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Speaker 3: Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show
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Speaker 1: Man of his words, so definitely stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1: Also in the show, we got a lot of big
Speaker 1: news we need to cover. So Biden is greenlighting cluster
Speaker 1: bombs that is over the objections of a lot of people,
Speaker 1: including some of our top allies. We'll get into that.
Speaker 1: We also have thoughts news potentially turning on DeSantis. We'll
Speaker 1: show you a bit of that and some interesting This
Speaker 1: was actually really fascinating. There's an analysis of the top
Speaker 1: words that all of the different GOP contenders are using.
Speaker 1: Says a lot about that race and where things are.
Speaker 1: We've got new jobs numbers not looking all that great,
Speaker 1: and we have an upping of the anti in the
Speaker 1: whole elon versus Zuck sitch Cuation also excited to get
Speaker 1: soured a weigh in on Threads and his view of
Speaker 1: whether that is going to be the Twitter killer that
Speaker 1: has been promised, but we wanted to go ahead and
Speaker 1: start with the very latest out of Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot going on in Ukraine. Obviously since
Speaker 2: I left, been monitoring the news, don't you worry. The
Speaker 2: biggest one right now. President Biden is actually currently in
Speaker 2: the United Kingdom meeting with King Charles as we speak,
Speaker 2: on his way to the NATO Summit. At that NATO summit,
Speaker 2: there's going to be a lot of discussion around membership,
Speaker 2: which we'll get to. But the initial action that has
Speaker 2: been made before that summit was.
Speaker 3: To provide Ukraine with cluster munitions.
Speaker 2: This was a big decision by the White House asas
Speaker 2: are obviously considered a war crime or have been been
Speaker 2: criticized by the United States previously, and was an indication
Speaker 2: about what the Ukrainian military wants and is requesting at
Speaker 2: this time.
Speaker 3: Here's what President Biden had to say.
Speaker 5: We're in a situation where Ukraine continues to be brutally
Speaker 5: attacked across the board by munitions, by these cluster munitions
Speaker 5: that had Doug Rache, that are very very be very high,
Speaker 5: that are dangerous civilians. Number one. Number two, the Ukrainians
Speaker 5: are running out of ammunition, the ammunition that they call them.
Speaker 5: One five to five millimeters weapons. This is a this
Speaker 5: is a war relating to munitions, and they're running out
Speaker 5: of those that ammunition and we're low on it.
Speaker 2: So there's a very key point that President Biden just
Speaker 2: made their crystal. Number one, the Ukrainians are running low
Speaker 2: on ammunition despite the one hundred billion dollars or so.
Speaker 3: The United States provided with them.
Speaker 2: But number two, to me is actually might be one
Speaker 2: of the most important one. We're running low on it. Aka,
Speaker 2: we have provided them now with so much critical ammunition
Speaker 2: that the United States military is now so low on
Speaker 2: its stocks that we have to provide banned munitions to
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian military, which they have already used previously. And
Speaker 2: actually we're criticized by the New York Times and by
Speaker 2: some other human rights groups for doing so previously.
Speaker 3: In this war. This is a massive, massive.
Speaker 2: Sea change in the way that we are considering the
Speaker 2: amount of ammunitionses that we provide to Ukraine. Previously the
Speaker 2: line was, oh, guys, it's all surplus stocks, not stuff
Speaker 2: we were going to use anyway. Then they did that
Speaker 2: fake devaluing of the equipment so they could provide even
Speaker 2: more and despite the fake accounting, gimmit which is basically illegal.
Speaker 2: Then the one hundred billion dollars or so of all
Speaker 2: these munitions we are now running solo, and they are
Speaker 2: also running solo given their expenditures both in the counter
Speaker 2: extensive but also in Bachma that they have now been
Speaker 2: begging for cluster munitions. There's also something that President Biden
Speaker 2: said there which is a straight up lie. Let's go
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. John Ismay
Speaker 2: an excellent military reporter over at the New York Times,
Speaker 2: what does he note? The cluster munitions that the United
Speaker 2: States will provide to Ukraine is one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: five millimeter M eight six y four projectile, which is
Speaker 2: loaded with seventy two DPICM grenades that are identical to
Speaker 2: those US from the earlier M four A three round.
Speaker 2: The dud rate on these sub munitions has been observed
Speaker 2: at fourteen percent in real world conditions. Now, the Pentagon,
Speaker 2: in their statement justify providing these weapons to Ukraine Crystal,
Speaker 2: repeatedly said that the dud rate was some two point
Speaker 2: three to five percent or less, which is quote far
Speaker 2: better than the actual rate for common cluster munitions.
Speaker 3: So the Pentagon is straight up lying here.
Speaker 2: They're saying that the dud rate on these which is
Speaker 2: what makes them so deadly to civilians, is much lower
Speaker 2: than the actual dud rate observed in real world conditions.
Speaker 2: Part of why we have been so reluctant to provide
Speaker 2: these weapons to Ukraine so much in the first place.
Speaker 2: And I should also note about hypocrisy. One of the
Speaker 2: consistent lines from the Obama administration throughout the slaughter of
Speaker 2: Aleppo in the Syrian Civil War was that the Russians
Speaker 2: were using cluster munitions on civilian areas well. Here's the issue,
Speaker 2: as we also criticize the Russians here, for all of
Speaker 2: Ukraine is a battlefield with civilians populated throughout it. So
Speaker 2: if the Ukrainians by definition are going to be using
Speaker 2: that even on their own soil, they're putting many of
Speaker 2: their civilians at risk by using a known munition banned
Speaker 2: by over one hundred countries, considered a war crime by
Speaker 2: international organizations, and often criticize even by the United States
Speaker 2: military itself. I mean, this is something which really removes
Speaker 2: much of the quote moral high ground as moral as
Speaker 2: a cause for Ukraine is from America's stance in this
Speaker 2: war world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Let's be really clear. This is an
Speaker 1: immoral act. It is truly an atrocity, and I want
Speaker 1: people to understand, like Layman's terms, what these things are.
Speaker 1: They're basically bombs that scatter a bunch of little grenades
Speaker 1: all around. And so when we're talking about the dud
Speaker 1: rate the problem and why these have been banned by
Speaker 1: a hundred countries that have signed on to the treaty,
Speaker 1: we are not a party to that treaty.
Speaker 4: Neither is Russia, neither is Ukraine.
Speaker 1: By why but why so many countries and why even
Speaker 1: so many of our allies, including the UK, who have
Speaker 1: been extremely hawkish are criticizing this move is because some
Speaker 1: percentage of those grenades do not detonate. That means that
Speaker 1: they are laying around in you know, in areas where
Speaker 1: frequently it's children that go and find them and they
Speaker 1: blow up and they kill them. There's varying numbers about
Speaker 1: what percent of civilians are killed by cluster bombs.
Speaker 4: New York Times.
Speaker 1: Cites a study that says it's fifty percent of the casualties.
Speaker 4: From these bombs are civilians.
Speaker 1: There are other estimates that civilians represent up to ninety
Speaker 1: seven percent of cluster munition casualties, again disproportionately. Children are
Speaker 1: usually the ones that find these things laying around. So
Speaker 1: it is an immoral act, and it is clearly an
Speaker 1: act of desperation.
Speaker 4: Even the New York Times iar.
Speaker 1: I was telling you before we started this morning, is
Speaker 1: reporting in very careful, encouched words that the Ukrainian counter
Speaker 1: offensive isn't going well. They haven't gained much ground. They've
Speaker 1: gained something like sixty square kilometers, which you know, pales
Speaker 1: in comparison to what they've been able to accomplish in
Speaker 1: the past. They really haven't been able to break through
Speaker 1: the Russian lines. You've got the Ukrainians running out of munitions,
Speaker 1: You've got us apparently running low. And so this is
Speaker 1: a desperate, immoral act that the Biden administration's perpetrating.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 1: UK has criticized this action, Spain has criticized this action.
Speaker 1: Many of our allies have criticized this action. And you know,
Speaker 1: there have been some words of dissent from the progressives
Speaker 1: who should be clearly unambiguously opposed to sending cluster bombs,
Speaker 1: which again considered war crime by much of the world,
Speaker 1: But so far we've heard very little. We did hear
Speaker 1: from Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who has been a clarion voice
Speaker 1: in many instances against endless wars. She was one of
Speaker 1: the lone voices to stand against the Iraq war vote
Speaker 1: authorization vote. Let's take a listen to a little bit
Speaker 1: of what she had to say.
Speaker 6: Cluster bombs should never be used. That's crossing a line
Speaker 6: once you see what takes place. We know what takes
Speaker 6: place in terms of cluster bombs being very dangerous to civilians.
Speaker 6: They don't always immediately explode, children can step on them.
Speaker 6: That's a line we shouldn't cross.
Speaker 7: So when Putin started using cluster bombs, the Biden White
Speaker 7: House said that that would potentially be a war crime.
Speaker 8: Do you think that therefore.
Speaker 7: The US government, the Biden administration, will potentially be engaging
Speaker 7: in war crimes if this goes forward.
Speaker 6: What I think is that we would risk losing our
Speaker 6: moral leadership because when you look at the fact that
Speaker 6: over one hundred and twenty countries have signed the Convention
Speaker 6: on cluster Munitions saying they should never be used, they
Speaker 6: should never be used.
Speaker 1: So she won't go so far as to call it
Speaker 1: a potential war crime, even though she should go that far.
Speaker 4: But that's a key question from Jake Tapper.
Speaker 1: Hey, when it was Russia using these things, y'all didn't
Speaker 1: have any qualms about calling it out for what it is.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: The Biden administration, out of desperation and because Ukraine apparently
Speaker 1: always eventually gets what they want, are going down the
Speaker 1: same path. But for some reason when we do it,
Speaker 1: it's okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, And just to reiterate your point, this is
Speaker 2: not something that you do as a sign of strength,
Speaker 2: both from America's point of view and how destroyed our
Speaker 2: defense industrial basis that we literally don't have enough munitions
Speaker 2: apparently for ourselves, not only to provide a regional war
Speaker 2: in Eastern Europe, but also for how the Ukrainians are doing.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is from Sky News over at the UK. Here's
Speaker 2: what they say. Quote US cluster bombs deal is a
Speaker 2: clear signal the war is not going well for Ukraine.
Speaker 2: This is from Mark Stone. America risk losing the moral
Speaker 2: high ground by supplying Ukraine with a weapon banned by
Speaker 2: much of the world.
Speaker 3: So why are they supplying it?
Speaker 2: And as exactly you pointed to Crystal Even the New
Speaker 2: York Times noting this in a very very stark terms.
Speaker 2: Ukraine claims to have retaken sixty square miles. By comparison,
Speaker 2: the last great push in the Fall reclaimed five thousand
Speaker 2: square miles. Quote, they are probably weeks behind where it
Speaker 2: was hoped to be at this time. That is directly
Speaker 2: from the mouth of some of the most pro Ukraine
Speaker 2: forces that exist.
Speaker 3: In the US media.
Speaker 2: Even Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, says, quote, it
Speaker 2: has been very hard going. Defense has consistently been a
Speaker 2: straightforward proposition than offense in this war. Frankly on both sides,
Speaker 2: fulfilling the World War One edict around when you lack
Speaker 2: air supremacy combined to your tactics and all that, well,
Speaker 2: defense is always going to be some a much stronger position,
Speaker 2: and whenever you're attacking, you're going to lose a lot
Speaker 2: of men. And unfortunately that's what's been happening to the Ukrainians.
Speaker 2: The cluster munitions and the bombs themselves are effectively showing
Speaker 2: you the same struggles that the World War One armies had,
Speaker 2: which is they also ran out of ammunition weeks into
Speaker 2: the war that they thought would last for forever, it
Speaker 2: ended up having massive expenditures. The United States and all
Speaker 2: those other countries that were fighting in World War One,
Speaker 2: fortunately for them, had actual industrial bases that they could
Speaker 2: spin up. America is not a country at war. We're
Speaker 2: not going to total war footing, and neither are any
Speaker 2: of the allies. Ukraine, of course, has zero industrial base
Speaker 2: actually to speak of. They are one hundred percent reliant.
Speaker 2: So what do you do then? Whenever you're running low
Speaker 2: and you're your allies and all of them, despite their
Speaker 2: extraordinary generosity, are depleting themselves so much that they also can't,
Speaker 2: you know, spend even more money or go even more forward.
Speaker 2: You have to start reaching for desperate actions. And the
Speaker 2: cluster munition is the reason that they are reaching for
Speaker 2: them is not only how deadly they are, but crystal
Speaker 2: We having massive supply and stock of them. So it's
Speaker 2: one of the only other things that we still remain
Speaker 2: and have not tapped on Ukraine's behalf.
Speaker 3: So I think we can answer a couple of things.
Speaker 2: Number One, this is not going well for Ukraine period,
Speaker 2: no matter what, given what they're asking for. It doesn't
Speaker 2: mean though that they can't still continue to do well.
Speaker 2: But number two is in terms of the question, is
Speaker 2: this weakening the United States and its defense readiness.
Speaker 3: There's now zero question about this.
Speaker 2: There has always been a big debate about whether, you know,
Speaker 2: this was actually cannibalizing resources that we would use. It's
Speaker 2: out of the President's mouth now. Obviously stockpiles are running low.
Speaker 2: You can't deny that now, you know, there's some high
Speaker 2: minded like, well, but you know, we're fighting Russia, so
Speaker 2: it's worth every penny of it. And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but what if something breaks out right tomorrow in the
Speaker 2: South China.
Speaker 3: See, what are we going to be doing.
Speaker 2: It's impossible, you know, to predict and then second or
Speaker 2: sorry third really whenever it comes to the moral you know,
Speaker 2: strategy that we've been using on this the Russians and
Speaker 2: more importantly, you know, I just returned from Indian and
Speaker 2: I was telling you there is a very different view
Speaker 2: of this conflict in the rest of the world. And
Speaker 2: now the Indians, the Brazilians, the Chinese, all these other
Speaker 2: people were like, yeah, you know, well you guys them
Speaker 2: all over cluster munitions. And I'm like, and now, if
Speaker 2: China wants to send dead to the weapons to Russia,
Speaker 2: what are we gonna say? Yeah, you know what, what
Speaker 2: are we supposed to say. They haven't even provided them anything.
Speaker 2: They're very willing to do. So news came out they
Speaker 2: President GI spoke with Putin and said, hey, just don't
Speaker 2: use a nuke, all right, like, don't go But you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, as long as Putin and g maintain good relations,
Speaker 2: and let's say things start to look on the up
Speaker 2: and up for the Russian military, not outside the realm
Speaker 2: of possibility. Yeah, and then when we criticize Beijing, what
Speaker 2: are they going to throw.
Speaker 3: Right back in our face?
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, let's tell the other side of it,
Speaker 1: which is that it's not like things have been going
Speaker 1: well for Russia lately either their whole Progosian mutiny, whatever
Speaker 1: the hell happened there, which you know, we were just
Speaker 1: reading again and reporting this morning that apparently even after
Speaker 1: the attempted weird pathetic coup thing, then Progosion had a
Speaker 1: meeting with Putin for three hours. No one's seen him
Speaker 1: since any of this happened. He was supposed to go
Speaker 1: to Belarus. Apparently there's reports that he's still in Russia.
Speaker 1: Last understanding was that he was in Saint Petersburg. So
Speaker 1: they got their own issues. Let's be clear about that.
