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 show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Christal Steed?
Speaker 1: We do lots of interesting news breaking this morning. First
Speaker 1: of all, we've got some new news about Americans and
Speaker 1: the amount of credit card debt that they hold. The
Speaker 1: numbers are pretty stunning, so break all of that down
Speaker 1: for you. We also have additional information about Center and
Speaker 1: Diane and Feinstein apparently suffering a fall. We'll break that
Speaker 1: down for you what it means for a very important
Speaker 1: powerful person here in Washington.
Speaker 4: There was an FBI raid yesterday.
Speaker 1: We know very little about it, but a man who
Speaker 1: had been apparently making threats against Joe Biden was killed
Speaker 1: in that raid, So we'll break that down for you.
Speaker 1: We also have some new news with regard to Trump.
Speaker 1: Apparently his Twitter account was peanut by Jack Smith. And
Speaker 1: also he is making some comments about whether or not
Speaker 1: he will participate in the debate that is coming up
Speaker 1: and just exactly what that decision will look like. Also
Speaker 1: excited about a guest we're going to have in studio.
Speaker 4: This is going to be a big one.
Speaker 1: Ken Clippenstein has published a report on UFO whistleblower Dave
Speaker 1: Grush that is getting a lot of pushback and backlash.
Speaker 1: So we thought the best thing to do would be
Speaker 1: to have Ken in the studio and ask him the.
Speaker 4: Questions we have ourselves.
Speaker 1: But before we get to any of that, thank you
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Speaker 1: All right, guys, So we have been really trying to
Speaker 1: dig into the state of the economy, which is a
Speaker 1: little bit complicated. The way the Biden administration portrays it
Speaker 1: certainly not the way that Americans are experiencing it. And
Speaker 1: we have a new milestone, and not a good milestone
Speaker 1: that we have just reached. Let's put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. So American credit card debt has officially hit
Speaker 1: one trillion dollars for the first time ever. Percy NBC.
Speaker 1: This is a huge test for cardholders which is coming.
Speaker 1: You can see credit card balances here, you know, going
Speaker 1: up up until twenty twenty, and then because of some
Speaker 1: of the pandemic relief error programs, some of that debt
Speaker 1: getting paid down. Well, now it has come back with
Speaker 1: a vengeance topping that one trillion dollar number.
Speaker 4: They said.
Speaker 1: Total credit card debt rose nearly five percent, or about
Speaker 1: forty five billion dollars in the second quarter to a
Speaker 1: new high. That is according to a new report on
Speaker 1: household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Speaker 1: Delinquency rates still continue to be relatively low by historical standards. However,
Speaker 1: there are concerns that those rising balances may present challenges.
Speaker 1: And reminder to everyone that student loan payments are starting
Speaker 1: this fall. And now the Biden administration has announced a
Speaker 1: few plans, an income driven repayment plan, Biden's still trying
Speaker 1: to cancel student debt, some other relief measures for borrowers,
Speaker 1: including a twelve month on ramp to repayment to try
Speaker 1: to soften that blow. But nevertheless, the fact that you
Speaker 1: have these historic rates of credit card debt and you
Speaker 1: have student loan payments coming back into effect this fall
Speaker 1: could be a very dangerous state of affairs for a
Speaker 1: lot of Americans. Let's go and put the numbers up
Speaker 1: on the screen from the New York Fed. They put
Speaker 1: up this helpful jiff on Twitter or x or whatever
Speaker 1: the hell it is now showing the levels of debt.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can see that red that red swat
Speaker 1: there that is student loan done one point five to
Speaker 1: seven drill. I mean, that is truly astonishing. You can
Speaker 1: see the credit card debt there, that's the orange rising
Speaker 1: to a trillion dollars, auto loan debt one point five
Speaker 1: to eight trillion, and other at point five to three trillion.
Speaker 1: So Americans really increasingly loaded up with debt, needing their
Speaker 1: credit cards just to be able to make ends meet.
Speaker 2: It's a huge problem. One of the things that they
Speaker 2: point to in the New York Federal Reserve report, they say, quote,
Speaker 2: compared to other debt categories this quarter, credit card balances
Speaker 2: saw the most pronounced worsening in performance, following a period
Speaker 2: of extraordinary low delinquency rates during the pandemic. Now the
Speaker 2: other problem, though, is that while credit card debt is
Speaker 2: the most pronounced, they still say auto loans rose by
Speaker 2: twenty billion in upward trajectory. The volume of newly originated
Speaker 2: auto loans and leases was one hundred and seventy nine billion,
Speaker 2: reflecting the high dollar value of originated loans aka, cars
Speaker 2: cost way too much money right now and people have
Speaker 2: to take out huge loans if they want to be
Speaker 2: able to even get a car. Mortgage balances actually are
Speaker 2: unchanged from the previous quarter, but not because of not
Speaker 2: for a good reason like people are paying it down,
Speaker 2: but because people are just taking out way fewer mortgages
Speaker 2: and because they're slowing home process. So basically, debt on
Speaker 2: almost every measure right now is disaster. I mean, the
Speaker 2: credit card debt increase combined also with you know, we
Speaker 2: are going to have student loan repayments come any what
Speaker 2: is it any month now that they start to kick in.
Speaker 2: That's a couple hundred dollars a month. Even more so
Speaker 2: that people are somewhat twenty something million Americans, maybe even
Speaker 2: more are going to have to start having to pay
Speaker 2: down once again, reducing their overalled household expenses. Then they've
Speaker 2: they've got what's going on in terms of inflation, wages
Speaker 2: not keeping up with that or very slightly keeping up
Speaker 2: with it. As of like I think this quarter and
Speaker 2: so what do you do? You go with the credit card?
Speaker 2: And you know, the sad part is not just the balances.
Speaker 2: People are opening a ton of new credit cards. I
Speaker 2: mean they say here that the number of accounts has
Speaker 2: expanded by just six by six million, just in the
Speaker 2: last quarter, crystal six million new credit cards taken out
Speaker 2: to a current number of five hundred and seventy eight
Speaker 2: point three to five million credit cards. The aggregate limits
Speaker 2: on these cards have actually increased by nine billion and
Speaker 2: now stand at four point six trillions. So people increasing
Speaker 2: their credit limits, taking out new cards basically to try
Speaker 2: and load up, you know, if they're not able to
Speaker 2: get what they can off of a single one. And
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think it takes this a genius
Speaker 2: financial advisor to figure out. It's like it takes most
Speaker 2: people whenever they do go into credit card debt. It's
Speaker 2: not you know, one or two months. We're talking about
Speaker 2: years of their life before any of this stuff even
Speaker 2: begins to get paid down, if it does at all.
Speaker 1: And we have some statistics about exactly that. Let's put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. This is from Yahoo News.
Speaker 1: They compiled some of the statistics about what they described
Speaker 1: as a state of debt in America. Let's put this
Speaker 1: next piece up on the screen. So you've got thirty
Speaker 1: percent of Americans who have between one thousand and five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in credit card debt, fifteen percent have five
Speaker 1: thousand or more in credit card debt, and about six
Speaker 1: percent have more than ten thousand dollars in credit card debt.
Speaker 1: Let's put this next piece up on the screen. That
Speaker 1: breaks those numbers down further. They say, all those six
Speaker 1: percent could seem like a small amount. That means that,
Speaker 1: based on these survey results, fourteen million Americans have over
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars of credit card debt. They go on
Speaker 1: to find that thirty three percent of Americans, so a
Speaker 1: third of Americans, think it will take more than two
Speaker 1: years to pay off their credit card debt. A majority
Speaker 1: of people, fifty five percent, carry a credit card.
Speaker 4: Balance from month to month.
Speaker 1: Fifteen percent have had credit card debts, stretching back decades
Speaker 1: to before two thousand and six. And to me, the
Speaker 1: most disturbing indicator here they say forty nine percent of Americans,
Speaker 1: so very close to a majority of Americans actually depend
Speaker 1: on credit cards now to cover essential living expenses. Those
Speaker 1: numbers are even higher for young people Gen Z. Sixty
Speaker 1: one percent of Zoomers rely on credit cards just to
Speaker 1: be able to pay their normal living expenses. Fifty three
Speaker 1: percent of millennials. On the other hand, Boomers in a
Speaker 1: very different category, only twenty percent twenty six percent of
Speaker 1: boomers rely on credit cards to cover essential expenses. So
Speaker 1: I mean, Sager, this fits with a lot of what
Speaker 1: we've been reporting at this point for years about the
Speaker 1: financial pressure that is on younger generations, how they struggle
Speaker 1: so much just to be able to make the milestones
Speaker 1: that their parents were able to meet so much earlier
Speaker 1: in life. And you can see here in an attempt
Speaker 1: just to obtain the living standard that perhaps their parents had,
Speaker 1: they're having to take on significant loads of debt. What
Speaker 1: does that mean that debtload can truly be crushing? I mean,
Speaker 1: you talk about you think about freedom and ability to
Speaker 1: pursue happiness and make your own choices in the world.
Speaker 1: If you are saddled with a huge student loan debt burden,
Speaker 1: if you're saddled with a huge credit card debt burden,
Speaker 1: that really constrains your choices of what you're able to
Speaker 1: do in the world. That's why your rates of entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: are down among young Americans. I've seen reports that directly
Speaker 1: tie that in to the debtloads, specifically the student loan
Speaker 1: debtload that young Americans are carrying at this point. It
Speaker 1: is just a totally different landscape from when their parents
Speaker 1: graduated college and were able to, you know, work a
Speaker 1: job and pay as they went in terms of their
Speaker 1: college education because it was so much more affordable.
Speaker 2: Of course, this is downstream of everything, and this is
Speaker 2: the housing commerce, this is the debt conversations, is the
Speaker 2: entrepreneurship conversation.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: This is why a lot of my friends who go
Speaker 2: to you know, they go to the so called good colleges,
Speaker 2: what do they do. They don't want to start a business.
Speaker 2: They want to go work in the fortune five hundred.
Speaker 2: They want to go make two hundred grand a year,
Speaker 2: which is great money because they've got two hundred grand
Speaker 2: in debt, got no choice, They've got nothing else to do.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'll talk these people. I love them,
Speaker 2: but they're so miserable they cannot do anything else. They
Speaker 2: feel chained basically to the desk and have to work
Speaker 2: seventy hours a week. And they're like, yeah, but you know,
Speaker 2: seven years from now will be debt free and then
Speaker 2: maybe I can start to look at a house. And
Speaker 2: then what's the other problem. You know, you start to
Speaker 2: get depressed. A lot of them have, you know, selbstance abuse, frankly,
Speaker 2: and I think the problem is because you know, you
Speaker 2: have to drink away your feelings, you know, in terms
Speaker 2: of not being feeling trapped. And it's not just them,
Speaker 2: because you know, we shouldn't just weep for law students.
Speaker 2: We're out there. A lot of people were working class,
Speaker 2: you know, are in the same boat. If you've got
Speaker 2: ten grand in credit card debt at a thirty percent interest,
Speaker 2: I mean the interest payment alone is making up so
Speaker 2: much of where you're paying you feel like it's insurmountable.
Speaker 2: I mean, you have effectively got to cut your lifestyle
Speaker 2: to the bone if you actually want to make big fat,
Speaker 2: hairy interest payments, sorry, principal payments, and that's just not
Speaker 2: feasible for a lot of people who are out there,
Speaker 2: and especially if you have kids. The biggest problem I
Speaker 2: worry about for people who are in this type of
Speaker 2: debt is what do you do when you're in an emergency?
Speaker 2: And I think about that all the time with a
Speaker 2: lot of my friends, who are you know, two fifty
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand dollars something like that in debt. They're like,
Speaker 2: it's fine, I'm just gonna keep working. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but you know what happens you get hit by a bus?
Speaker 2: Now what it's like? What if you can't go to
Speaker 2: the office. What if your wife, you know, decide gets sick?
