Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 3: Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Crystal.
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do lots of interesting things to bring you
Speaker 1: this morning, including more results from that exclusive Breaking Points
Speaker 1: focus group of New Hampshire Republican voters. They get into
Speaker 1: age limits, they get into Ukraine funding, they get into
Speaker 1: whether or not they would vote for former President Trump
Speaker 1: literally from prison. All of these things are very interesting,
Speaker 1: so we'll show you those and we'll of course give
Speaker 1: you our thoughts on and reactions to them as well.
Speaker 1: We also wanted to take a look at a weird
Speaker 1: phenomenon yesterday on nine to eleven, you had both the
Speaker 1: White House praising Saudi Arabia of all countries. You also
Speaker 1: have the New York Times publishing some sort of Saudi
Speaker 1: backed propaganda in the paper of records, so we'll dig
Speaker 1: into that as well. And quite a moment from our
Speaker 1: current president, Joe Biden about where he was the day
Speaker 1: after nine to eleven that is raising a whole lot
Speaker 1: of eyebrows about what he says there. We also have
Speaker 1: some really interesting data about, as you guys know, we've
Speaker 1: been covering here, the fact that there was a huge
Speaker 1: shift in terms of population where people were moving to,
Speaker 1: where they wanted to stay, etc. During the pandemic that
Speaker 1: has persisted post pandemic, and interesting report about how that
Speaker 1: is raising some tensions in some of the rural areas
Speaker 1: that attracted a lot of new folks, so we'll get
Speaker 1: into that as well. Also, Wall Street Journal had an
Speaker 1: interesting breakdown of how parents they're kind of freaking out
Speaker 1: about what their kids are watching and how they are
Speaker 1: not going for the normal Disney movies. They have these
Speaker 1: obsessions with different YouTube creators and YouTube shorts that the
Speaker 1: parents have no idea what's going on. I include myself
Speaker 1: in that phenomenon, so we will dig into that as well.
Speaker 1: And this comes right as Disney has also finally struck
Speaker 1: a deal with Charter Communications, which has a lot of
Speaker 1: implications for the future of the cable news business. Coyerson
Speaker 1: Rocana is going to be back in studio with us today.
Speaker 1: We're going to ask him about Ukraine war funding. We're
Speaker 1: also going to talk to him about a new anti
Speaker 1: corruption plan. But before we get to any of that,
Speaker 1: thank you again to all of the premium subscribers who
Speaker 1: made this focus group a reality.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you all so much for supporting our work here.
Speaker 2: And as a reminder, we'll be giving you the full
Speaker 2: view of the focus group in a couple of days.
Speaker 2: You'll be able to watch it before anybody else that
Speaker 2: we put it out, because you guys are the ones
Speaker 2: who helped pay for it. As we said, we're really
Speaker 2: excited with the results so far. We've gotten coverage and
Speaker 2: Semaphore write up of it. We've got quite a bit
Speaker 2: of reaction as well outside of this, so this has
Speaker 2: been a big deal I think for Breaking Points. It's
Speaker 2: a validation of a lot of the work that we're
Speaker 2: trying to do here in order to iterate and actually
Speaker 2: compete in the areas that we're able to against the
Speaker 2: mainstream media. You guys are making that possible breakingpoints dot
Speaker 2: com if you're able. Very proud of our focus group, Crystal,
Speaker 2: because I think some of the issues and the way
Speaker 2: that we are moderator James press people but really getting
Speaker 2: into the questions about not only the politics but in
Speaker 2: some of the policy ones that we're going to be
Speaker 2: able to get in today, very distinctive from how most
Speaker 2: people actually conduct these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's funny James being a brit with
Speaker 1: that great accent. He actually has a great poker face
Speaker 1: number one and number two since he doesn't have any
Speaker 1: of the like American context cultural signifiers of which side
Speaker 1: he might feel help. I think it actually was very
Speaker 1: effective and comes through in some of the responses we
Speaker 1: were able to get. So let's go ahead and dive
Speaker 1: into this latest piece. So obviously, with both our top
Speaker 1: presidential contenders, the current president and the former president being
Speaker 1: quite elderly, and with recent incidents with Mitch McConnell, recent
Speaker 1: incidents with Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi announcing at eighty three
Speaker 1: years old she is once again running for re election,
Speaker 1: a lot of concern I think across both parties and
Speaker 1: independents and literally everyone about how aged and elderly. Our
Speaker 1: elected officials have become so. James asked our focused group
Speaker 1: participants whether they supported hard and fast age limits for
Speaker 1: politicians here in Washington. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4: Age limits.
Speaker 5: Some people have talked about age limits of public office
Speaker 5: and whether it's in the Senate, whether it's in the
Speaker 5: presidential race.
Speaker 6: You know, it's like kids in the candy store. They
Speaker 6: make money for themselves, they go win, then they don't
Speaker 6: have much money. They come out they're millionaires and even
Speaker 6: know where they get their money from. But they end
Speaker 6: up becoming millionaires, and they vote themselves raises all the time. Ridiculous, ridiculous,
Speaker 6: you know, and uh, you know, as far as term
Speaker 6: limbits call, they're the ones.
Speaker 4: That vote for it.
Speaker 6: Where it should be the people who vote.
Speaker 4: To the term limits, not them.
Speaker 5: What offices are you thinking about? Seven limit?
Speaker 7: Four?
Speaker 6: Is that we're the main government itself in Congress. It's
Speaker 6: just ridiculous, just ridiculous.
Speaker 5: Is there anyone in particular you've got you might have
Speaker 5: in mind?
Speaker 6: All of them, all of them.
Speaker 8: I just like career politicians like you said, they go in,
Speaker 8: come out millionaires, multimillionaires.
Speaker 9: Just there shouldn't be anybody in there over fifty years,
Speaker 9: you know, making their way to the top after just
Speaker 9: being in there for life.
Speaker 5: It's not an age thing or how long people have
Speaker 5: been around thing.
Speaker 10: I think it's how long they've been around. I think
Speaker 10: that people are just so entrenched in the way that
Speaker 10: they're doing things, that they've been doing it so long
Speaker 10: they can't see other ways of doing it.
Speaker 11: I just feel like it becomes routine, Like it's just
Speaker 11: a routine. It's routine. And I feel like the voices
Speaker 11: of the people, even though they say that they're listening
Speaker 11: to the voices of the people, it would be a
Speaker 11: different world if they truly were listening to the voices
Speaker 11: of the people.
Speaker 12: You got Nancy Polos, He's going from there four more
Speaker 12: years today. I mean, my goodness. I don't think there
Speaker 12: should be age limits, but let's look at their cognitive abilities.
Speaker 12: That's you know, Crouse, That's all becomes a judgmental issue.
Speaker 12: I realize that. But you know, it's just because some
Speaker 12: people are older, I have better wisdom because of the years
Speaker 12: of experience. So we want to limit in their age.
Speaker 12: But if there's an eighty some kind of tests that
Speaker 12: could take you know, but once again, who's going to
Speaker 12: be fine? What the test limits are.
Speaker 11: People need to know their boundaries, and I don't think
Speaker 11: that we should judge them and say, oh, you're this age,
Speaker 11: you can't do that because we don't understand. But I
Speaker 11: also think that if you look worldwide, as you get older,
Speaker 11: you do forget things and you do like that's just
Speaker 11: a known fact. But I feel like taking on the
Speaker 11: responsibility of a president or a senator like I do,
Speaker 11: think age is a factor.
Speaker 4: I don't disagree a bit.
Speaker 9: Just because I know some elderly that are sharpest tacks
Speaker 9: and and then some young people that have no common sense.
Speaker 9: So I think it. I would like it to be
Speaker 9: able to be a case by case basis, but no,
Speaker 9: but they won't always know their limits, and not everybody
Speaker 9: stops driving when they should stop driving.
Speaker 13: I don't think you need age limits because everybody is
Speaker 13: different at different ages. The question is why do Senator
Speaker 13: Feinstein and Connell keep getting elected when they're not competent,
Speaker 13: And it's because the entrenched incumbetency makes it very, very
Speaker 13: difficult to get somebody out of there. Because once you
Speaker 13: have your connections, you have the fundraising, you have years
Speaker 13: and years and years and there the Congress does not
Speaker 13: turn over like it should. You have people in there
Speaker 13: for fifty years even when they're not competent, because it's
Speaker 13: just too hard to beat them.
Speaker 5: Who's in support of an age limit on the office
Speaker 5: of president?
Speaker 4: Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 6: I think past seventy five this should be a limit
Speaker 6: as far as that there goes. Just like voting, you
Speaker 6: have to be a certain age. But I think if
Speaker 6: we had term limits, whether they have it upstairs or not,
Speaker 6: they would be out. And whether it be four years
Speaker 6: or eight years or twelve years, you know, they'd be gone.
Speaker 6: And it's good to have fresh new blood in there
Speaker 6: with fresh new ideas instead of keeping the same people
Speaker 6: over and over and over.
Speaker 4: It's a broken right.
Speaker 14: Well, I like the idea of being in the seventies,
Speaker 14: your past your retirement age, so you can still like
Speaker 14: understand that demographic and you've been through pretty much all
Speaker 14: the stages of you know, going to school, working, you know,
Speaker 14: raising families and then retirement and grandkids and all that.
Speaker 14: So you have like a good idea of everybody at
Speaker 14: their own stage of life. But I'd say like mid seventies,
Speaker 14: like seventy five or so, it is good.
Speaker 1: Like I really feel like eighty.
Speaker 10: I don't know. I'm probably the outlier in that age,
Speaker 10: but I feel like that could work.
Speaker 5: Put your hand up if you'd like to see some
Speaker 5: sort of cognitive test for those who run for office
Speaker 5: for president? Hands up?
Speaker 4: If so?
Speaker 5: Yeah, interesting, because I judge it.
Speaker 12: Yeah, Like I said earlier, how do you judge that?
Speaker 12: Because something can make a definition of what is cognitive
Speaker 12: and what isn't. And with this government today, they'll twisted
Speaker 12: any way they can to get their agenda down what
Speaker 12: they want to do. And I've seen some people who
Speaker 12: you know, I mean, think of President Reagan. He is
Speaker 12: in his lower eighties when he left office and some
Speaker 12: of his better years a second term.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump too old to be president? Or is he
Speaker 5: still the right age?
Speaker 12: I think he's the right age because he's he's got
Speaker 12: the ability to do far more than most thirty year
Speaker 12: olds can do today. I mean, the guy just goes.
Speaker 9: I don't think that's why. I'm not sure age is significant.
Speaker 9: I think it's more about their capabilities. So I don't
Speaker 9: think he's too old.
Speaker 5: What about Jay Biden? But you end up eating Jay
Speaker 5: Biden's to oldre president.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a very interesting exchange around age
Speaker 1: limits and cognitive tests and how do you draw the
Speaker 1: line and who do you draw the line? What did
Speaker 1: you take from that soccer?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think they actually identified a lot of
Speaker 2: the catch all. So, yeah, he had the blackjacket guy,
Speaker 2: the Trump guy. He actually said seventy five. I don't
Speaker 2: know if he knows as a chosen candidate of seventy
Speaker 2: seven Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: That's fine, but that shows the challenge with this. And
Speaker 1: I actually thought the lady who was like like she
Speaker 1: was aware Trump is seventy seven, so he's over a
Speaker 1: lot of these age limits. But I still think he's
Speaker 1: up to the job. So I don't know if drawing
Speaker 1: these hard and fast lines is the right.
Speaker 3: That's why it's difficult.
Speaker 2: It's one of those where as she correctly identified, there
Speaker 2: are people who are about eighty nine ninety years old
Speaker 2: who are very with it, who are very I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say capable of like the highest function of their like
Speaker 2: in the highest level of their game. But the idea
Speaker 2: that they're like they have dementia, they're totally gone is
Speaker 2: not true. But if we just look at risks and
Speaker 2: all those things, I think it obviously makes them uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: I I also, you know, in terms of term limits,
Speaker 2: I've never necessarily been a proponent of term limits. I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of trade offs in terms of that,
Speaker 2: you know, we can have faith in democracy. But then
Speaker 2: also the one gentleman, the guy who is a disantist voter,
Speaker 2: he also he was like, look, at the same time,
Speaker 2: you know, you have incumbency problems. If I had to,
Speaker 2: if I had to say that there's a real solve
Speaker 2: to any of this, it's actually disrupting the incumbency issue. Agree,
Speaker 2: and primary because allowing fresh blood into the system really
Speaker 2: comes from that pipeline that feeds into elected office, rather
Speaker 2: than once they're there and entrenching they're set on power.
Speaker 2: But it's a very thorny one. I personally, I think
Speaker 2: I'm coming around.
Speaker 3: To actually an age limit.
Speaker 2: And yes, I understand that could be discriminatory against people
Speaker 2: who are you know, still with it or not, but
Speaker 2: it's just we have too high of a tail end
Speaker 2: risk for somebody who is just far too old or
Speaker 2: the risk of you losing it, you know, is just
Speaker 2: it's far too high whenever you're that age. And I
Speaker 2: understand that can be uncomfortable, but you know, we're about
Speaker 2: to get into the American people definitely agree with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I mean, I'm very sympathetic to the view,
Speaker 1: but I don't agree with it because I think the
Speaker 1: solution isn't. When you start putting additional limits on whether
Speaker 1: it's term limits or age limited limits or cognitive test limits,
Speaker 1: you're actually constraining the choices in democracy. What I would
Speaker 1: like to see is more democracy. More to the point
Speaker 1: of the guy who said, you know, the real issue
Speaker 1: here is we got to disrupt the power of incumbency.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've talked before about the reason why
Speaker 1: we've ended up with all of these elderly people staying
Speaker 1: around in Washington forever and ever, and at its core,
Speaker 1: it is a failure of democracy. So I'd be much
Speaker 1: more in favor of things that would instead of a
Speaker 1: cognitive test, which they correctly identify.
Speaker 3: That one Guy's right, we can't do a com It's very.
Speaker 1: Problematic because who defines who's up to the task. It's
Speaker 1: just it's it's impossible to come up with the test
Speaker 1: that everyone's going to feel comfortable with, like, yes, this
Speaker 1: is determining whether they're really up to the job or not. Instead,
Speaker 1: they need to be required to subject themselves to the
Speaker 1: job interview portions of the democratic process that allows voters
Speaker 1: to assess for themselves whether this person is up to
Speaker 1: the task. And there's a lot of things to weigh here.
Speaker 1: I mean, on the one hand, you have do they
Speaker 1: share my values? On the other hand, you have are
Speaker 1: they really up to the job? Do they have the
Speaker 1: level of vigor that will be required, whether the communication skills,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And so I continue to think enabling tibocracy
Speaker 1: and allowing voters to have more information and be able
Speaker 1: to evaluate this themselves is probably the best way to go.
