Ukrainian
Speaker 1: intelligence services with regard to you know, blowing up a
Speaker 1: blogger in a cafe in Saint Petersburg, killing Dugan's daughter
Speaker 1: as well, you know, both of which listen, they haven't
Speaker 1: been fully confirmed, but it looks fairly likely what happened here.
Speaker 1: Let's just say that's why we paid particular attention to
Speaker 1: these things, because any sort of provocation of this nature
Speaker 1: can really change the dynamics of the conflict and where
Speaker 1: this is, where this is potentially heading. So it's incredibly,
Speaker 1: incredibly significant here. And I also think it's telling that,
Speaker 1: you know, the way that the reporting had done had
Speaker 1: been done previously indicate okay, China's weighing their options, but
Speaker 1: didn't indicate where the risks and the fault lines and
Speaker 1: the red lines actually potentially lie. And that in some
Speaker 1: ways is the most critical piece of information here that
Speaker 1: you could possibly have in terms of gauging what our
Speaker 1: own how we should involve ourselves, and what we should
Speaker 1: be what sort of pressure we should be applying to
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian side in terms of their actions as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there you go. That's the story that we can
Speaker 1: report to you guys exclusively. It's one that we spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time on you know, trying to authenticate
Speaker 1: and get people's you know, opinions, on sending comment to
Speaker 1: the White House and dependenton and we tried our best
Speaker 1: to handle it as responsibly as possible. And also thank
Speaker 1: you again to the previous for giving us the confidence
Speaker 1: to go forward with this, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: risks I don't think people understand, both legally but also
Speaker 1: in terms of getting sued. There are the names of
Speaker 1: all kinds of non public people in here, including high
Speaker 1: you know, of Ukrainian officials or all others. That one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that we thought a lot about was
Speaker 1: the dossier and about how the publication of the dossier
Speaker 1: led to a lot of lawsuits because it was unverified
Speaker 1: allegations against very specific people that led to legal problems
Speaker 1: and of course ignited a lot of Russia Gate and others.
Speaker 1: So that's how we felt the best to handle this one,
Speaker 1: and we're very happy to be able to give it
Speaker 1: to all of you. Let's go to the next part here.
Speaker 1: This is where we can focus on other areas of
Speaker 1: intel within the leaked documents that involve so called Allied nations,
Speaker 1: which are bonkers in their intelligence assessments, but have also
Speaker 1: been reported by the mainstream media. So let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and put the first one up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: This has probably got to be one of the most
Speaker 1: insane parts of it is that the documents show a
Speaker 1: huge schism between the US and South Korea in terms
Speaker 1: of supplying lethal aid to Ukraine. Now, the schism matters
Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons. Number One, it shows us
Speaker 1: that the US is asking South Korea for arms, and
Speaker 1: the South Koreans, in their internal problem and negotiations with
Speaker 1: the National Security Council discussions with the President, are saying,
Speaker 1: we don't want to give these to Washington because we
Speaker 1: don't think that Washington is going to be the end user.
Speaker 1: We think that they're buying them on Ukraine's behalf, and
Speaker 1: then they're just going to give them to Ukraine, and
Speaker 1: that violates our internal policy. But second, it shows us
Speaker 1: that we basically have the phone tapped of the National
Speaker 1: Security Advisor to South Korea. There are direct quotes people
Speaker 1: of his exact lines and inquiries inside internal deliberations and
Speaker 1: also the internal thinking of the South Korean president who's
Speaker 1: trying to avoid phone calls with President Biden and with
Speaker 1: senior US officials because he doesn't want to be confronted
Speaker 1: over why his government doesn't want to sell Washington the weapons.
Speaker 1: So of course South Korea is a very close ally
Speaker 1: of ours, but I thought it was important for US
Speaker 1: to pull this out, Crystal, because what does this show
Speaker 1: Not all, even our close allies, are not all with
Speaker 1: us on this Ukraine thing. That actually shows you a
Speaker 1: very clear example of they're like, hey, we don't want
Speaker 1: problems with Russia. We have our own policy, and DC
Speaker 1: is trying to force us into this conflict even though
Speaker 1: we don't really want to be in here. It's really interesting,
Speaker 1: and they were trying to actually avoid phone calls with
Speaker 1: Biden because they were uncomfortable about Like They're like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what we're going to say or do here
Speaker 1: because we don't really want to go along with what
Speaker 1: we expect them to be pressuring us to do. You know, listen,
Speaker 1: our allies are not going to be shocked at the
Speaker 1: US is spying on them, right, They're not going to
Speaker 1: be oh my gosh, how could you How do you like?
Speaker 1: Everybody's realistic about the fact that everyone is trying to
Speaker 1: spy on everyone else. Especially when you're talking about the
Speaker 1: United States, the global superpower, right. But the detail contained
Speaker 1: here that they these this information was obtained through what's
Speaker 1: called signal intelligence, so that means, like you said, tapping
Speaker 1: phones basically versus human intelligence from show, Oh you have
Speaker 1: an inside source and you you know, you find out
Speaker 1: that way. That is quite noteworthy and they are going
Speaker 1: to be very unhappy about this. And also, you know, listen, again,
Speaker 1: it's important to note these documents are a couple months old,
Speaker 1: so anything that's contained, you know, in these documents, time
Speaker 1: has moved and things have shifted, So this is really
Speaker 1: a snapshot of of a moment in time. However, at
Speaker 1: the time, South Koreans really had not figured out how
Speaker 1: they were going to deal with the prush those being
Speaker 1: applied to the US and how it would violate their
Speaker 1: own internal policy, and they're trying to come up with
Speaker 1: workarounds like maybe we're going to ship ammunition to Poland
Speaker 1: and then the US can get it from Poland, and
Speaker 1: then what I'm really do with it, I guess we're
Speaker 1: just going to like not really pay attention. But this
Speaker 1: was an active, ongoing issue and source of tension within
Speaker 1: the US. South Korean relationship, and dare I say, you know,
Speaker 1: the revelations about the particular type of spying activities were
Speaker 1: engaged in with regard to one of our close allies.
Speaker 1: Here is going to be another source of tension in
Speaker 1: this relationship as well. At least some weapons did make
Speaker 1: it to Ukraine, because there's actually a slide that we're
Speaker 1: in possession of crystal called rok Rok Delivery Timeline, which
Speaker 1: is basically Republic of Korea arms that were able to
Speaker 1: be sent to Ukraine. I also got from a military
Speaker 1: analyst who was able to look at this and said
Speaker 1: that this is going to give the Ukrainians some breathing
Speaker 1: room in terms of air defense, but also in terms
Speaker 1: of ammunition and the total number of rounds that were
Speaker 1: eventually delivered to the Ukrainian military from his analysis of
Speaker 1: the slide. However, something that he flagged to me about
Speaker 1: this slide about the South Korean weapons that eventually did
Speaker 1: make their way to Ukraine is that if the Ukrainians
Speaker 1: do have an offensive, they're going to blow through this
Speaker 1: at their current expenditure rate in one or two months.
Speaker 1: So Ukraine is on the verse of some very very
Speaker 1: serious supply problems. Now, let's get in which means which
Speaker 1: means we are on the verge of some very significant
Speaker 1: decisions about how we're going to move forward with regard
Speaker 1: to are we going to increase our support and continue,
Speaker 1: you know, and basically the direction that we have. Are
Speaker 1: we going to use these revelations, as I know some
Speaker 1: Hawks will already be doing, to push for further escalation
Speaker 1: things like fighter jets, or are we going to recognize that,
Speaker 1: you know, this is not going to necessarily continue in
Speaker 1: the direction that has been continued, and try to do
Speaker 1: whatever we can to bring parties to the negotiating table
Speaker 1: to end this conflict and be able to move forward.
Speaker 1: So that's why this is, you know, it's incredibly important
Speaker 1: to understand what the real picture of the war is,
Speaker 1: at least as far as the Pentagon has discerned it.
Speaker 1: So the second element here this also is totally insane.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put this up there on the
Speaker 1: screen that we can report for all of you, which
Speaker 1: has also been reported to by the mainstream media. According
Speaker 1: to our own intelligence assessment, the chiefs of Mosad and
Speaker 1: Israel's spy agencies we're planning a secret revolt against Netanyahu
Speaker 1: and we're actually involved in trying to instigate some of
Speaker 1: the protests against the Israeli government. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: one where it comes from an extremely highly classified assessment
Speaker 1: from the government which basically demonstrates to everybody how how
Speaker 1: much the consternation inside of Israel that there was over this,
Speaker 1: and that they were basically advocating for not only the
Speaker 1: chiefs but the officials themselves to protests against the judicial reforms. Now,
Speaker 1: some of this had come out, now not necessarily with
Speaker 1: the Massad role, but about the chiefs of how the
Speaker 1: police agents and others in Israel were upset about this.
Speaker 1: Some of that had been reported. But to see this
Speaker 1: with the direct intelligence assessment, this is from March first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, that this document appears to have a
Speaker 1: source on which is based directly on a CIA intelligence
Speaker 1: assessment where they have insight into how the Masad is
Speaker 1: thinking and what they were doing to net Dunyahu is
Speaker 1: just absolutely fascinating. To put it in US terms, just
Speaker 1: to understand what a bombshell this is probably already within Israel.
Speaker 1: Imagine that the CIA was caught fomenting direct protests against Trump,
Speaker 1: or against Biden or against Obama right where they are
Speaker 1: actively working to so dessent against a specific policy to
Speaker 1: state I mean this, I don't know we've covered it here,
Speaker 1: but just as a reminder, this is all over these
Speaker 1: proposed judicial reforms of the netna Who government that the
Speaker 1: Israeli public has really revolted against because it's it's effectively
Speaker 1: a bit major power grab from Netnaho, who himself is
Speaker 1: under investigation from corruption. What we had seen publicly, actually,
Speaker 1: we really hadn't seen anything from Massad. We had seen
Speaker 1: some consternation from within the military. Remember, all Israeli citizens,
Speaker 1: with some exceptions, including some religious exceptions, serve in the
Speaker 1: Israeli military, So it's really, you know, an important societal institution,
Speaker 1: perhaps even more so than the military here in the US.
Speaker 1: So there was some consternation within the military, but we
Speaker 1: hadn't heard anything from Massad. And let me read to
Speaker 1: you the way that the Washington Post characterizes. They say
Speaker 1: the leak document, labeled top secret, says that in February,
Speaker 1: senior leaders of the Massad spy service. This is the
Speaker 1: quote advocated for Massad officials and Israeli citizens to protest
Speaker 1: the new Israeli government's propose judicial reforms, including several explicit
Speaker 1: calls to action that decried the Israeli government. According to
Speaker 1: signals intelligence, again that means the phones were tapped or whatever.
