Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show
Speaker 1: for everybody today. Ryan Graham is the here for Chrystal Balk. Ryan,
Speaker 1: it's great to see you, my friends. At least chrestfallen faces. No, no,
Speaker 1: Chres fallen faces. What are you talking about? Everyone was
Speaker 1: very excited about the Girls Show. We have to make
Speaker 1: sure that we supplant them with the Boys Show. So
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and get those comments as positive as
Speaker 1: they were for the Girl Show for the Bro Show.
Speaker 1: So we got a lot of good stuff in the
Speaker 1: show today. We got Ukraine. We're gonna be talking about negotiations.
Speaker 1: We got Scotus. There's two big cases the CFPB. Ryan,
Speaker 1: you were very involved in covering that time, so we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that. We'll also talk about student loan, which
Speaker 1: is up before the court. Biden administration a real bind
Speaker 1: right now because they have to both argue the pandemic
Speaker 1: is over, but also that it's not before the court.
Speaker 1: So that'll be fun. Fox News, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis,
Speaker 1: who's getting more Fox News treatment. Trump is very pissed
Speaker 1: off at the way that Fox has been handling it
Speaker 1: so far. I know there's a lot of interest Krystal
Speaker 1: I had to cover this for her, the Brett Favre
Speaker 1: case versus Pat McAfee. This guy has got to be
Speaker 1: one of the most arrogant. I'll save my words for that,
Speaker 1: but anyway, he officially served Pat McAfee in the case
Speaker 1: and he's making some outrageous legal threats. I really want
Speaker 1: to see Brett Faarr go down like this now that
Speaker 1: he's conducting himself. And then finally, Nina Turner just absolutely
Speaker 1: stunning a CNN panel in her comments on East Palstein.
Speaker 1: But let's start with Ukraine. Let's go ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. General Mark Milly making
Speaker 1: some crazy comments on the one year anniversary of the
Speaker 1: invasion of Ukraine, being the senior most military official of
Speaker 1: the US government, saying that there is no way this
Speaker 1: thing ends without negotiation. Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 1: How do we move toward an endgame? How do we
Speaker 1: move toward a negotiated pace. I think that's up for
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians to decide that. So what is acceptable to Ukraine,
Speaker 1: that's territory intact. Whatever that answer is going to be.
Speaker 1: Is it militarily possible for us to get Russians for
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians to get every Russian troop out of their
Speaker 1: country and Crimea. I don't think it's militarily possible for
Speaker 1: the Russians to achieve their initial strategic objectives political objectives
Speaker 1: by military means. I don't think that'sossible anymore. On the
Speaker 1: flip side, the Ukrainians, I think for this year, it
Speaker 1: would be very very difficult, not impossible, but very very
Speaker 1: difficult for the Ukrainians to achieve their political objectives. And
Speaker 1: their stated political objective is to for every single Russian
Speaker 1: to leave every single inch of Ukrainian territory. I think
Speaker 1: that's a very high bar. I think from a military
Speaker 1: standpoint only, that would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve militarily
Speaker 1: this year. So he's choosing his words there very carefully. Ryan,
Speaker 1: And this actually comes on the heels of a New
Speaker 1: York Times report. Let's go ahead and put this up
Speaker 1: there on the screen, guys, flagged by Aaron Mante from
Speaker 1: this report, they say quote. Around the same time, the
Speaker 1: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milly,
Speaker 1: argued in internal meetings Ukraine was unlikely to make substantially
Speaker 1: greater battlefield gains and should move to the bargaining table quote.
Speaker 1: The White House quickly squelched such talk. This actually happened.
Speaker 1: Several leaks came out from the Joint chiefs at the
Speaker 1: time about how he was saying, Look, guys, he's like,
Speaker 1: I understand you know all this fifty billions also have been,
Speaker 1: as I understand it, one of the heads of leaking
Speaker 1: to the New York Times and others the fact that
Speaker 1: Ukrainians are very likely to expend all of their battlefield
Speaker 1: aid by some time this summer, and that that is
Speaker 1: very likely going to be the end of the package.
Speaker 1: What do you make of his comments, probably the most
Speaker 1: negotiating pro negotiating comments, ironically coming from the military. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's well said that he was choosing his words wise,
Speaker 1: and you could see that he had kind of been
Speaker 1: kind of cracked down on a little bit. He had.
Speaker 1: He had made some comments publicly that were similar to
Speaker 1: those back in the fall. It's nice to see from
Speaker 1: the New York Times that he was saying those. Internally,
Speaker 1: not so nice to see that they're just squelching that.
Speaker 1: Who else made comments like that at the time. Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: if you remember, I do the Progressive Caucus came out
Speaker 1: with that letter that they immediately said, I sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: did we say did we say that? No, we retracted
Speaker 1: that letter. Yeah, Ben Rhodes uh over the world pods.
Speaker 1: Once you have the pod save crew saying like, maybe
Speaker 1: this is something we ought to think about, it becomes
Speaker 1: part of the conversation, which they very quickly squelched. So
Speaker 1: here he is back again saying like, look, and he's
Speaker 1: setting up a real logical conundrum for people here because
Speaker 1: the people who say, look, it's up to Ukraine and
Speaker 1: if and it's and it's all about sovereignty and we
Speaker 1: need to support Ukrainian sovereignty until the Ukraine says that
Speaker 1: they have, you know, fought to every last man, woman
Speaker 1: and child. If Millie is saying that that is not possible,
Speaker 1: then what are you advocating for. You're advocating just to
Speaker 1: keep arming Ukraine indefinitely, which is a forever war. And
Speaker 1: if that's your position, then make it. Yeah, you say it,
Speaker 1: that's fine, and maybe because of Russia's aggression, that's a
Speaker 1: maybe that is an appropriate position. A lot of people
Speaker 1: will take that a lot of people will take. But
Speaker 1: take that position, say that we're in this forever now,
Speaker 1: Millie says over the next year. But it's if you
Speaker 1: would have pressed him on that, It's like, it's not
Speaker 1: obvious what conditions change that makes crimea attainable right for
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian military other than European boots in there, US
Speaker 1: boots in there. Like we're already giving roughly what our
Speaker 1: manufacturing capacity can send there. So it's not like we're
Speaker 1: going to necessarily expand our manufacturing capacity just to finance
Speaker 1: a takeover of Crimea. So that raises a real question,
Speaker 1: what are you for at this point? Well, it's interesting
Speaker 1: too because what you can see is that and what
Speaker 1: we've pointed here to a lot of the show is Lucia. Remember,
Speaker 1: you know, Ukraine is not just the West in Russia
Speaker 1: and Ukraine, it's also a global war in terms of
Speaker 1: the support in terms of Russia, China now coming out
Speaker 1: with its peace nagot. What is a peace proposal which
Speaker 1: effectively just freezes the battle lines that are in place,
Speaker 1: Ukraine saying that's a complete non starter, the West saying
Speaker 1: it's a joke. You know, it's supposed to help putin
Speaker 1: But then at the same flip side of that, you
Speaker 1: have Brazil President Lula coming here to Washington and be like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to send a single a piece of
Speaker 1: military equipment to Ukraine India, which they talk about actually
Speaker 1: quite a bit in the piece, is that much of
Speaker 1: the strategic negotiation talk both Russia, Ukraine and the West
Speaker 1: is not aimed at each other. It's aimed at the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. Everybody wants to try and convince
Speaker 1: the rest of the world that they're going to try
Speaker 1: and bring this thing to the end. The Indians have
Speaker 1: made the strategic calculus. They're like, look, as long as
Speaker 1: we're going to get cheap oil, we're going to get it.
Speaker 1: We don't really care what's happening here Russia. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: would prefer that you hadn't invaded Ukraine. But if we're
Speaker 1: going to buy it at a discount, we have one
Speaker 1: point something billion people that we have to feed and
Speaker 1: we have to keep going in you know, growing economy,
Speaker 1: we're just going to take it. The Chinese, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, are in a different conundrum. So initially they
Speaker 1: were caught off the guard, right they were like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I can't believe that this's actually happened. Then
Speaker 1: they were playing some rhetorical games. The saying kind of
Speaker 1: putting Putin aside, saying that we weren't very happy about
Speaker 1: what happened. Now you know, the US military is on
Speaker 1: high alert, saying that it looks like lethal aid is
Speaker 1: about to start going from Beijing to Russia, and not
Speaker 1: only that, Russia very likely to start be getting even
Speaker 1: more strategic purchases from Russia or start China in order
Speaker 1: to boost the Russian economy and keep it sanctioned proof.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, the sanctions have been a total mixed bag. Right.
Speaker 1: The Russian economy certainly has contracted, but not even close
Speaker 1: to the level of what we expected a financial nuclear
Speaker 1: bomb to do to a foreign country. It's actually really
Speaker 1: exposed what it means to have trade. And whenever you
Speaker 1: don't have total one hundred percent control over global trade, well,
Speaker 1: countries can't exist, especially when they have hard assets like oil.
Speaker 1: So I think much of this general Milli is looking
Speaker 1: at this, seeing the increase in military aid from China,
Speaker 1: seeing the continued situation where India is going to backstop
Speaker 1: at least some certain extent the Russian economy, and he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't see a way that the industrial output of
Speaker 1: Russia is going to end anytime soon. And like you said,
Speaker 1: I don't see a way that without one hundred percent
Speaker 1: depleting our stack piles and moving us to almost a
Speaker 1: total war manufacturing trajectory, that we could supply them with
Speaker 1: the sheer amount of ammunition that they need. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think people really understand what it means to
Speaker 1: eat up fifty billion dollars in weapons in just six
Speaker 1: months by the US military's estimates. Well, how else is
Speaker 1: this thing going to end? And there was a nice
Speaker 1: column in the New York Times by some guest author
Speaker 1: that made a parallel to the Korean War that I
Speaker 1: thought was apt and something I had been thinking about previously,
Speaker 1: in the sense that nineteen fifty one the war had
Speaker 1: kind of reached a stalemate where they're going kind of
Speaker 1: back and forth, and the world allowed that war to
Speaker 1: continue for another couple of years. Stalin had his own reasons,
Speaker 1: you know. It was he said, it was giving the
Speaker 1: Chinese like some training and fighting, and it was draining
Speaker 1: the West and making them look weak. It was hurting
Speaker 1: Truman back home, which it was actually hurting Truman back home.
Speaker 1: So let's drag this out and the US once the
Speaker 1: US is inner war like, they're in that war, like
Speaker 1: you really have to drag them out of there. And
Speaker 1: so two years later it ends basically on the exact
Speaker 1: same terms that it would have ended in nineteen fifty one,
Speaker 1: but at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.
Speaker 1: And so unless you can envision some path where the
Speaker 1: world is going to look fundamentally different than it does today,
Speaker 1: then what are you sacrificing tens of thousands or hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of lives over the next several years for,
Speaker 1: rather than, as Millie said, get lucky and touch wood.
Speaker 1: I had never heard that phrase before. It's like, it's like,
Speaker 1: we can get the diplomats in the wood. They can
Speaker 1: in the room, they can touch the wood. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's it, okay, all right, well yeah, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be difficult. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible.
Speaker 1: I mean the Ukrainians, now, I mean, to their credit,
Speaker 1: let's give them the credit where they do. They fought
Speaker 1: tremendously well. They have an immense They have one of
Speaker 1: the most homogeneous like populations that are left inside of
Speaker 1: Ukraine who are absolutely willing to fight for every scrap,
Speaker 1: for every ach up to them when they want to
Speaker 1: go to the negotiation table. But as I've always said,
Speaker 1: it's also up to us to how much we want
Speaker 1: to backtop to what extent. Let's not forget the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: war effort ends tomorrow without US military aid. They could
Speaker 1: try and subsist on the European aid, but given the
Speaker 1: sheer amount of numbers, it's not a joke. It's a
Speaker 1: joke compared to what the US has provided them, where
Speaker 1: basically the sole determiners of what how the conflict is
Speaker 1: going to go. And according to the Washington Posts others
Speaker 1: who have been getting deep leaks from inside the administration,
Speaker 1: the word is from the Biden ad men. They're like, look, guys,
Speaker 1: this is it. This is probably the last large age package.
Speaker 1: I'm personally a little bit skeptical of this because I
Speaker 1: was thinking about Afghanistan and even about Vietnam. Afghanistan, everybody
Speaker 1: wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan. Then we did it, and
Speaker 1: it turned out to be politically unpopular because people have
Speaker 1: some crazy idea that withdrawing from the wars apparently they're easy.
Speaker 1: Vietnam is a great example. Nixon was elected in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight on the pledge to try and withdraw from Vietnam.