Speaker 1: But Saria are absolutely right that, especially given the incidents
Speaker 1: we've had lately with Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Diane Feinstein,
Speaker 1: now you know, Nancy Pelosi reupping for another reelection. Overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: Americans are in support at this point of age liments
Speaker 1: because they're like, listen, these people are not recognizing when
Speaker 1: it's time to go. So we need to put some
Speaker 1: sort of hard limit, hard sealing on this, even if
Speaker 1: it is kind of clunky. Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: From Axios, they found that over three quarters of Americans
Speaker 1: think there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials.
Speaker 1: This is according to a CBS News you gov survey.
Speaker 1: They say the concern was bipartisans. Seventy six percent of
Speaker 1: Dems seventy nine percent of Republicans called for maximum age
Speaker 1: limits for elected officials. They diverged somewhat on where the
Speaker 1: line should be drawn, but forty five percent say the
Speaker 1: max age should be seventy, which you know would run
Speaker 1: a lot of members of covers that we have in
Speaker 1: there right now. It's eight both and both top presidential contenders. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Another combined thirty percent of respondent set either fifty or
Speaker 1: sixty good for that should be the maximum age. Fifty
Speaker 1: that's pretty wild, guy, that's wild. I'm against that one
Speaker 1: for sure. And only eighteen percent said that eighty should
Speaker 1: be the max age limit for elected officials. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's very interesting to me because I wonder if part
Speaker 1: of why there was more discomfort in this group, because remember,
Speaker 1: only three of these folks actually raised their hand and said, yes,
Speaker 1: I support an age limit for president of the United States.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if more discomfort came out in this
Speaker 1: group number one, because they have opportunity to voice nuanced
Speaker 1: opinions rather than just like a yes or no question
Speaker 1: like what you would get on a poll. But number two,
Speaker 1: because this whole thing is about who they support for president,
Speaker 1: and many of them support Trump or at least open
Speaker 1: to supporting Trump. And so since they have that in
Speaker 1: mind while they're being asked the question, I wonder if
Speaker 1: that changes the way they respond.
Speaker 2: It may, and but that's part of why, you know,
Speaker 2: making it and zooming out trying to look at it
Speaker 2: as a bipartisan problem is in my opinion, the best thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, here's the thing about age liments.
Speaker 2: You already have age limits whenever you have to be
Speaker 2: elected to Congress, Like you can't be twenty five for
Speaker 2: a thing for the House of Representatives. You'd to be
Speaker 2: thirty for the US senence. So why can't we have
Speaker 2: an age limit on the top. We're going to restrict
Speaker 2: the pool whenever it comes to the bought, which is
Speaker 2: literally written in the Constitution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, getting rid of those age limns.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, I guess, but it's one of
Speaker 2: those where I'm like, look, if we can have a
Speaker 2: lower bound age limit, then I think we should have
Speaker 2: an upper bound and you know, looking at this, it's
Speaker 2: like pretty obvious that the absolute super majority of the
Speaker 2: American people, vast majority of the American people.
Speaker 3: When you get to eighty percent.
Speaker 2: Eighty eighty sounds pretty damn reasonable, especially whenever you peg
Speaker 2: it to an actually aerial table. You know, whenever you're
Speaker 2: talking about retirement age for fifty or sixty, that's not
Speaker 2: as crazy as we think.
Speaker 3: So I actually often look to.
Speaker 2: The commercial airline business, where, you know, because risk is
Speaker 2: so high for them, guess what their mandatory retirement is,
Speaker 2: sixty seven. They say that there is quote new risk
Speaker 2: after that age that you're declining. Faculties make it so
Speaker 2: that you can't effectively serve in that position, and you
Speaker 2: have no choice, you have to retire. And they just
Speaker 2: raised that from sixty five just last year. So if
Speaker 2: you if you considered, like, well, the pilot, you know,
Speaker 2: his health and this condition is age is so important
Speaker 2: because the risk of him being even five percent bad
Speaker 2: at his job means imminent death for everyone in basically
Speaker 2: the same thing whenever we're talking about nuclear war or
Speaker 2: any of these others. Arguably it could be even more
Speaker 2: important whenever we're looking at that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the problem is. I mean, if you are
Speaker 1: dropping age e limits as low as fifty and sixty
Speaker 1: years old, the amount of constraint on democratic choice you're
Speaker 1: putting on the electorate, Like, I just don't.
Speaker 3: Honestly at a fifty.
Speaker 2: But I'm like, if you can make a good case,
Speaker 2: and I think there's a great case for why a
Speaker 2: pilot shouldn't be flying over sixty seven. This is according
Speaker 2: to many pilots themselves, well then you can you can
Speaker 2: make the case too, whatever you mean.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's not exactly comparable, obviously, But also
Speaker 1: the big thing here is the core of like, people
Speaker 1: having real choice in a democracy. And so if you
Speaker 1: have a candidate who you know, like these people love Trump,
Speaker 1: they want to vote for Trump again. And I would
Speaker 1: be loath to just completely take off the table like
Speaker 1: anyone over seventy, anyone over sixty, anyone over fifty, sorry,
Speaker 1: you're not eligible. That is just ruling out such a
Speaker 1: vast swath of society and really constraining the choices that
Speaker 1: voters have in front of them. I just can't support that.
Speaker 1: I think going the other direction of making sure that
Speaker 1: they're able to adequately evaluate and really feel like they
Speaker 1: know what they're getting with these candidates to meet. That's
Speaker 1: a much better choice because in my opinion, and I know, look,
Speaker 1: obviously the American people disagree with me. But even if
Speaker 1: you have a ninety year old that you know is
Speaker 1: super sharp and people in that locality love and feel
Speaker 1: like they've delivered for them and feel like they're continuing
Speaker 1: to deliver for them and feel like they represent their values,
Speaker 1: I don't want I don't want to take that choice
Speaker 1: off the table for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we do have Look, we have all kinds
Speaker 2: of like the twenty second Amendment, which requires only two
Speaker 2: term limits. I mean, Obama could have run for a
Speaker 2: third term. In fact, a lot of poling shows Obama
Speaker 2: probably would have won a third term. Or Bill Clinton
Speaker 2: probably would have won a third term. Harry Truman, well,
Speaker 2: he probably wouldn't have won a third one. Dwight Eisenhower
Speaker 2: probably would have won a third term. But we put
Speaker 2: that into we put that in after FDR because you know,
Speaker 2: we had to restrict and we wanted to be able
Speaker 2: to make sure that we never had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I liked the VACTU.
Speaker 1: FDR was there for you can.
Speaker 2: But super majorities of the American people afterwards are like, nah,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't think so. And that's why three Fords.
Speaker 2: I think it was state legislators or whatever ratified the
Speaker 2: amendment through the democratic process and change the constitution. So
Speaker 2: I think we can all agree, you know, in some
Speaker 2: of these cases, like we should have some sort of limitations.
Speaker 2: We agreed, you know after FDR left office in order
Speaker 2: to change that. I think it's for the best, I
Speaker 2: honestly do, because it creates real turnover. And even if
Speaker 2: I think the FDR third term was a very great
Speaker 2: term of the presidency, I mean, if you were looking
Speaker 2: at it, he did actually implement some very anti democratic things.
Speaker 2: When he ran for his fourth term, he only lived
Speaker 2: eighty three days. Nobody knew how sick he was. He
Speaker 2: basically was coronated because of World War Two. I don't know,
Speaker 2: that's not really right. You know, everybody looks past it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, these limitations in for a research, which is
Speaker 1: why there should be more transparency and more ability for
Speaker 1: people to actually evaluate the condition and abilities not only
Speaker 1: of presidential candidates, but also of how senate and elected officials. Okay,
Speaker 1: we also of course asked this focus group or not we,
Speaker 1: but James on behalf of us in jail. Partners ask
Speaker 1: this focus group how they feel about the various Trump
Speaker 1: indictments and also, and this gets really interesting, whether or
Speaker 1: not they would still vote for him even if he
Speaker 1: is actually literally in prison at the time of the
Speaker 1: general election. Let's take a listen to what they had
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 5: What do you think of these charges challeges that are happening.
Speaker 5: How do we feel about those?
Speaker 6: It's nothing but a lynching by the Democrats. They're so
Speaker 6: fearful of them that they're going after them left and right.
Speaker 6: And this has been going on, what's seven eight years,
Speaker 6: so it's definitely just a lynching and they're just afraid
Speaker 6: of them. That's why they're doing Otherwise they'd leave them alone.
Speaker 14: As far as the charges go. I mean, I don't
Speaker 14: have a huge stock in the government conspiracies being like, oh,
Speaker 14: this is all against me, it's a witch hunt. I'm like, no,
Speaker 14: it isn't you broke the law, you're being indicted. It's
Speaker 14: surprising to me that he's even a candidate. I'm all
Speaker 14: for having a Republican candidate to like stop all this
Speaker 14: nonsense spending, but him is just you know, if you
Speaker 14: go to jail just like everybody else. It makes it
Speaker 14: very clear that you are not above the law.
Speaker 13: I think some of it is a witch hunt, for sure,
Speaker 13: and I think some of it are legitimate claims, like
Speaker 13: him telling, you know, the governor of Georgia or the
Speaker 13: Secretary of State of Georgia that he needs to find votes.
Speaker 13: I mean, the president calling someone like that is obviously
Speaker 13: trying to intimidate an influence the election, and that's that's
Speaker 13: something we should all stand up for and say that's wrong.
Speaker 13: I wish the charges weren't there because it makes folks
Speaker 13: like our friends here in the back row really solidify
Speaker 13: behind them, and he's been able to turn it into
Speaker 13: that sort of if I think someone back there said,
Speaker 13: if they can come after me, they can come after you.
Speaker 13: Well you're not. You're not intimidating secretary's of state, so
Speaker 13: you're not. You're probably not in trouble. But I think
Speaker 13: it's I think it's bad because I think it helps
Speaker 13: the Trump supporters circle around Trump and make it look
Speaker 13: like he's a victim, which I think he likes.
Speaker 11: Words stupid. I think it's stupid. I think they're wasting
Speaker 11: a ton of time, and yeah, they want the money and.
Speaker 12: So welcome to the Banana Republic of America. This is
Speaker 12: what other countries do to other candidates. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 12: if there are things who've done wrong. I think some
Speaker 12: of the things that were done wrong, they wouldn't make
Speaker 12: any issue of it if it wasn't a Republican or Trump.
Speaker 9: It's deliberately done by I think, actually on a more
Speaker 9: global level, to have a candidate who could fix America
Speaker 9: taken out so we can be kept.
Speaker 5: Under somebody's thumb who's doing.
Speaker 9: Not probably Bill Case.
Speaker 15: I don't know.
Speaker 5: If he does get convicted, if he ends up in jail,
Speaker 5: would you still vote for him in the general election?
Speaker 12: I would vote for him because other politicians have done
Speaker 12: their political disuse from jail.
Speaker 6: I definitely would vote for him. You have to, you know,
Speaker 6: it's just everyone here agreed that something's going on crooked
Speaker 6: what they're doing to him, So how can you believe
Speaker 6: anything that's going on in the courts of these affidavits
Speaker 6: or anything else they're.
Speaker 4: Going after him.
Speaker 11: I would vote for him, and I would hope that
Speaker 11: the truth would eventually come out.
Speaker 5: So, thinking ahead to that general election, let's assume it's
Speaker 5: Trump versus Biden and Trump is fighting that election from jail.
Speaker 5: Would anyone here be put off voting for Trump for
Speaker 5: that reason?
Speaker 9: I would vote for anybody who wasn't Biden, whether I
Speaker 9: like them or not.
Speaker 8: Think that it would be odd to vote for somebody
Speaker 8: that's in jail, somebody who's supposed to be running our country.
Speaker 8: The commander into you from jail doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 5: Put your hands up if you would vote for Trump
Speaker 5: in that election if he was in jail, Dana, You're
Speaker 5: a no.
Speaker 4: How come?
Speaker 10: How can you govern from jail? Like I think, even
Speaker 10: if it was not a fair process, I just don't
Speaker 10: see how you can govern effectively when you're taken out
Speaker 10: of communication that way.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's quite significant.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 5: We've got four registered Republicans or independence who might lean
Speaker 5: Republican in this room, and half of you were saying
Speaker 5: I wouldn't vote for Donald Trump if he was the
Speaker 5: nominee in a general election.
Speaker 13: It doesn't matter, It doesn't matter what you say. You
Speaker 13: could say, what if he's dead, they'd still vote for him.
Speaker 13: I mean that there is no line, right, There is
Speaker 13: no line.
Speaker 5: And I want to come back on that.
Speaker 6: How about if Biden's the nominee and he's in a hospital,
Speaker 6: mental hospital spoken to vote for him then.
Speaker 13: Didn't really interest my question.
Speaker 1: See a little bit of tension there on that. I
Speaker 1: that's a good question.
Speaker 3: You know they're very respectful to each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they definitely are. I mean you had a I
Speaker 1: think it was a very representative group. James broke this
Speaker 1: down for us yesterday when we had him in studio
Speaker 1: and he was talking about, you know, you've really got
Speaker 1: three groups of voters here. You have the hard Trump like,
Speaker 1: you know, all the folks who were like, I'd vote
Speaker 1: for him from jail, I don't care, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: In fact, I feel like i'd have to vote for
Speaker 1: him if he's in jail. You've got the group that
Speaker 1: is like open to Trump and likes a lot of
Speaker 1: what he did, but they're also open out their candidates
Speaker 1: and they have that like normy instinct of know about
Speaker 1: having a president who's in prison, not sure that might
Speaker 1: be too far from me. And then you have the
Speaker 1: two who are anti Trump, you know, who are like, no,
Speaker 1: he did something wrong, of course he's being held accountable.
Speaker 1: And you know these people over here would say they'd
Speaker 1: vote for him even if he was dead.
Speaker 3: I would note.
Speaker 2: Even the DeSantis guy though he was like, well, I
Speaker 2: think some of the charges are a witch hunt. I
Speaker 2: mean yeah, I think that see for them saying they
Speaker 2: will vote for him even this early, just makes it that,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, I.
Speaker 3: Think a lot of those people would vote for him. So,
Speaker 3: like some.
Speaker 2: People say, they may not, but then when it came
Speaker 2: down to it, you know, have the actual choice. It
Speaker 2: also to be ambiguous you jail, like he could be sentenced,
Speaker 2: but he may not actually be in jail. Then at
Speaker 2: the time and it becomes president can make the case
Speaker 2: they won't go to jail, which you know, who the
Speaker 2: hell knows that's going to work with the Supreme Court.
Speaker 8: I do.
