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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, We're gonna be totally upfront with you. This

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Speaker 1: is the most perilous time that we have ever operated in.

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Speaker 1: It is so difficult just to sort through the information

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Speaker 1: that's coming at us, but more importantly, to accurately report

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Speaker 1: the news as a wave of censorship spreads across the nation.

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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com in order to subscribe. Thank you all

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Speaker 1: so much. We love you and we appreciate you. Enjoy

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Speaker 1: the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We still have

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Speaker 1: an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have

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Speaker 1: Forristul indeed we do. Obviously Soger is on the road,

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Speaker 1: but that is not going to stop us from bringing

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Speaker 1: you all the latest details from Ukraine and here domestically

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Speaker 1: as well. Lots actually going on today. There's a high

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Speaker 1: stakes series of meetings in Europe with Biden and the

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Speaker 1: leaders of NATO, leaders of the g seven leaders of

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Speaker 1: the EU, so we'll talk to you about that. Also,

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Speaker 1: some extremely terrifying, worrying developments with regards to the potential

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Speaker 1: for a nuclear attack. We'll break that all down for you,

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Speaker 1: some of the planning that is occurring as we speak.

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Speaker 1: Also some political updates for you on Trump's endorsements and

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Speaker 1: his anti endorsements. He's just rescinded a significant one, and

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Speaker 1: we'll tell you what that says about the Republican Party

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Speaker 1: and about him himself. There's a new book detailing open

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Speaker 1: warfare between the Kamala people and the Biden people within

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Speaker 1: the administration. And also there's a new threat to the

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Speaker 1: First Amendment and free speech protections regarding Project Farraitas which,

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Speaker 1: however we feel about them, it's important we'd be consistent

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Speaker 1: about these things the board, because we know how they

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Speaker 1: can apply two journalists. It may start with an entity

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Speaker 1: that you don't particularly like or don't particularly trust, but

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Speaker 1: it never stays there. We also have Tree to Parsi

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Speaker 1: on to give us an update on where the Iran

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Speaker 1: nuclear deal starts, but we wanted to start with the

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Speaker 1: very latest in terms of the war in Ukraine. As

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Speaker 1: I mentioned before, we've got a series of high stakes meetings,

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Speaker 1: incredibly significant, President Biden flying over to Europe to meet

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Speaker 1: with NATO, to meet with the G seven, to meet

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Speaker 1: with the EU, and in advance of that, there were

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Speaker 1: a number of significant steps, preparatory steps that were taken,

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Speaker 1: and maybe the most significant of those was that the

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Speaker 1: US government officially announced that they believe Russia has committed

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Speaker 1: war crimes. Take a listen to this. As the Ambassador

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Speaker 1: at Large for Global Criminal Justice, Beth van Shock, this

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Speaker 1: was at the State Department briefing. Take a listen to

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Speaker 1: what she had to say. Earlier today, Secretary Blincoln issued

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Speaker 1: a statement announcing that, based on information that is currently available,

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Speaker 1: the US government assesses that Russia's forces are committing war

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Speaker 1: crimes in Ukraine. I wanted to provide you with some

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Speaker 1: additional information underlying this assessment. We have all seen really

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Speaker 1: horrific images and accounts from the extensive and unrelenting attacks

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Speaker 1: on civilians and civilian sites being conducted by Russian forces

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Speaker 1: in Ukraine. There have been numerous credible reports of hospitals, schools, theaters, etc.

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Speaker 1: Being intentionally attacked, as well as indiscriminate attacks. Russia's forces

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Speaker 1: have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, other elements of the

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Speaker 1: critical civilian infrastructure. We've been shocked by images of Russian

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Speaker 1: forces and strikes hitting civilian sites in Mariopol, including the

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Speaker 1: maternity hospital and museum and an art school. So that's

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Speaker 1: about as specific as they got as to which attacks

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Speaker 1: they think constitute war crimes. They didn't specifically say that

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Speaker 1: those were the attacks that cause them to make this pronouncement.

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Speaker 1: But Zaga, I'm really curious for your take here, because

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Speaker 1: this tracks was something we were discussing on the last show.

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Speaker 1: Biden had sort of casually off the cuff, been asked

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Speaker 1: he had it, responded to a shouted question and said yes,

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Speaker 1: he believed that Putin was a war criminal. And at

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Speaker 1: the time we said, well, that was kind of casual

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Speaker 1: and flippant. If you're going to make this kind of pronouncement,

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Speaker 1: you would expect there to be some planning and some strategy.

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Speaker 1: I think now we see that this was kind of

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Speaker 1: in the works and this plan was coming, so you know,

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Speaker 1: his comments may have been less off the cuff than

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Speaker 1: we ultimately thought. For the US government to directly accuse

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Speaker 1: Russia of war crimes, though, is extraordinarily significant because when

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Speaker 1: we think about, Okay, how do we de escalate, how

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Speaker 1: do we step back from the edge, how do we

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Speaker 1: welcome Russia if they do stop the invasion and stop

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Speaker 1: the war, how do we ever welcome them back into

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Speaker 1: the community of nations. This type of language makes it very,

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Speaker 1: very difficult. And yeah, it makes it nearly impossible. And

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Speaker 1: that's the point I want to make. I'm also not

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Speaker 1: so sure Crystal that this was in the works and

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Speaker 1: he got out ahead of it. I view this much

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Speaker 1: more as a cleanup operation. And the reason why is because,

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Speaker 1: as you said, she didn't get specific in what she

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Speaker 1: was saying and the actual attacks. Usually whenever these things happen,

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Speaker 1: they will point to a specific attack, they'll submit evidence

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Speaker 1: either at the State Department at a briefing, or they'll

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Speaker 1: know to the Hague International Criminal Court or at the

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Speaker 1: UN Security Council. They haven't done any of those things

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Speaker 1: they just listed off media reports. I have no doubt

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Speaker 1: that the Russians are committing war crimes in Ukraine. But again,

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Speaker 1: if you're going to officially say that as the United

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Speaker 1: States government and brand this regime a war criminal regime,

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Speaker 1: you have now walked yourself into a position which is very,

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Speaker 1: very difficult in order to get out of now it

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Speaker 1: is not necessarily past US foreign policy in order to

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Speaker 1: do a lot of deals and look past war crimes,

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Speaker 1: but in order to brand somebody or war criminal and

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Speaker 1: to then meet with them. I mean, for example, Crystal,

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Speaker 1: could you foresee a world where President Biden and President

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Speaker 1: Putin are able to have a summit if in the

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Speaker 1: event of a diplomatic resolution. I don't know if that's

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Speaker 1: possible on both sides right now. Obviously Putin has an

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Speaker 1: immense amount of blame here as well. But it's important

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Speaker 1: that we be strategic. And for those of you who

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Speaker 1: are like, what are we supposed to ignore it? No,

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Speaker 1: of course nobody's ignoring it. I mean, you and I

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Speaker 1: will happily brand them war criminals all day. But governments

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Speaker 1: conduct themselves on a very different basis and have to

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Speaker 1: think very differently in terms of the future. Well, it

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Speaker 1: comes back to the question of what is most likely

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Speaker 1: to create peace. You know what Russia believes and what

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Speaker 1: Putin is telling his population is it doesn't even matter

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Speaker 1: what we do, They're going to sanction us anyway. Remember

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Speaker 1: he said this also in the build up to the

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Speaker 1: war to start with, they're going to sanction us anyway.

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Speaker 1: They want to destroy Russia. That's always been their goal.

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Speaker 1: You know, they ultimately want to remove me from power,

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Speaker 1: and so it really doesn't matter what we do, They're

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Speaker 1: going to keep us in this parias data. So when

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Speaker 1: you use this kind of language, that certainly feeds into

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Speaker 1: that narrative and makes it much more difficult to persuade

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Speaker 1: them that, hey, if you actually come to the table,

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Speaker 1: if you actually negotiate in good faith, we are in

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Speaker 1: fact going to roll back these extraordinary sanctions. We are

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Speaker 1: in fact going to welkoing you back into the Community

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Speaker 1: of Nations. So it makes it that much more difficult

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Speaker 1: to accomplish what should be the ultimate goal here. So

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Speaker 1: this isn't about like going soft on Putin or pretending

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Speaker 1: that you know, there are no war crimes being created.

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Speaker 1: This is about thinking strategically of how do we best

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Speaker 1: create the conditions where we could possibly have any sort

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Speaker 1: of negotiated peace in the future. Yeah, and unfortunately, I

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Speaker 1: just don't see the ball is in motion at this point.

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Speaker 1: We've called them a work. Let's go and put this

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Speaker 1: next one up there on the screen about NATO sending

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Speaker 1: up battle groups in eastern Ukraine to deter Russia. This

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Speaker 1: is a significant amount of troops one fifteen hundred troops

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Speaker 1: set up in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulkaria. This is going

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Speaker 1: to bring the eastern portion of the NATO deployment nearly

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Speaker 1: four times what it was previously. And literally, Crystal, I

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Speaker 1: think the day after the invasion, this is what both

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Speaker 1: of us were saying, which is Putin, you have now

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Speaker 1: fulfilled your worst dream, your night pack scenario. I mean

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Speaker 1: like NATO has no choice at this point except in

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Speaker 1: order to bolster up its eastern flank. Now we have

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Speaker 1: the ball in motion in terms of the amount of

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Speaker 1: defensive defensive right capability that's being pushed right up to

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Speaker 1: the Russian border. The Russians are then going to say, well,

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Speaker 1: NATO's here, so we have to do something even more

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Speaker 1: offensive then now we've branded him the war criminal regime.

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Speaker 1: I saw a great piece in the Wall Street Journal

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Speaker 1: over the on Wednesday, and what they said is is

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Speaker 1: that the United States has now accepted a de facto

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Speaker 1: position in which only the fall of the Putin regime

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Speaker 1: itself is the most likely acceptable outcome to the US

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Speaker 1: elite and US foreign policy I think we should all

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Speaker 1: ask ourselves, do you think that's going to happen? You know,

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Speaker 1: Putin is he might be sixty nine years old, but actually,

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Speaker 1: Joe Rogan was making this good point on his podcast,

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Speaker 1: Putin has access to the world's most advanced science on

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Speaker 1: life extension hormone replacement. Like he might be sixty nine,

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Speaker 1: but he probably feels like forty five and very much

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Speaker 1: could live for a long long time. I don't think

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Speaker 1: he's going anywhere necessarily. So that's a very tough line

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Speaker 1: for us to be in, and it just guarantees some

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Speaker 1: sort of you know, deadlock in this in this region

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Speaker 1: for probably decades to come. That is my fear is

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Speaker 1: that that's exactly the end goal that US administration officials have.

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Speaker 1: I'm actually citing a piece from Nyle Ferguson that was

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Speaker 1: in Bloomberg that quotes a senior administration official at a

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Speaker 1: private event saying exactly that that the only end game

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Speaker 1: is the end of the Putin regime, and the idea

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Speaker 1: is to sort of bleed them out and hope that

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Speaker 1: there's a kind of you know, we're not talking about

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Speaker 1: like an A Rock style regime change thing, but putting

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Speaker 1: as much pressure on them as possible to try to

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Speaker 1: foment an internal revolt. And if they're thinking that, I

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Speaker 1: just think that they're I think they're delusional. You know.

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Speaker 1: I don't think we're anywhere close to either the end

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Speaker 1: of Putin's life or the end of his regime. So

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Speaker 1: that's what makes me really nervous, is if that's your

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Speaker 1: only endgame in sight, I don't know how this is

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Speaker 1: ultimately all going to play out. And you know, there

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Speaker 1: continue to be escalation after escalation after escalation. The next

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Speaker 1: one we can put up on the screen. We now

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Speaker 1: have Biden sanctioning Russian lawmakers. I have no problem with this.

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Speaker 1: They're preparing sanctions on most members of Russia's State Duma,

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Speaker 1: that's the lower house of their parliament. Those are going

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Speaker 1: to be announced in coordination with the EU and members

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Speaker 1: of the G seven as well. So again this was

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Speaker 1: all preparatory in advance of the summit. We know that

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Speaker 1: at these meetings they're going to put pressure on the

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Speaker 1: Europeans to also ramp up their sanctions. But do I

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Speaker 1: think that you know, even the sanctions that I over

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Speaker 1: that I support and the people overwhelmingly support against Russian

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Speaker 1: elites and oligarchs. Do I think they're going to work. No, Sadly,

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Speaker 1: I don't, even though I give them credit for I

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Speaker 1: think they're being much more forceful and actually trying to

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Speaker 1: go after the sort of the yachts and the luxury

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Speaker 1: apartments and the goodies of being a billionaire much more

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Speaker 1: forcefully and effectively than the Obama administration did. But ultimately, remember,

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Speaker 1: these oligarchs depend for their entire existence and wealth on Putin,

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Speaker 1: So are they going to really turn on him? I

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Speaker 1: think that seems ultimately unlikely. The last piece of this, well,

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Speaker 1: there's two more pieces. So also in advance of this trip,

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Speaker 1: it was leaked that Biden is planning to boost L

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Speaker 1: and G let's go ahead and put this up on

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Speaker 1: the screen, and hydrogen to Europe, pressuring them to do more,

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Speaker 1: says Scoop. US and EU are working on agreement that

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Speaker 1: would aim to boost applies of American liquefied natural gas

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Speaker 1: and hydrogen to Europe as they work toward ending their

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Speaker 1: reliance on Russian energy ties still work in progress. This

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Speaker 1: comes as we receive the news that Russia is starting

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Speaker 1: to demand energy payments in rubles, so Putin has ordered

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Speaker 1: Russia Europe to pay for their gas in rubles in

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Speaker 1: an attempt to boost that currency, which of course has

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Speaker 1: crashed dramatically as a result of the sanctions, in particular

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Speaker 1: the sanctions on Russia's central bank. The collective West has

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Speaker 1: killed all their trust in their currencies. He says. Dollars

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Speaker 1: in euro are compromised by sanctions on Russia's central bank reserves.

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Speaker 1: And just to keep in mind here, Europe gets forty

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Speaker 1: percent of its gas from Russia. So Russia is effectively

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Speaker 1: saying to Europe, hey, if you want our energy, if

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Speaker 1: you want to your people to be able to heat

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Speaker 1: their homes, you're going to have to help us bolster

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Speaker 1: our currency. Here unclear what the European response is going

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Speaker 1: to be to that move. Yeah, we don't know. But

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Speaker 1: this is the lifeline of the Putin regime and it's

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Speaker 1: just not going anywhere. I don't think anybody can delude themselves.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna be talking in my monologue about part of

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Speaker 1: the reason why gas prices are so high. I'm here

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Speaker 1: in Los Angeles shout out to six dollars a gallon.

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Speaker 1: But it's interesting because in Europe it's already far past that,

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Speaker 1: right in terms of their per leader price. They have

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Speaker 1: very very high costs. They are looking down the barrel

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Speaker 1: of high fertilizer, high food crops. They need Russia, they

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Speaker 1: need Russian gas. They're simply very little way around it.

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Speaker 1: Even if we were to expand LNG, they don't necessarily

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Speaker 1: have the infrastructure in order to have that. So we've

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Speaker 1: both walked ourselves into a position where diplomatically, the Putin

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Speaker 1: regime basically has to go for us to find that acceptable.

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Speaker 1: But also that's just not going to happen. At the

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Speaker 1: The absolute lifeline of the Russian economy is not cut off,

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Speaker 1: and it's very clear that it's not going to be

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Speaker 1: cut off at least in the short term. And even

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Speaker 1: if the Europeans were to do so, there are obviously

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Speaker 1: Asian countries out there who will be very willing to

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Speaker 1: buy it as well. So I just don't see it

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Speaker 1: in the same way about the way that this is

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Speaker 1: all happening. And I just think that a lot of

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Speaker 1: these people need to know a lot of history. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it took thirty years of a rotten Tsarist regime and

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Speaker 1: two wars for it to break down. The Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: also took like twenty five years of terrible life of

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Speaker 1: wars and of a lot of you know, events that

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Speaker 1: frankly got very lucky that they broke apart the way

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Speaker 1: that it did. Things don't always happen that way, you know,

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Speaker 1: things can completely go sideways. So I just think there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of misunderstanding of how exactly these things go,

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Speaker 1: and walking yourself into the most maximus position, which we're

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Speaker 1: going to get to in our next block, can have

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Speaker 1: very very dangerous consequence. Yeah, that's that's exactly right. And

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Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, there have been some

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Speaker 1: pieces in the press about, oh, maybe there's some descent

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Speaker 1: in the regime and maybe we're seeing the regime starting

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Speaker 1: to crack up. And I think again that that hope

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Speaker 1: in that wish is a little bit misplaced. Let's go

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Speaker 1: ahead and put this next piece up on the screen.

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Speaker 1: So we did have the highest level to infection so

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Speaker 1: far from the Kremlin. This is a Russian climate Envoy

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Speaker 1: Anatoly Ruebai, I don't know exactly how to say his

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Speaker 1: name is, stepped down and left the country, citing his

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Speaker 1: opposition to war in Ukraine, becoming the highest level official

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Speaker 1: to break with the Krumlin over the invasion and Sagar

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Speaker 1: I was talking to our friend Igor who we had

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Speaker 1: on the show on Tuesday. You guys should all watch

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Speaker 1: that interview. By the way, he is a Russian living

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Speaker 1: in Moscow and has a wonder he's anti warre and

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Speaker 1: has a wonderful perspective on all of this. And he

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Speaker 1: said that Chubai is very significant symbolically because he was

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Speaker 1: literally the father of those nineteen nineties era reforms. In

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Speaker 1: a lot of ways, he was the architect of the

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Speaker 1: sort of oligarchic regime, so he was central to creating

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Speaker 1: this economic system that they have that ultimately not only

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Speaker 1: creates the oligarchs but brings putin to power. You know,

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Speaker 1: he was at one time, as Matt Taye pointed out

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Speaker 1: to us, was sort of celebrated by these type of individuals.