Speaker 1: If accurate, this is a dramatic change in procedure by
Speaker 1: Masad's leadership and puts Israel an unprecedented territory. Said in
Speaker 1: the Ton Sex, an israel scholar at the Bookings Institution,
Speaker 1: It's a sign of just how far the net Yahoo
Speaker 1: coalition has pushed Israeli society and how high the stakes are.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's one way to characterize it. But listen,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm very much opposed to the judicial reforms
Speaker 1: that are you know, being pushed forward in Israel. But Masad,
Speaker 1: like our own CIA, they are banned from operating on
Speaker 1: domestic soil. This is supposed to be about, you know,
Speaker 1: gleaning intelligence from foreign adversaries, not spying on domestic citizens
Speaker 1: in Israel or fomenting protests against the current government. So
Speaker 1: this is this is really something, This is really something
Speaker 1: that is the other one involving Israel is one of
Speaker 1: the is a crazy and it's called Israel pathways to
Speaker 1: providing lethal aid to Ukraine and what they basically lay
Speaker 1: out is scenarios where they can try and force Israel
Speaker 1: to give more weapons to Ukraine to violate their established
Speaker 1: neutrality policy. They have several ones which are laid out,
Speaker 1: all which basically involve duping the Israelis into thinking that
Speaker 1: they're going after Iran and then taking set weapons and
Speaker 1: escalation to try and shipping them over to Ukraine. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: this is astounding to me because it's literally an op
Speaker 1: inside of a PowerPoint where they're like, yeah, here's ways
Speaker 1: that we can get tricking them manipulation weapons Ukraine. It
Speaker 1: also just shows you the background. Look, we all know
Speaker 1: that behind the scenes we were trying to get other
Speaker 1: countries to aid Ukraine, but we are going so far
Speaker 1: as to deceive South Korea on trying to sell weapons
Speaker 1: to Ukraine, and they know it too. We are going
Speaker 1: so far as to create scenarios. We're running ops on
Speaker 1: Israel to provide make them for sell weapons to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: This is the extent to which we are involved in
Speaker 1: trying to get the rest of the world to come
Speaker 1: to Ukraine. We're effectively their State Department and their CIA,
Speaker 1: it seems, you know, trying to Usually we try and
Speaker 1: instigate things to help us. It's an interesting kind of
Speaker 1: flip of things. But yeah, just seeing this, you know,
Speaker 1: with your own eyes and to look at it, it's
Speaker 1: it's crazy, you know, watching this. They even identify the
Speaker 1: three missile systems which they want the Israelis to give them,
Speaker 1: and then have scenarios to which they can try and
Speaker 1: trick them into sending them over to Ukraine. There's one
Speaker 1: other piece here that I wanted to know with regard to,
Speaker 1: you know, our allies. France is actually out with a
Speaker 1: denial that they have an active military presence in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: because that is in fact suggested in these documents as well.
Speaker 1: According to The Guardian, one slide suggests that a small
Speaker 1: contingent of less than one hundred special operations personnel from
Speaker 1: NATO members France, America, Britain and Latvia we're all right
Speaker 1: active in Ukraine. Now, think of how explosive that is,
Speaker 1: the idea that, you know, something that we will not
Speaker 1: be totally shocked by, but the notion that we could
Speaker 1: potentially already have boots on the ground in Ukraine alongside
Speaker 1: other NATO members, when you know, our public line from
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is that we're just supporting Ukraine. They're
Speaker 1: doing all the work. Now, we already knew that wasn't
Speaker 1: really true, because we also provide them with a lot
Speaker 1: of intelligence assessments to help them in terms of targeting
Speaker 1: their strikes and strikes on Russian military leaders, et cetera,
Speaker 1: something that we've covered here as well. But you know,
Speaker 1: suggesting that there's actually a number of boots on the
Speaker 1: ground NATO members from France, America, Britain and Latvia is
Speaker 1: also pretty extraordinary religiant profession here as well. So look,
Speaker 1: we're going to keep coming through. From what we could tell,
Speaker 1: these are the most significant stories that we thought were important,
Speaker 1: and we'll continue to track everything. If more of them
Speaker 1: are out. By the way, if you do have more
Speaker 1: leaked documents, please send them to me. We would love
Speaker 1: to see them, so we will protect you. We will
Speaker 1: do everything. As you can see here as well. Obviously
Speaker 1: we go to Lenggs to not only I know this
Speaker 1: was leaked anonymously on the internet as well, but you know,
Speaker 1: even being possession of some of the original versions is
Speaker 1: actually veried pretty wild hard right now. Just yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty wild when you look at them like they're
Speaker 1: the way they appear, it's like someone folded up the
Speaker 1: briefing and then brought it out of the room and
Speaker 1: then laid it down on like a pile of books,
Speaker 1: right and photographed them. It's it's pretty wild to look at. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you're the person who leaked,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give you any advice, but anyway,
Speaker 1: good luck, good luck. We'll get to that. Protect my
Speaker 1: own ass. Good luck. Part of the reason that we're
Speaker 1: being have to be so careful here, let's go to
Speaker 1: the next part. Here on the screen, the White House,
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice, and the Pentagon are losing it
Speaker 1: over these leaked documents. Go and put this up there
Speaker 1: on the screen. US is currently, as we alluded to
Speaker 1: in the statement that we were given by the Department
Speaker 1: of Defense, has already launched a full scale investstigation into
Speaker 1: the release of these documents that were posted on social
Speaker 1: media and on the internet. The documents and the basically
Speaker 1: they purport to show a US military briefing given to
Speaker 1: the Joint Staff. Now, the reason why they're zeroing in
Speaker 1: on that is that the Office of the Joint Cheese
Speaker 1: of Staff inside the Pentagon, it's not that big it's
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to say the exact amount
Speaker 1: of people from what I've heard, but it's small enough
Speaker 1: that the FBI can run a full investigation into these people,
Speaker 1: and whoever leaked these is going to have a very
Speaker 1: serious time being able to avoid capture because they're compartmentalized
Speaker 1: and designed, and many of the documents are stamped with
Speaker 1: the markings and others. And also we're taken in such
Speaker 1: a manner that the person who did it was not
Speaker 1: very careful about obscuring some of his outside areas like
Speaker 1: hunting magazine behind exactly he or she whoever did this
Speaker 1: or they whoever did this, clearly did not take the
Speaker 1: best precautions while doing so, and unfortunately it really could
Speaker 1: lead to their almost immediate capture and arrest. But they
Speaker 1: will throw the book at this person. Absolutely going to
Speaker 1: throw the book at this person. And I think what's
Speaker 1: more significant, because of course the government's always going to
Speaker 1: try and investigate and prosecute whoever leaks documents, is more so,
Speaker 1: why is it so hard to find them? Why did
Speaker 1: we have to go to extraordinary links to actually find
Speaker 1: the original copies not just photos of a few of
Speaker 1: the slides, but the actual original ones that were posted. Well,
Speaker 1: it's because let's go and put this up there on
Speaker 1: the screen. The Pentagon has been trying to get Twitter
Speaker 1: to actually remove posts that contain the classified documents about
Speaker 1: the war in Ukraine. I can speak specifically about one slide,
Speaker 1: which is assessing the Ukrainian air defense capabilities that was
Speaker 1: getting nuked on Twitter left and right. It was extremely
Speaker 1: difficult to find in some cases even on Telegram. They
Speaker 1: were being deleted. Why because the Russians don't want their
Speaker 1: ki assessments that are being released on there, and it
Speaker 1: left people basically crawling the dark web and other forubs
Speaker 1: trying to find the fulsome set of the docs. The
Speaker 1: reason why again gets to the fact that much of
Speaker 1: this is so highly classified that it's humiliating for the Russians,
Speaker 1: for the Ukrainians, for Americans, and for US allies who
Speaker 1: clearly we are tapping the phones of the South Koreans,
Speaker 1: that we have direct insight into what's happening in the
Speaker 1: Israeli cabinet, into what the Masade is doing spying on
Speaker 1: our closest friends and allies, apparently, and that we are
Speaker 1: able to distribute all of this into the joint staff
Speaker 1: and then have it all come out publicly. So I
Speaker 1: believe that this is probably the most significant piece of it,
Speaker 1: and it actually gets to part of the reason why
Speaker 1: we also have to be so sensitive. We want to
Speaker 1: report all of this information and we don't necessarily want
Speaker 1: to be We don't want to be censored for it either, right,
Speaker 1: And that's one of the ways where we have to
Speaker 1: work within this system as well, where you don't realize
Speaker 1: how unfree the internet really is until we're doing something
Speaker 1: like this and you're like, oh, they can nuke you,
Speaker 1: they can nuke your whole account, they can report you
Speaker 1: to the FBI and all they could ruin your life,
Speaker 1: admire you in legal fees for reporting the truth. That's
Speaker 1: all this person did. This person gave us the truth,
Speaker 1: and frankly, they did us a great service. One hundred
Speaker 1: percent agree. Yeah, they are going to It appears they're
Speaker 1: going in great lengths to get this taken down wherever
Speaker 1: they can on the Internet, and obviously criminal investigation already opened.
Speaker 1: I think you know, of everyone that this is embarrassing for,
Speaker 1: is definitely most embarrassing for the Pentagon because the fact
Speaker 1: that you have this amount I mean You're talking about
Speaker 1: like one hundred documents coming out here, this level of
Speaker 1: highly highly classified information which can only be accessed by
Speaker 1: a very select number of people, and this is being
Speaker 1: posted on a discord server, you know, months ago. By
Speaker 1: the way, Yeah, this is This is humiliating for them,
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. And the information that is contained
Speaker 1: paints a very different picture of where this war stands
Speaker 1: and where this war could be going, and our own
Speaker 1: efforts and engagement therein. It paints a very machiavellian picture
Speaker 1: of our relationship with our purported allies and our approach
Speaker 1: to them with regard to pressuring them over their participation
Speaker 1: in this war, effort not to mention the links we're
Speaker 1: going to to understand what's going on behind closed doors
Speaker 1: with those allies. So I don't think you can possibly
Speaker 1: overstate how embarrassing this is for our own government and
Speaker 1: for our own intelligence agency. It also bears some time
Speaker 1: spending it like where do these come from? Okay? So,
Speaker 1: from the best I can tell and from what I've
Speaker 1: looked at Bellingcat, which I know is an organization that
Speaker 1: has long been on the side of the State Department
Speaker 1: and all that, But they did an investigation, at least
Speaker 1: on this one that I've been able to see that
Speaker 1: others were able to verify about the original source of
Speaker 1: the docs. They came from Minecraft discord around a Filipino
Speaker 1: YouTube celebrity. They then went from there to four Chan
Speaker 1: before then appearing on Telegram and Twitter. So that's like
Speaker 1: the journey from Minecraft discord server, like my nine year
Speaker 1: old could have been looking at it. Here's another issue
Speaker 1: about why this person screwed up is they posted in
Speaker 1: a discord originally a place where there's not that many
Speaker 1: people inside of the discord, and so that discord has
Speaker 1: since been nerved and the docks were taken down. This
Speaker 1: part of the reason why it's so difficult to find
Speaker 1: the originals now. Then they were made over to four Chan.
Speaker 1: But even on four Chan they're working very hard others
Speaker 1: to delete them. It's been it's been difficult to find
Speaker 1: again the full set before then making their way to Telegram,
Speaker 1: Twitter and to other media organizations. So, yeah, whoever this is,
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting. Clearly they played Minecraft, maybe yeah, or
Speaker 1: maybe they do I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: one of those where the reason why don't you know? Initially,
Speaker 1: the response from the Pentagon and others, was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a Russian disinformation op. Is wouldn't they just
Speaker 1: released I mean the way that they did like Gusifer
Speaker 1: for example, with some of the Hillary docks or with
Speaker 1: through it Wiki leaks and others, is they just released
Speaker 1: it publicly through a much more well known organization where
Speaker 1: they directly contacted these kind of like surfaced and bubbled
Speaker 1: up their way through the Internet before they were then
Speaker 1: realized by people like US and others, you know, other
Speaker 1: people the mainstream media that was going through them, and
Speaker 1: so I just it just seems to be one of those,
Speaker 1: like an actual leaker did this. It wasn't some sort
Speaker 1: of op to try and do that. I mean, at
Speaker 1: the same time, who knows, you know, maybe it's possible.
