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 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 2: Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 3: What do we have, Crystal, indeed, we do.
Speaker 1: Here we are in our beautiful news studio. It is
Speaker 1: a very exciting day indeed, and of course there's a
Speaker 1: lot of news going on as well. There's that whole
Speaker 1: Trump getting indicted situation. We do have the charges that
Speaker 1: were unsealed. We're going to go through those, break them
Speaker 1: down for you, give you our reaction analysis, but also,
Speaker 1: probably more importantly, the reaction analysis of his opponents, of
Speaker 1: even some of his former allies who are looking at
Speaker 1: this and going not good, not good. So we've got
Speaker 1: all of that, and we've also had polling on how
Speaker 1: the American people are feeling about these charges in the
Speaker 1: initial phases. We're also going to cover some new questions
Speaker 1: about President Biden and his relationship with Barisma and some
Speaker 1: allegations that he received payments with regard to that relationship.
Speaker 3: We also have new comments that.
Speaker 1: Were quite noteworthy from Mark Zuckerberg about their choices during
Speaker 1: the pandemic with regard to COVID quote unquote misinformation. But
Speaker 1: we got to start with the big news for us
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Speaker 1: So with all of that being said, let's get to
Speaker 1: the reason we are actually here, which is to talk
Speaker 1: about the news, and of course there is huge news.
Speaker 1: President Trump once again indicted. We found out that he
Speaker 1: was indicted, and we covered that a little bit on Thursday,
Speaker 1: but that indictment, the details of it, was unsealed.
Speaker 3: On Friday, so you know.
Speaker 1: Overall, there are thirty one counts of willful retention of
Speaker 1: classified national security information, five counts of obstruction of justice,
Speaker 1: one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Speaker 3: He did have a co conspirator.
Speaker 1: Someone who worked as a basically like personal valet alongside
Speaker 1: of him. Walton NATA, who was involved in some of
Speaker 1: the conspiracy and obstruction charges. Special Counsel Jack Smith talked
Speaker 1: about the charges and what they entailed a little bit
Speaker 1: on Friday. Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 4: Today, an indict moves unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump with
Speaker 4: felony violations of our national security laws as well as
Speaker 4: participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. This indictment was
Speaker 4: voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern
Speaker 4: District of Florida, and I invite everyone to read it
Speaker 4: in full to understand the scope and the gravity of
Speaker 4: the crimes charged. The men and women of the United
Speaker 4: States Intelligence community and our armed forces dedicate their lives
Speaker 4: to protecting our nation and its people. Our laws that
Speaker 4: protect national defense information are critical the safety and security
Speaker 4: of the United States, and they must be enforced.
Speaker 1: The details of the indictment were fairly damning, not great, And.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean a lot of this.
Speaker 1: Was details that we had already received from various news
Speaker 1: media outlets. But to see it all compiled and the
Speaker 1: narrative laid out, you know, I mean, it's pretty compiling.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of images of where the classified
Speaker 1: documents were stored, and those in and of themselves were.
Speaker 3: Kind of shocking. Let's go and put this up on
Speaker 3: the screen.
Speaker 1: I mean, this dude had boxes stuffed like everywhere at
Speaker 1: Mar A Lago, including in a bathroom next to a shower,
Speaker 1: like literally right next to the commode. At one point,
Speaker 1: the boxes were stacked. They were in a ballroom, they
Speaker 1: were in various storage rooms. They were being carded all
Speaker 1: around the property by his aides, who you know, did
Speaker 1: not have, of course, the proper classification, not that they
Speaker 1: should have been there in the first place, so just
Speaker 1: the imagery of it. A lot of people were reacting
Speaker 1: to put this next piece up on the screen. NBC
Speaker 1: News compiled you know what they considered to be the
Speaker 1: top eleven takeaways from the Trump classified document's indictment. First
Speaker 1: of all, important to note these charges are in Florida,
Speaker 1: and the judge that has so far been assigned to
Speaker 1: the case is someone who has taken some favorite is
Speaker 1: a Trump appointe, has taken some favorable decisions towards Trump,
Speaker 1: And of course you would expect a jury in South
Speaker 1: Florida to be perhaps more favorable towards him than a
Speaker 1: jury in Washington, D C. So that part is important
Speaker 1: to note to start with. But there's a couple of
Speaker 1: anecdotes in here Sager about Trump, for they have him
Speaker 1: on tape talking about how these documents are classified. I
Speaker 1: could have declassified them when I was president, but now
Speaker 1: I can't. And he's like waving them around to some
Speaker 1: guy who's writing a book about him. There's another instance
Speaker 1: where he's showing some maps to someone who's involved with
Speaker 1: his pack.
Speaker 3: Apparently people think this was.
Speaker 1: Actually kid Rock that he was showing these again classified
Speaker 1: maps too.
Speaker 3: So you have that.
Speaker 1: You have details here about the level of secretness of
Speaker 1: the information and this wasn't you know, things that were overclassified.
Speaker 1: We're talking about some of the most sensitive information that
Speaker 1: the US government has, including information and this is the
Speaker 1: language from the indictment regarding defense and weapons capabilities of
Speaker 1: both the US and foreign countries, US nuclear programs, potential
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities of the US and its allies, and plans for
Speaker 1: a possible retaliation in response to a forward attack. You've
Speaker 1: got staffers documented freaking out about having to shift the
Speaker 1: documents around, and one instance where they open up the
Speaker 1: door to one of the rooms where these boxes are
Speaker 1: being stored and they've all spilled down on the floor.
Speaker 1: You've got Trump suggesting to his lawyers that they shouldn't
Speaker 1: quote playball with the grand jury subpoena, and even saying
Speaker 1: to one of them, isn't it better if there are
Speaker 1: no documents, basically suggesting like, let's just lie and say
Speaker 1: we don't have anything. That same lawyer, and this is
Speaker 1: Evan Corcoran also recounted that Trump sort of suggested to
Speaker 1: him that he take the classified documents to his hotel
Speaker 1: room and if there was anything that was really serious,
Speaker 1: he made a plucking motion, like.
Speaker 3: Just pluck it out, just take it out of there.
Speaker 1: And perhaps the most I don't know, remarkable, just incredible
Speaker 1: Trumpian moment contained in this indictment is, of course, during
Speaker 1: his first campaign, he was all over Hillary Clinton, lock
Speaker 1: her up over her own mishandling of classified information, but
Speaker 1: apparently multiple times to his lawyers, he was talking about
Speaker 1: what a great job her lawyer did.
Speaker 3: Why because that lawyer took the.
Speaker 1: Blame and claimed that he was the one who deleted
Speaker 1: the thirty thousand emails. Again basically suggesting to his own
Speaker 1: lawyers like, why don't y'all lie on my behalf and take.
Speaker 3: The heat for me.
Speaker 2: That's part of the issue. He's already two of his
Speaker 2: lawyers have already left his legal team almost immediately after
Speaker 2: the indictment. That particular quote you're alluding to is amazing quote.
Speaker 2: As president, I could have declassified it. Now I can't,
Speaker 2: but it's still a secret. Yeah, the staffer responded, Now
Speaker 2: we have a problem. Literally direct, now we have a problem.
Speaker 2: I also love you know with that, ma. He just said,
Speaker 2: you know, I shouldn't even be showing this to you,
Speaker 2: and you don't get too close to the map. I
Speaker 2: am still personally bound by an off the record agreement.
Speaker 2: But let me just say this, almost anybody who's stepped
Speaker 2: into the Oval Office, including other reporters, see I can
Speaker 2: report on what other reporters have told me on background.
Speaker 2: And let's just say pretty much everybody who was inside
Speaker 2: the Oval Office whenever they were covering President Trump got
Speaker 2: to read some secret letters from Kim Jong un and
Speaker 2: got to hear a very long die tribe about how
Speaker 2: secret they were, how the South Koreans hadn't even read them,
Speaker 2: and how in many cases had top secret literal stamps
Speaker 2: on the top of said documents. It's not the only
Speaker 2: top secret thing that most people who got to step
Speaker 2: into the Oval office at that time, who were members
Speaker 2: of the media got to see. Just to give a
Speaker 2: little bit of a previews former White House correspondent who
Speaker 2: also interacted with Trump at that time. Overall, I went
Speaker 2: ahead and I read the documents, Crystal. Yeah, the most
Speaker 2: important thing to me was the level of detail that
Speaker 2: they went in into which the government went out of
Speaker 2: its way to go ahead and give him the opportunity
Speaker 2: to give them back. So you had eleven months, multiple opportunities,
Speaker 2: the subpoena to provide the documents back, the voluntary giving
Speaker 2: it back voluntarily, making sure that you didn't voluntarily, then
Speaker 2: taking steps to go around said voluntary disclosure, to then
Speaker 2: get to the point where they have the tapes, the investigation,
Speaker 2: the raid, and then even an open question as to
Speaker 2: today as to whether said documents are even still not
Speaker 2: yet all in the possession of the government. And look,
Speaker 2: I mean we're going to talk today about Biden, about
Speaker 2: the charges against him, about selective prosecution. I think in
Speaker 2: some cases a lot of that is fair, But look,
Speaker 2: the charge has now been brought, so at this point
Speaker 2: it's a political case. I think that's probably the best
Speaker 2: case against said indictment. But on the merits itself, this
Speaker 2: is a huge problem for Trump. There's just no getting
Speaker 2: around it. And most people who even who are supporters
Speaker 2: of him, who are anti Russiagate, they agree with that, like, look,
Speaker 2: you know, the only real attack against this is the
Speaker 2: same one Hillary did, is like, you can't prosecute me,
Speaker 2: I'm above the law and the candidate you know, and
Speaker 2: all that, which, rightfully, at the time, we all said, no,
Speaker 2: you're not above the law. Everyone is a privacyst that's right.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what defense they'll be able to
Speaker 1: muster in terms of a court of law, because the
Speaker 1: details here are so damning about the number of documents,
Speaker 1: the level of classification of the documents, the you know,
Speaker 1: wilful retention of the documents. So this wasn't like, you know,
Speaker 1: part of the justification for not prosecuting Hillary, which you know,
Speaker 1: I think I disagree with, but part of the justification
Speaker 1: was they couldn't prove that she willfully retained the documents.
Speaker 1: It's quite clear Trump knows he has them, knows he
Speaker 1: shouldn't have them, and he's trying to cover it up.
Speaker 3: Then one of the defenses.
Speaker 1: That they had floated to the media, was oh, well,
Speaker 1: he declassified all this stuff when he was president, so
Speaker 1: no problem. First of all, the statute doesn't technically say
Speaker 1: that the documents have to be classified. But even putting
Speaker 1: that aside, you literally have him on tape saying as president,
Speaker 1: I could have declassified it.
Speaker 3: Now I can't. This is still a secret.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now we have a problem, the staffer responds, laughing,
Speaker 1: as you.
Speaker 3: Call it, like, he's on tape admitting.
Speaker 1: To the crime and undercutting the only defense that I
Speaker 1: ever heard them really muster for the details of this case.
Speaker 1: So if you take who this person is, the fact
Speaker 1: that is Donald Trump out of it, Like, if anyone
Speaker 1: should be prosecuted for willful retention of classified documents and
Speaker 1: obstruction in you know, and attempts to retrieve those classifyed documents,
Speaker 1: it would be this man, judging by the number, the
Speaker 1: level of classification, the clear attempts at it's obstruction, the
Speaker 1: open admission that he that he what he was doing
Speaker 1: was wrong, knowledge that what he was doing was wrong.
Speaker 3: So this is all a major problem for him.