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Speaker 1: And so within the Kremlin for a long time you

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Speaker 1: had a split between the security state state FSB types

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Speaker 1: and the sort of liberal column, and this individual who

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Speaker 1: just affected was part of that liberal column. In reality,

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Speaker 1: those quote unquote liberals have been irrelevant for a long time.

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Speaker 1: You know, He's more of a symbolic figure, and so

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Speaker 1: when you see people like this leaving and defecting on

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Speaker 1: the one hand, okay, you could say signs of cracks.

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Speaker 1: On the other they were already irrelevant, and you're also

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Speaker 1: pushing out of the regime any of the voices that

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Speaker 1: might have potentially been a voice of moderation. So it's

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Speaker 1: not necessarily an unequivocally good thing that he is leaving. However,

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Speaker 1: you have some other signs of descent. Let's put this

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Speaker 1: up there on the screen from the New York Times,

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Speaker 1: some signs they're trying to read into that perhaps some

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Speaker 1: of the military leadership is unhappy with how this has

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Speaker 1: all gone. They say that Igor Gerkin, a former colonel

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Speaker 1: in Russia's FSB intelligence agency and the former defense minister

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Speaker 1: of Russian backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine, said in a

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Speaker 1: video interview posted online on Monday that Russia had made

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Speaker 1: a quote catastrophically incorrect assessment of Ukraine's forces. He said,

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Speaker 1: quote the enemy was underestimated in every aspect. You have

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Speaker 1: another retired lieutenant journal and Russian state television commentator who

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Speaker 1: said of Ukraine's forces that there was probably the hope

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Speaker 1: that they wouldn't resist so intensely. Were delusional on that one.

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Speaker 1: They were expected to be more quote reasonable, and there

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Speaker 1: are some experts quoted here who believe that the failures

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Speaker 1: in Ukraine have quote started to create fissures within Russian leadership.

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Speaker 1: Top Russian intelligence official in charge of overseeing the recruitment

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Speaker 1: of spies and diversionary operations in Ukraine has been put

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Speaker 1: under how arrest, along with his deputy. So there are

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Speaker 1: some signs that, you know, the fact that this militarily

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Speaker 1: has been a complete disaster and hasn't gone the way

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Speaker 1: that Russia thought it would is creating some schisms and

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Speaker 1: some fractions within Russian military leadership. But again, number one,

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Speaker 1: I'd be very skeptical of these reports, and number two, ultimately,

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Speaker 1: does that mean that they're, you know, planning to overthrow

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Speaker 1: the regime and put someone else in charge. I think

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Speaker 1: that's unlikely because all of these people depend for their

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Speaker 1: position and for the oligarchs for their money on Vladimir

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Speaker 1: Putin being in power. Yeah, I'm really glad that you

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Speaker 1: put it that way because for all of the talk

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Speaker 1: of the Also, I'm annoyed with Igor because I was

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Speaker 1: going to make the same point about to buy in

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Speaker 1: what he been to the regime. So thanks for stealing

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Speaker 1: my thunder there, but I guess he's actually Russian, so

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Speaker 1: it's fine. But whenever it comes to the analysis about

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Speaker 1: what's going on within the military the West, obviously we're

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Speaker 1: trying to grab onto any item of hope about problems

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Speaker 1: with morale or you know, putin firing his generals. I

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Speaker 1: think he fired eight of his generals reportedly. But at

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Speaker 1: the same time, and I read this with great interest

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Speaker 1: and came out report last night and it wasn't well noticed,

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Speaker 1: but there was a leak to diplomatic cable of two

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Speaker 1: military attaches at the US embassy who met with their

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Speaker 1: Russian counterpart for the first time since the war began,

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Speaker 1: and they said that he had a quote emotional outburst

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Speaker 1: at them, crystal that he basically accused them and Ukraine

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Speaker 1: of trying to murder his family because his family apparently

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Speaker 1: lives or was of Ukrainian descent and lives in Dinantz,

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Speaker 1: which is one of those breakaway republics, and stormed out

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Speaker 1: of the meeting in an emotional outburst. So for every

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Speaker 1: talk of a general who is you know, skeptical or

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Speaker 1: upset with the leadership, this guy clearly, I mean, they

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Speaker 1: said that this was an enormous departure from diplomatic protocol

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Speaker 1: for the Russi military as shade to just storm out

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Speaker 1: of a meeting with the US embassy Attashee. These things

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Speaker 1: are scripted and they're very boring normally because we're two

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Speaker 1: nuclear powers and these kind of things should be kept down.

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Speaker 1: And you know, we're about to talk about some of

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Speaker 1: the departures from that. But that report, the US Embassy

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Speaker 1: was trying to spin it as showing that there's really

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Speaker 1: bad morale within the Russian military. I saw it as, Hey, like,

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Speaker 1: this guy's willing to blow up a meeting with US

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Speaker 1: over Dinyansk, and you have somebody in the military so

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Speaker 1: fanatically committed to this mission. It seems that he is

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Speaker 1: supporting it one hundred percent. So we should also remember

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Speaker 1: that Putin probably has a large amount of support within

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Speaker 1: the military, also the Russian conscripts, and many of these

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Speaker 1: people they have no idea what's going on, as we've

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Speaker 1: seen from some of the videos that have come out.

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Speaker 1: They don't care necessarily one way or the other. They

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Speaker 1: might be against it, and as Igor said on our show,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what the people think. He's like, we

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Speaker 1: live in a totalitarian autocracy. It's like, yes, people would

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Speaker 1: be happy if the war ended, but what we think

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Speaker 1: only really matters, you know, if things are one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent on the breaking point and we don't see that

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Speaker 1: happening yet. So now that my warning again to people

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Speaker 1: who think that an immense amount of dissenter whatever's coming.

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Speaker 1: One guy an Antoli, you buy, who's a liberal who's

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Speaker 1: already connected to the Yeltsin regime, and it's kind of

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Speaker 1: been allowed to stay around for a while as a

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Speaker 1: sign of goodwill because he's willing to play ball with Putin.

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Speaker 1: Him leaving, that's not you know, that's just not a

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Speaker 1: lot in terms of we see what we need to see.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. And I think the last thing I'll

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Speaker 1: say here is it seems like there's kind of two

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Speaker 1: potential scenarios playing out in terms of the administrations thinking.

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Speaker 1: I don't doubt that there are people in the administration

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Speaker 1: who do have in mind like the only endgame is

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Speaker 1: for Putin's regime to end. And again I think that

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Speaker 1: that is incredibly foolish. Not that he's been a good leader,

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Speaker 1: not that he hasn't isn't actually you know, guilty of

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Speaker 1: the crimes that he's been accused of because he is

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Speaker 1: all of that. I just don't think that we're anywhere

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Speaker 1: close to the end of the Putin regime. And then

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Speaker 1: the other possibility is that there is no grand strategy

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Speaker 1: and everything is just sort of like reacting to events

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Speaker 1: as they unfold. And I don't know which one of

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Speaker 1: those is the case and is sort of driving the ship.

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Speaker 1: Both of them, though, are really quite troubling, and I

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Speaker 1: think that's a good way to transition to just how troubling,

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Speaker 1: because you can never forget that in the background of

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Speaker 1: all of this, we're talking about a conflict between two

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Speaker 1: nuclear powers, and I think because it's been a long

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Speaker 1: time since we've had real nuclear brinksmanship, I think that

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Speaker 1: it's been hard for people to process just how terrifying

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Speaker 1: and how dangerous the situation this is and how clear

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Speaker 1: eede and level headed we have to be in thinking

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Speaker 1: through every escalatory step. And we got another dramatic remind

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Speaker 1: of that recently when you had a Putent spokesperson in

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Speaker 1: an interview with Christian Amen Poor refusing to rule out

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Speaker 1: the use of nuclear weapons. Let's take a listen to

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Speaker 1: a little bit of that. And I want to know

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Speaker 1: whether you are convinced or confident that your boss will

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Speaker 1: not use that option. Well, we have a concept of

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Speaker 1: domestic security, and well it's public you can read all

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Speaker 1: the reasons for nuclear arms to be used. So if

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Speaker 1: it is an existental threat for our country, then it

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Speaker 1: can be used in accordance with our concept. So he's

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Speaker 1: trying to say, there, if it's an existential threat to

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Speaker 1: our country, then we can use them. Now, what do

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Speaker 1: they classify as an existential threat? That's the real question here,

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Speaker 1: and that's why these words are incredibly chilling soccer. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and I have tried to make this point again and again,

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Speaker 1: so I am happy that Dmitry Peskov, as Kremlin spokesperson,

431
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:11,920
Speaker 1: will make it for me, which is that what they

432
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: consider an existential threat is the fall of the Putin regime.

433
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: This also fits with Soviet nuclear doctrine, which was if

434
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union in their leadership, is about to be

435
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:30,399
Speaker 1: decapitated or there is a threat to that, it also

436
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: is an authorization for a use of a nuclear strike. So,

437
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 1: as what we just spent twenty minutes talking about, if

438
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:40,679
Speaker 1: the endgame of US foreign policy is the downfall of

439
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 1: the Putin regime, and we come to pass. Let's say

440
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:47,159
Speaker 1: that those circumstances do, the risk of a nuclear confrontation

441
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:51,880
Speaker 1: goes up significantly. And in order to tamp down these

442
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: risks by the United States and Russia. Over sixty years ago,

443
00:24:56,359 --> 00:25:00,200
Speaker 1: now we had a Cuban missile crisis, of which which

444
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: the endgame a very smart man, John F. Kennedy, decided

445
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:05,879
Speaker 1: that the most important thing that we can have is

446
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 1: communication between the two sides and understanding, and it eventually culminated.

447
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 1: You know, Oliver Stone talks a lot about this with

448
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 1: that American University speech, which really is a remarkable speech

449
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: in its own right, in which he talks about the

450
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:22,159
Speaker 1: need and the want of peace without the you know,

451
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:28,600
Speaker 1: without the the the halo of nuclear armageddon just shining

452
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:32,480
Speaker 1: over everything. And here's the problem. We are now entering

453
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: kind of a new phase of nuclear doctrine. Let's put

454
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 1: this next one up there on the screen, which is

455
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 1: that this is from the New York Times. They say, quote,

456
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 1: a new generation of less destructive nuclear arms may make

457
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,920
Speaker 1: the prospect of a nuclear strike less unthinkable than what

458
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:50,919
Speaker 1: it once was. Now it's funny because they say a

459
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 1: new generation, but it's actually not. Everything is new is

460
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,440
Speaker 1: actually old back in the fifties and in the sixties

461
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 1: we had all sorts of crazy programs in where we

462
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: considered the use of what we're called tactical nuclear weapons.

463
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: And we said, and you know, there were considerations and

464
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: floated all the way up to the President Crystal, should

465
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: we use nuclear weapons at the Suez Canal to protect

466
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: the Brits and the French. So should we use nukes?

467
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 1: It was presented in order to protect the French at

468
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: danbn feu in there in French Indo China at the

469
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:27,640
Speaker 1: time we eventually got embroiled ourselves in that conflict. There

470
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 1: was a lot of discussion by Henry Kissinger and others

471
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: by the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the nineteen

472
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: fifties in the infancy of the atomic age, and Dwight

473
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: the Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy and Lynn Johnson luckily

474
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:44,679
Speaker 1: never decided to never break you know, what came to

475
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 1: be seen as the ultimate choice because of the chain

476
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: of events of which it could trigger. However, we should

477
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 1: not rule out that this reaching for this old tool

478
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: of using a small tactical nuclear weapon. And when I

479
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,199
Speaker 1: see small, yeah, I want people to know when I

480
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: say small I'm still talking about like two hundred and

481
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people dead and instant these types of weapons.

482
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: In this return to the removing of the taboo on

483
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:18,159
Speaker 1: the nuclear option, it's a relatively new phenomenon. I studied

484
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:20,159
Speaker 1: it a lot in graduate school. It only really came

485
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: about in the nineteen seventies. I mean, that's not that

486
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,360
Speaker 1: long ago. And so in the desperate circumstance, as we've

487
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 1: always feared, you could break that taboo, and that opens

488
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 1: up an entire new chain of events. That's right. I mean,

489
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: the sort of core concept in nuclear policy has been

490
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: mutually a sure destruction. That's supposed to be the core

491
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: concept of deterrence. And so when you have these quote

492
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: unquote small tactical nuclear weapons, you have the danger of

493
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: leaders diluting themselves into thinking, oh, well, we could just

494
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: do a little nuclear war and it wouldn't actually be

495
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 1: that destructive, and we think we could potentially get away

496
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: with that. And you know, the New York Times was

497
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 1: i would say, rightly dragged for the freezing of this

498
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:08,159
Speaker 1: tweet sort of like normalizing a small nuclear war. But

499
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 1: if you read the article, they are laying out something

500
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: that is really significant here that the calculation on the

501
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 1: Russian side with these tactical quote unquote tactical nukes might

502
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: be a lot different than it once was, and they

503
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 1: might think that this could be an appropriate use of

504
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: force that sort of blurs the lines between conventional and

505
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 1: nuclear warfare. And just to give you a sense of

506
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: how terrifying this is, they talk about as simulation that

507
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: was run by experts at Princeton University that starts with

508
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 1: Moscow firing what they describe as a nuclear warning shot,

509
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: exactly the type of weapons that we're talking about. NATO

510
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 1: then responds with their own small strike, and the ensuing

511
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:55,959
Speaker 1: war yields more than ninety million casualties in their first

512
00:28:56,200 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 1: few hours. US presidents, seeing the Russian development of these

513
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: smaller nuclear weapons, including Obama, have sort of gone along

514
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: with it and created our own potential responses in size

515
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 1: and scope to the weapons that they've developed. Trump moved

516
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:15,720
Speaker 1: forward with that as well. Biden on the campaign trail

517
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: actually said, hey, I think this is a bad idea

518
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: because then you get leaders thinking, hey, this wouldn't be

519
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: that big of a deal. But has he done anything

520
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 1: to roll back that program? Of course not. So this

521
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 1: again creates a much more dangerous landscape, which again, look,

522
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 1: let's just be really clear, there is no such thing

523
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 1: as a small nuclear war. When you go to nukes

524
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: and you cross that line, no matter how quote unquote

525
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: small or tactical the weapons you're deploying, ultimately are you

526
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: end with potential destruction of a significant portion of the

527
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: planet and in this simulation, ninety million casualties in just

528
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 1: the first few hours. Yeah, I mean, the history of

529
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: US nuclear doctrine and kind of the way that we've

530
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: been talking about it is very interesting, and this reminds

531
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: me very much of that nineteen fifties period where before

532
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:09,959
Speaker 1: the nuclear taboo, there were all sorts of questions which, oh, well,

533
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: you use a small one, that one will invite them

534
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:13,959
Speaker 1: to use then a small one, and you would have

535
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: some guy like us in the room and be like, hey,

536
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: you know, they have mega ton weapons and the H bomb,

537
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: and that within two hours that means the entire planet

538
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 1: is vaporized. And people are like, wow, that's just what

539
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: we have to do, right And this eventually the tide

540
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: turns against them after the Cuban missile crisis. But it

541
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: appears as we've forgotten a lot of this history that's

542
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: the sad part to me. I don't feel like we

543
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: are really considering the consequences. And look, another thing to

544
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: consider is remember that the US experts were saying that

545
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 1: were you at the Pentagon in particular, was trying to

546
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 1: spin this narrative The reason that the Russians used the

547
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 1: hypersonic missile, the Kinsaw missile in Ukraine was because they're

548
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: running out of precision guided munitions. Maybe I don't know

549
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: if it's true or not. It could be propaganda, but

550
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: let's say it's true. Well, that then invites the question

551
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: of it's only been a month. So if you ran

552
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: out of present that gotten missions in a month, are

553
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 1: you then going to run out of your hypersonics? And

554
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: then let's say that the war enters a new campaign

555
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 1: and they want a decisive end to that. The use

556
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 1: of a tactical nuclear weapon starts to seem a lot

557
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 1: more reasonable within that framework and that circumstances. If you

558
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 1: are then the Putin regime, which then invites all sorts

559
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: of escalation on our part, and we can move on

560
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 1: and get to that. Yeah, but that's the big question.

561
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: That's a perfect transition to the next piece of that,

562
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: which is the White House is very seriously considering all

563
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 1: of those worst case scenarios with the deployment of some

564
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: sort of weapon of mass destruction from the Russian side.

565
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: Let's go and put the New York Times tear sheet

566
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: up on the screen, and this is fairly bombshell report. Here.

567
00:31:56,880 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: US is making contingency plans in case Russia uses its

568
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: most powerful weapons. Let me read you a little bit

569
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: of this article. They say, the White House is quietly

570
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: assembled a team of national security officials to sketch out

571
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: scenarios of how the US and its allies should respond

572
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: if Putin, frustrated by his lack of progress in Ukraine

573
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 1: or determined to warn Western nations against intervening in the war,

574
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 1: unleashes his stockpiles of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. They're

575
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 1: calling this the Tiger Team. That's what the group is

576
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: known as. They're examining responses also if Putin reaches into

577
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: NATO territory to attack convoys. Remember he said those convoys

578
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: of weapons are legitimate targets to attack convoys bringing weapons

579
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,239
Speaker 1: in a to Ukraine. The team is also looking at

580
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 1: responses if Russia seeks to extend the war to neighboring nations,

581
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: including Moldova and Georgia, and how to prepare European countries

582
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: for the refugees flowing in on a scale not seen

583
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: in decades. So this goes back also to what we

584
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: led with with, which is Biden in Europe today. One

585
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: of those meetings with the other twenty nine NATO member

586
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 1: countries is closed door, just with the leaders, no cell

587
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: phones and no aids, and the expectation is that they

588
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 1: will be going through each one of these potential scenarios,

589
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 1: and you know expectation as the US would sort of

590
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: lead the analysis of what they think each of the

591
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 1: responses should be to each one of these terrifying scenarios.

