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Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about Ukraine. This is very consequential.
Speaker 3: President Zelenski now giving an interview with Sky News the
Speaker 3: first time that he has said that he would accept
Speaker 3: some loss of Russian territory if he says he also
Speaker 3: gets NATO membership.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4: No one has offered us to be in NATAL with
Speaker 4: just one pot or another part of Ukraine.
Speaker 5: That's for once. Fuck.
Speaker 4: The fact is that it is a solution to stop
Speaker 4: the hot stage of the war because we can just
Speaker 4: give the native membership to the part of Ukraine that
Speaker 4: is under our control. Fact, yes, it could be possible, but.
Speaker 1: No one offered trevorability.
Speaker 4: But the invitation must be given to Ukraine within its
Speaker 4: internationally recognized border. You can't give invitation to just one
Speaker 4: part of a country. Why, because thus you would recognize
Speaker 4: that Ukraine is only that territory of Ukraine and the
Speaker 4: other one.
Speaker 6: Is Russia juridic.
Speaker 4: So legally, by law, we have no right to recognize
Speaker 4: the occupied territory as territory of Russia. And here we
Speaker 4: must not make any mistake to study. But if we
Speaker 4: want to stop the hot stage of the war, we
Speaker 4: should take under natal umbrella the territory of Ukraine that
Speaker 4: we have under.
Speaker 1: Our control, Adali.
Speaker 4: That's what we need to do fast, and then Ukraine
Speaker 4: can get back the other part of its territory.
Speaker 1: Got it okay?
Speaker 3: So first of all, I was told that that's Russian
Speaker 3: propaganda to accept or even be told that you're allowed
Speaker 3: to have a some sort of diplomatic solution that would
Speaker 3: not require Zelenski to give up some territory. But the
Speaker 3: other part of this that I'm not going to let slide,
Speaker 3: because this is very obviously his bid for what the
Speaker 3: new piece deal will look like. Is that is a
Speaker 3: perfect articulation of why they should never get membership into NATO, because,
Speaker 3: as he said, it would be ridiculous to recognize quote
Speaker 3: unquote NATO nuclear umbrella over the currently recognized areas of
Speaker 3: control of the Russian of the Ukrainian country and then
Speaker 3: say that it doesn't apply to Crimea or the other
Speaker 3: internationally recognized border. Letting a country that is literally in
Speaker 3: the midst of a war in to NATO is insane
Speaker 3: because it allows the revocation of the invocation of Article
Speaker 3: five and the ability and the necessity of the United
Speaker 3: States and NATO allies to come to their military defense right. Also,
Speaker 3: putin invaded Ukraine over NATO, So giving them NATO membership
Speaker 3: would be the exact impetus to putin to say no,
Speaker 3: you should not take a deal and you should keep
Speaker 3: fighting the war. So it doesn't make any sense on
Speaker 3: either side. If we need to give Ukraine some fake
Speaker 3: security guarantee that doesn't actually require us to go to war, fine,
Speaker 3: I will, I'll allow it even though.
Speaker 1: I don't want it.
Speaker 3: But NATO membership absolutely not. So like anyways, this is
Speaker 3: the opening ground from Zelenski. This is how it always looks.
Speaker 3: You know, you make a maximalist demand and all of that.
Speaker 3: I'm very curious for how we'll all play out. To
Speaker 3: be honest, things not looking too fantastic. In terms of
Speaker 3: who Donald Trump appointed. He's appointed General Keith Kellogg as
Speaker 3: the quote unquote Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia, who
Speaker 3: has previously appeared multiple times on Fox News as very
Speaker 3: pro Ukraine, even including like supplying them with whatever weapons
Speaker 3: they want. We have a haste here, pulled by Michael
Speaker 3: Tracy from one of his Fox News interviews. Let's take
Speaker 3: a listen.
Speaker 7: Bottom line, the Ukrainians want to fight. They don't want
Speaker 7: US troops, they don't want NATO troops. All they wanted equipment,
Speaker 7: and they're going to fight this to the end. It's
Speaker 7: very clear to them that this is in a very
Speaker 7: aggressive Russia move. It's targeted on civilians, it's targeted on infrastructure.
