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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have
Speaker 1: an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Ryssel? Indeed,
Speaker 1: we do lots of interesting stuff to talk about this morning.
Speaker 1: So first of all, a blockbuster report. Now this is
Speaker 1: being disputed, but we'll get into all of it about
Speaker 1: who actually blew up the Nordstream pipeline and how precisely
Speaker 1: they did it. You definitely want to hear the details there.
Speaker 1: We also have the highlights and low lights from the
Speaker 1: Twitter hearings yesterday from both sides, New AI wars reaching
Speaker 1: new heights. I guess you've got Microsoft and Google kind
Speaker 1: of going at it. Very interesting in terms of the
Speaker 1: future and big implications here for I think the news
Speaker 1: media and what it's going to mean for online news
Speaker 1: in particular. We have Donald Trump accusing Ron DeSantis of
Speaker 1: being a groomer, DeSantis now firing back as the Republican
Speaker 1: primary continues to heat up. And quite an extraordinary reaction
Speaker 1: to the Biden State of the Union coming from a
Speaker 1: former Democratic member of Congress. We will play that for
Speaker 1: you too. Also excited to welcome to the show, Trevor Aarinson.
Speaker 1: He has a new podcast out, Blockbuster, reporting about how
Speaker 1: the FBI infiltrated Black Lives Matter protests in Denver in particular,
Speaker 1: and the allegation here is that they basically tried to
Speaker 1: make this thing more violent and to entrap people. Sort
Speaker 1: of echoes of co intel pro here. So Trevor's going
Speaker 1: to come on. He's going to tell us all about
Speaker 1: his reporting. But first we wanted to start with some
Speaker 1: big news with regards to the Ukraine War. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So President Zelenski leaving Ukraine and traveling to the United
Speaker 1: Kingdom this morning. He's actually in France. So yesterday in
Speaker 1: the UK he made an impassioned speech at Westminster for
Speaker 1: fighter pilots and sorry for fighter jets to be delivered
Speaker 1: to Ukraine from the UK and they are open to
Speaker 1: that possibility. Here's what he had to say. It's I
Speaker 1: will explain, is the helmet of a real Ukrainian pilot.
Speaker 1: He's one of our most successful asis and he's one
Speaker 1: of our kings. And the writing on the helmet rits
Speaker 1: we have freedom, give us wings to protect it. So
Speaker 1: that was President of Zelenski at Westminster. It was a
Speaker 1: big speech in the UK. He was greeted on the
Speaker 1: tarmac by She's Sunak And accordingly to the UK press
Speaker 1: and some leaks out of the UK government, they are
Speaker 1: highly considering actually turning over F sixteen. Let's go and
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. So what we
Speaker 1: do know is that the Prime Minister said that Ukrainian pilots,
Speaker 1: as a quote first step, will begin their months long
Speaker 1: training on NATO platform NATO standard aircraft. Now they're going
Speaker 1: to be trained. That doesn't necessarily mean that the jets
Speaker 1: are going yet. However, they said that all options were
Speaker 1: on the table. The Defense Secretary has now been tasked
Speaker 1: with investigating which jets that the UK might be able
Speaker 1: to supply to Ukraine. So the Prime Minister just said
Speaker 1: it would be a quote long term option. So this
Speaker 1: of course has been probably behind the tanks which they
Speaker 1: just got British challenger tanks, leper tanks from the US,
Speaker 1: from Germany and from elsewhere. This has probably been the
Speaker 1: top ask of the Zelenski government outside of a no
Speaker 1: fly zone. It was totally off the table for basically
Speaker 1: the entire year. But you know, as I often say,
Speaker 1: on a long enough timeline, they do appear to get
Speaker 1: whatever they want. The other question, too is about how
Speaker 1: the rest of the NATO countries will react. So France
Speaker 1: of course has its own jets, of the US has jets.
Speaker 1: President Biden shot down that report about the Pentagon saying
Speaker 1: that they were warming to providing jets to Ukraine. He
Speaker 1: was set point blank, no, we're not going to send
Speaker 1: F sixteen's. However, some of the wording here of what
Speaker 1: we're looking at is NATO standard aircraft F sixteen not
Speaker 1: being specifically named, so another aircraft could be sending there.
Speaker 1: But of course, you know, it would be an extraordinary move.
Speaker 1: It would be effectively the most escalatory piece of weaponry
Speaker 1: that we could provide the Ukrainians literally outside of a
Speaker 1: direct no fly zone and intervention into the conflict. Crystal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's worth keeping in mind with regards to how
Speaker 1: we ended up agreeing to sending tanks, that there was resistance,
Speaker 1: especially actually coming from the Pentagon right up until the
Speaker 1: moment when they decided. They ultimately came and said all right, fine,
Speaker 1: we're going to send tanks. And part of how that
Speaker 1: all happened is there was a lot of pressure coming
Speaker 1: from Germany because Germany was under pressure to send tanks
Speaker 1: and they didn't want to be out there alone, so
Speaker 1: effectively they sort of pressured the US, and ultimately, because
Speaker 1: we seem to always do this, we caved and said,
Speaker 1: all right, finding we will send the tanks. So are
Speaker 1: you going to have a similar dynamic here where the
Speaker 1: UK is on board with sending fighter jets but wants
Speaker 1: us to go along with them, You know, the UK,
Speaker 1: whether it is under newm Prime Minister Rishie Sunak or
Speaker 1: previous prime minister. This was now two prime ministers to
Speaker 1: go Boris Johnson. They have been among the most bellicos,
Speaker 1: the most hawkish, the most pro escalation. Famously, Boris Johnson,
Speaker 1: you know, flew to Kiev early on in the conflict
Speaker 1: and delivered the message probably on behalf of the US
Speaker 1: that even though peace talks were sort of moving forward
Speaker 1: and they were coming close to potentially some sort of deal,
Speaker 1: that the US and the UK did not want a
Speaker 1: deal at that time. So they have been our close
Speaker 1: partners in terms of a strategy that has just consistently
Speaker 1: left to escalation after escalation after escalation. I think it
Speaker 1: is always important to go back to the way this
Speaker 1: was sold to the American people at the beginning, and
Speaker 1: what we were told were going to be the parameters
Speaker 1: of our support. The parameters of that support were going
Speaker 1: to be we will provide whatever weapons we can for
Speaker 1: Ukraine to defend themselves, and offensive capabilities, tanks and especially
Speaker 1: longer range missiles and doubly especially fighter jets totally off
Speaker 1: the table. Joe Biden says, no, We're not going to
Speaker 1: do it. He's said that before about many other things
Speaker 1: that we ultimately ended up shipping. So I wouldn't take that.
Speaker 1: I would take that with a lot of grains as sault.
Speaker 1: We'll see, you know. Boris Johnson, Prime Minister Johnson, Former
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Johnson was actually here in the United States
Speaker 1: just last week campaigning to send F sixteens to the Ukrainians.
Speaker 1: He's been calling for more fighter jets that go over there.
Speaker 1: I'm a couple of minds of this. Of course, I
Speaker 1: do want the Europeans to take the vast majority of
Speaker 1: the AID, So it's one of those things I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know you want to send it there, all right,
Speaker 1: that's on you, but don't get us into your mess.
Speaker 1: But in a lot of ways, it also doesn't work
Speaker 1: like that, right because we are all NATO allies, and
Speaker 1: if somebody attacks Britain, well we're all in it no
Speaker 1: matter what. So I don't really know how exactly we
Speaker 1: should look at this. The real question is always going
Speaker 1: to come down to Washington. What does Washington think? What
Speaker 1: are they going to do? Are they going to join
Speaker 1: the UK? I mean, it's almost never happened that, you know,
Speaker 1: outside of DC, that another country is willing to give
Speaker 1: something even more offensive to the Ukrainians without the US
Speaker 1: joining in part. So we'll see if Biden can keep
Speaker 1: the pressure against that inside of the Pentagon. Personally, I'm
Speaker 1: a bit skeptical of all of them. Yeah, well, and
Speaker 1: Russia rightly, I think at this point sees this as
Speaker 1: a proxy war with the US specifically and NATO more broadly.
Speaker 1: Are they going to make a crucial distinction between whether
Speaker 1: it's the Brits or US that's in the fighter jets.
Speaker 1: I highly doubt it, right. So Christopher Caldwell had actually
Speaker 1: a great op ed in the New York Times. Go
Speaker 1: ahead and put this up there on the screen. I
Speaker 1: thought we'd read some of it to all of you,
Speaker 1: because he did a very good job of articulating it.
Speaker 1: So Russia and Ukraine have incentives to negotiate, the US
Speaker 1: has other plans. That's the headline. So what he reads
Speaker 1: here is that the United States recent promise to ship
Speaker 1: M one Abram tanks to Ukraine with swift response to
Speaker 1: a serious problem. The problem is that Ukraine is losing
Speaker 1: the war, not as far as we can tell, because
Speaker 1: its soldiers are fighting poorly or its people have lost heart,
Speaker 1: but because war has settled into a World War One
Speaker 1: style battle of attrition, complete with carefully dug trenches and
Speaker 1: relatively stable fronts. Such wars tend to be won, as
Speaker 1: World War One was, by the side with the demographic
Speaker 1: and industrial resources to hold out the longest. Russia has
Speaker 1: three times Ukraine's population and intact economy, superior military technology
Speaker 1: at the same time, Russia has its own problems. Until recently,
Speaker 1: a shortage of soldiers, vulnerability of arms, deposts, and missile
Speaker 1: strikes slowed its westward progress. Both sides thus have an
Speaker 1: incentive to come to the negotiating table. The Biden administration
Speaker 1: has other plans. It is betting that by providing tanks,
Speaker 1: it can improve Ukraine's chances of winning the war. In
Speaker 1: a sense, the idea is to fast forward history. Fast
Speaker 1: forward history from World War One battles position to World
Speaker 1: War II battles of movement. It's a plausible strategy. Eighty
Speaker 1: years ago, the tanks of Hitler and Stalin revolutionized warfare
Speaker 1: not far from the territory that is being fought today.
Speaker 1: But the Biden strategy has a bad name escalation. Beyond
Speaker 1: a certain point, the United States is no longer quote
Speaker 1: helping or quote advising or quote supplying the Ukrainians the
Speaker 1: way that it did, say the Afghan Mujahadin. It is
Speaker 1: quote replacing Ukraine as Russia's main battlefield adversary. It is
Speaker 1: hard to say when that point will be reached, or
Speaker 1: whether he has been already. With whom is Russia at war,
Speaker 1: Ukraine or the United States Russia started the war between
Speaker 1: Russia and Ukraine. Who started the war between Russia and
Speaker 1: the United States. The sudden policy lurch has the look
Speaker 1: of an accident, and he talks about the way that
Speaker 1: the tanks were ultimately shipped because of the Germans and
Speaker 1: what they were asking of us. But ultimately, what he
Speaker 1: comes down to and what he points is that where
Speaker 1: that line is as to when we are replacing Ukrainian
Speaker 1: forces as opposed to supporting Ukrainian forces, Well, it's a
Speaker 1: complicated question. I you know, it's one of those like
Speaker 1: the famous quote about pornography from the Supreme Courts, Like,
Speaker 1: I know, when you see it, to me, tanks and
Speaker 1: jets look very close to the replacement line. I probably
Speaker 1: could have made a good case basically all the way
Speaker 1: back to the beginning. But the point that he's making
Speaker 1: is that, look, I mean, Ukraine is a polity that
Speaker 1: does not exist without the West period. They're literally fold tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So they have no industrial base, they have no economy,
Speaker 1: their entire population is already weaponized towards total warfare, and
Speaker 1: that's just simply not going to cut it in an
Speaker 1: actual conflict. Now, with the help of their allies or
Speaker 1: how able to hold on the question though, and you
Speaker 1: know you use the word defense, I already know the
Speaker 1: Ukraine stands will say, well, they're defending their territory, they
Speaker 1: were invaded, and I'm like, yeah, absolutely, and again I've
Speaker 1: said this. I would do the exact same thing if
Speaker 1: I were them. The question to us, though, is like, well,
Speaker 1: where's our line? Are we willing to go to war
Speaker 1: and let Ukrainian jets bomb Crimea? I mean or sorry,
Speaker 1: US provided jets to bomb Crimea. That's a whole whole
Speaker 1: other ballgame in terms of the way that they consider it.
Speaker 1: You know, bombing eastern Ukraine is a whole other scenario.
Speaker 1: And the Ukrainians, by the way, you know, all the
Speaker 1: polling coming out of Ukraine, in the at least western
Speaker 1: part of Ukraine, the people who massively support the Zelenski
Speaker 1: government ninety one percent of them want to retake Crimea.
