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Speaker 1: Welcome to the inaugular inaugural edition of Counterpoints Friday. Ryan, Actually,

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Speaker 1: what people didn't get to see, although I did consider

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Speaker 1: taping it, was the amount of effort it took to

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Speaker 1: get an ear piece in your ear. It seems as

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Speaker 1: though Ryan's ears are too smooth to hold the earth. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we'll see if it holds on, it holds on. If not,

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Speaker 1: I won't be able to get my talking points from

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Speaker 1: the control room. That's right, So I just have to

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Speaker 1: wing it on my own. You need the voice of

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Speaker 1: God in your head to direct you. Well, we're really

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Speaker 1: excited to be here. We were talking to crystalin Sager

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Speaker 1: on yesterday's show about what an honor is to be

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Speaker 1: here because we love and appreciate this audience and what

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Speaker 1: you've helped them build here so much. So it's just very,

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Speaker 1: very exciting to start the show today. How are you feeling, Ryan,

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Speaker 1: feeling good? We get to talk about Trump some more. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I think big Guy's still here. He's still around. The

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Speaker 1: Big Guy's Biden. He's the former guy. Trump's the former guy. Okay, right, Well,

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Speaker 1: I think it probably mean nicknamed straight. Yeah, Well, I

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Speaker 1: was gonna say I think probably both of them have

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Speaker 1: been referred to as the big guys at one But

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Speaker 1: speaking of Donald Trump, he was in conversation with radio

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Speaker 1: host Hugh Hewitt yesterday discussing a potential indictment. We want

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Speaker 1: to play some sound of that because it's actually pretty

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Speaker 1: big news in the context of a lot of different

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Speaker 1: things that are going on. So let's take a listen.

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Speaker 1: You know the old saying, prosecutor can indict a ham

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Speaker 1: sandwich if they want to. I'm just asking if there

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Speaker 1: is such a prosecutor and they indict you, would that

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Speaker 1: deter you from running for president again. I don't think

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Speaker 1: the people of the United States would stand for it.

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Speaker 1: And as you know, of a thing like that happened,

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Speaker 1: I would have no prohibition against running. You know that

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Speaker 1: you've already I do. And that's what I want people

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Speaker 1: to understand. That would not take you out of the arena.

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Speaker 1: It would not. But I think if it happened, I

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Speaker 1: think you'd have problems in this country the likes of

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Speaker 1: which perhaps we've never seen before. I don't think the

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Speaker 1: people of the United States would stand for it. What

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Speaker 1: kind of problems, mister president. I think they'd have big problems,

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Speaker 1: big problems. I just don't think they stand for it.

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Speaker 1: They will not sit still and stands for this ultimate

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Speaker 1: of hoaxes. So Ryan, he's walking this fine line that

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Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham got in a little trouble for attempting to walk,

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Speaker 1: and I think actually unnecessarily so, because what they're saying

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Speaker 1: is essentially what the left is saying, that the the tensions,

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Speaker 1: especially on the right, are so high that there's such

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Speaker 1: anger and frustration among the Republican base, and especially this

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Speaker 1: or Trump slice of the Republican base, that an indictment

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Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, I think we all know could cause riots,

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Speaker 1: I think is what Lindsay Graham said. And Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: is trying to walk the fine line between saying, you know,

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Speaker 1: getting caught in this question of incitement, and I think

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Speaker 1: that's why he stopped short of saying what those big

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Speaker 1: problems might be whether or not you peaceful, but whether

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Speaker 1: or not you like Donald Trump. I think that's fundamentally

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Speaker 1: the left and the right are saying the same thing

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Speaker 1: in this case, that even though the left wants to

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Speaker 1: pin incitement on the right, it's true there this could

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Speaker 1: be headed in a very very dangerous direction. You can

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Speaker 1: also talk it in that direction as well, imagine if

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Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer went up and said, look, if you don't indict,

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Speaker 1: name an officer and name a killing, whether it's Eric Garner,

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Speaker 1: Michael Brown, or George Floydleer, if you don't indict and

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Speaker 1: convict these officers, then there will be there will be

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Speaker 1: big problems. They're going to be big problems. And so

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Speaker 1: you say, well, Center Schumer, what kind of big problems? Oh,

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Speaker 1: just big problems, the likes of which you have never seen.

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Speaker 1: I don't think people on the right at that point

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Speaker 1: would say, hey, it's true, there might be big problems,

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Speaker 1: and Schumer's just a pundit out here stating facts. People

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Speaker 1: would say Schumer is encouraging there to be a reaction,

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Speaker 1: and he's threatening the prosecutor, he's threatening the jury that

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Speaker 1: if you don't do this thing, that there's going to

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Speaker 1: be blood in the streets or things are going to

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Speaker 1: be burned down. And I think we've got a similar

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Speaker 1: thing going on here. And I think it's so fun

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Speaker 1: to watch Hugh hewittt try to guide interviews, and sometimes

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Speaker 1: he guides them in the place he wants it to go.

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Speaker 1: Other times veer off a little bit. Here. He even

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Speaker 1: narrated what his own vision for the interview was. He said,

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Speaker 1: I wanted people to understand that you're still going to

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Speaker 1: run for president even if you get indicted. And then

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Speaker 1: Trump goes on in the direction that hewittt didn't want

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Speaker 1: him to go, which and they're going to be big problems.

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Speaker 1: Not only am I going to run, They're going to

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Speaker 1: be big problems, the likes of which you've never seen.

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Speaker 1: And you can see him clarifying there, It's like, what

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Speaker 1: do you mean by big problems? He's like, oh, okay,

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Speaker 1: I made news, which he likes. He likes, he loves

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Speaker 1: to make news. I was like, well, yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: then again, though, whether or not it's a threat to

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Speaker 1: a prosecutor, I think is a very different question. I

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Speaker 1: don't think even the hypothetical you just laid out with

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Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer, which is an interesting one, even that I

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Speaker 1: don't think would necessarily amount to a threat so much

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Speaker 1: as it amounts to a diagnosis of the problem, which

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Speaker 1: is very real and obvious. I do think it's a

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Speaker 1: fine line, though, But what if you're essential to creating

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Speaker 1: the problem, how do we find that? How do you

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Speaker 1: disentangle those variables? Somebody go buy a small business. There's

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Speaker 1: been a lot of crime on this block lately. I'm

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Speaker 1: pretty good at solving crimes. Give me five hundred dollars

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Speaker 1: a month, and I don't think you're going to have

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Speaker 1: any problems. This is a really nice small business you've

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Speaker 1: got here. It would be a real shame if something

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Speaker 1: bad happened to it. I certainly don't disagree with that.

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Speaker 1: I do think though, when it's public officials talking about

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Speaker 1: and we don't actually even need to get into that

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Speaker 1: question because there's a lot more going on with this,

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Speaker 1: but I do think it's it's going to be in

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Speaker 1: the future because we have a This is also news

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Speaker 1: from this week. The January sixth Committee is planning not

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Speaker 1: only to go into September, which they had said earlier,

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Speaker 1: they're also planning to go into October. They said, I

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Speaker 1: think I should eve right right. They said the Vision

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Speaker 1: finale this is sunset on December thirty first, so they

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Speaker 1: can Some people are saying whatever final report they issue

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be until after the election, but we do know

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Speaker 1: that they planned to. In fact, they're talking today about

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Speaker 1: their schedule for the rest of the year. Meeting today

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Speaker 1: to talk about their schedule for the rest of the year.

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Speaker 1: So this is going to be looming too. Season two right,

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Speaker 1: which we can't wait for. This is streaming soon. Unfortunately

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Speaker 1: not bingeable though, because you know, somebody should we put

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Speaker 1: the first season together so you can just binge it

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Speaker 1: like the books that they do the Mula Report with

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Speaker 1: like an intro by who just name it. Anyway, this

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Speaker 1: is going to be looming over the rest of the

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Speaker 1: election season on a sort of daily basis. It's part

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Speaker 1: of an election strategy, There's no question about it, because

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Speaker 1: it eats into time that Republicans have to talk about

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Speaker 1: gas prices, inflation, whatever they think is going to be

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Speaker 1: politically expedient for them to talk about. Now, this is

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Speaker 1: a shadow over every Republican candidate every single day. As

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Speaker 1: to the extent that you can do the drip drip,

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Speaker 1: and there's plenty actually dripping. You know, you don't have

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Speaker 1: to create a lot of it. Although in the January

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Speaker 1: sixth side they surely are Trump's Save America pack. This

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Speaker 1: is from Politico. This week another store we had another tear.

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Speaker 1: Shehet here paid three million dollars to cover top lawyer's

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Speaker 1: legal work. Ryan three million dollars from the pack. The

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Speaker 1: legal work covers January sixth work and mar A Lago work.

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Speaker 1: How does this play into everything that is surrounding Trump

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Speaker 1: going into November. And what's shocking in that headline as

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Speaker 1: it relates to Trump is the word paid. Trump does

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Speaker 1: not pay lawyers like he's like gild huff Post bloggers.

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Speaker 1: He's gonna pay you in a platform and you gotta

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Speaker 1: shower you with comments, comments, and you get you get

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Speaker 1: the platform here. So like, if you're a slip and

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Speaker 1: fall lawyer from Philadelphia, you do a pro bono case,

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Speaker 1: but you know the impeachment case. Remember that guy who

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Speaker 1: like that hadn't prepared anything and just gave a completely

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Speaker 1: like off the cuff stemwinder in front of the Senate.

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Speaker 1: It was great advertisement for his slip and ball, slip

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Speaker 1: and fall business back in back in Philadelphia. So for

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Speaker 1: him to actually have his pack pay three million dollars

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Speaker 1: to a law firm to get real lawyers to do

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Speaker 1: real work suggests a heightened sense of concern about where

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Speaker 1: this is heading for him, which I think is reflected

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Speaker 1: also in his ramping up the threats or punditry or

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Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. Because once Lindsey Graham

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Speaker 1: you know, had gotten so much heat for saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: there's going to be riots in the streets of America

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Speaker 1: if this happens. Everybody knows that if you go there,

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Speaker 1: that's how it's going to be received. And so he

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Speaker 1: went there deliberately knowing that's how it's going to be received.

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Speaker 1: So I think those two things together suggest that he's

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Speaker 1: getting kind of concerned about where this is heading. Like now,

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Speaker 1: it's not going there anytime soon, it doesn't seem like

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Speaker 1: because the other news we have is they appointed a

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Speaker 1: New York judge finally to look over these documents for

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Speaker 1: really utterly absurd reasons. The Justice Department had asked to

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Speaker 1: continue to be able to continue to look at them

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Speaker 1: and examine what was lost. You know, they claim if

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Speaker 1: you take it, if you take them out their word

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Speaker 1: the claiming, which you're supposed to do when you're hearing

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Speaker 1: out these arguments. They're claiming that there's such sensitive national

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Speaker 1: security information that they had to raid the home of

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Speaker 1: a president in order to retrieve this information because there

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Speaker 1: could be human intelligence sources at risk, as there's and

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Speaker 1: so now they're not allowed to sift through that. Now

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Speaker 1: they might be bluffing and there might not be anybody

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Speaker 1: at risk. That's a massive gamble for a judge to

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Speaker 1: be taken to say, you can't even look at this anymore,

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Speaker 1: like imagine that there is something actually sensitive in there,

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Speaker 1: that is time sensitive that they need to deal with.

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Speaker 1: Say hey, hey, guy in Beijing, like you might want

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Speaker 1: to get out of there because your name was in here.

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Speaker 1: And we saw in the video that this person we

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Speaker 1: think as an asset, was like roaming these hallways. To

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Speaker 1: stop that mid search to me was just wild. And

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Speaker 1: then to have this what are they special master going

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Speaker 1: over the documents to determine what's executive privilege is just incoherent,

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Speaker 1: because that's something that a a judge or a Supreme

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Speaker 1: court has to determine whether it's executive privilege, Like is

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Speaker 1: there even executive privilege for somebody who's no longer in

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Speaker 1: the executive if the current executive has like waived executive privilege,

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Speaker 1: which they obviously have because they are suing or they're prosecuting,

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Speaker 1: they're trying to prosecute this case. And it goes back

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Speaker 1: to this judge, which is just wild. Have you looked

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Speaker 1: into this, judge, Judge Cannon a little bit. I mean

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Speaker 1: it's pretty all of this is pretty convoluted, And I

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Speaker 1: think that's why actually Democrats realize that as an election strategy,

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Speaker 1: if you're talking about this from a purely sort of

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Speaker 1: nakedly political standpoint, you can say that's why this is

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Speaker 1: in a way politically expedient, because it's such a vague

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Speaker 1: question day in and day out. Because unless you have

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Speaker 1: time to peel back every single layer and to determine

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Speaker 1: what the credibility of the DOJ and the FBI is

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Speaker 1: at any given stop, and the credibility of Trump is

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Speaker 1: at ever given stop, we have two basically less than

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Speaker 1: credible actors on every side of this, with every step

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Speaker 1: of the way, and so it basically just becomes a

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Speaker 1: dark cloud and it plays into what one person can

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Speaker 1: fundraise off of and one another person can fund raise

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Speaker 1: off of. And as a media strategy for Democrats, it's

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Speaker 1: really helpful because the extent that we can have these

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Speaker 1: headlines about the Special Master, nobody knows what a special

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Speaker 1: Master is, you to I mean, it's not exactly made up,

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Speaker 1: but like right, it's like right, and so it sounds

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Speaker 1: really serious and it is really serious, but you'd have

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Speaker 1: to really at every given step of the way. You

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Speaker 1: have to be like diving into the minitia to determine

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Speaker 1: who has the credibility at that particular step, because it's very,

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Speaker 1: very difficult to trust the credibility of either party here,

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Speaker 1: although on this Judge Cannon it gets pretty easy. And

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Speaker 1: her story also shows how much stuff goes on that

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Speaker 1: the even the most dogged like journalists are going to

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Speaker 1: miss at the time. So she was she was confirmed

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Speaker 1: a bunch of handful of Democrats voted for her in

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Speaker 1: November of twenty twenty, so for the election, but before

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Speaker 1: before Trump had left office, and and and you know,

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Speaker 1: about six weeks before Democrats took control of Congress. They've

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Speaker 1: since released some of her you know, the answers that

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Speaker 1: she gave to the Judiciary Committee going through her thing.

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Speaker 1: One of the questions they ask is, like, uh, list lists.

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Speaker 1: So this is thirty eight year old woman not to

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Speaker 1: be ages here. Whoa they say, They say, list four.

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Speaker 1: So she's had a decent career, like ten plus years

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Speaker 1: she's been in the in the legal world. They say,

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Speaker 1: list four papers that you've written, because you know, they

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Speaker 1: like to read the papers, and you know their opponents

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Speaker 1: are going to go through it and find things and

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Speaker 1: challenge them. And the hearing nothing I saw. She handed

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Speaker 1: like some press releases in which she was mentioned in

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Speaker 1: from her like law firm, and it was like, uh, list,

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Speaker 1: it says like list speaking, gigs, list lectures that you've given, appearance,

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Speaker 1: the media, appearance, media, it was her wedding announcement. It

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Speaker 1: was like, list panels you've been on, Like everybody in

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Speaker 1: Washington's been on a panel. She hasn't been on a

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Speaker 1: single panel. And maybe this is just you know, populism

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Speaker 1: made beautiful, like just plucking people off the street and

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Speaker 1: throwing them on the bench. But this is also a

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Speaker 1: job that requires, you know, some experience. And they said,

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Speaker 1: why did you join the Federalist Society? The answer I can't.

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Speaker 1: I wish I could quote it. It was just I'm

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Speaker 1: not a lawyer. But I was like, that doesn't even

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Speaker 1: make any sense. I'm not a lawyer, but this is crazy,

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Speaker 1: sound right, this is crazy, Like you don't seem to

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Speaker 1: have any idea what you're doing. And so when her

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Speaker 1: first legal opinion came out and you had all these

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Speaker 1: legal experts saying that this was an incoherent a draft opinion,

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Speaker 1: It's like I didn't quite believe I thought they were

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Speaker 1: being like partisan hacks or something. Then it's like, oh no,

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Speaker 1: this is like what they actually mean is that this

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Speaker 1: is a paper that's somebody like a one L would

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Speaker 1: turn in and get and get it graded by the professor.

