Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 2: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent
Speaker 2: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,
Speaker 2: it just means the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show. All right,
Speaker 3: good morning, and welcome to the Counterpoints.
Speaker 1: I do have to warn everybody and only came in
Speaker 1: here fired up this morning. I think she miscalculated on
Speaker 1: her micro dose a little bit. So this is going
Speaker 1: to be a very very interesting show. It's also going
Speaker 1: to be interesting because we're going to be talking about
Speaker 1: the macro dose.
Speaker 3: It became a macro dough, so look out.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be talking about the UAW which has
Speaker 1: said a noon deadline for its upcoming negotiations. It could
Speaker 1: be an expansion of the strike coming. Zelenski was here.
Speaker 1: President Biden spoke at the United Nations. We're going to
Speaker 1: get we're going to go through that. Got some new
Speaker 1: news on Pakistan and Ukraine. The IMF that we'll talk
Speaker 1: about later. Absolute face planted by Republicans in the House
Speaker 1: that we're not going to talk about these special elections,
Speaker 1: but I think they're related to this. So last night,
Speaker 1: Republicans lost a special election in a Trump district in
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, which puts them one set away from flipping
Speaker 1: the New Hampshire House of Representatives. And Democrats also want
Speaker 1: a Pittsburgh area special election for State House there, which
Speaker 1: gives them, which gives Democrats control of the Pennsylvania State House.
Speaker 1: All of this happening while Republicans just kind of fell
Speaker 1: to pieces in a pretty hilarious way in the House yesterday.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was some fun on Capitol Hill. We're going
Speaker 4: to go through.
Speaker 5: We have some really good clips, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker 5: We're actually going to be talking about YouTube's decision to
Speaker 5: demonetize Russell Brand. So surely you've followed the allegations against
Speaker 5: Russell Brand, but YouTube took a pretty serious step in
Speaker 5: demonetizing his channel.
Speaker 4: So we'll get to that.
Speaker 5: I'm going to talk about alleged plans among Actually it's
Speaker 5: not alleged, because they came out and told Jeff Stein
Speaker 5: of The Washington Post that they're planning a big corporate
Speaker 5: tax cut if Donald Trump gets an office again, and
Speaker 5: then Republicans have the House and the Senate. And Ryan,
Speaker 5: you have a little bit of a scoop to talk
Speaker 5: to us about the RNC debate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rumble versus Google, and we'll talk about that. But
Speaker 1: essentially Rumble had the exclusive streaming rights for the Republican
Speaker 1: last Republican debate, but there were nowhere to be found,
Speaker 1: certainly on the front page of Google search results, even
Speaker 1: though and I'll report on this, Google and Rumble were
Speaker 1: in contact ahead of time. So interesting stuff there, especially
Speaker 1: as Google is kind of currently in a trial in
Speaker 1: an antitrust trual, like it's ongoing at the moment.
Speaker 5: Well, let's start with news from the UAW strike. Actually,
Speaker 5: Ryan over at the Intercept, there's a great news story
Speaker 5: this morning with details about a truly hilarious development and
Speaker 5: a big development too.
Speaker 4: Tell us what happened it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, put, we can put up this first element.
Speaker 1: Daniel Bogus law, colleague of mine, Confused automakers braced for
Speaker 1: strike at the wrong plants and so check out his piece.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is worth a read. But for people
Speaker 1: who are you new to these this kind of new
Speaker 1: tactic that's going on in labor because they're striking all
Speaker 1: three automakers, and because the supply lines are so spread out,
Speaker 1: what the union is trying to do is strike as
Speaker 1: few places.
Speaker 3: Along that supply chain.
Speaker 1: That gets the most attention from the executives at the
Speaker 1: at the Big Three. And what the Big Three are
Speaker 1: trying to do is anticipate which plants are going to
Speaker 1: be struck so that they can move things.
Speaker 3: Around so that they can keep production going.
Speaker 1: If the UAW can strike only a small number of
Speaker 1: plants yet exact a lot of dam image on the
Speaker 1: Big Three, then they don't have to eat into their
Speaker 1: strike fund. And so CNBC thought that they were on
Speaker 1: to the UAW. So let's play so this clip that
Speaker 1: we're playing here was from CNBC ahead of the strike, and.
Speaker 3: Just roll this in all its glory.
Speaker 6: Let's get over to phil Abo Live in Detroit for
Speaker 6: an update on the ongoing UAW battle.
Speaker 7: Hi, Phil Scott.
Speaker 8: We have received some information from a source familiar with
Speaker 8: the uaw's plans for the plants that it will plan
Speaker 8: on striking come midnight tonight if they do not reach
Speaker 8: an agreement with four GM and Stilantis, and this is
Speaker 8: our understanding of the plants that will be announced tonight.
Speaker 8: Ten o'clock is when we will get the official announcement
Speaker 8: from the UAW. Let's start first off with General Motors,
Speaker 8: Romulus Powertrain, Toledo, Ohio Propulsion, and the Marion metal plant
Speaker 8: in Indiana. For Ford, it's our understanding that the UAW
Speaker 8: plants a strike at the Lavonia Transmission plan, Lima, Ohio
Speaker 8: Engine plan, and the Cleveland Engine plan. And finally for Stlantis,
Speaker 8: we understand that the UEW will walk out at the
Speaker 8: Cocomo Transmission planning Cocomo, Indiana and the Dundee Engine plan.
Speaker 7: We should stress we have reached.
Speaker 8: Out to the UAW for confirmation that this is in
Speaker 8: fact is the plan. We have not heard back from
Speaker 8: the UAW.
Speaker 5: Well, I guess it is good that he stressed they
Speaker 5: had not earned back from the UAW.
Speaker 4: Because Ryan, you have a theory ast to how this happened.
Speaker 1: Well, we know that whatever the source they said that
Speaker 1: they had it was, this was act.
Speaker 3: This list was.
Speaker 1: Published in an auto trade pub earlier, and probably the
Speaker 1: Auto Trade prob which has its sources in the auto industry,
Speaker 1: got it from a consultant working for one of the
Speaker 1: Big three, and this Big three bring in strike breaking
Speaker 1: consultants who then tell this is how you're going.
Speaker 3: To beat this strike.
Speaker 1: And so one way or another, this consultant winds up
Speaker 1: with bogus information that winds up then with CNBC. And
Speaker 1: they should stress that they could not confes because every
Speaker 1: single one of those was wrong. And so what they
Speaker 1: did is that they moved things from plants that did
Speaker 1: not strike two plants that ended up striking. So at
Speaker 1: great expense to the automakers, they shut down production a
Speaker 1: bunch of places that did not strike, moved things out
Speaker 1: of there elsewhere, and then they moved them right into
Speaker 1: the belly of a strike. And so they created maybe
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of damage to themselves. And it allows
Speaker 1: the UAW to keep their strike fund flush so that
Speaker 1: because if they were all out against all three, they
Speaker 1: might only last three months. That's how long the strike
Speaker 1: fund can last. Now you can go longer than that
Speaker 1: if you can, you know, you belt tight. And that's
Speaker 1: what would happen one hundred years ago during these strikes.
Speaker 1: And it happens the strike fund does not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent replace your income.
Speaker 3: So there's you know.
Speaker 1: It's tough to be out on strike. It's easy to
Speaker 1: be on the sideline saying, hey, strike, strikes, strike. It's
Speaker 1: harder to be in, you know, to be the people
Speaker 1: who are actually striking. But it's harder for these executives too.
Speaker 1: If now they're accidentally shutting down their own production.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's like a return to the dance that
Speaker 5: everybody's out of practice. But the uaw knew that, you know,
Speaker 5: they had to be tactical and strategic about this and
Speaker 5: outsmarted the companies.
Speaker 1: It's just just just amazing to watch. And this is
Speaker 1: this is a new UAW with with you know, Sean Fain,
Speaker 1: the first elected president of the UAW I think about that.
Speaker 1: You know, for for decades they had, you know, corrupt
Speaker 1: leaders that would be elected in these processes where there
Speaker 1: were delegates and then the delegates.
Speaker 3: Pick and then you go back room.
Speaker 1: So this is finally somebody who's represented by you know,
Speaker 1: who represents the rank and file, came in with a
Speaker 1: Milton attitude and so he's his new statement is noon
Speaker 1: on Friday, September twenty second, is a new deadline. Either
Speaker 1: the Big three get down to business and work with
Speaker 1: us to make progress and negotiations, or more locals will
Speaker 1: be called to stand up and go out on strike.
Speaker 1: And so what he's saying there is that, look, c NBC,
Speaker 1: you botched it last time. You didn't know which ones
Speaker 1: we were going to strike. You don't know which ones
Speaker 1: were going to strike this time, and more coming if
Speaker 1: you if you don't come closer. And what we're hearing
Speaker 1: about the negotiations is that the numbers are already coming
Speaker 1: way up, like the workers are.
Speaker 3: Doing much better.
Speaker 1: The ghost though of Ronald Reagan haunting these conversations. Do
Speaker 1: we have we have We've got to use you flagged
Speaker 1: this one so good?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So Tim Scott was actually asked about how he
Speaker 5: would handle the strike hypothetically as president, and Nikki Haley
Speaker 5: was talking to Neil Cavudo on Fox News about the
Speaker 5: situation as well. Let's roll these clips to for a
Speaker 5: glimpse into how some Republicans are handling the question.
Speaker 9: I think Ronald Regan gave us a great example when
Speaker 9: federal voice side they were going to strike, you strike
Speaker 9: your fire civil concept to me to we can use
Speaker 9: that once again. Absolutely. The second thing I would do
Speaker 9: those very important this is it probably not a well
Speaker 9: known fact. The first thing part of the challenge that
Speaker 9: we have today with President Biden is I don't mean
Speaker 9: this would be disingenuous. I mean this would be since here.
Speaker 9: I'm not sure if the words are bought and paid for,
Speaker 9: but it's certainly he has been leased by the unions.
Speaker 9: And I say that because the first bill he passed,
Speaker 9: y'all remember the one point nine trillion dollars COVID relief backage.
Speaker 9: I only had one percent for COVID vaccines and had
Speaker 9: eighty six billion dollars. I believe for union pensions because
Speaker 9: they keep making these deals and as a result of
Speaker 9: the deal, they promised too much, deliver too little, and
Speaker 9: the tax beyers pick up the tab.
Speaker 6: Well, I think that's it tells you that when you
Speaker 6: have the most pro union president and he teullts that
Speaker 6: he is emboldening the unions, this is what you get.
Speaker 6: And I'll tell you who pays for it is the taxpayers.
Speaker 6: You know, here, from what I understand, the union is
Speaker 6: asking for a forty percent race. You know, the companies
Speaker 6: have come back with a twenty percent raise. I think
Speaker 6: any of the taxpayers would love to have a twenty
Speaker 6: percent raise and think that's great, But you know the
Speaker 6: problem is this is going to we're all going to
Speaker 6: suffer from this. This is going to cost things to
Speaker 6: go up, and you know this is going to last
Speaker 6: a while. But you know, when you have a president
Speaker 6: that's constantly saying, go union, Go union, this is what
Speaker 6: you get. The unions get emboldened and then they start
Speaker 6: asking for things that you know that companies have a
Speaker 6: tough time doing.
Speaker 5: That is a bizarre take on so many levels because
Speaker 5: it actually lacks of rude mentory understanding of the dynamics
Speaker 5: at play, which is that the Biden administration set off
Speaker 5: a lot of the problems with the union that supports
Speaker 5: Democrats basically across the board been supportive of President Biden.