Speaker 1: But Sagar, I think your point is a really important one,
Speaker 1: which is listen, they just have to hold their line,
Speaker 1: and that's a lot easier to do than it is
Speaker 1: to push forward and break through those lines and be
Speaker 1: on the offense. They also have very clearly learned a
Speaker 1: lot from their early failures. They are better organized, they
Speaker 1: have better strategy and tactics in place, and it's being
Speaker 1: executed more effectively. So to me, all of this just
Speaker 1: underscores why it is so imperative that this war be
Speaker 1: brought to a close as soon as possible, that the
Speaker 1: parties are able to get to the negotiating table, that
Speaker 1: the US do everything in our power, and we have
Speaker 1: a lot in order to force some sort of negotiations
Speaker 1: and ultimately negotiated settlement, because you know, the war of
Speaker 1: attrition that we've been warning about and so many military
Speaker 1: analysts have been warning about is effectively upon us. And
Speaker 1: you know, Russia does have a large industrial base. They
Speaker 1: are on war footing.
Speaker 4: We are not.
Speaker 1: We are running low, and now we are resorting to
Speaker 1: the desperate tactics. You know, it's funny, because Sager, we
Speaker 1: talked so much about Russia resorting to these desperate tactics,
Speaker 1: and they have in many instances and the type of
Speaker 1: you know, dirty and horrific things that they would pull
Speaker 1: out of their bag of tricks when they're backed into
Speaker 1: a corner. And now here we are actually the ones
Speaker 1: sending cluster bombs into this fight on of our own desperation.
Speaker 1: So it is, it is a grotesque outcome here from
Speaker 1: the Biden administration and is clearly clearly indefensible.
Speaker 2: Well, the problem too for Ukraine is you know, the
Speaker 2: people you're killing as a result of these, not just
Speaker 2: Russian soldiers, I mean many of these well, your own civilians,
Speaker 2: you have your own citizens. You know, ostensibly who you're
Speaker 2: really craing kids.
Speaker 3: It's Ukrainian children here you're fighting to take over.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't want to downplay either what
Speaker 2: the long legacy of these things.
Speaker 3: I've been to Cambodia.
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of people who got the legs
Speaker 2: blown off by just wandering around in fields.
Speaker 3: In fact, in many areas that I've visited in Cambodia.
Speaker 2: They're like, do not step off this road, or like
Speaker 2: you literally could die. And that was you know, in
Speaker 2: the two thousands, decades after the conflict. So the long
Speaker 2: lasting legacy of these is a total disaster, and it's
Speaker 2: really one where this is going to devastate this part
Speaker 2: of Ukraine now for a long time, even more so
Speaker 2: than it already is, and really muddies the waters and
Speaker 2: makes it more complicated. Just reiterating the call to try
Speaker 2: and end this thing as soon as humanly possible. Let's
Speaker 2: go to the next part here, a very interesting look
Speaker 2: by Newsweek and a great reporter, William Arkin into the
Speaker 2: CIA and their actions inside of Ukraine.
Speaker 3: Let's go and put this up there on screen.
Speaker 2: The top line is that the CIA currently has but
Speaker 2: one hundred person now inside of Ukraine. Now, that might
Speaker 2: sound like a lot, but actually the crux of the
Speaker 2: article Crystal is quote the agency is as uncertain about
Speaker 2: Vladimir Zelenski's thinking and intentions as it is about Putin's.
Speaker 2: As the Russian leader faces his biggest challenge in the
Speaker 2: aftermath of the Failled mutiny, the agency is straining to understand.
Speaker 3: What the two sides will do.
Speaker 2: Because President Biden has determined that the United States will
Speaker 2: not undertake any actions that might threaten Russia itself or
Speaker 2: the survival of the Russian state. And what they point
Speaker 2: to specifically is, of course it will be difficult.
Speaker 3: For the CIA to figure out what Putin is going
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: But despite the fact that we have already learned via
Speaker 2: the what were the Discord papers, is that we're calling them.
Speaker 2: I think from the Discord papers that we were able.
Speaker 3: To report to at least some of you here.
Speaker 2: You know, our intelligence agencies are spying on Zelensky literally
Speaker 2: by tapping his phone and others. And I think that
Speaker 2: Zelensky and his people are very aware of that and
Speaker 2: are taking several measures to make sure that the United
Speaker 2: States is obfuscated from some of their plans. Lots of
Speaker 2: reports previously consternation from the Pentagon Ukrainians hiding some of
Speaker 2: their plans about the counter offensive, only briefing the military
Speaker 2: whenever they want something, with their handout being like please
Speaker 2: please give me more, give me more, give me more.
Speaker 2: And then beside that, though hiding key details, and the US,
Speaker 2: the CIA and others are actually faced with the problem
Speaker 2: where they are trying right now to get as much
Speaker 2: information out of Ukraine as possible and are having to
Speaker 2: resort having to spy on them to a pretty historic
Speaker 2: degree for a so called ally in this conflict.
Speaker 1: There's also a lot of indication in this report from
Speaker 1: Newsweek that you know, our intelligence agency knew pretty much
Speaker 1: right away what was going on with the nord Stream pipeline.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is honestly, it's really humiliating because number one,
Speaker 1: the fact that we don't know what the hell our
Speaker 1: supposed ally who we're sending so much material to that
Speaker 1: we don't even know what they're up to, that they
Speaker 1: don't read us in on their plans. I frankly can't
Speaker 1: blame them because we haven't apparently brought pressure to bear
Speaker 1: to get them to be upfront about those things, and
Speaker 1: because of you know, some of the leaks that have
Speaker 1: come out. I can kind of understand their position on that,
Speaker 1: but it's humiliating for us, and we are supposed to
Speaker 1: have this kind of like agreement with them that all right,
Speaker 1: we'll give you all this stuff, but you're not going
Speaker 1: to attack Russians on Russian soil. You're not going to
Speaker 1: engage in these sort of you know, sabotage and going
Speaker 1: you know, after going after Russian citizens on Russian soil.
Speaker 1: You're not going to do those sorts of things. And
Speaker 1: they've done it. Repeatedly, and we've just kind of accepted it.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've just taken it. So of course they've
Speaker 1: been emboldened to the point that they would send drones
Speaker 1: to strike the literal Krumlin in some sort of you know,
Speaker 1: half hearted assassination putin assassination attempt. So I underscore something
Speaker 1: that we've seen indications of from the beginning, which is
Speaker 1: in some ways, because we have such a long history
Speaker 1: of spying on Russia, we're able to get more inside
Speaker 1: of what they're thinking and what they're planning, and you know,
Speaker 1: what their posture is than with the Ukrainians, who you know,
Speaker 1: obviously are the ones on our side. So it's a
Speaker 1: pretty wild state of affairs.
Speaker 3: Honestly, I encourage people to go through and read this.
Speaker 2: William Markin is a very stand up journalist, have followed
Speaker 2: him for quite a long time, and one of the
Speaker 2: important things again that actually comes through is both the
Speaker 2: level to which the Ukrainian military relies on the United
Speaker 2: States and the level to which they hide as much
Speaker 2: as possible. And then also finally, how much our government
Speaker 2: lies to us consistently about this.
Speaker 3: I mean, with Nordstream, there.
Speaker 2: Has not been a single indication yet from the obvious
Speaker 2: fact that they are most almost very likely certainly the
Speaker 2: people who blew up the pipeline after calling it, you know,
Speaker 2: a terrible act of sabotage. We're going to get to
Speaker 2: the bottom of it. Well, maybe we shouldn't get to
Speaker 2: the bottom.
Speaker 3: For certainly.
Speaker 2: What comes through really what comes through though, is that
Speaker 2: we are running ops for them to a ridiculous and
Speaker 2: historic degree, you know, from this surveillance from human intelligence
Speaker 2: against the rest, providing them with the location of Russian
Speaker 2: general so they could kill them, and all of us
Speaker 2: in flirting real close right up there to the line
Speaker 2: of direct combatant status. And at the very same time, though,
Speaker 2: we're being kept in the dark about what they actually
Speaker 2: want to do. And so obviously this is going to
Speaker 2: be very frustrating I think for a lot of people
Speaker 2: behind the scenes inside of the Pentagon and others. But
Speaker 2: because of the ideological capture that has happened within the elite,
Speaker 2: you are unable to issue any real criticism of the Ukrainians.
Speaker 2: And that's something that I think has shined through from
Speaker 2: private conversations, things that I've heard and then also just
Speaker 2: bubbled up through the military. You know, every time, we're like, hey,
Speaker 2: maybe you should reserve some of this AMMO in Bakwood
Speaker 2: because you're gonna lose anyway, and you got to get
Speaker 2: this counter offensive. And they're like, now he knows what
Speaker 2: he's doing. It's like, yeah, but it's our weapons. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe we're the ones you should listen a little bit
Speaker 2: to what we tell you to do with the greatest
Speaker 2: military in the world.
Speaker 3: And they're like, now we know what we're doing. Now
Speaker 3: you run a low on AMMO.
Speaker 2: We've got to tap our cluster munitions consistently. Also, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of their plans and other things, they really
Speaker 2: only tell something whenever they want something from us. And
Speaker 2: you know, in some way, I don't blame them like
Speaker 2: somebody was so stupid they're willing to basically write me
Speaker 2: a blank check.
Speaker 3: Why keep them in the dark? Way right? In any ways,
Speaker 3: it's actually more of an indictment.
Speaker 2: I think of our leadership and our approach that's going
Speaker 2: on with this conflict.
Speaker 3: And also, don't underestimate this.
Speaker 2: We don't know nearly as you know, there's like an
Speaker 2: idea about the CIA and the intelligence community. They're all seeing,
Speaker 2: all knowing, and all these people they've gotten some things right.
Speaker 2: They got a lot of things wrong, you know, on
Speaker 2: this conflict, and this shows you why do they get
Speaker 2: a lot of things wrong?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the other piece of this is the way
Speaker 1: that they use the CIA to get around the Biden
Speaker 1: administration's commitment that there will be no boots on the ground. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: there's you know, something like one hundred CIA personnel on
Speaker 1: the ground. Apparently that doesn't count. They don't wear boots apparently.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean there's an open acknowledgment from Polish officials,
Speaker 1: which again they've been the most talkish in all of this,
Speaker 1: that the US really doesn't understand the Ukrainian state and
Speaker 1: the quote reckless factions that exist there, says one Polish
Speaker 1: official on the anonymously. You also had a US Defense
Speaker 1: intelligence official saying, I hesitate to say the CIA has failed,
Speaker 1: but they said sabotage attacks and cross border fighting create
Speaker 1: a whole new complication and continuing Ukrainian sabotage quote could
Speaker 1: have disastrous consequences. So, you know, this is completely out
Speaker 1: of hand. We don't know what they're plotting. We know
Speaker 1: very well that they were behind these various attacks that
Speaker 1: they you know, immediately lie about and deny, and that
Speaker 1: our own military establishment lies to the American people about
Speaker 1: and pretends that it's maybe it's Russia, it's Russia, or
Speaker 1: maybe we'll never know, or maybe it's better if we
Speaker 1: don't get to the bottom of it. So it's pretty
Speaker 1: stark to see the way that this war is actually
Speaker 1: being carried out and just how directly involved the CIA
Speaker 1: is on the ground, and how much they have really
Speaker 1: failed in their job of understanding what the Ukrainians are planning,
Speaker 1: let alone what the Russians are planning.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well said, Let's move on to the next part
Speaker 2: here around NATO. As I mentioned, the NATO Summit's going
Speaker 2: to be happening in Vilnius.
Speaker 3: News just broke this morning, Crystal.
Speaker 2: President Zelenski will actually be visiting the NATO summit, where
Speaker 2: he will ask specifically for NATO membership as soon as possible.
Speaker 2: President Biden has also talked about this request from the Ukrainians,
Speaker 2: but also from pressure from other NATO allies, around whether
Speaker 2: Ukraine should be admitted into NATO as soon as possible,
Speaker 2: including at the summit.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say, should it get membership
Speaker 3: in NATO, I.
Speaker 5: Don't think it's ready for membership in NATO.
Speaker 8: But here's the deal.
Speaker 5: I spent, as you know, a great deal of time
Speaker 5: trying to hold NATO together because I believe has had
Speaker 5: an overwhelming objector from the time he launched on hundred
Speaker 5: and eighty five thousand troops in.
Speaker 8: Ukraine, and that was to break NATO.
Speaker 5: He was confident, in my view and many the intelligence community,
Speaker 5: he was confident could break NATO. So holding NATO together
Speaker 5: is really critical. I don't think there is unanimity in
Speaker 5: NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the
Speaker 5: NATO family. Now at this moment, in the middle of
Speaker 5: a war, for example, if you did that, then you know,
Speaker 5: and I mean what I say, We're determined to commit
Speaker 5: every inch of territory that is NATO territory. It's a
Speaker 5: commitment that we've all made, no matter what. If the
Speaker 5: war is going on, then we're all in the war.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess at least he's got enough together to
Speaker 2: compute that basic fact. Unfortunately, our so called allies over
Speaker 2: in Lithuania and the Baltic States don't seem to understand this.
Speaker 2: Let's go to put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: The Lithuanian leader who's hosting the NATO summon, says, quote,
Speaker 2: give Ukraine a quick path to join NATO. Poland and
Speaker 2: several other Baltic countries have been strongly pushing forward to
Speaker 2: beg NATO to offer Ukraine official membership status as soon
Speaker 2: as possible.
Speaker 3: And of course, you know, look, we.
Speaker 2: Are not going to sit here and validate entirely Vladimir
Speaker 2: Putin's justification for invading Ukraine. Ridiculous obviously, why now, oh
Speaker 2: you know, we offered Ukrainian membership into NATO in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight, never officially did it, so all miracle,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden in twenty twenty two, it became
Speaker 2: a crisis, all right, Like, let's put that aside as
Speaker 2: obviously a farce now, though it would also be a
Speaker 2: farce to say it had nothing to do with it,
Speaker 2: and that NATO expansion in the Baltic region clearly aggravated
Speaker 2: and created at tensions in the situation such that the
Speaker 2: Russians felt on the back foot and validated longstanding Russian
Speaker 2: paranoia about NATO and Western incursion into their spheres of influence.
Speaker 2: Both of these two things can be true at the
Speaker 2: same time, and NATO membership for Ukraine obviously is a
Speaker 2: non starter for not only Russian leadership military leadership now
Speaker 2: at this point, also for many people inside of Russia
Speaker 2: who very much would feel validated at actually fighting a
Speaker 2: war on these grounds. It's clearly something in my opinion,
Speaker 2: which should be taken off the table for all time.
Speaker 2: There's no reason to ever consider it. That doesn't also, though,
Speaker 2: mean you can't provide security guarantees to to Ukraine. Outside
Speaker 2: of that, Look at our relationship with Taiwan. You know,
Speaker 2: they don't have a ironclad guarantee, but they've got a
Speaker 2: pretty good one. Look at South Korea, look at Japan.
Speaker 2: We have tons of allies all across the world which
Speaker 2: we have security partnerships and such that don't still limit
Speaker 2: and constrict you to the sole language of Article five.
Speaker 2: We're in a take on one as attack on all
Speaker 2: effectively guarantees a nuclear exchange between the great power. So
Speaker 2: they are trying to get, you know, the best security
Speaker 2: guarantee they can and you know, I guess I can't
Speaker 2: blame Ukraine. You know, if I've been invaded, clearly something
Speaker 2: I would want at the same time, but on our
Speaker 2: perspective and really for the rest.
Speaker 3: Of the world. This should be one of those where
Speaker 3: the great power should have enough sense to say, look,
Speaker 3: we can give security guarantees when this conflict is en
Speaker 3: during some sort of negotiated piece, but NATO membership is
Speaker 3: not going to happen, and Biden refuses to rule that
Speaker 3: out Crystal, including in that interview.