Speaker 1: They look at it as a total non negotiable thing
Speaker 1: that we would tell them not to do it. Listen,
Speaker 1: you can do what you want, what you do with
Speaker 1: our weapons, though, We're going to have some say in that,
Speaker 1: and I think we probably should. There's a couple of
Speaker 1: really key points that he makes here as you lay
Speaker 1: on saber targeting, Crimea is a different thing, a different beast.
Speaker 1: And what he says in this piece is President Biden's
Speaker 1: own advisors are divided on how aggressively to pursue the war.
Speaker 1: Some even proposed to chase Russia out of Crimea. That
Speaker 1: would promise a new kind of mission for NATO, the conquest,
Speaker 1: annexation and garrisoning of a population that doesn't want it.
Speaker 1: So with regards to Crimea, I think he lays that
Speaker 1: out extremely well. The other piece here is that, you know,
Speaker 1: he reminds that we have to keep in mind not
Speaker 1: just what's good for us or good for Ukraine in
Speaker 1: the short term, but how are you going to bring
Speaker 1: this thing to a close? And when or if is
Speaker 1: Russia likely to fold? Like you have to get into
Speaker 1: their shoes, and how they're looking at this as well,
Speaker 1: And he warns we should not forget that whatever values
Speaker 1: each side might bring to it, this war is not
Speaker 1: at hard a clash of values. It is a classic
Speaker 1: interstate war over territory and power caring at a border
Speaker 1: between empires. In this confrontation, mister Putin and his Russia
Speaker 1: have fewer good options for backing down than American policy
Speaker 1: makers seem to realize, and more incentives to follow the
Speaker 1: US all the way up the ladder of escalation. That
Speaker 1: is a dire warning right there, because what does the
Speaker 1: ladder of escalation look like when you're talking about two
Speaker 1: nuclear armed superpowers. I don't think that is a place
Speaker 1: that any of us want to go, and that our
Speaker 1: policy makers should be ultimately pushing us. So I think
Speaker 1: he lays out the stakes here quite well and has
Speaker 1: some clear thinking about what we're doing. How we have
Speaker 1: just sort of climbed this ladder of escalation with very
Speaker 1: little debate, with very little thinking, and where this could
Speaker 1: ultimately all lead. Well, well, I think we'll all find out.
Speaker 1: And look, things on the ground are actually shifting quickly.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen right now.
Speaker 1: It looks like a offensive sometime in this month of
Speaker 1: February is going to be mounted by the Russians somewhere
Speaker 1: in eastern Ukraine. A lot of intelligence coming out spy
Speaker 1: satellites and others indicating that there's a lot of railway
Speaker 1: activity and a lot of troops that are being brought
Speaker 1: to the front line, and so this will also be
Speaker 1: a critical test of Ukrainian forces after they had their
Speaker 1: significant victory in the Spring offensive, and so how they've
Speaker 1: held up through the winter. There's been relentless amounts of
Speaker 1: shelling missile attacks all across the city. Their resolve doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be folding. But look, you think Zelensky leaves
Speaker 1: Ukraine begging for weapons, you know, just because it's out
Speaker 1: of the goodness of his heart or because things going well. No,
Speaker 1: like he's doing it because he desperately obviously looks like
Speaker 1: he needs it in order to get the job done
Speaker 1: the way that he sees it. That's part of why
Speaker 1: he came to Washington. That's part of why he's in
Speaker 1: Paris today, and it's part of why he was in
Speaker 1: the UK. And he's probably going to go to Berlin
Speaker 1: next and that's not a surprise to anybody. All Right,
Speaker 1: let's go to the next one. Here, quite a bit
Speaker 1: of discussion. We're going to lay it all out for you.
Speaker 1: Seymour Hirsch, the famous Politic Surprize winning journalists who uncovered
Speaker 1: the Myli massacre, has put out a new report on
Speaker 1: his substack. He says, quote, how America took out the
Speaker 1: nord Stream pipeline his subhead is. The New York Times
Speaker 1: called it a mystery, but the United States executed a
Speaker 1: covert sea operation that was kept secret until now, So
Speaker 1: it's worth noting a couple of things. Number one is
Speaker 1: that Hirsch is basing this all of this on an
Speaker 1: anonymous source, but I'll read to you exactly what he says.
Speaker 1: The US Navy's Diving in Salva Center is found at
Speaker 1: an obscure location, down in a country lane in rural
Speaker 1: Panama City, a now booming resort in the southwestern pa
Speaker 1: can Handle of Florida. The complex is nondescript as its location.
Speaker 1: The center has been training highly skilled deep water divers
Speaker 1: for decades who were once assigned to the American military
Speaker 1: units worldwide capable of technical diving to do the good
Speaker 1: using sea four explosives to clear harbors and beaches of
Speaker 1: debris and unexploited ordinance, as well as the bat like
Speaker 1: blowing up for an oil rigs, fouling intake valves for
Speaker 1: undersea power plants, destroying locks. The Panama City Center, which
Speaker 1: boasts the second largest indoor pool in America, was a
Speaker 1: perfect place to recruit the best and most taciturn graduates
Speaker 1: of the diving school who successfully last summer when they
Speaker 1: were authorized to do a two hundred and sixty feet
Speaker 1: operation under the surface of the Baltic Sea. So here
Speaker 1: is his specific allegation. Last June, Navy divers, operating the
Speaker 1: cover of a widely publicized Midsummer NATO exercise known as
Speaker 1: Baltops twenty two, planted remotely triggered explosives that three months
Speaker 1: later destroyed three of the four Nordstream pipelines, according to
Speaker 1: a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning, I
Speaker 1: will note that he is single sourcing this. He says,
Speaker 1: it's somebody who has since been interviewed. He says, somebody
Speaker 1: who would certainly be in the No. Two of the pipelines,
Speaker 1: which were collectively known as Nordstream one, providing Germany and
Speaker 1: much of Western Europe with cheap Russian gas. A second
Speaker 1: pair of pipeline is called Northstream two, but were not
Speaker 1: yet operational. Now, with Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: border and the bloodiest wars since nineteen forty five, President
Speaker 1: Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for of Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin to weaponized natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions.
Speaker 1: So this was denied by the White House. They say, quote,
Speaker 1: this is false and complete fiction. This claim claim is
Speaker 1: completely and utterly false. So the rest of the report
Speaker 1: goes more into the strategic position of the North Stream
Speaker 1: pipeline itself, but the core allegation is that US Navy divers,
Speaker 1: acting under the authoration of the President, were sent in
Speaker 1: June of twenty twenty two to plant explosives that were
Speaker 1: triggered months later on the pipeline. And of course, you know,
Speaker 1: this is an explosive allegation because look, Seymour Hirsch, you
Speaker 1: cannot deny it covered one of the biggest scandals entire
Speaker 1: Vietnam War and is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and
Speaker 1: anything that the man has to say, I think that
Speaker 1: we have to take very seriously. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: zooming out from this report, which has a lot of specificity,
Speaker 1: I really encourage you to read it in depth about
Speaker 1: the considerations about the motive here, the fact that the
Speaker 1: US has long sort of hated these pipelines. They talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, the political fears with regards to the pipelines
Speaker 1: are real. Putin would now have an additional and much
Speaker 1: needed major source of income. Germany and the rest of
Speaker 1: Western Europe would become addicted to low cost natural gas
Speaker 1: applied by Russia, while diminishing European reliance on America. Then
Speaker 1: once the war starts, as Saber laid out, they're thinking,
Speaker 1: all right, this is a way for Putin to sort
Speaker 1: of weaponize his control over energy with regards to Germany
Speaker 1: specific specifically and Europe more broadly. So the motive makes
Speaker 1: some sense, makes a lot more sense than the motive
Speaker 1: of Russia to blow up their own infrastructure and source
Speaker 1: of revenue ever did So that's number one. And like
Speaker 1: I said, there's a lot of details here that are
Speaker 1: worth taking a look at, including the fact that these
Speaker 1: divers planted the explosives in advance, even talks about the
Speaker 1: operation that they used as cover, which countries sort of
Speaker 1: collaborated and knew about it, who knew when, who was
Speaker 1: involved in the deliberations, etc. When and how they decided
Speaker 1: ultimately to detonate. But you know, this fits with what
Speaker 1: the US motive could be, and it also fits with
Speaker 1: the fact that we have now after the fact, had
Speaker 1: multiple horses put this latest one up on the screen
Speaker 1: that oh, in all the investigations of who blew up
Speaker 1: the nord Stream pipeline. Now you've got a German top
Speaker 1: official saying, lo and behold, we didn't find any evidence
Speaker 1: of Russian sabotage. And this is not the first investigation
Speaker 1: that came to this conclusion. Now what they say is,
Speaker 1: I guess it's just going to be a mystery. We'll
Speaker 1: never know who did it. Well, there's only a few
Speaker 1: culprits who really would be capable of this sort of
Speaker 1: very intricate, elaborate mission. And you know, the US, UK, Russia,
Speaker 1: there aren't a whole lot of others that could have
Speaker 1: probably pulled this off by themselves. Yeah. My only personal
Speaker 1: thing with this is, I honestly I've always thought, at
Speaker 1: least in the last couple of weeks, especially since that
Speaker 1: came out, I was like, what if it was Ukraine.
Speaker 1: What if we're the ones who gave them the capability?
Speaker 1: A they have a clear motive to do so. Sure,
Speaker 1: they blew up the Crimeane Bridge. They literally assassinated somebody
Speaker 1: in Russia. I mean, it's not outside of their playbook,
Speaker 1: but it's just that they would have the capability. So
Speaker 1: I was like, well, but then it's one of those
Speaker 1: where like, did we give them the capability and we
Speaker 1: trained them at this facility? Even Okay, let's say it
Speaker 1: was Ukraine who was giving them to know how, the tools,
Speaker 1: the weapons that every the targeting out, all of that
Speaker 1: would have to come from US or potentially the UK,
Speaker 1: and I mean US in the UK and this whole
Speaker 1: conflict have been fairly inseparable. So listen, it's a single,
Speaker 1: anonymous source, so you should keep that in mind as
Speaker 1: you read this. I will just say that, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not opining on knowing for sure what happened here,
Speaker 1: but the motive for the US makes a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot more sense than the motive from Russia ever did.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of this that, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of fits and lines up and could potentially make a
Speaker 1: lot of sense in explaining what the hell exactly happened here. Again,
Speaker 1: the White House denies it. Everybody involved denied it or
Speaker 1: wouldn't comment or whatever. But the US motive, like the
Speaker 1: NATO motive, has always made a lot more sense than
Speaker 1: the Russia did it motive. Well, it's one of those
Speaker 1: where like somebody had to do it right, and it's
Speaker 1: not that hard to figure out that there's only like
Speaker 1: four or five countries that actually could. So it's like, well,
Speaker 1: then which one you did? And well, current really forensic
Speaker 1: evidence says that it wasn't the Russians, or at least
Speaker 1: there's no evidence pointing to that now. To be clear,
Speaker 1: they haven't released evidence about ruling out other culprits either.
Speaker 1: They're just like, no, no no, no, it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: it was Russia. It's like, well, okay, then, so we
Speaker 1: have some questions. At the time of the attack, a
Speaker 1: lot of people were passing around this clip of President
Speaker 1: Biden talking about the North Stream pipeline. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 1: If Russia invades that means tanks or troops crossing the
Speaker 1: border of Ukraine again, then there will be there will
Speaker 1: be no longer a north Stream too. We will bring
Speaker 1: it into it it one way or the other. So look,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people were talking about that
Speaker 1: at the time. I tried my best here to just
Speaker 1: be like, we're never going to know. The thing that
Speaker 1: it was always the sketchiest to me, if people will remember,
Speaker 1: is that Polish MEP who was Ann Applebaum's husband, literally
Speaker 1: one of the chief Russia hawks here in Washington, who
Speaker 1: writes for The Atlantic being like, thank you America, thank
Speaker 1: you President Biden, tweeting a screenshot of the explosion of
Speaker 1: the pipeline. He later deleted it several days later. No explanation,
Speaker 1: and once again, let's just read it. The White House,
Speaker 1: let's put this up there on the screen, says that
Speaker 1: this is comple utterly false and a complete fiction. That's
Speaker 1: Adrian Watson, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council,
Speaker 1: and spokespeople for the CIA Department and CIA and State
Speaker 1: Department both said the exact same thing. So remember right
Speaker 1: now as to who actually has all of the evidence,
Speaker 1: it's Sweden and Denmark. Sweden in particular had some of
Speaker 1: the forensics that they have in their laboratories. We should
Speaker 1: also recall that it was deliberately called an act of
Speaker 1: sabotage by almost everybody that was involved, and that's what
Speaker 1: the current evidence, according to the Swedes and to the Danes,
Speaker 1: that's what it all points to. The only question is
Speaker 1: who undertook that sabotage. We'll have a link to that
Speaker 1: report in the description if people want to go and
Speaker 1: read it for themselves. Two final things to say. Number One,
Speaker 1: the Krumlin is responding this morning. They're saying that the
Speaker 1: world should know the truth about who's sabotage the Nord
Speaker 1: Troum gas pipelines and that those responsible should be punished.