Speaker 1: This is impossible deniability, They can use anonymity and launder
Speaker 1: it through several sources, so we can only speculate as
Speaker 1: see what happened. Yeah exactly. I mean, like I said before,
Speaker 1: I really try to ask myself, like, what's the potential
Speaker 1: we're getting played here by the Russians, by the US,
Speaker 1: by the Ukrainians, And the fact that there is information
Speaker 1: here that is embarrassing to everyone to me, is an
Speaker 1: indication that a lot of the information may be accurate,
Speaker 1: and that it is a genuine leak and not an
Speaker 1: intentional leak, which of course the US government does all
Speaker 1: the time, you know, provides information to their favorite sources
Speaker 1: over the New York Times, the Washington Posts or whatever
Speaker 1: to shape the story, and they the way they find
Speaker 1: to be most beneficial. I mean, that happens every day
Speaker 1: of the week here in Washington. So the fact that
Speaker 1: you had so much embarrassing content here for the US
Speaker 1: in particular, to me, was an indicator on the side
Speaker 1: that this is a genuine leak. But it's really important
Speaker 1: to say, like, we can't know for one hundred percent certain,
Speaker 1: which is why we're trying to give you every caveat
Speaker 1: and the best understanding we possibly can have of these documents.
Speaker 1: The Ukrainian is interesting because the Pentagon is basically not
Speaker 1: really denying that this accurate, that this appears to contain
Speaker 1: highly classified info. Their whole approach is more like, we're
Speaker 1: going to find whoever the hell did this, and we're
Speaker 1: going to bring him to justice. We're going to take
Speaker 1: this down off the Internet because this is damaging information
Speaker 1: that's now They haven't like actually confirmed it. They're saying
Speaker 1: they're going through the information to see what might be accurate,
Speaker 1: what might be false, and what the impact is going
Speaker 1: to be. But you know, they have ways of waiving
Speaker 1: reporters off of information that they truly think is bullshit.
Speaker 1: So far, the only piece that has been flagged is
Speaker 1: that casualty number on the Russian side, which was altered
Speaker 1: after the fact, after I think these moved from the
Speaker 1: original Minecraft discord and from four Chan when it was
Speaker 1: on the telegram channels is when that was ultimately altered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again, we sent all of this to the Pentagon
Speaker 1: and we're like, look, here's what we're planning on reporting,
Speaker 1: like and here's the way it works. Sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: somebody will leave them into you and you'll send it
Speaker 1: to them and they'll call you and they're like, look,
Speaker 1: we're not officially going to deny this, like but this
Speaker 1: is bullshit, and yeah, you shouldn't report this, and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But by the way, sometimes they are lying
Speaker 1: about the fact that it is bullshit. Yeah, this one
Speaker 1: they didn't even try. They just waited yea, and then
Speaker 1: they were like, hey, here's a statement that we're giving
Speaker 1: to everybody. Yeah, the Ukrainians. So the US is basically like, listen,
Speaker 1: they're not denying it, right, which you can take that
Speaker 1: for what you will. The Ukrainians have taken more of
Speaker 1: like all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation route here, the
Speaker 1: the spokesman for Ukraine's Military Intelligence Directorate said on Ukrainian
Speaker 1: TV it is very important to remember that in recent decades,
Speaker 1: the Russian Special Service's most successful operations have been taking
Speaker 1: place in photoshop. From a preliminary analysis of these materials,
Speaker 1: we see false, distortive figures on losses on both sides,
Speaker 1: with part of the information collected from open sources. So
Speaker 1: they're using that one alteration which has been flagged by
Speaker 1: the mainstream press, which we talked about here multiple times,
Speaker 1: to basically cast out on the entirety of the documents
Speaker 1: in a way that again, look, it reminds me of
Speaker 1: when you had the letter come out about the hunter
Speaker 1: Biden laptop, and they're like all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation,
Speaker 1: but without actually pointing out any emails that were inaccurate. Now, personally,
Speaker 1: I think if there was other information that was clearly
Speaker 1: inaccurate here, they would be not just telling us on
Speaker 1: background or telling the New York Times on background and
Speaker 1: waving them off. It would be out with a full
Speaker 1: statement saying this is bullshit. We found these errors. Here's
Speaker 1: the truth, and that cast out on the entirety of
Speaker 1: everything that's in these documents. You shouldn't report them whatsoever
Speaker 1: that hasn't happened, So make up that which It's kind
Speaker 1: of like the Hunter Biden laptop thing. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: it has the hallmark sedition information. You're like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: is it fake or not. They're like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it has all the hallmarks, so it's real. Like tell
Speaker 1: me one email that was not true, like one photo too.
Speaker 1: They're like, well, parts of it could be wrong, Like, well,
Speaker 1: which one? Which one is wrong? You have the original?
Speaker 1: Tell us which one? And then they're like, well, we're
Speaker 1: still assessing. We're still assessed. Yeah, so every single one
Speaker 1: is real, got it? Okay? Yeah, so you know that's
Speaker 1: another one. Clearly the media is handwringing over this, like, well,
Speaker 1: you got to report it in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: hurt Ukraine and all this. Listen, we have a responsibility
Speaker 1: any piece of info that is newsworthy or interesting in
Speaker 1: any way that needs to come out and whether it's
Speaker 1: good for the US, bad, good for Ukraine, bad for Ukraine,
Speaker 1: et cetera. They're also this was I mean, listen, it's
Speaker 1: a comment section, so I don't read into it too much,
Speaker 1: but Michael Tracy was flagging. There was a real backlash
Speaker 1: in the New York Times comment session. They're reporting on
Speaker 1: this because they're basically their readers have been primed to say,
Speaker 1: effectively like, how could you help the Russians and you know,
Speaker 1: engage in this like disinformation campaign, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: which is a sad commentary on the way that the
Speaker 1: American people have been trained to think about journalism and
Speaker 1: the purpose that journalism is supposed to serve, which is
Speaker 1: to inform the public of, you know, the truth and
Speaker 1: reality of what is actually happening. But you have some
Speaker 1: segment of the public, and frankly, I think it's a
Speaker 1: large segment of the public that they're like, no, we
Speaker 1: want to be lied to. We don't want to know
Speaker 1: the truth, we want to be lied to. It's it's
Speaker 1: very very unfortunate. So, yep, the witch hunt continues, and
Speaker 1: I can guarantee you whoever this is, they're going after them.
Speaker 1: They're going to throw the book at them. And in
Speaker 1: terms of social media censorship, we'll see how this video
Speaker 1: on videos that we posted did this morning, and we'll
Speaker 1: see how Twitter and all these other companies continue to
Speaker 1: handle it, because they are extraordinary amounts of pressure right
Speaker 1: now on all social media companies to ban all of
Speaker 1: these documents to prevent people like us and really like
Speaker 1: you from looking at it, which is, you know, it's disgusting.
Speaker 1: It really should be. It shouldn't even be a question.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't be a question in any of our minds
Speaker 1: that were able to publish this. And yet, you know,
Speaker 1: that's the culture of fear that these big sensors have
Speaker 1: instilled in people who are just trying to bring people
Speaker 1: the truth. Yeah, it is what it is. And the
Speaker 1: next phase to look for is the way that they
Speaker 1: spin this to justify hawkish war aims, which is what
Speaker 1: they you know, typically do, So we'll be watching closely
Speaker 1: for that. That's right, all right? So big in berglio,
Speaker 1: is that how you say that? Between thumb stack and Twitter,
Speaker 1: a lot going on here. So users on Twitter started
Speaker 1: noticing that you could no longer share substack links. It
Speaker 1: was treating everything with regard to substack very strangely in
Speaker 1: a way, hearkening back to the early elon Twitter days
Speaker 1: when they wouldn't let you share any like mast it
Speaker 1: on links and other links out of the platform, which
Speaker 1: results in a huge backlash and they ended up reversing
Speaker 1: the policy. Okay, so substack getting similar treatment here, and
Speaker 1: not incidentally, right after they launched a sort of Twitter
Speaker 1: competitor of their own within the substack platform, which is
Speaker 1: called Notes. So let me go and put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. This is some of what users were noticing.
Speaker 1: So first of all, if you would search for the
Speaker 1: word substack, Twitter would return things for the search newsletter.
Speaker 1: So there's like a hard coded search manipulation that was
Speaker 1: going on here to try to disappear any actual substack
Speaker 1: results that people might be searching for. You also have
Speaker 1: unsafe link warnings for any substack links. A newsletter is
Speaker 1: what Zane Tefeki says here is drowning and free speech
Speaker 1: is her characterization. And then you also had search results
Speaker 1: for Matt Tayebe. Twitter files also not return arning any
Speaker 1: results whatsoever. And I'll show you that more of that
Speaker 1: in a moment. So clearly Twitter deciding they were going
Speaker 1: to try to nuke this new nascent competitor to them
Speaker 1: being crafted over at substack called Notes. So this has
Speaker 1: huge implications for everybody who is a writer over at substack.
Speaker 1: I mean, Twitter is one of the primary ways that
Speaker 1: substack authors promote their work and grow their following so
Speaker 1: that they can do the independent journalism that they're doing
Speaker 1: over on substack. And there's also a great irony here
Speaker 1: because while when Elon purchased Twitter, he claimed that this
Speaker 1: was all about, you know, his commitment to free speech.
Speaker 1: Substack has really walked the walk in that regard and
Speaker 1: full you know, full disclosure. I have a substack over
Speaker 1: there with Kyle for Crystal, Kyle and friends, so I
Speaker 1: am a user of the platfor. I also tested out
Speaker 1: Notes this week and it seems like it's a sort
Speaker 1: of like well crafted service there. But substack has really
Speaker 1: lived up to the supposed values of free speech. They
Speaker 1: have not engaged in censorship. There's a wide range of
Speaker 1: ideological views, everything from you know, some of the top
Speaker 1: creators over there are resistance liberals. You've got never trumpers,
Speaker 1: You've got hard right folks, you've got far left folks,
Speaker 1: and everything in between hosted on substack censorship free. So
Speaker 1: there is a great irony to the supposed free speech
Speaker 1: worder Elon Musk censoring any ability for these substack writers
Speaker 1: to be able to promote their work over on Twitter.
