Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: let's get to the showing. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have Crystal.
Speaker 4: Indeed, we do lots to get to this morning.
Speaker 1: I am remote this morning, dealing with a few family things,
Speaker 1: but lots of news to get into anyway. So we
Speaker 1: have the big whistleblower testimony yesterday.
Speaker 4: We'll break all of that down for you.
Speaker 1: Have some key video to show you key soundbites from that.
Speaker 1: We also have some big updates in terms of the
Speaker 1: Ukraine War, a Russian attack on Ukrainian grain. What does
Speaker 1: that mean for world grain prices? Quite significant there. We
Speaker 1: also have some political news Trump doing a town hall
Speaker 1: with Sean Hannity, and the actually getting a little bit
Speaker 1: crosswise in terms of mail in balloting, so we'll break
Speaker 1: that down for You've got a new poll out of
Speaker 1: New Hampshire. There's also very interesting Doug Bergham doing way
Speaker 1: better I ever would have imagined, coming in at six percent.
Speaker 1: I didn't even expect him to really be on the
Speaker 1: map there. So we'll get to all of that. We
Speaker 1: also have a couple of studies that are really fascinating.
Speaker 4: One about the fact that.
Speaker 1: The group of workers that is most committed to work
Speaker 1: from home is actually.
Speaker 4: The boss class.
Speaker 1: So the higher you are on the income scale and
Speaker 1: the higher you are up in management, the more likely
Speaker 1: you are to be committed to work from home.
Speaker 4: So we'll talk to you about that.
Speaker 1: And we also have some news about apparently the nation
Speaker 1: is becoming a nation of early risers.
Speaker 4: This seems like some pandemic changes to all of our
Speaker 4: lifestyles and habits.
Speaker 1: You know, Soger and I are both here, so it
Speaker 1: seems like our team is winning soccer.
Speaker 3: Well, one can only hope Bristol.
Speaker 2: I'll save my well and barbarous thoughts for the late
Speaker 2: crowd for that discussion. All right, let's go ahead, and
Speaker 2: we're going to start with this IRS testimony. There was
Speaker 2: absolutely stunning allegations made yesterday before the GOP Oversight Committee.
Speaker 2: One was an IRS whistleblower and another one was one
Speaker 2: we had not previously yet heard from. And this testimony
Speaker 2: is about an IRS actually investigator who was on the
Speaker 2: case of Hunter Biden for nearly five years and said
Speaker 2: that political interference kept him from bringing charges against Hunter Biden,
Speaker 2: from executing search warrants and included multiple levels of political.
Speaker 3: Interference in this investigation. Here's what he had to say today.
Speaker 5: I sit here before you not as a hero or
Speaker 5: a victim, but as a whistleblower compelled to disclose the
Speaker 5: truth that's said and coming forward. I believe I'm risking
Speaker 5: my career, my reputation, and my casework outside of the
Speaker 5: investigation we are here to discuss. I ultimately made the
Speaker 5: decision to come forward after what I believe for multiple
Speaker 5: attempts at blowing the whistle in the Internal Revenue Service.
Speaker 5: At the Internal Revenue Service, no one should be above
Speaker 5: the law, regardless of your political affiliation.
Speaker 2: So Christal that was iras Special Agent Joseph Ziegler is
Speaker 2: the first time that we've actually heard from him in
Speaker 2: the public sphere. He has come forward with multiple allegations
Speaker 2: to the committee, and no word, I mean, at least
Speaker 2: according to him, we don't know yet. He says he's
Speaker 2: actually a Democrat. He actually didn't vote in the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty election. He said that he didn't think that he
Speaker 2: wanted to show even a some semblance of bias because
Speaker 2: he was so deeply involved in the case. But personally,
Speaker 2: and I know we're about to get a little bit
Speaker 2: more into it, I did find him highly credible, even
Speaker 2: more so actually perhaps than the previous IRS whistleblowers, because
Speaker 2: he was the actual special agent involved in the genuine
Speaker 2: audit and kept from performing routine decisions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he's a career guy. He certainly doesn't
Speaker 1: come off as like a crank or a weirdo or
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theorist or whatever. He at least at face value,
Speaker 1: reads as credible as someone who was trying to do
Speaker 1: his job and was stymied. And listen, I mean, sometimes
Speaker 1: you have people who are attention seeking, who just you know,
Speaker 1: want to me in the spotlight, and or they have
Speaker 1: an ideological agenda, et cetera. And it's always possible that
Speaker 1: this guy falls into this bucket. But he emphasized and
Speaker 1: I think that this is relevant that you know, this
Speaker 1: is not an easy thing to do. This is really jeopardizing,
Speaker 1: sort of like turning his life upside down. This is
Speaker 1: definitely jeopardizing his career. There's just no doubt about that.
Speaker 1: He's become this sort of you know, central figure in
Speaker 1: a partisan war, and so there's a lot of downside
Speaker 1: to coming forward as a whistleblower and you know, making
Speaker 1: some claims about the family of the President of the
Speaker 1: United States that are going to be very very inconvenient
Speaker 1: for them. We'll get into it a little bit more,
Speaker 1: but you know, I mean, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I was also sort of dis made to see is
Speaker 1: because we care a lot about corruption, whether it's with
Speaker 1: Democrats Republicans are body in between, and the media, even
Speaker 1: with someone who comes across as so credible, there was
Speaker 1: still continues to be very little coverage, you know, very
Speaker 1: little in depth analysis. They still sort of just dismissed
Speaker 1: this as a partisan game, which you know, the Republicans
Speaker 1: are partisan. They are just looking for political points, there's
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. But that doesn't mean that there's
Speaker 1: no there there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, and that's why.
Speaker 2: And let's go ahead and play this next part because
Speaker 2: the specific allegations about the amount of money coming in
Speaker 2: from authoritarian regimes directly to the Biden family and then
Speaker 2: possibly being funneled to Joe Biden with no ability to
Speaker 2: really investigate that, that was really the biggest part of
Speaker 2: the revelation.
Speaker 3: Here's what Ziegler continued to have to say.
Speaker 6: Between twenty fourteen and twenty nineteen. This brings the total
Speaker 6: amount of foreign income streams received to approximately seventeen million dollars.
Speaker 3: Correct, it's correct.
Speaker 6: What was the purpose of analyzing money from foreign churces?
Speaker 6: And do you have documents to support your findings?
Speaker 5: So for the purpose of documenting the foreign sources is
Speaker 5: we as a part of a normal international tax investigation,
Speaker 5: we have to figure out where the money's coming from.
Speaker 5: You have to follow the money trail.
Speaker 2: So if for those who are you know, didn't pick
Speaker 2: up the exact details, that's from twenty fourteen to twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: in five years, the Biden family received approximately seventeen million
Speaker 2: dollars from Romania, China, and multiple other foreign countries. The
Speaker 2: reason why I find this significant crystal is that it
Speaker 2: is a confirmation actually of a twenty twenty Senate Intelligence
Speaker 2: Committee report that actually came out before the first presidential debate,
Speaker 2: and in that debate actually Biden was asked whether any
Speaker 2: of the allegations in that report were true, and he
Speaker 2: denied it. So this actually shows explicitly that there was
Speaker 2: proof inside of the IRS that many of these transactions
Speaker 2: which were detailed that at the time were both public
Speaker 2: knowledge in twenty twenty, but really we're private knowledge also
Speaker 2: in terms of twenty fourteen, in twenty nineteen when this
Speaker 2: audit began. And then finally, the biggest allegation that was
Speaker 2: made by Ziegler was about the US Attorney of Delaware
Speaker 2: who apparently was stymized by political interference and continued to
Speaker 2: make sure that the investigation wasn't allowed to proceed.
Speaker 3: Here was his allegation.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 5: It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that
Speaker 5: the US Attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung,
Speaker 5: limited and marginalized by DOJ officials as well as other
Speaker 5: US attorneys. I still think that a special council is
Speaker 5: necessary for this investigation.
Speaker 2: So that remains the core allegation I think within this
Speaker 2: is not only what the IRS was saying. These whistleblowers
Speaker 2: about how they uncovered malfeasans and weren't allowed to do
Speaker 2: their jobs, but Crystal specifically that the US Attorney for
Speaker 2: Delaware politically interfered in the process to stop search warrs.
Speaker 2: One of the most noteworthy ones to me was the
Speaker 2: note that they actually wanted to execute a pert worn
Speaker 2: on the personal residence of the bidence, but they were
Speaker 2: told that it would be too politically incendiary. And I mean,
Speaker 2: throughout all of this, just the reek of special treatment
Speaker 2: is what comes through entirely when with any normal citizen.
Speaker 2: It is so obvious that if they were ever to
Speaker 2: have this rise to the level of an IR special agent,
Speaker 2: they would not only have gone through a full audit
Speaker 2: in a timely manner, there would have been none of
Speaker 2: these you know, special treatments that happened, and that this
Speaker 2: IRS whistleblower, Joseph Zeler, wouldn't even know his name because
Speaker 2: he would be just continuing to do his job, and
Speaker 2: whoever did this would very likely be criminally charged. And
Speaker 2: instead Hunter's gotten not only special treatment but protection and
Speaker 2: also has been allowed to you know, even pay quote
Speaker 2: two million dollars or so in back taxes by taking
Speaker 2: a personal loan from a family donor. So it's just
Speaker 2: corrupt basically all the way up and down throughout the process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the combination of wealth and political power leading to
Speaker 1: a result that you know, it is not remotely what
Speaker 1: your ordinary person would end up with. And you know,
Speaker 1: part of what he testified to here, which again you
Speaker 1: know it's under oath. Obviously he could be lying, but
Speaker 1: there's reason to take what he's saying seriously at the
Speaker 1: very least and be curious about some additional investigation.
Speaker 4: You know, he claims there was a memo.
Speaker 1: That he was involved in preparing that recommended much higher charges,
Speaker 1: much more significant charges for Hunter Biden that didn't you know,
Speaker 1: was ultimately not pursued. And so there's a few things
Speaker 1: here that we're really getting at. You know, he was
Speaker 1: obviously directly involved in this Hunter Biden tax investigation. So
Speaker 1: first of all, was he charged in the way that
Speaker 1: a normal person would have been charged?
Speaker 4: That's question number one? Number two?
Speaker 1: If he wasn't, is it because there was direct intervention
Speaker 1: and pressure put from the Biden Justice Department. Now it
Speaker 1: is worth saying that some of this investigation occurred under
Speaker 1: the Trump presidency, so it doesn't all fall under Biden's jurisdiction.
Speaker 1: But that's the other big, big question is you know,
Speaker 1: was the President at all directly involved in some sort
Speaker 1: of suppression, some sort of you know, meddling in this investigation.