Speaker 1: And one thing people are pointing to this morning as
Speaker 1: well is, you know, part of how they got him
Speaker 1: so dead to rights was his own lawyer took a
Speaker 1: lot of contemporaneous notes, including like voice memos on his
Speaker 1: phone and writing down notes about after every meeting with
Speaker 1: Trump what was said and what he said in response,
Speaker 1: and the Justice Department successfully was able to overcome attorney
Speaker 1: client privilege in order to obtain those memos and obtain
Speaker 1: those contemporaneous notes. And that clearly informs a lot of
Speaker 1: this and a lot of the details that are at
Speaker 1: play here.
Speaker 3: But yeah, on the merits of.
Speaker 1: It, the fact that his own allies, the best they
Speaker 1: can muster in defense of him is the like what
Speaker 1: about Hillary?
Speaker 3: What about Biden?
Speaker 1: That's like the best case they can make for him.
Speaker 1: I haven't really heard anyone try to defend him on
Speaker 1: the merits because frankly, I just don't think that you can.
Speaker 3: Now, we'll wait and.
Speaker 1: Hear what their side of the story is. But given
Speaker 1: the facts that are a play here, again, much of
Speaker 1: which has been reported, but to see it all laid
Speaker 1: out is pretty stunning.
Speaker 3: It's a pretty damning case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so to give everybody an update, Tuesday is
Speaker 2: when he will actually be present in court in Miami,
Speaker 2: and at eight fifteen pm, the President will be giving
Speaker 2: a press conference. We're going to give people some coverage
Speaker 2: after said press conference in order to break some of
Speaker 2: that down for you, so you can go ahead and
Speaker 2: await that eagerly. But that's basically all we have in
Speaker 2: terms of though, people like, as I allude to, even
Speaker 2: those who defended President Trump on Russiagate, you know, actual
Speaker 2: staunch allies from the DJ including his own Attorney general.
Speaker 2: Well even they think that this is a prosecutable case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, anyone with a shred of honesty has
Speaker 1: to admit that this indictment is pretty damning. So you've
Speaker 1: got a former Attorney General, Bill Barr, who of course
Speaker 1: is by Trump's side through thick and thin for quite
Speaker 1: a while and was a vociferous defender of him, probably
Speaker 1: his foremost defender in terms of Russiagate charges and the
Speaker 1: whole Muller report and all of that. He also saw
Speaker 1: this indictment as quite damning. Let's take a listen to
Speaker 1: a little bit of what he had to say, and.
Speaker 5: I think the counts under the Espionage Act that he
Speaker 5: willfully retained those documents or solid counts. Now, I do
Speaker 5: think we have to wait and see what the defense
Speaker 5: says and what proves to be true. But I do
Speaker 5: think that even half what Andy McCarthy said, which is,
Speaker 5: if even half of it is true, then he's toast.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's a pretty it's a very detailed indictment,
Speaker 5: and it's very very damning. And this idea of presenting
Speaker 5: Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt,
Speaker 5: is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: He goes on to talk about and this is something
Speaker 1: he refers to Andrew McCarthy, and we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about that op ed as well. But I mean, this
Speaker 1: is not you know, liberals going after him or the
Speaker 1: fake news media.
Speaker 3: A lot of this.
Speaker 1: Information came from his own people. Yes, so that's part
Speaker 1: of what makes us so devastating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely agree, and people need to really internalize that.
Speaker 2: Like the reason that we have curated the list of
Speaker 2: people we're showing you, including Bill Barr and the next one,
Speaker 2: Jonathan Turley, is these are some of the staunchest critics
Speaker 2: of the Russiagate investigation. I want to be clear too,
Speaker 2: I actually agreed with them on almost all of Russiagate,
Speaker 2: on Ukraine Gate, on the impeach both impeachments, all of
Speaker 2: the analysis from really all of the people that we
Speaker 2: are bringing to you. And the reason why for them
Speaker 2: to come around and say that is just to show you, like,
Speaker 2: these people have genuine credentials as skeptical of the FBI,
Speaker 2: skeptical of law enforcement. I mean, look, you're talking at
Speaker 2: two people here. Do not trust these people literally at all.
Speaker 2: And as I said, I think there's an open question
Speaker 2: about you know, overall legitimacy and politics and all of that,
Speaker 2: of which it's a nuanced, difficult conversation. You know, you
Speaker 2: have one person who obviously shouldn't be above the law,
Speaker 2: even when you're president of the United States. I thought
Speaker 2: Hillary should have been prosecuted for what she did, and
Speaker 2: so then for Trump to turn around and do effectively
Speaker 2: the same thing, like you have to remain legally consistent.
Speaker 2: So that is also what Jonathan Turley really breaks down
Speaker 2: in this clip that he brought on Fox News quote
Speaker 2: unquote Fox's favorite legal analysts. Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 6: No, it is an extremely damning indictment. You know, there
Speaker 6: are indictments that are sometimes called narrative or speaking indictments.
Speaker 6: These are indictments that are really meant to make a point,
Speaker 6: as to the depth of the evidence. There's some indictments
Speaker 6: that are just bare bones.
Speaker 7: This is not The Special Council knew that there would
Speaker 7: be a lot of people who were going to allege
Speaker 7: that the Department of Justice was acting in a biased
Speaker 7: or politically motivated way. This is clearly an indictment that
Speaker 7: was drafted to answer those questions. It's overwhelming in details,
Speaker 7: and you know, the Trump team should not fool itself.
Speaker 7: These are hits below the waterline. These are witnesses who
Speaker 7: apparently testified under oath gave statements to federal investigators, both
Speaker 7: of which can be criminally charged if they're falls.
Speaker 2: What do you think, Crystal, I mean, breaks it down
Speaker 2: pretty well. And that's also what I had to take
Speaker 2: away whenever I was reading the indictment. I was actually
Speaker 2: on a plane when it happened. It was funny. Everybody
Speaker 2: landed and turned on their phone. Everyone's like, oh, I
Speaker 2: start hearing people whispering and all that. But I went
Speaker 2: through and I read it almost immediately. You know, the quotes,
Speaker 2: the facts of the case, the timeline, all of which
Speaker 2: that they lay out, and look, the Feds are not
Speaker 2: above lying. Of course. The issue is that they have
Speaker 2: a lot of documentation. Now, of course Trump and his
Speaker 2: legal team can challenge the timeline, the documentation and all that,
Speaker 2: but they have not done so from the very beginning.
Speaker 2: Their justification is I was present, I had I had
Speaker 2: the power to DECLAI. Thus this entire thing is a
Speaker 2: selective and illegal prosecution continues to be the line he's
Speaker 2: going with. Well, that's because literally on the marriage, you know, legally,
Speaker 2: in terms of what you can present before this court,
Speaker 2: they've already taken a shot at you on that within
Speaker 2: the indictment itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is attempting to make a political argument against
Speaker 1: what is fundamentally a legal case against him, which, let's
Speaker 1: be honest, is pretty airtight. Yeah, and pretty open and
Speaker 1: shut if it was any one other than Trump. And
Speaker 1: you know, I read one analysis from a conservative writer
Speaker 1: who was saying, put yourself in Jacksmith's shoes. Let's say
Speaker 1: he didn't really want to prosecute Trump, like Trump gave
Speaker 1: him no choice.
Speaker 2: Yes, when you have the evidence in front of you,
Speaker 2: when you.
Speaker 1: Have this amount of evidence and you have this, you
Speaker 1: know this wasn't an oopsie.
Speaker 3: I you know, made a mistake.
Speaker 1: Let me do everything I can to try to get
Speaker 1: the documents back to you. This was intentional attempt to
Speaker 1: conceal information, having people move boxes around. And let's remember too,
Speaker 1: and Ryan made this point when you know, we covered
Speaker 1: the initial breaking news about Trump being indicted marlogo that.
Speaker 3: Was like a nest of spy.
Speaker 1: I mean, Chinese spies have been caught trying to obtain
Speaker 1: access to the property. There's probably no foreign government with
Speaker 1: a significant spy agency on the planet that hasn't tried
Speaker 1: to infiltrate this place. And the boxes were casually stored
Speaker 1: all around in easily accessible areas. So again, if anyone
Speaker 1: should be charged with these types of crimes, President Trump,
Speaker 1: former president Trump should be charged with these types of crimes.
Speaker 1: And you know, I agree with the view that no
Speaker 1: one can be above the law, and the level of
Speaker 1: obstruction here and the level of wilful retention is really something.
Speaker 3: We have one more for you.
Speaker 1: This is Andrew McCarthy, who you know was really adamantly
Speaker 1: opposed to the investigations with regard to Russia Gate. He
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Ball of Collusion, The Plot to
Speaker 1: rig an election and destroy presidency. So this is not
Speaker 1: some like liberal media figure, and he wrote, not bed
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. We've got some of
Speaker 1: the details here. He says, it's and this is to
Speaker 1: the point. So his headline is why Trump's witch hunt
Speaker 1: cries ring hollow in face of DOJ indictment, And he
Speaker 1: takes head on the argument that's being made of selective prosecution.
Speaker 1: Hillary should have been indicted, therefore Trump should not be indicted.
Speaker 3: And he says, it's not that Trump.
Speaker 2: Is owed to pass.
Speaker 1: Is that every official who's entrusted with the access to
Speaker 1: the nation secrets and who then betrays that trust by
Speaker 1: wilful law violations and cover ups should be prosecuted, every
Speaker 1: single one, and none of them has any business to
Speaker 1: your power. The lesson of the Hillary Clinton precedent is
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden should be investigated and prosecuted. That's how
Speaker 1: the scales of justice are even doubt.
Speaker 3: The fix for a two tiered.
Speaker 1: Justice system is not equal in justice under the law.
Speaker 1: And I think that's well said. Now listen, I do
Speaker 1: think there are some differences between this case and Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: especially in terms of the level of classification and the
Speaker 1: clear documentation about the obstruction and the cover up and.
Speaker 3: All of that stuff.
Speaker 1: There are clear differences here too, between what we know
Speaker 1: about Joe Biden and his retention of documents. Same thing
Speaker 1: with Mike Pence. It appears based on what we know,
Speaker 1: and this can always be proven otherwise that when they
Speaker 1: found out they had documents they shouldn't have, they immediately cooperated.
Speaker 1: And if Trump had done the same, I genuinely think
Speaker 1: he would be fine. But because he, over months and
Speaker 1: months and months, made it so difficult for them that
Speaker 1: they had to actually execute a raid on Mara a Lago,
Speaker 1: and that they still do not have confidence they even
Speaker 1: have everything at this point, that's what forces the hand
Speaker 1: and makes it so this prosecution is basically inevitable.
Speaker 2: I think you're right, Crystal. Why don't we talk about
Speaker 2: Trump's response?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we have a couple of responses at this
Speaker 1: point from the former president, one that he had apparently
Speaker 1: pre taped in anticipation of being indicted on these charges, like,
Speaker 1: let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 8: We're a nation of decline, and yet they go after
Speaker 8: a popular president, a president they got more votes than
Speaker 8: any sitting president in the history of our country by far,
Speaker 8: and did much better the second time in the election
Speaker 8: than the first, and they go after him on a
Speaker 8: Box's hoox, just like the Russia Russia Russia hooks and
Speaker 8: all of the others. This has been going on for
Speaker 8: seven years. They can't stop because it's election interference at
Speaker 8: the highest level. There's never been anything like what's happened.
Speaker 8: I'm an innocent man, I'm an innocent person. They had
Speaker 8: the Muller Hooks, the Muller Report, and that came out
Speaker 8: no collusion after two and a half years. That was
Speaker 8: set up by Hillary Clinton Democrats. But this is what
Speaker 8: they do. This is what they do so well. If
Speaker 8: they would devote their energies to honesty and integrity, will
Speaker 8: be a lot better for our country. They could do
Speaker 8: a lot better. They could do a lot of great things.
