Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this
Speaker 2: election and we are so excited about what that means
Speaker 2: for the future of the show.
Speaker 3: This is the only place where you can find honest
Speaker 3: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
Speaker 3: not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
Speaker 2: go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
Speaker 2: you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free
Speaker 2: and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 3: We need your help to build the future of independent
Speaker 3: news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 4: Former Vice President Kamala Harris was down in Australia for
Speaker 4: what else right, and I wanted to be there. We
Speaker 4: couldn't make it the Australian Real Estate Conference twenty twenty
Speaker 4: five where she delivered or remarks presumably for a fat
Speaker 4: speaking fee, and actually started weighing in on some of
Speaker 4: what's happened over the course of the last year or so.
Speaker 5: Let's roll this first.
Speaker 4: Clip leaked video of former Vice President Kamala Harris right now. Currently,
Speaker 4: we should add one of the front runners for the
Speaker 4: twenty twenty eight election. If you look at polling and
Speaker 4: a potential candidate and still for California.
Speaker 6: You imagine how much liquor they go through at the
Speaker 6: Australian Real Estate conference.
Speaker 4: Sounds amazing. We really should have been there next year
Speaker 4: twenty twenty six. We can go ahead and take a
Speaker 4: look at the clip.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 7: Worry rightly about what's happening right now in the world.
Speaker 7: I do worry that it is important that we remember history.
Speaker 7: It's important we remember the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 8: It's important that we remember that history has taught us
Speaker 8: that isolation does not equal insulation. It is important that
Speaker 8: we understand and remember history which taught us the interdependence
Speaker 8: and interconnection between nations, History that has taught us importance,
Speaker 8: relationships of trust, the importance of friendships, integrity, honesty.
Speaker 9: As I said, I think your best work is a Hitaye,
Speaker 9: for sure percent.
Speaker 8: You'll hand unemployed right now, you go on in.
Speaker 10: The speak truth.
Speaker 5: Okay, So what you heard her just say?
Speaker 4: They're other than the importance of friendships, which we can
Speaker 4: all agree on important. Yeah, Evergreen sentiments is a comparison
Speaker 4: to the nineteen thirties, but not in the context of
Speaker 4: like rising fascism and authoritarianism domestically, but isolation which is
Speaker 4: a criticism of Donald Trump's foreign policy obviously through tariffs
Speaker 4: and other efforts on the world stage, which I don't
Speaker 4: think you can really call isolationism, but that's what the
Speaker 4: sort of neoliberal communities is, these moves.
Speaker 6: As I suppose well in her defense, that there is
Speaker 6: a there is an interesting parallel and there's a there's
Speaker 6: a book out now ish about this making parallels between
Speaker 6: the kind of post World War one or leading into
Speaker 6: World War one period and now, which is that the
Speaker 6: like the eighteen eighties and up through up up until
Speaker 6: World War One were this this first period of globalization
Speaker 6: of the you know, which you know, yeah, like internationalism
Speaker 6: becomes a real thing. You also had an international working
Speaker 6: people's you know movement, the communists, it is international like
Speaker 6: they called it. They saw themselves as bringing the working
Speaker 6: classes of the world together.
Speaker 4: The predicate of the entire Cold War red skin.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and and then World War One happens and the
Speaker 6: rise of nationalism that that the rise of nationalism that
Speaker 6: was a reaction to globalism and globalization in the tent
Speaker 6: and then nineteen hundreds and tens, you know, creates World
Speaker 6: War One, and then and then produces this like intense
Speaker 6: retreat away from globalization into the post World War one
Speaker 6: period where everyone is kind of retrenching and isolationism becomes
Speaker 6: this yea, you know, this the dominant and the dominant ethos,
Speaker 6: which then which then produces like even hyper hyper nationalism,
Speaker 6: and then and then we get World War two out
Speaker 6: of it.
Speaker 11: The book argues that the what the what.
Speaker 6: The proponents of liberal globalization the first time around didn't
Speaker 6: understand is that it was actually making things worse. It
Speaker 6: was making things better. If you lived in London and
Speaker 6: you were in the top ten five to ten percent.
Speaker 11: Famously, there was some famous qualit you could you know, you.
Speaker 6: Could order something, you know, you could order anything you
Speaker 6: wanted from around the world and have it by the
Speaker 6: end of the day in like nineteen ten or in
Speaker 6: London or something. But that was only that was you like,
Speaker 6: that was not ninety plus percent of people from England,
Speaker 6: and it particularly was devastating for people around the world.
Speaker 6: And so she's she's right that there is this interesting
Speaker 6: parallel going on and that the isolationism can lead to
Speaker 6: cataclysmic world war. It's a paradox like, well, how could
Speaker 6: that possibly be?
Speaker 4: Do you think that's what she meant? Though, because I
Speaker 4: see it as more I.
Speaker 11: Think she's just thrown out platitudes.
Speaker 4: Well, she's definitely doing that, Yeah, But I think it's
Speaker 4: also because her her worldview is shaped right by the
Speaker 4: post Cold War Fukuyama internationalism, which is very different.
Speaker 6: She also very much she also very much wants the
Speaker 6: US to continue to be the.
Speaker 11: Global cost Actually, yeah, And I think that's the.
Speaker 6: Moment on Charlotte Charlemagne where he's like, the first caller
Speaker 6: was like, why are we spending all this money on
Speaker 6: these wars? Yeah, and she's like, because because you know,
Speaker 6: if you if we retreat, we're not safe. And like
Speaker 6: so she really like makes the argument that the US
Speaker 6: has to be a global superpower or else our national
Speaker 6: security suffers, and nobody buys that.
Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting because I think also Trump does buy.
Speaker 12: Like.
Speaker 4: Trump has the same general perspective, he has a different
Speaker 4: way of getting from point A to point B. But
Speaker 4: he would also say that America's empire, America's prosperity depends
Speaker 4: on its empire. He just would say he wants it
Speaker 4: to be a more logical empire. I mean, that's the
Speaker 4: Greenland Panama approach, Taiwan approached all of this.
Speaker 5: He thinks it should.
Speaker 4: Be a more like, more like logical efficient empire than
Speaker 4: a sort of sprawling USA I D empire. So what
Speaker 4: Tucker Carlson refers to is gay race communism. That's the
Speaker 4: that's the uh gay gay race communism, which should be
Speaker 4: a bumper sticker that you have on your van.
Speaker 11: By the way, would I be for it or against it?
Speaker 5: Very for it?
Speaker 6: Okay race even trying to make sense, but I mean
Speaker 6: you'd be.
Speaker 4: Ford it against I suppose. But that's what they would say,
Speaker 4: right that it's not about the sprawling like EUSAID pro China,
Speaker 4: integration with the our adversaries and all of that. So
Speaker 4: it's in the same way in a way, it's the
Speaker 4: same thing, but it's a different approach to it. And
Speaker 4: I think Kamala Harris situating herself in this way as
Speaker 4: I mean polling again, it doesn't it's not a surprise
Speaker 4: that because of name recognition she's at the top of
Speaker 4: polls when you look at twenty twenty eight presidential candidates.
Speaker 4: I think it's it's she's definitely not running away from it.
Speaker 4: There was a quote in the Times recently of Kamala
Speaker 4: Harris saying she's staying in the fight, I think is
Speaker 4: the paraphrased version of what she said. So she's may
Speaker 4: be speaking at the Australian Real Estate Conference twenty twenty five,
Speaker 4: but she's very much still involved in American politics. She
Speaker 4: could run for California governor of California is what Ryan
Speaker 4: one of the is one of the largest enemies in
Speaker 4: the world just as a state alone. It's one of
Speaker 4: the I think's.
Speaker 6: Like top ten or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's huge. So she's she's not going anywhere,
Speaker 4: that's for sure.
Speaker 6: And we may end up using what we're about to
Speaker 6: talk about as the headline for this segment if we do.
Speaker 6: Apologies for making you sit through the Australian Real Estate Convention.
Speaker 6: But in more Kamala Harris news. In the Jake Tapper
Speaker 6: Alex Thompson book Original Sin, there's this anecdote that that
Speaker 6: says that she was quite angry at Anderson Cooper because
Speaker 6: for pushing her so aggressively on why is Joe Biden
Speaker 6: having a medical episode in front of the entire country
Speaker 6: during this debate and not letting the kind of scripted
Speaker 6: line that she had come up with just sit and
Speaker 6: then move on. And so Harris told her colleagues, quote,
Speaker 6: this mother grabber doesn't treat me like the dang vice
Speaker 6: president of the United States, she said to colleagues. So
Speaker 6: in the in the book, the longer episode is is
Speaker 6: kind of when we'll play the Anderson Cooper clip in
Speaker 6: a second.
Speaker 11: I remember we covered it at the time. It was
Speaker 11: quite something.
Speaker 6: So it goes through her watching the debate with her
Speaker 6: her staff and she's like, you know, how are how
Speaker 6: are people responding? And they're like, boss, people are calling
Speaker 6: for him to drop out, like he's literally dying up
Speaker 6: on stage. And the Biden campaign said reaches out to
Speaker 6: her and says, why don't you go ahead and cancel
Speaker 6: all these like media hits that you have tomorrow because
Speaker 6: I don't really see, we don't really see what the
Speaker 6: upside is and you going on and talking about this
Speaker 6: and she said, no, absolutely not, I'm going for it.