Speaker 1: And then there's of course the bleedover into Joe Biden himself,
Speaker 1: and you know how he may have been implicated in
Speaker 1: these business deals or what lies he may have told
Speaker 1: to the American public in order to you know, clear
Speaker 1: his name, clear his son's name, and muddle this whole situation.
Speaker 1: So again, even though you know, you've got to keep
Speaker 1: in mind this is in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4: Of partisan affair.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt Republicans want to damage the president. They
Speaker 1: want to ding him up in terms of his reelection bid.
Speaker 1: That is all part and parcel of what's going on here.
Speaker 4: But you know, there are some.
Speaker 1: Real, genuine, serious questions that I think are only further
Speaker 1: furthered and deepened by the credibility of this witness in particular.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, the previous iris we've been known
Speaker 2: to Shapley, he actually, in my opinion, bolstered his credibility
Speaker 2: because one of the efforts by the House GOP has
Speaker 2: been to try and indict Merrik Garland. He actually said, quote,
Speaker 2: let me be clear, although these facts contradict the Attorney
Speaker 2: General's testimony and raise serious questions for you to investigate,
Speaker 2: I have never claimed evidence that Attorney General Garland knowingly
Speaker 2: lied to Congress. So he actually tried to undercut current
Speaker 2: impeachment efforts against Merrick Garland. Which again, whenever you see
Speaker 2: something like that, he's directly trying to stop some of
Speaker 2: the more capital p political efforts of the current investigation.
Speaker 2: He's trying to keep it directly focused on political interference
Speaker 2: in terms of prosecution. That was actually stymiying and stopping
Speaker 2: the execution of search warrants, and then also political interference
Speaker 2: in terms of the actual IRS effort to see where
Speaker 2: did this money come from, where tax is not paid,
Speaker 2: and then eventually that came to a sweetheart settlement the
Speaker 2: hunter ended up in with the government. There was, of course,
Speaker 2: one moment that overshadowed I think many others, Marjorie Taylor
Speaker 2: Green doing the most Marjorie Tailer Green thing possible at
Speaker 2: this hearing.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2: For those who are watching, I recommend that you pay
Speaker 2: attention right now.
Speaker 3: This is evidence.
Speaker 7: Of Hunter Biden making excuse me, this is my time
Speaker 7: making pornography. Should we be displaying.
Speaker 4: This, mister?
Speaker 2: So that was blurred out there by the cave channels
Speaker 2: because it literally showed Hunter Biden I guess it some
Speaker 2: blurring on her part engaging in a sex act. The
Speaker 2: reason why it was allegedly pertinent crystal to the proceedings
Speaker 2: was that they were actually paid apparently these prostitutes via
Speaker 2: the law firm and business expenses that Hunter was engaging in.
Speaker 2: So that is actually remains one of the core allegations
Speaker 2: through the I R S is that many of these
Speaker 2: degenerate activities were actually funded directly by these businesses and
Speaker 2: then the gall might you know the true goal here
Speaker 2: was not only the funding of it, but then using
Speaker 2: in some cases writing these off as entertainment expenses. But
Speaker 2: it does underscore your point that it clearly you know,
Speaker 2: there's a big political element to all of us as well,
Speaker 2: that we can't just decide.
Speaker 4: I don't think they do themselves any favors.
Speaker 3: I agree with you act going in.
Speaker 1: This direction because listen, yes, is you know the tax
Speaker 1: treatment of these activities relevant to the discussion. Okay, but
Speaker 1: do we really need the visual aid here, and there's no.
Speaker 3: Doubt about it.
Speaker 1: They try to use you know, hunter's addiction, hunter's addiction
Speaker 1: to a variety of substances and sexual activities, apparently as
Speaker 1: a political cudgel. And you know, he is not the
Speaker 1: president of the United States. He's not on trial for
Speaker 1: whatever he does in his private life and whatever struggles
Speaker 1: with the addiction he has had. So I think they
Speaker 1: would be better served in terms of if they want
Speaker 1: the media to treat this seriously, which the media should
Speaker 1: regardless of their you know, props and whatever service relationious
Speaker 1: details they want to focus on, But if they want
Speaker 1: to make a better, more serious case for themselves, I
Speaker 1: think they would leave some of the more tawdry details, images, videos,
Speaker 1: et cetera to the side, which are not really at
Speaker 1: the core of the issues that we're talking about here
Speaker 1: as it relates to the president of.
Speaker 4: The United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's the big takeaway.
Speaker 2: I think from all of this, you're not going And
Speaker 2: I also look, there's obviously a media angle to all
Speaker 2: of this. None of it was actually carried by CNN
Speaker 2: or MSNBC. In terms of my general perusal, there was
Speaker 2: only a write up in terms of the mainstream media
Speaker 2: from CNN and from the New York Times, both were
Speaker 2: buried very low on their websites. CBS News the only
Speaker 2: reason that they had fullsome coverage of it is because
Speaker 2: former Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge, who was a real
Speaker 2: star during Russiagate in terms of exposing a lot of
Speaker 2: the narratives that were out there, currently works over at CBS.
Speaker 2: So you know, like you said, the kid Glove's treatment
Speaker 2: from the media here is pretty stark, and in terms
Speaker 2: of how they're looking at it when undeniably, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is a massive allegation. It bears genuine investigation. So
Speaker 2: we'll continue to keep everybody updated as it happens.
Speaker 3: Let's go to the next part.
Speaker 2: This is actually a very important story also for the
Speaker 2: Globe and for world food prices. The collapse that we
Speaker 2: had mentioned previously of the grain deal in the Black
Speaker 2: Sea between Russia and Ukraine, allowing Ukraine to actually export
Speaker 2: grain has come to an end, largely I think as
Speaker 2: a result of both bitterness in the conflicts, but now
Speaker 2: really an ongoing Russian effort to try and crush the
Speaker 2: Ukrainian economy as much as it possibly can. Let's go
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen, because things
Speaker 2: have escalated actually a little bit since the collapse of that.
Speaker 3: They have now said and struck.
Speaker 2: Areas where Ukraine was previously exporting grain. As you can
Speaker 2: actually see in the image in front of you, a
Speaker 2: quote considerable amount of current export infrastructure is now out
Speaker 2: of operation. Some sixty thousand tons of grain and damaged
Speaker 2: storage infrastructure were attacked by Russian missiles. But the most
Speaker 2: significant actually thing to me, Crystal, let's put the next
Speaker 2: one up here on the screen. This is almost like
Speaker 2: World War One level efforts by the Germans. They are
Speaker 2: now saying that russ ships that are bound for Ukraine
Speaker 2: to export grain quote will be considered hostile. So what
Speaker 2: they're saying is that they've withdrawn from the drill A deal.
Speaker 2: They are now striking infrastructure in terms of Ukraine being
Speaker 2: allowed to export this grain. And then they are now
Speaker 2: saying that any ships that are being bound for the
Speaker 2: Black Sea will be considered hostile by the Russian military,
Speaker 2: effectively saying we're gonna sink you, you know, if you
Speaker 2: come in here. And just that announcement in particular has
Speaker 2: sent wheat prices across the globe skyrocketing. Quote, Chicago wheat
Speaker 2: futures rose by as much as nine percent after the
Speaker 2: Russian statement, their biggest upward percentage moved since the war
Speaker 2: broke out in February of last year, and prices are
Speaker 2: remaining eight percent higher on the day heading into afternoon trading.
Speaker 2: And now, the reason why that is so significant is
Speaker 2: that Ukrainian grain does not affect really the United States
Speaker 2: or really even Europe, but a lot of it is
Speaker 2: the developing world to which relies upon a large portion
Speaker 2: of this grain. It was known often as the bread
Speaker 2: basket of the Soviet Union whenever it was part of
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union. So this is a catastrophe for a
Speaker 2: number of reasons. Number one, crystal is that this obviously
Speaker 2: is terrible for the developing world that does buy a
Speaker 2: decent amount of Ukrainian grain. But second, I mean, if
Speaker 2: the Russians do follow through with this, what do you
Speaker 2: think brought you know, the United States into World War One?
Speaker 2: It's the sinking of the Lusitania. I mean, when you
Speaker 2: start declaring you know, merchant and merchant and civilian ships
Speaker 2: hostile and then you actually follow through on that, things
Speaker 2: usually start to spiral real quick in terms of other
Speaker 2: powers getting involved in this war. So the Russians are
Speaker 2: absolutely playing with fire, and it is you know, a
Speaker 2: bit of a desperate amble also from them, because now
Speaker 2: they're they're moving even more to the total war strategy
Speaker 2: of we have to crush the enemy's last remaining revenue
Speaker 2: lines that don't rely entirely upon the charity of the
Speaker 2: Western governments.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I was talking to the Aegor this morning.
Speaker 1: There are some domestic signs in Russia they may be
Speaker 1: preparing for their second, second draft, second mobilization, So we'll
Speaker 1: keep an eye on that and see if that comes
Speaker 1: to fruition. But you know, calling is a catastrophe, I
Speaker 1: think that's the right word to put to it. It's
Speaker 1: certainly a disaster for Ukraine, for the Ukrainian economy. You know,
Speaker 1: this is all out economic war being waged on them, which.
Speaker 4: Is going to be devastating.
Speaker 1: Further devastating to them, it's incredibly devastating to the developing world,
Speaker 1: where obviously wheak prices have already been escalated because of
Speaker 1: post pandemic inflation that has been exacerbated in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways by the climate crisis and drought, which has
Speaker 1: also impacted crops and driven up prices. So you know,
Speaker 1: these are places that are already struggling with with hunger
Speaker 1: and with mass famine. This is going to be an
Speaker 1: incredibly devastating blow to a lot millions of people around
Speaker 1: the world. And then the other piece of this that
Speaker 1: I also think is really important to note is this
Speaker 1: was one of the only really successful pieces of diplomacy
Speaker 1: that has been achieved in the context of this war,
Speaker 1: and it was really important. I mean, this deal was
Speaker 1: struck early on, it has been honored more or less
Speaker 1: consistently the entire time, and so it exposes the lie
Speaker 1: that it doesn't matter what the US does, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what the Ukrainians do, that Russia isn't going to escalate,
Speaker 1: and because this creates a much more dangerous set of
Speaker 1: circumstances and a much more dangerous situation for additional escalation,
Speaker 1: as you've been pointing out, Sager.
Speaker 4: So I think this is really a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's hard to understate the ramifications and the sort of
Speaker 1: ripple follow out effects that could amount from just this
Speaker 1: particular collapse of this deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, once again, World War One
Speaker 2: has really been kind of my guiding you know, loads
Speaker 2: star I guess if you will.
Speaker 3: In terms of analyzing this conflict, I.
Speaker 2: Think has basically been vindicated considering the War of attrition
Speaker 2: that we've gone into the fact that combined our tactics
Speaker 2: haven't been really successful because neither side really has air superiority.