Speaker 5: A lot of this is pressure that was implemented as
Speaker 5: a result of legislation that Biden's passed executive actions on
Speaker 5: behalf of the president. And so to say that this
Speaker 5: is because Joe Biden is so cozy with unions, when
Speaker 5: in fact, actually this is the result of serious tensions
Speaker 5: between Biden and the Union's tensions by the way that
Speaker 5: Donald Trump and I think we have this element because
Speaker 5: Sean Fain weighed in on what Crystal and Socker covered yesterday,
Speaker 5: Donald Trump saying I'm skipping the second Republican debate and
Speaker 5: I'm going to.
Speaker 4: Talk to auto workers.
Speaker 5: Sean Fain weighs in, and he says, every fiber of
Speaker 5: our union, this is a statement from Faine is being
Speaker 5: poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that
Speaker 5: enriches people like Donald Trump at the expensive workers. We
Speaker 5: can't keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don't have any
Speaker 5: understanding of what it is like to live paycheck to
Speaker 5: paycheck and struggle to get by by expecting them to
Speaker 5: solve the problems of the working class. Donald Trump is
Speaker 5: a departure from the Scott and Haley branch of the
Speaker 5: Republican Party, at least rhetorically. Some people might doubt that
Speaker 5: on a policy level. I think that is an entirely
Speaker 5: fair question, and we're going to be talking about it
Speaker 5: later when I discussed the plans for another corporate tax
Speaker 5: cut and a potential Trump administration. But it's kind of
Speaker 5: remarkable to hear Tim Scott and Nicki Haley invoking a
Speaker 5: public sector union strike that is different in so many ways,
Speaker 5: and I'm talking about the air traffic controllers under Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 5: It's different in so many ways from what's happening with
Speaker 5: the UAW right now. Just like it was a reflex
Speaker 5: like a doctor hitting his knee, and Nicky Haley to
Speaker 5: have it I think it completely backwards, and it didn't
Speaker 5: even seem like she was familiar with the dynamics of
Speaker 5: the strike. It's likely not going to increase prices. There's
Speaker 5: really no evidence of that at this point at least.
Speaker 1: Strange stuff right, and the politics are completely different. There's
Speaker 1: a reason that Reagan, you know, could fire the air
Speaker 1: traffic controllers and he could get away with it. Air
Speaker 1: traffic controllers, by the way, endors strong Reagan, yes like that,
Speaker 1: And so people I think might have a hard time
Speaker 1: kind of putting themselves back in that time period. But
Speaker 1: that'll help, like understand this, Like this was a union
Speaker 1: that in actually endorsed Ronald Rick and.
Speaker 3: Then they came in.
Speaker 1: People are gonna fact check me they either endorsed or
Speaker 1: like spoke highly of them and didn't endorse the Democrats.
Speaker 1: I think they actually endorsed, I think them, and then
Speaker 1: he fires them all. But it was in this moment
Speaker 1: where there was this kind of public backlash against unions
Speaker 1: which were getting blamed.
Speaker 3: By the kind of capitol class vulgar.
Speaker 1: For inflation because the union a lot of union contracts,
Speaker 1: and you had you had significant union density, and because
Speaker 1: the union contracts said that our raises rise in tandem
Speaker 1: to the cost of living, the cost of living being inflation.
Speaker 1: So then when the federal government say, okay, inflation is this,
Speaker 1: then unions would get wages like that, and then because
Speaker 1: the wages went up, then.
Speaker 3: The inflation number would go up.
Speaker 1: And they were getting blamed for this big, this vicious
Speaker 1: kind of cycle down the drain there.
Speaker 3: So but that's not happening.
Speaker 1: Now we've got union density of like five or six percent.
Speaker 1: Uaw could quadruple their wages and we're not going to
Speaker 1: see you know, inflation as a result of that go
Speaker 1: throughout the economy. Also, the cost of labor in a
Speaker 1: car equals about five percent of the price of that car.
Speaker 5: And it's not like ups and teamsters or air traffic
Speaker 5: controllers where you have basically an entire system that the
Speaker 5: country relies on shut down at the drop of the hat.
Speaker 5: Which was weighing very heavily on Ron Reagan during the
Speaker 5: strike and he was constantly invoking that problem. Tim Scott
Speaker 5: didn't even try to make specific parallels. It was again,
Speaker 5: it was like a reflex Reagan fire them all. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and again Donald Trump is you know, whatever you think.
Speaker 5: You might think it's rhetorical, you might think it's purely strategic. Again,
Speaker 5: we're going to knock him later in the show for
Speaker 5: what he's letting his advisors tall Jeff.
Speaker 4: Stein of The Washington Post.
Speaker 5: But he at least understands the dynamics, the political dynamics,
Speaker 5: whereas these guys don't even get that. I mean, they're
Speaker 5: just like rehashing, trotting out canned lines. Now, maybe it's
Speaker 5: a question of whether you'd rather have a Republican party
Speaker 5: that is transparently anti union, or a Republican party that
Speaker 5: wants to be or is rhetorically pro union but doesn't
Speaker 5: actually you know, support the next number of ways. I
Speaker 5: think there's a really serious issue that Donald Trump and
Speaker 5: some of the Republicans we talked to so Robert Maury
Speaker 5: about this a couple of weeks ago, are going to
Speaker 5: raise about the uaw's relationship with Democrats and the Biden
Speaker 5: administration and how the kind of green agenda causes legitimate
Speaker 5: tensions for workers. I think smart Republicans are right to
Speaker 5: be talking about those tensions, and I think some of
Speaker 5: that conversation will turn out to be good for workers.
Speaker 5: But for these Republicans to just weigh in with basically
Speaker 5: no understanding of the situation and no interest in having
Speaker 5: an understanding the situation, Nikki Haley is using that sort
Speaker 5: of rhetoric of it reminds me of like twenty ten,
Speaker 5: twenty twelve that worked really well in the Tea Party
Speaker 5: era at a time when union favorability among the general
Speaker 5: public is way higher, and it was then it's not
Speaker 5: even good politics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one last point on Tim Scott there, so
Speaker 1: his his second piece there, he said, and if you
Speaker 1: remember the American Rescue plan that didn't spend enough on
Speaker 1: vaccines also that that's kind of weird for a Republican primary.
Speaker 1: He said, it was eighty six billion dollars, you know,
Speaker 1: to go to union pensions. Those were miners, those were
Speaker 1: construction workers, manufacturers, factory workers, and most of those pensions
Speaker 1: went bust because private equity companies came in bought up
Speaker 1: the companies and liquidated the pensions. Those were contracts that
Speaker 1: were struck with the workers. Workers worked their entire lives
Speaker 1: expecting a certain payout. And also if you're if you know,
Speaker 1: your pension cuts into your social security. So a worker
Speaker 1: who gets a certain pension gets less social security. So
Speaker 1: they put their whole lives into this private equity. Barons
Speaker 1: can come in siphon it out, they drink that milkshake
Speaker 1: and so yes. In the American Rescue Plan, Democrats did
Speaker 1: put eighty six billion dollars into this fund to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, We're going to backstop these kind of
Speaker 1: multi party pensions for these workers who were promised this amount.
Speaker 3: Worked their whole lives for it. We've got it covered.
Speaker 1: And for Tim Scott to be like that's the thing
Speaker 1: that I'm upset about, like, get out of here.
Speaker 5: I think, Ryan, you might be underestimating how badly the
Speaker 5: pe dudes need that money for fleece vests and campaign checks.
Speaker 4: To Tim Scott like.
Speaker 1: I love the CNBC guide his little fleece vest, it
Speaker 1: is checking out, just being completely wrong and undermining the
Speaker 1: whole case that these capitalists make of that their strategic
Speaker 1: genius is why they ought to make hundreds of times
Speaker 1: more than the workers. Like they're like because you know,
Speaker 1: they really know what they're doing. In the one case
Speaker 1: where we can test whether or not they have any
Speaker 1: idea what they're doing, the workers just completely outsmart at them.
Speaker 4: Amazing.
Speaker 5: Let's move on to the United Nations General Assembly meeting
Speaker 5: in New York. We have a lot of clips to
Speaker 5: play from that because President Biden spoke and Vladimir Lensky
Speaker 5: spoke as well. Let's start with b one here. This
Speaker 5: is Biden yesterday at the UN in New York.
Speaker 10: Second year in a row. This gathering dedicated to peaceful
Speaker 10: resolution of conflicts, is darkened by the shadow of war,
Speaker 10: an illegal war of conquest brought without provocation by Russia
Speaker 10: against his naghvy Ukraine. Like every nation in the world,
Speaker 10: the United States wants this war to end. No nation
Speaker 10: wants this war to end more than Ukraine, and we
Speaker 10: strongly support Ukraine and its efforts to bring about diplomatic
Speaker 10: resolution that delivers just and lasting peace. Russia loan, Russia alone,
Speaker 10: bears responsibility for this war. Russia loan has the power
Speaker 10: to end this war immediately. And as Russia loone that
Speaker 10: stands in the way of peace is the Russia's price
Speaker 10: for peace is Ukraine's capitulation, Ukraine's territory and Ukraine's children.
Speaker 10: Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow
Speaker 10: it to brutalize Ukraine without consequence. But I'll ask you this,
Speaker 10: if we abandon the core principles of the United States
Speaker 10: to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this
Speaker 10: body feel confident that they're protected? If you allow Ukraine
Speaker 10: to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?
Speaker 10: I right respectfully suggest the answers.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 1: We also have Vladimir's a landscape. We can play a
Speaker 1: clip of his address the United Nations.
Speaker 11: Ukraine gave up its sword largest nuclear arsenal the world
Speaker 11: don decided Russia should become a keeper of such power.
Speaker 7: Yet history shows it was Russia who.
Speaker 11: Deserved nuclear disarmament the most back in nineteen nineties, and
Speaker 11: Russia deserves it now.
Speaker 7: Terrorists have no right.
Speaker 11: To hold nuclear weapons, no right, but truly not.
Speaker 7: The nyukes are the carriage.
Speaker 11: Now, while nyuks remain in place, the mess destruction is
Speaker 11: gaining its momentum. The aggressor is weaponizing many other things,
Speaker 11: and those things are used not only against our country,
Speaker 11: but against all of yours as well. The International Criminal
Speaker 11: Court issued arrest warrant for Putting for this crime. And
Speaker 11: we are trying to get children back home. But time
Speaker 11: time goes by, what will happen with them?
Speaker 7: What will happen to them?
Speaker 11: Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine at all.
Speaker 11: Ties with their families are broken, and this is clearly
Speaker 11: a genocide. When hatred is weaponized against one nation, it
Speaker 11: never stops there. Each decade Russia starts a new war.
Speaker 11: Parts of Moldova and Georgia remain occupied. Russia turds Syria
Speaker 11: into ruins, and if not Russia, the chemical weapons would.
Speaker 7: Have never been used there in Syria.
Speaker 11: Russia has almost swallowed Belarus. It is obviously threatening Kazakhstan
Speaker 11: and other Baltic states. And the goal of the present
Speaker 11: war against Ukraine is to tour our land, our people, our lives,
Speaker 11: our resources into a weapon against you. Again, the international
Speaker 11: rules based order now right.