592
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: And so that really makes it plain of what a

593
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 1: dangerous situation we're in and why we are so uncomfortable

594
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: when words like war criminals and war crimes are thrown around,

595
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 1: and when the Ukrainians are not empowered with the ability

596
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: to sort of unilaterally roll back sanctions and really bring

597
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: something to the table, when there seems to be no

598
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 1: concern about creating any sort of an off ramp or

599
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: persuade Russia that if they did negotiate and if they

600
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: did stop the war, that those sanctions would ultimately be

601
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 1: rolled back, because that landscape makes one of these horrifying

602
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: scenarios all that much more likely. Yeah, I mean, we

603
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot in the beginning. If the

604
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: prospect of nuclear war is one percent, that's still way

605
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: too high, and honestly, I think it's probably higher. Right now,

606
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:25,880
Speaker 1: let's put this next one up there on the screen,

607
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 1: which is that the Defense Secretary and the General of

608
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:32,920
Speaker 1: the Joint chiefs of Staff have repeatedly tried to call

609
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: their counterparts over the last month, but the Russians have

610
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: quote so far declined to engage. That's a big, big problem.

611
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 1: So I mentioned earlier in the show that we did

612
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: have a meeting between a US military embassy attache and

613
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: a Russian military kind of guy who was assigned. But

614
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: those are low level meetings. The most important thing that

615
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: we can have is communication at the very very top

616
00:34:57,080 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 1: levels of the US military, and the re that we

617
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: have those these are called deconfliction lines at the highest

618
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: level is specifically so in the event that something crazy

619
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: goes on, you know, you call and you're like, hey,

620
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: is this real? Like is this really happening? Now? We

621
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: don't know necessarily, but it's a way in order to

622
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 1: make it so that we don't have miscalculations and the Russians,

623
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 1: I would submit this absent a time of war. We

624
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: should never have a situation where a nuclear armed power

625
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 1: is refusing to engage with us at the highest levels

626
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: of military leadership. And here's the other reason, let's put

627
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: this up. Actually we don't have a element for this,

628
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: but it's another important quote. Within this quote, a senior

629
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: Administration officials said, any use of a small tactical or

630
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: nuclear weapon by Russia, even inside of Ukraine and not

631
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:50,240
Speaker 1: directed at a NATO member, would mean quote, all bets

632
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:53,800
Speaker 1: are off on the United States and NATO staying out

633
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 1: of the war. So he is then laying a soft

634
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 1: red line here saying, if you you who's even a

635
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 1: small tactical nuclear weapon inside of Ukraine, NATO and the

636
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: United States would declare war then on Russia in the

637
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: sense it would then be a Russian confrontation. And this

638
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:13,480
Speaker 1: is always the issue, right, which is that it's a

639
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 1: gray area, which is that we don't have an obligation

640
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 1: to defend Ukraine. And this sounds callous, but we do.

641
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:22,839
Speaker 1: Whenever it comes to NATO I obviously I think it'd

642
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: be a horrible a humanitarian event. But I'm talking specifically

643
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 1: from the use of military force by the United States.

644
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:30,760
Speaker 1: So we would then have to take a conscious decision

645
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 1: for the part of the United States in order to

646
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,279
Speaker 1: confront Putin over the use of a nuclear weapon in

647
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:39,359
Speaker 1: a country which borders him and of which does not

648
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: have a treaty obligation for US to do so, which

649
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: would also almost certainly invite a nuclear confrontation between these

650
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 1: two powers. And you know, we shouldn't. I feel like

651
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 1: I've been erasing too. Maybe some of these other European states,

652
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 1: France and the UK, also have large nuclear arsenals. These

653
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 1: are nuclear powers in their own right. They also have

654
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: you know, new clear doctrine, and they would certainly get

655
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: involved because their countries would be absolutely destroyed and wiped

656
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,200
Speaker 1: off of the map as well. So if you just

657
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:10,880
Speaker 1: think about it, things can get ugly, very very quickly.

658
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: The fact that they're opening the door and keeping the

659
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:15,960
Speaker 1: door open to nukes, that we are refusing, or that

660
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 1: they are refusing to talk to us, and that we

661
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: are then now floating soft red lines here in the

662
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: pages of the New York Times. I mean, look, they're

663
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 1: only raising these red lines if they think it's a

664
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: real possibility, which means you think it's a real possibility.

665
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,799
Speaker 1: That's right. And there's a few things. There's a few

666
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 1: things worth noting here. First of all, I think that

667
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 1: they quote a supreme Allied commander of NATO from two

668
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 1: thousand and nine to twenty thirteen who says, I think

669
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: he lays out just how dangerous this is. Very well,

670
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 1: very young people are flying in jets, operating warships, and

671
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: conducting combat operations in the Ukrainian War. They are not

672
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: seasoned diplomats, and their actions and the heat of operations

673
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: can be misunderstood. We must avoid a scenario of NATO

674
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:04,799
Speaker 1: and Russia sleepwalking into war because senior leaders can't pick

675
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:07,720
Speaker 1: up a phone and explain to each other what is happening.

676
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 1: And that's the horror scenario all along of you know,

677
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: the dramatic escalation that we have witnessed in a very

678
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:19,799
Speaker 1: short period of time, Things that were previously off the

679
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,799
Speaker 1: table suddenly not only becoming possible, but being implemented with

680
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: very little debate, with very little consideration. And so the

681
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: terrifying situation is that you are sort of stumbling into

682
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,280
Speaker 1: a direct war and a direct conflict without even really

683
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 1: stopping to think about what you're doing. You know, they

684
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:42,319
Speaker 1: say not just that if there was a some sort

685
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: of tactical nuclear weapon deployed on Ukrainian soil, would that

686
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 1: potentially be a soft red line? But they even the

687
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: raise the possibility of you know, if there was a

688
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: chemical or biological weapons attack that was technically an Ukrainian

689
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 1: soil but the impact of which was felt to some

690
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:03,240
Speaker 1: extent in a NATO country, does that constitute an attack

691
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 1: on a NATO ally And they raise that possibility, and

692
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:11,319
Speaker 1: they don't answer the question. So again, these are terrifying scenarios.

693
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 1: Biden has been repeatedly warning of the possibility of the

694
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: use of a chemical or biological attack in Ukraine. The

695
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 1: intelligence community got certain critical things right in the run

696
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: up to this, so I wouldn't completely dismiss them out

697
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 1: of hand. And they are obviously taking all of these

698
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 1: possibilities very seriously and sketching out the scenarios right now

699
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: today with our NATO allies in Europe. Yeah, and look

700
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 1: not like the Russians haven't poisoned a lot of people

701
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:42,919
Speaker 1: in the past, so they don't have the same level

702
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 1: of taboo, especially the Putin regime, whenever it comes to this,

703
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 1: and it certainly could be. This could be a really

704
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 1: big problem. Let's turn to some domestic politics a little

705
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:59,479
Speaker 1: bit lighter, fair, though still not good, but a little

706
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 1: bit lighter. Okay, we've been telling you about how Trump's

707
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: endorsements in Senate primaries, in particular not going that well.

708
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: So in North Carolina, his candidate is down. In Georgia,

709
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 1: you know, we both thought that Purdue probably had a

710
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:17,120
Speaker 1: lock on the Republican nomination because there was so much

711
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: animosity towards Governor Kemp, and Trump comes in, you know,

712
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: strongly and forcefully unproduced side. Right now, Kemp is kind

713
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: of cleaning up in that race. The other one we

714
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: talked about was in Alabama, where Trump had endorsed Congressman

715
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 1: Moe Brooks in that Senate primary. Now, two things happened.

716
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 1: Number one, and probably most importantly, Brooks is losing. He's

717
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: down in the polls. Number two, he made some vague

718
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: comments about stop the steal that you know, he buys

719
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 1: Trump's nonsense line about the election being rigged. But he

720
00:40:50,239 --> 00:40:52,359
Speaker 1: made some vague comments about but we need to put

721
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:54,240
Speaker 1: that in the past and we need to look forward.

722
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: This apparently pissed off Trump, and so there was speculation

723
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 1: Trump might rescind his endorse over this landscape, and in

724
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: fact he has now officially done that. Let's put that

725
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 1: up on the screen, and the details here are incredible.

726
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:10,920
Speaker 1: This is a tweet just from David Drucker Trump. I

727
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: am hereby withdrawing my endorsement of Mo Brooks. But let's

728
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: put some of the details of why, according to Trump,

729
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:23,839
Speaker 1: he is unindorsing Mo Brooks. Put this next piece up

730
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 1: on the screen so effectively. He argues that Mo Brooks

731
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 1: is too woke. He says Mobrooks of Alabama made a

732
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 1: horrible mistake recently when he went and he puts us

733
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 1: in quotes woke and stated, referring to the twenty twenty

734
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: presidential election scam. Put that behind you. Put that behind you,

735
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:45,720
Speaker 1: despite the fact that the election was rife with fraud

736
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: and irregularities, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. He also

737
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,359
Speaker 1: goes on to say, when I endorse Mobrooks, he took

738
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 1: a forty four point lead and was unstoppable. And then

739
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: he talks about how now he's losing in the polls,

740
00:41:57,680 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: and he blames it on the fact that Mobrooks wants

741
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,399
Speaker 1: soft on stop the steal. The response from Mobrooks, which

742
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: we have upon the screen here, is also quite interesting.

743
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 1: Number One, He tries to suspend this whole thing. Oh,

744
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:12,359
Speaker 1: it's Trump being manipulated by Mitch McConnell, and I'm still

745
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: the real like Trump candidate in this race. But he

746
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: also says Trump quote asked me to rescind the twenty

747
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:23,959
Speaker 1: twenty elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House,

748
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 1: immediately put Trump back in the White House, and hold

749
00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:31,200
Speaker 1: a new special election for the presidency. What like, if

750
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 1: this is true, Mobrooks is just one random congressman, Like

751
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 1: this is a new level of completely delusional and insane

752
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 1: behavior from Donald Trump. Yeah, I mean, a guy just

753
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:47,920
Speaker 1: can't help himself, can he. It's like, it could be

754
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: a better landscape for Republicans out there than right now

755
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:54,760
Speaker 1: is gas I'm here in La is six dollars a gallon.

756
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 1: I mean, GOP is apparently registering people at gas stations,

757
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: which which is a brilliant idea. And he's like, no,

758
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: you know what we're going to do. We're going to

759
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 1: go and We're going to talk about the election was stolen,

760
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to extract pledges from my potential

761
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: endorsees that they are going to go and try and

762
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 1: pursue blatantly illegal and like the Banana Republic level schemes

763
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 1: in the United States Congress in return for my endorsement.

764
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to think even what Mobrooks said in

765
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:31,319
Speaker 1: his comments, we're so asinine. They were like, hell, hey, look,

766
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election's over. We can only fix it

767
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: by winning in twenty twenty two and twenty four. Okay,

768
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:42,359
Speaker 1: that's what enraged you. That's completely insane. But look, I

769
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:44,359
Speaker 1: just think it goes to show a lot of people

770
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:48,239
Speaker 1: who do support Trump that when you do, you buy

771
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: into the absolute most insanity of his personality and which

772
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 1: he indulges on a day to day basis. And at

773
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: the end of the day, the only thing the man

774
00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: has actually shown any ability in order to exercise power

775
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 1: on behalf of are his whims. And this is what

776
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:08,560
Speaker 1: he chooses to spend his time obsessing over. This is

777
00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:12,920
Speaker 1: what he chooses in order to extract of pledges from nominees.

778
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 1: Nothing about policy, nothing about anything, you know, even America first.

779
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: The term America first as it exists in our contemporary

780
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 1: political discourse today. It has nothing to do with Russia.

781
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with energy policy. What does

782
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 1: it have to do with It has to do with

783
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:32,839
Speaker 1: stop the steel Oh okay, Yeah, that's totally a real

784
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 1: nationalist cause that we're talking about here. And I just

785
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: think it shows you also why you have a lot

786
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:42,399
Speaker 1: of these Senate candidates absolutely beclowning themselves with I think

787
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,359
Speaker 1: Trump won. Trump won the election, and then they try

788
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 1: and high iq it and be like because the media

789
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 1: rigged it against him. I'm like, no, no no, no, he

790
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: doesn't think that. He thinks that the actual election was

791
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: stolen by bamboo ballots from China. Do you believe that?

792
00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 1: Because that's what you're endorsing, and that's what a lot

793
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:01,640
Speaker 1: of people who follow him, Unfortunately, that's what they believe

794
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 1: to And look, I just think on the one hand,

795
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 1: it could be good, Crystal. It shows you that his

796
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 1: political influence on this insanity is diminishing, that there is

797
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 1: actually a pretty large constituency within the Republican Party who's

798
00:45:15,120 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: not willing to play ball. But on the other I mean,

799
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:20,719
Speaker 1: I still think he would win the I mean, I

800
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 1: know he would win the GOP nomination, and I think

801
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: he probably will win if the election were held today

802
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:28,840
Speaker 1: to become the next president. And if he does, I

803
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 1: think we have to be honest that these are the

804
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: types of insanity that he will pursue. And it's going

805
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 1: to be very difficult in order. I mean, you know,

806
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 1: because the mainstream media will turn it up to you know, fifteen,

807
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: be like the republic is over, and you can be

808
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 1: we'd have to turn it up to like seven and

809
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 1: be like, well, you know, this is a threat to

810
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: constitutional democracy and in terms of what we're doing. But

811
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:52,799
Speaker 1: it's possible that it all fail. It's just I can

812
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 1: foresee a nightmare scenario of what the national landscape is

813
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:57,760
Speaker 1: going to look like if he gets reelected. Oh yeah,

814
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:00,759
Speaker 1: oh yeah, no, I mean it's it's a night scenario

815
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: just him being the Republican nominee again. And you know,

816
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:09,239
Speaker 1: the fact that Biden is about is down on his

817
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 1: look as he could possibly be, and has made terrible decisions,

818
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,760
Speaker 1: and people are pissed off about the state of the economy,

819
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 1: pissed off about the direction of the country. Republicans are

820
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 1: set through no doing of their own or no like

821
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 1: plan to clean up in the midterm elections. And yet

822
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 1: still when you do the head to head matchups, it's

823
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,759
Speaker 1: basically tied between Biden and Trump, which I think if

824
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 1: Trump just shut his trap about all this crap and

825
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,360
Speaker 1: moved on, he'd be easily winning in those head to

826
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 1: have matchups. So this is the thing that could ultimately

827
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:45,880
Speaker 1: it's all there for the Republicans on a silver platter.

828
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 1: But this crap, this nonsense is what could completely you know,

829
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:53,760
Speaker 1: unravel it all for them. Now listen, in the midterm elections.

830
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 1: Is it going to devastate them, No, but there are

831
00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 1: signs that they're going to perform underperform even in the

832
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:01,720
Speaker 1: midterm election because of this. I mean, the Eric Britons

833
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: thing is a perfect example. This guy is winning in

834
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: the Republican polls. He was potentially on the verge of

835
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: being endorsed by Trump in spite of his previous scandals

836
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 1: and allegations that he had tied up a woman, blindfolded

837
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:18,239
Speaker 1: her and taken a picture of her naked in order

838
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 1: to blackmail her to keep her from talking about the

839
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: affair that they were having. Now we have allegations of

840
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 1: domestic violence and child abuse in assigned affidavit from his

841
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 1: ex wife. And you know, it's a real question whether

842
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:34,040
Speaker 1: this guy could ultimately still be the Republican nominee because

843
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 1: he said the right things on Mitch McConnell and on

844
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 1: stop the steal for Trump and for the GOP base.

845
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:42,640
Speaker 1: He's the only Republican who could lose that Senate race

846
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:45,280
Speaker 1: in Missouri. But I do think if he's the nominee,

847
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that he loses. So even in

848
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 1: the midterms, there's a chance that they underperform because of

849
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 1: leaning into something that yeah, there's like, you know, an

850
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 1: article of faith among the Republican base. But even the

851
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 1: Republican base like this, this isn't there's top priority. If

852
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 1: you look at the polling. They care about the crap

853
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:07,319
Speaker 1: you'd expect them to carry. They care about the economy, right,

854
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:09,359
Speaker 1: they care about being able to, like, you know, pay

855
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 1: the bills and put food on the table and fill

856
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:16,839
Speaker 1: up the gas tank. So you know, even within the

857
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 1: sort of core of the Republican faithful, this isn't what

858
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: they want you spending your time on. And I think

859
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:28,400
Speaker 1: it has eroded his influence in these Republican primaries and

860
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 1: has eroded his political power to an extent. I mean,

861
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 1: as you point out, you always want to be really clear.

862
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: If the Republican primaries run today, there's no doubt that

863
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 1: he's the Nominee's very likely the nominee if he runs

864
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 1: again for twenty twenty four. But even in West Virginia,

865
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:46,280
Speaker 1: let's put this next piece up on the screen. There's

866
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:51,080
Speaker 1: a primary race between two members of Congress because West

867
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 1: Virginia lost one congressional seat, so you now have two

868
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 1: sitting members of Congress facing off against each other in

869
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:03,319
Speaker 1: a primary there. Trump backed Alex Mooney and he is

870
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: right now losing according to this poll to David McKinley.