Speaker 8: Our country is going to hell, and they come after
Speaker 8: Donald Trump, weaponizing the Justice Department, weaponizing the FBI. We
Speaker 8: can't let this continue to go on because it's ripping
Speaker 8: our country to shreds. We have such big problems and
Speaker 8: this shouldn't be one of them.
Speaker 1: It's a hoax, so reaching there for a very familiar playbook,
Speaker 1: right like his allies. There's no attempt to actually refute
Speaker 1: the evidence that's provided here. It's just this is yet
Speaker 1: another hoax. This is yet another witch hunt. This is
Speaker 1: coming from my political adversaries and enemies. So this was
Speaker 1: the initial response. Again, it was like a pre taped video.
Speaker 1: In front of that portrait, he gave another response. He
Speaker 1: was immediately sort of out on the campaign trail speaking
Speaker 1: to Republican audiences, and he reached for another part of
Speaker 1: his playbook, which is to demonize the people who were involved,
Speaker 1: their character personally. Here he is talking a little bit
Speaker 1: about Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Speaker 3: Take a listen, and.
Speaker 9: His wife is even more of a Trump paid I
Speaker 9: wish here a lot of luck, but he's he's a
Speaker 9: bad Trump paiter and she's a Trump paid and you
Speaker 9: shouldn't put people like that in. And you know, the
Speaker 9: people looking at Biden, he's a very nice man. They
Speaker 9: looked at Mike Pence, he had classified documents, no problem.
Speaker 1: So it's the you know what about them, it's the
Speaker 1: this is a witch hunt. It's the let me attack
Speaker 1: the character of the people who are going after me,
Speaker 1: and you know, none of the like direct response to
Speaker 1: any of the evidence here, And let's be honest like
Speaker 1: this with his core fans and it works. Oh and
Speaker 1: not even just his core fans, the overwhelming majority of
Speaker 1: the Republican base. I'm talking to like ninety percent. This
Speaker 1: is going to be a successful argument.
Speaker 2: We're going to break all this down for everyone. And
Speaker 2: I think this is why I actually think that the
Speaker 2: Mueller investigation, Russia Gate and all that did such damage
Speaker 2: to the credibility the DOJ and also with the Hillary
Speaker 2: Clinton investigation, all of that did so much damage to
Speaker 2: the Republican base because they were like, look, we have
Speaker 2: no trust in your institutional capability. People like us have
Speaker 2: you know, made entire careers now actually looking through this
Speaker 2: evidence trying to break it down for people to understand
Speaker 2: why that was bad. So then you can't make people,
Speaker 2: you know, you can't change their preconceived notions where we're like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: this one it is different. But you know, if you're
Speaker 2: a casual consumer out there and you already view this
Speaker 2: as political, specifically the higher institution as political, then why
Speaker 2: should you have any faith in their ability at all?
Speaker 2: You know? And look, I mean also with the DJ,
Speaker 2: why are we choosing someone whose wife did a documentary
Speaker 2: on Michelle Obama that's definitely weird, Like she made the
Speaker 2: become now listen, you know, is he unimpeachable. I have
Speaker 2: no idea. You know, the way that people used to
Speaker 2: talk about Mueller and oh, he's the greatest straight shooter
Speaker 2: to ever live. I'm like, well, you know, it's like
Speaker 2: I don't really think that is the case for anybody.
Speaker 3: I want to hero worship of these guys I have on.
Speaker 2: That's my thing. I don't know why we have to
Speaker 2: sit here and be like, I'm going to be the
Speaker 2: defender of Jack Smith's honor. If you were to tell
Speaker 2: me dispassionately the guy's wife made a documentary about Michelle,
Speaker 2: I'll be like, yeah, maybe choose somebody else, you know, like,
Speaker 2: maybe you have somebody who didn't go that. Why are
Speaker 2: you even giving them ammunition that does not though, you know,
Speaker 2: change some of the facts within the indictment. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'm eager. I want to hear a defense from the
Speaker 2: President and from his team. I'm like, look, present it,
Speaker 2: this is your day in court, Like you have here
Speaker 2: a chance. But you know, unfortunately that's not what they've
Speaker 2: been able to offer up so far. Politically, though, I
Speaker 2: think this is smart. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. Very first interview that he gave so far
Speaker 2: on air, force one to Alex Eisenstadt over at Politico,
Speaker 2: he just says, quote, I will never leave even if
Speaker 2: we am convicted. Yeah, exactly, as if any of us
Speaker 2: I would need to know that.
Speaker 10: Quote.
Speaker 2: Look, if I would have left, I would have left
Speaker 2: prior to the original race in twenty sixteen. That was
Speaker 2: a rough one in theory, that was not doable. But
Speaker 2: he said that. The harsh criticisms at Jack Smith, he says,
Speaker 2: these are quote thugs and degenerates who are after me.
Speaker 2: He said he would not be convicted, did not anticipate
Speaker 2: taking a plea deal, though he left open the possibility
Speaker 2: of doing so, quote where they would pay me some damages.
Speaker 2: In terms of whether he would have to pardon himself
Speaker 2: should he win the presidency in twenty twenty four, he says, quote,
Speaker 2: I do not think I will ever have to I
Speaker 2: didn't do anything wrong. As far as his indictment and
Speaker 2: all of that, he just says, nobody wants to be indicted.
Speaker 2: I don't care that my poll numbers went up by
Speaker 2: a lot. I think you do. I don't want to
Speaker 2: be indicted. I've never been indicted. I went through my
Speaker 2: whole life. Now I get indicted every two months. Quote,
Speaker 2: it's been political. That's another issue I think whenever comes
Speaker 2: to the man. This is part of what we talked
Speaker 2: about so much during the Alvin Bragg investigation. We were like,
Speaker 2: this is the flimsiest, stupidest one in order to bring
Speaker 2: against Trump when you literally had this one really hanging
Speaker 2: over his head and many ways Alvin Bragg. You know,
Speaker 2: I comes back to my previous point, Alan Bragg, Russia Gate, Muller, Hailary,
Speaker 2: every single one of those investigations in the eyes of
Speaker 2: the public, does make this look more capital p political,
Speaker 2: maybe even than it is. But unfortunately for them, they're
Speaker 2: going to have to live with that. You know, we
Speaker 2: do live in a democracy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we.
Speaker 1: Have two questions here, right there's the legal question in
Speaker 1: which looks to be a pretty air tight case right now. Again,
Speaker 1: we'll hear what they have to say, but so far
Speaker 1: we haven't gotten any sort of reasonable defense from the
Speaker 1: President or his team that makes a whole lot of sense.
Speaker 3: Okay, So there's the legal question.
Speaker 1: On the political question, you know, with the Republican electorate,
Speaker 1: no doubt that he will. They're already persuaded that this
Speaker 1: is a witch hunt and it really wouldn't matter what
Speaker 1: facts Jacksmith was able to lay out, like that case
Speaker 1: has already open and check for them. They think any
Speaker 1: attack on Trump is coming from bad faith actors. And
Speaker 1: you see this even in the DeSantis Trump fight, where
Speaker 1: DeSantis has to be so careful about the way he
Speaker 1: couches his criticism so they can't just be dismissed as
Speaker 1: like you sound like a Democrat now, and that is
Speaker 1: the way that the Republican base has been trained to
Speaker 1: view every single attack on Trump. Now, there are real
Speaker 1: questions about how this timeline is going to play out,
Speaker 1: because you know, we haven't even gotten a trial on
Speaker 1: the original Alvin Bragg charges.
Speaker 3: This is a complex case.
Speaker 1: It is likely that Trump's team is going to throw
Speaker 1: up all kinds of you know, roadblocks to try to
Speaker 1: drag this thing out, and so it is very likely
Speaker 1: that we don't have a resolution to this case on
Speaker 1: the legal front until after the election, which is I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: putting the clearly damning facts aside. It is just an
Speaker 1: extraordinary set of circumstances that you have the former president
Speaker 1: running against the current president, the current president's Department of
Speaker 1: Justice is prosecuting the former president, and his chief rival
Speaker 1: in the midst of a presidential campaign. There's just no
Speaker 1: doubt about that that is an unprecedent and extraordinary set
Speaker 1: of circumstances, and that these are uncharted waters.
Speaker 3: So you do have the specter of still.
Speaker 1: Having these charges hanging over Trump as we go into
Speaker 1: election day without a resolution, and this becoming very existential
Speaker 1: for him in terms of his own personal freedom. And
Speaker 1: he is already framing the campaign in those sorts of
Speaker 1: existential terms. Now Trump always frames his campaigns in existential terms,
Speaker 1: but he's overtly saying to his supporters this is a
Speaker 1: quote final battle, that this is like the last front
Speaker 1: in their war to destroy their enemies, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so you know, the results of election day could matter. Obviously,
Speaker 1: they're going to matter a lot for the future of
Speaker 1: the country, but they could also matter very directly for
Speaker 1: whether former President Trump is going to end up in
Speaker 1: prison behind bars, because these are serious charges and they
Speaker 1: could very much.
Speaker 3: Lead to that.
Speaker 2: On I'm really glad that you laid out the time
Speaker 2: on for everybody, because this is not going to be quick,
Speaker 2: I believe and from people I've spoken to you, there
Speaker 2: are going to be multiple Supreme Court level cases that
Speaker 2: will arise here about Presidential Records Act, about the way
Speaker 2: that these things are governed, executive privilege. The president and
Speaker 2: his team have to go through the normal legal process
Speaker 2: from a federal judge, the appellate court up to the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court. You can have expect expedited review. Then you
Speaker 2: have to go through the normal trial. You're going to
Speaker 2: have discovery. This could take a hell of a long time.
Speaker 2: We don't know even if the DOJ is going to
Speaker 2: be able to push that. And then also they're going
Speaker 2: to have to run up against the political barrier of
Speaker 2: prosecuting the chief opponent, likely opponent to the current president
Speaker 2: of the United States. But politically, as you alluded to
Speaker 2: the GOP current candidates, they're also in a tough spot.
Speaker 2: What the hell do we say about this?
Speaker 3: I mean, this is exactly what we not to pass.
Speaker 1: All gone back too much, but this is what we
Speaker 1: predicted when we saw the way the marologu Or raid
Speaker 1: went down and the fact that they immediately came out
Speaker 1: all of his would be rivals and bent the knee
Speaker 1: to his framing of events. And you'll recall Ron DeSantis
Speaker 1: like waited a couple of days and he caught hell
Speaker 1: for not immediate.
Speaker 3: Coming out to Trump's defense.
Speaker 1: So I guess many of them sort of learned that
Speaker 1: lesson and they're coming out. You know, DeSantis was much
Speaker 1: quicker to make a statement here, and you know, once
Speaker 1: again takes Trump's side, his rival, the guy he's trying
Speaker 1: to defeat. He takes his side in this whole battle.
Speaker 1: Is take a listen a little bit of what Ron
Speaker 1: DeSantis had to say.
Speaker 11: My view was, well, gee, you know, as a naval officer,
Speaker 11: I would have taken classified to my apartment. I would
Speaker 11: have been court martialed in a New York minute. And
Speaker 11: yet they seem to not care about that. And is
Speaker 11: there a different standard for a Democrat secretary of State
Speaker 11: versus a former Republican president. I think there needs to
Speaker 11: be one standard of justice in this country. Let's enforce
Speaker 11: it on everybody and make sure we all know the rules.
Speaker 11: You can't have one faction of society weaponizing the power
Speaker 11: of the state against factions that it doesn't like.