Speaker 2: And this also is basically exactly what happened in that
Speaker 2: war when the Germans found themselves in a situation where
Speaker 2: they were like, well, we can't win this thing directly
Speaker 2: on the battlefield through some sort of decisive movement. They
Speaker 2: are blockading us kind of like we are in terms
Speaker 2: of our sanctions against Russia. So we have no choice
Speaker 2: but to try and cut the commercial supply lines to
Speaker 2: the Allied powers and to have indiscriminate U boat bombings.
Speaker 2: Now it didn't end up working out because it brought
Speaker 2: the United States then into the war. But when these
Speaker 2: types of desperate things began to happen, it is not
Speaker 2: something that spells usually the conflict coming to an end,
Speaker 2: but actually an overall expansion.
Speaker 3: I also do.
Speaker 2: Want to take a second here to call out, you know,
Speaker 2: some of the so called NATO allies that we have
Speaker 2: the great powers that have been begging the United States
Speaker 2: to get more involved in this conflict. It turns out
Speaker 2: when their own interests are on the line, they're going
Speaker 2: to choose themselves. Poland and Slovakia, along with five other
Speaker 2: Eastern EU nations, are actually crystal banning Ukrainian grain exports
Speaker 2: because they are worried that it will crush their domestic farmers.
Speaker 2: Poland in particular, which has been begging and trying to
Speaker 2: draw the US more into this conflict more than anyone,
Speaker 2: whenever it comes to their own economy, is like, well,
Speaker 2: hold on a second, we can't be allowing this cheap
Speaker 2: Ukrainian grain to come in and crush our farmers. And
Speaker 2: actually they are now petitioning the EU to ban Ukrainian
Speaker 2: grain exports all across the eastern EU border precisely because
Speaker 2: they claim it will crush their domestic industry, it will
Speaker 2: hurt their farmers, And really what they're worried about is
Speaker 2: that we'll quote send far right parties to power. So
Speaker 2: their hypocrisy here is unbelievable, Like they want us to
Speaker 2: pay all of Ukraine's bills, but then when it comes
Speaker 2: to their own economic costs that they may suffer from
Speaker 2: buying Allied grain they've decided that it would hurt their
Speaker 2: domestic political situation.
Speaker 3: So I just couldn't. I couldn't let this story continue
Speaker 3: without noting that.
Speaker 1: It actually genuinely surprises me in the instance of Poland
Speaker 1: in particular, because I mean, they have genuinely borne the
Speaker 1: brunt of a lot of financial costs and hardships of
Speaker 1: you know, being a neighbor to this conflict, in the
Speaker 1: number of refugees that they've taken in from Ukraine, and
Speaker 1: you know, so they have definitely done quite a bit.
Speaker 1: They've also been very hawkish though with regard and very
Speaker 1: belligerent with regard to this conflict.
Speaker 4: Anyway, I am a little bit surprised by that, but
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: People are looking out for their own interest except for
Speaker 1: our country aperiently.
Speaker 4: I just think I don't want.
Speaker 1: To sound like a broken record here, but the risk
Speaker 1: of a broader conflagration has just escalated. The catastrophic fallout
Speaker 1: in terms of global hunger has just escalated. The catastrophic
Speaker 1: consequences for the Ukrainian people has just escalated. When are
Speaker 1: we going to think that it's a good time to
Speaker 1: try to get the parties to the table. When is
Speaker 1: it going to be the moment where US politicians, Joe
Speaker 1: Biden in particular, decide like, Okay, this is enough, Let's
Speaker 1: see what we can do to try to end this conflict,
Speaker 1: because look, I get it that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: injustice that whatever negotiated settlement could come out of this
Speaker 1: is going to be a bitter pill for everyone to
Speaker 1: be able to swallow. But the catastrophic costs of war
Speaker 1: and the risks of continuing to push forward just continued
Speaker 1: to mount day after day after day, and this is
Speaker 1: just the latest example of that.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 2: The biggest catastrophe that we could see is expansion of
Speaker 2: this war into commercial shipping. That would just push things
Speaker 2: tole on the level of which we really really do
Speaker 2: not want to get there.
Speaker 3: Anyway. Let's go through the politics section, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so former President Trump sat down with his
Speaker 1: buddy Sean Hannity for a town hall and you know,
Speaker 1: Lesley's off balls as you would expect, but they did
Speaker 1: have a bit of its heads exchange around mail in voting,
Speaker 1: mail in ballots, sigle, isn't a little bit of that.
Speaker 8: Will you encourage your voters based on the system we
Speaker 8: have to go along with the system of early voting
Speaker 8: and voting by mail, because I will think if you don't,
Speaker 8: you meant a big mistake.
Speaker 9: Oh no, no, I will, But those ballots get lost
Speaker 9: allso Sean, you know, they send them in and all
Speaker 9: of a sudden they're goun Those ballots get lost. Also
Speaker 9: the answers, I will because you would like it, But
Speaker 9: you know what, can.
Speaker 10: I be honest with me?
Speaker 8: Okay, but a lot I got to take a break,
Speaker 8: but Johan.
Speaker 9: A lot of bad things happened to those ballots. Also,
Speaker 9: they sent in early and all of a sudden, where
Speaker 9: are they?
Speaker 3: That was the fourth time that they sparred on that crystal.
Speaker 3: He's not going to let it go.
Speaker 9: He is.
Speaker 1: So Donald Trump is the most stubborn man on the
Speaker 1: this earth.
Speaker 4: I love always like, yeah, yeah, I'll do it, but no, really.
Speaker 1: I won't do it because those ballots get stolen. And
Speaker 1: I guess you would like a Sean, So maybe I'll
Speaker 1: do it. But now those ballots are really bad.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 1: The reason I say he's so stubborned is the data
Speaker 1: is pretty clear. If he had just pushed for mail
Speaker 1: and balloting during the pandemic and like encourage his supporters
Speaker 1: that that was like the patriotic way to vote. He
Speaker 1: probably would be president of the United States. So personally,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that he is a fool and continues down
Speaker 1: this pathway and that there's this huge partisan divide that
Speaker 1: has opened up in terms of how people cast their ballots,
Speaker 1: which it actually used to be the exact opposite.
Speaker 4: It used to be Republicans who were more likely to.
Speaker 1: Vote early vote you know, by mail, because they're tended
Speaker 1: to be older, and that's was you know, more common
Speaker 1: way for older people to vote.
Speaker 4: Now it's completely flipped.
Speaker 1: There's this huge partisan divide, and they're just shooting themselves
Speaker 1: in the foot by not pursuing this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is certainly something.
Speaker 2: And also you have seen other Republicans, even many who
Speaker 2: are skeptical of I've even seen my biggest interest is
Speaker 2: like former Stop the Steelers who are now getting involved
Speaker 2: in this because their narrative is and I mean it's wrong,
Speaker 2: but this is the this is their idea is we've
Speaker 2: lost because the Left is so good at ballot harvesting.
Speaker 2: This is like almost like a Dinesh Desuza type analysis
Speaker 2: of the election. They're like, because we're so bad at
Speaker 2: ballot harvesting, ballot harvesting then though is not going to
Speaker 2: is not illegal. We can't outlaw there's nothing or it
Speaker 2: is illegal. But you know, in terms of what they
Speaker 2: say the real ballot harvesting initiatives, you can't actually go
Speaker 2: against it. So we have to build the most robust
Speaker 2: ballot harvesting operation and actually win the election. A guy
Speaker 2: like Scott Pressfield comes to mind. I've seen him talk
Speaker 2: about this. He's a quote the persistence on Twitter. If
Speaker 2: you're not familiar who I'm talking about, I've seen a
Speaker 2: number of Maga stop the steel figures actually use this
Speaker 2: line of argumentation. But there's only one who the boomers
Speaker 2: actually listened to. His name is Trump. And a lot
Speaker 2: of these people they all came to the polls to
Speaker 2: vote in person on election day, specifically because they were
Speaker 2: told by Trump that they shouldn't vote by mail.
Speaker 3: And then vote by mail is bad.
Speaker 2: And as we have you know, showed the data ad
Speaker 2: nauseum here, you know, Trump and Georgia in particular, If
Speaker 2: just the number of people who vote in the Republican
Speaker 2: primary of twenty twenty by mail did so in the election,
Speaker 2: he wins the election. There's no question. Arizona as well,
Speaker 2: I fully believe he would have won the state of
Speaker 2: Arizona free and clear if he just embraced mail in
Speaker 2: voting because of so many of the older voters and
Speaker 2: then the other ones. I mean, it's one of those
Speaker 2: where the election was close enough of who the hell
Speaker 2: knows what actually would have happened. So he's doing nobody
Speaker 2: but himself, you know, like he's hurting nobody but himself.
Speaker 3: But he doesn't care. That's what he believes.
Speaker 2: And for those who think they can nudge Trump in
Speaker 2: that direction, as Hannity his you know most kiss ass
Speaker 2: ally thinks he can, he's not gonna listen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just so people understand little bit of why
Speaker 1: this matters. You know, why it's such an advantage to
Speaker 1: really be pushing your supporters to vote early. It's because, listen,
Speaker 1: a lot of things can happen on election day.
Speaker 4: You know, your life can go.
Speaker 1: Sideways at any moment. The kids need this, the you know,
Speaker 1: dog gets sick. Like anything can happen on a single
Speaker 1: individual day, and so you want to if your political
Speaker 1: campaign bank as many votes as you can, as early
Speaker 1: as you can.
Speaker 4: So you've got them checked off, you don't have to
Speaker 4: worry about them.
Speaker 1: You don't have to continue sending them mailers, you don't
Speaker 1: have to continue calling them, you don't have to continue
Speaker 1: showing up their door. They're done, and then you can
Speaker 1: move on to this other universe of voters of like
Speaker 1: people who need more encouragement, who you know, help them
Speaker 1: make their voting plan, et cetera, et cetera. And so
Speaker 1: it's a tremendous advantage if you have a large percentage
Speaker 1: of your base showing up early and so, you know,
Speaker 1: and I do think even if Trump now enthusiastically embraced
Speaker 1: mail in voting, I do think they did so much
Speaker 1: damage to the idea and the credibility of doing that
Speaker 1: during the pandemic and during the twenty twenty campaign that
Speaker 1: I still think there would be a bit of a
Speaker 1: hangover effect of people who just have it in their
Speaker 1: minds now like this is not.
Speaker 4: A way to vote.
Speaker 1: Your posts are not gonna be counted if you vote
Speaker 1: this way. But it would help a lot if the
Speaker 1: big guy was on board with the change of programs.
Speaker 1: So I definitely think he is massively shooting himself in
Speaker 1: the foot here by, you know, being continuing to be
Speaker 1: clearly ambivalent.