Speaker 2: Like now what it's like? They're in a position where
Speaker 2: they have almost no leeway. And that's actually when you
Speaker 2: truly discover So yeah, this I really despair when I
Speaker 2: look at some of this stuff and we've even got
Speaker 2: the car. Let's go this map, Let's put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. This is really troubling. This shows
Speaker 2: you that more than one in five shoppers in Texas
Speaker 2: and Wyoming I have a monthly payment over one thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a month just in the second quarter, largely driven
Speaker 2: by the purchases of large trucks. But if you take
Speaker 2: a look at that, you can actually see the percentage
Speaker 2: of state residents paying one k per month. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're talking about nearly an average of what fifteen sixteen percent,
Speaker 2: almost twenty percent in some of these states. That is
Speaker 2: not an insignificant sum. Of course, we're talking about twelve
Speaker 2: grand a year post tax, just spending on your damn car.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's like when used cars, what is
Speaker 2: the average price of a used car is up over
Speaker 2: thirty percent? I know, only thirty percent or so of
Speaker 2: car use cars are even below twenty thousand dollars, which
Speaker 2: sounds insane to say, you know, not even ten years
Speaker 2: ago new car price is some like fifty five thousand dollars. Well,
Speaker 2: it starts to make sense really when you take a
Speaker 2: look at the numbers. But then we know what people
Speaker 2: are making and we know what they're taken out, and
Speaker 2: it's very clear that the delta there is just getting
Speaker 2: bigger every single year, and that's what causes people to break.
Speaker 2: It can break you emotionally, can break you mentally, and
Speaker 2: it leads to some very troubling societal things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it just.
Speaker 1: Leads to you feeling like you have no choice in
Speaker 1: your life. I mean, and that's sort of like best
Speaker 1: case scenario. Worst case scenario is it truly is crushing
Speaker 1: and you lose everything because you can't keep up with
Speaker 1: the payments. And when you're talking about people who are
Speaker 1: accumulating more and more debt just to be able to
Speaker 1: meet their living expenses, I mean, what are we doing
Speaker 1: to our young generations here in terms of what their
Speaker 1: life is going to look like. So stufftails very closely
Speaker 1: with the Biden administration and their campaign pitch for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. They're really trying to sell Bidenomics as a
Speaker 1: thing and really convince Americans that their actual personal financial
Speaker 1: situation is a lot better than Americans are telling posters
Speaker 1: that they feel that it is. Interestingly enough, it's a
Speaker 1: little bit surprising. Korean John Pierre was on CNN and
Speaker 1: she was actually pressed on the choice of language using
Speaker 1: Bidenomics and how they're leaning into this pitch even though
Speaker 1: Americans really aren't feeling it.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 6: It's approval rating for his handling of the economy, is
Speaker 6: it thirty seven percent? Thirty percent on inflation. Specifically from
Speaker 6: the White House perspective, why is their disparity between the
Speaker 6: good story, the narrative you think you have to tell,
Speaker 6: and how it's received by the American people.
Speaker 5: So a couple of things, Victor. Look, as we know,
Speaker 5: poles don't show everything. They don't tell the full story,
Speaker 5: as you just stated. And we have to remember if
Speaker 5: you look at where we were back in the fall
Speaker 5: of twenty twenty two during the midterm elections, when the
Speaker 5: President delivered a historic midterms for Democrats. When we think
Speaker 5: about how as a Democratic president he delivered a victory
Speaker 5: that we hadn't seen in decades, right, and he led
Speaker 5: that messaging throughout those months going into November. And we
Speaker 5: are in a stronger position now than we were back
Speaker 5: back then in the fall, And so that is important
Speaker 5: to note. Look, there's a lot going on in this country,
Speaker 5: and we understand that. You know, Americans are coming out
Speaker 5: of a pandemic. We are dealing We're dealing with a
Speaker 5: lot when you think about the economy. But here's the thing.
Speaker 5: This is a president who was spent the last two
Speaker 5: years turning the economy around. You hear us talk about
Speaker 5: bid noomics. You just mentioned how we're doing this west
Speaker 5: this kind of this West Coast Swain talking directly to
Speaker 5: the American people about how wages are actually going up,
Speaker 5: about how inflation is going down over a long extended
Speaker 5: period of time, more than more than the twelve months.
Speaker 5: That is important.
Speaker 6: Let me ask you about something here that the branding
Speaker 6: you just used, the word, we have it on screen, Bidenomics.
Speaker 6: We know the polls show that people are pretty sour,
Speaker 6: or at least half American people are sour.
Speaker 3: On the economy.
Speaker 6: Isn't that just dangerous getting closer to the election if
Speaker 6: things take a downturn, If as the CBO predicts, unemployment
Speaker 6: will get closer to four point seven percent by election day.
Speaker 6: That you've got a narrative now of Bidenomics and things
Speaker 6: going in a certain way, But that can quickly turn
Speaker 6: in the opposite direction. Why literally fuse the president's name
Speaker 6: with the economics that Americans aren't very happy with.
Speaker 5: Well, here's the thing. Bidenomics is indeed working. When we
Speaker 5: say that, you look at the data, right, cost is
Speaker 5: going down, right, you think about inflation, when you think
Speaker 5: about wages going up, that is bynomics. Look, the President
Speaker 5: has always believed, not just as president, but as a
Speaker 5: vice president as as senator, that we need to build
Speaker 5: an economy that is building from the bottom up middle.
Speaker 1: Now, that's actually a good question. Why literally fuse his
Speaker 1: name with economics? People are like, I feel like the.
Speaker 2: Economy economy, So I'm just going to go ahead and
Speaker 2: tie myself directly to said economy. I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: I really don't understand this one, Crystal. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is one where it's an active choice to try and
Speaker 2: to spin it. My only analysis can be that they
Speaker 2: seem to believe a lot of the stuff that is
Speaker 2: out there, and I mean I just think they're fundamentally
Speaker 2: misreading the electorate. Actually, if you go and you look
Speaker 2: at a lot of the midterm data, people did say
Speaker 2: that inflation was one of their top choices. It's just
Speaker 2: that they were willing to forgive it because they were
Speaker 2: so upset at the GOP about abortion and they were
Speaker 2: set up about stop the steal. It's not that they're like, Yay,
Speaker 2: you're doing a great job. I mean, really, what you
Speaker 2: should do I don't even know what you should call yourself? Like,
Speaker 2: you should just be like I'm going to do row
Speaker 2: and that's it. Likes, that's all I'm running on. If
Speaker 2: I were Biden, That's what I would do. The economy
Speaker 2: is terrible. I don't have a particularly good form policy
Speaker 2: record to run on. You know, my approval rating is
Speaker 2: second lowest except for Jimmy Carter at this point.
Speaker 3: So go again.
Speaker 2: I have got one popular thing and a supermajority on
Speaker 2: my side for the ballot. It's Row versus Way and
Speaker 2: abortion as evidenced by what has happened in Ohio.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's my whole election. Campaig. Yeah, this is a choice.
Speaker 2: This is like a choice to shoot yourself in the foot.
Speaker 2: It's just nuts.
Speaker 1: I mean, and listen, the voters are saying thus far
Speaker 1: that maybe you don't need an affirmative economic vision. The
Speaker 1: theory of the case from the Biden people is like
Speaker 1: the other side is so bad that they're just going
Speaker 1: to vote for us anyway. And you know, we've had
Speaker 1: a bunch of these special elections. They all have basically
Speaker 1: gone in the democrats favor. They've outperformed by ten percentage
Speaker 1: points on average parts and leaning each district that basically
Speaker 1: held in Ohio as well in this abortion related referendum.
Speaker 1: But to get back to the economic piece here for
Speaker 1: people to understand how the top line numbers can look
Speaker 1: one way and the reality for people can look very,
Speaker 1: very different. So the White House does have numbers that
Speaker 1: they can point you on. Unemployment is really low. They
Speaker 1: have been a lot of jobs created. I mean, of
Speaker 1: course that came out of the COVID recession, so the
Speaker 1: expectation was that hopefully there would be a lot of
Speaker 1: new jobs created. Inflation has cooled over the past several months,
Speaker 1: and actually we're set to get some new numbers on
Speaker 1: inflation today as well, so we'll get to see how
Speaker 1: things are looking there. But if you look at the
Speaker 1: story of what has happened over the course of the
Speaker 1: Biden term, you initially had a lot of action on
Speaker 1: the economy.
Speaker 4: And that's why when we showed you.
Speaker 1: That chart of people's steatload, it actually went down quite
Speaker 1: significantly during the early years of the Biden presidency because
Speaker 1: there was a lot of action that helped ordinary people.
Speaker 1: The story of his presidency has been the gradual rolling
Speaker 1: back of all those protections and supports. Student loan debt
Speaker 1: coming due again this fall is exactly a case in
Speaker 1: point of exactly that. So the experience that people have
Speaker 1: had over these past few years is of their financial
Speaker 1: situation increasingly becoming more and more precarious, and of.
Speaker 4: Course inflation plays into that as well.
Speaker 1: So that's why you can have some of these top
Speaker 1: line numbers that are like, oh yeah, Kraine, John Pierre
Speaker 1: can talk about these top line numbers and it sounds
Speaker 1: really good, but what people are actually living and experiencing
Speaker 1: is a totally different scenario where every month things are
Speaker 1: getting a little bit tougher. And Biden has chosen to
Speaker 1: try to sell what he's already done versus try to
Speaker 1: lay out an affirmative vision of what he will do.
Speaker 1: Now again, I'm not saying that this is going to
Speaker 1: mean he's going to lose reelection. I think he'd be
Speaker 1: a lot better position if he did lay on that
Speaker 1: affirmative economic vision and there was actually some credibility behind
Speaker 1: getting it done.
Speaker 4: But you know, their theory of.
Speaker 1: The case thus far that all they have to say
Speaker 1: is Trump is bad, and you know, Row versus Wade
Speaker 1: and Dobbs, et cetera. So far that has actually worked
Speaker 1: out pretty well for them, So it's possib it continues
Speaker 1: to work out well for them. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: much to Americans who are continuing to struggle. Clearly, the
Speaker 1: Biden team put this next piece up on the screen,
Speaker 1: this reporting about how they're thinking about the campaign and
Speaker 1: what they're going to do to quote juice the economic polling.
Speaker 1: They clearly feel like there is a messaging problem versus.
Speaker 4: A reality problem.
Speaker 1: What we're trying to lay out for you here is
Speaker 1: that there's very clearly a reality problem in terms of
Speaker 1: Americans and their personal financial situation.
Speaker 4: Their theory of the.
Speaker 1: Case is that no, no, no, people are actually doing
Speaker 1: better than they think. They're just not getting the message
Speaker 1: down about all the great things that we've done for them.
Speaker 1: And so the model that they're going back to, intentionally
Speaker 1: or not, based on this reporting from the Washitting Examiner,
Speaker 1: is they want to go back to the rollout of
Speaker 1: the vaccines, the push that they made to try to
Speaker 1: get people vaccinated, and they're going to use some of
Speaker 1: the relational organizing and leaning into trusted messengers quote unquote
Speaker 1: within communities or social media influencers to try to persuade
Speaker 1: the public that actually Bidenomics is good, Actually you're doing great,
Speaker 1: Actually the economy is really wonderful, and you just don't understand.
Speaker 1: That's their theory of how they're going to pull this off,
Speaker 1: and color me skeptical.
Speaker 4: Soccer, Yeah, that's gonna work.
Speaker 3: You should be skeptical.
Speaker 2: That basically kind of what my friend Christian Daytok lays
Speaker 2: out there in the report is that they recognize the
Speaker 2: Bidenomics framing is not exactly a landing, but they are
Speaker 2: not one hundred percent sure what else to do. Like
Speaker 2: you said, they think it's a messaging issue, but messaging
Speaker 2: is not the problem. Reality is the problem. And you know,
Speaker 2: until they really get that through their heads, they're just
Speaker 2: going to be in the precarious situation that they don't
Speaker 2: have to be in where Trump very easily could win again.
Speaker 2: I think he stands as good a shot as any
Speaker 2: ro Honestly, I would put it in fifty to fifty today.
Speaker 2: And yet it didn't have to be that way. It's
Speaker 2: entirely a choice of his own making. And you know,
Speaker 2: now it's an affirmative choice to go which said Bidenomics,
Speaker 2: like I was saying, And if he doesn't digit and
Speaker 2: it doesn't look like it, I think because Crystal, he
Speaker 2: genuinely believes in his heart that it's some sort of
Speaker 2: messaging issue and or that people just don't understand how
Speaker 2: good they have it. I really think that's what it is.
Speaker 2: I think his advisors are telling him, look at these
Speaker 2: fake numbers about where everything is better, and he's like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to beat these big this into the
Speaker 2: head of people. And that's just not how politics works.
Speaker 2: He's got to meet people where they are.