Speaker 2: I do think that the vast majority of people in
Speaker 2: the room would end up voting for him as a
Speaker 2: result in the fact that though that he does have
Speaker 2: that Again, of the four people who said that they
Speaker 2: wouldn't they all disagree on who they want to choose
Speaker 2: and on which way they want. You have one Burgham
Speaker 2: person who's like pro choice. Then you have another guy
Speaker 2: here is like DeSantis, and then this other lady who
Speaker 2: I believe she's the one who said plandemic, but she's
Speaker 2: also not the one who was.
Speaker 3: Going to vote for Trump. There was none agree on anything.
Speaker 1: Vic Yeah, one of the one of the women there
Speaker 1: in the front with the dark brown hair who said
Speaker 1: that she couldn't just couldn't get her head around like
Speaker 1: voting for how could he govern if he's in prison?
Speaker 1: I think that was the the Vake supporter. So listen,
Speaker 1: I think I agree with in terms of the primary,
Speaker 1: a lot of these folks are gonna end up voting
Speaker 1: for Trump or they're going to end up dividing between
Speaker 1: Vivek and Rond de Santis and Nikkia whoever, right, Doug
Speaker 1: Burghram Apparently the bigger question for me though, is in
Speaker 1: a general election, if this legal trouble for Trump and
Speaker 1: the trials are ongoing, and I don't even know if
Speaker 1: the timeline is going to be such that will have
Speaker 1: convictions or results by that time, but it is possible,
Speaker 1: it's possible he's waiting sentencing. How is that going to
Speaker 1: weigh even on some of the people who are kind
Speaker 1: of sympathetic to him. Even if you have, like that's
Speaker 1: a room of Republican primary voters, right, these are some
Speaker 1: of the most committed, even the ones who you know
Speaker 1: claim their independencies. These are committed Republican voters who show
Speaker 1: up in elections, who show up to focus groups, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And if half of them are saying I don't know,
Speaker 1: I can't vote for him if he's in prison, I
Speaker 1: do think that's a problem for him in a general
Speaker 1: election that may not be showing up in the pulsar.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to see a focus group, you know, or
Speaker 2: polling all that from the actual general election in genuine
Speaker 2: swing states, because I agree with you. I think that
Speaker 2: there is far more actual independent like people who are
Speaker 2: not going to vote in a primary process, who might
Speaker 2: be very different whenever it comes to real charge is
Speaker 2: prison or any of that. I've said this, you know,
Speaker 2: and I know people don't like to hear it, especially
Speaker 2: if they're very online.
Speaker 3: But you know, a lot of.
Speaker 2: People in this country still do trust the justice system.
Speaker 2: Don't ask me why, but they do. A lot of
Speaker 2: people still have you know, a real like like a
Speaker 2: they have a reverence for the courts and for the
Speaker 2: idea of like jury trials and prosecutors.
Speaker 3: And the law and all of those ideas.
Speaker 2: So you know, if Trump is convicted to something like wow, wow,
Speaker 2: you know clearly that's wrong. The other side of that, though,
Speaker 2: is that they had that trust, and if it is
Speaker 2: blatantly political and they see it as such, which most
Speaker 2: people do well, it can erode trust and said justice system.
Speaker 3: So I can argue it both ways. I think it's
Speaker 3: going to have an electoral impact no matter what.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: What was interesting to me was that lady I was
Speaker 1: referencing before, who I think is the big supporter, and
Speaker 1: she said, even if I feel like the process is unfair,
Speaker 1: it's almost like a level of national embarrassment. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: I can't vote for this guy to be present from prison.
Speaker 1: Like that's just too embarrassed, it's too weird, it's too
Speaker 1: outside the norm. I just can't go there. And you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of traditional Republican voters, even though Trump was
Speaker 1: the guy that upset the Apple card and you know,
Speaker 1: anti institutional and all of this stuff, you still have
Speaker 1: a lot of Republican voters who are you know, personally conservative,
Speaker 1: meaning that they actually like some of the norms and
Speaker 1: for things to stay within the lines. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the visceral reaction that you're getting, especially from the
Speaker 1: two women there in the front row who were like,
Speaker 1: I just I just can't go there. Like, even though
Speaker 1: even if I think the process is unfair, even if
Speaker 1: I like some of what he did when he was president,
Speaker 1: even if I'm considering voting for him in the primary,
Speaker 1: which I think both of them are open to voting
Speaker 1: for him in the primary, I that's just that's a
Speaker 1: bridge too far. I just can't do it. I thought
Speaker 1: that was interesting.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, So I mean, look, there's a lot there, guys,
Speaker 2: And like I've said, one of my favorite things about
Speaker 2: this is just hearing people show, don't tell, like, let
Speaker 2: people some people are contradictory, but you know, this is
Speaker 2: how people really think about the election, and a lot
Speaker 2: of people who are very, very tapped into politics often
Speaker 2: forget that there's millions of people who actually vote, and
Speaker 2: the stuff that they digest is not necessarily the same.
Speaker 3: It's snippets.
Speaker 2: They're living their daily lives, and this is a snapshot
Speaker 2: at the very least of what we can look at. Next,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk a little bit about Ukraine, and
Speaker 2: this is again a very significant part of our focus
Speaker 2: group where even though you know, as I said, people
Speaker 2: tune in and out, there was universal findings amongst our
Speaker 2: focus group, even when pressed by moderator James about funding
Speaker 2: to Ukraine and about how they view the conflict.
Speaker 3: There's a lot to get into here.
Speaker 2: Let's take a list and we'll break it down on
Speaker 2: the other side.
Speaker 5: But the Ukraine War, has the funding for that been
Speaker 5: too high? About right? Or too low?
Speaker 4: Too high?
Speaker 13: I'm not convinced it's being used effectively.
Speaker 1: Too high.
Speaker 10: I don't think we can afford it too high, unnecessary
Speaker 10: much too high, and I'm not sure there's enough accountability
Speaker 10: for it.
Speaker 11: Too high, and we'd like to see more accountability as
Speaker 11: to where.
Speaker 12: It's going exactly too high, and I think some of
Speaker 12: my is going places we wouldn't want to see. A God,
Speaker 12: it's too high.
Speaker 6: That there's a lot of scamming going on with the money,
Speaker 6: and uh, look how they forgot about MAUI.
Speaker 14: Too high, And I don't believe it should be always
Speaker 14: us paying for everything.
Speaker 5: Who would you rather saying? He who would you rather
Speaker 5: see be the victor of that war? Ukraine Russia? Or
Speaker 5: if you don't care, so you don't.
Speaker 1: Care Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.
Speaker 3: Don't care Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.
Speaker 5: So the Ukrainians might be watching this and go, but
Speaker 5: we need the weapons, we need the one funding to
Speaker 5: do it.
Speaker 12: Seriously, we could say, right, so what's your wrong went back,
Speaker 12: but it's such a cricket government.
Speaker 13: We just have a history of trying to fund the
Speaker 13: right side that we think is the right side. We
Speaker 13: look at like Cuba and Castro and you know, we
Speaker 13: we have a hard time picking winners like that. So
Speaker 13: we could support Ukraine, but we don't need to be
Speaker 13: funding their entire military.
Speaker 6: Don't forget there's a lot of Russians in ukrain that'll
Speaker 6: faud that that are living in Ukraine.
Speaker 4: People don't realize that.
Speaker 6: They think they're all Ukrainians, but there's a lot of
Speaker 6: Russians who want Russia to take it over.
Speaker 8: I just think that America needs to be a little
Speaker 8: bit more concerned about America.
Speaker 9: My heart goes out to Ukraine or any country that's
Speaker 9: being maybe under the sum of a larger force, but
Speaker 9: I think we need to take care of America first.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I love that clip because in it
Speaker 2: they're all like, I think it's been too high. But
Speaker 2: every single one of them say, for one said that
Speaker 2: they want Ukraine to win. They're like, my heart is
Speaker 2: with Ukraine. I feel bad for Ukraine, but we have to,
Speaker 2: you know, have an actual priority here, and a lot
Speaker 2: of them are very aware, Crystal of some things which
Speaker 2: a lot of people in the media do not like
Speaker 2: to talk about, except very recently until Selenski fired his
Speaker 2: defense minister, where they're like, listen, I'm concerned about coruption
Speaker 2: in Ukraine. I'm concerned about where this money is going.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's been too high. They people feel
Speaker 2: as if we're getting ripped off by the Europeans. I mean,
Speaker 2: these are not views that you were going to hear articulated,
Speaker 2: you know, in the media. And yet still it is
Speaker 2: the overwhelming consent, the unanimous.
Speaker 1: Consensusanimous offense the entire focus group here.
Speaker 3: That's shocking.
Speaker 2: I mean that that actually even flies in the face
Speaker 2: of polling that we've seen from previous months. Out put
Speaker 2: us up there on the screen. Please, this is from NPR.
Speaker 2: This is from a few months ago, and this showed,
Speaker 2: you know, that rural voters and GOP voters were beginning
Speaker 2: to have a turn against this. This was in May
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two, and then we found that even
Speaker 2: more so again in May of twenty twenty three. But
Speaker 2: you know, Crystal now to be sitting here in September
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty three, to see a unanimous finding in
Speaker 2: our focus group. We're not going to claim that that's
Speaker 2: you know, in any way represented all GOP voters, but
Speaker 2: these are primary voters. These are people voting in the
Speaker 2: state of New Hampshire. And you know, I even found
Speaker 2: it fascinating. He was telling you before, even the guy
Speaker 2: who said of Nikki Haley strong foreign policy, he thinks
Speaker 2: who's been sending too much money to you? Play?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Even he yes, yeah, yeah, I mean that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that's so fascinating when you actually talk to voters,
Speaker 1: you realize there's a big disconnect oftentimes between you know,
Speaker 1: if you ask him about the policy where they are,
Speaker 1: and then how that connects to their political candidate choice.
Speaker 1: And I think that's somewhat on display here. But also
Speaker 1: you have to say, I mean there's a reason why
Speaker 1: obviously Trump he's got his finger in the wind. He
Speaker 1: was the first one to sort of like come out
Speaker 1: on the side that these voters have now found themselves on.
Speaker 1: You can see why Ron de Santis has found this
Speaker 1: issue very difficult to navigate because he can read a poll,
Speaker 1: he sees where the base is. He knows the donors
Speaker 1: that he depends on, who, by the way, have been
Speaker 1: like sort of fleeing his campaign and droves many of
Speaker 1: them are on the other side of that. You can
Speaker 1: see why Vivek has positioned himself the way that he
Speaker 1: has and as clearly as he has. But it's so
Speaker 1: funny because on the other hand, you know, when he
Speaker 1: had that direct exchange with Nikki Haley in the debate,
Speaker 1: even though the majority of Republican base voters would say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, on the policy level, they're more in agreement
Speaker 1: actually with the vig stance that exchanged, it a lot
Speaker 1: for her in terms of people saying like, oh, she
Speaker 1: won that debate just because she came off in this
Speaker 1: strong way and leads to one of our focus group
Speaker 1: participants who says, we're spending too much in Ukraine to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I like her foreign policy. So I mean, it's just listen.
Speaker 1: This is not to like, you know, shame them or anything.
Speaker 1: They're just like normal people going about their lives and
Speaker 1: trying to sort through these things the best that they can,
Speaker 1: and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But it does
Speaker 1: show you that there is not a one to one
Speaker 1: connection between I think X on this issue and this
Speaker 1: is the way I even feel about this candidate on
Speaker 1: this particular issue. So that was fascinating to me. But
Speaker 1: obviously the fact that it was unanimous, I was surprised
Speaker 1: it was one hundred percent in it because we obviously
Speaker 1: had in that room a lot of very different people
Speaker 1: with a very different view of the political landscape also
Speaker 1: who were taking in very different news sources. We played
Speaker 1: that clip yesterday. You know, you had one guy who's
Speaker 1: like and you probably remember which is, you know, the
Speaker 1: hardest Trump guy is like Newsmax one hundred percent, and
Speaker 1: you have Tucker Carlson. But then you had like five
Speaker 1: thirty eight, and you had now mainstream other mainstream sources.
Speaker 1: So there was a wide variety of news input going
Speaker 1: into this group, and yet all of them one hundred
Speaker 1: percent had come to the same conclusion for maybe a
Speaker 1: variety of reasons. But even though we are really sympathetic
Speaker 1: to Ukraine, we feel that it should not be the
Speaker 1: US one hundred percent floating this thing, and what we
Speaker 1: are doing is too high here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm talking to my monologue.
Speaker 2: There's a very interesting moment President Zelenski finally defined pro Russian.
Speaker 2: He has defined it as anything that goes against the
Speaker 2: counter Ukraine consensus. And what I would show President Zelenski
Speaker 2: is that clip. You know, there are many people in
Speaker 2: this country, including me, we're like, yeah, we feel terrible
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 3: We think that what's happened to you is unjust.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that we're going to bankroll this conflict
Speaker 2: for all of time and you get to do whatever
Speaker 2: you want, and you get your pick of the US
Speaker 2: weapons armory, and that we get to sacrifice our national
Speaker 2: security on your behalf.
Speaker 3: I feel bad for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: You know how many times today do you walk down
Speaker 2: the street and you're like, wow, I feel awful. Could
Speaker 2: you realistically go through and you know, pay each person
Speaker 2: homeless bill?
Speaker 3: No, it's not how it works.
Speaker 2: And these are realistic trade offs that everybody makes in
Speaker 2: our daily life, that we all make in our foreign policy,
Speaker 2: and yet we don't make apparently at all, whenever it
Speaker 2: comes to the conflict in Ukraine. And it's one of
Speaker 2: those where the inability to have nuance in the discussion
Speaker 2: has just been maddening. Now for the last almost two
Speaker 2: years of this entire conflict, and I guess the only
Speaker 2: thing I'm heartened by is voters get it now. I mean,
Speaker 2: let's be clear, this is a focus group. These are
Speaker 2: GOP people. I guess they're probably the most predisposed to
Speaker 2: hear this. I'm very curious though, to hear what an
Speaker 2: actual like broad general election focus group would have to
Speaker 2: say too, because beginning to suspect, it's a hell of
Speaker 2: a lot more than people are thinking.
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot more nuanced than the media
Speaker 1: portrayal would have you believe. So don't worry. We'll be
Speaker 1: looking to produce maybe some general election focus scar Oh don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah that when the time will come, if people keep
Speaker 3: signing up and we can afford it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Okay, exactly, all right.
Speaker 2: I got to get the sales pitch of them there.
Speaker 2: All right, let's go to Saudi Arabia. So yesterday was
Speaker 2: September eleventh. You know, obviously it's always it's one of
Speaker 2: theo's a strange day, you know, twenty something years onwards,
Speaker 2: because it's like, how do you think about it? Some
Speaker 2: people who watch our show, actually a lot of people
Speaker 2: watching show weren't even live whenever that happened, where they
Speaker 2: have no memory of that, and it's difficult in order
Speaker 2: to think about it, you know, in terms of the
Speaker 2: day itself.
