Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 1: Everything.
Speaker 3: Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show
Speaker 3: for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal, Indeed we do.
Speaker 1: We got lots of data about who actually, quote unquote
Speaker 1: won the debate and what impact, if any, it's going
Speaker 1: to have on the polls. We'll break all of that
Speaker 1: down for you as best we can. We've also got
Speaker 1: the big Trump mugshot, much awaited, I feel like on
Speaker 1: both sides, kind of a national war test, so we'll
Speaker 1: talk to you about that and what it means. We've
Speaker 1: also got some pulling about how the American people are
Speaker 1: feeling about all of his various criminal charges, which is
Speaker 1: pretty interesting actually, so we'll get into that. Also, some
Speaker 1: updates in terms of the assassination of progosion. The former
Speaker 1: head of the Wagner Mercenary Group Putin is weighing in now,
Speaker 1: so we'll play for you those comments. And we also
Speaker 1: have a new dispute breaking out into the open over
Speaker 1: tactics on the Ukrainian side between Ukraine and the US,
Speaker 1: so we will give you the updates on that as well.
Speaker 1: Massive development for union's new ruling for the National Labor
Speaker 1: Relations Board. Will break it down for you what it means.
Speaker 1: And this comes as workers affiliated with the United Auto
Speaker 1: Workers have just authorized what could be a huge transformational strike.
Speaker 1: So we'll get into all of that. And Oliver Anthony
Speaker 1: speaks out in the wake of his song being used
Speaker 1: at the Republican debate. Apparently he found it sort of
Speaker 1: amusing and wanted to make it clear that he does
Speaker 1: not affiliate with either party. He's weighing it. That's a
Speaker 1: fun one. We'll get into that as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, And before we start, I just want to
Speaker 2: say thank you again to everybody took advantage of the
Speaker 2: debate special discount that we had going on during the
Speaker 2: debate for our annual membership. We really appreciate everybody who
Speaker 2: has been doing it and we are excited to say,
Speaker 2: you know, we are working actively to commission both our
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Speaker 2: coverage as we lead into the major election season.
Speaker 3: So with that, what do the other people's focus groups say?
Speaker 1: Okay, so I think the biggest question, you know, since
Speaker 1: Trump is in such a dominant position coming into the
Speaker 1: Republican nominating contest, is did he lose any altitude whatsoever
Speaker 1: from skipping this debate? The signals are mixed at best.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up on the screen. So this was
Speaker 1: I thought, in some ways the most interesting metric. They
Speaker 1: asked Republican voters who watched the debate, who are you
Speaker 1: even considering voting for? Like, who's even a possibility on
Speaker 1: your radar? And they showed the shift for each candidate,
Speaker 1: and interestingly enough, every single candidate who participated in the debate,
Speaker 1: even candidates like Doug Bergham and Asa Hutchinson, they all
Speaker 1: saw an improvement in terms of the number of voters
Speaker 1: who were even considering voting for them. The one person
Speaker 1: who saw a decline was Donald Trump, who of course
Speaker 1: did not participate in that debate. So prior to the
Speaker 1: debate he sat at sixty six percent of Republican primary
Speaker 1: voters said they are considering voting for him. He declined
Speaker 1: about five percentage points down to sixty one percent. He
Speaker 1: is now actually second in that metric to Ron DeSantis,
Speaker 1: who saw a bump up from sixty three percent to
Speaker 1: sixty seven point five percent. In terms of this particular metric,
Speaker 1: the person who saw the largest jump was actually a
Speaker 1: former UN ambassador in South Carolina, Governor Nikki Hayley, who
Speaker 1: many thought had a strong performance. I have a whole
Speaker 1: thing about the substance of her performance that I'll get
Speaker 1: into later, but you know of media coverage that was
Speaker 1: very fawning of her, and she had a I think
Speaker 1: better than many people expected performance up there on the
Speaker 1: debate stage. So she jumped up from thirty percent to
Speaker 1: forty six point seven percent. This again in terms of
Speaker 1: people not who are supporting her, but who would even
Speaker 1: consider voting for her. So Sager, on this one metric,
Speaker 1: you do see that there was a little bit of
Speaker 1: damage to Trump, not enough to like really eat into
Speaker 1: his lead. But you can see there is somewhat of
Speaker 1: a risk in his strategy of not participating in these debates.
Speaker 2: The benefit that he has is that of those sixty
Speaker 2: one percent who are considering voting for him, most of
Speaker 2: them are not voting for her. They're going to vote
Speaker 2: for him. So that seems pretty important. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm considering a lot of things, but where you ultimately
Speaker 2: end up is what actually matters in terms of also
Speaker 2: the overall debate. From the Washington Post, we have this,
Speaker 2: we can put it up there on the screen. One
Speaker 2: of the immediate post debate polls that dropped twenty nine
Speaker 2: percent actually thought that DeSantis won the a twenty six
Speaker 2: percent for Vivike Ramaswami in fifteen percent for Nicki Haley.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of.
Speaker 2: Most surprised by the DeSantis figure, but I mean it
Speaker 2: did kind of settle a guess of debate after the
Speaker 2: debate of whether he lost or whether he won. I
Speaker 2: kind of put it as neutral because I was like, well,
Speaker 2: he got his greatest hits lines, he seemed to do fine.
Speaker 2: He didn't take any incoming fire, he didn't have any
Speaker 2: bad moments with Chris Christy or anybody like that. He
Speaker 2: was I think the fourth person who spoke most in
Speaker 2: the debate, so not too much, not too bad, and everyone.
Speaker 2: You know what, he has a high affection amongst a
Speaker 2: lot of GOP voters and they liked him.
Speaker 3: And then it's also not a surprise that the.
Speaker 2: Other two people with bigger breakout moments, Vivike Ramaswami and
Speaker 2: Nikki Haley, seeing their overall favorability consideration and polling bump rise.
Speaker 3: So we haven't yet.
Speaker 2: Seen the massive bump for Vivike Ramaswami. We don't even
Speaker 2: know yet if that's going to materialize. Sometimes these things
Speaker 2: do take time. Don't forget. Also, there's going to be
Speaker 2: another debate just next month, So if you got compounding
Speaker 2: earned media, don't forget. You know, with Trump, he didn't
Speaker 2: really have some of his best moments until two or
Speaker 2: even three debates into the cycle, where he had a
Speaker 2: total domination of the field.
Speaker 3: So we don't yet know.
Speaker 2: But the major bump for Ramaswami has not yet has
Speaker 2: not yet been seen both in partisan polls that are
Speaker 2: out there in terms of like super packs and others,
Speaker 2: but also in terms of major live collar polls have
Speaker 2: happened afterwards as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they also tested all of the candidates favorability that
Speaker 1: Washington Post poll did both before and after the debate,
Speaker 1: and those ones where you can see the shift are
Speaker 1: kind of the most interesting to me. And so you
Speaker 1: had Nikki Haley again was the person who saw the
Speaker 1: largest shift in terms of her favorability. She jumped up
Speaker 1: by fourteen points. They said that put her in clear
Speaker 1: positive territory. Now sixty five percent hold a favorable opinion
Speaker 1: of her. The VIC his shift is interesting because on
Speaker 1: the one hand, he jumped up ten percent in terms
Speaker 1: of the share GOP debate watchers who have a favorable
Speaker 1: opinion of him, but he saw even low larger increase
Speaker 1: in the share that say they have an unfavorable opinion
Speaker 1: of him. So because he was so aggressive and you know,
Speaker 1: so sort of like, you know, getting in there and
Speaker 1: mixing it up, and his stances were very clear, but
Speaker 1: some of them also quite divisive. He saw some people
Speaker 1: who really love that and some people who apparently did
Speaker 1: not like that as much, which I think could be
Speaker 1: part of why you haven't seen in the polls any
Speaker 1: bump for him, even though you had a large percentage
Speaker 1: of people. I mean, many of the post debate polls
Speaker 1: did say that he either won or came second in
Speaker 1: the debate. The other thing that I think you could
Speaker 1: be seeing here in terms of a lack of a
Speaker 1: polling bump for Viveke is actually something that Kyle was
Speaker 1: arguing in our post debate panel, which is, Yeah, people
Speaker 1: who are Trump supporters liked Viveke in the debate, but
Speaker 1: guess what, they're not voting for him. They're voting for Trump. Now,
Speaker 1: the good news for a Viveke is that he's sort
Speaker 1: of betting on something happening with Trump that takes him
Speaker 1: out of the race. And so I think in terms
Speaker 1: of that, if he's positioning himself as the primary Trump alternative,
Speaker 1: then he probably did himself some favors he or even
Speaker 1: is it's not really showing up that much in the
Speaker 1: polls yet. And actually, we can put this next pole
Speaker 1: up on the screen that shows you the shift post debate.
Speaker 1: This is an insider advantage pole, and so we have
Speaker 1: the numbers here, but it also shows you how much
Speaker 1: they have moved since the last time this particular polling
Speaker 1: company ran a pole in the field. Trump did lose
Speaker 1: a little bit of altitude. He's at forty five percent.
Speaker 1: That is a six point decline, but is obviously not
Speaker 1: enough to knock him off of his perch ron DeSantis
Speaker 1: saw a significant shift plus eight. He's now up at
Speaker 1: eighteen percent. Nikki Haley also with a pretty sizable notable
Speaker 1: shift there up at eleven percent, and Vivek Ramaswami more
Speaker 1: or less treading water at seven percent. That is an
Speaker 1: increase of plus one. Everybody else more or less staying
Speaker 1: the same. Christy forre Scott three pence two, Larry Elder
Speaker 1: wasn't in the debate at one, Hutchinson one, Burghum one
Speaker 1: heard one. So the most notable shifts coming Trump bumping
Speaker 1: down a little bit, Desanti is bumping up significantly, and
Speaker 1: Haley bumping up significantly. And with regard to Ronda Santa Sager,
Speaker 1: you know, I think people actually a good number of
Speaker 1: people liked the fact that he was kind of out
Speaker 1: of the fray and they and I do think that,
Speaker 1: you know, my pre debate prediction was better than my
Speaker 1: post debate analysis in that I thought, since he had
Speaker 1: been caricatured as this like incredibly awkward, inept person, that
Speaker 1: when people actually saw him on stage, and he very
Speaker 1: you know, clearly and forcefully delivered his message and didn't
Speaker 1: get mixed up and some of the back and forth
Speaker 1: of the other candidates. People both felt like he was
Speaker 1: forceful in his delivery, but also like he was a
Speaker 1: little bit above the fray and a little bit of
Speaker 1: the like adult in the room.
Speaker 3: Some of that is being rewarded for this, some of
Speaker 3: that is really coming through.
Speaker 2: We have this next one we can put up there
Speaker 2: on the screen and it shows the same thing.
Speaker 3: This is from a Patriot poll and Company.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind this is seven hundred and fifty registered voters,
Speaker 2: not necessarily likely voters, but registered voters skews more Democrat
Speaker 2: and or people who are not MAGA. However, it does
Speaker 2: show bumped there for Nikki Haley twenty three two percent,
Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis at twenty two point four. This is on
Speaker 2: the question of who won the debate, Mike Pence at
Speaker 2: twelve point two, Christy nine point six, and Vivic Ramaswami
Speaker 2: eight point eight. It's a little bit of an outlier,
Speaker 2: but it does show with the consistent kind of performance
Speaker 2: of DeSantis, both in some of the more partisan polls
Speaker 2: and also in the independent ones. People didn't seem to
Speaker 2: mind that he didn't, you know, engage in some of
Speaker 2: the imbroglios or fights or any of that. It did
Speaker 2: work out, you know, in terms of Vivike Ramaswami, I
Speaker 2: think with name id, and we saw the Google search
Speaker 2: trend results that happened afterwards. But so much of this
Speaker 2: as we're about to talk about the actual contender in
Speaker 2: this race, the man with fifty sixty some percent support
Speaker 2: of the Republican voters who have him. And in that sense,
Speaker 2: though maybe if avake strategy is the probably the best one,
Speaker 2: I'm running effectively as a number to dark horse number two.
Speaker 2: If something happens to Trump, then I'll try and scoop
Speaker 2: up all his voters. I got all that nice favorability
Speaker 2: going for him, so that's I think his best possible chance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I are right.
Speaker 1: I have in my monolog today a poll they tested
Speaker 1: the race without Trump, and it's DeSantis and Ramaswami who
Speaker 1: are basically tied. So if something happened to Trump, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't see him dropping out, but whatever, if something
Speaker 1: happened and he was no longer in the race, which
Speaker 1: is basically what all these candidates are banking on at
Speaker 1: this point that's like their best hope. His voters would
Speaker 1: probably split largely between DeSantis and Ramaswami as of today.
Speaker 1: One thing I am curious about is, even though I
Speaker 1: don't think Trump lost a lot by not going to
Speaker 1: the debate, you know, you do see his favorability EB
Speaker 1: a little bait. You see do you see the percentage
Speaker 1: of voters that are considering him EB a little bit?
Speaker 1: The debate was watched. I know what the Twitter numbers say,
Speaker 1: but the Twitter numbers are not reality. The debate was
Speaker 1: watched by way more people than his Tucker interview was.