Speaker 1: So one of the people who obviously's impacted by this
Speaker 1: is journalists. Matt Taimi, fresh off his showdown with medi
Speaker 1: Hassan over on MSNBC, he posted this on Twitter, quote
Speaker 1: of all things, I learned earlier today that substack links
Speaker 1: were being blocked on this platform. When I asked why,
Speaker 1: I was told it's a dispute over the new substack
Speaker 1: notes platform. Since sharing links to my articles is a
Speaker 1: primary reason I come to this platform, I was alarmed
Speaker 1: and asked what was going on. I was given the
Speaker 1: option of posting articles on Twitter instead. I'm obviously staying
Speaker 1: at substack and we'll be moving to substack notes next week. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Tybee says, I found out I can't share substack
Speaker 1: links on Twitter. I'm going to transition over to using
Speaker 1: substack and notes more and Twitter less as a result
Speaker 1: of this. Next piece, Elon unfollows what media characterizes here
Speaker 1: as Twitter files hero Matt Tyee after reporter ditches the platform,
Speaker 1: which is pretty extraordinary Soger, because you know, Tybee is
Speaker 1: the most prominent journalist who was involved in Twitter files.
Speaker 1: He really was defending Elon quite you know, or at
Speaker 1: least refusing to criticize him in his interactions with Mehdi
Speaker 1: Hassan on MSNBC, and then hours later is being snubbed
Speaker 1: by Elon and effectively like forced off the platform because
Speaker 1: they're blocking any sharing of substack links. Ye, pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: What is it vindig? I mean, name vindicates, you know what,
Speaker 1: Tayebe and Barry Wise and all of them. It said.
Speaker 1: It's like there's like, look, we're not doing press for
Speaker 1: the guy. They're like we're not. They're like, we did
Speaker 1: the reporting. You know. Tyv was like he didn't want
Speaker 1: to criticize him in that Mehdi Hassen interview, but he
Speaker 1: also was willing to say like screw you. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to stay here if you're going to go after
Speaker 1: the company that's backed me from the very beginning. So
Speaker 1: I think he showed his independence, you know, at the
Speaker 1: very least. I do think it's totally crazy that the
Speaker 1: substack was and I tried it myself in terms of
Speaker 1: hard coded where you're unable to look for it all
Speaker 1: over the Nascent notes notification. You know, confident companies don't
Speaker 1: ban their competitors, like, yes, Like a company that's confident
Speaker 1: in its product is not going to ban a Nascent
Speaker 1: user base, which is the notes feature. Okay, as I
Speaker 1: understand it was more used was trying to be used
Speaker 1: for internal subject like to promote other substacks for people
Speaker 1: who are already inside the community. I didn't and does
Speaker 1: not look like it's marketed as a like actual competitor Twitter.
Speaker 1: What do you think I mean, listen, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be real. I okay, I think I got I got
Speaker 1: an email as a substack creator about notes. Did I
Speaker 1: read that email? Note? I would not have known notes
Speaker 1: existed same were it not for Elon making it very
Speaker 1: clear that notes exists. I mean, it's an ultimate streisand effect.
Speaker 1: So that's number one, number two right now? Notes exist
Speaker 1: in like a beta format where substack writers only basically
Speaker 1: can use it, you know, for the sort of like
Speaker 1: trial opening testing period. And so I jumped on there
Speaker 1: to see what it looks like in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: my own like personal is this going to be something
Speaker 1: that's useful in my life and also in order to
Speaker 1: further understand the story. The functionality is very much like Twitter.
Speaker 1: You know, it looks very much like Okay, you can
Speaker 1: you can like it, you can reply to it, you
Speaker 1: can retweet it or renoed or whatever they're calling it
Speaker 1: over there. So it looks very much like Twitter. But
Speaker 1: given the fact that it is hosted on it's on
Speaker 1: the substack platform, you know, it is naturally going to
Speaker 1: be a place where substack authors and a journalist and
Speaker 1: substack readers predominantly congregate in order to share, like a
Speaker 1: lot of independent journalism that's going on on substack. Now,
Speaker 1: they're not banning links from Twitter or links from any
Speaker 1: other platform or any other journalistic out but that seems
Speaker 1: like the natural niche and ecosystem, and the thing that
Speaker 1: it has that's kind of its value add in terms
Speaker 1: of substack journalists is they have some neat tools for
Speaker 1: making it very easy to share. You know, if you
Speaker 1: have a quote from your newsletter that you send out,
Speaker 1: you can very easily post that in the notes platform
Speaker 1: in a way that looks really beautiful and hope hopefully
Speaker 1: for you know, independent journalists there sort of like draws
Speaker 1: people over, Is this like a major genuine threat to Twitter.
Speaker 1: I really wouldn't be skeptical of that, because Twitter at
Speaker 1: its best, I mean, we live in political Twitter is
Speaker 1: a very you know, particular niche world on Twitter. But
Speaker 1: Twitter is also like sports and fandom and all sorts
Speaker 1: of other things. It seems unlikely that in fact, you know,
Speaker 1: crypto is also was growing on Twitter, porn was growing
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Like, there's a whole other, like range of
Speaker 1: ecosystems that are out there that it seems unlikely to
Speaker 1: me that substack would be able to supplant. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, he really shot himself in the foot here though,
Speaker 1: by drawing massively more attention and losing someone who has
Speaker 1: been you know, sort of a key ally for him
Speaker 1: in terms of Matt Taibi, who has his own very
Speaker 1: large and significant following and fan base, who is now like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm basically done with this platform. I'm committed
Speaker 1: to Substack. Another example of someone who has been very
Speaker 1: open to the Elon musk Twitter takeover, very receptive to
Speaker 1: the idea that Elon might actually be committed to genuine
Speaker 1: free speech values, which personally, I think that ship sailed
Speaker 1: long ago. Brett Weinstein actually posted this. Let's go ahad
Speaker 1: and put this next piece up on the screen. He said, Elon,
Speaker 1: you know the thing where the left eats its own
Speaker 1: And this is Elon's reply, which I'll get to in
Speaker 1: a moment. We mustn't let that happen to the merging
Speaker 1: Western Values Free speech coalition, many of us have backed
Speaker 1: your Twitter play and taken substantial heat for it, are
Speaker 1: thrown by this move. With regards to Substack, the public
Speaker 1: Square is not a monopoly. So here is Elon's response
Speaker 1: to Brett. He says, number one, substinct substack links were
Speaker 1: never blocked. That's just not true. Matt's statement is false too.
Speaker 1: Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the
Speaker 1: Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP
Speaker 1: address is obviously untrusted. And number three turns out Matt
Speaker 1: is Slash was an employee of substack, also not true,
Speaker 1: not true. The last piece here just to show you
Speaker 1: again some of the hard coding that was going on
Speaker 1: at Twitter. An attempt to like crush substack notes but
Speaker 1: probably actually incidentally help them ends for some direct retaliation
Speaker 1: at Matt. Tayebe put this up on the screen. So
Speaker 1: initially Matt had indicated he thought his Twitter files tweets
Speaker 1: had just been deleted from the platform. It doesn't look
Speaker 1: like they were, but it does look like Twitter is
Speaker 1: blocking users for searching for any and all of his posts,
Speaker 1: including his Twitter files tweets. So if you search for
Speaker 1: m Tayib, which is his username on Twitter, you get
Speaker 1: this like chicken no results for Matt taiebe screen. If
Speaker 1: you search for Matt Tayib Twitter files you get the
Speaker 1: same thing. So basically they have decided to hardcode in
Speaker 1: a disappearance of natt Tybee on the platform. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: totally nuts. I mean, I just Patty. It's just all capricious.
Speaker 1: I don't know another way to describe it. I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody comes out of this looking good. And I
Speaker 1: don't know really know why Elon on a personal level
Speaker 1: would burn like many of his people who were not
Speaker 1: only not necessarily willing to speak out on behalf of
Speaker 1: his purchase. But we're like, hey, listen, this is important,
Speaker 1: it's important to get this information out there. It's like
Speaker 1: you're basically shooting your friends. Substack ideologically was already kind
Speaker 1: of aligned with Elon, and I just think this comes
Speaker 1: from a real position of weakness. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, he has already admitted that the company is
Speaker 1: worth half of what he bought it for, actually less
Speaker 1: than half of what he bought it for, valued it
Speaker 1: only at twenty billion. He's hurting in terms of his
Speaker 1: advertising dollars. And what weak companies do is they ban
Speaker 1: you know, Nascent, you know, possible competitors. Yeah like this,
Speaker 1: rather than being like, welcome, you know where we're looking
Speaker 1: forward to seeing how this all goes out. Listen, you know,
Speaker 1: I try to evaluate all the Elon decisions on their faces,
Speaker 1: whether they're good or bad, And I just say this
Speaker 1: one is really it's just stupid. It is stupid. It
Speaker 1: is stupid. It's obviously counter to the supposed free speech
Speaker 1: principles that he claimed to purchase the company for. I
Speaker 1: mean again, Substack has truly walked the walk where with
Speaker 1: regard to no censorship and freedom of speech and for that,
Speaker 1: and they've taken a lot of heat for it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember this like news media
Speaker 1: moment where suddenly Substack came under attack and they were
Speaker 1: trying to frame it as like just like a bunch
Speaker 1: of fringe conspiracy theorist, which couldn't be further from the truth. Again,
Speaker 1: I think one of the or maybe the top creator
Speaker 1: on all of substack is like a resistance liberal. I mean,
Speaker 1: it really is genuinely ideologically diverse, which is part of
Speaker 1: what has made the substack ecosystem really thrive in ways
Speaker 1: that some of the other free speech platforms have ended
Speaker 1: up being just like ideologically niche. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think there's a benefit to having a wide range of
Speaker 1: views all hosted on this platform in a way that
Speaker 1: you can like them and find this different work. So
Speaker 1: there's there's that piece. But then to your point, Sager,
Speaker 1: I'm just like the business decision of this. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: your platform. You can do whatever you bought it, you
Speaker 1: can do whatever you want with it. But there's a
Speaker 1: reason why other social media platforms have not gone in
Speaker 1: this direction because they actually benefit from having, you know,
Speaker 1: their platform be a nexus for journalism and sharing from
Speaker 1: all over the Internet. That makes the experience on that
Speaker 1: platform Twitter or Facebook or whatever it is much more
Speaker 1: rich and much more valuable and keeps users there. You know,
Speaker 1: elon decision by decision is making Twitter more and more
Speaker 1: useful and more and more Yeah, it's making it more
Speaker 1: and more useless. Exactly. That's what I've meant to say,
Speaker 1: because it's you know, I just find myself, not because
Speaker 1: I have any like ideological vendetta. I just don't find
Speaker 1: it as useful as I used to, so I use
Speaker 1: it less, I post less. It feels sort of like
Speaker 1: moribund and dying because because of each of these incremental steps.
Speaker 1: So I think this is like a case in point
Speaker 1: of capriciousness, pettiness, burning bridges of people who you know,
Speaker 1: were really open to the project that you were engaged in,
Speaker 1: and just really bad business decisions. Ultimately, I think it's
Speaker 1: absolutely crazy, you know, just looking at all this, I
Speaker 1: think is a very dumb business decision, and I think
Speaker 1: Twitter is much worse off for losing Matt Tayibe, especially
Speaker 1: after Tayib did such a good job reporting the Twitter files.
Speaker 1: That's another really stupid thing. If you think about the
Speaker 1: Twitter files were great for Twitter, and they were great
Speaker 1: for substack because what happened He published them on Twitter
Speaker 1: and had links to a substack. Yeah, people could go
Speaker 1: read more if they want to, if they like his work,
Speaker 1: and they produced a ton of engagement and game for Twitter.