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Speaker 1: I mean, like, not for political reasons. This is just

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Speaker 1: wrong and bad, like turn this back in, like you

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Speaker 1: misunderstand everything. And so now here we are with like

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Speaker 1: a special master determining whether there's executive privilege at play.

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Speaker 1: It's like, that's not how this works, but that's how

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Speaker 1: power works. She's the judge for life. Unless somebody figures

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Speaker 1: something out. Is that incitement? It's incitement, I think, to

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Speaker 1: impeachment for like being completely unqualified. Well, we have one

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Speaker 1: more tear sheet here that I think actually gets to

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Speaker 1: your point, and this is about Mark Meadows, the ex

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Speaker 1: chief of staff in the White House under President Trump,

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Speaker 1: former President Trump, who is now complying with a January

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Speaker 1: sixth subpoena he had sued in the past not to comply.

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Speaker 1: But Ryan, to your point about bringing this a little

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Speaker 1: bit full circle. You started by saying the reality of

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump paying the lawyers and to the tune of

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Speaker 1: three million dollars which probably doesn't cover all of the work.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that seems, if anything, low, but it's

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Speaker 1: more than he paid for a long time. I'm sure.

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Speaker 1: So this does, I think speak to what the point

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Speaker 1: that you're making, which is that there seems to be

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Speaker 1: a sense from the outside and from the scraps that

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Speaker 1: we're getting in the media, that they're taking this more seriously.

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Speaker 1: That Mark Meadows is complying with the subpoena, that seems

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Speaker 1: to be a sign that things are probably intensifying. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I have always felt that if the system wants

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Speaker 1: to try to check future attempted coup's future presidents from

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Speaker 1: going to Okay, hey, you went to every court, you

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Speaker 1: got lost in thirty plus court cases. Fine, you sue

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Speaker 1: all you want, Like, that's our system. You went to

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, Supreme Court didn't want to hear it, Fine,

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Speaker 1: Like those are the process we have set up. Once

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Speaker 1: that's over, and you're continuing to try to overturn the

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Speaker 1: results of the election, coming up with hair brain schemes

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Speaker 1: like we're going to get fake electors and we're going

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Speaker 1: to have Mike Pence say that, well, there's these fake electors,

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Speaker 1: so therefore we need to send it back to the States,

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Speaker 1: and and on and on. Once you go to that

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Speaker 1: place like that, to me, is is attempting to overturn

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Speaker 1: the election. If you want to check that, I think

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Speaker 1: it's not just the president that you have to that

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Speaker 1: you have to check. You have to check the chief

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Speaker 1: of staff, because without chiefs of staff, without these senior

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Speaker 1: figures engaging in these operations, a president is stuck. Like

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Speaker 1: he can rant and rave all he wants, but if

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Speaker 1: all the people around him are like the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: has spoken well and the vice president's not doing your thing,

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Speaker 1: it's over. That's been one of the most interesting I

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Speaker 1: think sagas to follow. Well. It was throughout the entire

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Speaker 1: Trump White House, right, and there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: Trump people who are still very frustrated with how difficult

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Speaker 1: it was to get anything done in the administration, especially

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Speaker 1: the kind of hardcore Trump people in the administration, because

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Speaker 1: they felt like they were being blocked every step of

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Speaker 1: the way by establishment Republicans who had infiltrated the administration. Now,

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Speaker 1: Mark Mendos would not be called an establishment Republican. This guy,

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Speaker 1: he's Freedom Caucus guy. That said, I do think there

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Speaker 1: what was happening behind closed doors at the White House,

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Speaker 1: and we've seen some snippets from people who have given

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Speaker 1: their testimonies, whether being coerced or not at this point,

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Speaker 1: saying that there was a lot of resistance within the

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Speaker 1: White House to continuing to push on the election. There

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Speaker 1: was a lot of resistance I think probably on the

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Speaker 1: campaign side at some point too. But Mark Meadows obviously

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Speaker 1: isn't an interesting part of that puzzle. I do still

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Speaker 1: think at the end of the day, what Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: wanted to do, he fires people to get that stuff

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Speaker 1: done right. We've seen it if somebody gets in his way,

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Speaker 1: Rex Tillerson gets in his way, or who is the

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Speaker 1: environmental the anti environmental lawyer that he had running the

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Speaker 1: Department of Justice or anything. Yeah, So, I mean, I

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Speaker 1: don't know how much football work, even in this hypothetical

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Speaker 1: Meadows could have been. What's your sense of what his

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Speaker 1: posture was. Was he trying to slow walk or was

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Speaker 1: he like to the barricades. I don't know. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to say. It's very hard to say. So it's because

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Speaker 1: there's also there's a again that's kind of a difficult

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Speaker 1: question when you're thinking of like, what does one thing constitute.

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Speaker 1: Like if i'm are you on the Sydney Powell side

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Speaker 1: or are you on you know, the Ted Cruz side

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Speaker 1: or the Josh Holly side. Now neither side is one

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Speaker 1: that I agreed with, but there is it's night and

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Speaker 1: day between Sidney Powell and you know, voting against certifying

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Speaker 1: the electors, which people did in twenty sixteen. Democrats had

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Speaker 1: did in twenty sixteen and had predated the Trump era

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Speaker 1: certainly on a bipartisan basis. So it's started night and day,

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Speaker 1: and it's hard to peg down without being like there

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Speaker 1: and on a fly on the wall back in January

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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one to know where people stood, just

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Speaker 1: it's hard to say because those positions are slightly different.

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Speaker 1: You have to tune in for season two of the

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Speaker 1: J six hearings. That's right, knew on the True Crime John,

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Speaker 1: speaking of true crime, I was going to say, it

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Speaker 1: is produced to look a lot like true crime. And

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Speaker 1: speaking of which, should we move on to trading? Let's

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Speaker 1: move on? Yeah, So the New York Times had a

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Speaker 1: big investigation confirming what we've all known for a very

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Speaker 1: long time, which is that members of Congress have been

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Speaker 1: engaging in insider trading. What the Times adds is a

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Speaker 1: couple of things. One they add their imprimitore, so now

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Speaker 1: Pelosi's going to get asked about it and she's going

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Speaker 1: to get pressured on it. They also add numbers, so

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Speaker 1: they do a sophisticated database analysis, and they come up

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Speaker 1: with saying that roughly, so what close over ninety members

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Speaker 1: of Congress had made thousands of trades and at least

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Speaker 1: a third of them were conflicts of interest, clearly appeared

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Speaker 1: to be conflicts of interest, and they had a lot

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Speaker 1: of exclusions that would have pushed their number up even higher.

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Speaker 1: And what they were trying to say is like, we're

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Speaker 1: doing this in the most conservative pop way, and we're

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Speaker 1: still finding eye popping amounts of corruption. You know, they

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Speaker 1: carved out Pelosi for one, because she doesn't sit on

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Speaker 1: any committees, and their entire rubric was around committees. They

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Speaker 1: also carved out the Ways and Means Committee, which is

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Speaker 1: that's the communitee that does not just tax policy, but

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Speaker 1: now tax credits because and so it used to be

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Speaker 1: that that was the revenue, the ways and means that

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Speaker 1: you fund a government. Now it's also spending because we

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Speaker 1: do so much spending through tax credits, the child tax credit,

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Speaker 1: and energy tax credits, you name it. And so they said,

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Speaker 1: you know what, because these members of Congress have jurisdiction

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Speaker 1: over the entire economy, we could say that every single

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Speaker 1: one of their trades was and is a conflict of interest.

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Speaker 1: So that's the point. So they're like, therefore we're not

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Speaker 1: going to count those. It's like, okay, all right, maybe

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Speaker 1: we just don't count all of them. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: basically you could count basically every trade. Of course, because

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Speaker 1: the obviously answer they shouldn't be allowed to do this,

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Speaker 1: but they do to this now. I like I mentioned

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Speaker 1: this before, there is a kind of unspoken or unwritten

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Speaker 1: at least bargain that's gone on that members of Congress

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Speaker 1: have not gotten a raise for many years because just

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Speaker 1: the politics of voting yourself a pay increase are just

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Speaker 1: going to dominate then the next election. And they already

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Speaker 1: make a lot more than the average. They make one

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventy four thousand dollars a year, and so

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Speaker 1: it's very hard to come to somebody who's making the

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Speaker 1: median salary and say that I needed a little bit extra,

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Speaker 1: because once you're explaining, you're losing you're like, I got

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Speaker 1: an apartment in DC, I've got my family back here,

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Speaker 1: all right. AOC made the argument recently, and what was

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Speaker 1: Sean Duffy. Yeah, Sean Duffy years ago. I was sympathized

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Speaker 1: with his point one percent. I mean, he's got six

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Speaker 1: seven kids, And AOC is right, you have to maintain

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Speaker 1: two properties in very high rent areas. So it's not

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Speaker 1: the most sympathetic case, but it is somewhat valid, right,

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Speaker 1: And so the kind of unwritten bargain was like, all right,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to raise your pay, but look, look

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Speaker 1: how much money you can make on the set right,

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Speaker 1: and incentivizes absolutely. And there's a couple of things that

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Speaker 1: are like not sympathetic cases, but that do incentivize corruption Washington, DC.

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Speaker 1: One is the low amount of money, relatively low amount

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Speaker 1: of money compared to the private sector that Hill staffers make,

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Speaker 1: and the others Congress and again not sympathetic cases. You

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Speaker 1: don't want to go to the mat for that. But

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Speaker 1: I do think higher pay in both those cases would

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Speaker 1: probably disincentivize, especially on the staffing side, some revolving door activity,

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Speaker 1: because it's so incredibly lucrative to go to the other side.

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Speaker 1: And go to the dark side and to do it

428
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:37,120
Speaker 1: very quickly. But on the members side, some of them

429
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:39,879
Speaker 1: have legitimate needs for more money, but not everybody is

430
00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:42,800
Speaker 1: maintaining two properties, and most of them are still ready.

431
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:47,280
Speaker 1: See most of them are independently wealthy coming into Congress,

432
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,080
Speaker 1: so a lot of them do not have any incentive.

433
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:51,960
Speaker 1: I mean when we're looking at some of the names

434
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 1: on here, and the graphic from the tear sheet that

435
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:56,520
Speaker 1: the New York Times has is great because you see

436
00:22:56,560 --> 00:23:00,960
Speaker 1: of these one hundred and eighty three current Senator representatives

437
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:04,479
Speaker 1: who reported a stock trade or another financial asset by

438
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:07,920
Speaker 1: themselves an immediate family member. It's perfectly split down red

439
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 1: and blue, perfectly split Democrats and Republicans on both the

440
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:14,720
Speaker 1: House and the Senate side, which is just a beautiful

441
00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:17,760
Speaker 1: illustration of exactly how this works. It's like the best

442
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 1: bipartisan grift in Washington. Ryan. I'm also curious, is your

443
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 1: take the ways and means point is a really good one.

444
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 1: Some of these numbers I think are just unusual whales.

445
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 1: Tracks this like on a more and Crystal and Stacker

446
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:35,679
Speaker 1: cover unusual whales a lot, and they should covers it

447
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: on a more instantaneous basis we can say to sort

448
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:41,400
Speaker 1: of see the rolling trades that people like Paul Pelosi

449
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 1: are making, it is really difficult to look at the

450
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:49,399
Speaker 1: Times analysis. It's so general to a certain point that

451
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,880
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, so they say their wife's doing it,

452
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,200
Speaker 1: and they say that they don't ever talk to their

453
00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:59,359
Speaker 1: wife about this, or they say they never talk to

454
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:01,960
Speaker 1: their broker about this. Well, did they then talk to

455
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:04,639
Speaker 1: their spouse who then talked to their broker. There's a

456
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:06,920
Speaker 1: lot of slippery language, right, and they and they get

457
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,680
Speaker 1: into some trades and they put some of their best

458
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:12,520
Speaker 1: ones at the very top where you're like, yeah, you're

459
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 1: kind of busted, like you've got what Tommy Tuberville is

460
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: I think their first example where he's trading cattle futures

461
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: and he says it's on the Ag Committee, and he

462
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: told a reporter that, yeah, the Agg Committee's been talking

463
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: a lot about cattle. He also so he also told

464
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 1: The Times that his broker makes the trades, that he

465
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: does not the broker makes the trades, right, but that

466
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: he has nothing to do with it, right, right, exactly, yes,

467
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:39,320
Speaker 1: And so that's why, clearly, clearly the solution to this

468
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:44,360
Speaker 1: is no trading right here in Congress, because there's absolutely

469
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:47,720
Speaker 1: no legitimate way to provide oversight and to know whether

470
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:50,440
Speaker 1: they're being honest. Also, they filed their disclosures really late.

471
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:52,359
Speaker 1: In a lot of cases, they're out of compliance with

472
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 1: even the Stock Act. That's twenty twelve, right, that was

473
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 1: the twenty twelve piece of legislation. Pelosi in a banner scandal. Yeah,

474
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 1: Pelosi and Spencer bo Yeah, yeah, it was, and the

475
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: Poulos of them. Yeah. There's a study also quoted in

476
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:07,920
Speaker 1: this long Times piece. What is it from Cornell or

477
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 1: one of the I think it's from one of the

478
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:13,399
Speaker 1: IVY is showing that they didn't outperform, you know, it

479
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:17,040
Speaker 1: said the stocks didn't outperform exactly. And it's like, okay,

480
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 1: but how closely did you track that? Because you can

481
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 1: track you don't know how much they bought, but you

482
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,760
Speaker 1: know what day they bought, and so you can track

483
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 1: it that way. So but this is this is putting

484
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,359
Speaker 1: more pressure on Pelosi, who has claimed that she's going

485
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: to do something about this. She was asked about this

486
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 1: at a press conference. Let's let's roll that side here. Yeah,

487
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:36,920
Speaker 1: I'm not big on the New York Times and their

488
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: investigations but if that's what your premise is. The here's

489
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,920
Speaker 1: the thing. Members have been working on this. Just because

490
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: somebody introduces a bill doesn't mean it becomes the law

491
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: of the land. There's been discussion about it and this morning,

492
00:25:55,760 --> 00:26:00,640
Speaker 1: just recently this morning actually the committee and going back

493
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 1: and forth and they were refining things and talking to

494
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: memories about what they think will work. And we believe

495
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:11,199
Speaker 1: we have a product that we can bring to the

496
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:15,919
Speaker 1: floor this month. Exciting. Well, you know what, when the

497
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: bill comes out, you'll see what it is. And those

498
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: are some of the discussions that go back, that go

499
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: back and forth. But I'm pleased with it. It's very strong.

500
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: But again it in order just because what do they say,

501
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,479
Speaker 1: they have sixty that's not even a quarter of what

502
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:34,960
Speaker 1: we need, a third of what we need to pass

503
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,440
Speaker 1: a bill. The question from the reporter there if you

504
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: couldn't hear it, was will this include Congressional staff? Which

505
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: is a huge sticking point on the Hill because guess

506
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: who has a ton of power on other people that

507
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 1: write the bills, particularly the chiefs of staff. These are

508
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,120
Speaker 1: people who there I think their max salary is also

509
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars, which is a

510
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 1: lot of money. It's also for many of them a

511
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:01,479
Speaker 1: quarter of what they could make next week. And you know,

512
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 1: as as you get older, as you have more kids,

513
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: they call it going downtown. There's this phenomenon on the

514
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 1: hill where one kid, they might stay for a little bit,

515
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: they have their second kid, Boom, they're going downtown, going downtown.

516
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: The you know, there's at so anyway we'll find out

517
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:23,360
Speaker 1: if the if if staff are involved in this, because

518
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:26,159
Speaker 1: I think that's really essential point. I think you ought to.

519
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 1: I think the other answers you got to pay the

520
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:32,399
Speaker 1: staff a lot more, probably just as you have to.

521
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: You have to. You know, we understand this when it

522
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: comes to the CFPB, the OCC like a lot of

523
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:40,639
Speaker 1: these financial regulators, we pay them these kind of market rates,

524
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: Like a lot of some of these regulators are making

525
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 1: three four hundred thousand dollars year, which might be actually

526
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: still less than they'd be making out in the private sector.