Speaker 1: It's that and it's a lack of desire to have
Speaker 1: to actually promise anything. Sure, and since he's you know,
Speaker 1: unwilling to debate his primary competitors, that means there's not
Speaker 1: any pressure on him to promise anything in terms of actual,
Speaker 1: like material benefits to the American people. So some of
Speaker 1: the things that you know they've supported in the past,
Speaker 1: like the child tax credit that was very successful, none
Speaker 1: of these have been made as anything approaching a concrete
Speaker 1: pitch for the next term. So, you know, their theory
Speaker 1: continues to be if we can just unite the anti
Speaker 1: Trump coalition and keep it all focused around Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and the fact that you know it's going to be
Speaker 1: a series of trial dates and new indictments and discovery
Speaker 1: and all of these things that are happening during the
Speaker 1: campaign season. It's very possible that that theory works out
Speaker 1: for them.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying. I'm not saying that it's.
Speaker 1: Like doomed to fail, but that's cold comfort to people
Speaker 1: who really could use some help from the federal government.
Speaker 1: Help that you know, they were starting to get at
Speaker 1: the beginning of this administration, and they've seen pulled out
Speaker 1: piece by piece over the course of the past several years.
Speaker 2: A lot of this actually relates to our next story.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead, put this up there on the screen,
Speaker 2: which you know, it's difficult to talk about this. We
Speaker 2: have to try and keep empathy and also try to
Speaker 2: think about this in a public realm. Senator Dianne Feinstein, yesterday,
Speaker 2: ninety years old, fell at home and had to go
Speaker 2: to the hospital. Her office claims, quote that the scans
Speaker 2: are clear. She has quote briefly went to the hospital
Speaker 2: yesterday afternoon. Is a precaution after a minor fall in
Speaker 2: her home, Like I said, her office says that she
Speaker 2: was clear. Senator Schumer said in a statement that he
Speaker 2: spoke with her on Wednesday morning. She says that she
Speaker 2: suffered no injuries and briefly went to their quote. I
Speaker 2: am glad she's back at home now and she is
Speaker 2: doing well. But this comes crystal after she missed work
Speaker 2: for literally months on end. She was absent when she
Speaker 2: did return. Let's be honest. I mean, you can see
Speaker 2: that photo. That's probably a good one compared to what
Speaker 2: it looks like she's wheeled around the Capitol. She clearly
Speaker 2: is suffering several episodes where she forgets where she is.
Speaker 2: I did the infamous clip that we showed everyone here
Speaker 2: where they just said just vote I as she kind
Speaker 2: of has like a rambling episode. The thing is is
Speaker 2: that whenever it comes to her health and to Senator McConnell,
Speaker 2: how do we know we're being told the truth? I mean,
Speaker 2: don't forget we were hidden from the fact her office
Speaker 2: hit that she had actually suffered an episode on top
Speaker 2: of what had happened while she was at home during
Speaker 2: those three months, not just from recuperating, but actually suffering
Speaker 2: like a pretty serious health event that we didn't learn
Speaker 2: until reporters had to kind of dig around the people
Speaker 2: around her. We also have a secondary indication of, frankly,
Speaker 2: just how out of it Dianne Feinstein is. Let's go
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen, guys. She
Speaker 2: has currently seeded the power of attorney to her daughter. Okay,
Speaker 2: she has seated power of attorney to her daughter in
Speaker 2: what effectively amounts to like a what is it like
Speaker 2: an inheritance dispute after her very rich husband passed away. Basically,
Speaker 2: the power of attorney is to her sixty six year
Speaker 2: old daughter, Catherine Katherine Feinstein, to help handle the legal
Speaker 2: battles over her late husband, Richard Bloom's estate. Basically, Katherine Feinstein,
Speaker 2: the only child, is at odds with the other three
Speaker 2: daughters of a previous marriage over the ownership of luxury
Speaker 2: beach house owned by Feinstein. If only we were all
Speaker 2: so lucky, honestly to be able to feud with our
Speaker 2: step paciblis or something like this. The point, though, is
Speaker 2: that she does not have the mental capacity, it seems,
Speaker 2: to deal or to represent her own financial interest in
Speaker 2: this case, is willing to turn it over, and yet
Speaker 2: wants to represent some forty million people the state of
Speaker 2: California in the United States Senate, Can we think of
Speaker 2: two twin news items which should, at the very least
Speaker 2: in the eyes of what one hundred percent of the
Speaker 2: American public just be like you got to go. I'm
Speaker 2: sorry you know you can't be here anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean, I honestly think you did the best commentary
Speaker 1: that I've seen on this whole situation, which is it.
Speaker 4: It really is a failure.
Speaker 1: Of democracy that we have Diane Feinstein propped up, didn't
Speaker 1: have to debate, so people didn't really feel, you know,
Speaker 1: they weren't able to evaluate their choices whatsoever. She's still
Speaker 1: being propped up by Nancy Pelosi. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: this is utterly disgraceful. Like Pelosi knows exactly what's going
Speaker 1: on with Finstein, and I'm sure has known for quite
Speaker 1: some time exactly what's going on with Einstein, but she's
Speaker 1: using her as a pawn in order to try to
Speaker 1: get her chosen successor, Adam Schiff, who's like one of
Speaker 1: the worst Democrats in Congress, into her Senate seat. And
Speaker 1: the backstory here for those who haven't followed this is
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom has said if Diane Feinstein wor to retire
Speaker 1: and there was a Senate opening, he would appoint a
Speaker 1: black woman into that seat. That black woman very likely
Speaker 1: to be Barbara Lee, who is running in the Senate
Speaker 1: primary against Adam Schiff and against by the way, Katie
Speaker 1: Porter so in order to forestall that from happening, Pelosi
Speaker 1: has tried to prop up Feinstein and keep her in
Speaker 1: place in spite of the fact that, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is an insane situation. She can't trust herself, she can't
Speaker 1: be trusted to handle her personal financial affairs, but she
Speaker 1: can cast votes on massive like multi trillion dollar Pentagon
Speaker 1: budgets and the like.
Speaker 4: This is pure insanity.
Speaker 1: And it's not an accident that the fact that we
Speaker 1: have this incredibly aged Senate, like historically historically old by
Speaker 1: our country's standards, comes at a time when you have
Speaker 1: a total democratic breakdown in terms of people of being
Speaker 1: able to evaluate their choices, in terms of the influence
Speaker 1: of big money in politics, in terms of this isn't
Speaker 1: relevant to the Senate, but relevant to the House, in
Speaker 1: terms of jerry mandering and all of these other pieces
Speaker 1: that have conspired to keep power out of the hands
Speaker 1: of the people. That's how you end up with someone
Speaker 1: like this in such a position of incredible power, when
Speaker 1: you know, if you pull Californians, if you poll certainly
Speaker 1: pull the nation, this is not what they want to
Speaker 1: see in terms of their representation.
Speaker 2: It's not right. It's just not right in any sense
Speaker 2: of the word. You got somebody here who is clearly
Speaker 2: you know, and this is we've also talked about this.
Speaker 2: At this point, she is probably so far gone that
Speaker 2: it's not really on her as much as it once was,
Speaker 2: although I do still think she has a titanic ego
Speaker 2: for hanging on at least getting to this point. It
Speaker 2: is now an indictment of all the people around her,
Speaker 2: her sixty six year old daughter, of her you know staff,
Speaker 2: who is around here, miss just vote I of all
Speaker 2: the senators who are covering this up on our behalf
Speaker 2: of Governor Newsom, and of all these people, I mean Rocanna,
Speaker 2: to his credit, is basically the only guy and elected
Speaker 2: member of the Democratic Party. Was like, I'm sorry, you
Speaker 2: got to go all right like this, We thank you
Speaker 2: for your service, but like you got to walk here.
Speaker 2: It's not fair to your constituents. And I've laid it
Speaker 2: out here before, you know, because senior senators like this
Speaker 2: are immensely powerful people. If they want to be, you
Speaker 2: can work on behalf of your constituents. There are forty
Speaker 2: million people who effectively have no real advocate, and everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 2: but her office can handle it. Sorry, I know how
Speaker 2: it works. Senators are on the phone all the time.
Speaker 2: California based company gets he needs a trade exemption or
Speaker 2: something like that. They employed let's say, one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: people or whatever in the state. They've basically got to
Speaker 2: go to Padilla, who is He's a junior guy. He
Speaker 2: has no senator, he's no seniority. They don't have the
Speaker 2: adequate representation that they deserve. In my opinion, an every
Speaker 2: American citizen deserves that to have somebody fighting on their
Speaker 2: behalf as an elected representative. So I think that that,
Speaker 2: to me is what really bothers me. And like you said,
Speaker 2: this is all around so that you don't want want
Speaker 2: what is it You don't want a progressive to be
Speaker 2: in the setate? Yes, Like, let's be honest.
Speaker 1: Here, Tody who is like also a stooge of the
Speaker 1: deep state and was like the worst Russian russiagator in
Speaker 1: this whole town, has to be him, Can be Barbaraly?
Speaker 1: Canpy Katie Porter? Has to be him? It is crazy,
Speaker 1: It is absolutely crazy. And you know, the American people,
Speaker 1: the voters in California, they didn't vote for Pelosi's staffers
Speaker 1: to represent them. I mean, sorry, not Pelosi Feinstein's covers
Speaker 1: to represent them. They voted because they thought they know
Speaker 1: I was basically hidden from them the reality of the situation.
Speaker 1: And now they're having very much buyer's reporse, but don't
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to do anything different. Sure, can the
Speaker 1: office run on autopilot? Absolutely? Is this anything approaching representative democracy?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. And when you pair it with, you know,
Speaker 1: the troubles of Mitch McConnell is having and the overall
Speaker 1: age of the Senate, it is a really sad state
Speaker 1: of affairs and a sign of a decaying empire that
Speaker 1: we live in here.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely right. Okay, let's go to the next part here.
Speaker 2: Really crazy story that happened unfolded all throughout yesterday. The
Speaker 2: FBI shot and killed a man in a raid in
Speaker 2: connection with threats against President Biden while President Biden is
Speaker 2: in the West and traveling. This incident occurred in Provo, Utah.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: Craig Robertson was shot and killed during this FBI raid
Speaker 2: that happened on early Wednesday morning as part of investigating
Speaker 2: threats against President Biden that were made on social media.
Speaker 2: This was made done by the FBI in Salt Lake
Speaker 2: City and the office that they have based out of there.
Speaker 2: They said, quote in accordance with FBI policy. The shooting
Speaker 2: incident is now under review. As it's an ongoing matter.
Speaker 2: We have no further details to provide. He was facing
Speaker 2: actually three counts, according to the complaint, interstate threats, threats
Speaker 2: against the President of the United States, and influencing, impeding,
Speaker 2: and retaliating against federal law enforcements by threat. Some of
Speaker 2: the social media posts here by mister Robertson are particularly troubling.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put the next one up here on
Speaker 2: the screen. You can actually just see some evidence. I mean, look,
Speaker 2: it's not illegal to have guns, but he was posting
Speaker 2: them in a manner. He says, quote when this government
Speaker 2: crumbles under its own evil and corruption, food, water, and
Speaker 2: arms and ammunition will be necessary to survive. Nine words
Speaker 2: you don't want to hear from government, and we are
Speaker 2: here to help. Photos of himself in full body armor
Speaker 2: the actual thing though, and we're not really we don't
Speaker 2: think we're able to show these to you, but they
Speaker 2: are the actual threats Crystal that he made on Facebook.
Speaker 2: The threats themselves were pretty troubling because they included really
Speaker 2: not only threats against President Biden, but also like, hey, FBI,
Speaker 2: are you listening. If you are, let me know so
Speaker 2: I can have a gun or weapons like ready to
Speaker 2: meet you. But you know, we do still have a
Speaker 2: lot of questions around this incident. It's like this is
Speaker 2: an early morning raid. It's kind of an older and
Speaker 2: I mean, was he expecting said, you know, raid? Like
Speaker 2: what are the details here as to why like this
Speaker 2: ended up resulting in a death? And of course this
Speaker 2: also happened while the president is traveling abroad, Like what
Speaker 2: exactly was going on here? So yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 2: a sad situation right now. He's an elderly gentleman. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not defending the guy like he's posting
Speaker 2: openly on Facebook being like I want to kill the
Speaker 2: president and then posting, uh, you know, things with like
Speaker 2: his guns and body armor and all that. But we
Speaker 2: still have to do sub scrutiny here on the official
Speaker 2: side of the story, like how did this all go down?
Speaker 2: Was this even necessary? You know, what exactly was the search?