Speaker 7: You know, we went out pretty far to the to
Speaker 7: the northeast and we saw some absolute incredible destruction out
Speaker 7: there by the Russians, and it was targeted on infrastructure,
Speaker 7: was targeted on hospitals, it was targeted on schools. It's
Speaker 7: in fact, the mayor of Kiev told us later that
Speaker 7: this is genocide, and I think they when we look
Speaker 7: at what's going to happen over there, I believe it's
Speaker 7: very important we get them the equipment to fight. They
Speaker 7: have no intention in to negotiate. They want to eject
Speaker 7: Russian forces from Ukraine. I don't care if it's a dambas,
Speaker 7: I don't care if it's crimea and they're committed to it.
Speaker 7: And I talked to a lot of government officials, military officials,
Speaker 7: civilians that are out there. It's a very committed nation.
Speaker 7: If anybody doubts their their loyalty to Ukraine, their badly mistaken.
Speaker 7: And again, as I said, I think it's a fight
Speaker 7: to the finish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I might as well work for Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: you know, like, what what are you on here?
Speaker 6: To the right of Joe.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's more hawkish than Joe Biden. He would
Speaker 2: be the type. We haven't done enough, we haven't shipped
Speaker 2: more quickly enough, we haven't given them what they needed
Speaker 2: soon enough, you know. And to be honest with you,
Speaker 2: that actually is a more logical position than the Biden
Speaker 2: Let's just like dribble it down over time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess the only defense that I've been given
Speaker 3: on Keith Kellogg is he's a good soldier and he
Speaker 3: takes orders from Trump.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then you also have to reckon with Marco Rubio.
Speaker 1: No yo, Mike Walt. That's what they say about all
Speaker 1: these guys. Don't worry there.
Speaker 2: You got a bunch of neo cons in there who
Speaker 2: are all, like you know, very hawkish when it comes
Speaker 2: to Ukraine and other conflicts around the globe.
Speaker 3: By the way, and that's the problem is that in
Speaker 3: this case appointing personnel who again, even if Donald Trump says,
Speaker 3: go get a piece deal with Russia, if you have
Speaker 3: been on television and you previously advocated for full scale
Speaker 3: war with Russia, why would the Russians listen to you.
Speaker 1: They're going to be like, hey, you advocated for war
Speaker 1: with us.
Speaker 3: I'm not listening to you. Absolutely not with Trump, I mean,
Speaker 3: or Jade Vance, any of these figures, they have way
Speaker 3: more credibility to be able to go to Moscow and
Speaker 3: to actually talk to these guys and get something done.
Speaker 3: Nobody's going to like it. But that's what an actual
Speaker 3: successful end to the war would look like.
Speaker 2: Did you see the comments from Seb Gorka, who also
Speaker 2: now has a.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, we're sorry, I promise as well national
Speaker 3: security advisor.
Speaker 2: He went on probably Fox News, I can't remember and
Speaker 2: said Trump's plan to end the war is to threaten
Speaker 2: Russia with We're going to give Ukraine everything they want.
Speaker 2: He said. The words he said is what Biden gave
Speaker 2: them is going to look like peanuts compared to what
Speaker 2: Trump is going to promise them, and that's what's going
Speaker 2: to force the Russians to the negotiating table. And I mean,
Speaker 2: he's claiming to speak for Trump, who knows if he's
Speaker 2: really going to speak for Trump? Who knows? If you
Speaker 2: know Trump doesn't change his mind, that's also a possibility
Speaker 2: if you fluitered that at one point, but he's actually
Speaker 2: going to do something different. But that kind of made
Speaker 2: sense to me and kind of square. There's the circle
Speaker 2: of how you end up with all of these extremely
Speaker 2: pro Ukraine, very hawkish figures throughout his government. We're not
Speaker 2: talking about just one or two. We're talking about almost
Speaker 2: every key position of power at this point, and Trump
Speaker 2: claiming that he's going to bring this war to claiming
Speaker 2: that he's going to bring it to this with conclusion.