527
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: But it's a lot of money and you can live

528
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: comfortably on it, and you don't you don't want to

529
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:56,719
Speaker 1: get into an arbitrage type of place where there there's

530
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,919
Speaker 1: so much financial incentive for you to sell sell your

531
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: self out and so the public in a lot of

532
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 1: ways is going to get what it pays for. And

533
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: if you don't, if you don't pay your public servants,

534
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: somebody else is going to pay them. Yes, that's true. Well,

535
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:12,919
Speaker 1: and the other way to attack this problem would be

536
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,199
Speaker 1: to strengthen revolving door laws. And they are some on

537
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:18,400
Speaker 1: there are obviously some on the books, but you can

538
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think a salary increases, probably especially

539
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 1: because you can actually even go back to like what

540
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 1: Nuke Gingrich's congressional reforms were in the nineties and say, frankly,

541
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:32,399
Speaker 1: Congress is understaffed and it's allowing lobbyists to do the

542
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: worst point, to privatize the lawmaking, to let special interests

543
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: come in and you know, to fill in the gaps

544
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: where there's no staff to do it. So there's like

545
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: the way that API wrote Joe Manchin's permitting reform bill,

546
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 1: like they had the stand they put it out with

547
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: the API water it. Yeah, but usually have to go

548
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 1: to the metadata to see which lobbyists wrote the legislation.

549
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: This one they just put the watermark right on it.

550
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: I also enjoyed Nancy Pelosi giving her stamp of approval

551
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: to the bills. It's very strong and I'm very pleased

552
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:04,200
Speaker 1: with it. As though that would matter to any If

553
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi is happy with a piece of bill, with

554
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 1: a piece of legislation on insider trading, I am going

555
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: to assume it is terrible or she's retiring just getting out.

556
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: Jeff Burkley also said yesterday, Senator Jeff Murley Morgan, that

557
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: doesn't look like they're going to vote on at least

558
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: in the Senate, because they need they need sixty votes

559
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: over the Senate. I think the House will still, obviously

560
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: will still vote on it, just because actually they're even

561
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: more likely to vote on it if the Senate assures

562
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 1: them that it's not going to become law. They're saying

563
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: that they're going to come back. It's going to be

564
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: an interesting lame duck because they also said they're not

565
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: going to vote on codifying marriage equality because they don't

566
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: yet have the ten Republicans that they need, but they

567
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: think that they'll be able to get them after the election,

568
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: because maybe after the election you get a bunch of

569
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 1: the retiring senators. I know Portman's retiring, Blunt's retiring. I

570
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: don't know if they're on the bill yet or not,

571
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: but they might want to not be on it for

572
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: whatever political reasons yet, but after the election you might

573
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: be able to get ten to fifteen. And I think

574
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: after the election maybe you can get ten Republicans to

575
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: sign on to a ban. But how expansive the ban

576
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: is is really important. We're gonna have Rocanna on the

577
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: show later. He won't be on during this first hour

578
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: and a half show that we're putting out because he

579
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 1: can't join till later, but we'll post his interview later

580
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: today and we'll ask him about this. He's actually mentioned

581
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: in this New York Times article because his wife is

582
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: super wealthy and his wife was trading a bunch of

583
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: stocks that he had some jurisdiction over, and we can

584
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: ask him about that. But it also raises a question,

585
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 1: what do you do about spouse's And because that's the

586
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: Pelosi it keeps always says, I don't trade any stocks.

587
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 1: Her husband's basically an investor. So what do you do

588
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 1: if you're married to an investor your spouse now has

589
00:30:55,560 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 1: to leave the industry. I'm actually okay with that. Only

590
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: four hund and thirty five members of Congress, and it

591
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: should be a privilege to serve the public. Yes, and

592
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: that means your entire family has to be along the ride.

593
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 1: But we don't have that sense of civic virtue in

594
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: this country anymore. Not the idea that I think, the

595
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: idea that a spouse should have to change their job

596
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: because somebody's serving the public, I think for most people

597
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 1: would seem radical. I think they should because it's their

598
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 1: civic duty, but I don't. I don't see much hope

599
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 1: for that. It should be shameful and it should be

600
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: embarrassing to be in Paul Pelosi's situation, which is that

601
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: you are trading on public service that you are using

602
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: or you seem like it. So you're not, but you

603
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: sure seem like it. Absolutely. I mean the is you

604
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: ever talked to your wife right like that work? They

605
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: have been doing this for years. I mean, this goes

606
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: back years and years with the pelosis. So I think

607
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: it's just utter nonsense. And the question of you know,

608
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 1: spouse's is a good one. The other thing that these

609
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: studies that claim, you know, they'd be better off if

610
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 1: they had based on the evidence, they'd have been better

611
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: off if they had their money and index funds, you're

612
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 1: not really going to be able to measure the losses

613
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: they avoid. Right, that's another if you were you sort

614
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 1: of can based on the annual rates return. I guess

615
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 1: you can. But I think it's also very difficult to

616
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 1: quantify what they're not doing. Yeah, yeah, based on information

617
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: that they might. They certainly they certainly feel like they're

618
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: doing well. Otherwise they wouldn't be resisting this in the

619
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 1: face of so much political pain. I mean, and there

620
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: are certain there are certain trades that are just glaringly obvious.

621
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 1: I mean it's almost you can just say, with like

622
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent certainty, this is what happened and you avoided.

623
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 1: I mean, the COVID stuff was a good example. Yeah, right, right,

624
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: How Richard Burr stayed out of jail like they have

625
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 1: him busted, Like coming out of that classify Chris Chris

626
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 1: Collins did go to jail. Yeah, he literally went to jail.

627
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: Burr comes out, calls his brother in law or whatever,

628
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 1: calls his broker. His brother in law and him both

629
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: all dump their stocks after coming out of this meeting,

630
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: and they seize his phone, and they do the whole

631
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: investigation and they just let it slide. SEC is apparently

632
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: still investigating him. So you know, we'll see, we'll see

633
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: where that goes. But even if when you've got somebody

634
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: dead to rights you and you can't nail them, then

635
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: you know that it's basically an unenforceable law. So you

636
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: just got to go further and just say, look, put

637
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 1: your stuff in a blind trust. Which brings us back

638
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: to Joe Manchin, who owns a coal company, and he says, well,

639
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: my coal company is in a blind trust. You know

640
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 1: what it is. It's a coal company. My coal company

641
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 1: is in a blind trust. At least that's what I'm told. Well,

642
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: run by his son. Yeah, so we have we can

643
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 1: move on, probably to the big tech segment, because there

644
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: was some underdiscussed news on this front this week. I

645
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: wouldn't say it was undercovered because a lot of people,

646
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: a lot of the outlets actually picked up on the

647
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 1: news because you had a congressional testimony from Twitter's former

648
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: security head who testified on Tuesday that quote there was

649
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: at least one age of from China's intelligence service on

650
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 1: Twitter's payroll. I'm reading from the Associated Press here, and

651
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 1: the company knowingly allowed India to add agents to the

652
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 1: company roster as well. This is coming from You probably

653
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 1: heard the name Mudge, Mudge zach Go. He's a cybersecurity expert.

654
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: He was blowing the whistle on Twitter in front of

655
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 1: the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. Ryan, what did you

656
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: make of Mudge's testimony? I think it's the China question

657
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: is an interesting one. Do you find this credible? Is

658
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:33,479
Speaker 1: it probably the most important first question? Yes, And in fact,

659
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 1: we know that Saudi Arabia ran one of these operations,

660
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: paid some engineers. Those engineers were on trial recently. So

661
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 1: this is a this is a thing that we know

662
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 1: that we know it happens, and so they don't They

663
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: clearly don't care enough to have internal controls set up.

664
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: They have obviously way too much. They give way too

665
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 1: much access to way too many people inside. There is

666
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 1: that you can just find a couple of engineers, bribe them,

667
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 1: and then you can find out you know who these

668
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 1: distant dissonant accounts are, you know where they are, who

669
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: who they're in, who they're in communication with, and it

670
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 1: can it can lead to people uh disappearing and dying

671
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: as as a result of it, And it's it's dystopian

672
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 1: and it's authoritarian, and Twitter has to uh you know,

673
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 1: ask whether or not it cares enough to do this

674
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: and or the government the public needs to, needs to

675
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:35,239
Speaker 1: needs to force them to. This was actually one of

676
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 1: my main concerns about Elon Musk buying buying, being able

677
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: to buy Twitter. H The all the culture war stuff

678
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 1: to me is a complete side show relative to his

679
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: dependence on on China. You know, he he needs he

680
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:55,440
Speaker 1: needs China for materials, for for investment, for labor. Uh.

681
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:59,800
Speaker 1: He has factories over there, like this is like these

682
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: are these are just obvious points of leverage that the

683
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: Chinese government has. If they come to him and are like, hey,

684
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 1: this person in Taiwan or Hong Kong or San Francisco

685
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: or New York, you know, said this thing and we

686
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: want we want access to their DMS, it is somebody

687
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 1: who has that much leverage over them kind of say, no,

688
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 1: you're asking to put an enormous amount of trust in

689
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 1: one person or in the infrastructure that one person oversees.

690
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 1: And I think that's what the Twitter story gets to,

691
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:37,880
Speaker 1: that that these tech companies or social media tech companies

692
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley expanded really rapidly, and their power over

693
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: our world expanded really rapidly. They were quickly became not

694
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 1: just silly ways to keep in touch with people from college,

695
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 1: they quickly became these vast data sucks and these places

696
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 1: where politics happen, these places where people's personal, professional, and

697
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 1: political lives happen. And so when you have to me,

698
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 1: what it sounds like is Twitter not taking this seriously

699
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:07,440
Speaker 1: and not being capable even of taking it seriously because

700
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: they're totally over They're totally underwater in terms of like

701
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 1: they have not been able to keep up with their

702
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 1: own power. And you've seen it before where they say,

703
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,680
Speaker 1: especially after the twenty sixteen election, where there were Russian

704
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 1: bots and everything and people were upset about that. And

705
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the Facebook memes were kind of

706
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:33,319
Speaker 1: funny and probably not super effective from Russia's, but you

707
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: saw Facebook at that point saying, we don't want this power.

708
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: Take this power from us. Congress, please like help us

709
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:42,360
Speaker 1: do this because we are not equipped, you know. But

710
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 1: it's like you built this entire platform to monetize having

711
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:48,839
Speaker 1: that power. And it's the same thing with Twitter. And

712
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: I'm not comfortable whether it's Elon Musk or Jack Dorsey

713
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 1: or whomever over Twitter, because it's one person with a truly,

714
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 1: truly unbelievable, unprecedented to amount of power over human interaction

715
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:06,920
Speaker 1: in world politics. And you just the way that our

716
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: system is set up right now, have to trust that

717
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 1: they are going to wield it in the public's interest.

718
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 1: And I would say that the answer to this, to

719
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:17,879
Speaker 1: the extent that there is an answer, is and encryption

720
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: they like they need, they need like you know, so Signal,

721
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 1: if if you paid an engineer at Signal, which is

722
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 1: a messaging app that that everybody should use, if they're not,

723
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: they don't have access to your messages like you can't.

724
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: They can't. You have the most corrupt engineer who's bought

725
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: off by five different countries. They can't get into my account.

726
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 1: They can't get into your account. There may be some

727
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 1: way that they can tell that messages are happening. I

728
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: don't know that quite the details of it. They certainly

729
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: can't read the contents. I don't know what metadata they

730
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:54,439
Speaker 1: would have access to, but at a minimum, I would

731
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 1: say that you need somebody like Twitter needs to have

732
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: end to end encryption on its on its direct messaging. Instead,

733
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: our government kind of pushes in the opposite direction. They

734
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:11,319
Speaker 1: want backdoors into encryption. They oppose encryption because it's in

735
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 1: their benefit from a law enforcement and perspective and kind

736
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: of a national security perspective that they want to be

737
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:22,040
Speaker 1: able to hoover up all of this information and they

738
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 1: want to be able to spy on everybody, So they're

739
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 1: not so keen on companies adopting encryption. But I think

740
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:34,839
Speaker 1: that if we care about privacy, and particularly care about

741
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: privacy of dissonance relative to countries that are disappearing and

742
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 1: torturing and killing them, that's the only answer. Well, and

743
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 1: it is kind of an interesting question as to how

744
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 1: they would have power over geopolitics. And you've explained this

745
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 1: a little bit, but it's true. It's through DMS. It's

746
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:57,839
Speaker 1: through the interactions that people who are engaging in our

747
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:01,399
Speaker 1: politics and our political actors are having with others. It's

748
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:05,879
Speaker 1: through what people are doing privately on the platforms, who

749
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:09,759
Speaker 1: they're communicating with, journalists, who journalists are communicating with, what

750
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 1: they're saying. All of this stuff is accessible, and we're

751
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: told that there are safeguards that prevent the wrong people

752
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: from accessing that information. But whenever you have a whistleblower

753
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 1: testimony like this come out, it confirms the obvious suspicions

754
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 1: and the series and very real suspicions. And to your point,

755
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:30,799
Speaker 1: you raised you brought this article to my attention. This

756
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 1: is a Vice headline. I think we have the tear

757
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: sheet Google DeepMind researcher co author's paper saying AI will

758
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 1: eliminate humanity. Now here's the again we're talking about there's

759
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:49,680
Speaker 1: a massive corporation. Twitter is much smaller than Google obviously

760
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:55,319
Speaker 1: and alphabet. But what's crazy about that is you realize

761
00:40:55,520 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 1: how very very rapidly these companies are doing exactly what

762
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: we can see with the with the benefit of hindsight,

763
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 1: that they were doing in like the early aughts. Right

764
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 1: now we can say the same thing, like the power

765
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: that they have is rapidly increasing. And whether or not

766
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 1: you think AI will indeed eliminate humanity, you can see

767
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: that what they're working on right now and what people

768
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 1: are working on in these spaces are going to dramatically

769
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 1: increase the power that these private companies have in some

770
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:31,800
Speaker 1: pretty unprecedented ways. AI unprecedented. There is not a precedent

771
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:37,799
Speaker 1: for that in human history, over the entire world. Essentially. Yeah,

772
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 1: and if there's a if there's a five or ten

773
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 1: percent chance of that. I think that's something we ought

774
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: to take extremely seriously. There's no there's no work in

775
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,319
Speaker 1: Congress on oversight of this at all, right now, right

776
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:53,280
Speaker 1: and you have Yeah, that's right. And we're not talking

777
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 1: necessarily about like armed robots like massacring the entire the

778
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 1: entire world over a weekend. Well, you know, it's more

779
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:06,800
Speaker 1: likely some type of power plant disruptions, nuclear plant plant destruver,

780
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:13,760
Speaker 1: like some type some some type of artificial intelligence guided

781
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: calamity that we don't see coming because we have instructed, uh,

782
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 1: these this AI to have particular goals which we don't

783
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:25,400
Speaker 1: necessarily realize or are in conflict with our with our

784
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 1: own goals. But but they do. But they do realize

785
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:33,280
Speaker 1: that as they develop whatever kind of artificial consciousness that

786
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 1: that you're thinking that you're thinking of that this is

787
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:38,400
Speaker 1: a Google uh you know engineer, you know who is

788
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:41,319
Speaker 1: who is laying this out. I think should should give

789
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: people a lot of pause. AI is going to be

790
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:47,719
Speaker 1: impossible to kind of I think at this point, you know,

791
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 1: root out, and we even necessarily want it, Like so

792
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 1: I use otter to transcribe, yes, and Otter uses AI

793
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 1: and and otter gets better and better. I do worry about.

794
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: That's a great example of some thing though, I do

795
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,359
Speaker 1: worry about, because you're transcribing conversations that dip into off

796
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:08,480
Speaker 1: the record information at times, and what's their encryption backup? Exactly.

797
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: I don't use hotter, by the way, I use a

798
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: different one. Didn't you just say I use Otter? And

799
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:19,720
Speaker 1: so you're not going to rip it out of the system.

800
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,839
Speaker 1: But there are I don't know all the details of this.

801
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: This is not up to me. This is not up

802
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 1: up to us to come up with the solutions here.