Speaker 3: But what's not difficult is to assess the legacy.
Speaker 2: And I always actually like to think about September twelfth,
Speaker 2: two thousand and one, because that's the day that everything
Speaker 2: actually changed, that we are now what the twenty second
Speaker 2: anniversary of Paul Wolfowitz decided of floating Iraq and Saddam
Speaker 2: Hussein and the Camp David meeting so exactly, you know,
Speaker 2: literally the day after nine eleven, they were already planning
Speaker 2: on vading Iraqi.
Speaker 3: You can go read about it if you're interesting.
Speaker 2: And it's twenty two years I guess, you know, on
Speaker 2: the date since we began covering up the role of
Speaker 2: the government of Saudi Arabia in this conflict. And our
Speaker 2: friend Klippenstein flagged this in one of the most disgusting
Speaker 2: displays that I've seen from the White House yet where
Speaker 2: they open when he praised Saudi Arabia on nine to eleven.
Speaker 2: This was the spokesperson Adrian Watson of the National Security Council.
Speaker 2: She says, quote, we welcome this weekend's announcement by Saudi
Speaker 2: Arabia committing twenty billion dollars to support President Biden's signature initiative,
Speaker 2: the Partnership for the Global Infrastructure.
Speaker 3: So even if.
Speaker 2: They are funding, said, you know, global infrastructure, is nine
Speaker 2: to eleven really the day that we should be praising
Speaker 2: the Saudis as you flagged also Crystal the New York
Speaker 2: Times ransom bizarre agit prop. Let's put this up there,
Speaker 2: please on the screen. A pro Saudi normalization op ed
Speaker 2: on nine to eleven and did not even disclose that
Speaker 2: the writer works for a think tank which is funded
Speaker 2: by the government of Saudi Arabia. And I mean literally
Speaker 2: the column itself is directly pushing for like a Saud Look,
Speaker 2: they're pushing for Saudi, you know, Saudi normalization. Ties between
Speaker 2: the US is railed Saudi Arabia. I think that's all, like,
Speaker 2: that's a legitimate point of view. But you know, right
Speaker 2: there at the very top, a residence scholar at the
Speaker 2: Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
Speaker 3: Low and behold, like where does that money come from?
Speaker 2: And then they have the goal to run it on
Speaker 2: nine to eleven, you know, without any shame, without any mention.
Speaker 2: I just find this an exact run through of what
Speaker 2: has happened over the last twenty two years, where we've
Speaker 2: erased the government of Saudi Arabia's role in this entire conflict,
Speaker 2: of their inability or at least complicity in order to
Speaker 2: stop this plot, some say fund this plot, say at
Speaker 2: least very aware of what was going on. We know,
Speaker 2: you know, we had that gentleman on our show not
Speaker 2: that long ago who talked about how there was a
Speaker 2: confirmed you know, FBI informant in Saudi Arabia, Saudi national
Speaker 2: who who was interacting with two of the nine to
Speaker 2: eleven hijackers before the entire plot happened. There's still so
Speaker 2: much to be said about their role with the Taliban
Speaker 2: and how deeply they were involved and knew of what
Speaker 2: bin Laden was doing.
Speaker 3: And then that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.
Speaker 2: The Bush administration openly flying Saudi people out of the
Speaker 2: country and covering for their safety, you know, at a
Speaker 2: time when three thousand Americans were smoldering dead, and you
Speaker 2: know at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center
Speaker 2: and on United ninety three. So anyway, there's so much
Speaker 2: to say there twenty something years on, you know, in
Speaker 2: terms of what the impact has been, but I really
Speaker 2: think today is the anniversary I always look to in
Speaker 2: terms of the jump off point for really where everything
Speaker 2: went wrong. You know, the entire modern era that you
Speaker 2: and I are living in began that day, September twelfth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, listen, it's been said many times, so
Speaker 1: it's worth saying again. If we did absolutely nothing in
Speaker 1: response to nine to eleven, it would have been far
Speaker 1: far superior than what we ended up doing, which has
Speaker 1: been a you know, complete calamity obviously for our men
Speaker 1: and women who served and were injured and died and
Speaker 1: you know, still suffered PTSD to this day. The rates
Speaker 1: of veterans suicide are absolutely a tragedy and really a
Speaker 1: moral stain, I would say, on the country. That's to
Speaker 1: say nothing of the you know, unbelievable toll on Iraqi
Speaker 1: civil millions and civilians throughout the Middle East. So the
Speaker 1: way that we know upended in entire region with complete
Speaker 1: disastrous results. The amount of money, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: like the least of the problems, but the amount of
Speaker 1: money that was spent there when we could have been
Speaker 1: investing in things that would have helped people here instead
Speaker 1: of just murdering people and creating chaos. But you know,
Speaker 1: on that, I think it's words funding. One more minute
Speaker 1: on that Adam Johnson Chase, which flagged the Saudi propaganda
Speaker 1: and the New York Times, because he had a really
Speaker 1: good paragraph in his sub stack right up here. He says, listen,
Speaker 1: wandering influencer. Think tanks is but one way the Saudi
Speaker 1: government attempts to influence the US public and lawmakers. He
Speaker 1: goes through, you know, Saudi funding of Vice News that
Speaker 1: led that company to pull punches on their coverage, including
Speaker 1: removing a documentary critical of MBS from its YouTube page.
Speaker 1: They are the second largest investor in Twitter, helping Saudi
Speaker 1: authorities gain favorable treatment, jailing or executing regime critics. Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia is now a major player in Silicon Valley, in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and the DC lobbying world. But he says, nothing white
Speaker 1: has the subtle and respectable impact of a well placed
Speaker 1: think tank. Op ed in the English speaking world's most
Speaker 1: influential newspaper, the pretense of academic credibility, the serious foreign
Speaker 1: policy person pros the inability for even the most skeptical
Speaker 1: observer to know who is footing the bill for the
Speaker 1: writer in question. If The Times once to publish writers
Speaker 1: commenting on Saudi affairs who are backed by the Saudi
Speaker 1: regime on nine eleven, no less, that's their prerogative. But
Speaker 1: if they do so, they should at the very least
Speaker 1: let readers know about the glaring conflict of interest at work,
Speaker 1: because obviously that would inform how you read this piece. So, yes,
Speaker 1: this could be a completely legitimate perspective, one point of
Speaker 1: view that this individual is sharing. But it matters that
Speaker 1: you know who this person is being paid by and
Speaker 1: why they might hold that view.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course it matters.
Speaker 2: It matters a lot, and especially again in the paper
Speaker 2: of record and for the Times. This is still the
Speaker 2: worst media screw up of our entire lifetime, of which, look,
Speaker 2: we got a little bit of accountability, but we didn't
Speaker 2: get nearly enough. This is the New York Times. They
Speaker 2: basically drove us, helped drive us into the war in
Speaker 2: Iraq with their ridiculous Judy Miller coverage of Yellowcake uranium.
Speaker 2: But even post nine to eleven, there's a lot still
Speaker 2: to be said. Glenn Greenwald has done some incredible work.
Speaker 2: I still recommend people go and look at it. In
Speaker 2: terms of how the media dropped the ball on the
Speaker 2: anthrax crisis and then end up using anthrax in order
Speaker 2: to manufacture consent for even more like WMD freakout, which
Speaker 2: led to the invasion of Iraq. It is the single
Speaker 2: most insane period of our entire lifetime. And if you
Speaker 2: weren't alive at that time, or if you were too
Speaker 2: young to remember, I was really on the cuts. But
Speaker 2: I've really only read more about the most insane parts.
Speaker 2: But at least you know cognizant enough to remember the
Speaker 2: day that we invaded Iraq and even.
Speaker 3: The time just like, this is crazy.
Speaker 2: This is nuts, you know, in order to watch this
Speaker 2: and then the subsequent fallout, you're talking about so many
Speaker 2: people we know who've been you know, injured or wounded
Speaker 2: and combat or came back and never felt the same.
Speaker 2: This is this is the reality I think of the fallout.
Speaker 2: It's also funny because I was flagging for our team.
Speaker 2: We tried our best to find some of these ads,
Speaker 2: but we weren't able to put this up there. I
Speaker 2: always like to try and remind people the government of
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia spent billions of dollars on US AD campaigns.
Speaker 2: In terms of like television ads across nineteen different cities
Speaker 2: and including on radio, to try and prove that they
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with nine to eleven and to
Speaker 2: say they'd been a loyal ally. Here's a hilarious report.
Speaker 2: August seventeenth, two thousand and four. Saudi's used nine to
Speaker 2: eleven report in their US AD campaign quote. Stung by
Speaker 2: criticism about its role in fighting terrorism, Saudi Arabia has
Speaker 2: launched radio advertising in nineteen cities, citing the September eleventh
Speaker 2: Commission report as proof that has been a loyal ally
Speaker 2: in the fight against al Qaeda. What they failed to mention, obviously,
Speaker 2: is that there were secret pages withheld from the report
Speaker 2: which directly discussed how a Saudi national and likely intelligence
Speaker 2: agent almost certainly knew of the plot for nine to
Speaker 2: eleven and at the very least had reported some of
Speaker 2: this back to RIOD that wasn't even declassified until a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago.
Speaker 4: Crystal.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, just to think about how we used
Speaker 2: the nine to eleven Commission report, which has all sorts
Speaker 2: of problems, and then it directly covered up the Saudi
Speaker 2: role inside said report, and they used that to spend
Speaker 2: billions of dollars trying to, you know, rebuild their image.
Speaker 2: This is why, you know, we freak out so much
Speaker 2: about live golf and you know, all the stuff that
Speaker 2: was going on there, even you know, Saudi connection. Because
Speaker 2: at the basic level, this government is the most responsible
Speaker 2: for one of the worst attacks on our soil since
Speaker 2: freaking Pearl Harbor, and they got away with it scot free.
Speaker 3: I mean, the Japanese, you know, you.
Speaker 2: Could at least say they got paid back for what
Speaker 2: they did. This Now that most of the people were responsible,
Speaker 2: they're sitting pretty they're multi billionaires, and they're hanging out
Speaker 2: in riyadd.
Speaker 1: Today, all of the Biden administrations rhetoric about human rights
Speaker 1: and democracy, I mean, it's just our uncritical support of
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia and Israel, I should add. I mean, it
Speaker 1: just makes a mockery of any idea that those values
Speaker 1: are really at the core of what the Biden administration
Speaker 1: is up to.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and then that's not none of us was even
Speaker 2: to mention an insane moment from President Biden yesterday. He's
Speaker 2: flying back from Vietnam, came back the Pacific route, landed
Speaker 2: in Anchorage, and decided to give a speech when he
Speaker 2: was back in US soil commemorating nine to eleven, and
Speaker 2: during said speech, claimed that on September twelfth, two thousand
Speaker 2: and one, that he was present at ground zero. Now,
Speaker 2: let's hear from his words, and we'll give you the
Speaker 2: fact check on the other side.
Speaker 16: Each of those precious lives stolen too soon when evil attacked.
Speaker 3: Browns are in New York, and.
Speaker 16: I remember standing there the next day and looking at
Speaker 16: the building. I felt like I was looking through the
Speaker 16: gates of hell. It looked so devastating because the way
Speaker 16: you could away from where you could stand.
Speaker 2: You know, And Chrystal, it takes not a genius to
Speaker 2: know Joe Biden was in one Washington because he was
Speaker 2: on the Senate floor on September twelve, two thousand and one,
Speaker 2: where they voted on the Senate floor to condemn the
Speaker 2: nine to eleven terror attacks and began much of the
Speaker 2: freak out and the lead up to the war in
Speaker 2: Iraq from that point forward. He wasn't there on nine
Speaker 2: eleven Ground zero, And when I first heard about it,
Speaker 2: I was like, well, I was like, did he mean
Speaker 2: the Pentagon? You know, because it's conceivable that senators and
Speaker 2: other elected officials had gone over to the Pentagon to
Speaker 2: go see the room. But no, he literally said ground zero.
Speaker 2: He talked about New York City and the World Trade Center.
Speaker 2: It's just straight up lie. He wasn't there, and this
Speaker 2: is the first time there with him. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 2: Cornpop is really Cornpop actually flew him there. Never no
Speaker 2: other flights were flying in the United States. It's just like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean, is it funny. It's just
Speaker 2: like an open thing that he does over and over
Speaker 2: and over again where he just makes up these stories completely.
Speaker 2: And we're talking about this earlier. This isn't just an
Speaker 2: age thing. He's been doing this.
Speaker 1: Forever, right, this one you can't chalk up to like, oh, Grandpa,
Speaker 1: Joe's having a dimension moment. No, Like, this is very
Speaker 1: consistent pattern throughout his career. I mean, where he just
Speaker 1: you know, stuff up. He's studying what got arrested with
Speaker 1: Nelson Mandela or something was one of them, remember that one.
Speaker 1: I meansed just I just I never understand in instances
Speaker 1: like this, or like Kamala with her fweedom thing or sorry,
Speaker 1: I mean, the most ridiculous example is George Santos, who
Speaker 1: lives literally everything or you know Trump also will just
Speaker 1: like completely embellish or make up things too. You know,
Speaker 1: Vonda Santas came with me to me with tears in
Speaker 1: his eyes whatever. Some of these things. I'm just like,
Speaker 1: why would you lie about that? Like why do you
Speaker 1: need to say You don't need to say that. You
Speaker 1: can express, like, you know, condolences and the gravity of
Speaker 1: the moment and really convey how much you get it
Speaker 1: without just like making shit up. And we'll never We'll
Speaker 1: never understand it. One side, interesting side note that was
Speaker 1: flagged about this is his stopover in Anchorage, Alaska. A
Speaker 1: whole suite of Biden administration officials have been like making
Speaker 1: a olgrimage to Alaska, and the reason is because it's
Speaker 1: the home of Senator Lisa Murkowski, who is the Republican
Speaker 1: in the Senate who is most open to working with
Speaker 1: them on anything on their agenda and confirmations, etc. And
Speaker 1: so you've had Merritt Garland, HUD Secretary Marsha Fudge, EPA Administrator,
Speaker 1: Administrator Michael Reagan, White House Senior Advisor Mitch Landrew, Deputy
Speaker 1: Interior Secretary Tommy Boudreau, Senior HHS administrator Tom Coderre. I
Speaker 1: think Pete Boodagie made a trip as well. And now
Speaker 1: you've got Joe Biden making a point of stopping over
Speaker 1: in Anchorage on nine to eleven to do his remembrance there.