Speaker 2: So he's got to kind of like escalate to de
Speaker 2: escalate mentality.
Speaker 3: Potentially, good luck with escalation, right, because who's going to
Speaker 3: pull the trigger? Put this up on the screen from
Speaker 3: the Financial Times. Their own people are deserting the military
Speaker 3: in mass. They can't even find anybody to recruit. Go
Speaker 3: read their own papers they're talking about. Look at the
Speaker 3: sixty thousand cases of troops abandoning positions in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: double the number of the past two years. Their latest
Speaker 3: Pew Research polling shows that half the population is willing
Speaker 3: to enter peace negotiation. So at this point, you can
Speaker 3: give them all the long range missiles that you want.
Speaker 3: They can't even hold the territory. I mean, go to
Speaker 3: the next part please. It is that I agree. I mean,
Speaker 3: you've basically wiped out and it's literally like World War
Speaker 3: One for the British, the Germans and others. You took
Speaker 3: the greatest generation, some of the most patriotic folks who
Speaker 3: believed in the project and all that, and you slaughtered
Speaker 3: them en mass and now you have to deal with
Speaker 3: the consequences. Ukraine has now lost forty percent of the
Speaker 3: land that it sees in the quote unquote Cursk region
Speaker 3: of Russia. A literal invasion of Russia, by the way
Speaker 3: of which we're giving them weapons to defend themselves, makes
Speaker 3: a lot of sense in a war about territorial integrity.
Speaker 1: The entire thing just is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: And in terms of how this all works out, And
Speaker 3: you know Zelenski himself, I don't underestimate him. I think
Speaker 3: Zelenski knows exactly how to play Donald Trump. Zelenski, even
Speaker 3: though he way over played his hand and he attacked JD.
Speaker 3: You know, whenever he was here and on his little
Speaker 3: campaign stop for Kamala Harris, he knows at this point
Speaker 3: about how to frame negotiation played at Trump's ego. He
Speaker 3: will be appearing, it appears on the Lex Friedman podcast.
Speaker 3: Let's put that up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: That'll be very interesting. Actually, And I thought I thought
Speaker 2: it was a mistake for Rogan to say no to him,
Speaker 2: because that would have been an interesting.
Speaker 3: I would have taken into I agree, I think it
Speaker 3: would have been a good idea, especially I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: at this point, you know so many of these leaders
Speaker 3: and whatever going on on Rogan, so you might as
Speaker 3: well at least hear what he has to say. And
Speaker 3: the thing is with Zelenski, as we just learned from
Speaker 3: the Sky News interview, this guy, when you push him
Speaker 3: a little bit, you sometimes get interesting answers. We saw
Speaker 3: this even in the past with NBC News and others,
Speaker 3: and he would give away little tidbits about how he
Speaker 3: views negotiation and truth or and what it actually would mean,
Speaker 3: you know, or even even when he if he's still
Speaker 3: sticking to the maximum's position, that's equally interesting too. I'd
Speaker 3: also like to hear his version of the two thousand
Speaker 3: and twenty two invasion, because remember he was the one saying,
Speaker 3: don't freak out, I'm not worried about an invasion. Also,
Speaker 3: you know, in terms of NATO, like what he actually
Speaker 3: still thinks, what his you know, historical version of the
Speaker 3: war and all that would look like. So I'm glad
Speaker 3: lex is going to do it, and congrats to him
Speaker 3: first hearing the interview. What I'm interested in too, though,
Speaker 3: is how the Trump administration, its very first day in office,
Speaker 3: approaches the war. Because you have two options. You can
Speaker 3: continue doling out the billions that currently have been authorized
Speaker 3: by Congress at the discretion of the president. If they
Speaker 3: continue to do that, that's a sign. If they pull
Speaker 3: it away, that's also a good sign. I want to
Speaker 3: see whether Keith Kellogg is even received by Putin or
Speaker 3: even received by the Russian government, whether Lavrov himself will
Speaker 3: be allowed back into the United States. Maybe he'll have
Speaker 3: another Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump. Frankly, I think
Speaker 3: it would be a good idea. You know, I actually
Speaker 3: have some exchange, but I want to see the level
Speaker 3: of emphasis. That will be interesting about what level these
Speaker 3: negotiations take place, whether it's a Lenska himself is immediately
Speaker 3: here in Washington, which I'm sure it will be, to
Speaker 3: try and get a meeting with Donald Trump, how he's received,
Speaker 3: and what the communicates and all of that start to
Speaker 3: look like. But escalation through de escalation is a nonsense policy.