803
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 1: But there are solutions. There are people who are thinking

804
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: seriously about guardrails that can be put in place now,

805
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: like off switches in other ways to basically prevent this

806
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: from spiraling out of control. But nobody cares. Congress is

807
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:47,400
Speaker 1: perpetually ten years behind the curve on digital technology, and

808
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:49,759
Speaker 1: so ten years from now they'll figure out it's too late,

809
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:51,720
Speaker 1: in the same way that they figured out, oh, Russia

810
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 1: is paying bots to influence votes, you know, after it

811
00:43:55,040 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: had happened. It's the same thing, and it's completely actually

812
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 1: this I was down in Miami at the National Conservatism Conference,

813
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 1: and part of what I said was that we may

814
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 1: need to reinterpret labor laws for the digital age. And again,

815
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: like conservatives get really uncomfortable with that stuff, But if

816
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: they believe, for instance, in a weekend, like a five

817
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:21,320
Speaker 1: day work week, if they believe in policies against child labor,

818
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:24,879
Speaker 1: it's a matter of like really reinterpreting some of these

819
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: laws that we've said are reasonable and should govern the

820
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 1: workplace for the digital world, because people are now forced

821
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 1: to be tethered to their email until midnight, if not later,

822
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:39,439
Speaker 1: and it's really really hard for the laws to keep

823
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,319
Speaker 1: up with where technology is taking us. So it's the

824
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 1: same thing here. We need to we need to be

825
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 1: not just reinterpreting, but figuring out what the reasonable boundaries

826
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 1: for policy actions are instead of reflexively letting special interests

827
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 1: drive where they would like the boundaries to be. Because

828
00:44:56,960 --> 00:45:00,799
Speaker 1: the stuff is changing so quickly, right, we needed need

829
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:02,279
Speaker 1: to deal it or the robots are going to kill

830
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: us all, either on purpose or by accident. But they're

831
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: coming moving on from the robots. So Republican Operative and

832
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: Judge Kennis Starr died this week, and let's talk a

833
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 1: little bit about Judge Judge Starr. This is a this

834
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: is a man who had as much impact on I

835
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 1: think our politics over the last fifty years or so

836
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: is as perhaps any other in some ways. What's your

837
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 1: what's your take on the life of ken Starr? He

838
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:39,799
Speaker 1: was His death was met with very warm remembrances by

839
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 1: a lot of groups in the conservative movement over the

840
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:44,880
Speaker 1: course of the last week. Actually, one thing that stood

841
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:47,800
Speaker 1: out to me in that Peter Baker piece in the

842
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 1: New York Times, and obviously Peter Baker was it's very,

843
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:56,399
Speaker 1: very familiar with ken Starr, having covered the Clinton right,

844
00:45:56,719 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: the entire Clinton saga of the nineties that ken Starr

845
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 1: was front and center for. Peter Baker wrote, he became

846
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:05,759
Speaker 1: a rorshosh test for the post Cold War generation, a

847
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 1: hero to his admirers for taking on, in their view,

848
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 1: an indecent president who had despoiled the Oval office, and

849
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 1: a villain to his detractors, who saw him as a

850
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:19,720
Speaker 1: sex obsessed inspector javert driven by partisanship. His investigation tested

851
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: the boundaries of the Constitution when it prompted the first

852
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:24,759
Speaker 1: impeachment of a president in one hundred and thirty years,

853
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:28,319
Speaker 1: and scarred both mister Clinton's legacy and his own. Now,

854
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 1: I went and looked at what the New York Times

855
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:33,479
Speaker 1: wrote in nineteen ninety eight before the Star report came out,

856
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 1: and it's really really interesting to see not just the

857
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 1: arc of ken Starr's career, but just the arc of

858
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:44,839
Speaker 1: his investigations into the Clinton administration. There was actually optimism

859
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 1: when ken Starr was chosen to investigate Whitewater all the

860
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 1: way back in nineteen ninety four, because he had a

861
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:54,880
Speaker 1: great reputation in DC on a sort of bipartisan basis

862
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: that simply does not exist in Washington, DC anymore. There

863
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: are not a lot of Denmark Cratic aligned lawyers and

864
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 1: Republican aligned lawyers who will vouch for each other and

865
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: who would want people to be overseeing investigations into them.

866
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: And so the Clintons had an attorney, their White House

867
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 1: counsel Abner Mikvaugh, who had assured them that ken Starr

868
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:19,960
Speaker 1: would is basically the best, the best choice that they

869
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:22,839
Speaker 1: could have had Mickfith thought of Star. When Mickfeth thought

870
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: of Star, words like quote, ethical, fair, and decent came

871
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 1: to mind. And that's according to The Times, all the

872
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: way back in nineteen ninety eight. Now, the Clintons, of

873
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: course were not initially so pleased with the work of

874
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:36,920
Speaker 1: Ken Starr, right, and I'll say something nice about him. First,

875
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 1: more recently in his life, he was doing some very

876
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 1: useful and righteous death penalty work. He was working for

877
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 1: people who were either wrongfully convicted or who deserved some

878
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: sort of compassion. And I think that flowed from the

879
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 1: best of the kind of compassionate Christian kind of movement

880
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 1: that you could have seline that what happened to him,

881
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: like what happened to the fair minded, bipartisanly respected judge

882
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 1: who went in to examine Whitewater, which was this Whitewater,

883
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 1: good Lord, the most boring thing ever, really boring. It's

884
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:23,440
Speaker 1: it's it's accusation that the Clinton's basically profited somehow unfairly

885
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:26,880
Speaker 1: from some type of deals where they had some insider access.

886
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:30,919
Speaker 1: There was there ended up being no evidence for that,

887
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:35,279
Speaker 1: and so they go several years, they find every piece

888
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: of paperwork, there had been some missing documents that that

889
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:41,360
Speaker 1: elevated it to the level of let's bring in a

890
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 1: special prosecutor because they're hiding evidence or something. They found

891
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: that they found the documents, they're in some box somewhere.

892
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:49,200
Speaker 1: They looked at everything. They're like, you know what, actually

893
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 1: this is clean, like this is clean. It's complicated, it's

894
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, there's no there's no crime here. And

895
00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: so they're, you know, they're close to shutting the books

896
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:03,439
Speaker 1: on the investigation. He was investigating the death of Vince

897
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 1: Foster as well, and investigating death of Vince Foster, which

898
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 1: they concluded was was what it seemed like it was

899
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 1: that it was a suicide. Can started, right, and so

900
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:16,239
Speaker 1: then they're they're shutting the books on this, and then

901
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:20,359
Speaker 1: they keep the books open, and you know, there's uh, well,

902
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:22,960
Speaker 1: I forget was it on? FX has a good drama

903
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 1: on this, Yes, it's the Ryan Murphy drama is actually

904
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 1: very good. And Brett Kavanaugh is a main character. They

905
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 1: always call him Kavanaugh, right, just to make sure that

906
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 1: the viewer knows that this is Brett kavanaught. Brett Kavanaugh

907
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:39,240
Speaker 1: was one of the investigators that worked under Star and Kavanaugh.

908
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 1: What do we got? And so then they find the

909
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:45,560
Speaker 1: sex stuff and they started then they start trying pressure

910
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:48,080
Speaker 1: right through the Paula Jones. I mean, that's that's the

911
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: interesting thing, is it really Paula Jones is the avenue

912
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:54,400
Speaker 1: which nothing to do with Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky, right, But

913
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: what they had heard basically is that there was some

914
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 1: funny business going on, and then Linda Tripp gets involved

915
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:06,319
Speaker 1: and they go into the Lewinsky stuff. But it did

916
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:09,640
Speaker 1: start with Paula learning of Paula Jones, and no, it

917
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:11,759
Speaker 1: didn't have anything to do with Whitewater. So it's so

918
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:16,080
Speaker 1: kind of wildly outside his mandate. What do you think

919
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:19,560
Speaker 1: it was that? And it did seem like he was

920
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:26,040
Speaker 1: like genuinely offended that this hippie, like this figure of

921
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 1: the counterculture, I was out there playing jazz and engaging

922
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:35,799
Speaker 1: all this infidelity and maybe assault and the like. They

923
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:38,440
Speaker 1: include a rape allegation, a credible rape allegation, and like

924
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:42,359
Speaker 1: the footnotes of the Star Report, but then it goes

925
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 1: and then it goes from there and it just snowballs.

926
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:47,719
Speaker 1: And I remember when the Star Report came out. I

927
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:53,359
Speaker 1: was in college. It was a best seller. People, yeah

928
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 1: they were I wasn't following it very closely. It wasn't

929
00:50:56,600 --> 00:50:59,200
Speaker 1: something that people in college really cared about until the

930
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: Star Report came. I was gonna say, it seems like

931
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:04,839
Speaker 1: it was right for the college demographic. This was it

932
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 1: was the raciest thing you could possibly imagine a government

933
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 1: agency or a government prosecutor producing like a like a

934
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:15,360
Speaker 1: soft coren narrative. Came out three hundred pages, and it

935
00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 1: was selling in the college bookstore. What is going on here?

936
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:21,319
Speaker 1: Ken Starr though, expected that to be redacted, right, like

937
00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:25,279
Speaker 1: some of the Gritty stuff from Gritty as going to

938
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:28,360
Speaker 1: redact it. The House I think released an unredacted version,

939
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: and it wasn't expected. I don't know what the redactions

940
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:32,239
Speaker 1: would have looked like, but I think that was part

941
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: of the whole thing. Yeah, it's like the Trump affidavit.

942
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:38,919
Speaker 1: And so Ken start. This is interesting by the way

943
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 1: he people always reference him. He representing Big Tobacco, He

944
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:49,359
Speaker 1: represented Jeffrey Epstein. He left Baylor University over allegations that

945
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:54,240
Speaker 1: athletes were given basically special treatment in sexual assault investigations.

946
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 1: As you mentioned Ryan, he had been doing good death

947
00:51:56,640 --> 00:52:00,439
Speaker 1: penalty work, and I think respectable death penalty to work

948
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:04,319
Speaker 1: very much so. But he looking back on Lewinsky, he

949
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:08,000
Speaker 1: published a memoir in twenty eighteen, and so this was

950
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 1: like twenty years later. Did you read that one? I

951
00:52:10,719 --> 00:52:14,640
Speaker 1: didn't read it. No. I did meet Ken Starr on

952
00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 1: I think one or two occasions and who's a perfectly

953
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 1: pleasant person. But he said, quote, I deeply regret that

954
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:23,440
Speaker 1: I took on the Lewinsky phase of the investigation, but

955
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:25,279
Speaker 1: at the same time, as I still see it twenty

956
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 1: years later, there was no practical alternative to my doing.

957
00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:31,880
Speaker 1: So he said later on CBS that he regretted the

958
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: whole thing. They asked him what parts of it he regretted.

959
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:36,560
Speaker 1: He said, I regretted the whole thing, but it had

960
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:40,800
Speaker 1: to be done now. Monica Lewinsky responded, well, so Monica

961
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 1: Lewinsky responded this week, and she put out a tweet

962
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 1: that said, as I'm sure many can understand my thoughts

963
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:48,719
Speaker 1: about Ken Starr bring up complicated feelings, but of more

964
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:50,759
Speaker 1: importance is that I imagine it's a painful loss for

965
00:52:50,800 --> 00:53:00,480
Speaker 1: those who love him. From Michael Winsky totally style, I

966
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:10,400
Speaker 1: would say I think that star was in this position.

967
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier that uh, that he seemed genuinely offended

968
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 1: by Bill Clinton's presence in the Oval office. I think fine,

969
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 1: he knew the country though was would be genuinely offended

970
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:28,960
Speaker 1: to know that the president was covering up uh these relationships,

971
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:33,319
Speaker 1: was using public resources to engage in the relationships. And

972
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:35,799
Speaker 1: was not being honest about them. And so I think

973
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:40,000
Speaker 1: that put him in an extremely difficult position. There is

974
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 1: and that's what he sounds like. He's regretting. He regrets

975
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 1: being in that position, but doesn't know what else could

976
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:47,799
Speaker 1: have been done. He could have closed the investigation and

977
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:50,120
Speaker 1: then and then he could do what all honorable people

978
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:52,799
Speaker 1: washing DC just go leakally you don't like you don't

979
00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:55,760
Speaker 1: you don't like what it is like, go tell uh,

980
00:53:55,880 --> 00:54:01,200
Speaker 1: go tell David Brock about Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky

981
00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 1: and if if the if the press can like suss

982
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:07,320
Speaker 1: it out. Isakov was doing all kinds of Michael Isisakov

983
00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 1: was doing lots of reporting on that. There's Peter Baker

984
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 1: great story where he, like Isakov, like walks into the

985
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: Pentagon to find Linda Tripp, goes to her desk, and

986
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:21,000
Speaker 1: then she comes out and talks talks with him, and

987
00:54:21,080 --> 00:54:24,000
Speaker 1: that like that's the way that we've done sex scandals,

988
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 1: going back to Andrew Jackson or and before that, Like

989
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:32,279
Speaker 1: that's that's that's normal, this thing where you you throw

990
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 1: people in prison, like people forget that. Like he there

991
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:39,440
Speaker 1: were there were Clinton friends who he wanted to testify

992
00:54:40,480 --> 00:54:43,640
Speaker 1: who refused to testify, we've refused to participate in this

993
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 1: whose whose lives he utterly and completely destroyed, some of

994
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 1: whom he actually put in prison or you know, for

995
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:53,319
Speaker 1: for contempt of his subpoena. So that which is something

996
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 1: we should remember now that you know Steve Bannon is

997
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: a political prisoner. Like Ken Starr had political prisoners. He

998
00:54:59,560 --> 00:55:03,799
Speaker 1: had people who were refusing sabinas that he locked away.

999
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:06,399
Speaker 1: That's not how you have to handle things that you're

1000
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:09,720
Speaker 1: offended by. You're offended by something, it's a free country.

1001
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 1: Go tell us that you're offended by it. To turn

1002
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:14,600
Speaker 1: it into this criminal and impeachment matter, I think I

1003
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: thought it was just way overboard and also was really

1004
00:55:20,800 --> 00:55:22,920
Speaker 1: a lot of people I think effectively made the argument

1005
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: is a place that kind of broke the system as well.

1006
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: That's what I was going to ask you about, because

1007
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:30,760
Speaker 1: it's easy to look back on it in twenty twenty

1008
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 1: two when things feel so broken. It's another thing when,

1009
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:36,319
Speaker 1: especially in the conservative movement of the nineteen nineties, there

1010
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:38,800
Speaker 1: was this idea that the government had koreemed out of

1011
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:42,160
Speaker 1: control and needed to be especially the federal government and

1012
00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 1: Congress and Washington D C. It was sort of the

1013
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:47,280
Speaker 1: swamp right. It was this earlier version of the swamp

1014
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 1: narrative that things had to be brought into accountability and

1015
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:54,040
Speaker 1: into check. And that's where I'm curious from your perspective

1016
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:57,879
Speaker 1: on how this led to if you think it did.

1017
00:55:57,920 --> 00:55:59,759
Speaker 1: It sounds like you think it did. How this led

1018
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 1: to where we are? What's the sort of does does

1019
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:04,640
Speaker 1: this open the floodgates? Is maybe a good way to

1020
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:09,000
Speaker 1: ask the question. Yeah, I mean it certainly, uh sharpened

1021
00:56:09,040 --> 00:56:13,640
Speaker 1: a lot of partisan knives like it. And I think

1022
00:56:13,719 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 1: partisanship is good when it's muscled behind kind of ideological energy,

1023
00:56:20,800 --> 00:56:24,800
Speaker 1: genuine ideologically if it if it represents a political movement,

1024
00:56:26,280 --> 00:56:28,719
Speaker 1: then good, get the get the partisan knives out and

1025
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:31,799
Speaker 1: fight for your political movement. If it just if it's

1026
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 1: just two factions knifing each other over overpower to do

1027
00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:42,080
Speaker 1: nothing but screw over their enemies, and it's like, then

1028
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:45,480
Speaker 1: then what are we doing? And so, uh, you had

1029
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:49,040
Speaker 1: this entire generation that then kind of felt like it

1030
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:53,799
Speaker 1: was in actual war with the other side because we're

1031
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:59,040
Speaker 1: personal bankruptcy and prison were becoming, you know, things that

1032
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:02,440
Speaker 1: people in the poitical culture knew had happened. Either to

1033
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 1: them or to people close to them, and that really

1034
00:57:05,080 --> 00:57:08,280
Speaker 1: shaped I think the thinking of a lot of people

1035
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:12,160
Speaker 1: as as that as it. Then now everything is kind

1036
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 1: of disrupted, and the pattern is disrupted because September eleventh,

1037
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:19,520
Speaker 1: two thousand and one attacks come just three years after

1038
00:57:20,520 --> 00:57:22,520
Speaker 1: this is all this is all happening, and so it

1039
00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:26,320
Speaker 1: kind of put put a lid on things for a while.