871
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: So you know, both of these guys are like sort

872
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 1: of run in the mill. There's nothing particularly special about

873
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 1: them as far as I know. But Trump puts his

874
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:19,279
Speaker 1: thumb on the scale, says Mooney's my guy, and that

875
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:22,360
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to have really moved many people in this primary.

876
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:24,360
Speaker 1: In the state of West Virginia, which is one of

877
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:27,279
Speaker 1: the states, if not the state, where Trump has the

878
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:31,800
Speaker 1: highest level of committed support. You know, there are a

879
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:33,520
Speaker 1: lot of people there who really believe in this guy,

880
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: and it doesn't seem to have particularly moved them. West

881
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 1: Virginia is Trump country as it gets. And if they're

882
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 1: not willing to base a vote for some guy based

883
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:43,959
Speaker 1: upon his stop steal credentials because they care more about

884
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:47,239
Speaker 1: somebody talking about inflation, that's as good of a sign

885
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:51,799
Speaker 1: if any, of not necessarily Trump's diminished influence when he's

886
00:49:51,840 --> 00:49:55,360
Speaker 1: on message, his influence in terms of raw power of

887
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 1: just like, here's my most stupid, insane point, which yeah,

888
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: you kind of simp guys with because you hate the media,

889
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 1: but which you don't care about one. And yeah, I'm

890
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:07,040
Speaker 1: not willing in order to go along with it. But look,

891
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:08,640
Speaker 1: he's not going to learn his lesson. He's going to

892
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:11,000
Speaker 1: stick with this until the day that he dies in

893
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:13,319
Speaker 1: order to play kate, that large ego of his. So

894
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 1: everybody just be honest here about what exactly is happening

895
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: if he becomes president again. Yeah, all right, let's talk

896
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:23,560
Speaker 1: about the other side of the coin here with the Democrats. Okay,

897
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:26,720
Speaker 1: we've been tracking. There's been some little rumors coming out

898
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: of the White House about dysfunction within Kamala Harris's team.

899
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 1: How you know she's not doing particularly well in the job.

900
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 1: How we know that there have been staffers who have

901
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 1: been fleeing her office like rats office singing ship is

902
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 1: very consistent with throughout her career. She's had this problem

903
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:47,400
Speaker 1: holding on to staffers. I've been rumors about how, you know,

904
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:50,399
Speaker 1: she doesn't like to prepare, and then she gets when

905
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 1: she doesn't do well, she gets really angry at the staffers.

906
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 1: Even though they put the briefing book in front of her,

907
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:56,839
Speaker 1: she just was not really willing to engage with it.

908
00:50:57,440 --> 00:51:00,919
Speaker 1: So there's a new book that is coming out from

909
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:05,839
Speaker 1: two well sourced New York Times reporters, Jonathan Martin and

910
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 1: Alexander Burns, and they have some inside details about what

911
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman described as open warfare between the Biden people

912
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:19,120
Speaker 1: in the White House and the Kamala people in the

913
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 1: White House. We've got a few of those details for you.

914
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 1: Let's start with this one. Put this tweet up on

915
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:29,720
Speaker 1: the screen. So apparently, reportedly some of Harris's advisors believed

916
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:33,680
Speaker 1: the president's almost entirely white inner circle did not show

917
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 1: the Vice president the respect she deserved. Harris worried that

918
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:42,319
Speaker 1: Biden's staff looked down on her, and she fixated on

919
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: real and perceived snubs. So sounds like she's got a

920
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: real chip on her shoulder, and the and her staffers

921
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:53,360
Speaker 1: are sort of channeling that as well. And so the

922
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 1: same sort of rhetoric that we hear applied to the

923
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 1: American people of like, any of her failings is not

924
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 1: really her fault, it's the fault of the American people.

925
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:05,359
Speaker 1: They're two racist, they're two sexist. Apparently they think the

926
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:09,879
Speaker 1: same thing about the Biden White House staffers, the man

927
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 1: who picked you and elevated you to be vice president.

928
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 1: You think the same thing about those people as well. Oh,

929
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:20,480
Speaker 1: this woman is a complete and total narcissist. Some of

930
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,600
Speaker 1: the stuff that is in here is just unbelievable. My

931
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:28,720
Speaker 1: personal favorite one within that crystal is that she sent

932
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 1: her top aid to the White House Deputy chief of

933
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 1: staff to convey her displeasure that White House staff was

934
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 1: not standing up in the room when Harris entered and

935
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: took it as a sign of disrespect. Okay, let me

936
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 1: tell you something. As a White House correspondent, I was

937
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,839
Speaker 1: in the room with Mike Pence on several occasions, and

938
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 1: nobody stood up for the guy because he's not the president.

939
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 1: The standard is you stand up when the president enters

940
00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:59,800
Speaker 1: the room in the White House, You're not the president,

941
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:03,800
Speaker 1: so this lady is a complete narcissist. I mean. The

942
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:06,799
Speaker 1: other particular one that stuck in my craw here was

943
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 1: the discussion around Anna Wintour. And I love this because, well,

944
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 1: remember that Kamala was on the front page of like Vogue,

945
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:18,760
Speaker 1: and Anna Wintour photographed her and apparently ended up using

946
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:23,279
Speaker 1: a photo which was her wearing sneakers, and the Vice

947
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:26,440
Speaker 1: President and her team and her online mob implied that

948
00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:28,640
Speaker 1: this was a sexist and it didn't make her look

949
00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:32,040
Speaker 1: as powerful as they wanted, and they actually Vogue caved

950
00:53:32,080 --> 00:53:34,920
Speaker 1: and ended up replacing the photo on their digital edition,

951
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 1: but she saw it as a major snub against her

952
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 1: by the cultural zeitgeist, and she apparently was upset with

953
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 1: the Biden White House top staff, who had not yet

954
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:49,640
Speaker 1: entered but were beginning to assume the presidency, that they

955
00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:53,240
Speaker 1: were not backing her up in her feud with Anna Wintour,

956
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 1: and the top aides were like, just so you know,

957
00:53:56,960 --> 00:54:03,160
Speaker 1: the president's dealing with January sixth, a endemic global economic crisis,

958
00:54:03,560 --> 00:54:07,640
Speaker 1: and maybe you should just tone down your little snap

959
00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 1: with Anna Wintour, because we have way bigger shit to

960
00:54:11,080 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: deal with, and it just shows you the size of

961
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:17,719
Speaker 1: her ego. I mean, she really is selenaer Meyer from Beet.

962
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:23,759
Speaker 1: There is no better, a total, just untalented politician foisted

963
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:27,960
Speaker 1: upon all of us, who is a power obsessed narcissist.

964
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 1: It really is just pathetic to see somebody like this

965
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:33,719
Speaker 1: put d three guys up on the screen. Because this

966
00:54:33,840 --> 00:54:37,919
Speaker 1: is about the Anna Wintur piece that you're talking about.

967
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 1: They say, Kamala Harris felt quote wounded and belittled by

968
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:46,160
Speaker 1: the photo that Vogue chose for her February twenty twenty

969
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:49,959
Speaker 1: one cover. Here's what they say, and this again comes

970
00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:52,360
Speaker 1: from the same book and was i think initially reported

971
00:54:52,360 --> 00:54:57,160
Speaker 1: by Politico. They say, would Vogue, she asked aids, would

972
00:54:57,200 --> 00:55:01,080
Speaker 1: Vogue depict another world leader this way? Incoming Chief of

973
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 1: Staff Tina Flornoy was quote caught off guard by the

974
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 1: anger in Harris's circle and contacted a senior Biden campaign official.

975
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:12,360
Speaker 1: Given the country's myriad crises and the recent January sixth

976
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:16,279
Speaker 1: riot at the Capitol, the Biden advisor told Florinoy that

977
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:18,359
Speaker 1: this was not the time to be going to war

978
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:23,319
Speaker 1: with Vogue over a comparatively trivial esthetic issue. Tina the

979
00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: Advisor said, these are first world problems. According to the excerpt,

980
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:31,960
Speaker 1: I really do think it's very revealing because put yourself

981
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:36,280
Speaker 1: back in that time period and the level of crisis

982
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:38,960
Speaker 1: that the country was in. As you said, the nation

983
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:41,799
Speaker 1: was still in shock over the events of January six

984
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:44,480
Speaker 1: This is literally the next month after January sixth, when

985
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:47,000
Speaker 1: we're all still going like, what the hell just happened? Here?

986
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:50,800
Speaker 1: You still have its very early days of vaccines being

987
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 1: rolled out. This was before you or I are many

988
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 1: millions more of Americans had an opportunity to get a vaccine.

989
00:55:56,520 --> 00:55:58,640
Speaker 1: There was a high priority put on how do we

990
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:00,719
Speaker 1: roll these things out? How do we get shots into

991
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:03,400
Speaker 1: arms as quickly as we possibly can. There was a

992
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:07,359
Speaker 1: lot of economic pain and suffering. This is before they

993
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:09,640
Speaker 1: actually passed the Relief Act and are able to get

994
00:56:09,880 --> 00:56:11,759
Speaker 1: those next series of checks out the door in the

995
00:56:11,760 --> 00:56:15,480
Speaker 1: sort of final economic stimulus to patch up what was done.

996
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:20,480
Speaker 1: Not that they've totally recovered during the coronavirus collapse. So

997
00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:23,480
Speaker 1: all of this is going on, and what you care

998
00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:28,760
Speaker 1: about is your freaking Vogue cover. I mean, this tells

999
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:32,920
Speaker 1: you everything about this person who we know from the campaign,

1000
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:36,279
Speaker 1: you know, was changing campaign slogans with the seasons, as

1001
00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:38,600
Speaker 1: one of her staffers famously said, was like having a

1002
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: conference call to figure out what her core values should be. Obviously,

1003
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:45,120
Speaker 1: they never came to any real conclusion because her core

1004
00:56:45,280 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 1: values here are on how she looks on a Vogue cover.

1005
00:56:48,360 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 1: And by the way, it's interesting too because I also

1006
00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 1: think this is revealing. Anna Wintour said she personally selected

1007
00:56:56,360 --> 00:57:00,120
Speaker 1: the photo of Kamala in the sneakers, which was it's

1008
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:03,439
Speaker 1: definitely a little she's wearing like a business suit and

1009
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:06,839
Speaker 1: something that looks like Chuck Taylor's or something like that,

1010
00:57:06,880 --> 00:57:09,600
Speaker 1: low top sneakers, and so it is a little bit

1011
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 1: more of like an approachable kind of image for her.

1012
00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:17,439
Speaker 1: And the one she liked was the less authentic, sort

1013
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:23,160
Speaker 1: of traditional glossy campaign style photo that they ultimately you know,

1014
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:25,720
Speaker 1: used on the digital publication or something like that, or

1015
00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: swapped it out from. So she wanted the less authentic one.

1016
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:31,080
Speaker 1: That was what she ultimately was going for. She was like,

1017
00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 1: this one over here almost makes me look like a

1018
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:37,080
Speaker 1: normal human being, and that is not what I want. Yeah, Also,

1019
00:57:37,240 --> 00:57:40,000
Speaker 1: you're not a world leader, you're the vice president. Your

1020
00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:43,560
Speaker 1: senior staff. At best, accept your role, like know your place.

1021
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:47,240
Speaker 1: This is the thing that respect. We're not elected exactly,

1022
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 1: you were not elected to be president. If you are,

1023
00:57:49,960 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 1: then fine, but guess what you didn't. And she wants

1024
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:55,960
Speaker 1: to present herself on the same stage as like a

1025
00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:58,640
Speaker 1: Michelle Obama who also was a first lady. You know,

1026
00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:02,400
Speaker 1: last time I checked, or you know Angela Merkel, Algma

1027
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:05,040
Speaker 1: Merkle actually got elected, So you would have to do

1028
00:58:05,120 --> 00:58:07,280
Speaker 1: one of those things in order to make that happen.

1029
00:58:07,680 --> 00:58:11,960
Speaker 1: I just see a total I mean, it's just confirmation

1030
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:14,600
Speaker 1: everything that we know about her is true. She's an

1031
00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:17,560
Speaker 1: untalented politician. She barely knows how to string a sentence

1032
00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:20,880
Speaker 1: together in a coherent way, especially whenever she's under pressure,

1033
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:23,600
Speaker 1: or she embarrasses us on the international stage when she

1034
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:26,400
Speaker 1: goes abroad to Poland, or whenever she went down to

1035
00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:31,240
Speaker 1: the Central America and Northern Triangle. On almost every single occasion,

1036
00:58:31,360 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: she's incompetent at what she does, and yet demands respect

1037
00:58:35,480 --> 00:58:37,960
Speaker 1: and subservience from all of us. You know, if I

1038
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:39,560
Speaker 1: was in the room with her, I wouldn't stand up.

1039
00:58:39,600 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 1: There's no way, and I don't think people should. You

1040
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:46,640
Speaker 1: don't demand respect no matter who you are, even if

1041
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:48,800
Speaker 1: you are the president of the United States, you have

1042
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:52,040
Speaker 1: to earn it. And she believes that the fact that

1043
00:58:52,080 --> 00:58:55,160
Speaker 1: it's not just like automatically given to her has nothing

1044
00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:56,520
Speaker 1: to do with her. It has to do with the

1045
00:58:56,520 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 1: failures of the people around her, I mean, the Biden team.

1046
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:01,919
Speaker 1: They also get what they deserve because they're the ones

1047
00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:05,240
Speaker 1: who made this choice. Even though to anyone who was

1048
00:59:05,400 --> 00:59:08,680
Speaker 1: watching events unfold and watching her performance on the campaign trail,

1049
00:59:08,760 --> 00:59:11,560
Speaker 1: and watching her career trajectory, and watching the lack of

1050
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:15,280
Speaker 1: response from voters, none of this is a surprise. There's

1051
00:59:15,320 --> 00:59:19,120
Speaker 1: one last piece tidbit from the book that is also

1052
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:22,960
Speaker 1: very revealing. This is from the Politico playbook write up.

1053
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 1: They also say the book documents the frustration over Harris's

1054
00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:29,280
Speaker 1: policy portfolio, that some of these leaks had come out

1055
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:31,240
Speaker 1: before that we had talked about Sager, and they say

1056
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:34,480
Speaker 1: at one point her staff loaded the possibility of the

1057
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:38,400
Speaker 1: vice president overseeing relations with the Nordic countries, a low

1058
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:41,360
Speaker 1: risk diplomatic assignment that might have helped Harris get adjusted

1059
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:45,280
Speaker 1: to the international stage in welcoming venues like Oslo and Copenhagen.

1060
00:59:45,600 --> 00:59:50,000
Speaker 1: White House Aids rejected the idea and privately mocked it.

1061
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:53,240
Speaker 1: More irritating to Biden Aids was when they learned the

1062
00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:56,960
Speaker 1: vice president wanted to plan a major speech to outline

1063
00:59:57,080 --> 01:00:01,720
Speaker 1: her view a foreign policy Biden Aids vetoed the idea.

1064
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:07,040
Speaker 1: Imagine the gal to think that you can like you

1065
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:09,840
Speaker 1: don't have a foreign policy view, clearly, I mean we

1066
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 1: know that, right you do this big personal foreign policy

1067
01:00:14,840 --> 01:00:17,600
Speaker 1: speech or the vice president, it's your job to carry

1068
01:00:17,600 --> 01:00:19,440
Speaker 1: on the policy of the president. That's what you're there

1069
01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:23,200
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, snap too, I don't understand. You know,

1070
01:00:23,240 --> 01:00:26,240
Speaker 1: it's funny. Even Lyndon Johnson, who had a colossal ego,

1071
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:28,800
Speaker 1: they sent him all over the globe on these bs

1072
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:32,000
Speaker 1: foreign trips because that's what you do. Whenever the vice president,

1073
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:34,280
Speaker 1: you don't get to give speeches about who you are.

1074
01:00:34,320 --> 01:00:36,080
Speaker 1: If you want, you can run. And I think we

1075
01:00:36,120 --> 01:00:38,240
Speaker 1: all know how that's going to go. But look, she

1076
01:00:38,320 --> 01:00:41,360
Speaker 1: demands respect from us, Crystal, even though she doesn't deserve it.

1077
01:00:41,440 --> 01:00:43,160
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's going to be very fun to watch

1078
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:44,720
Speaker 1: her crash and burn on the world. Yeah. And if

1079
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 1: you don't give it to her, it's about you and

1080
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:50,320
Speaker 1: your failings. It's not about her. All right, last story

1081
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:53,560
Speaker 1: we wanted to get to here before our monologues is

1082
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 1: potential threat to the First Amendment that I think is

1083
01:00:56,880 --> 01:00:59,560
Speaker 1: really important to break down. So you all might have

1084
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:02,040
Speaker 1: been fall following this story. This has been unfolding for

1085
01:01:02,160 --> 01:01:05,200
Speaker 1: a number of months somehow, and we'll get into that

1086
01:01:05,280 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 1: a little bit more in a moment. Project Veritas got

1087
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:12,080
Speaker 1: their hands on what appears to legitimately have been Ashley Biden,

1088
01:01:12,120 --> 01:01:15,400
Speaker 1: the daughter of the President's diary. In it, she journals

1089
01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:18,919
Speaker 1: about her recovery from addiction and whatever else is going

1090
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 1: on in her life. They get their hands on this,

1091
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:25,840
Speaker 1: and then we know, and I think we talked about

1092
01:01:25,840 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 1: it before, the the FBI does this raid on James

1093
01:01:30,760 --> 01:01:35,680
Speaker 1: O'Keefe's home to seize evidence, and it's sort of insinuating

1094
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:41,480
Speaker 1: that they directly stole this diary. We're getting more details

1095
01:01:41,600 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 1: on both sides about how they obtain this diary, and

1096
01:01:45,240 --> 01:01:49,120
Speaker 1: then also the incredibly sketchy and I would say outright

1097
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:53,720
Speaker 1: abusive practices that the government has been using to go

1098
01:01:53,800 --> 01:01:57,320
Speaker 1: after Project Veritas, an organization that, look, let's be clear, guys,

1099
01:01:57,400 --> 01:02:00,280
Speaker 1: I have no particular use for I think I think

1100
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:03,240
Speaker 1: every time they post something Sager and are very skeptical

1101
01:02:03,280 --> 01:02:06,400
Speaker 1: of whatever it is because they been known to deceptively edit.