Speaker 3: It has never worked under Joe Biden. It would make
Speaker 3: America way less safe. And that is the problem with
Speaker 3: Donald Trum I'm appointing a lot of these folks is
Speaker 3: there is immense danger. And frankly, if you were putin
Speaker 3: you're just gonna be like, Okay, if that's how you're
Speaker 3: gonna play it, then I'm going to play it too.
Speaker 3: I've got all these North Koreans at my back. I
Speaker 3: got a lot of AMMO, some nice suicide drums from Iran.
Speaker 1: Let's go. We can just keep going.
Speaker 2: And Trump is very easy to manipulate, sho. It really
Speaker 2: matters who he puts around himself and who has a zar. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the last thing that I'll say
Speaker 2: on this is I do think and one of the
Speaker 2: parts of conventional wisdom that was proven wrong in this
Speaker 2: election was that voters don't care about foreign policy and
Speaker 2: it's not going to be consequent.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: You have very few people like to play devil's advocate.
Speaker 2: You have very few people who said that foreign policy
Speaker 2: was the number one reason why they were voting. But
Speaker 2: when Griffin went and interviewed those AFC Trump voters in
Speaker 2: other interviews I've seen with people who flipped to Trump.
Speaker 2: One of the main things that we hear over and
Speaker 2: over again is about Gaza and is about Ukraine and
Speaker 2: the sense that the Biden administration, the Biden Harris administration
Speaker 2: was more concerned about this foreign conflicts and endlessly shipping
Speaker 2: money and weapons to these other, you know, countries, and
Speaker 2: you know, in Israel's case, country that is perpetuators committing
Speaker 2: a genocide, that they seemed more concerned about that and
Speaker 2: more committed to that than they were too delivering for
Speaker 2: people here at home. I think that the Trump's, you know,
Speaker 2: ability to convince people falsely, but ability to convince people
Speaker 2: that he would be anti war, that he would be
Speaker 2: bring these conflicts to a close. I think that was
Speaker 2: a very potent part of his appeal. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to say it is the only part of his appeal,
Speaker 2: but I think it was undersold part of his appeal
Speaker 2: and his ability to win you know, convincing victory, including
Speaker 2: winning the popular vote, which is something that Republicans have
Speaker 2: long struggled to do in which he's never been able
Speaker 2: to accomplish. So he does have a mandate from the
Speaker 2: voters to try to bring this conflict to a close.
Speaker 2: And I think they will hold him accountable if he
Speaker 2: doesn't do what he promised to do.
Speaker 3: I certainly hope so, I mean, he won't get re elected.
Speaker 3: But whoever takes his mantle, if you want to add,
Speaker 3: if you're listening.
Speaker 1: If you if you actually want to run.
Speaker 3: You know, to be able to run on a successful
Speaker 3: foreign policy of bringing this horrible war to a close
Speaker 3: is something that I think American people actually want to
Speaker 3: see and especially a lot of these disaffected working class
Speaker 3: voters disgusted by watching millions and billions of their taxpayer
Speaker 3: dollars being sent abroad and all this care and concern.
Speaker 3: You know, we literally have civil society programs paying yarn salary.