Speaker 1: I want to defend Biden though, because I know that
Speaker 1: he was under a lot of pressure to provide some
Speaker 1: sort of timeline to Krainian NATO membership, and not just
Speaker 1: from the Lithuanians and the Baltic States, but quite a
Speaker 1: number of NATO members were really putting a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure on him, and he was quite clear here that
Speaker 1: it is an absolute nonstarter while the war is going on,
Speaker 1: which I appreciate hearing. And I also want to say,
Speaker 1: you know, there could be some sort of tactical advantage
Speaker 1: in keeping the possibility of Ukrainian NATO membership on the
Speaker 1: table for future negotiations, because if you've already said no, no,
Speaker 1: they're never going to be in well, that's obviously something
Speaker 1: that Russia wants, so that's something that you could potentially
Speaker 1: give them in a future negotiation. So while I agree
Speaker 1: with you it's insane to imagine putting, you know, allowing
Speaker 1: Ukraine into NATO. We never should have held that out
Speaker 1: ever in the first place, and it's certainly exacerbated and
Speaker 1: helped to contribute to the crisis that we face today.
Speaker 1: I don't hate the fact that they left it out
Speaker 1: there on the table, because I think it could be
Speaker 1: a point of leverage and negotiation in some theoretical in
Speaker 1: the future, negotiate itself.
Speaker 3: I think that's fair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they're negotiating out in the public where
Speaker 2: simply here you talking about it. However, we should take
Speaker 2: a little bit of attention to the United States Senate,
Speaker 2: where any ascension of Ukraine and to NATO would have
Speaker 2: to pass. Given the makeup of our Senate, I actually
Speaker 2: have no doubt that it would pass, which is terrifying. However,
Speaker 2: there have been some actually sane voices in that chamber
Speaker 2: we want to give credit to. Let's go and put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. Senator Ran Paul responding
Speaker 2: to Lindsey Graham, who says that he's working with Republican
Speaker 2: and Democrats to pass a resolution urging the admission of
Speaker 2: Ukraine into NATO, Rand Paul says, quote absolutely not. This
Speaker 2: is exactly wrong as usual and could very well lead
Speaker 2: to us with a war with Russia, something no one
Speaker 2: should want. Lindsey Graham claiming Ukrainian NATO membership is the
Speaker 2: best way to prevent future wars and promote peace and
Speaker 2: create security guarantees that make aggressor nations think twice before
Speaker 2: starting wars. I believe this is an overwhelming majority of
Speaker 2: Senators support this proposition, probably unfortunately is right about them.
Speaker 2: Senator JD Vance also weighing in yesterday, let's go ahead,
Speaker 2: put this up there please on the screen. Quote He says,
Speaker 2: why letting Ukraine into NATO, especially now, is a massive mistake.
Speaker 2: Neo conservatives want to sign us up for a war
Speaker 2: with Russia when we don't may have we don't make
Speaker 2: enough artillery shells for someone else to use. I am
Speaker 2: so sick of the bipartisan absence of wisdom on this war,
Speaker 2: making only two senators now so far who are willing
Speaker 2: to vote against this. And yet despite all of that,
Speaker 2: Zelensky he won't drop it. Let's go and put this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. He says, Ukraine is not
Speaker 2: only going to prep for NATO membership and beg for it,
Speaker 2: but also EU membership.
Speaker 3: After the war.
Speaker 2: Remember and recall that EU membership and that being all
Speaker 2: the table is what led to a lot of consternation
Speaker 2: inside of Ukraine previously during the so called color revolutions
Speaker 2: and all of that, which initially led to some of
Speaker 2: the Civil war breakaway regions and also Russian incursion into Crimeas.
Speaker 3: So all of this is a.
Speaker 2: Very complicated geopolitical picture, but of which we have to
Speaker 2: pay the utmost attention to because any indication declaration text
Speaker 2: offering Ukraine NATO membership would be a sea change.
Speaker 3: Event in this conflict.
Speaker 2: It would almost certainly ramp up whatever it was going
Speaker 2: on then. But geos, you know, grand strategically, that would
Speaker 2: change almost everything, and you know many NATO members have already.
Speaker 2: Even Turkey, who is blocking Swedish membership, said yesterday I
Speaker 2: believe Aredowan said Ukraine deserves membership.
Speaker 3: That right, Yeah, he's an odd one.
Speaker 2: Just remember he doesn't actually care about, you know, apparently
Speaker 2: anything except himself, like even as Swedish objection is about
Speaker 2: like PKK Kurdish ris right, yeah, but the Hungarians also
Speaker 2: are blocking currently at least blocking Swedish membership inside of NATO.
Speaker 2: I'm not exactly sure what their beef is on the subject,
Speaker 2: so it's not like that others wouldn't be able to
Speaker 2: spelling about it. But of course, you know, the US
Speaker 2: is the most important voice in this conflict. It also
Speaker 2: harkens back to some drama that was happening while I
Speaker 2: was off around who the next NATO leadership be. Right,
Speaker 2: they ended up extending the current member's term because the
Speaker 2: West wanted to nominate somebody who was less I guess,
Speaker 2: hawkish on the Ukraine conflict, and then the Baltics were like, no,
Speaker 2: we have to have somebody who will only support ascension
Speaker 2: of Ukraine into NATO.
Speaker 3: So there's still a lot of fractures, I think in
Speaker 3: sadness alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, ultimately we're the big dog in this
Speaker 1: whole situation.
Speaker 4: I did like this.
Speaker 1: I had to chuckle at this from Zelenski. In an
Speaker 1: interview with Martha Radditz, he was asked about potential NATO membership.
Speaker 1: He says, by the way, as Saga was saying, like
Speaker 1: they're preparing for EU membership, all right, that's happening, he said, quote,
Speaker 1: I assume that Ukraine will be a valued NATO country's
Speaker 1: partner with actually the strongest armed forces in Europe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they have.
Speaker 1: The strongest armed forces in Europe now given what we
Speaker 1: and our allies have provided them. So that's the way
Speaker 1: that he is framing things. So he is still very
Speaker 1: much pushing for this, although he wasn't aggressive about pushing
Speaker 1: it now currently. During the war, it was more sort
Speaker 1: of accepting the Biden administration framing of after the war,
Speaker 1: we're going to push for NATO membership. I also wanted
Speaker 1: to update you, Sager on something you missed while you
Speaker 1: were away, which is that Lindsay Graham's Trump went down
Speaker 1: to South Carolina to do a status and Lindsay Graham
Speaker 1: was introducing him, and I saw the headline. You know,
Speaker 1: you see these things that are like so and so
Speaker 1: booed and you listen to and there's like two people
Speaker 1: that are going like all right.
Speaker 4: That was underwhelming. I mean, this was bad. It went
Speaker 4: on and on. He was trying to talk.
Speaker 1: It was you know, just continued and continued, and then
Speaker 1: Trump sort of like poked fun at him as well.
Speaker 1: So he's not the most beloved figure of the GOP
Speaker 1: right now, which I support.
Speaker 3: I support that as well. Always put your trust.
Speaker 1: Into people, all right, speaking of the Republican Party. We've
Speaker 1: got some updates on the Republican primary. So, as we
Speaker 1: told you before, Fox News had overtly, like clearly gone
Speaker 1: all in for Roun DeSantis. Murdoch had had lunch with
Speaker 1: him and Casey DeSantis before even the last election was
Speaker 1: over and said we're going to be behind you. Looks
Speaker 1: like they may be having a little bit of buyer's remorse.
Speaker 1: You had Will Kine really pressing DeSantis, saying, you know
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Your poll numbers are trash effectively,
Speaker 1: and you also have Maria Barbiromo with a very tough
Speaker 1: line of questioning as well as toick.
Speaker 4: Listen.
Speaker 9: Here's this weekend's headline from the Politico playbook, failure to launch.
Speaker 9: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' campaign to topple Donald Trump has stalled.
Speaker 3: We are way.
Speaker 9: Behind, says a top DeSantis pack official, shounding the alarm.
Speaker 10: What happened, Oh, Maria, These are narratives. The media does
Speaker 10: not want me to be the nominee. I think that's
Speaker 10: very very clear. Why because they know I'll beat Biden.
Speaker 10: You know, my reelection in Florida, we had the greatest
Speaker 10: victory that any Republican governor candidate in the history of
Speaker 10: the state had And yet a few months before the election,
Speaker 10: I had media saying that somehow my re election campaign
Speaker 10: was stalling, that we weren't doing anything, And so we're
Speaker 10: doing what it takes to win. It's not a national primary.
Speaker 10: That's not how these things are going. It's really on
Speaker 10: the ground in those key the states. You got to
Speaker 10: have the organization, you got to have do that. So
Speaker 10: that's what we focused on.
Speaker 1: I enjoy Sager how he says the media doesn't want
Speaker 1: him to win when he's literally on the largest cable
Speaker 1: news network that very much does want him to win.
Speaker 2: Not only that, I mean, given his media attention is
Speaker 2: just not true. Considering if he is pulling at the
Speaker 2: same level as RFK Junior, ask yourself, which one gets
Speaker 2: more our actual media attention. He is treated way more
Speaker 2: seriously than Robert Francis Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 3: And yet you know he can. I mean, look, no
Speaker 3: doubt the media.
Speaker 2: Doesn't like him, but that's I think they love Trump, yeah,
Speaker 2: exactly something they love Trump. So I think it's kind
Speaker 2: a bit of a ridiculous comparison. You know, one interesting
Speaker 2: thing that you found is just a real analysis showing
Speaker 2: pretty holistically that things are not going well for Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 2: Go ahad and put this up there on the screen,
Speaker 2: the decline of DeSantis showing basically a total net drop
Speaker 2: from thirty eight percent in the GOP primary to twenty
Speaker 2: three percent. And also whenever you look at his net
Speaker 2: favorability ratings, he was actually slightly above now it's gone negative.
Speaker 2: The most important, though, is his margin head to head
Speaker 2: versus Trump one point three points in February now minus
Speaker 2: twenty four point one. Arguably, Crystal, that is the most
Speaker 2: important number that is there, which shows his margin of
Speaker 2: head to head number drop, showing that he is not
Speaker 2: viewed credibly as an actual alternative to Trump amongst people
Speaker 2: who he would have to split away from the former president.
Speaker 2: Just more you know, just showing you how strong Trump
Speaker 2: remains in this primary.
Speaker 1: I think those favorability numbers are a real problem for
Speaker 1: him too. I mean, this is a key part of
Speaker 1: his pitch, is like I'm Trump without the drama, people
Speaker 1: like me more, I'll be more electable. When you're getting
Speaker 1: significantly underwater on your favorability rings, that also makes it
Speaker 1: a lot harder to come back, and it really cuts
Speaker 1: against the core of the argument they were making just
Speaker 1: before he got into the race, which is, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: sure Trump is up in the polls, but once I
Speaker 1: get in people see what I'm all about, then I'm
Speaker 1: going to be able to rise.
Speaker 4: They're going to like what they have to see. It's
Speaker 4: exactly the oppo.
Speaker 1: Since he's gotten in the race, people have soured on
Speaker 1: him the more that they have seen him, frankly, and
Speaker 1: the more that he has come under additional attacks, not
Speaker 1: only from Trump but from the other Republicans who are
Speaker 1: too afraid to go after Trump but not too afraid
Speaker 1: to go after DeSantis. And then the other piece of
Speaker 1: this is, you know, even in the head to head matchup,
Speaker 1: so if you imagine a situation where everybody else drops down,
Speaker 1: all the money and all the everybody coalesces around him.
Speaker 4: Sort of like a Biden situation back.
Speaker 1: Last time in the Democratic primary, even in that situation,
Speaker 1: he has fallen off significantly in terms of his head
Speaker 1: to head chances against Trump. You know another thing that
Speaker 1: we talked about while you were away, Sager, is this
Speaker 1: weird ad that his war room tweeted out that I'm
Speaker 1: sure you saw where it was like bragging about like
Speaker 1: the most anti trans governor blah blah blah, And it's
Speaker 1: really clear that he has decided it's almost for him too.
Speaker 1: We talked about this with the cluster bombs, but for
Speaker 1: him too, it's kind of an active desperation, like he
Speaker 1: has to go super hard right, has to really lean
Speaker 1: into what are some of the least popular in terms
Speaker 1: of a general election audience positions. And we talked early
Speaker 1: on about how he had a very different, very difficult
Speaker 1: path to walk because he needed to combine the people
Speaker 1: who are in the Republican Party who are actively anti
Speaker 1: Trump because they're more moderate with the people who like Trump,
Speaker 1: but maybe they'd be open and considering an alternative. So
Speaker 1: he has had to really pick this kind of like
Speaker 1: hard right conservative lane, and I think it makes it
Speaker 1: difficult for him to be able to put together the
Speaker 1: coalition he needs. And I think it also undermines that
Speaker 1: pitch of I know how to win the electable guy,
Speaker 1: and it's clear that Republican voters at least just don't
Speaker 1: really buy that.
Speaker 2: So for me, I just think that he is pursuing
Speaker 2: a Ted Crue strategy. The true conservative, yeah, person who
Speaker 2: is real and unfortunately, and a look, he is number
Speaker 2: two and that's what Ted was, but if he want
Speaker 2: to be number one, you have to be able to
Speaker 2: combine some of that with at least a crossover of
Speaker 2: what's going on. The problem for DeSantis is I think
Speaker 2: he is actually leaning far too much into policy. I
Speaker 2: don't even disagree with him that on policy, he's obviously
Speaker 2: correct on so many of his critiques versus Trump, especially
Speaker 2: in terms of implementation. But let's all be real, how
Speaker 2: many people actually vote on policy right?
Speaker 3: Almost nobody really.
Speaker 2: I mean people say they do, but when you look
Speaker 2: at what they say they like about Trump though he's
Speaker 2: a fighter, he stands up for us. You know, he
Speaker 2: drives people I like crazy, that's actually or I hate crazy.
Speaker 2: That's probably the number one reason. The issue I really
Speaker 2: believe for DeSantis is that he is both fighting this
Speaker 2: like online campaign, which I really read that ad is
Speaker 2: because there's a lot of better online. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of energy around the ad that he put out right
Speaker 2: in terms of you were to spend some time kind
Speaker 2: of on right wing Twitter, especially younger people who some
Speaker 2: many of them aren't voting or working on the DeSantis campaign.
Speaker 2: But if you were to go and you were to ask,
Speaker 2: you know, the aggregate GOP primary voter, you know, the
Speaker 2: typical one. This is a non college educated white man
Speaker 2: who probably hasn't gone to college, and you ask him, like,
Speaker 2: what are you most concerned about? He'd be like, I
Speaker 2: hate the media, I hate Joe Biden, the economy sucks,
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe one or two things about the border, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: like that's going to be your top four. Well you
Speaker 2: got to be focusing directly in on that, and that's
Speaker 2: really what Trump excels.
Speaker 3: At more than anyone.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Even also, I think Trump has taken a smart lane
Speaker 2: while I was gone. I know, he called out DeSantis
Speaker 2: again for being like what does woke even mean? Right,
Speaker 2: because he's he's calling them out for over using the
Speaker 2: term and kind of trying to undercut their core critique
Speaker 2: really of US society, of Biden and others by saying
Speaker 2: I'm the guy who fights, I think on all fronts.
Speaker 3: So in general, Trump is running a very savvy campaign
Speaker 3: right now against Desantas.
Speaker 1: In that analysis that we put up a moment ago,
Speaker 1: they cite a an April poll from Fox that found
Speaker 1: only one percent of voters list wokeness or transgender issues
Speaker 1: as the most important issue facing the country, and you
Speaker 1: know it, I think there were a lot of part
Speaker 1: of DeSantis's success in Florida was maybe a bit misread.
Speaker 4: I think it had a lot to do with this
Speaker 4: COVID policies.