1102
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:10,160
Speaker 1: Their tactics are as sketchy as it possibly gets. But

1103
01:02:10,360 --> 01:02:13,600
Speaker 1: those are the instances when it's most important that you

1104
01:02:13,680 --> 01:02:16,640
Speaker 1: stick to your principle, even when you don't necessarily like

1105
01:02:16,720 --> 01:02:19,680
Speaker 1: the outlet that you are talking about. So first we

1106
01:02:19,760 --> 01:02:22,320
Speaker 1: have this New York Times reporting, and by the way,

1107
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:24,720
Speaker 1: Project Veritas is in this hole feud with the New

1108
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:26,640
Speaker 1: York Times, so you should take their reporting with a

1109
01:02:26,680 --> 01:02:29,240
Speaker 1: grain of salt. But the story that they sketch out

1110
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:34,040
Speaker 1: here in terms of how Project Veritas obtains Ashley Biden's diary,

1111
01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:37,280
Speaker 1: is that she had been staying in a Florida apartment.

1112
01:02:37,400 --> 01:02:40,439
Speaker 1: She'd been living there for a while. She moves out

1113
01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:44,120
Speaker 1: of the apartment and she leaves mistakenly the diary and

1114
01:02:44,160 --> 01:02:47,360
Speaker 1: some of her other personal effects behind. According to The

1115
01:02:47,360 --> 01:02:51,000
Speaker 1: New York Times, she contacted the landlords of the apartment

1116
01:02:51,080 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 1: she planned to go back and get it. The new

1117
01:02:54,320 --> 01:02:58,600
Speaker 1: tenant of the apartment was a Trump supporter who found

1118
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:01,360
Speaker 1: this diary and it ends up in the hands of

1119
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:05,919
Speaker 1: people who are circulating it at a Trump fundraiser. That's

1120
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:09,440
Speaker 1: when Project Veritas comes in and you know, is talking

1121
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:13,640
Speaker 1: to these intermediaries and wants to purchase this diary for

1122
01:03:13,640 --> 01:03:16,720
Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars. New York Times sets this whole article

1123
01:03:16,800 --> 01:03:20,400
Speaker 1: up with the way the sort of subterfuge that they

1124
01:03:20,440 --> 01:03:25,200
Speaker 1: allege Project Veritas used to confirm the authenticity of the diary. Okay,

1125
01:03:25,360 --> 01:03:28,960
Speaker 1: so diary is take is, you know, left at this

1126
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:34,720
Speaker 1: apartment basically stolen by the next tenant, and then it

1127
01:03:34,880 --> 01:03:38,800
Speaker 1: ends up being purchased by Project Veritas for forty thousand dollars.

1128
01:03:39,120 --> 01:03:42,440
Speaker 1: They review the contents of the diary, they actually try

1129
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:46,000
Speaker 1: to use it as a as a device to get

1130
01:03:46,040 --> 01:03:48,240
Speaker 1: Biden to sit with them for an interview to answer

1131
01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 1: questions about it. They're like, no, we're not doing this.

1132
01:03:50,800 --> 01:03:54,200
Speaker 1: This is extortionate, you know, piss off basically, And they

1133
01:03:54,200 --> 01:03:56,760
Speaker 1: don't end up even publishing the contents of the diary

1134
01:03:57,200 --> 01:04:00,280
Speaker 1: because they rightly figure out that most people are gonna

1135
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:03,360
Speaker 1: look at that and be like, what is the president's daughter, Like,

1136
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:05,680
Speaker 1: what are you doing these private details of her life?

1137
01:04:05,760 --> 01:04:08,720
Speaker 1: This is way out of bounds, So they don't publish

1138
01:04:08,800 --> 01:04:12,320
Speaker 1: the contents of the diary. They ultimately turn it over

1139
01:04:12,480 --> 01:04:15,960
Speaker 1: to local law enforcement, and then the next thing that

1140
01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:18,840
Speaker 1: we hear, we didn't really know any of that was

1141
01:04:18,920 --> 01:04:21,600
Speaker 1: going on. The first we hear of this story is

1142
01:04:21,640 --> 01:04:26,040
Speaker 1: because there's this FBI raid on James O'Keefe, who's the

1143
01:04:26,080 --> 01:04:29,520
Speaker 1: founder of Project Veritas, the leader Project Veritas, on his home.

1144
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 1: He just released some video of what that looked like.

1145
01:04:32,960 --> 01:05:01,920
Speaker 1: Let's take a look. You do not pity up so

1146
01:05:02,320 --> 01:05:11,960
Speaker 1: another so very aggressive here and now the latest piece

1147
01:05:12,160 --> 01:05:14,120
Speaker 1: saga and then I'll get your reaction. Let's go ahead

1148
01:05:14,120 --> 01:05:17,360
Speaker 1: and put this screenshot up on up there on the screen,

1149
01:05:17,720 --> 01:05:20,880
Speaker 1: this tear sheet. Project Veritas says the DOJ secretly assessed

1150
01:05:21,400 --> 01:05:23,720
Speaker 1: access to its emails as part of its probe into

1151
01:05:23,800 --> 01:05:28,640
Speaker 1: how it got Joe Biden's daughter's diary. Effectively, the court

1152
01:05:28,720 --> 01:05:31,439
Speaker 1: had established a certain procedure, because you are talking about

1153
01:05:31,440 --> 01:05:33,920
Speaker 1: a First Amendment organization here, where there'd be a special

1154
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:37,480
Speaker 1: master that reviews any information and determines what can be

1155
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:40,000
Speaker 1: used in a court case and not. And that the

1156
01:05:40,040 --> 01:05:44,680
Speaker 1: DOJ secretly went around those rules to execute a search

1157
01:05:44,720 --> 01:05:50,640
Speaker 1: warrant directly with Microsoft and obtain these emails outside of

1158
01:05:50,720 --> 01:05:54,200
Speaker 1: the court established process. That is what Project Veritas and

1159
01:05:54,280 --> 01:05:58,440
Speaker 1: their lawyers are alleging here. So just to that was

1160
01:05:58,480 --> 01:06:00,760
Speaker 1: all along. And let me just boil down a couple

1161
01:06:00,800 --> 01:06:05,400
Speaker 1: of things. Number One, you cannot, obviously, as a First

1162
01:06:05,440 --> 01:06:11,600
Speaker 1: Amendment organization or anyone, directly steals something that is illegal, right,

1163
01:06:11,680 --> 01:06:15,120
Speaker 1: that is theft. But even the New York Times that

1164
01:06:15,160 --> 01:06:17,800
Speaker 1: has an act to grind here, isn't saying that that's

1165
01:06:17,800 --> 01:06:20,400
Speaker 1: what happened. Now they allege, oh, maybe they knew that

1166
01:06:20,440 --> 01:06:23,600
Speaker 1: it was stolen materials. We guess what journalists know that

1167
01:06:23,640 --> 01:06:28,080
Speaker 1: they're using stolen materials all the time. Is it unseemly

1168
01:06:28,240 --> 01:06:31,720
Speaker 1: to pay forty thousand dollars to pay any money for

1169
01:06:31,800 --> 01:06:35,920
Speaker 1: information and access, Yeah, it's unseemly. It's also not illegal.

1170
01:06:36,040 --> 01:06:39,480
Speaker 1: It's considered sort of bad journalistic practice, and it is unseemly,

1171
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:43,640
Speaker 1: but it is not illegal. So even in the story

1172
01:06:43,640 --> 01:06:46,600
Speaker 1: that The New York Times is spinning here, it's hard

1173
01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:52,080
Speaker 1: to see outside of political motivation, what is the justification

1174
01:06:52,520 --> 01:06:57,280
Speaker 1: for the criminalizing of these activities. Unless Crystal they can

1175
01:06:57,360 --> 01:07:01,960
Speaker 1: prove the Project Veritas directly organ the theft of these

1176
01:07:02,000 --> 01:07:05,960
Speaker 1: materials and orchestrated it directly, not purchasing an effort already

1177
01:07:06,000 --> 01:07:09,680
Speaker 1: been stolen, then this is a bs of political persecution.

1178
01:07:10,200 --> 01:07:13,040
Speaker 1: If you look and you read within the story, they

1179
01:07:13,080 --> 01:07:16,080
Speaker 1: say as one of their accusations for why Project Veritas

1180
01:07:16,160 --> 01:07:19,120
Speaker 1: shouldn't be treated with First Amendment protections is that they

1181
01:07:19,200 --> 01:07:22,720
Speaker 1: contacted a representative for Ashley Biden and didn't identify themselves

1182
01:07:22,880 --> 01:07:26,440
Speaker 1: as part of Project Veritas. I mean, yeah, I wouldn't

1183
01:07:26,480 --> 01:07:30,040
Speaker 1: do that. At the same time, that's not illegal, Like

1184
01:07:30,120 --> 01:07:33,240
Speaker 1: it's not illegal for you to use false or deceptive

1185
01:07:33,240 --> 01:07:36,960
Speaker 1: tactics in order to get information. And in fact, there

1186
01:07:37,000 --> 01:07:40,840
Speaker 1: have been many instances when reporters have either not identified

1187
01:07:40,840 --> 01:07:45,360
Speaker 1: themselves or inserted themselves into a situation without identifying themselves

1188
01:07:45,480 --> 01:07:48,360
Speaker 1: and have used information around them in order to publish stories.

1189
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:52,120
Speaker 1: Once again, I would personally never do that. I don't

1190
01:07:52,360 --> 01:07:55,120
Speaker 1: doesn't fit within my ethics. But I am a First

1191
01:07:55,200 --> 01:07:59,000
Speaker 1: Amendment maximalist, and in this case, they did not do

1192
01:07:59,040 --> 01:08:02,360
Speaker 1: anything wrong. I also find it very troubling whenever I

1193
01:08:02,440 --> 01:08:04,840
Speaker 1: read all of this that The New York Times is

1194
01:08:04,880 --> 01:08:09,200
Speaker 1: just willing to take these criminal prosecution documents straight from

1195
01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:13,040
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice and just establish their narrative. Look,

1196
01:08:13,160 --> 01:08:15,560
Speaker 1: we're talking here about the President of the United States.

1197
01:08:15,600 --> 01:08:18,760
Speaker 1: Is Justice Department who is prosecuting somebody who tried to

1198
01:08:19,000 --> 01:08:22,679
Speaker 1: publish the contents of his daughter's diary. I think that's

1199
01:08:22,760 --> 01:08:26,559
Speaker 1: sketchy territory. I'm glad that they didn't ultimately go ahead

1200
01:08:26,720 --> 01:08:30,040
Speaker 1: and publish it, but even if they did, I would say, look,

1201
01:08:30,360 --> 01:08:32,479
Speaker 1: it's a free country. This is the price of what

1202
01:08:32,520 --> 01:08:35,040
Speaker 1: living in a free country is. And you cannot use

1203
01:08:35,400 --> 01:08:38,160
Speaker 1: the FBI and the DOJ and the goon squad to

1204
01:08:38,200 --> 01:08:41,160
Speaker 1: bust down people's doors at six am in the morning,

1205
01:08:41,320 --> 01:08:44,160
Speaker 1: steal all of their materials and then start leaking it

1206
01:08:44,400 --> 01:08:46,080
Speaker 1: to the New York Times. I mean, this is the

1207
01:08:46,080 --> 01:08:48,760
Speaker 1: part which really bugs me about the mainstream media, which

1208
01:08:48,760 --> 01:08:50,479
Speaker 1: is we have to recognize this for what it is.

1209
01:08:50,760 --> 01:08:53,640
Speaker 1: I mean, is it all that different than New York

1210
01:08:53,680 --> 01:08:58,200
Speaker 1: Times reporters meeting Daniel Ellsberg, who literally stole and orchestrated

1211
01:08:58,240 --> 01:09:01,920
Speaker 1: a theft from the Pentagon of the Pentagon papers and

1212
01:09:01,960 --> 01:09:05,559
Speaker 1: then transferred them to Neil Sheen over at the Times.

1213
01:09:05,640 --> 01:09:09,960
Speaker 1: I mean that could have similarly been prosecuted as some

1214
01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:13,320
Speaker 1: sort of criminal conspiracy and directing of all of this happening,

1215
01:09:13,400 --> 01:09:15,400
Speaker 1: or same thing. You know, whenever the Washington Posts and

1216
01:09:16,400 --> 01:09:19,599
Speaker 1: them also try to obtain those materials. We have to

1217
01:09:19,600 --> 01:09:22,840
Speaker 1: protect that right this fits with Julian Assange, this fits

1218
01:09:22,840 --> 01:09:25,479
Speaker 1: here with Veritas. And this is why it's just so

1219
01:09:25,560 --> 01:09:28,479
Speaker 1: frustrating that these people don't really believe in freedom of

1220
01:09:28,520 --> 01:09:31,439
Speaker 1: the press. And whenever it's somebody using tactics that they

1221
01:09:31,479 --> 01:09:33,200
Speaker 1: don't agree with or who is an enemy of the

1222
01:09:33,439 --> 01:09:36,000
Speaker 1: you know, the regime, quote unquote, they're fine and like

1223
01:09:36,280 --> 01:09:39,200
Speaker 1: one thing lasting on Veritas have they Yeah, look, they've

1224
01:09:39,200 --> 01:09:41,840
Speaker 1: been caught with sketchy atis. I personally wish James O'Keefe

1225
01:09:41,920 --> 01:09:44,080
Speaker 1: would just published the interviews and not do those annoying

1226
01:09:44,439 --> 01:09:47,080
Speaker 1: straight to camera monologues because that's just rue and the

1227
01:09:47,080 --> 01:09:49,880
Speaker 1: weirdest music they lay over the top and stuff. It's like,

1228
01:09:50,120 --> 01:09:54,439
Speaker 1: just put on the info dude, project Veritas. If you're listening, stop.

1229
01:09:56,439 --> 01:09:59,000
Speaker 1: But we have used some of their stuff before, The

1230
01:09:59,000 --> 01:10:03,000
Speaker 1: New York Times reporter, the Jeffrey Epstein Amy Roboch, I mean,

1231
01:10:03,000 --> 01:10:05,400
Speaker 1: the guy who's published some legit stuff in the past,

1232
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:07,400
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm just going to err on the side

1233
01:10:07,400 --> 01:10:09,439
Speaker 1: of being able to have that in the open and

1234
01:10:09,439 --> 01:10:11,280
Speaker 1: public square. So I think all of us should stand

1235
01:10:11,320 --> 01:10:15,599
Speaker 1: up against this. I one hundred percent agree, And it's

1236
01:10:15,640 --> 01:10:18,880
Speaker 1: really simple. Your principles are meaningless if they don't apply

1237
01:10:19,160 --> 01:10:23,080
Speaker 1: when it's people or ideas or organizations that you don't

1238
01:10:23,120 --> 01:10:25,439
Speaker 1: particularly care for. And that's what we see is New

1239
01:10:25,520 --> 01:10:28,320
Speaker 1: York Times, all these people they're so you know, they'll

1240
01:10:28,400 --> 01:10:30,720
Speaker 1: use all this high minded rhetoric about freedom of the

1241
01:10:30,800 --> 01:10:33,000
Speaker 1: press and the power of journal and how important it

1242
01:10:33,040 --> 01:10:34,600
Speaker 1: is and how you got to protect it and now

1243
01:10:34,680 --> 01:10:38,000
Speaker 1: we have to resist you know, Trump and his attacks

1244
01:10:38,040 --> 01:10:40,320
Speaker 1: on the press and all of this. But they only

1245
01:10:40,360 --> 01:10:42,200
Speaker 1: do it when it's easy, you know, they only do

1246
01:10:42,240 --> 01:10:45,200
Speaker 1: it when it fits into when it's one of their friends,

1247
01:10:45,640 --> 01:10:49,280
Speaker 1: fits into an ideology that's comfortable for them, you know.

1248
01:10:49,760 --> 01:10:53,160
Speaker 1: So they are actively not just silent on this, but

1249
01:10:53,160 --> 01:10:57,439
Speaker 1: they're actively trying to sow this narrative that there was

1250
01:10:57,479 --> 01:11:01,360
Speaker 1: something actively illegal about what was done here. When you

1251
01:11:01,439 --> 01:11:07,519
Speaker 1: read through their own accounting, there's it's you can't figure out, Okay, well,

1252
01:11:07,520 --> 01:11:10,880
Speaker 1: what is actually breaking the law, not what is distasteful,

1253
01:11:10,960 --> 01:11:14,800
Speaker 1: not what is unseemly, but what is actually illegal to

1254
01:11:15,040 --> 01:11:20,240
Speaker 1: justify criminalizing this activity and an FBI raid, you know,

1255
01:11:20,400 --> 01:11:24,200
Speaker 1: knocking on James O'Keefe's door. And even in their telling,

1256
01:11:24,840 --> 01:11:28,559
Speaker 1: there's nothing there that crosses that line. So that's why

1257
01:11:28,560 --> 01:11:34,880
Speaker 1: the story ultimately matters. All right, Sacho, what are you

1258
01:11:34,880 --> 01:11:38,640
Speaker 1: looking at? Well? Everyone, I'm here in Los Angeles to

1259
01:11:38,680 --> 01:11:41,160
Speaker 1: speak at a conference, but I've been seeing some very

1260
01:11:41,160 --> 01:11:44,840
Speaker 1: troubling signs all around me. Those signs are gas prices.

