Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good
Speaker 3: morning everybody.
Speaker 4: That's a joke at Sager's expense, because he scared the
Speaker 4: hell out of me yesterday with his good.
Speaker 1: Morning, Happy Wednesday. How was it yesterday with Sager?
Speaker 5: It was great?
Speaker 4: It was great, And you're gonna be back with Sager tomorrow.
Speaker 3: And so he said he was going to play the
Speaker 3: lefty yesterday.
Speaker 5: He tried.
Speaker 3: How'd that go?
Speaker 5: He did his best.
Speaker 1: He's got the populist mojo.
Speaker 3: If he just you know, skips over a bunch of
Speaker 3: that other stuff.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, if you should go back and watch his
Speaker 4: monologue from yesterday.
Speaker 1: Okay, was it a lefty one? What are you talking about?
Speaker 5: All the opposite? It was on guns. You'll love it.
Speaker 3: False advertising.
Speaker 1: So we're back to normal hair, Yes, I'll be on
Speaker 1: with Sager tomorrow because Crystal is still on her honeymoon.
Speaker 3: She'll be back next week. So what do we got today?
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about the obviously the Eden
Speaker 1: Carrol verdict. We got George Santos so the sealed indictment,
Speaker 1: and so we're going to play kind of George Santos
Speaker 1: bingo trying to guests which of the like thirty six
Speaker 1: different frauds he's committed in the last couple of weeks
Speaker 1: that the FEDS are going to indict him for. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the upcoming Ukrainian offensive. You've got
Speaker 1: Ukrainian officials worried that they may have overhyped what they're
Speaker 1: going to be able to accomplish.
Speaker 3: What are you looking at?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we also have the debt ceiling negotiations, big, big
Speaker 4: news and all of that. Yesterday as we were prepping
Speaker 4: the show, it was like it just kept coming. Yesterday afternoon,
Speaker 4: We're talking about new developments and Ronda Santis' potential bid
Speaker 4: for the presidency.
Speaker 5: I'm going to talk about a story that.
Speaker 4: Broke last night again as we were preparing the show,
Speaker 4: more revelations about the CIA's involvement in the Hunter Biden
Speaker 4: laptop story. And then Congressman Rocana is here in studio.
Speaker 4: We're excited to talk to him about the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: So eg and Carol Victorious, if we can put this
Speaker 1: tear sheet of Victorious in her defamation suit against President Trump,
Speaker 1: the jury found that Trump was liable for sexual assault
Speaker 1: as well as defamation, adding together five million dollars in
Speaker 1: penalties tacked onto him. Trump then responded by immediately defaming
Speaker 1: her again. If we can put up his response to it,
Speaker 1: what do you say here? I have absolutely no idea
Speaker 1: who this woman is. This verdict is a disgrace, a
Speaker 1: continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time. And
Speaker 1: so what Trump was hit for when it came to
Speaker 1: defamation was a number of things, one saying basically calling
Speaker 1: her ugly and calling her a liar. And here he
Speaker 1: is again kind of calling her a liar. So it
Speaker 1: would be interesting if Egen Carroll goes back to Read Hoffman,
Speaker 1: who funded this first lawsuitent and says, you know what,
Speaker 1: he's still defaming me.
Speaker 3: Read Hoffin's not out of money.
Speaker 1: In fact, read Hoffins lawyer has probably got a little
Speaker 1: pay out here.
Speaker 5: I mean five million dollars.
Speaker 4: A five million dollar victory is pretty impressive in a
Speaker 4: case like this.
Speaker 5: And again it's civil.
Speaker 4: So sexual abuse is defined in New York State as quote,
Speaker 4: subjecting a person to sexual contact contact without consent. Carol
Speaker 4: did not win on the question of rape.
Speaker 5: Rape is defined.
Speaker 4: This is from New York state law, a sexual intercourse
Speaker 4: without consent, which involves any penetration of the penis in
Speaker 4: the vaginal opening. That would have been much given the
Speaker 4: allegations about a Burgdorf Goodman dressing room, I believe in
Speaker 4: the nineteen nineties, would have been really difficult to prove
Speaker 4: that said sexual abuse is Again, this is not a
Speaker 4: criminal case, so Donald Trump does not face jail time.
Speaker 4: That said he is now he has now lost on
Speaker 4: the question specifically of sexual abuse. And yeah, this was
Speaker 4: she her accusation. She sues him for saying he kind
Speaker 4: of pushed her against the wall, shoved her against the wall,
Speaker 4: and raped her in that dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman
Speaker 4: in Manhattan in the nineteen the mid nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: And not to get too graphic, but in Jean Carroll's testimony,
Speaker 1: you know, she talked about not being completely one hundred
Speaker 1: percent certain about everything that was going on while the
Speaker 1: assault was happening. And so I think that that's why
Speaker 1: the jury was like, well, we can't say with certainty
Speaker 1: precisely what happened in that dressing room, but we can
Speaker 1: say that there was a sexual.
Speaker 3: Assault, right.
Speaker 1: And what the jury said with that five million dollar
Speaker 1: verdict is that they felt that was a very serious assault.
Speaker 3: Because sometimes a.
Speaker 1: Jury will say, you know what, we do believe that
Speaker 1: the thing you say happened, and the damages were going
Speaker 1: to give you our one dollar like that's something that
Speaker 1: juries do sometimes, Yes it happened, but it wasn't that
Speaker 1: big of a This time, the jury said, know, it happened,
Speaker 1: and it was devastat and you're going to pay five
Speaker 1: million dollars for this.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And again, if it was a criminal trial, you would
Speaker 4: have a different standard for evidence. But in a civil trial,
Speaker 4: this is the judge had actually said to the jury
Speaker 4: before sending them back to deliberate quote, use the preponderance
Speaker 4: of the evidence standard, which is more.
Speaker 5: Likely true than not true.
Speaker 4: So again it's different than the criminal standard. If you're wondering,
Speaker 4: you know why this trial was sort of low key.
Speaker 4: It wasn't a huge fixture of media obsession over the
Speaker 4: last six months or however long it's been going on.
Speaker 4: But it is partially because of that standard. And I
Speaker 4: do want to say a little bit that the Egen
Speaker 4: Carrol episode is a strange one all around.
Speaker 5: You mentioned Reid Hoffman.
Speaker 4: She and her deposition said she didn't think about suing
Speaker 4: Trump until George Conway approached her. And I think it
Speaker 4: was actually at a party at like Mulli Jung's Malli
Speaker 4: Jung fast House in Manhattan. One thing that makes me
Speaker 4: uncomfortable about the Egen Carol case. People might remember that
Speaker 4: uncomfortable to use the word again. Interviews she had I
Speaker 4: think it was with Anderson Cooper shortly after she made
Speaker 4: these allegations. She says it was an episode, or this
Speaker 4: is the New York Times. It was an episode. It
Speaker 4: was an action, It was a fight. It was not
Speaker 4: a crime. It was I had a struggle with a guy.
Speaker 4: I have not been raped, something has not been done
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 5: I thought, that's the thing.
Speaker 4: She said something similar on MSNBC. I would find it
Speaker 4: disrespectful to the women who are down on the border,
Speaker 4: who are being raped around the clock down there without
Speaker 4: any protection.
Speaker 5: Very true.
Speaker 4: It would just be really disrespectful. She also said mine
Speaker 4: was three minutes. I'm a mature woman. I can handle it.
Speaker 4: I can keep going. You know, my life has gone on.
Speaker 4: I'm a happy woman. The reason I use the word
Speaker 4: uncomfortable is that we do see sometimes in high profile
Speaker 4: media cases like this, partisan and especially men use women
Speaker 4: for political purposes and drag them through, I think, like really,
Speaker 4: or convince them to be dragged through, fund the dragging
Speaker 4: through of just awful, awful media circuses. That's not to
Speaker 4: say if Egen Carroll wanted to try to see as
Speaker 4: absolutely powerful man Donald Trump, by all means keep the
Speaker 4: hold them to account for their actions. Is the allegations
Speaker 4: against Donald Trump here are not outside the scope of
Speaker 4: what seems plausible to me at all. That said, I
Speaker 4: don't I have not enjoyed the media cheerleading for this
Speaker 4: sort of painful I think process that Ing and Carrol
Speaker 4: has had to go through, whether the allegations are true
Speaker 4: or not. She has seemed unwell at different points in
Speaker 4: this entire episode, and it's just always gross, I think
Speaker 4: to see these wealthy kind of political operatives swoop in
Speaker 4: and bankroll some of this stuff, Because I just doubt
Speaker 4: their motives. You know, her motives aside I doubt their motives.
Speaker 1: And what's also true is that life doesn't all often
Speaker 1: imitate the kind of black and white understanding that we
Speaker 1: have of how these cases are supposed to unfold. And
Speaker 1: so what you know, there might may be something what
Speaker 1: you're saying, but at the same time, having covered a
Speaker 1: bunch of these different cases, what you often do see
Speaker 1: is people trying to minimize or rationalize what happened to them.
Speaker 1: And so when you you know, Egene Carol's a a
Speaker 1: feminist who was felt that giving over the power of
Speaker 1: the word rape to him was then giving up some
Speaker 1: of her own power and some of her own dignity,
Speaker 1: a lot a lot of people don't want to acknowledge
Speaker 1: what happened to them because if they believe that.
Speaker 3: You know, if they believe that, if they.
Speaker 1: Can push it out of their of their mind and
Speaker 1: reject the fact that the experience happened, that somehow didn't happen,
Speaker 1: and that you can process it better that way. And certainly,
Speaker 1: as you know she's saying, a three minute experience relative
Speaker 1: to what was going on at the border at the
Speaker 1: time is a different thing, and she's she's trying to
Speaker 1: grapple with her own privilege at the same time.
Speaker 3: Recognizing that that something.
Speaker 1: Did, something horrific happened to her, as she alleged to
Speaker 1: the jury, and as importantly, I think the jury believed
Speaker 1: and the identities of the jury are fascinating. And not
Speaker 1: just the identities, but like the backgrounds, we have that element. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: throw this one, throw this one up here. I mean
Speaker 1: the most interesting one, of course, being a Bronx security
Speaker 1: guard who gets all his news from Tim Poole. Yes,
Speaker 1: So if like, if you're able to convince that guy
Speaker 1: that Trump was guilty of sexual assault and defamation here right, yeah,
Speaker 1: they put they made a good.
Speaker 4: Case, probably did a good job.
Speaker 3: And you go through the rest.
Speaker 1: You could see a couple, a twenty something retail worker,
Speaker 1: all right, that person was probably not that difficult to
Speaker 1: convince of this if you're like, you know, thinking about
Speaker 1: your guests of the caricature of their politics. But a
Speaker 1: ton of the other ones are typical the kinds of
Speaker 1: people that Trump would be able to generally win over.
Speaker 3: And might even vote for him.
Speaker 1: You could have there was a one maga person on
Speaker 1: the jury, You could have several other people who end
Speaker 1: up voting for him and also find him guilty of
Speaker 1: this sexual assault.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like, I mean, almost half of Alabama voters
Speaker 4: voted for Roy Moore in eighteen or twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: And if you talk to people down there at the time,
Speaker 4: they would say, listen, we're not saying that this is untrue,
Speaker 4: as some people certainly did. They're saying, we're voting a
Speaker 4: single issue on abortion. And if you made that choice
Speaker 4: in twenty sixteen. Obviously, ROVERSUS Wade was just overturned based
Speaker 4: on a court that Donald Trump appointed three justices too,
Speaker 4: So that's where the logic comes from. And it's easily
Speaker 4: where the logic could come from. Again, I think what
Speaker 4: you said about EG and Carroll is really well said,
Speaker 4: you know, and I think obviously the jury was willing
Speaker 4: to have that conversation too, to the point where we
Speaker 4: just showed on the screen you even have, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of a tempool guy coming down on the side of.