1040
00:57:26,440 --> 00:57:29,280
Speaker 1: And then but I think it then, you know, re

1041
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:35,080
Speaker 1: emerged in this visceral way. The I would keep plugging

1042
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:38,400
Speaker 1: the FS thing because I actually thought it was pretty

1043
00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:41,440
Speaker 1: well done. But one of what it highlights is how

1044
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:44,440
Speaker 1: many people, as you say when you mentioned Kavanaugh, were

1045
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 1: around for the Whitewater investigation, for the Special Council, and

1046
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 1: for the Clinton's. I mean, the Clintons are still huge

1047
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:55,880
Speaker 1: players in our politics themselves, and so we can spend

1048
00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:58,920
Speaker 1: a lot of time talking about ken Starr and you know,

1049
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:03,080
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton and is a It's also very interesting because

1050
00:58:03,160 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 1: ken Starr has gotten a lot of flak for representing Rightfully,

1051
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:09,640
Speaker 1: gotten a lot flack for representing Jeffrey Epstein, and we

1052
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:12,680
Speaker 1: grilled Alan Dorschowitz the other week over sort of similar things.

1053
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:16,280
Speaker 1: He's Rightfully gotten caught up in that he also defended

1054
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:20,720
Speaker 1: Donald Trump in impeachment against impeachment, and in ways where

1055
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 1: he said, you know, impeachment is basically he was saying,

1056
00:58:22,680 --> 00:58:25,960
Speaker 1: it's a can of worms, and it's a deeply unpleasant

1057
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 1: process for the country and not just the person implicated.

1058
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:32,480
Speaker 1: It should be done only with up most seriousness. Now,

1059
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:36,040
Speaker 1: it is to your point, thinking of all of the

1060
00:58:36,040 --> 00:58:37,640
Speaker 1: people who went through that in the nineties, who are

1061
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:40,360
Speaker 1: now even in bigger positions of power, who have who

1062
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:42,360
Speaker 1: have moved through the House house of power in different

1063
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 1: ways in d C. You can see how how bitterly

1064
00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:50,080
Speaker 1: this would have divided people in ways that there is

1065
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:54,920
Speaker 1: no recovery from basically right, And what a what an

1066
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:57,520
Speaker 1: ironic way for him to end his career, like you said,

1067
00:58:57,560 --> 00:59:01,800
Speaker 1: with the bailor cover up of you know, sexual assault,

1068
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:05,080
Speaker 1: Like you can't you can't make this stuff up. That

1069
00:59:05,680 --> 00:59:08,400
Speaker 1: is that, this is how that that portion of his

1070
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 1: of his career ended. So I'm going to go back

1071
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:14,560
Speaker 1: and read his memoir now. It sounds fascinating. I bet

1072
00:59:14,600 --> 00:59:19,600
Speaker 1: it's very very interesting. And you know, we the monocle,

1073
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:22,280
Speaker 1: It's been very interesting to see Monica Lewins the Winsky's

1074
00:59:22,280 --> 00:59:24,640
Speaker 1: perspective played out in very high profile ways in recent

1075
00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:28,040
Speaker 1: years as well, with this totally fresh set of eyes

1076
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:31,640
Speaker 1: from America in twenty twenty two on what happened I

1077
00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:35,600
Speaker 1: bet Ken. Starr's memoir though, is probably pretty interesting too,

1078
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:38,960
Speaker 1: because it sounds like, I mean clearly it doesn't sound

1079
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:41,480
Speaker 1: like clearly he wasn't happy with the position that he

1080
00:59:41,720 --> 00:59:44,640
Speaker 1: was put in. What he chose to do with that,

1081
00:59:46,240 --> 00:59:50,880
Speaker 1: Ryan has some thoughts on. Ryan also has some great

1082
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:55,200
Speaker 1: reporting in The Intercept this week on Afghanistan and on

1083
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:58,800
Speaker 1: the funds from the Afghan Central Bank. So let's move

1084
00:59:58,840 --> 01:00:02,240
Speaker 1: on to that. Here's the headline from Ryan at the Intercept.

1085
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:04,720
Speaker 1: Us to release stole an Afghan Central Bank funds to

1086
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:08,480
Speaker 1: Swiss Bank. It's always a Swiss bank, Swiss Bank. About

1087
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:11,080
Speaker 1: the story, tell about it in the Swiss Bank. Tell

1088
01:00:11,160 --> 01:00:13,640
Speaker 1: us how you went about getting comment from the Taliban?

1089
01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:17,480
Speaker 1: Oh yes, so write in this story. I've been trying to.

1090
01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: I've been reaching out to the Taliban for comment when

1091
01:00:21,160 --> 01:00:23,520
Speaker 1: I write about Afghanistan for a couple of years now,

1092
01:00:24,360 --> 01:00:26,520
Speaker 1: I think, you know, pre dating when they took over,

1093
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:29,120
Speaker 1: because it's just what you're supposed to do, like and

1094
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 1: actually was a non go Paul who I had on

1095
01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:38,640
Speaker 1: Deconstructed podcast once, who wrote the book No Good Men

1096
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:42,200
Speaker 1: among the Living, which is maybe the best book I've

1097
01:00:42,240 --> 01:00:47,040
Speaker 1: ever read, but definitely the best book about Afghanistan. Just

1098
01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:50,640
Speaker 1: just an incredible piece of work. I think it's one

1099
01:00:50,640 --> 01:00:54,440
Speaker 1: of the greatest kind of writers slash reporters that that's

1100
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:57,200
Speaker 1: that's working today. And I asked him, was like, how

1101
01:00:57,200 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 1: do you you got a good contact over there? And

1102
01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:01,240
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, try try a couple of these people.

1103
01:01:01,280 --> 01:01:04,280
Speaker 1: And they eventually got me to a guy who is

1104
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 1: the Taliban spokesperson job, but he's his official titles head

1105
01:01:10,240 --> 01:01:13,000
Speaker 1: of the political office. It's a and yeah, I mean

1106
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:16,040
Speaker 1: I assume as you interact with them now they are

1107
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:20,680
Speaker 1: a government there. And I asked another Taliban sort. I

1108
01:01:20,680 --> 01:01:22,360
Speaker 1: was like, his name's Sue Heale. Sheenos like, is Sue

1109
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:26,400
Speaker 1: Hale still spokesperson? They're like, yep, ping Sue Hail. Maybe

1110
01:01:26,400 --> 01:01:28,520
Speaker 1: we can put that put that, we can read their

1111
01:01:28,520 --> 01:01:30,480
Speaker 1: comment up and then we can get into the context

1112
01:01:31,000 --> 01:01:33,640
Speaker 1: of the story. I think that is if that's tear

1113
01:01:33,680 --> 01:01:36,920
Speaker 1: sheet e four, start with that one now. But basically

1114
01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 1: what the Taliban is saying here is that actually I

1115
01:01:40,840 --> 01:01:42,560
Speaker 1: know how my glasses on Can you read that? Yeah,

1116
01:01:43,040 --> 01:01:46,480
Speaker 1: they Afghanistan Bank funds belonged to the da B and

1117
01:01:46,520 --> 01:01:49,320
Speaker 1: should be returned to Afghanistan, said sue Hail Shan, a

1118
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:51,360
Speaker 1: spokesperson for the Taliban who serves as head of the

1119
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:54,240
Speaker 1: Political Office. In this critical time when ninety nine percent

1120
01:01:54,280 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 1: of Afghans are living under the poverty line, it is

1121
01:01:56,680 --> 01:02:00,800
Speaker 1: direly needed that the reserves will return to the country, right. So,

1122
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:04,040
Speaker 1: so basically what happened is that during the occupation, the

1123
01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:07,320
Speaker 1: United States set up the DAB Afghanistan Bank, which is

1124
01:02:07,360 --> 01:02:11,040
Speaker 1: the central bank modeled on the US Federal Reserve, staffed

1125
01:02:11,040 --> 01:02:15,320
Speaker 1: it with Americans. There's still at least one American shame Robbie,

1126
01:02:15,480 --> 01:02:19,040
Speaker 1: who we had on on Rising. He lives in uh Maryland.

1127
01:02:19,520 --> 01:02:22,360
Speaker 1: He's one of the only one of five central bankers

1128
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:26,440
Speaker 1: on the Afghanistan Central Bank. So it built up foreign

1129
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:30,960
Speaker 1: currency reserves through uh you know, through its monetary policy

1130
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 1: of to the tune of about nine billion dollars UH.

1131
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:37,920
Speaker 1: Seven billion dollars of those reserves were being held by

1132
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:41,479
Speaker 1: the New York Federal Reserve during the occupation. About two

1133
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:45,600
Speaker 1: billion were being held by the European unions, uh, you know,

1134
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:48,919
Speaker 1: whatever their New York Federal Reserve version is over there.

1135
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:54,000
Speaker 1: Uh when when when kabble fell to the Taliban, the

1136
01:02:54,120 --> 01:02:58,400
Speaker 1: US froze the money, So we're and and also instructed

1137
01:02:58,440 --> 01:03:02,040
Speaker 1: the EU freeze freeze there two billion dollars as well.

1138
01:03:02,360 --> 01:03:04,720
Speaker 1: Also instructed the IMF and World Bank to halt all

1139
01:03:05,040 --> 01:03:09,200
Speaker 1: projects that were ongoing in Afghanistan and all lending. And

1140
01:03:09,280 --> 01:03:15,600
Speaker 1: so what predictably happened was the currency completely collapsed. And

1141
01:03:15,720 --> 01:03:18,920
Speaker 1: you think we have bad inflation here, the inflation over

1142
01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:23,440
Speaker 1: there went completely insane. Government employees, which makes up a

1143
01:03:23,520 --> 01:03:28,080
Speaker 1: huge portion teachers and others, were no longer getting paychecks.

1144
01:03:29,200 --> 01:03:30,960
Speaker 1: If you went to the bank, sometimes you'd have to

1145
01:03:30,960 --> 01:03:32,760
Speaker 1: wait days and you could only get up to a

1146
01:03:32,760 --> 01:03:37,760
Speaker 1: couple hundred dollars at a time. Imports basically ceased because

1147
01:03:37,960 --> 01:03:41,000
Speaker 1: you need the central bank to balance the export payments.

1148
01:03:41,400 --> 01:03:44,360
Speaker 1: They don't even have the ability to print their own currency.

1149
01:03:44,480 --> 01:03:46,720
Speaker 1: They had a contract with it was either a Polish

1150
01:03:46,760 --> 01:03:50,920
Speaker 1: or Romanian currency printing company, and US stepped in and

1151
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:53,400
Speaker 1: halted that too, so even though they had already put

1152
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:56,360
Speaker 1: in the order for their cash, which is called the

1153
01:03:56,400 --> 01:04:01,080
Speaker 1: Afghani And they get really upset if you call people Afghanis.

1154
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:04,640
Speaker 1: They're like, that's our currency. We're Afghans, not Afghanis. So

1155
01:04:04,680 --> 01:04:07,040
Speaker 1: that's just a little think for the next for the

1156
01:04:07,040 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 1: next Afghan person you made, don't call them in Afghany,

1157
01:04:09,880 --> 01:04:13,280
Speaker 1: being like it's like being called a dollar. And so

1158
01:04:14,040 --> 01:04:18,640
Speaker 1: the result is this dystopian situation that's almost unique in

1159
01:04:18,680 --> 01:04:21,720
Speaker 1: American history in the sense that everywhere you look, the

1160
01:04:21,760 --> 01:04:24,960
Speaker 1: shops have food there like there is enough food in

1161
01:04:25,000 --> 01:04:27,680
Speaker 1: the country. There is a there's a drought there, there

1162
01:04:27,760 --> 01:04:31,360
Speaker 1: is a crisis like the there would be economic difficulties

1163
01:04:31,560 --> 01:04:36,000
Speaker 1: obviously going on without this, but there isn't enough food

1164
01:04:36,040 --> 01:04:40,040
Speaker 1: for everybody. Yet you have people starving to death, you

1165
01:04:40,080 --> 01:04:41,920
Speaker 1: have people selling their kidneys, you have more than a

1166
01:04:41,960 --> 01:04:44,960
Speaker 1: million people have fled to Iran, not for reasons of

1167
01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:49,200
Speaker 1: political persecutions. They're getting treated absolutely horribly in Iran, but

1168
01:04:49,240 --> 01:04:52,040
Speaker 1: they're they're starving to death, and so they're they're fleeing

1169
01:04:52,040 --> 01:04:56,439
Speaker 1: the country because nobody has access to the money needed

1170
01:04:56,480 --> 01:04:58,720
Speaker 1: to buy the food that is everywhere. It's just such

1171
01:04:58,720 --> 01:05:02,160
Speaker 1: an insant situation. And so and because here in the

1172
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:04,080
Speaker 1: United States, everybody just says, well, what are you going

1173
01:05:04,160 --> 01:05:05,960
Speaker 1: to do? Give the towel ban money so they can

1174
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:07,919
Speaker 1: just spend it on terrorism. It's like, no, we set

1175
01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:12,280
Speaker 1: up a central bank that operates independently, whose job it

1176
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:15,240
Speaker 1: is to engage in currency auctions, keep the currency stable

1177
01:05:15,560 --> 01:05:18,840
Speaker 1: and to combat inflation. If we don't like the way

1178
01:05:18,880 --> 01:05:21,360
Speaker 1: that they're doing that, we could instantly freeze the money again,

1179
01:05:21,640 --> 01:05:23,520
Speaker 1: like there's there's It's not like we're going to dump

1180
01:05:23,560 --> 01:05:26,240
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars in cash just on the runway and

1181
01:05:26,320 --> 01:05:28,920
Speaker 1: then and then get and then walk away. And so

1182
01:05:29,120 --> 01:05:32,000
Speaker 1: what I reported this week is that they've finally come

1183
01:05:32,080 --> 01:05:34,760
Speaker 1: up with this solution. They're going to take three and

1184
01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:36,480
Speaker 1: a half billion of it, and they're still going to

1185
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:39,160
Speaker 1: hold that for the small number of nine to eleven

1186
01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:43,640
Speaker 1: plaintiff families, which they're they will probably lose that case,

1187
01:05:43,760 --> 01:05:45,800
Speaker 1: by the way, but for now, they're going to send

1188
01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:47,800
Speaker 1: three and a half billion dollars to this Swiss Bank

1189
01:05:47,960 --> 01:05:51,960
Speaker 1: Bank of International Settlements, and they're they're instructing the EU

1190
01:05:52,120 --> 01:05:53,960
Speaker 1: to release their two billions, so they'll have five and

1191
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:57,439
Speaker 1: a half billion dollars which they'll be able to use

1192
01:05:57,440 --> 01:06:00,440
Speaker 1: for and they're setting up a trustees ship they'll be

1193
01:06:00,440 --> 01:06:02,919
Speaker 1: able to use for monetary policy, which is good, which

1194
01:06:02,960 --> 01:06:06,680
Speaker 1: is the appropriate use of that money, but also they're

1195
01:06:06,720 --> 01:06:10,400
Speaker 1: instructing it to be used for humanitarian purposes like buying

1196
01:06:10,720 --> 01:06:14,800
Speaker 1: paying for electricity and paying for other imports, which it

1197
01:06:14,920 --> 01:06:17,560
Speaker 1: sounds good but is not good because it would be

1198
01:06:17,560 --> 01:06:21,080
Speaker 1: as if the Federal Reserve stepped in and just started

1199
01:06:21,080 --> 01:06:24,240
Speaker 1: buying oil for everybody. Like, then what happens then, what

1200
01:06:24,280 --> 01:06:26,080
Speaker 1: happens when the Federal Reserve is back out of money?

1201
01:06:26,120 --> 01:06:28,840
Speaker 1: M hm, Well, the FED is the head of an empire.