Speaker 5: It's extremely interesting to note actually that of the five
Speaker 5: Security Council countries, only the United States sent the head
Speaker 5: of state, so no head of state from Russia or China,
Speaker 5: or France or Britain, just the US. At the UN
Speaker 5: General Assembly, meeting. Biden obviously was first to speak. That
Speaker 5: was really difficult to listen to. It's increasingly difficult every
Speaker 5: time he opens his mouth in public. But Biden advisors
Speaker 5: were very eager to have this moment. Actually, with none
Speaker 5: of the other Security Council sending ahead of State, it
Speaker 5: would allow Biden theoretically to even more powerfully frame the
Speaker 5: United States as the leader of the rules based order,
Speaker 5: as he talked about repeatedly in that speech. I don't
Speaker 5: know that that works well when you say things like
Speaker 5: let me be clear and then mumble through the rest
Speaker 5: of the sentence, And in all seriousness, it's not good
Speaker 5: for Biden. It's not good for the US, and it's
Speaker 5: certainly not good for a country that is sending how
Speaker 5: many billions of dollars to Ukraine to fight a very
Speaker 5: serious ground war in Europe and he can't get through
Speaker 5: a speech without sounding like he's senile.
Speaker 4: At the u N, I.
Speaker 1: Thought, performatively, he did okay, and that in those short
Speaker 1: clips there will have some more that we can play
Speaker 1: where he was kind of stumbling all over the place
Speaker 1: and you're like, ah, God, somebody, somebody helped, somebody helped
Speaker 1: this guy.
Speaker 3: But on the substance of it.
Speaker 1: I just feel like the United States is missing an
Speaker 1: opportunity to be the country, not that they would do
Speaker 1: this that's putting forward a peace plan, absolutely because the
Speaker 1: chances are that Russia wouldn't take it, that Russia would continue.
Speaker 3: It's kind of it's aggression there.
Speaker 1: And it's clear Russia did invade, like you say whatever
Speaker 1: you want about whether it's provoked or whether on and
Speaker 1: on like it did. It did invade, like Putin had
Speaker 1: a choice and he made that choice. But the US
Speaker 1: misses an opportunity to say, look, we want this war
Speaker 1: to end, and here here are ways that we could
Speaker 1: see this war ending, clear steps, clear steps, and not
Speaker 1: to not do that. In some ways, let's rush off
Speaker 1: the hook, because now there's your several almost two years
Speaker 1: into the war, and and people are almost forgetting at
Speaker 1: this point. Now it's just another conflict that the world
Speaker 1: wants to turn away from. But on the kind of
Speaker 1: performance of President Biden on the international stage, which is
Speaker 1: I think, sadly kind of the one of the most
Speaker 1: important questions facing the world.
Speaker 3: You know, whether or not Biden can kind.
Speaker 1: Of appear up to the job to voters. The entire
Speaker 1: election almost hinges on that. And so here here are
Speaker 1: a couple clips. We can play one more that.
Speaker 3: I think the R and C was circulating this one.
Speaker 10: As you evolve, our institutions drive creative new partnerships. Let
Speaker 10: me be clear, certain principles are in the national them
Speaker 10: are sacracy. Simply put, the twenty first century. Twenty first
Speaker 10: century results are badly needed needed to move us along.
Speaker 5: You're like, ugh, makes me think somebody who loves him
Speaker 5: should tell him he shouldn't run for president again. I mean,
Speaker 5: let alone somebody who loves his country, but somebody who
Speaker 5: loves him should tell him this has.
Speaker 4: Got to end.
Speaker 1: And he ran for presidents saying that he was going
Speaker 1: to be a bridge and somebody, and I think this
Speaker 1: was in particular reference to Gretchen Whitmer. Somebody was talking
Speaker 1: about Whitmer and the new rising stars of the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party and Biden said, I'm a bridge to the next generation.
Speaker 1: And he and so he said that literally, as Spiden
Speaker 1: loves to say literally, but.
Speaker 3: He also had a joke. Yeah. He also kind of
Speaker 3: configured his entire campaign around.
Speaker 1: That that he was going to be there for one term,
Speaker 1: that his whole mission.
Speaker 3: He's running because of Charlotte Vale.
Speaker 1: Trump is, you know, a nasty creature at monster that
Speaker 1: needs to be beaten back into the cave. He's going
Speaker 1: it's his mission in life to beat him and then
Speaker 1: be a bridge to the next generation. So he did
Speaker 1: those things. Now he's in office, he's like, no, I
Speaker 1: think I want to run again.
Speaker 3: It always appen, and there was a term limits, but
Speaker 3: oh not for me. Right, there was a kind.
Speaker 1: Of democratic resistance, kind of There was a Muller she
Speaker 1: wrote at a Post yesterday that was complaining about media
Speaker 1: coverage of Biden's age and whether or not, you know,
Speaker 1: Biden's step aside, and they were saying, you know, the
Speaker 1: only the media is handringing about this, Democrats are not
Speaker 1: And it's a very interesting definition of democrats or because
Speaker 1: something like seventy percent of Democrats would like to see
Speaker 1: a different nominee. And what people like that mean by
Speaker 1: democrats is the very top of the Democratic Party. The
Speaker 1: Democratic elites are comfortable or comfortable enough.
Speaker 4: But even that's not.
Speaker 5: True because David Ignatius wrote a column in the Washington Post,
Speaker 5: and I think David Anaxious is known to be one
Speaker 5: of the Biden administration's favorite columnists like they pay very
Speaker 5: close attention.
Speaker 4: To David Ignatius.
Speaker 5: Yes, and he even said last he wrote a whole
Speaker 5: column yeah, in the Washington Post saying time for Biden
Speaker 5: to step down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so. I don't see how you can watch
Speaker 1: that and think otherwise. Franklin's had a really funny, kind
Speaker 1: of almost meaningless comment the other day where he said,
Speaker 1: the only Democrat that can lose to Trump is Biden,
Speaker 1: and the only Republican that can to Biden is Troutes.
Speaker 4: It's actually one hundred percent true, and it was true
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think DeSantis could lose to Biden, and I
Speaker 1: think Biden could lose to a bunch of people, and
Speaker 1: Trump can actually lose a bunch of So it sounds cute,
Speaker 1: it's funny, but there's such bad candidates, both of them,
Speaker 1: that they could actually probably be beaten by multiple people.
Speaker 5: But there's something about the matchup of both of them
Speaker 5: that's like the perfect mirror image and the perfect inversion
Speaker 5: of one strength and the.
Speaker 1: Others called the two old guys in the balcony muppets,
Speaker 1: and it's perfect.
Speaker 5: It also reminds me it's like the Soviet Union right
Speaker 5: when they had that carousel of aging leaders that in
Speaker 5: the West we mocked because it was this clear. It
Speaker 5: was a very clear sign of decline and that they
Speaker 5: didn't have a grasp on the country and obviously they
Speaker 5: didn't have democratic controls in the way.
Speaker 4: That the US does.
Speaker 3: But nineteen seventeen is over. Move on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: The other thing I wanted to point out here, there's
Speaker 5: something about the UN backdrop, by the way, that's a
Speaker 5: little different than when you're on.
Speaker 4: The literal world stage.
Speaker 5: Biden mumbling at campaign events, okay, it's bad, Biden mumbling
Speaker 5: in front of the UN. I think there's something that
Speaker 5: hits different about that. But also Jackie Heinrich a Fox
Speaker 5: News made a good point. We can put this element
Speaker 5: up that he talked last year. He had a line
Speaker 5: where he said we seek to uphold peace and stability
Speaker 5: across the Taiwan straight and then actually did not mention
Speaker 5: Taiwan at all in the twenty twenty three address. So
Speaker 5: if he hadn't mentioned at either time, it's maybe not
Speaker 5: so interesting. Maybe you don't need to get that specific
Speaker 5: in a UN address, But the fact that he mentioned
Speaker 5: it last year and not this year.
Speaker 4: I found that worth noting at least.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's good, Okay, maybe little like not to
Speaker 3: the antagonia rattling. Saberdling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anytime a saber goes back into a sheet for that, well.
Speaker 5: It's not really a surprise to anybody. But yesterday the Republicans'
Speaker 5: efforts to fund the government on a stop gap basis,
Speaker 5: this is something that a lot of establishment Republicans really
Speaker 5: want to do. It fell apart again. Efforts to pass
Speaker 5: a Pentagon funding bill fell apart again. A lot of
Speaker 5: this is due to the internal dynamics in the Republican Party,
Speaker 5: and we're actually going to get to some of that.
Speaker 5: But let's put a one up on the screen. This
Speaker 5: is from Kyle Griffin, who said NBC News has confirmed
Speaker 5: Kevin McCarthy just punted plans to tee up a vote
Speaker 5: and the GOP's short term spending plan later this week.
Speaker 5: Griffin says McCarthy's now left without a viable plan to
Speaker 5: fund the government, with just twelve days is left to
Speaker 5: avoid a shutdown.
Speaker 1: It's rare that a post like that news will just
Speaker 1: make me laugh out loud. You were just enjoying it,
Speaker 1: just the phrasing up. I mean, it's it's terrible. It's
Speaker 1: gonna suck for millions of people, probably including myself. Washington
Speaker 1: gets hit the hardest during a government shutdown. But just
Speaker 1: the framing of it, it's just he's right, like he's left.
Speaker 1: The passive framing of it, maybe laugh too, because yes,
Speaker 1: like he's left without a viable path. He does have
Speaker 1: a viable path, it's but it is to work with Democrats,
Speaker 1: and that's not necessarily viable for him because then they
Speaker 1: try to throw him out. It's not viable to throw
Speaker 1: him out because they don't have a candidate to replace him.
Speaker 1: There's nothing viable anywhere.
Speaker 4: Yes, for Democrats.
Speaker 3: Yet the world must go on.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say Matt Gates was offering Alexandria Kaser
Speaker 5: Cortez to work with or just Democrats in general to
Speaker 5: work with him once again last week, a total troll move.
Speaker 5: But for Democrats, none of this works unless you throw
Speaker 5: that house into total chaos, which again, like as a
Speaker 5: kind of anti establishment person, I don't care about, Like, fine,
Speaker 5: throw the house into chaos. They're going to be doing
Speaker 5: dumb stuff either way, whether they're whether the government's shut
Speaker 5: down or the government is running. It's dumb, like you're
Speaker 5: passing horrible legislation and not actually solving any problems. So
Speaker 5: does it bother me too much if they shut down
Speaker 5: the government for a little bit. No. Does it bother
Speaker 5: me too much if they don't shut down for the
Speaker 5: government for a little bit, No, Because either way, there's
Speaker 5: no substantive thing happening. And that's where I think the
Speaker 5: Kyle Griffin tone is getting reading Republicans wrong. He may
Speaker 5: not be reading Kevin McCarthy wrong, but Chip Roy not
Speaker 5: all that bothered if the government shuts down, Matt Gates
Speaker 5: not all that bothered if the government shuts down. And
Speaker 5: Mitch McConnell waited yesterday and said Republicans always get blamed
Speaker 5: for a shutdown kind of warning, Kevin McCarthy publicly taking
Speaker 5: a shot at Kevin McCarthy publicly.
Speaker 4: Mitch McConnell is.