Speaker 6: So then they sit down and they debate, you know,
Speaker 6: how they're going to respond? What talking points can they
Speaker 6: come up with to respond to this medical episode the
Speaker 6: entire country just witnessed, And they talked so long they
Speaker 6: miss CBS this morning, because they just talk right through it,
Speaker 6: they miss another one, and then they get they go
Speaker 6: on Anderson Cooper, and they had come up with the line, well,
Speaker 6: just you'll see the talking points. Let's roll this Anderson
Speaker 6: Cooper back and forth. He was a very different person
Speaker 6: on the stage four years ago when when you debated him.
Speaker 6: You must I mean that that's certainly true, is it not?
Speaker 12: Anderson? The point has to be performance in terms of
Speaker 12: what a president does, a president who.
Speaker 9: Against the capitol.
Speaker 4: No, but I.
Speaker 12: Got the point that you're making about a one and
Speaker 12: a half hour debate tonight. I'm talking about three and
Speaker 12: a half years of performance in work that has been historic.
Speaker 5: The other night, the other guy on the debate anders Anderson.
Speaker 6: According to the book, the Biden staff loved that line.
Speaker 6: And that wasn't that wasn't part of the talking point.
Speaker 6: But this line she came up with that you're talking
Speaker 6: about an hour and a half debad. I'm talking about
Speaker 6: three and a half years of genius delivering for the
Speaker 6: American people.
Speaker 11: They Biden campaign loved that.
Speaker 6: It's all of it was pointless, Like you, there are
Speaker 6: not words that you can put together to make people
Speaker 6: unsee what they saw.
Speaker 4: But this is a problem that Kamala Harrison never will, ever, ever,
Speaker 4: ever run away from. And it's one that the book identifies.
Speaker 4: The book shows that she identified immediately. It's obvious that
Speaker 4: she's locked into this position. Where As she says in
Speaker 4: the book, what do I do if I distance? What
Speaker 4: do I look like if I distanced myself from Joe Biden?
Speaker 4: I looked disloyal? And she's not wrong. I mean you'd look.
Speaker 11: Like, don't you look like and enabling moron?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And she will never get away from this. I mean,
Speaker 5: there's no way.
Speaker 4: This is the this is the defining I mean, she
Speaker 4: was the vice president. It's not like she was the
Speaker 4: green jobs are. She was the vice president of the
Speaker 4: United States. Was regularly this was that clip you just
Speaker 4: saw was literally right after the debate.
Speaker 5: But she has three and a half years of.
Speaker 4: Defending him, so under that's how most people remember her.
Speaker 5: She was a senator before.
Speaker 4: So people's memory of Kamala Harris prominently is as Joe
Speaker 4: Biden's vice president. And I just think it's a permanent
Speaker 4: stain that she's never really going to be able to shake.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And they Democrats deliberately nominated the person who was
Speaker 6: in precisely the worst position to talk about the thing
Speaker 6: that people were most concerned about at that moment, which
Speaker 6: was this lie that they all told about whether or
Speaker 6: not Biden was there or not. Yeah, like, if they'd
Speaker 6: picked anybody else Shapiro, Whitmer, any Knewsom, and literally any
Speaker 6: other human being other than the Vice president, they would
Speaker 6: have more distance from Biden and more ability to say
Speaker 6: I was just as shocked.
Speaker 11: As you were when I saw that, and I am
Speaker 11: angry about the cover up.
Speaker 6: You can't have the vice because the vice president would
Speaker 6: have to admit that they weren't actually in the meetings
Speaker 6: and paying any attention.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting because that show.
Speaker 6: Said Johnny Cash song, which one I mean, it's I
Speaker 6: don't think he wrote the song, but it's the one
Speaker 6: where the only way that the guy could get off
Speaker 6: of the Capitol Punisher getting hanged, Oh, yes, to admit
Speaker 6: that he was in the arms of his best friend's wife,
Speaker 6: because that his alibi, yes was to him worse than
Speaker 6: just getting hanged for a murder he didn't commit.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's interesting because it shows Kamala Harris being sort
Speaker 4: of undermined by the things that made her vice president,
Speaker 4: which is that she's she was a black woman, which
Speaker 4: is why they kept her on the ticket instead of
Speaker 4: going for another vice presidential candidate, because they didn't want
Speaker 4: to look and you see this come out at some
Speaker 4: points in the book too.
Speaker 13: It looks horrible if you pass up the opportunity to
Speaker 13: have the first black woman president and then you're like, nope,
Speaker 13: we are going with we're going to run Josh Shapiro
Speaker 13: as by president, or we are going to then have
Speaker 13: this little mini primary skip over her.
Speaker 4: So then she gets put in this position because she
Speaker 4: was seen as the necessary air parent. And I mean
Speaker 4: any sitting vice president would have been in that position,
Speaker 4: but I think they were especially wary of having a
Speaker 4: mini primary because it would look like they didn't have
Speaker 4: faith in this pic. So it's just like she was
Speaker 4: that she was in an awful position that I don't
Speaker 4: think she's ever going.
Speaker 5: To recover from.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 4: Granted, she could still win different elections if they're in
Speaker 4: a lesser of two evil situation where there's a horrible
Speaker 4: Republican candidate in California, that's you know, obviously not I
Speaker 4: wouldn't surprise anybody, But so it's possible she continues to
Speaker 4: climb the ladder. But whether she's actually able her national
Speaker 4: reputation as ever able to recover and she's actually going
Speaker 4: to be seen as a real leader in the Democratic
Speaker 4: Party again, I think is unlikely because this is everyone's
Speaker 4: memory of her, and I just don't know how you
Speaker 4: recover from that without changing completely a total tra information
Speaker 4: of Kamala Harris, and that also seems very unlikely.
Speaker 11: She's got time.
Speaker 6: The song was written by Danny Dill and Mary John Wilkin,
Speaker 6: originally recorded by Lefty Frizelle, Lefty Frizelle.
Speaker 11: The Long Black Veil.
Speaker 5: Oh, long Black Veil.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, you can probably play that right, Oh, absolutely yes,
Speaker 4: and have a beautiful song, beautiful American song too.
Speaker 6: All right, Up next, Jordan Peterson getting dog walked by
Speaker 6: a bunch of college kids.
Speaker 4: Well, Jordan Peterson made a splashy appearance on the Jubilee Show,
Speaker 4: and boy do we have a couple of clips.
Speaker 5: It did not go well.
Speaker 4: Basically, nobody thinks it went well for Jordan Peterson. That
Speaker 4: includes corners of the right that typically defend Jordan Peterson,
Speaker 4: who is controversial on the right. We'll get into all
Speaker 4: of that because this confirms a lot of the criticisms
Speaker 4: of Jordan Peterson. This was a debate that was originally
Speaker 4: billed as one Christian versus twenty Atheists, and that was
Speaker 4: the title of that do you Believe?
Speaker 6: Video.
Speaker 4: We are going to get into why that's controversial and
Speaker 4: why that became controversial before we do, take a look
Speaker 4: at this first clip D one.
Speaker 9: So do you believe in the all knowing, how powerful,
Speaker 9: all good notion of God?
Speaker 10: What do you mean by believe?
Speaker 9: Do you think it's be true?
Speaker 14: That's the circular definition. What do you mean how believe?
Speaker 9: How is that circular?
Speaker 14: Because you added no content to the answer by substituting
Speaker 14: the word true and believe.
Speaker 9: I said, you think it's be true?
Speaker 10: All right?
Speaker 14: So if you believe something, you stake your life on it.
Speaker 9: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 10: You live for it.
Speaker 14: And you die for it. That's what I mean by that.
Speaker 14: It isn't something that you say. It isn't something that's
Speaker 14: associated with logical consistency. It's not declarative, it's not propositional.
Speaker 14: It's not a figment of your imagination. It's the presupposition
Speaker 14: of your attention and your action. And you're either fgmented
Speaker 14: in which case you worship multiple gods or there's some
Speaker 14: unity at the bottom of it that makes you an
Speaker 14: unstoppable force.
Speaker 9: Okay, So you're saying that you don't believe something if
Speaker 9: you wouldn't die for it.
Speaker 10: Really no? Okay?
Speaker 14: So now would you define belief something you say in case?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 9: I explained like I could believe it is the case
Speaker 9: that this pen exists. But if someone like threatened my life, right,
Speaker 9: I would lie in order to be able to save
Speaker 9: my life. Right Like? I think you would do that too.
Speaker 9: You wouldn't lie to.
Speaker 10: Save your life.
Speaker 9: You're so sure you wouldn't lie to save your life.
Speaker 14: How much do you know about me? I didn't lie
Speaker 14: to save my career. I didn't lie to save my
Speaker 14: clinical practice.
Speaker 9: Would you lie to save your children and your mom?
Speaker 9: Your dad?
Speaker 14: I don't think lying would save.
Speaker 9: The Can there ever be a circumstance logically that lying
Speaker 9: could save something?