Speaker 1: And this is directly, you know, in relationship to this
Speaker 1: report from sy Hirsh and the other thing. Just in
Speaker 1: terms of the stakes here, blowing up these pipelines is
Speaker 1: an active war. I mean directly, blowing up the Nord
Speaker 1: stream pipelines is an act of war. So if it
Speaker 1: is true that the US was behind this attack, behind
Speaker 1: this sabotage, that is truly an extraordinary and very dangerous
Speaker 1: act ultimately. So that's why we focused on this, That's
Speaker 1: why we went in you know, great depth when it
Speaker 1: originally happened, and why we'll continue to pay attention to
Speaker 1: how this all developed. Yeah. Absolutely, and you gotta wait
Speaker 1: for evidence though. That's the one thing is you know, everybody,
Speaker 1: people were very quick on the draw to assign blame.
Speaker 1: But as as we said at the time, let's wait,
Speaker 1: and the longer we waited, a lot of the cynics
Speaker 1: actually were vindicated. So if you just waited, and you
Speaker 1: know what, you wouldn't have actually looked like you were
Speaker 1: jumping to conclusions based on preconceived notions, especially because now
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who immediately were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was Russia, now they look like idiots. So true anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it always does a favorite, that is true, especially when yeah,
Speaker 1: multiple investigations have said we haven't found any evidence of Russia,
Speaker 1: and if it wasn't Russia, then it was somebody in
Speaker 1: the NATO alliance, which is just basically defect over. Well
Speaker 1: and I both know if they found a single nail
Speaker 1: with a single cryllic rheteran at the bottom of the ocean,
Speaker 1: they would have been like you, it was foodin right.
Speaker 1: So if they had even one scrap that they could
Speaker 1: put out there, Listen, we invaded a rack on, you know,
Speaker 1: some bullshit yellow cake. So if they even had that
Speaker 1: they would go with I'm honestly shocked that they didn't
Speaker 1: just fabricate some evidence. To be honest with you, it
Speaker 1: may still come. You never know, we'll see, all right,
Speaker 1: So big Twitter hearings in the House yesterday. This is
Speaker 1: kind of the GOP now that they're in controls their
Speaker 1: first big foray into their investigations into quote unquote the
Speaker 1: weaponization of government. You had a number of former high
Speaker 1: level Twitter executives there, you know, basically the long and
Speaker 1: short of it. We'll play some clips from all of
Speaker 1: this and you can see what you think about it.
Speaker 1: Long Jhore. It is, of course Republicans focused in particular
Speaker 1: on the censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop story, I think,
Speaker 1: with some justification and focusing on some other areas of
Speaker 1: concern where this or that person was censored. Marjorie Taylor
Speaker 1: Green asking questions about her own deplatforming from Twitter. Democrats
Speaker 1: were focused a lot on number one, saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is all a giant waste of time, and number
Speaker 1: two that they actually didn't do enough to censor extreme content,
Speaker 1: especially leading up to January six. So that was kind
Speaker 1: of the overall. That was like the part what the
Speaker 1: partisan sides were joking about. We had Joel Roth, who,
Speaker 1: of course you guys probably know, former high level Twitter executive,
Speaker 1: the adpend piece for the New York Times and became
Speaker 1: very known throughout his role in the Twitter Files, his
Speaker 1: appearances in the Twitter Files talking about how the Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden laptop story was censored initially because it bore the
Speaker 1: hallmarks of Russian misinformation. Let's take a listener to what
Speaker 1: he had to say. In twenty twenty, Twitter noticed activity
Speaker 1: related to the laptop. At first glance bore a lot
Speaker 1: of similarities to the twenty sixteen Russian hack and league
Speaker 1: operation targeting the DNC, And we had to decide what
Speaker 1: to do, and in that moment, with limited information, Twitter
Speaker 1: made a mistake. Under the distribution of hacked material policy,
Speaker 1: the company decided to prevent links to The New York
Speaker 1: Post stories about the laptop from being shared across the service.
Speaker 1: Within the just mere minutes or hours after The New
Speaker 1: York Post published its story on the Hunter Biden laptop
Speaker 1: at eight fifty one am, you sent a message to
Speaker 1: a team part of your team, I assume, and you
Speaker 1: said it isn't clearly violative or a hacked materials policy,
Speaker 1: referring to the story. So bottom line their story is
Speaker 1: the government didn't actually talk to us about this specific thing. However,
Speaker 1: they seem to have taken remember that letter that was
Speaker 1: published and shined by all the generals and whatever, saying
Speaker 1: this bears the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. They apparently took
Speaker 1: that very seriously. Number one. Number two, the idea that
Speaker 1: hacked materials shouldn't be distributed, or that there was some
Speaker 1: grave error in the way that they handled the WikiLeaks information.
Speaker 1: I just think this is total nonsense. I mean, journalists
Speaker 1: get information from a variety of sources, oftentimes very sketchy,
Speaker 1: sometimes hacked materials all the time. That material even if
Speaker 1: this was a Russian hacked and dump operation, it still
Speaker 1: shouldn't be banned. So that's another piece. And then finally, Sager,
Speaker 1: you know, it seems like what happened here potentially is
Speaker 1: the same thing that happened with Facebook, where you had
Speaker 1: all these meetings with the FBI and they're saying, oh,
Speaker 1: something might come, Well, worry, something's gonna come. Something's gonna come,
Speaker 1: Something's gonna come. And then when this story drops and
Speaker 1: you have official Washington come in and save all the
Speaker 1: harmmarks of Russian misinformation, they were primed to act even
Speaker 1: without needing the government to tell them specifically to act
Speaker 1: on this particular piece of informa. Ohah, absolutely, I mean
Speaker 1: the FBI fingerprints on this are everywhere, and I believe
Speaker 1: you know, we have this next one here, which shows
Speaker 1: Jim Jordan actually talking to Jim Baker, who was literally
Speaker 1: worked for Jim's comy was since it was actually got
Speaker 1: in trouble at the FBI for mishandling Russia. Gates specifically
Speaker 1: then hired by Twitter, which it's like, how can you
Speaker 1: just continue to fail upward? Like imagine getting fired from
Speaker 1: your job for doing a bad job and then getting
Speaker 1: paid millions of dollars more to go work at one
Speaker 1: of the biggest tech companies in the world. It's insane.
Speaker 1: And of course you know he also denies any FBI
Speaker 1: fingerprints on all of this, but he literally was the
Speaker 1: FBI General counsel. Let's tay a listen to what he said.
Speaker 1: Mister Baker, you said you didn't talk with the FBI
Speaker 1: that day. Did you talk to the FBI about the
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden laptop story prior to then or after that day?
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make sure I can answer this question
Speaker 1: consistent with the restrictions that I talked about in my
Speaker 1: open simple questions. You talked the FBI about the Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden story? I do, to the best of my recollection,
Speaker 1: I did not talk to the FBI about the Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden story before that day. You talked to him after
Speaker 1: you said you don't recalls? Is real? Your sponsors real?
Speaker 1: Specific to the chairman. You said I did not talk
Speaker 1: to the FBI about the Hunter Biden laptop story that day.
Speaker 1: I assume that day is October fourteenth. I would know
Speaker 1: if you talked to him on the thirteenth or before,
Speaker 1: or if you talked to him on the fifteenth and after.
Speaker 1: I don't recall speaking to the FBI. Sitting here today,
Speaker 1: I don't recall speaking to the FBI at all about
Speaker 1: the Hunter Biden matter. But then why you answer, why
Speaker 1: did you answer the way you did? A bigger partner
Speaker 1: I you back think I don't recall the classic It
Speaker 1: doesn't recall, doesn't recall anything great way to avoid a
Speaker 1: perject some other information comes out later. I don't know
Speaker 1: that's possible. I just happened to work for them. I
Speaker 1: just happen to be good friends with all the people
Speaker 1: who signed this BS letter, which says it has all
Speaker 1: the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. I also happened to just
Speaker 1: get fired from the FBI for, you know, lying to
Speaker 1: an inspector general and for being all over Russia Gates way,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, I don't recall. That's why I'm sitting
Speaker 1: before you people today. I mean, it's so cool, like
Speaker 1: it's so mucky and disgusting, and look, I wish we
Speaker 1: could move past this, but it does matter. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't have these former cops, top law enforcement officials
Speaker 1: then going to go work in the private sector taking
Speaker 1: their cues in order to censor a legitimate story. We
Speaker 1: always go back to this. Look, the day that the
Speaker 1: story broke, we're like, yeah, I mean, we'll cover it tomorrow.
Speaker 1: It was one of those things where it's like and again,
Speaker 1: all the Biden coruption stuff actually hadn't come out. A
Speaker 1: lot of it was more just like the original first exactly,
Speaker 1: that's the first initial impression that we had, and we're like,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll cover it tomorrow. We were literally on
Speaker 1: the air by the end of the day. You can't
Speaker 1: click a link on it on Twitter, and now we
Speaker 1: have to not even just have to talk about it.
Speaker 1: That's a way bigger story, and really I think was
Speaker 1: across the Rubicon moment for a lot of people, just
Speaker 1: the extraordinary links that they would go to and listen.
Speaker 1: What we're about to show you shows exactly why you
Speaker 1: cannot let governments have this type of paths, right, You
Speaker 1: can't because it just goes one of the it goes
Speaker 1: down a very dangerous road. I saw AOC and I
Speaker 1: saw Jamie Raskin both talking about like, there are so
Speaker 1: many other things we could be doing with our time.
Speaker 1: We could be focus on healthcare, jobs, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: and agree like I definitely want the government to focus
Speaker 1: on those issues as well. But I don't think you
Speaker 1: can hand wave away how important you know, core speech
Speaker 1: rights are, how important, like the core infrastructure of our
Speaker 1: democracy ultimately is. And so even as if you believe,
Speaker 1: as I do, that Republicans have basically partisan motives here,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of a few billionaires in cahoots
Speaker 1: with government into like a secret collaboration controlling the platforms
Speaker 1: that millions and millions of Americans use to communicate, especially
Speaker 1: about political topics. It's an important issue, so to just
Speaker 1: handwave it away, and so there's so much more important
Speaker 1: stuff we could talk about. I just don't agree with
Speaker 1: that perspective whatsoever. Now to the point of the partisan
Speaker 1: nature of this inquiry, little language warning here, but also
Speaker 1: part of what came out is listen, it's not just
Speaker 1: the Democrats, not their working the refs in terms of
Speaker 1: Twitter and these other platforms, Republicans and specifically Donald Trump
Speaker 1: were asking for certain content to be censored as well.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to that. Earlier, you testified about
Speaker 1: a twenty nineteen tweet that was about President Trump, and
Speaker 1: I think it was from miss Tigan. What was the
Speaker 1: tweet about? Would you like me to give the direct quote? Yeah,
Speaker 1: please excuse my language, this is a direct quote. But
Speaker 1: Chrissy Teagan referred to Donald Trump as a pussy ass bitch. Okay,
Speaker 1: free speech? And what happened after Miss Tagan posted or tweet?
Speaker 1: What did the White House do? What did the Trump
Speaker 1: White House do? From my understanding, the White House reached
Speaker 1: out to ask that this tweet be removed. It was
Speaker 1: my team's job the spell underneath the policy for abusive behaviors,
Speaker 1: and we evaluate it underneath our insults policy. At that time,
Speaker 1: up to three insults were allowed, and so it was
Speaker 1: our job to determine how many insults were included within
Speaker 1: that phrase. So the Trump White House reached, not an agency,
Speaker 1: but the White House reached out and requests that you
Speaker 1: removed the tweet. From my understanding, yes, In any case, apparently,
Speaker 1: according to this testimony, Donald Trump specifically asked for this
Speaker 1: Christy Tagan tweet to be taken down and censored based
Speaker 1: on their hate speech policies. There's also been reporting from
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone that they had an entire database of Republican requests. Now,
Speaker 1: some of those were requests of like, hey, this tweet
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been taken down, put it back up. Others
Speaker 1: of them were things like this of you know, hey,
Speaker 1: take this one down and violates the hate speech policy,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But whether it was a request to bring
Speaker 1: something back or take it off, all of this also
Speaker 1: shows that Republicans were happy to use this sort of
Speaker 1: elite access that they had to Twitter to work the
Speaker 1: Russ's well, I also just hate the way he is
Speaker 1: so bureaucratic. They're like, well, we have an insult policy.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to have three ins. Oh why why are
Speaker 1: we only allowed to have three ins? All right, sorry,
Speaker 1: it's America. You know, some people are annoying and they're
Speaker 1: allowed to say whatever they want. I just don't under
Speaker 1: all of the bureaucracy that they invented. It was all fake.