Speaker 1: So very noteworthy the full court press that has been
Speaker 1: for the charm offensive that has been laid upon Lisa
Speaker 1: Murkowski there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, it's odd. It's also yeah, like to
Speaker 2: do it from Alaska. There was also the White House
Speaker 2: was pressed They're like, hey, why is President Biden not
Speaker 2: at ground zero today? And they were like, well, twenty
Speaker 2: two years after Pearl Harbor, it's not like the President
Speaker 2: was still going to Pearl Harbor. But actually people went
Speaker 2: back and checked. JFK did for like twenty two years.
Speaker 3: I'm not look, I'm not saying you need to go.
Speaker 2: I'm just like the justification that you're saying as to
Speaker 2: why you didn't go, and then to spend the day
Speaker 2: again lying about what you're doing. I think it's a
Speaker 2: self aggrandizement thing. There was there's stories with like Lyndon Johnson.
Speaker 2: Johnson is a notorious liar as well, and then Bellischer
Speaker 2: and one of the things he didn't realize is that
Speaker 2: when he became president people would actually begin to check
Speaker 2: some of the things that he's right, and he just couldn't.
Speaker 2: He was it was congenital, like he'd been doing it
Speaker 2: for so long that he just couldn't get away from
Speaker 2: telling stories that were false. And his age would be like, sorry,
Speaker 2: you need to stop saying it that it didn't that
Speaker 2: didn't happen, but in his mind it did happen.
Speaker 3: I think Biden is the same way.
Speaker 2: I think they both of them are very similar to
Speaker 2: lifetime in the Senate, lifetime in Washington. He's probably spent
Speaker 2: a lifetime at cocktail parties, dining out on stories which
Speaker 2: is completely not true. And you know, whenever you're you know,
Speaker 2: by the time you're that old, it's baked in. And
Speaker 2: there's also a media thing here where he just gets
Speaker 2: away with it. I only saw a conservative media do
Speaker 2: something like this. It was once upon a time when
Speaker 2: you know, the New York Times and others would have
Speaker 2: been like, hey, just so we're all aware, how the president,
Speaker 2: you know, marked like supposedly a hallow day and remembrance
Speaker 2: all that actually just didn't happen at all, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: told it outright falsehood on that didn't see one, not
Speaker 2: one story.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting point about LBJ because I think part
Speaker 1: of it with Biden too has got to be I
Speaker 1: think it probably he's told these stories so many times
Speaker 1: they are just ingrained to the point where he, I
Speaker 1: don't know, thinks it. Yeah, I mean, he just doesn't
Speaker 1: even think twice about rolling them out. But then the
Speaker 1: other part is probably the fact that people now with
Speaker 1: the Internet can just ease like they don't need the
Speaker 1: New York Times to tell them where you were on
Speaker 1: September twelfth. They can just easily look it up and
Speaker 1: the record is all there and available for the public.
Speaker 1: Like he hasn't probably really grappled with that new reality.
Speaker 1: Good point with that now multi decade old reality, since
Speaker 1: I conframed yet.
Speaker 2: This is a very interesting story I know that a
Speaker 2: lot of you are very interested in, and it just
Speaker 2: highlights the changing nature of our demographics, of land use
Speaker 2: and of the housing markets. So let's go and put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. This is about how
Speaker 2: the pandemic population boom in rural areas has sparked resentment
Speaker 2: from a lot of local residents. And one of the
Speaker 2: things that we have there on the screen which is
Speaker 2: really useful is this map. If we can keep it
Speaker 2: up there, you can see how populations by county which
Speaker 2: have gained over two thousand, or at the very least
Speaker 2: have gained population disproportionately are in the heartland and in
Speaker 2: counties which previously had never seen that type of growth.
Speaker 2: Counties that lost over two thousand people, you'll see are overrepresented,
Speaker 2: like the Miami Dade area, population centers in Texas, population
Speaker 2: centers in California, and population centers in the industrial Midwest.
Speaker 2: All of this was driven by work from home, people
Speaker 2: retiring early, people deciding that they want more land, the
Speaker 2: suburban life.
Speaker 3: We've talked about that before.
Speaker 2: But part of the problem is that the booming of
Speaker 2: rural America, which would be a good story if it
Speaker 2: was the rural Americas themselves who were booming, is creating
Speaker 2: both a land use crisis and an infrastructure crisis and
Speaker 2: a housing crisis in many of these areas. So, for example,
Speaker 2: you know, Montana has seen a massive amount of net
Speaker 2: in migration from California, second home homers and others. Population
Speaker 2: increases in some cases crystal have sent skyrocketing prices of
Speaker 2: forty percent. In rural areas, schools are overloaded, farm land
Speaker 2: prices are dramatically higher. Land use is becoming a huge problem.
Speaker 2: Many of the people who live in said areas are
Speaker 2: finding it completely unable to sustain the way of life
Speaker 2: that they already had or to be able to purchase
Speaker 2: the house. Some of the counties in particular that they
Speaker 2: show which have boomed the most Jackson County, Georgia, Flathead County, Montana,
Speaker 2: Hawaii County Hawaii, Gallatin County, Montana, Moore County, North Carolina,
Speaker 2: Harnette County, North Carolina, Iron County, Utah, Bonnard County, Idaho,
Speaker 2: twins Fall County, Idaho, and Bullet County, Georgia. So basically
Speaker 2: it's like Georgia, Montana, Hawaii, North Carolina, Idaho. These are states,
Speaker 2: you know, with pretty smaller populations. They're definitely didn't we
Speaker 2: were not ready for the infrastructure or boom that they
Speaker 2: would need to cope with this, and residents themselves are
Speaker 2: left with lesser services and more expensive quality of life.
Speaker 2: It just again just goes back to the housing supply
Speaker 2: problem that we have right now. And I don't know,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to villainize people who just wanted
Speaker 2: to move somewhere else in America. There's nothing wrong with that,
Speaker 2: but there is something wrong with if you live somewhere
Speaker 2: the Flathead.
Speaker 3: You know, I've been there.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful part of the Country's one of my
Speaker 2: favorite parts. It's really tough, you know, for me to
Speaker 2: imagine you live there, grew up your whole life.
Speaker 3: You know, it's the outdoors and all that. Everything starts
Speaker 3: to get more crowded.
Speaker 2: You're getting crowded out of places that you've been going
Speaker 2: to for a long time. That's really difficult to swallow.
Speaker 1: It's like a rural version of the problem of gentrification
Speaker 1: in cities where people have been longtime residents, suddenly their
Speaker 1: neighborhood becomes like the cool hit place for young professionals.
Speaker 1: The next thing you know, there's luxury high rises going
Speaker 1: up and they are priced out of the neighborhood where
Speaker 1: they grew up back when it wasn't so cool in hipster.
Speaker 1: I think this is, in a sense, sort of like
Speaker 1: the rural version of this. And what makes it interesting
Speaker 1: and even more complex is the fact that it's not
Speaker 1: like there was an even dispersal of people from cities
Speaker 1: into places across the country. Is very concentrated in certain areas,
Speaker 1: so the two places in particular that saw a lot
Speaker 1: of growth. The two types of places that saw a
Speaker 1: lot of growth were suburbs, which we were talking about
Speaker 1: how rent has become just like insanely expensive to get
Speaker 1: an apartment in a suburb, and that people who moved
Speaker 1: to the suburbs during the pandemic because they know they
Speaker 1: wanted more space and they no longer had to worry
Speaker 1: so much about a commune. They aren't moving back. So
Speaker 1: this is kind of like new reality, and there's a
Speaker 1: rush to try to figure out, you know, housing and
Speaker 1: do we do rent controls to how do we surge
Speaker 1: a lot more apartment housing and affordable housing for people
Speaker 1: in the suburbs. And I mean, in some ways those locations,
Speaker 1: because at least there was some level of density before,
Speaker 1: may be better positioned to be able to cope with
Speaker 1: the influx of residents. But then the other category of
Speaker 1: places that really surged in terms of population growth where
Speaker 1: these sort of like vacation hotspot destinations. Yeah, where like
Speaker 1: Montana is a great example of that, where you know,
Speaker 1: it's really beautiful and if you're a person who's super outdoorsy,
Speaker 1: this could be a dream come true true to be
Speaker 1: able to live in, you know, the town of your
Speaker 1: dreams in Montana. But these are small rural communities that
Speaker 1: weren't prepared for this influx, and so and we shouldn't
Speaker 1: understand too. There's like a culture clash as well. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got a very red conservative state in Montana and
Speaker 1: some of the folks who have moved there are from
Speaker 1: California and have very different you know, values and world
Speaker 1: views and outlooks, and so there's also even beyond the
Speaker 1: concerns about being priced down of their own hometowns, people
Speaker 1: coming in and you know, still maintaining their La or
Speaker 1: San Francisco jobs and the commensurate salaries and what they're
Speaker 1: able to afford. But there's also a sense of like
Speaker 1: is this town even going to be what this town
Speaker 1: was to me. It's like a sense of an attack
Speaker 1: on a way of life.
Speaker 2: It's tough to with the farmland I was referencing farmland.
Speaker 2: It's the highest level that it's ever been. Farmland prices
Speaker 2: are up over seven point four percent. We also have
Speaker 2: seen that a lot of this land, at least if
Speaker 2: zoning allows for it, even though it's been zoned or
Speaker 2: was used for agricultural purposes in areas where they're able
Speaker 2: to just buy into their building developments, and once again
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, well we have housing prices where you
Speaker 2: have problems with land and all that, but we all
Speaker 2: got to eat. And you know, whenever that happens, you're
Speaker 2: destroying an entire way of life that's existed there for generations.
Speaker 2: There's a lot to say here, you know about what
Speaker 2: that is. I don't know what the answer is. It's
Speaker 2: really hard. It's one of those where I really feel
Speaker 2: for the people if you lived in an area your
Speaker 2: whole life and you're now not able to afford the
Speaker 2: place that you were, and you know, in some cases
Speaker 2: like flat at It, we're talking about that. I only
Speaker 2: know because this is the one place I've been to
Speaker 2: when I went to Glacier National Park is one of
Speaker 2: the most pristine, incredible places that I've ever been in
Speaker 2: my whole life. I totally get it why anybody would
Speaker 2: have the time and the money or the resource or
Speaker 2: whatever would want to relocate there, at the very least
Speaker 2: for the summer. But there's a threat in population and
Speaker 2: people who have been there for a long time, long
Speaker 2: before you know, any of these lake houses and all
Speaker 2: those things, yeah, start to pop up.
Speaker 3: What do you do?
Speaker 2: You know, and especially if you were working poor you
Speaker 2: work at one of these ski resorts. One of the
Speaker 2: things they point to is that the North Carolina counties
Speaker 2: I mentioned, they just have a bunch of golf courses. Well,
Speaker 2: what if you work in the golf course, Like, how
Speaker 2: are you supposed to get to work? So if you
Speaker 2: can't even rent or anywhere in the area. I was
Speaker 2: just in Martha's Vineyard. They were taught me about the
Speaker 2: same thing. They're like, yeah, the biggest problem here is
Speaker 2: all these rich people moved here during the pandemic, but
Speaker 2: now and then they want all these services, and then
Speaker 2: they're shocked whenever nobody can afford the rent, or that
Speaker 2: the prices are super high, because the rent is sky
Speaker 2: high for any of the people who are serving in
Speaker 2: the service sector have to live on set Island. Like,
Speaker 2: it's a huge competition for housing. It's a very difficult
Speaker 2: problem to actually solve.
Speaker 1: I mean, the economic piece is not easy to solve,
Speaker 1: but it is solvable in terms of surging affordable housing
Speaker 1: and you know, innovative programs there. I'm optimistic that in
Speaker 1: terms of the culture class that these things kind of
Speaker 1: work themselves over over time as people get to know
Speaker 1: each other, and you know, the way that you feel
Speaker 1: about someone Theoretically, when you're just encountering them in like
Speaker 1: an online exchange or like you know, through the prism
Speaker 1: of whatever news outlet that you happen to be consuming,
Speaker 1: it's very different from when this person is your neighbor
Speaker 1: and you're meeting them and you get to know their
Speaker 1: kids and their reasons for being there and what their
Speaker 1: lives are all about. So and and by the way,
Speaker 1: you know, I live in a rural area where I
Speaker 1: grew up. I so even though I'm not conservative, I
Speaker 1: am also very personally attached to like the rural character
Speaker 1: of my town. So I have sympathy for the view
Speaker 1: of like you're changing this place that I like it
Speaker 1: the way it is. You know, this is how I
Speaker 1: think of it, this is my perception of it, and
Speaker 1: I don't want it to change. So I'm very sympathetic
Speaker 1: to that perspective. But I do think those sort of
Speaker 1: like cultural tension probably somewhat works itself out over time,
Speaker 1: and then you've got to I mean, the housing is
Speaker 1: the key. It's the core of so many of these issues.
Speaker 1: That we talk about, and it's just the most basic
Speaker 1: building block of people being able to live and feel
Speaker 1: stable and be able to have families and be able
Speaker 1: to raise kids and you know, be able to really
Speaker 1: like achieve the things that they want for themselves and
Speaker 1: their family. So that's so much at the core of
Speaker 1: all of this.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, speaking of culture clash, Wall Street Journal had
Speaker 1: what I thought was a really interesting article which perhaps
Speaker 1: you know, I related to a little bit too much
Speaker 1: in terms of my own children, about how kids these
Speaker 1: days they're not watching you know, they're not really watching
Speaker 1: TV shows as much. They're not really watching like the
Speaker 1: Disney movies that I grew up on. It said, there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of that, but it's not what they're
Speaker 1: really going for. Many kids are super into certain YouTube creators.
Speaker 1: Put this up on the screen from the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: they say, sorry, mom and dad, but sitcoms, cartoons and
Speaker 1: Disney movies are out. Kids today prefer to be entertained
Speaker 1: by the likes of Mister Beasts, Unspeakable and Linky Box.
Speaker 1: And the basic dynamic here won't surprise anyone, which is
Speaker 1: that now that it's not just like you know, one
Speaker 1: or two family TVs that everybody has to to, you know,
Speaker 1: gather around or that's on in a way that everyone
Speaker 1: in the household can at least see what sort of
Speaker 1: content is being consumers consume. Everybody has their own screen,
Speaker 1: and so they can choose their own entertainment options, including kids,
Speaker 1: and they are choosing things that are you know, not
Speaker 1: that their parents are not even aware exist, let alone
Speaker 1: have any interest in consuming alongside of them. And since
Speaker 1: it's on their own individual screen, they're not even getting
Speaker 1: sort of like ambient awareness of what's going on. So
Speaker 1: let me read you a little bit of this. They say.
Speaker 1: An entertainment golf has long existence between adults and their
Speaker 1: children's stars, and shows that attract kids can repel parents.