Speaker 14: Yeah, And if you're steeped in sin, you're likely live
Speaker 14: in circumstances like that.
Speaker 9: We'll give you an example. If you're like in like
Speaker 9: Nazi Germany, and it is the case that there's like
Speaker 9: Jewish people in your attic and you're trying to protect them,
Speaker 9: would you lie to like the Nazis.
Speaker 14: Would have done everything I bloody well could, so I
Speaker 14: wouldn't be in that situation to begin with. It's a hypothetical,
Speaker 14: and it's no, I can't answer hypothetical like that because
Speaker 14: it's Look, you don't play games. If you present me
Speaker 14: with an intractable moral choice that's stripped of context.
Speaker 10: And you back me into a corner, you're playing game.
Speaker 14: I just told you I would do everything that I
Speaker 14: could to make sure that I'm never in that situation.
Speaker 14: By the time you've got there, you've made so many
Speaker 14: mistakes that there's nothing you can do that isn't a.
Speaker 9: Sin being born in Nazi Germany and trying to protect
Speaker 9: people that you care about, Like there could be a
Speaker 9: Jewish friend that you have and you want to protect that.
Speaker 10: That line of question.
Speaker 9: Give up on just like trying to clarify your position
Speaker 9: because you don't like, are you like uncomfortable with me
Speaker 9: asking this question? It's just a basic hypothetical, Like I
Speaker 9: could ask you just a basic anathetical where you're like, what.
Speaker 10: Jews life's at stake in Nazi Germany?
Speaker 9: That's just a basic Obviously, you will lie in that
Speaker 9: scenario to save their life. But you're like not trying
Speaker 9: to answer this question. So what you're trying to do
Speaker 9: is you're trying to muddy the waters when I ask you, like,
Speaker 9: do you believe this? Do you think this to be true?
Speaker 9: So you don't actually to answer the questions. And plenty
Speaker 9: of Christians don't like that because they clearly see that
Speaker 9: you don't really want to be associated with Christian.
Speaker 14: Imagine that I was in a situation where the best
Speaker 14: I could do as a consequence of my previous mistakes
Speaker 14: was to tell the least amount of lie I could manage.
Speaker 4: All right, so Ryan, first of all, I would lie
Speaker 4: to save you. But we're all chomping at the bit
Speaker 4: to respond to that. Before we do, let's roll this
Speaker 4: next clip of another person getting the better of Jordan
Speaker 4: Peterson in this exchange the.
Speaker 1: Scope for your definition of worship again, what's your definition
Speaker 1: of worship? Attend to attend to do?
Speaker 10: Prioritize do Catholic sacrifice?
Speaker 6: For?
Speaker 1: What do Catholics attend to do? They prioritize Mary over
Speaker 1: all other human beings.
Speaker 14: I didn't say over all, did I? I didn't add
Speaker 14: that to me? You understand, I said there was a
Speaker 14: hierarchy as well. You attend so you can attend to
Speaker 14: some thing trivially or you can attend to it deeply.
Speaker 1: I mean, now you're adding stuff to the definition, but
Speaker 1: your original.
Speaker 14: Added the hierarchy part at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar understand? Are you familiar with the Immaculate conception?
Speaker 10: Why is that relevant?
Speaker 1: Because you go to a Catholic church?
Speaker 6: Don't?
Speaker 1: Or you've attended recently? You're interested in Catholicism, aren't you sure?
Speaker 10: All right?
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with their doctrines?
Speaker 10: Somewhat?
Speaker 1: Okay, you're familiar. How do they regard how do they
Speaker 1: regard Mary? Why are you asking me because you're a Christian?
Speaker 10: You say that I haven't claimed that.
Speaker 1: Oh what is this? Is this a Christians versus Atheist?
Speaker 10: I don't know.
Speaker 1: You don't know where you are right now.
Speaker 10: Don't be a smart ass?
Speaker 1: Well, and I mean, either you're a Christian or if
Speaker 1: you're a smart ass, oh, either you're a Christian or
Speaker 1: you're not. Which one is it?
Speaker 10: I could be either of them.
Speaker 14: But I don't have to take you.
Speaker 1: You don't have to tell me. I was under the
Speaker 1: impression I was invited to talk to a Christian. Am
Speaker 1: I not talking to a Christian?
Speaker 10: No, you were invited.
Speaker 1: To I think everyone should look at the title of
Speaker 1: the YouTube channel. You're probably in the wrong YouTube video.
Speaker 10: You're really quite something.
Speaker 1: You are, aren't I? But you're really quite right. You're
Speaker 1: not a Christian.
Speaker 10: I'm done with him, all right.
Speaker 4: So that guy came out later and said, indeed, the
Speaker 4: event was billed to the people during casting and who
Speaker 4: were invited as Jordan Peterson as a Christian versus twenty atheists,
Speaker 4: And so the controversy because the video has since been
Speaker 4: changed to from one Christian versus twenty atheists to Jordan
Speaker 4: Peterson versus.
Speaker 5: Twenty Yeah, define a Jordan. Can you define a Jordan Peterson? Right?
Speaker 5: But Jordan Peterson, if you are a Christian.
Speaker 4: People know that Jordan Peterson has long been seen as
Speaker 4: very problematic because he goes out and does these what
Speaker 4: are billed as very deep academic lectures on Christianity, but
Speaker 4: cannot bring himself to ultimately say that he believes in
Speaker 4: the truth of the resurrection, he believes that Jesus actually
Speaker 4: died and raised, was raised from the dead, and is
Speaker 4: not is more of like a maybe the right way
Speaker 4: to say it would be a.
Speaker 11: Cold Christian like the heretic.
Speaker 5: He's definitely a heretic, but everyone has sort of given him.
Speaker 4: Everyone's sort of given him some patience because he's sort
Speaker 4: of discovering. It's almost like Russell brand right, like he's
Speaker 4: he's on a he seems like he's on a journey,
Speaker 4: cooked right, right, right. But in the process he has
Speaker 4: said some things that are just utterly heretical. He has
Speaker 4: a terrible representation of Christianity. But the twenty Atheists brought
Speaker 4: that out better than most conservatives ever have. In conversation
Speaker 4: with Jordan Peterson, So what did you make of it?
Speaker 9: Ryan?
Speaker 11: The whole thing is comical. The guy's such a fraud.
Speaker 6: And the final line was devastating because it was blunt
Speaker 6: but also earned, like like he said he wouldn't say
Speaker 6: whether it's a Christian or not, and then he used
Speaker 6: the line you're really something, aren't you set him up
Speaker 6: for this? Frying pan across the face walked right in
Speaker 6: and you're really nothing like and so the kid had
Speaker 6: such a delightful retort because it works on so many levels.
Speaker 6: It's like, Okay, you're nothing because you won't say whether
Speaker 6: you're a Christian or you're an atheist, and yet you
Speaker 6: showed up here at this debate where you're supposed to
Speaker 6: be a Christian. You won't allow anything to be defined,
Speaker 6: so you constantly escape having to make any genuine analysis
Speaker 6: or give any thought to anything.
Speaker 11: But it works on the deeper level that there.
Speaker 6: Is nothing there, like and you know you should clean
Speaker 6: your room, like that's this big thing, Like you should
Speaker 6: actually do that, like it's smart.
Speaker 4: But he can't answer the question of why. Ultimately why
Speaker 4: he's the satisfaction of really anybody, just that it's like
Speaker 4: the Christians would say, there's a reason that you should
Speaker 4: do that, but he's never been able to get from
Speaker 4: point A to point B on that in a way
Speaker 4: that the.
Speaker 6: First one was hilarious, where he's like, I would not
Speaker 6: have put myself in that situation. I would have done
Speaker 6: things to prevent it. So what are the things that
Speaker 6: he could have done? The kid mentions one of them,
Speaker 6: you could be not born in Nazi Germany, but like
Speaker 6: in the hypothetical, that's not that's not an option, like
Speaker 6: you were born into that. After that is he saying that.
Speaker 11: He would have, through force of will, prevented the rise
Speaker 11: of Hitler.
Speaker 6: Yeah, is he saying he would just not have actually
Speaker 6: participated in rescuing Jews.
Speaker 11: From the Holocaust.
Speaker 6: Well, he's making this, he'saying he would have been a Nazi,
Speaker 6: so therefore he would have been actually knocking on the doors,
Speaker 6: not on the other side of it.
Speaker 4: Well he's making Yeah, I mean it doesn't what he's
Speaker 4: saying actually does not make any sense.
Speaker 5: And that's what everyone There's no.
Speaker 4: Logical route to the point he's making, because that would
Speaker 4: be predicated on this idea that truth prevents awfulness from happening,
Speaker 4: that a culture can be sort of like based on
Speaker 4: universal truths and it will all be great, which is
Speaker 4: not Christian at all, because the truth, the fundamental truth
Speaker 4: at the heart of Christianity is that man is fallen.
Speaker 4: So if you're a Christian, even that even classical liberalists
Speaker 4: and democracy doesn't save you from evil. So it doesn't
Speaker 4: save you prevent you from being put in those awful positions.
Speaker 4: So no, that doesn't make sense sense in of itself.