Speaker 1: Actually what he ends up doing is pursuing the peace
Speaker 1: with honor two terms, a two pronged strategy actually ends
Speaker 1: up escalating the war to try to de escalate the war.
Speaker 1: Here's the truth, people, that was very popular. You know,
Speaker 1: for all of the student protests over the bombing of Cambodia,
Speaker 1: most people did want quote peace with honor without Vietnam,
Speaker 1: even though a Saigon type exit was probably inevitable from
Speaker 1: literally day one nineteen sixty five, one of the first
Speaker 1: US military advice go nineties to eight, when the first
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of troops go over there. I'd see
Speaker 1: on the flip side, though it happened in July of
Speaker 1: twenty one, was it even remotely an issue in the
Speaker 1: twenty two mid terms? Not? And I think there's something
Speaker 1: skeezy about even talking about war and lives lost in
Speaker 1: those political terms. But unfortunately it is determinative of policy.
Speaker 1: And so it is worth pointing out that you actually
Speaker 1: can leave a twenty year war in an off year
Speaker 1: and then and it be a debacle in the departure,
Speaker 1: and then a year and a half later when voters
Speaker 1: go to the polls. They're like, oh, yeah, Afghanistan that
Speaker 1: we didn't like the way we ended, But there was
Speaker 1: not a single person who ran on the idea that
Speaker 1: we should actually go back into at an important point.
Speaker 1: And actually I did a monologue at the time. People
Speaker 1: can go back and watch it about how jero Ford's
Speaker 1: approval rating actually went up after sygot So you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those where you never really known. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he did end up losing the elections. I don't know.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to the second part here. Janet Yellen,
Speaker 1: this Treasury Secretary on the ground in Kiev yesterday with
Speaker 1: a very important announcement I think for the future of
Speaker 1: US aid. And if you think that the US military
Speaker 1: aid to Ukraine anytime soon, this is probably going to
Speaker 1: be the future battle lines of where things are. Let's
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. Secretary Yellen was
Speaker 1: already abroad attending an international conference, made a secret trip
Speaker 1: over to Kiev. She penned a New York Times op
Speaker 1: at here it says, quote John at Yellen and Kiev,
Speaker 1: economic aid to Ukraine is vital. But you know what
Speaker 1: I found more interesting, Ryan is the actual headline on
Speaker 1: the New York Times website was Janet Yellen Colon Zelenski
Speaker 1: is right, we must provide economic aid to Ukraine. So
Speaker 1: they did a little bit of a change job here,
Speaker 1: just noting that for everyone. Essentially what Janet Yalen, the
Speaker 1: Secretary of the Treasury here is talking about. It says,
Speaker 1: quote since the start of the full scale war, the
Speaker 1: United States provided close to fifty billion economic security humanitarian
Speaker 1: assistance for Ukraine. Quote. We are proud to be Ukraine's
Speaker 1: largest bilateral donor, and just as proud to be joined
Speaker 1: by an international coalition of supporter, including the European Union
Speaker 1: and other members of the Group Seven. But what actually
Speaker 1: really struck out to me was the type of economic
Speaker 1: assistance we were providing to Ukraine. I don't think people
Speaker 1: understand that this isn't just about the war effort. Quote.
Speaker 1: We have helped Ukraine mount a vigorous response to assist
Speaker 1: a million people who had to flee their homes, providing
Speaker 1: quote social assistance, housing and utility subsidies, pension payments for
Speaker 1: millions of vulnerable Ukrainians bearing the economic brunt of the war.
Speaker 1: Our aid has enabled the civil service to continue to
Speaker 1: operate the government ensuring that it remained stable. So this
Speaker 1: kind of illustrates what I have always said about the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian war effort, and really just about the extent to
Speaker 1: which the US is backstopping this. The Europeans are non
Speaker 1: existent in this type of military aid. The fifty billion
Speaker 1: that we provided in just economic not military aid is
Speaker 1: more than every other country combined in all aid, it
Speaker 1: literally combined. So what does that mean for US? I
Speaker 1: mean that means that this country, Ukraine, and look, we
Speaker 1: can't help with fields empathy, but we are talking here
Speaker 1: about you know, our own pension funds don't get bailed out.
Speaker 1: We're paying the pension funds of the Ukrainian society. We're
Speaker 1: paying their teacher salary, We're paying their social assistance, We're
Speaker 1: paying their homes, their rent. I mean presumably in the future.
Speaker 1: It's not like the Ukrainian government, which has already suffered
Speaker 1: some thirty five percent drop in GDP, is ever going
Speaker 1: to be able to pay that at least in what
Speaker 1: next decade whenever you consider the rebuilding effort. So this
Speaker 1: underscored actually just how much the tap is going to
Speaker 1: have to remain on for Ukraine to be even a
Speaker 1: semi functioning society for what the next twenty years or so, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, it's the US taxpayer. You know, I
Speaker 1: always say this, We literally are balancing the Ukrainian budget.
Speaker 1: If you're one of those people that cares about balanced budgets,
Speaker 1: like we are balancing theirs before we're balancing, you could
Speaker 1: say they need it more. I certainly think that that's true.
Speaker 1: But you know, we should be honest about what exactly
Speaker 1: this entails for US. And I think because because we
Speaker 1: haven't been in a war since World War Two that
Speaker 1: required full scale mobilization, I think we forget as a
Speaker 1: culture what it means to wage total war. And Jennie
Speaker 1: Ellen is correct that if they withdrew those payments, their
Speaker 1: war effort would collapse. Yes, if you don't have the teachers,
Speaker 1: if you don't have the home if you don't have
Speaker 1: the homefront, everything falls apart. And so if you're supporting
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian war effort, you got it, you have to
Speaker 1: you have to support that. Now, setting all this aside,
Speaker 1: I actually have a contrarian view on this type of
Speaker 1: US aid. I'll lay it out for you. See, if
Speaker 1: you see if you buy this, so to me, start
Speaker 1: with the US should not be the global empire that
Speaker 1: it is, but it is. So we're going to start
Speaker 1: from the assumption that it is a global empire. To
Speaker 1: me the idea that a country like Ukraine is going
Speaker 1: to pay back the United States misunderstands the power imbalance,
Speaker 1: like the rest of the world is always and constantly
Speaker 1: paying us back like we we are. We are the
Speaker 1: richest country in the world because of our power, because
Speaker 1: of our military and as a result, we get cheap labor.
Speaker 1: In fact, for decades we were getting cheap software developers
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, true specifically, and so you're and you're getting
Speaker 1: cheap raw materials, you're getting cheap food around the world,
Speaker 1: you're getting cheap energy supply. All of that is subsidizing
Speaker 1: the lifestyle of the American people. And so it's kind
Speaker 1: of off to say that this type of funding is
Speaker 1: actually draining US coffers because it's actually filling them up,
Speaker 1: like we're not doing this for Ukraine, and don't be
Speaker 1: fooled by that. Well, I think that's fair. That's a
Speaker 1: typical like kind of soft power civil society aid argument.
Speaker 1: I think that's fine. I think my main question is,
Speaker 1: like this is one of the most corrupt countries in
Speaker 1: all of Europe. Are we actually paying a pensions? She
Speaker 1: talked a lot about She talked a lot about all
Speaker 1: the safeguards they put in place, But then if you
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of her piece, you're like, our
Speaker 1: safeguards are through the World Bank. Correct, because very specifically
Speaker 1: in our law Rampaul pushed for more money for the IGS,
Speaker 1: pushed for let's attach some actual transparency to this spending,
Speaker 1: and Congress rejected that. So Janet Yellen had to say, well,
Speaker 1: we're funneling the money through the World Bank, and the
Speaker 1: World Bank is checking it, so don't worry. Last time
Speaker 1: I checked is famelessly unscrupulous institutions never had a scandal.
Speaker 1: It's not like they've ever misappropriated us. Oh wait, hold
Speaker 1: on a second, And that's exactly my point, which is, look,
Speaker 1: if this was actually paying Ukrainian teachers and pensions, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm still a little sketchy about that, but okay, you
Speaker 1: know I can understand, but you know how much of
Speaker 1: it actually is. What did we just learned? The former
Speaker 1: Defense secretary of Ukraine just gets fired for what quadruple
Speaker 1: charging for food? Listen, what did I just read? You
Speaker 1: if they can't even pay their utilities, their pension bills,
Speaker 1: you think they're buying their own food. We're the ones
Speaker 1: who are buying the food. Aka, we're the ones who
Speaker 1: are paying overpriced and somebody's making a profit somewhere. And
Speaker 1: that's actually where I look at the real like crossroads
Speaker 1: for what this will look like. We need to accept
Speaker 1: that by being in this and if this is going
Speaker 1: to be continued to US bipartisan policy, we're signing up
Speaker 1: for ten I mean ten billion checks in terms of
Speaker 1: civil society aid probably every one three four months. I
Speaker 1: mean that seems to be what we seem to distribute
Speaker 1: at least an economic aid. Well, all right, is it
Speaker 1: being spent properly? No? Actually, the US Treasury Department says
Speaker 1: they have quote no indication that any of our funds
Speaker 1: have been misused. And then, as you said, you read
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper and you're like, oh, well, they
Speaker 1: have no indication because they're not checking. Well, okay, I
Speaker 1: could say a lot of things that I have no
Speaker 1: indication X is happening, But if I'm not looking for it,
Speaker 1: then what do I know about whether it actually is?
Speaker 1: And then second part here, let's put this up there
Speaker 1: on the screen. This also just goes to show you know,
Speaker 1: for all the Republican talk about no more aid to Ukraine,
Speaker 1: they secretly pass an extra ten billion dollar aid package
Speaker 1: for the second year on Friday, hours after announcing two
Speaker 1: billion in additional military aid and a new round of
Speaker 1: sanctions against Russia. I don't even know what those sanctions
Speaker 1: possibly could be, but the point is is that this
Speaker 1: extra quote ten billion dollars is being dispersed by the
Speaker 1: World Bank Public expenditure for Administrative Capacity Endurance Program aka piece.
Speaker 1: I can see what they did there, which they say
Speaker 1: is quote crucial to Ukraine and to provide healthcare, education,
Speaker 1: and emergency services to its citizens. So again we are
Speaker 1: literally paying the Ukrainian doctors fees, medics all this. I'm
Speaker 1: not even saying that this is bad, but I want
Speaker 1: people to realize it's not just weapons and ammunition that
Speaker 1: is happening here. The entire Ukrainian homefront is backstop by
Speaker 1: the US taxpayer. And it just shows you the level
Speaker 1: of control. You know, for all the talk of whatever
Speaker 1: Ukraine wants, it's like, well, hold on a second, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a little bit different from whenever you are let's
Speaker 1: say that Ukraine is like the Soviet Union in World
Speaker 1: War Two. Soviet Union unquestionably needed the US AID to survive,
Speaker 1: but they had industry, they had a functioning state, they
Speaker 1: had a society, they had millions of people willing to fight,
Speaker 1: and so it was a real question of like their
Speaker 1: sovereignty versus US eight here that's not even in the
Speaker 1: question here. This is one hundred percent backstop by the
Speaker 1: American taxpayer, which is demonst trace to you that as
Speaker 1: a polity like Ukraine is, it doesn't exist as independent polity.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying on paper, Okay, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: Ukraine is not a real country. What I'm saying is
Speaker 1: that they don't have any self capacity whatsoever beyond the
Speaker 1: willing to fight to actually survive. And that is a problem,
Speaker 1: you know, if we look at it in the future. Right,
Speaker 1: And so it goes back to what we were talking
Speaker 1: about in the first segment there about how long you
Speaker 1: want this to go on? Because Ukraine I think has
Speaker 1: a tighter and more powerful national identity today than it
Speaker 1: even did, no question one year ago. But if they
Speaker 1: want the state capacity to actually buttress that, they either
Speaker 1: need in the midst of the war, constant foreign support,
Speaker 1: or they need to get to an end of the
Speaker 1: war so that they can then reconstruct and rebuild their country.
Speaker 1: And the sooner that happens, the sooner they get back
Speaker 1: to a place of actual sovereignty. Because you're right, if
Speaker 1: you want to make this argument all about sovereignty, how
Speaker 1: much sovereignty do you have if you're one hundred percent
Speaker 1: dependent on the whims of the American superpower of American Congress,
Speaker 1: which you know, every other country throughout history that has
Speaker 1: made it self dependent on the whims the United States,
Speaker 1: other than Israel, has lived to pay that price. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a fantastic point. And then finally, Hillary Clinton making
Speaker 1: some headlines here dispensing some news as to how she
Speaker 1: would handle this conflict, encouraging people inside of Russia please
Speaker 1: please kill Vladimir Putin. Here's what she had to say.