Speaker 1: These candidates are getting a lot of headlines, are getting
Speaker 1: a lot of media attention, sort of you know, stealing
Speaker 1: spotlight from him at least for a moment until his
Speaker 1: mugshot came out, which is literally one day later. I
Speaker 1: do want or if he reconsiders and attends any of
Speaker 1: the future debates, what do you think, Sarry, do you
Speaker 1: think he'll think twice about sitting out all the rest
Speaker 1: of them?
Speaker 3: You never know.
Speaker 2: I think if we saw bigger rises for Ramaswami, the
Speaker 2: answer would be yes. Because it has been effectively a
Speaker 2: wash in terms of the polls. Yeah, I think his
Speaker 2: strategy was ultimately correct, and as we are about to
Speaker 2: talk about, the mugshot is clearly the number one news
Speaker 2: story for most normal people. I mean, ask people who
Speaker 2: are out there who don't engage with our show or
Speaker 2: are in super users quote unquote, whenever it comes to
Speaker 2: politics media, what do they know about. I guarantee you
Speaker 2: they've seen that mugshot on Instagram or post it on
Speaker 2: Twitter or somebody sent it to them, as opposed to
Speaker 2: a single clip from the GOP debate. And that's because
Speaker 2: I've always said this, like Trump, he's not a politician.
Speaker 3: He's a pop culture icon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a phase, a fixture of American culture since he
Speaker 2: was a freaking home alone too.
Speaker 3: It's just like you can't get away from that.
Speaker 2: He was in rap songs, he was on The Apprentice,
Speaker 2: the highest rated network show at the time. It's just
Speaker 2: a different stratospheric level and of name id and then
Speaker 2: he was the existing president. So he gets his mug
Speaker 2: shot out there. I think we're all about to talk
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 3: That's just going to.
Speaker 2: Wash you know a lot of these things, and you know,
Speaker 2: considering his fundraising hall and all that, we're about to
Speaker 2: get into like, I think you probably made the right decision.
Speaker 1: And to bolster or point. There was also a morning
Speaker 1: console poll post debate. You know, they do their track er,
Speaker 1: I think basically on a weekly basis. They literally showed
Speaker 1: no change in the race. No statistically, maybe one person
Speaker 1: was up a point or down a point or whatever,
Speaker 1: but it was basically exactly the same after the debate
Speaker 1: as it was before the debate. So I don't think
Speaker 1: that so far the debates are not the game changer
Speaker 1: that some of these candidates would like them to be,
Speaker 1: even as their you know, lineup, whether they're second or
Speaker 1: third or fourth, has kind of shifted around in everyone
Speaker 1: not named Trump. We've teased enough. Let's get to the
Speaker 1: freaking mugshot gun and put it up on the screen.
Speaker 1: This is what it looks like. I mean, yeah, everybody
Speaker 1: was waiting for this. I don't care whether you were
Speaker 1: like a resistance liberal or whatever. This was a real
Speaker 1: cultural moment here Trump getting the mugshot. Now he obviously
Speaker 1: has this was not his first indictment, as you were
Speaker 1: well aware, but this was the first one where they
Speaker 1: did make him do the mugshot. It basically the theory
Speaker 1: being listened we'd have treat everybody the same. So if
Speaker 1: you're getting arrested here, you're coming in for the mugshot.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are just listening and not watching,
Speaker 1: I mean I've probably seen it already by now, but
Speaker 1: the sort of like very angry, defiant stare glare into
Speaker 1: the camera. He's wearing a blue suit, white shirt, red tie.
Speaker 1: He's got the sheriff's logo there up on the side.
Speaker 1: And as I said before soccer, this really turned into
Speaker 1: kind of a national RARS shock test. There's also a
Speaker 1: lot of discussion about like the height and weight that
Speaker 1: he's self reported.
Speaker 3: This was all the conversation a.
Speaker 1: Whole yeah, exactly, and there was a whole cultural moment
Speaker 1: of people sharing like this is what six foot three,
Speaker 1: two fifteen actually looks like. You were talking about the
Speaker 1: things that really break through for normal voters. Actually, this
Speaker 1: was what I was getting sent from people in my
Speaker 1: life who are not like big politicos. This was the
Speaker 1: conversation that they were kind of obsessed with, was looking
Speaker 1: at the mugshot and talking about Trump lying about his.
Speaker 3: Height and weight. All my gym friends were doing the
Speaker 3: exact same thing. Chrystal.
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, I mean, I think it does again speak
Speaker 2: to the way that it has become like a pop
Speaker 2: culture signifier. And then though it comes back to did
Speaker 2: this backfire? Like was this a mistake? You know, if
Speaker 2: we were to consider that this is obviously political. You
Speaker 2: can talk about the legal merits and all of that
Speaker 2: whatever you want. At least in the eyes of voters,
Speaker 2: it's clearly political. Even the ones who support it are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's political, and I support the indictment of Donald Trump. Well,
Speaker 2: then did we help or you know, on their side,
Speaker 2: Like if you're trying to think of did they do
Speaker 2: Trump a favor? I mean we should remember, we shouldn't
Speaker 2: forget the reason why will do mugshots is so that
Speaker 2: you have an official record of what they look like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in case you don't have a bi.
Speaker 2: It's from the nineteen It's like a nineteen sixties era relic,
Speaker 2: especially before the internet. Trump, I'm going to venture a guest,
Speaker 2: is probably the most photographic man ever in the history
Speaker 2: of the world.
Speaker 3: Obama actually was before him.
Speaker 2: It's usually the presidents, you know, especially in the modern
Speaker 2: media age, so like did we really need one? And
Speaker 2: also there is a reason why the FEDS didn't do
Speaker 2: a mug shot, and specifically in order to deny Trump
Speaker 2: the fundraising opportunity, and lo and behold, let's put this
Speaker 2: up there. He has raked in seven million dollars after
Speaker 2: the Georgia booking crystal.
Speaker 3: They are raising some one million dollars.
Speaker 2: Per day online, they're selling they're selling signed copies of
Speaker 2: the mugshot. They're selling T shirts of the mug shot.
Speaker 2: Now is getting distributed like alongside rappers. Apparently one of
Speaker 2: those guys. I forget, the one that Trump helps get
Speaker 2: out of little Pump. I apologize Little Pump the way
Speaker 2: I'm try supposed to say it. So he's transcended, you know,
Speaker 2: into the like the mean universe with thevy mug shot
Speaker 2: fully embracing it.
Speaker 1: That's just already sale. But the justiciication of Trump, I listen,
Speaker 1: I actually I kind of appreciate the principle of this
Speaker 1: is the way we do things, and we are not
Speaker 1: granting you an exception, because, like you said, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that don't technically need a mug shot
Speaker 1: where we've got photos of them, Like there's the thousand
Speaker 1: photos of basically everybody online at this point. So I
Speaker 1: don't mind the principle of this is how we do things.
Speaker 1: You're not going to be treated in a special way.
Speaker 1: So you know, we're going to do the mugshot, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And yes, his supporters are going to you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to show you Jesse Waters, We're on Fox
Speaker 1: News hilarious clip of him like fawning over this thing.
Speaker 1: People who hate Trump are gonna have a totally different
Speaker 1: reaction every single one of his arrests, whether they had
Speaker 1: a mug shot or not. There was a huge fundraising
Speaker 1: bump for him in terms of the Republican primary, but
Speaker 1: I think in terms of general electorate, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a very different picture. So for his Republican adversaries who
Speaker 1: want to be able to grab the spotlight, want to
Speaker 1: be able to have a different conversation, want to be
Speaker 1: able to move beyond Trump, I think these events are
Speaker 1: profoundly unhelpful for them because one day after the debate,
Speaker 1: Trump is once again the center of the circus and
Speaker 1: driving all of the coverage and forcing everyone to basically
Speaker 1: come to his defense again on the Republican side. But
Speaker 1: I continue to think for the general election, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, this is really serious like this is going
Speaker 1: to be a problem for him, and I think Joe
Speaker 1: Biden is eminently beatable. Like I saw this morning, his
Speaker 1: approval rating is like thirty one percent, But guess what
Speaker 1: Trump's approval rating is also thirty one percent, and he
Speaker 1: could be by that time potentially facing prison time. Now
Speaker 1: an outright majority of Americans believe he should suspend his
Speaker 1: campaign right now. So it's not like for getting back
Speaker 1: to the White House, he's in a strong position, but
Speaker 1: in terms of winning the Republican nomination, every one of
Speaker 1: these things is just helpful for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're probably correct. I mean, listen with
Speaker 3: the general electorate, I never have any idea.
Speaker 2: It's one of those where ahead of the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two elections, in the polling data, nobody was like, I'm
Speaker 2: really pissed off about January sixth and about Stop the Steal.
Speaker 2: But then obviously voters when they went to the polls
Speaker 2: were very upset about it and they directly punished many
Speaker 2: of the candidates who most embraced it. At the same time,
Speaker 2: was that because of Stop the Steal? Was it because
Speaker 2: of Trump? And then abortion is laid out on top
Speaker 2: of all of this, You know, the people who are
Speaker 2: pro life will be like, no, no, no, it was all Trump.
Speaker 2: The people who are pro choice are like, well, it
Speaker 2: was a lot abortion. I tend to find fall much
Speaker 2: more on the side of abortion. Trump is actually the
Speaker 2: most moderate candidate in the entire GOP race on abortion,
Speaker 2: hilariously enough, And whenever you continue to think and to
Speaker 2: look at how they are going to digest these overall indictments,
Speaker 2: the polling data that we have seems to indicate it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: a simple majority of people seem to believe that these
Speaker 2: are just But though that doesn't mean that they may
Speaker 2: not vote for Maybe they I mean some people say
Speaker 2: they won't.
Speaker 3: Then there was the whole.
Speaker 2: Solid silent Trump phenomenon that happened both in twenty sixteen
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: So I just don't know. I do agree.
Speaker 2: I think it is in general a weakness. And for
Speaker 2: a lot of people who are listening to this, I
Speaker 2: know it can be difficult. If you listen to the show,
Speaker 2: you probably distrust institutions in the establishment. But I've said before,
Speaker 2: for a lot of normal people, it's like being arrested.
Speaker 2: They're like, oh my gosh, they must have done something wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like, yeah, when you get a lug shot, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: they're like, wow, I mean to be in seven indictments
Speaker 2: or something like this, that's just crazy. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: one of those where you know, if you still have
Speaker 2: some faith in the system and the justice system and
Speaker 2: all that, it can code very differently than people who
Speaker 2: are both his supporters and were like pretty online and aware.
Speaker 3: Of some of the things going on in the justice system.
Speaker 1: You think the abortion point is an interesting one to
Speaker 1: pick up on because the ad that the Biden campaign
Speaker 1: released after the debates was about abortion. It wasn't about generously,
Speaker 1: it wasn't about Trump arrass it wasn't about any of that.
Speaker 1: It was they took clips of Trump saying I'm the
Speaker 1: one who overturned Roe versus Wade, and then they cut
Speaker 1: together some of the more extreme positions that were taken
Speaker 1: from GOP candidates on the debate stage, and that's what
Speaker 1: they released. And clearly they think that continues to be
Speaker 1: the most potent evocative issue for them. And it's an
Speaker 1: interesting one because you know, if you pull voters, that's
Speaker 1: not going to be the top issue for the largest
Speaker 1: percentage of voters. But the people who are motivated by
Speaker 1: that are really motivated by it. And we you know,
Speaker 1: at this point, we've seen it in multiple elections, certainly
Speaker 1: that Wisconsin Supreme Court election. We had one recently in
Speaker 1: Ohio that was a big deal. We've actually got another
Speaker 1: one coming up in Pennsylvania that's going to be a
Speaker 1: big deal for another state Supreme Court seat. So they
Speaker 1: still feel like that, you know. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: it's not like the Biden Minister's human They're not even
Speaker 1: promising to do anything on the issue. They're just promising
Speaker 1: to not make things worse and arguing that, you know,
Speaker 1: the Republicans, whether it's Trump or anybody else, would make
Speaker 1: things worse. So I do think that's going to continue
Speaker 1: you to be really central. You're referring to some of
Speaker 1: the numbers here about how Americans feel about all of
Speaker 1: these various charges. Let's put this up on the screen
Speaker 1: because this is kind of fascinating. On each of the
Speaker 1: different charges and indictments, a majority actually thinks that he
Speaker 1: is guilty. The numbers are extremely similar. No matter whether
Speaker 1: it is what I consider to be the weakest case,
Speaker 1: the false buying business records case, or the sensitive documents case.
Speaker 1: Or either of the election sub version, whether it's the
Speaker 1: Georgia or the federal one. You're basically sitting at fifty
Speaker 1: percent of the country who say, yes, he did it,
Speaker 1: he is guilty, and only about twenty five percent in
Speaker 1: each of these instances who say no, he's innocent. The
Speaker 1: rest are sort of like, I don't know, and so
Speaker 1: I feel like that that twenty five percent is the real,
Speaker 1: like those are the real, like hardcore Trump could never
Speaker 1: do anything wrong. And then you know, as we've been
Speaker 1: saying from the beginning, as much as it's important and
Speaker 1: we try our best here to dig into the merits
Speaker 1: and you know, have nuance that evaluate each claim and
Speaker 1: each indictment as they come, the reality is, for most
Speaker 1: Americans it's just a measure of how do I feel
Speaker 1: about time exactly right, as like all of our politics
Speaker 1: basically is just about how do you feel about Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: It's important for people to take that.