Speaker 4: But Brian also Jordan Peterson is sort of in this
Speaker 4: position where I don't know if I blame him or
Speaker 4: do believe because he's talked about himself as people ask
Speaker 4: him if he's a Christian and.
Speaker 11: Are there are other Christians you could get?
Speaker 4: Of course, but he also doesn't even ever agree with
Speaker 4: anybody saying he's a Christian. He always sort of takes
Speaker 4: it and says, well, I'm a new kind of Christian.
Speaker 4: That's one way he's answered the question. The other way
Speaker 4: he's answered the question is by saying, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: a Christian in the deepest possible sense. He says he
Speaker 4: believes this whole thing is that the stories of Christianity,
Speaker 4: Judeo Christianity are these like human archetypes that are based
Speaker 4: on the truth about humanity that's.
Speaker 5: Inside of us.
Speaker 4: And because he's a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and so he
Speaker 4: pulls that out and says, this is very like Youngian
Speaker 4: approach to what truth is. And then Christianity, through that
Speaker 4: lens is true in the sense that it's human and
Speaker 4: it's just a mess. As you're trying to work that
Speaker 4: out in public and also be treated as like a
Speaker 4: political spokesperson for the right.
Speaker 5: So I feel like I.
Speaker 4: Don't know whether Jordan Peterson agreed to that or if
Speaker 4: Jubilee invited people to do one Christian versus twenty atheists.
Speaker 4: I don't know if Jordan Peterson, I mean the kid
Speaker 4: who we just played, I don't know if he's a kid.
Speaker 4: But he came out, he looks young and said stu
Speaker 4: As Canal, No, that's like back call back to earlier
Speaker 4: in the episode. But he came out and said, Jordan
Speaker 4: Peterson seemed to know that that was what the debate
Speaker 4: was being billed as before.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, of course he did. Anyway, Jordan Peterson got erect.
Speaker 4: Well, my final take Andrew Peterson is just that he
Speaker 4: is a person who said something really obvious at a
Speaker 4: time when it was somewhat difficult to say something like that.
Speaker 5: And he made a good point.
Speaker 6: What was the point.
Speaker 4: It's just his his interview, No, his his original interview
Speaker 4: that went megaviral. He had already started to have some
Speaker 4: presence before this, but about like biological sex, that.
Speaker 11: Goes megaviral, that's where he took off.
Speaker 4: Yeah, catapults him the huge fame after that. The book
Speaker 4: comes out and becomes this massive bestseller. And I think
Speaker 4: the book did some real good and I also think
Speaker 4: it was low hanging fruit, and so because of that,
Speaker 4: he was catapulted into megastardom, which is difficult for anybody
Speaker 4: to cope with. He seems like he's coping with it
Speaker 4: not particularly well.
Speaker 5: And on top of that.
Speaker 4: He was famous for picking some low hanging fruit, and
Speaker 4: that doesn't make you a genius, you know, to sort
Speaker 4: of make a point about biological sex and then to
Speaker 4: make some decent points for young men. It was hard
Speaker 4: to say those things at the time, but it doesn't
Speaker 4: take a genius. But I think he's been thrust into
Speaker 4: this position where everyone expects him to be a towering
Speaker 4: thought leader and he never really came from that background.
Speaker 4: He just he said something really right, right right. It's
Speaker 4: easy to confuse it when everyone is you're selling out
Speaker 4: massive venues around the country and you have massive bestseller
Speaker 4: and everyone's telling you that people are paying money for
Speaker 4: your advice, big money for your advice. So so I
Speaker 4: think that's the position that he's found himself in now.
Speaker 4: And unheard, we've covered this debate about cultural Christianity a
Speaker 4: lot Ione Hersili wrote that essay for us about how
Speaker 4: she's now a Christian, not just cultural Christian. This is
Speaker 4: something real going on. I interviewed Alex O'Connor after he
Speaker 4: moderated a debate between Dawkins and Jordan Peterson, which was
Speaker 4: just as frustrating as this, because Peterson cannot bring himself
Speaker 4: to say that he believes he'll use different definitions of
Speaker 4: true about what's true about Christianity. So let's let's find
Speaker 4: another representation on that side of the debate. I think
Speaker 4: at this point going forward, it's we can no longer
Speaker 4: rely on Jordan Peterson to represent a sort of cogent
Speaker 4: side of the right going forward.
Speaker 6: He's on his own journey, all right, Jubilee to get
Speaker 6: it together. Let's move over to Trump, who is now
Speaker 6: engaged in a pardon spree, and we'll talk about a
Speaker 6: whole bunch of these that he just did. Todd and
Speaker 6: Julie from the from the reality TV. So they're they're
Speaker 6: getting they're getting a pardon.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 6: Ken Vogel has a piece of the New York Times
Speaker 6: about this fraudster whose mom gave a million bucks to
Speaker 6: Trump and did three fundraisers for Trump and got a
Speaker 6: got a pardon just before he was about to report
Speaker 6: to prison. I believe I don't think he'd ever actually
Speaker 6: had to go to prison. We'll talk about his crimes
Speaker 6: are really atrocious. Uh. And then a sheriff in Virginia
Speaker 6: who was basically selling a fake badges and letting like
Speaker 6: rich people the the fake deputies in order for bribes.
Speaker 6: In exchange for bribes, he also got pardon. So let's
Speaker 6: start with the first element. Up here, there's Alice Johnson,
Speaker 6: who was pardoned during Trump won and when Trump.
Speaker 11: Is so proud to have pardoned her. She was in
Speaker 11: prison for.
Speaker 6: Selling drugs and running a kind of drug empire, and
Speaker 6: she's now sort of become the pardons.
Speaker 5: Of her She was over prosecuted.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's the argument he's going to make about
Speaker 4: these inner pardons.
Speaker 11: Yea mostly weed dealing, right, it wasn't crack.
Speaker 5: I thought it was cracked. Anyway, go back and live.
Speaker 6: Yes, So anyway, here here they are in the Oval
Speaker 6: office calling up Christ.
Speaker 15: It's a terrible thing. It's a terrible thing, but it's
Speaker 15: a great thing because your parents are going to be
Speaker 15: free and clean.
Speaker 10: And I hope we can do it by tomorrow.
Speaker 15: He said, Okay, we'll try getting it dont tomorrow.
Speaker 16: So wonderful.
Speaker 15: Give them I don't know them, but give them my
Speaker 15: regards and wish wish them a good life.
Speaker 10: Yes, thank you for bringing up parents.
Speaker 15: Yeah, well they were given a pretty harsh treatment based
Speaker 15: on what I'm hearing. Congratulate your Parlavannah and Alice had
Speaker 15: a lot to do with this, and just congratulate your
Speaker 15: parents and I hit it terrific people that should not
Speaker 15: have happened. So and you, well they have they have
Speaker 15: good good children. You no longer children, but I'll say
Speaker 15: it anyway, they have good children, don't they?
Speaker 6: So top reality TV stars? They were busted for tax evasion.
Speaker 6: This is not not one I get super worked up about.
Speaker 6: Because they did some time, They did the crime, they
Speaker 6: did some time. And does the world necessarily benefit from
Speaker 6: them spending twenty years in prison? I'd like, I don't.
Speaker 6: I don't want people to get special treatment just because
Speaker 6: they're getting special I was, they're getting special dent literally
Speaker 6: special treatment.
Speaker 11: They're literally getting pardoned by the President.
Speaker 6: United States now, so that that is ridiculous and outrageous.
Speaker 6: By setting that aside, you know, you do, you do
Speaker 6: your tax evation, go do some do a little bit
Speaker 6: of time, like you don't need to lock these non
Speaker 6: violent people up for decades.
Speaker 4: The Alice Johnson pardon. People remember from Kim Kardashian's spearheading
Speaker 4: that effort I think with Van Jones, but that was
Speaker 4: coupled with what was called the First Step Act, which
Speaker 4: was a large scale policy effort. But this is you know,
Speaker 4: not that this is very much that's it. That's the
Speaker 4: kind of difference. But between targeting one over prosecution and
Speaker 4: then coupling it with a big policy act, that's not
Speaker 4: what's happening in this case. This is literally just special
Speaker 4: treatment based on Savannah Chrisly and that's who he was
Speaker 4: talking to. I was talking to the Chrysalies children. Savannah
Speaker 4: Crystally was the voice that.
Speaker 6: You watched that one.
Speaker 5: I watched it when it first came out.
Speaker 4: It was pretty like I feel like it cooked the
Speaker 4: first couple of years, and then it went down Yeah,
Speaker 4: it went downhill. But that was the era of like
Speaker 4: Duck Dynasty, when these big networks were trying to appeal
Speaker 4: more to Middle America by putting these like family sitcom
Speaker 4: type reality shows out and it was fine for a
Speaker 4: little while, but it just it wore off. The luster
Speaker 4: wore off pretty quickly with that one. They're not the
Speaker 4: most appealing characters.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And the argument on their behalf was that the
Speaker 6: IRS and the lead IRS person that was going after them,
Speaker 6: had their like face up on a bullseye, and like
Speaker 6: really wanted them and considered them to be like Trump's
Speaker 6: kind of avatar.