Speaker 1: You know. They're like our hack materials policies BS. You
Speaker 1: literally make this stuff up on the spot, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, it's easier a free speech policy because then
Speaker 1: you actually don't have to invent any of this other
Speaker 1: nonsense in order to take stuff down. If it's illegal, okay,
Speaker 1: take it down, everything else, leave it up there. It is.
Speaker 1: It's just not difficult to actually figure out the solution
Speaker 1: to this. It really does drive me crazy when I
Speaker 1: listen to these people talk. Yeah, I mean, you've just
Speaker 1: and part of the problem. Listen. I don't want to
Speaker 1: make it like these decisions would always be clear cut.
Speaker 1: I think it's challenging. I think under even the best
Speaker 1: of intentions, you are going to have borderline cases. You're
Speaker 1: going to have issues where it doesn't fall on the
Speaker 1: side of free speech. Is it too far as the stocks?
Speaker 1: I mean, these are not simple questions to answer here.
Speaker 1: But the total lack of transparency, the fact that this
Speaker 1: is all happening in a black box, the fact that
Speaker 1: you have powerful government elites and agencies like the FBI
Speaker 1: collaborating to work the refs to get their interpretation of
Speaker 1: the rules imposed on all this and again all happening
Speaker 1: in secret. That is a major major problem for our
Speaker 1: democracy when these tools are so core to speech at
Speaker 1: this point, so actually saw Corey Bush, Congressman, make a
Speaker 1: good point about how, in her view, there should be
Speaker 1: some sort of public ownership so that you have some
Speaker 1: sort of democratic accountability. In my opinion, that's the only
Speaker 1: direction to actually solve these problems. The other direction to
Speaker 1: go and would be to break up some of these
Speaker 1: platforms so that they have less individual power. But I
Speaker 1: think the bottom line, whatever you think the right solution
Speaker 1: is here, the bottom line is having this kind of
Speaker 1: power consolidated in the hands of a few totally unaccountable
Speaker 1: people in it all happening in secret, is a disaster
Speaker 1: for absolutely everybody. Yeah. Absolutely, Okay, let's move on speaking
Speaker 1: of technology and what some of the possible potential designs
Speaker 1: are potential disasters. All of that big war breaking out
Speaker 1: right now between Microsoft and Google with being and the
Speaker 1: incorporation of AI, specifically chat GPT, which Microsoft has invested
Speaker 1: some ten billion dollars into the open AI platform. The
Speaker 1: CEO of Microsoft, Satya and Nadella, just gave an interview
Speaker 1: specifically about how they planned to take on Google. Here's
Speaker 1: what he had to say. I mean, look, I have
Speaker 1: the greatest of admirations for Google and what they've done,
Speaker 1: and you know, the their unbelievable company with great talent,
Speaker 1: and you know, and I have a lot of respect
Speaker 1: for Sondara and his team, so therefore, I just want
Speaker 1: us to innovate, right, so there's always I mean, we compete.
Speaker 1: Today today was a day where we brought some more
Speaker 1: competition to Search. We've been added, believe me, I've been
Speaker 1: added for twenty years and I've been waiting for it.
Speaker 1: But look, at the end of the day, let's not
Speaker 1: you know, we they are the eight hundred pound gorilla
Speaker 1: on this which is what they are. And I hope
Speaker 1: that with our innovation, they will definitely want to come
Speaker 1: out and show that they can dance. And I want
Speaker 1: people to know that we made them dance, and I
Speaker 1: think that'll be a great day. I want people to
Speaker 1: know that we made them. Guess what they are dancing.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that. Let's put this up there
Speaker 1: on the screen. Google is now unveiling its new AI
Speaker 1: powered search and map features. After all of the Microsoft
Speaker 1: announcements about how they're gonna use open Ai and incorporate
Speaker 1: it into the Microsoft Team Suite, into Microsoft Office. Now
Speaker 1: it's all about the war for search. So I tried
Speaker 1: this morning. I actually downloaded the bing app and tried
Speaker 1: some of the new bing ai stuff. It hasn't been
Speaker 1: rolled out yet to the general public, but I was
Speaker 1: looking at some tech journalists that they gave some of
Speaker 1: the AI capabilities too. Yeah, I gotta be honest, it
Speaker 1: looks cool, like you can you know, it's just like
Speaker 1: chat GPT. You can literally go into being be like,
Speaker 1: write me what is the best way to brew French
Speaker 1: press coffee or something like that, instead of a link
Speaker 1: to some recipe dot com. Yeah, it gives you it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, here's the best thing to do. It was like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool. Who is you know? So and
Speaker 1: so helped me get from point A to point B
Speaker 1: with you know, saving the most amount of gas and
Speaker 1: it spits it all out creaming. It could be a
Speaker 1: game changer. It really could. Like this could resuscitate bing
Speaker 1: big league. I really think so. I think so too. Reportedly.
Speaker 1: I mean it's funny that Google just like jumped down
Speaker 1: literally the next thing. We're like, ah, we're doing it too.
Speaker 1: We got the same thing. But I mean, reportedly, their
Speaker 1: technology is not as far along. I've tried, but it's
Speaker 1: just not as good. It's not as good as what
Speaker 1: open Ai was able to create with chat GPT. So
Speaker 1: microsoftware once got a big leg up. I think in
Speaker 1: terms of Google, I think it's hard to wrap your
Speaker 1: head around how transformative this could potentially be. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you think about it as you described it, like, oh,
Speaker 1: is that really a big deal that when I ask
Speaker 1: for like, oh, what's the best pizza place in DC?
Speaker 1: Instead of getting a list of links with articles or
Speaker 1: different restaurants, I mean, oftentimes if you're searching on Google,
Speaker 1: what you're going to get is a lot of paid
Speaker 1: advertisements for pizza in DC. Instead of getting that, you're
Speaker 1: going to get an actual, like written paragraph that has
Speaker 1: internalized all of this information to give you an actual,
Speaker 1: more human response like that's cool. But the other piece
Speaker 1: of this is when you think about so I was
Speaker 1: thinking a lot about the news industry, because obviously that's
Speaker 1: what I'm most familiar with. You know, if you are
Speaker 1: going to them and you're saying, like tell me about
Speaker 1: Zelenski's trip to the UK, You're not going to then
Speaker 1: have to go and click through an article on the
Speaker 1: Daily Beast, NPR, CNN, wherever they're going to have an
Speaker 1: article sort of taking all of that information together and
Speaker 1: present it to you. Well, what does that mean? That
Speaker 1: means why are you going to pay for a paywall
Speaker 1: for any of these news organizations. You're not clicking through
Speaker 1: to their website, so you're not seeing whatever ads have
Speaker 1: been paid to be placed on these websites. So this
Speaker 1: could really upend the business model for news. It could
Speaker 1: really undermine the business model for online news in particular.
Speaker 1: And I think what's very likely to happen is look,
Speaker 1: the New York Times, Washington Post, like the big boys,
Speaker 1: the AP, the Reuters. They're going to be fine because
Speaker 1: they do that original report. They're so large, they have
Speaker 1: so many resources behind them. But I suspect this is
Speaker 1: going to kill a lot of news outlets ultimately. I mean,
Speaker 1: you already start to see the beginnings of that BuzzFeed
Speaker 1: laid off what twelve percent of their workforce or whatever.
Speaker 1: They're already leaning on chat GPT to write the articles.
Speaker 1: But it's not just that. It's not just that some
Speaker 1: of the just you know, sort of baseline blocking and
Speaker 1: tackling of regurgitating articles based on what's already been produced
Speaker 1: by other journalists is going to be now automated. It's
Speaker 1: also the fact that if you are searching for news,
Speaker 1: many fewer people are going to actually click through the articles.
Speaker 1: They are going to rely on what bing and Chat
Speaker 1: GPT ultimately tells them is going on. So this could
Speaker 1: be this could be revolutionary. It could be a massive
Speaker 1: disruption in terms of journalism and the news media. Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1: And already you know you're seeing the business incentives. The
Speaker 1: Alphabet stock the parent company of Google drop by seven
Speaker 1: percent on the news of this, and Microsoft already you
Speaker 1: know where I think the biggest innovation is going to
Speaker 1: come is going to be in the team suite, Like
Speaker 1: what I was looking at in terms of how I
Speaker 1: don't use Microsoft teams, but I know a lot of
Speaker 1: you office workers do. And for the chat function and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, they're going to do AI generated chats
Speaker 1: where if you ask something, AI will draft an email
Speaker 1: for you, they'll draft a response for you. You You can
Speaker 1: imagine already. I mean for a customer service perspective, we
Speaker 1: already have to do customer service here. It's a pain
Speaker 1: in the ass sometimes and just you know, figuring out
Speaker 1: somebody's exact issue you have AI generated you know, somebody's
Speaker 1: like I don't know how to connect to the podcast
Speaker 1: player and immediately just replies with a spit out function form.
Speaker 1: You can imagine a lot of people, including us, would
Speaker 1: absolutely pay something like that if you think about so
Speaker 1: much of what that would mean at you know, the
Speaker 1: big big companies, places like Salesforce and others who entire
Speaker 1: jobs is literally just data organization deploying for business purposes.
Speaker 1: The ability to have search function. It would eliminate so
Speaker 1: much data entry. I mean, there's the sky is the
Speaker 1: limit here, I think yeah for that, And then you know,
Speaker 1: education and businesses where I think this is going to
Speaker 1: have the biggest impact. But culturally you are right. I mean,
Speaker 1: for the news business, this is bad. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: real bad. The other thing that I'm really just starting
Speaker 1: to wrap my head around is, you know, it seems like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's AI. It's just like gobbling up all of this
Speaker 1: information and producing for you like what it has internalized
Speaker 1: based on what's out there. But there are also human beings,
Speaker 1: programmers and executives behind the scenes who are making certain
Speaker 1: rules about how this operates, what type of information it
Speaker 1: puts out, what type of information it takes in, and
Speaker 1: all of those things will ultimately shave you know, when
Speaker 1: you ask it, for example, what happened with the nord
Speaker 1: Stream pipeline. Who sabotaged it? Well, what kind of a
Speaker 1: response are you going to get if the bulk of
Speaker 1: the reporting initially was it was Russia, it was Russia,
Speaker 1: it was Russia, We're sure it was Russia, Russia had
Speaker 1: the motive, etc. And you have just a few lonely
Speaker 1: reports that are like, hey, we didn't find any evidence
Speaker 1: it was Russia. And by the way, here's a Pulitzer
Speaker 1: Prize winning journalist who has a long story about how
Speaker 1: they think it is actually the US. What is the
Speaker 1: definitive response that's ultimately going to be put out there.
Speaker 1: So that's another piece of this that I think we're
Speaker 1: only starting to really dig into and think about, is
Speaker 1: none of this stuff is just neutrals. It all is
Speaker 1: driven by decisions that are being made by human beings
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. And so, just like when we were
Speaker 1: talking about Twitter and algorithm and banning and how censorship
Speaker 1: all those things work on those platforms, having a level
Speaker 1: of transparency around the way that chat GBT is developed,
Speaker 1: around the parameters that exist for what sorts of results
Speaker 1: it produces, is going to be equally important, and I
Speaker 1: think also you can see the way that this can
Speaker 1: lead to further industry consolidation, both in the news industry
Speaker 1: also in the tech industry. I mean, if you've got
Speaker 1: Microsoft and Google that are miles ahead of everybody else
Speaker 1: in terms of their technology, what do you think that
Speaker 1: that's ultimately going to mean for literally any other player
Speaker 1: in the space. It's a big question. Nobody knows. There's
Speaker 1: already a lot of controversy online around chat GPT and
Speaker 1: trying to ask it, you know, questions and go against
Speaker 1: social orthodoxy and answers like I don't know. I'm staying
Speaker 1: away from that one. Yeah, it's not great, that's probably
Speaker 1: the best That might be the best direction to go
Speaker 1: is rather than you know, opining I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go to the next one on zoom and big
Speaker 1: layoffs continuing in the tech industry. eBay latest company, let's
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. They're laying off
Speaker 1: five hundred workers for four percent in total of its
Speaker 1: overall workforce. So why does that matter? Well, that of
Speaker 1: course shows e commerce and it's just another example of
Speaker 1: major tech companies that are having to lay off some workers.