Speaker 4: About going in this direction.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I know kind of an interesting
Speaker 1: poll coming out of New Handra. Let's put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen and I want to hear what you
Speaker 1: make of this saga.
Speaker 4: So we've got Trump at the top.
Speaker 1: Trump is down though five points in this poll from April.
Speaker 4: He's at thirty seven percent.
Speaker 1: Ron Destant is basically hanging steady at twenty three percent.
Speaker 4: Then you have everybody else coming up a bit.
Speaker 1: You got Tim Scott jumping up six points. He's at
Speaker 1: eight percentage points. The media is very invested in like
Speaker 1: a Tim Scott bump narrative right at the moment. Yet
Speaker 1: Chris Christi coming in six percent. He's up five points
Speaker 1: from the last poll. This one, I don't even I
Speaker 1: have no analysis of this. I have no idea where
Speaker 1: this came from. Doug Burgham notching six percent North Dakota
Speaker 1: governor that literally no one ever heard of and probably
Speaker 1: still hasn't heard of. I guess people just like the
Speaker 1: name six percent. Another one that we should talk more about,
Speaker 1: either today or another time. But the ve k Ramaswami
Speaker 1: I'm seeing consistently coming up in every poll. I just
Speaker 1: saw a national poll that had him coming up quite
Speaker 1: significantly as well. But he's at five percent. Year Niky
Speaker 1: Haley five percent. Mike Pence the other big loser in
Speaker 1: this poll, sinking all the way down to one percent,
Speaker 1: and maybe start with that's our I mean, this is
Speaker 1: the former vice president of the United States. This is
Speaker 1: a man who has been a huge figure in conservative
Speaker 1: politics for quite a long time, has really worked hard
Speaker 1: to galvanize that evangelical base. You're at one percent, Chris Christie's,
Speaker 1: Doug Bergham and the zk Ramaswami are beating you.
Speaker 4: I mean, how does that happen?
Speaker 2: It's humiliating, especially the Pence fall from grace here and
Speaker 2: the kind of catchup to reality has been, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the more satisfying elements of the campaign I
Speaker 2: think so far.
Speaker 3: Doug Bergham.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's spending a hell of a lot of
Speaker 2: money right now, you know, in terms of ads, so
Speaker 2: I actually think that probably can account for it. Remember
Speaker 2: Tom Steyer at several points was pulling between five and
Speaker 2: like six percent simply because he was spending like one
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars or so on advertising. So if you
Speaker 2: spend your way, you can usually get up to a
Speaker 2: decent amount. Now, I do think that the most noteworthy
Speaker 2: thing was the drop in that poll by five points
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump, but at the same time he said
Speaker 2: thirty seven percent, he's maintaining such a significant lead for DeSantis.
Speaker 2: He did pick up some, but he's not picking up all.
Speaker 2: And it does show also that all of these other
Speaker 2: candidates whose name are not DeSantis are directly a problem
Speaker 2: for him. They are drawing away from the anti Trump support.
Speaker 2: He usually is going to be their number two chol
Speaker 2: And so it does show that DeSantis really has a
Speaker 2: problem in terms of trying to get to even sort
Speaker 2: of a plurality because Trump does have so much support
Speaker 2: throughout the GOP base and especially in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: I mean New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: All we should never forget is the state that gave
Speaker 2: him his very first, you know, primary victory of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty and it was a blowout actually at the time.
Speaker 2: That really is what put him on the map and
Speaker 2: on the road to true victory whenever it came to
Speaker 2: the twenty sixteen primary. So I do think that New
Speaker 2: Hampshire will be the big bellweather in the state. It's
Speaker 2: also why I think that guys like Burghum Chris Christy
Speaker 2: and others who don't have the same evangelical support base
Speaker 2: of Iowa are going to go all in on that
Speaker 2: state as well.
Speaker 10: Well.
Speaker 1: New Hampshire is interesting and is always kind of a
Speaker 1: wild card because Independence can vote in the Republican primaries.
Speaker 4: You can pick which primary you want to vote in,
Speaker 4: and so it's not as much of just.
Speaker 1: A hardcore, dedicated Republican base, whereas iOS the polar opposite.
Speaker 1: When you're talking about a caucus state, these are going
Speaker 1: to be your most diehard supporters because you don't just
Speaker 1: show up and cast the ballot or send in your ballot,
Speaker 1: but you got to be there. You got to do
Speaker 1: a whole thing, like it's a whole process, right, So
Speaker 1: you've got to be committed to it if you're going
Speaker 1: to go and cast your ballot in Iowa. So New
Speaker 1: Hampshire gives more of an opening for I think a
Speaker 1: wider variety of Canadas. That's why this is the state.
Speaker 1: Certainly Chris Christy feels he's going to do the best
Speaker 1: in because you have not just the hardcore Republican base,
Speaker 1: but you have Independence who may be more inclined to
Speaker 1: hear his message. His very aggressively anti Trump message and
Speaker 1: take that seriously. Listen, if I was any of the
Speaker 1: candidates not named Donald Trump, I would like this poll
Speaker 1: because this is what they were hoping for that Trump
Speaker 1: would be, you know, in the thirties, thirty seven percent.
Speaker 4: And then you can imagine a.
Speaker 1: Scenario where it's like, all right, if I end up
Speaker 1: as the primary Trump alternative and everyone sort of coalesces
Speaker 1: around me, then I got a shot at this thing
Speaker 1: a lot of the other holes we've been seeing. Trump
Speaker 1: is over fifty percent, and then it's yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to see the pathway. So the problem for Ronda
Speaker 1: Santis obviously is that he's also flatten this pole that
Speaker 1: all these other contenders.
Speaker 4: Are taking peace down of his pie, not just down
Speaker 4: to Donald Trump's pie.
Speaker 1: But you know, again, I think that this is one
Speaker 1: of the more hopeful polls that the Trump alternatives have
Speaker 1: probably seen because it kind of is twenty sixteen throwback.
Speaker 1: They could tell themselves like, oh, maybe this is kind
Speaker 1: of his ceiling here, and if we can just coalesce
Speaker 1: behind one alternative.
Speaker 4: We'll be able to get the I've done.
Speaker 1: So, Yeah, that's that's what it looks like in New
Speaker 1: Hampshire a little more interesting than some of the other
Speaker 1: state poles or national polls that we've been seeing. And
Speaker 1: the most shocking to me is the Doug Bergham at
Speaker 1: six percent.
Speaker 4: Did not see that one coming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 4: And by the way, I really want to interview him,
Speaker 4: So we put it as in.
Speaker 3: Please come on the show, we will be we will
Speaker 3: be fair.
Speaker 1: You know, we ask policy questions. Is that one will
Speaker 1: tell you, but we will be fair. We want to
Speaker 1: hear your plans of the nation. We want to hear
Speaker 1: what people in New Hampshire are seeing in you. So
Speaker 1: please please come on the show so we can give.
Speaker 4: You so we can talk to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 4: So we mentioned Chris Christy there.
Speaker 1: He's making a big play in New Hampshire as former
Speaker 1: New Jersey governory and he's kind of geographically close. And
Speaker 1: then also because of the presence and importance of independence
Speaker 1: in that primary, I think he's hopeful that his just
Speaker 1: really directly unvarnished anti Trump takes will play well. And
Speaker 1: his political persona has always been that of like the
Speaker 1: fighter who's not afraid to get in there and mix
Speaker 1: it up, and you know, have the debate the have
Speaker 1: the aggressive discussion, the contentious discussion, et cetera. So in
Speaker 1: that vein, he went on with Eric Bowling over at
Speaker 1: Newsmax and they had that contentious discussion. Let's start with
Speaker 1: listening to a little bit of what he had to
Speaker 1: say about Donald Trump and January sixth.
Speaker 10: Take listen, Chris Christy, do you think Donald Trump had
Speaker 10: an interest in inciting the overthrow of the American government
Speaker 10: that day?
Speaker 7: Well? Quite, frankly, I don't think he cared one way
Speaker 7: or the other.
Speaker 3: Eric.
Speaker 7: I think what he wanted was to stay in office,
Speaker 7: and I don't think he cared one way or the
Speaker 7: other what was going to happen. In fact, if he
Speaker 7: really did care, he would have done what he said
Speaker 7: he was going to do. When he stood on the ellipse,
Speaker 7: he said, let's march up to the Capitol together, and
Speaker 7: I'm going to go with you, and he went nowhere
Speaker 7: near it. Eric. He didn't care what was going to
Speaker 7: happen up there. He sent people up there to put pressure,
Speaker 7: I believe, on Mike Penson, on members of Congress to
Speaker 7: stall the peaceful transition of power. And he said as
Speaker 7: much later on when he said that it's okay to
Speaker 7: suspend the Constitution. You can't take an oath eric to
Speaker 7: say you're going to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution
Speaker 7: and then say it's okay to suspend it.
Speaker 1: So I obviously I respect Chris Christine for saying what
Speaker 1: he actually thinks on this. I think it's a lot
Speaker 1: less embarrassing than the way that every other Republican contender
Speaker 1: tries to like, you know, like tiptoe around it and
Speaker 1: comes up with their talking points. I think there's a
Speaker 1: real audience for what Chris Christy is saying here. I
Speaker 1: just don't think that that audience exists in very large
Speaker 1: quantities within the Republican dase. I think actually in that
Speaker 1: way reminds me a little bit of RFK Junior. Is
Speaker 1: there an audience for what he's saying is ues he's
Speaker 1: leaning into. Yes?
Speaker 4: Is it a Democratic primary audience? Probably not.
Speaker 2: That's always a problem you know, for especially anybody who's
Speaker 2: trying to hit more like centrist or heterodox or like
Speaker 2: untapped audiences, is that the most tapped people on Earth
Speaker 2: are the primary base. And it's because they're the ones
Speaker 2: who mostly have the power whenever it comes to voting,
Speaker 2: and they select the nominees that we eventually get to
Speaker 2: choose from. It's part of the reason why the vast
Speaker 2: majority of people do feel disconnected from the political process.
Speaker 2: But it's a backwards loop because then the people who
Speaker 2: are actually invested in the political process are the people
Speaker 2: who don't want to hear reality really on left or
Speaker 2: on right. So that's I think the big spiral for
Speaker 2: Chris Christy, especially whenever it comes to the specific anti
Speaker 2: Trump message. We should always remember that for a lot
Speaker 2: of Republicans, they don't like what happened on January sixth,
Speaker 2: but they don't think it was the end of the world,
Speaker 2: and they don't particularly care all that much at this point,
Speaker 2: and they especially see it as mostly a dem plot
Speaker 2: to try and hang Trump. Then, also, on top of
Speaker 2: that the personal affection that most of these people have
Speaker 2: for Trump. He is the most popular Republican since Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 2: I mean, there really isn't a Republican figure like him
Speaker 2: that is alive today, and that's why I think it's
Speaker 2: so difficult for people to wrap their heads around it.