Speaker 5: Said they were the Trumps of Georgia, right, and.
Speaker 6: So there was some political motivation behind going after them,
Speaker 6: according to this defense. And you know, all right, they
Speaker 6: got them, they did a little time.
Speaker 11: Let them go.
Speaker 6: It's fine.
Speaker 4: Their tax advisor also went to jail was also prosecuted
Speaker 4: for this. They were found guilty of tax evasion and
Speaker 4: bank fraud. Basically, they were hiding their money to defraud
Speaker 4: the irs and banks is what they were found guilty of,
Speaker 4: as well as the tax advisor, the financial advisor in
Speaker 4: this case. We don't have to dwell too much on
Speaker 4: the Christly case because there are a couple of other ones.
Speaker 4: But I will just say, Ryan, I remember at the
Speaker 4: R and and See I was sitting in the press
Speaker 4: thing watching the kind of boring stuff happen before you
Speaker 4: get the keynote every night, and Savannah Chrystly came out
Speaker 4: and did this like utterly what's the right word, like obsequious.
Speaker 5: Pitch to about her parents to Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: And it was so cringe worthy because it was so
Speaker 4: it was such a nakedly transactional attempt to free her
Speaker 4: parents from prison, and I remember thinking, oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: this is going to work.
Speaker 6: Here we are.
Speaker 4: She went on Laura Trump's Fox News show just in
Speaker 4: the last several weeks, and Savannah credits that with bringing
Speaker 4: it to Trump's attention. She said, just in the last
Speaker 4: twenty four hours, Like he watches every edition of that show,
Speaker 4: and I'm pretty sure it's what brought it back to
Speaker 4: his attention. So it's just sort of funny how easy
Speaker 4: it is to cooperate with Donald Trump, How easy it
Speaker 4: is to negotiate with Donald Trump. You just have to
Speaker 4: I remember watching this at the RNC and hearing her
Speaker 4: compare their plate to Trump's and just thinking, oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: this is going to play him like a fiddle.
Speaker 6: Yeah. One of the things, like the word the word downtown,
Speaker 6: is that one of the ways you're supposed to pay
Speaker 6: Trump now is not just the Trump coin, but you're
Speaker 6: supposed to qute unquote invest in Millennia's documentary, like you know,
Speaker 6: because there's all these legal ways you can move money,
Speaker 6: like hey, you put in put in a million dollars,
Speaker 6: you become an investor in this documentary. Oh, it turns
Speaker 6: out documentary is not going to make any money. It's
Speaker 6: a write off for you. It's a business loss. You
Speaker 6: invested it, you lost it. But it's a legal bride.
Speaker 6: The other way, of course, is Trump sues, you look
Speaker 6: at your CBS and then you pay him a settlement.
Speaker 6: So it's all these clever legal ways to do bribery.
Speaker 6: Some of it is just you just give him a
Speaker 6: million dollars, which is what Paul Walls X mother did.
Speaker 6: So move to move to the next one. Great great
Speaker 6: story by Ken Vogel in The Times. So this is
Speaker 6: a guy who dropped out of college and then inherited
Speaker 6: his were a meritocracy, so he inherited his mom's nursing
Speaker 6: home company in Florida, Red Flag already nursing home company
Speaker 6: in Florida. Uh. The way that these companies, all companies
Speaker 6: work is you you withhold money for soci security and
Speaker 6: Medicare payroll taxes from your employees and then you send
Speaker 6: that to the state in the federal government like you
Speaker 6: withhold the tax money and then goes back to the
Speaker 6: state because it's not your money, like it's they earned it.
Speaker 6: It's their paycheck. But you you do handle it like
Speaker 6: the businesses handle it. If you notice on your paycheck
Speaker 6: this money is withheld, there is a bank account that
Speaker 6: that withholding goes to before it is sent off to
Speaker 6: the government. And what a company can do, what a
Speaker 6: CEO can do is just take that money. Yep.
Speaker 11: And that's what Waalzac was convicted of doing. He took
Speaker 11: that money. He bought a two million dollar yacht.
Speaker 6: And lived just a normal you know, Bergdorf, Goodman, Cardier. Uh,
Speaker 6: just lived enormously large with stolen money. His mom, you know,
Speaker 6: you know, who was wealthy from having run this nursing
Speaker 6: home company. You know, he hosted three fundraisers for Trump.
Speaker 6: So it gets you in the good graces big fundraisers too. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and and but then it was she paid what a
Speaker 6: million dollars? Uh, you know, So they reached out like
Speaker 6: they're trying to get this, get the son clemency. So
Speaker 6: she reaches out to do this. She then gets invited.
Speaker 6: So this is how this works. They know she wants
Speaker 6: something from them. So then, as he writes, miss Fagga
Speaker 6: was invited to a million dollar per person fundraising dinner
Speaker 6: last month that promised face to face access to mister
Speaker 6: Trump at his private Marlogue Club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Speaker 6: Less than three weeks after she attended the dinner, mister
Speaker 6: Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon. It came just
Speaker 6: in the nick of time for mister Wallzac, sparing him
Speaker 6: from having to pay nearly four point four million in
Speaker 6: restitution and from reporting to prison for an eighteen month
Speaker 6: sentence that had been handed down just twelve days earlier.
Speaker 6: A judge had justified the incarceration by declaring that their
Speaker 6: quote is not a get out of jail free card
Speaker 6: for the rich. False? There literally, judge, there literally is
Speaker 6: a get out of jail free card?
Speaker 11: Or is that rich?
Speaker 4: Bold like the visa card, but it could be it
Speaker 4: might as well be a million dollars.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and so wildly and Sanley corrupt. This is a
Speaker 6: person who stole money from working people to buy literally
Speaker 6: to buy a yacht, and then used some of that
Speaker 6: stolen money or his mother, I guess his mother's. Let's
Speaker 6: assume she didn't steal the money, used money that they
Speaker 6: made on the backs of the workers. We can at
Speaker 6: least say that and paid it to Trump. And now
Speaker 6: he's not just commuted like there's different you can do.
Speaker 6: You can commute a sentence which leaves the felony on
Speaker 6: your record, and you would you could he could have said,
Speaker 6: I'm commuting the sentence, but you still have to pay
Speaker 6: the restitution to the workers four point four million that
Speaker 6: you've been sentenced to pay. You can also just do
Speaker 6: a full and unconditional pardon. You you would keep their money.
Speaker 6: You earned it. How'd you earn it? By having the
Speaker 6: password to the bank account and moving it from them
Speaker 6: to yourself, So and not it won't spend a day
Speaker 6: in jail. Yeah, and you can keep going, go ahead,
Speaker 6: keep the money.
Speaker 8: No.
Speaker 4: This story by Vogel is insane, and it also gets
Speaker 4: into the wild connection between the Ashley Biden diary project Veritas.
Speaker 6: Oh, we didn't even talk about that lay that element,
Speaker 6: because that's the argument that his mother made, that his
Speaker 6: mother was involved with this actually Biden document diary and
Speaker 6: that the law enforcement came after them, and so this
Speaker 6: was actually all payback.
Speaker 11: It wasn't about the workers that he stole the money from.
Speaker 6: Was this was payback? So yeah, what was the do
Speaker 6: you guys remember this actually Biden diary.
Speaker 4: It's a I mean, the diary is a horrible.
Speaker 11: She went to this rehab, she left a diary behind.
Speaker 4: That had allegations that were disgusting.
Speaker 6: Somebody that it Basically it said, was it weird that
Speaker 6: my dad would shower with me or something like that when.
Speaker 4: I was older?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 6: Some creepy stuff in there, yes, and you know, not
Speaker 6: no smoking gun, but creepy stuff.
Speaker 5: And who knows if that's true.
Speaker 4: It was a diary of someone who was mentally unwell
Speaker 4: in rehab, but it was there.
Speaker 6: Right, and then somebody finds it, sells it like there's
Speaker 6: this whole sordid Coen Brothers esque.
Speaker 5: It is very Coen Brothers.
Speaker 6: So that winds up with it getting published project and
Speaker 6: then project very test like oh Keith got raided over this?
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, yes exactly.
Speaker 4: So a man who's friends with Fago contacts her about
Speaker 4: the diary. Uh Ken Vogel writes when she was first
Speaker 4: told of the diary, she said she thought it would
Speaker 4: help mister Trump's chances of winning the election. And then
Speaker 4: they brought that diary to a fundraiser at her home
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump Junior and Kimberly Guilfoyle attended.
Speaker 6: The diary and Trump Junior was like, did get this
Speaker 6: away from me? This is yeah, Trump, I think, I
Speaker 6: think this is one place where Trump Junior actually did
Speaker 6: the right thing.
Speaker 11: He was like, who wha, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't
Speaker 11: do not involve me with this.
Speaker 5: It's crazy. It's just such a crazy story with.
Speaker 11: Donald Trump Junior is like, this is this is too much.
Speaker 4: The fact that this is this woman was involved in that,
Speaker 4: Like you said, Cohen Brothers ass the only way you
Speaker 4: can even look at it.
Speaker 11: And he was so then it starts getting bought and sold, right.