Speaker 1: Happen with Mottley Crue, Beavis and butt Head, South Park,
Speaker 1: even Elvis. Today, though we consume media, the way we
Speaker 1: consume media has widened that chasm. Not long ago, a
Speaker 1: single TV blasted from the living room. Parents didn't always
Speaker 1: enjoy what their children watch, but at least they were
Speaker 1: exposed to it. And then they've got some quotes from
Speaker 1: parents who are you know, posting on parent forums, what
Speaker 1: do I need to know about the YouTuber beluga.
Speaker 3: I just look at that.
Speaker 1: It is a cat, said one reply in the Chicago area. Emily,
Speaker 1: Ryan's oldest son, Bear started constantly talking about unspeakable. Who
Speaker 1: is that? What is that? Ryan, who's forty, recalls asking, yes,
Speaker 1: I recently, sager, Yes, had a very similar experience.
Speaker 3: You show me to this or these gentlemen whoever run
Speaker 3: this channel?
Speaker 1: Yes. So my son who is ten, and his bestie,
Speaker 1: we were driving them to their soccer game and his
Speaker 1: best friend is they're both really into YouTube, and his
Speaker 1: best friend is always interested in the fact that we're
Speaker 1: on YouTube. He was always talking to us about it whatever,
Speaker 1: and he's also always shaming us. He's like, you only
Speaker 1: have a million subs, like mister Bune, know how many
Speaker 1: subs mister beast has. And so we got into this
Speaker 1: conversation about some of the most popular YouTubers and they
Speaker 1: started talking about some YouTube show called Skibvity toilet which
Speaker 1: I was like, is that I've never heard of?
Speaker 17: That?
Speaker 1: Is that a real threat thing? What is that? Put
Speaker 1: this up a screen? This is what this thing looks like.
Speaker 1: It's this bizarre animation. Okay, these toilet head people who
Speaker 1: are apparently in a war with cameraman people, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of music, there's shorts. These are YouTube shorts, so
Speaker 1: they only last like a short period of times. And
Speaker 1: none of it really at least to me. I watched
Speaker 1: several episodes quote unquote of this. It all just looks
Speaker 1: like this to me, none of it makes any sense.
Speaker 1: But this is getting like hundreds of millions of views
Speaker 1: on YouTube, and not only was I not aware of it,
Speaker 1: Like I can't relate to it at all. So this
Speaker 1: one's sort of landed close to home for visa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. It's funny because
Speaker 2: you know, we make our living on YouTube. As you said,
Speaker 2: it's funny. Whenever I meet kids, the cool the coolest
Speaker 2: thing is being a YouTuber. They're like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I used have a YouTube sticker on my phone, which
Speaker 2: I never thought about and which ended up being a
Speaker 2: big deal for a lot of my Yeah, a lot
Speaker 2: of children that I have interacted with and met. It's
Speaker 2: funny because apparently when you ask them, every single one
Speaker 2: of them wants to be a YouTube creator, Like they
Speaker 2: all want to be YouTubers. Yeah, whenever they grow up,
Speaker 2: it makes sense. I mean, and I kind of sympathize.
Speaker 2: What the journal points to is like they're like parents
Speaker 2: have always been baffled by what their kids are into.
Speaker 3: It's like like they.
Speaker 2: Pointed out South Park and these other things, which seemed
Speaker 2: ridiculous at the time to a lot of people who
Speaker 2: grew up with different type of animation. But then this
Speaker 2: is like very cheap, but it's funny and it's crude.
Speaker 2: And then you know, for this again, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: pretend I've never been an anime guy or some of
Speaker 2: our staff are very into anime.
Speaker 3: Just looking at both of our producers.
Speaker 2: And that's fine, you know, it's okay, especially for what
Speaker 2: these kids are into. I actually the Mister Beast one
Speaker 2: is the one that makes the most sense to me because.
Speaker 3: I really like some of those videos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like my favorite videos is Private Plane. I really
Speaker 2: like to fuy so for me, like I loved watching
Speaker 2: that video the Anti I've always been obsessed with Antarctica.
Speaker 2: He's got a great video on that. But even some
Speaker 2: of them, I mean, if you're into gaming. Again, I'm
Speaker 2: not a gamer, but I know a lot of people
Speaker 2: who will watch hours of game content. Well, if that's
Speaker 2: something that you like to do, then watching I mean,
Speaker 2: I sympathize with this. I love to watch anybody who
Speaker 2: is the best at what they do, and especially if
Speaker 2: I can relate to it like a little bit. So
Speaker 2: if you're really into gaming, they watch somebody was in
Speaker 2: the top point zero one percent or whatever of that,
Speaker 2: I would totally understand.
Speaker 3: Help me think.
Speaker 2: I'll be like, oh, maybe I can do this whenever
Speaker 2: I'm into the game. It would be very entertaining. So
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna put a value judgment on that.
Speaker 1: Oh there's some value it. I just think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: So I even noticed a difference between my oldest daughter's
Speaker 1: fifteen when she was little versus now. When she was little,
Speaker 1: you know, it was very like she really loved Dora
Speaker 1: the Explorer, and you know, she really liked like she
Speaker 1: there were very Disney movies that she was really into.
Speaker 1: She liked this cartoon I think it was called Madeline
Speaker 1: than she was. And I was very aware of these things, right,
Speaker 1: And then even when my son who now is ten,
Speaker 1: when he was very little, there was more of a
Speaker 1: connection between what he was watching. But now my youngest
Speaker 1: daughter who is six, like, she is not really interested
Speaker 1: in watching a Disney movie, which you know, again very different.
Speaker 1: She loves this channel on YouTube called Ninja Kids. She
Speaker 1: loves these people. She will do like you know, the
Speaker 1: fandom is very large. She's always asking for their merch
Speaker 1: and she wants to meet and do they do anything
Speaker 1: in public? Can I go see them? Like this is
Speaker 1: her thing? And so it just is very different. And
Speaker 1: she's still in an age where she doesn't have her
Speaker 1: own screen in her own device. So that's why I'm
Speaker 1: sort of more connected to what she's watching all the
Speaker 1: time versus the older ones are doing their own thing.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: The last thing I'll say about skivity toilet, which both
Speaker 1: our producers were like, oh, yeah, we know what that.
Speaker 1: I asked though, my fifteen year old daughter about it,
Speaker 1: and she was like, I've no idea what's talking about.
Speaker 1: And she's on TikTok all the time, and apparently this
Speaker 1: is also on TikTok. But so that could be like
Speaker 1: a gender thing. I don't know. So, I mean it
Speaker 1: just goes to show that even within this generation, the
Speaker 1: level of silo between the content that they're consuming and
Speaker 1: that they're being pitched and that the algorithm and is
Speaker 1: serving them is also really vast. Because I guarantee a
Speaker 1: lot of the boys that she goes to school with
Speaker 1: are all about skibbitty toilet and she had zero awareness
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: The toddler video I'm aware of is Miss Rachel. I
Speaker 2: know she's a big, big celebrity amongst people who have babies.
Speaker 2: I saw a video of like a toddler meeting Miss Rachel,
Speaker 2: and it was like watching watching a toddler recognize YouTuber.
Speaker 3: It was just it was interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm like, huh, that's that's something that they're really growing
Speaker 2: up with it from a very early age. Her videos
Speaker 2: have hundreds of millions of views. Yeah, her most popular
Speaker 2: d is four hundred and ninety million. I don't know
Speaker 2: how she only has six million subscribers.
Speaker 4: That's wild.
Speaker 3: She lot crazy.
Speaker 1: I don't even know who this person is. So I
Speaker 1: guess it's because toddlers can't subscribe to YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think I think a lot of parents
Speaker 2: put it on. I mean these some of these they
Speaker 2: look good. It's like baby learning with Miss Rachel, baby
Speaker 2: song speech and sign language, wheels on the bus, more
Speaker 2: nursery rhymes and kids songs, learn animals with Miss Rachel.
Speaker 3: So these all seem like very productive. I was a parent.
Speaker 3: You know, I guess when I become a parent, I'll
Speaker 3: probably lean on some of this stuff. It's interesting to
Speaker 3: think about.
Speaker 2: At the same time, it relates a little bit to
Speaker 2: a news story I've been very interested in less pass
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. Disney and Charter have ended
Speaker 2: their dispute and have restored ESPN and ABC to fifteen
Speaker 2: million households. This dispute was very interesting because it pulled
Speaker 2: ESPN and ABC off the air for char Rder Communication subscribers.
Speaker 2: That's almost fifteen million households in the US which were
Speaker 2: unable to watch college football. They ended up coming back
Speaker 2: so that they could watch Monday night football for the
Speaker 2: big game that happened last night, that New York Jets.
Speaker 2: Rip Aaron Well, best Aaron Rodgers out there. I hope
Speaker 2: he's feeling better.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about it, we'll say yes to his season.
Speaker 2: The best that we can say about Disney and Charter,
Speaker 2: and the reason I was watching it closely, is the
Speaker 2: fact that they were only able.
Speaker 3: To come to some sort of consensus.
Speaker 2: Eventually was overpriced, and it's because Disney wanted more money
Speaker 2: for ESPN and Charter was like, what are you talking
Speaker 2: about more? And more people are dropping cable. We don't
Speaker 2: even think cable is a huge part of our business anymore.
Speaker 2: And the only reason they even came to a deal
Speaker 2: was for live sports. But a lot of other Disney
Speaker 2: programming is not going to be in the bundle anymore,
Speaker 2: like FXX and some of the other channels that they
Speaker 2: had that they've been running for a long time that
Speaker 2: will no longer be included. So this is a big
Speaker 2: story because even though they were able to come to
Speaker 2: a deal, we don't know yet what the financial terms
Speaker 2: and all of that looked. Like the fact that a
Speaker 2: cable company was willing to stand up and be like,
Speaker 2: I'm not paying you what you want that has never
Speaker 2: really happened before whenever it came to ESPN, And it
Speaker 2: shows the diminishing power of Disney and of all these
Speaker 2: cable companies, And it's the foreshadowing of what I think
Speaker 2: will come with CNN, Fox and MSNBC in the years
Speaker 2: to come.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's notable that Number One, they came to a
Speaker 1: deal hours before I Think It's Monday Night Football was
Speaker 1: set to air, so clearly, like the live sports part
Speaker 1: of it was really critical to them feeling we've got
Speaker 1: to figure out something here. But the underlying business story
Speaker 1: is really interesting because Disney, to use one example here,
Speaker 1: they feel like the streaming is their company's future. However,
Speaker 1: right now it's not really profitable for them. So today
Speaker 1: with their business model, the cable carry fees are far
Speaker 1: more profitable for them. So they're effectively using the money
Speaker 1: that they're making from this dying industry to subsidize their
Speaker 1: streaming product that they feel will be the future. And obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, Charter and other you know, paid cable TV
Speaker 1: companies are not happy about the fact that they feel
Speaker 1: like they are subsidizing the very thing that is going
Speaker 1: to destroy their own business. So that's sort of like
Speaker 1: the core tension here. And Charter wanted Disney streaming apps
Speaker 1: Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN Plus to be made available at
Speaker 1: no extra cost to their pay TV customers, and Disney
Speaker 1: was like, get out of town. There's no way we're
Speaker 1: doing that. But that's sort of the central fight here,
Speaker 1: And you know, everybody who's involved effectively recognizes that cable
Speaker 1: TV is a dying format and so everyone's trying to
Speaker 1: protect what they see as the future. And you know,
Speaker 1: for Charter to be able to protect what they have
Speaker 1: and hold on to it as long as they possibly can.
Speaker 1: And so that's why this fight is so interesting, because
Speaker 1: it really foreshadows some of the battles to come, and
Speaker 1: just the fact that this is, this whole model is
Speaker 1: dying before our eyes.
Speaker 2: Well, I can only hope. I wish Charter had not
Speaker 2: given in. I wish they could have let them burn.
Speaker 2: But it's okay, we'll get there one day. I'll enjoy
Speaker 2: seeing it, Crystal, what do you take it?
Speaker 3: A look at?
Speaker 1: It turns out rich people cheat on their taxes a lot.
Speaker 1: Research suggests that the top one percent hired roughly twenty
Speaker 1: percent of their yearly income. The amount for the point
Speaker 1: one percent is even higher. Also turns out the IRS
Speaker 1: hasn't exactly done a lot about this situation. In fact,
Speaker 1: low income Americans earning less than twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: per year are five times more likely to be audited
Speaker 1: than anyone else. In other words, create a bunch of
Speaker 1: shell companies and hide millions in the Bahamas. You'll scape
Speaker 1: by the Feds, no problem. Fail to fully record your
Speaker 1: cash tip income from your job at the waffle house,
Speaker 1: and the IRS will be at your door tomorrow. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a pretty obvious explanation for this. IRS has faced
Speaker 1: huge budget cuts. It's way easier to go after the poor.
Speaker 1: Their tax avoidance is less fancy, and they don't have
Speaker 1: high priced lawyers and accountants to defend them. So after
Speaker 1: public outrage about these numbers and this blatantly unfair situation,
Speaker 1: Democrats actually secured some funding through the Inflation Production I
Speaker 1: for the IRS to hire more agents in order to
Speaker 1: go after wealthy tax cheats who routinely stiff the government.
Speaker 1: So everyone must have been happy, right, problem was identified,
Speaker 1: there was widespread outrage and now, for once the politicians
Speaker 1: are trying to do a little bit of something. Joy
Speaker 1: must have spread across the land, right, of course.
Speaker 5: Not.
Speaker 1: Instead, Fox News, apparently desperate to protect rich tax cheats,
Speaker 1: concocted a conspiracy that the IRS was hiring eighty seven
Speaker 1: thousand new agents not true, who would be armed with
Speaker 1: guns also not true, to target the middle class. Take
Speaker 1: a listen to a sampling of their freak down on.
Speaker 18: Their website that listed the job requirements for a special
Speaker 18: agents position. The major duties require agents to quote carry
Speaker 18: a firearm and be willing to use deadly force if necessary.
Speaker 4: A little like James Bond.
Speaker 18: But instead of hunting down evil maniacs, these agents hunt
Speaker 18: down and kill middle class taxpayers on the.
Speaker 7: Heat it passing legislation to fund this new gestapo at
Speaker 7: the IRS. The organization is going to be used in
Speaker 7: the same abusive, corrupt manner as the FBI and the
Speaker 7: DOJ have been used.
Speaker 4: Deep in the army.
Speaker 17: Yeah, it's a praetorian guard that will be unleashed again.
Speaker 17: Joe Biden said he was going to grow the middle class,
Speaker 17: Harris and unite the country. Instead, you have a government
Speaker 17: targeting the citizens and now arming this praetorian guard to
Speaker 17: go out and grab all the cash they can.
Speaker 19: These are the people who create the crime wave. America
Speaker 19: is suffering under it, and now they're blaming you for it.