Speaker 1: The people closest to Putin, those who have to deal
Speaker 1: with him, those who he's keeping at the end of
Speaker 1: forty foot tables while he issues bizarre orders, they're the
Speaker 1: ones who need to act. They need to act for
Speaker 1: the good of Russia. They need to stop him. Is
Speaker 1: dangerous and it's dangerous to the future of Russia. So
Speaker 1: my hope is that the people who are watching him,
Speaker 1: those who get close enough to see in person his
Speaker 1: behave behavior which is so erratic that they can try
Speaker 1: to prevent him from doing things that will not only
Speaker 1: be tragic for Ukraine, but tragic for Russia too. This
Speaker 1: should be stopped for Russia's sake. This is the thing
Speaker 1: that people apparently don't know history, which is there has
Speaker 1: never or okay, let's say maybe one time Boris Yelton,
Speaker 1: and every other time, there has never been a Russian
Speaker 1: leader who was deposed and more of a peacenik person
Speaker 1: who has come into power. In fact, Khrushchev was literally
Speaker 1: taken out of the government because they saw him as
Speaker 1: capitulating to America during the Cuban missile crisis. Then when
Speaker 1: you look even further, you know the people who replaced
Speaker 1: him were hardliners, even though they knew that Krushev had
Speaker 1: pursued diplomacy. In fact, all indications that we had is
Speaker 1: that Putin has purged any real dissenters who believe in
Speaker 1: better relations with the West, who believe in diplomacy, who
Speaker 1: would prolit and the war, And even if they are
Speaker 1: against the war. The infrastructure that remains inside the Putin
Speaker 1: regime is one hundred percent geared towards Ukraine. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that he isn't a culture personality and he doesn't
Speaker 1: have total control. But if you look at the talk
Speaker 1: of med Medvedev, for example, this person the Russian president
Speaker 1: at the time, the fake president while Putin was Prime
Speaker 1: minister or whatever, he was supposedly like, oh, he speaks English,
Speaker 1: like he's you know, he wears nice suits, Like he's
Speaker 1: a guy who we can get along with, he speaks
Speaker 1: our language. He's the one who's talking about dropping tactical
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons on Ukraine. He's the one who's like, we
Speaker 1: are now in total war with the United State. You
Speaker 1: can't even survive in the Putin regime. By many indications,
Speaker 1: the only controlled opposition inside of Russia are the people
Speaker 1: who want more war, not anybody less. All the people
Speaker 1: who want less are either in jail or they left Russia.
Speaker 1: It's over. And so when we consider like a the
Speaker 1: practicality of what she's saying, but b, if you do
Speaker 1: not think that Putin and his people are not playing
Speaker 1: this stuff on loop over and over again, the form
Speaker 1: US Secretary of State, one of the most identifiable politicians
Speaker 1: in the entire world. Hillary Clinton, You're crazy, you know,
Speaker 1: by some reporting. Ryan Putin watches on loop that video
Speaker 1: of Gaddafi getting a rod shupped of his ass and
Speaker 1: getting killed in Benghazi, and he watches it as a reminder.
Speaker 1: He's like, this is what they will do to you.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that isn't crazy, because it definitely is.
Speaker 1: But I mean, when you like, you got to get
Speaker 1: inside the mind of a person like that, whenever you're
Speaker 1: going to talk this way, Yeah, you know where else
Speaker 1: that's relevant. Have you seen that Hillary Clinton hot Mike
Speaker 1: clip where she's talking about Gadaffi? Oh of course, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is famous. So you guys can google this one
Speaker 1: up right. She says something like we came, we saw,
Speaker 1: we killed, and just this cackle, like just like like
Speaker 1: the sadistic giggle where you're like, okay, yeah, Gaddafi's terrible, Yes,
Speaker 1: but that was funny. You watch that, You're like, that's funny.
Speaker 1: It's a horrific video. And Putin also put set aside
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter. Putin also blames Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: for interfering in his election. In what was at twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: and absolutely the US was funding NGOs that were supportive of,
Speaker 1: you know, Putin's opposition like that. Like in fact, I'm
Speaker 1: sure the US was doing more in the public record
Speaker 1: to support Putin's opposition than Putin was doing to support Trump.
Speaker 1: But that is that is a grudge that he has
Speaker 1: held to this day. So he so he knows, and
Speaker 1: then he tried to take her out like in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: And I think you know the hack people talk about
Speaker 1: the Facebook ads that the hack of yes, like that, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's the move forget the Facebook ads. So you've got
Speaker 1: her laughing about Gadaffi, You've got him watching Gadaffi on Loop.
Speaker 1: Now you've got her on not in a phone call
Speaker 1: or on a secure link, you know, the way that
Speaker 1: secretaries of state used to try to overthrow other governments,
Speaker 1: but on cable television. Saying go take this guy out.
Speaker 1: Also goes to the problem that we have of getting
Speaker 1: to touch Wood, as Millie said, which is that we
Speaker 1: have convinced ourselves that Putin is a complete lunatic and psychopath,
Speaker 1: and therefore you can't negotiate with a lunatic and a psychopath,
Speaker 1: right therefore all you can do is war, and you know,
Speaker 1: that type of rhetoric get you know, doesn't get you
Speaker 1: any closer to a place where you can then sit down,
Speaker 1: because then how do you tell the American people, Oh,
Speaker 1: actually we've made it, We've made it. You can be
Speaker 1: a lunatic and a psychopath and you can still you know,
Speaker 1: you can be irrational and many I mean, invading Ukraine
Speaker 1: was very irrational. I mean, they're definitely not work out
Speaker 1: for him the way that he wanted to be. That
Speaker 1: mean doesn't mean you still can't negotiate. I actually think
Speaker 1: about I've talked with some of the people who met
Speaker 1: with Kim Jong un and with the North Koreans. The
Speaker 1: North Koreans are crazy, they're also very intelligent, and what
Speaker 1: they would say is that they, you know, the negotiators, like,
Speaker 1: you guys got to give up your nukes. They're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: had that to work out for Gadafi, he gave it,
Speaker 1: so just say it over and over again. And then
Speaker 1: they're like, well, we're never going to do anything to you.
Speaker 1: They're like, that's what Saddam Hussein thought. You guys gave
Speaker 1: him weapons, you gave him a signed to deal with
Speaker 1: him and then he was killed. He's like, we're never
Speaker 1: giving these up. You know why, because it's the only
Speaker 1: guarantee that you won't do what you've done in the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years. You tell me, doesn't sound that
Speaker 1: crazy to me. It is crazy. Whenever you know, you like,
Speaker 1: use in our artillery to chop up your uncle or
Speaker 1: feed them to dogs. Yeah, I agree, but you know,
Speaker 1: from a pure calculus perspective, you got to try and
Speaker 1: get yourself in the minds of these people. I wish
Speaker 1: dictators didn't exist. I wish that he wasn't the president,
Speaker 1: but he is the president of Russia. So you have
Speaker 1: to take that as a reality and manage that with
Speaker 1: your strategic balance of what you want to do and
Speaker 1: what you don't want to do. And this is probably
Speaker 1: the least possible, most helpful thing, and unfortunately it's a
Speaker 1: bipartisan problem. We have Lindsay Graham saying the exact same
Speaker 1: thing early days of the war, which we'll remember, and
Speaker 1: of course you think that wasn't played on loop inside
Speaker 1: of Russia. This helps absolutely nobody. So anyway, Hillary doing
Speaker 1: her best. I just say thank god that lady was
Speaker 1: never president of the United States. All right, let's move
Speaker 1: on to Scotus here. So Ryan, I'm really curious what
Speaker 1: you think of this. The Supreme Court is officially hearing
Speaker 1: the student loan debt relief case. Let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen, and says to
Speaker 1: be a decent summary of what the arguments for and
Speaker 1: against are. So, if we will return to what the
Speaker 1: actual plan was, ten thousand dollars in federal student loan
Speaker 1: debt is getting canceled for those making less than one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five thousand or households with lessan two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand income. Pel Grant recipients who receive
Speaker 1: more financial need would get an additional ten thousand in debt.
Speaker 1: Forgiven college students would qualify if their loans were dispersed
Speaker 1: before July first of two thousand and twenty two. That
Speaker 1: made some forty three million people eligible for the plan.
Speaker 1: The White House is set already that twenty six million
Speaker 1: have applied for the relief and sixteen million had already
Speaker 1: had relief approved. Coromeggressional Budget Office that it would cost
Speaker 1: about four hundred billion over toward thirty years. However, the
Speaker 1: problem is is that the current case before the court
Speaker 1: involves a student named Mayra Brown, ineligible for debt relief
Speaker 1: because her loans are commercially held, and an additional student,
Speaker 1: his name is Alexander Taylor, who is eligible for just
Speaker 1: ten thousand, not the full twenty thousand, because he didn't
Speaker 1: receive a pelgan they grant. They say the Biden administration
Speaker 1: did not go through the proper process in enacting this plan.
Speaker 1: A Texas judge actually ruled on behalf of the student's
Speaker 1: rule to block the program. He said that the Biden
Speaker 1: admin did not have clear authorization from Congress to implement
Speaker 1: the program. Now, this goes to what the Biden administration
Speaker 1: actually did. They use something called the Heroes Act. The
Speaker 1: Heroes Act was passed after September eleven, two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: which said that you were going to Initially, it was
Speaker 1: passed keep service members from being worse off financially when
Speaker 1: they fought in wars in Afghanistan Iraq. Reasonable Now though,
Speaker 1: it allows the Secretary of Education to waive or modify
Speaker 1: the terms of student loans in connection with a national emergency.
Speaker 1: So this ties specifically to the COVID nineteen pandemic. Because
Speaker 1: the Biden administration in court is arguing we are still
Speaker 1: in the middle of a COVID national emergency. But the
Speaker 1: President has said rhetorically the pandemic is over. We have rescinded.
Speaker 1: As I understand the title forty two, what was happening
Speaker 1: down at the border. We're using COVID as a pretext
Speaker 1: to expel migrants. We have a new effectively remain in
Speaker 1: Mexico policy that is in effect, so in many legal
Speaker 1: grounds ryan from eviction moratoriums to the border, the Biden
Speaker 1: adminstration is no longer trying to argue that COVID is
Speaker 1: a national emergency. But in a case of student loan relief,
Speaker 1: they are saying it's a national emergency. And I saw
Speaker 1: the Secretary of Education this morning on television was asked,
Speaker 1: how can are you really saying that it's a national
Speaker 1: emergency in court and not a national emergency to the
Speaker 1: American people. He said, yes, that's what we were saying.
Speaker 1: I said, well, that's going to be interesting before the court.
Speaker 1: They also have an They also have an add on argument,
Speaker 1: which which I think is fair, which says that the
Speaker 1: student loan crisis was badly exacerbated by the pandemic. So
Speaker 1: even if you stipulate, yes, that legally and actually the
Speaker 1: pandemic is over, let's just sipulate for the for the
Speaker 1: for the for the argument's sake, the crisis still happened
Speaker 1: because of that, and the law allows us to respond
Speaker 1: to a crisis that happened during UH during that time,
Speaker 1: and because of the pause, and because of the economic
Speaker 1: the pause and loan repays, and because of the economic
Speaker 1: shock that came from the pandemic, so many people losing
Speaker 1: losing their jobs, that you could say that there are
Speaker 1: many people who desperately need this, and I think that's
Speaker 1: actually true. I don't think that that's kind of playing
Speaker 1: games with stuff, because you have so many people who
Speaker 1: are now used to not making that three to six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars payment, which they kept extending and extending right
Speaker 1: twenty months, their balance if they had continued paying over
Speaker 1: the last three years would be substantially lower even though
Speaker 1: they got they got a pause on interest rates than
Speaker 1: it is now. So now all of a sudden, if
Speaker 1: the court rules, you know, with these with these angry borrowers,
Speaker 1: you now are going to all of a sudden have
Speaker 1: to start paying this money now. I actually don't think
Speaker 1: they will. I think Biden would just keep indefinitely pausing
Speaker 1: it for everybody, which is hilarious, Like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: so you can't cancel ten thousand, but you can extend it.
Speaker 1: You can basically cancel all of it forever. Okay, that's weird.
Speaker 1: So I think that making that case that, look, this
Speaker 1: was a crisis created by the pandemic, should allow you
Speaker 1: to use the law around the pandemic. So that's if
Speaker 1: I were, and I've heard them make versions of that argument.