Speaker 2: Mitt Romney was the nominee, but people never really liked
Speaker 2: him the way that they liked Trump. John McCain was
Speaker 2: the nominee, but as evidence by people turning on him,
Speaker 2: they never really liked him the same way. George W.
Speaker 2: Bush is like a whole other league of his own.
Speaker 2: It's been decades, really since we've had a leader like
Speaker 2: Trump who remains so tremendously popular at a pop culture level,
Speaker 2: almost with the conservative base, that turning against him on
Speaker 2: an actual personal level is just a terrible political tactic.
Speaker 1: And I think it's telling that the guy who possively
Speaker 1: defends him the Vecoramaswaman most unapologetically defends him over all
Speaker 1: of his actions is also the one that's like catching
Speaker 1: the most steam in the polls right now. Like that's
Speaker 1: an accident that kind of tells you who's still top
Speaker 1: dog within the Republican Party. But I will say, you know,
Speaker 1: I was watching Ron Desanta said something like mildly critical
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, like he should have done a little
Speaker 1: bit more, a little bit more quickly.
Speaker 4: On that day. I really like the.
Speaker 1: Most tepid criticism possible, And there was some online backlash
Speaker 1: from Trump people, and his campaign is immediately walking.
Speaker 4: Oh, they didn't give the full context.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, of course we feel like
Speaker 1: President Trump is great and wonderful, et cetera. It's just
Speaker 1: embarrassing that the tap dance and some of these people
Speaker 1: feel that they have to do.
Speaker 4: We wanted to show you a little bit more from.
Speaker 1: That exchange with Chris Christy and Eric Bowling, because I
Speaker 1: do think Chris Christy has already qualified for the debate stage.
Speaker 1: You know, he's met the pulling requirements, and he's met
Speaker 1: the donor requirements him, Tim Scott, Trump sand and one
Speaker 1: other one not sure who it was, but anyway, they've
Speaker 1: all met the polling requirements.
Speaker 4: So he will be on a debate stage.
Speaker 1: And I do think that the fact that Chris Christi
Speaker 1: will be up there is a big part of the
Speaker 1: reason why Donald Trump will decide, you know that he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be there because Chris Christy is skilled
Speaker 1: in this kind of give and take, he can potentially
Speaker 1: let in a blow.
Speaker 4: It does create some level of risk for Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: So anyway, let's take a listen to a little bit
Speaker 1: of the combat between him and Eric Boling.
Speaker 10: What motivates Chris Christy to run for president? Is it
Speaker 10: to take out Donald Trump? Or Chris Christy is sort
Speaker 10: of fulfilling some sort of emotional void they're looking for
Speaker 10: why are you running?
Speaker 7: All right? Well, Eric, are you a psychiatrist today? You know,
Speaker 7: if you're a psychiatrist, spend more time on the former
Speaker 7: president than you will on me. If he gets on
Speaker 7: the stage, he's about to be uncrowned as the best
Speaker 7: debater in politics. And by the way, if he is, Eric,
Speaker 7: that he should get on that stage.
Speaker 10: Would you be as vice president if he asked you?
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 7: I spoke to Mike Pence the job I spoke to
Speaker 7: Mike Pence the jobs of the sale like it was
Speaker 7: too great.
Speaker 1: It's really sad to me that, Yeah, I know, it's funny.
Speaker 4: It's really sad to me.
Speaker 1: That neither of the top two candidates feels like they
Speaker 1: have to be held accountable by the American people, that
Speaker 1: they don't have to debate, that they see it as
Speaker 1: their political interest not to take any sort of risk
Speaker 1: and not put themselves out there.
Speaker 4: And it really is pathetic on both sides.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, in terms of the debate, I wish
Speaker 2: Trump was going to show up, not only just for
Speaker 2: comic relief factor, but he should get pressed by not
Speaker 2: only just Chris Christy, but any of them. They should
Speaker 2: actually have to draw some sort of contrast at the
Speaker 2: same time, because we don't have the ability to compel politically.
Speaker 2: I do think he's making the right move, even DeSantis
Speaker 2: at this point, you know, I mean, it's going to
Speaker 2: be tricky up there for him because all the governors
Speaker 2: and all these people who are thinking why not me,
Speaker 2: are just going to aim all of their fire directly
Speaker 2: at him. I've also seen Vivik Ramaswami take several shots
Speaker 2: at Ron DeSantis. Nikki Haley feels very comfortable kicking sideways
Speaker 2: whenever it's Ron and not Trump. So he's definitely, I think,
Speaker 2: going to take it on the chin while he's up there.
Speaker 2: And then you know, speaking to some sort of empty
Speaker 2: podium or speaking about somebody who's just not present doesn't
Speaker 2: have the same level of actual criticism, and it almost
Speaker 2: does make them seem beneath Trump, you know, on the
Speaker 2: Biden front.
Speaker 3: Two, it's the same problem.
Speaker 2: If you have effectively coronations on a primary side. It's
Speaker 2: a terrible and really just it's a system which is
Speaker 2: obviously sclerotic and is dying whenever you don't actually have
Speaker 2: real competition within it. And then you just get to
Speaker 2: the point where most most Americans fall in a trap
Speaker 2: of they really only have two choices whenever they go
Speaker 2: to the ballot box. That's just not how the system
Speaker 2: was supposed to work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now that's absolutely right. All right, Let's get some
Speaker 1: to some of the fun stuff here. Some interesting studies
Speaker 1: that have come out that we wanted to parse through.
Speaker 1: So the first one, let's put this up on the screen,
Speaker 1: is we've been talking about the work from home revolution,
Speaker 1: the fact that there's been this huge shift towards hybrid work.
Speaker 4: In particular. There's a new study. This is from McKenzie,
Speaker 4: so keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: But anyway, about who exactly prefers working from home and
Speaker 1: who actually prefers working in the office. They found that
Speaker 1: the biggest holdouts on the five day office week are
Speaker 1: the bosses. Nearly half of the most senior employees are
Speaker 1: holding fast to their work from home days. And they
Speaker 1: talk here about how some of the senior executives, you know,
Speaker 1: they really see this as like a key. They've really
Speaker 1: incorporated this into their life. They are unwilling to change
Speaker 1: their habits. I frankly can't blame them if they've become
Speaker 1: accustomed to that, and they are even willing to give
Speaker 1: up additional pay in order to keep their work from
Speaker 1: home flexibility. Let me give you some of the specific
Speaker 1: numbers here. They did a survey of thirteen thousand office
Speaker 1: workers in six different countries, so this isn't just us specific.
Speaker 1: They found the largest share of employees who strongly prefer
Speaker 1: to work from home, or those who earn more than
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty k. That group said they were
Speaker 1: likely to quit their jobs if they were called back
Speaker 1: to the office every day, and they were willing to
Speaker 1: trade more than twenty percent of their compensation to work
Speaker 1: their preferred number of days at home. And it basically
Speaker 1: was the case that you know, as you go further
Speaker 1: down the income level, and as you go down the
Speaker 1: seniority level, more junior employees were much more interested in
Speaker 1: being back in the office. And Sager, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a few things to say about this. The first thing
Speaker 1: that I'll say is that really is kind of logical
Speaker 1: because if you're just starting out in your career, you're
Speaker 1: a young person, you want to be able to network,
Speaker 1: you want to be able to get to know people,
Speaker 1: you want to be able to establish yourself. Maybe you
Speaker 1: just came out of college and you're used to having
Speaker 1: this whole network of friends all around you all the time.
Speaker 4: You're more in the social.
Speaker 1: Network building phase of your life, it does make sense
Speaker 1: that you would be more interested in being in the
Speaker 1: office where it's easier to engage in those type of activities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh absolutely, I mean this confirms actually something that
Speaker 2: anecdotally have been able to pick up. I knew a
Speaker 2: lot of people who were working from home well withinto
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: Not by choice.
Speaker 2: They were doing so because their bosses didn't want to
Speaker 2: go back and kept coming up with reasons like first
Speaker 2: it was omicron, then they can't forget what the next
Speaker 2: one after that one was, but they were like.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's still not safe.
Speaker 2: And then it eventually turned out though that they didn't
Speaker 2: care about COVID because in their private lives they were
Speaker 2: going to parties, they were traveling and all that. They
Speaker 2: were just using it as an excuse for not wanting
Speaker 2: to be compelled to get back in the car to
Speaker 2: arrange daycare, to arrange drop off. And I just want
Speaker 2: to say I totally understand and get that from their perspective,
Speaker 2: but I do think it was unfair because rather than
Speaker 2: telling the truth about the want for flexibility. They instead
Speaker 2: imposed a work from home regime on everyone, and what
Speaker 2: ended up happening is a lot of younger employees, especially
Speaker 2: people who had started their jobs remotely, really had a
Speaker 2: desire to get to know their coworkers. And I think
Speaker 2: there's two things, which is in an entry level job,
Speaker 2: there are two things you are learning how to be
Speaker 2: in employee number one, which what humans are social creatures?
Speaker 2: Like you are learning office politics. You are learning like
Speaker 2: is the boss prickly? Is he somebody gonna approach about this?
Speaker 2: Or is he somebody I kind of have to go
Speaker 2: through normal channels or she? You know, I'm learning like
Speaker 2: how exactly do we have problem solving? When the bosses
Speaker 2: find a problem? Who do they call in order to
Speaker 2: talk to? How do I get to know those people
Speaker 2: if I want to have some sort of advancement? And
Speaker 2: then second is socially you know, you really are. I
Speaker 2: went through this certainly, and you're twenty two years old,
Speaker 2: graduate from college. It feels very disruptive. You have no
Speaker 2: idea really what's happening, and you start out with a
Speaker 2: bunch of other people who are your age and sometimes
Speaker 2: a little bit older, and so you both form like
Speaker 2: a cohort of people who you're starting out with, and
Speaker 2: then you also get to know people who are a
Speaker 2: little bit older than you and they're like, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: what they say, but here's how it really works, and
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, okay, Like hey, here's how I navigated
Speaker 2: this same situation. I can't emphasize how valuable that is
Speaker 2: to firm. Really, like the twenty two whis almost like
Speaker 2: twenty seven age. And for people I know, many who
Speaker 2: started jobs remotely, they actually ran into problems that if
Speaker 2: they were in person never would have been something they violated,
Speaker 2: like office culture. But how are they supposed to know.
Speaker 2: They never understood office culture. They just got their stupid
Speaker 2: rule book and HR. So it's one of those where
Speaker 2: I have total sympathy. I also do want to say,
Speaker 2: for everyone who's watching this, this is not an issue
Speaker 2: for anybody who works in the blue collar office. This
Speaker 2: is purely a white collar phenomenon, which is why people
Speaker 2: spend so much time on that. So as much sympathy
Speaker 2: as I do have for these people, it is also
Speaker 2: a great problem to have because blue collar workers do
Speaker 2: not have to deal with any of what we're talking about.