Speaker 1: He said that the company had to do layoffs after
Speaker 1: examining the macroeconomic environment over the past several months, and
Speaker 1: he said that the cuts will strengthen eBay's ability to
Speaker 1: deliver better experiences for its customers, and they are just
Speaker 1: going to try and focus on the areas where they
Speaker 1: make the most impact, not the only one. The biggest
Speaker 1: probably is the next one here. Let's put it up
Speaker 1: there on the screen. Zoom. Now Zoom is a is
Speaker 1: announcing layoffs, and that it's CEO is going to cut
Speaker 1: ninety eight percent of his pay, including some thirteen hundred
Speaker 1: employees or about fifteen percent of its overall workforce. That
Speaker 1: isn't just us, that's global in terms of all the
Speaker 1: people who will be laid off. But I mean, that
Speaker 1: is just insane. And you know, look, by the way,
Speaker 1: his salary was three hundred thousand dollars, so you know,
Speaker 1: ninety eight percent cut goes down to six. But in
Speaker 1: terms of stock and all that he's doing just fine.
Speaker 1: For the people who are at the company and they're
Speaker 1: losing their wages and their jobs, it's really not And
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, I mean, Zoom and Peloton
Speaker 1: were like the quintessential pandemic stocks like this is it.
Speaker 1: It's going to blow the door off. Work has changed forever,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, actually, it turns out a lot
Speaker 1: of people really like hybrid work. Sure, zoom usage is up,
Speaker 1: but is it going to take over the world in
Speaker 1: the way that people thought, like, no, absolutely not. It
Speaker 1: was one of those completely narrative driven things. And so
Speaker 1: they expanded big time. They had all this stock they
Speaker 1: had is cash infusion, and unfortunately, you know, now they're
Speaker 1: going to have to lay off a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But overall, you were just looking at the cost of
Speaker 1: cheap money of like a lot of excitement and all
Speaker 1: that was happening in twenty twenty, and when the dam
Speaker 1: bursts in the Federal Reserve raise rates, a lot of
Speaker 1: people got laid off in the process. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and you had a huge, huge stock market, you know,
Speaker 1: spikes that were driving these mass evaluations that led to
Speaker 1: a lot of companies, a lot of tech companies in particular,
Speaker 1: that were like the pandemic stocks, a lot of them
Speaker 1: adding thousands of workers and getting a bit out over
Speaker 1: their skis. Now they all will pollow or sorry, we
Speaker 1: expanded too fast, But I'm sure that's cold comfort of
Speaker 1: the workers that are losing their livelihood right now. I
Speaker 1: think there's a few things to say about this. I
Speaker 1: thought Derek Thompson when we had him on, he sort
Speaker 1: of dug into what's going on with the tech session.
Speaker 1: Part of it is just like what we said, these
Speaker 1: were pandemic stocks that when people were at home, they're
Speaker 1: ordering this and that online and they're doing all their
Speaker 1: on Zoom and whatever. These things blew up big and
Speaker 1: they're watching Netflix. And now that we're getting back to
Speaker 1: a more sort of normal time, there has been a
Speaker 1: natural recession in terms of what's going on with these
Speaker 1: tech companies. That's part of it. Part of it. He
Speaker 1: thinks it could be a kind of groupthink where you
Speaker 1: see other companies doing it, and by the way, you
Speaker 1: see them being rewarded with their stock price bumping up
Speaker 1: when they lay off workers, which is kind of gross,
Speaker 1: but that's the way our economy works, and so that
Speaker 1: creates an incentive to follow along and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm also going to cut five percent of my workforce
Speaker 1: and try to get that stock bump, which ennoors to
Speaker 1: executive benefits and shareholder benefits as well. So that could
Speaker 1: also be part of what's going on here, but it
Speaker 1: is part of my monologue today. I'm talking about some
Speaker 1: of the weirdness in the economy, and this is one
Speaker 1: of the stories that is part of that weirdness because
Speaker 1: at the same time as we're seeing these hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of tech workers being laid off, we're
Speaker 1: also seeing lowest unemployment since nineteen sixty nine. Isn't that
Speaker 1: what it's So it's it's a strange story. And of
Speaker 1: course the tech growth of the tech sector has been
Speaker 1: what has undergirded the rise of an upper middle class.
Speaker 1: So much of our economy and our culture is geared
Speaker 1: towards that upper middle class. And now that you see,
Speaker 1: you know, a recession in this one particular sector, that
Speaker 1: is undoubtedly going to have some you know, sort of
Speaker 1: trickle I don't want to use the term trickle down,
Speaker 1: but it's going to have cascading ramifications, let's say that.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, what's growing is actually jobs
Speaker 1: at the bottom end of the spectrum of service sector jobs,
Speaker 1: and then also more sort of middle skill nursing and
Speaker 1: healthcare jobs as well. So it's it's a strange time
Speaker 1: where the upper middle class has kind of taken a haircut. Actually,
Speaker 1: the very wealthy have taken a huge haircut because of
Speaker 1: how much they're invested in the stock market, and the
Speaker 1: people in the bottom quintile, because the labor market is
Speaker 1: so tight, have at least gotten a little bit of
Speaker 1: a pay raise. Now. Is not enough to make up
Speaker 1: for four years to get screwed over, not even cold.
Speaker 1: But it is a little bit of a rebalancing that's
Speaker 1: happening right now. I guess how I would put it,
Speaker 1: No question, it's a really weird situation. I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to your monologue on it. Yeah, I'm going to figure
Speaker 1: it all out for you, guys. Don't worry, all right,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about our former president here and what
Speaker 1: he's up to. We referenced this on our State of
Speaker 1: the Union live stream. By the way, thanks to all
Speaker 1: of you guys for joining us. We had a lot
Speaker 1: of fun that night, great insights from our friends at
Speaker 1: Counterpoints and Colin Marshall as well. Okay, so let's go
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen. From Trump, he
Speaker 1: is going after DeSantis, alleging that he was grooming high
Speaker 1: school girls. He reposted a photo that purported to show
Speaker 1: DeSantis while he was a I think twenty three year
Speaker 1: old teacher drinking and partying with his high school students.
Speaker 1: This is something that's been passed around previously, but Trump
Speaker 1: added his own, his own flare to it. He reposted
Speaker 1: the photograph and he said, or is it here? Here
Speaker 1: the photo that had originally like the post original, he said,
Speaker 1: here's Rond to sanctimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol
Speaker 1: as a teacher. And he said, that's not Ron, is it?
Speaker 1: He would never do such a thing. So that was
Speaker 1: the Trump side of the equation. Many have pointed out
Speaker 1: that with all of the photos of Trump with Epstein,
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein, maybe this isn't like clean blow to land
Speaker 1: on Ron to sanctimonius here. But Trump has never been
Speaker 1: one to worry about whether he's going to be called
Speaker 1: a hypocrite, so he's going all in. No, certainly not.
Speaker 1: This is the thing with Trump. No matter what, you
Speaker 1: can try and stay out of the gutter, you can
Speaker 1: try and stay out of the muck, he will bring
Speaker 1: you down with him. And I thought that was really
Speaker 1: evident in the DeSantis response to all this. Just he
Speaker 1: addressed yesterday, Let's take a listen. I'm an a former
Speaker 1: President Trump yesterday made a series of post on true
Speaker 1: social directed at you. Some were insinuating that. So here
Speaker 1: here's what I'd say about all that. Again, I get
Speaker 1: you guys want the controversy. So would your proposal legislation
Speaker 1: against defamation address those posts could be considered damaged? Well
Speaker 1: if you think. When we did the defamation panel yesterday,
Speaker 1: I made the point. Look, I have a platform. It's
Speaker 1: different for me because I can fight back, and people
Speaker 1: just know I face defamatory stuff every single day I've
Speaker 1: been governor. That's just the nature of it. But I
Speaker 1: have a platform to fight back. A lot of these
Speaker 1: other people that are more little, they don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: a platform to fight back. And so in terms of
Speaker 1: our reforms, I really want to empower them more so
Speaker 1: than people that occupy high positions like me. It just
Speaker 1: goes with the territory. You gotta have a thick skin.
Speaker 1: It's also just practically speaking, I would not take time
Speaker 1: out of being governor to be fighting lawsuits. It's just
Speaker 1: not practical in terms of what we're doing. But I'd
Speaker 1: also just say this, I spend my time delivering results
Speaker 1: for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: That's how I spend my time. Not a bad response.
Speaker 1: He tries to take the high road. I just don't
Speaker 1: think it's possible, especially if he's ever going to run
Speaker 1: for president. I mean, it's possible, we could see it.
Speaker 1: We have some polling data that kind of is all
Speaker 1: over the place and indicate some things. And otherwise. Of course,
Speaker 1: he's a strong and a beloved figure, but so is Trump.
Speaker 1: And Trump just has a unique ability also to just
Speaker 1: get under someone's skin. The reason also why he's doing
Speaker 1: this is he's warning DeSantis. He's like, this what you're
Speaker 1: in for. Ye. He's like, this is a tiny little
Speaker 1: taste of what's going to happen if you run against me.
Speaker 1: I mean that's I actually thought DeSantis's response was probably
Speaker 1: the right note to strike. You can't say nothing, because
Speaker 1: then you just look like you're getting owned, Like you
Speaker 1: look weak, right. But you also, I mean, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: if he had really gotten into the mud and like
Speaker 1: you know, talked about Epstein or whatever and like taking
Speaker 1: some direct shots, I think that's also not going to
Speaker 1: work out well for you, because there's no one better
Speaker 1: at this thing than Donald Trump. So to say, basically, look,
Speaker 1: I'm focused on delivering results. And by the way, I
Speaker 1: don't spend my time, you know, trashing other Republicans or
Speaker 1: smearing other Republicans. However he put it, I think that's
Speaker 1: probably the best he could do right now. But I
Speaker 1: also is not clear to me that Ron DeSantis is
Speaker 1: ready for this. And I was thinking back to the
Speaker 1: glorious twenty sixteen Republican primary debates, and I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Jeb Bush, all of them, Marco Rubil, all of them
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to handle Trump, and they
Speaker 1: just failed so badly. Jub getting up there and being like,
Speaker 1: you need to apologize to my wife, and Trump's of
Speaker 1: course like, no, not going to do it. Marco Rubio
Speaker 1: trying to like get in there for making comments about like, oh,
Speaker 1: your dick is small or whatever. I mean, none of
Speaker 1: this worked out for them whatsoever. And so it's a
Speaker 1: very difficult thing when you're head to head with him,
Speaker 1: face to face with him on a debate stage. And
Speaker 1: by the way, all of these other also ran Snikkiy Haley,
Speaker 1: Mike Pence, Mike Pompeio, whatever, Chris the New News they
Speaker 1: can are running now. None of these people have a
Speaker 1: prayer of facing this guy down on a debate stage
Speaker 1: and like making this work for them. So so anyway,
Speaker 1: this is big time warning shots from Trump at DeSantis
Speaker 1: in terms of, hey, buddy, you ready for this, because
Speaker 1: this is what is coming at you and so much worse.
Speaker 1: There was other weirdness though from Trump. No one saw
Speaker 1: this coming. On the night of Biden's State of the Union,
Speaker 1: go and put this up on the screen. He was
Speaker 1: posting on Truth's social these like sort of nice comments
Speaker 1: about Biden. He says, Look, he worked hard tonight. It's
Speaker 1: not a natural thing for him. It never was, it
Speaker 1: never will be. But you've got to give him credit
Speaker 1: for trying. I disagree with him on most of his policies,
Speaker 1: but he put into words what he felt and he
Speaker 1: ended up the evening far stronger than he began. Give
Speaker 1: him credit for that. Many things weren't mentioned that should
Speaker 1: have been, but that's for another time. I've done a
Speaker 1: little clip. Perhaps you'd like to watch it. Good Night, everybody,
Speaker 1: and God bless America. And that wasn't all. He also
Speaker 1: posted Biden's doing better now, far fewer stumbles, and his
Speaker 1: wife Jill is looking lovely tonight in beautiful purple dress,
Speaker 1: clapping and applauding with great enthusiasm. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: was Kyle and I were debating whether this is somehow
Speaker 1: strategic or whether this is just Trump, you know, opining
Speaker 1: off the cuff as he does and not like really
Speaker 1: thinking that hard about it. He also put in a
Speaker 1: video that was much harder hitting and you know, aggressive
Speaker 1: and negative on the Biden speech. So there were there
Speaker 1: were sort of two sides of the coin there. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, what did you think about the soger.
Speaker 1: I just think Trump likes to be a color commentator,
Speaker 1: and you know, his most natural role is like cultural critic.
Speaker 1: I always actually so true, you know, whenever I used
Speaker 1: to interview him, I used to think about that. I
Speaker 1: be you know, he's not just the president, like he's
Speaker 1: Donald j. You know, he's Trump, and Trump to me
Speaker 1: is a cultural figure much more than he ever was
Speaker 1: a political figure. Part of why he ever even became president.