Speaker 3: Interesting week for Tim Poole, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's for sure. Well, speaking of it people having
Speaker 4: interesting weeks.
Speaker 1: Yes, And speaking of criminal frauds, George Santos is going
Speaker 1: to be what is going to be facing arraiement this
Speaker 1: week he's been indicted.
Speaker 5: That's what it looks like.
Speaker 4: They filed criminal charges against against George Santos, obviously New
Speaker 4: York representative, just yesterday. Ryan, you mentioned earlier we can
Speaker 4: play George Santos bingo here because the allegations against him.
Speaker 5: Are so various, right.
Speaker 4: So it think it's very hard to predict exactly what
Speaker 4: these charges are.
Speaker 5: What's your best flock.
Speaker 1: Or the easiest ones would be filing false paperwork in
Speaker 1: order to run for Congress. You know, there's that you
Speaker 1: can creatively produce a crime out of that without much
Speaker 1: difficulty because you are lying to the public and you're
Speaker 1: doing so on paperwork that you're attesting is accurate.
Speaker 3: Now doesn't mean.
Speaker 1: You can't make a mistake here and there about you know,
Speaker 1: the tenure you spent somewhere. But he just completely fabricated
Speaker 1: his entire background start to face.
Speaker 3: So there's that. There's also campaign finance.
Speaker 1: Stuff, like it does appear that he was using donor
Speaker 1: money to finance his lifestyle. There are basically two things
Speaker 1: that you can get busted for in the campaign finance world. Left,
Speaker 1: like there are no laws and we can talk about
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis just moving eighty million dollars out of his
Speaker 1: state account into a federal super pack and being like,
Speaker 1: this is going, this is going to be fine. Nobody
Speaker 1: prosecutes anything, which he's right. The only things that they
Speaker 1: do prosecute are straw donations, which is when an SBF
Speaker 1: appears who have done that. Sean macaw we made you know,
Speaker 1: is getting charged with or has been accused of doing that.
Speaker 1: Denshusa Basically, you get your your son or your daughter
Speaker 1: to max out to a candidate and then you reimburse them.
Speaker 1: Can't do that, They do prosecute it. The other thing
Speaker 1: is if you steal campaign funds and you use the
Speaker 1: campaign funds for personal use. There's plenty of He was living,
Speaker 1: you know, in a place that was rented by the campaign.
Speaker 1: And then the other question is where did all this
Speaker 1: money come from? The dollars, Where did this money come from?
Speaker 5: That's what he says.
Speaker 4: He kind of three million dollars in income for one year,
Speaker 4: right that, And nobody really knows where that money came.
Speaker 1: From, Where that money come from? And you know, Victor
Speaker 1: Wexelberg's name gets thrown around here through this intriotic guy
Speaker 1: who's like good doctor Seuss thing. Yes, oh yes, there's
Speaker 1: uh yeah, there's there's all sorts of weird kind of
Speaker 1: Russian connections that that might surface that that could be fascinating.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean Russian government, but just could mean like corrupt
Speaker 1: Russian oligarchical folks in the in the New York area,
Speaker 1: which believe or not, there are some yes.
Speaker 4: I mean the George Santos story, I think has always
Speaker 4: been somewhat frustrating because the lack of media coverage of
Speaker 4: his candidacy is why the people in his district right
Speaker 4: now have an absolute joke of a representative. They're not
Speaker 4: seriously represented in Congress because no, but he is going
Speaker 4: to take the one person who is meant to quote
Speaker 4: represent their interests seriously. He has zero credibility. And you
Speaker 4: know a lot of that came in the shadow of
Speaker 4: the local media totally drying up. We talked about this
Speaker 4: in the fall, that when you just have fewer watchdogs
Speaker 4: on the ground in these given areas. One local media
Speaker 4: outlet did some really good due diligence on George Santos,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't really picked up by anyone else.
Speaker 5: There weren't a lot of other people on the.
Speaker 4: Case, and so now you have a situation where actually,
Speaker 4: interestingly enough, the CNN be cause CNN broke this story
Speaker 4: last night. They say the charges don't affect Santis's status
Speaker 4: as a member of Congress. So nothing in the constitution
Speaker 4: says that you're barred if you are under criminal indictment
Speaker 4: or a conviction for serving. Obviously we've seen that in
Speaker 4: different cases. Now, the fourteenth Amendment has prohibitions, as CNN says,
Speaker 4: for certain treason his conduct committed after a member has
Speaker 4: taken the oath of office. But if he's convicted of
Speaker 4: a crime, he can get of two or more years
Speaker 4: in prison. He is instructed under the House rules to
Speaker 4: just sit out of floor votes and committing.
Speaker 1: Votes, especially if you're in jail, if you're in behind boers,
Speaker 1: that would.
Speaker 5: Make it tough.
Speaker 4: They got rid of remote voting, you got rid of
Speaker 4: proxy voting, so something he can do. But that is
Speaker 4: an interesting kind of part of all this is that
Speaker 4: he actually can still be in Congress even if this
Speaker 4: ends up. I mean, obviously is a short term and
Speaker 4: I would doubt that this all gets litigated by the
Speaker 4: time he's up for re election, but he could technically
Speaker 4: still be in Congress, right.
Speaker 1: And so right now it's two twenty two to thirteen,
Speaker 1: is that right? The House Republican majority. So if he
Speaker 1: is convicted, what they often do with corrupt officials is
Speaker 1: part of a plea.
Speaker 3: Bargain involves you resigning from office.
Speaker 1: So that was one reason that it was smart personally
Speaker 1: of him not to resign early on, because you want
Speaker 1: to be able to save that card. You'll often see
Speaker 1: that in like with Philadelphia politicians or other ones who
Speaker 1: have been like busted for some type of corruption. Not
Speaker 1: in Philly, New Jersey. Often you see this that in
Speaker 1: exchange for a lighter sentence, you say, I'm forfeiting my
Speaker 1: political career basically, and so he so you could see
Speaker 1: that Tom Swosey has expressed some interest the former member
Speaker 1: of Congress in that area in running. You can imagine
Speaker 1: in a special election the kind of voters there trying
Speaker 1: to vote away some of the shame and putting Tom
Speaker 1: Swosey back in.
Speaker 3: They did.
Speaker 1: They were not head over heels for but he served
Speaker 1: there for a very long time as a popular mayor.
Speaker 3: And you know he was who he said he was.
Speaker 5: That's a big start.
Speaker 1: So there's that that brings you down to two twenty one,
Speaker 1: two fourteen, and so then McCarthy only has three votes
Speaker 1: that he can lose on big issues like debt ceiling.
Speaker 5: And Santos is held on. I mean, he just won't resign.
Speaker 5: He doesn't. I mean, he was giving reporters what Chick
Speaker 5: fil A in the hallway of the car.
Speaker 1: He's got it. He's got the charm of a con artist.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the ANNADELVI thing going for him.
Speaker 1: I think there are some people who are like, this
Speaker 1: is such an amazing story.
Speaker 3: We want to see, Like we want to see.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 4: See, that's the problem with the con artist charm is
Speaker 4: that once you realize it's a con, you can't see it.
Speaker 4: You know, it's just gets too it's too cheesy after
Speaker 4: a certain point, like him giving out Chick fil A
Speaker 4: in the Capitol. But yeah, if folks are expecting perhaps
Speaker 4: perhaps a resignation after this news, I mean, I'm not
Speaker 4: going to rule anything out. All I would say is
Speaker 4: that he has refused to do anything else so far
Speaker 4: other than stand his ground and be kind of coy
Speaker 4: about what actually happened and vote.
Speaker 3: However McCarthy wants to vote.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I don't know if he still thinks he
Speaker 4: has a future or chance or whatever. But it's George
Speaker 4: Santa is not the member we need, but the member
Speaker 4: perhaps we deserve.
Speaker 3: Indeed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like any con artists, you're gonna you just
Speaker 1: live a day at a time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's not a long term thinker.
Speaker 1: And when they asked him, how did you think that
Speaker 1: you would get away with this twenty twenty so well
Speaker 1: I got away with it last time.
Speaker 5: So again.
Speaker 4: All right, now back over to the House of Representatives.
Speaker 4: We're talking right now about the debt ceiling negotiations, which
Speaker 4: had quite a moment yesterday with Kevin McCarthy obviously Speaker
Speaker 4: of the House, meeting with President Biden for the first time.
Speaker 5: Since February face to face.
Speaker 4: We have a video of Kevin McCarthy, if we go
Speaker 4: ahead and put B two up on the screen talking
Speaker 4: to reporters after his meeting with President Biden.
Speaker 7: Unfortunately, the president has waited ninety seven days without ever meeting.
Speaker 8: Every day.
Speaker 3: I asked, could we meet, and he said no.
Speaker 7: The House has raised the debt ceiling in a responsible manner,
Speaker 7: curve our spending at the same time bring us economic growth.
Speaker 7: I asked the president of this simple question. Does he
Speaker 7: not believe there's any place we could find savings?
Speaker 4: All right, Mitch McConnell, if we put the next element
Speaker 4: up on the screen, said quote, the United States is
Speaker 4: not going to default. It never has, it never will. However,
Speaker 4: elections have consequences. We now have a divided government. Well,
Speaker 4: that's for sure.
Speaker 5: We can then go ahead and put another Jake Sherman
Speaker 5: tweet up on the screen. The next element here, he says.
Speaker 4: McCarthy says, the Big Four we'll meet with President Biden Friday.
Speaker 4: The staff is going to continue to meet in the interim,
Speaker 4: So that means Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Joe
Speaker 4: Biden will be meeting on Friday to hash some of
Speaker 4: this out. Now, Ryan, I think the most important development
Speaker 4: as context for this in the last week is that
Speaker 4: forty three Mike Lee organized a letter where he gets
Speaker 4: forty three Republican senators to back the House bill which
Speaker 4: says raising the debt ceiling four point eight trillion dollars
Speaker 4: they will do. They will raise the debt selling one
Speaker 4: point five trillion dollars as a condition if Democrats agree
Speaker 4: to four point eight trillion in cuts, and some of
Speaker 4: that is right at the Biden agenda. It's a student
Speaker 4: loan repayment, some of it is energy credits, that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff, sort of tiki taki to get to that
Speaker 4: big number there. But the Republican senators got completely behind that,
Speaker 4: forty three of them and saying, you know, this is
Speaker 4: a reasonable place to start negotiation from Joe Biden has
Speaker 4: continued to say, no, we are not negotiating.
Speaker 5: Period.
Speaker 4: We've seen cringe John Pierre talk about how this is
Speaker 4: essentially Republicans holding hostage the full faith and credit of
Speaker 4: the United States and the economy in order to get
Speaker 4: some spending cuts passed.
Speaker 5: So now that they have, i mean, how many days.
Speaker 4: Left in the congressional schedule do they have, they're gonna
Speaker 4: have to cancel the recess.
Speaker 3: It's I mean, they have to move quickly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, before the June one, that's what. Because June
Speaker 4: one is the deadline for these negotiations, because Janet Yellen
Speaker 4: has said that's when.
Speaker 3: Ish, it's the deadline.
Speaker 6: Ish.
Speaker 1: That's because which is the problem, because they don't they
Speaker 1: don't actually precisely know, you know, exactly when they're going
Speaker 1: to go to their bank account and find that they
Speaker 1: have insufficient funds.
Speaker 4: Although putting June one as the deadline out there was
Speaker 4: speaking it into existence in some sense too, But that's yeah,
Speaker 4: to your point, it's an Janet Allen's like estimate of
Speaker 4: when things need to be settled by.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if people remember our friend of the show, Rachel Bovart,
Speaker 1: occasional co host of the previous show and this one,
Speaker 1: she's over in the Senate now kind of setting strategy
Speaker 1: and organizing kind of for the right flank and the Senate.
Speaker 3: I suspect that she had a lot.