Speaker 2: So, you know, we spend a lot of time going
Speaker 2: through the various merits because we know it's going to
Speaker 2: eventually matter in a court of law. But in terms
Speaker 2: of how most people are going to digest it, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean they don't care. They don't care about Alvin
Speaker 2: Bragg and the DA. They don't care about the technicalities
Speaker 2: of Georgia election law. They don't care about January sixth
Speaker 2: and the free speech exception and all that those are
Speaker 2: for us. And you know, the developments of which will
Speaker 2: be very important, don't get me wrong in terms of
Speaker 2: whether he can you know, actually gets convicted, what the
Speaker 2: jury makeup is going to look like, what the judge says,
Speaker 2: the trial date, all of those are very important.
Speaker 3: But the straight up like is he bad or is
Speaker 3: he good? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean that pretty much reflected the various and the
Speaker 2: number and the lack of change in between every single
Speaker 2: one of them just shows like you've got a lot
Speaker 2: of people in this country I hate Trump and they
Speaker 2: just want to see him go away. I think they
Speaker 2: see the legal system as an avenue in order to
Speaker 2: make him go away. It's like a forcing mechanism. Well,
Speaker 2: I think they're like, yeah, I support that.
Speaker 1: I think they also genuinely see him as a criminal.
Speaker 3: Absolutely so.
Speaker 1: I think there's also a little bit of like the
Speaker 1: you know, al Capone getting him on tax fraud, tax cheating.
Speaker 1: It's like whether it's for the thing that I really
Speaker 1: am mad at him, about or whether it's for a
Speaker 1: more superfluous issue, whatever it is, like, I think this
Speaker 1: guy is a criminal. I think he should face accountability.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm not too troubled with the details.
Speaker 1: I just want to see him get his Basically.
Speaker 3: I absolutely think you're correct.
Speaker 2: But as you alluded to, though, it has going to
Speaker 2: stopped his supporters from issuing some of the most fawning coverage.
Speaker 1: Of Yees around Fox News. There's basically like a little
Speaker 1: bit of a competition to be the most funning in
Speaker 1: praise of the mugshot, how handsome it was, how tough
Speaker 1: and strong he looked, et cetera. I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: fair to say Jesse Waters one that competition. Let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and listen to what he had to say about
Speaker 1: the mugshot.
Speaker 4: And I am now going to book the Fulton County
Speaker 4: photographer for my Christmas card because Judge, and I say
Speaker 4: this with a unblemished record of heterosexuality, he looks good
Speaker 4: and he looks hard. And why would you think that
Speaker 4: you wouldn't practice the shot? Is that a surprise? Of course,
Speaker 4: you practiced the mug shot. You only don't practice if
Speaker 4: you're drunk. That's the first time Biden's told the truth.
Speaker 4: It's a handsome mug shot. My wife says, he looks fierce.
Speaker 4: He looks hard, but he doesn't look scared does he
Speaker 4: doesn't look humiliated.
Speaker 3: He looks exactly the opposite of how the left thought
Speaker 3: he'd look.
Speaker 4: So the media, once they observed the impact of the image,
Speaker 4: now say it wasn't natural, it wasn't authentic, because the
Speaker 4: look was planned.
Speaker 1: Unblemished record of heterosexuality there. His wife says, he looks fierce.
Speaker 1: Jesse says repeatedly, he looks hard. What do you think
Speaker 1: is harder?
Speaker 3: I'm just like, how many times do we have to
Speaker 3: say it?
Speaker 2: My man?
Speaker 3: What are we exactly are we trying to do here?
Speaker 1: It's just just like kind of judge for themselves.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, in terms of the face, the funny
Speaker 2: thing is, having covered Trump for years at the White House,
Speaker 2: I knew exactly what he was doing because that's the
Speaker 2: exact same face that he gave in the president shot
Speaker 2: for his official portrait. Most presidents in their official picture
Speaker 2: always smile, I think Obama did, or they offer like
Speaker 2: a slight smile, and Trump famously gave the frown. The
Speaker 2: reason why is he models it on the famous Churchill
Speaker 2: photo that was taken in the middle of the Battle
Speaker 2: of Britain, where Churchill is kind of scowl frowning at
Speaker 2: the camera as like the stolid like face against Nazism
Speaker 2: as Britain is beseeched, and he's obsessed with that particular photo,
Speaker 2: so he doesn't smile in most like official communicats. There's
Speaker 2: another reason he's also not smiling actually in his official
Speaker 2: presidential portrait as well. But yeah, I mean I just
Speaker 2: think it's it's hilarious because I saw that and I
Speaker 2: was like, Oh, that's Churchill face.
Speaker 3: I'm like the face he's obsessed with. As for whether
Speaker 3: he practiced it or not, I mean, he's.
Speaker 2: Basically been doing it since he's been in politics, So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure he just reverted back to the norm.
Speaker 1: Listen, if I was going to be in a photograph
Speaker 1: that like literally everyone in the entire planet was going
Speaker 1: to see, I would probably practice that face. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you got to play these things out, you know. I
Speaker 1: think there is like to go one level deeper analysis
Speaker 1: than Jesse waters here and his just like shameless funning
Speaker 1: propaganda for Trump. Fox News, led by Rupert Murdock obviously
Speaker 1: wants to move on from I'm talking today in my
Speaker 1: monologue about how they're like really into Nicky Haley and
Speaker 1: all the Fox and Friends people were like talk him,
Speaker 1: how she owned vi, vag and Homer love her and
Speaker 1: she's so great and all her terrible Neocon views are
Speaker 1: so amazing and wonderful. And Wall Street Journal has now
Speaker 1: published multiple post debate editorials fawning over Nicky Haley as well.
Speaker 1: Like Rupert Murdock previously really wanted to go all in
Speaker 1: onto Santis, there's still Ruper's body wants to get collect
Speaker 1: youngkin in the race, like he wants to move on,
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of Republican elite media figures who
Speaker 1: really want to move on. But you can see in
Speaker 1: moments like this, I mean, their audience is so enthralled
Speaker 1: with Trump. You're just never going to be able to
Speaker 1: really turn that ship. And whatever ability Fox used to
Speaker 1: have to really guide the Republican masses towards the candidates
Speaker 1: and policies and direction that they wanted to move them in,
Speaker 1: it's just not there anymore. I Mean, you've got a
Speaker 1: much more fractured media landscape. People have a lot more choices,
Speaker 1: and Trump has a much firmer hold on the hearts
Speaker 1: of the Republican base than previous presidential candidates or other
Speaker 1: GOP politicians ever did. So you know, they can't even
Speaker 1: like kind of get all of their hosts rowing in
Speaker 1: the same direction, let alone they're viewing audience.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely, right, Yeah, it's just it's pretty humiliating though,
Speaker 2: just to see that. Also because don't forget, Waters took
Speaker 2: over the Tucker Carlson spot on Fox and hasn't been
Speaker 2: able yet to assemble similar numbers in terms of primetime,
Speaker 2: and it's like, well, it turns out that's the best
Speaker 2: strategy that works for Fox News Prime.
Speaker 1: Shameless Trump fawning rights record. You couldn't pay enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, truly, you really could not. Okay, let's move on.
Speaker 2: We got to talk about Progosion. So I did a
Speaker 2: breaking news segment about progosion whenever the crash actually happened.
Speaker 2: There's now various explanations for what happened to Progosian's plane.
Speaker 2: I think what everyone can agree on is that he
Speaker 2: is dead. So what exactly happened, Well, you can guess.
Speaker 2: Intel sources tell us there was a blast on board
Speaker 2: the plane. Others tell us he was hit by a
Speaker 2: Service to air missile. One thing for sure, he was
Speaker 2: definitely on board that flight with multiple other actually innocent people,
Speaker 2: including a poor flight attendant. Actually, we didn't do anything
Speaker 2: wrong and who was blown out of the sky. We
Speaker 2: have all the video of the plane coming, crashing and smoking,
Speaker 2: you know, crashing down on a routine flight from Moscow
Speaker 2: to Saint Petersburg. Putin is now offering his condolences to
Speaker 2: Progosion after his untimely death. Let's take a little bit
Speaker 2: of a listen to that. Let's go and play this
Speaker 2: and I will speak over. He says, quote, if Wagner
Speaker 2: members were on board, as the report suggests, I would
Speaker 2: like to acknowledge that these people did make a significant
Speaker 2: contribution to our joint fight against the neo Nazi regime
Speaker 2: in Ukraine. Clearly they're sticking to the rhetoric that he's
Speaker 2: been keeping up against Progosian. They also had previously said
Speaker 2: Krystal that they'd used genetic test DNA in order to
Speaker 2: confirm he was on board there. In terms of continuing,
Speaker 2: he says, quote, I have known Progosian for a long time.
Speaker 2: He made some serious mistakes in his life, but also
Speaker 2: achieved a lot both for himself when I asked for
Speaker 2: our joint cause like in these recent months. Recall that
Speaker 2: he was actually Putin's chef after previously serving as a
Speaker 2: prisoner and then built himself up into a military oligarch.
Speaker 3: He says, quote he was a.
Speaker 2: Talented man and a skilled businessman, offering him up some praise.
Speaker 2: I think we could say relatively confidently. I guess, I
Speaker 2: hope the Russians don't sue us, is that he probably
Speaker 2: had something to do.
Speaker 3: With the death. Mister Pregosion.
Speaker 2: You can be the guest, you can give the ultimate guests.
Speaker 2: One interesting thing, though, is about what Pregosion was actually
Speaker 2: thinking and what was in his mind.
Speaker 3: Why did he think that he would be the exception
Speaker 3: to the rule and would live?
Speaker 2: And you know, in some respects Crystal, some Russian traders,
Speaker 2: oligarchs and others who have betrayed Putin, it takes a
Speaker 2: while for them to die. Sometimes they'll give him a year,
Speaker 2: sometimes they'll give him two years. You know, most some
Speaker 2: cases they give him eight years. Progosion was actually killed
Speaker 2: very relatively quickly for somebody who had so betrayed Putin.
Speaker 2: I think it was because it was so public and
Speaker 2: such an international humiliation to launch the Cup against him.
Speaker 2: But there's always been a question of why did he
Speaker 2: turn around? You know, I said during the segment, it's like,
Speaker 2: if you're going to take Vienna, then you got to
Speaker 2: take it, man. But when you turn around, like, why
Speaker 2: did you think that Putin was ever going to let
Speaker 2: you live? Let's go and put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. Some of it does come back to his
Speaker 2: overall leadership of the Wagner Group and some of the
Speaker 2: people who were actually loyal to him. We have this
Speaker 2: from Wall Street Journal, the quote the last days of
Speaker 2: Wagner's progotion quote on the run, the Parati military chief
Speaker 2: crisscrossed his global business empire. Desperate to show that he
Speaker 2: was still in control, he said, quote, I need more gold.
Speaker 2: He had spent some time in Africa, the Central African Republic,
Speaker 2: for example, where one of his first clients for the
Speaker 2: Matt Wagner Group company several thousand people who were there.
Speaker 2: He'd crisscrossed and traversed. He had told various other people
Speaker 2: that things were fine with Putin. But you know, at
Speaker 2: the same time, he also seemed to indicate he didn't
Speaker 2: know Crystal that he was in danger, and so the
Speaker 2: portrait that emerges here is he was kind of frantic
Speaker 2: trying to shore up his position. I think he saw
Speaker 2: himself as a projection of Russian power through the Wagner Group,
Speaker 2: through a lot of its military operations in Africa and
Speaker 2: in Syria, and he was trying to make.
Speaker 3: Himself indispensable to the Putin regime.
Speaker 2: And though he had launched a coup against them, and
Speaker 2: then ultimately and it was killed after only a matter
Speaker 2: of months after launching this coup against Putin. So the
Speaker 2: entire thing is really surreal to see Putin like fake
Speaker 2: mourn him.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean I wonder, I really wonder, because Russians aren't stupid.
Speaker 2: To ordinary Russian They're like, yeah, he was obviously killed
Speaker 2: by Putin. Why do they put up this whole song
Speaker 2: and dance.
Speaker 3: I'm just not even sure why it's necessary.
Speaker 1: There's a lot about this that I don't that I
Speaker 1: have trouble wrapping my head around. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know why he ever thought he was going to be
Speaker 1: able to be successful with the coup in the first place.
Speaker 5: I do know.
Speaker 1: On you, but once you start man, you can't stop.
Speaker 1: Like we said at the time, this man is not
Speaker 1: going to a little long life right now. I didn't
Speaker 1: think it was going to come this quickly. I thought
Speaker 1: it'd be years down the road. By the time people
Speaker 1: had sort of like forgotten this incident and moved on.