Speaker 1: He loves to be the cultural commentary. Yeah, my firsonal favorite,
Speaker 1: which is like Jade Vance looking great tonight. You know,
Speaker 1: it was like, what what are you doing? He's like
Speaker 1: sitting there watching TV, just live tweeting it. But you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's that's who the man is. This
Speaker 1: is a very clear view into it. Yeah, So Kyle
Speaker 1: Sarry was that he's doing like a little bit of
Speaker 1: a face turn because he realizes that he has appear
Speaker 1: somewhat less crazy so that Republicans will think he's like electable.
Speaker 1: But personally, I don't think there's those levels of chess
Speaker 1: going on. I think he's just saying what he felt
Speaker 1: in the moment and yeah, and not putting all that
Speaker 1: much thought into it. So anyway, in terms of the
Speaker 1: state of the overall race, here's just some of the
Speaker 1: numbers that are coming on. Again, I cannot possibly overstate
Speaker 1: how all over the place the poles are of the
Speaker 1: Republican primary right now. Some of them have Trump up
Speaker 1: by thirty points, some of them have DeSantis up by
Speaker 1: close to that. And you know, the state poles tend
Speaker 1: to show Winford DeSantis. Some of them show DeSantis doing
Speaker 1: well if it's just a head to head, but then
Speaker 1: losing if it's a wider field. They are all over
Speaker 1: the map. In any case, here's the latest one. This
Speaker 1: from morning Console is put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: They're doing their primary tracker as they did last time around.
Speaker 1: This one has a wide field they tested. Trump comes
Speaker 1: in at forty nine percent, DeSantis thirty one percent. Next
Speaker 1: down the list is Mike Pence seven percent, Nikki Haley three,
Speaker 1: Lisz Cheney two, Ted Cruz two, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So basically the only real players are Trump
Speaker 1: and DeSantis. Mike Pence getting is seven to ten percent.
Speaker 1: That actually seems pretty consistent from pole to poll does.
Speaker 1: But the margin between Trump and DeSantis and who is
Speaker 1: on top, I just don't know what to make of
Speaker 1: it because the poles. One day, I'll see one that
Speaker 1: has Desanti's way up, next day way up, and they'll
Speaker 1: be supposedly similar samples from similarly sort of placed polsters,
Speaker 1: and I literally don't know what to make of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there was another one that came out late
Speaker 1: last night that we weren't able to cut, which showed
Speaker 1: DeSantis forty five forty one actually beating Trump, but only
Speaker 1: in a head a head Yeah, and so if Nikki Haley,
Speaker 1: Mike Pens and others all ran, then it actually showed
Speaker 1: that Trump would win. Shocker. Yeah, exactly what we've been
Speaker 1: talking about. And by the way that is almost certainly
Speaker 1: going to happen, because Nikki Haley is basically a leaked
Speaker 1: to the entire press score that she's going to announce
Speaker 1: in like six days for president. Yeah's announced it next week, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So it's over like it's gonna happen. Some of the
Speaker 1: anti Trump vote then is going to get blood off,
Speaker 1: and guess what's gonna happen. Trump is gonna win. So
Speaker 1: that scenario just looks overwhelmingly more likely. Chris Nunu of
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, Yeah, appears like he is also moving towards
Speaker 1: a run, which I mean you might be like, who
Speaker 1: and what and why do I care? I mean, the
Speaker 1: reason it's significant is because New Hampshire obviously is a
Speaker 1: key or a Lee primary state, and so if you're
Speaker 1: and I also think it's a state where DeSantis does
Speaker 1: appear to be pulling well in terms of these early polls.
Speaker 1: So if Sununu is able to like rob DeSantis of
Speaker 1: that potential win, it could end up being significant. So
Speaker 1: that's another one that I'm sort of taking a look at.
Speaker 1: And there's also reporting this morning which we've kind of
Speaker 1: you know, already touched on here as well. That there
Speaker 1: is a bit of a freak out among the Republican
Speaker 1: donor set in particular, and like official Republican establishment types,
Speaker 1: and they're trying to figure out they believe that Trump
Speaker 1: is very beatable, that Biden would have a good shot
Speaker 1: at beating him and would struggle with other candidates. By
Speaker 1: the way, the White House thinks the same thing. They
Speaker 1: think Trump is the easiest path for them ultimately to
Speaker 1: win reelect. I don't know. I mean, that's probably right,
Speaker 1: but I also always caution against underestimating Donald Trump. But
Speaker 1: there are efforts to behind the scenes from Coke Network,
Speaker 1: Americans for Prosperity, Chamber of comm or like all these
Speaker 1: group Club for Growth, that's the other big one, to
Speaker 1: try to come up with some strategy to perhaps unite
Speaker 1: behind one candidate, most likely Weron DeSantis, to try to
Speaker 1: take out Trump. But you know, these other candidates are
Speaker 1: obviously not following the game plan, if the game plan
Speaker 1: is to consolidate against one person, because they're already building
Speaker 1: their own networks and planning their own campaigns and unlikely
Speaker 1: to be swayed by that. Absolutely all right, last thing
Speaker 1: here for you, we took note of quite a remarkable
Speaker 1: bit of commentary following Joe Biden State of the Union speech.
Speaker 1: This was over on Fox News. Harold Ford Junior. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys remember this guy. It was
Speaker 1: a Democratic congressman. He's always sort of like positioned himself
Speaker 1: as a moderate slash corporus kind of a guy. Here's
Speaker 1: what he had to say in critique of Joe Biden's speech. Harold,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about polls right before the midterms,
Speaker 1: and they didn't turn out how Republicans thought they were
Speaker 1: going to with Democrats outperforming where they were, and that
Speaker 1: has emboldened this president and this White House. Look we
Speaker 1: talk about his energy and Larry touch On, he's eighty
Speaker 1: years old. It took him thirty minutes to get out
Speaker 1: that chamber. He even said another thirty minutes. Sayd they
Speaker 1: not gabbled the thing down. I agree with you, Lar,
Speaker 1: I don't like when American presidents pit US companies against people.
Speaker 1: I know what the President's trying to get it, but
Speaker 1: we need a fair tax system. But Farmer was good
Speaker 1: to us during COVID. Big oil is important to us
Speaker 1: as we now find ourselves at a war, in a
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine. So I think that that us supposed
Speaker 1: to zim thing is not necessarily a thing to do.
Speaker 1: But we need a fair tax code. Even you and
Speaker 1: I start talking about how we could agree with the
Speaker 1: medicaid expansion by making work requirements. Those are the things
Speaker 1: I need. I agree with you. Yeah, he agrees. You
Speaker 1: know what, we really agree with it. We all got
Speaker 1: to just get together. He stop pitting companies against people.
Speaker 1: And big Pharmer they were good to us, Big Oil
Speaker 1: they were good to us too. Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: don't even know. Like that is probably what the most
Speaker 1: perfect distillation of corporatism. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a former It used to be a real
Speaker 1: Morning Joe. Regular guys literally don't or was. It's like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? And yeah, it's insanity that anybody
Speaker 1: would think that way. It's also a perfect example, by
Speaker 1: the way, Larry Kudlow used picked by Trump why because
Speaker 1: he supposedly looks good and does well on television. I
Speaker 1: don't really know where anyone got that idea, but that's
Speaker 1: what they believe. That's it. Big Pharma was good to
Speaker 1: us during the pandemic. How can you possibly believe that,
Speaker 1: like Pfizer, let's keep in mind Pfeiser very good to us,
Speaker 1: yea set to increase the price of the vaccine by
Speaker 1: four hundred percent. People. So the idea that these companies
Speaker 1: are like, oh, they're just out there for the good
Speaker 1: of their Okay, they made so much money off of
Speaker 1: the backs of US taxpayers based on by the way,
Speaker 1: research that was originally funded, the technology originally funded that
Speaker 1: you know, this research came from US taxpayers. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just a blatant display of corporatism. It
Speaker 1: reminded me, Sager of our favorite Stephanie Ruhle moment where
Speaker 1: it's like, of all the things that you could criticize
Speaker 1: Biden for this speech, this is what you're upset about. Like,
Speaker 1: that's the best part of the speech. That he's going
Speaker 1: after these people who have been screwed over the American public,
Speaker 1: who've been price gouging them, jacking up their prices and
Speaker 1: pretending like, oh, it's just inflation while their profit margines
Speaker 1: go through the roof. That's he needs to lean into
Speaker 1: that more. And so it reminds me of Stephanie Rule
Speaker 1: when he said something about you know, Main Street and
Speaker 1: Wall Street and whatever, and she went on her whole,
Speaker 1: like I don't live on Park Avenue, but I live
Speaker 1: pretty close, and you know I got there because I
Speaker 1: worked my butt off, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So they take umbrage at like, actually the better things
Speaker 1: that Biden does and completely ignore the failings. It's an
Speaker 1: amazing moment. It's one of those where I'm never going
Speaker 1: to get I can't imagine going to national television and
Speaker 1: then be like, you know what, I got to stick
Speaker 1: up for big Farba. Yeah, well, it'd be worth taking
Speaker 1: a look at it x. I guess I was going
Speaker 1: to say, be worth taking a look at, like who's
Speaker 1: he lobbing for these days? What kind of boards is
Speaker 1: he sitting on? There might be some financial disclosures that
Speaker 1: may need to be made there as well. These people
Speaker 1: are so shameless, Cristal, were we taking a look at
Speaker 1: it was the best of time? It was the worst
Speaker 1: of times. One of the strangest features of the very
Speaker 1: strange time that we are living in is the bizarre
Speaker 1: mixed bag which is our current economy. Is it terrible?
Speaker 1: Is it phenomenal? Kind of depends on what metric you're
Speaker 1: looking at, who you ask and what factors weigh most
Speaker 1: heavily for you and your analysis. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: spend some time today digging into the confusion and exposing
Speaker 1: the reality, a reality that most Americans are experiencing as
Speaker 1: deeply painful, even as the White House does a victory lap.
Speaker 1: So we've got split screens of record breaking job numbers
Speaker 1: and catastrophic layoffs. Joe Biden, as he laid out in
Speaker 1: the State of the Union addressed Tuesday night, plans to
Speaker 1: run on a strong economy bolstered by new manufacturing jobs
Speaker 1: with the Inflation Reduction Act, while Republicans plan to run
Speaker 1: against him on how the economy is actually terrible and
Speaker 1: people are struggling with high inflation, So what the hell
Speaker 1: is actually going on? Well, first, we've got to set
Speaker 1: some standards here of what it would mean to have
Speaker 1: a quote unquote good economy. I certainly don't judge by
Speaker 1: the stock market or corporate profits, but I also don't
Speaker 1: judge it by the unemployment rate alone. After all, if
Speaker 1: we've got a lot of jobs but they're all crappy jobs,
Speaker 1: I would not call that a strong economy. What I
Speaker 1: care about is how your average working class citizen is doing,
Speaker 1: How stretched, and how stressed they are, how easily they
Speaker 1: can afford the basics of his stable existence, food, shelter, healthcare.
Speaker 1: When I look at the data there, it is a
Speaker 1: pretty ugly picture across the board. First of all, we
Speaker 1: should listen to what Americans themselves are saying about their
Speaker 1: own economic situation, and by large numbers, they say it
Speaker 1: absolutely sucks. Forty one percent of respondents in a New
Speaker 1: Washington Post ABC newspoles say they are worse off since
Speaker 1: Biden took office. Only sixteen percent say they're actually better off.
Speaker 1: Those are the worst readings on that metric in the
Speaker 1: history of that poll, dating back thirty seven years record breaking.
Speaker 1: Voters also give Biden poor marks for his handling of
Speaker 1: the economy. He only has a thirty seven percent approval
Speaker 1: rating there. It makes sense, then, that voters buy a
Speaker 1: wide margin say their top priority right now is strengthening
Speaker 1: the economy. Seventy five percent of all voters name suggest
Speaker 1: this as a top priority for the President and Congress.
Speaker 1: The next highest priority, at sixty percent, is ways to
Speaker 1: reduce health care cost, another economic issue. But maybe these
Speaker 1: voted are I'll just listen in a Fox News buying
Speaker 1: into their gloom and their economic doom. Well, here are
Speaker 1: some hard numbers that make a case for much more
Speaker 1: than an economic mass delusion. First of all, sixty four
Speaker 1: percent of all Americans say they are living paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 1: That is an increase of nine point three million Americans
Speaker 1: who are living hand to mouth as compared to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, and it is also one of the highest
Speaker 1: levels ever recorded. That squeeze is showing up in consumer
Speaker 1: spending numbers. Americans just don't have the cash to make
Speaker 1: the purchases that they were making just a year ago.