Speaker 5: Not wrong about that on a national level. He is
Speaker 5: once again totally wrong about that when it comes to
Speaker 5: representatives that comprise the House who answered to smaller districts
Speaker 5: where voters are not just favorable to a shutdown, but
Speaker 5: are demanding a shutdown. They're calling constantly on these lines
Speaker 5: to the Capitol and saying, shut the damn government down,
Speaker 5: don't send all of this money to BS purposes. And
Speaker 5: that's why, for instance, chip Roy's hard line in the
Speaker 5: sand on that stop gap that was worked with was
Speaker 5: basically border security. He said, we need to have a
Speaker 5: border security, we need to have a return to pre
Speaker 5: COVID spending. And this kicked off the whole conversation got really,
Speaker 5: what's the right word for this granular over differences, as
Speaker 5: it always does when a shutdown looms. But Matt Gaetz
Speaker 5: and Byron Donald starting going back and forth.
Speaker 1: Well, McConnell has this incredible line that he uses that
Speaker 1: when it comes to a government shutdown, where he says,
Speaker 1: there's no there's no education in the second kick of
Speaker 1: a mule. And that's how he kind of avoided previous
Speaker 1: government shutdowns because the first one prompted by Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: back in twenty thirteen, which he did basically for email
Speaker 1: fundraising purposes, and McConnell people hated, hated it.
Speaker 3: It went terribly for them.
Speaker 4: Republican voters liked it.
Speaker 3: Some Republican voters.
Speaker 4: Chip Roy was the chief of staff for Ted Cruz
Speaker 4: at the time.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a great poll.
Speaker 1: Yes, so right, so and the so the arc from
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen to today, it's right, you have so You've
Speaker 1: got Chip Roy as Ted Cruz's chief of staff. Ted
Speaker 1: Cruz does this, you know, basically forces a government shutdown.
Speaker 1: He really elevated his profile at the time, creates a
Speaker 1: split between him and McConnell. But Roy, his chief of staff,
Speaker 1: clearly believe came out of that believing.
Speaker 3: Oh, this was a win. Absolutely, this was the way,
Speaker 3: this way to go.
Speaker 1: So now Roy is a member of the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives leading this effort here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, along with Matt Gates, who we have on
Speaker 3: the House floor yesterday. Let's roll. Let's roll, mister Gates.
Speaker 12: I'm not voting for a continuing resolution. I'm not voting
Speaker 12: to continue the failure and the waste and the corruption,
Speaker 12: and the election interference, and in some cases, the efforts
Speaker 12: that could lead this country into World War III. I
Speaker 12: oppose the CR authored by my friend and colleague from Florida,
Speaker 12: Byron Donald's. The Donald CR continues the Ukraine policy negotiated
Speaker 12: by Speaker Pelosi and Mitch McConnell in the Omnibus that
Speaker 12: Conservatives were against. The Donald CR is a permission slip
Speaker 12: for Jack Smith to continue his election interference as they
Speaker 12: are trying to gag the president, the former president the
Speaker 12: United States and the leading contender for the Republican nomination,
Speaker 12: and the Donald cr abandons the principle that it is
Speaker 12: only a review of single subject spending bills that will
Speaker 12: save this country and allow us to tweeze through these
Speaker 12: programs and force these agencies to stand up and defend
Speaker 12: their budget.
Speaker 7: My friends, we are approaching the days where.
Speaker 12: We're facing two trillion dollar annual deficits atop a thirty
Speaker 12: three trillion dollar debt. This is unsustainable and just to
Speaker 12: continue things with some facial eight percent cut over thirty
Speaker 12: days that will lead to no programmatic reform is an
Speaker 12: insult to the principles we fought for in January.
Speaker 1: So he's talking about Byron Donald's there, and Emily, am
Speaker 1: I hallocinting here? Or did I not sit in the
Speaker 1: balcony in January and watch Matt Gates give speeches comparing
Speaker 1: Byron Donalds to Frederick Douglass when he's nominating him to
Speaker 1: be Speaker of the House.
Speaker 3: And now he.
Speaker 1: Anyway, this is this is your party? You all think
Speaker 1: of this out, No, not Emily's party, but it's her problem.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so to the extent they consider themselves conservative, that's
Speaker 5: my problem. But Matt Gates is a master of theater,
Speaker 5: and Byron Donalds understands that. Now reporters caught up with
Speaker 5: Byron Donalds and c SPAN cameras happened to capture his
Speaker 5: interaction with those reporters. He had a great response to
Speaker 5: Matt Gates.
Speaker 4: Check this out.
Speaker 5: You're Philip Erni and Matt Gates that you're telling us
Speaker 5: is working to develop the coalition to quote to beat
Speaker 5: the Donalds.
Speaker 7: Cr What do you think of that?
Speaker 13: I would challenge my colleague from Florida to create a
Speaker 13: coalition and tries to actually get a victory for the
Speaker 13: American people. If he wants to have a personal thing
Speaker 13: with me going back and forth, he's entitled to. But
Speaker 13: I don't care about that foolishness. I want to win.
Speaker 4: Your colleagues said they want to see Oh, by the way,
Speaker 4: no no no no.
Speaker 13: No no no no no no no no no no no.
Speaker 5: Okay, we wanted to play the clip basically because of
Speaker 5: the end there, which was so great. He was about
Speaker 5: to spill some tea clearly on Gates and the reporters like,
Speaker 5: please please continue, sir, we have plenty of time, and he's.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, you're not going to get head to go there,
Speaker 1: and so people will understand what happened here. So Byron
Speaker 1: Donald sat down with basically moderate Republicans and other House
Speaker 1: Freedom Caucus members chip Roy, chip Roy, and they hashed
Speaker 1: out a c R, a spending bill that that they
Speaker 1: all could live with. And they're like, Okay, let's put
Speaker 1: this on the floor. We know it's not going to
Speaker 1: pass the sentate, we know it's not going to be
Speaker 1: signed by Biden, but at LEAs this puts us on record,
Speaker 1: gets us start in these negotiations.
Speaker 3: And Gates is like, no, yeah, not doing that. Whoever
Speaker 3: got to Donald's cr.
Speaker 4: This is a great quote from trip Roy.
Speaker 5: And yesterday with the vote was a procedural to allow
Speaker 5: the vote to continue, and so that vote, the vote
Speaker 5: to have the vote basically to allow for the vote,
Speaker 5: was voted down. Trip Roy comes in and says, I
Speaker 5: find it extremely difficult to explain or defend opposition to
Speaker 5: an eight percent cut over thirty days in exchange for
Speaker 5: the most conservative and strong border security measure we've ever passed.
Speaker 4: Out of this body. I think that is inexplicable.
Speaker 5: I think it's malpractice, and I think there's some outside
Speaker 5: groups who are trying to advance themselves that are a
Speaker 5: part of this, that are pushing this narrative that it's
Speaker 5: somehow malpracticed to do that. So in a normal situation,
Speaker 5: it's very difficult for Republicans to fund the government and
Speaker 5: to have this negotiation between the Freedom Caucus, Main Street Caucus,
Speaker 5: Tuesday group of people.
Speaker 4: That's already hard enough.
Speaker 5: When you graft on the Trump DESANTUS dynamics to this,
Speaker 5: which is some of what you're seeing right now, it gets.
Speaker 4: Even more difficult.
Speaker 5: It was heading for a shutdown either way. Nobody wants
Speaker 5: a CR because it means you're kicking the can to
Speaker 5: December and nothing is going to get solved in December.
Speaker 5: Nobody wants to have to solve these problems around Christmas.
Speaker 5: It's just a nightmare to try to do that. People
Speaker 5: are upset. It's even worse for public opinion. But the
Speaker 5: chip Roy CR to your point, Ryan, what Republicans want
Speaker 5: to do is say we have given Democrats the ball
Speaker 5: is in their court, and we've given them a great
Speaker 5: border security If they really want to close the border.
Speaker 5: If they really don't want to shut down the government,
Speaker 5: we did it, and I think they probably still. You know,
Speaker 5: there's some quotes here from other Republicans who are like,
Speaker 5: I think we'll just lock ourselves in a room and
Speaker 5: we'll figure it out.
Speaker 4: But when you have Matt Gates going after somebody.
Speaker 5: Like Byron Donald, it makes it even less likely that
Speaker 5: they can sit down in a room and figure something out.
Speaker 4: I think they will if I had a bet on it.
Speaker 5: I think Matt Gates has shown with the speaker vote,
Speaker 5: he'll go along with it. At the end of the day,
Speaker 5: he'll find something realize at the last minute he can
Speaker 5: work with it. But man, we're not even talking about
Speaker 5: the Bobert Marjorie Taylor Green Dynamics. Just a hell of
Speaker 5: a week for the Freedom Walks.
Speaker 1: And it's got to be interesting for somebody like Roy
Speaker 1: to be the kind of fire breather, fire eater over
Speaker 1: you know, back in twenty thirteen, to now be kind
Speaker 1: of cast as some like compromising, you know, squish by
Speaker 1: people who are out flanking him, even though you're going
Speaker 1: to get a shutdown either way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what's that? I mean? I know, we got
Speaker 3: to move on here.
Speaker 1: But I just I don't understand, Like what if you
Speaker 1: listen to kind of the Bannon wing of the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: they're celebrating people. Matt Rosendel was just on his podcast
Speaker 1: because he was one of the five against this or
Speaker 1: saying like and they're saying that they went from eight
Speaker 1: or ten against the cr of to maybe two dozen
Speaker 1: because of the you know, Bannon's posse like haranguing people
Speaker 1: in the house. So what do they what do they
Speaker 1: think is move Like, what are they going to get
Speaker 1: out of this?
Speaker 3: I think it's the same thing for fighting. I'm just
Speaker 3: curious with their what the plan?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that it's the same thing with the
Speaker 5: speaker battle, where everybody knew it was going to end
Speaker 5: up being Kevin McCarthy, but they realized that they could
Speaker 5: push way further than people thought and get even more
Speaker 5: concessions after concessions after concessions, and you heard Gates actually
Speaker 5: even get in on the Ukraine spending and the clip
Speaker 5: that we played. I think they know they're eventually going
Speaker 5: to cave at the last minute, but they're going to
Speaker 5: look like they fought tooth and nail to get all
Speaker 5: of these extra concessions out of the establishment wing of
Speaker 5: the Republican Party in the process.
Speaker 4: So again conclusion, will.
Speaker 3: They get them or will they just look like they're fighting?
Speaker 3: What's what's your guess.
Speaker 5: McCarthy doesn't have a choice for the reason that you
Speaker 5: explained earlier in the segment that it's either he's out
Speaker 5: the door, and there's literally nobody who steps into that vacuum,
Speaker 5: Like there's nobody that a handful of Democrats and a
Speaker 5: handful of Republicans would settle on. There's nobody Republicans can
Speaker 5: settle on other than McCarthy when you have such a
Speaker 5: slim margin. So it's McCarthy or basically, and again like
Speaker 5: doesn't bother me too much whatever happens there. But Kevin
Speaker 5: McCarthy is clearly the best bet for the Republican Party
Speaker 5: at this point politically substantively in terms of like actually
Speaker 5: bringing people together to do anything, and that's their only
Speaker 5: option and they know it. He knows it. So I
Speaker 5: think at the end of the day, it'll be very
Speaker 5: similar to the speaker battle, push, push, push twenty times
Speaker 5: and then at the last minute like.
Speaker 4: Okay, yep, here we go.
Speaker 3: At least we get the theater.