Speaker 2: Weren't like being was he being arrested? Like what are
Speaker 2: the what's the circumstances here of this what's going on here?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And did he I mean, was holding shoot you right exactly?
Speaker 1: Was it justified that? I mean, yeah, don't make threats
Speaker 1: against the president. The threats that were made were very specific.
Speaker 1: He said, Biden is coming to Utah, which is where
Speaker 1: this man lived in Provo, Utah, digging out my old
Speaker 1: gilly student, cleaning the dust off the M twenty four
Speaker 1: st niper arrival. And there were other threats that were
Speaker 1: very similar. And I think the reason that they ended
Speaker 1: up trying to brand him in this raid was because
Speaker 1: usually for a threat to be credible, there has to
Speaker 1: be some specificity to it. So the fact that Biden
Speaker 1: was coming to Utah and he's talking specifically about, you know,
Speaker 1: threatening him in the state of Utah is probably what
Speaker 1: led them to take this action. But yeah, an FBI
Speaker 1: raid for threats is one thing. But there's no indication
Speaker 1: thus far, they haven't indicated that anyone who was involved
Speaker 1: in the raid was injured.
Speaker 4: He had posted.
Speaker 1: Some threats the effect of like, oh, if the FBI
Speaker 1: shows up on my gunsloaded, is that what happened? There
Speaker 1: are just still a lot of questions about how this
Speaker 1: all went down and the circumstances that led to this
Speaker 1: man who should not have been making threats against the president,
Speaker 1: but this man ending up dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the odd thing about it is, I mean,
Speaker 2: and again, I want to be clear here. He was
Speaker 2: posting some pretty crazy stuff like here, let me read
Speaker 2: you one, Alvin Bragg. I'm headed to New York to
Speaker 2: fulfill my dream of eradicating another George Soros two bit
Speaker 2: political hacks spelled wrong, das I be waiting in the
Speaker 2: courthouse parking garage with my suppressed Smith and Weston MP
Speaker 2: nine millimeter to smoke a radical, fool prosecutor that should
Speaker 2: never have been elected. I want to stand over Bragg
Speaker 2: and put a hole in his forehead with my nine
Speaker 2: millimeter and watch him twitch as a drop of blood
Speaker 2: oozes from the hole as his life ebbs away to hell.
Speaker 2: Bye bye to another corrupt I don't even know what
Speaker 2: the word is, Robertson wrote in one social media POSTE
Speaker 2: all right, so like, let's be real about who we're
Speaker 2: talking about. But you know, he's an American citizen. Now,
Speaker 2: you're not allowed to issue threats against the president, or
Speaker 2: at the very least like you will come under investigation
Speaker 2: for that. I do think that's I think that's within
Speaker 2: the bounds of the First Amendment and also within the
Speaker 2: bounds of protecting public officials. I mean, look, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you saw this. There was a president Canadate
Speaker 2: just yesterday assassinating in cold blood in Ecuador. Horrible video.
Speaker 2: So it's like, you know, these are very real incidents
Speaker 2: that we should always be reminded. It can't happen. It
Speaker 2: does come back to though. It's like, Okay, I mean,
Speaker 2: do do you break the law? I mean, lawful firearm
Speaker 2: owner to Utah posting stuff is not necessarily illegal. It's like,
Speaker 2: so did you come in like we're weapons drawn? Do
Speaker 2: you have body camera footage? You know, these are all
Speaker 2: important things. I think that they're going to have to
Speaker 2: come forward on and honestly, the mean he's gonna to
Speaker 2: demand this, We're gonna.
Speaker 3: Have to start.
Speaker 2: We had issues employer requests, like we've got to make sure, yeah,
Speaker 2: you actually get to the bottom. Liss like, is this
Speaker 2: all you know by the book et cetera. As despicable
Speaker 2: as some of these statements are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it appears to me that he probably
Speaker 1: broke the law. Did he deserve to die for his
Speaker 1: threats against the president. You know, again, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of questions that we had. It could be that,
Speaker 1: you know, these agents felt truly acted in self defense,
Speaker 1: that he did come, as he indicated in some of
Speaker 1: his posts, with his weapons blazing. But you know, the
Speaker 1: fact that there's been a real silence on the side
Speaker 1: of the government here, you know, only further heightens the
Speaker 1: questions that we have about this incident and exactly how
Speaker 1: it all went down. So, yeah, it's one to you know,
Speaker 1: keep our eye on and see if we get any
Speaker 1: further information about exactly the circumstances here of how this
Speaker 1: all unfolded.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we've got a little bit of Trump legal
Speaker 1: news here for you. Apparently Jacksmith's team obtained a search
Speaker 1: warrant to search his Twitter account. Let's put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. This is pretty wild development headline here
Speaker 1: from the AP Special Council got a search warrant for
Speaker 1: Twitter to turn over info on Trump's account. According to documents,
Speaker 1: there was also a fine that was Levey put this
Speaker 1: next piece up on the screen through in her fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars fine that was levied against now X. I
Speaker 1: really am sort of like resistant to using that company
Speaker 1: name because it's irritating to me. But anyway, they're in
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars fine against Twitter for missing the deadline
Speaker 1: to comply with this search warrant. Details were included in
Speaker 1: ruling from the Federal Appeals Court in Washington over a
Speaker 1: legal battle surrounding the warrant that is played down under
Speaker 1: seal and behind closed doors for months. The appeals court
Speaker 1: rejected Twitter's claim that it should not have been held
Speaker 1: in contempt or sanctioned. So looks like, in the same
Speaker 1: way that you know they get search warrants to look
Speaker 1: in someone's house or whatever, they attained a search warrant
Speaker 1: to have access to Trump's Twitter account. I presume that
Speaker 1: means DMS and all the rest to try to find
Speaker 1: out anything that was relevant with regard to his actions
Speaker 1: with regards to January sixth, and anything else that they're investigating.
Speaker 1: Because that's the other thing, Sager, is we have word
Speaker 1: now that the grand jury that has been meeting in
Speaker 1: DC that handed down these latest indictments of Trump over
Speaker 1: January sixth, they're still meeting, and the investigation and there
Speaker 1: still continues, So it's possible there are additional indictments, certainly
Speaker 1: of his co conspirators. It's also possible there are in
Speaker 1: additional indictments with regards to Trump, and specifically, some of
Speaker 1: the reporting indicates they're still looking into some of his
Speaker 1: fundraising practices.
Speaker 4: And we've of course covered here the way.
Speaker 1: That they, you know, at best, really misled people about
Speaker 1: what their money was going to with regard to the
Speaker 1: stop the steal efforts, et cetera.
Speaker 4: So you know, this is very much an ongoing investigation.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something. Of all of the investigations,
Speaker 2: that's the one I would actually like to see because.
Speaker 4: The fundraising one sane. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, look, I understand First Amendment law
Speaker 2: fundraising and all that, but watching old people who really
Speaker 2: believe this stuff get milked out of their hard earned
Speaker 2: social Security and savings money, you know, to go quote
Speaker 2: unquote fight on behalf of the president who then spends
Speaker 2: it on a bunch of legal bills not related to that,
Speaker 2: that really pisses me off. You know, I don't care
Speaker 2: what look, it's their money. They can do what they want.
Speaker 2: But you know, it doesn't sit right with me, especially
Speaker 2: knowing how so many of these people not only trust him,
Speaker 2: but trust so many of the media apparatus.
Speaker 3: He kind of.
Speaker 2: Amplifies this stuff, But I am curious. I did not
Speaker 2: fully understand why the Twitter account needed to have a
Speaker 2: search one. That was the only thing I keep coming
Speaker 2: back to, because I'm like, it's all public record. Are
Speaker 2: you looking for like behind the scenes, like law, like
Speaker 2: as int like who posted the tweets? Are we looking
Speaker 2: at his.
Speaker 4: Direct mess I just assumed it's.
Speaker 2: The DMS, So I was wondering that. But you know,
Speaker 2: from my limited interaction and knowledge of how the presidential
Speaker 2: Twitter account he did not really used to reply to dms,
Speaker 2: I'm not even sure he fully even knew how to
Speaker 2: do it. I also, I mean, I can tell you
Speaker 2: I can't go into all the details, but I have
Speaker 2: actually watched some of these presidential tweets get drafted while
Speaker 2: I was interviewing Trump only enough, and he doesn't post them.
Speaker 2: Let me just put it that way. Some of it
Speaker 2: even includes paper in terms of editing things before they
Speaker 2: are then sent out. So I just didn't understand, like,
Speaker 2: what are we trying to glean here from? Said the
Speaker 2: time stamps are public? You know, it's like, what are
Speaker 2: we looking for?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and we don't have any public indication that
Speaker 1: he did go back and forth with people. I mean,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that it's impossible that there's nothing there,
Speaker 1: but I'm not.
Speaker 4: Sure what they were looking for here either.
Speaker 1: And then there's also a question about, you know, is
Speaker 1: it appropriate for the government to be issuing search warrants
Speaker 1: and you know, being able to look at people's social
Speaker 1: media accounts. I mean, I would say in the same
Speaker 1: way that you can get a search warrant to search
Speaker 1: someone's house or their documents or whatever. Like, there are
Speaker 1: situations where I do think it is appropriate. The problem
Speaker 1: comes when these search warrants become just like rubber stamps
Speaker 1: for whatever the government wants for whatever reason, without a
Speaker 1: lot of scrutiny as to whether or not this is
Speaker 1: actually required. Does this meet the standard? It's hard for
Speaker 1: me to say.
Speaker 2: At this point, I have no idea, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: in terms of that, I do think there should be
Speaker 2: a special consideration here. We aren't talking about the president
Speaker 2: of the United States. We are are a foreign president
Speaker 2: of the United States, and who actively only used his
Speaker 2: treat you know, this is an important consideration. He only
Speaker 2: used his Twitter account while he was actually president of
Speaker 2: the United States, hasn't used it really since then and
Speaker 2: since been on truth Social What exactly you know we're
Speaker 2: prosecutors looking for here. There's also the interesting angle here
Speaker 2: about the find that Twitter was forced to pay, which
Speaker 2: you know, let's go and put this up there please
Speaker 2: on the screen, which says that the judge levied a
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine on the company
Speaker 2: for a delay actually in complying, so you know, not
Speaker 2: clear yet exactly like why the fine was levied, what
Speaker 2: exactly the delay was. It also kind of comes back
Speaker 2: to a recent promise by Elon Musk that they're going
Speaker 2: to cover the legal expenses of anyone who incurred a
Speaker 2: firing or problem from you know, their Twitter account, Like
Speaker 2: I'm assuming he means like normal people who were canceled
Speaker 2: because of tweets. But immediately Donald Trump Junior was like, hey,
Speaker 2: I've got a pretty big case for you, you know,
Speaker 2: if you want to go ahead and cover those legal bills.
Speaker 2: So it h is an interesting like legal fight and
Speaker 2: or machination. I mean, the biggest headline from it really
Speaker 2: is just that it happened at all. Not even like
Speaker 2: we don't know what they're looking for, we don't know
Speaker 2: why and all that. Just the fact that had happened
Speaker 2: itself is you know, really enough in order I think
Speaker 2: to talk about and speculates why.
Speaker 4: Trump has responded.
Speaker 1: Of course, he says, just found out that Koka Joe
Speaker 1: Biden's DJ secretly attacked my Twitter account, making a point
Speaker 1: not to let me know about this major hit on
Speaker 1: my civil rights. My political opponent is going crazy trying
Speaker 1: to infringe on my campaign for president. So he is
Speaker 1: certainly seizing on that. And he's referring to the fact
Speaker 1: that prosecutors actually were able to receive permission from the
Speaker 1: judge not to tell Trump for months that his account
Speaker 1: had been taken over basically and was being searched by
Speaker 1: the government. So they kept a secret from him. They
Speaker 1: argued that it would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation by
Speaker 1: giving him an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior,
Speaker 1: or notify confederates. That was the justification for keeping this
Speaker 1: action secret from Trump. So that is about everything we
Speaker 1: know about.
Speaker 2: That one, all right. So that's what we got.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we have some news this morning
Speaker 1: about the rapidly approaching first Republican primary debate. It has
Speaker 1: appeared thus far like Trump is probably not going to
Speaker 1: participate in that debate. This is very you know, I mean, listen.
Speaker 1: I think it would be good for him to participate.
Speaker 1: I think it's in the interest of democracy for all
Speaker 1: of these candidates to have to participate in debates.