Speaker 1: Here's the Wall Street Journal with some details. Quote, retail
Speaker 1: purchases have fallen in three of the past four months.
Speaker 1: Spending on services, including rent, haircuts, and the bulk of
Speaker 1: bills was flat in December after adjusting for inflation, the
Speaker 1: worst monthly reading in nearly a year. Sales of existing
Speaker 1: homes in the US fell last year to their lowest
Speaker 1: level since twenty fourteen as mortgage rates runs. The auto
Speaker 1: industry posted its worst sales year in more than a decade.
Speaker 1: The share of monthly income that American set aside for
Speaker 1: savings was three point four percent in December. That's down
Speaker 1: from seven point five percent just a year earlier, and
Speaker 1: from a record high back in April of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: So consumers have cut back, but even with those cutbacks,
Speaker 1: credit card debt is skyrocketing. It also actually hit a
Speaker 1: new record. This is particularly painful right now since the
Speaker 1: Fed's interest rate heights have led to a spike in
Speaker 1: credit card interest rates. These numbers all together they tell
Speaker 1: a really grim tail of how the American consumer is doing.
Speaker 1: They are being forced to spend down their meager savings
Speaker 1: and take on a debt load that has just been
Speaker 1: made much more expensive thanks to high interest rates. In fact,
Speaker 1: credit card balances have jumped fifteen percent year over year.
Speaker 1: That's the largest increase in more than twenty years now.
Speaker 1: The key problem here causing all of these issues is
Speaker 1: a really simple one. Wages are too low and costs
Speaker 1: are too high. And actually, as much as this economic
Speaker 1: moment does feel really weird, this is not a new
Speaker 1: problem at all. As with so many current problems, the
Speaker 1: pandemic revealed and accelerated a lot of trends which already
Speaker 1: existed over the past forty years. As union power has declined,
Speaker 1: wages have stagnated, and worker's share of the pie has
Speaker 1: decreased corporations, they were able to rake in record profits
Speaker 1: and give the people who actually work to generate those
Speaker 1: profits the short end of the stick. Now you can
Speaker 1: see in this chart how workers produce more and more,
Speaker 1: but their hourly compensation barely budged. Wages were flat, but
Speaker 1: costs certainly don't stop going up, especially cost of education,
Speaker 1: cost of health care, cost of housing. I know we
Speaker 1: like to pretend that inflation just started in the past
Speaker 1: couple of years, but in reality, when it comes to
Speaker 1: the basic building blocks of a stable middle class life,
Speaker 1: inflation has been ripping American families to shreds for decades
Speaker 1: now and now as inflation soared, also in goods across
Speaker 1: the board, and pandemic era relief programs all expired. This
Speaker 1: dire situation has left Americans desperate and left them really
Speaker 1: cash strapped. There's actually some conflicting data about whether or
Speaker 1: not wages have kept up with inflation in the post
Speaker 1: pandemic era. The answer may look different depending on where
Speaker 1: you are on the income ladder. But what's not in
Speaker 1: doubt is that there are no more checks coming, no
Speaker 1: more expanded child tax credit, no more pandemic loans, to
Speaker 1: help people deal with what has actually been a forty
Speaker 1: year disaster in the making. So the economic crisis today,
Speaker 1: in reality, it's the same crisis that has been building
Speaker 1: and building and building my entire life. It's a crisis
Speaker 1: of jobs that don't pay people enough to be able
Speaker 1: to live, an economy that often turns out a lot
Speaker 1: of low paid, precarious service sector or gig work employment,
Speaker 1: but doesn't allow you to escape the cycle of scraping
Speaker 1: by paycheck to paycheck. High inflation and dramatic cust to
Speaker 1: social spending have just brought all of this pain to
Speaker 1: the surface. So who are you going to believe, Joe
Speaker 1: Biden or your lying bank account? And Zaga the backdrop
Speaker 1: of course for all of this. And if you want
Speaker 1: to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium
Speaker 1: subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. All right, Zacher, what
Speaker 1: are you looking at? Well? When the Biden administration signed
Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act, which significantly increased funding for the IRS,
Speaker 1: they made a promise taxes would not go up on
Speaker 1: people making below four hundred thousand dollars a year or more.
Speaker 1: The increased funding for agents would be solely dedicated to
Speaker 1: going after wealthy tax cheats, who, by some estimation, have
Speaker 1: skipped out on hundreds of billions of dollars in unpaid
Speaker 1: taxes they legally owe over the last few decades. It
Speaker 1: is something Biden has stuck to and touted, including in
Speaker 1: his State of the Union addressed Here was his promise. Again,
Speaker 1: not even Crystal Claire, I said at the very beginning,
Speaker 1: under my plans, as long as I'm president, nobody earning
Speaker 1: less than four hundred thousand dollars will pay an additional
Speaker 1: penny in taxes. Nobody, not one penny. However, as critics
Speaker 1: of the IRS like myself noted at that time, while
Speaker 1: I believe strongly that enforcement against the rich should take place,
Speaker 1: many of us noted that the actual behavior of the
Speaker 1: the IRS does not give them the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, literally the day of the State of
Speaker 1: the Union, the IRS, flush with more cash than it
Speaker 1: has had nearly a decade, put out new guidance to
Speaker 1: show us exactly who they will be going after. The
Speaker 1: new notice reads quote. IRS introduces new Service Industry tip
Speaker 1: reporting program. Oh tell me more. IRS is establishing a
Speaker 1: new program called the Service Industry tip Compliance Agreement, which
Speaker 1: will quote take advantage of advancements in point of sale,
Speaker 1: time attendance systems and electromet payment settlement methods to improve
Speaker 1: tip reporting compliance. The notice will literally involve monitoring employers
Speaker 1: and their point of sale systems in the service industry
Speaker 1: to record the exact amount of tips given by customers.
Speaker 1: The program is effectively blackmail. The IRS tells employers the
Speaker 1: program is totally voluntary and by signing up though for
Speaker 1: their dystopian surveillance, you get liability from Audit. Great for
Speaker 1: the business owners, but for the servers, what this effectively
Speaker 1: means is the IRS is coming for your two or
Speaker 1: three dollars tips on a cup of coffee and make
Speaker 1: sure every recent is paid by you is accounted for. Now.
Speaker 1: Look is the law that you should report that it is.
Speaker 1: I would never encourage you to break the law. I
Speaker 1: would only say, when it's legal to pay somebody two
Speaker 1: bucks an hour they happen to get some tip income,
Speaker 1: you hang onto that instead of forking it over to
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam when you're trying to make ends meet. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna cry about it. Neither should the goddamn government. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: this latest action vindicates all past IRS behavior enforcing the
Speaker 1: law most stringently against the poor while the rich get
Speaker 1: a free ride. The latest data out of the IRS
Speaker 1: or twenty twenty one tells us that the IRS is
Speaker 1: five point five times more likely to audit a low
Speaker 1: income earner claiming earned income tax credit than literally anyone else.
Speaker 1: Imagine that somebody making effectively a poverty line, who is
Speaker 1: literally working and has kids who might have mistakenly filled
Speaker 1: out a form is the one who deserves audits, not
Speaker 1: the uber rich. In fact, in the twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: report I mentioned, they outline the odds of what it
Speaker 1: is like to be a millionaire in this country and
Speaker 1: get audited. Quote, the odds of millionaires receiving some attention
Speaker 1: by the IRS is two point eight percent. You dig deeper,
Speaker 1: the oddsit millionaires received a regular audit by a revenue
Speaker 1: agent one point one percent less than the audit rate
Speaker 1: of the targeted lowest income wage earners, whose audit rate
Speaker 1: was one point twenty seven. The richer you are, the
Speaker 1: less likely you are to get audited. Why because it
Speaker 1: takes effort. Rich people can fight back. Past IRS data
Speaker 1: also vindicates this. Twenty twenty data totals that the IRS
Speaker 1: is three times more likely to audit someone making less
Speaker 1: than twenty thousand dollars a year than someone in the
Speaker 1: top one percent of American income. Imagine that twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: That's poor for a household income. Consider the immense stress
Speaker 1: of an audit when people are buying yachts with money
Speaker 1: that they owe to the government. This highlights the role
Speaker 1: of surveillance tech in our lives. Venmo PayPal point of sale.
Speaker 1: It's great, but the downside is it's tracking everything that
Speaker 1: we're doing. Right now, the Biden administration is still on
Speaker 1: the book. Full scale financial spying is going to effect
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. The rule entails Venmo, PayPal, and
Speaker 1: other companies issuing users ten to ninety nine K tax
Speaker 1: forms if they exceed six one hundred dollars in payments
Speaker 1: over the course of a year. It's a previous change
Speaker 1: from before when people were only given such forms if
Speaker 1: they exceed twenty thousand dollars and two hundred transactions. The
Speaker 1: clear motive for lowering the threshold from twenty thousand to
Speaker 1: six hundred. They want to capture every single cent of
Speaker 1: the gig economy that might be taking place. Again, legally
Speaker 1: you are supposed to do that. But are we really
Speaker 1: going to cry about the crumbs here in relative terms
Speaker 1: to the FEDS when they mean the world to the
Speaker 1: service sector workers. You certainly won't me saying that this
Speaker 1: is the biggest problem inherent to the build up of
Speaker 1: the IRS. There is no mandate in any of this
Speaker 1: legislation that actually restricts them from cracking down on the
Speaker 1: poor until they can prove that or are legally mandated
Speaker 1: to do so. They're gonna do what they do best,
Speaker 1: going after poor people and the most vulnerable amongst us,
Speaker 1: because that what's easy. Screwed up man, I hate this, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, And if you want to hear my reaction
Speaker 1: to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints
Speaker 1: dot com. So joining us now we have Trevor Aronson. Welcome, Hi,
Speaker 1: I think for me, yeah, of course. So in addition
Speaker 1: to the podcast, you wrote down a lot of your
Speaker 1: reporting and a fantastic piece for the intercept. Let's go
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen. The headline here
Speaker 1: is the Snitch in the Silver hearse the FBI paid
Speaker 1: a violent felon to infiltrate Denver's racial justice movement, and
Speaker 1: this dude, one of his calling cards was he drove
Speaker 1: this quite notable silver hearse around in Denver and at protests, etc.
Speaker 1: So he became well known quite quickly, kind of out
Speaker 1: of nowhere within Denver. Before you get into the story,
Speaker 1: what sort of tipped you off to this dude? What
Speaker 1: sort of you know, got your interest as a journalist
Speaker 1: and led you to to follow down this path and
Speaker 1: pull this thride. Yeah, So for the last ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen years, I've been reporting on the FBI's counter terrorism
Speaker 1: program and its use of informants and sting operations to
Speaker 1: find would be terrorists and really kind of highlighting this
Speaker 1: question of whether the FBI is finding real terrorists or
Speaker 1: creating them through these sophisticated stings where they provide everything
Speaker 1: that they need, including the weapons and the money and
Speaker 1: all of the planning. And so during the summer of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, it was the longest suspicion of mine that
Speaker 1: the FBI may use these types of tactics against demonstrators,
Speaker 1: particularly given the climate that the summer of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: was happening in. There were a lot of there was
Speaker 1: a drumbeat for this idea that ANTIFA and BLM, where
Speaker 1: anti government extremists, were potentially violent. The FBI had previously
Speaker 1: designated black political activists as so called black identity extremists,
Speaker 1: and so there seemed to be a predisposition within the
Speaker 1: FBI to view these demonstrations not as First Amendment protect activity,
Speaker 1: but potentially as something potentially something viol And the question
Speaker 1: for me was whether they would use these tactics and
Speaker 1: powers that had been deployed in the War on Terror
Speaker 1: against these activists. And my suspicion was that they would.
Speaker 1: And so I'd spent a good amount of time trying
Speaker 1: to find an example of that and find recording on that,
Speaker 1: and you know, at first wound up empty, and then
Speaker 1: eventually came across this case through a source that revealed
Speaker 1: recordings and about three inner pages of internal documents that
Speaker 1: showed that the FBI did precisely that, using an undercover
Speaker 1: informant to infiltrate groups in Denver and then try to
Speaker 1: set them up in violent crimes. Yeah, I mean, this
Speaker 1: reads like a straight up entrapman scenario. We're talking about
Speaker 1: giving out guns, urging activists to become more violent, go
Speaker 1: on the offensive against the police, all while getting straight
Speaker 1: up paid by the FBI. Go into the sum of
Speaker 1: the details on this story. Sure, so, Mickey Windecker was
Speaker 1: this guy with a long, long history of deception and violence,
Speaker 1: you know, a mon. His convictions were for sexual assault.