1202
01:06:28,840 --> 01:06:30,680
Speaker 1: They can print more money. But imagine you're not the

1203
01:06:30,680 --> 01:06:33,600
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve, you're the Afghanistan Central Bank. When their reserve,

1204
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:35,840
Speaker 1: if they draw their reserves all the way down, then

1205
01:06:35,880 --> 01:06:38,760
Speaker 1: they're right back in the situation they're in today, unable

1206
01:06:38,800 --> 01:06:42,600
Speaker 1: to stabilize their currency, balance their payments. And so they

1207
01:06:42,600 --> 01:06:45,480
Speaker 1: did set up a process that will allow them to

1208
01:06:45,520 --> 01:06:48,360
Speaker 1: return the money to the Afghan Central Bank. Maybe they're

1209
01:06:48,400 --> 01:06:50,920
Speaker 1: kicking it past the mid terms. They set up three

1210
01:06:50,920 --> 01:06:55,640
Speaker 1: different criteria which seem easy to meet. But so that's

1211
01:06:55,680 --> 01:06:57,840
Speaker 1: where that's where we are. That's where we are now.

1212
01:06:58,080 --> 01:07:00,200
Speaker 1: It's one of the things you said, Really, I was

1213
01:07:00,240 --> 01:07:03,120
Speaker 1: thinking about it last night actually, So it's almost unprecedented

1214
01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:07,880
Speaker 1: in American history and It's kind of an odd statement

1215
01:07:08,040 --> 01:07:12,560
Speaker 1: on what modern war looks like because in the past,

1216
01:07:12,680 --> 01:07:17,560
Speaker 1: like for most of human history, the idea of negotiating

1217
01:07:17,680 --> 01:07:21,280
Speaker 1: this way and the idea of these funds being frozen

1218
01:07:21,560 --> 01:07:24,560
Speaker 1: and being you know, it just it's it's very strange

1219
01:07:25,120 --> 01:07:27,520
Speaker 1: the way this war transpired and the way that the

1220
01:07:27,600 --> 01:07:30,280
Speaker 1: United States was not really fighting for land and the

1221
01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:32,480
Speaker 1: entire mission of the war was strange. And so then

1222
01:07:32,520 --> 01:07:34,040
Speaker 1: it's like, well, what do you do with the funds?

1223
01:07:34,560 --> 01:07:37,000
Speaker 1: Do you give them to the Taliban which you initially

1224
01:07:37,160 --> 01:07:42,080
Speaker 1: were fighting but decided that it's embarrassing, right, Yeah, exactly exactly,

1225
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:44,880
Speaker 1: And you know, the Biden administration doesn't want to be

1226
01:07:44,880 --> 01:07:48,120
Speaker 1: seen saying Republicans going out and saying the Biden administration,

1227
01:07:48,480 --> 01:07:51,560
Speaker 1: you know, absolutely just funded the Taliban, et cetera, et cetera.

1228
01:07:51,600 --> 01:07:53,840
Speaker 1: But the nuance that you point out, and it looks

1229
01:07:53,880 --> 01:07:57,000
Speaker 1: like they're getting closer to I wonder what your perspective

1230
01:07:57,080 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: is on why that was lost for a year, right,

1231
01:08:00,400 --> 01:08:03,000
Speaker 1: why basically it was just this black and white conversation.

1232
01:08:03,040 --> 01:08:04,520
Speaker 1: Because you've been covering this a lot, and over the

1233
01:08:04,560 --> 01:08:07,360
Speaker 1: course the last year, and I've been following your reporting,

1234
01:08:07,720 --> 01:08:11,960
Speaker 1: there was always a middle ground. But even though there

1235
01:08:11,960 --> 01:08:14,040
Speaker 1: was always a middle ground, that seems perfectly reasonable to

1236
01:08:14,080 --> 01:08:18,320
Speaker 1: me and like something that would hardly be enormously controversial

1237
01:08:18,960 --> 01:08:23,160
Speaker 1: because it's not a huge headline banner news story anyway.

1238
01:08:24,080 --> 01:08:27,680
Speaker 1: Why was that lost? I think maybe some inertia, some

1239
01:08:27,800 --> 01:08:30,960
Speaker 1: spie and some politics. Maybe that's the Maybe that's the

1240
01:08:31,000 --> 01:08:34,960
Speaker 1: soup that they were dining out on there and nobody cared.

1241
01:08:35,320 --> 01:08:38,439
Speaker 1: Like It's just it's just a deep level of cruelty.

1242
01:08:38,479 --> 01:08:40,719
Speaker 1: I think that's what it seems like to me. Yeah,

1243
01:08:40,760 --> 01:08:44,080
Speaker 1: And it's a callousness. It's I think it's a crime

1244
01:08:44,120 --> 01:08:48,479
Speaker 1: against humanity that that rival some of the greatest of

1245
01:08:48,520 --> 01:08:52,240
Speaker 1: the of the twentieth century, like to just with a

1246
01:08:52,520 --> 01:08:54,960
Speaker 1: press of a button at the New York Federal Reserve,

1247
01:08:55,600 --> 01:09:00,280
Speaker 1: to drive millions of people into starvation, like the mostful

1248
01:09:00,320 --> 01:09:04,920
Speaker 1: way to die, like and what people like the kidney

1249
01:09:04,920 --> 01:09:07,880
Speaker 1: example is just the kind of the most vivid. But

1250
01:09:08,120 --> 01:09:13,160
Speaker 1: people are selling their children, people are selling their furniture

1251
01:09:13,800 --> 01:09:16,640
Speaker 1: in order to get food. People are then burning the

1252
01:09:16,680 --> 01:09:20,640
Speaker 1: remainder of their furniture to stay warm, all which are

1253
01:09:20,760 --> 01:09:23,599
Speaker 1: just you know, solutions that and these are people who

1254
01:09:24,800 --> 01:09:28,240
Speaker 1: have money. It's like in the bank they just they

1255
01:09:28,320 --> 01:09:30,719
Speaker 1: just can't get it because the US pressed a button

1256
01:09:31,320 --> 01:09:33,840
Speaker 1: and shut and shut the economy down and people people

1257
01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:35,800
Speaker 1: might go jump into the commons and be like, well,

1258
01:09:35,880 --> 01:09:38,479
Speaker 1: during the potato famine, you know, Ireland was growing enough

1259
01:09:38,479 --> 01:09:40,640
Speaker 1: food to feed everyone in Ireland. Yes, that's true, and

1260
01:09:40,680 --> 01:09:43,040
Speaker 1: that's why we call it a British genocide. They were

1261
01:09:43,040 --> 01:09:45,600
Speaker 1: exporting that food. It wasn't as if the food was

1262
01:09:45,600 --> 01:09:48,080
Speaker 1: just sitting in front of people, right and they were

1263
01:09:48,280 --> 01:09:50,280
Speaker 1: and they were unable to get it. It was like,

1264
01:09:50,479 --> 01:09:53,240
Speaker 1: you know, guards were like marshaling it out of out

1265
01:09:53,280 --> 01:09:55,599
Speaker 1: of the country. This the food is there. So answer

1266
01:09:55,680 --> 01:09:58,080
Speaker 1: the devil's advocate question that is probably on a lot

1267
01:09:58,080 --> 01:10:02,160
Speaker 1: of people's minds. What are the risks then, of releasing

1268
01:10:02,200 --> 01:10:05,160
Speaker 1: funds to the Taliban and to your point, just pushing

1269
01:10:05,160 --> 01:10:07,479
Speaker 1: a button. I mean, it sounds like the most reasonable

1270
01:10:07,520 --> 01:10:09,840
Speaker 1: solution is more than just pushing a button. Pushing a

1271
01:10:09,840 --> 01:10:12,679
Speaker 1: button and finding the right route for it to take

1272
01:10:12,760 --> 01:10:16,599
Speaker 1: to be in better hands. What are the risks? So

1273
01:10:16,840 --> 01:10:21,320
Speaker 1: the risks would be that the Taliban is so let's say,

1274
01:10:21,479 --> 01:10:23,720
Speaker 1: so Shah May Robby at the banker, you know, the

1275
01:10:23,720 --> 01:10:26,200
Speaker 1: central banker that we've interviewed has has said, let's just

1276
01:10:26,200 --> 01:10:27,920
Speaker 1: start with I forget it was seen one hundred and

1277
01:10:27,920 --> 01:10:30,800
Speaker 1: fifty million a month or a week. That will and

1278
01:10:30,840 --> 01:10:33,400
Speaker 1: then we'll use that for currency auctions, which then stabilizes

1279
01:10:33,520 --> 01:10:38,160
Speaker 1: the currency and projects confidence into the economy, gets cash

1280
01:10:38,160 --> 01:10:40,920
Speaker 1: into the banks, gets cash into the economy. Let's say

1281
01:10:40,960 --> 01:10:44,240
Speaker 1: you do that. The worst case scenario there Taliban shows

1282
01:10:44,320 --> 01:10:47,920
Speaker 1: up with AK forty seven's and says, actually, this one

1283
01:10:47,960 --> 01:10:50,960
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars is hours. We're seizing it.

1284
01:10:51,960 --> 01:10:56,680
Speaker 1: We're using it for whatever nefarious purposes we you know,

1285
01:10:57,120 --> 01:10:58,960
Speaker 1: the worst thing that you can imagine the Taliban might

1286
01:10:59,000 --> 01:11:01,400
Speaker 1: use one hundred and fifty million dollars for. If they

1287
01:11:01,400 --> 01:11:06,880
Speaker 1: did that, the next shipment just gets paused. So but

1288
01:11:06,960 --> 01:11:09,040
Speaker 1: you still had already handed over, Yeah, one hundred and

1289
01:11:09,040 --> 01:11:12,720
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars, which I mean, like, I think people

1290
01:11:12,760 --> 01:11:14,879
Speaker 1: would think that that's a lot of money. The Taliban

1291
01:11:14,920 --> 01:11:17,559
Speaker 1: would not do that, though, And the reason they wouldn't

1292
01:11:17,560 --> 01:11:20,920
Speaker 1: do that because is because they don't want to oversee

1293
01:11:21,600 --> 01:11:24,439
Speaker 1: an economy where ninety nine percent of the people are

1294
01:11:24,439 --> 01:11:27,599
Speaker 1: living under the poverty line, where millions of people only

1295
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:30,000
Speaker 1: thirty million people in the country, where millions are fleeing

1296
01:11:30,920 --> 01:11:35,479
Speaker 1: and where most importantly, the al Qaeda branch over there,

1297
01:11:35,479 --> 01:11:38,519
Speaker 1: the Isis branch over there gain in power as people

1298
01:11:38,560 --> 01:11:41,760
Speaker 1: become more more more desperate and so and as the

1299
01:11:41,880 --> 01:11:44,880
Speaker 1: United States is more easily blamed for their desperation. Right

1300
01:11:44,920 --> 01:11:47,200
Speaker 1: and then and then you and then you come in

1301
01:11:47,240 --> 01:11:51,120
Speaker 1: and say, Wow, the Taliban were moderate compared to you know,

1302
01:11:51,160 --> 01:11:53,320
Speaker 1: the people that have come in and replaced the Taliban

1303
01:11:53,400 --> 01:11:56,800
Speaker 1: because of because of this and the other. What I

1304
01:11:56,640 --> 01:11:58,880
Speaker 1: what I would seems like we would have figured that

1305
01:11:58,960 --> 01:12:02,840
Speaker 1: one out right, And what I would ask people is like, what,

1306
01:12:03,240 --> 01:12:07,599
Speaker 1: like where is where? What's your goal here other than

1307
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:10,280
Speaker 1: just spite, other than saying I don't want to give

1308
01:12:10,439 --> 01:12:15,000
Speaker 1: the Taliban central bank any money? Like why, Like, what's

1309
01:12:15,040 --> 01:12:18,120
Speaker 1: the goal there? Do you think that if you drive

1310
01:12:18,240 --> 01:12:20,639
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of the population under the poverty line,

1311
01:12:20,880 --> 01:12:24,400
Speaker 1: that then the people will overthrow the Taliban and replace

1312
01:12:24,479 --> 01:12:27,240
Speaker 1: them with a liberal democratic government that is supportive of

1313
01:12:27,240 --> 01:12:31,080
Speaker 1: the United States and supportive of the West, Like why

1314
01:12:31,120 --> 01:12:35,840
Speaker 1: would that happen under those circumstances when we couldn't make

1315
01:12:35,880 --> 01:12:39,960
Speaker 1: it stick with twenty years of occupation. If you do

1316
01:12:40,280 --> 01:12:44,680
Speaker 1: and foment some type of revolt in Afghanistan, it's just

1317
01:12:44,800 --> 01:12:48,200
Speaker 1: going to be isis that that steps in and takes

1318
01:12:48,200 --> 01:12:51,439
Speaker 1: whatever modicum of power is left the vacuum, right, So

1319
01:12:51,880 --> 01:12:54,639
Speaker 1: I don't quite understand. So yeah, I think the absolute

1320
01:12:54,640 --> 01:12:56,559
Speaker 1: worst case scenario, you send one hundred and fifty million

1321
01:12:56,600 --> 01:12:59,960
Speaker 1: dollars in there, and before it gets to the banks

1322
01:13:00,280 --> 01:13:03,519
Speaker 1: and before it's able to pay for imports, it's just

1323
01:13:03,560 --> 01:13:06,519
Speaker 1: seized by the Taliban. But why on earth would they

1324
01:13:06,520 --> 01:13:10,960
Speaker 1: do that and then cost themselves because they could make

1325
01:13:11,120 --> 01:13:14,320
Speaker 1: so they could actually make much more money by getting

1326
01:13:14,320 --> 01:13:19,519
Speaker 1: the economy going again and actually actually having economic activity

1327
01:13:19,520 --> 01:13:22,720
Speaker 1: that you can then tax. Now the real risk though,

1328
01:13:22,760 --> 01:13:26,719
Speaker 1: is the Taliban harboring people like al Qaeda, and isis

1329
01:13:26,760 --> 01:13:28,640
Speaker 1: that's why we went to war with them in the

1330
01:13:28,640 --> 01:13:31,360
Speaker 1: first place. They're harboring al Qaeda. They're now at war

1331
01:13:31,400 --> 01:13:34,200
Speaker 1: with al Qaeda again, and they don't have ambitions of

1332
01:13:34,240 --> 01:13:38,479
Speaker 1: attacking the United States yet. Again, you'd think that after

1333
01:13:38,720 --> 01:13:41,120
Speaker 1: twenty years of war in both Afghanistan and I Rock,

1334
01:13:41,160 --> 01:13:43,200
Speaker 1: where we saw similar things play out, where we saw

1335
01:13:43,240 --> 01:13:47,680
Speaker 1: the radicalization happening in the shadow of some similar problems,

1336
01:13:47,720 --> 01:13:50,639
Speaker 1: that we would be Although it sounds like as they're

1337
01:13:50,680 --> 01:13:53,360
Speaker 1: walking towards the solution that you're reporting on. It's sounds

1338
01:13:53,400 --> 01:13:55,800
Speaker 1: like there may be some awareness of that. Yeah, And

1339
01:13:56,360 --> 01:13:57,680
Speaker 1: for people who want to read more about it, and

1340
01:13:57,800 --> 01:13:59,439
Speaker 1: you could throw up. I think it's a second tear

1341
01:13:59,479 --> 01:14:04,519
Speaker 1: sheet written by a guy who oversaw the Ecuadorian Central Bank,

1342
01:14:05,560 --> 01:14:08,560
Speaker 1: written for the Center for Economic and Policy Research. You

1343
01:14:08,600 --> 01:14:11,160
Speaker 1: can find that piece. Oh, that's that's actually the that's

1344
01:14:11,200 --> 01:14:14,000
Speaker 1: the details of how they're releasing the money, which came

1345
01:14:14,040 --> 01:14:17,639
Speaker 1: out the day after my report, which was fun. There

1346
01:14:17,680 --> 01:14:19,799
Speaker 1: you go. So the other one, the Center for Econowed

1347
01:14:19,840 --> 01:14:22,200
Speaker 1: Policy and Research ran a piece by a guy over

1348
01:14:22,280 --> 01:14:24,519
Speaker 1: who ran the Ecuadorian Central Bank, and he wrote about

1349
01:14:24,520 --> 01:14:30,639
Speaker 1: how global politics kept getting Ecuadorian central bank money seized

1350
01:14:30,680 --> 01:14:32,680
Speaker 1: all over the country and the way it drove there

1351
01:14:32,920 --> 01:14:36,040
Speaker 1: drove their economy completely wild. And you're right, we're in

1352
01:14:36,080 --> 01:14:38,240
Speaker 1: these modern times. We fight wars in different ways, and

1353
01:14:38,280 --> 01:14:41,840
Speaker 1: it's with these bankers and these keystrokes. Yeah, which is

1354
01:14:41,880 --> 01:14:47,840
Speaker 1: extremely strange. Right, And speaking of your reporting, actually you

1355
01:14:47,920 --> 01:14:50,479
Speaker 1: have more of it, I believe to share with us

1356
01:14:50,560 --> 01:14:53,559
Speaker 1: right now. So what have you got today? Oh, that's right,

1357
01:14:53,600 --> 01:14:55,760
Speaker 1: we do, and that's what we're doing next. These used

1358
01:14:55,800 --> 01:14:59,240
Speaker 1: to be radars. What are we calling them now counterpoints.