1261
01:11:45,080 --> 01:11:48,639
Speaker 1: Gas prices are six fifty almost seven dollars a gallon.

1262
01:11:48,840 --> 01:11:51,599
Speaker 1: Los Angeles is the only city in the country which

1263
01:11:51,640 --> 01:11:54,479
Speaker 1: has a national has an average in the city of

1264
01:11:54,600 --> 01:11:57,040
Speaker 1: six dollars. And some of the people I've spoken to,

1265
01:11:57,240 --> 01:11:59,920
Speaker 1: working class Americans, some of whom have drive uber and

1266
01:12:00,000 --> 01:12:02,840
Speaker 1: and others, are really struggling right now. And it just

1267
01:12:02,840 --> 01:12:06,040
Speaker 1: goes to the question of what can actually be done.

1268
01:12:06,120 --> 01:12:08,679
Speaker 1: And whenever we talk about what needs to be done,

1269
01:12:08,720 --> 01:12:11,200
Speaker 1: we have to consider what the problem is. And one

1270
01:12:11,200 --> 01:12:13,559
Speaker 1: of the main problems right now is Wall Street. Let's

1271
01:12:13,560 --> 01:12:15,120
Speaker 1: go ahead and put this up there on the screen,

1272
01:12:15,360 --> 01:12:18,720
Speaker 1: which is that the Dallas Federal Reserve went ahead and

1273
01:12:18,760 --> 01:12:22,679
Speaker 1: surveyed one hundred oil and gas executives and they all

1274
01:12:22,760 --> 01:12:25,280
Speaker 1: gave an overwhelming reason why there has not been more

1275
01:12:25,280 --> 01:12:29,040
Speaker 1: domestic production. It is not about the Biden administration. It's

1276
01:12:29,080 --> 01:12:33,559
Speaker 1: not even about policy. It is quote investor pressure to

1277
01:12:33,760 --> 01:12:37,240
Speaker 1: maintain capital discipline. And this is something I've been trying

1278
01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:39,200
Speaker 1: to hammer home for a lot of you over the

1279
01:12:39,280 --> 01:12:42,479
Speaker 1: last couple of weeks, because understanding what has gone wrong

1280
01:12:42,520 --> 01:12:45,000
Speaker 1: in the oil market is the key to what exactly

1281
01:12:45,040 --> 01:12:47,960
Speaker 1: can be done about it, which is that these guys

1282
01:12:48,240 --> 01:12:51,679
Speaker 1: spent about a decade of cheap cap using cheap capital,

1283
01:12:52,000 --> 01:12:55,240
Speaker 1: and burning hundreds of billions of dollars on drilling in

1284
01:12:55,280 --> 01:12:59,439
Speaker 1: domestic production. Now that could be great, and the problem though,

1285
01:12:59,640 --> 01:13:02,120
Speaker 1: was cod and the price went ahead and went all

1286
01:13:02,160 --> 01:13:05,840
Speaker 1: the way down in twenty twenty, and it killed a

1287
01:13:05,840 --> 01:13:08,080
Speaker 1: lot of their ability in order to reap any profit.

1288
01:13:08,320 --> 01:13:11,360
Speaker 1: So is at a time like this, whenever gas prices

1289
01:13:11,400 --> 01:13:15,160
Speaker 1: are extremely high, that they are then reaping the rewards

1290
01:13:15,479 --> 01:13:18,720
Speaker 1: of those high gas prices and paying themselves back. And

1291
01:13:18,800 --> 01:13:21,479
Speaker 1: when we have such a capital at balance like that,

1292
01:13:21,800 --> 01:13:24,439
Speaker 1: there's only one actor that can do or anything about it,

1293
01:13:24,680 --> 01:13:26,680
Speaker 1: and that's the government. A lot of what we see

1294
01:13:26,800 --> 01:13:32,600
Speaker 1: right now, Crystal, are these opportunities for there are these proposals,

1295
01:13:32,960 --> 01:13:36,000
Speaker 1: for example from the Governor of California to give people

1296
01:13:36,120 --> 01:13:39,839
Speaker 1: gas cards or per not even per household, but per vehicle,

1297
01:13:40,280 --> 01:13:42,559
Speaker 1: or even gas tax relief. And look, I mean I

1298
01:13:42,560 --> 01:13:45,360
Speaker 1: support some of that in general, in order to reduce pressure,

1299
01:13:45,400 --> 01:13:49,680
Speaker 1: but the problem is production and supply, and there is

1300
01:13:49,840 --> 01:13:53,479
Speaker 1: just no current effort by the administration in order to

1301
01:13:53,560 --> 01:13:56,920
Speaker 1: boost supply in a way that we could in the

1302
01:13:56,960 --> 01:13:59,120
Speaker 1: near term, both on the foreign policy front, where you've

1303
01:13:59,160 --> 01:14:02,360
Speaker 1: talked a lot about with Saudi Arabia and with Venezuela,

1304
01:14:02,400 --> 01:14:05,040
Speaker 1: but also here at home. I mean, we clearly are

1305
01:14:05,080 --> 01:14:09,360
Speaker 1: seeing a wall street, a wall street sized blockade in

1306
01:14:09,439 --> 01:14:12,519
Speaker 1: front of Americans gas prices. It's because they want to

1307
01:14:12,560 --> 01:14:15,920
Speaker 1: pay themselves back from previous times. And I'm sorry, like,

1308
01:14:15,960 --> 01:14:18,720
Speaker 1: we can't have this situation where because you're trying to

1309
01:14:18,720 --> 01:14:22,200
Speaker 1: get paid back, people are suffering. I mean, here in California,

1310
01:14:22,920 --> 01:14:26,799
Speaker 1: the national average or the statewide average is five dollars

1311
01:14:26,800 --> 01:14:29,760
Speaker 1: and eighty cents a gallon. That is just hundreds of

1312
01:14:29,800 --> 01:14:33,759
Speaker 1: dollars a day or a week that are being taken

1313
01:14:34,080 --> 01:14:37,960
Speaker 1: out of people's property. And for those who are Angelino's,

1314
01:14:38,000 --> 01:14:41,479
Speaker 1: I think they're called you. People drive far more than

1315
01:14:41,479 --> 01:14:44,040
Speaker 1: I am even thought possible, even on traffic in the

1316
01:14:44,080 --> 01:14:48,360
Speaker 1: city is nuts. So I can't even imagine what these

1317
01:14:48,360 --> 01:14:52,200
Speaker 1: people are spending whenever it comes to their gas bills.

1318
01:14:52,280 --> 01:14:54,880
Speaker 1: I just put it all together, and it's very clear

1319
01:14:54,920 --> 01:14:57,080
Speaker 1: here what the issue is and we're just not even

1320
01:14:57,120 --> 01:14:59,920
Speaker 1: having a discussion nationally about what to be done about it.

1321
01:15:00,040 --> 01:15:02,639
Speaker 1: Everybody's like, oh, well, we can cut the state gas tax. Look,

1322
01:15:02,680 --> 01:15:04,639
Speaker 1: that's like thirty cents. We need to drop this thing

1323
01:15:04,640 --> 01:15:07,800
Speaker 1: by a dollar pick well. The problem the problem too

1324
01:15:08,040 --> 01:15:12,760
Speaker 1: is that those those efforts, which I also support, you know,

1325
01:15:12,840 --> 01:15:16,240
Speaker 1: to cut gas taxes temporarily, in fact, we should be

1326
01:15:16,240 --> 01:15:19,200
Speaker 1: moving away from a system where highways are financed by

1327
01:15:19,320 --> 01:15:22,840
Speaker 1: gas taxes because ideally we'll be reducing our consumption of

1328
01:15:23,400 --> 01:15:26,559
Speaker 1: gas or the idea of you know, giving everybody gas

1329
01:15:26,600 --> 01:15:28,720
Speaker 1: cards sort of, you know, another stimulus to be able

1330
01:15:28,720 --> 01:15:31,479
Speaker 1: to help to afford gases. The problem is that then

1331
01:15:31,600 --> 01:15:36,960
Speaker 1: you likely have the impact of increasing demand, and if

1332
01:15:37,000 --> 01:15:39,920
Speaker 1: you don't deal with the supply side, you're just gonna

1333
01:15:40,200 --> 01:15:42,479
Speaker 1: continue to put upward pressure on You're going to make

1334
01:15:42,479 --> 01:15:47,400
Speaker 1: them more money, right, That's that's it. So I mean

1335
01:15:47,439 --> 01:15:51,400
Speaker 1: you have like effectively a capital strike here in terms

1336
01:15:51,479 --> 01:15:54,479
Speaker 1: of short term increased production. Of course, you know that

1337
01:15:54,560 --> 01:15:57,040
Speaker 1: I think the most elegant solution is just to nationalize

1338
01:15:57,040 --> 01:15:59,000
Speaker 1: these companies so that we can ramp up production in

1339
01:15:59,080 --> 01:16:01,200
Speaker 1: the short term and why it down in the long term.

1340
01:16:01,200 --> 01:16:03,920
Speaker 1: But we all know how politically andlikely that is. Then again,

1341
01:16:03,960 --> 01:16:08,040
Speaker 1: I think all of it is politically unlikely. You know, yeah, no, look,

1342
01:16:08,080 --> 01:16:09,920
Speaker 1: and I think that's the problem. I mean, I keep

1343
01:16:10,000 --> 01:16:12,800
Speaker 1: trying to find some sort of way. I'm like, there's

1344
01:16:12,800 --> 01:16:15,080
Speaker 1: got to be a way here. And yet, as you

1345
01:16:15,160 --> 01:16:17,560
Speaker 1: just said, let's say we cut the gas tax and

1346
01:16:17,600 --> 01:16:21,360
Speaker 1: we increase demand, then we're just making exon even more

1347
01:16:21,400 --> 01:16:24,679
Speaker 1: money and paying back the billionaires who finance they're drilling

1348
01:16:24,720 --> 01:16:27,400
Speaker 1: in the first place. That's nuts. So if you're anti

1349
01:16:27,520 --> 01:16:30,960
Speaker 1: oil oil company, you should knock before that. We should

1350
01:16:31,040 --> 01:16:33,280
Speaker 1: have to be in some sort of solution where we

1351
01:16:33,360 --> 01:16:38,760
Speaker 1: can balance both their profit our own supply needs and

1352
01:16:38,800 --> 01:16:42,040
Speaker 1: then also just break the capital strike which is happening.

1353
01:16:42,080 --> 01:16:44,280
Speaker 1: I mean, there's that clip going around right now. I

1354
01:16:44,320 --> 01:16:45,880
Speaker 1: wish I had cut it for this, which is that

1355
01:16:45,960 --> 01:16:49,320
Speaker 1: the Pioneer CEO saying we will not drill even if

1356
01:16:49,360 --> 01:16:52,200
Speaker 1: the barrel is two hundred dollars a barrel, and I

1357
01:16:52,439 --> 01:16:57,160
Speaker 1: likely that what intanity is this. We can't have this

1358
01:16:57,240 --> 01:17:01,200
Speaker 1: situation and the people here are so I mean, yes,

1359
01:17:01,240 --> 01:17:05,120
Speaker 1: it's the entire country, but there's what's twelve percent of

1360
01:17:05,120 --> 01:17:08,360
Speaker 1: the US population lives in the state of California, and

1361
01:17:08,400 --> 01:17:10,719
Speaker 1: these people drive all the time, and you know, people

1362
01:17:10,720 --> 01:17:13,599
Speaker 1: who drive uber or people who drive trucks or all

1363
01:17:13,640 --> 01:17:16,200
Speaker 1: of the input costs that go into people's food and

1364
01:17:16,320 --> 01:17:20,439
Speaker 1: more is just outrageously expensive. It is an everyday tax

1365
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:24,679
Speaker 1: on American working citizens, and we have to do something

1366
01:17:24,680 --> 01:17:26,479
Speaker 1: about it. So at the very least I thought I

1367
01:17:26,479 --> 01:17:28,720
Speaker 1: would do this, you know, short talker thing, since I'm

1368
01:17:28,760 --> 01:17:30,519
Speaker 1: on the road, for people to at least understand what

1369
01:17:30,520 --> 01:17:34,080
Speaker 1: the problem is. Because that's why that is why it's

1370
01:17:34,120 --> 01:17:38,200
Speaker 1: not Keystone, it's not actually putin even I mean, you know,

1371
01:17:38,280 --> 01:17:41,080
Speaker 1: there's just like a whole narrative being spun on the

1372
01:17:41,080 --> 01:17:44,120
Speaker 1: Democratic side and the Republican side that is not reflective

1373
01:17:44,160 --> 01:17:49,640
Speaker 1: of what is really going on, Crystal, what are you

1374
01:17:49,680 --> 01:17:52,240
Speaker 1: taking a look at? Well, guys, confirmation hearing is for

1375
01:17:52,240 --> 01:17:55,559
Speaker 1: Biden Supreme Court nominee Katanji Brown Jackson, or KPJ, as

1376
01:17:55,600 --> 01:17:59,720
Speaker 1: she is known, continued in highly predictable fashion. Yesterday, Democrats

1377
01:17:59,760 --> 01:18:02,640
Speaker 1: fund Republicans fumed. If you followed anything about it, you

1378
01:18:02,760 --> 01:18:04,559
Speaker 1: likely heard about the attacks on her as soft on

1379
01:18:04,640 --> 01:18:07,479
Speaker 1: pedophiles and the attempt to cast her as ibramex Kendy

1380
01:18:07,520 --> 01:18:10,759
Speaker 1: and judicial robes but there was another line of attack

1381
01:18:10,840 --> 01:18:13,719
Speaker 1: this week that reveals a lot about our current moment

1382
01:18:13,840 --> 01:18:16,559
Speaker 1: and how little we have evolved from the reign of

1383
01:18:16,600 --> 01:18:20,479
Speaker 1: the neocons during the George W. Bush era. Because several

1384
01:18:20,520 --> 01:18:25,680
Speaker 1: Republican Senators were quite exercised about kbj's work in opposition

1385
01:18:25,960 --> 01:18:29,080
Speaker 1: to the war crimes, torture, and lies of the George W.

1386
01:18:29,120 --> 01:18:34,439
Speaker 1: Bush administration, and the effeckless liberal non response, frankly was

1387
01:18:34,479 --> 01:18:37,040
Speaker 1: equally telling. As you may know, during her time as

1388
01:18:37,040 --> 01:18:39,799
Speaker 1: a public defender, KBJ was assigned to represent four different

1389
01:18:39,800 --> 01:18:43,759
Speaker 1: detainees who were held at Guantanamo Bay. Later in her career,

1390
01:18:43,880 --> 01:18:46,400
Speaker 1: Brown Jackson also filed Friend of the Court briefs on

1391
01:18:46,439 --> 01:18:50,000
Speaker 1: behalf of two different advocacy organizations that were challenging indefinite

1392
01:18:50,000 --> 01:18:54,479
Speaker 1: detention policies. This is, all, obviously, in my opinion, a

1393
01:18:54,560 --> 01:18:57,240
Speaker 1: strong point in favor of her integrity and values, but

1394
01:18:57,560 --> 01:19:01,439
Speaker 1: official Washington clearly feels quite Differently, it was no secret

1395
01:19:01,479 --> 01:19:04,960
Speaker 1: Republicans were planning to attack her record defending detainees. Senator

1396
01:19:05,000 --> 01:19:08,280
Speaker 1: Hawley had already expressed concern over that record. Senator Cornyn,

1397
01:19:08,439 --> 01:19:11,639
Speaker 1: a top Republican, indicated that she would be questioned over

1398
01:19:11,680 --> 01:19:14,919
Speaker 1: her defense of Guantanamo detainees, and when she was previously

1399
01:19:15,000 --> 01:19:17,600
Speaker 1: vetted through Senate confirmation hearing, she was put through the

1400
01:19:17,640 --> 01:19:20,959
Speaker 1: paces on the matter by Senators SaaS, Cotton and Grassy,

1401
01:19:21,720 --> 01:19:25,720
Speaker 1: and sure enough Republicans pounced. Lindsey Graham as committed to

1402
01:19:25,760 --> 01:19:28,599
Speaker 1: war crimes and torture as he ever was, had a

1403
01:19:28,640 --> 01:19:31,800
Speaker 1: whole meltdown and stormed out of the room over his

1404
01:19:31,880 --> 01:19:36,200
Speaker 1: support for imprisoning people with no charges forever. I'm suggesting

1405
01:19:36,240 --> 01:19:40,160
Speaker 1: this system has failed miserably, and advocates to change this

1406
01:19:40,280 --> 01:19:44,240
Speaker 1: system like she was was advocating, would destroy our ability

1407
01:19:44,240 --> 01:19:46,800
Speaker 1: to protect this country. I hope they all die in jail.

1408
01:19:46,840 --> 01:19:48,760
Speaker 1: If they're going to go back and kill Americans, it

1409
01:19:48,800 --> 01:19:50,840
Speaker 1: won't bother me one bit. If thirty nine of them

1410
01:19:50,960 --> 01:19:54,080
Speaker 1: die in prison, that's better outcome to let them go.