Speaker 1: I think it had a lot to do with, you know,
Speaker 1: going against schoolob and same with Glenn Youngkin in Virginia,
Speaker 1: where you know, that was the core of his appeal,
Speaker 1: that he was opposed to these school closures which were really,
Speaker 1: you know, really problem for a lot of parents, a
Speaker 1: lot of families, and the results of which have clearly
Speaker 1: been devastating. That was misread as an enthusiastic backing of
Speaker 1: some of his other cultural positions which he has since
Speaker 1: really leaned into. As that COVID policy and like the
Speaker 1: COVID era has receded, and we saw in the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two midterms that didn't really work out for Republicans,
Speaker 1: and I think we see even within a Republican primary,
Speaker 1: it is not top of mind not to mention, as
Speaker 1: you were pointing out Socer, it is sort of adorable
Speaker 1: to imagine that voters are really going down like a checklist,
Speaker 1: issue by issue to see where they align with each candidate.
Speaker 1: That's not how it works. So anyway, some challenges therefore,
Speaker 1: mister DeSantis, as even Fox News is like, dude, what's
Speaker 1: going on with your campaign?
Speaker 4: We put ourselves out there for you, and what is
Speaker 4: going on?
Speaker 3: It's undeniable. You can't read a poll.
Speaker 2: You look at it and look, I don't want to
Speaker 2: take away. He still could do well. Remember Ted Cruz
Speaker 2: did win Iowa. He win Iowa, so it's possible he
Speaker 2: could win Iowa. But he's got to pull off the
Speaker 2: double whim. He's got to win Iowa, and he's got
Speaker 2: to win New Hampshire. Iowould be huge in the feather.
Speaker 2: But if he can beat Trump in the OG state
Speaker 2: or Trump first one, that would be everything. But you know,
Speaker 2: for him right now, I'm not seeing a path towards
Speaker 2: that at all.
Speaker 1: So Washington Post did a really interesting analysis of the
Speaker 1: language that the Republican candidates are using on the trail,
Speaker 1: like the top words that they use, that we wanted
Speaker 1: to go through because.
Speaker 4: I think it's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I think it's also kind of revealing about the way
Speaker 1: that these different candidates are approaching the race. So let's
Speaker 1: go and put the first one up on the screen.
Speaker 1: You've got Donald Trump here, number one. They point out great,
Speaker 1: and they highlight some of the ones that are like
Speaker 1: different from the other countries. So it's not necessarily the
Speaker 1: number one word that they use, but it's the ones
Speaker 1: that are kind of unique to him. So great, Biden,
Speaker 1: radical and border Sagary, you were pointing out how border
Speaker 1: is very animating among the Republican base. Let's go and
Speaker 1: put Dasantis up. DeSantis leans hard into his time as
Speaker 1: Florida governor. The other things that you have here are COVID, kids, parents, FAUCI,
Speaker 1: woke an ESG, and what I take away there is,
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, like really leaning hard into
Speaker 1: what he's doing policy wise in Florida, which we just
Speaker 1: discuss may not land.
Speaker 4: All that much.
Speaker 1: Still talking about COVID and FAUCI, something that has really
Speaker 1: fallen off even among Republicans as a key issue. And
Speaker 1: then the rest are on the cultural agenda ESG, which
Speaker 1: I guarantee if you pull a majority of the Republican
Speaker 1: base probably has no idea what you're talking about, which
Speaker 1: Trump is going after as well. And then kids, which
Speaker 1: fits into that piece. Let's put Mike Pence up on
Speaker 1: the screen. Pence running hard for that evangelical right base.
Speaker 1: His words include God, life. He's been probably the candidate
Speaker 1: who is most staked down a hard right abortion anti
Speaker 1: abortion position. Trump actually surprisingly he is probably the most
Speaker 1: vocal in terms of talking about the former president, kind
Speaker 1: of because he can't avoid doing it. And Constitution. So
Speaker 1: you know, some throwback language there. Nikki Hayley, let's put
Speaker 1: her up on the screen. She's got some that I
Speaker 1: think really reflect how she leans into her bio.
Speaker 4: You've got the.
Speaker 1: Word proud, strong, love and together and kind of similar
Speaker 1: to Tim Scott. Put this up on the screen again,
Speaker 1: some of the words leaning into his bio talks about
Speaker 1: his mom a lot, apparently, God and faith. So also
Speaker 1: making a play for that evangelical right base. What did
Speaker 1: you think of some of this language, saga? Would you
Speaker 1: take it for?
Speaker 2: I thought that the most important ones for DeSantis were
Speaker 2: terms that many Americans don't know. Who what is ESG?
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I hate ESG. I will critique it
Speaker 2: here all day long. I know there's a lot of
Speaker 2: discussion online about it, but I'm not an idiot, and
Speaker 2: I know if I was running for president, I would
Speaker 2: never talk about a Esg never because I know that
Speaker 2: the vast majority of what we talked about previously, Like
Speaker 2: voters don't have checklists. They're like, right, is the gas
Speaker 2: price low? Do I like the guy? Is my wife
Speaker 2: gonna give me some crap if I vote for this guy?
Speaker 2: You know, Like what am I talking about with my neighbors? Man?
Speaker 3: This stuff drives me crazy. Like that's basically that's mostly
Speaker 3: amount of the.
Speaker 2: Thought that most people put into actually all this. Uh
Speaker 2: And you know, look, he's running the same strategy for
Speaker 2: the nation that he ran in Florida. Not a terrible play,
Speaker 2: but he's not focusing on the right elements. He has
Speaker 2: to focus more on the economic message about population inflows
Speaker 2: and about the booming economy that is what turning America
Speaker 2: into Florida. He's talking too much right now about parents,
Speaker 2: fauci Esg. It's like the ultimate validator is you left
Speaker 2: your state to come live here. Let's make America just
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: You're positive.
Speaker 2: That's kind of a almost like a Reaganesque type message
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty And unfortunately, I think he's learned many
Speaker 2: of the worst lessons from validation on the inter you know,
Speaker 2: Trump's are so basic. And that's also was one of
Speaker 2: those genius things as a politician. Everything he says is
Speaker 2: like at a second grade reading level. He's got radical
Speaker 2: border great and Biden easy? Yeah, what do you identify
Speaker 2: with Trump? He always exaggerates everything is gonna be great
Speaker 2: whenever it's the border. Okay, He's against Biden's position on
Speaker 2: the border, radically talks about the radical left his opponent
Speaker 2: Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: That's exactly the right play, you.
Speaker 2: Know, with Mike Pence, it's almost like a meme out
Speaker 2: of a Mark Levin, you know, type show Constitution, Life
Speaker 2: and God, Nikki Haley, you know, the fake Reagan esque
Speaker 2: vibes that I was talking about, like together and strong
Speaker 2: and love and I'm a fighter and I'm always kept
Speaker 2: surprised kicking didn't make the list.
Speaker 3: Tim Scott, you.
Speaker 2: Know, he can't help it being deared to the man
Speaker 2: that he says, Mom and God and faith.
Speaker 3: I mean great. That said, you know that there's a
Speaker 3: lot of people, I.
Speaker 2: Think in the GOP primary who love their mom and
Speaker 2: who love God and who love faith. So it's not
Speaker 2: like it's a very unique position that you're taking.
Speaker 3: Overall.
Speaker 2: I just thought that the sheer simplest of Trump, and
Speaker 2: what he's saying is exactly why I think he's leading
Speaker 2: so well on this primary.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's really simple. Trump is just a really
Speaker 4: good politician, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you listen to him on the stump and
Speaker 1: even like, I can't stand the guy, and I can't
Speaker 1: help but be chuckling at some of what he's saying.
Speaker 4: He does all of these like comedic bits, and he's just.
Speaker 1: A really good politician, and the Republican base really likes him.
Speaker 4: And so it's you.
Speaker 1: Know, it's a tough thing to figure out how to
Speaker 1: crack that. And thatt, I did want to put The
Speaker 1: last one I wanted to put up here is Chris Christy. Guys,
Speaker 1: it was the next one in the list after Tim Scott.
Speaker 3: There we go.
Speaker 4: This is kind of interesting to me.
Speaker 1: So he talks a lot, apparently about how leaders of
Speaker 1: both major parties are making Americans smaller with divisive messages,
Speaker 1: and some of his top words were smaller, small, and big.
Speaker 1: So I mean, he says, at every pivotal moment in history,
Speaker 1: there was a choice between small and big, and America
Speaker 1: has succeeded because we always picked big. I would say,
Speaker 1: out of all these candidates, Chris CHRISTI, just in terms
Speaker 1: of political talent, is probably the second most talented, just
Speaker 1: like raw political scale is Trump. I do think in
Speaker 1: some of this just simple straightforward language, you see why
Speaker 1: he is a very effective communicator. And Chris Christy is
Speaker 1: not going to be the Republican nominee. You know, he's
Speaker 1: really takes a stake down a position as like the
Speaker 1: anti Trump candidate and wants to go in there and
Speaker 1: not Trump Dad a peg. But I do think you
Speaker 1: see why he was able to get elected in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: why he was such a darling of the right for
Speaker 1: so long, and why he is that. You know, he
Speaker 1: is a very effective communicator, and he actually has jumped
Speaker 1: up in the polls a bit more than I e.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's still in single digits.
Speaker 1: I don't want to like overplay it here, but he
Speaker 1: has leapfrogged a number of these other candidates who also
Speaker 1: get a lot of attention.
Speaker 4: I think it's a testament to the way that he speaks.
Speaker 2: Chris Christy is always a great communicator, but I think
Speaker 2: he was elected in a blue state for a reason.
Speaker 2: He's not a hard right politician, and the GOP primary
Speaker 2: is a hard right game.
Speaker 3: He missed his moment in.
Speaker 2: Twenty twelve whenever people were looking for that alternative, you know,
Speaker 2: with Obama. And then more broadly, I think that what
Speaker 2: you see in this is that as if you're prosecuting
Speaker 2: a case against the most popular Republican since Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 3: Sorry, you're not going to be the Republican nominee. You're
Speaker 3: going to be great on television. I wish you the
Speaker 3: best of luck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we would really like to interview Actually, we'd like
Speaker 1: to interview any of these people here, so all of.
Speaker 2: You out you know, we're working on it, and get
Speaker 2: him here on the show. But I mean, the point though,
Speaker 2: you know, with Christy is it's like you're going to
Speaker 2: You're just not going to be the GOP primary or
Speaker 2: win a GOP primary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you are going to win television.
Speaker 2: And I think actually I would like to see him
Speaker 2: just be more honest, you know, on TV and kind
Speaker 2: of his unvarnished thoughts. I really would like that from
Speaker 2: many of these people, But unfortunately for a lot of them,
Speaker 2: they always think that they can have it both ways,
Speaker 2: and it's just like, guys, this just not how it works,
Speaker 2: just not how you win an actual life.
Speaker 1: Do you think that he This is one where I'm like,
Speaker 1: do you think he deludes himself to thinking he can win?
Speaker 4: Yes? I do you think he's got that level of ego?
Speaker 2: Many you can't listen, you know. I always think about this.
Speaker 2: For these people, they give up everything, their anonymity, their families,
Speaker 2: They miss some of the most important things and events
Speaker 2: in their parents and children's lives so they can attend
Speaker 2: some fundraiser for like women against whatever. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like to succeed in the business, you have to
Speaker 2: have it a hard wired that this is everything, and
Speaker 2: you have to have in many respects for all success,
Speaker 2: you have to have a delusional faith in oneself. So
Speaker 2: it's paid off many times before. He genuinely thought he
Speaker 2: could win last time. I know that for a fact.
Speaker 2: I attended actually an event where he really was you
Speaker 2: going for it? And even when he was very low
Speaker 2: in the polls back in twenty sixteen. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: think he believes it. I think all of these guys
Speaker 2: believe it, at least in some way. Otherwise, why would
Speaker 2: you sacrifice so much of what you have?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think some of these guys know that they've got
Speaker 1: next to no chance.
Speaker 4: But it's just like a savvy.
Speaker 1: Media career play at this point, like there's not that
Speaker 1: much to lose, there's a lot to gain.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Just being in the conversation and keeping irrelevance is worth
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 4: So listen.
Speaker 1: I don't know which bucket Chris Christy falls in particular,
Speaker 1: but he also could be one that just feels like,
Speaker 1: all right, even if I don't win, like I'm going
Speaker 1: to say things that other people aren't going to say.
Speaker 1: So people need to hear that message and that could
Speaker 1: be that could be part of what he's doing. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about you know what we can parse in terms
Speaker 1: of where the economy is. We got a big jobs
Speaker 1: report on Friday. Numbers were a bit disappointing. Let's put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. The payrolls rose by two
Speaker 1: hundred nine thousand in June.
Speaker 4: That was less than expected.
Speaker 1: The headline from CNBC says, as job growth wobbles.
Speaker 4: The total, while still solid.
Speaker 1: They say from a historical perspective, marked a considerable drop
Speaker 1: from May's downwardly.
Speaker 4: Revised total of three hundred and six thousand. So May
Speaker 4: had been.
Speaker 1: Initially calculated as higher. They revised it down to three
Speaker 1: oh six and it was the slowest month for job
Speaker 1: creation since payrolls fell by two hundred and sixty eight
Speaker 1: thousand back in December twenty twenty. The unemployment rate, though,
Speaker 1: did decline by point one percentage point. They also took
Speaker 1: a look at wage numbers. They said they were a
Speaker 1: little bit stronger than expected. Average hourly earnings increased by
Speaker 1: point four percent for the month and four point four
Speaker 1: percent from.
Speaker 4: A year ago.
Speaker 1: The average work week also increased a little bit. Another
Speaker 1: thing they take a look at here is the labor
Speaker 1: force participation rate, So what percent of you know, people
Speaker 1: who could be in the workforce actually are in the workforce.
Speaker 1: That apparently held steady still below its pre COVID pandemic level.
Speaker 1: But the for workers who were in what is considered
Speaker 1: their prime to use some dun lemon language here, between
Speaker 1: twenty five and fifty four years of age, that actually
Speaker 1: rose some more workers participating in their prime years. And
Speaker 1: you have some indications here that you know, it's a
Speaker 1: little tepid, it's a little bit wild, and it also
Speaker 1: indicates that you probably don't probably wasn't poor enough of
Speaker 1: a report though to change what the FED is planning,
Speaker 1: which is to continue hiking rates.
Speaker 2: Right, and you found this really interesting piece which it's
Speaker 2: really unfortunate. We've been predicting here for a long time.
Speaker 2: Let's go with this up there on the screen gives
Speaker 2: the great resignation is over.
Speaker 3: Can worker power endure?
Speaker 2: And the furious pace of job switching has led to
Speaker 2: big gains for workers initially, but that pendulum right now
Speaker 2: is swinging back towards employers. This is really what we've
Speaker 2: warned about, you know, for the entire time, Crystal, which
Speaker 2: is that the more that the Federal Reserve puts downward
Speaker 2: pressure on the economy and increases the unemployment rate, that's
Speaker 2: going to give employers even more leverage in this economy
Speaker 2: where previously workers were able to leverage their labor and
Speaker 2: the labor shortage that ensued post COVID insanity in order
Speaker 2: to bargain for a higher wage. And the equilibrium that
Speaker 2: we ended up with is actually really bad because while
Speaker 2: we did get some of these people raises, and I
Speaker 2: think that's fantastic, inflation so far outpaced the modest game,
Speaker 2: the overall cost of living remains worse even with their
Speaker 2: higher wage than where they are right now and now
Speaker 2: we have actually kept our inflation from supply side problems
Speaker 2: even though it's gone down quote modestly, and we've increased
Speaker 2: you overall unemployment rate, putting even more downward pressure on
Speaker 2: wages for the overall economy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So something actually kind of extraordinary and unique in our
Speaker 1: lifetimes happened over the past little while, which is because
Speaker 1: post pandemic, you had you know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: who didn't want to be on the front lines of
Speaker 1: a pandemic and wanted to get out of the service sector.