Speaker 1: To do with that that forty plus person letter, which
Speaker 1: once you get over forty, that's that's real because now
Speaker 1: they if they hold the line, you don't have sixty
Speaker 1: votes to overcome a filibuster. Chuck Schumer said yesterday afternoon
Speaker 1: there would be a bipartisan lifting of the of the
Speaker 1: debt limit. Kevin McCarthy, if you want to put up
Speaker 1: b one said he's not going to do kind of
Speaker 1: a short term thing. Now, everything that these people say
Speaker 1: at this point can mostly be discarded because who knows.
Speaker 3: We'll see, if you know, if he has to do
Speaker 3: a short term thing, maybe he ends up doing a
Speaker 3: short term thing. This is all. This is all for positioning.
Speaker 1: But speaking of positioning, to me, the biggest news that
Speaker 1: came out of the post meeting kind of back and
Speaker 1: forth was President Biden for the first time really kind
Speaker 1: of leaning into the fourteenth Amendment option, which is the
Speaker 1: one that says the full faith and credit of the
Speaker 1: United States shall not be challenged. That's written into the
Speaker 1: fourteenth Amendment, this post Civil War language that was directed
Speaker 1: at kind of post Confederates who they were worried would
Speaker 1: come in take power and then basically refuse to pay
Speaker 1: the war debts as a way to kind of undermine
Speaker 1: the reconstruction and the kind of push toward bringing the
Speaker 1: Union back together after the Civil War.
Speaker 3: And so you also have in the Constitution that Congress.
Speaker 1: Has the power to authorize bonds and debt. So you
Speaker 1: have two conflicting pieces within the Constitution, and so when
Speaker 1: you have a contradiction in there, you do have to
Speaker 1: have it worked out politically. And so you have people
Speaker 1: that are the normy mainstream Dems, like Lawrence Tribe, who
Speaker 1: used to be against the Fourteenth Amendment idea, coming out
Speaker 1: now with a column saying here's why I now support
Speaker 1: it that his argument basically is that the debt ceiling,
Speaker 1: the arbitrary limit, is giving Congress power that the Constitution
Speaker 1: never intended in order to kind of put a gun
Speaker 1: to the head of the president to then not enact
Speaker 1: other laws that have dually been written into law. So
Speaker 1: you have all of this spending from the Bush, Obama
Speaker 1: and Trump era, and the bills are now coming due,
Speaker 1: so that spending was lawfully enacted. He's saying that it
Speaker 1: actually isn't constitutionally legit to say, well, actually, because of
Speaker 1: this destlinine, you can't spend some of these things.
Speaker 3: No, that was already author was already appropriated.
Speaker 1: It's the president's job to figure out how to meet
Speaker 1: those obligations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's an interesting argument, And to your point about
Speaker 4: it being floated again by the Bian administration in the
Speaker 4: aftermath of the meeting yesterday, it reminds me of Dan Pfeiffer.
Speaker 4: He wrote for The New York Times, obviously former Obama officials,
Speaker 4: saying he doesn't think Biden should be negotiating with Kevin
Speaker 4: McCarthy at all because of the lessons from the Obama
Speaker 4: Bayner negotiations of the Tea Party years which got the
Speaker 4: United States. I mean, that was what our first credit
Speaker 4: down there was, and it was at the twenty eleven
Speaker 4: one of the twenty thirteen one, after they were at
Speaker 4: loggerheads for a really long time, and everyone in DC
Speaker 4: was really convinced that something was going to work out
Speaker 4: because it kind of always does, right, We always have
Speaker 4: this expectation like it's fine, something always works out, and
Speaker 4: then it didn't. It just didn't because in that case,
Speaker 4: you had the Tea Party movement with a whole lot
Speaker 4: of energy that had absolutely no political incentive or ideological
Speaker 4: motive to cooperate with Barack Obama. And so it was
Speaker 4: it blew up in everyone's face. Basically, Republicans fifers very
Speaker 4: correct to say their asses kicked and we're blamed completely
Speaker 4: by the media and by voters. And that's why he's saying,
Speaker 4: why would Joe Biden negotiate with them? Now he's the
Speaker 4: one that has the upper hand, because we know there's
Speaker 4: no way the media is going to take the side
Speaker 4: of republic whether or not you think Republicans are right
Speaker 4: or wrong in an obstructionism of the debt sealing rays.
Speaker 4: The media is going to take the Biden administration side. Period,
Speaker 4: the public is already disinclined to like obstructionism, whether you're
Speaker 4: Republican or Democrat or independent. People don't like to see
Speaker 4: generally that the things are just not working and that
Speaker 4: Republicans are kind of gumming up the machinery.
Speaker 5: That doesn't play as well.
Speaker 4: As like actually just doing things, getting things done from
Speaker 4: a purely sort of public relations standpoint. So they have
Speaker 4: the upper hand and fivers.
Speaker 5: Like, well, then what are you doing.
Speaker 4: You don't need to do anything because if this blows
Speaker 4: up in Republican spaces, they're going to come groveling back anyway.
Speaker 1: Right, So, just to issue the debt or and to
Speaker 1: McConnell's point that election have consequences, we have divided government,
Speaker 1: as Democrats have been responding, well, the twenty eighteen elections
Speaker 1: should have had consequences too. We had divided government twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen and twenty twenty. Somehow we didn't manage to default.
Speaker 1: We were able to just raise the dead ceiling then,
Speaker 1: so we can raise the dead ceiling this time.
Speaker 3: Biden even mentioned the coin. This is the platinum coin.
Speaker 1: He said that the staff, his staff had not been
Speaker 1: studying it, but just bringing it up and entering it
Speaker 1: into the conversation, I think is, you know, changes the
Speaker 1: calculus a little bit if they do mint a platinum coin.
Speaker 1: By the way, so what you do basically, you mint
Speaker 1: a platinum coin, you say this thing is worth a
Speaker 1: trillion dollars, You deposit it with the New York Fed
Speaker 1: and now boom, you have a trillion dollars in your account,
Speaker 1: and then you can use that to pay bills while
Speaker 1: you sort it out. You don't spend a whole trillion
Speaker 1: of it, but it's sitting there. Also, you'd have to
Speaker 1: put dark Brandon on the platinum coinin right, you'd have
Speaker 1: no show.
Speaker 5: The lasers coming out of the eyes.
Speaker 1: Oh I love it. That's absolutely what it would have
Speaker 1: to be. And so we'll see.
Speaker 5: Yeah, nope, well we will see.
Speaker 4: That's the stacking point with Kevin McCarthy saying in the
Speaker 4: meeting basically or after the meeting, does the president believe
Speaker 4: there's absolutely no spending that.
Speaker 1: Can be cut buy and respond to that, he said, look,
Speaker 1: we saved one hundred and sixty billion dollars out of
Speaker 1: medicare you guys didn't seem to like that. We proposed
Speaker 1: ways that by taxing a bunch of the richest corporations
Speaker 1: and millionaires and billionaires. We could save hundreds of billions
Speaker 1: and more. How about that.
Speaker 4: That's where you're getting It feels like twenty eleven again, right,
Speaker 4: Is there nowhere we can agree to cuts?
Speaker 5: Well, of course there's somewhere.
Speaker 4: We all believe there's something that can be cut in
Speaker 4: the government, but this process right now, it's too toxic
Speaker 4: to believe that they're going to on Friday say well, yeah,
Speaker 4: we can cut this, this and this, and it'll be
Speaker 4: a win for everybody. Kevin McCarthy's obviously on the tight
Speaker 4: rope of not being able to lose either the Freedom
Speaker 4: Caucus or the more centrist members of his own parties.
Speaker 4: So it's just insane and the economy is on the line.
Speaker 4: So we'll obviously continue to follow this story as closely
Speaker 4: as possible from our vantage point here.
Speaker 5: In Washington, d C.
Speaker 4: On that note, let's talk about developments in Ukraine. The
Speaker 4: counter offensive, the much anticipated counter offensive is now having
Speaker 4: some cold water tossed on it in a Washington Post interview.
Speaker 4: You can, yeah, we put that right up on the
Speaker 4: screen there. Here's the headline. Senior Ukrainian officials, if your
Speaker 4: counter attack may not live up to hype.
Speaker 5: This is a quote.
Speaker 4: The expectation from our counter offensive campaign is overestimated in
Speaker 4: the world, Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Resnikov said in an
Speaker 4: interview this past week. Most people are waiting for something huge,
Speaker 4: he added, which he fears may lead to emotional disappointment.
Speaker 4: The counter offensive obviously, it has not yet begun, although
Speaker 4: we've been hearing about it for a really long time.
Speaker 4: That is a comment to the Washington Post. But it's
Speaker 4: not flippant. That's an interview that the generally stage managed
Speaker 4: Ukrainian government gave to one of the biggest newspapers in
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 5: What did you make of that?
Speaker 1: And it's more stage management, and it's it's the same
Speaker 1: thing that you see while you go into a debate
Speaker 1: where you have two candidates about to square off in
Speaker 1: the each side's telling the other, well, our guide didn't
Speaker 1: sleep well.
Speaker 3: He's English is not his first language. You know, he's
Speaker 3: not the brightest bulb.
Speaker 1: You know, if he can string together a couple of sentences,
Speaker 1: that ought to be a win. Everybody trying to set
Speaker 1: expectations as low as possible, and I think Ukraine is
Speaker 1: suffering from the fact that they exceeded expectations so wildly
Speaker 1: with the last surprise offensive that caught Russia off guard,
Speaker 1: steamrolled through town after town. But in those situations, the
Speaker 1: Russians were not not dug in and were less fortified
Speaker 1: and just simply fled. And it was it was, it
Speaker 1: was a master stroke of military organizing. Following that, Russia
Speaker 1: has launched its kind of full scale conscription and has
Speaker 1: something three to five hundred thousand troops, has deep trenches,
Speaker 1: doug has you know, military hardware solidifying areas, and there's
Speaker 1: much more mud.
Speaker 3: Than was expected.
Speaker 1: And so these are all the things that the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: officials are saying that those are the reasons why people
Speaker 1: should not expect that they're going to be able to
Speaker 1: romp like they did last time. So setting expectations low
Speaker 1: it just makes sense. And as z Lensky said in
Speaker 1: this interview and has said before, the Ukrainians need victories
Speaker 1: in order to convince the West to continue financing their operation.
Speaker 5: Speaking of which.
Speaker 4: Just now, just yesterday, the US announced a one point
Speaker 4: two billion aid package to Ukraine.
Speaker 5: You can see that up on the screen from CNN.
Speaker 4: That is to bolster its air defenses and sustain its
Speaker 4: artillery ammunition needs for that counter offensive one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty five millimeters artillery rounds, additional air defense systems, ammunitions,
Speaker 4: drone ammunition. That's all included in this package. So that
Speaker 4: brings the total to thirty seven point six billion in
Speaker 4: just military aid to Ukraine since the.
Speaker 5: Beginning of the Biden administration.
Speaker 4: And that includes thirty six point nine billions since the
Speaker 4: beginning of the war in February twenty twenty two, So
Speaker 4: basically thirty seven point nine billion. Basically thirty seven billion
Speaker 4: since the beginning of the war. Obviously a huge number,
Speaker 4: and for the counter offensive a piece of momentum, to
Speaker 4: be sure. And I think, Ryan, you make such a
Speaker 4: good point that a lot of this has to do
Speaker 4: with convincing the West to give more money anyway, so
Speaker 4: they get the more money for the counter offensive, which
Speaker 4: probably feels to a lot of Americans like a merry
Speaker 4: go round, you know, every time you pass this, like
Speaker 4: more money to keep going. But that is part of
Speaker 4: all of this. We should also mention a couple of
Speaker 4: other things. First, that the British are hoping to supply
Speaker 4: some long yeah, this is the next element. Longer rage
Speaker 4: missiles to Ukraine. And then the last thing I think
Speaker 4: is worth mentioning is that Vladimir Putin yesterday folks probably
Speaker 4: saw some of the headlines from their Victory Day parade.