1411
01:19:54,320 --> 01:19:56,200
Speaker 1: And if it costs five hundred million to keep them

1412
01:19:56,240 --> 01:19:58,439
Speaker 1: in jail, keep them in jail, because they're going to

1413
01:19:58,479 --> 01:20:00,960
Speaker 1: go back to the fight. Look at the friggin Afghan

1414
01:20:01,040 --> 01:20:05,000
Speaker 1: government's made up of former detainees at GITMO. This whole

1415
01:20:05,479 --> 01:20:09,840
Speaker 1: thing by the left about this war ain't working. Let

1416
01:20:09,880 --> 01:20:12,519
Speaker 1: me also note that Larry Thompson, who served as deputy

1417
01:20:12,520 --> 01:20:15,320
Speaker 1: attorney for those of you who are just listening, and

1418
01:20:15,320 --> 01:20:18,439
Speaker 1: then gets up and storms dramatically off stage. But he

1419
01:20:18,560 --> 01:20:21,519
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one. Senator Cornyn was shocked shocked that

1420
01:20:21,600 --> 01:20:25,439
Speaker 1: KBJ might have suggested that George W. Bush and Donald

1421
01:20:25,520 --> 01:20:28,840
Speaker 1: Rumsfeld were war criminals. Why in the world would you

1422
01:20:28,920 --> 01:20:34,519
Speaker 1: call Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and George W. Bush war

1423
01:20:34,600 --> 01:20:38,360
Speaker 1: criminals in a legal filing. It seems so out of

1424
01:20:38,439 --> 01:20:43,000
Speaker 1: character for you, Senator. You may have been talk Are

1425
01:20:43,000 --> 01:20:45,840
Speaker 1: you talking about briefs that I or habeas petitions that

1426
01:20:46,600 --> 01:20:48,599
Speaker 1: talking about? When you were representing a member of the

1427
01:20:48,600 --> 01:20:53,240
Speaker 1: Taliban and the Department of Defense identified him as an

1428
01:20:53,240 --> 01:20:56,720
Speaker 1: intelligence officer for the Taliban, and you referred to the

1429
01:20:56,760 --> 01:20:59,000
Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense and the sitting president of the United

1430
01:20:59,000 --> 01:21:01,960
Speaker 1: States as war criminal, Why would you do something like that.

1431
01:21:02,000 --> 01:21:04,719
Speaker 1: It seems so out of character. Well, Senator, I don't

1432
01:21:04,800 --> 01:21:11,439
Speaker 1: remember that particular reference in I was representing my clients

1433
01:21:11,479 --> 01:21:15,760
Speaker 1: and making arguments. I'd have to take a look at

1434
01:21:15,760 --> 01:21:21,439
Speaker 1: what you meant. I did not intend to disparage the

1435
01:21:21,439 --> 01:21:26,760
Speaker 1: president or the Secretary of Defense. Well, being a war

1436
01:21:26,840 --> 01:21:30,240
Speaker 1: criminal has huge ramifications. You could be subject to the

1437
01:21:30,320 --> 01:21:34,280
Speaker 1: jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and hauled before that

1438
01:21:34,360 --> 01:21:37,760
Speaker 1: international tribunal and tried for war crimes. So it's not

1439
01:21:37,840 --> 01:21:42,719
Speaker 1: a casual comment, I would suggest, thank you imagine thinking

1440
01:21:42,760 --> 01:21:44,640
Speaker 1: it was a bad thing to float the idea that

1441
01:21:44,680 --> 01:21:47,080
Speaker 1: the people who led us into war, leading to hundreds

1442
01:21:47,080 --> 01:21:50,439
Speaker 1: of thousands of deaths and destabilizing an entire region while

1443
01:21:50,479 --> 01:21:53,519
Speaker 1: overseeing the horrors of Abu, grave torture and indefinite detention

1444
01:21:53,920 --> 01:21:56,519
Speaker 1: should be held accountable for the crimes that they did

1445
01:21:56,680 --> 01:21:59,920
Speaker 1: indeed commit. Now I would have more respect for KBJ if,

1446
01:22:00,040 --> 01:22:02,240
Speaker 1: instead of trying to deflect, she actually just owned it.

1447
01:22:02,400 --> 01:22:04,280
Speaker 1: But I get it. She's not an idiot, and as

1448
01:22:04,360 --> 01:22:06,880
Speaker 1: much as the language of waterboarding and the axis of

1449
01:22:06,920 --> 01:22:08,920
Speaker 1: evil and all of that has kind of faded from

1450
01:22:08,920 --> 01:22:13,679
Speaker 1: the public discourse, she knows that Washington has not really changed.

1451
01:22:13,960 --> 01:22:17,759
Speaker 1: In fact, with the rehabbing of w into a cuddly

1452
01:22:17,760 --> 01:22:21,439
Speaker 1: grandpa and Michelle Obama's bestie, in some ways, Washington in

1453
01:22:21,479 --> 01:22:24,599
Speaker 1: recent years has actually gotten a whole lot worse. This

1454
01:22:24,640 --> 01:22:27,400
Speaker 1: tortured article from the Washington Post is a great case

1455
01:22:27,479 --> 01:22:29,920
Speaker 1: in point on this matter, clearly intended to run cover

1456
01:22:30,000 --> 01:22:32,639
Speaker 1: for KBJ. They go through a long analysis of why

1457
01:22:32,640 --> 01:22:36,080
Speaker 1: her briefs arguing that Bush and Rumsfeld were war criminals

1458
01:22:36,240 --> 01:22:38,639
Speaker 1: were just in service of her clients and not really

1459
01:22:38,680 --> 01:22:42,439
Speaker 1: reflective of her views, protecting her from the charge that

1460
01:22:42,520 --> 01:22:46,160
Speaker 1: she might accurately understand the heinousness of the Bush era.

1461
01:22:46,680 --> 01:22:49,960
Speaker 1: After all, rehabbing the neocons to own Trump has made

1462
01:22:50,000 --> 01:22:53,160
Speaker 1: it impossible to condemn the crimes that these villains committed

1463
01:22:53,400 --> 01:22:56,160
Speaker 1: and helped to prevent those same mistakes and crimes from

1464
01:22:56,200 --> 01:22:59,799
Speaker 1: being committed again in the future, and that part's really important.

1465
01:23:00,240 --> 01:23:03,799
Speaker 1: Positioning Bush as the good Republican in opposition to Trump

1466
01:23:03,960 --> 01:23:06,559
Speaker 1: requires denying that liberals ever thought Bush was a war

1467
01:23:06,600 --> 01:23:09,240
Speaker 1: criminal to start with. On the Republican side, in spite

1468
01:23:09,280 --> 01:23:12,920
Speaker 1: of some temporary rhetorical changes, nothing's really different after a

1469
01:23:12,960 --> 01:23:15,760
Speaker 1: brief nod towards a different approach. They're all lockstep on

1470
01:23:15,800 --> 01:23:18,519
Speaker 1: the neo kon talking points once again. Just witness their

1471
01:23:18,520 --> 01:23:21,200
Speaker 1: response to Ukraine. Biden is week he needs to do

1472
01:23:21,240 --> 01:23:24,479
Speaker 1: more casual talk of regime change and escalation. Lindsay Graham

1473
01:23:24,560 --> 01:23:29,120
Speaker 1: insanely floating multiple times that Putin should be assassinated. Trump

1474
01:23:29,320 --> 01:23:32,240
Speaker 1: wants to menace Russia with nuclear subs. Liz Cheney is

1475
01:23:32,240 --> 01:23:35,200
Speaker 1: out there agitating for sending in fighter jets, but he

1476
01:23:35,240 --> 01:23:38,160
Speaker 1: didn't really need this exchange to know that nothing has

1477
01:23:38,240 --> 01:23:42,120
Speaker 1: changed here. After all, Guantanamo is still open. US troops

1478
01:23:42,160 --> 01:23:45,040
Speaker 1: are still in Iraq. We are still destroying Afghanistan now

1479
01:23:45,080 --> 01:23:48,519
Speaker 1: with our cruel sanctions instead of our open warfare. Attacks

1480
01:23:48,520 --> 01:23:51,000
Speaker 1: on our own civil liberties have only expanded since put

1481
01:23:51,040 --> 01:23:54,439
Speaker 1: into place by the Bushies beloved Patriot Act. All of

1482
01:23:54,479 --> 01:23:59,280
Speaker 1: this has very real and very immediate implications, especially as

1483
01:23:59,320 --> 01:24:02,760
Speaker 1: there are some troubling indications that the Neocon impulse to

1484
01:24:02,840 --> 01:24:07,320
Speaker 1: quote spread democracy is guiding the Biden administration's decision making

1485
01:24:07,479 --> 01:24:10,600
Speaker 1: in Ukraine as well. This time it's coming wrapped in

1486
01:24:10,680 --> 01:24:15,200
Speaker 1: liberal humanitarianism. According to historian nol Ferguson, a senior administration

1487
01:24:15,240 --> 01:24:18,599
Speaker 1: official said recently at a private event that, quote the

1488
01:24:18,680 --> 01:24:23,360
Speaker 1: only endgame now is the end of Putin's regime. Until then,

1489
01:24:23,880 --> 01:24:27,080
Speaker 1: all the time Putin stays, Russia will be a pariased

1490
01:24:27,080 --> 01:24:30,200
Speaker 1: state that will never be welcomed back into the Community

1491
01:24:30,360 --> 01:24:35,839
Speaker 1: of Nations. If true, this would indicate that our actions

1492
01:24:35,840 --> 01:24:38,639
Speaker 1: to bolster Ukraine and punish Russia are not actually about

1493
01:24:38,680 --> 01:24:41,479
Speaker 1: Ukraine at all. They're about attempting to end the Putin regime,

1494
01:24:41,680 --> 01:24:44,759
Speaker 1: leading it of resources and creating the conditions for a revolt,

1495
01:24:45,280 --> 01:24:47,600
Speaker 1: I don't know if that is in fact the strategy.

1496
01:24:47,760 --> 01:24:50,280
Speaker 1: It's just as likely that there is no grand strategy,

1497
01:24:50,360 --> 01:24:54,400
Speaker 1: only in the moment reaction as events unfold. But it

1498
01:24:54,439 --> 01:24:56,800
Speaker 1: does fit with other indications I spoke about this week

1499
01:24:56,800 --> 01:24:58,920
Speaker 1: that the US is not really working to pursue peace,

1500
01:24:58,960 --> 01:25:01,400
Speaker 1: given the total lack of a plausible off ramp for

1501
01:25:01,479 --> 01:25:05,400
Speaker 1: Putin that could create a near term deal. Whatever you

1502
01:25:05,520 --> 01:25:09,240
Speaker 1: think of the wisdom or morality of using Ukrainian lives

1503
01:25:09,280 --> 01:25:11,880
Speaker 1: as playthings in this gambit to force ound a truly

1504
01:25:11,920 --> 01:25:15,679
Speaker 1: destructive leader, if this is indeed the Biden administration's play,

1505
01:25:15,880 --> 01:25:19,280
Speaker 1: it is also unlikely to work. As Ferguson writes, the

1506
01:25:19,280 --> 01:25:22,479
Speaker 1: Biden administration is making a colossal mistake in thinking that

1507
01:25:22,520 --> 01:25:25,479
Speaker 1: it can protract the war in Ukraine, bleed Russia dry,

1508
01:25:25,760 --> 01:25:28,799
Speaker 1: topple Putin, and signal to China to keep its hands

1509
01:25:28,840 --> 01:25:33,800
Speaker 1: off Taiwan, a colossal mistake which would be avoided had

1510
01:25:33,840 --> 01:25:37,120
Speaker 1: we learned the hard won lessons of the past twenty years.

1511
01:25:37,320 --> 01:25:39,680
Speaker 1: There are, of course, a whole lot of differences here.

1512
01:25:39,760 --> 01:25:41,880
Speaker 1: Unlike in Iraq, the crimes Putin is accused of he

1513
01:25:41,920 --> 01:25:45,240
Speaker 1: has actually committed, and unlike Iraq, in Afghanistan there is

1514
01:25:45,280 --> 01:25:49,120
Speaker 1: currently no appetite for a direct regime change war. But

1515
01:25:49,160 --> 01:25:51,800
Speaker 1: we ought to have a whole lot of humility. But

1516
01:25:52,000 --> 01:25:54,519
Speaker 1: about just how well it turns out when we pull

1517
01:25:54,600 --> 01:25:57,599
Speaker 1: the strings to try to produce the governments that we

1518
01:25:57,720 --> 01:26:01,800
Speaker 1: want in other countries. Jay's hearing here is just a

1519
01:26:01,880 --> 01:26:06,760
Speaker 1: disturbing reminder that official Washington has no humility and they

1520
01:26:06,800 --> 01:26:10,400
Speaker 1: have learned nothing. And Sagar, earlier you were talking about

1521
01:26:10,640 --> 01:26:13,400
Speaker 1: if only we learned the lessons of the early Cold War,

1522
01:26:13,479 --> 01:26:16,320
Speaker 1: and if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

1523
01:26:16,320 --> 01:26:20,479
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breaking Points dot Com.

1524
01:26:20,760 --> 01:26:23,040
Speaker 1: Joining us now we have the executive vice president of

1525
01:26:23,240 --> 01:26:26,400
Speaker 1: the Quincy Institute for Responsible state Craft, doctor Treta Parsi.

1526
01:26:26,479 --> 01:26:29,479
Speaker 1: Great to see you, sir, Great to see you. So

1527
01:26:29,760 --> 01:26:34,719
Speaker 1: when last we spoke, the Irani nuclear deal talks were

1528
01:26:34,960 --> 01:26:39,280
Speaker 1: on the ropes, partly over US delays, frankly, and partly

1529
01:26:39,320 --> 01:26:42,280
Speaker 1: over new Russian demands that they be granted a kind

1530
01:26:42,320 --> 01:26:46,320
Speaker 1: of sanctions loophole through these negotiations. And this is when

1531
01:26:46,479 --> 01:26:49,800
Speaker 1: the talks were purportedly right on the verge of a

1532
01:26:49,840 --> 01:26:53,120
Speaker 1: real breakthrough impossible completion. So just bring us up to

1533
01:26:53,240 --> 01:26:56,840
Speaker 1: date with where we stand today. So the Russian issue

1534
01:26:56,920 --> 01:26:59,640
Speaker 1: essentially has been resolved that the running Foreign Minister was

1535
01:26:59,640 --> 01:27:02,639
Speaker 1: in most a couple of days after the Russians first

1536
01:27:02,640 --> 01:27:05,799
Speaker 1: came out without more outlandish demand. We don't know exactly

1537
01:27:05,800 --> 01:27:08,559
Speaker 1: what happened in Moscow, but the Russians backed off and

1538
01:27:08,600 --> 01:27:12,519
Speaker 1: are only then demanding that there's specific activities in the

1539
01:27:12,600 --> 01:27:16,280
Speaker 1: JCPA be protected against sanctions. And that's something that from

1540
01:27:16,280 --> 01:27:18,600
Speaker 1: the US side was never a question mark. That was

1541
01:27:18,640 --> 01:27:21,040
Speaker 1: something we were willing to do. So that issue has

1542
01:27:21,080 --> 01:27:22,720
Speaker 1: now been put us out, at least for now. We

1543
01:27:22,720 --> 01:27:25,120
Speaker 1: don't know if something else would blow up from Moscow

1544
01:27:25,160 --> 01:27:29,200
Speaker 1: over for whatever reasons they may have. So now we're

1545
01:27:29,240 --> 01:27:33,280
Speaker 1: at a stage in which essentially there's only two issues remaining,

1546
01:27:33,880 --> 01:27:36,320
Speaker 1: and it's some of the most difficult issues, and the

1547
01:27:36,360 --> 01:27:39,160
Speaker 1: two sides are essentially steering each other down seeing who

1548
01:27:39,320 --> 01:27:43,639
Speaker 1: is willing to cave in first on those two issues

1549
01:27:43,640 --> 01:27:45,960
Speaker 1: and not be happy to tell you what those are. Yeah,

1550
01:27:46,000 --> 01:27:48,160
Speaker 1: go ahead, what are the two issues that still remain?

1551
01:27:48,800 --> 01:27:51,200
Speaker 1: So the Iranians have once again asked that the United

1552
01:27:51,240 --> 01:27:56,479
Speaker 1: States needs to provide assurances to give the RANUS confidence

1553
01:27:56,560 --> 01:27:58,080
Speaker 1: that the US is not going to walk out of

1554
01:27:58,120 --> 01:28:00,519
Speaker 1: the deal again. This has been an issue that has

1555
01:28:00,560 --> 01:28:04,160
Speaker 1: been plaguing the talks from the very beginning, and it's

1556
01:28:04,160 --> 01:28:07,760
Speaker 1: been very difficult because it essentially means that without any

1557
01:28:07,800 --> 01:28:10,519
Speaker 1: of those assurances, most people expect this deal to only

1558
01:28:10,600 --> 01:28:14,880
Speaker 1: last for the duration of Biden's presidency himself, and for

1559
01:28:14,920 --> 01:28:18,559
Speaker 1: the Iranians have very severe economic implications. It means that

1560
01:28:18,600 --> 01:28:20,760
Speaker 1: they're not going to get any major investments because the

1561
01:28:20,800 --> 01:28:23,760
Speaker 1: investors need to know that their money in Iran and

1562
01:28:23,800 --> 01:28:25,600
Speaker 1: their investment in Iran is going to be safe for

1563
01:28:25,680 --> 01:28:28,160
Speaker 1: at least five, six seven years. Two and a half

1564
01:28:28,240 --> 01:28:30,120
Speaker 1: years is not enough, particularly when it comes to some

1565
01:28:30,280 --> 01:28:33,360
Speaker 1: energy contracts, et cetera. So it's going to deprive the

1566
01:28:33,520 --> 01:28:36,880
Speaker 1: varian from investments if that is not done. But I

1567
01:28:36,880 --> 01:28:39,240
Speaker 1: think the Varanniyans are quite clear that it's very unlikely

1568
01:28:39,280 --> 01:28:42,160
Speaker 1: that the US will go will cave on that issue.