Speaker 1: The Internet does not have to be zero sum. This
Speaker 1: is like stupid cable news thinking and something that we
Speaker 1: have rejected from day one of First On Rising and
Speaker 1: here at breaking points. Notice, you know we have partners
Speaker 1: for our show. We actively encourage people, our own customers
Speaker 1: technically to go subscribe to their stuff. Yes, like please
Speaker 1: go go to this other platform, to another subscription product,
Speaker 1: go and give money to them, because we know it's
Speaker 1: not zero sign. You know that if we do something good,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll have our backs at that time. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: number one, we believe in that as of value decision, right,
Speaker 1: and number two it's a good business decision too. So yes,
Speaker 1: it's not as there is sum game. This is stupid
Speaker 1: and it's making Twitter worse And the words of Michael
Speaker 1: Scott Win Win Win, there you go, all right. There
Speaker 1: is quite a situation unfolding in Texas. So a man
Speaker 1: named Daniel Perry, who's an Army sergeant and part time
Speaker 1: Uber driver, shot and killed a Black Lives Matter protester
Speaker 1: named Garrett Foster, who at the time was legally open
Speaker 1: carrying an AK forty seven. So jury finds Daniel Perry
Speaker 1: guilty of murder in this incident. Sparked a huge backlash,
Speaker 1: and very quickly Governor Greg Abbott and let's put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen, says he is working as swiftly
Speaker 1: as Texas law allows regarding the pardon of Sergeant Perry.
Speaker 1: So there's a process that has to unfold here. It
Speaker 1: has to be go through the Board of Pardons, who
Speaker 1: are all appointees of Greg Abbott. So it's not like
Speaker 1: the outcome here is in doubt and then Abbott signs
Speaker 1: off on a party a pardon here ultimately, So that's
Speaker 1: sort of the top line of this story. I want
Speaker 1: to take you through all the details as best we
Speaker 1: know them because it is like a very fraught situation.
Speaker 1: And to give you the TLDR, it's sort of like
Speaker 1: when Texas stand your ground laws intersect with Texas open
Speaker 1: carry laws, and you know, the situation was a human catastrophe,
Speaker 1: and you know, ultimately a protester being shot and killed. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's put this up on the screen. This is
Speaker 1: from ABC News. The headline here is Army sergeant guilty
Speaker 1: in fatal Texas shooting of protester. Let me read you
Speaker 1: a little bit of this. A Texas jury has convicted
Speaker 1: a US Army sergeant of murder for fatally shooting an
Speaker 1: armed protester in twenty twenty during nationwide protest against least
Speaker 1: violence and racial injustice. Sergeant Daniel Perry was working for
Speaker 1: UBER in July twenty twenty when he turned onto a
Speaker 1: street and into a large crowd of demonstrators in downtown Austin.
Speaker 1: In video that was stream live on Facebook, a car
Speaker 1: can be heard honking before several shots ring out and
Speaker 1: protesters began screaming and scattering. The twenty eight year old protester,
Speaker 1: Garrett Foster, was taken to the hospital, where he was
Speaker 1: later pronounced dead. Perry, who faces life in prison, now
Speaker 1: awaits sentencing. The jury in order to come to this conclusion,
Speaker 1: they deliberated for two days. During closing arguments, Perry's attorney
Speaker 1: said he had no choice but to shoot Foster as
Speaker 1: he approached Perry's car with an AK forty seven rifle.
Speaker 1: That's according to the Austin American Statesman. Prosecutor said Perry
Speaker 1: could have driven away before firing his revolver. Witnessed is
Speaker 1: testified that Foster, that's the protester who was killed, who
Speaker 1: was open carrying in AK forty seven never raised his
Speaker 1: rifle at Perry. Perry, who did not testify, told police
Speaker 1: that Foster did. Let me give you a little bit
Speaker 1: more detail from what we know here, so to sketch
Speaker 1: the scene for you. This is back during the Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter protests. Austin, like many cities across the country,
Speaker 1: was a site of some you know, major and significant
Speaker 1: protest disrupting and closing down streets and all of those
Speaker 1: sorts of things. So Sergeant Daniel Perry is driving for
Speaker 1: Uber and he runs actually a red light in order
Speaker 1: to drive into this crowd of protesters. Now he faced
Speaker 1: two charges here. One was for shooting and killing the
Speaker 1: protester Foster, and the other was actually for hitting a
Speaker 1: protester with his card. I think the charge there was
Speaker 1: like aggravated assault. He was actually let off of that
Speaker 1: charge because the protesters had say had said he'd like
Speaker 1: accelerated into the crowd. The evidenced support that, so they
Speaker 1: let him off of that charge. Now, Perry claimed that
Speaker 1: this was self defense, that he saw this man, which
Speaker 1: you know, like I can understand feeling under threat from
Speaker 1: someone who's approaching you, who has an AK forty seven. However,
Speaker 1: part of what complicated, his defense is that if you
Speaker 1: are seen as the person who is inciting the conflict,
Speaker 1: you don't get to claim self defense. Then, even in Texas,
Speaker 1: you don't understand your ground laws. Let me go ahead
Speaker 1: and put some of the other details up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Here from local news reporting by the Austin American Statesman.
Speaker 1: So again he They indicate he ran a red light
Speaker 1: at an intersection, drove into a Black Lives Matter march
Speaker 1: before stopping. Perry's defense team argued he acted in self defense,
Speaker 1: but prosecutors contended Perry instigated what happened. In addition, and
Speaker 1: this has got a lot of attention online, prosecutors highlighted
Speaker 1: a series of social media posts and Facebook messages in
Speaker 1: which Perry made statements that they said indicated his state
Speaker 1: of mind, such as he might kill a few people
Speaker 1: on my way to work. They are rioting outside my
Speaker 1: apartment complex. A friend then responded, can you legally do so?
Speaker 1: Perry replied, if they attack me or try to pull
Speaker 1: me out of my car, then yes. So what prosecutors
Speaker 1: asserted here is that you know these messages showed his
Speaker 1: state of mind that he basically wanted to kill protesters
Speaker 1: and find a reason or justification for him to be
Speaker 1: able to do so. They quoted a law professor in
Speaker 1: the same article, Jennifer Lauren, who indicated, you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of Abbot statement on Texas self defense law, she
Speaker 1: set a jury is instructed to reject the defense when
Speaker 1: the person asserting it provoked the response, as prosecutors say
Speaker 1: Perry did when he drove his car into a crowd
Speaker 1: of protesters. So that could be why they found his
Speaker 1: claims of self defense unconvincing, because he ran the thread
Speaker 1: light to intentionally drive into the crowd of protesters, thus
Speaker 1: inciting the whole incident that ends with the protester being killed. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's the background drop of what the prosecution is saying,
Speaker 1: what the defense is saying. This became a real cause
Speaker 1: celeb on the right. There was a big Tucker Carlson monologue,
Speaker 1: but there was also a whole discussion Kyle Rittenhouse was
Speaker 1: involved in sort of like you know, going to bat
Speaker 1: for Daniel Perry here. And part of what caused the
Speaker 1: right wing reaction was this picture that let me put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. It shows it's kind of grainy,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit hard to see, but you can
Speaker 1: see on the left hand in the circle this is Foster,
Speaker 1: who again was legally open carrying, exercising as they might say,
Speaker 1: his Second Amendment rights in Texas open carrying in AK
Speaker 1: forty seven. And from the picture, there's a woman's head
Speaker 1: that's in front of the actual gun, which makes it
Speaker 1: a little bit hard to see where it's pointing. So
Speaker 1: you could look at this and without looking really closely,
Speaker 1: it kind of looks like he's aiming the gun at Perry,
Speaker 1: which is what Perry's defense claimed in the trial. But
Speaker 1: if you actually look closely at the positioning here and
Speaker 1: where the gun is facing, it's actually facing not at Perry,
Speaker 1: but down towards the ground and towards sort of like
Speaker 1: the wheels of the car. So in a sense, this
Speaker 1: pic sure, even though on first glance could look like
Speaker 1: it's damning for the prosecution, on closer examination it in
Speaker 1: a sense bolsters the case of the prosecution kind of
Speaker 1: undermines the defense. Here, there's another piece. Let me put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. Can we do this as
Speaker 1: a vo, guys, or do we have it as a
Speaker 1: thought control room? Yeah, So go ahead and put this
Speaker 1: vo up on the screen. This is the initial interview
Speaker 1: that the police conducted with Perry, they had Perry demonstrate
Speaker 1: how Foster was carrying his rifle. And the reason that
Speaker 1: this was significant is they asked him at one time
Speaker 1: if his rifle was pointed at if Foster was pointing
Speaker 1: his rifle at Perry, and he said explicitly that he
Speaker 1: didn't want to let him aim at him, so not
Speaker 1: saying that it was pointed at him, explicitly saying that
Speaker 1: he wanted to avoid having the rifle pointed at him.
Speaker 1: So that's effectively what we know here. We can take
Speaker 1: this down. Now, let me go ahead and put this
Speaker 1: last piece up on the screen, which again has a
Speaker 1: little bit of the arguments from both the defense and
Speaker 1: the prosecution, because we want to just really give both
Speaker 1: sides of this. Opening statements from the state revealed that
Speaker 1: Foster was a frequent Black Lives Matter protester. Prosecutor said
Speaker 1: he was protesting nearly every day that summer. The state
Speaker 1: argued Perry incited the crowd, causing protesters to respond by
Speaker 1: hitting and kicking his car and also screaming at him.
Speaker 1: Defense argued Perry had to defend himself after he was
Speaker 1: swarmed by protesters Perry and army sergeant came in contact
Speaker 1: with the protesters after traveling to Austin from Killeen. Is
Speaker 1: that how you say that? To drive for uber for
Speaker 1: supplemental income. So now we have, after a backlash, Governor
Speaker 1: Greg Abbott basically deciding to pardon this guy who was
Speaker 1: just found guilty by a jury of killing the protester.
Speaker 1: And that's what we know. It's a complicated one. You know,
Speaker 1: we were talking a lot about it before because, like
Speaker 1: you said, on the one hand, look, we have open
Speaker 1: carry law in Texas where I'm from, Like, he's completely
Speaker 1: within his rights to be on the street with an
Speaker 1: AK forty seven. Yeah. Also, you have a right to
Speaker 1: stand your ground in Texas and you have a right
Speaker 1: to self defense and policing the line between the two
Speaker 1: is very important. Ultimately, what I think damned him before
Speaker 1: the jury is the initial conversation that he has with
Speaker 1: the police where he says, I didn't want to give
Speaker 1: him a chance to aim at me, you know, whenever
Speaker 1: he said that. In addition to the social media, the
Speaker 1: social media comps he said about going there. Here's the
Speaker 1: other problem though, and I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: are looking at that as the evidence itself. What do
Speaker 1: we learn from Brittenhouse. You can go to somewhere even
Speaker 1: looking for something, but still if somebody points a gun
Speaker 1: at you, and you know, in the eyes of the
Speaker 1: jury instigates it, you can kill them in self defense.
Speaker 1: That is where the actual line of self defense itself.
Speaker 1: Here's another thing that people need to remember and consider.