Speaker 1: We'll see. It's going to be this morning, right, so
Speaker 1: we'll see how that goes. Yeah, just a couple of
Speaker 1: hours from where we're actually not that far from. We're
Speaker 1: filming right now. And one of the things that the
Speaker 1: justices are expected to focus on a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Number one is whether the States and the borrowers even
Speaker 1: have a right sue over the plan in the first place.
Speaker 1: This is called standing. If they don't, then they can
Speaker 1: just say, you don't have standing to sue for us
Speaker 1: before the Supreme Court, so ergo, the decision stands, and
Speaker 1: the plan can go ahead. The other thing that what
Speaker 1: they have to prove is that the States and the
Speaker 1: borrowers have to show that they are financially harmed by
Speaker 1: the plan. I mean, on the borrowers part, that's not
Speaker 1: hard to imagine, but on the States parts that are
Speaker 1: joining the suit, that might be. And then otherwise they
Speaker 1: are also going to question exactly whether the Heroes Act
Speaker 1: even gives a Biden ad been the power to enact
Speaker 1: the plan. Now, look, a lot of this is partisan too,
Speaker 1: and I would say, based on from what I've people
Speaker 1: I've talked to, Kavanaugh is going to be one of
Speaker 1: the swinger votes. And that's why because if we go
Speaker 1: back to the original eviction moratorium, the fiction moretorum was
Speaker 1: challenged before the Spree Court, Kavanaugh said, look, legally, I
Speaker 1: don't think you guys have standing or I don't think
Speaker 1: you guys have a foot to stand on. That said,
Speaker 1: from what I have looked at, we still have a
Speaker 1: COVID emergency. I don't want to kick people out of
Speaker 1: their homes. So I'm going to punt it to you, Congress,
Speaker 1: you have sixty days to extend the eviction mortorium. The
Speaker 1: Biden administration doesn't do it, Congress doesn't do it, and
Speaker 1: then ends up before the stream Supreme Court again, and
Speaker 1: he's like, look, I told you you had sixty days.
Speaker 1: You don't have sixty days anymore. And this came all
Speaker 1: the way down to the National Emergency Declaration. So one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I think it will be very
Speaker 1: important and likely it's very likely to get struck down
Speaker 1: at the court, possibly not even just sixty three, it
Speaker 1: could even be seven to two. From what I understand
Speaker 1: is that national the student Loan one, this specifically is
Speaker 1: going to rest on the National Emergency Declaration and the
Speaker 1: ability to use the Heroes Act with COVID as a pretext.
Speaker 1: And you know, irony is Ryan is I understand it.
Speaker 1: They had a much easier way to cancel all this debt.
Speaker 1: Nobody asked them to go through the Heroes Act. There's
Speaker 1: no reason why they had to. It's probably the most
Speaker 1: legally precarious out of all of them that they chose. Right,
Speaker 1: they could have used the Higher Education Act, which has
Speaker 1: some provisions that would that give the Education Department a
Speaker 1: lot more a lot more flexibility, which is what Trump used,
Speaker 1: you know, in the very early stages to pause this
Speaker 1: before they you know, enacted, you know, before they amended
Speaker 1: the Heroes legislation. So one possibility could be that the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court could use the Higher Education Act to legalize it. Yes,
Speaker 1: like you don't have like you don't have to rely
Speaker 1: on the reasoning of the litigants in your ruling. You're
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. You can stremely do whatever you wants.
Speaker 1: John Roberts showed that with the Affordable Care Act. Remember
Speaker 1: they said this is this is a mandate. Is, well,
Speaker 1: you can't do a mandate and robertsonill, actually it's not
Speaker 1: a mandate. His attacks and so he rewrote the reasoning
Speaker 1: for the law to then legalize it constitutionally. And so
Speaker 1: they could do that. And so it'll be interesting to
Speaker 1: watch to see if the Solicitor General for the White
Speaker 1: House says, even if you don't believe any of this
Speaker 1: Hero's Act justification, but you want to protect this, should
Speaker 1: do you? Should? You know, here's another argument that you
Speaker 1: could use if you chose to. I also think the
Speaker 1: standing is interesting, but it's shot through with a lot
Speaker 1: of politics. It's hard to see how these students are
Speaker 1: being harmed because they're paying. They're paying, no matter what,
Speaker 1: Like not being part of a program is definitely not
Speaker 1: harm like if and so it may be sad, Like you,
Speaker 1: I feel bad that you didn't qualify for this thing.
Speaker 1: That's unfortunate, but it doesn't make you worse off than
Speaker 1: you currently are. I'm not sure, because the problem was
Speaker 1: is that there were all these suits and the one
Speaker 1: suit that I clearly people being harmed or who debt servicers,
Speaker 1: like the people who literally are payment collectors, they are
Speaker 1: materially being harmed. They actually could argue that, as I
Speaker 1: understand that that case didn't end up moving forward, they
Speaker 1: the challenger stuff this would be the best way to
Speaker 1: strike the most sympathetic, not the most sympathic. Certainly. That said,
Speaker 1: as I from what I have heard, I could be
Speaker 1: completely wrong. Some of the court watchers I know they
Speaker 1: think this is a clean sweep at court and that
Speaker 1: this thing is going to be struck down. And the
Speaker 1: real reason that's a mess is if they've already distributed
Speaker 1: sixteen million dollars or sixteen million people relief, I don't
Speaker 1: know how you claw that back. That's I think you're
Speaker 1: just positive that is an administrative nightmare to literally clawback
Speaker 1: people's relief after they've already given it out the door.
Speaker 1: Just get ready for some of the worst government stories
Speaker 1: of all time. Let's go to the second part here.
Speaker 1: You are very familiar with this, and I want you
Speaker 1: to set it up. So put it up there on
Speaker 1: the screen. The constitutionality of the CFPB, the Consumer Financial
Speaker 1: Protection Bureau, is currently up before the court. So can
Speaker 1: you explain this to us for for the lay person,
Speaker 1: even I barely understand it. Ye. Has something to do
Speaker 1: with Congress and funding and an independent agent. Yeah. All
Speaker 1: the articles refer to this as Elizabeth Warren's baby, but
Speaker 1: I spent so much time covering it that it's actually good,
Speaker 1: my god baby. Okay, So yeah, I covered this every
Speaker 1: day for a couple of years while Warren was pushing
Speaker 1: it through the House and the Senate in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine and twenty ten, and the big, the huge
Speaker 1: fights were over how it would be constructed. And there
Speaker 1: were two key questions. One which has been litigated and
Speaker 1: they have successfully won, was would it be a commission
Speaker 1: where you get two Republicans, three Democrats, three demopras right
Speaker 1: like the FBC the FCC, or would would be a
Speaker 1: single director. The Progressives fought for a single director because
Speaker 1: it's if you have a single director, it's going to
Speaker 1: be much tougher. The banks wanted a commission that they
Speaker 1: could then capture. Yep, because like they've done with all
Speaker 1: the other ones that they litigated that they lost. So
Speaker 1: now the other major fight was the funding stream. Republicans
Speaker 1: wanted it funded in an annual appropriations way. It's like
Speaker 1: a normal like the Department of Defense, right and right.
Speaker 1: So that way, if the Republicans control or or if
Speaker 1: a bank bank friendly democrat controls the Financial you know,
Speaker 1: the Bank Banking Committee over the Senate, they can write
Speaker 1: to the CFPB and say, you know, we're not giving
Speaker 1: you funding until you change this rule, until you do
Speaker 1: this thing. And that is part of the process of
Speaker 1: corporate capture of our regulatory institutions. And so they came
Speaker 1: up with this. They call it unique if it's exactly unique,
Speaker 1: but it kind of is this structure where the money
Speaker 1: is sent to the Federal Reserve for the Federal reserves
Speaker 1: operating expenses, and then the Federal Reserve can then funds
Speaker 1: the CFPB with no more than twelve percent of the
Speaker 1: Federal reserves operating but and their earnings or something that
Speaker 1: I don't really it's yeah, it's yeah. And now the
Speaker 1: argument for why it's constitutional is that the Congress approb
Speaker 1: rates some money for the Federal Reserves operating budget. It
Speaker 1: appropriates the money for Social Security for Medicare, that doesn't
Speaker 1: do it in an annual way, and that the Fed
Speaker 1: could not produce from thin air this type of funding.
Speaker 1: But as long as it's authorized by statute by Congress,
Speaker 1: and if Congress doesn't like it, they can change it.
Speaker 1: And there have been efforts in the past by Republicans
Speaker 1: to when there's like a cr going through in the
Speaker 1: early days it's to change the structure of the way
Speaker 1: that the CFPV is funded, and those those failed. But
Speaker 1: if you're Kavanaugh and you're going to be consistent, you
Speaker 1: should say, look, Congress, if you don't like this, why
Speaker 1: are you complaining to us about it. You wrote this law,
Speaker 1: you don't like it, go change the law. And Democrats
Speaker 1: are so sick of hearing that from the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: that was the Clean Air Act, Like you want to
Speaker 1: add carbon to this, go ahead and add carbon. Nothing's
Speaker 1: stopping you. And so you could make the exact same
Speaker 1: argument to the to Republicans here saying, look, you don't
Speaker 1: like it, win some elections, change it. But as of now,
Speaker 1: the statute is very clear and Congress wrote the statute.
Speaker 1: It's not like the administrative state wrote this statute so
Speaker 1: that I think that's why only this one judge on
Speaker 1: the Fifth Circuit has ruled that this is that this
Speaker 1: is an unconstitutional funding structure. Like everybody like from the
Speaker 1: I don't want to like middle right over. It's like
Speaker 1: like you have to be way way fifth Circuit. You
Speaker 1: have to be like a radical on the Fifth Circuit,
Speaker 1: where other Fifth Circuit Republicans are like, whoa, that guy's out.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean, though that it won't still get strung.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. It doesn't. It seems like from the conventional
Speaker 1: wisdom seems to be that it'll be fine, okay, that
Speaker 1: they're going to screen because David Dan a little bit
Speaker 1: of this, and he says the conservative legal strategy to
Speaker 1: kneecap the administrative to state continues yesterday with the ruling
Speaker 1: that calls in the question the operation of the CFPB.
Speaker 1: If ultimate successful, the ruling would lead to significant collateral
Speaker 1: damage that destroyers of consumer protection haven't throught through. The
Speaker 1: case found that the funding mechanism CFPB unconstitutional would throw
Speaker 1: all consumer financial markets into upheaval because it would potentially
Speaker 1: toss aside every agency and federal program that is not
Speaker 1: funded directly through discretionary congressional appropriation, threatening healthcare, retirement, security,
Speaker 1: food and drug safety, all kinds of other actions. So
Speaker 1: what he's getting to is that the way that agencies
Speaker 1: are funded is different than the way that let's say,
Speaker 1: overall appropriations, discretionary spending is given out, and that by
Speaker 1: opening up discretionary spending to the political process, you could
Speaker 1: make it kind of like the IRS or any of
Speaker 1: these other organizations. It is an interesting case, actually, he
Speaker 1: points out, like the OCC and the FDA and other
Speaker 1: places like that that are funded by industry, Like FDA
Speaker 1: is heavily funded by user fees. Great, which is not
Speaker 1: great either. Also also not unconstitutional. Yes, and he makes
Speaker 1: this He makes a funny point in his piece there banks,
Speaker 1: be careful. What you work wish for. The administrative state
Speaker 1: that exists now is a place to not just to
Speaker 1: support support the American people and consumers, but also businesses.
Speaker 1: Oh of course, there's a bunch of like safe harbor
Speaker 1: protections that exist within the regulations that say to a bank,
Speaker 1: if you follow these laws or any type of lender,
Speaker 1: if you follow these laws, then you have safe harbor
Speaker 1: from lawsuits around these types of things, and banks are
Speaker 1: well aware that Plaineffs attorneys are extremely powerful. Yes, so
Speaker 1: they like those legal they can play inside the game.
Speaker 1: And so if those legal protections go away, guess what,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, now everybody's getting sued all over
Speaker 1: the place. It'll be fun. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know which one I wish for on this one. Let's
Speaker 1: go to the next part here, Fox News, this is
Speaker 1: some interesting stuff happening. We can't help but take a look.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump attacking Fox News. Let's go ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. As Fox News is
Speaker 1: promoting Ron Desanctus so hard and so much, there's not
Speaker 1: much time left for real news. Reminds me of twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen when they were pushing Jeb. The new Fox poll,
Speaker 1: which they have been purposely terrible for me, has Trump
Speaker 1: crushing d sanctimonious, but they barely show it. Instead, they
Speaker 1: go with losers like Carl Rove, Paul Ryan, and now
Speaker 1: even Yesper I'm trying to figure out who that was,
Speaker 1: who have been wrong about everything. Isn't there a big,
Speaker 1: beautiful network which wants to do well and make a
Speaker 1: fortune besides fake news in all caps? So what is
Speaker 1: he talking about here? And ironically, you know, if you
Speaker 1: actually take a look at the pole that Trump is referencing,
Speaker 1: this poll is great for Trump. Let's put this up
Speaker 1: there to actually look at the pole that he's referencing.