Speaker 1: You'd see a footnote in the New York Times or
Speaker 1: wherever saying that he had been assassinated, poisoned, you know,
Speaker 1: push down a window, whatever, or fell to an untimely
Speaker 1: death out of a window. It seems to happen to
Speaker 1: a number of these Russian oligarchs. For it to be
Speaker 1: this quick and this really brazen is quite remarkable. But
Speaker 1: that makes sense to me because Putin is trying to
Speaker 1: you know, reassert dominance, reassert control, et cetera. I do
Speaker 1: not understand why Progotion thought that this deal would hold up.
Speaker 1: I do not undernderstand why he still felt at liberty
Speaker 1: to fly around and try to keep his his control
Speaker 1: over the Wagner Group, his control over these various interests,
Speaker 1: especially you know, around Africa and the Middle East. Clearly,
Speaker 1: the Kremlin had been trying to kind of take over
Speaker 1: the business operations that Wagner had previously been leading, but
Speaker 1: they say that Progosion refused to retire quietly. In that
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal piece, Chris Costing the Middle East, Eastern Europe,
Speaker 1: in Africa, in a bid to keep his business links alive,
Speaker 1: posted audio messages offering mercenaries to the military regime that
Speaker 1: had recently taken power in Niger, a video of himself
Speaker 1: and Molly posing with the sniper rifle and four magazines
Speaker 1: strapped to a bullet proof vest, vowing to quote make
Speaker 1: Russia even greater in Africa even more free. So why
Speaker 1: did he feel at liberty to do these things? I
Speaker 1: mean to just like basically have a death wish? Did he,
Speaker 1: you know, really feel like he had that level of
Speaker 1: understanding with Putin where he could really trust his word,
Speaker 1: et cetera. I don't know a lot about it is
Speaker 1: still very perplexing.
Speaker 2: You can you know, I mean, you can just remind
Speaker 2: is it takes a certain personality to be a global
Speaker 2: mercenary head warlord, cutting people's heads off and stuff inside Ukraine.
Speaker 2: It takes a certain personality to survive in Putin's Russia,
Speaker 2: to rise from chef to oligarch, to kiss ass to megalomaniac,
Speaker 2: to warrior to coup. You know, sometimes people are actually very.
Speaker 3: Not rational at all.
Speaker 2: So it's true you can see here, like with him,
Speaker 2: it seemed a delusional In many cases, the delusions that
Speaker 2: can actually get you a tremendous amount of power very
Speaker 2: often will end up being your downfall.
Speaker 3: And it seems that that very much.
Speaker 2: Was the case overall, though, I mean, in terms of why,
Speaker 2: of what matters, it does seem there's like a temporary
Speaker 2: Wagner memorial inside of Russia.
Speaker 3: Some people were mourning him in Moscow.
Speaker 2: There were things coming, But overall, I mean, we haven't
Speaker 2: seen any change in the front line. Wagner has largely
Speaker 2: been you know, been amassed into the Russian armed services.
Speaker 2: You've not seen any major, you know, change in terms
Speaker 2: of battlefield like preparation or any of that.
Speaker 3: So also so the.
Speaker 2: Commanders on the ground who seemed somewhat sympathetic to pregosion,
Speaker 2: they've been fired and unceremoniously dismissed and putin and in
Speaker 2: many ways, I mean, seems stronger than ever. He killed
Speaker 2: his main rival out in the open. It was a
Speaker 2: blatant signal. It's like you crossed me, I'm gonna kill you.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna blow you out of the sky and then
Speaker 2: fake mourn your death on national television.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I can't think of a more bloodthirsty thing you can do.
Speaker 2: A more cold thing also that you can do in
Speaker 2: terms of a message.
Speaker 1: Jegor's analysis of Progosion has always been that he was
Speaker 1: basically high on his own supply.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that he had delusions of grandeur, that he
Speaker 1: really bought the hype around him, which was in some
Speaker 1: ways hype that was created by the like Russian media
Speaker 1: propaganda networks. So they sort of built him up as
Speaker 1: this heroic figure and then he was very you know,
Speaker 1: omnipresident on social media or whatever, and so he really
Speaker 1: misgauged the actual level of support that he had among
Speaker 1: the people. Again, these things are very hard to judge
Speaker 1: from Afar, you know, how he felt and how people
Speaker 1: feel about him, and how they felt, you know, felt
Speaker 1: about him, then feel about him now, et cetera. But
Speaker 1: that was his analysis, is that, you know, he had
Speaker 1: this sort of like potentkin village of social media and
Speaker 1: actual media support, and then once that media support is pulled,
Speaker 1: there's really not a lot left there in terms of
Speaker 1: his genuine support among the populace. And so when he
Speaker 1: starts this failed you know, coup attempt, which you know
Speaker 1: he denied it was really a coup attempt, but I
Speaker 1: think we all saw that in real time. Once he
Speaker 1: starts down this path and he doesn't see the people
Speaker 1: rallying to his cause in the way that he thought
Speaker 1: kind of burst his bubble, he freaks out. He makes
Speaker 1: his deal with Putin. That's the best that I can
Speaker 1: surmise of what happened here. But wild, well, never wild
Speaker 1: series of events.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess we get to live in interesting times.
Speaker 2: Speaking of that, there's an open war breaking out actually
Speaker 2: between US military generals and Ukrainian military generals, both in
Speaker 2: the press on background and in the public, and it's
Speaker 2: all kind of fascinating and it tells us a lot
Speaker 2: about where the conflict is. Let's ahead and put this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. This is from the New
Speaker 2: York Times, but it was one of many. There was
Speaker 2: one from the Times, There's one from the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 2: one from the Financial Times, and one from Foreign Policy,
Speaker 2: all basically quoting the same sources, which saying the exact
Speaker 2: same thing over and over again. US officials are saying
Speaker 2: that Ukraine's forces and its firepower are misallocated. American strategists
Speaker 2: saying Ukraine's troops are too spread out and they need
Speaker 2: to concentrate along the counterintensive main front in the south.
Speaker 2: The main criticism comes down to this crystal. The US
Speaker 2: is telling the Ukrainians a couple of things. You're firing
Speaker 2: way too much artillery. You're basically reverting to old style
Speaker 2: Soviet tactics.
Speaker 3: We're going to get to it in a little bit.
Speaker 3: But they fired almost.
Speaker 2: Two million artillery shells since the conflict began. Here's the
Speaker 2: issue with that. All of it comes from US. We
Speaker 2: manufacture it, and they have not only depleted all of
Speaker 2: our stockpiles. We can produce twenty thousand per month, they
Speaker 2: use ninety thousand per month. You can go ahead and
Speaker 2: guess how much Germany and the other ridiculous country which
Speaker 2: can't even hit two percent NATO spending or defense spending
Speaker 2: inside of NATO, how much they are able to produce.
Speaker 3: So they wiped out our overall stockpile, and they're.
Speaker 2: Massively depleting whatever we're even able to produce in the future.
Speaker 2: Number two, they have effectively been completely unable to actually
Speaker 2: fight Combined arms tactics in the way that a modern
Speaker 2: US military would fight. They are reverting much more to
Speaker 2: World War One style conflicts, where you shell the hell
Speaker 2: out of the people in front of you, you kind
Speaker 2: of burrow them into a hole, and then you just
Speaker 2: run forward and kind of hope that it all works.
Speaker 3: Out, take out whatever tanks you can.
Speaker 2: Again, with US supplied weapons hasn't worked out all that well.
Speaker 2: They've taken a couple of villages they're claiming one that
Speaker 2: they've had here, but no meaning field breakthrough actually on
Speaker 2: the front line, especially relative to the tens of thousands
Speaker 2: of casualties that they have suffered and the multi billions
Speaker 2: of dollars that wey have given them. The major concern
Speaker 2: that there is right now from the US side is
Speaker 2: that the Ukraine are not grappling with the fact that
Speaker 2: the amount of aid that they were given for this
Speaker 2: counter offensive, it's never going to happen again. I mean,
Speaker 2: even in terms of what they have asked the Biden
Speaker 2: administration for Congress, which has not yet been even considered
Speaker 2: and has faced a lot of problems inside of Congress.
Speaker 2: The extra twenty five billion, some of that is humanitarian aid.
Speaker 2: In terms of the military aid. You can appropriate all
Speaker 2: you want, but in terms of the hard actual number
Speaker 2: of things that we have at our disposal, especially for
Speaker 2: the defense industrial base, it'll never come to this again.
Speaker 2: So if they're just going to rely on shooting as
Speaker 2: many shells as possible, it's just not going to work.
Speaker 2: There is some indication that the Ukrainians have been listening,
Speaker 2: because they have taken a couple of small villages in
Speaker 2: the last couple of days, and they're seeing a little
Speaker 2: bit more movement. Most of that is from pressure by
Speaker 2: the West in order to concentrate the majority of their
Speaker 2: forces at single strategic points. But they also have to
Speaker 2: watch out because the Russians now are also, it seems,
Speaker 2: massing before at least some sort of counter offensive against
Speaker 2: the counter offensive. Again, it's all very reminiscent of World
Speaker 2: War One, But then in terms of the future, what
Speaker 2: the hell is going to happen here? US strategists and
Speaker 2: all them defend The National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refuses
Speaker 2: to say it's a stalemate. He says, it's not a stalemate,
Speaker 2: but we haven't seen anything major breakthrough. They're prepping the
Speaker 2: ground for this thing going on forever. David Ignatius, who
Speaker 2: is like the deep state whisperer. Let's go ahead, put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. Here's what he says.
Speaker 2: How the usces Ukraine's push no stalemate but no breakthrough.
Speaker 3: What does that mean? Someone can explain that when.
Speaker 2: The definition of a stalemate a here are the top
Speaker 2: line things that actually come out for it for our purposes.
Speaker 3: Number One, Kiev says that this is going to go
Speaker 3: on forever.
Speaker 2: Number two US and Ukraine dramatically disagree in terms of strategy.
Speaker 2: Then number three, and this was actually the most important
Speaker 2: one to me quote. With Ukrainian forces steimide on the ground,
Speaker 2: US officials believe President Zelinski will take the fight increasingly
Speaker 2: to Russian territory and occupied Crimea. In other words, the
Speaker 2: more they are bogged down on the ground, they're going
Speaker 2: to try and force strikes on Russian terry or territory
Speaker 2: and in Crimea. Again, look, they can do whatever they want,
Speaker 2: but then they should bear all the risk if they're
Speaker 2: going to provide and use our weapons to do so.
Speaker 2: That puts US in a whole other ballgame, especially if
Speaker 2: they're not using easily little drones against Moscow and the Kremlin.
Speaker 2: They're actually using US provided F sixteens, of which some
Speaker 2: of them are beginning to trade right now. There was
Speaker 2: also a very telling actually line in here crystal about
Speaker 2: at cams in terms of long range missiles that they
Speaker 2: have long desired. Quote, the United States doesn't have enough
Speaker 2: at cams to supply Ukraine without undercutting its own readiness
Speaker 2: for any future conflict with China. And the reason why
Speaker 2: I think that line struck to me so hard is
Speaker 2: that the over and over again we are learning is
Speaker 2: that we already know that the Biden administration will.
Speaker 3: Eventually cave and they are going to give them these weapons.
Speaker 2: And yet they always try to deny the reality that
Speaker 2: it is dramatically reducing US defense readiness and the capabilities
Speaker 2: of the overall industrial base. At this point, you know,
Speaker 2: you should be resigned. These weapons are going to Ukraine.
Speaker 2: There's no way that. First all, we're not going to
Speaker 2: send the F sixties. Now we're sending sixties. We're never
Speaker 2: going to send the cluster munitions. Now we're basically the
Speaker 2: only reason they're having any movement on the ground is
Speaker 2: because of the cluster munitions. Now this one, they're like
Speaker 2: long range missiles. Oh well, they could strike deep inside
Speaker 2: Russia will hear the you know hymns and haws about
Speaker 2: that for a little while. We all they're going to
Speaker 2: do it. They cave, the Ukrainians get everything that they want.
Speaker 2: And so the last thing I'll say about it is
Speaker 2: it is clear to me that the Ukrainians are fighting
Speaker 2: as if they have a bottomless supply.
Speaker 3: They refuse to wake up to reality.
Speaker 2: And you know, eventually, I think, you know, the bill
Speaker 2: on this is going to come doe. But the West
Speaker 2: is also deluded into thinking that its populations and its
Speaker 2: defense industrial bases will be able to provide the Ukrainians
Speaker 2: with the things that they need with the tax that
Speaker 2: they have, tactics they have decided that they are going
Speaker 2: to use, and the stalemate that they are signing themselves
Speaker 2: up for, it's not one which is strategically on their side.
Speaker 3: Russia is a real country.
Speaker 2: They've got real trade, They've got a real defense industrial base.
Speaker 2: You know, the Ukrainian industrial base pumps out like fifteen
Speaker 2: drones and they think they're like, oh, well, the drone
Speaker 2: supplies off two thousand percent. I'm like, so what you know?
Speaker 2: These are the amount that get shot down in like
Speaker 2: three days on the front line. Anyway, those are all
Speaker 2: my top line things from I read a lot about
Speaker 2: this over the yeast couple of days, and basically they're
Speaker 2: trying to prep the US population for it's going to
Speaker 2: be Afghanistan. It's just going to take years.