Speaker 1: Everything is different. Self defense low in particular, is different
Speaker 1: state by state. Texas does have one of the strongest
Speaker 1: standard ground laws. That is the basis through which Governor
Speaker 1: Abbot is saying this. Where I have a little bit
Speaker 1: of an issue is that Abbot first of all came
Speaker 1: out and said, I'm going to pardon this guy. But
Speaker 1: for what he forgot is we have one of the
Speaker 1: least powerful governors in the entire country in Texas. He
Speaker 1: has to wait for the Board of Parole to say
Speaker 1: that they want to pardon him. He says, when they
Speaker 1: do as you said, and there because he appointed all
Speaker 1: them that they will to do it and they'll sign it.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you're looking at this, the assessment
Speaker 1: through the pardon is not actually coming from the facts
Speaker 1: of the case. It's coming from an assessment of how
Speaker 1: the governor itself wants to uphold stand your ground law
Speaker 1: for Texas. So I'm very torn on this, and by
Speaker 1: the way, on open carry, I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people are against it, but you know, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why people want it to be legal is you
Speaker 1: don't want to give anybody a pretext to arrest somebody
Speaker 1: just for having a gun that is on them, even
Speaker 1: though bad situations like this can occur. So I will
Speaker 1: speak out for my two A bros. Well, you should
Speaker 1: back up Foster's look right, the exercises. I mean, all
Speaker 1: these people have guns. They're doing legal or at least
Speaker 1: legally up until the point of the interaction that it
Speaker 1: happen with the murder itself. You know, it's one of
Speaker 1: those where I genuinely don't know. I looking at the jury,
Speaker 1: clearly they were within mind enough to not convict him
Speaker 1: of one charge and to convict him of the other
Speaker 1: charge on the facts itself. I was not in the
Speaker 1: jury and I did not see the forensic evidence. Where
Speaker 1: I think the most complicating factor for Perry comes down
Speaker 1: to the video. Again, I was not there. I genuinely
Speaker 1: have no idea how it would have voted on. It's
Speaker 1: the video and it's also the fact you ran a
Speaker 1: red light to intentionally drive into this crowd of protesters,
Speaker 1: and that's where the defense is able to argue you
Speaker 1: don't get to claim self defense, however you felt about
Speaker 1: whatever you know Foster was doing in this situation. Your
Speaker 1: right to claim self defense is really negated by the
Speaker 1: fact that you incited this conflict yourself, and by the
Speaker 1: way you're in a car. You could have driven away
Speaker 1: if you felt threatened. The piece of this that you know,
Speaker 1: I think exposes the problems with stanyel ground laws is
Speaker 1: it's completely subjective. You can feel threatened enough to shoot
Speaker 1: and kill someone by someone doing something that is totally legal,
Speaker 1: which is in the state of tax is open carrying
Speaker 1: AK forty seven. I also would say that it shows
Speaker 1: some of the problems with allowing people to open carry
Speaker 1: weapons like AK forty Seven's where it's going to be
Speaker 1: natural that people perceive that as like a very threatening situation,
Speaker 1: very threatening altercation. The part of this that I find
Speaker 1: the most troubling is listen, it's clearly on the part
Speaker 1: of Abbot, it's very ideological. You know, if the shoe
Speaker 1: was on the other foot and this was like an
Speaker 1: anti COVID lockdown protest, and you had, you know, a
Speaker 1: lefty who'd posted, I'm going to go out and kill
Speaker 1: some right wingers, drive into a crowd of them and
Speaker 1: shoot and kill one of them. Does anyone in their
Speaker 1: right mind think that Tucker Carlson be doing a monologue
Speaker 1: outraged about it, or that Greg Abbot would decide like, oh,
Speaker 1: we got to go in and we got to pardon
Speaker 1: this guy. Even though listen, whatever you think of the
Speaker 1: prosecut and that's part of what they're saying, Oh this
Speaker 1: is a George Soros back progressive da whatever. This They
Speaker 1: had to present this to a jury. A jury evaluated
Speaker 1: the evidence. They said no on one charge, and they
Speaker 1: said yes on killing this protester. So you know, to me, yes,
Speaker 1: I do think the way that these laws interact is
Speaker 1: complicated and troubling in a way that to my mind
Speaker 1: sort of undermines the The undermines the notion that you
Speaker 1: should have either the standard ground or open carry AK
Speaker 1: forty seven on the books. But this is Texas and
Speaker 1: that's what they've decided to do. But given that, you have,
Speaker 1: you know, a complicating set of facts, and you have
Speaker 1: a jury that carefully evaluated this evidence and unanimously decided
Speaker 1: to move forward. I think it's outrageous to overturn it
Speaker 1: based on sort of like social media outrage from a
Speaker 1: group that you considered to be your core base. I
Speaker 1: would say, at least let the appeals process play out,
Speaker 1: because that's another one is you're actually preempting appeals to
Speaker 1: four part Yeah, which is that is extraordinary. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: the history of the state of Texas, whenever pardon has
Speaker 1: been offer from what I've been able to gather, there's
Speaker 1: never been a pardon on a murder conviction that was
Speaker 1: did not at least very very much go through. Allow
Speaker 1: the appeals process to play out, because we should, you know,
Speaker 1: don't forget you know. Sure, you could say all you want,
Speaker 1: like a progressive prosecutor and progressive jury in Austin, which
Speaker 1: is again I don't know any of these people, not
Speaker 1: the prosecutor obviously, but in terms of the jury, I
Speaker 1: have no idea who these people are, you know, seeming
Speaker 1: hopefully they acted in good faith. But it's not like
Speaker 1: the appeals courts in Texas are liberal by any means.
Speaker 1: So now, if he's got a good chance, look on
Speaker 1: the facts, if he has a good chance at overturn.
Speaker 1: There is no state that you'd be better positioned in
Speaker 1: than the State of Texas or the Supreme Court of
Speaker 1: the State of Texas before that process were to play out,
Speaker 1: where he again can continue to argue the facts that
Speaker 1: he did before that. I actually would support that playing
Speaker 1: out more so because Crystal, what Texas Governor Abbott is
Speaker 1: saying is that this violates stand your ground law. That
Speaker 1: is a matter for our courts to decide, right just
Speaker 1: the jury. If jury nullificacation came in this case, then
Speaker 1: actually that then needs to be further analyzed, and more importantly,
Speaker 1: in my mind, the sacrificing nature of the way that
Speaker 1: the courts themselves determine whether this violated Texas standard ground law,
Speaker 1: again a matter for the Supreme Court of the State
Speaker 1: of Texas before the governor were to be getting involved here.
Speaker 1: That is how you properly or to handle something like this. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: because what about the you know, Second Amendment right of
Speaker 1: Foster to open carry his No, No, he was totally
Speaker 1: within his right. I support his right to Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you know, I mean, listen, it was a chaotic situation,
Speaker 1: you know. Maybe no, don't bring guns either way, to that.
Speaker 1: But that's something can be not a bad idea or
Speaker 1: not a good idea, but it can also be legal.
Speaker 1: I support it to be legal, specifically for horrific situation.
Speaker 1: So anyway, this is a matter in my mind for
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court of the State of Texas. And I
Speaker 1: don't think the governor should be doing this. I really don't.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about a little bit of Trump
Speaker 1: campaign drama spilling over. This is an interesting one and
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen from the Guardian and
Speaker 1: they say Trump was reportedly seeking twenty twenty four campaign
Speaker 1: role for far right activists. Laura Lumer, ex president, has
Speaker 1: told aids to hire the failed congressional candidate. That is
Speaker 1: according to a New York Times report. So, Laura Lumer,
Speaker 1: for those I don't know, Sager, you might do a
Speaker 1: better job describing her. She's definitely out there, very vocal figure.
Speaker 1: She ran for Congress twice and lost. Yeah, she's been
Speaker 1: pretty clear about some relatively unsavory views in my opinion.
Speaker 1: She previously described herself as pro white nationalism, claiming there's
Speaker 1: a difference between white nationalism and white supremacy, and a
Speaker 1: lot of liberals and left wing globalist, Marxist Jews don't
Speaker 1: understand that those were her words. In that same conversation,
Speaker 1: she said the US really was built as the white
Speaker 1: Judeo Christian ethno state essentially. So those are some of
Speaker 1: the type of comments that she has engaged in previously.
Speaker 1: So Trump was apparent apparently likes her though, because she's loyal.
Speaker 1: She is loyal to him in a religious way. Is
Speaker 1: I don't think people can really understand what lumor dedication
Speaker 1: to Trump is in terms of all the stuff that
Speaker 1: she said. Here's the thing about Laura Lumer. She is
Speaker 1: a provocateur and she is all about attention. That is
Speaker 1: all she has ever wanted. I mean, she's there, she's gotten.
Speaker 1: Do you remember this Whenever she chained herself to Twitter
Speaker 1: HQ with the handcuffs in New York City to be like,
Speaker 1: please restore my accounts, she was one of the originally
Speaker 1: like completely planned deplatform people. The only interaction I've ever
Speaker 1: had Laura Lumer is when she went after me for
Speaker 1: not believing in QAnon a fun thing. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all right. She's a big Q person too, right.
Speaker 1: She was just she like flirted with Q. Okay, look,
Speaker 1: here's the other thing. I don't even take clowns like
Speaker 1: this seriously. What I do take seriously is when Trump
Speaker 1: wants to hire somebody like Laura Lumer. And the reason
Speaker 1: why is obvious, and I think this is something that
Speaker 1: so many people need to understand about Trump. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons that he debases people is because he forces
Speaker 1: people who are serious to twist themselves into none to
Speaker 1: try and justify his most batshit insane instincts, specifically like
Speaker 1: on dominion and stop the steal right. So that's why
Speaker 1: people do high IQ s Lory. Well, you know, if
Speaker 1: you Pennsylvania election law, it's like, nah, that's not what
Speaker 1: he's saying in the Chinese literally story election and it's like,
Speaker 1: how are you going to high IQ? You're like dinner
Speaker 1: with Kanye West to Nick Fuentes or like high IQ
Speaker 1: wanting to hire Laura Lumber as like a serious campaign role.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I want someone like Laura Lumer
Speaker 1: is Laura Lumer is attacked. Anything the man does, she
Speaker 1: will defend it. He will. He could contradict himself completely,
Speaker 1: she would defend it. He could go the other way.
Speaker 1: She would defend That's everything that she does is all
Speaker 1: about just a religious fate and defense of Trump. She
Speaker 1: almost looks in like a Jesus than she does like Trump.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that she'll come after us for the segment,
Speaker 1: and I don't believe that that's fine. So we're not
Speaker 1: the only ones who have some issues with Laura Lumber.
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green not a fan. Make him very clear.
Speaker 1: After this report came out, put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: She shared the New York Times reporter or a a screenshot
Speaker 1: of the New York Times report about him moving to
Speaker 1: hire Laura Lumer. That was the headline. Here, she says,
Speaker 1: Laura Lumer, this, Marjorie Taylor Green is mentally unstable and
Speaker 1: a documented liar. She cannot be trusted. She spent months
Speaker 1: lying about me and attacking me just because I supported
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy for Speaker and after I'd refuse to endorse
Speaker 1: her last election cycle. She loves the alleged FBI informant
Speaker 1: and weirdo Nick Fuentes. She tried to get hired on
Speaker 1: the Ya campaign after the infamous mar A Lago dinner,
Speaker 1: but Kanye West refused to hire. So now she's running
Speaker 1: to Trump. Never or hire or do business with a liar.