Speaker 1: It has Trump at forty three percent in the Republican primary.
Speaker 1: It has Ron DeSantis at twenty eight percent, Haley at seven,
Speaker 1: Pence at seven, Greg Abbott too, and Liz Cheney at
Speaker 1: two percent. So I'm pretty sure that that shows him
Speaker 1: with a dramatic lead, and not only a dramatic lead, Ryan,
Speaker 1: but it actually shows him increase his margin on Ron
Speaker 1: DeSantis from previously. So I'm not exactly sure what he's
Speaker 1: upset about. I mean, it's certainly true, but Fox has
Speaker 1: been very kind to DeSantis, and I guess you know
Speaker 1: they've aired some you know, we actually aired the Jeb
Speaker 1: endorsement here on the show yesterday and it was frankly
Speaker 1: very bizarre because there was like music involved, and Brian
Speaker 1: Kilmeade was like, oh, Jeb, but like do you endorse
Speaker 1: Ron desanis like yes, sig Endors orchestral me. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was watching, like what is happening. How is this possibly
Speaker 1: on television? It's humiliating just for any politician, let Trump
Speaker 1: or DeSantis or whatever aside. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: like all of the Fox polling and to the extent
Speaker 1: they're even airing, you know, pro Desanti's stuff, there's still
Speaker 1: a hell of a lot of Trump support on Fox News. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, it also tells me that given the fact
Speaker 1: that he hasn't addressed Nikki Ailey, he hasn't talked about
Speaker 1: Mike Pence, he doesn't talk about Vivie Robert, he doesn't
Speaker 1: care about anybody except for run saying Ron DeSantis, that's it.
Speaker 1: The irony is that for all trouble, Fox is getting
Speaker 1: dragged into court. Yeah, he's going to on his behalf.
Speaker 1: Might cost them a couple of billion dollars because they
Speaker 1: were steadfast in support of his utter nonsense. True, And
Speaker 1: so it's it's funny that Trump can't see that these
Speaker 1: guys who are going through these depositions and they're like
Speaker 1: counting their cash balance or like they have like a
Speaker 1: something like a three billion dollar cash balance, and they're
Speaker 1: like wondering, is that going to cover what we did
Speaker 1: for this guy? Yes, he can't he can't imagine why
Speaker 1: they might be giving something less than perfectly favorable coverage
Speaker 1: to him. It's like, dude, yeah, it's it's a little odd.
Speaker 1: But it also just gets to the dynamic where clearly
Speaker 1: he sees DeSantis as a threat. Now, I think DeSantis
Speaker 1: certainly is it there. I think he's the only actual
Speaker 1: threat that Trump has. But how much of a threat
Speaker 1: is he actually? And this, you know, it really hit
Speaker 1: home for me, where there's this idea that DeSantis would
Speaker 1: have a runway sweep if Trump wasn't in the race.
Speaker 1: But put this up there. You know this, this is
Speaker 1: a new McLachlin Group poll of Republican voters primary voters,
Speaker 1: specifically without Trump, and it really still only has Desanta
Speaker 1: sid thirty five percent. It says Desantus thirty five, Trump
Speaker 1: Junior at ten, Pence seven, Hailey six, Candice Owens at four,
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz three, Romney three, Pompeo two, Tim Scott at two,
Speaker 1: Abbot at one, Rick Scott at one, kirsenome, etc. I
Speaker 1: can go on forever, But why does that matter? Because
Speaker 1: you know thirty five percent? Now, Okay, Trump actually did
Speaker 1: win their GOP primary in twenty sixteen with that, but
Speaker 1: one of the arguments against him was, well, he's not
Speaker 1: a unifier. The majority of the people are still not
Speaker 1: against him. I found it fascinating that he was still
Speaker 1: only up to thirty five percent. I'm not saying they
Speaker 1: wouldn't win a primary then, but he's not as much
Speaker 1: of the unifying figure without Trump as people are letting on.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense, Yeah, because tell me if you
Speaker 1: think this is right. But I think that this the
Speaker 1: hardcore Trump supporters who used to love Ron DeSantis when
Speaker 1: he was Trump's sidekick. Yes, now that he's a rival,
Speaker 1: like hate the guy. I wouldn't say they hate him.
Speaker 1: I think they. I think they appreciate him, but they're skeptical.
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, what are you doing. You're trying to
Speaker 1: upsave them, man, you know. And that's the other, you know,
Speaker 1: the big divide where DeSantis. A lot of the people
Speaker 1: who love Ron DeSantis are new Republican voters. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about Cubans, a lot of Latinos, specifically Latino men
Speaker 1: in Florida, but a lot of hardcore traditional Republican people,
Speaker 1: small business Republicans who are going to vote Republican every
Speaker 1: single time on the ticket. They love Ron. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a traditional you know, the Mitt Romney voter loves
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis. DeSantis's political genius is he's willing to bring
Speaker 1: in people who are new to the Republican Party and
Speaker 1: hold down the traditional coalition. The Trump people really don't
Speaker 1: fit into any of that. Trump certainly did get some
Speaker 1: of these newer voters, but still less than I think
Speaker 1: than Desanta's. Trump's genius was Republican, traditional Republican, small business
Speaker 1: Republicans willing to hold their nose and vote for him.
Speaker 1: And then all these people that he never voted before,
Speaker 1: ever in modern American history, Santis as. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: yet he's been able to compete on that. And a
Speaker 1: lot of those people now vote in the GOP primary
Speaker 1: and they vote for Trump. That's what I think the
Speaker 1: difference is, right, I think he has a hard time
Speaker 1: with those folks because he's not funny, Like it's it's
Speaker 1: all of the like Trump culture war stuff, but without
Speaker 1: kind of Trump's joking about, like I think you're right,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people I think wrongly. But a
Speaker 1: lot of people, I think since kind of less hate
Speaker 1: coming from Trump's they didn't think he actually believed it
Speaker 1: they thought he's just saying it just true, just to
Speaker 1: go after people and be funny. DeSantis just kind of
Speaker 1: comes off as mean sometimes maybe Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's still very successful. I would say. What
Speaker 1: I say is he doesn't have the same charisma close
Speaker 1: as I think that's a problem. Also, I didn't know this,
Speaker 1: but Trump is not wrong. He is quite short. I
Speaker 1: didn't know it was only a five to seven, which
Speaker 1: that's the problem. But I'm not saying that it should matter,
Speaker 1: but it does matter. We haven't had a president. We
Speaker 1: haven't had a president in the modern era below six
Speaker 1: to one in like what fifty years or something, and
Speaker 1: maybe Moore. Actually, when I go back and think about
Speaker 1: if you ever met Trump, I guess I've had the
Speaker 1: privilege of seeing the last couple presidents. I believe w
Speaker 1: is the shortest one I've seen eleven. Yeah, he's five leven.
Speaker 1: Clinton is huge, I mean he's not big hands. Obama
Speaker 1: also was taller than people. Again Trump, you know, I
Speaker 1: met Trump many times, and Trump is a big, big man.
Speaker 1: Joe Ford was like quarterback. Yeah, Ford was a big guy.
Speaker 1: Nixing was a scrining little dude. I guess you know
Speaker 1: Kennedy is, yeah, he really probably was the last one.
Speaker 1: Kennedy was. I believe he was tall, but you know,
Speaker 1: obviously had some health problems, but he seemed vigorous. And
Speaker 1: again I think that aesthetically, that stuff absolutely does matter
Speaker 1: whenever you think about leader and what that should all
Speaker 1: fold into with the Trump primary and Trump knocking Fox.
Speaker 1: Here it all comes down to the question of what
Speaker 1: Fox is going to do, and that I don't see
Speaker 1: any reason to suspect, you know, for all Trump's talk
Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen, what happened in twenty sixteen. Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: is on the record saying Roger Ayles sometime in twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen went all in for Trump, and I just could
Speaker 1: not get a fair hearing there. They were no longer
Speaker 1: treating me the way there was in the Tea Party era.
Speaker 1: And the reason why, if you go back and you
Speaker 1: read the history, Ales could read the ratings. You know,
Speaker 1: Ales had had Trump in a regular Fox and French
Speaker 1: spot since twenty eleven for just a phone in. Why
Speaker 1: because he used to get very high ratings. Ales could
Speaker 1: see the spike in the ratings for Donald Trump, and
Speaker 1: that's why he decided to go all in for him
Speaker 1: at the network. Rupert Murdoch is in you know, some
Speaker 1: of these more recent he's in some of these more
Speaker 1: recent depositions saying, oh, we tried to destroy Trump. Listen,
Speaker 1: all Ruper cares about is money. He doesn't care, you know,
Speaker 1: he may find him personally distasteful. He liked Obama. That
Speaker 1: didn't stop him from hiring Glenn Beck because he's a
Speaker 1: bill You know, these guys are multi billionaires. All they
Speaker 1: care about are the dollar signs at the networks, and
Speaker 1: that's all we've ever cared about, you know. But they
Speaker 1: did put that. Rupert did put that order in to
Speaker 1: like put a hit on him in that debate right
Speaker 1: where the Megan Kelly started it. And guess what, nothing
Speaker 1: happened with that with that question. You've said all these
Speaker 1: terrible things about women, and Trump came back with a
Speaker 1: roso on Aline and yeah, and Rupert and Fox at
Speaker 1: that point like, oh, what what if we unleashed here
Speaker 1: that we can't actually put back on the leash? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm curious to see what happens, but
Speaker 1: I personally don't think that Trump has anything to worry about.
Speaker 1: Fox at the end of the day, is just going
Speaker 1: to fall in love. I mean, all of them do.
Speaker 1: It's more audience capture than it is anything else. All right,
Speaker 1: next part here, this is a fun one, really thinking
Speaker 1: about Crystal. So we've covered the Brett favv. Pat McAfee
Speaker 1: case quite significantly here on breaking points. It actually predates
Speaker 1: obviously Pat McAfee what ended up. I'm actually personally disappointed
Speaker 1: at Brett Farv did not see us because we said
Speaker 1: exactly what Pat McFee did, which is Brett Favre allegedly
Speaker 1: for his repulsive lawyer. Allegedly repulsive lawyer said in text
Speaker 1: messages that he did not want the press to find
Speaker 1: out that he allegedly was working with the Mississippi state
Speaker 1: officials to builk tens of millions of dollars to build
Speaker 1: new facilities for a volleyball team at the school that
Speaker 1: his daughter attended, using state allocated resources for poor single
Speaker 1: moms in one of the poorest states of the nation.
Speaker 1: That is an effect in terms of the allegations that
Speaker 1: have been laid out. The Mississippi got buy some fairly
Speaker 1: credible evidence, not just I mean we're talking about straight
Speaker 1: up Texas messages. The Mississippi State auditor said, what this
Speaker 1: is the largest public welfare scandal in the history of
Speaker 1: the entire state of Mississippi. Brett Favre, of course, is
Speaker 1: worth tens of millions of dollars. McAfee and Shannon Sharp,
Speaker 1: when they were on the show covering it, said, allegedly,
Speaker 1: Pat played that clip. He said, look, I'll see you
Speaker 1: in court, Pal. I'm sure that we said allegedly. Well,
Speaker 1: Farv is not backing down, he's continuing to humiliate himself.
Speaker 1: McAfee tweeted this out yesterday. Let's go and put this
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. He says, officially official, you
Speaker 1: got served with the meme and it shows a cover
Speaker 1: sheet civil case filing form. Now it says short style
Speaker 1: of CASEV versus McAfee in the circuit court, party filing
Speaker 1: and initial pleading was the attorney check if not an attorney.
Speaker 1: And it shows you that the official legal filing is
Speaker 1: now commencing. More so is the absolutely insane rhetoric that
Speaker 1: is coming from the Farv lawyers. So let's put this
Speaker 1: up there. I mean, this is unbelievable. Brett Farv's lawyer
Speaker 1: says Pat McAfee quote, will go bankrupt. I'm sure he
Speaker 1: will with his deal with these sports betting companies, and
Speaker 1: quote will learn his lesson after the defamation lawsuit. So
Speaker 1: here's what he had to say. The McAfee, you know,
Speaker 1: of course, says that he said allegedly whenever he was
Speaker 1: discussing the case. That lawyer Eric Hirshman says otherwise, he says, quote,
Speaker 1: when you listen to Pat McAfee, he never read any
Speaker 1: of the complaints. He didn't read the motion to dismiss.