Speaker 19: And for good measure, they're disarming you because you cannot
Speaker 19: be trusted with guns, because you're too dangerous.
Speaker 3: And just in case you missed the.
Speaker 19: Theme here, they're hiring another eighty seven thousand armed IRS
Speaker 19: agents just to make sure that you obey got it?
Speaker 4: Got it?
Speaker 1: Is it clear? Now? Let me offer a little bit
Speaker 1: of sympathy, not to the liars and fabulous at Fox News,
Speaker 1: but to the ordinary Americans who had legitimate concerns about
Speaker 1: how this increased IRS funding might be used. Perfectly reasonable
Speaker 1: to be skeptical about the likely use of these government
Speaker 1: funds after many prior government abuses and failures, legitimate to
Speaker 1: want to see results before blessing this whole program. But
Speaker 1: now we've actually got some results starting to come in,
Speaker 1: and the early indications are actually pretty good. In July alone,
Speaker 1: the IRS was able to collect thirty eight million dollars
Speaker 1: in back taxes from the rich explicitly based on just
Speaker 1: a few months work. And now they are scaling up
Speaker 1: that effort, announcing a new initiative to pursue sixteen hundred
Speaker 1: millionaire tax sheats plus seventy five large businesses that are
Speaker 1: behind on hundreds of millions of dollars in their taxes.
Speaker 1: Coordinator the agency. The effort to collect on these obligations
Speaker 1: is thanks to the new funding, which allowed them not
Speaker 1: only to hire some more staff, but to develop technology
Speaker 1: internally that helps them to identify wealthy tax dodgers for enforcement.
Speaker 1: The overall enforcement goal for the wealthy, even with the
Speaker 1: additional funding, it's actually still really modest. The goal is
Speaker 1: just to get back to the audit rates on the wealthy,
Speaker 1: which prevailed back in twenty eleven before sequestration and Republican
Speaker 1: push budget cuts stripped the IRS of funding, leading it
Speaker 1: to be critically understaffed. In twenty nineteen, for example, DIRS
Speaker 1: audited just zero point four percent of taxpayers who are
Speaker 1: earning more than half a million dollars. Back in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: it audited about four point five percent of that same group.
Speaker 1: But there are other good things which could actually come
Speaker 1: out of this money too. Not only could we end
Speaker 1: up getting more from the rich, but we could also
Speaker 1: end up with a smoother, less expensive, less exploitative system
Speaker 1: for the average American. This year, the IRS is piloting
Speaker 1: a new public run, free tax filing system, similar to
Speaker 1: what is available in many other developed nations. For decades,
Speaker 1: tax prep companies, including H and R Block and into It,
Speaker 1: which owns TurboTax, they have blocked the government from creating
Speaker 1: such a direct e file system. Why so that these
Speaker 1: corporations can maintain their grip on the highly profitable tax
Speaker 1: prep market. In the early two thousand sies companies struck
Speaker 1: a deal with the government. The basic deal was you
Speaker 1: stay on the tax prep business and we will offer
Speaker 1: a free version of our software to middle and lower
Speaker 1: class tax filers. A surprise, surprise, Into It was caught
Speaker 1: cheating customers, tricking them into using the paid version when
Speaker 1: they should have qualified for the free one. Republica did
Speaker 1: some fantastic reporting on all of into its various schemes.
Speaker 1: That reporting led to a lot of public pressure. That
Speaker 1: public pressure led to an FTC investigation and a New
Speaker 1: York state lawsuit which won victims over one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: For these tricks, lawmakers were paying attention to and put
Speaker 1: money for a direct e file program into the Inflation
Speaker 1: Reduction Act. Now those efforts are beginning to bear some fruit,
Speaker 1: moving US one step closer to the possibility of an
Speaker 1: easier and completely free tax filing system for many. This
Speaker 1: in some ways, it's a small thing. In other ways,
Speaker 1: though it is meaningful. Research suggests that some seventy three
Speaker 1: percent of taxpayers are interested in the direct e file option,
Speaker 1: and sixty eight percent of those who currently use self
Speaker 1: preparation software were at least somewhat likely to want to switch.
Speaker 1: And if the government can show any green shoots of
Speaker 1: re building capacity to actually serve the public, that in
Speaker 1: my opinion, is a positive step forward. So definitely keep
Speaker 1: your skepticism, keep demanding proof that public money is being
Speaker 1: used to benefit the public, and also keep being skeptical
Speaker 1: that the rich aren't getting away with cheating and scanning
Speaker 1: you at every single term. But also keep your skepticism
Speaker 1: of the narratives being pushed by self interested blowhards will
Speaker 1: use any trick they can to protect the two tier
Speaker 1: system that they themselves benefit from. And Sara was heartened to.
Speaker 2: See, and if you want to hear my reaction to
Speaker 2: Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, sorry, we're looking at a.
Speaker 2: New Elon musk biography is making waves in recent days,
Speaker 2: with particularly focus on his control of Starlink and its
Speaker 2: use on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Speaker 3: The entire episode.
Speaker 2: Reveals a lot about how little capacity our government and
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian government has over our future, over the way
Speaker 2: that the media treats even a slight deviation away from
Speaker 2: the Ukraine consensus, and about what the future of this
Speaker 2: entire conflict will look like. Give then said media environment,
Speaker 2: start with the basics the first explicit details of some
Speaker 2: long known news came out from a new passage of
Speaker 2: the Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk. Isaacson originally wrote
Speaker 2: that in September of twenty twenty two, Musk learned via
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian military's use of starlink that they were planning
Speaker 2: a sneak attack on the Russian fleet based in Crimea.
Speaker 2: The attack consisted of six small drone submarines packed full
Speaker 2: of explosives that relied on Elon Musk starling to guide
Speaker 2: them to their target before exploding on the Russian fleet.
Speaker 2: Upon learning of the attack, per Isaacson's telling, Elon decided
Speaker 2: that he should switch off starlink access because believe such
Speaker 2: an action would escalate the war and that, based upon
Speaker 2: communications to give him from the Russian government, that it
Speaker 2: could lead to a retaliatory nuclear strike. The claim, which
Speaker 2: corresponds with multiple other reports of different instances where Elon's
Speaker 2: direct information had in the war, set off a firestorm
Speaker 2: of criticism Elon is taking the Russian side, how dare
Speaker 2: he cut off the Ukrainian axis? The Ukrainian government, which
Speaker 2: itself is literally entirely dependent on starlink, even tweeted out
Speaker 2: a direct condemnation of Musk, top adviser to Lensky's this quote.
Speaker 2: By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the
Speaker 2: Russian military fleet via Starlink interference, Elon Musk has allowed
Speaker 2: this fleet to fire caliber missiles at Ukrainian cities. He
Speaker 2: further accused Elon of quote desperately wanting to defend war
Speaker 2: criminals and their desire to commit murder. The media had
Speaker 2: a field day with this. They accused Elon of undermining
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian cause and even of treason. Here is Jake
Speaker 2: Tapper on CNN pressing Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln, why
Speaker 2: is the government not punishing Elon for his transgression?
Speaker 20: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has recently confirmed a report that's
Speaker 20: in Walter Isaacson's new biography of Musk that last year,
Speaker 20: Musk blocked access to his Starlink satellite network in Crimea
Speaker 20: in order to disrupt a major Ukrainian attack on the
Speaker 20: Russian navy there. In other words, Musk effectively sabotaged a
Speaker 20: military operation by Ukraine a US ally against Russia, an
Speaker 20: aggressor country that invaded a US ally. Should there be
Speaker 20: repercussions for that?
Speaker 21: Jake I can't speak to a specific episode. Here's what
Speaker 21: I can tell you. Starlink has been a vital tool
Speaker 21: for the Ukrainians to be able to communicate with each other,
Speaker 21: and particularly for the military to communicate in their effort
Speaker 21: to defend all of Ukraine's territory. It remains so, and
Speaker 21: I would expect it to continue to be critical to
Speaker 21: their efforts.
Speaker 3: Why is Elon not being punished?
Speaker 2: Jake tapperlongs to now, Then, though a bizarre correction happened,
Speaker 2: Elon actually corrected Isaacson. He says, actually, what happened is
Speaker 2: that an emergency request came in from the Ukrainian government
Speaker 2: to activate Starlink in Crimea, where it had remained and
Speaker 2: does remain unusable. Elon's surmise that the intent was to
Speaker 2: sink the Russian fleet. He denied the request because if
Speaker 2: he'd agreed to it, then SpaceX would have been complicit
Speaker 2: in a major active war and the conflict escalation. The
Speaker 2: next line is actually what stuck out to me, He says.
Speaker 2: SpaceX is actually building a system called star Shield for
Speaker 2: the US government, which is similar to but smaller than Starlink.
Speaker 2: This will then be owned and controlled by the government
Speaker 2: there is so much going on here to break down.
Speaker 2: First of all, so what if Elon post starlink service.
Speaker 2: Even if he did at that time, Ukraine wouldn't have
Speaker 2: been paying for it. If they want to strike crimea
Speaker 2: of their own accord, they can build their own starlink
Speaker 2: and find a competitor who doesn't mind being party to
Speaker 2: set active war. Then if the US government wants to
Speaker 2: co sign Ukraine's actions, they can provide Ukraine with set
Speaker 2: satellite system if they wish, Except they can't. For all
Speaker 2: the money in the world that we spend in our military,
Speaker 2: it reveals how vulnerable that we actually are. We don't
Speaker 2: make anything in house anymore. The government is a clearinghouse
Speaker 2: for checks from the Congress that get sent out to
Speaker 2: private companies and defense contractors like SpaceX. If they wanted
Speaker 2: no say from Elon in the war, don't rely on Elon.
Speaker 3: For the basics of the war.
Speaker 2: Over a year ago, it did a monologue on the
Speaker 2: show warning we will come to regret the insane degree
Speaker 2: that the US relies on people like Elon Musk for
Speaker 2: critical state functions like NASA and SpaceX, or betting the
Speaker 2: farm on EVS, basically on his company and their charging infrastructure.
Speaker 3: Elon is one.
Speaker 2: You should never rely on a single point of failure
Speaker 2: or any billionaire or their whims for inherently democratic questions.
Speaker 2: But everyone was fine with it then because he wasn't
Speaker 2: questioning the establishment line. Solution is one Must himself pointed to.
Speaker 2: If the United States Congress wants to declare war on Russia,
Speaker 2: then they should make that case to the American people
Speaker 2: and they should be held accountable. If the US President
Speaker 2: believes it is in the US national security interest to
Speaker 2: sponsor and fund an attack on a Great Powers navy
Speaker 2: in the middle of territory they consider theirs, do it
Speaker 2: give Biden the best cocktail of drugs he can have
Speaker 2: that debate until that time. The mess that the US
Speaker 2: government of the Ukrainians are in is one of their making.
Speaker 2: The only thing they rely on is controlling of the
Speaker 2: narrative and the media, where anything that deviates from the
Speaker 2: consensus is Russian propaganda or treasonous. As Glenn Greenwald has
Speaker 2: aptly pointed out, Zelenski himself did an useful interview just
Speaker 2: yesterday defining pro Russian propaganda. Zelensky says this quote, if
Speaker 2: you're not with Ukraine, you are with Russia. If you
Speaker 2: are not with Russia, you are with Ukraine. If partners
Speaker 2: doing to help us, it means they will help Russia
Speaker 2: to win.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 2: His most successful battle so far was defining those terms.
Speaker 2: If you find yourself with a different view, you're not acceptable.
Speaker 2: You're a Russian propagandist. Luckily for us, though he's not
Speaker 2: our president, we get to make our own decisions here
Speaker 2: in this country for ourselves.
Speaker 3: And Crystal, I mean this entire episode.
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagres's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. Very
Speaker 1: fortunate to be joined once again in person by Congressman Rocanna,
Speaker 1: who is here to discuss a variety of issues. Great
Speaker 1: to see against Sir Al.
Speaker 4: Was good to be on set.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good you, sir so.
Speaker 1: One thing that caught my attention is you have a
Speaker 1: new sort of anti corruption plan that you have been pushing.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this up on the screen. This
Speaker 1: is courtesy of unusual Wales, who had a breakdown of
Speaker 1: some of the core components. He says, justin represent of
Speaker 1: Rocana has introduced a new reform plan that number one
Speaker 1: bands stock trading for Congress and spouse's bans ex Congress
Speaker 1: members from lobbying Congress after they're done, imposes twelve year
Speaker 1: limits for Congress and bands donations from lobbyists, and Pase
Speaker 1: goes on to say that you have asked Biden to
Speaker 1: adopt these plans. So just talked to us about the
Speaker 1: key planks here and why you think this is important.
Speaker 15: You know, whenever I put something out, I can never
Speaker 15: tell what goes viral. This one did. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 15: a pretty common sense. I mean, there is a deficit
Speaker 15: of trust and institutions in America. Because of that, you
Speaker 15: have people coming in and offering demagagurey. We've got to
Speaker 15: fix that trust. And these are common sense reforms. I mean,
Speaker 15: make sure that after you're in Congress you can't pull
Speaker 15: lobby for the companies where you which you were regulating.
Speaker 15: Make sure you don't have any pack money, you don't
Speaker 15: have any lobbyist money infiltrating Congress, have term limits both
Speaker 15: for members of Congress and Supreme Court justices, band stock trading,
Speaker 15: and make sure that people aren't profiting off their service.
Speaker 15: And then finally, a code of ethics for Supreme Court justices.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean, you would personally not benefit from said plans,
Speaker 2: so I think it's cool that you're actually implementing it.
Speaker 2: But I'm also interested to hear about the term limit section.
Speaker 2: We actually a discussion earlier on our show. There was
Speaker 2: a big disagreement amongst our focus group that we had
Speaker 2: a primary voters on whether we should have term moments
Speaker 2: or not.
Speaker 3: What made you come to that conclusion? Because you actually serve.
Speaker 2: In the House, we're seniority, I believe on your side
Speaker 2: is still in place.
Speaker 3: Why should we have term moments, Well.
Speaker 4: They're two termles.
Speaker 15: We certainly should have them for Supreme Court justices that
Speaker 15: are out of touch with modern life. With members of Congress,
Speaker 15: I understand the argument that wanting't you let the voters decide,
Speaker 15: But the reality is the Congress has a less turnover
Speaker 15: these days than European monarchies according to the economists. There's
Speaker 15: an article that actually looked at it, because you have
Speaker 15: such a huge advantage when it comes to nay mighty
Speaker 15: when it comes to fundraising, most congressional seats are uncontested,
Speaker 15: don't have a serious test. So if you don't have
Speaker 15: some term limit. You just aren't going to have change
Speaker 15: and you're not going to have newer voices. But people
Speaker 15: say Congress has everyone over sixty one of the reasons
Speaker 15: this is really hard to get elected to break through Now,
Speaker 15: I think it is hard to do because it takes
Speaker 15: ten years to get seniority, so you have to start fresh.