Speaker 1: Liars are toxic and poisonous to everything they touch. I
Speaker 1: will make sure he, being Trump knows all right. So
Speaker 1: that was shots fired for Marjorie Taylor Green. Apparently. I
Speaker 1: guess the fallout here really because they had been kind
Speaker 1: of buddy buddy before. I guess the fallout here was
Speaker 1: over the whole Kevin McCarthy situation, and there were shots
Speaker 1: taking at Marjorie Taylor Green from Laura Lumer. Laura responds,
Speaker 1: let's put this up on the screen, MTG. The only
Speaker 1: liar is you. You hired the foreign national who set
Speaker 1: up the dinner at mar A Lago, and you spoke
Speaker 1: at ass pack where you were more than happy to
Speaker 1: embrace frontt Yay asked me to work on his campaign
Speaker 1: and I said no because I told him I endorse
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but I support his right to free speech.
Speaker 1: You were a liar, and there's all kinds of stuff here.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what she's talking about. You have
Speaker 1: a British foreign national who openly attacks President Trump every day,
Speaker 1: working for you and living in Rome, Georgia. I have
Speaker 1: the receipts as screenshots of you telling me you want
Speaker 1: me in Congress you're going to endorse me. You only
Speaker 1: change your mind once you made deals with McCarthy. You're
Speaker 1: a disloyal liar. You're working with someone who said he
Speaker 1: wanted to make Trump miserable. I was setting him up
Speaker 1: at mar A Lago. Here you are on video in
Speaker 1: case I need to refresh your memory. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting all the way around. I mean she
Speaker 1: also went after her for allegedly having an affair and
Speaker 1: being embarrassing. I mean, this is one of those Irana
Speaker 1: rock war situations where it's like, I wish both sides
Speaker 1: the best of luck. Laura Lumer went on for like
Speaker 1: twelve more tweets. By the way, this is like not
Speaker 1: the end of it. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I don't think Trump will hire her because MTG is
Speaker 1: such a loyal ally and it is probably more important
Speaker 1: to the move. But this just gives people an idea
Speaker 1: like there is nobody out of bounds for Trump. If
Speaker 1: you're willing to speak out for him, literally, no matter
Speaker 1: who you are, he'll be like, yeah, I think he's
Speaker 1: a good guy. Yeah she's a good girl, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: hire her for the campaign. And you know I was
Speaker 1: thinking about I think Richard Hananey or somebody tweet this out.
Speaker 1: Laura Lumer actually would be a good spokesperson for Trump.
Speaker 1: You need somebody who is willing to defend literally everything
Speaker 1: that you say in a religious way, so like put morals,
Speaker 1: I guess, and all that aside. Yeah, she actually would
Speaker 1: be great at this job. So in a way, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she deserves it. I think if we deserve Trump, then
Speaker 1: we deserve Laura feb It was a reminder to me
Speaker 1: of like just because Trump has been he's been pretty
Speaker 1: honest political game lately, like put aside indictments. It's not
Speaker 1: great for him. It's good for him the Republican primary,
Speaker 1: but I think ultimately, you know this polling that shows
Speaker 1: most Americans think he just did it. The most Americans
Speaker 1: think support him being charged, like they think there's there there.
Speaker 1: So not great for him for a general election, but
Speaker 1: he's made some very smart political moves recently talking about
Speaker 1: social security and medicare you know, like his messaging, the
Speaker 1: way he's really sort of completely undercut the potential Dasanta's
Speaker 1: campaign before Desanta's even months from Desanta's even announcing. He's
Speaker 1: made some savvy strategic political moves this whole episode just
Speaker 1: reminds me of Man is Way Too Online, like some
Speaker 1: of his greatest like personal failings, and why it is that,
Speaker 1: you know, he lost reelection. Why it is that under
Speaker 1: him Republicans did not do well in twenty eighteen and
Speaker 1: then twenty twenty two, he like really depressed what they
Speaker 1: were able to achieve as well. And why you still,
Speaker 1: even with Joe Biden being not that popular, you still
Speaker 1: wouldn't say that like Trump's like a shoe in for
Speaker 1: the White House because this kind of stuff just happens
Speaker 1: under him all the time. Yep, you are correct, Crystal.
Speaker 1: This is something that is baked into Trump. There's no
Speaker 1: getting around it. Period Z. This is it. So you know,
Speaker 1: if you support him, this is part of it. Is
Speaker 1: what you just be honest about that. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are like, look, on balance, you know,
Speaker 1: this is still something I'm willing to put up with.
Speaker 1: The left has their own cooks that they have, you know,
Speaker 1: the luggage guy or whatever the guy is. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, this is how it is. But at least
Speaker 1: just be real about what we're getting into, because that's
Speaker 1: what's happening. All right, Yer, what are you looking at well.
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure why establishment hacks continue to let
Speaker 1: themselves be interviewed by John Stewart. The best explanation I
Speaker 1: can come up with is that most of them are
Speaker 1: just so arrogant they think they can take him. They're
Speaker 1: personally liberal, they came up watching him during the Bush years.
Speaker 1: They think he will at least be somewhat on their side.
Speaker 1: And then of course there's probably just a large contingent
Speaker 1: that have know nothing about him, but because he's fame
Speaker 1: hiss and they're fame hungry, they just agree to the interview.
Speaker 1: Which category Kathleen Hicks falls into, you can be the judge.
Speaker 1: And for those who don't know, Hicks is the Deputy
Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense, in other words, the number two person
Speaker 1: in the entire Pentagon. The Deputy Secretary is cloaked in
Speaker 1: immense power, responsible for the day to day operations of
Speaker 1: the building, where the secretary is focused on policy and
Speaker 1: the priorities of the president. Their power extends to appropriation requests,
Speaker 1: reconciling disputes the Finance Department, and for our purposes, that's
Speaker 1: where we're going to look in something Stuart came ready
Speaker 1: to tangle with hooks on Hickson immediately and brought up
Speaker 1: was the failed Pentagon audit. Let's take a listen to
Speaker 1: the initial exchange. It's absolutely the case of the United
Speaker 1: States military should be able to pass an audit, and
Speaker 1: we've got to be on that pathway to get there. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you need to explain to me. Do you understand
Speaker 1: what an audit does in the degree to which it
Speaker 1: is linked to the question that you're asking. I believe show. Okay,
Speaker 1: go ahead, give me, give me, give me your explanation.
Speaker 1: First of all, the arrogance of this woman. It is
Speaker 1: unbelievable to belittle a man like Stuart taunting him what
Speaker 1: an audit actually is. Let's focus in on the question
Speaker 1: at hand. What is the Pentagon audit? Why does it matter?
Speaker 1: We've brought you before, the stunning story that only the
Speaker 1: US government agency, the only one in capable of passing
Speaker 1: an audit, remains a Pentagon, not once, not twice, but
Speaker 1: five times. We're not just talking about one failed audit.
Speaker 1: The Pentagon is in its fifth failed audit was capable
Speaker 1: of accounting for just thirty nine percent of three point
Speaker 1: five trillion dollars in assets under management. So yes, they
Speaker 1: cannot account for sixty percent of all the assets that maintain. Further,
Speaker 1: despite promises, the Pentagon failed to make any improvements from
Speaker 1: the years prior, showing they don't even care about trying
Speaker 1: to pass the audit at all. Let's continue with stuart.
Speaker 1: Audit that they have in the military doesn't really look
Speaker 1: at whether or not there's efficacy. It's just whether they
Speaker 1: got delivered the thing that they ordered and that that
Speaker 1: is any audit, that is any audits that is true.
Speaker 1: But generally those audits aren't four hundred million dollars for
Speaker 1: raytheon and one point seven trillion dollars for a plane
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem to be doing like there is a
Speaker 1: lot of waste, fraud and abuse within assistance audits at
Speaker 1: waste broad abuse are not the same thing. So let's
Speaker 1: decompose these. Please educate me on all s. Right, So,
Speaker 1: an audit is exactly what you just described, which is,
Speaker 1: do I know what was delivered to which place? The
Speaker 1: ability to pass an audit or in a the fact
Speaker 1: that the DEOD has not passed on is not suggestive
Speaker 1: of waste broaden abuse. That is completely false. Right there
Speaker 1: now is a question of it's suggestive that we can't
Speaker 1: we don't have an accurate inventory that we can pull
Speaker 1: up of what we have where that is not the
Speaker 1: same as saying we can't do that because waste broaden
Speaker 1: abuse has occurred. So in my world, yeah, that's waste.
Speaker 1: Once again, the arrogance of trying to explain like an
Speaker 1: accountant for a billionaire before an IRS audit. Let's continue,
Speaker 1: because this is where things become really bonkers. It's a
Speaker 1: relatively long clip, but it is important for everybody to
Speaker 1: get this full exchange in all of its glory. In
Speaker 1: my world, yeah, that's waste. How is that waste? If
Speaker 1: I give you a billion dollars and you can't tell
Speaker 1: me what happened to it, that to me is wasteful.
Speaker 1: That that means you are not necessarily responsible. But if
Speaker 1: you can't tell me where it went, then what am
Speaker 1: I supposed to think? And when there has been reporting,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not Look I'm not saying this
Speaker 1: is on you and that you cause this, but I
Speaker 1: think it's it's a tough argument to make that cause
Speaker 1: an eight hundred and fifty billion dollar budget to an
Speaker 1: organization that can't pass an audit and tell you where
Speaker 1: that money went like, I think most people would consider
Speaker 1: that somewhere in the realm of waste, fraud or abuse,
Speaker 1: because they would wonder why that money isn't well accounted for,
Speaker 1: And especially when they see food and security on military
Speaker 1: bases and they see you talk about that, because that's
Speaker 1: a good we should be talking. I mean, I understand
Speaker 1: where you're trying to go. Other than the dollars, which
Speaker 1: really bother you, I think it doesn't really bother me.