Speaker 4: That includes Donald Trump, that Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: But he and his advisors sort of feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's way ahead. Why take the risk, Why dignify these
Speaker 1: other opponents by stepping on the stage. The folks at
Speaker 1: Fox and Friends were on their airwaves trying to implore
Speaker 1: Trump to reconsider what appears to be his movement in
Speaker 1: the direction of skipping the debate. Let's take a listen
Speaker 1: to what they had to say.
Speaker 3: The crowd was mixed on whether he should get debate
Speaker 3: or not. People want to see Trump debate.
Speaker 2: Number one, it's extremely entertaining and it's good. And what
Speaker 2: I did recently is watch back the debate with Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: Where I thought he didn't do well.
Speaker 7: The more I realized he actually did well, much better
Speaker 7: than you would think.
Speaker 3: But the moderator kept interrupting.
Speaker 2: Number one and number two is Joe Biden just kept lying.
Speaker 7: Well, I think if Donald Trump is pulling the audience saying, hey,
Speaker 7: do you think I should do that debate? Because he
Speaker 7: was very clear, he was emphatic, Nope, I'm not going
Speaker 7: to do it because I'm way ahead, and we have
Speaker 7: heard him say that. You know, my advisors are telling
Speaker 7: me I shouldn't do it. Obviously he's having sex doubts
Speaker 7: about the advice he's getting from his advisors because if
Speaker 7: he's pulling the audience, and I just don't see okay,
Speaker 7: the debates in two weeks here on Fox. I just
Speaker 7: don't see Donald Trump sitting at home watching along with
Speaker 7: forty or fifty million other Americans when he sees Ron
Speaker 7: DeSantis in that Center Square, that would absolutely drive him crazy.
Speaker 8: Well, and don't you want him to do it? Because
Speaker 8: I really was angry at everything that he feels that
Speaker 8: this administration of the Democrats the dj have put him through.
Speaker 8: But don't take it out on the Republicans, because Republicans
Speaker 8: want to see him up on stage, and don't take
Speaker 8: the voters for granted. Yes, he is ahead by a lot,
Speaker 8: but to see him up there on the stage would
Speaker 8: just be wonderful. Because we want to see how they interact,
Speaker 8: we want to hear their policies.
Speaker 3: That's how he became done.
Speaker 7: The first time, he made it entertable, blew everybody away.
Speaker 4: News is hosting the debate so obviously.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're right about not taking the voters for granted,
Speaker 1: that's all fair.
Speaker 4: The part that I actually thought.
Speaker 1: Was the funniest was when kill Mead started doing revisionous
Speaker 1: history on his first debate performance against Joe Biden, which
Speaker 1: everyone basically paedo. He was so obnoxious. I think that's
Speaker 1: the one too where it came out after the fact.
Speaker 1: He like had COVID at the time, so I'm wondering
Speaker 1: if they had him hopped up on some kind of
Speaker 1: something to overcome the you know, his mood because of COVID. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he was so obnoxious. He didn't let Joe Biden get
Speaker 1: a word. He made Joe Biden so sympathetic when all
Speaker 1: you had to do was sort of like stand back
Speaker 1: and let Joe Biden hang himself. But he really came
Speaker 1: off very great, So I found it amusing that kill
Speaker 1: me It was.
Speaker 4: Like, actually I watched it.
Speaker 1: You did great, sir. I'm sure you do great. Again,
Speaker 1: public wants to hear from you, et.
Speaker 4: Cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one of the biggest kiss ass things. That
Speaker 2: was amazing, just shocking. Yeah, and look, let's be real,
Speaker 2: as you said, this is purely self interested. Don't forget
Speaker 2: the day that Trump was indicted. Actually that night he
Speaker 2: had dinner with Fox News executives who were at hitmar
Speaker 2: A Lago to basically beg him to show up to
Speaker 2: the debate. We do, however, have some news that just
Speaker 2: broke last night. He Trump gave an interview to news
Speaker 2: Max's Eric Bowling where he said two things. He will
Speaker 2: let us know next week about the debate. Okay, but
Speaker 2: two I will not Two I will not sign the
Speaker 2: RNC debate Pledge. Well, the RNC pledge, which says that
Speaker 2: you will support the eventual nominee, is a precursor to
Speaker 2: participating in the debate. So I think we have a
Speaker 2: little bit of a taste. He also recently has been
Speaker 2: going after Chris Christy, calling him a fat pig or no,
Speaker 2: he was told not to call him a fat pig,
Speaker 2: and he recounted that story classic trumpion. Christy posted the
Speaker 2: video and just said come say it to my face.
Speaker 2: I'll see you at the debate. Yeah, you know, trying
Speaker 2: to challenge him.
Speaker 3: I don't think Trump's going to show up.
Speaker 2: I just think at this point, specifically because of Christie,
Speaker 2: Trump has it has had that Christy ended Marco Rubio's campaign.
Speaker 2: Trump also doesn't want to basically validate all the other
Speaker 2: candidates by letting him take a shot. He's leading so
Speaker 2: far ahead and fundraising and the polls, and I actually
Speaker 2: that one of the funniest tweets truths I guess that
Speaker 2: he put out is I'll let them debate and see
Speaker 2: who I should take his vice president. You're just kind
Speaker 2: of putting himself above it. But of course, on a
Speaker 2: small d democratic.
Speaker 3: Level, it's awful you have to debate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you really do have to. It's a
Speaker 2: terrible norm to set. It's one that we shouldn't normalize
Speaker 2: Biden and or Trump. If you want, if you earn it,
Speaker 2: you know, if you want it, then you got to
Speaker 2: earn it. I really believe in that, But you know,
Speaker 2: people are letting to take it a pass. So I
Speaker 2: don't know the minority.
Speaker 4: It's empathetic.
Speaker 1: That very likely that the two major part in nomenies
Speaker 1: neither one of them is going to have to face
Speaker 1: a single like debate question during the primary. They're going
Speaker 1: to be able awful to win without having being subjected
Speaker 1: to even like the baseline of democratic scrutiny. And it
Speaker 1: is you know, we talk a lot about norms. That
Speaker 1: is a new norm that will be sad in the future.
Speaker 1: Every frontrunner is going to be like, ah, they didn't
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to do it either, And that
Speaker 1: is that is incredibly disappointing. It's an incredible degradation of democracy.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's not a surprise that these two
Speaker 1: men would be so craven, but nevertheless, it's doesn't make
Speaker 1: the blow land any softer.
Speaker 4: So listen, I will say, I could see.
Speaker 1: Him coming out next week and being like, yeah, I'll debate,
Speaker 1: but I'm not signing the pledge and then basically kicking
Speaker 1: into the R and C and making them make the
Speaker 1: tough decision.
Speaker 4: So that way he has.
Speaker 1: An excuse of it's not like, oh I wanted to debate,
Speaker 1: they just wouldn't let me, you know, they wouldn't let
Speaker 1: me on the stage. And so he sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: creates the own conditions where they have to block him
Speaker 1: or call his bluff or whatever. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: could see that also playing out.
Speaker 2: The potentially LOK I actually think you're one hundred percent
Speaker 2: of righty. I'm happy to do it, but I won't
Speaker 2: do that pledge. That's that's a very smart thing, you know.
Speaker 2: It is weird though, that they I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's always been a part of it, because I mean,
Speaker 2: one of the most important moments of the first debate
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen is when they were like, well, everybody here,
Speaker 2: what do you say, is like, raise your hand if
Speaker 2: you commit to backing the eventual Republican nominee. And he
Speaker 2: didn't raise his hand, and he's like, no, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do it. So this is clear
Speaker 2: something that's kind of been baked in for a long time.
Speaker 2: I do think it's definitely odd that he decided that
Speaker 2: they decided to add that in there at the same time,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not I don't know, do you think
Speaker 2: it's a smart move on behalf of the R and C,
Speaker 2: because I mean, even if he doesn't commit, that's a
Speaker 2: fun it's fine enough, like let him debate anyways, you know,
Speaker 2: let's just get the guy on the stage already.
Speaker 1: Blew up the stupid loyally pledge because back in twenty
Speaker 1: six No, I don't think that there should be a
Speaker 1: loyalty pet pledge. I think people should be able to
Speaker 1: run and if they decide they don't like the nominee,
Speaker 1: they should be you know, free individuals to make their
Speaker 1: own choices about it. Like handcuffing everybody ahead of time,
Speaker 1: I think is ridiculous. I think it is also anti democratic.
Speaker 1: And Trump blew this up last time around because what happened, Sager,
Speaker 1: is they had this loyalty pledge because there was all
Speaker 1: this question, oh, what will Trump do if he loses,
Speaker 1: like is he going to run through party?
Speaker 4: What is he going to do?
Speaker 1: And he signed the pledge and then immediately was like, nah,
Speaker 1: I'm not really going to follow this thing. So what's
Speaker 1: the point, which is so that's what Chris Chris Christy
Speaker 1: has been saying, because Christy has no intention of backing
Speaker 1: if Trump ends up being the nominee. So what he's
Speaker 1: been saying when he's asked about the loyalty pledge is
Speaker 1: I will take the loyalty pledge exactly as seriously.
Speaker 4: As Donald Trump did last time around.
Speaker 1: So he's technically signing it, but basically throwing out there like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this is garbage and I'm not really going
Speaker 1: to abide by it in the same way that Trump
Speaker 1: got away with not abiding by it last time.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think the loyalty pledges bs.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I'll see what happens. Yeah, I certainly will.
Speaker 2: As Trump used to say, we'll see what happens, Crystal,
Speaker 2: what are you taking to look at?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: When you think of Los Angeles, many things may come
Speaker 1: to mind, sunshine, movie stars, Hollywood, or on the more
Speaker 1: negative side, visible homelessness, street crime. But this year LA
Speaker 1: has been ground zero for something quite surprising, a working
Speaker 1: class revolt. In Lates example, eleven thousand city workers actually
Speaker 1: went on strike on Tuesday of this week, bringing some
Speaker 1: city services to a complete halt, slowing others. Talking about lifeguards,
Speaker 1: sanitation workers, custodians, mechanics, groundskeepers more all walk down, over
Speaker 1: low waight and understaffing. As one airport custodian told the
Speaker 1: LA Times in rather succinct fashion, it's more work for
Speaker 1: less money.
Speaker 4: But these LA.
Speaker 1: Workers are far from alone. They are brothers and sisters
Speaker 1: across the city and across industries have been revolting in
Speaker 1: an extraordinary year that has seen more nationwide strike activity
Speaker 1: than almost any other year this century. Nurses, dock workers,
Speaker 1: hotel workers, they have all stage strikes or work stoppages.
Speaker 1: They're not joined by the workers at the heart of
Speaker 1: this company town, the writers and actors who make our
Speaker 1: favorite shows and movies, and the ones who are just
Speaker 1: struggling to get their foot in the door of their
Speaker 1: own Hollywood dream. They are all out on strike, demanding
Speaker 1: a stake in the future of their industry. There is
Speaker 1: no city in America facing anywhere close to this level
Speaker 1: of worker rebellion. Partly it's because LA actually has decent
Speaker 1: union density, so workers are already organized for collective action.
Speaker 1: But if you listen to what the workers are telling
Speaker 1: reporters about why they had no choice but to strike,
Speaker 1: there is a common thread running through each of these actions.
Speaker 1: Common thread is housing. The total unaffordability of housing in
Speaker 1: the LA area has made it impossible for workers to
Speaker 1: be able to get by on their wages. It's a
Speaker 1: miserated them with multi hour commutes push them in some instances,
Speaker 1: into literal homelessness. Joe Martinez, a city worker on strike,
Speaker 1: this week, who works servicing construction equipment at lax He
Speaker 1: told the La Times that he lives ninety minutes away
Speaker 1: from his job because it is the closest place that
Speaker 1: he can possibly afford. And yet he actually considers himself
Speaker 1: lucky because a lot of his fellow workers they have
Speaker 1: even longer commutes. This, of course, takes them away from
Speaker 1: their family, their communities, drains their wallets and their souls
Speaker 1: by the way as they sit in mind numbing traffic.