Speaker 1: They exited and tried to find different careers, and so
Speaker 1: you had this huge demand for service workers, and you
Speaker 1: actually had wages increasing quite a bit at the lowest
Speaker 1: end of the spectrum, and so for the lowest wage workers,
Speaker 1: they actually did get wage increases that more than kept
Speaker 1: up with inflation. And you had a significant chunk of
Speaker 1: the you know, inequality that has been mounting over the
Speaker 1: the past number of decades, you actually had it declined.
Speaker 1: Because you also had rich people as markets were going down,
Speaker 1: taking a big haircut post pandemic. Of course, they got
Speaker 1: a huge massive wealth transfer during the pandemic, So no
Speaker 1: one's going to cry for them, but that was a
Speaker 1: really extraordinary situation, and it held some promise of Okay,
Speaker 1: if the labor market can stay tight, maybe there are
Speaker 1: some real gains that can be made here among low
Speaker 1: wage workers. And the warning signs here both in terms
Speaker 1: of now we've got you know, tepid jobs report, lower
Speaker 1: than expected, they downly revised last month, and you now
Speaker 1: have workers that are no longer behaving the way that
Speaker 1: they did previously when jobs really felt like they were
Speaker 1: plentiful and they really felt like they could shop around.
Speaker 1: It's a real warning sign that, you know, some of
Speaker 1: those gains that were made for low wage workers, some
Speaker 1: of the power they were able to accrue in terms
Speaker 1: of increase activity and the labor movement more strikes all
Speaker 1: of those sorts of things, like some of that may
Speaker 1: be dying down, which you know, would would be really
Speaker 1: disappointing and dire because there is so much rebalancing that
Speaker 1: needs to be done after you know, like fifty years
Speaker 1: of everything going to the corporations, everything getting funnel to
Speaker 1: the top.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're in a very stagnant period. So
Speaker 2: the big problem is is that the biggest growing sector
Speaker 2: of our economy is facing effective recession.
Speaker 3: Technology.
Speaker 2: The rest of the economy isn't really Some manufacturing is
Speaker 2: coming back, certain sectors.
Speaker 3: Things are actually going well.
Speaker 2: We're actually investing a historic amount of manufacturing dollars as
Speaker 2: a result of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 3: But I think is great.
Speaker 2: At the same time, we got low wages, we got
Speaker 2: high unemployment. We feel a lot of stagnation. People have
Speaker 2: a deep unsatisfied, deep like unsatisfaction.
Speaker 3: With the state of the economy.
Speaker 2: All of that, we have housing mortgage prices at so
Speaker 2: high and yet zero drop in the overall housing market,
Speaker 2: and it's one of those where the cost of living
Speaker 2: feels more unattainable than ever before for the American dream.
Speaker 3: I think that's really the only way I can describe it.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 2: It's very odd and odd in the worst I think
Speaker 2: for the average consumer and more and more, I just think,
Speaker 2: you know, I always think something has to break, but
Speaker 2: it really never does. You know, you put the mortgage
Speaker 2: rate at like seven percent, sometimes it does sometimes, at
Speaker 2: least with this, I was like, man, there's no way,
Speaker 2: I mean, housing markets got a cool right, Nope, turns
Speaker 2: out we have so little supply of housing people are
Speaker 2: still willing to eat one hundred percent higher mortgage payments.
Speaker 2: Just live in the house. Yeah, same with rent. I
Speaker 2: mean rent is crazy high right now.
Speaker 3: People are still moving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of those where and the credit card
Speaker 2: debt is in an all time hinds.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: Foreclosures have gone up, you know, people getting kicked out
Speaker 1: of their apartments, evictions have gone up. So you know,
Speaker 1: I've been I'm sure you've probably been watching Jeff Stein
Speaker 1: on Twitter has been fighting with people about all of these,
Speaker 1: like economists Beltweg type economists or like lecturing the American
Speaker 1: people about how they just don't really understand how great
Speaker 1: the economy actually it is is. And this is the
Speaker 1: this is also the pitch that the Biden team is
Speaker 1: making they're trying to sell Bidenomics, is like, look at
Speaker 1: what great things we've done for your life. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you ask the American people how things are going, and
Speaker 1: they're like, it's really shitty, and we're really pessimistic, and
Speaker 1: actually our financial position has eroded and we are not
Speaker 1: remotely hopeful about the future, and we think the country's
Speaker 1: on the wrong track. Good luck trying to sell an
Speaker 1: economy to the American people that they do not feel
Speaker 1: is going well for them. Huge disconnect between the language
Speaker 1: that's coming out of you know, official Washington, especially on
Speaker 1: the Democratic side, and from mainstream economists and the way
Speaker 1: people actually experience the economy in their lives. And if
Speaker 1: I had to say, I think it's exactly what you're
Speaker 1: pointing to, Sager, which is like the ability to have
Speaker 1: a stable, middle class, non precarious life where you've got
Speaker 1: healthcare and you can send your kids to college, and
Speaker 1: you can, you know, afford a house and afford a
Speaker 1: mortgage and have nothing fancy, just like a normal middle
Speaker 1: class life. It feels like you have to be it
Speaker 1: feels like you have to be a multimillionaire in order
Speaker 1: to pull it off. People just feel like this is
Speaker 1: wildly unattainable and I'm never going to get there in
Speaker 1: my entire life.
Speaker 3: Basic And look, nobody is a right to European vacation.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying you have.
Speaker 2: A right too, but it's nice, you know, it's nice
Speaker 2: to go guess what flights sky high. I got friends
Speaker 2: who literally are doing very well in life. We're looking
Speaker 2: at the bills that it would have made to go
Speaker 2: to Europe this summer, and they're like, oh, it's not
Speaker 2: going to happen.
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, you know, they're not going to cry for
Speaker 3: these people.
Speaker 2: But that said, it's like, if they can't afford a
Speaker 2: vacation to make it two hundred grand a year, it's like,
Speaker 2: what is the what even Disney World?
Speaker 3: What are you supposed to do? And also, you know,
Speaker 3: as Disney as we've talked about this, but.
Speaker 2: From what I've heard too, the price is a Disney
Speaker 2: World or sky high, the experience has effectively been ruined
Speaker 2: if you're not really rich. It's like, is there anything
Speaker 2: left in this country other than the national parks actually
Speaker 2: do something relatively low cost and for free.
Speaker 1: I will I will definitely come out in favor of
Speaker 1: vacations for all.
Speaker 4: I do think.
Speaker 1: I do think everyone has a right to if they
Speaker 1: you know, work hard and you know, working full time,
Speaker 1: playing by the rules to be able to take a
Speaker 1: little time off and go on a modest beach vacation
Speaker 1: or take their kids to Disney World or whatever. But
Speaker 1: we are we're far from that dream.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 1: We want to give you an update on this whole
Speaker 1: Elon Musk versus Mark Zuckerberg situation, which is sort of
Speaker 1: degrading by the day. As you guys know, Zuck launched
Speaker 1: a Twitter competitor, being billed as a potential Twitter killer
Speaker 1: called Threads, sort of attached to Instagram. If you've got
Speaker 1: an Instagram and account, very easy to pourt it over,
Speaker 1: very seamless. Tech seems to be relatively good.
Speaker 4: There are some problems, so let's get to that in
Speaker 4: a moment.
Speaker 1: Well, Elon and Twitter are actually threatening to sue Meta
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg over Threads. Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: A lawyer for Twitter, Alex Buro, sent a letter to
Speaker 1: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, accusing the company of engaging in
Speaker 1: quote systematic, wilful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets.
Speaker 4: And other intellectual property.
Speaker 1: Twitter intends to strictly enforce its IP rights and demands
Speaker 1: that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter
Speaker 1: or trade secrets or other highly confidential information. And apparently
Speaker 1: what they what they allege happened here actually is that
Speaker 1: Zuck hired a bunch of the people that Elon had
Speaker 1: fired and then used them to develop Metash the Threads technology. Now,
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg denies that, says that nobody who came from
Speaker 1: Twitter was used in the development of the product whatever.
Speaker 4: I actually think it would be kind of funny if
Speaker 4: they were. I can't really there would be a small.
Speaker 2: Why what's wrong with that? I mean, am I crazy?
Speaker 2: Like if you fire somebody and then another person hired. Look,
Speaker 2: maybe I don't understand the exact you know, intricacies of
Speaker 2: IP theft law, non disclosure right sands of which I'm
Speaker 2: sure these people are Party two. That said, if you
Speaker 2: literally sever somebody from your company and then you hire
Speaker 2: somebody for their expertise running said platform, I don't really
Speaker 2: see anything wrong with it.
Speaker 4: Like good old fashioned competition.
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the other thing is, like I they're
Speaker 1: threatening this, they haven't actually filed anything yet, which tells
Speaker 1: me maybe they don't feel like their legal position is
Speaker 1: that strong.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I do
Speaker 1: know that Mark Zuckerberg and his company have like ripped
Speaker 1: off other tech platforms technology previously, not in that they
Speaker 1: like actively stole trade secrets or whatever, but you know,
Speaker 1: they saw what Snapchat was doing they incorporated into stories.
Speaker 1: They see what TikTok is doing, and they try to
Speaker 1: incorporate that as well. This is just like what happens
Speaker 1: in the tech world. There's not that much innovation. It's
Speaker 1: just everybody like copying whatever is the latest thing. So
Speaker 1: I have a feeling they are well versed in what
Speaker 1: the limits of that are. I suspect that this probably
Speaker 1: doesn't have a lot of leg to stand on, but
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not an expert here, so who knows.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: On the legal front there, we also have some developments
Speaker 2: on the fight between the two. Let's go and put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. Zuckerberg copying Elon's one
Speaker 2: word's concerning answers, replying trollishly to a thread on his
Speaker 2: new platform about whether threads itself was being throttled on
Speaker 2: the Twitter trending platform. Elon meanwhile saying, quote, zuck is
Speaker 2: a cuck in response to a tweet there about Zuckerberg
Speaker 2: alleged censorship and all of that. I'm not exactly sure
Speaker 2: what he's going for there At Crystal he's saying basically
Speaker 2: that Zuckerberg is like the king of censorship. So listen overall,
Speaker 2: you know, the childish antics aside of which it's very
Speaker 2: possible what that we could see at actual cage match
Speaker 2: here happening don't.
Speaker 1: I think the cage match is off, but there was
Speaker 1: an update. Elon then replied to the zuck as a
Speaker 1: cuck thing and said, I suggest a literal dick measuring contest.
Speaker 1: So that's the latest, the latest that's been floated that.
Speaker 2: I can update you on me and I guess you
Speaker 2: know what, They're just like us, you know, childish people,
Speaker 2: even whenever you have over one hundred billion.
Speaker 3: But let's actually be serious here.
Speaker 2: I took some time, played a little bit with threads,
Speaker 2: and I have some complicated feelings.
Speaker 3: Just's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: First, in terms of the success, Meta's Threads has over
Speaker 2: seventy million sign ups, which actually even surprised Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 2: or at least that's what he said. You know, undeniably
Speaker 2: having seventy million signups in just a couple of days
Speaker 2: is really good.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, in.
Speaker 2: Contrast, you know, right now, Elon's Twitter has two hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty eight three hundred and thirty seven eight million
Speaker 2: users as of July of twenty twenty two, the last
Speaker 2: time that they had to go ahead and describe their
Speaker 2: overall numbers. So if you're able to get a significant
Speaker 2: portion of that in just the first couple of days.
Speaker 2: That's a big deal in terms of the functionality and
Speaker 2: all of that I took.
Speaker 3: I've sent two threads so far. Some thoughts.
Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure how much this will apply to
Speaker 2: everybody else. First of all, Crystal, I rarely tweet, and
Speaker 2: even when I do, it's usually so I can just
Speaker 2: post it on Instagram. So the ability for to have
Speaker 2: a quote unquote thread and just easily repost it onto
Speaker 2: my story or my feed love that. Yeah, it might
Speaker 2: probably very specific to people with larger audiences like us,
Speaker 2: something we're talking about with Griffin, our producer this morning.
Speaker 2: I am skeptical and curious to see whether people actually
Speaker 2: do want to use is a Twitter alternative to follow
Speaker 2: just their friends. The reality is most people use their
Speaker 2: Twitter to follow bigger accounts, right like celebrities and others.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, people's Instagram consumption has changed.
Speaker 2: It's not just your friends, it's also you follow bigger accounts, influencers.
Speaker 3: All those other people.
Speaker 2: But you do follow them on Instagram for a reason,
Speaker 2: you don't necessarily follow them on Twitter. Also, for a reason,
Speaker 2: Twitter is a great place for aggregation of news for
Speaker 2: discussion for you know, obviously what it's well known for,
Speaker 2: it's not really been Instagram's thing. Can they replicate their
Speaker 2: ability to have a breaking news environment, to have high content,
Speaker 2: high content that's valuable to a certain select group of
Speaker 2: users and get them addicted to their platform? Right, I'm
Speaker 2: not yet sure that that's possible. But the overall functionality
Speaker 2: I like it a lot. I actually do like, like
Speaker 2: I said, that cross posting ability. But in terms of
Speaker 2: the complication for me, does Facebook really need more vertically
Speaker 2: integrated products? You know, I was I was thinking, you know,
Speaker 2: I was just in India. Everyone's using WhatsApp and the
Speaker 2: entire time I'm just like, man, I'm using Facebook product here,
Speaker 2: you know, like I don't know if this stuff is
Speaker 2: actually encrypted, is actually going to do well? You know,
Speaker 2: you know, it's just a basic communication.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 2: They even have WhatsApp payment in some places. Oh interesting,
Speaker 2: All India is obsessed with mobile payment, WhatsApp, Google Pay,
Speaker 2: all of us and again same thing. All I can
Speaker 2: think is man, the domination here, These big tech companies
Speaker 2: have over so much of the daily lives, your communication,
Speaker 2: your payments, all this this is a Chinese style system.
Speaker 2: Effectively in a private company, and that makes me that's uncomfortable. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't really know who to root for
Speaker 2: here because I do not want the Twitter killer to
Speaker 2: come from an already established social media platform. Yeah, we
Speaker 2: do have to give Zuck credit. It's a good product.
Speaker 2: It's done well. Clearly, there's an appetite. Vertical integration works
Speaker 2: for a reason whenever you're a monopoly, and I do
Speaker 2: think that he's got I think he's got a good
Speaker 2: product here on his hand that actually could work.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have more choices of oligarchic like Babyman
Speaker 1: to these platforms we can pick from. So I don't
Speaker 1: I don't ever think that there's anyone to really cheer
Speaker 1: for here. Put this last piece up on the screen.
Speaker 1: E for so this guy that you see his tweet
Speaker 1: over on the side of the screen, he I think
Speaker 1: is ahead of Instagram or high up in Instagram.
Speaker 4: And so he.
Speaker 1: Basically is indicating like we don't really want politics all
Speaker 1: that much. On threads he says politics and hard news
Speaker 1: are important. I don't want to imply otherwise, but my
Speaker 1: take is from platforms perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue
Speaker 1: they might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny negativity,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, or integrity risks that come along with them.
Speaker 1: There are more than enough amazing community, sports, music, fashion, beauty, entertainment,
Speaker 1: et cetera to make a vibrant platform without needing to
Speaker 1: get into politics or hard news. So I mean this
Speaker 1: is kind of telling as well, like they don't even
Speaker 1: really want politics on their platform because and we've seen
Speaker 1: this before. I mean, we see this on YouTube where
Speaker 1: it's divisive, it's edgy, it's controversial, all of these questions
Speaker 1: about misinformation and extremism and people being radicalized and whatever
Speaker 1: that almost exclusively falls into the domain of politics and
Speaker 1: hard news. So also, Threads is one hundred percent algorithmically driven,
Speaker 1: so like you follow who you follow, but then it's
Speaker 1: not like you can just get the stream of consciousness
Speaker 1: timeline that you can get on Twitter. It's all formulated
Speaker 1: by an algorithm. So this would suggest that they're going
Speaker 1: to sort of discourage and suppress political and hard news content.