1359
01:14:59,280 --> 01:15:03,960
Speaker 1: I counter man's putting his classes on the counterpoint, all right. So,

1360
01:15:04,080 --> 01:15:07,679
Speaker 1: House Republicans plan to launch a variety of investigations into

1361
01:15:08,160 --> 01:15:10,960
Speaker 1: the US Chamber of Commerce and many of its largest

1362
01:15:11,000 --> 01:15:14,679
Speaker 1: member corporations if they retake the majority in November. According

1363
01:15:14,720 --> 01:15:17,040
Speaker 1: to a Republican member of Congress who spoke to me

1364
01:15:17,320 --> 01:15:20,280
Speaker 1: on the condition of anonymity so that he could discuss

1365
01:15:20,320 --> 01:15:23,719
Speaker 1: plans that have yet to be announced, the probes would

1366
01:15:23,720 --> 01:15:31,520
Speaker 1: look specifically into the Chamber of Commerce's relationship with EESG,

1367
01:15:31,760 --> 01:15:33,960
Speaker 1: which I'll get into a moment. And what it does

1368
01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:36,960
Speaker 1: is it marries the kind of the hostility to the

1369
01:15:37,080 --> 01:15:40,120
Speaker 1: Chamber with the party's mission to undermine the growth of

1370
01:15:40,160 --> 01:15:44,439
Speaker 1: the so called ESG investment sector. So ESG, which stands

1371
01:15:44,439 --> 01:15:48,680
Speaker 1: for Environmental, Social and Governance Criteria, has enough power to

1372
01:15:48,800 --> 01:15:53,679
Speaker 1: shape company valuations and behavior and has become a major

1373
01:15:53,800 --> 01:15:57,760
Speaker 1: Conservative source of consternation, with Republicans arguing that companies who

1374
01:15:57,840 --> 01:16:01,280
Speaker 1: follow it are breaking with their fiducia duty to maximize

1375
01:16:01,320 --> 01:16:05,320
Speaker 1: profits for investors. They're particularly in rage that ESG has

1376
01:16:05,360 --> 01:16:09,360
Speaker 1: the capacity to harm fossil fuel companies. A House Republican

1377
01:16:09,640 --> 01:16:12,760
Speaker 1: put it to me like this, So, how is it

1378
01:16:12,800 --> 01:16:16,439
Speaker 1: again that you can discourage investment in American energy when

1379
01:16:16,479 --> 01:16:19,000
Speaker 1: you own or when you're controlling board seats of an

1380
01:16:19,040 --> 01:16:22,479
Speaker 1: American energy company, but you're pushing it offshore to a

1381
01:16:22,560 --> 01:16:26,480
Speaker 1: Chinese energy company. Tell me you didn't violate your fiduciary

1382
01:16:26,560 --> 01:16:29,800
Speaker 1: duty somehow. Then you throw that over into the Judiciary

1383
01:16:29,800 --> 01:16:32,519
Speaker 1: committee hearings and you say, how do you reconcile this

1384
01:16:32,560 --> 01:16:36,080
Speaker 1: from an antitrust perspective? How can somebody actually be duty

1385
01:16:36,120 --> 01:16:39,040
Speaker 1: of care to the shareholders of one entity when your

1386
01:16:39,080 --> 01:16:42,240
Speaker 1: duty of care to the Chinese Communist parties controlled energy

1387
01:16:42,280 --> 01:16:46,839
Speaker 1: company unquote. So the GOP's war on today's Chamber of Commerce,

1388
01:16:46,880 --> 01:16:49,360
Speaker 1: which is a stunning turnaround from just a few years ago,

1389
01:16:49,920 --> 01:16:53,000
Speaker 1: has deep roots actually in the conservative movement, dating back

1390
01:16:53,200 --> 01:16:56,040
Speaker 1: to the movement that formed around Barry Goldwater in the

1391
01:16:56,120 --> 01:16:59,400
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties. So, at the height of

1392
01:16:59,439 --> 01:17:02,320
Speaker 1: the New Deal after World War Two, Democrats and liberal

1393
01:17:02,320 --> 01:17:07,559
Speaker 1: Republicans were united in the belief that cooperation between big business,

1394
01:17:07,680 --> 01:17:10,639
Speaker 1: big labor, and government was the secret to the era's

1395
01:17:10,680 --> 01:17:14,400
Speaker 1: economic boom. The nation's most famous economist, later President John

1396
01:17:14,439 --> 01:17:18,760
Speaker 1: Kennedy's advisor, John Kenneth Galbraith dubbed it the Affluent Society

1397
01:17:18,880 --> 01:17:21,680
Speaker 1: in a nineteen fifty eight book that was both a

1398
01:17:21,720 --> 01:17:24,960
Speaker 1: cultural and a political sensation. It sat on top of

1399
01:17:25,040 --> 01:17:28,639
Speaker 1: the bestseller list for six straight months. Now A raid

1400
01:17:28,680 --> 01:17:32,440
Speaker 1: against this coalition was an aggrieved and well organized network

1401
01:17:32,600 --> 01:17:35,400
Speaker 1: of small and medium sized businesses which felt like they

1402
01:17:35,400 --> 01:17:38,160
Speaker 1: were getting squeezed by the big guys. What was good

1403
01:17:38,200 --> 01:17:41,639
Speaker 1: for general motors, they said, was not necessarily good for them.

1404
01:17:42,200 --> 01:17:46,599
Speaker 1: That same coalition has organized behind Donald Trump now. Big

1405
01:17:46,680 --> 01:17:49,400
Speaker 1: labor and the New Deal coalition thought that they were

1406
01:17:49,439 --> 01:17:52,240
Speaker 1: living in a time of peace between capital and labor.

1407
01:17:52,479 --> 01:17:55,240
Speaker 1: But capital always knew that they were engaged in a

1408
01:17:55,280 --> 01:17:59,120
Speaker 1: strategic ceasefire, having been crushed by the depression and unable

1409
01:17:59,160 --> 01:18:02,200
Speaker 1: to compete against the rising strength of the modern government.

1410
01:18:02,560 --> 01:18:05,080
Speaker 1: But there was no real peace, and business launched its

1411
01:18:05,080 --> 01:18:08,320
Speaker 1: counter attack on both labor and government in the nineteen seventies,

1412
01:18:08,720 --> 01:18:12,639
Speaker 1: ushering in the neoliberal era. The Chamber, this time allied

1413
01:18:12,680 --> 01:18:15,679
Speaker 1: with small and medium sized businesses, played a major role

1414
01:18:15,680 --> 01:18:18,240
Speaker 1: in the counter attack with the air to the Goldwater movement,

1415
01:18:18,320 --> 01:18:21,840
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan enacting a wish list of big business policies

1416
01:18:21,880 --> 01:18:24,800
Speaker 1: and tax cuts, The Chamber started drifting back to the

1417
01:18:24,840 --> 01:18:27,000
Speaker 1: center in the early part of the Clinton years, but

1418
01:18:27,120 --> 01:18:29,639
Speaker 1: was snapped back into place ahead of the Gingrich Revolution

1419
01:18:29,760 --> 01:18:33,519
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four. It was a reliable Republican ally

1420
01:18:33,560 --> 01:18:36,559
Speaker 1: for the next roughly twenty five years, up until just

1421
01:18:36,600 --> 01:18:39,559
Speaker 1: the last few. In twenty twenty, the Chamber of Commerce

1422
01:18:39,680 --> 01:18:44,040
Speaker 1: endorsed twenty three House Democrats in swing districts, a sharp

1423
01:18:44,120 --> 01:18:47,800
Speaker 1: break from the past practice of endorsing a nearly exclusive

1424
01:18:47,840 --> 01:18:50,680
Speaker 1: slate of Republicans, with one or two Democrats thrown on

1425
01:18:50,680 --> 01:18:54,120
Speaker 1: the list for a patina of bipartisan perception. The Chamber

1426
01:18:54,120 --> 01:18:56,880
Speaker 1: announced recently, though, that it would be devoting three million

1427
01:18:56,920 --> 01:19:01,120
Speaker 1: dollars toward the election of mister doctor I in Pennsylvania,

1428
01:19:01,520 --> 01:19:04,080
Speaker 1: and funneled it through the Senate Leadership Fund, which was

1429
01:19:04,080 --> 01:19:06,880
Speaker 1: seen as an olive branch extended towards Senate Minority Leader

1430
01:19:06,920 --> 01:19:09,559
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, who's linked to the super Pac. They have

1431
01:19:09,680 --> 01:19:13,400
Speaker 1: so far made no similar contribution to the House Republican

1432
01:19:13,479 --> 01:19:16,320
Speaker 1: super Pac. The Republican Member of Congress said that he

1433
01:19:16,360 --> 01:19:19,080
Speaker 1: didn't begin as an active opponent of the Chamber, but

1434
01:19:19,120 --> 01:19:22,519
Speaker 1: also didn't see them as a natural ally either. He

1435
01:19:22,600 --> 01:19:25,160
Speaker 1: told me, quote frankly, as a business guy, I couldn't

1436
01:19:25,200 --> 01:19:27,360
Speaker 1: join some of the efforts nationally because they were at

1437
01:19:27,360 --> 01:19:30,040
Speaker 1: odds with small companies. They were really pushing for a

1438
01:19:30,120 --> 01:19:32,760
Speaker 1: long time this pro China trade policy, which was great

1439
01:19:32,760 --> 01:19:35,040
Speaker 1: for general motors, but it was bad for everyone in

1440
01:19:35,080 --> 01:19:38,320
Speaker 1: the supply chain, and it was really gutting domestic manufacturing.

1441
01:19:38,360 --> 01:19:39,920
Speaker 1: And it was the same thing with NAM which is

1442
01:19:39,960 --> 01:19:43,080
Speaker 1: the National Association of Manufacturers. A lot of their members

1443
01:19:43,280 --> 01:19:46,360
Speaker 1: had had an organization that was working against their interests.

1444
01:19:46,840 --> 01:19:49,960
Speaker 1: And the biggest, biggest members have certainly benefited from a

1445
01:19:49,960 --> 01:19:51,559
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff. And I think that's a big

1446
01:19:51,600 --> 01:19:54,640
Speaker 1: part of why Trump was so well received by this

1447
01:19:54,720 --> 01:19:59,439
Speaker 1: small and medium business community. And so, Emily, what do

1448
01:19:59,479 --> 01:20:05,200
Speaker 1: you think of the claim? What about you? They're not

1449
01:20:05,280 --> 01:20:09,120
Speaker 1: radars anymore? But what are you looking at? Well? This week,

1450
01:20:09,200 --> 01:20:11,719
Speaker 1: migrants were dropped off at the DC resident of Vice

1451
01:20:11,760 --> 01:20:14,599
Speaker 1: President Kamala Harris in buses that were sent by Texas

1452
01:20:14,680 --> 01:20:17,960
Speaker 1: Governor Greg Abbott and in Martha's Vineyard on planes that

1453
01:20:18,000 --> 01:20:22,240
Speaker 1: were funded paid for, organized funded by Florida Republican Governor

1454
01:20:22,320 --> 01:20:26,519
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis. There is no question that migrants bussed and

1455
01:20:26,600 --> 01:20:29,320
Speaker 1: flown to the East Coast in recent weeks by Republican

1456
01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:33,280
Speaker 1: governors are being used as political pawns. The argument is

1457
01:20:33,320 --> 01:20:37,639
Speaker 1: that lenient immigration policies overwhelm border states, so the people

1458
01:20:37,680 --> 01:20:41,479
Speaker 1: who pushed those lenient immigration policies should experience and share

1459
01:20:41,560 --> 01:20:45,040
Speaker 1: in the difficulties after years and years of ignoring them.

1460
01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:49,599
Speaker 1: Republicans aren't exactly hiding their political motivations here, but it's

1461
01:20:49,720 --> 01:20:53,000
Speaker 1: true that border towns like Del Rio, Eagle Pass, and

1462
01:20:53,080 --> 01:20:58,120
Speaker 1: Brownsville have been experiencing record numbers of attempted crossings this year.

1463
01:20:58,439 --> 01:21:02,080
Speaker 1: Some migrants are making multiple attempts, and that's a little

1464
01:21:02,120 --> 01:21:04,160
Speaker 1: bit has a little bit to do with the high numbers.

1465
01:21:04,560 --> 01:21:08,000
Speaker 1: Just yesterday, the Washington Freebeacon reported on internal DHS numbers

1466
01:21:08,000 --> 01:21:11,559
Speaker 1: showing a record eight thousand migrants are entering the country

1467
01:21:11,800 --> 01:21:14,640
Speaker 1: each day. When I went to northern Mexico back in

1468
01:21:14,720 --> 01:21:17,439
Speaker 1: June to report on the situation, migrants repeatedly told us

1469
01:21:17,439 --> 01:21:20,200
Speaker 1: two things. One they heard it was a good time

1470
01:21:20,240 --> 01:21:24,120
Speaker 1: to come, sometimes even specifically they name dropped Biden. And

1471
01:21:24,200 --> 01:21:28,080
Speaker 1: two that they paid organized crime to enter Mexico and

1472
01:21:28,160 --> 01:21:30,920
Speaker 1: into the United States. To enter the United States as well. Quote,

1473
01:21:31,000 --> 01:21:33,760
Speaker 1: everyone who arrives here has paid. That's what the head

1474
01:21:33,760 --> 01:21:37,040
Speaker 1: of a Catholic shelter in Matamoros told us, recalling how

1475
01:21:37,040 --> 01:21:39,800
Speaker 1: one group of migrants tried to cross without paying but

1476
01:21:40,000 --> 01:21:44,120
Speaker 1: was literally plucked straight from the river by cartels who

1477
01:21:44,240 --> 01:21:47,960
Speaker 1: rely on the business. Savvy and sincere Democrats, who believe

1478
01:21:48,000 --> 01:21:51,599
Speaker 1: America has a moral obligation to asylum seekers, would have

1479
01:21:51,720 --> 01:21:55,559
Speaker 1: and should be welcoming the migrants this summer with open arms. Instead,

1480
01:21:55,680 --> 01:21:58,799
Speaker 1: like our mayor here in Washington, d C. They declared

1481
01:21:58,880 --> 01:22:02,240
Speaker 1: emergencies and against the GOP. They want to have their

1482
01:22:02,240 --> 01:22:05,439
Speaker 1: sanctuary city cake and eat it too, scoring easy points

1483
01:22:05,479 --> 01:22:08,439
Speaker 1: with virtue signals, and then crumbling when forced to actually

1484
01:22:08,479 --> 01:22:12,160
Speaker 1: deal with the consequences of their policies. What the media

1485
01:22:12,240 --> 01:22:15,439
Speaker 1: never tells us about immigration is that lenient border enforcement,

1486
01:22:15,520 --> 01:22:19,240
Speaker 1: including sanctuary city policies, are a multi million dollar gift

1487
01:22:19,320 --> 01:22:22,599
Speaker 1: to cartels and a major draw were desperate people who

1488
01:22:22,640 --> 01:22:25,880
Speaker 1: are forced to pay the cartels. But desperate is not

1489
01:22:26,000 --> 01:22:29,800
Speaker 1: synonymous with dumb. Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Caarine Jean

1490
01:22:29,840 --> 01:22:33,000
Speaker 1: Pierre claimed without evidence that migrants sent to Martha's Vineyard

1491
01:22:33,000 --> 01:22:36,120
Speaker 1: by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday were quote misled. She

1492
01:22:36,160 --> 01:22:39,639
Speaker 1: said the stunt was quote cruel. Mayor Bowser. Mayor Adams

1493
01:22:39,640 --> 01:22:41,920
Speaker 1: in New York made similar claims throughout the summer as

1494
01:22:41,920 --> 01:22:44,879
Speaker 1: migrants from Texas and Arizona were busted to their cities.