Speaker 3: So he's trying to be a little bit careful there, right.
Speaker 1: He does acknowledge, Yeah, he does acknowledge that. You know,
Speaker 1: if he when he was in the military had done
Speaker 1: something similar, it would have been a big problem for him.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, you know, he goes directly to the favorite
Speaker 1: talking point of Trump's allies, which is the what about Hillary,
Speaker 1: what about Biden?
Speaker 3: Et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And he even tweeted out, you know, the
Speaker 2: weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to
Speaker 2: free society. We for years witness an uneven application of
Speaker 2: the law depending on the political affiliation. Why so zealous
Speaker 2: in pursuing Trump, yet so passive about Hillary? For about
Speaker 2: Hillary or Hunter? The DESANTUS administration will restore rule of
Speaker 2: law in this country. It's like, so Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump,
Speaker 2: Hillary Trump, all twenty sixteen vibes, and that's why I
Speaker 2: should be president now on the merits, look, he probably
Speaker 2: would do a better job than Trump in actually reformative
Speaker 2: justice department. In terms of politics, yeah, it's a huge
Speaker 2: issue because every single candidate is now litigating a set
Speaker 2: of facts around their chief opponent, and there really is politically,
Speaker 2: As you know, Crystal, you never want to be talking
Speaker 2: about somebody else. You want to be talking about you
Speaker 2: and your vision for the country. You do not want
Speaker 2: to be on the grounds of talking about some set
Speaker 2: third party. We can do that. We're the new or
Speaker 2: political analysts. We're not actually at the center of the story.
Speaker 2: But that's not the story that you're trying to do
Speaker 2: when you're saying that's why you should vote for me,
Speaker 2: it's exactly just actually, if anything, it gives Trump even
Speaker 2: more power, which we see in a lot of the
Speaker 2: polling that we'll be getting too soon.
Speaker 1: Trump is the central issue in the Republican primary, and
Speaker 1: he's in a lot of ways the central issue in
Speaker 1: the country. And it's in a lot of ways the
Speaker 1: worst thing about having Trump dominate our politics. And so
Speaker 1: you know, every candidate in the Republican primary is forced
Speaker 1: into this impossible position of either backing him up or
Speaker 1: opposing him, which is an even worse position to be in.
Speaker 1: But there's just no beating being actually Donald Trump, right, Like,
Speaker 1: the best stance you can take on the issue of
Speaker 1: Trump is literally being Donald Trump within the Republican primary.
Speaker 1: And that's why I mean, I just basically think this
Speaker 1: primary is over before it's begun because this piece of
Speaker 1: you know, this indictment is probably not the last indictment.
Speaker 1: We're going to have all kinds of news about this
Speaker 1: going through the court system, and what are the motions
Speaker 1: and what else is uncovered and what's Trump saying about it.
Speaker 1: So this tiny window of time that we had where
Speaker 1: candidates were launching, they were getting a little bit of
Speaker 1: media coverage and trying to make the most of that
Speaker 1: and maybe getting a couple point bump in the poll
Speaker 1: is basically done. So this is the landscape that all
Speaker 1: of them are facing. We put together a few other
Speaker 1: responses that are kind of like across the gamut of
Speaker 1: how other Republicans are dealing with this within the primary.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to the other responses, and today.
Speaker 12: What we see is a justice system where the scales
Speaker 12: are weighted.
Speaker 13: But today I'm calling on the Attorney General to stand
Speaker 13: before the American people and explain why this was necessary.
Speaker 13: In his words, Attorney General Merrit Garland, stop hiding behind
Speaker 13: the Special Council and stand before the American people and
Speaker 13: explain why this indictment went forward.
Speaker 14: I disagree with the allegations.
Speaker 2: I just think I do not believe.
Speaker 14: Those allegations because of I think the innectual dishonesty in
Speaker 14: that indictment. So I think the Federal court is actually
Speaker 14: I think based on the precedent of.
Speaker 2: The Clinton sock drawer case, where.
Speaker 14: Effectively Judge Jackson said that it is at the president's,
Speaker 14: her language, not mine, sole discretion as to what is
Speaker 14: and is not covered as a presidential record.
Speaker 1: And Vivek has gone probably the furthest of anyone. He
Speaker 1: immediately came out and said five was president in pardon
Speaker 1: Trump instantly art right, he gets on the record right away,
Speaker 1: and you know he is even willing to say, I
Speaker 1: don't agree with the allegations at all. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: the he's the one who's willing to go the furthest
Speaker 1: out on a limb, potentially positioning himself maybe for cabinet
Speaker 1: secretary position or just to be you know, a favorite
Speaker 1: of the Republican base and whatever sort of accolades and
Speaker 1: opportunities that brings you. But even Mike Pence, you know,
Speaker 1: he did make some sort of like tepid, vague criticism
Speaker 1: of Trump with regard to these charges, But what he's
Speaker 1: really trying to do is position himself to also be on.
Speaker 3: Trump's side on this, even though another.
Speaker 1: Area, you know, with regards to January sixth, et cetera,
Speaker 1: he's been willing to be critical of Trump. But it
Speaker 1: just shows you that there is a real limit how
Speaker 1: far people feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because people don't care about this. We're going about
Speaker 2: to talk about the polling. But you know, it's very
Speaker 2: clear Republicans, some Republicans, not most, but some Actually we're
Speaker 2: pissed off about what Trump did on January sixth. On
Speaker 2: the document's case, this is an open and shut like
Speaker 2: politically has absolutely no impact. Doesn't mean it's not important,
Speaker 2: it certainly is, but just politically, that's how it's being internalized.
Speaker 2: It's not It is not a surprise that the two
Speaker 2: candidates who pull some of the worst in the entire
Speaker 2: Republican Party, they're the only ones who are even willing
Speaker 2: to be critical of Trump. Here on the document's case,
Speaker 2: Asa Hutchinson and Governor Chris Christy, here's what they had
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 12: You are calling on Donald Trump to end his campaign
Speaker 12: in the wake of this second indictment.
Speaker 15: Why for the good of the country and for the
Speaker 15: good of the office of presidency. This is unprecedented that
Speaker 15: we have a former president criminally charged for mishandling classified information.
Speaker 12: So everyone wants to blame the prosecutors, and look, I
Speaker 12: think the prosecution. DOJ is at fault for not charging
Speaker 12: Hillary Clinton. It's at fault for what happened in the
Speaker 12: Russia investigation because it undercut people's faith and confidence in
Speaker 12: the system. But each case has to be looked at
Speaker 12: on its own merits. And the facts that are laid
Speaker 12: out here are damning in terms of Donald Trump's conduct,
Speaker 12: and that's what I think we as a party should
Speaker 12: be looking at.
Speaker 2: So look, Chris Christy Asa Hutchinson. As I alluded to,
Speaker 2: there are already some of literally not only the lowest
Speaker 2: polling but also the highest level of people who said
Speaker 2: they will not even consider them to be president. This
Speaker 2: and I mean and again, the issue is crystal Whenever
Speaker 2: they speak, it's basically indistinguishable from CNN and MSNBC primetime programming. Well,
Speaker 2: the Republican base hates those people. The reason why Mike
Speaker 2: Pence and DeSantis and Viveigue are all being smart politically
Speaker 2: is that in the eyes of the Republican base, this
Speaker 2: is an illegitimate prosecution. If you want to win their
Speaker 2: vale to any primary, even being considered as president of
Speaker 2: the United States, that's exactly what you have to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you're not going to beat Trump by no,
Speaker 3: you're not.
Speaker 1: It's just like, if your goal is to be in
Speaker 1: good with the Republican base, get some you know, Fox
Speaker 1: News or Newsmax or where whatever, like contributorship, or position
Speaker 1: yourself maybe for a cabinet post in a future Trump administration,
Speaker 1: you're doing the right thing. If you're trying to win
Speaker 1: the Republican primary, it doesn't matter what you say, it's
Speaker 1: not gonna work out. I mean, Trump is just such
Speaker 1: like this just shows I think to everyone what a
Speaker 1: dominant controlling force Trump is in the Republican primary for sure,
Speaker 1: but in American politics overall, and you know, he is
Speaker 1: the dividing line. So it's it's not a great landscape
Speaker 1: for them. Now listen with ASA Hutchinson. I don't really
Speaker 1: understand his play, to be honest with you, I don't
Speaker 1: really have a great feel for the ASA career or
Speaker 1: where he's going with this or what he wants. Maybe
Speaker 1: he wants be on CNN. Maybe he just you knows
Speaker 1: as and feels like, this is my responsibility and I
Speaker 1: believe in this party and the principles, and I want
Speaker 1: to say my piece. You know, whatever come what may.
Speaker 1: Chris Christy is in the race because he wants to
Speaker 1: be a wrecking ball and he's unafraid. You know, he
Speaker 1: launched with a very vigorous attack against Trump. He maybe
Speaker 1: have a large enough ego to delude himself into thinking
Speaker 1: that this could work out for him. But his primary
Speaker 1: goal here is to try to annihilate Trump the way
Speaker 1: he annihilated Marco Rubio and potentially like a Kamakaze mission.
Speaker 1: So if that's your goal, then you know, this makes
Speaker 1: some sense. And he already has lost the favor of
Speaker 1: the Republican base. So in terms of future career prospects,
Speaker 1: it's better for him to be in good with like
Speaker 1: you know, CNN, m SEMEC, NBC, mainstream press, and corporate
Speaker 1: America than to try to, you know, walk back over
Speaker 1: the bridge to the conservative media ecosystem, because that ship
Speaker 1: has ultimately sailed. So I understand from all of their
Speaker 1: perspectives what they're doing, and it may make sense for
Speaker 1: them in terms of their future career prospects. None of
Speaker 1: it is going to work out for any of them
Speaker 1: to be president of the United States.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. And that is a great segue to the
Speaker 2: polling that we have so far. We have a snapshot
Speaker 2: of the Republican race in terms of how it's all looking.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and put this up there on the
Speaker 2: screen for the overall GOP primary from CBS News and
Speaker 2: Yugov in their latest poll, which kind of just tells
Speaker 2: you everything, doesn't it. This was we're done from June
Speaker 2: seventh to June eleventh. A lot some of it was
Speaker 2: pre indictment, but the polls overall just underscore how much
Speaker 2: of the base loves Trump right now. Twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: Republican nomination. Who would you vote for today? By the way,
Speaker 2: this polling is amongst likely GOP primary voters sixty one
Speaker 2: percent Trump twenty three percent, Dysantis four percent, Tim Scott
Speaker 2: four percent, Mike Pence three percent Nicky Hayley. So the
Speaker 2: drop off from DeSantis obviously is uh parity precipitous, and
Speaker 2: it just shows you he's the only even genuine contender
Speaker 2: against Trump. But the next one that we're about to
Speaker 2: show you, let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This just really is the whole ball game. To me,
Speaker 2: is kind of what I was just talking about. Who
Speaker 2: are you not considering? Number one? Chris Christy seventy nine percent,
Speaker 2: Doug Bergham seventy three percent, Asa Hutchinson seventy three, Larry
Speaker 2: Elder sixty one, Pence sixty, Haley fifty seven, Ramaswami fifty six,
Speaker 2: Tim Scott forty two, DeSantis twenty seven, Trump fourteen. Literally
Speaker 2: only three candidates Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump
Speaker 2: are even not have a majority of Republican voters say
Speaker 2: that they won't consider them for president. So, I mean, what,
Speaker 2: I guess, Tim Scott mania everybody, you know, if you
Speaker 2: really hate Trump and DeSantis, he's alo I guess endorsed
Speaker 2: Tim Scott. But even he's forty two percent not being considered.