Speaker 1: He just decided to get on a show and try
Speaker 1: to get as much attention as he could, he accuses Brett.
Speaker 1: So we're clear about stealing from the poor in Misissippi.
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, he did accuse that based upon the
Speaker 1: documents that were the text messages and other public officials.
Speaker 1: So then he says that he is going to be bankrupt.
Speaker 1: It is going to cost Pat McAfee millions of dollars
Speaker 1: if it bankrupts. In he will learn his lesson. You
Speaker 1: don't try to promote yourself by inappropriately and improperly attacking
Speaker 1: someone else. This drives me crazy because this is pure
Speaker 1: straight up intimidation. Brett. First of all, I bet you
Speaker 1: Pat McFee has more money than Brett Farber. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and lay that out given how big
Speaker 1: a show is. But second, Brett Farber is a public official.
Speaker 1: You and I Ryan know this, as in this game,
Speaker 1: Brett Farab has to prove not only that Pat McAfee
Speaker 1: did not say or may not have said allegedly, he
Speaker 1: has to say that McAfee in his mind knew at
Speaker 1: the time that what he was saying was wrong and
Speaker 1: oft tempting to defame Brett Farbe's character intentionally with the
Speaker 1: words that he had used. You can actually say something
Speaker 1: mistakenly and still not be liable for defamation when you're
Speaker 1: talking about a public figure, because we have a very
Speaker 1: high bar in this country, as we should that when
Speaker 1: you're discussing people of immense wealth and power like Brett Farvre,
Speaker 1: who apparently allegedly has enough control over the State of
Speaker 1: Mississippi to misuse funds for laid out for poor people,
Speaker 1: that reporters and journalists and commentators people like ourselves are
Speaker 1: able to discuss this case with zero fear of but
Speaker 1: hurt multi millionaires trying to sue you and intimidate you
Speaker 1: before the eyes of the public. And the other thing
Speaker 1: that McFee has going for him is that this stuff
Speaker 1: is laid out in those court doking yes. So that yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that is bulletproof, and defamation law is a huge
Speaker 1: protection because you're like, look, I'm not saying it. Yeah
Speaker 1: he said it, yes, State Attorney General set in General said,
Speaker 1: and I'm referring to that, right. And the second, maybe
Speaker 1: actually the seventh, big problem that Farv is going to
Speaker 1: have is he has to also prove let's even if
Speaker 1: he could all of those other things we just laid out,
Speaker 1: which I don't think I can prove any of them,
Speaker 1: he would also have to prove that he was harmed
Speaker 1: specifically by McAfee's claims. And if the New York Times
Speaker 1: and everybody else and every poster on Twitter is saying
Speaker 1: the same thing, then how do you prove to a
Speaker 1: jury that this guy's comments are actually the thing that
Speaker 1: caused you. And it can't just be emotional distress. You
Speaker 1: can't say I really hurt my feelings the mean tweets
Speaker 1: and the mean podcast. You have to actually demonstrate real
Speaker 1: material harm that came to you. Were you not able
Speaker 1: to get future jobs because of what McAfee said, Did
Speaker 1: you lose access what happened to you because of what
Speaker 1: McAfee said, And McAfee can very easily go back and
Speaker 1: say it was the Attorney General's documents that have caused
Speaker 1: you all of this harm, and underneath that it was
Speaker 1: your alleged behavior. Just to get to this is that
Speaker 1: he's also suing the auditor. I mean, good, luckily, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna assue the order, the guy who uncovered this
Speaker 1: entire scheme. The funny thing is he's not even facing
Speaker 1: criminal charges and allegedly, you know, if some law enforcement
Speaker 1: allegedly person were to look into that, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It seems like a pretty standard case to me, and
Speaker 1: one where you may want to make it an example
Speaker 1: of multi millionaires allegedly bilking the system. And that's the
Speaker 1: real issue that I have with this entire thing is
Speaker 1: that you have people in power. I face this. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you have to. I'm gonna assue you. I'm gonnasue you.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, yeah, I got I just got one
Speaker 1: this weekend. Yeah yeah good? And you know why that
Speaker 1: we are able to report and talk in confidence. I
Speaker 1: know the law is on my side, and I also
Speaker 1: know what I don't know if Brett Farv knows is
Speaker 1: by the way, if Pat McAfee rides this thing all
Speaker 1: the way through which he has said that he will,
Speaker 1: he's gonna force far to pay his legal fees. The
Speaker 1: most likely scenario is that is that mac is that
Speaker 1: Farve hast to drop the case and recoup all of
Speaker 1: his legal fees. So personally, that is the outcome that
Speaker 1: I'm wishing for. Yeah, yeah, I think right, Because go
Speaker 1: in front of a jury and explain the entire scheme
Speaker 1: that was laid out in these court documents. I defend that,
Speaker 1: then you forget it, like what are you doing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And the funny thing is is he's accusing McAfee and
Speaker 1: the auditor of shamelessly false and attacking Farv's good name
Speaker 1: to gain attention for himself, including appearances on television shows
Speaker 1: like CNN, HBO, as well as interviews for print and
Speaker 1: online media. So the allegation here is that Pat McFee,
Speaker 1: one of the most famous sports podcasters and presenters in
Speaker 1: the United States who is also on WWE, needs to
Speaker 1: talk about Brett Farvre for publicity. Is that the allegation,
Speaker 1: by the way, I actually went back and checked. And
Speaker 1: this is the funny part. The original clip of McFee
Speaker 1: talking about this had like a couple hundred thousand views
Speaker 1: after he sued him, which is good. But you know,
Speaker 1: for mac he's a megastar, right, he's massive. He doesn't
Speaker 1: need Brett Farv to the clip of him saying bring
Speaker 1: it on Powell, that's over one point five million, so
Speaker 1: he actually got more attention. This is pure strides. In effect,
Speaker 1: Farv is drawing more attention to the case than originally
Speaker 1: by suing him and putting it in the minds of people.
Speaker 1: And this is just a classic case of these people
Speaker 1: they think they're untouchable gods. That's really what came through
Speaker 1: the alleged text messages. Oppresses going to find out about this, right, yeah, look,
Speaker 1: he thinks he runs a state of Mississippi because he
Speaker 1: was good at playing football. Sorry, Powell, apparently you know
Speaker 1: this is America. It actually is a little bit different.
Speaker 1: And we in the fourth of State could use a
Speaker 1: w in defamation court, especially after Golfer got wiped out
Speaker 1: like that. I'm not sure, I know, I know, but
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing, Like every time somebody gets crushed,
Speaker 1: even if it was justifiable, it's blood in the defamation waters,
Speaker 1: and people like Farv think that, well, maybe I have
Speaker 1: a better shot of like winning in court. So every
Speaker 1: time you catch a w in court, it pushes back
Speaker 1: and builds more cultural support for the for the for
Speaker 1: a free press, and for the First Amendment. So I hope,
Speaker 1: I hope McAfee fights this one all the way and
Speaker 1: wins in a plight way. Screw around and find out, Brett,
Speaker 1: You're gonna have fun in court and I am gonna.
Speaker 1: I am going to laugh whenever he ends up having
Speaker 1: to recoup McAfee's legal filings. And you know, all credit
Speaker 1: to Pat. Congratulations to you, sir. I'm admiring. I admire
Speaker 1: your standstill in this or you're the way that you've
Speaker 1: carried yourself in all this, because I know it's scary,
Speaker 1: you know for people like us. So we cover politics,
Speaker 1: we're used to it. You know, people threaten us all
Speaker 1: the time. Oh I'm gonna sue you like no, you're not.
Speaker 1: And even if you do, good luck. All right, I
Speaker 1: got good lawyers just like you do, and we'll fight
Speaker 1: this thing all the way through. But people who work
Speaker 1: in sports and elsewhere, they're not used to this level
Speaker 1: of public pressure. So I think people should really give
Speaker 1: him credit for standing tall on this. He's absolutely right
Speaker 1: into a damn thing wrong. And we are really going
Speaker 1: to enjoy carrying this all the way to the forward,
Speaker 1: and we'll continue covering it here and giving Pat all
Speaker 1: the support that he needs, not that he necessarily needs us,
Speaker 1: but I'd like to give him the sport regardless. Let's
Speaker 1: go to the next part here. Nina Turner absolutely stunning
Speaker 1: people on CNN in a crazy turn of events where
Speaker 1: she speaks against the joy behars of the world and
Speaker 1: others who are blaming the residents of East Palestine, Ohio
Speaker 1: for voting for Trump and just talking with disgust at
Speaker 1: the way that they've been treated in the media, drawing
Speaker 1: connections between the white working poor, black working poor, and
Speaker 1: all really poor people in America who are neglected by infrastructure,
Speaker 1: by our broader society and left behind. She spoke so eloquently,
Speaker 1: let's take a listen to that the state administration is
Speaker 1: not doing enough. I'm not pleased with Governor Mike Dwine
Speaker 1: who actually drunk some of the water, giving people confidence
Speaker 1: that that water is okay, when in fact that EPA
Speaker 1: didn't do the deepest dye that they can do to
Speaker 1: deal with the carcinogens that are there air the water.
Speaker 1: For the neoliberals who say that the residents of that
Speaker 1: area deserve what they are getting because they voted for
Speaker 1: President Donald J. Trump is abhorrent. This is about poverty.
Speaker 1: This is about poor working class white people who are
Speaker 1: enduring some of the same things that poor working class
Speaker 1: black people and do it whether it's Flint, Cleveland or Jackson, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: And so I want to lay it down the cultest
Speaker 1: behavior in politics right now. It is a sin and
Speaker 1: a shame that when people are suffering to this magnitude,
Speaker 1: you got people who will fix their miles. To quote
Speaker 1: my grandmother to say that they are getting what they deserve.
Speaker 1: What they deserve is clean air, clean food, clean water.
Speaker 1: They deserve relief, both in the short term and also
Speaker 1: in the long term. Story really well said, and Crystal
Speaker 1: found this. You can't even make this shit up. Ryan
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. So during a
Speaker 1: panel where they were talking about the railroad and East Palestine,
Speaker 1: they have a commentator who lobbied for Norfolk Southern and
Speaker 1: they did not tell its audience at any point during
Speaker 1: this discussion that lobbyist David Urban. And you know this guy,
Speaker 1: he's one of them. What does he supposedly the pro
Speaker 1: Trump guy or whatever, of course, know of CNN political
Speaker 1: commentator who's supposedly pro Trump apparently is taking money from
Speaker 1: Norfolk Southern Railroad. All right, well, what do they say here?
Speaker 1: He and his firm collected at least one point one
Speaker 1: four million dollars for lobbying on quote, transportation issues related
Speaker 1: to railways. Now what issues ran? Exactly where they are
Speaker 1: lobbying the government on the ones that led to this
Speaker 1: exact derailment which has now poisoned these people in East Palestine. Right,
Speaker 1: And her fundamental point is so well said that your
Speaker 1: dignity as a human being should not depend on how
Speaker 1: you vote for. But her other point is also even
Speaker 1: better said, which is that this is about power. And
Speaker 1: even if you want to say that, oh, they voted
Speaker 1: the wrong way and if they'd voted a different way
Speaker 1: than they wouldn't have gotten what they deserve, the David
Speaker 1: Urban example is perfect because that's CNN. Yes, yes, So
Speaker 1: if you are with the network that is more associated
Speaker 1: with ango Democrats, then you you don't deserve, according to
Speaker 1: that logic, to be drinking. You know chemical stained water,
Speaker 1: Yet you're supportive of a corporate news network aligned with
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party that employs a rail lobbyist, that's it,
Speaker 1: without disclosing it, who worked with both administrations Trump and
Speaker 1: Obama to roll back safety regulations. So who are you
Speaker 1: supposed to support not to get clean water? If you
Speaker 1: can't support the Democratic Party, if you can't support the
Speaker 1: Public Party, then it sounds like the idea would be, well,
Speaker 1: just because you participate somehow in our society, that you
Speaker 1: deserve then to suffer the consequences of doing that. And
Speaker 1: the paywall section of christmal monologue. I made this point yesterday.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, let's say that you think that's true.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you think that by saying you dirty people
Speaker 1: who voted for Trump you got what you deserve, you
Speaker 1: think they're going to change their minds. So like, first
Speaker 1: of all, effective, let's start with that number two. It's obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, morally abhorrent, but politically it's also very dumb.