Speaker 1: It's going to go for it.
Speaker 3: It's just never going to end.
Speaker 2: And the more that happens, the more as he even
Speaker 2: acknowledges here that they're going to pursue more aggressive strikes
Speaker 2: inside of Russian inside of occupied crime yet, which only
Speaker 2: escalates the conflict even further.
Speaker 1: Well, because the same analysis that you know, we and
Speaker 1: many others have provided on the Russian side of the
Speaker 1: more the more difficult and the more desperate they are,
Speaker 1: the more dangerous tactics they will deploy. It's exact same
Speaker 1: on the Ukrainian side. The more desperate and the less
Speaker 1: success they have in these offensives, the more that they
Speaker 1: will be willing to drone strike within Russian territory and
Speaker 1: take more dangerous, potentially provocative, potentially escalatory moves. So you know,
Speaker 1: the US is well aware of this, as David Ignatius,
Speaker 1: you know, one of their sort of like media allies
Speaker 1: is putting out there they're well aware of this, but
Speaker 1: they have zero interest in really doing anything but tut
Speaker 1: tutting and asking nicely for them to stop, which the
Speaker 1: Ukrainians have zero intention of actually doing. The other thing
Speaker 1: that I was trying to figure out, Sager, is, you know,
Speaker 1: anytime you see these new media narratives coming out of
Speaker 1: the sort of like established media ally channels like the
Speaker 1: New York Times and like the Washington Post, you always
Speaker 1: have to ask yourself.
Speaker 3: Like why because they're not listening, Why.
Speaker 1: Why are they putting this out there now? And I
Speaker 1: do think, Look, I think it's partly reality that the
Speaker 1: Ukrainians have not pursued the strategy that US one of
Speaker 1: them to pursue. You know, reportedly in New York Times
Speaker 1: they wanted them to really concentrate their forces to try
Speaker 1: to break up this land bridge that they have between
Speaker 1: Russian Crimea, which allows the Russians to have these supply lines.
Speaker 1: That was really where they wanted to focus their troops.
Speaker 1: The Ukrainians have spread their forces more thinly across the
Speaker 1: east and across the south. But I also think it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of like I actually think it's a
Speaker 1: lot of cover your ass of like explaining the US population,
Speaker 1: why it hasn't gone as well as it was really
Speaker 1: sold going in, and how it's not our fault at all,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's their fault. Everything's on their side.
Speaker 1: We did everything that we possibly could, and you know,
Speaker 1: if we just and also the implication here is, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if we just get them to change some of their tactics,
Speaker 1: then things will go completely differently, which I think is
Speaker 1: also a farce and of fantasy.
Speaker 2: I honestly, look, I say this was whatever respect I
Speaker 2: can musters the Ukrainian military. They are some of the
Speaker 2: most arrogant people I have ever read about in all
Speaker 2: of history. Because they think that they're like they're talking
Speaker 2: the US military literally pays all their bills, run all
Speaker 2: their surveillance runs, all their ISR, provides all of their weapons,
Speaker 2: and they're like, no, no, no, we know better than US
Speaker 2: military planners. One of them, actually, the head of the
Speaker 2: Ukrainian forces, was like, this is the Battle of Kursk
Speaker 2: for people who don't know, that was like a major
Speaker 2: battle that happened in the Eastern Front in nineteen forty three,
Speaker 2: was one of the largest tank battles. I think it's
Speaker 2: maybe the largest tank battle ever in all of history.
Speaker 2: It eventually is what helped, you know, quell the Nazi invasion.
Speaker 2: But again with great respect, like, you are not Stalin's
Speaker 2: Soviet Union, and you are not somebody with like any
Speaker 2: real industrial base or ability in order to mounter mount
Speaker 2: the actual defense that would be necessary in order to
Speaker 2: pull something like that off, as evidenced by the lack
Speaker 2: of gains that you've made.
Speaker 3: So far in the counter offensive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and by you know, fairly like juvenile tactical mistakes
Speaker 2: like blowing ten billion dollars worth of artillery on a
Speaker 2: battle for a city which you then lose. It's one
Speaker 2: of those where again and again and again they revert
Speaker 2: to what they know best, which is fine, but they
Speaker 2: are not able to keep that up up for all
Speaker 2: of the downstream supply chain and everything else, and they're
Speaker 2: not the reason why, I think, is that the only
Speaker 2: way to reach the Ukrainians is through the US media,
Speaker 2: because clearly they don't listen.
Speaker 3: They're arrogant.
Speaker 2: They're like, no, we know exactly what we're going to do,
Speaker 2: and the US is like, well, we pay your bills
Speaker 2: and we can actually see you know, the maps, and
Speaker 2: you're not listening to us. So they start leaking on background.
Speaker 2: What has then happened is that now the Ukrainian generals
Speaker 2: are defending themselves in public. There was some meeting that
Speaker 2: happened on the Polish border between the generals and between
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian the head of the Ukrainian Armed forces as well.
Speaker 3: And look like we'll.
Speaker 2: See it's possible that they will make some small gains.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, I urge everybody
Speaker 2: every time I see these stories that like Ukraine takes
Speaker 2: small village, go look at a map of.
Speaker 3: The front line.
Speaker 6: This is what like they have taken scraps hundreds of yards.
Speaker 6: Twenty percent of the country is still held by Russia.
Speaker 6: The overall grand strategic vision has changed nothing.
Speaker 2: The only thing is a lot of people are dead,
Speaker 2: and billions and billions of dollars of munitions have been
Speaker 2: pumped into the ground, some of which are unexploded and
Speaker 2: will probably kill children like for one hundred years from now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, nobody seems to care about that.
Speaker 1: And in terms of prepping the US population for basically
Speaker 1: another forever war, at least in this time of forever
Speaker 1: quote unquote proxy war is I mean, I think on
Speaker 1: the sort of like liberal democratic side is basically working,
Speaker 1: Like Ukraine has really slipped from the front of people's consciousness.
Speaker 1: They've just sort of accepted this is this ongoing thing
Speaker 1: that we're going to continue, you know, pumping resources and
Speaker 1: money and focus and attention into. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: just it is taken for granted now among much of
Speaker 1: the population that this is just kind of the status quo. So,
Speaker 1: you know, in a lot of ways, I think those
Speaker 1: propaganda efforts have been successful, but the dangers we've been
Speaker 1: warning about, both in terms of escalation and in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, resources that are being expended here, those
Speaker 1: continue to be incredibly real and not something that anyone
Speaker 1: should push out of their mind because and also, you know,
Speaker 1: most importantly, like this is a human catastrophe. It's horrendous
Speaker 1: the number of limbs that are lost and lives that
Speaker 1: are lost and lives that are upended. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is just an absolute human calamity, and so we shouldn't
Speaker 1: lose attention and focus on it for that reason alone.
Speaker 3: Yep, absolutely right.
Speaker 1: I wanted to break down for you what is actually
Speaker 1: a really massive game changing decision that was just made
Speaker 1: by the National Labor Relations Board under Joe Biden, that
Speaker 1: could actually really change the game in terms of union
Speaker 1: density in this country. Let me go and put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen and then I'll explain in detail
Speaker 1: what all of this means. This is courtesy of more
Speaker 1: Perfect Union, they say, breaking The Nationally Relations Board has
Speaker 1: ruled that if bosses commit unfair labor practices in the
Speaker 1: run up to a union election, which happens, by the way,
Speaker 1: guys all the time, like routinely in a majority of
Speaker 1: union elections, the bosses commit unfair labor practices. If that happens,
Speaker 1: then the union election is going to be canceled and
Speaker 1: the National Airbor Relations Board will order the employer to
Speaker 1: immediately recognize the union and bargain with the union. More
Speaker 1: Perfect Union adds, union busting just got a lot harder.
Speaker 1: They go on to say, Now every union campaign has
Speaker 1: to go to an election to get formal recognition, but
Speaker 1: bosses use that time to union bust, often illegally. Now,
Speaker 1: if a majority of workers support the union, bosses will
Speaker 1: have to stop union busting or be forced to negotiate
Speaker 1: and recognize the union with no election at all. As
Speaker 1: the chair of the NLRB says, quote, it eliminates incentives
Speaker 1: for employers to commit unfair labor practices as a way
Speaker 1: to delay or defeat representation when a majority of workers
Speaker 1: have shown support for a union. So as it stands
Speaker 1: prior to this ruling, as you guys likely know, if
Speaker 1: workers want to organize with a union, it is a
Speaker 1: non sive uphill clion. The very first step is the
Speaker 1: union will get supporters who are interested in joining the
Speaker 1: union to sign cards. They'd sign off basically saying yes,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in joining the union. Now, it used to
Speaker 1: be that if a majority of workers signed those cards,
Speaker 1: the assumption was, okay, then you're going to be represented
Speaker 1: by a union and the employer has to bargain with you,
Speaker 1: unless there are some more extraordinary circumstances that would indicate
Speaker 1: that actually, no, a majority of workers don't really want
Speaker 1: to join the union, and then it would go to election.
Speaker 1: So it used to be, and this was called the
Speaker 1: Joysilk doctrine. They used to be it was the presumption
Speaker 1: that the workers, if there was a majority of card signed,
Speaker 1: would form a union. That has been completely upended over decades,
Speaker 1: and now the presumption is the total opposite. Doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how many workers signed the card, it's going to an election,
Speaker 1: and all of that time between when the cards are
Speaker 1: signed and when the election happens, employers routinely engage in illegal,
Speaker 1: unfair labor practices and overt union busting. So this ruling
Speaker 1: is now taking a step part of the way back
Speaker 1: towards that old method where the presumption was that if
Speaker 1: majorities of workers want to join a union, then you know,
Speaker 1: they have to recognize the union. So if the employer
Speaker 1: then is caught engaging in unfair labor practices, union election
Speaker 1: is canceled and the you know, union wins and they
Speaker 1: have to bargain with them. So this is a huge deal.
Speaker 1: The backstory here and why this ruling is coming out
Speaker 1: now is because there's a group of Cemechs Cement truck
Speaker 1: drivers who in twenty nineteen narrowly voted against joining the Teamsters. However,
Speaker 1: during the run up to that election, Semacks the company
Speaker 1: had committed more than two dozen unfair labor practices that
Speaker 1: included threatening, surveilling, and terarogating workers, having security guards to
Speaker 1: intimidate them, et cetera, et cetera, And so because they
Speaker 1: had so wildly skewed the results of this elect the
Speaker 1: National Ay Relations Board is now saying no, that election
Speaker 1: is now null and void, and you have to recognize
Speaker 1: this Teamsters union and you have to start bargaining with them,
Speaker 1: and that logic is now going to be applied across
Speaker 1: the board. I cannot emphasize to you enough what a huge, historic,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of game changing deal this is in
Speaker 1: terms of workers who want to organize, And of course
Speaker 1: it comes at a time of increasing labor militancy, of
Speaker 1: rising grassroots union movements, and also of near historic high
Speaker 1: public support for unions as well. So this is really
Speaker 1: quite extraordinary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just I was trying to figure out,
Speaker 2: like why now, is it also in the context of
Speaker 2: the UAW strike, Like that's what we had been looking at,
Speaker 2: that's the one that's looming. At the same time, we've
Speaker 2: actually seen successful resolution of some of these bigger disputes
Speaker 2: like ups for example, despite posturing.
Speaker 3: So is it on the heels of that, Like.
Speaker 1: No, it really comes straight out of the General Counsel
Speaker 1: Jennifer Brusso, the National Labor Relations Board under Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: who I think has been extraordinary, I think is one
Speaker 1: of the best, you know things that that Joe Biden
Speaker 1: has done putting her in this position. She has said
Speaker 1: for a while that she wants to revisit the Joysilk
Speaker 1: Road doctrine, and so unions have been waiting and workers
Speaker 1: have been waiting to see how this all comes down.
Speaker 1: And as I said, this is almost like a middle
Speaker 1: of the road path because it doesn't go all the
Speaker 1: way back to just what you know would be called
Speaker 1: card check, where if there's a majority of card sign
Speaker 1: that's it, end of story. There's a union, unless the
Speaker 1: burden is on the boss to prove that no, in reality,
Speaker 1: there aren't a majority of workers, and then you go
Speaker 1: to the election. So it doesn't go all the way
Speaker 1: back to that. It's kind of a middle of the road,
Speaker 1: but in comparison to where we are today, is a
Speaker 1: huge deal. And so you know, this is a general
Speaker 1: counsel at the National Labor Relations Board who's been very
Speaker 1: interested in trying to rebalance the skills and make it
Speaker 1: much more fair for workers to be able to organize
Speaker 1: and be able to bargain. And this particular case that
Speaker 1: ended up before the National Labor Relations Board just gave
Speaker 1: them the sort of perfect opportunity to revise and update
Speaker 1: the you know the approach with regards to when unions
Speaker 1: are recognized and when the elections have to occur. So
Speaker 1: I think they were. If I had to say why now,
Speaker 1: it's because this case provided them with the opportunity to
Speaker 1: issue an updated ruling and updated guidance about how this
Speaker 1: is all supposed to work.