Speaker 1: So I mean, listen, this is the problem with leaving
Speaker 1: these platforms that are supposedly like the te virtual.
Speaker 4: Town Square and critical der democracy and whatever.
Speaker 1: This is the problem with leaving them to the whims
Speaker 1: of the market and profit making decisions because from a
Speaker 1: business perspective, I can't blame them. That is what would
Speaker 1: make sense. From a business perspective, it saves you a
Speaker 1: lot of headaches. So I can see a world where
Speaker 1: Threads is successful. I think Threads will be successful. I mean,
Speaker 1: seventy million sign ups incorporated in with Instagram. You already
Speaker 1: have you know, a big fan based on Instagram of
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people you it there. They've
Speaker 1: been successful at bringing over a bunch of like big
Speaker 1: celebrities and public figures who are already on the platform
Speaker 1: and posting their threads whatever.
Speaker 4: I think it's very possible you.
Speaker 1: Have thread succeed and you also have Twitter still out
Speaker 1: there as the locusts for politics and hard news, and
Speaker 1: that they are successful as well. I also think it's
Speaker 1: possible that you could continue to have a fragmenting of
Speaker 1: the user base where it does segregate more into ideological spaces,
Speaker 1: which you know, on the one hand, I am not
Speaker 1: a fan of monopolies. On the other hand, the part
Speaker 1: of Twitter that has always been interesting is having that
Speaker 1: give and take an engagement across the ideological spectrum.
Speaker 4: Some of that may be breaking down at the yeah point.
Speaker 2: Look, business wise, smart decision. Politics is a disaster.
Speaker 3: You know. I was I think I told you about this.
Speaker 2: I was talking with some YouTube guys and they were
Speaker 2: asking us what our average revenue is, and I told them.
Speaker 2: They were like, what they're like for a channel your size,
Speaker 2: the amount of views that you drive. We are currently
Speaker 2: getting ad revenue probably like thirty to forty percent of
Speaker 2: what a channel are side as non political.
Speaker 3: Would be making.
Speaker 2: And guess what we know that we know the politics sucks.
Speaker 2: That's why I have a direct subscription product. But these
Speaker 2: are platforms that all drive on advertising. And so they
Speaker 2: made the I think correct move where they're like, we
Speaker 2: don't want to deal with this, So like, let Elon
Speaker 2: deal with it, because he already is trying to float
Speaker 2: all this advertising and having all these problems. Let him
Speaker 2: have deal with all the controversy over who to sensor
Speaker 2: and all that.
Speaker 3: We'll be sitting over.
Speaker 2: Here talking about make up, talking about makeup or basketball,
Speaker 2: you know, science and whatever other health.
Speaker 4: Some days it really seems like a good life.
Speaker 2: Yeahs broak life, oh man, I phrased, you were like,
Speaker 2: you know, big in all these other.
Speaker 3: Industries and I'm like, I envy you, man, like you
Speaker 3: don't have to deal with it.
Speaker 2: The biggest controversy in health and fitness is whether to
Speaker 2: eat a carb or not, and like at the end,
Speaker 2: and they can get nasty, but it's not even close
Speaker 2: to his nasty.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, actually think basis the health
Speaker 1: and fitness zone might be one of the more fraud.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying that's as fraud as it gets. And
Speaker 2: you know there's a life or death consequences here, whereas
Speaker 2: you know, ind Ukraine be a NATO like. You already
Speaker 2: know how many haters that we're going to be getting
Speaker 2: and we deal with that on a daily basis. I've
Speaker 2: talked with them previously. They're like, man, I can't believe
Speaker 2: how much crap you deal with.
Speaker 3: But listen, we like it. That's what we do, right,
Speaker 3: And so I just.
Speaker 2: Think that whenever you're trying to float this on advertising,
Speaker 2: it is always a smart decision to.
Speaker 3: Say I don't want to deal with the political side
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: That said, you will always get drawn in because you
Speaker 2: know science so well. Science has nothing to do with
Speaker 2: it except we had censor RFK Junior's Instagram account but
Speaker 2: then he's running for president.
Speaker 3: Now I guess we have to reinstate it.
Speaker 2: So you can't also delude yourself into thinking that you're
Speaker 2: not going to have to deal with it, because you
Speaker 2: one hundred percent are going to have to. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: that's my overall true quession.
Speaker 3: I like the product.
Speaker 2: I'm going to continue to use it. I probably won't
Speaker 2: use it for politics, but I do really like the
Speaker 2: way the images load on it. Not a surprise since
Speaker 2: it's so built into it.
Speaker 1: Wait, I've just taken a big step back from all
Speaker 1: of social media and my brain feels better.
Speaker 4: So I don't really plan to change that. But we'll see.
Speaker 1: You know something, I always get pulled back in. It's
Speaker 1: one point or another. I've gone through these phases before far.
Speaker 1: I'm on threads, but I'm just lurking. Maybe I'll engage.
Speaker 3: You're lurking.
Speaker 4: I'm lurking.
Speaker 2: I've currently got some jet lag tweets about cats, my
Speaker 2: own personal thing.
Speaker 4: So that's all I got going cat and dog. Twitter
Speaker 4: is like, actually that's the best.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and you know, why not have even more images?
Speaker 1: All Right, So this is the part of the show
Speaker 1: where normally I say, Sager, what are you looking at
Speaker 1: But I actually think, Sagar, you have something for us
Speaker 1: to take a look at today.
Speaker 3: Whatever could it mean? What are you talking about? Is
Speaker 3: it this get up that i'm is that?
Speaker 9: It?
Speaker 3: Is it these sneakers? As I said, I was a
Speaker 3: man of my word. I thought you'd have to go
Speaker 3: to the uptich.
Speaker 4: The top, the sneaker part of the from up top here?
Speaker 3: Can I see it from up here?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Look at these pains me to wear Indian dress garb,
Speaker 3: but it looks very thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is what I wore during my actual
Speaker 2: Indian wedding ceremony. For those who are wondering, there is
Speaker 2: a more formal Indian guard which I did also wear,
Speaker 2: but it was way too big to fit into a suitcase.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't have done. It's called a sure wan.
Speaker 2: And actually, so as you know, you know, I have
Speaker 2: to do all my research. So I'm like, all right,
Speaker 2: what is the origin of this dress? The shirwani? Okay,
Speaker 2: the shirwani itself comes from Persian court dress wear. It's
Speaker 2: filtered down via the Muggle Empire, which then became adopted
Speaker 2: by the Maharajas as their like bejeweled encrusted thing and
Speaker 2: so actually interesting enough, in India there is no one
Speaker 2: agreement on what formal dress wear is. There's the shrewani,
Speaker 2: there's something called Indo dress wear, and then there is
Speaker 2: the actual courtA that I am wearing right now. So
Speaker 2: this is what I as you can actually see, got
Speaker 2: turmeric and all.
Speaker 4: This stuff the leftover.
Speaker 2: From the actual ceremony. It was, well, this is actually
Speaker 2: so nowadays they do. Let's see if we can zoom in.
Speaker 3: Here, you see a little bit less.
Speaker 2: I thought it was only for women, but actually they
Speaker 2: said men do it now in India too, So I do.
Speaker 4: Know that the impartery on that is amazing.
Speaker 3: Oh this one is very nice. I think this one
Speaker 3: is uh, it's silk.
Speaker 2: So anyway, look, wow, I said I would do it
Speaker 2: if we had a million subscribers. I honestly didn't think
Speaker 2: it was going to happen, and so here I am
Speaker 2: wearing it for my monologue.
Speaker 1: I always believed in our audience that they would come
Speaker 1: through and force you to do that.
Speaker 2: I should I should have the other way. I should
Speaker 2: have promised something that was more feasible. So now I
Speaker 2: think we're going to do my monologue and everybody's going
Speaker 2: to watch this and be like, what the hell, what
Speaker 2: are you going on?
Speaker 3: So I guess watched this part first.
Speaker 4: If you're interested, sager, what are you looking at?
Speaker 2: Well, of all the major events to miss, the one
Speaker 2: that I was most bummed about was affirmative action. Christal
Speaker 2: and Emily held a fantastic panel discussion on the subject
Speaker 2: that I recommend everybody go and listen to. And since
Speaker 2: that decision, a lot about our society has been revealed.
Speaker 2: So called fake civil rights groups said that we would
Speaker 2: be set back by the decision. Many past injustices were
Speaker 2: righted by the policy, the racial obsessed media parroted their claims,
Speaker 2: and the colleges themselves credited their past diversity statistics with
Speaker 2: the policy. But so much has now been written about
Speaker 2: the past, and what I want to do is focus
Speaker 2: on the future. What is higher education going to look
Speaker 2: like without affirmative action? Fortunately, if you've been watching our
Speaker 2: show for some time, you already know the answer. Higher
Speaker 2: education in the US and their racial obsessed bureaucrats are
Speaker 2: willing to nuke the standards for literally everyone and burn
Speaker 2: hundreds of years of academic credibility, all in the name
Speaker 2: of preserving so called racial diversity.
Speaker 3: The plan is simple.
Speaker 2: Any objective criteria that can be easily used to prove
Speaker 2: racial discrimination against Whites and Asians will be sacrificed. Any
Speaker 2: criteria which will allow for preference against these groups will
Speaker 2: be emphasized, made to be the most important. People called
Speaker 2: me a conspiracy theorist when I play laid this out,
Speaker 2: this plan long before the decision. Now that has happened,
Speaker 2: it's out in the open. The New York Times immediately
Speaker 2: published the plan titled quote. With Supreme Court decision, college
Speaker 2: admissions could become more subjective. It was all laid out
Speaker 2: third paragraph in quote, officials at selective institutions predicted there
Speaker 2: will be less emphasis on standardized metrics like test scores,
Speaker 2: class ranked GPA, and more emphasis on personal qualities told
Speaker 2: through recommendations and the application essay. Now again, why would
Speaker 2: this be the case, Because the case against Harvard relied
Speaker 2: almost entirely on objective metrics like SAT scores and others,
Speaker 2: which could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. Asian
Speaker 2: students in particular, were straight up discriminated against inadmissions. If
Speaker 2: you remove test scores as important and you lean more
Speaker 2: on personal essay, where students of desired background can just
Speaker 2: write I am black or I am Hispanic, over and
Speaker 2: over and over again for five hundred words.
Speaker 3: It's easy.
Speaker 2: Once again, I am not simply positing this already, the
Speaker 2: admissions department write in her locally University of Maryland saying, quote,
Speaker 2: right now students write about their soccer practice, they write
Speaker 2: about their grandmother dying. But then she says, they need
Speaker 2: to shift to talk quote about how race affected their lives.
Speaker 2: One neat trick that the admissions departments are already going
Speaker 2: for is simple. Make the college prompt about how diversity, equity,
Speaker 2: and inclusion is important to the applicant. The incoming president
Speaker 2: of Mount Holyoke University, for example, she imagines a future
Speaker 2: question will look like this. One of the core values
Speaker 2: of Mount Holyo College is diversity of all kinds. Please
Speaker 2: tell us why you value it, What will make you
Speaker 2: think to bring to the Hamunt Holyo community in terms
Speaker 2: of diversity, your belief in the creative diversity is all
Speaker 2: that will matter in the future. Whether you are good
Speaker 2: at math or science or English and can actually excel
Speaker 2: academically will cease to matter at all. So for the future,
Speaker 2: what do we do? Why should we even care. Let's
Speaker 2: start with the latter part of that question. About a
Speaker 2: decade ago, there was actually a big debate about the
Speaker 2: great awokening on college campuses, obsessions by students and professors,
Speaker 2: especially at elite institutions, with race and gender.
Speaker 3: The debate was, does this matter at all?
Speaker 2: Who cares if Yale or Harvard or any of these
Speaker 2: school kids are acting nuts?
Speaker 3: How does it impact any of us?
Speaker 2: The problem is, well, they grew up, and when they did,
Speaker 2: they populated the elite institutions across the country. Those kids
Speaker 2: who led race and gender cultural revolutions in college a
Speaker 2: decade ago, now they write for the New York Times,
Speaker 2: or they work in Netflix, or their junior staffers at
Speaker 2: the Biden Whitehouse, or the marketing department.
Speaker 3: At bud Light or Target.
Speaker 2: They are the enforcers of the ideological regime, and they
Speaker 2: will remain in power for decades. As you can already
Speaker 2: see now from the freak out over affirmative action, they
Speaker 2: will not go quietly into the good night.
Speaker 3: It will be a total war.
Speaker 2: For control of institutions and for the future. And the
Speaker 2: war really will be a fight between masses and elites.
Speaker 2: The polling on affirmative action shows that the vast majority
Speaker 2: of people are against it. Fifty percent of people outright disapproved,
Speaker 2: only thirty percent approved, most people are the rest are unsure.
Speaker 2: And I actually think that's very underweighted, because even in California,
Speaker 2: the most liberal state in the whole country, when affirmative
Speaker 2: action was put up for an actual vote, it was
Speaker 2: rejected at a full fifty seven percent of the vote,
Speaker 2: and that happened in the exact same election where Biden
Speaker 2: beat Trump by twenty nine points. The people, and especially
Speaker 2: working class people, are very against affirmative action. For the elites,
Speaker 2: though it is their religion, at least with the government
Speaker 2: that we have. Some democratics say, though, but on the
Speaker 2: problem for those on the side of the masses is
Speaker 2: that many of the institutions that we're talking about, they
Speaker 2: are not small d democratic. Harvard obviously has to comply
Speaker 2: with the law, which still takes decades to wrangle with,
Speaker 2: but they don't get voted for. Even public universities somewhat
Speaker 2: more accountable, don't face any close to the same level
Speaker 2: of pressure as actual government. And then what about private institutions,
Speaker 2: which are both elite by definition but still important for
Speaker 2: the masses. Take this for example I've given before, like
Speaker 2: the American Bar Association. It controls the entire legal profession.
Speaker 2: It's literally private, though you cannot vote for it. It's
Speaker 2: not accountable to any representative that we can vote for.
Speaker 2: Yet it controls the entire professional law. So when the
Speaker 2: Bar Association decides to nuke the LSAT as part of
Speaker 2: admission to law school to make the illegal profession more equitable.
Speaker 3: What are we supposed to do? What do we do
Speaker 3: when you need a lawyer medical school?
Speaker 2: I've talked about that before, reducing MSS on MCAT scores
Speaker 2: GPAs in favor of racial admissions and essays we have
Speaker 2: no say. But when we get sick and you need
Speaker 2: a doctor, what do you do? Those are two small
Speaker 2: ex samples, But there are a myriad of elite institutions
Speaker 2: which govern all of our lives like this, which are
Speaker 2: equally racially obsessed and will be fundamentally altered in the future.
Speaker 2: And what does that future look like? I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't really have good news on that front. We will
Speaker 2: have at a minimum a generation and more likely probably
Speaker 2: nearly a century of total chaos. Because if you think
Speaker 2: that dying institutions just fade and go away easily and
Speaker 2: lose their power even when they suck.
Speaker 3: You're wrong.