Speaker 2: It's Desantas and Trump. And to the extent that Desantas
Speaker 2: is a show, all, every single one of the people
Speaker 2: I just read would have to drop out and endorse him,
Speaker 2: and even if they did, most people still love Trump.
Speaker 2: So it's like he's got a sixty one percent lead
Speaker 2: here in the overall national polling. Even you know, Vivek Ramaswami,
Speaker 2: the endless amount of you know, kissing Trump and kissing
Speaker 2: up to him. He gets a ton of media coverage.
Speaker 2: But here's the issue. A little you know, CNN interview
Speaker 2: here Don Lemon, viral clip there. None of that is
Speaker 2: even close to the level of Trump being able to
Speaker 2: dominate our politics, and before that, his overall level of
Speaker 2: name idea. I was thinking about what you were saying
Speaker 2: during the previous block that we were doing. And there's
Speaker 2: a powerful concept, you know, in war, or if you
Speaker 2: think about this as a battle, is choosing the ground
Speaker 2: that you fight on is more important, if anything, than
Speaker 2: the actual fight itself. It predetermines almost all the outcomes
Speaker 2: from that forward. That is Trump's overall strength. He selects
Speaker 2: and chooses the ground and says, no, you come fight
Speaker 2: with me over here. You're like, no, no, no, I want
Speaker 2: to fight over here. He's like, yeah, I know, but
Speaker 2: I'm weak over there. I have the high ground on
Speaker 2: this The inability is basically everyone is doing like shooting
Speaker 2: up here at this hill. He's shooting down, which is
Speaker 2: defensive position. That's something that you exactly want to be.
Speaker 2: And then even he does feel like he's losing, he
Speaker 2: moves to another hill like over here, and you have
Speaker 2: to follow him over there. Nobody is actually in control
Speaker 2: except for Trump in this circumstance, and that is why
Speaker 2: the polls overall reflect this. Now here's the thing I
Speaker 2: do want to be fair, that's GOP voters. Many people
Speaker 2: who are not primary voters. Yeah, some of them do
Speaker 2: support the Trump and dytmon, let's put this up there
Speaker 2: on the screen. This was a snappole from ABC News.
Speaker 2: They say rallys of Americans support the second Trump indictment,
Speaker 2: but they say that the charges are politically motivated. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, nearly half forty eight percent they say Trump
Speaker 2: should have been charged in the case, thirty five percent
Speaker 2: mostly Republican base, says that he shouldn't have. Seventeen percent say, quote,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but unsurprisingly, you see that Republicans remain
Speaker 2: most loyal to Trump, quote sixty seven percent saying the
Speaker 2: foreign president, current front runner should not have been charged
Speaker 2: at all. Independence at forty five percent saying he should
Speaker 2: not have been charged, and a solid majority crystal say
Speaker 2: this is a politically motivated investigation. And you know why
Speaker 2: that's so powerful. Trump has now made it so that
Speaker 2: any indictment, in his own words, shooting a man on
Speaker 2: Fifth Avenue, when people would support me, it's because the attacks,
Speaker 2: so many of the illegitimate attacks against him, make it
Speaker 2: so that it's impossible to discern what is legitimate and
Speaker 2: what is not for a lot of people who are
Speaker 2: even sympathetic to the man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all absolutely the case. You know, it's to me,
Speaker 1: it's been pretty clear for a while the way this
Speaker 1: would all plant his hands in terms of the Republican
Speaker 1: primary base. I mean, it just strengthens their commitment to him.
Speaker 1: It makes everything about him. It makes it impossible for
Speaker 1: people to break through, makes it impossible for Ondosantus in particular,
Speaker 1: to try to prosecute his case and lay out why
Speaker 1: he should be president and fight on the ground that
Speaker 1: he would like to fight on. Not that it's even
Speaker 1: totally clear to me what that ground is at this point,
Speaker 1: but it makes all of that thoroughly impossible. I mean,
Speaker 1: the CBS News poll, those are Biden RFK numbers, and
Speaker 1: that's with you know, RFK Junior getting like no press attention,
Speaker 1: and DeSantis is being propped up by Fox News. Ruper
Speaker 1: Murdoch overtly told him like, we're gonna have your back.
Speaker 1: They have done everything they can to prop this guy up,
Speaker 1: and it's to no avail. With regard to the general election,
Speaker 1: it's a lot muddier to me. My inclination is that
Speaker 1: it is actually a problem for Trump in terms of
Speaker 1: the general election. It's an assist to Joe Biden. Why
Speaker 1: because we all know, I mean, Joe Biden launched his
Speaker 1: presidential campaign and I think he still hasn't even gone
Speaker 1: out on the campaign trail. I think he has a
Speaker 1: rally scheduled this week. This is his first one since
Speaker 1: he announced. His team tries to keep him hidden. We
Speaker 1: all know the reason why, because he can't stand up
Speaker 1: to scrutiny. He doesn't do an effective job on the stump.
Speaker 1: He stumbles all over himself. It's always like one inch
Speaker 1: from disaster the whole time. How did he win last time?
Speaker 1: Because they didn't have to do all that much. Trump
Speaker 1: was out there making a fool of himself on COVID
Speaker 1: and doing his thing and being ridiculous. Biden had the
Speaker 1: excuse of the pandemic to not go out and campaign
Speaker 1: in person. And so if these indictments keep coming and
Speaker 1: the news media is caught up as understandably, Listen, I'm
Speaker 1: not even saying they shouldn't cover this stuff, because this
Speaker 1: is actually really important. It really is, you know, quite historic,
Speaker 1: and all that stuff that's going to be the focus
Speaker 1: of media attention. Biden doesn't really have to promise or
Speaker 1: say anything other than like, I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: in prison, and it's you know, that's all he really
Speaker 1: has to do to position himself to get re elected.
Speaker 1: Here in terms of a general election audience, you know,
Speaker 1: I think people's views on Trump are so hardened that
Speaker 1: it's very hard to imagine. Even with damning nature of
Speaker 1: this indictment, It's not like anyone.
Speaker 3: Is surprised by any of this.
Speaker 1: I can imagine very few people really changing their opinions
Speaker 1: of Trump over this. But for those who in focus
Speaker 1: groups are telling polsters like, you know, I voted for
Speaker 1: Biden last time. This time, I might just stay home
Speaker 1: this time, I might vote third party. I'm just not
Speaker 1: really feeling it. This may be the reminder of the
Speaker 1: chaos and general like insanity of the Trump era that
Speaker 1: forces them to once again go well. I guess Biden
Speaker 1: is the lesser of the two evils, and I guess
Speaker 1: it is worth going and pulling the lever for him,
Speaker 1: even though I, you know, I'm not happy with what
Speaker 1: he has done in office.
Speaker 2: I agree with you, I think people should remember, you know,
Speaker 2: with Trump, it's the overall exhaustion and actually not the
Speaker 2: set of facts. So on the set of facts they
Speaker 2: can be like, yeah, I could see that, but they're like, man,
Speaker 2: I'm sick of this. I'm just And that's what January
Speaker 2: sixth leads into that and the more here's the other thing.
Speaker 2: The Feds still have the ongoing January sixth investigation Christal.
Speaker 2: If they prosecute him for that, then we and every
Speaker 2: other news outlet in the country is forced to cover
Speaker 2: the prosecution, which only drums into the heads of the
Speaker 2: American people. Remember that one event and how that you
Speaker 2: all hate or that most of you hate, And but
Speaker 2: I hate this type of politics as you do you
Speaker 2: because I'm like, oh, what, we can sit here in
Speaker 2: January of twenty twenty three and talk about January of
Speaker 2: two thousand and twenty one, but yeah, apparently that's or
Speaker 2: January twenty twenty four, three years almost that's the ground
Speaker 2: that they want to fight on. That's the ground that
Speaker 2: Trump himself kind of shot himself in the foot in
Speaker 2: many ways because he likes fighting on that as well.
Speaker 2: He's like, no, you know, the election wasn't stole a
Speaker 2: dry people absolutely crazy as we saw in the midterm election.
Speaker 2: So overall, I do think it's going to remain an
Speaker 2: issue for him, if anything, because it just feeds into exhaustion.
Speaker 2: The counter to that is is that there is probably
Speaker 2: a ceiling to the level of whether people can care
Speaker 2: before they start to tune out. Trump did still win
Speaker 2: some seventy something million votes in the twenty twenty election
Speaker 2: after a lot of what happened investigation in the exhaustion,
Speaker 2: So people do also and are willing to tune it
Speaker 2: out dramatically if they think an issue is more important.
Speaker 2: So it's all going to come down to turn out.
Speaker 2: As they say.
Speaker 1: I mean, he tried to do a Keystone cops coup,
Speaker 1: So it's understandable people are going to think about that
Speaker 1: and want to talk about that and want to consider
Speaker 1: that in terms of whether they want to put this
Speaker 1: guy back in a position of power. And we certainly
Speaker 1: saw how that weigh on the decision making of midterm
Speaker 1: voters and the results of the last midterm elections. The
Speaker 1: last thing I'll say in terms of this particular polling,
Speaker 1: which I think is interesting too, is just there's such
Speaker 1: a distance between the way the Republican electorate feels about
Speaker 1: January six, feels about these classified documents feels about even
Speaker 1: the Alvin Bragg charges and the way that the rest
Speaker 1: of the country feels about it. So they asked voters, so,
Speaker 1: is it a national security risk if Trump kept nuclear
Speaker 1: and military documents, And this was the CBS newspoll. Only
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent of likely GOOP primary voters say yes,
Speaker 1: and that thirty eight percent probably they don't really believe that.
Speaker 2: He kept that stuff.
Speaker 3: They're not going to buy it.
Speaker 1: So you can basically like, even though they acknowledge if
Speaker 1: he kept those sort of things, yes, it was a problem,
Speaker 1: they don't really think that he kept those things. Eighty
Speaker 1: percent of the rest of the country says, this is
Speaker 1: a real problem. This is a real national security issue.
Speaker 1: This is serious, This is a real you know, this
Speaker 1: is a real thing. So when you have this wild
Speaker 1: gulf between the way that the Republican.
Speaker 3: Base that feels about a key issue.
Speaker 1: That's going to dominate our politics, and the way that
Speaker 1: the rest of the electorate feels about it, it creates
Speaker 1: a real political issue for Trump. And this is the
Speaker 1: path that Ron Klan all those months ago laid out
Speaker 1: for Joe Biden to get elected, which is like he's
Speaker 1: going to have a low approval rating.
Speaker 3: People aren't going to be in love with him.
Speaker 1: They're not going to be in love with what he did,
Speaker 1: They're not going to be in love with how the
Speaker 1: country did. But they're going to look at the alternative
Speaker 1: and say, I got no other choice.
Speaker 2: That's right. Let's talk a little bit about Joe, about
Speaker 2: Joe Biden. Let's go ahead and put this up there
Speaker 2: on the screen. On the very same day actually of
Speaker 2: the indictment, the GOP Oversight Committee, members of that came
Speaker 2: out and told us this. This is from Anna Paulina
Speaker 2: a Luna, who's a member of that committee. She says,
Speaker 2: quote in shock after leaving GOP Overside Committee meeting today.
Speaker 2: The FBI quote has an informant who brought forward information
Speaker 2: President Biden received a five million dollar bribe from a
Speaker 2: foreign national while he was Vice president of the United
Speaker 2: States in the Obama administration. Quote, they stated that they
Speaker 2: were afraid that the informant would be killed if they
Speaker 2: were unmasked. On Thursday, there will be a hearing to
Speaker 2: hold FBI director in the contempt of Congress. There will
Speaker 2: no more corruption shall be tolerated. All of this traces
Speaker 2: back to this whistleblower that allegedly had come forward, which
Speaker 2: was revealed by the GOP Overside Committee a month ago.