Speaker 3: That makes sense.
Speaker 2: Well, then it will likely spawn some more labor actions
Speaker 2: in the future because people will feel as if they
Speaker 2: have much more of a cover, and it will also
Speaker 2: change the way the business has to interact.
Speaker 1: We said unions, workers will have a lot less fear
Speaker 1: about like because as of now, you know, we covered
Speaker 1: the Amazon fight down in Bessemer, Alabama, right, and a
Speaker 1: lot of workers in a region where there aren't a
Speaker 1: lot of good jobs. You know, they were fearful. Right,
Speaker 1: They're afraid, like, Okay, I've got a job that pays
Speaker 1: pretty decently, and yeah, I got all these problems with it,
Speaker 1: and I might like to be part of a union
Speaker 1: and have that kind of collective power, but I'm afraid,
Speaker 1: like they might retell against me, they might close up
Speaker 1: shop all together, they might fire me. All of those
Speaker 1: things were a real possibility, and in the past, workers
Speaker 1: that routinely. I mean bosses that utinely union routinely union bust,
Speaker 1: like Starbucks, like Amazon, like basically all of them. They
Speaker 1: would get a slop on the wrist, you know, they
Speaker 1: have to like pay a modest fine or post the
Speaker 1: rules that and the rights that workers have in the workplace,
Speaker 1: and that would basically be it. So there was no
Speaker 1: real accountability or no real consequence to work to bosses
Speaker 1: just overwhelmingly union bust. So yeah, this completely changes the landscape.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it'll take some time for workers
Speaker 1: to really internalize, like, no, actually I don't have to
Speaker 1: be so fearful of those consequences. I can actually, if
Speaker 1: I want to join a union, be involved in organizing
Speaker 1: all of those things. But the way that this rebalances
Speaker 1: the scales, the way this changes the landscape. We've had
Speaker 1: years and years and years of union density decline, and
Speaker 1: even in this past little you know, a little stretch
Speaker 1: over the past year, couple of years where you've had
Speaker 1: a lot more activity, You've had a lot more strikes,
Speaker 1: you've had a lot more union efforts, You've had the
Speaker 1: Starbucks movement, the Amazon movement, all of that stuff. You
Speaker 1: still as a percentage of the workforce have seen the percentage,
Speaker 1: like the union density decline. This could actually be the
Speaker 1: thing that flips that on its head, that enters a
Speaker 1: new era of increasingly building worker power. And you know,
Speaker 1: to shift to the other part of this that is
Speaker 1: really big. You pointed out the Teamsters. The UPS workers
Speaker 1: organized under the Teamsters just scored some major wins in
Speaker 1: terms of their contract, got a lot of attention some
Speaker 1: of the drivers. We make it one hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: p year with benefits, with benefits those you know, but
Speaker 1: that's that's a good, good wage. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that's not just good for UPS workers. Any driver in
Speaker 1: the package delivery industry is probably going to benefit from
Speaker 1: those because FedEx they're going to have to up their
Speaker 1: game to compete now with UPS. So you're starting to
Speaker 1: see these big national movements where workers can really tell hey,
Speaker 1: if I have a union, I might be able to
Speaker 1: get a better deal. They can see the wins in
Speaker 1: the games that are occurring here. And we've got another
Speaker 1: really big one that is coming down the pike that
Speaker 1: we've been following closely. Go ahead and put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. So the United Auto Workers, of course
Speaker 1: represent workers at all the Big three Automakers. They have
Speaker 1: now overwhelmingly voted to authorize strikes at GM, Ford and Stalantis.
Speaker 1: Delantis the name of the other Big three at this point.
Speaker 1: The union on Friday said an average of ninety seven
Speaker 1: percent of combined members at the Automakers approved the action. However,
Speaker 1: final votes are still being tallied. They have a new
Speaker 1: president at the UAW, guy named Sean Fain, who ran
Speaker 1: on being more militant and more representative of the rank
Speaker 1: and file. He was quoted as saying, the Big three
Speaker 1: is our strike target. No whether or not there is
Speaker 1: a strike, it's up to Ford, GM and Stalantis because
Speaker 1: they know what our priorities are. We have been clear,
Speaker 1: and the demands that the union is starting their negotiation
Speaker 1: with are you know, they're quite extraordinary, like they're they're
Speaker 1: audacious and I personally love to see it includes a
Speaker 1: forty six percent wage increase to match the wage increase
Speaker 1: that the CEOs of the Big Three have gotten over
Speaker 1: just the past couple of years. Restoration of traditional pensions,
Speaker 1: so not for a one K like defined benefit. This
Speaker 1: is what you get in this end of the story.
Speaker 1: Cost of living increases, which is something that these workers
Speaker 1: gave up when they helped to bail out these automakers
Speaker 1: during the financial crash, and reducing the work week to
Speaker 1: thirty two hours from forty and increasing retiring benefits, so
Speaker 1: basically going to a four day work week, something that
Speaker 1: has been successful in other industries and studies have shown
Speaker 1: has been pretty successful overall. But that's another you know,
Speaker 1: that's a really big deal. So the strike deadline, the
Speaker 1: deadline in terms of contract negotiations is coming here in
Speaker 1: just the next couple of weeks in mid September, and
Speaker 1: obviously if these workers go out on strike, it would
Speaker 1: be a really, really big deal, and whatever contract they
Speaker 1: are able to secure is also going to be a
Speaker 1: really big deal, not just for auto workers, but for
Speaker 1: a lot of different workers across a lot of industries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's actually the most interesting one to me is
Speaker 2: both about the changes, as you said about ups and
Speaker 2: how that will change the overall package delivery mark especially
Speaker 2: continue to massively grow. But then also with UAW that
Speaker 2: sets the actual tone for as we head into even
Speaker 2: more automation electric vehicles. That's where actually some of the
Speaker 2: biggest fights with them are on you demanding that X
Speaker 2: amount be actually made here in the US. I think
Speaker 2: that's the most important thing about helping us remain resilient
Speaker 2: as a country, to make sure that in any future
Speaker 2: problem that we actually be able to control a lot
Speaker 2: of what we actually need in order to subsist and
Speaker 2: to live here. And the union is actually a huge
Speaker 2: part of that. It's interesting because they're the ones really
Speaker 2: fighting for all. If the execs had their way, every
Speaker 2: single thing would be made in China. They don't even
Speaker 2: want to make it in Mexico. They want to make
Speaker 2: it all halfway across the globe in order to save
Speaker 2: you a penny, in order to squeeze even more out
Speaker 2: of the stock price.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the UAW has been unhappy with the vitamin
Speaker 1: instration not doing enough to make sure the new ev
Speaker 1: and battery jobs are union and pay similar wages to
Speaker 1: the rest of the industry. So that's one of the
Speaker 1: big fights. But you know, not everybody is happy about
Speaker 1: workers trying to claim a little bit of power, a
Speaker 1: little bit of better wages, benefits, et cetera. Over on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News, they were live from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's
Speaker 1: very beautiful, lovely surrounding that they're there. Kind of freaking
Speaker 1: out about this potential strike and what is going on
Speaker 1: with the workforce listake alism.
Speaker 2: We've had the pay rises, we've had the union action,
Speaker 2: we haven't had the strike exactly, and I don't think.
Speaker 3: Anyone wants to see those strikes any Tom Suon I thought.
Speaker 7: Which has transmitted into this belief that labor has the
Speaker 7: upper hand, and that if labor has the upper hand,
Speaker 7: price increases can continue, not just union jobs, but more broadly.
Speaker 7: And that is the key question here. Is that going
Speaker 7: to continue so that you see a longer and higher
Speaker 7: inflation and a stronger and better economy for even with
Speaker 7: the race that we see right now.
Speaker 3: So it's time for.
Speaker 8: The surveillance extrapolation. We do this every year, Jack, some
Speaker 8: whole John, I'm trying to envision you, bronze shorts working
Speaker 8: your butt off at ups pop in one seventy You
Speaker 8: all in.
Speaker 3: That's so never gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 3: Why are you talking down the potential for this to happen.
Speaker 3: If we've put.
Speaker 8: John Agustus exactly, Yes, exactly, Lisa, if we put John
Speaker 8: at Flint, Michigan building, Buick's huh, what are you gonna
Speaker 8: pop to twenty five.
Speaker 3: Now show you got to pay an auto.
Speaker 1: Work more than delivering boxes. They cannot believe that these
Speaker 1: workers are actually earning decent salaries. They think only people
Speaker 1: like them deserve to earn, you know, living able to
Speaker 1: afford like a house in a middle class life, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But you know the thing I love about those close
Speaker 1: we've played some of the ones with Cramer freaking out
Speaker 1: O're on CNBC, is just like, this has never happened
Speaker 1: in my life, where they actually feel worried that there
Speaker 1: is some countervailing force on the other side, and it
Speaker 1: is a remarkable.
Speaker 3: Thing to behold.
Speaker 2: I think what happened is is that we had a
Speaker 2: massive oversaturation of white collar workers. Is obviously with the
Speaker 2: student debt crisis and the entire generation of people who
Speaker 2: wake up and you're like, wait, I don't actually make
Speaker 2: all that much money, and especially whenever it keeps up
Speaker 2: with the real inflation, not just inflation costs of goods,
Speaker 2: but the necessary inflation for shelter.
Speaker 3: And then you combine mortgage rates and then you.
Speaker 2: Have to look at like, what are people actually paying
Speaker 2: for what's genuinely valued. At the end of the day,
Speaker 2: it's about capitalism and in our system. What we are
Speaker 2: finding is that the service sector in general, we've squeezed
Speaker 2: as not as much as we can, but a lot
Speaker 2: of what we have already to get the gains, but
Speaker 2: we've forgotten so much about all this necessary part of
Speaker 2: our economy, the blue collar workforce. And then they using
Speaker 2: their ability in order to extract concessions, are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we actually want to get paid. You relied on us
Speaker 2: all throughout COVID. We're not just gonna sit here and
Speaker 2: we're not going to take it anymore. It turns out
Speaker 2: AI is more of a threat for the lawyer than
Speaker 2: it is for the driver. And so in that scenario,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, I won't say it in the
Speaker 2: in a crass ways from goodfellas like screw you pay me.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like I've got you, and why shouldn't they?
Speaker 2: So it does annoy me, you know, the way they're
Speaker 2: talking like, oh, pulling two twenty five an hour, there's
Speaker 2: no way all of First of all, it's not true,
Speaker 2: but second you know, it's one of those where it's like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: well what's wrong with that?
Speaker 3: Like why is that bad? Why is it bad?
Speaker 9: Though?
Speaker 2: Why are you saying that the bow tide guy sitting
Speaker 2: in Jackson Hole. I really think a lot of it
Speaker 2: is class anxiety. They're just bad at the idea that
Speaker 2: these people who actually get paid even close to some
Speaker 2: of them or their kids, who are you know, majors
Speaker 2: something useless in college, and we're banking on some like
Speaker 2: you know, upper middle class ish type job which is
Speaker 2: just not paying out the same way that it used to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think the class anxiety part of
Speaker 1: this is very real, and the class just contempt like
Speaker 1: they just don't fit. Like none of those people could
Speaker 1: do the package dealery exactly, none of them could do it.
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. That is a freaking hard job.
Speaker 1: Those men and women are working their asses off and
Speaker 1: it is brutal, and it is heart on your heart,
Speaker 1: on your body, and they are actually providing a service
Speaker 1: that every one of us depends on. And so to
Speaker 1: have this like sneering contempt about them earning a decent
Speaker 1: wage and being able to potentially possibly maybe sometime in
Speaker 1: their life, afford a house, and that they think that
Speaker 1: that is so undeserved. Meanwhile, you know, they don't think
Speaker 1: twice about the multimillion dollars salaries that they're raking in,
Speaker 1: like sitting in a studio or flying to Jackson Hole
Speaker 1: and opining for the world on their thoughts on you know,
Speaker 1: the business world from on high. They don't think twice
Speaker 1: about that. But when it's people who are actually making
Speaker 1: the economy work, building cars, delivering packages, et cetera, it's
Speaker 1: nothing but sneers and nothing but contempt.
Speaker 2: That's right, well, speaking of sneers, contempt, class anxiety.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good transition.
Speaker 3: There's so much going on here.
Speaker 2: Oliver Anthony of the Richmond North of Richmond Fame number
Speaker 2: one on the Billboard Top one hundred, the number one
Speaker 2: song in the United States, didn't take so kindly to
Speaker 2: seeing his song used in the GOP debate, and not
Speaker 2: just in the debate, but really being embraced explicitly as
Speaker 2: a conservative kind of anthem against the ruling establishment.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 9: It's aggravating scene people on conservative news try to identify
Speaker 9: with me like I'm one of them. It's aggravating seeing
Speaker 9: certain musicians and politicians act like we're buddies and and
Speaker 9: act like we're fighting the same struggle here, like that
Speaker 9: were trying to present.
Speaker 3: The same message. It's fun It was funny seeing it
Speaker 3: at the presidential debate.