Speaker 4: Putin said, once again, he made the argument that the
Speaker 4: West is driving a quote real war against Russia.
Speaker 5: Here's the quote.
Speaker 4: Today's civilization is once again at a decisive turning point.
Speaker 4: Putin said, Obviously they're celebrating the defeat of the Nazis
Speaker 4: after World War Two. He says, quote a real war
Speaker 4: has been unleashed against our motherland. Obviously this is coming
Speaker 4: before potential counter offensive. What did you make of these
Speaker 4: developments with the air supply? And then Putin at the
Speaker 4: Victory Day saying, continuing to pin it on the West,
Speaker 4: not surprising at all, but pointed the long.
Speaker 1: Range missiles are similar to the to aircraft in the
Speaker 1: way that this is something that' Zelenski in the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: government has been pushing for from the very beginning, and
Speaker 1: that the US has been resisting, saying that long range
Speaker 1: missiles capable of going over one hundred and twenty kilometers,
Speaker 1: you know, could then be used to strike inside of Russia,
Speaker 1: which would then lead to greater escalation and so therefore
Speaker 1: involvement from potentially and then right because if if you
Speaker 1: have that sort of escalation that then brings in Chinese weapons,
Speaker 1: then you know you're unable to keep up at some point,
Speaker 1: especially given the vicinity. So now the British are saying
Speaker 1: that they that they might be willing to supply these,
Speaker 1: as that article and others have pointed out if if
Speaker 1: the United States object is strenuously, the British are not
Speaker 1: going to do it kind of around our back or
Speaker 1: against or against our wishes. Zelensky has made the argument
Speaker 1: that there are so many troop formations and other organizational
Speaker 1: apparatus is going on on the Russian side just out
Speaker 1: of their range, because the Russians know that they have
Speaker 1: a very limited The hymn Hai mars I think have
Speaker 1: a range of about forty seven kilometers, some other missiles
Speaker 1: I've ranged up to something like one hundred and twenty.
Speaker 3: But and so they're just just out of reach.
Speaker 1: And so he's that is a strong argument for these
Speaker 1: So is the argument that, well, we don't want to
Speaker 1: escalate this any further because at some point, if the
Speaker 1: sides are dug in, what the logical next step is okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's sort this out, like how are we going to
Speaker 1: end this conflict? And you know, nobody on the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: side wants to allow a you know, a single piece
Speaker 1: of territory that was lost, including Crimea and including kind
Speaker 1: of the Russian Separatist Act, areas that were already held
Speaker 1: before February.
Speaker 3: Of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: But at some point that's that that becomes untenable, and
Speaker 1: then the question becomes what is Russia willing to give
Speaker 1: back in exchange for you know, some some sanctions getting
Speaker 1: lifted and some other you know, some other concessions.
Speaker 4: It's profoundly depressing actually to mention these places that had
Speaker 4: really already been under the control of Russian separatists or
Speaker 4: Crimea actually since roughly twenty fourteen, because I think it
Speaker 4: bodes very poorly for the future of this war, and
Speaker 4: that we've talked about this many times. Soccer and Crystal
Speaker 4: have talked about this many times. That there are people
Speaker 4: in the West for whom they are either ideologically or
Speaker 4: committed to this for corrupt reasons, This idea that everything
Speaker 4: is appeasement, everything short of you know, saving all of
Speaker 4: Ukrainian territory and agreeing that all of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea,
Speaker 4: is returned to Ukraine, which I think Brian, we would
Speaker 4: agree is probably like the ideal if we could just
Speaker 4: wave a magic wand and wish for something, maybe that's
Speaker 4: that's where we would land. I don't know, but the
Speaker 4: idea that anything short of that is appeasement will drive
Speaker 4: an incredibly long drawn out conflict. And I keep coming
Speaker 4: back to what you said a couple weeks ago, Ryan,
Speaker 4: about if there is a will to sit down and
Speaker 4: say we can And we've heard this from Nftelli Bennett,
Speaker 4: We've heard it from other people that there were conversations
Speaker 4: about this about a year ago, that there has been
Speaker 4: openings for some sort of concessions to be made that
Speaker 4: Ukraine would be willing to talk about that have been
Speaker 4: scuttled by folks in the West. Why can't we do
Speaker 4: it before people have to die in a counter offensive?
Speaker 4: Why can't we do it before additional death and destruction
Speaker 4: and a counter offensive? Well, I think it's you know,
Speaker 4: the answer to that is we are still so heavily
Speaker 4: driven by people who say we cannot you give an
Speaker 4: inch an inch lest the world you know, once again
Speaker 4: fall to Hitler.
Speaker 5: Essentially is the argument that they're making.
Speaker 4: No doubt playing Putin is bad, but it is untenable
Speaker 4: to use your word.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of warmongers, Liz Cheney is jumping into the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 5: That was a smooth transition.
Speaker 1: As Ron Destantus is preparing to launch his own presidential bid.
Speaker 3: He moved about eighty six million dollars.
Speaker 1: So basically he did this quasi legal move where he's
Speaker 1: been raising tens of millions of dollars into his Florida
Speaker 1: state election campaign.
Speaker 3: Florida allows you to do.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want basically unlimited corporate contributions, et cetera, which
Speaker 1: is against federal law. And so in the past you
Speaker 1: have not been able to move that state money into
Speaker 1: your own federal pack. That just can't do that. Byron
Speaker 1: Donaldson kind of found a workaround. He said, well, what
Speaker 1: if I do it into a super pack. Went to
Speaker 1: the FEC. The FEC is deadlocked because they don't have
Speaker 1: enough officials to actually do anything to do their job,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, you guys didn't say it was wrong,
Speaker 1: so therefore we're going to keep doing it. And so
Speaker 1: now Desantras is doing it on a much grander scale.
Speaker 1: Put this first one up, moving about eighty six million dollars.
Speaker 1: First he had to step off of his committee. Then
Speaker 1: the committee has its instructions of what they're going to do.
Speaker 1: They're going to be funny if they gave it to
Speaker 1: a Trump superpack, because he's not like, technically, these decisions
Speaker 1: have to be made independently of DeSantis or they are illegal,
Speaker 1: So it'd be just hilarious.
Speaker 3: So they gave it to a Biden superpack or something.
Speaker 3: This is it's an independent, it's independent.
Speaker 1: What are you upset about you saying that you were
Speaker 1: controlling this money? Because if so that was that's super
Speaker 1: illegal and you wouldn't You wouldn't have been involved in
Speaker 1: anything like that, would you. So this this sets him
Speaker 1: up to, you know, have a well financed run. He
Speaker 1: met with Steve Schwartzman this week. Did you see the
Speaker 1: billionaire uh, private equity dude who came out of the
Speaker 1: meeting and said he's not sold yet, he's wait and see,
Speaker 1: And I think that's gonna be a I'm curious for
Speaker 1: taking this. This is going to be a big problem for DeSantis.
Speaker 1: Is that, Yes, I just think he doesn't sell in
Speaker 1: the in the rooms that he needs to, Like people
Speaker 1: have said, like his problem is a likability question that
Speaker 1: people get in the room with him, like is he
Speaker 1: putting with his fingers? You know what I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I'm gonna do the ten million dollars yet. So
Speaker 1: you know, whereas somebody like a Bill Clinton, and this
Speaker 1: is an a political argument, doesn't matter who you know,
Speaker 1: what your politics are, or even in Obama or even
Speaker 1: a Trump like who have a kind of charisma when
Speaker 1: they get into a room, Like when when Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: what everybody says about Bill Clinton, he'd come into a
Speaker 1: room just absolutely light, that just dominate and everybody's attention
Speaker 1: is on him. Bill Clinton gets in a room with
Speaker 1: Steve Schwartzman, He's walking away with tens of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars of Steve Schwartzman's money. Ronda Santis gets in a
Speaker 1: room with Steve Shortzman. Shwortsman's like, h that's not so
Speaker 1: sure about this.
Speaker 4: So it doesn't bother me at all that Rhonda Santis
Speaker 4: is not well liked among billionaires and can't you know,
Speaker 4: quite get them to force their money over by charming
Speaker 4: them and lying to them because or maybe not lying
Speaker 4: to them, promising them all kinds of things and being
Speaker 4: very serious about those promises. So it shouldn't be a
Speaker 4: political handicap that he's not well liked among the billionaire class,
Speaker 4: which I think is probably true. I mean, we saw
Speaker 4: Maggie Haberman reporting just last month that one billionaire was
Speaker 4: kind of icked out by the quote book bands and
Speaker 4: was rolling back potentially support for Ronda Santis, which is
Speaker 4: just classic because from my perspective and like a broader
Speaker 4: realignment perspective, it is just a perfect example of this
Speaker 4: kind of cultural tensions between elite coastal folks and what
Speaker 4: the rest of the country actually.
Speaker 5: Wants it needs.
Speaker 4: But all of that is to say, so I wish
Speaker 4: this wasn't a political handicap. And if somebody like made
Speaker 4: me and this bizarre hypothetical was like you have to
Speaker 4: choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and rond De Santis,
Speaker 4: and you know, someone was like, you have to do it,
Speaker 4: I guess I would probably choose Disantus. I don't like
Speaker 4: politicians in general, but if someone was telling me I
Speaker 4: had to pick, I would probably go with him. So
Speaker 4: I don't partially because of this because I don't think
Speaker 4: he's like completely this like your typical, like smooth talking politician.
Speaker 4: I think he like tries to just's he's kind.
Speaker 5: Of a strange guy. He's a little bit of a
Speaker 5: weird guy.
Speaker 4: Which is kind of you know, like that's it's your
Speaker 4: politicians should be weird.
Speaker 5: You know, if they're too normal, they're.
Speaker 4: They're doing some bad stuff. It doesn't mean the weird
Speaker 4: ones aren't going to do bad stuff too, but it's
Speaker 4: a really it's a big sign if if Bill Clinton
Speaker 4: is walking around room and everyone's throwing billions at him,
Speaker 4: so it doesn't necessarily bother me. He is going to Wisconsin,
Speaker 4: uh or I'm sorry. He went to Wisconsin last week.
Speaker 4: He talked to the Marathon County Republican Party out in
Speaker 4: central Wisconsin.
Speaker 5: He's going to Iowa this weekend.
Speaker 4: Like you said, he's been chatting with people like big donors.
Speaker 4: He's trying to say according to I think this is yea.
Speaker 4: According to Politico, he's saying that he can win Georgia
Speaker 4: and Arizona. It's talking to people in Iowa, big evangelical leader.
Speaker 4: So his announcement I think at this point is absolutely imminent,
Speaker 4: which is again interesting given that he's held out so
Speaker 4: long and there have been so many developments in Trump's
Speaker 4: own saga. So egan Carroll News yesterday, he was indicted
Speaker 4: a month ago.
Speaker 5: It just hits, just.
Speaker 4: Keep coming, and that gives Trump, you know, dominance over
Speaker 4: the news cycle. And for Rondasantis to stick his neck
Speaker 4: out and get into the primary, it's obviously a decision
Speaker 4: that affects his viability as a political candidate long, long, long,
Speaker 4: long into the future, because Donald Trump can wipe you
Speaker 4: out like that, given his popularity with some like thirty
Speaker 4: percent of Republican voters that are hardcore.
Speaker 1: And so the path to two hundred and seventy electoral
Speaker 1: College votes if you assume, just for the sake of argument,
Speaker 1: that Biden or whoever the Democrats throw up is going
Speaker 1: to win Michigan and Pennsylvania, Like let's assume that and
Speaker 1: assume the Republican's going to walk away with Ohio. The
Speaker 1: Republicans then have to sweep and this goes to the
Speaker 1: point that you are making. They have to sweep Georgia, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: and Arizona. If Democrats win a single one of those three,
Speaker 1: then they win. And so destanta'sn't making the argument that
Speaker 1: he's the that Georgie and Arizona. He's keyed in there,
Speaker 1: and I think if he's if he's arguing that you
Speaker 1: can win in Iowa, he's obviously going to make the Wisconsin.