Speaker 5: It's good theater, so we'll stay on top of it,
Speaker 5: that's for sure. Ryan, updates on your excellent reporting with
Speaker 5: Mirtaza Hussein in Pakistan.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 1: I've got a new story out this week with my
Speaker 1: Intercept colleague that uncovers the way that secret Pakistani arms
Speaker 1: sales to the United States helped to facilitate a controversial
Speaker 1: bailout from the International Monetary Fund earlier this year. That's
Speaker 1: according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement and
Speaker 1: confirmed by internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arm
Speaker 1: sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military. Now,
Speaker 1: the revelations in this story are a window into the
Speaker 1: kind of behind the scenes maneuvering between financial and political
Speaker 1: elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as
Speaker 1: the public pays that price. Harsh policy reforms demanded by
Speaker 1: the IMF as terms for the bailout kicked off an
Speaker 1: ongoing round of protests in Pakistan. Major strikes have taken
Speaker 1: place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.
Speaker 1: The protests are the latest chapter in a year and
Speaker 1: a half long political crisis roiling the country. That began
Speaker 1: after the US encouraged the officer of then Prime Minister
Speaker 1: in Roan Khan over his quote aggressive neutrality in the
Speaker 1: war between Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 3: The new reporting starts.
Speaker 1: To put that soft coup into context as a Refrafiak,
Speaker 1: a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told me, quote,
Speaker 1: Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine's counter offensive,
Speaker 1: But why did the E needed Pakistan?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: That goes back to the question of our lack of
Speaker 1: an industrial base. We're great at making one hundred million
Speaker 1: dollar airplanes that fall out of the sky and get lost,
Speaker 1: but were not very good at making the basics. Pakistan
Speaker 1: is known as a production hub for the types of
Speaker 1: basic munitions needed for grinding warfare. Now, as Ukraine grappled
Speaker 1: with chronic shortages of munitions and hardware, the presence of
Speaker 1: Pakistani produced shells and other ordinances by the Ukrainian military
Speaker 1: surfaced in news reports about the conflict, though neither the
Speaker 1: US nor the Pakistanis acknowledged the arrangement. So we obtained
Speaker 1: a trove of documents that makes it irrefutable. Records detailing
Speaker 1: the arms transactions were leaked to US earlier this year
Speaker 1: by a source within the Pakistani military. The documents describe
Speaker 1: munition sales agreed to between the US and Pakistan from
Speaker 1: the summer of twenty twenty two to the spring of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Some of the documents were authenticated by
Speaker 1: matching the signature of an American brigadier general with his
Speaker 1: signature on publicly available mortgage records in the United States,
Speaker 1: by matching the Pakistani documents with corresponding American documents, and
Speaker 1: by reviewing publicly available but previously unreported Pakistani disclosures of
Speaker 1: armed sales to the United States posted by the State
Speaker 1: Bank of Pakistan Now. The weapons deals were brokered, according
Speaker 1: to the documents, by Global Military Products, which is a
Speaker 1: subsidiary of Global Ordinance, a controversial arms dealer whose entanglements
Speaker 1: with less than reputable figures in Ukraine were the subject
Speaker 1: of a recent New York Times article. Documents outlining the
Speaker 1: money trail and dealings with US officials include American and
Speaker 1: Pakistani contracts, licensing and requisition documents dealing with US broker
Speaker 1: deals to buy Pakistani military weapons for Ukraine. Now, the
Speaker 1: economic capital and political goodwill from the arm sales played
Speaker 1: a key role in helping secure the bailout from the IMF,
Speaker 1: with the State Department agreeing to take the IMF into
Speaker 1: confidence regarding the undisclosed weapons deal. That's according to sources
Speaker 1: with knowledge of that arrangement and confirmed by a related document.
Speaker 1: To win the loan, Pakistan had been told by the
Speaker 1: IMF it had to meet certain financing and refinancing targets
Speaker 1: related to its debt and foreign investment targets that the
Speaker 1: country was struggling to meet. On May twenty third, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, Masud Khan, sat
Speaker 1: down with Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lou at the
Speaker 1: State Department in Washington, d C. For a meeting about
Speaker 1: how Pakistani arms sales to Ukraine could shore up its
Speaker 1: financial position in the eyes of the IMF. The goal
Speaker 1: of the sit down, held on a Tuesday, was to
Speaker 1: hash out details of the arrangement ahead of an upcoming
Speaker 1: meeting in Islamabad the following Friday between US Ambassador of
Speaker 1: Pakistan Donald Blum and then Finance Minister is shak dhar Now.
Speaker 1: Lou told Khan at the May twenty third meeting that
Speaker 1: the US had cleared payment for the Pakistani munitions production
Speaker 1: and would tell the IMF confidentially about the program. Lou
Speaker 1: acknowledged the Pakistani's believed the arms country to be worth
Speaker 1: nine hundred million dollars, which would help to cover a
Speaker 1: remaining gap in the financing required by the IMF, tagged
Speaker 1: at roughly two billion dollars. What precise figure that the
Speaker 1: US would end up relaying the IMF remained to be negotiated,
Speaker 1: he told Khan.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: At the meeting on Friday, Dar brought up the IMF
Speaker 1: question with Blum, according to a report in Pakistan Today,
Speaker 1: which said that quote, the meeting highlighted the significance of
Speaker 1: addressing the stalled IMF deal and finding effective solutions to
Speaker 1: Pakistan's economic challenges. Now, securing the loan eased economic pressure,
Speaker 1: enabling the military government to delay elections and deepen the
Speaker 1: crackdown against Khan's supporters and other dissenters. The US has
Speaker 1: remained largely silent about the extraordinary scale of the human
Speaker 1: rights violations that pushed the future of Pakistan's democracy into doubt.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: A spokesperson at the Pakistani embassy in Washington declined to comment,
Speaker 1: referring questions to the State Department. A spokesperson for this
Speaker 1: State Department denied the US played any role.
Speaker 3: In helping procure the loan. Quote.
Speaker 1: Negotiations over the IMF review were a matter for discussion
Speaker 1: between Pakistan and IMF officials. The United States was not
Speaker 1: party to those discussions, though we continued to encourage Pakistan
Speaker 1: to engage constructively with the IMF on its reform program unquote.
Speaker 1: An IMF spokesperson denied the institution was pressured, but did
Speaker 1: not comment on whether it was taken into confidence about
Speaker 1: the weapons program, saying quote, we category we categorically deny
Speaker 1: the allegation that there was any external pressure on the
Speaker 1: IMF in one way or another. While discussing support to
Speaker 1: Pakistan unquote. Yet, US Senator Chris Van Holland, speaking to
Speaker 1: a group of Pakistani reporters before our story was published,
Speaker 1: said this.
Speaker 14: The United States has been very instrumental in making sure
Speaker 14: that the IMF came forward with its emergency economic relief.
Speaker 14: Obviously they're continuing challenges now.
Speaker 1: I talked to him in the hallway and the Capitol
Speaker 1: and asked him how he had learned of that, and
Speaker 1: he said, quote, my understanding based on conversations with folks
Speaker 1: in the administration has been that we supported the IMF
Speaker 1: loan package given the desperate economic situation in Pakistan unquote. Now,
Speaker 1: the Pakistan government's response has been even more extreme than
Speaker 1: the Americans. They just flat out denied everything. They said
Speaker 1: that our story was fabricated, saying, quote, the IMF stand
Speaker 1: by arrangement practice was successfully in negotiate, and they even
Speaker 1: denied any Pakistan does not provide any arms and ammunition
Speaker 1: to them. Pakistan's defense experts are always a company with
Speaker 1: strict end user requirements.
Speaker 3: Okay, sure they are.
Speaker 1: So, so this is this is where we are in
Speaker 1: the In the last couple of days in Pakistan as well,
Speaker 1: there's been this horrifying story that's unfolded over the last
Speaker 1: several weeks and months where the child of a man
Speaker 1: who was detained by the package turns out by the
Speaker 1: Pakistani military without charges, without having done anything, just as
Speaker 1: detained as a political prisoner. The kid began began suffering
Speaker 1: such incredible trauma he had to be hospitalized and this
Speaker 1: week he died. And there's been mourning across Pakistan has
Speaker 1: been following the this this child's dissent because of the
Speaker 1: loss of his father with with no response from the
Speaker 1: Pakistan military. And so now because of these the documents
Speaker 1: that we've been able to review, we can we can
Speaker 1: put it all into the global context that it turns
Speaker 1: out that this was simply about the US needing a
Speaker 1: reliable supplier of munitions for the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 5: Yes. Absolutely, And you know, Ryan, I wanted to put
Speaker 5: this thread.
Speaker 4: I think we have the element here.
Speaker 5: This is from a Wall Street Journals slash.
Speaker 4: I think AEI.
Speaker 5: He did a thread basically outlining what he saw as
Speaker 5: the problem with your reporting. So he says, if this
Speaker 5: intercept story is true, and listen, this is a great
Speaker 5: sentence from this fella here, then the PDM government and
Speaker 5: the Pakistani Army deserve the gratitude of the Pakistani people
Speaker 5: for definitely using a piffling amount of alleged arms transfer
Speaker 5: to Ukraine to avert an economic catastrophe in Pakistan. So
Speaker 5: basically his contention is that you're reporting a he's putting
Speaker 5: He's basically putting words in your mouth and says, you're
Speaker 5: reporting is necessarily framing all of this as nefarious, corrupt,
Speaker 5: and a bad thing, which I don't think your reporting does.
Speaker 4: I think it's this is what happened, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: Secondly, though he's saying well done for you know, negotiating
Speaker 5: behind closed doors. It's almost like this cold realist take that, like, well,
Speaker 5: these negotiations are going to happen anyway, so x Y
Speaker 5: and Z. Maybe that's true, but then maybe the US
Speaker 5: should stop lying about what happened.
Speaker 1: And Pakistan line, Yeah, it's funny when the countries, like
Speaker 1: key defenders are going, are admitting to things that the
Speaker 1: country itself is still completely denying, right rightment by the country,
Speaker 1: I mean the government. The government is claiming that there's
Speaker 1: all eyes, all fabricated, none of this is true, whereas
Speaker 1: it's defenders are saying, no, no, this stuff is obviously.
Speaker 3: True, and it's great. But it's great and it's also.
Speaker 1: Unimportant, right, like, pick one of these four things and
Speaker 1: just ride with that.
Speaker 5: And I think the fact that the US won't own
Speaker 5: up to it and Paksan won't own up to it
Speaker 5: is that there's a sense of shame about it. And
Speaker 5: when you have the defenders being like, listen, there is
Speaker 5: there's no reason to have any shame over this. It
Speaker 5: would be so much better if we could just have
Speaker 5: that conversation, right and explain why this is just such
Speaker 5: a wonderful thing to be kind of negotiated in the dark,
Speaker 5: and then people are reporters are misled about it as
Speaker 5: opposed to saying.
Speaker 3: No, no, we wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: No, And it's not just shame publicly and shame in
Speaker 1: the mirror.
Speaker 3: I think it's it's.
Speaker 1: Complicated geopolitically for Pakistan because its biggest creditor is China
Speaker 1: and its close ally in a lot of ways is Russia.
Speaker 1: You know, they gone was trying to negotiate to get
Speaker 1: cheap gas in there.
Speaker 4: Which is why he was resisting getting involved.
Speaker 3: Right exactly.