Speaker 2: Take a look at cable news for example, or for
Speaker 2: a longer timeline, look at the Ottoman Empire. You can
Speaker 2: be useless, corrupt, lacking any legitimacy that you once had
Speaker 2: as long as your system, though, works well enough. For
Speaker 2: those in power, it can hang on for a long
Speaker 2: long time, and they will fight even harder to maintain
Speaker 2: their grip on power. Now, for those of you who
Speaker 2: want to work meritorious and equal America, though, don't entirely
Speaker 2: despair because of the demise of affirmative action has heightened
Speaker 2: the contradictions it has made explicit which was once implicit
Speaker 2: for all of us to see in a relatively free
Speaker 2: society that is actually powerful now for an Now you
Speaker 2: can still see the agenda, and you can choose for
Speaker 2: yourself do you want to participate in it or not,
Speaker 2: and whether or not you choose to fight. I actually
Speaker 2: think it's important to choose to fight, and you can
Speaker 2: see this clearly, and I hope that all of you
Speaker 2: do too, So Christal, my ridiculous garb beside.
Speaker 1: I know that you, guys, and if you want to
Speaker 1: hear my reaction to Sager's monologue become a premium subscriber
Speaker 1: today at breakingpoints dot Com. In a disappointing but not
Speaker 1: a surprise, the supposed vanguard of the national elected left,
Speaker 1: Alexandria Casio Cartez, joined the podsave Bros.
Speaker 4: In order to throw her backing behind Joe Biden.
Speaker 11: So president's only primary opponents are Mary and Williamson Robert F.
Speaker 11: Kennedy Junior. Haven't been any rumors about anyone else even
Speaker 11: thinking about jumping in. Will you be supporting Joe Biden
Speaker 11: for reelection?
Speaker 12: I believe given that feel yes, I think he's done
Speaker 12: quite well, given the limitations that we have. I do
Speaker 12: think that there are ads of blows, as there are
Speaker 12: in any presence, any presidency. You know, there are areas
Speaker 12: that I think were quite strong when he came right
Speaker 12: out of the gate with the American Rescue Plan, and
Speaker 12: of course the Inflation Reduction Act was a massive step
Speaker 12: in terms of our climate agenda. But you know, there
Speaker 12: are also areas that I think could have gone better.
Speaker 12: We have major structural issues in this country, and start
Speaker 12: I think it starts with the United States Senate, and
Speaker 12: I think that until we have senators that are willing
Speaker 12: to stand up and stare in the filibuster in the
Speaker 12: eye and stare a lot of structural issues about the
Speaker 12: Senate in the United States, Senate will be what holds
Speaker 12: back this country from an enormous amount of progress.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot to unpack in that short clip. First,
Speaker 1: AOC says, given that field of Marion Williamson and Bobby Kennedy,
Speaker 1: she will back Biden. Apparently AOC has bought into DC's
Speaker 1: relentless spin that only candidates officially certified as quote unquote
Speaker 1: serious by the powers that be are worthy of any consideration. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't have to point out to you the irony
Speaker 1: of this stance, given that AOC was once a bartender
Speaker 1: and organizer thoroughly outside the circle of officially sanctioned candidates
Speaker 1: who ousted a powerful long time incumbent to the shock
Speaker 1: and horror of the official buttway crowd. How quickly she
Speaker 1: has gone from renegade outsider protesting in the Speaker's office
Speaker 1: to cowed insider. Not long ago, she said in different
Speaker 1: countries she and Joe Biden would not be even be
Speaker 1: in the same party. On the other hand, she and
Speaker 1: Maryann are probably theoretically align on like ninety percent of issues,
Speaker 1: but elite acceptability now Trump's issues for AOC and the
Speaker 1: rest of the elected left. Second, she says, Joe Biden
Speaker 1: has done quote quite well, and then offers up the
Speaker 1: also officially sanctioned villain of the moment, the Senate and
Speaker 1: the filibuster to justify the many failings of the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: Apparently quite well in AOC's estimation, includes accepting a loathsome
Speaker 1: debt deal, siding with capital over workers in a rail strike,
Speaker 1: abandoning efforts to lift the minimum wage, strengthen union's widen
Speaker 1: healthcare access, and a long list of other campaign promises.
Speaker 1: She also accepts at face value the notion that Biden
Speaker 1: simply must accept the intransigence of senators like Cinema and
Speaker 1: Mansion and doesn't have tools of pressure and rewards that
Speaker 1: he could use at least to try to compel compliance.
Speaker 1: But really, to look at the personal failings of AOC,
Speaker 1: it's kind of too easy.
Speaker 4: It's too obvious.
Speaker 1: At this point, the writing of her fall from renegade
Speaker 1: to player in the game has been on the wall
Speaker 1: for quite some time now, and the truth of the
Speaker 1: matter is she's really non special. The whole of the
Speaker 1: elected left has more or less fully fallen in line,
Speaker 1: scarcely raising a word of dissent, not even demanding on
Speaker 1: principle that Biden subjected himself to debates. But it's not
Speaker 1: just the elected left. The whole project of leftism focused
Speaker 1: on a national level seems to have receded.
Speaker 4: Post Bernie. The left, which had organized.
Speaker 1: Found community and created its own media in online spaces,
Speaker 1: really fractured. There's no clear big goal to keep everyone aligned.
Speaker 1: People were depressed, they were angry by the way the
Speaker 1: Bernie campaign ended. I understandably so. And once Bernie's campaign
Speaker 1: was over, the movement he started no longer. HA had
Speaker 1: a real world incarnation and a pandemic locked all of
Speaker 1: us inside in front of our screens. That made what
Speaker 1: was left of that movement way too online, and that's
Speaker 1: extremely vulnerable to the shaping of the amorphous algorithms crafted
Speaker 1: by our tech oligarchs. Those algorithms, of course, reward drama,
Speaker 1: they reward conflict.
Speaker 4: They reward call outs and destruction.
Speaker 1: So no one should be surprised that that is exactly
Speaker 1: what came to dominate the space. Now, you might hope
Speaker 1: that people with principles would resist the dopamine fuel of
Speaker 1: clicks and fay out rage. But we are talking about
Speaker 1: fallible human beings here. From what I can tell, the
Speaker 1: whole era is pretty reminiscent of the retrenchment of the
Speaker 1: left in the nineteen seventies, only this time supercharged.
Speaker 4: With big tech poison.
Speaker 1: Founder of Jacobin magazine Boscarson car recently made this observation
Speaker 1: on Twitter, which speaks to the national left recession. Quote,
Speaker 1: Medicare for all has been seemingly erased as a core
Speaker 1: immediate demand of the socialist left. Obviously it's not viable
Speaker 1: as legislation today, but it's barely brought up as a
Speaker 1: cause really night and day to three to four years
Speaker 1: ago when it was at the core of Bernie's campaign.
Speaker 1: He goes on to a pine that not only has
Speaker 1: medicare for all gone largely dormant as a core demand,
Speaker 1: but there really is no core demand. Quote, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure there is a unifying national demand that compares to
Speaker 1: what it was. Lots of local activism around climate and
Speaker 1: tenets rights and electoral activity, plus energy around labor solidarity,
Speaker 1: and you want that second part is actually really important because.
Speaker 4: It's an anecdote to.
Speaker 1: The depression the lefties may naturally feel upon watching a
Speaker 1: clip of AOC with the Podsave Bros Going all in
Speaker 1: for Joe fricking Biden. Because actually, the desire for change
Speaker 1: and support for ideas like universal health care, housing, and unions, it's.
Speaker 4: Higher than ever.
Speaker 1: Its expression has just shifted in a way that may
Speaker 1: ultimately be more.
Speaker 4: Durable and more powerful.
Speaker 1: Bernie bet that his political revolution would bring new voters
Speaker 1: out in droves, mobilizing electorate that typically stays home. And
Speaker 1: while yes, he was screwed and twenty sixteen especially was rigged,
Speaker 1: it is also true that theory just didn't really pan out.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason it didn't pan out was
Speaker 1: at least in part because of lack of local organizations
Speaker 1: and in particular a robust labor movement that stitches communities
Speaker 1: organized around common political interest together out of atomized individuals.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly the area where there are actually some
Speaker 1: hopeful things happening today in cities across the country. You
Speaker 1: do have tenets rights movements springing up to protect renters,
Speaker 1: and social housing has made a surprising legislative comeback. Unions
Speaker 1: are seeing record levels of public support as grassroots organizing
Speaker 1: pushes forward, and large established unions are also being remade
Speaker 1: with more militant and more responsive leadership.
Speaker 4: Even some regular.
Speaker 1: Old Democratic governors are actually doing some impressively base things.
Speaker 1: Wisconsin's Tony Evers just increase public school funding indefinitely for
Speaker 1: four hundred years. Minnesota Democrats of grod control of the
Speaker 1: governor's mansion and the state legislature, and they are using
Speaker 1: it to do everything from making all school lunches free,
Speaker 1: hiking taxes on corporations, and aggressively bolstering union rights. If
Speaker 1: New York Congressional Representative AOC isn't going to fight for
Speaker 1: Medicare for all, you could look to New York State
Speaker 1: Senator Jabari Brisport, who's doing the work to bring universal
Speaker 1: healthcare to his own state as a model for the nation.
Speaker 1: There's a hell of a lot more interesting things going
Speaker 1: on than what AOC has to say about Joe Biden
Speaker 1: to some Obama bros. And uh Sager not surprising, but
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just pathetic.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 2: become a Premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 1: Speaking of people doing real things in the real world.
Speaker 1: A longtime great friend of the show, Will Juwando is
Speaker 1: actually running for Senate in Maryland and he's going to
Speaker 1: join us.
Speaker 4: In studio to tell us what he's up to.
Speaker 1: Excited to be joined now by a great, longtime front
Speaker 1: of the show at large city council member in Montgomery County,
Speaker 1: the one and only Will Juando.
Speaker 8: Great to see you, good morning.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having good diseaser.
Speaker 4: I's so full disclosure. You are a friend of the show,
Speaker 4: personal friend and all.
Speaker 1: That good stuff, but we still got some tough political
Speaker 1: questions for you, of course. So you've announced you're running
Speaker 1: for Senate. Congratulations versus foremost thank you, And we did
Speaker 1: just get some news in this race.
Speaker 4: This was pretty big. Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So on Jamie Roskin, who was seen, as you know,
Speaker 1: a pretty strong contender if he jumped into this Senate primary,
Speaker 1: he has said he is not going to run for
Speaker 1: this open Senate seat. So we'll just talk us through
Speaker 1: your campaign. How are things going, who are your opponents?
Speaker 1: What's your plan to win?
Speaker 8: Sure?
Speaker 13: Well, first to Congressman rasking my congressman, good friend He's
Speaker 13: an important role in the House, and we've been talking
Speaker 13: about this. We need to take back the House so
Speaker 13: we can share oversight and push back against a lot
Speaker 13: of the misinformation and craziness that's going on. I'm excited
Speaker 13: to run for the Senate because people need a champion.
Speaker 13: They need a progressive champion in the Senate. When I
Speaker 13: go around Maryland and around the country, people are struggling,
Speaker 13: and my core message is you don't have to choose
Speaker 13: between you doing well and your neighbor doing well. I
Speaker 13: think that's what I really call the big lie. You know,
Speaker 13: not that Trump didn't win the election, or that he
Speaker 13: won the election, that obviously is alive, but this kind
Speaker 13: of I think prevalent idea that it's zero sum, like
Speaker 13: if you help the immigrant, you can't help us, someone
Speaker 13: who's been here for two hundred years. So I think
Speaker 13: that is a real core part of our message at
Speaker 13: a time when people are really struggling, right, you know, education, costs, housing,
Speaker 13: they're concerned about safety, go down the list, the environment,
Speaker 13: and I think we're going to need bold progressive solutions,
Speaker 13: especially in the Senate, to get it done.
Speaker 8: And that's what I've done.
Speaker 3: That's why I think it's an interesting question.
Speaker 2: So Maryland's obviously democratic state, Larry Hogan, I guess, notwithstanding
Speaker 2: you're going to face a crowded primary, what is your plan?
Speaker 2: What distinguishes you from you know, not even current opponents,
Speaker 2: potential opponents like why do you think that you are
Speaker 2: willing to take up this mantle for this long standing
Speaker 2: state and it's specifically a vanguard of the Democrats in
Speaker 2: the United States Senate?
Speaker 8: Absolutely?
Speaker 13: Well, Look, I'm homegrown look born and raised in Maryland.
Speaker 13: I saw firsthand the good, the bad, the ugly, dealt
Speaker 13: with disparities, growing up lost, a friend of gun violence,
Speaker 13: got scholarships to college and law school. Now, serving in
Speaker 13: my second term in our largest county one point one
Speaker 13: million of the six and then the state, I already
Speaker 13: represent our diverse, most and largest county with for of
Speaker 13: the most diverse cities in the country in it. I've
Speaker 13: also worked in the Senate eight years. I worked for
Speaker 13: Shared Brown, I worked for Barack Obama. I was counsel
Speaker 13: on the Help Committee. I worked for Nancy Pelosi. Of
Speaker 13: course in the White House with President Obama. So I
Speaker 13: bring it. I think a really needed mix of both
Speaker 13: federal experience but also a local experience. And you know,
Speaker 13: I'm forty years old. Yeah, I'm a millennial. I'm a
Speaker 13: geriatric millennium.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 13: Yeah, you know, John Ossif and I would be the
Speaker 13: only two at a time when we're twenty almost twenty
Speaker 13: three percent of the population, the average age of the
Speaker 13: Senate of seventy six. We're dealing with aging parents, young kids,
Speaker 13: student loan debt, go to go down the list. I
Speaker 13: think you need some people that actually are dealing with
Speaker 13: as we confront AI and technology changes, it'd be nice
Speaker 13: to have someone in there who knows what is dealing
Speaker 13: with those in real time.
Speaker 3: That's a fair point.
Speaker 1: So on the one hand, it's you know, it's a
Speaker 1: benefit that you've worked in DC, that you know some
Speaker 1: of these players, you know how the game works. There's
Speaker 1: also a potential challenge there being able to criticize, you know,
Speaker 1: that leadership when it is needed. So tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about your view of the Biden administration. What
Speaker 1: do you see as sort of the high water marks
Speaker 1: of achievement and what do you see as potentially you know,
Speaker 1: failures or things that they've missed, steps that they've done.
Speaker 13: Look, you know, I kind of remember one when I
Speaker 13: used to come on years ago when President Biden was running,
Speaker 13: I was even though when I took the you know,
Speaker 13: the test of all all the issues, I lined up
Speaker 13: with the progressive candidates. I always said I would support Biden,
Speaker 13: and I think he's done a good job. Has he
Speaker 13: been perfect? Absolutely not. But America isn't perfect, right, you know,
Speaker 13: that's our story. We get some things right, we get
Speaker 13: some things wrong. We go forward, we go backwards. I
Speaker 13: think the Chips Act, the Inflation Reduction Act on the environment,
Speaker 13: the stimulus as a local elected official, the almost three
Speaker 13: hundredllion dollars we got to put out, and to help
Speaker 13: with rental assistance, we launched a guaranteed income program in
Speaker 13: our state that I led. That's helping three hundred families
Speaker 13: with eight hundred dollars a month right now. We stabilized
Speaker 13: rents during the pandemic. We gave money to after school programs, etc.
Speaker 13: That money we set up vaccine and food distribution. That so,
Speaker 13: I think he put us on a good path. Do
Speaker 13: I agree with everything, Absolutely not, But I think he
Speaker 13: has started us in a good direction, and the other
Speaker 13: options on the other side are going to take us
Speaker 13: way back.
Speaker 2: So there's two theories of the case and Democratic party.
Speaker 2: There's one that people from democratic states and who are
Speaker 2: like within the coalition should be able to push the president.
Speaker 2: The other is that they should go along with the president.
Speaker 2: Where would you fall into that, you know, drive down
Speaker 2: more into the specifics where you disagree with sure?
Speaker 13: Sure, So I think that the answers both like you know,
Speaker 13: like it's like when LBJ told, you know, Martin Luther King,
Speaker 13: go make me do it. You have to be a
Speaker 13: friend and push I mean all my best friends push me.