Speaker 3: They like me up there too.
Speaker 1: What's your sense in those three states in particular, who
Speaker 1: would have a better shot Trump or Desantus of winning
Speaker 1: those or do neither of them really have? Because that's
Speaker 1: why you have Democrats so confident that they've got a
Speaker 1: guy who has like a four percent approval rating and
Speaker 1: that they're still confident they're going to win because they
Speaker 1: because they look at those three states and like, we
Speaker 1: think we can.
Speaker 3: Hold Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
Speaker 5: In a general Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, I think that's a super interesting question because
Speaker 4: we talked about this in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election
Speaker 4: last month. The numbers in what's called the Wow counties
Speaker 4: where I grew up actually were a little bit like
Speaker 4: that's a really conservative voting block it always has been,
Speaker 4: But the numbers for the conservative justice candidate were fine,
Speaker 4: Like he won all the counties, but like it was
Speaker 4: lower than what you would expect the percentage to be
Speaker 4: and so I think it is true that super kind
Speaker 4: of maga e stuff has eaten away at enthusiasm in
Speaker 4: the suburbs. And in a state like Georgia outside Atlanta,
Speaker 4: that's really important, in a state like Wisconsin outside Milwaukee,
Speaker 4: that's really important. So I think there's a good argument
Speaker 4: to be made that DeSantis can appeal to the kind
Speaker 4: of rural Wisconsin and Georgia voters that Trump appealed to,
Speaker 4: that he can cling that they, he can hang on
Speaker 4: to that because he kind of gets the whole Trump
Speaker 4: thing in a way other people don't, gets the cultural
Speaker 4: stuff in the way other people don't, while also putting
Speaker 4: up better numbers in the suburbs and not allowing Democrats
Speaker 4: to kind of eat away at them there. So I
Speaker 4: think there's there's an argument to we made that it
Speaker 4: evens out in the primary. That's where it's really difficult,
Speaker 4: because if you have DeSantis and all of these other
Speaker 4: people and then Donald Trump in a place like these
Speaker 4: rural areas where Trump has very very high Republican support,
Speaker 4: even if Trump isn't at fifty percent Republican support, it's
Speaker 4: not just Trump versus DeSantis, it's Trump versus de Santas,
Speaker 4: Nikki Haley, et cetera, et cetera, and that splits the
Speaker 4: vote in a million different ways and Trump still emerges victorious.
Speaker 4: So it just the path to even get to the
Speaker 4: general I think it's hard to see.
Speaker 3: So what about this Steve Cortez character? So put this
Speaker 3: next element up.
Speaker 1: So this is a former Trump advisor who flipped and
Speaker 1: is now working on this flush superpack that Desanta's. Maybe
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be hilarious if this is Trump's play and
Speaker 1: he's he's he actually hasn't flipped, and he's going to
Speaker 1: take these eighty.
Speaker 3: Six million dollars and he's going to move it.
Speaker 1: This is how Trump's going to keep that money, which
Speaker 1: would be totally legal.
Speaker 6: There is to.
Speaker 1: Reiterate, Desanta's is not allowed to have control over this
Speaker 1: money even though he raised it, all right, because if
Speaker 1: he does, it's illeal coordination.
Speaker 5: To fine control exactly.
Speaker 3: Well, right, let him let him fight for it. That'd
Speaker 3: be so funny.
Speaker 1: If Steve Cortez is actually still a Trump guy and
Speaker 1: he played DeSantis.
Speaker 4: You should do like campaign strategy, actually, you should advise
Speaker 4: people on how to.
Speaker 5: Exploit these loopholes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Cortez if you're watching this, just do it
Speaker 1: for the jokes, just because it would be so funny.
Speaker 5: He's like like the stripper coming out of a birthday cake.
Speaker 1: So is how how influential inoperative is he? And is
Speaker 1: this is this a win for DeSantis or is this
Speaker 1: just one more kind of Trump guy that is reading
Speaker 1: the writing on the wall.
Speaker 4: I think it's probably the latter. I don't know much
Speaker 4: about Steve Cortez. I don't have a good sense for
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know. I don't have a good
Speaker 4: sense for how powerfully might be in the conservative movement.
Speaker 4: But I do think it's an indication, at the very
Speaker 4: least to your point that a lot of kind of
Speaker 4: movement conservative people are in the Dysantis are on the
Speaker 4: team and the distantas versus Trump fight. And I've written
Speaker 4: about this at the Federalists before that that is actually
Speaker 4: quite a handicap for rond De Santis, And I think
Speaker 4: Ronda Santis has started to recognize this, and people around
Speaker 4: him have started to recognize this, because if you are
Speaker 4: very online and if you're on Twitter, the DeSantis versus
Speaker 4: Trump influencer beefs have gotten insane, like they're just nauseating
Speaker 4: and weird at this point. And so it's to have
Speaker 4: a bunch of like conservative media pundits on the DeSantis
Speaker 4: team and not the Trump team, I think just continues
Speaker 4: to make Donald Trump's point that there are forces in Washington,
Speaker 4: the Washington establishment, that are aligned against him and are
Speaker 4: aligning against him, which, by the way, is true because
Speaker 4: if you talk to people who were Trump supporters publicly
Speaker 4: behind closed doors, they would concede all of the different
Speaker 4: problems with him. So given the choice in Ronda Santis,
Speaker 4: who many people on the right think is all of
Speaker 4: the good about Trump without the baggage, you know a
Speaker 4: lot of voters like what considered baggage here in Washington,
Speaker 4: d c.
Speaker 5: Bag the fun.
Speaker 4: Stuff, and you know, it's the fun stuff, but it's
Speaker 4: also like in some cases, not every case, we obviously
Speaker 4: talked about Adrien Carrol today, it's not the fun stuff,
Speaker 4: but in some cases it's also the important stuff and
Speaker 4: the good stuff, like him being like what are we
Speaker 4: doing with NATO?
Speaker 5: What are we doing?
Speaker 4: And the way that that's completely dramatically shifted the way
Speaker 4: the Republicans think about NATO and think about foreign policy.
Speaker 4: So if that's considered baggage. Then you know, that's a
Speaker 4: pretty open question for Republicans how to handle it.
Speaker 1: And so Liz Cheney did jump into New Hampshire with
Speaker 1: this with an ad coming after Trump.
Speaker 3: Let's roll this real quick.
Speaker 9: Donald Trump is the only president in American history who
Speaker 9: has refused to guarantee the peaceful transfer of power. He
Speaker 9: lost the election and he knew it.
Speaker 3: To become the president.
Speaker 9: He betrayed millions of Americans by telling them.
Speaker 6: The election was stolen stop.
Speaker 9: He ignored the rulings of dozens of courts. Rather than
Speaker 9: accept his defeat, he mobilized a mond to come to
Speaker 9: Washington and march on the Capitol. Then he watched on
Speaker 9: television while the mob attacked law enforcement, invaded the Capitol
Speaker 9: and hunted the Vice president. He refused for three hours
Speaker 9: to tell the mob to leave. There has never been
Speaker 9: a greater dereliction of duty by any president. Trump was
Speaker 9: warned repeatedly that his plans for January sixth were illegal.
Speaker 9: He didn't care, and today he celebrates those who attacked
Speaker 9: our capital. Donald Trump has proven he is unfit for office.
Speaker 9: Donald Trump is a risk America can never take again.
Speaker 3: The Great Task is responsible for the content of this advertising.
Speaker 1: Are there Republicans left in New Hampshire, for instance, that
Speaker 1: are going to be moved by a list Cheney ad.
Speaker 3: Or has she been so thoroughly kind of.
Speaker 1: Stomped out of the party that this only helps him.
Speaker 1: What's your sense?
Speaker 4: It's a question because this is set to air actually
Speaker 4: tonight when Trump is doing a town hall with Caitlyn
Speaker 4: Collins of CNN, and I'm kind of confused. I mean,
Speaker 4: I feel like she probably does have money to throw around.
Speaker 4: I'm sure she has some benevolent backers and has plenty
Speaker 4: of her own money that running an ad like this
Speaker 4: during a CNN town hall.
Speaker 5: One off, she.
Speaker 1: Has war profiteering money from Haliburton. She inherited a ton
Speaker 1: of Haliburton wealth.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's good to go. She is good to go.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think with Liz Cheney, the January sixth
Speaker 4: stuff is I mean, maybe she wants to remind people
Speaker 4: that she's out there. She litigated the January sixth case
Speaker 4: in the public and she could be an option and
Speaker 4: she's just kind of feeling that out. I have no
Speaker 4: I mean, if you didn't have a lot of money,
Speaker 4: I don't know why you would do this because it
Speaker 4: just seems like the most obvious way for Liz Cheney
Speaker 4: to pitch herself. Everyone already knows her from January six.
Speaker 4: Everyone has seen this January six footage over and over
Speaker 4: and over again, and everybody knows what she thinks about it.
Speaker 4: So to just purely remind people without trying to say
Speaker 4: anything new about yourself and just casting this as like,
Speaker 4: here's the unique thing that my unique criticism of Donald
Speaker 4: Trump from the vantage point of my January sixth committee perg.
Speaker 4: It's a weird move, I think, And I don't know
Speaker 4: who the audience really is for it. I know who
Speaker 4: she thinks the audience is, but I don't know that
Speaker 4: it exists.
Speaker 1: Certainly, No, her AD's not wrong, like he did all
Speaker 1: that stuff. It's like and it is it is dark
Speaker 1: in some ways to be reminded of it, like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: so yeah, this guy did actually do all of the
Speaker 1: things that this ad is saying, and he's still kind
Speaker 1: of the front runner to.
Speaker 4: Run again, and here's seeing then, yeah, talking to him
Speaker 4: and you know, yucking it up with him.
Speaker 3: So that's yeah, So that's kind.
Speaker 5: Of I just don't know what it does real for her,
Speaker 5: you know, what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's got her coming up at the end
Speaker 1: of a segment on counter points.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's something I feel.
Speaker 4: I feel indicted, but like I get like a leftist group,
Speaker 4: like a liberal dark money group, running an ad like
Speaker 4: this during a CNN toan hall. Sort of the jarring
Speaker 4: contrast between what Donald Trump is saying and joking around
Speaker 4: with on the stage and then the reality of January sixth.
Speaker 4: To pitch yourself as a candidate that way is just
Speaker 4: a strange. I think it's a weird move, but I
Speaker 4: guess at this point it's really all she has.
Speaker 3: So anyway, what are you looking at?
Speaker 4: All?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: So I said this earlier as we were preparing the show.
Speaker 4: Yesterday news broke. Actually in The Federalist, my boss, Sean Davis,
Speaker 4: our CEO, had a really interesting story that some other
Speaker 4: outlets added additional details to. Is the night We're on
Speaker 4: about the CIA? The CIA. This is in Sean's writing
Speaker 4: both solicited signatures for, and eventually approved the infamous twenty
Speaker 4: twenty letter claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story was
Speaker 4: a Russian disinformation plot. All Right, To be clear, this
Speaker 4: is from a document that Senate Republicans. It's going to
Speaker 4: be released by the Select sum Committee on the Weaponization
Speaker 4: of the Federal Government. Obviously that's a Kevin McCarthy creation
Speaker 4: that's come from Jim Jordan is heading that up. But
Speaker 4: let's be very clear about what this shows. I know
Speaker 4: that it gets tired and it gets exhausting, exasperating to
Speaker 4: litigate the stupid Hunter Biden laptop letter again and again
Speaker 4: and again. But what we have here is very clear
Speaker 4: evidence of the CIA interfering in an American election boom period,
Speaker 4: full stop. That's honestly all we need to say about
Speaker 4: this topic. I'll continue to flesh it out with details,
Speaker 4: but that's why I think Sean's important. Sewan's reporting is
Speaker 4: really worth talking about. In the same way, by the
Speaker 4: way that the left really hammered these issues during those
Speaker 4: the Church Committee years.