Speaker 1: And so both you know, Russia for obvious reasons doesn't
Speaker 1: want Pakistan making munitions for Ukraine. But China too has
Speaker 1: been pressuring countries to try to get this war to
Speaker 1: wrap up. It's it's it's no longer a convenient war
Speaker 1: at all for China. And so to find out that, uh,
Speaker 1: that they're that Pakistan, which they lend all of this
Speaker 1: money to, and and trying to help help them get
Speaker 1: the IMF loan as well by by by kind of
Speaker 1: refinancing some debt obligations that they didn't have to do
Speaker 1: to find out that actually it was. It involved this
Speaker 1: weapons production is going to be complicated for that relationship
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 5: It's really the perfect story. And I don't mean this
Speaker 5: like perfect in a good way. It's the perfect distillation
Speaker 5: of the problem with Joe Biden slurring and mumbling at
Speaker 5: the UN about the US leading the rules based order,
Speaker 5: and then at the same time, you know, you have
Speaker 5: him saying you need the rules based order to prevent
Speaker 5: incursions in Ukraine, to prevent aggressors from starting these bloody
Speaker 5: invasive wars like Russia did in Ukraine. In order to
Speaker 5: do that, we're going to sort of violate the rules
Speaker 5: based order. As the leader of the rules based order.
Speaker 5: Behind closed doors, we're going to do all kinds of
Speaker 5: stuff like we're gonna use our leverage to change your
Speaker 5: democratic process.
Speaker 4: Deal with the rules based order. We're on top. We
Speaker 4: make the rules, even if we don't always follow them.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: It is as a refer feek it said, the Pakistan's
Speaker 1: democracy is just being sacrificed at the altar of democracy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, perfect, perfect distillation there.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, all right, so Russell Brand is not looking so
Speaker 1: good on YouTube. What's the latest?
Speaker 5: Yes, so I know most people have heard by now
Speaker 5: the allegations that were raised against Russell Brand. I'm going
Speaker 5: to just read this sentence from the New York Post
Speaker 5: because I think they encapsulated with some precision here. They
Speaker 5: say he's been accused of raping, sexually assaulting and abusing
Speaker 5: for women over seven years in the past. Now, Russell
Speaker 5: Brand was demonetized yesterday by YouTube over these allegations, not
Speaker 5: just by YouTube, actually some of his content. We have
Speaker 5: a lot of elements here because there's a whole lot
Speaker 5: going down, a whole lot going on.
Speaker 4: You can see the.
Speaker 5: New York Times there reporting that YouTube suspended the comedian
Speaker 5: and actor Russell Brand on Tuesday from making money from
Speaker 5: videos posted to the social media platform. That was three
Speaker 5: days after British news organizations published their investigation. The channel
Speaker 5: is a potentially significant source of income. The Time says
Speaker 5: who was earning money Brand was through advertisements and paid motions.
Speaker 5: A spokeswoman for YouTube said in an email that mister Brand,
Speaker 5: whose channel has six point six million subscribers on YouTube,
Speaker 5: was suspended for YouTube's violating YouTube's quote creator responsibility policy.
Speaker 4: Here's the quote.
Speaker 5: If a creator's off platform behavior harms our users employees
Speaker 5: or ecosystem. We take action to protect, to protect the community.
Speaker 5: The spokesman did not respond to The Times question about
Speaker 5: how long that suspension would last, which is actually a
Speaker 5: pretty important question. Brand denied everything he posted his clip
Speaker 5: on Friday. Again, I'm sure people have seen this by
Speaker 5: now saying that everything was consensual. Essentially, now a video resurface.
Speaker 5: There have been all kinds of things because the guy
Speaker 5: was a raunchy comedian for years, has been a raunchy comedian.
Speaker 5: He's talked about all of this stuff for years, so
Speaker 5: people are of course, before.
Speaker 1: We go to that, can we just I just want
Speaker 1: to read the one text mesters that I think is
Speaker 1: the most damaged thing that the Times has gotten. So
Speaker 1: one woman who accused him of rape present presented the
Speaker 1: paper with text messages that the paper confirmed were from
Speaker 1: Brand from Brand's number, and so this is the next morning,
Speaker 1: he texted her, I'm sorry that was crazy and selfish.
Speaker 3: I hope you can forgive me.
Speaker 1: I know that you're a lovely person x and she
Speaker 1: writes back, you scared the blank out of me, right,
Speaker 1: I am a lovely person and for you to take
Speaker 1: advantage of me like this is unexpected. It's unacceptable. You
Speaker 1: have a problem, you need help. It's dangerous that you
Speaker 1: think you can get your own way all the time.
Speaker 1: You know how scary you are when that glazed look
Speaker 1: comes over you. And so yeah, you know that it's
Speaker 1: hard to find corroborating evidence outside of a video.
Speaker 3: Yeah, any more direct than that.
Speaker 5: And actually the other thing is, as many people know,
Speaker 5: one of the victims at the time had a rape kit.
Speaker 4: She went to actually have the investigation with the.
Speaker 5: Rape kit, which suggest I mean, it's obviously not something
Speaker 5: the vast majority of women do if they don't believe
Speaker 5: that they were.
Speaker 4: Victims of rape.
Speaker 5: It suggests that at the time she saw it that way,
Speaker 5: and it's not the same as many me two cases
Speaker 5: that have been high profile where you know, we've had
Speaker 5: this kind of public conversation that changed the way women,
Speaker 5: for better or for worse, in different situations, saw what
Speaker 5: happened to them, depending on the severity and the scale
Speaker 5: of it. This suggests that at the time this woman
Speaker 5: absolutely saw this as a rape to the point where
Speaker 5: she went and had a rape kit. This is obviously
Speaker 5: very serious and suggests that she didn't see it as
Speaker 5: consensual in the same way that Russell Brand is now
Speaker 5: saying this was all, of course consensual. That said, the
Speaker 5: YouTube policy, I think is what we can get into
Speaker 5: that I think it is going in a somewhat frightening
Speaker 5: or very serious direction. But I also wanted to raise
Speaker 5: that there have been videos like this one we have.
Speaker 5: I think we have the element here of Katherine McPhee
Speaker 5: on Jimmy Fallon with Russell Brand from years ago. If
Speaker 5: you're watching on the screen, you can see the picture
Speaker 5: there he pulled her onto his lap and this was
Speaker 5: on Fallon's nighttime talk show back in twenty thirteen. Katherine
Speaker 5: McPhee waited on Instagram and said, you know, this specific
Speaker 5: incident was over ten years ago and it was harmless.
Speaker 5: Now another thing came upline on Deadline, which had an
Speaker 5: exclusive saying that his Brand's last major television job in
Speaker 5: the UK ended with him being dropped after he was
Speaker 5: repeatedly accused of being a quote sexual predator during the
Speaker 5: recording of the show. So this was a Comedy Central
Speaker 5: roast battle. It was the spin off of the show
Speaker 5: that they did here in the US, or basically it
Speaker 5: was based on it, and it only lasted a season.
Speaker 5: He was roasted on camera by one of the judges,
Speaker 5: Katherine Ryan, over these allegations. She said last year she
Speaker 5: didn't name Brand.
Speaker 4: At the time.
Speaker 5: She confirmed with multiple Deadline confirmed with multiple sources that
Speaker 5: this was about Brand. She said, I, in front of
Speaker 5: loads of people in the format of the show, said
Speaker 5: to this person's face that they are a predator. Now,
Speaker 5: one of the sources told Deadline. This person said other
Speaker 5: comedians may have also called up Brand, though that has
Speaker 5: not been confirmed by those.
Speaker 4: Who worked on the show.
Speaker 5: Two other sources said he demanded that producers protect him
Speaker 5: from being roasted by his fellow comedians. Finally, we have
Speaker 5: from the Hollywood Reporter BBC saying that it's actually removed
Speaker 5: some programming featuring Wreussell Brand from streaming services amid these allegations.
Speaker 5: BBC has says it does not ban or remove content
Speaker 5: when it is a matter of public record unless we
Speaker 5: have justification for doing so. There is limited content featuring
Speaker 5: Wressel Brand on Eyeplayer and Sounds. We've reviewed that content
Speaker 5: and made a considered decision to remove some of it
Speaker 5: some of it, having assessed that it now falls below
Speaker 5: public expectations. So let's dux suppose that quote from the
Speaker 5: BBC with YouTube's Creator Responsibility policy, they say, if a
Speaker 5: creator's off platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem,
Speaker 5: we take.
Speaker 4: Action to protect the community.
Speaker 5: Ryan allegations of Russell Russell Brand, we both agree are
Speaker 5: serious now demonetizing people amid those allegations when things are
Speaker 5: being litigated in the court of public opinion, certainly in
Speaker 5: the United States, within the discretion of a private company
Speaker 5: like Alphabet, Google, YouTube BBC is another question with UK
Speaker 5: speech laws, what do you make of it?
Speaker 3: This is such a This is such a tough.
Speaker 1: One because I think he's guilty, Like I think that
Speaker 1: the evidence is very clear.
Speaker 3: But because we have.
Speaker 1: This bizarre system where we go on this case by
Speaker 1: case basis of you know, who gets to have a
Speaker 1: platform and who doesn't get to have a platform, then
Speaker 1: it leads every single person that has to then adjudicate
Speaker 1: each case and say whether or not that they kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, fall above or below some arbitrary line that
Speaker 1: that we don't like, that we don't have any say
Speaker 1: over anyway, like the holth just pawing in the dark
Speaker 1: here and so it it again I think speaks to
Speaker 1: the need for some type of broad regulation and which
Speaker 1: says that, you know, the corporation is not responsible for uh,
Speaker 1: you know, not responsible for the platform, not responsible for
Speaker 1: what the performers say. Because the second that you're responsible
Speaker 1: for it, then everything that you allow, everything that you
Speaker 1: allow onto your platform, you're then sort of indirectly endorsing,
Speaker 1: which you don't want to get in that position either.
Speaker 3: But it's but it's a very but it's not an
Speaker 3: easy it's not an easy question.
Speaker 1: Because like and I, and the guy has said that
Speaker 1: what what he has admitted in the past is that
Speaker 1: he was a second addict, which is a nice way
Speaker 1: of saying that he was a predator. Probably I don't
Speaker 1: think there's anybody I doubt he would even necessarily disagree
Speaker 1: with that kind of description. What he disagrees with is
Speaker 1: whether or not there was consent in these occasions. At
Speaker 1: least in the one case that I mentioned at the
Speaker 1: top of this block. He acknowledges that in hindsight he
Speaker 1: felt like there wasn't and probably in real time he
Speaker 1: wondered whether there was, Otherwise he wouldn't have sent an.
Speaker 3: Apology text exactly the next morning. So he's guilty. Like
Speaker 3: I think we can barely say that and it's.
Speaker 5: Hardly, by the way, given Russell Brand's intentional public persona,
Speaker 5: especially before he shifted more and more to politics, surprising
Speaker 5: he openly I think he actually openly joked once about
Speaker 5: some of.
Speaker 4: The stuff and Luis King did it, yes, and so
Speaker 4: it was it's.
Speaker 5: There's a there's a really great line that Camille Polia
Speaker 5: wrote Paulia in the heat of the Me Too movement,
Speaker 5: for I think it was the Hollywood Reporter.
Speaker 4: It was a column.
Speaker 5: She said that this idea that she said, great art
Speaker 5: has often been made by bad people, and the idea
Speaker 5: that the artist has to be some sort of moral paragon.