Speaker 1: According to Martinez quote, we want to get respect from
Speaker 1: the city to go back to the bargaining table. Our
Speaker 1: biggest thing is cost of living. In a report on
Speaker 1: the hotel workers' strike, alex Press documents how automated management
Speaker 1: apps are being weaponized to bring in unwitting scaps in
Speaker 1: an attempt to break that hotel workers strike. One of
Speaker 1: those who was summoned by UP to break the strike
Speaker 1: was a man named Thomas Bradley. He immediately dropped his
Speaker 1: shift and joined the picket line the moment he realized
Speaker 1: he was being used like a pond to try to
Speaker 1: hurt other workers. Joining the striking workers was no small
Speaker 1: thing for Bradley either, who had struggled to find employment
Speaker 1: in the hospitality industry in spite of him being trained
Speaker 1: in credential for the work. It's a complaint that shared
Speaker 1: by many black workers who are trying to get a
Speaker 1: foothold in the hotel industry. Bradley's joblessness had pushed him
Speaker 1: from precarity into actual homelessness, and when he showed up
Speaker 1: for that shift, he was living out of his car
Speaker 1: unit here. Local eleven co president Ottobersgno explained that this
Speaker 1: precarity is shared even by many of her members who
Speaker 1: do have a job. Quote, there's no thing that I'm
Speaker 1: hearing from my workers.
Speaker 4: They are shared.
Speaker 1: There's a new thing that I'm hearing from my workers.
Speaker 1: They are sharing by shift rooms in a house. If
Speaker 1: you work in the PM, you get to sleep there
Speaker 1: in the AM, and if you work in the AM,
Speaker 1: you get to sleep in the PM. They actually rent
Speaker 1: a room by shift. It is incredible that we are
Speaker 1: in this crisis in this country. The union has now
Speaker 1: since helped Bradley get a job as a banquet runner
Speaker 1: at the U One Hotel, which was able to come
Speaker 1: to terms before the contract deadline. The housing crisis has
Speaker 1: also taken center stage in the Hollywood shutdown as well.
Speaker 1: An anonymous studio executive said the quiet part out loud
Speaker 1: when he told reporters that he and his fellow execs
Speaker 1: wanted to weaponize this housing affordability crisis to force writers
Speaker 1: to accept a bad deal. The endgame is to allow
Speaker 1: things to drag on until union members start losing their
Speaker 1: apartments and losing their houses, a studio executive told Deadline,
Speaker 1: acknowledging the cold as ice approach. Several other sources reiterated
Speaker 1: the statement. One insider called it a cruel but necessary evil.
Speaker 1: Now LA is at or near the top of every
Speaker 1: list that I looked at of the least affordable cities
Speaker 1: in the country. This, of course, is thanks to a
Speaker 1: combination of astronomical housing prices and comparatively low wages.
Speaker 4: When you add these.
Speaker 1: Sprawl, traffic, congestion, and poor public transit, you can easily
Speaker 1: understand what the entire workforce is at its wits end.
Speaker 1: LA is also among the worst cities in the country
Speaker 1: for income inequality, as superstars and excis beecutives live lives
Speaker 1: of incredible luxury, and the workers who make the whole
Speaker 1: place go commute four hours just to barely scrape by.
Speaker 1: Could also guys be a canary in the coal mine.
Speaker 1: It's not like the rest of the country is doing
Speaker 1: so great on housing prices. Nearly two thirds of major
Speaker 1: metros just saw their housing prices hit record highs. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: mortgage rates are a near twenty three year high as
Speaker 1: the FED has pushed interest rates up at breakneck speed.
Speaker 1: These two factors, together, housing prices and mortgage rates have
Speaker 1: made housing the least affordable that it has ever been.
Speaker 1: And while the news is somewhat improved in recent months,
Speaker 1: it is not like wages have come anywhere cloaths to
Speaker 1: keeping up with these ever escalating housing prices. In other words,
Speaker 1: don't be surprised if the la worker's revolt is coming
Speaker 1: to a city near you. And Sire's reading all these
Speaker 1: stories and I seeing what is the connective tissue 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.
Speaker 4: Com t's how what are you looking at?
Speaker 2: Well. Two announcements on Tuesday evening absolutely rocked the sports
Speaker 2: entertainment world. One Penn Gaming is partnering up with Disney
Speaker 2: Sports juggernaut ESPN to launch an ESPN betting app, pushing
Speaker 2: the Disney property fully into the world of online gambling.
Speaker 2: But two, Penn Gaming is divesting entirely its ownership of
Speaker 2: Barstool Sports into the hands of Dave Portnoy, making him
Speaker 2: the sole owner of the company. Both announcements in their
Speaker 2: own right are titanic. Together they tell us a lot
Speaker 2: about the state of the media business today and what
Speaker 2: the future looks like. Let's start with Barstool, a brand
Speaker 2: that I've always loved and continued to admire. Portnoit revealed
Speaker 2: some other reason for why Penn has decided to part
Speaker 2: ways with Barstool. Let's take a listen to that interview.
Speaker 9: We did this deal about three years ago, and I
Speaker 9: think both parties are like, we're gonna take this thing
Speaker 9: to the moon, and we underestimated just how tough it
Speaker 9: is for myself and Barstool to operate in a regulated
Speaker 9: world where gambling regulators the New York Times Business Insider
Speaker 9: hit pieces fucking with the stock price. Every time we
Speaker 9: did something. It was one step forward, two steps back.
Speaker 9: We got the night licenses because of me, you name it.
Speaker 9: So the regulated industry probably not the best place for
Speaker 9: Barstool Sports.
Speaker 3: And the type of content we make okay.
Speaker 2: So basically Barstool's controversy aka the reason why it is
Speaker 2: popular is the reason that Penn Gaming had to divest
Speaker 2: itself from Barstool. And to be clear, when I say divest,
Speaker 2: I really mean it not a sale. The details of
Speaker 2: the transaction released so far indicate Portnoy did not have
Speaker 2: to pay more than one dollar to get his brand
Speaker 2: back after being paid some five hundred million dollars three
Speaker 2: years for the brand previously. In fact, the only stipulations
Speaker 2: are some non compete elements to the future of the brand,
Speaker 2: and that if he should sell it in the future,
Speaker 2: they would get some of the proceeds. He quickly put
Speaker 2: that duress, saying he would never sell it even should
Speaker 2: he die, he will just get the brand over to
Speaker 2: one of his trusted associates. There is a whole other
Speaker 2: monologue to give about what an incredible deal that is
Speaker 2: to make, but I want to focus on the action
Speaker 2: substance of it. What we're really learning here is a
Speaker 2: profound lesson in freedom and what it takes to be
Speaker 2: a good media company. In twenty twenty three, Barstool was
Speaker 2: a liability to Pen Gaming because of the controversy it generated. Thus,
Speaker 2: the contrary was used as evidence for why gambling licenses
Speaker 2: and other regulatory hurdles for the company couldn't be cleared
Speaker 2: and was worth nearly half a billion dollar loss just
Speaker 2: to rid themselves of the problem. And as I immediately
Speaker 2: reacted to the portannoy comments, any truly free media brand
Speaker 2: cannot be connected to a larger entity. It must have
Speaker 2: a funding model immune from attack. And while I think
Speaker 2: Barstool may miss out on some sweet gambling revenue, I
Speaker 2: believe that this move will actually make them bigger than
Speaker 2: ever before. The most valuable commodity in the public sphere
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three is to be able to speak
Speaker 2: your mind. It's why barstools is as popular as it
Speaker 2: is today. The more popular it gets, the more it
Speaker 2: represents millions of people, mostly men, despise political correctness, and
Speaker 2: the more of a vector of attack, then it will
Speaker 2: be for the mainstream I believe, with no connection to
Speaker 2: the outside, say for their advertising business, they will likely
Speaker 2: be bigger than ever before. But there's actually a second
Speaker 2: part of the announcement that we haven't gotten to yet,
Speaker 2: which also relates to a monologue I've done Previously, while
Speaker 2: pen Gaming did divest itself from Barstool, they announced their
Speaker 2: new partnership with ESPN. Now, per the deal, pen Gaming
Speaker 2: is going to pay some one point five to two
Speaker 2: billion dollars to ESPN, who will then promote the new
Speaker 2: esp betting app across all of his franchise. This is
Speaker 2: welcome news for ESPN, which once was the king of
Speaker 2: cable bundle but now is openly being floated as an
Speaker 2: area for strategic partnership of Bob Iiger as they lose
Speaker 2: the fundamental value that the brand once commanded within media. Immediately, however,
Speaker 2: I had a different view, perhaps than others, because one
Speaker 2: of another favorite broadcasters in the independent sports world, Pat McAfee,
Speaker 2: he recently signed a deal with ESPN. As I covered
Speaker 2: at that time, mcavie's show is going to be simulcast
Speaker 2: on the ESPN channel as well as on ESPN's YouTube channel,
Speaker 2: and at the time I actually hailed it as a
Speaker 2: victory for McAfee and for YouTube to be able to
Speaker 2: get a licensing deal where content is not exclusive to
Speaker 2: the channel itself. But I of course flagged one big
Speaker 2: concerns one of the reasons that people love McAfee and
Speaker 2: the boys is that they speak their mind now. As
Speaker 2: you saw during the Brett Farvre situation when he literally
Speaker 2: got sued for libel, he just brushed it off. McAfee
Speaker 2: promised when he announced he was going to ESPN he
Speaker 2: would continue to keep it real. And let's recall that promise,
Speaker 2: nothing would change except that they were going to say
Speaker 2: the F word least. Here's the issue. However, think about
Speaker 2: the sequence of events that we just went through. Penn
Speaker 2: Gaming divested Barstool for being too controversial, and then signed
Speaker 2: with ESPN. McAfee's now part of the ESPN umbrella for
Speaker 2: the fear foreseeable future for a colossal sum of money.
Speaker 2: But can he really continue to keep it real? Obviously
Speaker 2: time is going to tell, but it certainly doesn't bode
Speaker 2: well for that promise, regardless of what I believe are
Speaker 2: his very good intentions. It reveals the exact reason why
Speaker 2: this show is independent, because we had to learn the
Speaker 2: hard way corporate control. What it looks like, how enemies
Speaker 2: won't target you. They'll just go after the larger entity
Speaker 2: and they try to that employs you to try and
Speaker 2: compel your behavior. In no way am I saying he's
Speaker 2: a Cello or that he will tail his future comments
Speaker 2: only just it's a Gordian knot of problems that Barstool
Speaker 2: will specifically consumed by, and it ultimately led to it
Speaker 2: haf to going independent. Ultimately, I believe the sequence of
Speaker 2: events truly defines with the future of all entertainment will
Speaker 2: look like. Those who are attached to larger brands and
Speaker 2: regulated industries will always have to toe at least somewhat
Speaker 2: the establishment line. They will be sanitized involuntarily, but they
Speaker 2: get paid big bucks for sanitization. Then swashbucklers will remain
Speaker 2: on the outside, kind of scooping up millions of people
Speaker 2: who want that authenticity, and then the crossworld will always
Speaker 2: come when someone comes along and they want to co
Speaker 2: opt that audience in exchange for a lot of money.
Speaker 2: What we've learned from the Barstool deal and this eventual
Speaker 2: collapse is if you want to be truly free to
Speaker 2: speak your mind, it's probably a bad trade to take
Speaker 2: the money in the long run. Curious what you think
Speaker 2: of all this crystal kind of wild right, So you
Speaker 2: got basically and if.
Speaker 1: You want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue become
Speaker 1: a premium subscriber Today at breakingpoints dot.
Speaker 2: Com accusations are flying as journalist Ken Clippenstein has published
Speaker 2: a new report for The Intercept, saying UFO whistleblower Dave Grush,
Speaker 2: who recently testified before the House Oversight Committee, was at
Speaker 2: one point referred to a mental health institution following two
Speaker 2: nine to one one calls from his wife and what
Speaker 2: Grush says is a PTSD related alcoholic incident. Grush and
Speaker 2: his associates initially accused the intelligence community of leaking non
Speaker 2: public health records to Clippenstein, who has since revealed he
Speaker 2: in fact retained access to this information by Freedom of
Speaker 2: Information Act requests. Resulting dramas got both sides. They're accusing
Speaker 2: the other of not telling the truth to the public
Speaker 2: about the situation. So we've got Ken Clipstein himself in
Speaker 2: the studio now join us defending his story. It's good
Speaker 2: to see you, Ken, Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: Thanks for coming in, Ken, great to be back with
Speaker 3: you guys.
Speaker 2: All right, Ken, So let's get into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 2: I guess of the story itself. Let's start broad strokes.
Speaker 2: What is the story about?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 10: Well, so he's kind of the star witness of the
Speaker 10: subcommittee that's looking at the UFO allegations.