Speaker 2: Let's go to put this up there please on the screen.
Speaker 2: All of it was disclosed to Fox News. What they
Speaker 2: say is that their documents proving in the FBI that
Speaker 2: the informant has come forward involving this criminal scheme between
Speaker 2: President Biden a foreign national, some of which traces back
Speaker 2: to the Bearisma investigation. This letter was brought forward from
Speaker 2: Representative Comer and Senator Grassly, the joint members of the
Speaker 2: committee's a House Oversight and Senate who are looking into
Speaker 2: the investigations of the FBI itself. Now, what they say
Speaker 2: is that it quotes includes a precise description of how
Speaker 2: this scheme was employed as well as its purpose. The
Speaker 2: issue is that we just don't have all of the
Speaker 2: details around this, and then, look, I think people should
Speaker 2: remain skeptical. However, we also know that the FBI has
Speaker 2: refused to generate the quote FD ten twenty three form
Speaker 2: which details alleged set arrangement involving this exchange of money
Speaker 2: for policy decisions. The reason that Congressman Luna had brought
Speaker 2: up before bringing the FBI director and holding him in
Speaker 2: contempt of Congress was specifically because they have provided set
Speaker 2: of subpoena to the FBI, which is not yet materialized.
Speaker 2: So the reason we have to speak in generalities right
Speaker 2: now is we don't have the document. Yeah, and they
Speaker 2: haven't told us anything else about it. Assuming the extent
Speaker 2: here is basically there is an informant who brought this
Speaker 2: forward to the FBI. This according to Congress, this is
Speaker 2: an informant. He came the FBI five million dollar Bibery scheme.
Speaker 2: We don't know anything else about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: So I think it's important to put a pin in
Speaker 1: this one and keep.
Speaker 3: Your eye on it.
Speaker 1: But there's also good reason to maintain your skepticism. Not
Speaker 1: because we think Joe Biden isn't corrupt or you know,
Speaker 1: wouldn't take money or whatever, but this is coming from
Speaker 1: This is like second hand reporting of second hand sources,
Speaker 1: and it's clearly coming from, you know, people who are
Speaker 1: our adversarial to Joe Biden, his Republican political opponents, who
Speaker 1: are on this GOP Weaponization of Government committee. So it's
Speaker 1: important to keep those facts in mind with regard to
Speaker 1: the actual tip. It came apparently a couple years ago.
Speaker 1: There's some indication that it has already been investigated. So
Speaker 1: that's one piece. The other pieces, the source didn't have
Speaker 1: direct knowledge of the payment. The source said that they
Speaker 1: had been told about the payment. So that's why I
Speaker 1: say it's like second hand of a secondhand account. And
Speaker 1: so that's why, you know, I think it's important to
Speaker 1: mention that this information is out there, it's circulating on
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill. Certainly a lot of conservatives think that, you know,
Speaker 1: this is something and it certainly should be investigated, and
Speaker 1: this is something that needs to be looked into. But
Speaker 1: we are a long way from having all of the
Speaker 1: facts lockdown on what exactly happened to here.
Speaker 2: So the exact date of the form is f OF
Speaker 2: is June thirty, twenty twenty two, twenty twenty. The FBI
Speaker 2: interview described the source as quote highly highly credible. That form,
Speaker 2: though some people need to know. The FD ten twenty
Speaker 2: three form is used by agents to record unverified reporting
Speaker 2: from confidential human sources. So it's not, you know, under oath.
Speaker 2: It is something that's made by a confidential in format
Speaker 2: and they use it as an intelligence gathering tool. It
Speaker 2: is said to document information that's then told to the
Speaker 2: FBI agent. Now, as I said, some of this, at
Speaker 2: least some of the contours that have come forward, is
Speaker 2: that this involves five million dollars paid by an executive
Speaker 2: of the Ukrainian natural gas company, the Barisma, who we
Speaker 2: have all I think are well familiar with, according to
Speaker 2: the secondhand reporting of this confidential source to the president.
Speaker 2: And overall, I mean, look, I as you do believe
Speaker 2: that some shady stuff happened with Barisma, and I do
Speaker 2: not think that the Biden family was above taking bribes
Speaker 2: from foreign governments. Given so much of the material that
Speaker 2: has come forward, give you know, with Hunter, his holding companies,
Speaker 2: their relationships to the Chinese government, the level of money
Speaker 2: he was moving around, and that's where his personal life
Speaker 2: does come into play, which is the reason why he
Speaker 2: needed access to millions and millions and millions of dollars.
Speaker 2: Was burning it all on drugs and in all these
Speaker 2: insane different schemes. Flying around and booking high level European
Speaker 2: hookers cost money, apparently, and that's why he needed access
Speaker 2: to said funds. In that we have to go back
Speaker 2: to the original twenty twenty. You know, just as much
Speaker 2: as I hate talking about January sixth this too, you know,
Speaker 2: if to feel like you've put on several hats from
Speaker 2: years ago. Tony Bobolinski, who was the recipient of said
Speaker 2: email from Hunter Biden in which they discussed this quote
Speaker 2: ten percent to the big guy that Hunter had laid out,
Speaker 2: in which he effectively said that he was holding ten
Speaker 2: percent for some alleged big guy, of which I don't
Speaker 2: think it takes a genius to surmise could be his father,
Speaker 2: the President of the United States currently and then the
Speaker 2: vice president now. Also, though we know from Ben Schrekinger's
Speaker 2: reporting over at Politico of the level of how Hunter
Speaker 2: and Biden's brother James were involved in all kinds of
Speaker 2: insane schemes to use Biden's position, Hunter himself also policitian himself.
Speaker 2: So nobody is saying here that Biden is not corrupt
Speaker 2: and that this investigation has not borne fruit, only that
Speaker 2: so far we don't have any of the details. I
Speaker 2: do believe that the FBI should make this form available
Speaker 2: to Congress simply because it's a matter of an immense
Speaker 2: public interest. Their argument is, well, oh well, we can't
Speaker 2: be making forms, you know, that have of an investigation
Speaker 2: that's been closed we can't make that public because it's
Speaker 2: unfair to the people who are you know, who are
Speaker 2: in being investigated. But because these people are such high
Speaker 2: level public officials with so much power, I think we
Speaker 2: should have a different standard. They're not private citizens. Like
Speaker 2: the information is so immensely important, and we've already broken that,
Speaker 2: you know, with Hillary Clinton investigation, with the Trump investigations.
Speaker 2: It should come forward and the people should be able
Speaker 2: to make up their minds for themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a few reasons why I maintain skepticism here,
Speaker 1: which is Jamie Comer, who is involved in, you know,
Speaker 1: all of this and is on the House that Oversight Committee.
Speaker 1: He has was directly did President by commit crimes? And
Speaker 1: what his response was he did things that should have
Speaker 1: been crimes. This would be directly a crime, right, So
Speaker 1: there's that number one.
Speaker 3: Number two. I just it's important to imagine that.
Speaker 1: This allegation was coming out about some politician that you
Speaker 1: actually like, and the way that you would view it.
Speaker 3: So what do we have. We have his political.
Speaker 1: Opponents recounting to an allied political media organization information on
Speaker 1: a form that was unverified and that was secondhand. So
Speaker 1: should it be invested a Hunter absolutely should be investigated.
Speaker 1: We should see the form, we should know everything that
Speaker 1: we can possibly know about it, and if there's there there,
Speaker 1: he should be prosecuted. But there's a lot of reason
Speaker 1: to hold off on coming to firm conclusions about what
Speaker 1: exactly the details are here and what exactly happened because
Speaker 1: of the political motivation of the people who are bringing
Speaker 1: this information forward.
Speaker 2: We're going to keep everybody updated throughout. We will be
Speaker 2: tracking this investigation seeing what Congressman Comber had to say.
Speaker 2: We want the release of that form, and transparency in
Speaker 2: general is always a good thing. Let's go to the
Speaker 2: next part here. This is absolutely fascinating moment. Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 2: was back on the Lex Friedman podcast and there was
Speaker 2: an interesting moment where Lex asked him about COVID misinformation
Speaker 2: and also just overall efforts for censorship. We will recall
Speaker 2: that when Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta Facebook Instagram for
Speaker 2: the Normal People who Are, when he was interviewed on
Speaker 2: the Joe Rogan Experience, detailed that moment whenever the FBI
Speaker 2: had come forward and said, hey, something is coming, you
Speaker 2: should be ready, he talked about openly admitted that they
Speaker 2: de ranked the Hunter Biden laptop story on their platform,
Speaker 2: which in my opinion, is worse than what Twitter did
Speaker 2: because there's no like, how do you know when something
Speaker 2: is de ranked or not? He was like, yeah, we
Speaker 2: openly say shadow banded it.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like so you could share it, but nobody would
Speaker 2: see it, and it's like, well that's pretty odd. Okay.
Speaker 2: Within that, Zuckerberg, though, had a fascinating admission around COVID
Speaker 2: mis misinformation and censorship that his own platform enacted while
Speaker 2: the pandemic was going on, talking about how the establishment
Speaker 2: actually got a lot of facts wrong. Here's what he
Speaker 2: had to say in that interview.
Speaker 16: So misinformation, I think is has been a really tricky
Speaker 16: one because there are things that are kind of obviously false, right,
Speaker 16: that are maybe factual, but may not be harmful, since aga, right,
Speaker 16: are you going to censor someone for just being wrong?
Speaker 16: It's you know, if there's no kind of harm implication
Speaker 16: of what they're doing. I think that that's there's there's
Speaker 16: a bunch of real kind of issues and challenges there.
Speaker 16: But then I think that there are other places where
Speaker 16: it is you just take some of the stuff around COVID.
Speaker 16: Earlier on in the pandemic where there were you know,
Speaker 16: real health implications, but there hadn't been time to fully
Speaker 16: vet a bunch of the scientific asumptions. And you know, unfortunately,
Speaker 16: I think a lot of the kind of establishment done
Speaker 16: that you know, kind of waffled on a bunch of
Speaker 16: facts and asked for a bunch of things to be
Speaker 16: censored that in retrospect ended up being more debatable or true.
Speaker 16: And that stuff is really tough, really undermines trust and
Speaker 16: that and the.
Speaker 2: Problem I always have with Zuckerberg is he says the
Speaker 2: right things, yeah, look, you know, we got it wrong,
Speaker 2: but then whenever it comes down to it, he always buckles.
Speaker 2: And isn't it an impossible situation In many respects, he
Speaker 2: is literally the CEO of this massive platform with foreign
Speaker 2: governments constantly demanding censorship, and then his own activist employee base,
Speaker 2: which also demands it. In my opinion, he originally had
Speaker 2: it correct. Zuckerberg used to hold up Facebook as the
Speaker 2: paragon of free speech and said, I am a Jew,
Speaker 2: I am of a family that was affected by the Holocaust.
Speaker 2: I will not censor Holocaust denial. In many ways, it's
Speaker 2: one of the most courageous free speech positions that you
Speaker 2: can take, and he took a lot of heat for it.
Speaker 2: And then two years later he was like, yeah, you
Speaker 2: know what, we are going to censor Holocaust. And now
Speaker 2: I mean that was it. Like from people who I
Speaker 2: have spoken to who literally were involved in the process,
Speaker 2: many of whom believed in free speech, it was a
Speaker 2: breaking moment for them because they used to hold that
Speaker 2: up to advertisers and say, our Jewish CEO literally says,
Speaker 2: this is a principle of which we will abide by
Speaker 2: and we will not fold on. And then he folded,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately he also folded Crystal right in the midst
Speaker 2: of the twenty twenty election of taking down Trump's account
Speaker 2: off of Facebook, setting up this fake oversight board around
Speaker 2: what oh, We're gonna kick it to the oversight board,
Speaker 2: and then the oversight board was like, dude, you're a
Speaker 2: private company. You make the call. And then he did.