1495
01:22:45,080 --> 01:22:48,839
Speaker 1: Jessica Valenti tweeted yesterday that DeSantis had cruelly tricked vulnerable

1496
01:22:48,880 --> 01:22:52,280
Speaker 1: people into making the trip to Massachusetts. The problem with

1497
01:22:52,320 --> 01:22:55,120
Speaker 1: all of these claims, of course, is what migrants themselves

1498
01:22:55,160 --> 01:22:58,240
Speaker 1: have to say. For weeks, interviewers have found the migrants

1499
01:22:58,240 --> 01:23:01,760
Speaker 1: eager to make these trips in and heard similar sentiments,

1500
01:23:01,800 --> 01:23:04,200
Speaker 1: as did Fox throughout the summer News Nation as well

1501
01:23:04,240 --> 01:23:07,840
Speaker 1: and even other outlets. They get safe free trips these

1502
01:23:07,880 --> 01:23:10,200
Speaker 1: migrants due to cities they otherwise would have had to

1503
01:23:10,280 --> 01:23:12,840
Speaker 1: raise money to get to. But they're trying to go

1504
01:23:12,880 --> 01:23:15,400
Speaker 1: to those cities anyway. So with only a day of

1505
01:23:15,439 --> 01:23:18,080
Speaker 1: reporting to go off of the Martha's Vineyard stunt seems

1506
01:23:18,160 --> 01:23:20,599
Speaker 1: a bit different so far. I said earlier that Conine

1507
01:23:20,680 --> 01:23:23,360
Speaker 1: Jean Pierre said without evidence that they were misled. The

1508
01:23:23,400 --> 01:23:26,400
Speaker 1: evidence is hard to say exactly what the migrants were

1509
01:23:26,400 --> 01:23:28,880
Speaker 1: told when getting on the plane, So it's possible that

1510
01:23:28,920 --> 01:23:31,799
Speaker 1: the White House is correct that people were quote misled

1511
01:23:31,800 --> 01:23:34,759
Speaker 1: and its possible VOLENTI will be proven correct that people

1512
01:23:34,760 --> 01:23:37,760
Speaker 1: were quote tricked. NPR is reporting some migrants were told

1513
01:23:37,800 --> 01:23:40,760
Speaker 1: they were going to Boston, some said New York, although

1514
01:23:40,760 --> 01:23:43,840
Speaker 1: one migrant also specifically told a local paper that they

1515
01:23:44,080 --> 01:23:47,440
Speaker 1: quote wanted to come to the island and are seeking employment.

1516
01:23:47,600 --> 01:23:49,919
Speaker 1: So it is very unclear right now, and the evidence

1517
01:23:49,960 --> 01:23:52,640
Speaker 1: is certainly unclear. But Democrats have said all summer that

1518
01:23:52,680 --> 01:23:54,960
Speaker 1: migrants were being tricked and that has turned out not

1519
01:23:55,040 --> 01:23:57,280
Speaker 1: to be the case. If anything, it speaks to one

1520
01:23:57,280 --> 01:24:00,840
Speaker 1: of the very flawed premises of liberal immigration, which is

1521
01:24:00,880 --> 01:24:05,040
Speaker 1: that migrants lack agency. They are not helpless. They're extremely

1522
01:24:05,080 --> 01:24:07,599
Speaker 1: savvy and they know exactly what they're doing. They're smart,

1523
01:24:07,800 --> 01:24:09,640
Speaker 1: they watch the news, and they want to be in

1524
01:24:09,640 --> 01:24:13,040
Speaker 1: the United States so badly that they knowingly take perilous

1525
01:24:13,120 --> 01:24:16,639
Speaker 1: trips through Central America and Mexico with the possibility they'll

1526
01:24:16,680 --> 01:24:20,000
Speaker 1: be crammed into shelters, sleeping in the streets, kidnapped by cartels,

1527
01:24:20,040 --> 01:24:23,000
Speaker 1: and struggling to pay lawyers. They know they'll almost certainly

1528
01:24:23,000 --> 01:24:26,120
Speaker 1: get in eventually, but they accept the risks. That's how

1529
01:24:26,160 --> 01:24:28,720
Speaker 1: badly they want to be here. Once they cross they

1530
01:24:28,760 --> 01:24:31,280
Speaker 1: seek asylum, even if they don't have a legitimate claim,

1531
01:24:31,320 --> 01:24:34,479
Speaker 1: which is very often the case for people fleeing for

1532
01:24:34,560 --> 01:24:37,639
Speaker 1: economic reasons, but they go to sanctuary cities and then

1533
01:24:37,680 --> 01:24:41,280
Speaker 1: disappear into the shadows. Without the sanctuary city movement, cartels

1534
01:24:41,280 --> 01:24:45,040
Speaker 1: would undoubtedly have much less money, fewer migrants would die

1535
01:24:45,120 --> 01:24:48,240
Speaker 1: en route to the United States, and small rural border

1536
01:24:48,280 --> 01:24:52,040
Speaker 1: towns would be less overwhelmed. This is the overlooked tragedy

1537
01:24:52,080 --> 01:24:55,320
Speaker 1: of lenient border policies. There's of course an alternative, which

1538
01:24:55,320 --> 01:24:57,840
Speaker 1: is to simply let anyone come in, but cartels would

1539
01:24:57,880 --> 01:25:00,280
Speaker 1: still run Mexico and still force people to pay just

1540
01:25:00,320 --> 01:25:03,280
Speaker 1: to get to our border. Plus the national security ramifications

1541
01:25:03,280 --> 01:25:05,840
Speaker 1: would obviously be a huge problem. Or we could listen

1542
01:25:05,880 --> 01:25:08,000
Speaker 1: to what one pastor running a Shouter and mounta Moors

1543
01:25:08,040 --> 01:25:10,360
Speaker 1: told us in June. This is what he begs US

1544
01:25:10,400 --> 01:25:13,479
Speaker 1: officials to do. Put out information on social media in

1545
01:25:13,560 --> 01:25:17,840
Speaker 1: quote plain Spanish explaining what American asylum policy is, tell

1546
01:25:17,880 --> 01:25:20,880
Speaker 1: people they will not get across, then enforce it. We

1547
01:25:21,040 --> 01:25:23,720
Speaker 1: need to reform our silent policy as well. These are

1548
01:25:23,760 --> 01:25:27,040
Speaker 1: all practical ways to mitigate the immense human suffering at

1549
01:25:27,040 --> 01:25:29,479
Speaker 1: our border, but they don't fall neatly into the category

1550
01:25:29,520 --> 01:25:32,160
Speaker 1: of open borders or totally closed ones, so the political

1551
01:25:32,240 --> 01:25:34,679
Speaker 1: class doesn't talk about them at all. I rarely meet

1552
01:25:34,720 --> 01:25:37,080
Speaker 1: Americans who love America as much as many of the

1553
01:25:37,080 --> 01:25:39,479
Speaker 1: people trying to get into the country at our border.

1554
01:25:39,640 --> 01:25:41,920
Speaker 1: We have a lot of labor needs here. We need

1555
01:25:41,920 --> 01:25:44,280
Speaker 1: to fix our system. The first step we should take,

1556
01:25:44,360 --> 01:25:47,719
Speaker 1: of course, is to enforce existing policies, though, so people

1557
01:25:47,800 --> 01:25:51,639
Speaker 1: stop making these horrible trips. Now, the migrants in Martha's

1558
01:25:51,680 --> 01:25:55,679
Speaker 1: Vineyard will absolutely be greeted with robust community support. That's

1559
01:25:55,680 --> 01:25:58,559
Speaker 1: been the case so far, but it's support the people

1560
01:25:58,600 --> 01:26:03,080
Speaker 1: in border towns with less wealth and less social capital

1561
01:26:03,400 --> 01:26:09,200
Speaker 1: are ill equipped to provide. Max a Halfarez has to

1562
01:26:09,280 --> 01:26:12,680
Speaker 1: run to his real job at the Real News Network,

1563
01:26:13,520 --> 01:26:15,479
Speaker 1: so you check out his reporting there, check out his

1564
01:26:15,520 --> 01:26:18,599
Speaker 1: reporting on the Breaking Points channel on this We'll have him,

1565
01:26:18,760 --> 01:26:21,320
Speaker 1: we'll have him back. He'll be back next week as well.

1566
01:26:21,479 --> 01:26:24,519
Speaker 1: Sorry about that. I was too long winded. Well, so

1567
01:26:24,720 --> 01:26:27,360
Speaker 1: we both of us, we ran up, We ran up

1568
01:26:27,360 --> 01:26:29,720
Speaker 1: against the time. Well, and you know, we had originally

1569
01:26:29,760 --> 01:26:32,280
Speaker 1: planned a lot of the show to cover what was

1570
01:26:32,320 --> 01:26:36,439
Speaker 1: the deadline today for the strike negotiations, which is what

1571
01:26:36,560 --> 01:26:39,120
Speaker 1: Max was going to talk to us about. The railway

1572
01:26:39,160 --> 01:26:43,240
Speaker 1: strike negotiations, but they reached a deal, and so there's

1573
01:26:43,280 --> 01:26:45,560
Speaker 1: a lot of news to follow. I highly recommend you

1574
01:26:45,640 --> 01:26:47,920
Speaker 1: go back and watch everything that Max has been doing

1575
01:26:48,080 --> 01:26:49,840
Speaker 1: and read the Real News Network because there's so much

1576
01:26:49,880 --> 01:26:53,400
Speaker 1: good cover so that actually interviews the people involved and

1577
01:26:53,560 --> 01:26:58,080
Speaker 1: the real workers involved, but because they're what matters now,

1578
01:26:58,120 --> 01:27:00,439
Speaker 1: because the deal has to now be ratified by the workers,

1579
01:27:00,479 --> 01:27:02,760
Speaker 1: and the question is exactly is it enough when it

1580
01:27:02,800 --> 01:27:05,679
Speaker 1: comes to the sick day and the other unpaid sick days,

1581
01:27:06,280 --> 01:27:09,320
Speaker 1: the flex what they they You know, the railroads were

1582
01:27:09,320 --> 01:27:11,120
Speaker 1: throwing money at them, but they're like, that's not what

1583
01:27:11,160 --> 01:27:13,080
Speaker 1: we're asking for. Obviously they're going to take the money,

1584
01:27:13,400 --> 01:27:15,080
Speaker 1: but what we want is to be able to live

1585
01:27:15,080 --> 01:27:17,280
Speaker 1: a decent life, right, and we want to be able

1586
01:27:17,320 --> 01:27:19,320
Speaker 1: to call out if we need to call out without

1587
01:27:19,360 --> 01:27:21,840
Speaker 1: getting fired for that. There are examples of people who

1588
01:27:21,840 --> 01:27:23,720
Speaker 1: couldn't go to funerals and stuff like that. And I

1589
01:27:23,720 --> 01:27:26,439
Speaker 1: saw Crystal and Soccer covering yesterday Republicans sort of being

1590
01:27:26,439 --> 01:27:30,400
Speaker 1: shocked to learn of the conditions of the working conditions

1591
01:27:30,400 --> 01:27:33,400
Speaker 1: for some of these railway workers, and it's just an

1592
01:27:33,400 --> 01:27:36,040
Speaker 1: important like, this is not a crisis averted. It's a

1593
01:27:36,040 --> 01:27:38,680
Speaker 1: crisis momentarily averted, we could still see all of the

1594
01:27:38,720 --> 01:27:41,720
Speaker 1: supply chain backlogs, and we could still see people not

1595
01:27:41,840 --> 01:27:45,879
Speaker 1: getting the working conditions that they need to do their jobs.

1596
01:27:46,040 --> 01:27:49,040
Speaker 1: So there's a lot to follow. But as Ryan said,

1597
01:27:49,120 --> 01:27:52,080
Speaker 1: the ball is now in the worker's court, and Biden

1598
01:27:52,080 --> 01:27:54,080
Speaker 1: has kind of put them in a tough situation by

1599
01:27:54,200 --> 01:27:57,679
Speaker 1: doing a victory lap over this deal because that puts

1600
01:27:57,720 --> 01:28:01,800
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on them now to ratify it. Yeah,

1601
01:28:02,120 --> 01:28:04,519
Speaker 1: but you know they're gonna They're going to make the

1602
01:28:04,560 --> 01:28:06,240
Speaker 1: decision that's best for them, and that's what they need

1603
01:28:06,280 --> 01:28:10,400
Speaker 1: to do. So it's the point of these negotiations, Ryan,

1604
01:28:11,080 --> 01:28:15,200
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess the inaugural edition of Counterpoints is

1605
01:28:15,360 --> 01:28:18,280
Speaker 1: the lesson learned is that we talk too damn much.

1606
01:28:19,479 --> 01:28:24,000
Speaker 1: It's a lot to say, well, sample questions. Yesterday you

1607
01:28:24,040 --> 01:28:25,920
Speaker 1: said you know they're not And yesterday you said something

1608
01:28:26,320 --> 01:28:28,200
Speaker 1: when we were talking to crystalin soccer about how when

1609
01:28:28,240 --> 01:28:31,280
Speaker 1: we're going back and forth, it's genuinely like picking each

1610
01:28:31,280 --> 01:28:33,600
Speaker 1: other's brains. What do you actually think about this? What

1611
01:28:33,640 --> 01:28:35,000
Speaker 1: does the right thing about this? What does the left

1612
01:28:35,000 --> 01:28:36,760
Speaker 1: think about this? And that's why it's hard for me

1613
01:28:36,800 --> 01:28:41,000
Speaker 1: sometimes to stop because I have some different questions. So

1614
01:28:41,320 --> 01:28:45,880
Speaker 1: it's like a train wreck, you just like can't look away. Yes,

1615
01:28:46,520 --> 01:28:48,720
Speaker 1: it's exactly like that. Well, thank you to everybody for

1616
01:28:48,800 --> 01:28:50,759
Speaker 1: tuning in. I can't tell you how much we appreciate.

1617
01:28:50,800 --> 01:28:54,080
Speaker 1: It's so exciting to be here. I just love it

1618
01:28:54,080 --> 01:28:55,960
Speaker 1: here so much, and they're happy to be here. If

1619
01:28:56,000 --> 01:28:58,200
Speaker 1: you guys are glad we're here. Uh. There is a

1620
01:28:58,280 --> 01:29:01,880
Speaker 1: ten percent off discount for premium members. You can get

1621
01:29:01,880 --> 01:29:04,880
Speaker 1: the show an hour earlier. But more importantly, it's less

1622
01:29:04,880 --> 01:29:09,160
Speaker 1: about that. It's just more about supporting independent alternative media.

1623
01:29:10,240 --> 01:29:13,040
Speaker 1: You can also find me at I got my own

1624
01:29:13,080 --> 01:29:15,639
Speaker 1: newsletter at bad News. That's over at substack. What about

1625
01:29:15,640 --> 01:29:18,760
Speaker 1: you where? And people find you Federal Stradio our daily podcast,

1626
01:29:18,920 --> 01:29:22,599
Speaker 1: So that's where. That's where I am. And yeah, it's

1627
01:29:23,360 --> 01:29:24,880
Speaker 1: so much fun. I'm so excited to be doing this

1628
01:29:24,960 --> 01:29:28,519
Speaker 1: every Friday, and hope that everybody subscribes and gets those

1629
01:29:28,560 --> 01:29:32,160
Speaker 1: premium subscriptions and stays tuned in. Yep, indeed, we'll see

1630
01:29:32,160 --> 01:29:33,920
Speaker 1: you next Friday. Everyone. We like to joke and it's

1631
01:29:33,920 --> 01:29:36,400
Speaker 1: like a Pavlovian reaction. When people see us on their screens,

1632
01:29:36,439 --> 01:29:40,320
Speaker 1: they know the weekend is enjoy it. We'll see us soon.