Speaker 4: So Walsh was about to what was it was about
Speaker 4: to be sentenced, and so.
Speaker 11: The party was sentence. He was about to report in prison.
Speaker 4: It was about to report and Ken writes came quote
Speaker 4: just in the nick of time, clearly and when just
Speaker 4: to note there is it's similar to the Savannah Christly
Speaker 4: case of people knowing how to make these appeals.
Speaker 5: So the mom Fogo.
Speaker 4: Was apparently openly making an appeal based on her related
Speaker 4: like persecution.
Speaker 6: We were persecuted, Yeah exactly, yep, exactly.
Speaker 4: So now we have this other story. This is I
Speaker 4: believe the next element. Yeah, this is E four. So
Speaker 4: this is a story of sheriff Scott Jenkins, who Trump
Speaker 4: is giving a quote full and unconditional pardon. Two.
Speaker 5: He was also he was the one who was about to.
Speaker 6: Report end commentator and future Kentucky.
Speaker 4: Senator, oh Scott Jennings. Scott Jennings, Scott Jenkins, who was
Speaker 4: convicted on federal bribery charges last year. He was about
Speaker 4: to report to prison. I think today he was about
Speaker 4: to report to prison, and then within twenty four hours
Speaker 4: of him reporting to prison, Trump pardoned him. So from
Speaker 4: Reuter's they write, he was quite a former Virginia sheriff
Speaker 4: who served in area about two hours outside DC was
Speaker 4: convicted by a jury December twenty twenty four for accepting
Speaker 4: more than seventy five thousand dollars in bribes in exchange
Speaker 4: for appointment as auxiliary deputy sheriffs. He'd been sentenced to
Speaker 4: ten years in federal prison. And Ryan, I suppose there's
Speaker 4: potentially an argument that the sentence, and also the Chrysly
Speaker 4: sentences are long too much.
Speaker 6: I'm with I'm with them to okay ten years for that.
Speaker 6: You took seventy five thousand in campaign contributions, which is
Speaker 6: different than taking it in cash money, and it's exchange.
Speaker 6: You made, you know, the local car dealer like a
Speaker 6: fake cop. You let him be a fake cop for
Speaker 6: a day, it can be dangerous, like Oklahoma. There's this
Speaker 6: case in Oklahoma where they let this rich guy be
Speaker 6: a fake cop and he shot and killed a guy
Speaker 6: because he meant to pull his taser and accidentally pulled
Speaker 6: his pistol and killed a man. So like this, this
Speaker 6: is to me, it's if you want to take your
Speaker 6: badge and go home with it, like happens with nine
Speaker 6: year olds, fine, but like you get give him a
Speaker 6: fake badge and a real gun and no training. Now
Speaker 6: the community is the one that's going to pay so
Speaker 6: that you can get these bribes. Yeah, but still ten
Speaker 6: years is a little bit excessive.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's the argument Trump's going. He keeps saying, but.
Speaker 6: He's a big Trump guy, and they're like, they came
Speaker 6: after me because I'm a Trump guy and.
Speaker 4: You hurt, right, And that works so well on Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: and everybody knows it works so well on Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: And he said it in the Christly conversation with Savannah
Speaker 4: said they were treated very badly. And so yeah, it's
Speaker 4: what Blogoovitch got this too right. He sort of made
Speaker 4: a turn to being pro Trump, and that's all it took.
Speaker 4: And I don't know, Ryan, I if Trump is being
Speaker 4: taken for a ride so much as he just enjoys
Speaker 4: the deference and insequiousness.
Speaker 6: Anybody who goes through the criminal justice system comes out
Speaker 6: hating prosecutors, including Trump.
Speaker 11: H Yeah, And so he feels that.
Speaker 6: If I ever get convicted of anything, I'm gonna remind
Speaker 6: Trump of all the nice things I said about him.
Speaker 6: You have so many clips, so many good clips, I mean,
Speaker 6: commit a sense of humor, a lot. H So just
Speaker 6: you know, let's let's clip this one and stay it
Speaker 6: for if for this is get caught stealing people's tax
Speaker 6: money and buying a yacht with it, and let's just mention.
Speaker 4: Of course, Joe Biden had an unprecedented pardon policy. He
Speaker 4: pardoned family members, corrupt family members, pardoned Anthony Fauci. Absolutely
Speaker 4: that all happens.
Speaker 6: He pardoned changed this terrible sex criminal in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4: Preemptive pardons what And those are always favors, right, Like
Speaker 4: people would say, why would you pardon that guy? It's
Speaker 4: a favor to someone, right, Someone.
Speaker 6: Got that in front of him, must have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So yes, the Joe Biden was unprecedented in that
Speaker 4: respect and was transactional in that respect. This is a
Speaker 4: different level, obviously. This is a level of people nakedly
Speaker 4: making transactional appeals to the president and him responding, when
Speaker 4: do you get that sort of obsequious approach?
Speaker 11: And usually they wait till presidents wait till the end
Speaker 11: of their term. We're so embarrassed about this stuff.
Speaker 6: That's interesting, right, He's doing it right out like Tuesday afternoon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really interesting question about what norm or
Speaker 4: to what extent that sets a norm going forward, and
Speaker 4: to what extent Biden's partons set a norm going forward
Speaker 4: because those were quote unquote preemptive pardons of people who
Speaker 4: hadn't even been convicted.
Speaker 11: So Trump has learned that nothing matters.
Speaker 4: But that's the era that we live in right now,
Speaker 4: this last decade. We're ten years since Trump descended the
Speaker 4: Golden escalator, and we're learning that we don't actually know
Speaker 4: what the norms are anymore and where they will be
Speaker 4: in the post Trump era if we ever approach such
Speaker 4: a moment.
Speaker 6: Up up next, we're going to talk about the energy
Speaker 6: portion of Trump's massive, big, beautiful reconciliation package. Which bizarrely
Speaker 6: helped China develop its energy infrastructure and will destroy ours,
Speaker 6: both clean and dirty.
Speaker 11: We'll see stick around for that. The House passed.
Speaker 6: Reconciliation Bill, the Big Beautiful Bill, as everybody knows, takes
Speaker 6: a sledgehammer to Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act and all
Speaker 6: the clean energy tax credits in that. But something strange
Speaker 6: has happened on the way through the House and over
Speaker 6: to the Senate, which is that the dirty energy industry,
Speaker 6: the fossil fuel industry, has realized that it takes a
Speaker 6: sledgehammer to it as well. And so to talk about
Speaker 6: this and to walk us through how it is and
Speaker 6: why that is and what's going on is ducky Hun,
Speaker 6: who is the founder of a dirty energy company trying
Speaker 6: to make it as clean as possible called C Minus.
Speaker 6: I say dirty energy because it's involved with fossil fuels.
Speaker 6: A lot of your career has been trying to make
Speaker 6: fossil fuels cleaner, trying to kind of eradicate you know,
Speaker 6: fossil fuels, because everybody in the energy industry, as I
Speaker 6: understand it now correct me if I'm wrong, is pretty agnostic.
Speaker 6: You know about energy source like people are just like
Speaker 6: how do I get the wattage? Like, how do I
Speaker 6: get the electricity? What's the most reliable and the cheapest
Speaker 6: way that I can you know, get you know, move
Speaker 6: energy from A to B and sell it. And so
Speaker 6: this the clean energy kind of dirty energy divide within
Speaker 6: the industry isn't really as salient necessarily as it used
Speaker 6: to be. And uh, this this bill seems to be
Speaker 6: smashing both of them at the same time.
Speaker 11: So doucky, can you.
Speaker 6: Walk us through a little bit about you know, what
Speaker 6: are the what are the key elements of the IRA
Speaker 6: that are that are being nuked so to speak by
Speaker 6: this bill? And what will the effects be on projects
Speaker 6: that are either ongoing throughout the United States or are
Speaker 6: you know, planned for the coming years.
Speaker 16: Well, you're right on a lot of those those points.
Speaker 17: Uh So when you think of energy, I think you
Speaker 17: want to take a step back and see it's more
Speaker 17: of a transition than clean versus dirty or fossil. So
Speaker 17: the transition is is really what is uh kind of
Speaker 17: getting lost in this in this new bill. A lot
Speaker 17: of the fossil fossil energy guys, which you know, obviously
Speaker 17: is natural gas and coal mainly obviously oil in there
Speaker 17: as well. They were investing a lot of time and
Speaker 17: resources to processes that would clean up their existing facilities,
Speaker 17: existing fuel sources, like carbon capture, they were transitioning to hydrogen,
Speaker 17: investing a lot of money there.
Speaker 16: So those technologies were packaging.
Speaker 17: The i RA as transitions to to clean existing fuel
Speaker 17: sources and introduced new ones that fossil you know, legacy
Speaker 17: fossil guys could could participate in. Obviously the other end
Speaker 17: of the spectrum or the solar battery when guys, those
Speaker 17: guys were definitely a lot more advanced in this transition.