Speaker 13: I don't want anyone in my group that's not gonna
Speaker 13: tell me to be better. But you can also be
Speaker 13: supportive and how and be constructive and how you do it?
Speaker 13: For example, I think, you know, we should be supporting Ukraine, right,
Speaker 13: and it's the devastation and loss. My father came to
Speaker 13: this country from Nigeria fleeing a war torn country, the
Speaker 13: by Affin civil War, the first one of two televised
Speaker 13: wars in the Vietnam War in that, so I know
Speaker 13: what it is to deal with that. But I don't
Speaker 13: think we should be using cluster bombs, for example, And
Speaker 13: I think I don't think that's a safe policy for
Speaker 13: you know, civilians and the like. So that's an example
Speaker 13: where I support the general policy of we should provide
Speaker 13: Ukraine with support. Russia is a bad actor, but how
Speaker 13: we do it matters, and I think that's an example.
Speaker 13: You know, I think on criminal justice reform, right, you know,
Speaker 13: I was really heartened to hear the President talk in
Speaker 13: the State of the Union for almost five minutes about
Speaker 13: the talk and the need to pass the George Floyd
Speaker 13: Justice and Policing Act, but also he talked about how
Speaker 13: we have to support law enforcement and what does that
Speaker 13: support mean. I've done a lot of work on those
Speaker 13: issues I want. I think that's an engagement. I think
Speaker 13: we've got to get them away from dealing with mental
Speaker 13: health and homelessness, focus police on violent crime, pay them more,
Speaker 13: have higher accountability. So I think there's examples of how
Speaker 13: you can support the President but also push him on
Speaker 13: certain things.
Speaker 1: Interesting something else that we talked about in the show
Speaker 1: today was the President has actually said, all right, Ukraine,
Speaker 1: you were not going to be in NATO while this
Speaker 1: war is going on, but he is held open the
Speaker 1: possibility of Ukraine ultimately entering NATO. Russia has said that
Speaker 1: was one of the provocations that led to their certainly illegal,
Speaker 1: unjustified invasion of Ukraine. You know, in the Senate, you'd
Speaker 1: be on the front lines a foreign policy. This would
Speaker 1: be something that you would potentially have to vote on.
Speaker 1: Where do you stand on potential NATO membership for Ukraine.
Speaker 13: Well, first, let's get Sweden in. You know, obviously they're
Speaker 13: going to they're dealing with some drama on that this
Speaker 13: week with Turkey and Hungary kind of objecting to that. Obviously,
Speaker 13: you got Finland in. I think that was a good addition.
Speaker 13: I am for a pathway for Ukraine into NATO. I
Speaker 13: don't think today is the day, but I think in
Speaker 13: generals expanding NATO, the idea of like democratic pro democracy
Speaker 13: states for the most part coming together to say we're
Speaker 13: going to protect each other is a good thing.
Speaker 8: They're not.
Speaker 13: I don't think they're in a state right now where
Speaker 13: they're ready for it. But I do think a pathway,
Speaker 13: which I think is consistent what the President.
Speaker 1: Has said, so that just to be clear, that means
Speaker 1: we would have you know, they would have Article five protection.
Speaker 1: That means if there was another dispute, another war with Russia,
Speaker 1: we'd be obligating our sons and daughters to go and
Speaker 1: fight in that war.
Speaker 4: Is that something that you're comfortable with?
Speaker 8: Well, as I said, I mean pathway that's not today.
Speaker 13: I think we have to. I am in support of
Speaker 13: supporting them now as we are. I think Russia is
Speaker 13: a bad actor. They are trying to, as they have
Speaker 13: in other places, destabilize the region. They're trying to harm people,
Speaker 13: They're using misinformation in our elections. Go down the list
Speaker 13: of things that they're doing. I think we need to
Speaker 13: stand up against that. I think that's a democratic American
Speaker 13: principle that it harms other parts of the world and
Speaker 13: us if we don't.
Speaker 8: I take very seriously, and would take very seriously.
Speaker 13: In the Senate sending our young men and women overseas
Speaker 13: to fight for other countries. But that is the agreement
Speaker 13: of NATO, so if they are a member, we would
Speaker 13: have to do that if attacked. But I think that's
Speaker 13: why we need to really discuss what is there as
Speaker 13: this war goes on. Hopefully it comes to a conclusion.
Speaker 13: How are they going to proceed, what steps are they
Speaker 13: going to take, what is the stability in the region.
Speaker 13: Those are all factors into whether when and how they
Speaker 13: would come into NATO.
Speaker 2: You just talked about cluster communitions. We're talking a little
Speaker 2: bit more about Ukraine. What is your view on more
Speaker 2: aid to Ukraine? So if you were voted into the
Speaker 2: United States Senate, would you vote for more military aid
Speaker 2: to Ukraine?
Speaker 3: Or do you desire a diplomatic solution?
Speaker 8: Again?
Speaker 13: I think I desire both. I mean, I think there
Speaker 13: is you know, again, make me do it. The aid
Speaker 13: in a lot of ways humanitarian is helping put them
Speaker 13: in position for hopefully eventually a diplomatic solution. We cannot
Speaker 13: have endless war, but you have to. But you best
Speaker 13: negotiate from a position of strength. And I think people
Speaker 13: rightly question how are we spending money, What are we
Speaker 13: spending on what type of ways? A recent thing I said,
Speaker 13: I'm not for the clustering munitions because of the civilian
Speaker 13: loss and just the long term effect of those those
Speaker 13: kinds of weapons that just sit for years, and we've
Speaker 13: seen that in Vietnam and other places. But I do
Speaker 13: think it's important to support them because they are at
Speaker 13: a key moment in time against a power that is
Speaker 13: in Russia, that is trying to take us backwards and
Speaker 13: trying to be against democratic principles.
Speaker 3: When is enough?
Speaker 2: So if they fail in this counter offensive, you get
Speaker 2: fifty billion more. And if you fail, how many times
Speaker 2: have it failed for that's to say it's time to
Speaker 2: end's time to come to the table.
Speaker 13: Unfortunately that there's no I can't tell you today what
Speaker 13: that moment is. I think we have to evaluate the
Speaker 13: circumstances that moment could come where, you know, like we
Speaker 13: did in Afghanistan other places, way too late, that this
Speaker 13: isn't working. We've got to do something different. I don't
Speaker 13: think we're there today, but I do think that the
Speaker 13: best negotiations in our history have come when they've come
Speaker 13: from a position of strength where people are saying it's
Speaker 13: in our mutual interests to have a negotiation. I think
Speaker 13: our aid is helping that to happen. But it cannot
Speaker 13: be an endless war. I also will say, back to
Speaker 13: my core message with my campaign, we can do that
Speaker 13: and we can invest here at home.
Speaker 8: It's not an either or right. There's other things we
Speaker 8: can do.
Speaker 13: It's not we take our eye off the ball here
Speaker 13: for Americans that need help here. It's that this is
Speaker 13: connected to global democratic principles and freedom, and we need
Speaker 13: to do that too well.
Speaker 1: One thing we've always appreciated about speaking with you is
Speaker 1: a lot of domestic policy issues are not theoretical to you.
Speaker 1: As a Montgomery County at Large council member, you are
Speaker 1: dealing with some of the trickiest issues from crime to
Speaker 1: housing and education there on the front lines. One thing
Speaker 1: that we've covered a lot here that I wanted to
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts on is the challenge of affordable housing.
Speaker 1: And this came across my radar. Will go ahead and
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. I saw Governor Moore
Speaker 1: just announced millions of dollars six point three millions of
Speaker 1: dollars to support construction of more than two hundred affordable
Speaker 1: housing units in the county that you represent. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what you think might
Speaker 1: make sense at a federal level to scale in terms
Speaker 1: of affordable housing based on what you've seen in your county.
Speaker 8: This is a massive problem. Number one thing I hear about.
Speaker 13: Number one or two thing I hear about, you know,
Speaker 13: the cost of housing, healthcare, taking away freedoms like bodily autonomy,
Speaker 13: the right to marry who you want, etc. But housing
Speaker 13: is always up there. In Montgomery County. We have one
Speaker 13: point one million residents. Forty percent of them rent, So
Speaker 13: that's over four hundred thousand people that are renting.
Speaker 8: Those are their homes. As you know, I've been.
Speaker 13: A big proponent of rent stabilization as part of the mix.
Speaker 13: We passed it temporarily through bills that I offered during
Speaker 13: the pandemic. Now we have a permanent bill that passed
Speaker 13: out a committee two weeks ago. We're going to vote
Speaker 13: on it next week. That would cap rents at six
Speaker 13: percent three percent plus inflation. Capped at six it would
Speaker 13: be the lowest for the largest jurisdiction of our size
Speaker 13: in the country. I think that's part of the mix.
Speaker 13: We need a massive federal investment in affordable housing to
Speaker 13: get these voucher eading lists down. Look, my dad lived
Speaker 13: in affordable housing with a HUD vouchure. We have a
Speaker 13: thirty seven thousand person waiting list in Montgomery County. Wow,
Speaker 13: on this list waiting for a vouchure. It's because there's
Speaker 13: been a dramatic under investment we need to incentive. So
Speaker 13: we have to double or triple the amount of those vouchures.
Speaker 13: We need to incentivize, have more tax credit deals like
Speaker 13: I'm for, I want developers and housing providers to make
Speaker 13: a profit. I just want them to make a reasonable
Speaker 13: profit and build good public use housing that's mixed income.
Speaker 13: And so we need to get more tax credit deals
Speaker 13: on the table. We need to incentivize states. The federal
Speaker 13: government has a good power of like saying here's some
Speaker 13: money if you do X to do stabilization, because you
Speaker 13: can't have rampant you know, raise If you have four
Speaker 13: hundred thousand people renting in any year, their mortgage can
Speaker 13: go up one hundred two, three hundred four dollars.
Speaker 8: That's just not sustainable.
Speaker 13: Yeah, And we need a renter's tax credit, just like
Speaker 13: we have a homeowner's textor there's some of these ideas
Speaker 13: that are floating around, but I think it starts with
Speaker 13: a serious commitment. And then on homeless you know, one
Speaker 13: of the things I'm so proud of Montgomery County. We
Speaker 13: eliminated veterans homelessness. We're on our way to eliminate it
Speaker 13: for children and families. That core requires a housing first strategy,
Speaker 13: no matter why you're homeless or experiencing homelessness, that we
Speaker 13: put you in housing first and then figure out all
Speaker 13: the other things.
Speaker 8: I think that's something we need to do across the
Speaker 8: country too.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a specific one on housing. Something
Speaker 1: else that we've been tracking here is permanent capital coming
Speaker 1: in buying up a lot of single family housing. Of
Speaker 1: course they you know, especially right now with mortgage rates
Speaker 1: being so high, they can come in with all cash
Speaker 1: and it really makes it difficult for first time home buyers.
Speaker 1: Is that something you would take a look at. Is
Speaker 1: that something you would ban or some people have floated
Speaker 1: the idea of you have to have you have to
Speaker 1: give first preference to the individual before you allow permanent
Speaker 1: capital to come in.
Speaker 8: We do it all the time at the local level.
Speaker 13: Is called a rite of first refusal or rowfer, and
Speaker 13: I think that idea is a good one. If you
Speaker 13: look in some of these housing markets and metropolitan areas
Speaker 13: ours included, there is so little available because of people
Speaker 13: that have bought things up, either as investments to flip
Speaker 13: or these corporate entities, private equity entities coming in. So
Speaker 13: we need to one know what the universe is. We
Speaker 13: have to have transparency and sunlight on it too. I
Speaker 13: think we do need to look at opportunities and that
Speaker 13: would loop in like first time home buyer credits down
Speaker 13: payment assistant programs. Some of those things have phased out
Speaker 13: over time at the federal and local level. I think
Speaker 13: that we do need to make sure home ownership.
Speaker 8: Is on the rise.
Speaker 13: You know, we saw with appraisals, these studies that's come
Speaker 13: out with appraisals. You know, for example, there's still a
Speaker 13: lot of inequity and fair housing where appraisals for African
Speaker 13: American families and redline communities for the same house or
Speaker 13: forty fifty thousand dollars less. So that's something we need
Speaker 13: to do as well. But yes, I do think looking
Speaker 13: at these corporate entities is a part of the solution
Speaker 13: for sure.
Speaker 4: Gotcha, Can I do a little couple of lightning round
Speaker 4: progressive priorities with you? Sure?
Speaker 8: I'll be quick.
Speaker 4: Not a care for all? Yes or no?
Speaker 8: We need to be on a path towards it.
Speaker 2: What does that mean post sponsored the bill if you're
Speaker 2: re elected to the Senate.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I think that's where we need to head. The
Speaker 13: price of cost of healthcare is insane. I talk to
Speaker 13: doctors all the time like they're getting out of the
Speaker 13: OBGYN who delivered three of our four children is dropping
Speaker 13: the ob because of liability and because of the reimbursement rate.
Speaker 13: It's insane these and that's a black woman. Maternal health
Speaker 13: for black women is a huge priority the down cascading.
Speaker 8: It's crazy.
Speaker 13: I talk to an orthopedist who's having to fight with
Speaker 13: insurance companies every day to get the same amount that
Speaker 13: he got last year for the same surgery.
Speaker 8: It's the for profit system is broken.
Speaker 13: So you need either dramatic regulation or a public option
Speaker 13: to make them honest. But ultimately, I do think a
Speaker 13: system where we cover everybody. It showed it the work
Speaker 13: when we expanded Medicaid.
Speaker 8: It works. You know, you need to get people covered.
Speaker 4: Free college, community college.
Speaker 13: We've done that in Maryland. I think that's the way
Speaker 13: we start. It's five thousand dollars. It's effective. The smartest
Speaker 13: students cheerity the Education Committee are these young people. All
Speaker 13: of our students are smart, but these these young people
Speaker 13: who do dual enrollment, they graduate. I just did a
Speaker 13: couple of their graduations from high school with their associates
Speaker 13: and with their high school degree. But even for those
Speaker 13: who don't do that, you get a great bang for
Speaker 13: your buck. Again, it's less than five thousand.
Speaker 8: Dollars a year.
Speaker 13: We can afford to get people a good start. Not
Speaker 13: everyone needs a for your liberal arts, especially with what's
Speaker 13: going on with our economy and the job changing job market.
Speaker 13: But some sort of post secondary training up to two
Speaker 13: years should be free. Various entities could be community college,
Speaker 13: could be career in tech, could be other things.
Speaker 8: We should absolutely do that.
Speaker 4: A Green New Deal, well.
Speaker 8: There's a lot in there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's fair. It means a lot of things.
Speaker 13: A lot of Yeah, and so I would say I'm
Speaker 13: for a lot of the things in the Green New Deal.
Speaker 8: I wouldn't want to just.
Speaker 1: Right now say fair enough and last one, last one
Speaker 1: on this. Should President Joe Biden, who does have primary challengers,
Speaker 1: should he debate?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 13: I mean I think at some point you're gonna have
Speaker 13: to get to a point of viability. You know, we
Speaker 13: get a little further down the line, but it's like.
Speaker 4: You know, I mean, they're pulling higher than a lot
Speaker 4: of the Republicans.
Speaker 13: Yeah, which is my point, But that could change. I
Speaker 13: think one debate might change that. Okay, But yeah, I
Speaker 13: don't I don't think I support President Biden, but I
Speaker 13: think democracy is about debate. If we can't have a
Speaker 13: free exchange of ideas, if we're mad at people burning
Speaker 13: books and descantists and all that, we shouldn't be scared
Speaker 13: to have him stand up there and talk to people.
Speaker 4: All right, that's entirely fair. Tell people where they can find.
Speaker 8: You, well, will Jorwando dot com.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 4: Great,