Speaker 2: Not just him, but there are two pilots as well.
Speaker 10: And so in the reporting on it, I noticed a
Speaker 10: phrase popping up again again.
Speaker 3: It decorated war here, decorated war here, decorated war here.
Speaker 10: And I'm not disputing that he is, but when I
Speaker 10: hear that, it's kind of like, Okay, well, where's the
Speaker 10: where's the critique, Like where's the negative side or where's
Speaker 10: the vetting? And I didn't see any of that by
Speaker 10: any of the media. So I thought, well, I'm going
Speaker 10: to go and look and see what I can find.
Speaker 10: And so I know people both in DoD and the
Speaker 10: intelligence community, and I did a call for tips to
Speaker 10: try to broaden. Yes, the picture that really just came
Speaker 10: from a mosaic of different sources that give me ideas
Speaker 10: of what was going on. We can talk about that more,
Speaker 10: but really my motive was just it didn't feel like
Speaker 10: anybody was vetting this guy.
Speaker 1: So lay out though the specifics of the story and
Speaker 1: what you found through your foyer request.
Speaker 10: So another Virginia Freedom Information Act, you can request police records.
Speaker 3: They're called called detailed records CADS.
Speaker 10: Obscure things that aren't kind of like the typical police
Speaker 10: report that journalists tend to ask for, and maybe that's
Speaker 10: how they didn't know it existed.
Speaker 3: I have some practice with before I head. I've been
Speaker 3: doing this a long time.
Speaker 10: So when I got these back, it was two different
Speaker 10: incidents reported by his wife and previous wife in which
Speaker 10: he had gone In the second case, that was in
Speaker 10: twenty eighteen, I think he had gone into a described
Speaker 10: as like an angry drunken rage where he was suicidal,
Speaker 10: asked his wife to kill him. She called police, said
Speaker 10: that the guns were locked up, and then he was
Speaker 10: placed in a mental facility after he was assessed and
Speaker 10: then released.
Speaker 3: I think a day later.
Speaker 2: Got it and this happened twenty fourteen, twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Both.
Speaker 2: Okay, So there's been a lot of back and forth.
Speaker 2: Gush accused you of getting these things leaked by the
Speaker 2: intelligence community. You revealed it came from the Free Innovation
Speaker 2: for Information Act. He did a Twitter space last night.
Speaker 2: You indicated you were tipped off by this. So were
Speaker 2: you tipped off by members of the intelligence community? It
Speaker 2: was both a defense department. I mean again, it's a mosaic.
Speaker 10: You talk to as many people as you can, because
Speaker 10: you don't want to be dependent on anyone individual who
Speaker 10: might have a grudge or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: But yes, I did talk to both God people and intelligence.
Speaker 2: So in terms of the substance of the tip here
Speaker 2: the accusation, I mean, aren't they fundamentally correct that, like
Speaker 2: you are publishing dirt that was tipped to you by
Speaker 2: intelligence community.
Speaker 10: Well, the thing is, when I put up my call
Speaker 10: for tips, I said, if you have anything positive or negative, sure,
Speaker 10: because at the end of the day, like I don't
Speaker 10: want to you know, he's a human being. I don't
Speaker 10: to be candid with you guys, so people can account
Speaker 10: for where I'm coming from. I don't believe in the
Speaker 10: UFO stuff. I think he's incorrect about it. However, I
Speaker 10: don't want to just punch at him. I would have
Speaker 10: included anything positive that i'd gotten. Unfortunately I didn't get anything.
Speaker 10: Now that doesn't mean that he doesn't have, you know,
Speaker 10: redeeming qualities. Everybody does, even me so, but I just
Speaker 10: didn't happen to hear any of that, and so I
Speaker 10: had to go with what you know, I was told.
Speaker 10: And to give you guys a sense too, I can
Speaker 10: speak to the characteristics of the sources, because I understand
Speaker 10: why people are concerned about that, because most of the
Speaker 10: porting that you read is planted. When you go to
Speaker 10: New York Times, most of those stories are planned by
Speaker 10: committee chairs, by the White House, whatever it is.
Speaker 3: That's not how I roll. I know.
Speaker 10: I tend to talk to mid level people, people kind
Speaker 10: of like grush GS fourteens, GS fifteen's, people who are
Speaker 10: experienced but didn't quite have the political chops generally to
Speaker 10: make it to the top.
Speaker 3: Those are the types of people that I was talking to.
Speaker 3: Just full disclosure.
Speaker 10: If you want to ask anything else about Jos, say
Speaker 10: I'm having shark about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean, basically, you're being accused of like
Speaker 1: this is a smear job. You're trying to undermine his credibility.
Speaker 1: What did you see as the value of this information?
Speaker 1: Do you think that the fact that he has a
Speaker 1: PTSD diagnosis makes him more likely to lie, make things
Speaker 1: up and less credible in general?
Speaker 3: No? Absolutely not PTSD.
Speaker 10: But you know in the police reports his wife called
Speaker 10: him an alcoholic and said that this has happened repeatedly. That
Speaker 10: I think is a concern. I think that if someone's
Speaker 10: an alcoholic. Yeah, that should be factored into your assessment
Speaker 10: of what their credibility is.
Speaker 2: Right, But if it's alcohol related to PTSD, I mean,
Speaker 2: let's be here. I mean, he sworn testimony, he admits
Speaker 2: he had problem PTSD, he says it was I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm assuming he's related to these alcoholic incidents. He got treatment,
Speaker 2: per your own reporting, and all of the incidence. He's
Speaker 2: now testified to sworn testimony as well as a whistleblowers
Speaker 2: post treatment. So I'm just trying to understand, like, what
Speaker 2: is the value of this information being put forward? And
Speaker 2: to be clear, you didn't do anything wrong, You're doing
Speaker 2: your job. We get crazy tips from people all the
Speaker 2: time here, So I have no issue with the Freedom
Speaker 2: of Information Act, even if you did report it, even
Speaker 2: if you did get a tip from the intel community.
Speaker 2: I guess it comes down to like the framing and
Speaker 2: the substance of like, what are we supposed to do
Speaker 2: with this information? Well, I included the story an example
Speaker 2: of the dozens of White.
Speaker 10: House staffers who had their clearance has revoked for smoking weed,
Speaker 10: including in states where it was legal, right place where
Speaker 10: it's legal, So like this is part of the clarence process.
Speaker 10: And so again this whole focus on PTSD and if
Speaker 10: it makes him not credible, that was never something I said.
Speaker 10: That was a focus that he made trying to get
Speaker 10: ahead of the story in the statement that he put out.
Speaker 10: My interest was always the alcoholism. And I mean, I
Speaker 10: guess just to I feel as though there's some kind
Speaker 10: of grandstanding around this stuff, because the reality is, if
Speaker 10: you're going to say, get a medical procedure, go see
Speaker 10: a surgeon, you find out he's an alcoholic, that's probably
Speaker 10: a factory and you're deciding somewhat right right.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, is he an active alcoholic? Do you
Speaker 2: know that we know that from the report to his
Speaker 2: wife said he was okay in twenty eighteen, Yes, but
Speaker 2: we don't know anything since then.
Speaker 1: So can you speak a little bit too, because part
Speaker 1: of the piece you talk about how you know in
Speaker 1: those instances you had White House staffers fired, that there
Speaker 1: is this, you know, very onerous procedure to get and
Speaker 1: maintain your security clearances. In this instance, you know they
Speaker 1: knew about these police interactions and what had happened with
Speaker 1: regard to his wife at the time, they knew about
Speaker 1: the allegations of alcohol abuse. All of this stuff and
Speaker 1: yet he was able to maintain his clearances. Do you
Speaker 1: read something nefarious into that or is that an indication
Speaker 1: in his direction that listen, they knew everything, and they
Speaker 1: still thought that I was trustworthy enough to maintain these
Speaker 1: very high level secret clearances.
Speaker 10: That's what he said, and I think there's something to that.
Speaker 10: But there's also something of a boys club. I don't
Speaker 10: mean in a gender way. I mean in like a
Speaker 10: senior level. People tend to look at for each other.
Speaker 10: I quoted someone as saying that, and that was the
Speaker 10: general frustration of multiple people that I talked to, was
Speaker 10: feeling like, they described this guy's unreliable and they were
Speaker 10: frustrated that this stuff that they knew about was not
Speaker 10: being account for it in these discript they were seeing
Speaker 10: the descriptions I was describing before Decorated Here, Decorated Hero.
Speaker 3: They didn't feel like that was the whole story.
Speaker 2: I guess what I'm confused by is you're telling me this,
Speaker 2: but you don't quote any of these people in the story.
Speaker 2: Everything the only facts that you can really attest to you
Speaker 2: in the story of Foia in turn, and obviously the
Speaker 2: tip and again zero issue with that, but don't you
Speaker 2: think that's the actual relevant part. I mean, why aren't
Speaker 2: you quoting people on background and people who work for him.
Speaker 2: He said he's unreliable. You're saying it here. I think
Speaker 2: that's fine. I mean, obviously sure it's a public forum,
Speaker 2: but the way that it's being read, and I have
Speaker 2: to be honest with you, I respect you work, but
Speaker 2: you know, the assemblage of the facts here, it does
Speaker 2: kind of read as a smear job. You're basically like,
Speaker 2: he had a PTSD. He says it's PTS interident, he
Speaker 2: had two alcoholics. You quote two people who basically say
Speaker 2: you know he's full of it. You only quote one
Speaker 2: expert who says that the UFO hearing is a travesty.
Speaker 2: And I mean, one of the things I really don't
Speaker 2: understand is we how many conversations we had about Pentagon
Speaker 2: spinning us. But you're credulously citing the explanation, the nineteen
Speaker 2: nineties explanation on Roswell and prejudicously quoting like Susan go
Speaker 2: who depending on spokesperson who said that he's full of
Speaker 2: But I mean, why should we believe these people? Do
Speaker 2: you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 3: Facts?
Speaker 2: Story I think.
Speaker 3: That's a good instinct.
Speaker 10: You don't want to side with the institutions, but I
Speaker 10: think you also don't want to reflexively oppose them. I'm
Speaker 10: not saying that you're yeah, I think that you know,
Speaker 10: I have that tendency too. But again, these are not
Speaker 10: monolists the d D. I'm not talking to the public
Speaker 10: affairs officer. I'm not talking to senior executives. I generally
Speaker 10: try to go out and get a sense of like
Speaker 10: the mid level, kind of like rank and file people,
Speaker 10: because I think they tend to tell a more honest story.
Speaker 3: You talk to the politicals and it's just I agree
Speaker 3: with you.
Speaker 2: I think you're doing the right thing, and you always
Speaker 2: and I've always, you know, I've sto know a lot
Speaker 2: of your work. But I'm like, why aren't any of
Speaker 2: these people quoted that?
Speaker 3: Why aren't you quoting these people?
Speaker 10: Essentially, the reason that I did the FOY was because
Speaker 10: they're kind of describing as unreliable and thinking, well, do
Speaker 10: I want to just use the sort of innuendo? Can
Speaker 10: I try to substantiate it? And if you look at
Speaker 10: the FOI requests, you can FOI my FOY or I
Speaker 10: think I posted.
Speaker 3: It too, you did. I asked for a whole range
Speaker 3: of things.
Speaker 10: So this idea that I was being pointed at one
Speaker 10: specific event, that's just not true.
Speaker 3: People were describing things to me.
Speaker 10: It sounds like there's certain themes I go in Nexus,
Speaker 10: which journalists have, and so you can find their home
Speaker 10: address home address was not furnished to me, and then
Speaker 10: you can just file a FOAY And I did it
Speaker 10: for like seven years, and so that was what came back.
Speaker 10: So there's no sort of like so I guess might
Speaker 10: answer your question. I'm not trying to be evasive, like
Speaker 10: I did talk to intelligence and DD people, but the
Speaker 10: way in which that influences the reporting is a little
Speaker 10: bit more subtle than I think that the discourse gives
Speaker 10: credit too. It's not like they're pointing you at one
Speaker 10: specific event. They give you a sense and then you
Speaker 10: use that to go and use other methods to try
Speaker 10: to substantiate.
Speaker 1: I don't want to belabor the point, but just so
Speaker 1: clear in my head of kind of the timeline you
Speaker 1: got that you were seeing the coverage of this hearing.
Speaker 4: Yes, you took issue with the fact that you.