Speaker 2: They're much more worried with being scheduled at six am
Speaker 2: and then also being scheduled at midnight like the next
Speaker 2: day afterwards.
Speaker 4: Yes, true. Just to give you some more of the
Speaker 4: numbers to back this up.
Speaker 1: So, the highest income bracket that they tested was people
Speaker 1: who are earning more than a fifty K. Of them
Speaker 1: a third thirty three percent say they strongly prefer to
Speaker 1: work from home versus the office. For the lowest income
Speaker 1: bracket they tested less than fifty k, it was only
Speaker 1: nine percent.
Speaker 4: So thirty three percent for.
Speaker 1: The highest income said we really want to be at home,
Speaker 1: and only nine percent for the lowest income bracket said
Speaker 1: the same for by seniority level. At the senior level,
Speaker 1: forty four percent say they strongly prefer working from home.
Speaker 1: At the mid level, fifty percent say they strongly prefer
Speaker 1: working from home, the junior level.
Speaker 4: Only six percent. So this is really a.
Speaker 1: Big divide in terms of office culture preference. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think like most people at this point, they haven't
Speaker 1: they're not fully working from home.
Speaker 4: It's more of a hybrid system.
Speaker 1: They're in the office a couple of days a week,
Speaker 1: they're at home a couple of days a week, or
Speaker 1: like week one week off whatever. That's mostly what things
Speaker 1: have moved towards. That's probably for a lot of people
Speaker 1: a pretty decent balance and midpoint between the two preferences here.
Speaker 1: But the other thing tells me, Sager, we've covered a
Speaker 1: lot of what's going on in downtown's, especially in tech
Speaker 1: heavy downtown's San Francisco, La, the way that the downtown
Speaker 1: life has been completely offended and a lot of vitality
Speaker 1: just completely stuck down by the change in work habits.
Speaker 1: The fact that it's the boss class that is most
Speaker 1: committed to this tells you this.
Speaker 4: Is not going to change.
Speaker 3: Yeah, gowhere, I mean.
Speaker 1: So you know, if it was the junior workers who
Speaker 1: were like, no, I really want to be at home,
Speaker 1: then that might be more subject to change. They may
Speaker 1: be like, no, we want your butts back in seats
Speaker 1: at the office. But since it is the senior workers
Speaker 1: who are most committed to this, Downtown's really this is
Speaker 1: not changing. That's we're not going back to a pre
Speaker 1: pandemic normal. This is the new reality of a hybrid
Speaker 1: office job worker life where you're partly at home, partly
Speaker 1: in the office, and the ramifications for this for downtown's
Speaker 1: are just indescribably.
Speaker 4: Massive and across the whole ecosystem.
Speaker 1: I mean it's you know, all of the businesses that
Speaker 1: spring up around office culture, life, the lunch spots and
Speaker 1: all the rest, the dry cleaners, like all the things
Speaker 1: that locate close to the office to be convenient for workers.
Speaker 1: They have already been hit really hard. It's not going
Speaker 1: to change, and cities have got to come up with
Speaker 1: another plan to you know, build out more housing, bring people,
Speaker 1: more people in for other parts of their life because
Speaker 1: the office piece it ain't coming back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean anecdotally again, Washington, d C. Had one
Speaker 2: of the biggest like a boom in terms of the
Speaker 2: downtown culture. Our businesses, lunch spots, happy hour bars, all
Speaker 2: the things that kind of pop up in a normal
Speaker 2: downtown that have nothing to do actually with office space.
Speaker 3: Well all of those are mostly dead.
Speaker 2: I mean only the corporate chains are the ones that
Speaker 2: really survived, like the Starbucks is and you know a
Speaker 2: few lunch spots. But many of the little owned businesses
Speaker 2: that even I used to frequent, honestly, they're gone.
Speaker 3: And it's very sad.
Speaker 2: Many of them were family owned businesses that had been
Speaker 2: in the family for multiple generations.
Speaker 3: They were very proud of it.
Speaker 2: Some of the ones by the White House had some
Speaker 2: history even attached to them, and yeah, they're effectively empty now.
Speaker 2: I was actually just down there the other day and
Speaker 2: I was walking around. It was like one o'clock, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I cannot believe that this is how
Speaker 2: empty it is. And you know, I personally have so
Speaker 2: many memories of meeting people in coffee shops or whatever.
Speaker 2: A whole portion of my entire early career in these places.
Speaker 2: And that's why even whenever I hear about hybrid work,
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, we come in three days a week,
Speaker 2: that's still a forty percent drop in overall foot traffic.
Speaker 2: And that's for people who are coming in. So the
Speaker 2: metro system is not working as well. You know, the
Speaker 2: downtown is not functioning as well. And a lot of
Speaker 2: that actually functioned financially on people coming in not only
Speaker 2: five days a week, but in a DC like a
Speaker 2: true workaholic culture, like being around there for the vast
Speaker 2: majority of their day. And it's changed completely like geographic
Speaker 2: like moving patterns, traffic pattern burns, rush hour is now
Speaker 2: three o'clock. Apparently, just I want to put the memo
Speaker 2: out there Apparently that's how things work now.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of interesting stuff going on as
Speaker 3: a result of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's a good transition to the next thing
Speaker 1: that we wanted to cover, which is that apparently America
Speaker 1: is becoming a nation of early birds, much like you
Speaker 1: and me and Sager put this stuff on the screen.
Speaker 1: This was really interesting. So they talked to all these
Speaker 1: restaurant owners and you know, people running Broadway shows and whatever.
Speaker 1: This is also from the Wall Street Jirl. They say
Speaker 1: America is becoming a nation of early birds. Twenty new
Speaker 1: restaurants are closing their kitchens at eight pm. Movie theaters
Speaker 1: are swapping late night screenings for matinees. Hybrid and remote
Speaker 1: workers itching to leave the house as soon as they
Speaker 1: close their laptops are fueling the shift. Restaurants are now
Speaker 1: seating ten percent of diners between two and five pm.
Speaker 1: That's up from five percent and twenty nineteen, dinner parties
Speaker 1: starting as early as five pm on Broadway. A third
Speaker 1: of shows now running on Broadway starting seven o'clock hour
Speaker 1: on Fridays. That was unheard of apparently a few years ago.
Speaker 1: You also have just some of the hard data Uber
Speaker 1: trips to restaurants in the four pm hour have increased
Speaker 1: nearly ten percent since twenty nineteen. Rides to restaurants after
Speaker 1: eight pm are down nine percent. They spoke with a
Speaker 1: a woman who owns a dine in cinema theater that
Speaker 1: recently ended late night screenings. She says that her theater
Speaker 1: now does seventy five percent of its business before the
Speaker 1: eight pm show, which.
Speaker 4: Is now the latest offered. Previously it was only forty
Speaker 4: five percent.
Speaker 1: So seventy five percent of their business now before the
Speaker 1: eight pm show. It used to be less than a majority,
Speaker 1: And she has a quote here she says, before we
Speaker 1: would definitely have a soldout eight or nine o'clock show.
Speaker 1: Now we are lucky to fill twenty seats out of
Speaker 1: one hundred. Instead of the late night shows, they've added
Speaker 1: a three pm show, which she is shocked by how
Speaker 1: popular it is, and she suspects it's a lot of
Speaker 1: those work from home people who are like, you know,
Speaker 1: surreptitiously on their phone on their iPhone, like sending a
Speaker 1: little email while they're watching whatever the lest movie is
Speaker 1: and sort of pretending like they're still doing their work
Speaker 1: while they are out enjoying themselves, which you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not hating on that. Why go do what you gotta do, though,
Speaker 1: is absolutely fine? But what'd you make of this saga?
Speaker 3: This is interesting to me.
Speaker 2: I'm loving it, and I can tell you this right now.
Speaker 2: This is my personal favorite line. In New Orleans, notorious
Speaker 2: for late nights, concert promoters used to schedule main acts
Speaker 2: to start as late.
Speaker 3: As one am.
Speaker 2: Now a typical event starts at six and ends at eleven.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, am, I the only guy who thinks
Speaker 2: the concerts start obnoxiously late. There's no reason that people
Speaker 2: need to be coming on stage at ten thirty. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's out of control, blink one eighty two. I'll do
Speaker 2: it for you, But everybody else it ain't gonna happen.
Speaker 2: And that I mean, that's actually what I tweeted out
Speaker 2: at the time. I was like, listen, if a dinner
Speaker 2: starts at seven thirty, I'm not going like, it's just
Speaker 2: not going to happen. I've luckily, I at least reached
Speaker 2: the level of my career where I don't have to
Speaker 2: artificially stay up until like two in the morning to
Speaker 2: schmooze with people who I don't even particularly like.
Speaker 3: In the first place.
Speaker 2: But it seems that those people even now, even they
Speaker 2: are making sure that they are not staying out as
Speaker 2: late anymore. So I do think this is a profound
Speaker 2: impact of work from home. Also, though you know, people know,
Speaker 2: I'm like obsessed with my sleep data, and this is
Speaker 2: largely at post pandemic. There's a lot of data actually
Speaker 2: to show that people started sleeping a lot better and
Speaker 2: actually transition in their hours during the pandemic. During lockdown
Speaker 2: in particular, people added I believe, almost thirty to forty
Speaker 2: five minutes of sleep, and most importantly, they normalized their
Speaker 2: sleep schedules. One of the most pernicious things for sleep
Speaker 2: is something called social jet lag. And the idea is,
Speaker 2: you know, people like you and I who wake up
Speaker 2: ungodly early. Whenever we were waking up, let's say every
Speaker 2: day at five am, but then on weekends you'd stay
Speaker 2: out until two or three.
Speaker 3: In the morning, and then you wake up at eleven.
Speaker 2: It actually has a profound effect on your circadian clock
Speaker 2: because you're effectively always in transition. So one day, you
Speaker 2: know you're on a five am schedule, then you're at
Speaker 2: eleven am, and then you're back to five ams. They're
Speaker 2: always in transitioning, you're never going to be perfectly well rested.
Speaker 2: Going to bed and waking up at the same time
Speaker 2: every day or roughly around the same time is the
Speaker 2: best thing you can do, both going for your sleep
Speaker 2: and for your health, you know, which is profoundly set
Speaker 2: by circadian rhythms.
Speaker 3: So that's one.