Speaker 1: Here's my favorite part about what Urban said on TV
Speaker 1: when discussing the crisis quote, there's plenty of blame to
Speaker 1: go around on this, on these kinds, with these kinds
Speaker 1: of things happen, But what's important is we do move
Speaker 1: forward right to take care of people in these towns
Speaker 1: and communities. He then went on to criticize the Biden
Speaker 1: administration for allegedly sloughing off the crisis. So plenty of
Speaker 1: are blame to go around. Let's not point fingers. You participated.
Speaker 1: And look, this gets to the problem of these guests
Speaker 1: as well. You think that guy doesn't tell all of
Speaker 1: his clients that he's a regular commentator on This is
Speaker 1: the dream scenario for a company. You get a guy
Speaker 1: who's a regular seat and a commentator, You pay him,
Speaker 1: and then your time in the sum comes, your time
Speaker 1: in the barrel. And what does he do. He's catching
Speaker 1: bullets for you. He's pushing it away. This look CNN
Speaker 1: for all of the you know stuff we talk about
Speaker 1: at low ratings and all that. The point is that
Speaker 1: the few people who do watch them, they still matter.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of cultural power. So his ability,
Speaker 1: you deflect on a flagship CNN show like this without
Speaker 1: a single disclosure, is outrageous. Now, look, let's give him
Speaker 1: credit where it's due. They did invite Nina Turner. I'm
Speaker 1: glad that they certainly did. They allowed her to speak
Speaker 1: in that but that exactly shows you, you know, the
Speaker 1: two sides of the devil. And then how often are
Speaker 1: how often really is Nina on that show? And how
Speaker 1: much more often is the urban Unfortunately, I've had to
Speaker 1: watch a lot of CNN my day for my job.
Speaker 1: I've been seeing this guy on TV for the last
Speaker 1: six years. He's one of those Trump checkboxes, like, oh,
Speaker 1: we got this guy who speaks for Trump, right, he's
Speaker 1: right here, and then that guy's cashing in all the
Speaker 1: way to the bank. And I just love the framing
Speaker 1: of let's not worry so much about what happened. Yes,
Speaker 1: let's just yes, let's just look forward to remember Obama
Speaker 1: has had that line about torture. Let's look forward, not backward.
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, it's like, Nikki, how does that work out?
Speaker 1: How does that work out? If you don't try to
Speaker 1: figure out what just happened, yet you're going to make
Speaker 1: sure in the future it doesn't happen. The rail lobbyist
Speaker 1: saying let's not point fingers is just so perfect. It
Speaker 1: really is just not It's like the firm one point
Speaker 1: four million in low being fees. He was literally president
Speaker 1: of the lobbying firm which we're receiving these the money
Speaker 1: at the time and even right now is the head
Speaker 1: of quote BGR Group, a lobbying firm that represent is
Speaker 1: the death Star. He goes countless conflicts of interest for
Speaker 1: his on air work. In his most recent lobbying quarter,
Speaker 1: they have continued to lobby on transportation issues, and it says, quote,
Speaker 1: our clients in the aviation, automative, rail shipping, and mass
Speaker 1: transit industries rely on BGR to educate public leaders about
Speaker 1: how vital these industries are to domestic and international commerce.
Speaker 1: BGR A big con job, yeah, BGR. Yeah. They made
Speaker 1: their name by being willing to take the like all
Speaker 1: the different dictators and like politically toxic clients that even
Speaker 1: other lobbying firms were like, ooh, that's a pretty sweet retainer,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna hurt us with our other clients, gonna
Speaker 1: hurt us with our access. We're not gonna do it.
Speaker 1: And BGR was like, we'll take you, we got we
Speaker 1: got you. There you go. You're absolutely And CNN's like, cool,
Speaker 1: sounds good, You're good for three twenty we're talking the
Speaker 1: rail does that, let's do it. Anything we should know yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: not at all. We're good. Yes. Something I've been thinking
Speaker 1: a lot about lately is how bad Pete Buddha Judge
Speaker 1: is at his job. And while we've covered the specific
Speaker 1: ins and outs of failures on East Palestine, on the
Speaker 1: airline crisis, on railroad, and so much more, an important
Speaker 1: point that I've really come around to is this isn't
Speaker 1: just about Buddha Jedge specifically, It's about the system which
Speaker 1: elevated him, how much it represents our dystopian future. Buddha Jedge,
Speaker 1: along with several other Biden appointees, are a view into
Speaker 1: our affirmative action determined future, one where the identity of
Speaker 1: the individual is the only metric of which is considered
Speaker 1: for elevation, and one word, job performance is not only secondary,
Speaker 1: but which barely figures in the place of high importance.
Speaker 1: I was really struck by this last week at the
Speaker 1: White House Press briefing, where White House Press Secretary Karine
Speaker 1: Jean Pierre got multiple questions about Secretary Buddha Judge and
Speaker 1: the President's lack of response to East Palestine in the
Speaker 1: middle she had to throw in this, let's take a listen.
Speaker 1: I want to take the opportunity to lay out how
Speaker 1: diverse the President's cabinet has been, how diverse the president's
Speaker 1: administration has been. The cabinet is majority people of color
Speaker 1: for the first time in history. The cabinet is a
Speaker 1: majority female for the first time in history. A majority
Speaker 1: of White House senior staff identify as female, forty percent
Speaker 1: of White House senior staff identify as part of the
Speaker 1: racially diverse communities, and a record seven assistants to the
Speaker 1: President's are openly LGBTQ plus. So again, this is something
Speaker 1: that the President prides himself on that he actually has
Speaker 1: taken action to show the diversity of this administration. That,
Speaker 1: more than anything, is the ruling ideology of the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: They are considered people for their most senior appointments. How
Speaker 1: about answer this question, how many of them went to
Speaker 1: East Palestine before the day of that briefing? Answer zero.
Speaker 1: That's the only answer that should matter. But what we've
Speaker 1: learned now through the last two years is one that
Speaker 1: matters probably the least, and it's a problem that has
Speaker 1: been at the heart of the Buddha Judge and competence story.
Speaker 1: The Secretary of Transportation is gay. Did you know that
Speaker 1: How could you not when the airlines were melting down
Speaker 1: and they were busting railway unions warning about the disaster
Speaker 1: to come on Norfolk Southern, Where was buddhaj Edge. He
Speaker 1: was on CNN pushing for the gay marriage bill. All
Speaker 1: of us know he cares more about that than actually
Speaker 1: doing his job, and apparently that's all the President expects
Speaker 1: of him after doing him a favor and appointing to
Speaker 1: the position. This problem pervades all of government right now,
Speaker 1: even the person at the altar, Karine Jean Pierre. She
Speaker 1: is so terrible at her job that when it matters
Speaker 1: matters of national security, you have to be discussed. They
Speaker 1: forced Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby to come over from
Speaker 1: the Pentagon and deliver the talking points because they don't
Speaker 1: want her to screw up anything important when it comes
Speaker 1: to Ukraine. He had never had to do that when
Speaker 1: Jensaki was the Press secretary. I will also tell you
Speaker 1: this from my New Year's as a White House correspondent.
Speaker 1: The only time the Press secretary ever relinquishes the White
Speaker 1: House podium is to a senior government policy official who
Speaker 1: is supposed to answer detailed qui questions about policy. Never
Speaker 1: to a more junior press secretary. The White House Press
Speaker 1: secretary is supposed to be the premier US government spokesperson,
Speaker 1: but they can't fire her even though anyone with eyes
Speaker 1: knows she's terrible, because all Biden and apparently the media
Speaker 1: talk about is how she's the first black, gay woman
Speaker 1: to be the press secretary. That's great, but performance apparently
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Or take our own Vice President Kamala Harris. Literally,
Speaker 1: all of us know that she was not picked because
Speaker 1: of her ability to do the job. She's the worst
Speaker 1: performing candidate in the twenty twenty Democratic primary, often losing
Speaker 1: to people like Andrew Yang in her own home state polls.
Speaker 1: She was picked because she checked diversity box. Apparently doesn't
Speaker 1: matter that she holds one of the lowest approval ratings
Speaker 1: for a vice president in modern American history, despite having
Speaker 1: zero responsibility. Why am I harping on this? Because affirmative
Speaker 1: action is quickly becoming the religion of the elite in
Speaker 1: this country. We are only likely to have more Secretary
Speaker 1: Buddha Judges, vice President Harris's, and Press Secretary Jean Pierre's
Speaker 1: as the years go on. In his first months in office,
Speaker 1: Biden signed an Executive Order on quote Diversity, Equity and
Speaker 1: Inclusion Accessibility in the Federal Workforce. The order quote establishes,
Speaker 1: it is the policy of the administration to cultivate a
Speaker 1: workforce that draws from the full diversity of the nation.
Speaker 1: So how does it do that Well? It creates an
Speaker 1: affirmative action regime that we have at major corporations and
Speaker 1: creates them in every department of government, including effective hiring
Speaker 1: quotas throughout the entire federal government. Just days ago, the
Speaker 1: Biden administration released the first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion report
Speaker 1: from the federal government, with an increase in quote representation
Speaker 1: for women and some communities of color. The report effectively
Speaker 1: shows that racial hiring quotas and identity based ones like
Speaker 1: sexual orientation are the new signifiers of status for government employment. Worse,
Speaker 1: a new director of the Office of Personnel Management says
Speaker 1: that the goal of the Biden administration is to have
Speaker 1: the federal government set affirmative action standards for every employer
Speaker 1: in the nation. Why is this bad? Government is already
Speaker 1: the largest employer in the whole country. They are trying
Speaker 1: to spread this poison to the HR department of every large,
Speaker 1: mid and small corporation in the world. The consequences of
Speaker 1: ditching merit almost entirely cannot be overstated. Already, top law
Speaker 1: schools medic schools in the country are coordinated scheme to
Speaker 1: de emphasize objective merit criteria like GPA, LSAT, MCAT and
Speaker 1: other test scores to preserve a racial admissions regime. They
Speaker 1: are literally going to rig the system, burn hundreds of
Speaker 1: years of academic credibility that they have built up just
Speaker 1: to ensure their idealized racial makeup of their student body,
Speaker 1: and that by definition, determines the higher elite of this country.
Speaker 1: As I have asked in previous monologues, can you actually
Speaker 1: have confidence that your doctor knows what the hell they
Speaker 1: are doing in ten years, or that your lawyer you
Speaker 1: need to see said doctor knows what they're doing either,
Speaker 1: Or how about your president or your secretary of transportation,
Speaker 1: or your boss or your list goes on forever. I
Speaker 1: like to think at a certain point a system this
Speaker 1: week will fail. Maybe that's true, but how many people
Speaker 1: are going to miss out on opportunities or suffer under
Speaker 1: bad leadership until the fix actually comes? Only time will tell.
Speaker 1: Curious what your take on this, Ryan I know, Crystal's
Speaker 1: very against Ryan. You're taking a look at something. What
Speaker 1: is it? Yeah, So over the weekend I was reading
Speaker 1: a book that's coming out in May called Plunder, if
Speaker 1: we can put that up in it, And I've been
Speaker 1: covering yeah, and you have two private equity for years,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad somebody is doing a real full treatment
Speaker 1: on this. And so I wanted to do something a
Speaker 1: little different here and have a little fun with some
Speaker 1: monopoly money because because what I realized is that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people don't quite understand the scam
Speaker 1: that is private equity and the fact that it only
Speaker 1: exists because our laws allow it to exist, and therefore
Speaker 1: we can rewrite those laws so we can shovel it
Speaker 1: in a more productive right. It didn't exist in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, for exam, Right in nineteen eighties you saw
Speaker 1: the actually on her first under Carter and then Reagan,
Speaker 1: you saw the advent of what were then called corporate
Speaker 1: raiders and which helped produce the SNL crisis. And they
Speaker 1: then changed their name basically to private Equity. There now,
Speaker 1: if you notice they're changing their name again now they're
Speaker 1: like just investment firms and like they're even trying like that,
Speaker 1: And that's how you know something is deeply toxicvisory right
Speaker 1: they when they have to keep changing their name, That's
Speaker 1: that's how you know something is wrong. And when you
Speaker 1: keep seeing kind of financial crises associated with them, that's
Speaker 1: probably also a bad sign. So let's pretend that you're
Speaker 1: you're a retailer, and we can do you know, let's
Speaker 1: let's call you shop COO in honor of Emily, because
Speaker 1: this is a this was a huge kind of institution.