Speaker 1: I think it's all connected, Okay. I think when I
Speaker 1: see that story, tell me how you're that. When I
Speaker 1: see a state department get a certain amount of money
Speaker 1: and a military budget be ten times that, and I
Speaker 1: see a struggle within government to get people like more
Speaker 1: basic services, and then that department that got that, I mean,
Speaker 1: we got out of twenty years of war and the
Speaker 1: Pentagon got a fifty billion dollar raise, Like that's shocking
Speaker 1: to me. Now. I may not understand exactly the ins
Speaker 1: and outs and the incredible magic of an audit, but
Speaker 1: I'm a human being who lives on the earth and
Speaker 1: can't figure out how eight hundred and fifty billion dollars
Speaker 1: to a department means that the rank and file still
Speaker 1: have to be on food stamps. Like, to me, that's
Speaker 1: fucking corruption. I'm sorry, And I like if that blows
Speaker 1: your mind, and if you think like that's like a
Speaker 1: crazy agenda for me to have, I really think that
Speaker 1: that's institutional thinking. Those exchanges are so important because they
Speaker 1: get at what Stuart is best at, teasing the absurdity
Speaker 1: of the way that Kathleen Hicks is picking her language
Speaker 1: to distringuish between fake terms like audit and waste, fraud
Speaker 1: and abuse, while being condescending towards Stuart for not knowing
Speaker 1: those terms. In reality, she's the crazy one who thinks
Speaker 1: that if you can't account for sixty percent of assets
Speaker 1: under management, you're lecturing the people paying you. Then you're
Speaker 1: the one who needs to be grilled, laughed at, and
Speaker 1: held to account. And the best point that he has
Speaker 1: is his argument about the treatment of those who fight
Speaker 1: in war versus the companies that provide the military with
Speaker 1: the weapons. The latter half is overpaid, not held to account,
Speaker 1: lavishly treated, never's met an excuss expense that the Pentagon
Speaker 1: cannot fund the former Despite you, the ones who actually fight, suffer,
Speaker 1: and in many cases die, are disregarded and considered negotiable
Speaker 1: when they come to take for example, the Washington Post
Speaker 1: editorial board. The Post wrote an editorial encouraging means testing
Speaker 1: veterans benefits for those who are suffering confirmed disability after
Speaker 1: their military service. They even gloat that reforms like this
Speaker 1: could save billions. They never wrote an op ed for
Speaker 1: talking about the audit that Crystal tells you everything. That's
Speaker 1: how the media covers it. It takes a go. And
Speaker 1: if you want to hear my reaction to Cyber's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Crystal,
Speaker 1: what are you taking a look at? Well? Guys? On Friday,
Speaker 1: two separate federal judges issued directly contradictory rulings which set
Speaker 1: up yet another Supreme Court showdown over abortion rights. First,
Speaker 1: a district court judge in Texas issued a sweeping ruling
Speaker 1: that would completely roll back the FAA approval for the
Speaker 1: abortion ug MiFi pristone. Over fifty percent of abortions in
Speaker 1: the US are now accomplished using this drug, which was
Speaker 1: approved over twenty years ago by the FDA. Never in
Speaker 1: history has a court claimed the ability to unilaterally roll
Speaker 1: back a drug approval of abortion drug or anything else
Speaker 1: superseding the judgment of the government agency that is charged
Speaker 1: with overseeing drug safety for the judgment of one unelected judge. Now,
Speaker 1: the fact that mefi pristone has been used safely for
Speaker 1: more than twenty years makes this decision all the more astonishing,
Speaker 1: and the safety and efficacy of the drug is not
Speaker 1: actually in doubt. A recent comprehensive review of one hundred
Speaker 1: and one different studies involving one hundred and twenty four
Speaker 1: thousand medication abortions found one death related to an infection
Speaker 1: from the abortion and one from unrelated causes. But while
Speaker 1: the use of MiFi pristone is about as risky as
Speaker 1: taking an aspirin, it's not exactly a pleasant experience because
Speaker 1: it essentially causes a miscarriage with the associated cramps and bleeding.
Speaker 1: And it is this unpleasantness that this judge used to
Speaker 1: insist the drug is not safe in the face of
Speaker 1: overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I'm trying to be sober
Speaker 1: in fact, based on all of this, but it cannot
Speaker 1: be overstated how much of an anti abortion ideologue this
Speaker 1: judge reveals himself to be in this ruling. So on
Speaker 1: page one he includes a note about how he will
Speaker 1: insist on using the loaded term unborn human or unborn
Speaker 1: child to refer to a fetus at any stage of development,
Speaker 1: which would really be something in any context, but especially
Speaker 1: since this particular medication is only used in the early
Speaker 1: weeks of a pregnancy, long before viability. He also gives
Speaker 1: multiple nods to the fringe idea that a fetus should
Speaker 1: have all the same rights as an adult person. Now,
Speaker 1: the logical conclusion of such a view is obviously that
Speaker 1: abortion should be banned nationwide and Alabama and California alike.
Speaker 1: And if that wasn't enough, this judge also frames abortion
Speaker 1: as being equivalent to eugenics. So caxmerik, that's the name
Speaker 1: of the judge, really not hiding the ball here in
Speaker 1: terms of his own personal zelotry. Even putting aside the
Speaker 1: fetal person who stuff though, which could lead to an
Speaker 1: all out ban, this decision would have a dramatic impact,
Speaker 1: ending availability of the most common form of abortion, not
Speaker 1: just in red states, but in every state in the
Speaker 1: entire nation, thereby exposing the lie that the Dabbs decision
Speaker 1: is really just about allowing each state to choose the
Speaker 1: abortion regulations that are culturally appropriate for their populations, as
Speaker 1: determined through a democratic process. This judge in Texas would
Speaker 1: seek to impose his own personal, radical interpretation of morality
Speaker 1: on the whole country. But mere hours later, another federal
Speaker 1: judge issued a separate ruling that is a direct contradiction
Speaker 1: to the one which would ban mifipristone in all fifty states.
Speaker 1: So a Washington State judge issued an injunction which would
Speaker 1: bar the FDA from altering the status quo with regard
Speaker 1: to the drug. So, just to be clear, the Texas
Speaker 1: judge has now told the FBA the drug must be
Speaker 1: blocked from use everywhere. The Washington judge has said it
Speaker 1: must still be allowed in the states where it is
Speaker 1: currently in use. Now, the Texas judge did issue a
Speaker 1: five day stay while the Fifth Circuit reviews a Biden
Speaker 1: administration appeal, But the Fifth Circuit is the most conservative
Speaker 1: in the country. Legal analysts seem to expect it to
Speaker 1: uphold this ruling, so in the mean way, meantime, there
Speaker 1: is actually no way for the FDA to comply with
Speaker 1: both of these rulings. The most sensible course, and the
Speaker 1: one they will most likely pursue, is to use their
Speaker 1: enforcement discretion maintain the status quo until this impasse is resolved.
Speaker 1: And the only way this impasse can really be resolved
Speaker 1: is through the Supreme Court. Now, it's ironic, it's also predictable.
Speaker 1: In their dabs ruling or returning Row versus Way, the
Speaker 1: Court made a big show claiming they be washing their
Speaker 1: hands of abortion frame and decision as a sort of
Speaker 1: gift for democracy, allowing the citizens of every state to
Speaker 1: now legislate for themselves. This was always a farce, as
Speaker 1: a religious right, including presidential contender Mike Pence, immediately began
Speaker 1: agitating for a federally passed national abortion ban. Cases such
Speaker 1: as the one presided over by the Texas judge also
Speaker 1: expose that hardcore anti abortion activists will not be satisfied
Speaker 1: with letting each state just figure it out for themselves.
Speaker 1: They believe a one day fetus is a person with
Speaker 1: full rights and will not be content to allow California
Speaker 1: to continue what they see as a mass genocide. After all,
Speaker 1: they played the long game very effectively on overturning Row
Speaker 1: and managed to pull it off after decades of organizing
Speaker 1: and dogged determination. Not because they went over public opinion,
Speaker 1: but because they knew how to exploit the most undemocratic
Speaker 1: parts of our current system. Now, in my opinion, this
Speaker 1: is all a disaster for women, especially working class women,
Speaker 1: since rich women have always had access to the care
Speaker 1: that they want. But it's also an unmitigated disaster for
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. Last week alone, they got destroyed in
Speaker 1: the quintessential swing state of Wisconsin because their extreme position
Speaker 1: on abortion is so toxic to moderates and so motivating
Speaker 1: to young progressives. In particular, young Wisconsin college students apparently
Speaker 1: turn out in droves for a state Supreme Court race,
Speaker 1: which normally would be an incredibly sleepy affair, all because
Speaker 1: the fate of abortion rights in the state was clearly
Speaker 1: on the ballot. Their numbers for a spring race such
Speaker 1: as this were truly unprecedent. Now you can already see
Speaker 1: how uncomfortable Republicans are in the wake of these rulings.
Speaker 1: Democrats put statements out immediately decrying the abortion pill ban.
Speaker 1: Republicans like this member of Congress did everything they could
Speaker 1: to try to avoid the topic. But I just want
Speaker 1: to point one important thing out, which is that myth
Speaker 1: of prestone isn't just used for abortion It's also frequently
Speaker 1: prescribed for women experiencing a miscarriage, and by some estimates,
Speaker 1: as many as one million women miscarry every single year.
Speaker 1: So are they just on their own if this ruling
Speaker 1: is a phole a pelp No. I think it's important
Speaker 1: that we take care of women, and it's important that
Speaker 1: we have real discussions on women's healthcare and get off
Speaker 1: the abortion, get off the you know, the abortion conversation.
Speaker 1: Women have a whole lot more other issues than just abortion.
Speaker 1: Let's have those real conversations and let's talk about you know,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the other things that are happening in
Speaker 1: this world. You know, I've got a picture of Emily,
Speaker 1: Emilia and Maria. They recently passed away three weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Do it to a smuggler in my district? What does
Speaker 1: that mean? That means there's all these other things happening
Speaker 1: in the world, especially in my district. I've got a
Speaker 1: district that's turned upside down due to this border crisis.
Speaker 1: There's everyday people that are impacted on this crisis, to
Speaker 1: include the Tembungas. He may as well just come out
Speaker 1: and said, please, with the love of God, can we
Speaker 1: talk about an issue that pulls a little bit better
Speaker 1: for Republicans. Now Americans, I think they tend to have
Speaker 1: moderate views on abortion. Whichever party seems like they're taking
Speaker 1: extreme stance is going to find themselves on the losing
Speaker 1: end of this fraud and morally complicated issue. With the
Speaker 1: overturning of Row, there is no more moderate ground for
Speaker 1: the Republicans to fight on. Every push to further erod
Speaker 1: the rights that still exist is an extreme position. According
Speaker 1: to Gallup, only thirteen percent at this point agree with
Speaker 1: abortion being banned in all circumstances, So even most Republican
Speaker 1: voters do not agree with the religious right position. And
Speaker 1: if Republican elites we're hoping maybe people are just going
Speaker 1: to move on and forget about the fact that thirteen
Speaker 1: year olds are now forced to have their rapist babies
Speaker 1: in plenty of places in this country, they're delusional. Wisconsin
Speaker 1: shows people are not moving on, and the fate of
Speaker 1: medication abortion heading the Supreme Court shows the issue it's
Speaker 1: not going away. Hanani actually recently wrote this on Twitter.
Speaker 1: He wrote, being the pro life party maybe incompatible with
Speaker 1: being competitive anywhere outside Appalachia in the South. We assume
Speaker 1: because the country has been evenly divided, it'll stay that way,
Speaker 1: but Dems might be moving towards permanent majority. So Republicans,
Speaker 1: if you like losing by eleven points in Wisconsin, fifteen
Speaker 1: points in Pennsylvania, ten points in Michigan, well you're right
Speaker 1: on track, guys, and the powerful movement which brought victory
Speaker 1: at the Supreme Court after decades of law fair they
Speaker 1: have no intention of stopping now. So there's a complicated
Speaker 1: legal situation here because you have two judges issuing contradictory rulings.
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. All right,
Speaker 1: we'll see you guys later. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: watching us. We really appreciate it. It It was a huge
Speaker 1: show for us to be able to obtain those documents,
Speaker 1: bring as much as we can. We're going to continue
Speaker 1: to sift our way through them and all of that,
Speaker 1: and it was a big deal for us, and just
Speaker 1: a reminder also of how much we appreciate so many
Speaker 1: of the premium subs who are out there who have
Speaker 1: our back and enable the work that we do. So
Speaker 1: we love you, and we will see you all tomorrow,