Speaker 5: She called it a sentimental canard of Victorian moralism. And
Speaker 5: I really liked that line because it's true. And we
Speaker 5: do in the post Me two era, in the Me
Speaker 5: Too era, and need permission to accept what we all know,
Speaker 5: which is that great art has often been made by
Speaker 5: bad people. And I'm not saying that Russell Brand is
Speaker 5: a great artist, although I find him to be a
Speaker 5: very interesting thinker, a very compelling thinker, somebody who's outside
Speaker 5: of the box. And I do think it's interesting that
Speaker 5: as soon as he started approaching some truly anti establishments,
Speaker 5: so he was always sort of, you know, a kind
Speaker 5: of anti establishment guy when he was focusing mostly on
Speaker 5: British politics and of pro socialist, anti capitalist. I do
Speaker 5: think it is interesting that when he crossed the kind
Speaker 5: of orthodoxy and cultural questions is when some of the
Speaker 5: stuff I think the timing is genuine interesting. That doesn't
Speaker 5: make him any less guilty. I do think that there's
Speaker 5: some political weaponization going on here, but YouTube taking that
Speaker 5: step to demonetize people and the BBC like their justifications
Speaker 5: are so broad that it's going to implicate some genuinely
Speaker 5: good artists that their users actually can make the decision
Speaker 5: whether or not they want to engage with that person.
Speaker 5: I saw some people bringing up like r Kelly and
Speaker 5: you know other stuff like that, are Kelly fantastic artists?
Speaker 4: Sorry?
Speaker 5: Also guilty, clearly guilty fantastic artists? And these questions are
Speaker 5: they're hard, But also that that question of whether or
Speaker 5: not you can enjoy art from bad people isn't hard.
Speaker 5: You have to be able to do it, otherwise you'll
Speaker 5: only be watching like the worst art basically.
Speaker 1: And as a yes, as a society, I think we
Speaker 1: have to be able to separate.
Speaker 4: Politicians and artists and.
Speaker 3: The art and the art and the artist.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that the artist is free of criminal implications.
Speaker 3: And R. Kelly is a great example prosecuted.
Speaker 1: And so if it does appear like there are cases
Speaker 1: that can be made here against Russell Brand, and they
Speaker 1: should go for that. And that's why as a public
Speaker 1: we want to have legal frameworks set up. There's established
Speaker 1: and give give people a fair trial, and but give
Speaker 1: victims a chance to bring charges forward and then if
Speaker 1: they found guilty, these are the consequences. To push it
Speaker 1: off onto platforms and to consumers is to me a
Speaker 1: cop out, like it's that's not the that's not those
Speaker 1: aren't decisions that should be forced into the into those
Speaker 1: spheres like if you commit a crime, you should be
Speaker 1: prosecuted for it. And he appears to have committed multiple
Speaker 1: crimes or at least this, I mean, this is just
Speaker 1: the one I'm highlighting here. There are other very other
Speaker 1: credible accuzation as well, and prosecute those.
Speaker 5: And for you toube so based on that point, for
Speaker 5: YouTube to say this kind of broad justification that the
Speaker 5: content from somebody who is a very like accused of
Speaker 5: very serious crimes harms their users or their employees. That
Speaker 5: is going to implicate a whole lot of content that
Speaker 5: YouTube a is just not going to take down and
Speaker 5: be if they were pressed too, would not want to
Speaker 5: take it down, nor would their users, because users can
Speaker 5: make decisions. You know that doesn't apply to children, but
Speaker 5: users can make decisions about which content to engage with.
Speaker 4: And you know what, if they want to.
Speaker 5: Watch a Woody Allen interview, or they want to watch
Speaker 5: a Bill Clinton interview, if they want to watch a
Speaker 5: Donald Trump interview, they can make those decisions for themselves
Speaker 5: because this is all part of the world that we
Speaker 5: live in, and YouTube is an incredible resource for understanding
Speaker 5: the world, and it doesn't have to be an endorsement
Speaker 5: of all of these amazing primary sources that we have
Speaker 5: access to via YouTube. It's just a crazy standard, I
Speaker 5: think think in a really dangerous one. I hope it's
Speaker 5: not a permanent suspension. And I get that it's just
Speaker 5: for monetization. I get that they have them on the platform.
Speaker 5: It's a question of whether they're taking you're allowed to
Speaker 5: make money off that content. I think all of the
Speaker 5: same problems still apply.
Speaker 3: To those questions. What are you looking at today?
Speaker 5: Well, Last week, Jeff Stein of the Washington Post had
Speaker 5: a report that did not get nearly enough attention. I'm
Speaker 5: going to read from it right here. Trump and his advisor,
Speaker 5: Stein reported have discussed deeper cuts to both individual and
Speaker 5: corporate tax rates that would build on his controversial twenty
Speaker 5: seventeen tax law, which they see as a major accomplishment
Speaker 5: worth expanding. According to interviews with half dozen people close
Speaker 5: to the former president, some of whom spoke on the
Speaker 5: condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, the cuts could
Speaker 5: be paid for, at least in theory, with a new
Speaker 5: ten percent tariff on all imports to the United States
Speaker 5: that Trump has called for, which could raise hundreds of
Speaker 5: billions in revenue.
Speaker 4: The sharp new.
Speaker 5: Tax cuts would help offset higher consumer costs by the tariffs.
Speaker 4: Now it's a long.
Speaker 5: Article, but let me read one more part of it
Speaker 5: that caught my attention. Still, Trump may propose using that revenue,
Speaker 5: so revenue raised by the tariff, to send a dividend
Speaker 5: payment to US consumers, similar to the state of Alaska
Speaker 5: how they cut a check every year to residents from
Speaker 5: oil revenue. That's according to New Gingrich, who of course
Speaker 5: served as GOP Speaker of the House and remains an
Speaker 5: outside advisor to the former president. Gingrich stress that there
Speaker 5: are quote many options for how to use the revenue.
Speaker 5: Stein quotes both or Nett mentions that both Steve Moore
Speaker 5: and Art Laugher Arthur Laffer, who are apparently advising the
Speaker 5: potential former future Trump administration former and future Trump administration
Speaker 5: on economic policy, are not a fan of the potential
Speaker 5: dividend payments, but they are absolutely supportive of renewing this
Speaker 5: twenty seventeen push.
Speaker 4: And actually expanding on it.
Speaker 5: I think this is really interesting because it brings in
Speaker 5: this entire quot question of whether the Republican Party has
Speaker 5: Ryan and I opposed to sarab Amari recently, can truly
Speaker 5: become the party of the working class in a way
Speaker 5: that sort of matches the rhetoric we talked earlier in
Speaker 5: the show about Tim Scott and Nicky Haley's statements on
Speaker 5: the UAW strike, which contrasts with Donald Trump's effort which
Speaker 5: he will do alongside the Republican debate. He's skipping the
Speaker 5: Republican debate to talk to out auto workers in Detroit.
Speaker 5: He's trying to drive a wedge between Biden and the
Speaker 5: UAW between Democrats in general and union workers in general.
Speaker 5: That's a much smarter tactic than what Tim Scott and
Speaker 5: Nicky Haley are doing, which is just sort of, you know,
Speaker 5: saying well Reagan in the auto and the air traffic
Speaker 5: controllers in a way that is not, you know, tethered
Speaker 5: to any nuance or particular details. But all that is
Speaker 5: to say, if Donald Trump's administration future administration is already
Speaker 5: like very ecstatic for the prospect of a tax cut,
Speaker 5: it's really interesting to me that throughout this article all
Speaker 5: we hear is about the corporate tax cut. What they want,
Speaker 5: essentially is a cleaner corporate tax code, so something like
Speaker 5: a flat tax for corporations, and that's what this article
Speaker 5: is conveying. So unless Jeff Stein, who we've certainly talked
Speaker 5: to before, has an inaccurate kind of depiction of these conversations,
Speaker 5: unless his article is just for some reason, really focused
Speaker 5: on everything they're saying about the corporate tax rate and
Speaker 5: nothing they're saying about the individual tax rate, it sounds
Speaker 5: like people advising Donald Trump have their priorities backwards. I
Speaker 5: know you're going to be surprised to hear about that,
Speaker 5: and It's probably a fair question as to whether either
Speaker 5: major political party can truly represent the working costs interests
Speaker 5: in Washington, d c. And in various state houses. I'm
Speaker 5: not sure that's possible, but as the Republicans try, because
Speaker 5: Donald Trump brought in specifically union workers, workers in the
Speaker 5: rust belt, people who vote a Democrat or didn't vote
Speaker 5: at all for a long time, even some supporters of
Speaker 5: Bernie Sanders into the Republican Party. Can they vote for
Speaker 5: other Republicans? Will they vote for other Republicans outside of
Speaker 5: Donald Trump? Will they vote will they support a Republican
Speaker 5: agenda outside of Donald Trump? Will they continue to support
Speaker 5: Donald Trump himself? These are all very fair questions that
Speaker 5: Republicans need to answer. And when you have the consensus
Speaker 5: among even the conservative movement, and I can tell you
Speaker 5: this as somebody who runs in those circles, the consensus
Speaker 5: is that the twenty seventeen tax bill, which had great
Speaker 5: effects for many taxpayers, was a mistake because it showed
Speaker 5: that Republicans were expending all of this political capital on
Speaker 5: sort of a priority of fiscal conservatism, even if it
Speaker 5: had materially positive benefits for the average person. Republicans spent
Speaker 5: so much time and energy on this bill that Paul
Speaker 5: Ryan came out and said, we are finally going to
Speaker 5: get your taxes down.
Speaker 4: To a postcard.
Speaker 5: You'll be able to do your taxes on a postcard.
Speaker 5: That's actually kind of a populist priority. It might be good,
Speaker 5: it might sound good for corporations, it might sound good
Speaker 5: for really wealthy individuals, but it's not because in order
Speaker 5: to get your taxes down to a postcard, Paul Ryan
Speaker 5: knows this, you have to cut all of the loopholes.
Speaker 5: Do you have to close all of those loopholes simplify
Speaker 5: the tax code, And people have questions about whether that
Speaker 5: raises enough revenue. Trump says, well, offset it with a tariff.
Speaker 5: That's something that you can be part of the conversation.
Speaker 5: But in order to achieve the goal that Paul Ryan
Speaker 5: said he was so excited about, you have to really
Speaker 5: stick it to rich people in corporations to make it
Speaker 5: so the average American can do their taxes on a postcard.
Speaker 5: Which is why, of course it didn't happen, and it's why,
Speaker 5: of course we ended up with a bill that establishment
Speaker 5: Republicans were so happy about.
Speaker 4: They're trying to do.
Speaker 5: More of and from the Washington Post article, it doesn't
Speaker 5: sound like the focus is at all on fixing the
Speaker 5: tax code for the average individual, basically because everyone knows
Speaker 5: that's impossible. And by the way, I think they know
Speaker 5: that really going to a flat tax for corporations is impossible.
Speaker 5: I think that would in some sense help with on shoring.
Speaker 5: I think there are ways that you could do it
Speaker 5: that would help with bringing back jobs, good paying jobs,
Speaker 5: back to the United States. But oh my gosh, the
Speaker 5: lack of attention paid to average Americans and the level
Speaker 5: of excitement that people have for just going in on
Speaker 5: another big corporate tax cut in Donald Trump's own circles,
Speaker 5: I think is a very clear message that the Republican Party,
Speaker 5: even in Trump's circles, is still struggling mightily because of
Speaker 5: this vast infrastructure basically that has already existed throughout the
Speaker 5: history of the conservative movement that is sort of reflexively
Speaker 5: pro business. That is, that's a hard muscle memory to
Speaker 5: get rid of it. You have to basically retrain your
Speaker 5: muscles to continue torturing this metaphor. And for all of
Speaker 5: the times you have Tom Cotton, you know, introducing a
Speaker 5: bill to hike the federal minimum wage. Tom Cotton is
Speaker 5: a you know, not necessarily your your new right icons
Speaker 5: somebody who has sort of neo conservative foreign policy and
Speaker 5: is known for having fairly fiscally conservative economic policy. All
Speaker 5: the times you have him introducing, you know, a federal
Speaker 5: minimum wage hike, everything that jd Vance and Josh hollytok.