Speaker 5: You can even go back.
Speaker 4: A lot of people don't know that Barry Goldwater's campaign
Speaker 4: was spied on that Lyndon Johnson directed. I believe it
Speaker 4: was the CIA to spy on Barry Goldwater's campaign, not
Speaker 4: the FBI, but the CIA to spy.
Speaker 5: On Barry Goldwater's campaign.
Speaker 4: The left has covered these issues really well for a
Speaker 4: very long time, But I think it's extremely import that
Speaker 4: we recognize. I get all the Trump stuff, but it's
Speaker 4: still very important to recognize that this is unelected bureaucrats
Speaker 4: wielding enormous power and abusing it for the sake of
Speaker 4: partisan politics. And you know, as we get through this
Speaker 4: a little bit, you can see more clearly how it's
Speaker 4: definitely an abuse.
Speaker 5: Despite what they say.
Speaker 4: You have multiple former US intelligence officials, according to the
Speaker 4: report that's going to be testimony in a report that's
Speaker 4: going to be released today, but that Sean obviously reported
Speaker 4: it on yesterday, they testified under oath about the CIA's
Speaker 4: involvement in the distribution of the letter.
Speaker 5: Quote. One signer of.
Speaker 4: The statement for former CIA analyst David Kerion's disclosed the
Speaker 4: committees that a CIA employee affiliated with the agency's pre
Speaker 4: publication Classification Review Board informed him of the existence of
Speaker 4: the statement and asked if he would sign it. The
Speaker 4: committees have requested additional material from the CIA, which has
Speaker 4: ignored the request to date. Okay, so let's just take
Speaker 4: that this is an email that you can read about
Speaker 4: it in trans report and obviously in the report that
Speaker 4: comes out today, that shows there is somebody acting on
Speaker 4: behalf of the CIA. They'll say that's not the case,
Speaker 4: of course, that'll be their defense of themselves. But somebody
Speaker 4: who is with the Pre Publication Classification Review Board, that
Speaker 4: is a board. These stupid acronyms are intentional to get
Speaker 4: us all mixed up and not be.
Speaker 5: Able to follow the plot.
Speaker 4: But that's a board that basically reviews things that former
Speaker 4: CIA folks put out into the universe.
Speaker 5: And they were reviewing the letter.
Speaker 4: You know, former CIA director Mike Morel, we now know
Speaker 4: is directed by Anthony Blincoln to put together this letter
Speaker 4: in his own words, as a sort of something that
Speaker 4: would be helpful to President Biden in the twenty twenty election,
Speaker 4: because obviously the New York Post story contained all kinds
Speaker 4: of things from Hunter Biden's laptop, not just the salacious things,
Speaker 4: not just the photographs, but a lot of evidence that
Speaker 4: the Biden fan family in the president himself that implicates
Speaker 4: the president himself in influence peddling on a fairly grand
Speaker 4: scale and with some hostile foreign countries China included. This
Speaker 4: is happening within a month of the election, and the
Speaker 4: CIA knows that that laptop, They know this is they
Speaker 4: know that that laptop is not all Russian disinformation. I
Speaker 4: believe the FBI had had the laptop since like twenty nineteen,
Speaker 4: So keep all of that in mind when you recognize
Speaker 4: they're mobilizing this letter. New emails show that who else
Speaker 4: but James Clapper is also involved in massaging the language
Speaker 4: of the letter. So the language is a bunch of
Speaker 4: former CIA people. But I think what's so important about
Speaker 4: this report is that you have someone one of those
Speaker 4: former CIA guys who signs the letter saying that somebody
Speaker 4: actively with the CIA asked for his signature. Boom that,
Speaker 4: even according to Morell's testimony in the report, is quote inappropriate.
Speaker 4: Here's what Morell said, it's inappropriate for a currently serving
Speaker 4: staff officer, contractor to be in the political process. Here's
Speaker 4: what another former CIA guy said. If it's true, it
Speaker 4: would concern me for sure. But I just have a
Speaker 4: hard time believing that occurred. If it did, that's incredibly unprofessional.
Speaker 4: Their theory and their defense is going to be that
Speaker 4: someone or a couple of people went rogue. They should
Speaker 4: have sent this from their personal account. They should have
Speaker 4: you know, separated business impersonal. When they were looking at
Speaker 4: this review of the letter, they should have just kept
Speaker 4: it to that and then emailed somebody from their personal
Speaker 4: or called someone from their personal and said.
Speaker 5: Hey, you should maybe sign.
Speaker 4: This letter or something like that, or that if your
Speaker 4: if your current CIA, you shouldn't have been involved at all.
Speaker 4: It was just a silly slip up and a mistake.
Speaker 4: But there is no mistake about this. This is the CIA,
Speaker 4: according to the email, actively actively asking someone to sign
Speaker 4: a partisan a letter that is being organized for a
Speaker 4: partisan election purpose. Boom, period, full stop. Again, that's really
Speaker 4: all we need to know about this. I'm excited to
Speaker 4: continue learning more, but I just wanted to highlight this
Speaker 4: for everyone because, you know, somebody who grew up in
Speaker 4: that kind of post nine to eleven era, generally on
Speaker 4: the right, I was not the skepticism of what's now
Speaker 4: called the deep state or of like the CIA, the FBI,
Speaker 4: the intelligence apparatus was not high on my list of
Speaker 4: ideological priorities. And I was not to make excuses for myself,
Speaker 4: but like a teenager, so I was kind of young
Speaker 4: and just following, you know, generally along with conservative priorities.
Speaker 5: That's wrong. I mean, this should have always been a priority.
Speaker 4: I mentioned Barry Goldwater, this should have been a priority
Speaker 4: for decades of the conservative movement, because if you're concerned
Speaker 4: about the power of an expansive government, you need look
Speaker 4: no further than the expansive intelligence apparatus for how much
Speaker 4: that can be abused.
Speaker 5: Rand Paul Ron Paul have been good on these issues.
Speaker 4: For a really, really long time, and I think Trump
Speaker 4: gives a lot of people on the left an excuse
Speaker 4: to ignore and wish away the amplification and the ratcheting
Speaker 4: up of these abuses of power. They're not this is
Speaker 4: not just what it used to be. It's getting worse
Speaker 4: and worse, and they're starting to justify this stuff openly
Speaker 4: and get away with it because folks in the media
Speaker 4: don't give a damn. So that's why I thought this
Speaker 4: story was worth highlighting. Ryan, You've covered this stuff for a.
Speaker 5: Really long time.
Speaker 4: There were some reports in the New York Posts and
Speaker 4: other places from what's going to be released today yesterday?
Speaker 4: What did you make of some of these revelations. Where
Speaker 4: do you think they're going to go from here?
Speaker 3: I think the CIA ought to stay out of American elections.
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 5: I think stay out of elections in general elections. They're
Speaker 5: very good at.
Speaker 1: This yes, and it is a coming home to roost
Speaker 1: type of thing. Like if you have an intelligence apparatus
Speaker 1: that is going to be monkeying around in the internal
Speaker 1: affairs of governments all over the world, then certainly they're
Speaker 1: going to feel like they can monkey around with this one.
Speaker 1: But I think that there needs to be a civic
Speaker 1: sense among CIA officials that they are.
Speaker 3: Out of politics.
Speaker 1: I think we've got to get these spies and these
Speaker 1: spy agencies just completely out of our politics.
Speaker 3: Obviously, they can live in Virginia.
Speaker 1: You can vote for the House of Delegates, vote for
Speaker 1: Virginia State Senate, and you can vote for president.
Speaker 3: If they live in DC.
Speaker 1: They cannot vote for House or Senate because they live
Speaker 1: in DC and we don't have House members or senators.
Speaker 1: But otherwise they should not be organizing on behalf of
Speaker 1: one candidate or another. And if the CIA believes that
Speaker 1: there is Russian disinformation, then the CIA should say so,
Speaker 1: like just publicly come out behind the mics with the
Speaker 1: press conference and give your evidence for why that is
Speaker 1: and say it like if that say it.
Speaker 3: With your chest.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the intelligence communities tried to do that.
Speaker 1: I think at twenty sixteen, and if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: McConnell basically blocked them from doing doing that, and so
Speaker 1: then after that they played all these games, these kind
Speaker 1: of behind the scenes games instead. But they should have
Speaker 1: just come out like say, like mcconnell'st agree with this,
Speaker 1: here's what like, and then the public can decide it
Speaker 1: is that the role we want the CIA playing here,
Speaker 1: but to do this secretly, behind the scenes, organize it
Speaker 1: as a former you know, intelligence officials letter.
Speaker 3: And you know you know, so yeah, stay.
Speaker 4: Out, yeah, I mean, and there's the point you make
Speaker 4: a lot that is like when you are you have
Speaker 4: this muscle memory of doing this wherever you're doing it
Speaker 4: around the world, You're going to use it in the
Speaker 4: United States eventually.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 4: It's just you can't help yourself. You know how to
Speaker 4: do it, you think you know something needs to be done.
Speaker 4: It's inevitably going to bleed into your domestic operations, which
Speaker 4: you know, the CIA is really not supposed to have anyway.
Speaker 4: And in this case, it looks like taxpayer resources being
Speaker 4: used for the Democratic Party as like an kind contribution.
Speaker 4: You know, they're laundering their reputations, but they're also using
Speaker 4: tax paramoney for election purposes, So I doubt anything. Will
Speaker 4: you know that any accountability will come to it, but
Speaker 4: it would be from I think this is something that
Speaker 4: everyone can agree on, whether your leftist or on the right.
Speaker 4: From a populist perspective, it'd be great if there was
Speaker 4: some accountability. But it's like trying to turn the Titanic
Speaker 4: around at this point. And maybe we'll continue to hear
Speaker 4: more from RFK Junior about his plans for the CIA
Speaker 4: when he's on the campaign trail.
Speaker 3: There you go, that'll be interesting to see how they
Speaker 3: handle him. Yeah, sure, will stick around.
Speaker 1: We're going to have Representative Rocana of California joining us
Speaker 1: now that the press is looking into Supreme Court corruption.
Speaker 3: The hits keep coming.
Speaker 1: The Senate is demanding a list from Harlan Crow of
Speaker 1: gifts that he has given to Supreme Court justices, specifically
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas, but hey might as well ask what else
Speaker 1: he's given to whoever else. Joining us now to talk
Speaker 1: about this constitutional crisis that we're entering into is California
Speaker 1: Representative Rocanna Commerson Conna, thank you for joining.
Speaker 6: Us, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: And so my sense of this is that there was
Speaker 1: a social contract that existed for maybe half a century,
Speaker 1: where the public just basically let the Supreme Court do
Speaker 1: whatever it was doing behind the black robes and behind
Speaker 1: the kind.
Speaker 3: Of the mystique of the legitimacy of the court.
Speaker 1: And something has broken, and that now that people are
Speaker 1: starting to look, they're a little disturbed by what they're finding.
Speaker 1: What are you hearing from your colleagues on Capitol Hill
Speaker 1: about how they're thinking through this controversy around the court.
Speaker 8: Well, one, there's a shock that Supreme Court justices are
Speaker 8: allowed to do this. I mean, most colleagues on the Hill,
Speaker 8: whatever you think of them, you go out for lunch
Speaker 8: and you end up picking up the tab us because
Speaker 8: you don't want to fill out all the paperwork of
Speaker 8: someone paying for the lunch. And it's mind boggling to
Speaker 8: me that you don't have similar regulations for Supreme Court justices.
Speaker 8: You have them for the executive branch as well. And
Speaker 8: I think this has just blown open the fact that
Speaker 8: the Supreme Court justices have.
Speaker 6: Not had many standards.