Speaker 2: I'm getting a lot of this from Matthew Walker, by
Speaker 2: the way, if anybody's interested, he's got a great book,
Speaker 2: and also he's been on several podcasts. But also it
Speaker 2: gets to some of the workaholism culture also that pervaded
Speaker 2: and also, you know, a grindset. Now I don't think
Speaker 2: grindset is always bad, but I think it was profoundly
Speaker 2: bad whenever it was impacting people's sleep. I could definitely
Speaker 2: say this from you know, a career perspective, a lot
Speaker 2: of people did not actually have to be at the
Speaker 2: office until seven thirty or eight o'clock.
Speaker 3: They just did it because it was part of the culture.
Speaker 2: And then they would go out afterwards again to just
Speaker 2: prove to everybody how tough they were. They're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can party till one am and then still be
Speaker 2: at the office at six am the next day. That
Speaker 2: is not sustainable for more than like a year or two,
Speaker 2: and even at that time was terrible for everyone's health.
Speaker 2: Like in terms of what they were doing, they're just
Speaker 2: young enough that they weren't paying attention or noticing any
Speaker 2: of it. So I don't even really think that people
Speaker 2: are becoming early birds. I think this is what happens
Speaker 2: when you remove some of the stupid social expectations and
Speaker 2: you give people more flexibility for what they want to do.
Speaker 2: And you know, I can say personally, like I never
Speaker 2: wanted to eat dinner at nine or ten o'clock, Like
Speaker 2: it was just one of those where you did it
Speaker 2: because that's what everybody else is doing. I will also
Speaker 2: say that in many party destinations this does remain the same.
Speaker 2: So when people are truly off the clock, they do
Speaker 2: seem to be eating a lot later, like places I'm
Speaker 2: thinking like Vegas, Miami, you know, dinners really don't start
Speaker 2: there untill nine nine thirty, whereas like in even New
Speaker 2: York City, which does have a notorious like late night culture,
Speaker 2: I think some of it does remain. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean I think it's it's very interesting, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's obviously much more beneficial to my schedule that I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, can we go eat at five thirty six
Speaker 2: o'clock and people don't say no anymore.
Speaker 1: It makes me very happy that the whole world is
Speaker 1: now conforming to my own personal businesses.
Speaker 4: So it's a real win for us.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I have personally always just sort
Speaker 1: of naturally inclined towards being a morning person. And then
Speaker 1: I was a swimmer, so I had to do the
Speaker 1: early morning you know, swim routine, even you know, in
Speaker 1: college and whatever.
Speaker 4: So I think that made it even more ingrained for me.
Speaker 1: And then you know, in our show's schedule, we certainly
Speaker 1: are up very early.
Speaker 4: But I do feel like.
Speaker 1: You're sort of part of this transition because you used
Speaker 1: to be more of an i ow, more like burning
Speaker 1: the candle at both ends kind of a guy, and
Speaker 1: now you've adjusted your sleep schedule. And for me, just
Speaker 1: as I get older, I'm realizing more and more how like,
Speaker 1: I cannot underestimate how important getting enough sleep is, and
Speaker 1: I certainly see it in my kids as well. If
Speaker 1: they miss an hour too, you know, can send the
Speaker 1: whole day sideways without much problem. So it's interesting to
Speaker 1: me though, I mean, basically, with the pandemic, we sort
Speaker 1: of reset everybody's whole work life, social clocks, everything, And
Speaker 1: now we've sort of shaken the thing up and seen
Speaker 1: what habits are going to stick and what things are
Speaker 1: going to revert.
Speaker 4: Back to the mean. And I do think this goes
Speaker 4: hand in.
Speaker 1: Glove with the hybrid work discussion we were just having,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, if you're already at your place
Speaker 1: of work and you're starting a little bit earlier, and
Speaker 1: then you're finishing a little bit earlier, then that just
Speaker 1: moves everything up a couple hours, and that amounts to
Speaker 1: a huge, huge difference over.
Speaker 3: Time, one hundred percent. And yeah, you're right, I mean anecdotally.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the reason why I used to
Speaker 2: be that way is just because this was was the
Speaker 2: DC culture. The DC culture was it was work hard,
Speaker 2: it was play hard. It was late nights and it
Speaker 2: was early mornings. And actually I never really started waking
Speaker 2: up early until I started working at the White House
Speaker 2: as a White House correspondent, and that was only because
Speaker 2: Trump would get his ass up at like four thirty
Speaker 2: morning and start sending crazy tweets. So if you're waking
Speaker 2: up at seven, you're hours behind already the new schedule,
Speaker 2: but at the same time, the social structure did not adjust,
Speaker 2: so everyone, all of us who were covering it, just
Speaker 2: got like four hours of sleep every night, which is
Speaker 2: terrible for you. And you begin to realize that especially,
Speaker 2: I think, really what it is is and people who
Speaker 2: have lost a lot of weight, like I have, you
Speaker 2: know from the past what you don't You don't realize
Speaker 2: it until you're out of it, as in, you get
Speaker 2: used to a very baseline level of like misery and
Speaker 2: like discontent, and you just think, like, this is reality,
Speaker 2: and then you experience anew your reality.
Speaker 3: You're like, I can't even believe that I used to
Speaker 3: live that way.
Speaker 2: But when you did live that way, you had no
Speaker 2: other point of reference. So point of reference, I think
Speaker 2: is very important. That's another reason why I don't think
Speaker 2: that this is going to change, which is you can't
Speaker 2: force people to go back to that type of life
Speaker 2: whenever they have tasted something else. It really is, it's
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's so profound, as you're saying the
Speaker 2: mental effects of getting a decent amount of sleep every night,
Speaker 2: that you really are not going to give that up
Speaker 2: and are even willing to sacrifice as many of these
Speaker 2: bosses we talked about previously. You know, twenty five thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: if you're making one hundred and fifty, you're talking about
Speaker 2: a marginal increase in your salary, but for possibly like
Speaker 2: a massive increase in your baseline level of misery. That's
Speaker 2: not a good trade, and I think they're correct actually
Speaker 2: to turn that down.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: So to tie it all together, I overall think that
Speaker 1: it is a very beneficial thing. If Americans are becoming
Speaker 1: less like putting work at the very center of their
Speaker 1: lives and everything revolving around work, and being able to
Speaker 1: make more choices and have more of a natural like
Speaker 1: rhythm to their days, I think that is potentially a
Speaker 1: very good.
Speaker 3: Thing, hopefully. All right, Chrissel, what are you taking a
Speaker 3: look at?
Speaker 1: A horrifying incident on an airplane at Las Vegas Airport.
Speaker 4: Let's go and put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So they were dealing with extreme heat temperatures there one
Speaker 1: hundred and eleven degrees and this plane was apparently sitting
Speaker 1: on the Taram Mac with limited or no AC and
Speaker 1: passengers started fainting, falling out, some even apparently soiling themselves
Speaker 1: at least five people wheeled off of this plane and stretchers.
Speaker 1: The pilot instructed passengers to quote, hit your call button
Speaker 1: if you're having a medical emergency. You also had flight
Speaker 1: attendants who fell ill during the four hours that this
Speaker 1: group was held on this hot, idling plane. Let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to a little bit of what this sounded
Speaker 1: like for the passengers on the scene.
Speaker 5: All right, everyone out speaking, We certainly knew again apologizing.
Speaker 3: Very hot back there.
Speaker 4: Are cooling is going.
Speaker 7: To occur while passengers are.
Speaker 4: On the air grin, I mean, just absolutely horrible.
Speaker 1: There was actually a Fox News producer who was on
Speaker 1: the flight who was talking about all the babies that
Speaker 1: were screaming and just what a horrific situation it was.
Speaker 4: Eventually they got.
Speaker 1: Them off the plane and then they canceled the flight
Speaker 1: because they didn't have any crew that could work with
Speaker 1: because the crew themselves had fallen ill in these extreme temperatures.
Speaker 1: So no surprise that these type of extreme temperatures are
Speaker 1: horrible on your body, have huge impacts on people. And
Speaker 1: this comes, of course, as we've seen much of the
Speaker 1: country and actually much of the world suffering through extraordinarily
Speaker 1: high temperatures things that we've never seen before. But there's
Speaker 1: new research that says it's not just our bodies that
Speaker 1: suffer with extreme temperatures. It actually really impacts our minds.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up on the screen from heat map.
Speaker 1: The headlighting here is your mind.
Speaker 4: Might be overheating.
Speaker 1: They cite a few different studies here about the impact
Speaker 1: on mental health from extreme temperatures. One study looked at
Speaker 1: the correlation between heat waves and deaths by suicide and
Speaker 1: found monthly suicide rates rose more than two percent due
Speaker 1: to temperatures in the hottest months.
Speaker 4: Another study, this one.
Speaker 1: Was published just this last year, looked at emergency room
Speaker 1: visits for mental health throughout the US during the summer
Speaker 1: months between twenty ten and twenty nineteen. They found a
Speaker 1: five to ten percent increase in visits on the hottest days.
Speaker 1: There were a whole variety of conditions that were identified
Speaker 1: as part of that surge.
Speaker 4: They said.
Speaker 1: The study didn't assess causes, but the authors did hypothesize
Speaker 1: one factor could be disruptions to sleep due to heat.
Speaker 1: That was something Soccer and I were actually just discussing
Speaker 1: the importance of sleep. They cite another paper which found
Speaker 1: an association between higher nighttime temperatures and self reported nights
Speaker 1: of insufficient sleep. Heat can also trigger physiological responses that
Speaker 1: exacerbate mental health conditions, like the release of stress hormones
Speaker 1: that send your body into fight or flight mode. In
Speaker 1: addition to the studies that they cite here, there's been
Speaker 1: a long term, well known trend of violence and crime
Speaker 1: spiking when temperatures rise, regardless of whether it's in the
Speaker 1: summer months or at any other time of year. There
Speaker 1: is a correlation between increase and ten an increase in
Speaker 1: violent crimes. So clearly it gets to people. It affects
Speaker 1: them in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 4: You know. It's interesting to me.
Speaker 1: In that study as well, they talk to one therapist.
Speaker 1: They were asking you, does this show up and when
Speaker 1: you're talking to clients, when you're talking to patients, do
Speaker 1: they talk about the heat in terms of how it
Speaker 1: impacts them? And they said, well, the people who we
Speaker 1: mostly are able to see. You know, these are people
Speaker 1: who are well off enough to be paying for this
Speaker 1: type of therapy, so they have the luxury of having air.
Speaker 4: Conditioning, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Some of them talk about how the extreme temperatures keep
Speaker 1: them from being able to work out outside and that
Speaker 1: that's really key to their mental health. But what they
Speaker 1: pointed to is angst about climate change in impacting people
Speaker 1: and impacting their mental health. And it reminded me actually
Speaker 1: of the charts that Soccer and I took a look
Speaker 1: at that show that people who are liberal are more
Speaker 1: likely to have a lot of more negative feelings about themselves,
Speaker 1: a lot more negative feelings about the future. Some of
Speaker 1: that could be attributed to concerns about the climate crisis,
Speaker 1: but this is increasingly becoming a really widespread concern. Understandably
Speaker 1: so given the fact that we all are basically suffering
Speaker 1: through some sort of extreme weather as we speak. Got
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. This is the polling
Speaker 1: about how people are feeling about the climate. Majority expecting
Speaker 1: significant negative effect from climate change.