Speaker 4: But at some point we've got to do this.
Speaker 1: How have your colleagues received as a plan, especially the
Speaker 1: elderly ones who've been there for more than twelve years,
Speaker 1: how do they feel about those?
Speaker 15: Well, well, the terminotype even said grandfather some folks in or
Speaker 15: grandfather folks in in terms of getting there, but we've
Speaker 15: got to make some effort in terms of reform. I
Speaker 15: think many of them just say, okay, he'll introduce it, and.
Speaker 3: They don't think it's going to go and then it doesn't.
Speaker 15: Go anywhere, and that feeds even more more cynicism. And
Speaker 15: my hope is even if you disagree with one or
Speaker 15: two of these things, at least do something. And the
Speaker 15: way we're going to get it to move is for
Speaker 15: the president and for the House and Senate to campaign
Speaker 15: on some of these issues.
Speaker 17: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, has there been receptivity from the president I mean,
Speaker 1: how are you pushing the president to adopt these planks.
Speaker 15: Well, I'm talking to a lot of his campaign team.
Speaker 15: I'm on his quote unquote advisory board in terms of
Speaker 15: re election. But what I've said is, you can't allow
Speaker 15: Donald Trump twice impeached, four times indicted to run as
Speaker 15: the outs and he's going to try to say everyone
Speaker 15: is corrupt, everyone is not doing their job, and we
Speaker 15: have to show no, there's a real difference. So let's
Speaker 15: take some key areas where we can show that difference.
Speaker 15: We won't take corporate money for our party. We aren't
Speaker 15: going to take packer lobbyist moneys, aren't going to do
Speaker 15: that in the primaries. We're going to be for certain
Speaker 15: basic reforms on the Supreme Court. These seem to be
Speaker 15: common sense.
Speaker 2: I want to zero in on something you said about
Speaker 2: great going viral. We've always seen that here. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: I mean, virality isn't always everything, but the stock trade
Speaker 2: ban in particular, this one hits home at a very
Speaker 2: visceral and deep level. And yet we had learned that
Speaker 2: the President dropped one of the lines endorsing that from
Speaker 2: the State of the Union because of vociferous pushback in
Speaker 2: the House and in the Senate, and we've seen multitudes
Speaker 2: of lawmakers now introduce this. So why is this one different? Like,
Speaker 2: how can we actually get this one done? Because this
Speaker 2: is one the super majority of Americans actually agree with.
Speaker 15: I agree, and this is why to the extent that
Speaker 15: it went viral because I haven't said anything new. I mean,
Speaker 15: Abigail Spandberger has been fighting for this. Representative of Calasio,
Speaker 15: Quortesan Matt Gates teamed up. I'm on both of those bills.
Speaker 15: What I'm saying, though, is it's not going to pass
Speaker 15: without it being part of the campaign agenda. If you
Speaker 15: campaign on it, if you promise it to the voters,
Speaker 15: then you're going to be obligated to do it. And
Speaker 15: we have never campaigned on it, We've never had it
Speaker 15: as part of our party platform. My view is adopting
Speaker 15: this as part of the party platform is going to
Speaker 15: obligate us to do it.
Speaker 4: And no one has run on these issues.
Speaker 15: In my view that they're very popular and we've got
Speaker 15: to get it done and it's a distinguishing from the
Speaker 15: other side.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 1: So, turning to some questions we've asked you before about
Speaker 1: the Ukraine War, there's a new report from writers I'm
Speaker 1: reading from here that says Ukraine could get long range
Speaker 1: missiles armed with US cluster bombs. Now, you've been opposed
Speaker 1: to US arming the Ukrainians with cluster bombs, in particular
Speaker 1: because you know they're considered human rights atrocity in most
Speaker 1: parts of the world. Is there any progress on trying
Speaker 1: to push forward any legislation that would block the administration
Speaker 1: from making these kinds of moves.
Speaker 15: Well, I voted on the amendment to try to block it.
Speaker 15: I was in the small minority of House members probably
Speaker 15: fifty sixty votes. So there's overwhelming support in the Congress
Speaker 15: for the administration. I mean, we had the vote in
Speaker 15: the House. The challenge is, I don't think that those
Speaker 15: cluster bombs are making a difference on the ground, because
Speaker 15: what you have is Russia. Putin has put land mines
Speaker 15: in all of the Dnbas area. It's very, very sad.
Speaker 15: But the counteroffensive because of that has been very difficult.
Speaker 15: And if I mean, I'm opposed to cluster bombs, but
Speaker 15: I also don't think that it effectively is reducing the
Speaker 15: artillery disadvantage that Ukraine is at. And so I don't
Speaker 15: see why we would compromise such fundamental principles where we
Speaker 15: have the moral high ground by giving cluster bombs that
Speaker 15: aren't being very effective.
Speaker 3: So we're at crossroads here, Congressman.
Speaker 2: The President is asked for twenty five billion dollars more
Speaker 2: is attached it to disaster relief program. How do you
Speaker 2: do you expect to vote for that? Do you have
Speaker 2: any organized effort against it? You've previously spoken about diplomacy.
Speaker 2: What's you're thinking about the sextra twenty five billion?
Speaker 4: I will support it.
Speaker 15: I know some of your viewers will not like the answer,
Speaker 15: but I'm always transparent. I mean, I think we have
Speaker 15: to support Ukraine while we also seek a just peace.
Speaker 4: And if we don't support.
Speaker 15: Them, now they're you know, we're giving license for Putin
Speaker 15: to make more gains into Ukrainian territory. And I clearly
Speaker 15: believe that Putin was morally wrong and wrong under an
Speaker 15: international law. Now, if we can support Ukraine and if
Speaker 15: they can continue to make some progress, It's been hard
Speaker 15: fought progress, but some progress, then at the same time
Speaker 15: we should be engaging our allies, France, India, others to
Speaker 15: see a just piece.
Speaker 3: But we haven't seen that just piece.
Speaker 2: Or any of the lot of the engaging with the Allies,
Speaker 2: and instead we've actually seen consistent escalation. I mean in
Speaker 2: considering also in the twenty five billion as I understand it,
Speaker 2: you know, there's no checks that Congress is been able
Speaker 2: to ride in as by your own admission here about
Speaker 2: long range missiles, about cluster moms, or isn't this just
Speaker 2: a blank check for the administration to eventually just give
Speaker 2: Ukraine whatever it wants with very little limitations in terms
Speaker 2: of their use of our own arms and our ammunition.
Speaker 15: The President Biden has actually been fairly judicious in saying
Speaker 15: he doesn't want to escalate the war into Russian territory.
Speaker 15: He has not engaged in any way United States military,
Speaker 15: either our Air Force or our army, and he has
Speaker 15: been careful to say Ukraine, look, you can take back
Speaker 15: your territory, but don't attack Russia. And my view is
Speaker 15: that he has those safeguards.
Speaker 1: He has said those things, but Ukraine has continued to
Speaker 1: attack Russia, including droon strikes in the heart of Moscow.
Speaker 1: So I guess what we're trying to figure out is
Speaker 1: what is the endgame? You know, what is the limiting principle?
Speaker 1: Is there a point in time where you start to
Speaker 1: threaten to withhold this aid so that you can begin
Speaker 1: to bring the parties to the table. How do you
Speaker 1: ever get to any sort of negotiators here, because I mean,
Speaker 1: this has obviously been just an absolute catastrophe. The number
Speaker 1: of lives that are lost and the seemingly endless nature
Speaker 1: of it is horrifying to watch.
Speaker 4: It is horrifying.
Speaker 15: I mean, the endgame is that Russia moved out of
Speaker 15: the territory which they took in the Donbas.
Speaker 4: I mean that they're illegally there.
Speaker 15: They have occupied that territory, they violated Ukrainian sovereign take
Speaker 15: and we have to figure out how do we prevail
Speaker 15: on them to do that. But at the same time,
Speaker 15: we are trying to de escalate the conflict, and there
Speaker 15: can be efforts at working towards de escalation, working towards
Speaker 15: ceasefires in different parts of the country, while we hold
Speaker 15: firm on Ukrainian sovereignty.
Speaker 2: So let's say this is twenty five billion, the Ukrainians
Speaker 2: do with the twenty five billion what they've done with
Speaker 2: one hundred billion, which is use it make very little progress.
Speaker 2: When we're sitting here nine months from now, and they
Speaker 2: ask for another twenty five billion, what's the answer? Then
Speaker 2: you give it to them again we pursue peace, Like,
Speaker 2: what is the limiting principle on the amount of aid
Speaker 2: that we're willing to send to Ukraine?
Speaker 4: Well, look, everything is contextual.
Speaker 15: I'm not going to sit here and say for the
Speaker 15: next twenty years we're going to be funding Ukraine. But
Speaker 15: the point is that, certainly I think we have to
Speaker 15: fund them in this request, and then we've got to
Speaker 15: continue to make progress in trying to see how we
Speaker 15: get Russia out of the Dnbas region and where they've
Speaker 15: violated sovereignty. My view is you can engage allies in
Speaker 15: that effort because there are allies who have a relationship
Speaker 15: with Russia closer to ours who also believed that Russia
Speaker 15: was wrong.
Speaker 3: Right, No, absolutely, but you keep using so I'm just
Speaker 3: trying to understand.
Speaker 2: You don't think a peace negotiation is possible unless Russia
Speaker 2: restores the February twenty fourth borders in pre invasion.
Speaker 3: If that's the case, is this war's never going to end.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you think they've lost one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: people and you know, isolate themselves in the world that
Speaker 2: they're just going to pull out from that board, Like
Speaker 2: what level of ammunition would we even be able to
Speaker 2: supply that? I don't even know if it's possible in
Speaker 2: order to achieve that sort of solution. If that's what
Speaker 2: a diplomatic solution looks like in your mind, well that.
Speaker 4: Is that, that's what adjust peace looks like. Now, if Ukraine.
Speaker 15: Has a different view, I would request I would defer
Speaker 15: to Ukraine, and you know, at some point what we
Speaker 15: need to do is make sure that Ukrainian their views,
Speaker 15: their judgment is taken into account, and you know I
Speaker 15: would support what they want. But my view of what
Speaker 15: adjust peace would be is Russian would roll. If Ukrainians
Speaker 15: come to a different conclusion. Obviously they have a judgment
Speaker 15: to me.
Speaker 2: I got to pick up there though, because their conclusion
Speaker 2: is derivative of the amount of aid.
Speaker 3: They don't exist without USA.
Speaker 2: So if their ability to contest or to have this
Speaker 2: expectation is entirely as a result of USA, then as
Speaker 2: a result, USA it itself directly impacts what some sort
Speaker 2: of solution would come to. Now, like if we pull out,
Speaker 2: if we pull aid, let's say we don't pass said package. Actually,
Speaker 2: a diplomatic solution looks a lot more likely now. Of course,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that's justin if I were them, I
Speaker 2: would be furious as well. But we also have to
Speaker 2: consider our own interests here well.
Speaker 15: The question is what are they capable of doing and
Speaker 15: what do they want as a just solution. If they
Speaker 15: come to a conclusion that they themselves have had too
Speaker 15: many wants of lives and that they want some compromise
Speaker 15: that is short of a just peace, that's very different
Speaker 15: than us pulling aid and forcing their hand, which sets
Speaker 15: a horrible precedent in my view, for China and Taiwan,
Speaker 15: for Russia continuing the action of aggression. I mean, Russia
Speaker 15: took Crimea, now they're taking done Bus.
Speaker 4: What's next.
Speaker 15: I mean, if we don't stand up and say, as
Speaker 15: a big power, you can't just take a little power
Speaker 15: or other country, then it undermines the rule of law
Speaker 15: in the international system.
Speaker 1: Connorson to Rob up here, let me ask you a
Speaker 1: couple of political questions. So you've endorsed President Biden's reelection,
Speaker 1: involved in you know, his what did you call it?
Speaker 1: His advisory council.
Speaker 15: Yet now Kyle and I are on the same side,
Speaker 15: right call on your clip. I said he's going to
Speaker 15: be on the advisory.
Speaker 1: Board supporting Marion her in the primary. So it is
Speaker 1: a very different position. But I wanted to ask you,
Speaker 1: why do you think it's so close in the polls
Speaker 1: right now with Trump? I mean, you've got some indications,
Speaker 1: you know, you got some top line numbers. It's like
Speaker 1: unemployments low, and the presence obviously out there selling the economy,
Speaker 1: but the American people are also really not feeling it.
Speaker 1: And they've seen a lot of the support, the social
Speaker 1: safety net support that they enjoyed during the pandemic that
Speaker 1: actually helped a lot of people that's been stripped away
Speaker 1: and stripped away and stripped away under the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: So what is your just sort of political analysis of
Speaker 1: why he is struggling so much to get any kind
Speaker 1: of a lead on a guy who's facing like ninety
Speaker 1: one different criminal charges.
Speaker 15: Three reasons. One, Gas is still high. I mean gas
Speaker 15: in my district is five point fifty in Nevada. Trying
Speaker 15: to get young people for the president, it's still over
Speaker 15: five bucks. Housing costs are very high, rent is high.
Speaker 15: The interest rates now are at seven to eight percent.
Speaker 15: So if you're a young family and you want to
Speaker 15: buy a home or try to get a mortgage, that's hard.
Speaker 15: If you have credit card debt, that's hard. So we
Speaker 15: look at the macro numbers of unemployment low, what this
Speaker 15: president has done to bring manufacturing jobs back, but when
Speaker 15: you look at individual families and young people, there's still
Speaker 15: a lot of economic stress in the system. The second
Speaker 15: part is that there is a total anger with the
Speaker 15: status quo. That's why I'm talking about this political reform plan.
Speaker 15: So if people say, oh, both sides are bad, all
Speaker 15: of Congress is corrupt, we have to show no, there's
Speaker 15: a difference. We are for principled leadership and cleaning up
Speaker 15: the system and getting packed money out and big money out,
Speaker 15: and the other side is not. I believe there is
Speaker 15: a difference, but we have to communicate that. And the
Speaker 15: final thing is, look, you've had four years of the
Speaker 15: hollowing out of the working in middle class in this country.
Speaker 15: This president is bringing that manufacturing back. But we've got
Speaker 15: to tell the story and say, look, it's just the
Speaker 15: first step. We've got decades more work to do. But
Speaker 15: there's forty years of decline that we're trying to reverse.
Speaker 2: Well, conorson we appreciate your transparency and engagement. As always,
Speaker 2: it's very rare here in Washington. We appreciate it very much.
Speaker 2: So thank you for joining us, sir.
Speaker 4: Thank you, appreciate it, Thank you.
Speaker 3: We'll see you guys later