Speaker 8: Now, my guess is, even though the Supreme Court has
Speaker 8: had some absolutely awful decisions, it hasn't just been a
Speaker 8: beacon for sort of democracy and liberalism. Then probably maybe
Speaker 8: I'm thinking in the past people weren't as venal and
Speaker 8: you didn't have that kind of egregiousness, and now you've
Speaker 8: got this egregious case, and I think it's really called
Speaker 8: into question why we don't have standards.
Speaker 4: You know, it's been interesting from the perspective of someone
Speaker 4: on the right to watch a lot of these reports
Speaker 4: start snowballing. It does I mean, whether or not it's coordinated.
Speaker 4: It feels coordinated. And that's not to say it's not fair.
Speaker 4: It's not to say that there aren't some attacks that
Speaker 4: are not attacks, but there aren't some criticisms or revelations.
Speaker 4: For instance, I would think about the private flight logs
Speaker 4: with Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow that stand out to
Speaker 4: me as something that obviously should have been disclosed and
Speaker 4: rules should be tightened so that we know what's happening.
Speaker 4: But it seems to be you know, it was left
Speaker 4: to like the Daily Wire to report that Sonya Soda Mayor,
Speaker 4: for instance, was hearing a case about Penguin Random House,
Speaker 4: with obviously being in contract with Penguin Random House. Do
Speaker 4: you have concerns, Congressman about how this has been sort
Speaker 4: of piled on conservative justices by the American media, and
Speaker 4: then it seems that it's not as balanced when there
Speaker 4: comes to the media's concerns about justices on the left
Speaker 4: that may be running a foul of similar rules, but
Speaker 4: it just sort of tanks the credibility of conservative justices
Speaker 4: without also saying, well, hey, this is probably a broader problem.
Speaker 8: The two reasons that the Supreme Court as a crisis
Speaker 8: of confidence. One has to do with the fact that
Speaker 8: they're just out of touch with the facts of modern life.
Speaker 8: That you have people appointed twenty thirty years ago, or
Speaker 8: taking away women's rights to an abortion pill, who are
Speaker 8: taking voting rights, and there is real anger in the country.
Speaker 8: And I would say not just among the left, but
Speaker 8: about many Americans to say, what is the Supreme Court doing?
Speaker 8: And that's why I propose term limits. There's a separate
Speaker 8: issue about conflicts of interest and people getting gifts and
Speaker 8: presiding on cases where they may have a financial interest.
Speaker 8: Sometimes those two things can get conflated.
Speaker 6: I agree with you that they should be separate.
Speaker 8: We should make sure that the ethics conduct has separate reform.
Speaker 8: At the same time, I believe we need term limits,
Speaker 8: and I believe that the real crisis of this coort
Speaker 8: is that they're taking away basic liberties and rights, and
Speaker 8: that is only apart from even their financial conflicts.
Speaker 1: And some of this, to me feels like a symptom
Speaker 1: of our second guilded Age, because if you go back
Speaker 1: and you think about the last Gilded age and you
Speaker 1: read some of the Supreme Court corrupt that was going on,
Speaker 1: then just gab smocking incredible stuff like you Supreme Court
Speaker 1: justices like literally on the payroll of railroads, writing into
Speaker 1: law laws that benefited the railroads, and busting the railroad
Speaker 1: unions and and so it feels like we're entering kind
Speaker 1: of a second territory like that. And the way that
Speaker 1: that original corruption was eventually broken was was political. You know,
Speaker 1: you had FDR come in and give them a political check, say,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to expand the court if you
Speaker 1: keep you know, this combination of corruption and moving against
Speaker 1: the will of the voters, and boom that that got
Speaker 1: that snapped them back into place, and he didn't have
Speaker 1: to do the court packing scheme. Is there the political
Speaker 1: will on the on the democratic side to actually check them,
Speaker 1: because when when I think when voters see somebody like
Speaker 1: you just shared. Chairman Dick Durbin say, well, this is
Speaker 1: up to the Chief Justice, and we hope that he
Speaker 1: handles this. I think there's a lack of confidence that
Speaker 1: there is that will to check them in the way
Speaker 1: that they need to be checked to get them back
Speaker 1: on track.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't think it's up to the Chief Justice.
Speaker 8: I think Congress should pass a law for a ethics
Speaker 8: code of conduct. It's not a violation of separation of powers.
Speaker 8: If it's a violation and separation of powers, how can
Speaker 8: we pass the laws requiring the president or the vice
Speaker 8: president to have financial disclosures? How can we pass the
Speaker 8: laws about conflicts for the executive branch? Of course, we
Speaker 8: could pass the laws on the Supreme Court. And the
Speaker 8: real thing we need is term limits eighteen years and
Speaker 8: then you're out.
Speaker 6: You don't the Constitution says you have to.
Speaker 8: Be a judge for life, not that you have to
Speaker 8: be on the Supreme Court for life. But Ryan, and
Speaker 8: I know you're a student of history, I guess part
Speaker 8: of what happened. It seems to me is that there was,
Speaker 8: after a FDR, this move towards meritocrasy, this idea that
Speaker 8: now people are going to go and take tests and
Speaker 8: get into schools based on their own on merit. And
Speaker 8: you know a lot of these justice as have gone
Speaker 8: to Ida League schools and I went to an Ivy
Speaker 8: League school, and that somehow this is going to make
Speaker 8: the process cleaner. And what we're now realizing is sort
Speaker 8: of a deeper point about the undervalue meritocracy, that it
Speaker 8: did not root out the corruption and may have made
Speaker 8: it much less blatant, but there's still a lot of
Speaker 8: conflicts of interest and people with capitals still have extraordinary
Speaker 8: influence in our democracy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's one of the difficult parts of this
Speaker 4: is even if there were stringent disclosures implemented, and then
Speaker 4: I want to ask you about that in a second,
Speaker 4: billionaires are still going to have plenty of access to
Speaker 4: the people in the highest exul lens of power. And
Speaker 4: that isn't to say we should just throw up our hands,
Speaker 4: of course, it's just a note that even if I'm
Speaker 4: looking at some of the things, short of as you say, Congressman,
Speaker 4: term limits, which I would oppose, but like, even if
Speaker 4: you look at that stuff, it's like, gosh, there's just
Speaker 4: so much access no matter what.
Speaker 5: And that gets to Ryan's.
Speaker 4: Point about the Second Gilded Age, But what likelihood do
Speaker 4: you think there is of like actual, real ethical reform
Speaker 4: being passed and implemented in the Supreme Court? Because there
Speaker 4: obviously is a need for it when you look at
Speaker 4: some of the different things that we've learned in the
Speaker 4: last several weeks.
Speaker 5: How likely do you think that is to happen.
Speaker 6: I believe we need to your first question.
Speaker 8: We need to make this not just ideological, and we
Speaker 8: need to make it broader that there have to be
Speaker 8: some common sense reforms.
Speaker 6: You know, the way to get.
Speaker 8: Congress to act is to say, it's unfear that Supreme
Speaker 8: Court justices aren't getting treated like members of Congress are.
Speaker 8: Why can't they be a subject to some of the
Speaker 8: same restrictions. If you make it about the conservative judges,
Speaker 8: obviously Republicans get defensive. But here's where I will make
Speaker 8: a partisan point. I think many Republicans are just fine
Speaker 8: with the Court because they've gotten what they wanted. They
Speaker 8: got the Row Versus way to overturn. The Court is
Speaker 8: buy and large functioning on their ideological agenda, and so
Speaker 8: they're reluctant to do things to change a status quo
Speaker 8: that is working for them, and that's why I think
Speaker 8: it's going to be hard to get something passed with
Speaker 8: Republicans controlling the House of Representatives.
Speaker 5: And just too quickly out a point to that.
Speaker 4: It's funny because if you had, if maybe this push
Speaker 4: had happened when Elena Kagan didn't recuse herself from the
Speaker 4: Obamacare case, Republicans might have thought differently about it. But
Speaker 4: because in this case Republicans feel like they have control
Speaker 4: over and are happy with where the Supreme Court is,
Speaker 4: there's probably less political will.
Speaker 3: But eighteen years seems good.
Speaker 1: Do eighteen years of the Supreme Court and then you
Speaker 1: can go be a Circuit Court judge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds that sounds that seems fair. Commers.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to ask you about a letter that
Speaker 1: was led by Representative Veronic Ascobar that was calling out
Speaker 1: the kind of broken policy around sanctions as it relates
Speaker 1: to both Venezuela and Cuba and connecting it to the
Speaker 1: migration crisis. But there was this famous viral clip that
Speaker 1: during the State of the Union where you had President
Speaker 1: Biden coming up to Menendez and you can kind of
Speaker 1: you can hear him saying, Bob, Bob, Bob, we need
Speaker 1: to talk about Cuba. And you see Bob Menendez's face
Speaker 1: kind of fall He's He's like, I do not want
Speaker 1: to talk about Cuba to the President, because I think
Speaker 1: Senator Menendez, the Juiciary Chair, quite fine with the sanctions
Speaker 1: regime and the kind of embargo that we've got currently.
Speaker 1: But now that we're almost six months on from that,
Speaker 1: are you getting any sense that the administration is kind
Speaker 1: of rethinking its policy towards Cuba and Venezuela as we're
Speaker 1: seeing a flood of migrants come as a direct result
Speaker 1: of our own policies toward those countries.
Speaker 8: Well, I appreciate Baronic Astovar's leadership on this, and I
Speaker 8: had joined the letter, and she obviously represents Alpaso, so
Speaker 8: she's feeling the brunt.
Speaker 6: Of the challenge with migrants coming across.
Speaker 8: There are many parts to solving this, but one of
Speaker 8: the things that will make it better is if we
Speaker 8: don't have draconian sanctions that are creating economic conditions and
Speaker 8: hardships that are leading to people leaving. I mean, the
Speaker 8: Republicans often say, well, it's not just all people coming
Speaker 8: for asylum from political persecution, They're coming because of economic
Speaker 8: deep deprivation. Well, one of the reasons that there's deep
Speaker 8: economic deprivation is because overly punitive sanctions that haven't worked.
Speaker 8: Baduro is terrible, terrible human rights violations, terrible civil rights violations.
Speaker 6: But our policy during.
Speaker 8: The Trump administration and then others, we said, well, we'll
Speaker 8: figure out a way to topple them, get someone else installed.
Speaker 8: None of that work, and now we've got these crippling
Speaker 8: sections that aren't doing much to weaken him, haven't led
Speaker 8: to any of the regime change because we usually aren't
Speaker 8: good at that, but are leading to morven Azuella is
Speaker 8: coming to our border, and I guess just common sense
Speaker 8: should mean we don't want to be aggravating the flow
Speaker 8: of refugees into this country, especially economic refugees, even if
Speaker 8: we're turning them away.
Speaker 6: It's putting so much stress on our border patrol.
Speaker 4: Again quickly on that point, if you are coming from
Speaker 4: Cuba or Venezuela, you actually have almost certainly whoever you
Speaker 4: are a legitimate case for political asylum, not even just economic.
Speaker 3: Assigned according to US, if we're sanctioning here.
Speaker 4: But not for the Biden administration shift in Cuba, which
Speaker 4: I think is incredibly unfortunate, and I do think the
Speaker 4: sanctions point is entirely fair.
Speaker 1: And also so yesterday President Biden said that he was
Speaker 1: contemplating using the fourteenth Amendment to get out of this
Speaker 1: debt sealing crisis. Would you support that approach and how
Speaker 1: much support do you think there would be in the
Speaker 1: Democratic Caucus for a fourteenth Amendment and run around this.
Speaker 6: I do support it.
Speaker 8: I mean, basically, Congress has already authorized the payments, and
Speaker 8: we've told the executive ridge they need to pay this, and.
Speaker 6: Now we're telling them don't pay it.
Speaker 8: I mean, we're contradicting ourselves and the president as a
Speaker 8: fourteenth Amendment obligation to pay the debts that.