Speaker 2: He was like, Okay, Trump's account is back, and we're like,
Speaker 2: what you know, this is all this like insane, quadi
Speaker 2: judicious process. So I guess I am several minds. And
Speaker 2: we have Jack Dorsey on the show today, so I'm
Speaker 2: excited to talk to him about it. Yeah, I have
Speaker 2: no doubt in my mind Jack believed in free speech.
Speaker 2: I also have no doubt in my mind free speech
Speaker 2: not provile under Jack's leadership. Maybe that is just simply
Speaker 2: a function of a private company into in today's world.
Speaker 1: That's it. Yes, I mean, look at a number of
Speaker 1: advertising I don't if Twitter has not been free speech
Speaker 1: under Elon Musk either, but how much it has this
Speaker 1: advertising revenue been cut by like sixty percent or something great.
Speaker 1: I mean, advertisers fled when they were worried about what
Speaker 1: content would be on the platform, And of course they
Speaker 1: did because they don't want their brand to be next
Speaker 1: to whatever, you know, Holocaust, de nihilism or whatever. So
Speaker 1: this is the reason why if you believe that these
Speaker 1: social media platforms are critical infrastructure for democracy, they should
Speaker 1: be insulated from the profit incentive and they should not
Speaker 1: be run by a handful of billionaires.
Speaker 3: Like there's just no other way around it.
Speaker 1: Good billionaire, a bad billionaire, in between billionaires, smart billionaires
Speaker 1: to it doesn't matter. Ultimately, they're all playing by the
Speaker 1: same rules because they're all subject to the same basic landscape.
Speaker 3: And so that's why the decision making looks so similar.
Speaker 1: Why over time they've all converged to very similar decision making.
Speaker 1: It's all because of the you know, the profit making,
Speaker 1: and it's I don't even think like the active as
Speaker 1: employees or whatever are really the thing.
Speaker 3: It's the advertisers. It's the money.
Speaker 1: If you're going to make money in these companies, you're
Speaker 1: going to listen to what the advertisers have to say.
Speaker 1: And that's basically the bottom line here.
Speaker 3: With regard to COVID.
Speaker 1: Part of why I found these comments so interesting and
Speaker 1: why I continue to find this topic so interesting, is
Speaker 1: because COVID was such a critical stress test and test
Speaker 1: case of principles. Because on the one hand, if you
Speaker 1: have information that is wrong, incorrect, you know, misleading, whatever
Speaker 1: it can, it could genuinely be dangerous. Right on the
Speaker 1: other hand, you have a situation where the facts were
Speaker 1: wildly unsettled, where there was a portrayal of facts from
Speaker 1: the government that was at times misleading, at times outright lies.
Speaker 1: At times, they you know, mistakenly got things wrong. This
Speaker 1: was all in flux, and so to think that to
Speaker 1: think the government is going to get it right.
Speaker 3: All at once is foolish.
Speaker 1: And then to think that these tech platforms are going
Speaker 1: to be able to adjudicate all of this in real
Speaker 1: time is complete insanity. And so that's why, even with
Speaker 1: something that was truly as sensitive and potentially as dangerous
Speaker 1: as quote unquote COVID misinformation, why it would have been
Speaker 1: a much better approach to have a light touch, and
Speaker 1: why people would have had a lot more you know,
Speaker 1: I mean trust is broken in like every institution anyway,
Speaker 1: but this certainly did not help the case. And it
Speaker 1: reminds me of you know, the polling about CNN and
Speaker 1: where a lot of trust was lost with regards to CNN.
Speaker 1: It wasn't actually as much on their Trump coverage. It
Speaker 1: was on the way that they handled COVID, and people
Speaker 1: felt like, all right, I'm out of here, like I'm done,
Speaker 1: I'm moving on. So I think there was at that
Speaker 1: it's easy to forget with the passage of time, how
Speaker 1: raw and nervous and on edge every one was, especially
Speaker 1: at the beginning of COVID. There was such a critical
Speaker 1: period where institutions could have risen to the challenge. And
Speaker 1: you know, Zuckerberg and Meta were not alone in missing
Speaker 1: the mark.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. And that's why, you know, once again,
Speaker 2: I actually have some personal admiration for I'm like, listen,
Speaker 2: you know Zuck. He's not shooting himself full of TRT
Speaker 2: and having his midlife crisis like Jeff Bezos. He's actually
Speaker 2: Chad Zuck. He's participating in jiu jitsu competitions. He remains fit,
Speaker 2: he's married, he has kids. You know, he seems principled
Speaker 2: sometimes whenever he talks. But you've got to judge these
Speaker 2: people based on their actions, and look on almost every
Speaker 2: metric he actually has failed. And I think it's a
Speaker 2: good stress test. As you said, of you can have
Speaker 2: a guy who literally believes you shouldn't censor Holocaust and
Speaker 2: island two years later after Apple Nuke's you know iOS whatever,
Speaker 2: the ability for Facebook targets advertising is like, well, I'm
Speaker 2: running one hundred he's running a hunt. Well not even
Speaker 2: one hundred billion, I think bigger, something like a two
Speaker 2: hundred billion dollar companies. One of the richest men literally
Speaker 2: on planet Earth. He's got to protect. It's not even
Speaker 2: about his own bag at that point. He's got employees, stockholders,
Speaker 2: all this other stuff. At the end of the day,
Speaker 2: these people's responsibility is to the company bottom line. Literally,
Speaker 2: that's what they say. As CEO well, they're always going
Speaker 2: to act on behalf of that. With you have a
Speaker 2: majority advertising supported thing. Then ultimately that's why the decision
Speaker 2: tree comes back to. It's why also you and I
Speaker 2: designed our business so that we can have this big,
Speaker 2: beautiful studio and not have to worry about advertising because
Speaker 2: if advertising polled, well, guess what, that's not what paid
Speaker 2: for this. It was actually our premium describers. But at scale,
Speaker 2: is that even possible? Don't know. Yeah, I genuinely don't
Speaker 2: know if that's impossible. That's right, all right, Sager, we
Speaker 2: are looking at well, it's been a big week for
Speaker 2: the UFO phenomenon, to which I've seen more public interests
Speaker 2: than I have in a long time. Anytime there's so
Speaker 2: much information breaking all at once, it's always important review
Speaker 2: the facts and separate them for people as they think
Speaker 2: about it, or at the very least think that we
Speaker 2: should get to the bottom of some other recent events
Speaker 2: now as far as UFOs goes. In the last week
Speaker 2: or so, there have been two major stories which we
Speaker 2: have covered here on breaking points, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: separate these into two categories. One is the former intelligence
Speaker 2: official David Grush coming forward with an extraordinary claim the
Speaker 2: United States government is in possession of multiple alien spacecraft.
Speaker 2: They have lied to the American people in Congress for decades.
Speaker 2: This is further backed up by multiple Intel officials coming
Speaker 2: forward to Michael Schellenberger supporting his claims. I believe these
Speaker 2: stories are the utmost importance. I'm going to circle back
Speaker 2: to them, I promise. But another story that got a
Speaker 2: lot of attention is this recent event in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Speaker 2: Police body camera footage and a nine to one to
Speaker 2: one call ignited immense public interests after a family and
Speaker 2: a teenager specifically called nine to one one to report
Speaker 2: the siding of an alien being in his backyard. The
Speaker 2: reason these claims even received any attention at all is
Speaker 2: because police officers and body camera footage revealed lights in
Speaker 2: the sky around Vegas at the same time, and officers
Speaker 2: in their footage are shown mystified by what they saw.
Speaker 2: If you missed it, here was the report that took
Speaker 2: the world by storm.
Speaker 17: I got a build because actually, so there's two people
Speaker 17: or two subjects matter in your backyard, correct, And.
Speaker 10: They're very large, they're like a foot nice I don't know,
Speaker 10: they're like they're like ilious cloks, big eyes that have
Speaker 10: big eyes, like like I can't excited and think I'm
Speaker 10: out there're tiny eyes and and they're not human one
Speaker 10: hundred percent they're not human.
Speaker 17: Okay, Well, the aues that investigators obtaining video as officers
Speaker 17: then responded to the call you just heard. You'll see
Speaker 17: the officers also saw something in the sky that night.
Speaker 17: But the big question is what was it and is
Speaker 17: it all connected. It's almost midnight on May first, when
Speaker 17: a Las Vegas Metro Police officers body cam catches this
Speaker 17: something flashing low in the sky.
Speaker 10: Minutes later, there's a there's like an eight food person
Speaker 10: becde it and another one's deside and it has big eyes.
Speaker 10: They're looking at us.
Speaker 17: And it's so that someone calls nine to one one
Speaker 17: reporting two large figures in their backyard.
Speaker 2: The eighties.
Speaker 17: Now investigators obtaining another officer's video as he sent to
Speaker 17: the Northwest Valley home.
Speaker 11: I have butterflies, broon saw a shooting star.
Speaker 2: Then these people say there's aliens in their backyard.
Speaker 17: By now it's more than an hour after that bright
Speaker 17: light officers meeting up with the caller and his family.
Speaker 4: Would you see it was like it was like a
Speaker 4: big creature.
Speaker 2: A big creature, yeah, like an tete talk.
Speaker 10: I'm not gonna be yes you guys.
Speaker 17: One of my partner said they saw something following this
Speaker 17: guy too, So that's why I'm kind of curious.
Speaker 3: Did you see anything in your backyard or.
Speaker 10: They see like a big they say they see like
Speaker 10: a like a I do believe in it.
Speaker 17: Police walk into the backyard to investigate, but Metro blocked
Speaker 17: out that part of the video because it's considered private property.
Speaker 2: Now, of course, there are a few questions. Number one,
Speaker 2: since when has the police blurred out an entire backyard
Speaker 2: because it's private property. That's one of the craziest things
Speaker 2: I've ever heard. But also, come on, man, you saw
Speaker 2: a nine or ten foot alien being, you didn't whip
Speaker 2: out your phone camera. Luckily, the kid himself who was
Speaker 2: featured in the video came forward in a YouTube video
Speaker 2: with some more information. Now, since that witness from the
Speaker 2: video as a teenager, I'm not gonna try and be
Speaker 2: too mean. But the most important thing that he supposedly
Speaker 2: revealed is this image. Okay, so per his telling, that
Speaker 2: perfect circle is what was imprinted in his backyard. Now,
Speaker 2: as UFO journalist, James Fox indicated in his review quote,
Speaker 2: I have an open mind, but let's be honest. That
Speaker 2: looks like something that was scratched with a shoe. The
Speaker 2: explanation as to why they did not whip out their
Speaker 2: cell phones to record their allegend encounter with alien beings
Speaker 2: in their backyard is they were afraid, which is somewhat reasonable.
Speaker 2: And furthermore, Las Vegas basin you Famed UFO journalist George
Speaker 2: Napp is also on the case, and he provided us
Speaker 2: with this update.
Speaker 18: Eight News Now Investigators has spoken with family members multiple
Speaker 18: times in the past four weeks, but each of the
Speaker 18: three times we accepted their invitation to do an interview,
Speaker 18: they didn't answer the door or their phone. These are
Speaker 18: some of the claims they've made in other public forums.