Speaker 4: According to this new.
Speaker 1: Quinta Kiak poll, they found fifty five percent of Americans
Speaker 1: expecting a significant negative effect, two thirds of respondent saying
Speaker 1: they are concerned about climate change, including forty two percent
Speaker 1: saying they are very unconcerned, twenty five percent saying they
Speaker 1: are somewhat concerned.
Speaker 4: So clearly this is hanging over a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But just to wrap things up here, I guess what
Speaker 1: I would say is it's very clear the way that
Speaker 1: these temperatures impact people directly. The people who are most
Speaker 1: impacted are homeless people, people who work outside for a
Speaker 1: living and are putting their bodies through unbelievable stress in
Speaker 1: these extreme temperatures.
Speaker 4: But there are a lot of follow on effects.
Speaker 1: Here that we are just beganning to wrap our heads around.
Speaker 1: So make sure you're taking your care of yourself, body, mind,
Speaker 1: take care of each other, because we all might be
Speaker 1: losing it a little bit as temperatures get more and
Speaker 1: more extreme. And sorry, I thought I was fascinating to
Speaker 1: take a look at some of the follow on effects that.
Speaker 3: They see here.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 2: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
Speaker 4: All right, sorry, were were looking at.
Speaker 2: We spent a good chunk of the show on Monday
Speaker 2: breaking down the extraordinary interview the Disney CEO, Bob Iiger,
Speaker 2: granted CNBC from the lush hills of Sun.
Speaker 3: Valley, Idaho.
Speaker 2: The optics were terrible, the near billionaire ceo bemoaning striking
Speaker 2: actors and writers for daring to ask their likeness not
Speaker 2: be digitally replicated or at the very least paid well
Speaker 2: for it. But beneath the comments on the strike was
Speaker 2: one of the most frank and bombshell comments by the
Speaker 2: top the TV business about the actual future of that
Speaker 2: medium in many years from executives.
Speaker 3: Take a listen, let.
Speaker 4: Me ask you about it.
Speaker 11: We're talking I guess ABC, the network, the stations, but
Speaker 11: then the cable networks as well. Yes, the facts that geo.
Speaker 11: Is it possible you would look to sell them?
Speaker 12: We're going to be expensive. I think if you can
Speaker 12: you can interpret what that word means. You know, we're
Speaker 12: just getting at that work. But we have to be
Speaker 12: open minded and objective about the future of those businesses.
Speaker 8: Yes, it's meaning.
Speaker 4: That they're not core to Disney.
Speaker 12: That they may not be core to Disney. Yeah, now
Speaker 12: there's clearly creativity and content that they create that it's
Speaker 12: core to Disney. But the distribution model, the business model
Speaker 12: that forms the underpinning of that business and that has
Speaker 12: delivered great profits over the years, is definitely broken and
Speaker 12: we have to and we have to call it like
Speaker 12: it is, and that's part of the transform of work
Speaker 12: we're doing well.
Speaker 11: We've been having this conversation for a very long time. Well,
Speaker 11: I think what I'm saying is the erosion of the
Speaker 11: linear business and now it's kind of closer to obsolescence.
Speaker 12: Well, you know, as I said, when I came back,
Speaker 12: one of the things I discovered was that the disruptive
Speaker 12: forces that have been preying on that business for a
Speaker 12: while and greater than I thought. And so you it's
Speaker 12: it's eye opening, you know, it's there's a there's a
Speaker 12: reality to it that we have to come to grips
Speaker 12: with it. And we have to come to grips with
Speaker 12: that now. By the way, another business that is really
Speaker 12: has benefited from that business models, but that we're looking
Speaker 12: at very differently.
Speaker 11: Well, I want to get ESPN obviously, but I just
Speaker 11: to understand, so you don't know what you're going to
Speaker 11: do when it comes to these linear businesses, but would
Speaker 11: be open to ideas that would perhaps separate them or
Speaker 11: change the structure in some way as well.
Speaker 12: Let I'll let you speculate. I'm not going to do
Speaker 12: speculating now except to say that we're very objective about
Speaker 12: their future as part of our assets.
Speaker 2: That is very long corporate speak for saying ABC and
Speaker 2: Hulu are for sale and that linear TV itself is dead.
Speaker 2: For those who don't know, the term linear TV just
Speaker 2: means non digital available via satellite or cable TV as
Speaker 2: part of a network or the cable bundle. Think ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN.
Speaker 3: Fox, and MSNBC.
Speaker 2: What makes this such a bombshell comment, though, is that
Speaker 2: perhaps nobody on Earth is more responsible for making billions
Speaker 2: of dollars from linear TV than Bob Eiger. Ayer got
Speaker 2: his start at ABC before it was sold to Disney.
Speaker 2: He was number two and then number one for years
Speaker 2: at the Disney Corporation as he milked tens of billions
Speaker 2: from live sports ESPN and ABC and also entertainment hits
Speaker 2: on ABC network like Loss. The Disney juggernaut was a
Speaker 2: juggernaut precisely because it dominated and had synergy of TV, movies,
Speaker 2: and in person entertainment from Disney World. It used ownership
Speaker 2: of all of these three to leverage massive profits, which
Speaker 2: is why what he said is such a bombshell. In
Speaker 2: the business world, as my friend Ben Thompson Overatechori explains,
Speaker 2: the mad dash to streaming though decimated value of those
Speaker 2: channels directly by extension, destroyed the value of the integration
Speaker 2: that Disney built. The more the bundle subscribers became sports subscribers,
Speaker 2: the less Disney could leverage ESPN to drive up the
Speaker 2: value of its other channels, and the greedier sports leagues
Speaker 2: could become in extracting the full value of their rights.
Speaker 2: That is exactly correct. The people who pioneered leveraging traditional
Speaker 2: TV are now telling us, plain and simple, traditional TV
Speaker 2: is worthless. In fact, later on in the interview, Eiger
Speaker 2: floated at private equity as a potential buyer for traditional TV.
Speaker 2: When private equity gets their grubby hands on a network
Speaker 2: like ABC, we all know what that means. They are
Speaker 2: going to milk the last dollars from old people who
Speaker 2: still watch cable news and local TV. They will cut
Speaker 2: cost to the bone, and they will roll up local
Speaker 2: papers in the hopes of squeezing the last value from them.
Speaker 2: In fact, what Iiger is really saying is Leonard TV,
Speaker 2: what's one of the most profitable businesses in the history
Speaker 2: of the United States, is now basically like newspaper advertising
Speaker 2: after the invention of the Internet and Craigslist. As we
Speaker 2: see now today, the Washington Post still exists, so does
Speaker 2: the New York Times, but how about your local paper
Speaker 2: or even a regional one. If it does exist, it
Speaker 2: probably has a terrible paywall, and my guess it hasn't
Speaker 2: been really relevant for a decade.
Speaker 3: That's the future, That's what it looks like for this business.
Speaker 2: What is also interesting is what Iiger did say, ESPN
Speaker 2: was still interested in ESPN not for the high cable
Speaker 2: fees that it used to be able to demand, but
Speaker 2: because it's really the only TV left out there with
Speaker 2: the semblance of an audience that still watches live sports.
Speaker 2: In fact, is basically the only thing that still compels
Speaker 2: a big live audience in America today. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: sports events accounted for all but six of the top
Speaker 2: ten most watched telecasts of the entire year. The only
Speaker 2: telecast in the top twenty that was not sports related
Speaker 2: was Joe Biden's State.
Speaker 3: Of the Union address.
Speaker 2: Sports is here to stay, and unlike in the old days,
Speaker 2: they really can't blackmail people into paying for the Food
Speaker 2: Network and for CNN or Fox if you also want
Speaker 2: sports like they do in the cable bundle right now.
Speaker 2: This will have profound impacts on the future of mass
Speaker 2: entertainment in the US, especially on politics and news. As
Speaker 2: we've explained here before, CNN and Fox and MSNBC three
Speaker 2: network channels.
Speaker 3: They don't make any of their.
Speaker 2: Money from actual advertising. They make it really from cable
Speaker 2: subscription fees. Cable companies basically take a good portion of
Speaker 2: what you pay per month if you have the bundle,
Speaker 2: and they give it to them. Last year it accounted
Speaker 2: for billions of dollars in profit for all three networks.
Speaker 2: But without sports they're dead right now, over half of
Speaker 2: pay for TV households say live sports is the reason
Speaker 2: that they pay for it at all. That means it's
Speaker 2: really the only thing in the bundle that they wrote
Speaker 2: rate as quote very important to pay for. Without it,
Speaker 2: like Amazon and YouTube and Apple who are now going
Speaker 2: for football rights, things are going to fade away very quickly.
Speaker 3: How does it end?
Speaker 2: Basically, sports will survive as part of some new entertainment
Speaker 2: bundle bundle maybe Disney Plus will combine with Hulu and
Speaker 2: Espn to command a similar price point to the current
Speaker 2: cable bundle. Netflix and Apple a few other companies will
Speaker 2: also survive. The rest will either die or they will
Speaker 2: have to get sold off to one of the three.
Speaker 2: As for news, you're basically looking at the type of future.
Speaker 2: Not Breaking Points per se as much as I would
Speaker 2: like it to be, but the format, the business model
Speaker 2: that sustained these people for so long, the rug is
Speaker 2: getting pulled right from under them now, just as already
Speaker 2: happened to the newspaper business. The Washington Post and the
Speaker 2: New York Times has said they did survive, But think again, Buffalo,
Speaker 2: New York or San Antonio, Omaha. Traditional TV is going
Speaker 2: to dramatically shrink in the next decade. The ocean of
Speaker 2: people who have added negative value for our politics will
Speaker 2: soon be unemployed. And I guess that they should learn
Speaker 2: a different skill. In the interim, I will let you
Speaker 2: guess what that skill should be. So I found those
Speaker 2: comments extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Priss and if you want to hear my reaction to
Speaker 1: Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
Speaker 2: Okay, guys, I hope you guys enjoyed the show. It
Speaker 2: may seem like we're cutting things short, but we're really not.
Speaker 2: There's going to be some big and fun interviews that
Speaker 2: people can take a look at that'll be coming soon.
Speaker 2: Some will release later today, others will release over the weekend.
Speaker 2: Premium subscribers, keep an eye on your inbox for those
Speaker 2: interviews as they become available.
Speaker 3: We'll see you all later
Speaker 4: The