Speaker 9: Because it's like, I wrote that song about those people,
Speaker 9: you know, So for them to have to sit there
Speaker 9: and listen.
Speaker 1: To that, that cracks me up.
Speaker 9: But it was funny kind of seeing the response to it,
Speaker 9: Like that song has nothing to do with Joe Biden.
Speaker 9: You know, it's a lot bigger than Joe Biden. That
Speaker 9: song is written about the people on that stage and
Speaker 9: a lot more too, not just them, but definitely them.
Speaker 2: Very explicit call out of the Republican debate and also
Speaker 2: saying I wrote that song about people like them.
Speaker 3: Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: He also tweeted this out quote, I don't support either politically,
Speaker 2: not the left, not the right. I'm about supporting people
Speaker 2: and restoring local communities. Now breed some fresh air and relax, please,
Speaker 2: I'm not worth obsessing over.
Speaker 3: I promise go spend some time with your loved ones.
Speaker 2: He also put out a Facebook paste basically saying some
Speaker 2: of this as well. I apologize for beating a dead horse.
Speaker 2: I need to address this quote in my video earlier
Speaker 2: since it's been misquoted. Corporate news is now trying to
Speaker 2: twist me into being a Biden supporter. Richmond North of
Speaker 2: Richmond is about corporate owned DC politicians on both sides.
Speaker 2: Though Biden is most certainly a problem, the lyrics aren't
Speaker 2: exclusively knocking Biden.
Speaker 3: It is bigger and broader than that.
Speaker 2: It is knocking the system collectively, including the corporate owned
Speaker 2: conservative politicians that were on stage that night. Good night everyone,
Speaker 2: and thanks again. So I got to give the man credit,
Speaker 2: you know, it is. Of course, it's mostly been Republicans
Speaker 2: who have, at least on a national level, been trying
Speaker 2: to embrace the song. I've seen a lot of video course,
Speaker 2: you know a lot of people everybody Ford the song resonates,
Speaker 2: and you know, God bless.
Speaker 3: I think that's great.
Speaker 2: And so I have to give him credit because I
Speaker 2: think the easiest thing that would have possibly be in
Speaker 2: for him is to lean into this, right sure, to
Speaker 2: go to the Rittenhouse route or any of these be
Speaker 2: like listen, you know, it's trying to make some money,
Speaker 2: go sign some he said, he's turned down like multimillion
Speaker 2: dollar record deals. It'd be easy for him to go
Speaker 2: start playing Turning Point USA concerts. Oh yeah, and to
Speaker 2: you know, go to a Trump rally or something like that,
Speaker 2: and he's like, no, I don't want to now.
Speaker 3: Look, it remains to be seen. We'll see what he
Speaker 3: can do.
Speaker 2: It's not easy, though, to be thrust into overnight success
Speaker 2: and to fame like this and actually try and stand
Speaker 2: up at least for some semblance of what you believe
Speaker 2: in from a more principled level.
Speaker 3: So I do appreciate that. I really appreciate that he
Speaker 3: was willing to call these people out.
Speaker 2: And I actually continue I hope he continues to do
Speaker 2: so as more people try in order to weaponize this
Speaker 2: song on a political level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love two minds about it because on the
Speaker 1: one hand, like, obviously I enjoy him being like, screwagbox
Speaker 1: News and you're the problem in all these like Republican
Speaker 1: tools on stage, like this song is not for you,
Speaker 1: So I of course enjoy that. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: like the song is overtly political, so it's not so.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you're talking about like Jeffrey Epstein, you're
Speaker 1: talking about politicians, you're talking about you know, people on welfare.
Speaker 1: If you're five to three or three innerd pounds taxes
Speaker 1: not to pay for your bags of fudg rounds like,
Speaker 1: of course people are going to view that through a
Speaker 1: political lens, because it is overtly political, and the you know,
Speaker 1: the narrative, especially in that part about like you know,
Speaker 1: people who are overweight meeting fudge rounds and we're paying
Speaker 1: for them, Like that is a you know, explicitly right
Speaker 1: wing political statement. So I mean almost like in defense
Speaker 1: of Fox News and in defense of the conservative influencers
Speaker 1: who really were key to his success with this song,
Speaker 1: Like of course anyone hearing these lyrics would interpret it.
Speaker 2: That way, so I'll give their side of it. They
Speaker 2: actually saw some people saying that. They're like, hey, screw
Speaker 2: you man. They're like, the only reason you're famous is
Speaker 2: because of us, you know, it doesn't just be like
Speaker 2: the merits of the song. They're like, we're the ones
Speaker 2: who like posted it, memed it, and like brought it
Speaker 2: to our audience and really built you up and turned
Speaker 2: this into kind of an explicit like screw you against
Speaker 2: you know, the ruling establishment all those people. We're the
Speaker 2: ones who got it popular. That's why you know you
Speaker 2: you know, for who are you to come out and
Speaker 2: basically denounce your overall fan base. I don't know, I'm
Speaker 2: of a couple of minds of it. I think that
Speaker 2: the more look, I agree with you in terms of
Speaker 2: the explicit annaunceis of the song is very clear like
Speaker 2: what the song is. As I've said, I basically think
Speaker 2: it's it's like a blue collar folk libertarian type song,
Speaker 2: of which is you know, very reminiscent of like Reaganesque
Speaker 2: type themes.
Speaker 3: On the other it does seem.
Speaker 2: In some of his commentary since that he has been
Speaker 2: trying to distance himself from the more overtly political part.
Speaker 2: So I talked to you about this before I pull
Speaker 2: this up. He's clearly he's heard some of our criticism
Speaker 2: too about some of the language around welfare.
Speaker 3: Here's what he has to say.
Speaker 2: Our government likes to throw out money and problems without
Speaker 2: conceptualizing real solutions to connect to individuals involved. The lyrics
Speaker 2: contrast that some left without any and others are left
Speaker 2: only with the option of living on junk food. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: our farming industry has been corporatized and sold out. Food
Speaker 2: is entirely too expensive, especially in a nation with just
Speaker 2: abundant farmland. In politics, it's all about keeping people who
Speaker 2: are dependent dependent. So it did seem clear to me
Speaker 2: here in this song or in this kind of clear
Speaker 2: up lyric around the fudge rounds and comments. He didn't
Speaker 2: want it, though, to be perceived in the way that
Speaker 2: it was, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: But I mean the line literally says the obese milk
Speaker 1: and welfare, Like, how am I supposed to take that?
Speaker 3: I am not disagreeing with what you're saying.
Speaker 2: I'm only saying it is clear to me that he
Speaker 2: didn't want it to become sort of anthem I think
Speaker 2: against welfare in that way. And look, he didn't I mean,
Speaker 2: he didn't know he was going to go overnight fame,
Speaker 2: you know, unless it's I.
Speaker 1: Genuinely have no problem with the guy, Like I really
Speaker 1: have no problem with the guy. I find the like
Speaker 1: fascination with the song interesting. I find the adoption of
Speaker 1: the song you know by the Right interesting. As I
Speaker 1: said at the time, I think there's so much desire
Speaker 1: on the right to have some like culturally relevant products
Speaker 1: that anything that seems like it fits into their worldview.
Speaker 1: It's like, yes, we love It's very like they get
Speaker 1: very you know, people in that side get very excited.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why there was such an elevation
Speaker 1: of this song but I just you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: fine for things to be political too, Like there's oftentimes
Speaker 1: this reaction of like, oh, things that are political, that's bad.
Speaker 1: I don't want to Almost everything is political. Like certainly
Speaker 1: if you're talking about Jeffrey Epstein and milk and welfare
Speaker 1: and fudgrounds and war and all like, these things are
Speaker 1: all political. So I don't think that there should be
Speaker 1: this reaction against like interpreting it through a political lens.
Speaker 1: Because clearly a lot of the people that his art
Speaker 1: resonated with they did see it through a political lens.
Speaker 1: They interpreted it as a validation of their views. And
Speaker 1: that's fine. But I don't know that you can fully
Speaker 1: like you put your art out into the world, then
Speaker 1: people are allowed to interpret it and and you know,
Speaker 1: find resonance with it however they want to. So that's
Speaker 1: more my right my view.
Speaker 2: Well, his latest song, I think is actually it resonates
Speaker 2: with me a lot more talk about war r brink
Speaker 2: of the next World war talking explicitly, I mean I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say explicitly, but more so about calling out politician
Speaker 2: sending money abroad talk I think pretty clearly a swipe
Speaker 2: at Ukraine. I mean, you can call that coded left
Speaker 2: or right or whatever if you want. But if we
Speaker 2: can mean those types of lyrics into the broad populist,
Speaker 2: I'm all for it.
Speaker 3: I am now explicitly pro and Oliver.
Speaker 2: And if he's going to get some anti war rhetoric
Speaker 2: actually in order to be cool at least on some
Speaker 2: sort of pop culture level, to actually like break into
Speaker 2: people who may not have heard or considered those types
Speaker 2: of views before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is much more healthy.
Speaker 1: I do think your point of like, he could have
Speaker 1: very easily just been like, it's easy, Okay, the right
Speaker 1: loves me. Yeah, I'm going to embrace it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to like go all in on this. I mean, he
Speaker 1: could easily split up songs that are just like overtly
Speaker 1: right wing and really clear and continue to have a
Speaker 1: lot of success and make a lot of money. And
Speaker 1: so I do respect the fact that he was like,
Speaker 1: this is not this is not.
Speaker 3: The lay our respect.
Speaker 1: A lot of people do travel.
Speaker 3: Down that bat.
Speaker 2: How easy is it, you know, overnight fame like this.
Speaker 2: I bet you every Republican politician has asked for him
Speaker 2: in order to come and go on the stage. I
Speaker 2: bet you also that Fox is begging this guy, trying
Speaker 2: to like, we'll pay you whatever you want, private jet money,
Speaker 2: you know, in order to Trump and to become a
Speaker 2: contributor or whatever. I'm sure the Daily Wire and all
Speaker 2: those folks have been wanting to do something with him.
Speaker 2: I reached out to him through his one of his representatives,
Speaker 2: and they were pretty exclusive. They were like, look, he
Speaker 2: doesn't really want to do interviews. He doesn't want to
Speaker 2: turn himself into like a political fit, to be clear,
Speaker 2: you know, I think you can see from this like
Speaker 2: we yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 3: I would be interested in.
Speaker 2: Talking to him from a less of a like, hey,
Speaker 2: tell me about why Joe Biden sucks for you and
Speaker 2: just be like yeah, Like let's talk about this, Like
Speaker 2: what was going through your mind when you were writing
Speaker 2: the lyrics, Like where's it coming from? Tell me about
Speaker 2: your experience Farmville, your homestead. What is an inform about you?
Speaker 2: The very big song that you released after is about
Speaker 2: the war? Clearly you're very involved in online politics, Like
Speaker 2: why you know? Why does that resonate with you? These
Speaker 2: are all types of questions, So Oliver, if you're listening,
Speaker 2: we would love to. But I think in general it
Speaker 2: is it does take guts to actually explicitly put at
Speaker 2: arm's length the people who in many ways did make
Speaker 2: you famous and who are you know making you into
Speaker 2: a political statement and say I don't want to be
Speaker 2: associated with that from a long term play career wise,
Speaker 2: Probably the right move, you know, in terms of the
Speaker 2: probably the right way.
Speaker 5: If you want to if you want to last decades.
Speaker 5: So no, not if you want to immediately cash who knows.
Speaker 5: It's so impossible to say. I mean, I guess the
Speaker 5: last thing I'll say is like, I actually think the
Speaker 5: fact that, you know, some of his views are kind
Speaker 5: of like contradictory and they don't totally.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like normally very normal, way more
Speaker 1: normal than having a sort of like consistent ideological valance
Speaker 1: that you consistently apply across issues, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I try to be like I have thought a lot
Speaker 1: about my where I try to be consistent. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I fall short of that as well, but it's much
Speaker 1: more are normal to have a lot of sort of
Speaker 1: like a mishmash of views that may not fall exclusively
Speaker 1: in one camp or the other. So in that way,
Speaker 1: I think that his lyrics are very relatable, probably to
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 3: Of people, Crystal, what do you taking a look at?
Speaker 1: Well? After last week's Republican debate, the GOP donor and
Speaker 1: media class have a new queen, former South Carolina Governor
Speaker 1: Nicki Haley. The Washington Post conservative columnist Kathleen Parker raved
Speaker 1: about Nicky's brains and experiencing declaring quote hands down, Nicki
Speaker 1: Haley won the first GOP debate. New York Times is
Speaker 1: David Brooks cut to the chase, directly appealing to Nicky's
Speaker 1: likely constituency writing donors, this is the moment to give
Speaker 1: her a chance. Mediaum ogul Rupert Murdoch made his new
Speaker 1: favorite clear through the Wall Street Journal editorial board, which
Speaker 1: fawned over Haley's quote debate truths, and through the mouthpieces
Speaker 1: on Fox and Friends, who unanimously declared Haley the debate's
Speaker 1: clear winner, in particular because they love her neocon foreign policy.
Speaker 1: Kilmead called her right in every sense of the word.
Speaker 1: Doucy claimed his informal poll of fellow Fox talent and
Speaker 1: other assorted friends indicated Haley quote ran away with the show.