Speaker 1: He had sex with a fourteen year old when he
Speaker 1: was twenty and ended up pleading that down to misdemeanor
Speaker 1: sexual assault. He spent two years in prison for stuffing
Speaker 1: a gun in someone's face and was convicted for felony menacing.
Speaker 1: While he was in prison in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: he was approached for a murder for hire and instead
Speaker 1: of doing that, ends up becoming an informant. And as
Speaker 1: far as we know, that's the beginning of his career
Speaker 1: as a police cooperator. And then you fast forward twenty
Speaker 1: years in the summer of twenty twenty, he goes to
Speaker 1: local police working with the FBI through the Joint Terrorism
Speaker 1: Task Force and says, Hey, I know about these protesters
Speaker 1: who are saying incendiary things, and do you want to
Speaker 1: hire me as an informant to look into this? And
Speaker 1: I think it's important to keep in mind that what
Speaker 1: Mickey reported to the FBI was nothing more than first
Speaker 1: Amendment protected activities. These were things that protesters had said,
Speaker 1: very incendiary things and certainly questionable, but nonetheless protected by
Speaker 1: free speech rights. And yet the then Openness investigation using
Speaker 1: him as a paid informant. And then what he did
Speaker 1: was kind of insert himself as a leader. And not
Speaker 1: only did he insert himself as a leader, but he
Speaker 1: took out tactics from the co intel pro playbook of
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. He would accuse the real leaders of
Speaker 1: the Denver movement of being police cooperators, of being FBI informants,
Speaker 1: essentially marginalizing them as a result, and in that leadership
Speaker 1: vacuum kind of rose up in prominence among the activists.
Speaker 1: And then once he was in a leadership role, he
Speaker 1: was encouraging violence. He was in apartments filled with guns,
Speaker 1: his heart had guns in the back, and he was
Speaker 1: encouraging protesters to get more and more violent. And by
Speaker 1: the end of August twenty twenty, a number of the
Speaker 1: protests in Denver had turned extremely violent, with basically full
Speaker 1: on assaults against police buildings. Police officers were officers were injured,
Speaker 1: protesters were injured. Mickey's fingerprints were all over those and
Speaker 1: encouraging the violence, and so he was doing that more
Speaker 1: broadly in the Denver activist community, turning these pro tests
Speaker 1: that were otherwise peaceful into something much more violent, and
Speaker 1: at the same time was trying to entrap protesters into plots.
Speaker 1: You know, the most significant that he tried was to
Speaker 1: rope two protesters into a supposed plot to assassinate Colorado's
Speaker 1: Attorney General Phil Wiser. Ultimately was unsuccessful, but you know,
Speaker 1: try to get protesters to move more and more toward
Speaker 1: those kinds of violent plots so much. Yeah, and when
Speaker 1: you talk about First Amendment protected speech from these protesters
Speaker 1: that he was reporting to at THEI, it was things
Speaker 1: that you know, we've all probably heard, at least on
Speaker 1: television or if you've been to any prot that we're
Speaker 1: going to burn it down. Things of that nature were
Speaker 1: what they were saying to him. Talk to me, Trevor
Speaker 1: about how he sort of picked out the leaders he
Speaker 1: was going to target, what kind of tactics he used,
Speaker 1: and what kind of like direction he attempted to push
Speaker 1: them in. So one of the things that Mickey did
Speaker 1: that was quite helpful to his ability to infiltrate the
Speaker 1: Denver activist groups was that, you know, when you look
Speaker 1: at Mickey, there's this initial feeling that you have, like,
Speaker 1: how did this guy infiltrate these groups? Right, he dresses
Speaker 1: like a biker, he's got military style uniform, and he's old. Right,
Speaker 1: He's pushing fifty years old in the group of protesters
Speaker 1: who were in their teens and twenty somethings. So he
Speaker 1: was by himself quite suspicious. And what he did that
Speaker 1: was quite effective was that he allied himself very quickly
Speaker 1: with activists, with the Young Democratic Socialists of America or
Speaker 1: why DSA, very young activists, arguably very naive activists, and
Speaker 1: those activists became his allies. And so what ended up
Speaker 1: happening was that the protesters, who were rightfully suspicious of
Speaker 1: this old guy dressed like a biker coming into the
Speaker 1: protest advocating violence, had their suspicions somewhat undermined by the
Speaker 1: fact that they saw him with these young allies. And
Speaker 1: there was this feeling that Denver protesters described to me that, Okay,
Speaker 1: this guy seems really suspicious, but he's with the hy DSA,
Speaker 1: so he must be okay. And that allowed him to
Speaker 1: essentially rise up in the movement and become someone that
Speaker 1: people started to trust. At the same time what he
Speaker 1: would do anytime someone became suspicious of him. You know,
Speaker 1: the most notable example of this is a man named
Speaker 1: Trey Quinn who was one of the leaders of the
Speaker 1: demonstrations in Denver. Trey very quickly suspected that this Mickey
Speaker 1: guy was an informant. He didn't have proof, and he
Speaker 1: ended up doing a test where he went to Mickey
Speaker 1: and he said, speaking holy in hypotheticals, you know what
Speaker 1: if we went and burned down a neighborhood. And Mickey's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can get that done. I know a guy we
Speaker 1: can do that, And to Trey, that meant this guy
Speaker 1: was clearly an agent provocateur. And so what Trey then
Speaker 1: does is pack away from him. Mickey at that point
Speaker 1: realizes that Trey's kind of on to him, and so
Speaker 1: what Mickey does is then accused Trey of being an
Speaker 1: FBI informant himself to all of the other activist community,
Speaker 1: and that allows Mickey to kind of create a vacuum
Speaker 1: that he then fills, and once he's in that LEADLeadership position,
Speaker 1: he's pushing more and more people toward violence and getting
Speaker 1: people to go out and you know, attack police buildings,
Speaker 1: getting people out to talk about violent plots, and all
Speaker 1: of this is then being reported back to the FBI.
Speaker 1: It's important to understand too, according to these FBI reports,
Speaker 1: Mickey wasn't just investigating possible crimes. He was basically collecting
Speaker 1: intelligence on all of the demonstrators. And so much of
Speaker 1: the information that's in the FBI files is related to
Speaker 1: information about activists, activists who are not charged with crimes,
Speaker 1: Activists who we are not suspected of crimes, but were
Speaker 1: simply going out, you know, performing their First Amendment protected activities,
Speaker 1: and they were then getting FBI files back in the
Speaker 1: Denver office. Again, this is very reminiscent of what we
Speaker 1: saw during the co Intel pro days. This is also
Speaker 1: directly contrary to what the FBI has stated publicly to Congress.
Speaker 1: Christopher Ray, the FBI Director, has spoken before Congress a
Speaker 1: number of times and said, we don't investigate ideology, we
Speaker 1: don't investigate speech. And that's exactly what happened in the
Speaker 1: Denver case, and I think it's reasonable to assume that
Speaker 1: it may have happened in other cities as well. In
Speaker 1: the summer of twenty twenty oh. I mean there's no
Speaker 1: question about it. So my last question for you is
Speaker 1: are there any people who were charged based on this information?
Speaker 1: And are we going to have ag Gresh and Whitmer
Speaker 1: situation where those people potentially are going to get off
Speaker 1: Because clearly, I mean, in a lot of ways, he
Speaker 1: had trapped many people who were in the commission of
Speaker 1: some of these crimes. So the assassination plot that they
Speaker 1: attempted to construct against Colorado's Attorney general was very similar
Speaker 1: to the type of tactic he saw in the Greshen
Speaker 1: and Whitmer case. Ultimately, that was unsuccessful. The two people
Speaker 1: who were part of the supposed plot backed out. But
Speaker 1: one of those people, I mean one of those activists,
Speaker 1: a man named Zebediahs Hall, did end up purchasing a
Speaker 1: gun for Mickey and ultimately was charged with purchasing a
Speaker 1: gun for a felon, the irony being, of course that
Speaker 1: Mickey was a felon, but he was also an FBI informant,
Speaker 1: and so he purchases a gun using FBI money to
Speaker 1: give the gun to the FBI informant, who then gives
Speaker 1: it to the FBI right totally victimless crime. And so
Speaker 1: zeb you know, in the show in Ala boys. We
Speaker 1: describe how Zeb you know, you know, admits what he did,
Speaker 1: admits that he was wrong, he shouldn't have done it.
Speaker 1: But the important part to understand is that one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that Mickey was able to get activists to
Speaker 1: do things that they might not have otherwise done is
Speaker 1: that part of his identity was this looming sense of violence.
Speaker 1: You know. He described how he had fought with the
Speaker 1: Peshmerga in Iraq, fought against ISIS. He had pictures of
Speaker 1: his phone on his phone of dead ISIS fighters, some
Speaker 1: of them. In some of them he's standing over the
Speaker 1: dead bodies. And so there was always this sense that
Speaker 1: the activists had that Mickey was dangerous and that he
Speaker 1: could physically harm them. And so a number of activists,
Speaker 1: including Zeb, described that once they got close to Mickey,
Speaker 1: they felt they couldn't back away from him for fear
Speaker 1: that he would physically harm them, and they felt a
Speaker 1: you know, compelled to do the things that he had
Speaker 1: asked them to do, which again I think is part
Speaker 1: of the more insidious tactic that the FBI used in
Speaker 1: this regard that they inserted Mickey knowing that he was
Speaker 1: a person who would would be quite intimidating and then
Speaker 1: once people got close to him, they felt they couldn't
Speaker 1: back away, and that's how he was able to entice
Speaker 1: people into that's further crime. It is It is insane.
Speaker 1: I mean, there would be have been no crime of
Speaker 1: purchasing gun for a felon if you didn't have the
Speaker 1: FBI encouraging, setting up, paying for and like intimidating this
Speaker 1: person ultimately into committing this crime. So far from disrupting crime,
Speaker 1: they're actually creating and encouraging it. Not to mention you
Speaker 1: know that under with Mickey's encouragement, the Denver protests turn
Speaker 1: far more violent. My last question for you, Trevor, is
Speaker 1: you know what was the fallout in the activist community,
Speaker 1: because obviously part of the goal of co Intel pro
Speaker 1: was like to disrupt these groups and pit them against
Speaker 1: each other. Were they successful ultimately in doing that in Denver? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So if one of the FBI's goals was to undermine
Speaker 1: the movement and undermine these groups, they were successful. You know,
Speaker 1: starting in late September there was an abrupt stop to
Speaker 1: these demonstrations in Denver. A lot of these groups splintered,
Speaker 1: a number of groups that were allied together ended up
Speaker 1: splitting apart, and a lot of that was due due
Speaker 1: to the confusion and distrust that was sown as a
Speaker 1: result of Mickey's activity. You know, many people in Denver
Speaker 1: suspected that there were FBI infiltrators in their groups. They
Speaker 1: started to trust each other less and as a result,
Speaker 1: started to organize with each other less and ultimately that
Speaker 1: undermined the movement. You know, that's exactly what the Church
Speaker 1: Committee found in nineteen seventy five that in co Intel
Speaker 1: pro the FBI deployed this tactic to devastating effect in
Speaker 1: order to undermine black political movements throughout the country, and
Speaker 1: we saw that it happen exactly in Denver, that because
Speaker 1: of Mickey's infiltration, not only did these protests turn violent,
Speaker 1: not only were people attempted to be set up in crimes,
Speaker 1: but the overall movement ended up being harmed as a
Speaker 1: result of the distrust that was engendered due to his activities. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely unbelievable. Great work tracking all of this down. I
Speaker 1: know you spent I can't even imagine how many hours
Speaker 1: you spent digging into this. I've listened to the first
Speaker 1: episodes of the podcast that are out they're both fantastic guys.
Speaker 1: Check it on. It's called Alphabet Boys and Trevor, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us today. We're super grateful.
Speaker 1: That's right. We're going to have a link to that
Speaker 1: podcast rubscription, so go ahead and subscribe. Thanks rerever. It's
Speaker 1: been an eventful week here at the State of the Union.
Speaker 1: Got called anti semi it's okay, well, very warm. Welcome
Speaker 1: to many of the new JRI listeners who have joined
Speaker 1: us since then. We really appreciate so many of you
Speaker 1: taking advantage of the discount. We just had a meeting
Speaker 1: yesterday with this new set team. Things are exciting people.
Speaker 1: It's exciting lots of ideas that are bubbling up here,
Speaker 1: and I think people are really going to enjoy the
Speaker 1: look of the show. We are doing our absolute best
Speaker 1: to bring you the best quality product for your heart
Speaker 1: earned money, and we never ever take advantage of it,
Speaker 1: so thank you all so much for that. We'll have
Speaker 1: great content for you over the weekend. We'll see you
Speaker 1: next week. Love you guys, See you next week.