Speaker 1: Know a lot he made extraordinary claims, right, and their
Speaker 1: their secondhand claims, and he hasn't produced publicly any evidence
Speaker 1: outside of his own testimony, which was being backed up
Speaker 1: by his personal reputation.
Speaker 4: Credibly, you're frustrated by the.
Speaker 1: Fact that there doesn't seem to be a vet on
Speaker 1: the other side, and then you reach out to your
Speaker 1: sources or do they.
Speaker 4: Guys that help us understand.
Speaker 3: The topicality above.
Speaker 10: So there are people that I know in DoD and
Speaker 10: in air Force that I figure probably know this guy.
Speaker 10: So I started asking him. They're telling me he's unreliable,
Speaker 10: and I think, okay, well, how can I find more?
Speaker 10: Because people have bits and pieces, it's not really enough
Speaker 10: to run with. So then I do a call out
Speaker 10: for tips and the tweet I said, if you have
Speaker 10: positive or negative because I don't to the extent that
Speaker 10: there's always gonna be a bias towards negative. Because I
Speaker 10: used to work at Target as a cashier. I remember
Speaker 10: the suggestion box and I thought, man, those have all
Speaker 10: got to be negative comments. There's not gonna be a
Speaker 10: single positive suggestion so that you know o YouTube section,
Speaker 10: So there's there's not gonna be you know, there's gonna
Speaker 10: be that bias.
Speaker 3: But it's like to the extent that I can.
Speaker 10: I'm trying to cast as wide of a net as
Speaker 10: i can to get different. So that's not just reflective
Speaker 10: of the circle that I have and the friends that
Speaker 10: I have, and the.
Speaker 3: People that reached out.
Speaker 10: They told me largely similar like in theme stuff that
Speaker 10: the people that I knew.
Speaker 2: Were saying, right, And I mean, I've got the problem though,
Speaker 2: It's like you're kind of saying this selection bias here.
Speaker 2: And one of the things crushes a lad is that
Speaker 2: he was retaliated against and it's being actively retaliated against
Speaker 2: by the intel.
Speaker 10: And there's strong evidence for that, right, Okay at his
Speaker 10: word for that. Yes, well, but how do you know
Speaker 10: that you're not.
Speaker 2: Part of that that right that the people who are
Speaker 2: reaching out to you aren't basically like yeah, I mean, look,
Speaker 2: they're basically violating their job by talking to you in
Speaker 2: the first place and pointing to you towards the direction.
Speaker 2: Let's be honest. I mean, he's correct. And then that
Speaker 2: this is probably made known to his authorities. They probably
Speaker 2: took a look at his file and they gave you
Speaker 2: a call whenever they saw your number. Nothing wrong with that,
Speaker 2: You did nothing. They're the ones who are doing it.
Speaker 2: But I mean, do you not feel though, is you're
Speaker 2: part of a little bit of a campaign here? That's
Speaker 2: the first question.
Speaker 3: Creditor.
Speaker 10: Again, that's why I try in my reporting to find
Speaker 10: them as opposed to them like coming to me independently,
Speaker 10: you know, and they're and again, these things are complicated.
Speaker 10: These are not monolists. There's the senior executive classers appointees.
Speaker 10: Those guys are the demons that you really want to
Speaker 10: watch out for. And so I mean, the people that
Speaker 10: I talked to clearly didn't like him, They didn't believe
Speaker 10: in about the UFO stuff. And so in so far
Speaker 10: as that is a motive, that's true. You know, I
Speaker 10: want to be very frank about it. Yeah, right, But
Speaker 10: it's a little different than like a Biden administration appointee
Speaker 10: being like this is embarrassing, we have to destroy this guy.
Speaker 10: It's so the concerns are fair, but I just want
Speaker 10: to point out that it's different.
Speaker 1: So do you think that he's lying? Do you think
Speaker 1: he was misled? Do you think that you know, there's
Speaker 1: some sort of motive for him to because you know,
Speaker 1: with whistleblowers this comes at great personal risk. I'm sure
Speaker 1: this is not a fun experience for him. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's not fun to have these things in the press
Speaker 1: and this type of personal scrutiny and some of the
Speaker 1: worst moments of his life drive out in front of
Speaker 1: the public. So what sort of a motive would he
Speaker 1: have for not being honest interact with the public.
Speaker 10: I mean, around these issues, it's probably just embarrassing. And I
Speaker 10: don't necessarily even fault m for not being worth forthcoming
Speaker 10: about it.
Speaker 3: I've blamed that.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, why would he come forward with this,
Speaker 1: with the inaccurate claims to start with the sort of
Speaker 1: things that he testified to what would he's standing Again.
Speaker 10: There's a range of claims he makes, and I think
Speaker 10: a lot of them are probably true. Where we depart
Speaker 10: is when he says that it's space aliens or that
Speaker 10: you've recovered. But the idea I know from my sources
Speaker 10: and I think parts of this republic there is a
Speaker 10: UAV recovery, crash recovery program. There is constantly retaliation against whistleblowers.
Speaker 10: I know that because I work with them and there's
Speaker 10: data on this.
Speaker 2: It happens when you report something the Inspector General, there's
Speaker 2: a target on your back.
Speaker 3: So I totally take him at his word on that.
Speaker 10: And his lawyer was a former Inspector General of the ICEE,
Speaker 10: very respected person. I know people that know him. All
Speaker 10: I've heard is good things. So the whole retaliation thing,
Speaker 10: I assume that's true. They don't like people going to
Speaker 10: Congress and reporting things. Now, you know, again, where we
Speaker 10: depart is the specifics. I also think it's true that
Speaker 10: there is a UAV crush covery program. I just think
Speaker 10: just because you don't know and can't recognize what the
Speaker 10: technology is, that doesn't necessarily mean it's extra treshio.
Speaker 2: Right, But why don't you present evidence to that fact?
Speaker 9: Then?
Speaker 3: I mean, how do you believe it?
Speaker 2: Like you say you don't believe him, I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: I don't know whether I believe him or not. I
Speaker 2: to me, it's just extraordinary. Whenever you're like, year before
Speaker 2: Congress you're telling this unders sworn testimony, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: well I want to hear it from the other guy.
Speaker 2: Shohn Kirkpatrick says it's not true. To me, that's great.
Speaker 2: We got two people under sworn testimony. They say it's
Speaker 2: not true. Why don't you put forward a story? Then?
Speaker 2: Being like yeah, he's wrong. You know, the people are
Speaker 2: lying or you know, I mean I used to do
Speaker 2: this for a living. You can quote these people and
Speaker 2: be like rush colleagues say he's a liar. Grush colleagues
Speaker 2: say that he's completely not true. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: this is where I just don't understand. Well, I'm in
Speaker 2: a different position because it's like, yeah, I don't want to.
Speaker 2: I mean again, I disagree with them, but it's like
Speaker 2: I don't want to. I want to rely on stuff
Speaker 2: that is really easy to substantial for documents, and his
Speaker 2: wife too, current wife, not just ex wife. If I'm
Speaker 2: just going off of stuff that people don't like him
Speaker 2: said verbally, it feels kind of like a smear, you know,
Speaker 2: like kind of unfair, and so it's like I get
Speaker 2: where you're coming from, but it's like, put yourself in
Speaker 2: my shoes, Like how would you navigate these kind of
Speaker 2: vague descriptions?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I don't know. To be honest with you,
Speaker 2: I guess. So I'll come back to this on the
Speaker 2: alcoholism point. You keep talking about that, I mean, so
Speaker 2: is it not a mental health issue?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 2: Like is it disqualifying in your mind? Being out I
Speaker 2: mean he first of all, we don't know if he's alcoholic.
Speaker 2: Why you know, who knows? People say he says he's
Speaker 2: recovered from PTSD. So he's recovered from PTSD. His best
Speaker 2: friend killed himself, gordonam I know for a fact to
Speaker 2: serve in Afghanistan? These are pretty dramatic events. Millions of
Speaker 2: veterans kind of stuff are the same thing. So I mean,
Speaker 2: are you saying that's disqualifying for the entire store like that?
Speaker 2: That's what I think a lot of people are upset about.
Speaker 2: I don't think it necessarily is disqualifying. I think it
Speaker 2: might be. I mean that's kind of why I put
Speaker 2: it out. People can look at it and decide what
Speaker 2: they think. I certainly don't want to have like it's
Speaker 2: crazy to have a blanket rule anyone who has a
Speaker 2: substance abusey issue should not be that's clearly your right fault. Look,
Speaker 2: this man is asking us to believe something. He's asking
Speaker 2: us to believe understod In testiment. Crucially, as you said,
Speaker 2: his reputation is what he said, It's a totally legit question.
Speaker 2: I'm more like, well, what are we supposed to believe here?
Speaker 10: And what's I mean I just think it's more I mean,
Speaker 10: people want to paint not saying you're doing this with
Speaker 10: this broadbush of it's false. And there are specific components
Speaker 10: to his client. There's specific parts to his claims, and
Speaker 10: and you know, his own layer who I mentioned before,
Speaker 10: that law firm that's representing him, has said that the
Speaker 10: reporting around the contents of his disclosures has been inaccurate.
Speaker 10: And I've never seen a lawyer do that in relation to,
Speaker 10: you know, stuff about a client. And so I think
Speaker 10: there's clearly something that's a little bit off here, and
Speaker 10: as to you know, people disagree about what those details
Speaker 10: might be, but it's a spectrum of claims that he's making.
Speaker 5: You.
Speaker 1: Last question for me, at least for you, ken is
Speaker 1: are you working on additional Are there additional reporting pieces
Speaker 1: you're fleshing out right now? What should we be expecting?
Speaker 10: Yes, I'm interested in industries interesting these kind of things,
Speaker 10: because you talked about the Pentagon's interests, which those are
Speaker 10: reasonable questions to ask, like what are kenson why are
Speaker 10: they telling him these things?
Speaker 3: But there's a whole other interest group.
Speaker 10: Which is aerospace, which has its own set of interests
Speaker 10: in making the public think certain things about not just UFOs,
Speaker 10: but aerospace phenomena in general. And so my hope is
Speaker 10: that that can in a lot of these representatives in
Speaker 10: Congress that staff the committees get money from these aerospace firms.
Speaker 2: So are you saying that this is like a siah
Speaker 2: by the defense contractors. I'm just trying to know why
Speaker 2: you're out. I mean, so Chris lasked me before. If
Speaker 2: I had to guess, I bet he believes it. I
Speaker 2: bet it's sincere. People tend to believe what they're saying.
Speaker 3: They tend to.
Speaker 10: Degrees, and you know, I mean, it's not true.
Speaker 3: He was a decorated war hero.
Speaker 10: That's not you know, so I assume he believes what
Speaker 10: he's saying. I'm not someone I hate this word grifterrip.
Speaker 10: People throw this word around so loosely, you know, and
Speaker 10: it's like, how do you know someone's hard?
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 2: No, I can. So I think it's fine to present
Speaker 2: the facts like I said. I mean, I'm just reading
Speaker 2: this story and you're like, you only quote two people,
Speaker 2: Jack Murphy and then this other guy. You're citing Roswell
Speaker 2: credulously no offense. But like that's crazy. That's like citing
Speaker 2: the JFK record and saying that that's the definitive norm here.
Speaker 2: I mean, when I'm reading this, all I'm supposed to
Speaker 2: take away is like, all right, you know alcoholic, PTSD,
Speaker 2: guys got mental health too, experts. He didn't present the
Speaker 2: other side. So do you see why people took an
Speaker 2: issue with it? I understand, yeah, to some extent.
Speaker 10: I'm in a position where it's like, yeah, everyone is
Speaker 10: doing the decorated war hero this stuff, and it's kind
Speaker 10: of like, well, now, my job is I have to
Speaker 10: try to give people stuff they haven't gotten. Okay, do
Speaker 10: you know what I mean? Yeah, I'm just trying to
Speaker 10: be Maybe that's bad, but that's right. I'm just trying
Speaker 10: to give you inside of my thought process.
Speaker 3: Look, that is well.
Speaker 2: I think people can take away from this what they will,
Speaker 2: and at the very least, I think it helped me
Speaker 2: understand kind of where you're coming from. A lot of
Speaker 2: other people, like I said, have questions. People watch this show,
Speaker 2: and I appreciate you coming on. I know it's not
Speaker 2: the easiest thing to take questions like this, So thank you,
Speaker 2: we appreciate it.
Speaker 3: My pleasure. Guys.
Speaker 4: Thanks Ken, good to see you.
Speaker 2: We'll see you guys later