Speaker 17: So I don't think it's it's really a competition. I
Speaker 17: think it's more of this transition that is getting I
Speaker 17: think it could be on the you know, on the
Speaker 17: chopping block here. I'm just unsure where who wins really,
Speaker 17: who wins in this whenever we're cutting these these incentive programs,
Speaker 17: because just like solar was, you know, twenty twenty five
Speaker 17: years ago, we advanced a lot of those technologies, but
Speaker 17: production went to.
Speaker 16: China, and.
Speaker 17: Unfortunately, it looks like we might have to do the
Speaker 17: same here because they've invested in a lot of these
Speaker 17: technologies in parallel with the United States.
Speaker 16: But a lot of the a lot.
Speaker 17: Of production was slated to come to the United States
Speaker 17: for these projects because of the IRA And unfortunately, I
Speaker 17: think if we don't kind of nip this where in
Speaker 17: the Senate, a lot of these projects might end up
Speaker 17: going back to China or Europe.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you're talking about.
Speaker 11: Fossil fuel projects, right and so, and that's right.
Speaker 6: And if you can put up F one here, this
Speaker 6: is the kind of the utility industry complaining that they're
Speaker 6: talking about clean energy. But if you read deeper into
Speaker 6: the story they're talking about, they're talking about the entire thing.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 6: I've seen you make the point and I've seen others
Speaker 6: make it as well that in order to you know,
Speaker 6: we're you know, we're talking about AI and other computing.
Speaker 11: Trump says everything is computer.
Speaker 6: Requiring something like a doubling of us, you know, energy
Speaker 6: production over the you know, the very near near term.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: And I've seen you and others talk about the fact
Speaker 6: that the natural gas turbines that are needed to ramp
Speaker 6: up Let's let's say you love natural gas, you hate
Speaker 6: clean energy, You just you just want to burn natural gas.
Speaker 6: The turbines needed to produce energy from it are facing
Speaker 6: something like you you tell me something like a ninety
Speaker 6: six month backlog, like if you were ten years almost
Speaker 6: like if you wanted new ones. I mean, I think,
Speaker 6: can you walk us through, like what.
Speaker 11: Does it actually mean to produce this energy?
Speaker 16: Right?
Speaker 17: So these projects that the IRA kind of incentivized their
Speaker 17: long duration, there's a lot of engineering that goes into
Speaker 17: these projects. So even on a short scale, if you
Speaker 17: were you know, yeah, you didn't have these projects in
Speaker 17: development before.
Speaker 16: I mean, these are three to five year projects.
Speaker 17: So a lot of these have not hit the hit
Speaker 17: the ground yet.
Speaker 16: So to speak.
Speaker 17: So in the realm of natural gas, I mean it
Speaker 17: is I mean everyone's always said natural gas is a
Speaker 17: transition feel and in the near term, I believe we
Speaker 17: do have to ramp up uh natural gas with you know,
Speaker 17: a lot of you know, carbon capture if possible. I
Speaker 17: mean that that seems to be kind of left in
Speaker 17: the lurch now, uh, to to meet these energy demands.
Speaker 17: But you know, the big the big gas turbine manufacturers,
Speaker 17: ge Siemens, Mitsubishi, I mean they I think on a
Speaker 17: very conservative estimate there they're five years out from delivering uh.
Speaker 17: Even if you I mean then we're going back to
Speaker 17: kind of putting deposits down to get in the queue,
Speaker 17: essentially kind of what what we were back in the
Speaker 17: early two thousands, the last time natural gas wash was relevant.
Speaker 17: So yeah, we're going back to the you know, the
Speaker 17: five year weights, and you know, if AI does ramp
Speaker 17: up aggressively, I mean we're talking about maybe ten years backlog.
Speaker 17: So none of these are going to happen quickly. I
Speaker 17: think everyone should understand that. I mean, you know, these
Speaker 17: big AI and data centers and crypto announcements. I think
Speaker 17: I think everyone's a little too optimistic if they're thinking,
Speaker 17: you know, one to three years, you just you just
Speaker 17: can't get these these components.
Speaker 16: I mean, gas turmans are one thing. I mean, I
Speaker 16: don't know if.
Speaker 17: You've heard about the transformer issues another another component, key
Speaker 17: component that uh, you know, the backlog has just ramped
Speaker 17: up tremendously since COVID and and doesn't look any anywhere
Speaker 17: near resolving itself.
Speaker 4: Now, I want to roll this clip F two of
Speaker 4: Elon Musk, who is going to be on CBS Sunday
Speaker 4: Morning this week, and they're revealing sort of teaser moments
Speaker 4: from that conversation and Musk sort of talks about the
Speaker 4: quote unquote big beautiful bill and the change we can
Speaker 4: go ahead and roll the clip, you know.
Speaker 18: I was like, we're disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly,
Speaker 18: which increases the bunch depsit not does decrease it, and
Speaker 18: that reminds the work that the Doge team is doing.
Speaker 4: I actually thought that when this big beautiful bill came along.
Speaker 3: I mean, like everything he's done on Dose gets wiped
Speaker 3: out in the first year.
Speaker 18: I think, I think a bill can be can be
Speaker 18: big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know
Speaker 18: if it could be both my postal opinion.
Speaker 5: So there we have.
Speaker 4: Clean energy, domestic manufacturing slash assembly Man Elon Musk looking
Speaker 4: at the big beautiful bill with a dose of realism
Speaker 4: after he spent I guess, the last six.
Speaker 5: Months or so in Washington, DC. So I wanted to ask.
Speaker 4: I mean a lot of people on the writer are
Speaker 4: actually criticizing the bill for not going far enough on
Speaker 4: dismantling the IRA. That's something a lot of people want
Speaker 4: to see happen when it goes over to the Senate.
Speaker 4: But my understanding is also that some of what the
Speaker 4: bill does is meant to disentangle production from China and
Speaker 4: bring it back to the US. It sounds like the
Speaker 4: way that they're going about that, I mean it's the
Speaker 4: like foreign entity clause in the bill. It sounds like
Speaker 4: some of the way they're going about that is actually
Speaker 4: counterproductive possibly as well. Can you just kind of flush
Speaker 4: out that dynamic for us?
Speaker 16: Yeah, I mean it it is.
Speaker 17: It is puzzling, you know, the intent versus the reality
Speaker 17: of it. I think it's gonna be difficult to to
Speaker 17: get these projects off the ground with with those kind
Speaker 17: of last minute tweaks to that bill, especially the foreign
Speaker 17: entity because we still don't make a lot of these
Speaker 17: components in the United States. Obviously we were, we were
Speaker 17: getting there, but I don't think we would have really
Speaker 17: justified making all the smaller components maybe some of the
Speaker 17: larger components that would comprise of these projects.
Speaker 16: But yeah, it's a big hurdle.
Speaker 6: Can you can you explain that? So the foreignity of
Speaker 6: concern is basically referring to China. The bill says, correct
Speaker 6: me if I'm wrong here. The bill basically says, if
Speaker 6: if you're getting components from China, but instment or or investment, okay,
Speaker 6: or investment from China, then you cannot get the access
Speaker 6: to the tax credits which make the project kind of
Speaker 6: pencil out in a financial way. So as somebody who
Speaker 6: involved in the industry, who how possible would it be
Speaker 6: if if you were told, okay, you want these credits,
Speaker 6: every component and all investment must come from the US.
Speaker 6: I guess you can get French investment, but you can't
Speaker 6: get Chinese investment. You can't have Chinese components, Like could
Speaker 6: you could you get a project going anytime soon?
Speaker 11: Under those circumstances, you could.
Speaker 17: Get break around, but lead times would definitely delay the
Speaker 17: project tremendously. I think another compon of the kind of
Speaker 17: last minute you know, negotiating for this bill. I think
Speaker 17: the more dangerous component is the start time. So a
Speaker 17: lot of these projects.
Speaker 11: Explain that this is a really interesting component, right.
Speaker 17: So a lot of these projects, so they didn't scrap
Speaker 17: the IRA per se, but they did put some stringent
Speaker 17: regulations like the FEOC and then the start time for
Speaker 17: a lot of these projects to qualify for the incentives
Speaker 17: or you know, sixty days from the final passage of
Speaker 17: the bill.
Speaker 16: So that's that's that's really you know, a killer right there.
Speaker 17: I mean I think that would kill ninety nine percent
Speaker 17: of the projects that are slated to come.
Speaker 6: So and you have to finish by a certain time too.
Speaker 17: Yeah, so you have to finish by twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 17: And like I said, these projects are long lead time,
Speaker 17: a lot of engineering involved.
Speaker 16: And some of these projects.
Speaker 17: Or are really relying on incentives that were finalized in January, right,
Speaker 17: So a lot of these you know, financial modeling the projections,
Speaker 17: I mean, they're still in limbo, so you're not getting
Speaker 17: to a final investment decision considering.
Speaker 16: The uncertainty essentially.
Speaker 17: So even the projects that were heavily financed by you know,
Speaker 17: let's say big oil or oil and gas or big
Speaker 17: energy companies, legacy companies, I don't see them getting getting through,
Speaker 17: especially with the sixty day start time. I mean, we're
Speaker 17: talking about a project that would normally go through engineering
Speaker 17: in two to three years and then saying you off
Speaker 17: the break ground sixty days after finalization of this bill.