Speaker 6: Congress has said he needs to pay.
Speaker 8: I can understand the hesitation because I actually think if
Speaker 8: it goes to the coys, they'll be resolved in the President's.
Speaker 6: Favor once and for all.
Speaker 8: We would end this sort of gamesmanship of the debt ceiling.
Speaker 6: But I do think that it may.
Speaker 8: Temporarily spook the markets at a time that the economy
Speaker 8: is already fragile. So obviously it's not an ideal situation.
Speaker 8: And while I support it, I also understand why the
Speaker 8: President was desperately trying to avoid that situation so that
Speaker 8: we're not adding more uncertainty to the economy.
Speaker 1: Well, hey, the Feds trying to undermine the economy anyway,
Speaker 1: So he can help him out there.
Speaker 3: Connors and Connor, thanks so much for joining us. Really
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Appreciate it. Always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: We wanted to take a moment this morning to honor
Speaker 1: the memory of David Miranda, who was eulogized yesterday by
Speaker 1: his husband and all of our good friend Glenn Greenwald,
Speaker 1: who wrote on Twitter, David's life was extraordinary in all ways.
Speaker 1: His mother died when he was five, leaving him an
Speaker 1: orphan in Jaka Razine, which is a favela in Rio
Speaker 1: de Janeiro, but a beautiful and compassionate neighbor took him in,
Speaker 1: despite four children of her own and deep poverty. Became
Speaker 1: his mom gave him a chance for a life that
Speaker 1: gave David the chance to live his full potential in
Speaker 1: a society that often suffocates it. He was key to
Speaker 1: the Snowden story, became the first gay man elected to
Speaker 1: Rio's city council, then Federal Congress at thirty two. He
Speaker 1: inspired so many with his biography, passion, and force of life.
Speaker 1: Glenn went on, because of how David grew up, there
Speaker 1: were always many assumptions.
Speaker 3: Made by those who didn't know him.
Speaker 1: Anyone who did will tell you there was nobody with
Speaker 1: a stronger will or life force. He was proud that
Speaker 1: he was named by time to be our next generation's leaders.
Speaker 1: But by far David's biggest dream, what gave him the
Speaker 1: greatest pride in purpose was being a father. He was
Speaker 1: the most dedicated and loving parent. He taught me how
Speaker 1: to be a father, and our truly exceptional boys, with
Speaker 1: their own difficult start to life, is his greatest legacy.
Speaker 1: When David arrived at the hospital last August sixth, I
Speaker 1: was told there was little chance he'd survived the week.
Speaker 1: I heard the same three times since he refused, in
Speaker 1: classic David's style. The last four months gave our family
Speaker 1: the most beautiful moments together. Glenn goes on, David was
Speaker 1: singular the strongest, most passionate, most compassionate man I've known.
Speaker 3: Nobody had a bad word for him. I can't describe
Speaker 3: the loss and pain.
Speaker 1: I'll do my best to honor his legacy, our children
Speaker 1: and our NGOs, and I know so many will celebrate
Speaker 1: him and his impact now.
Speaker 3: David's passing has produced an.
Speaker 1: Outpouring of emotion in both Brazil and the United States,
Speaker 1: including from President Lula de Silva, who was freed from
Speaker 1: prison primarily as a result of reporting done by Glenn
Speaker 1: and the Intercept Brazil, which Glenn founded. Lula called David
Speaker 1: quote a young man with an extraordinary trajectory who left
Speaker 1: too soon, which is a sentiment that is at once profoundly.
Speaker 3: True yet difficult to fully comprehend.
Speaker 1: There was no limit to what David's life could have brought,
Speaker 1: not just to him, but to the people of Brazil,
Speaker 1: who may have lost a future president with his passing yesterday.
Speaker 1: What made David so unusual was the combination of his passion,
Speaker 1: his commitment to his democratic socialist politics, and his kindness,
Speaker 1: his magnanimity, and his ability to leave even his fiercest
Speaker 1: opponents with little choice but to like him personally. Most
Speaker 1: people have the first of most people who have the
Speaker 1: first of those two things, they don't have the third.
Speaker 1: And when Glenn wrote that quote, nobody had a bad
Speaker 1: word for him. He really meant that, and it's at
Speaker 1: testament to the love they shared that the two of
Speaker 1: them found each other such a perfect compliment. What also
Speaker 1: separated David was his unusual courage, which he showed throughout
Speaker 1: his life. Edward Snowden, learning of David's passing, said, of
Speaker 1: everyone who had a hand in the twenty thirteen revelations
Speaker 1: of global mass surveillance, my dear friend David Miranda was
Speaker 1: perhaps the most righteous and pure.
Speaker 3: I will never forget that when the.
Speaker 1: UK broke its own laws to detain David as a
Speaker 1: terrorist for daring to aid an active journalism and threatened
Speaker 1: to throw him in a dungeon for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life, he never faltered.
Speaker 3: Instead, he dared them to do it.
Speaker 1: It was that courage that set him free, that courage
Speaker 1: that moved the story forward, that will forever serve as
Speaker 1: the example of a man at his best. I will
Speaker 1: miss you, David, Stay free. Snowden here is referring to
Speaker 1: David's twenty thirteen detention by UK authorities, who did indeed
Speaker 1: threaten to lock him away for life, a threat David
Speaker 1: stared down in a way few of us might have
Speaker 1: been able to do. As Snowden said, it was the
Speaker 1: realization of the authorities that they had no chance to
Speaker 1: break his will that set him free. Now three years later,
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, he ran with Mariel Franco, who also
Speaker 1: grew up in the city's favelas, for Rio City Council.
Speaker 1: Both were elected, becoming not just the first gay and
Speaker 1: lesbian city council members, but genuine radicals and threats to
Speaker 1: the status quo. In twenty eighteen, after leaving an event
Speaker 1: with Glenn and David, Mariel and her driver were gunned
Speaker 1: down by an assassin on a motorcycle. The murder was
Speaker 1: credibly linked to the Bolsonaro family. Glenn and David continued
Speaker 1: crusading for justice for Maryell, and instead of shrinking from
Speaker 1: public life in the face of rising death threats, they
Speaker 1: pushed forward. Later that year, David ran for Congress, while
Speaker 1: Glenn pushed ahead with his investigation.
Speaker 3: Into the networks around Bolsonaro.
Speaker 1: Now, the way elections work in Brazil, candidates run as
Speaker 1: a slate, and depending on how high up you are
Speaker 1: on the slate, you win a seat if your party
Speaker 1: does well enough. David felt one slot short of making
Speaker 1: it into Congress, but then something remarkable happened. The only
Speaker 1: openly gay member of Congress at the time, was facing
Speaker 1: a wave of credible death threats, and he fled the country,
Speaker 1: seeking exile rather than what he understood to be certain assassination.
Speaker 1: That meant that his seat opened up and it was
Speaker 1: David's if.
Speaker 3: He wanted it.
Speaker 1: He never flinched, stepping forward, knowing that every step could
Speaker 1: be his last. In Congress, he continued to pursue the
Speaker 1: assassins of Mariel Franco. Now, last summer, he was hospitalized
Speaker 1: for a GI infection, and it quickly spread to his
Speaker 1: bloodstream and major organs, producing sepsis, which is often fatal
Speaker 1: within hours. Yet David battled it for nine months, making
Speaker 1: remarkable progress at times coupled with gut punching setbacks, which
Speaker 1: devastatingly included this final one. Now, Glenn doesn't often wax
Speaker 1: philosophical and public.
Speaker 3: That's just not his style.
Speaker 1: But a few times over the last nine months he
Speaker 1: wrote essays about this experience and how it had reshaped
Speaker 1: the way he thought about life and its meaning. And
Speaker 1: Martin Heideger's book Being in Time, which helped it define
Speaker 1: continental existentialism, took its title from from the notion that life,
Speaker 1: or what he called being, got its meaning from time
Speaker 1: or more to the point, the lack of time that
Speaker 1: we get. We all know that rationally, but it's so
Speaker 1: easy to forget. In March, Glenn wrote, every day since
Speaker 1: two thousand and five that David and I woke up
Speaker 1: and went to sleep, and shared and built our lives
Speaker 1: and careers together, and then began raising our children together.
Speaker 1: We assumed, due to our age and health and hubris,
Speaker 1: that we would have that for decades to come, if
Speaker 1: it were a guarantee, as if the universe had provided
Speaker 1: us with some enforceable contract that entitled us to assume
Speaker 1: this belonged to us and could not be taken away.
Speaker 1: And because we assumed it, we took it for granted.
Speaker 1: And because we took it for granted, we often ceased
Speaker 1: valuing it the way it deserved to be valued. What
Speaker 1: remains most astounding to me is that after all these years,
Speaker 1: these decades of running and chasing and striving and reaching
Speaker 1: and grabbing and struggling and pursuing everything that I actually
Speaker 1: need for core happiness, fulfillment, and gratitude are things I
Speaker 1: already have and have had for.
Speaker 3: A long time.
Speaker 1: He goes on, and the lack of permanence of those
Speaker 1: things that provide us the greatest happiness.
Speaker 3: Does not make them less valuable. That is what makes
Speaker 3: them valuable.
Speaker 1: Their impermanence is the reason to grab them, hold them,
Speaker 1: appreciate them, and honor them every day that we have
Speaker 1: them and are thus able to do that. Glenn said
Speaker 1: that he had found solace and energy in a search
Speaker 1: for gratitude, and all of us should be grateful to
Speaker 1: have been privileged enough to share the world with a
Speaker 1: force as great as David, painfully short as that time was,
Speaker 1: and all of us here on the Breaking Points Channel
Speaker 1: are sending our love to his family as they grieve
Speaker 1: his loss, and think thinking back over David's life that
Speaker 1: moment in twenty eighteen, after their good friend was assassinated
Speaker 1: and he instead of backing away from politics, he goes.
Speaker 3: He pushes ahead and then winds up.
Speaker 1: Remember when he ran for Congress, he wound up in
Speaker 1: this remarkable situation one seat short, and then to get
Speaker 1: the opportunity to go to Congress only because the only
Speaker 1: other openly gay person decides that it's a death sentence,
Speaker 1: and he just he's I don't care, I'm doing it,
Speaker 1: not afraid you're not going to scare me, And takes
Speaker 1: his seat in Congress, and as Lulas said, his trajectory
Speaker 1: knew no let like he was an extraordinarily popular, you know,
Speaker 1: uh force in Brazilian in Brazilian politics.
Speaker 4: You know, that was exactly the point that stood out
Speaker 4: to me in the Courage, because how often in the
Speaker 4: United States do we you know, sometimes acknowledge really difficult stuff.
Speaker 4: And there are real risks of course to journalism and
Speaker 4: activism and politics in the United States. But to have
Speaker 4: your friend gunned down and then to have a seat
Speaker 4: open up because someone is being pushed out of the
Speaker 4: country by credible death threats for being gay, and then
Speaker 4: to say I'm going into it, I'm taking that seat.
Speaker 4: I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing, and I'm
Speaker 4: going to do it, you know, even even harder and
Speaker 4: better and with more strength. That's a testament to incredible
Speaker 4: authenticity and courage and is just what a lesson. And
Speaker 4: I think your remembrance there's absolutely beautiful. It's so jarring
Speaker 4: when somebody who is such a force and I didn't
Speaker 4: know David, but to your point, amazing when somebody passes
Speaker 4: and there's not a bad word to be said about them,
Speaker 4: it's just jarring when somebody who does have so much
Speaker 4: vitality and strength is stopped short.
Speaker 5: That's one of the strangest things that happens in life.
Speaker 1: And today would have been his thirty ninth birthday, and
Speaker 1: you know, from all of us here we're wishing as
Speaker 1: much love and comfort to his family as possible.
Speaker 3: Thank you all, as always for joining us.
Speaker 1: And we'll be back next week.
Speaker 3: More counterpoints to