Speaker 5: Josh Holly introduced legislation last week to cap credit card
Speaker 5: interest rates. That's a huge blow to these companies. So
Speaker 5: for every time you have that happening from a Republican,
Speaker 5: you still have this muscle memory that I think is
Speaker 5: creating this real struggle for Republicans as they look to
Speaker 5: actually govern in a way. Some of them look to
Speaker 5: actually governor in a way that sort of puts the
Speaker 5: money where the mouths are. Some people just want to
Speaker 5: keep flapping the gums saying they're they're representing, you know,
Speaker 5: the average working class person and talking about that on
Speaker 5: cultural issues to the extent that they even want to
Speaker 5: talk about those anymore, and doing the Nikki Haley well union's.
Speaker 4: Bad, blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: They want to keep doing that, and their muscles don't
Speaker 5: want to allow them to actually govern in a way
Speaker 5: that is serious, whether it's libertarian populism, you know, the
Speaker 5: sort of Ron Paul populism that's genuinely anti corporate or
Speaker 5: you know, economic populism in a way that some people
Speaker 5: consider on the left maybe more statists. They don't want
Speaker 5: any of that period, and their muscles aren't going to
Speaker 5: let them do it anyway. So Ryan, interesting story here
Speaker 5: from Jeff Stein, and I think ran more original reporting
Speaker 5: from you today, and even I think a cool tutorial
Speaker 5: on how to do screen recording is what you have
Speaker 5: for us.
Speaker 4: What's going on with Google and Rumble?
Speaker 1: So the last Republican debate was held on August twenty third,
Speaker 1: and a couple weeks before that, Google reached out to
Speaker 1: the RNC and asked the rn C, Hey, do you
Speaker 1: have a live streaming partner for the upcoming debate? If so,
Speaker 1: who RNC responded yes, In fact, Rumble has the exclusive
Speaker 1: live stream results. The civics team over at Google, to
Speaker 1: their credit, said, sounds great. You either connect us with
Speaker 1: Rumble or give us a link to the upcoming live
Speaker 1: stream if you have it. So, rn C then asks
Speaker 1: you what exactly do you need? Google explains to them
Speaker 1: quote as we often do for major election events. We're
Speaker 1: exploring linking to the live stream on search, and our
Speaker 1: product team is asking for a link to test the feature. Unquote,
Speaker 1: that's an email that I obtained from Google over to
Speaker 1: the RNC.
Speaker 3: RNC ends up.
Speaker 1: Adding Rumble to this chain, and they go back and
Speaker 1: forth then for a couple of days about whether they
Speaker 1: get a link, whether they get on the phone, and
Speaker 1: Emily and I can talk about the bizarre kind of
Speaker 1: email conversation that unfolds from there. The upshot though, is
Speaker 1: that this and we can put up this little screen
Speaker 1: recording is what people saw if they searched GOP debate
Speaker 1: stream kind of the night of the debate. There's YouTube,
Speaker 1: there's YouTube, there's ABC News, there's the Verge on how
Speaker 1: to watch the debate, a couple, you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of articles. What you do not see on the front
Speaker 1: page of that search is the actual stream itself. Any link,
Speaker 1: any link to Rumble. So now I have responses from
Speaker 1: both Rumble and Google, and then we can get into this.
Speaker 1: So Rumble told me that they said the first Republican
Speaker 1: presidential debate was yet another example of Google's determination to
Speaker 1: squash competing video platforms.
Speaker 3: That's Rumble general counsel Michael Ellis quote in.
Speaker 1: Its own words, Google uses search to highlight other major
Speaker 1: election events, but chose not to offer the same feature
Speaker 1: to rumbles live stream. We look forward to proving Google's
Speaker 1: continued anti competitive conduct in court unquote. Now, Google meanwhile
Speaker 1: told me that this was all just a miscommunication. The
Speaker 1: quote from Google is people could easily find information about
Speaker 1: where to watch the debate in Google Search results, and
Speaker 1: as part of our ongoing effort to build dedicated features
Speaker 1: in search to more prominently showcase events like debates, we
Speaker 1: reached out to the r and C and Rumble, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately it didn't come together in time to test and
Speaker 1: create the live stream feature. We've already worked with the
Speaker 1: RNC and Rumble to get this feature set up for
Speaker 1: the next debate, as we would do with any live
Speaker 1: stream provider Dominily. This is happening while Google is literally
Speaker 1: facing like in trial currently because of this anti competitive
Speaker 1: cind of this ish or anti competitive stuff. There was
Speaker 1: an amazing moment, by the way, and we'll get back
Speaker 1: to this yesterday in court where Google complained that the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice was putting up the public exhibits on
Speaker 1: its website and asked that they stopped doing that, and
Speaker 1: the judge said, yeah, you should stop doing that.
Speaker 3: It's terrible.
Speaker 1: And the DOJ said, We're so sorry. These are public exhibits.
Speaker 1: We're so sorry. We're going to take them down. Google said, great,
Speaker 1: take them down. A Bloomberg reporter tour credit stood up
Speaker 1: in the gallery. It was like, hold on a second,
Speaker 1: these are public. I want to I want at least
Speaker 1: Google to have Bloomberg to have an opportunity to have
Speaker 1: a lawyer here. And the judge said, okay, we'll do that. Still,
Speaker 1: in the meantime, the department just.
Speaker 3: Took them down. Pitiful.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to be prosecuting these guys, you're just taking
Speaker 1: public information off. So anyway, so Google's in the middle
Speaker 1: of this and they know that this trial is coming
Speaker 1: when they find out that Rumble is going to be
Speaker 1: the exclusive partner here. Now the email chain is funny,
Speaker 1: and it'll be up at an article I have at
Speaker 1: the Intercept, not posting it here because I forgot to
Speaker 1: redact all the names of the of the innocent, but
Speaker 1: we'll do that over at the intercept. But so Google says,
Speaker 1: send us a live link. And this is nine days
Speaker 1: before the event, and so Rumble writes back, I want
Speaker 1: to get some clarity on the ass. Can we get
Speaker 1: on a call tomorrow or the day after Now, on
Speaker 1: the one hand, there is nothing more annoying than somebody
Speaker 1: who wants to take an email to a phone call.
Speaker 3: A meeting and set up a meeting. Like the ask
Speaker 3: is clear, just send us a link.
Speaker 1: Now, in Rumble's defense, they don't have a live link
Speaker 1: nine days before so. And then more official there told
Speaker 1: me is that they're trying to figure out what do
Speaker 1: you need, like technically speaking, like what do you need
Speaker 1: from us so that nine days from now you can
Speaker 1: feature this? And then they bump it the next day
Speaker 1: and no reply from Google again, and then no more,
Speaker 1: no further bumping from Rumble, and no further replying from
Speaker 1: Google until the day of the debate, where Rumble doesn't
Speaker 1: appear kind of in the search results. Now, Google does
Speaker 1: not legally have a a requirement to promote a competitor's product,
Speaker 1: like with the live you know red thing and like
Speaker 1: above the search results, but organically they can't suppress like
Speaker 1: the organic results can't suppress a competitor, and so they
Speaker 1: would have to explain, well, why is why is YouTube
Speaker 1: there in that videos portion? But and they would say, well,
Speaker 1: those YouTube video creators did.
Speaker 3: A good job of kind of putting in the right keywords.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was Breaking Points and we put in the.
Speaker 1: Right GOP debate kind of parameters that that like juiced
Speaker 1: us in there and Rumble didn't. But I think the
Speaker 1: other I think I think that Google might be forgetting
Speaker 1: is that antitrust law is wildly up for grabs at
Speaker 1: this point. And if you get a Trump appointed lawyer
Speaker 1: and you have Rumble as the victim or complainant, better
Speaker 1: look out. You're gonna They're gonna side with Rumble.
Speaker 3: Period.
Speaker 4: Your video is fantastic.
Speaker 1: Actually, speaking of YouTube, a bunch of you are probably
Speaker 1: watching this on YouTube, and you guys have probably noticed
Speaker 1: we post three or four clips from our show every day.
Speaker 1: The rest of those go out either on the podcast,
Speaker 1: which you can get anywhere, or to premium subscribers. And
Speaker 1: so we want to thank all of the premium subscribers
Speaker 1: who are going to Breakingpoints dot com and giving their
Speaker 1: hard earned money. My annual subscription re up the other day.
Speaker 1: It was kind of funny to see on my phone
Speaker 1: that I gave crystalin Sauger ninety dollars. What did I
Speaker 1: do that for? Oh, that's right, Yeah, I subscribe to
Speaker 1: their show. Because good.
Speaker 4: I like that you subscribed.
Speaker 5: So it's actually telling that Ryan's annual subscription just reupped
Speaker 5: because we're at a That's.
Speaker 3: Right, it was when I came over.
Speaker 4: Like mine was in June because I'm loyal. Ryan's was
Speaker 4: in September because he's It's tough.
Speaker 3: It's in the media.
Speaker 1: It's tough because all of your friends have books and
Speaker 1: have and you will. You're not going to make it
Speaker 1: to the end of the month if you don't lie
Speaker 1: about supporting some of them.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, but in all seriousness, we've been here part
Speaker 5: of the Breaking Twicks team.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, supsac is another level.
Speaker 5: And then you add locals and Patreon and it's just
Speaker 5: it's simply too me.
Speaker 1: But anyway, this is a high priority. Yes, that's why
Speaker 1: I give it.
Speaker 3: Why you should too.
Speaker 5: This was basically a long winded way of saying, we
Speaker 5: know you have a lot of things to subscribe to,
Speaker 5: but we love, love, love everyone who has taken that
Speaker 5: extra step and subscribe to watch the full video on
Speaker 5: YouTube early, and then all of Crystal and Sager's great
Speaker 5: work is there too, so thank you. We appreciate it enormously.
Speaker 5: Make sure that you like and subscribe to the channel.
Speaker 5: Make sure that you subscribe on your podcast platform of choice,
Speaker 5: and just if you want that premium content comes a
Speaker 5: little early, you get the full thing interrupted, full video, uninterrupted.
Speaker 4: We really appreciate that. It means the world to us
Speaker 4: and it helps us keep doing what we do.
Speaker 1: And we were talking yesterday about how the Pittsburgh Penguins
Speaker 1: are the only team that hand deliver season tickets to
Speaker 1: their fans that purchase them.
Speaker 3: We got to figure out a way to do that.
Speaker 4: But you want to do it, you don't want to
Speaker 4: do it, you want I would be happy to do it.
Speaker 4: You'd be good at that. Just Ryan Grimm shows up
Speaker 4: at your door unannounced with a link. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 5: We'll have to figure that out. We'll have to figure
Speaker 5: that out. We'll work on that. Well, the whole team
Speaker 5: will grab some beers, except for Sager because he's lame,
Speaker 5: and we'll figure out how to get you those passcodes
Speaker 5: to your door. But in the meantime, make sure to subscribe.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for watching, and have a great week.
Speaker 3: See you next week,