1569
01:28:42,520 --> 01:28:44,719
Speaker 1: I think the US side essentially believes that the political

1570
01:28:44,800 --> 01:28:48,639
Speaker 1: costs will be too high to provide anything that gives

1571
01:28:48,640 --> 01:28:51,160
Speaker 1: the impression that Biden is tying the hand of the

1572
01:28:51,200 --> 01:28:55,559
Speaker 1: next president The other issue is a very sensitive one

1573
01:28:55,560 --> 01:28:58,560
Speaker 1: for both sides. That is that the Yrani and IRGC

1574
01:28:58,960 --> 01:29:02,880
Speaker 1: Iranian Revolutionary Guard is on one of the US's terrorists.

1575
01:29:02,920 --> 01:29:05,679
Speaker 1: This is actually on several of them, but one in specific.

1576
01:29:05,760 --> 01:29:08,519
Speaker 1: The Vannians are asking that they'd be taken off of

1577
01:29:09,320 --> 01:29:12,479
Speaker 1: which for the Yarnians have some symbolic value and from

1578
01:29:12,520 --> 01:29:15,559
Speaker 1: the US side, has a huge symbolic cost, the political cost.

1579
01:29:16,520 --> 01:29:19,599
Speaker 1: And what they're doing right now is trying to see

1580
01:29:19,600 --> 01:29:22,680
Speaker 1: that if the US were to take this step, what

1581
01:29:22,720 --> 01:29:25,439
Speaker 1: would the Iranians be building to give in terms of

1582
01:29:25,680 --> 01:29:31,400
Speaker 1: regional activities? And it would be quite you know, it

1583
01:29:31,400 --> 01:29:34,160
Speaker 1: would be quite cheerful, frankly, if the talks collapsed on

1584
01:29:34,200 --> 01:29:38,200
Speaker 1: this issue, because the actual value of that RGC listing

1585
01:29:38,280 --> 01:29:42,040
Speaker 1: is not particularly significant. Essentially, it's a big sign saying

1586
01:29:42,160 --> 01:29:45,360
Speaker 1: we think you suck. That's it, and we have plenty

1587
01:29:45,360 --> 01:29:48,240
Speaker 1: of more signs of that kind. But it would be

1588
01:29:48,280 --> 01:29:52,960
Speaker 1: a political cost for the Bide administration if they agreed

1589
01:29:53,000 --> 01:29:54,880
Speaker 1: to it. The question is can they get something in

1590
01:29:54,920 --> 01:29:58,559
Speaker 1: return that alleviates some of that costs? And the bigger picture,

1591
01:29:58,600 --> 01:30:00,880
Speaker 1: of course is are we willing to you risk the

1592
01:30:01,040 --> 01:30:03,760
Speaker 1: entire JCPA over this? Issue, I hope neither side is

1593
01:30:03,800 --> 01:30:07,840
Speaker 1: willing to do that. On the issue of the US

1594
01:30:07,920 --> 01:30:10,880
Speaker 1: providing some sort of assurance that this deal is going

1595
01:30:10,880 --> 01:30:15,479
Speaker 1: to extend beyond the years of Biden's presidency, which might

1596
01:30:15,520 --> 01:30:18,000
Speaker 1: be over in just a couple years, given the fact

1597
01:30:18,000 --> 01:30:20,200
Speaker 1: that his approval ratings are relatively low. And I'm sure

1598
01:30:20,240 --> 01:30:23,640
Speaker 1: that factors into the analysis here. What kind of assurances

1599
01:30:23,680 --> 01:30:26,640
Speaker 1: could the US even really provide if they wanted to

1600
01:30:26,640 --> 01:30:30,479
Speaker 1: do well. There's several things that could be done. None

1601
01:30:30,560 --> 01:30:34,640
Speaker 1: of them in and of themselves is a sufficient assurance.

1602
01:30:34,640 --> 01:30:37,320
Speaker 1: And the US is writing saying that there's no iron

1603
01:30:37,400 --> 01:30:41,919
Speaker 1: cloud guarantee that can be provided. I think there are mechanisms, however,

1604
01:30:42,080 --> 01:30:45,400
Speaker 1: that could be provided. And just to go over what

1605
01:30:45,560 --> 01:30:48,240
Speaker 1: was done back in twenty fifteen, when the US side

1606
01:30:48,280 --> 01:30:52,160
Speaker 1: had these concerns about the Iranians, fearing that the Iranians

1607
01:30:52,160 --> 01:30:56,000
Speaker 1: would only be committed to the JCPA under Rohani and

1608
01:30:56,080 --> 01:30:58,519
Speaker 1: it could change once there was a change in power

1609
01:30:58,560 --> 01:31:04,400
Speaker 1: in Iran, US cleverly invented a concept called snapback sanctions

1610
01:31:04,400 --> 01:31:07,559
Speaker 1: at the UN Security Council, which meant that instead of

1611
01:31:07,600 --> 01:31:10,040
Speaker 1: having to go through a six to nine month period

1612
01:31:10,120 --> 01:31:12,439
Speaker 1: of trying to convince the other countries to snap back

1613
01:31:12,479 --> 01:31:15,800
Speaker 1: sanction on Iran if the Ranius violated the agreement, it

1614
01:31:15,800 --> 01:31:18,200
Speaker 1: would only take thirty days, and the Russians and the

1615
01:31:18,280 --> 01:31:22,320
Speaker 1: Chinese essentially gave up their veto they cannot veto any

1616
01:31:22,400 --> 01:31:25,960
Speaker 1: move by the US or the Europeans to snapback sanctions.

1617
01:31:26,640 --> 01:31:29,879
Speaker 1: The signal was that if the Ranians cheat, rest assured,

1618
01:31:29,920 --> 01:31:32,719
Speaker 1: you're going to be heavily sanctioned. There is no doubt

1619
01:31:32,760 --> 01:31:35,760
Speaker 1: about that. That was a mechanism put in place to

1620
01:31:35,840 --> 01:31:38,640
Speaker 1: deter the Iranians from doing what the US ended up

1621
01:31:38,640 --> 01:31:40,960
Speaker 1: doing itself, which is to just walk away from the deal.

1622
01:31:41,479 --> 01:31:45,200
Speaker 1: Something similar can be done on the other side then,

1623
01:31:45,800 --> 01:31:48,719
Speaker 1: whether that is to tie the UN Security Council resolution

1624
01:31:48,800 --> 01:31:51,920
Speaker 1: that embodies the JCPA closer to the JCPA, So any

1625
01:31:52,760 --> 01:31:56,479
Speaker 1: violation of the JCPA or walkout of the JCPA that

1626
01:31:56,600 --> 01:31:59,360
Speaker 1: is without cause, would also be a violation of a

1627
01:31:59,479 --> 01:32:02,200
Speaker 1: chapter set on you and Security Council resolution. In and

1628
01:32:02,240 --> 01:32:05,120
Speaker 1: of itself, it's not sufficient, but then you combine it,

1629
01:32:05,160 --> 01:32:09,800
Speaker 1: perhaps with having European central banks handle the transactions of

1630
01:32:09,840 --> 01:32:12,840
Speaker 1: Iranian trade mindful of the fact that the US is

1631
01:32:12,880 --> 01:32:16,519
Speaker 1: not going to be sanctioning any European central banks anytime soon.

1632
01:32:17,000 --> 01:32:19,559
Speaker 1: That would give that trade a degree of protection, that

1633
01:32:19,600 --> 01:32:23,160
Speaker 1: would give the companies a degree of comfort knowing that

1634
01:32:23,320 --> 01:32:26,200
Speaker 1: even if the US reimpose the sanctions that the Europeans

1635
01:32:26,240 --> 01:32:31,200
Speaker 1: say are illegal and illegitimate, the European banks will have

1636
01:32:31,400 --> 01:32:34,400
Speaker 1: enough political cover to be able to continue to handle

1637
01:32:34,640 --> 01:32:38,400
Speaker 1: those transactions and that trade and the companies will be protected.

1638
01:32:38,680 --> 01:32:40,680
Speaker 1: So there's different ways this could have been done, but

1639
01:32:40,760 --> 01:32:44,040
Speaker 1: it required a tremendous amount of political will. It would

1640
01:32:44,040 --> 01:32:46,559
Speaker 1: be attacked by the other side, there's no doubt about it.

1641
01:32:46,760 --> 01:32:49,519
Speaker 1: But I think ultimately it was an issue of is

1642
01:32:49,600 --> 01:32:55,160
Speaker 1: the political will there and is the political cost sufficiently

1643
01:32:55,280 --> 01:32:58,160
Speaker 1: low that this would be doable? And both sides of

1644
01:32:58,240 --> 01:33:00,639
Speaker 1: essentially come to the conclusion it's simply going to happen,

1645
01:33:00,840 --> 01:33:04,400
Speaker 1: and they've resigned themselves to believing that they have to

1646
01:33:04,400 --> 01:33:06,439
Speaker 1: just depart from the assumption that this deal is going

1647
01:33:06,479 --> 01:33:08,400
Speaker 1: to last about three years, and if we're lucky, it

1648
01:33:08,400 --> 01:33:12,120
Speaker 1: will last longer. And so let's say that those lingering

1649
01:33:12,160 --> 01:33:18,040
Speaker 1: issues are resolved in a mutually satisfactory way. What are

1650
01:33:18,080 --> 01:33:21,720
Speaker 1: the domestic politics here of the deal? What are we

1651
01:33:21,760 --> 01:33:24,400
Speaker 1: hearing from Republicans and what are we hearing from some

1652
01:33:24,520 --> 01:33:28,920
Speaker 1: skeptical Democrats. So you have a situation in which I

1653
01:33:28,920 --> 01:33:32,719
Speaker 1: think the noise leaves the impression that the political cost

1654
01:33:32,760 --> 01:33:35,479
Speaker 1: of agreeing to a deal that prevents around from having

1655
01:33:35,479 --> 01:33:38,640
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon is much higher than it actually is.

1656
01:33:38,720 --> 01:33:41,120
Speaker 1: There is a huge amount of support in the country

1657
01:33:41,120 --> 01:33:43,000
Speaker 1: for the deal. In fact, support for the deal has

1658
01:33:43,040 --> 01:33:46,000
Speaker 1: arisen since Trump left the deal because it became very

1659
01:33:46,040 --> 01:33:50,920
Speaker 1: clear to everyone how valuable the deal was. Moreover, proponents

1660
01:33:50,920 --> 01:33:54,519
Speaker 1: of the proposal have not been able to rally around

1661
01:33:54,560 --> 01:33:57,400
Speaker 1: anything because there has not been a finished deal, so

1662
01:33:57,439 --> 01:34:00,519
Speaker 1: they've been a little bit more passive, whereaspon of the

1663
01:34:00,560 --> 01:34:03,000
Speaker 1: deal don't care about the details. They don't care, they

1664
01:34:03,000 --> 01:34:05,040
Speaker 1: don't need to know what the deal is. They oppose

1665
01:34:05,080 --> 01:34:08,080
Speaker 1: it in principle, and as a result they've been attacking

1666
01:34:08,120 --> 01:34:13,320
Speaker 1: the deal. I'll have some Democrats, a handful of them,

1667
01:34:13,760 --> 01:34:16,040
Speaker 1: and it's left the impression that the political cost of

1668
01:34:16,160 --> 01:34:18,880
Speaker 1: doing this is higher than I think it actually is.

1669
01:34:19,200 --> 01:34:20,840
Speaker 1: Once there is a deal, I think we're going to

1670
01:34:20,880 --> 01:34:24,280
Speaker 1: see that there is significant support for it, certainly enough

1671
01:34:24,320 --> 01:34:27,240
Speaker 1: to be able to withstand any effort to vote this

1672
01:34:27,439 --> 01:34:30,720
Speaker 1: down in the Senate. And I do wonder if at

1673
01:34:30,760 --> 01:34:36,360
Speaker 1: times the administration has overestimated the political opposition. Well, and

1674
01:34:36,880 --> 01:34:38,519
Speaker 1: you know, if we're just going to talk about your

1675
01:34:38,640 --> 01:34:41,760
Speaker 1: horse race politics, you also have to factor in what

1676
01:34:41,800 --> 01:34:45,400
Speaker 1: the political costs would be of Iran actually acquiring a

1677
01:34:45,479 --> 01:34:47,960
Speaker 1: nuclear weapon, which I would have to think would be

1678
01:34:48,439 --> 01:34:52,759
Speaker 1: quite a bad look for that to happen under this administration. Finally,

1679
01:34:52,880 --> 01:34:55,559
Speaker 1: you know, how do you handicap the odds at this point?

1680
01:34:55,600 --> 01:34:58,120
Speaker 1: Do you think that we are likely to see a

1681
01:34:58,160 --> 01:35:02,200
Speaker 1: deal that's struck here? I think we're still at seventy thirty.

1682
01:35:02,640 --> 01:35:04,599
Speaker 1: I think there's still a decent chance that this will

1683
01:35:04,640 --> 01:35:06,519
Speaker 1: be done. I'm getting worried because I was hoping that

1684
01:35:06,560 --> 01:35:08,400
Speaker 1: it would be done by now, but I would still

1685
01:35:08,439 --> 01:35:10,759
Speaker 1: say that it's at seventy thirty. And I think, Crystal,

1686
01:35:10,800 --> 01:35:14,040
Speaker 1: the point you raise there is an excellent one. The

1687
01:35:14,280 --> 01:35:17,599
Speaker 1: cost of not getting a deal, which then would lead

1688
01:35:17,640 --> 01:35:21,480
Speaker 1: the Iranians to further expand their program towards the capacity

1689
01:35:21,479 --> 01:35:24,599
Speaker 1: of building a bomb, as well as an escalation in

1690
01:35:24,640 --> 01:35:29,200
Speaker 1: the region, potentially military confrontation. You have to just oppose

1691
01:35:29,280 --> 01:35:32,120
Speaker 1: that to the political cost of some people being really

1692
01:35:32,200 --> 01:35:34,880
Speaker 1: upset that we took down a sign that said you suck.

1693
01:35:35,400 --> 01:35:37,560
Speaker 1: I mean, it really is a no brainer at the

1694
01:35:37,640 --> 01:35:38,760
Speaker 1: end of the day. And let me throw out a

1695
01:35:38,800 --> 01:35:41,679
Speaker 1: scenario that I'm worried about. The United States right now

1696
01:35:41,720 --> 01:35:43,640
Speaker 1: is in the dire need of making sure that all

1697
01:35:43,720 --> 01:35:47,799
Speaker 1: prices go down. There is about fifty million plus barrels

1698
01:35:47,800 --> 01:35:51,320
Speaker 1: of Iranian oil floating around on the seas in tankers.

1699
01:35:51,360 --> 01:35:53,479
Speaker 1: The Iranians have pumped out that oil, but they can't

1700
01:35:53,479 --> 01:35:55,439
Speaker 1: sell it, so they just put it on these tankers.

1701
01:35:55,800 --> 01:35:58,519
Speaker 1: As soon as the deal is struck, that oil can

1702
01:35:58,560 --> 01:36:00,760
Speaker 1: be sold and it can have an impact on the

1703
01:36:01,040 --> 01:36:05,200
Speaker 1: price of oil. If there is no deal, however, there

1704
01:36:05,280 --> 01:36:07,719
Speaker 1: is a scenario on which the United States would actually

1705
01:36:07,760 --> 01:36:11,240
Speaker 1: start confiscating that oil. It's already happened in the past

1706
01:36:11,320 --> 01:36:14,840
Speaker 1: on one or two occasions. Confiscate that or sell it

1707
01:36:14,880 --> 01:36:18,559
Speaker 1: and keep the money. If that happens, fifteen million barrels

1708
01:36:18,560 --> 01:36:21,720
Speaker 1: of oil a current oil prices is about six billion dollars.

1709
01:36:22,640 --> 01:36:25,000
Speaker 1: If the United States takes six billion dollars from the

1710
01:36:25,080 --> 01:36:29,120
Speaker 1: Iranians that in that oil, I suspect that the Iranians

1711
01:36:29,120 --> 01:36:31,640
Speaker 1: will retaliate in the region, and then you do have

1712
01:36:32,439 --> 01:36:35,200
Speaker 1: some form of a war scenario staring at us in

1713
01:36:35,240 --> 01:36:38,559
Speaker 1: the face and the political cost of that is far,

1714
01:36:38,640 --> 01:36:41,519
Speaker 1: far greater than just signing a deal that everyone knew

1715
01:36:41,640 --> 01:36:45,320
Speaker 1: actually protected US national interest. Yeah, that is a devastating

1716
01:36:45,320 --> 01:36:47,840
Speaker 1: worst case scenario and something that should be avoided at

1717
01:36:47,840 --> 01:36:50,120
Speaker 1: all costs. Doctor Parsi. Is always great to see you.

1718
01:36:50,120 --> 01:36:52,640
Speaker 1: Thank you for making these things so clear. Thank you

1719
01:36:52,720 --> 01:36:55,439
Speaker 1: so much for having me our pleasure, and thank you

1720
01:36:55,479 --> 01:36:59,200
Speaker 1: guys so much for supporting the show, for having our

1721
01:36:59,240 --> 01:37:02,680
Speaker 1: backs even in this incredibly censorious climate. As you all know,

1722
01:37:02,800 --> 01:37:06,720
Speaker 1: Premium subscribers, you guys make all of this happen, and

1723
01:37:06,800 --> 01:37:09,840
Speaker 1: we could not possibly be more grateful to you. So

1724
01:37:09,880 --> 01:37:12,000
Speaker 1: thank you, guys, have a wonderful weekend, and we'll see

1725
01:37:12,000 --> 01:37:12,840
Speaker 1: you back here next week.