Speaker 17: I think that's that's really killing the all incentives that
Speaker 17: are in the ir and to begin with.
Speaker 4: So basically, if we zoom out to the broader goal
Speaker 4: of on shoring, near shoring, friends shoring, some of these industries.
Speaker 4: The bill, I guess is from that perspective then actually
Speaker 4: kind of hurting its own goal or undermining its own
Speaker 4: goal if it is on shoring, near showing friends, showing,
Speaker 4: because maybe the ultimate goal, or the less honest goal,
Speaker 4: is just to hurt the industry's period, the clean energy
Speaker 4: industries period. Like what do you make of what the
Speaker 4: we were talking earlier about who benefits? Like, what is
Speaker 4: the actual end goal? Do you think based on what's
Speaker 4: in the bill?
Speaker 17: Well, I mean, that's that's the confusion I have for sure.
Speaker 17: I don't know who benefits. I think a lot of
Speaker 17: the benefits that we've already seen from the IRA have
Speaker 17: benefited a lot of the Republican states and Republican districts.
Speaker 17: I mean maybe to the tune of, you know, seventy
Speaker 17: or to eighty percent of the jobs created or going
Speaker 17: to those districts. And we're talking about hundreds of thousands
Speaker 17: of jobs here, and some of those plants that relied
Speaker 17: on those incentives may lose them and close.
Speaker 16: So I mean, it's really confusing to me who benefits.
Speaker 17: I mean, it's it's tough because obviously we're talking about
Speaker 17: a lot of new projects. In addition, to the ones
Speaker 17: that already opened. So I mean, we're talking about hundreds
Speaker 17: of thousands more jobs going to a lot of red districts.
Speaker 17: So it's it's confusing to me, what you know, who wins?
Speaker 17: I mean people, I don't know if it's a zero
Speaker 17: sum game. I mean, I think everyone can benefit from this,
Speaker 17: but I think everyone could lose too, right, So I
Speaker 17: don't think there's there's any clear winners to me.
Speaker 6: And for people who want to read more about that,
Speaker 6: we can put up F three. You can find this piece.
Speaker 6: Ducky had recommended this at Latitude Media. As you're talking,
Speaker 6: I wonder if the answer to this question of who benefits,
Speaker 6: ironically might be China. Like if if you want to
Speaker 6: develop these both clean energy projects and also projects that
Speaker 6: are making fossil fuel energy cleaner, it seems like the
Speaker 6: place that is making that possible would after this would
Speaker 6: would be China. And it seems like the bill is
Speaker 6: if you wanted to write a bill to basically stop
Speaker 6: the development and production of energy in the United States,
Speaker 6: you couldn't do much better than the way this bill
Speaker 6: is currently written.
Speaker 16: Well, that's what it seems like.
Speaker 17: I mean, like I mentioned, with the solar industry twenty
Speaker 17: years and you know, we did a lot of development
Speaker 17: in national labs and then we send all the manufacturing
Speaker 17: to China. I mean, that's it's unfortunate. But yeah, I
Speaker 17: think they're pretty happy about the prospects of this.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And China doesn't even have much of a lobbying operation
Speaker 6: in the US, like basically zero, and they're getting a
Speaker 6: bill just straight up written for them. It's amazing.
Speaker 4: We'll see, We'll see, Senates.
Speaker 6: It's very confusing. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Senate I think is gonna it's going to
Speaker 4: have some real tweaks to this part.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because North Carolina and Doug you might know last
Speaker 6: question for you might know a little bit about this.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 6: North Carolina senators, I know are both concerned about what
Speaker 6: this doing is doing to Solark because North Carolina has
Speaker 6: become one of the kind of leading builders of solar
Speaker 6: energy and now this is going to take a sledgehammer
Speaker 6: to to that, you know. And it's an it's an
Speaker 6: industry that is that supports Republicans and and hires Republicans
Speaker 6: to work at the in it. Uh. So you've got
Speaker 6: you got North Carolina, maybe you've got some Texas which
Speaker 6: has a lot of energy production, including clean energy production.
Speaker 6: Do you have a sense Yeah, Georgia as well, did
Speaker 6: you have do you have a sense of Although I
Speaker 6: guess democrats are there are there Republicans who might have
Speaker 6: the strength to push back on this.
Speaker 17: I hope so, I mean, I know, I don't know
Speaker 17: if a lot of your viewers knew. I mean, there's
Speaker 17: a there's a a letter that you know, a lot
Speaker 17: of Republicans drafted, you know, twenty some odd you know,
Speaker 17: senators and House members supporting you know, the the benefits
Speaker 17: of the IRA. Unfortunately, twenty of those House members kind
Speaker 17: of signed onto this last minute. So hopefully the senators
Speaker 17: kind of have a little more influence on this and
Speaker 17: don't have we'll have the right kind of influence essentially
Speaker 17: to support their constituents.
Speaker 5: Or we'll see them go in another direction.
Speaker 11: And just support China. What are you doing?
Speaker 5: A lot?
Speaker 4: A lot to be determined in the next month.
Speaker 6: It's incredible watch Doucky Hume, founder of energy company C Minus.
Speaker 6: Thanks for bring us up to speed on this. Appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Thank you for having me all right, be well, honestly,
Speaker 6: I don't get it. What are you all doing?
Speaker 4: Look at me?
Speaker 11: This is your responsibility. You need to clean this up.
Speaker 6: It's insane. What like and his point about how we
Speaker 6: developed the solar industry in the nineties two thousands, and
Speaker 6: because it's associated with hippies or whatever, and it was manufacturing,
Speaker 6: we just shipped it off to China. And now look
Speaker 6: how that's working out. And now here we are twenty
Speaker 6: years later, like doing the exact same thing.
Speaker 4: Listen, I'm all for innovation and renewable energy sector because
Speaker 4: it gets you off the grid, gets you you know,
Speaker 4: you don't have to worry about the government controlling your
Speaker 4: energy sources.
Speaker 6: But a lot of what his company does, or his
Speaker 6: companies that he's founded over the years, they take, like
Speaker 6: I'm saying, it takes waste products, and it takes and
Speaker 6: they take fossil fuels, and they try to reduce the
Speaker 6: carbon emissions and the pollution related to it, acknowledging which
Speaker 6: the Left doesn't really like to do, acknowledging that fossil
Speaker 6: fuels are going to be here for very long time
Speaker 6: and if they are getting burned, how do we reduce
Speaker 6: the emissions and pollution from them. In the meantime, all
Speaker 6: that that entire industry being built up it's just gonna go.
Speaker 11: It's just going to go to China.
Speaker 10: I mean.
Speaker 6: On the other hand, and like he's with the transformers.
Speaker 6: If without the transformers, you don't have energy production, which
Speaker 6: you know what this AI sucks. So uh if if
Speaker 6: these goons don't have enough juice for their AI, fine
Speaker 6: good find it in the sun. So they're gonna win.
Speaker 6: You're gonna get rolling blackouts. Uh, their AI is going
Speaker 6: to get the energy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true. On the other hand, the IRA was grifty.
Speaker 4: I mean you had John Podesta overseeing the you know,
Speaker 4: longtime lobbyist overseeing the distributor.
Speaker 6: No, no, that Tony is the lobbyist.
Speaker 5: I mean John Podesta was a lobbyist as well, the
Speaker 5: Podesta Group.
Speaker 11: No, no, that's Tony Potesta.
Speaker 5: Back in the nineties. Yeah, but I mean.
Speaker 11: I thought he's always been in there.
Speaker 4: I think the Podesta Group was founded like late eighties,
Speaker 4: early nineties.
Speaker 6: Anyway, was John Potesta, I mean he was always Anyway.
Speaker 4: The producers literally gotten her ear just like put it
Speaker 4: up Tony dicusy lobbyst Tony Podessa is definitely a scuzzy lobbyist.
Speaker 4: But anyway, they put John Podesta in charge of distributing
Speaker 4: some of the IRA. All that is to say, we
Speaker 4: will see what happens when the bill goes to the Senate.
Speaker 4: Republicans want more cuts, but of course they also want
Speaker 4: to undermine China and near shore and reshore all of
Speaker 4: these wonderful industries, so good luck to them also while
Speaker 4: keeping Elon Musk happy and having a tiny margin in
Speaker 4: the House and actually the Senate as well. And by
Speaker 4: the way, they also think they need this to augment.
Speaker 5: The tariff policy.
Speaker 4: So best of luck to the GOP and to all
Speaker 4: of us really who will have to be dealing with
Speaker 4: the consequences.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so dumb.
Speaker 4: So stay tuned here to Breaking Points for all of
Speaker 4: the details. Breakingpoints dot com for a premium subscription. We
Speaker 4: will be doing a Friday show this week right now.
Speaker 6: Am is coming right up to participate in that. If
Speaker 6: you are a supporter of our journalism by going to
Speaker 6: breakingpoints dot com and becoming a paying subscriber.
Speaker 4: Same if you want to watch the second half of
Speaker 4: the Friday shows, so Breakingpoints dot Com head on over.
Speaker 5: We'll see you. If you're sticking around for the A
Speaker 5: M A. In just a bit