Speaker 1: Ainsley jumped in to take Haley's side, deeming Ramaswami's response
Speaker 1: unimpressive and unsatisfactory in that foreign policy exchange, Ainsley was
Speaker 1: also particularly dismayed at his lack of support for unconditional
Speaker 1: aid to Israel. Now it makes complete sense that Nikki
Speaker 1: Haley would receive a rapturous reception from legacy Republican elites.
Speaker 1: Her worldview is perfectly aligned with their interests. She is
Speaker 1: all in on forever proxy war in Ukraine. She will
Speaker 1: never even think of cutting back on our massive aid
Speaker 1: to Israel, no matter what atrocities are ethno state allies
Speaker 1: inflict and Palestinians. And since she didn't have a chance
Speaker 1: to make it clear on the debate stage, she quickly
Speaker 1: took to the cable news airwaves to proudly declare she
Speaker 1: would cut Social Security by lifting the retirement age. Take
Speaker 1: a listen.
Speaker 10: Well, you know you've got multiple candidates on that stage
Speaker 10: that said they wouldn't touch in titlements, including Trump, And
Speaker 10: any candidate that says they're not going to touch entitlements
Speaker 10: means that they're basically going to go into the go
Speaker 10: into office, and then leave America bankrupt. Social Security is
Speaker 10: going to go bankrupt in ten years, Medicare is going
Speaker 10: to go bankrupt in eight so The way we deal
Speaker 10: with it is we don't touch anyone's retirement or anyone
Speaker 10: who's been promised in But we go to people like
Speaker 10: my kids in their twenties when they're coming into the
Speaker 10: system and we say the rules have changed. We change
Speaker 10: retirement age to reflect life expectancy instead of cost of
Speaker 10: living increases. We do it based on inflation. We limit
Speaker 10: the benefits on the wealthy, and we expand Medicare advantage plans.
Speaker 3: What's the right age there that investor?
Speaker 10: Well, I think we have to do the numbers. We've
Speaker 10: got to figure out what it is. But what we
Speaker 10: do know is sixty five is way too low and
Speaker 10: we need to increase that.
Speaker 1: We need to do it according to life expectancy. Even
Speaker 1: Nicky's Trump critique is in tune with the big financial
Speaker 1: interests that have always dominated the Republican Party. She's not
Speaker 1: worried about the corruption of Trump or the massive giveaways
Speaker 1: the wealthy, or the dangerously belligerent stands towards the ron.
Speaker 1: At the debate, she laid into Trump on the debt
Speaker 1: and the deficit, and obviously from her comments on entitlements
Speaker 1: there and her love of the war complex, the only
Speaker 1: cut she's really interested in are those that would slash
Speaker 1: benefits for ordinary Americans, not the type that might unsettle
Speaker 1: our financial overlords. Now, let me say there's at least
Speaker 1: one thing I do like about Nikki Haley, and it's
Speaker 1: that I don't think that she would create the type
Speaker 1: of trumpy and chaos that he stoked on January sixth
Speaker 1: with his persistent lies about election fraud. She'd probably be
Speaker 1: open to the type of like Brooks Brothers coup that
Speaker 1: George W. Bush pulled off back in two thousand, but
Speaker 1: the ragtag over keithstone Coop's insurrection would not be on
Speaker 1: the menu. And I do genuinely appreciate that. I also
Speaker 1: like that she's not a terrifying religious zealate in the
Speaker 1: way of Mike Pence, and on the optics of the
Speaker 1: debate and the type of political theater that is reward
Speaker 1: in such settings, I do think she performed well, and
Speaker 1: voters seem to agree. Poles following the debate showed the
Speaker 1: former South Carolina governor receiving high marks. Most had her
Speaker 1: coming third to just Ramaswami and DeSantis. One even had
Speaker 1: her quote winning the debate overall, but even with Haley
Speaker 1: vastly exceeding ex dictations and performing to probably the peak
Speaker 1: of her abilities. The limits of her throwback Reagan era
Speaker 1: politics are obvious in her continued low pulling support. In
Speaker 1: the post debate polls, the very best for Haley showed
Speaker 1: her barely jumping into double digits, barely threatening DeSantis, let
Speaker 1: alone Trump. That an elite pro Nikki consensus formed so
Speaker 1: quickly really reveals that these people still have no clue
Speaker 1: about how to actually defeat Donald Trump, no idea about
Speaker 1: how much contempt the American people have for them and
Speaker 1: for their failed ideology. Elites have long fantasized that Trump
Speaker 1: is the whole problem in American politics, so we could
Speaker 1: just somehow get rid of him, then politics could get
Speaker 1: back to quote normal, a normal which included endless class
Speaker 1: warfare against working class people and ever skyrocketing inequality. But
Speaker 1: just take a look at this. If you remove Trump
Speaker 1: from this up primary, it's not the throwback Nikki Haley
Speaker 1: candidates who rise to the top. It's the candidates who
Speaker 1: most closely impersonate the big guy. Ramswami leads at twenty
Speaker 1: four percent, DeSantis to satistically tied with him at twenty
Speaker 1: three percent. No one else cracks double digits. This is
Speaker 1: nothing to celebrate. By the way, guys, Vivek is a
Speaker 1: full on climate denier who, out of ambition and political experience,
Speaker 1: is eager to watch the world burning even faster. DeSantis
Speaker 1: merrily uses immigrants and trans people as human pawns for
Speaker 1: political advantage in whatever culture war happens to be hot
Speaker 1: online that day. Both of them want a wage war
Speaker 1: on Mexico, apparently and presumably because they saw some poll
Speaker 1: that said that's what the GOP base wants. But no
Speaker 1: one should be surprised when Charlatan's rise to fill a
Speaker 1: vacuum created by decades of disastrous policies which have destroyed
Speaker 1: the middle class, commodified our entire lives, and sold off
Speaker 1: our futures to the highest bidders. And until we address
Speaker 1: that core rod, we are going to be left with
Speaker 1: a kind of depressing politics which would force us to
Speaker 1: choose between a Haley or a DeSantis, a Trump or
Speaker 1: a Biden. In other words, Trump and is Wan, of
Speaker 1: these they are a symptom of these deeper problems. But
Speaker 1: Nikki Haley and her benefactors, they are the problem. And
Speaker 1: the answers were nowhere to be found at last week's debate,
Speaker 1: sacer what do you make of the Nikki Haley moment?
Speaker 2: I was sort of amazed, and if you want to
Speaker 2: hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber
Speaker 2: today at Breakingpoints.
Speaker 1: Dot Com, all right, sorry, what a you're looking at?
Speaker 2: Well, while we were transfixed by Trump's mugshot and marveling
Speaker 2: at the post GOP debate polls, some very different news
Speaker 2: was happening far across the globe that may end up
Speaker 2: being actually more important historically than anything else going on here.
Speaker 2: The Bricks Nations, also known as Brazil, Russia, India, China
Speaker 2: and South Africa, formally adopted six new countries into their
Speaker 2: informal Economic Conference, explicitly challenging US Gemeny and gives us
Speaker 2: a better glimpse at what a multipolar future may look like.
Speaker 2: The new nations added include Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United
Speaker 2: Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt, and Ethiopia. Important first to note
Speaker 2: that the decision to formally invite these nations into the
Speaker 2: Alliance at all is an explicit victory for China, it
Speaker 2: sparred with its other Great Power Alliance member India, over
Speaker 2: whether to expand the block at all. Clearly, India was outvoted,
Speaker 2: with South Africa sitting also on the sidelines, as China
Speaker 2: explicitly seeks to use the bricks to counterweight the Western
Speaker 2: led g seven. Now, given China's victory in out voting
Speaker 2: India in the Alliance, it is important then to further
Speaker 2: note who and why. And it doesn't take a genius
Speaker 2: to see what's going on here. The inclusion of Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 2: the UAE, Iran, and Egypt is an explicit challenge to
Speaker 2: the Western led order in the Middle East. These countries
Speaker 2: collectively export a vast portion of the world's oil supply,
Speaker 2: and China, of course, is sucking up as much as
Speaker 2: it possibly can to fuel their industrial capacity and keep
Speaker 2: up with the demands of the Chinese middle class. The willingness,
Speaker 2: it seems here for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and
Speaker 2: Iran to even accept the Alliance invitation is an explicit
Speaker 2: rebuke of President Biden, and it shows how much we
Speaker 2: are already taking our eye off the ball where it
Speaker 2: actually matters. China has already pulled off a massive diplomatic coup.
Speaker 2: They're getting the Gulf Arabs and the Iranians to stop
Speaker 2: hating each other and unite against the West. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 2: the UAE, and Egypt collectively have been given some untold
Speaker 2: trillions of dollars in the US economic and military aid,
Speaker 2: yet when given an invitation, they are happy to snub
Speaker 2: their nose at Ust, even while all of them save Iran,
Speaker 2: will still get some of the largest foreign aid distributions
Speaker 2: of any other nations on Earth from the United States.
Speaker 2: What might be an even more important legacy than a
Speaker 2: slow realignment of the entire Middle.
Speaker 3: East is also their open war on the US dollar.
Speaker 2: President Lula of Brazil at the summit called outright for
Speaker 2: a bricks nation to consider a common currency for trade
Speaker 2: and investment between each other as a means of circumventing
Speaker 2: the petro dollar. But also for a very obvious reason, China, Russia, India,
Speaker 2: the Gulf Arab States and Iran are all pretty sick
Speaker 2: of transacting in dollar terms after the war in Ukraine
Speaker 2: that spurned Western sanctions on Russian oil, and to be clear,
Speaker 2: they very quickly found a way around it. But now
Speaker 2: instead of doing backroom deals. They want to see price
Speaker 2: deals between themselves in their own denominated currency. This too,
Speaker 2: is not just to ease trade, but to make it
Speaker 2: effectively impossible for the long arm of Western sanctions to
Speaker 2: touch any of these nations should conflict breakout, or if
Speaker 2: the West seeks to compel any of their behavior with
Speaker 2: sanctions in the future. In fact, something I warned about
Speaker 2: in the very early days of the Ukraine War was
Speaker 2: that we were wasting one of the most important levers
Speaker 2: that we have on the global economy on a matter
Speaker 2: that is of no importance to us. Our dominance of
Speaker 2: the global financial system is something you should only leverage
Speaker 2: in a time of imminent peril, and considering how little
Speaker 2: that Ukraine actually matters to the US way of life,
Speaker 2: I think it is now obvious it was a huge mistake,
Speaker 2: because not only did it not work against the Russian
Speaker 2: war machine, which is doing fine, but it also showed
Speaker 2: our hand to nations like China with whom we may
Speaker 2: find ourselves in a standoff over matters that actually matter
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot more to us. They didn't
Speaker 2: get to where they are about being stupid. They sought
Speaker 2: and they immediately began sanction proofing their entire economy and
Speaker 2: globe supply chain. Hence why it is such a diplomatic
Speaker 2: coup to get the oil producing states into the Bricks
Speaker 2: Alliance and the beginning of talks of trade between those
Speaker 2: nations without the dollar. We may not have a goddamn
Speaker 2: thing to say about any of this in the future.
Speaker 2: Even nations not fully on board with the idea of
Speaker 2: bricks currency, like South Africa and India, are still expressing
Speaker 2: hope in moving to total denomination of trade in their
Speaker 2: currencies at the Summit. All of this accelerated realignment against
Speaker 2: the Western system is a direct consequence of our policy
Speaker 2: towards Ukraine, again, a nation which matters less to us
Speaker 2: in terms of trade, security and stability than every nation
Speaker 2: that I just discussed here. In fact, the only reason
Speaker 2: that the summit has gained any attention whatsoever is because
Speaker 2: of Ukraine. Dozens of nations other than the ones I
Speaker 2: listed here are lusting after brick status and eager to
Speaker 2: get out from underneath the thumb of Western control. We
Speaker 2: are watching directly and in real time those who don't
Speaker 2: agree with us per pursue other suitors like China, or
Speaker 2: simply pursue independence of our reach. People should not construe
Speaker 2: this monologue as saying the whole Western system is dead.
Speaker 3: That is foolish, that is obviously wrong.
Speaker 2: The only point is that the near seventy five years
Speaker 2: of the Western led international order, which of course has
Speaker 2: reaped gigantic benefits for the US economy in the US
Speaker 2: way of life, is weaker today than it has been
Speaker 2: for decades. We need to prepare vigorously for the unstable
Speaker 2: system which our foolish leaders have brought Biden the Washington establishment.
Speaker 2: They have tied our fates completely to the sinking boat
Speaker 2: of Europe, which is mired in demographic and economic decline,
Speaker 2: while the rest of the world, who we actually depend
Speaker 2: on to fund the American way of life, goes in
Speaker 2: a completely different direction. The more that the gap in
Speaker 2: those interests accelerate, the more uncertainty is injected into the system,
Speaker 2: and the more likely that war breaks out, putting millions
Speaker 2: of people at risk. We have absolutely nobody to blame
Speaker 2: but ourselves for this situation. So anyway, I see a
Speaker 2: lot of people being like bricks.
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