Speaker 18: Multiple family members backed up the story. In an initial
Speaker 18: police report we obtained. Angel says they heard the patterner
Speaker 18: of multiple feet in the yard. They later heard footsteps
Speaker 18: on their roof. They saw one of the eight foot
Speaker 18: tall creatures climb behind the controls of a large front
Speaker 18: loader in the yard as if trying to engage it.
Speaker 18: He got a good look at one of the creatures,
Speaker 18: He said, a greenish grayish being with large eyes and
Speaker 18: long legs. He says he could hear its deep breaths
Speaker 18: and when he locked eyes, he was, in essence frozen
Speaker 18: in place, couldn't move in the middle of the yard
Speaker 18: where the object is crash then vanished. A circular impression
Speaker 18: was left in the soil.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the man avoiding interview requests despite agreeing to them.
Speaker 2: On the one hand, explanation out there is that they
Speaker 2: want to remain anonymous and shun attention. But then they
Speaker 2: also one of the alleged witnesses is starring a YouTube
Speaker 2: channel and calls it Alien Society fifty one. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to dismiss it yet entirely. There was still ring
Speaker 2: doorbell footage that captured the sound of a thud. The
Speaker 2: officer body camera footage showed an object falling out of
Speaker 2: the sky. Another independent journalist who spoke with the family
Speaker 2: says he does believe that they saw something, so look,
Speaker 2: we'll wait for further information. For me, personally, I am
Speaker 2: actually less convinced after the release of the witness YouTube
Speaker 2: video than the initial weirdness of that bodycam footage getting
Speaker 2: blacked out. We will wait further investigation amongst questions about
Speaker 2: potential cover up in Vegas by police officers, and as
Speaker 2: some have pointed out, given that we still have a
Speaker 2: total blackout on the actual Las Vegas mass shooting, it's
Speaker 2: not like you can really trust the word of authorities
Speaker 2: that are from there. The reason I spent some time
Speaker 2: on this is to show I and many interested who
Speaker 2: are in this topic don't just believe everything gets put
Speaker 2: out there. In fact, most of what's put out there
Speaker 2: I disregard almost entirely. Every once in a while, a
Speaker 2: strange one will pop up that's on the fence, like
Speaker 2: this one, and it's incumbent on those who do believe,
Speaker 2: people like Dave Grush and want more investigation to show
Speaker 2: public skepticism as well. And I'm going to end it
Speaker 2: by just saying this, take a look. What you can
Speaker 2: see is that people who are interested in the topic
Speaker 2: and want transparency on the government have in possession both
Speaker 2: documents and materials. Wise, so I will end with hope
Speaker 2: focus less on individual stories and more on the allegations
Speaker 2: of government conspiracies that can either be disproven or disproven
Speaker 2: based entirely on whether congressional leaders actually take this issue
Speaker 2: seriously and give us transparency. The House of Representatives now
Speaker 2: says they will investigate the allegations of Dave Grush and
Speaker 2: will have hearings. It's not much, but it is a start.
Speaker 2: Maybe it'll be the start of something big, you know, Chris.
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 2: Crystal, what are you taking a look at?
Speaker 1: Anarco eco terrorist? Ted Kaczinski, whose mail bombs terrified and
Speaker 1: captivated the nation, killed himself in his jail cell over
Speaker 1: the weekend. He was eighty one years old, serving out
Speaker 1: a life sentence for his numerous violent crimes. Now the
Speaker 1: so called unibomber killed three and injured an additional twenty
Speaker 1: three in a series of sixteen explosions that he said
Speaker 1: between the years nineteen seventy eight and nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: It was actually caught after arranging a deal with the
Speaker 1: New York Times in the Washington Post to publish his
Speaker 1: anti modernity manifesto. It was titled Industrial Society and Its Future.
Speaker 1: Kazinski's brother recognized Ted's writing style, and then he turned
Speaker 1: over his brother to the FBI.
Speaker 3: His Deathso is of.
Speaker 1: More than just historical relevance because Ted Screed, which was
Speaker 1: publish nearly three decades ago, has recently found a modern audience.
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson and Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters they recently
Speaker 1: cited his ideas approvingly, seemingly reflecting an online zoomer zeitgeist
Speaker 1: of embracing Kazinsky and calling.
Speaker 3: Themselves Ted pilt.
Speaker 1: So what led to the current interest in his writings
Speaker 1: and in his ideology? While core concepts in the manifesto
Speaker 1: they actually feel pretty familiar today.
Speaker 3: The basic ideas that.
Speaker 1: Technology is destroying the world and has made mankind a
Speaker 1: slave to its whims.
Speaker 3: Kazinski argues that quote the.
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for
Speaker 1: the human race. The system does not and cannot exist
Speaker 1: to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that
Speaker 1: has to be modified to fit the needs.
Speaker 3: Of the system.
Speaker 1: This system, he says, has turned human beings into quote
Speaker 1: engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. He argues,
Speaker 1: the only hope for reversing this cataclysm is through societal
Speaker 1: collapse and revolution, which he hoped to spark through his
Speaker 1: mail bombs or at least to call attention to his ideas,
Speaker 1: And you have to say, on that count he was
Speaker 1: kind of successful. It's easy to see how Kazinski's ideas
Speaker 1: would land with a modern audience, especially among young people
Speaker 1: who have only ever experienced a world where the majority
Speaker 1: of their most intimate intimate interactions are mediated through some
Speaker 1: tech platform or another. There's a whole subgenre of TikTok
Speaker 1: devoted to Kazinsky's standing, where depress zoomers pine for a
Speaker 1: return to a wilderness that frankly, they've barely ever experienced.
Speaker 1: It's filled with links to articles about microplastics, means about
Speaker 1: suburban sprawl, and lamentations about low tea levels. Separated by
Speaker 1: decades from the visceral horror of the killings and the
Speaker 1: terror that ordinary Americans felt just opening up their mailboxes.
Speaker 1: You're left with the radicalism for mass consumption. After all,
Speaker 1: who among us has in harbored off the grid fantasy
Speaker 1: where we toss our smartphones into a lake swhere to
Speaker 1: never sign into another god forsaken zoom call, rescue our
Speaker 1: children from Roebloxia, and figure out how to make our
Speaker 1: way in the wilderness, to be the masters of our
Speaker 1: own faiths in the mold of our ancient ancestors sounds
Speaker 1: kind of appealing as we sit in our air conditioned room,
Speaker 1: with the whole world and every modern convenience right at
Speaker 1: our fingertips. In fact, you could easily argue that kazinski
Speaker 1: analysis of the ills of modernity and threat of tech
Speaker 1: is actually at the peak of its relevance. After all,
Speaker 1: we just watch humanity be ravaged and our individual freedom
Speaker 1: further curtailed by a pandemic that was in all likelihood
Speaker 1: unleashed by an arrogant scientific establishment. Last week, the entire
Speaker 1: East Coast was smothered by smoke drifting from unprecedented wildfires,
Speaker 1: at a predictable consequence of the human driven climate catastrophe.
Speaker 1: He also writes compellingly about the dangers of AI. He wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: as society and the problems that face it become more
Speaker 1: and more complex, and as machines become more and more intelligent,
Speaker 1: people will let machines make more and more of their
Speaker 1: decisions for them, simply because machine made decisions will bring
Speaker 1: better results than man made ones. Eventually, a stage may
Speaker 1: be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the
Speaker 1: system running will be so complex that human beings will
Speaker 1: be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage, the
Speaker 1: machines will be in effective control. We already have tech
Speaker 1: which even its own architects do not understand, churning out
Speaker 1: results that they cannot predict. It's impossible to argue the
Speaker 1: tech is actually in service of humanity when we don't
Speaker 1: even know what the tech is up to underneath its
Speaker 1: shiny public basing veneer. Just last week, Apple released its
Speaker 1: Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which is intended to bring
Speaker 1: all of your screens into your immediate field of vision
Speaker 1: without even having to look down at a smartphone or
Speaker 1: TV or iPad or other device. Who knows whether it's
Speaker 1: ever going to reach widespread adoption, but it's one more
Speaker 1: invention designed to make us more disconnected from the environment
Speaker 1: we are actually in and the people we are actually around,
Speaker 1: and become more reliant on the machines.
Speaker 3: Now, the niche hero worship of.
Speaker 1: Kasinski is obviously unsettling, given that he was a killer
Speaker 1: and a terrorist. His zoomer fans feel the sting of disaffection,
Speaker 1: but lack the personal or societal means to do a
Speaker 1: whole lot about it. Their self aware impotence on display
Speaker 1: as they use the new hottest tech platform to pine
Speaker 1: for the destruction of all technology and a return to
Speaker 1: the wild. Tech is admired with this group because he
Speaker 1: didn't just complain about modernity, He actually did the thing,
Speaker 1: lived off the grid survival life, and with so much
Speaker 1: time removed, his violence feels distant enough to just be
Speaker 1: a useful element of an edgy, radical online persona. Ironically,
Speaker 1: it's the very story that our algorithm boosted tech of
Speaker 1: today has incentivized a generation to tell about themselves. Be edgy,
Speaker 1: be radical, be extreme to get boosted in the algorithm.
Speaker 1: The ted stands who hate tech were cultivated by the
Speaker 1: very tech that they posture as despising. Of course, Kazinski himself,
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, was the cultural product of modernity.
Speaker 3: The boy genius with the.
Speaker 1: Freakish mathematical aptitude swept up at the tender age of
Speaker 1: sex sixteen, shipped off to Harvard, where he would be
Speaker 1: fast tracked into elite society so that his market desirable
Speaker 1: intellect could be put to use by the government, and
Speaker 1: where he would be experimented on as part of the
Speaker 1: CIA's mk Ultra project. When he became a terrorist. His
Speaker 1: exploits were packaged into digestible bites for mass news media
Speaker 1: audience that was just getting a taste for the twenty
Speaker 1: four hour news cycle. Kazinski argued that the unbearable weight
Speaker 1: of the current system would eventually come crashing down. Now,
Speaker 1: nothing quite so apocalyptic has happened, but at post pandemic,
Speaker 1: we have certainly seen a dramatic reordering of human priorities.
Speaker 3: We've seen people move to find a.
Speaker 1: Quality of life which more adequately nourishes their soul and
Speaker 1: their families. We have seen workers demanding accommodations to their
Speaker 1: new lifestyles rather than just sliding back into the old
Speaker 1: ways in which work life was everything. We've seen historic
Speaker 1: support for worker empowering labor movement and worker sparking grassroots
Speaker 1: movements to establish power and autonomy in their workplaces. These
Speaker 1: are all reformist attempts to reclaim the power that Ted
Speaker 1: argued the modern world had stripped from us.
Speaker 3: All.
Speaker 1: We should witness those attempts, and we should be encouraged
Speaker 1: because for me personally, I would like to find a
Speaker 1: way to promote human thriving and empowerment and protect the
Speaker 1: natural environment without having to give up antibiotics and air conditioning,
Speaker 1: and maybe without indiscriminately murdering random people. So ted complicated
Speaker 1: figure saga. Those are some of my thoughts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you want to hear my reaction to
Speaker 2: Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 2: That's it for us. Thank you guys so much for
Speaker 2: thank for watching. We hope you like a new studio
Speaker 2: the interview. We just want to say thank you again
Speaker 2: to the YouTube subscribers, the preview subscribers, the podcast listeners.
Speaker 2: They built this studio, Crystal.
Speaker 3: You guys made it happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, we have an incredible show for everybody tomorrow.
Speaker 2: We've got RFK Junior on the show. We've got James
Speaker 2: Vanderbeek on the show as well, and we will see
Speaker 2: you all tomorrow.
Speaker 3: See all tomorrow,