Speaker 1: We can put up this second one here, a huge
Speaker 1: institution in like Wisconsin and also the Midwest, like shopco was,
Speaker 1: you know, for decades the thing, and they were a
Speaker 1: real pioneer in bringing in drug stores and other retail
Speaker 1: and like I think I think they were the first
Speaker 1: that ever a scanner like So this was this is
Speaker 1: not like somebody that got you know, washed over by
Speaker 1: like the Amazon wave. This was a this is a
Speaker 1: serious company. So they got hundreds of stores. So a
Speaker 1: private equity come come, private equity company comes in, and
Speaker 1: they say, look, they ended up buying it for a
Speaker 1: billion dollars, but they put up let's say about twenty
Speaker 1: of their own dollars. Then they go out and they
Speaker 1: go to pension funds. They get another two hundred billion
Speaker 1: dollars there, So how do they buy it for a
Speaker 1: billion dollars? They go to you, they're like, we want
Speaker 1: we want you to take out a loan. So you're
Speaker 1: going to take out basically an eight hundred million dollar
Speaker 1: So I take out the loan loan, right, so you're
Speaker 1: you're taking out that loan. So now they're using all
Speaker 1: of these they're using your business as collateral. But your
Speaker 1: that's not your money. Yes, so you have to give
Speaker 1: that to the owners of Shopco. But you in order
Speaker 1: to kind of bribe you, I get to keep on
Speaker 1: you're the old Yeah, you're the old executives, because why
Speaker 1: would executive sign off on this terrible deal because they
Speaker 1: get to walk They get to walk away with that money.
Speaker 1: I get the payout, all right, So so this money's
Speaker 1: gone all right, Now I want a little bit of
Speaker 1: dividend for all the hard work that I did, right yep.
Speaker 1: But you don't have any money and you're and you're
Speaker 1: highly leveraged. Yes, tell you what, We're going to make
Speaker 1: you a two hundred million dollar loan. Huh. That is
Speaker 1: also on top of on top of your assets here, right,
Speaker 1: So we're going to leverage you a little bit higher. Okay,
Speaker 1: but hand that back to me. Okay. Now, this is
Speaker 1: it's a form of a dividend. It's a form of
Speaker 1: a because these are profits. Yes, we ran a business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: congratulations to us. We made a profit. So we started
Speaker 1: with twenty Yeah we're in the back. Yeah, we're already
Speaker 1: looking good. And we'll give we'll give maybe one hundred
Speaker 1: of this to the pension pension, right, they get on there.
Speaker 1: So the private equifirm itself has already has already, so
Speaker 1: they just made a profit. They've already already made a profit. Okay.
Speaker 1: Now I have all this debt, yes, and so so
Speaker 1: that's that's a problem. So how are you going to
Speaker 1: pay off this debt? There are two ways we can
Speaker 1: make more money, where we can fire people and reduced expenses.
Speaker 1: There's actually a third way that private equity has figured out,
Speaker 1: which is you actually own because you're a smart business,
Speaker 1: you actually own all of these stores. Oh real estate. Okay,
Speaker 1: you own the real estate under there. So what we'd
Speaker 1: like you to do and actually we're just going to
Speaker 1: force you to do it, So you'd like you to
Speaker 1: sell all of all of those properties and then you
Speaker 1: they call it a lease back, then you're gonna lease
Speaker 1: it back. And so they ended up selling this one's ripped.
Speaker 1: They ended up selling all of their store, like the
Speaker 1: property underneath it, for eight hundred million dollars a lot
Speaker 1: of money. Right. Yeah, Hey, because you own a lot
Speaker 1: of property, can I have that back? Now you have
Speaker 1: it back? Yeah, I appreciate that. Okay, thank you very much. Yes,
Speaker 1: Now you have rent before in hard times because you
Speaker 1: owned your property, never had rent. You didn't you didn't
Speaker 1: have rent, and you could actually borrow. Yeah, you could
Speaker 1: borrow against the equity cut to cover the hard times.
Speaker 1: In the good times, you're paying down. So now you
Speaker 1: don't have that. Now you also have your you're most
Speaker 1: of your operating income. It's now going to pay for
Speaker 1: the loans. Yes, right, that pay the uh to pay
Speaker 1: the interest. Yeah, we've that, we've that we've slapped on
Speaker 1: top of you. Also, I forgot to mention because of
Speaker 1: because we helped with these transactions, this loan that you
Speaker 1: took out, we're taking a fee for that, right of course.
Speaker 1: And actually actually on shop Co was a it was
Speaker 1: a million dollars a quarter just for the management fees.
Speaker 1: So we'll take this, but then we also took a
Speaker 1: few points for every little transaction we did. Course, also
Speaker 1: we'd like you to merge with some of these other
Speaker 1: shopping uh retailers. Seems reasonable that we have, and so
Speaker 1: we're going to do that merger. And so we're going
Speaker 1: to take a fee for that roll up and they
Speaker 1: take a fee up we're gon we're gonna take we're
Speaker 1: gonna take some more fees fees for that. And as
Speaker 1: as you said, now, uh, things are not as good. Uh,
Speaker 1: we've kind of cut back on quality. Uh, and the
Speaker 1: revenue is not coming in like it was, and so
Speaker 1: much revenue is going to pay off your loans. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have to do some layoffs, it happens, so we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to take a little bit more. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a little bit more out of that. Now things
Speaker 1: things are really not going well at all. Things are
Speaker 1: looking good for you. Oh yeah, no, no no, don't worry
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, yes, but for over here, things are
Speaker 1: not going very well. So we're gonna try to put
Speaker 1: it up for sale, see if we can sell to anybody.
Speaker 1: And so in a lot of situations they will be
Speaker 1: able to find somebody to buy it at cost or whatever,
Speaker 1: so they can just pocket the rest of this. In
Speaker 1: this case, nobody wanted to buy it, so they just
Speaker 1: liquidated it. So you still had two things. You've got
Speaker 1: all of the assets left that you haven't sold, and
Speaker 1: you have a pension fund. And so first we're going
Speaker 1: to sell off the assets. Appreciate it more, Yeah, appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And now you have a pension fund. So we're going
Speaker 1: to push the company into bankruptcy, and the bankruptcy goes
Speaker 1: to the federal the federal government's kind of bankruptcy protection firm.
Speaker 1: And so you'll still get paid about sixty to seventy
Speaker 1: percent of your pension. Well not me, I already got
Speaker 1: my paycheck, but that's true. The workers. Yeah, you're good.
Speaker 1: You're good, and we hired you as a consultant. It's cool.
Speaker 1: I appreciate all your advice. You helped us with some
Speaker 1: of these mergers. So here for your trouble. Take another,
Speaker 1: take another, take another bit of that, and then we
Speaker 1: liquidate the entire thing, and we take the pension fund
Speaker 1: and we use that to pay off our own pension
Speaker 1: funds or whatever other creditors we have and then let
Speaker 1: the federal government take care of step In and take
Speaker 1: the rest. And so in the shop cocase they bought
Speaker 1: it in like two thousand and five, it was bankrupt
Speaker 1: by twenty nineteen. So in fourteen years, the firm which
Speaker 1: is Marked Letters Firm. Actually that's if you remember the
Speaker 1: forty seven percent video of course, yeah, that was that
Speaker 1: Mark Letters house out I remember. So over that fourteen
Speaker 1: year period they made just an apps extraordinary amount of money,
Speaker 1: destroying a Wisconsin perfect institution. And so right, so we
Speaker 1: have set up a system that incentivizes destruction. And I
Speaker 1: think everyone across the political spectrum believes that we ought
Speaker 1: to have a capitalist system. That if you believe in
Speaker 1: a capitalist system, they got to have a capitalist system
Speaker 1: that incentivizes production, production, development, building something good. And there
Speaker 1: are lots of easy fixes that you go in and say,
Speaker 1: because the other reason that they sell a lot of
Speaker 1: these properties is that because they have reduced investments, they've
Speaker 1: laid off so many people. Now they end up becoming
Speaker 1: liable for a lot of things that are going on
Speaker 1: at these stores or at nursing homes or addiction facilities.
Speaker 1: The statistics show that people die in private equity owned
Speaker 1: nursing facilities at a much higher rate than they do beforehand.
Speaker 1: And so then a family wants to sue and guess what, A,
Speaker 1: you don't own the property, that's right, yeah, And b
Speaker 1: that one little facility is often owned by just an LLC.
Speaker 1: So you think it's a chain, but it's not. Actually
Speaker 1: there's separate show not actually channymore so you can so
Speaker 1: as they left, what you do with some of that
Speaker 1: money is you take one of those measly tens and
Speaker 1: you donate it to a lawmaker. Here's for the Democrats, right,
Speaker 1: here's for the Republicans. So that in the middle of
Speaker 1: let's say a build back Better Plan or what was
Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act that a senator from Arizona, here's
Speaker 1: an internship for Kierson Cinema who interned at a private equity,
Speaker 1: private equity owned winery, and then she voted specifically with
Speaker 1: the Republicans of that time to keep a tax loop
Speaker 1: right for the private equity industry, which protects all those
Speaker 1: profits right over there, so they pay less of a
Speaker 1: tax rate than a small business like let's say breaking Points,
Speaker 1: or an individual like let's say how many was watching
Speaker 1: the show and that's how corrupt it is. We didn't
Speaker 1: even get to the tax treatment of their income because
Speaker 1: they're making all this money even if they were paid regular,
Speaker 1: even if they're paying regular, take billionaires, they'd be still
Speaker 1: pulling it in. But right, they do this two and
Speaker 1: twenty thing where they they say that all of this
Speaker 1: money they made, all of this money, they say that
Speaker 1: this was investment income. But if you remember from the beginning,
Speaker 1: it put this so much down, right, So that's like
Speaker 1: me saying, like I bought I bought a jacket to
Speaker 1: work here at breaking points, and therefore all the money
Speaker 1: that I makes an investment, Like, no, I should do
Speaker 1: that sounds like let's try that. It sounds like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell the accounts. They'll lock us up. They won't,
Speaker 1: they won't lock them up for it. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we would go to tail. We tried. So this is
Speaker 1: it's obviously not investment income they're doing. They're doing work
Speaker 1: like they're doing there, they're doing financial advice and financial transactions.
Speaker 1: These are not investments. And so they eat so that
Speaker 1: twenty percent that they take off the top like that
Speaker 1: obviously should not. You know, they even then their management
Speaker 1: fee they do this bizarre thing where they call it
Speaker 1: they say, we're actually not going to take a fee,
Speaker 1: We're going to waive our fee, but where then we're
Speaker 1: going to get twenty two percent of our money. And
Speaker 1: they structure it so they're always going to get their
Speaker 1: two percent fee. But then they call their two percent
Speaker 1: fee an investment income rather than a management fee. Like
Speaker 1: even more corrupt. But that's what's so many. It's just
Speaker 1: a little two percent, like they did all of this,
Speaker 1: but they're even going to squeeze that louts. They'll squeeze
Speaker 1: every every single cent little. That is how they became billionaires.
Speaker 1: So I've talked about this before. The Forbes four hundred
Speaker 1: lists the new billionaires. The easiest way to become a
Speaker 1: new billionaire in the United States today is not to
Speaker 1: create a Tesla, is not to create an Amazon. It's
Speaker 1: not to create a business that, let's say you're making
Speaker 1: masks in the United States. It's to do exactly what
Speaker 1: you're talking about here. The vast majority of the new
Speaker 1: billionaires in the United States are financial billionaires. They are
Speaker 1: not people who have created value or really created a
Speaker 1: company industry at all. So it's you know, if anything,
Speaker 1: it distorts it to look at the Elons and the Bezos.
Speaker 1: It's like, I wish everybody got rich that way. They don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and over something like the last ten years, like more
Speaker 1: than a million something two million retail jobs lost in
Speaker 1: private equity owned retail operations, yet the sector as a
Speaker 1: whole has like added more than a million jobs. So
Speaker 1: private equity will tell you, well, it's all Amazon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no brick and mortar. Yes, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: Amazon influence. But the job losses are coming purposefully through destruction,
Speaker 1: and the rest of the retail industry is actually still
Speaker 1: adding jobs because they're not trying to destroy the company
Speaker 1: and liquidate it. Yeah. Well, smart stuff. This is actually
Speaker 1: very educational. I think people will enjoy it. So it
Speaker 1: was a good segment. And congratulations, thank you sir. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that very much. Thank you very much so much,
Speaker 1: just sitting in for Crystal. You did a great job.
Speaker 1: I think everybody will agree, and we will see you. Oh,
Speaker 1: you guys are gonna have counterpoints tomorrow, so look out
Speaker 1: for more Ryan and Emily tomorrow. Crystal be back on Thursday,
Speaker 1: so we'll see you guys. Then have a great weekend. Everybody,