Speaker 3: Shops in Kief must be nice. I know a lot
Speaker 3: of people who live in Asheville, North Carolina, who got
Speaker 3: their shops blown apart. Nobody's paying their salary. And that's
Speaker 3: the point where, you know, everyone says that that's a
Speaker 3: ridiculous comparison, but at a deep level, Americans do know
Speaker 3: it's true. They know it's true that when your prices
Speaker 3: went up in the grocery store, you know, it just
Speaker 3: hit my big grocery hall after a long time, you know,
Speaker 3: when you got to stock up your fridge and you're like,
Speaker 3: how is this even possible? When you look at the
Speaker 3: at the bill for just basic stuff, and then you know,
Speaker 3: I went back and you know, reordering stuff from Amazon.
Speaker 3: I encourage people to go look at what you were
Speaker 3: paying for paper towels or other basics five years ago.
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
Speaker 3: You're selling about one hundred two hundred percent increase in
Speaker 3: price wasn't that long?
Speaker 1: You know that we all remember. And then meanwhile, we've
Speaker 1: got all the money in the world for foreign conflicts.
Speaker 3: So that is something where I think it hits home
Speaker 3: to every American and I think you're right. I think
Speaker 3: the voters would actually punish him. The question is whether
Speaker 3: you know we can have somebody on the Democratic side
Speaker 3: who could successfully prosecute an argument about that, which I
Speaker 3: would hope to see as well, because I think it's
Speaker 3: important to keep these things in check.
Speaker 2: I think Gaza and Ukraine really undercut democratic arguments when
Speaker 2: it came certainly to being any sort of moral force. Yes,
Speaker 2: and also you know, when it came to saying this
Speaker 2: guy is like chaotic and it's too much chaos when
Speaker 2: he's in office and they're looking at these foreign wars.
Speaker 2: And also I think that fueled this sense that you know,
Speaker 2: you don't really care about me, You're not going to
Speaker 2: really deliver for me. So I think in a certain way,
Speaker 2: even though again very few people would say foreign policy
Speaker 2: was their number one issue, I think it was very
Speaker 2: central to the case that Donald Trump successfully prosecuted against
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris and the Democrats, and it would behove him
Speaker 2: to keep that in mind as he moves forward with
Speaker 2: his illustration. Speaking of foreign conflicts and wars, this was
Speaker 2: quite a stunning and unexpected development. We can put some
Speaker 2: of these images up on the screen. The Syrian rebels
Speaker 2: have now retaken Syria's largest city of Aleppo. This is
Speaker 2: as of Saturday, that's according to you know, groups that
Speaker 2: are on the ground. You can see some of these images.
Speaker 2: Apparently these fighters faced pretty small, limited resistance and Aleppo.
Speaker 2: I think they themselves were surprised at how easily this went.
Speaker 2: The pro asade. The government forces that were there basically scattered.
Speaker 2: Apparently even the retreat was quite chaotic, and they've continued
Speaker 2: to advance since then. So you know this. Obviously, the
Speaker 2: Serian civil war has been ongoing for quite a number
Speaker 2: of years at this point, beginning really under the Obama administration,
Speaker 2: the bombedmanstration famously really backing and going all in with
Speaker 2: these rebel forces. And just to keep everybody in mind
Speaker 2: at this point in particular, the main faction here at
Speaker 2: this point is effectively an al Qaeda.
Speaker 1: Offshoot, no it is now they have they have.
Speaker 2: Put out new rhetoric to try to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're different now, like we're more modern, et cetera. But
Speaker 2: the rebels here are basically Al Qaida. So that's who
Speaker 2: has been able to effectively retake a lepo. And let's
Speaker 2: put this tear sheet up on the screen from the
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal. That helps to explain the timing of
Speaker 2: why this is happening. Now when you know the this
Speaker 2: group of rebels, they've continued to be able to hold
Speaker 2: a certain amount of territory within Syria, even as the
Speaker 2: government has retaken a lot of the territory that had
Speaker 2: previously previously been claimed. But you have you know, Hesbla
Speaker 2: has really been dealt a serious blow by Israel, and
Speaker 2: so they were sort of out of on a commission
Speaker 2: to be involved here. You have to back the Assad government.
Speaker 2: You have Iran also distracted, you have Russia distracted in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: So a bunch of the best significant backers of the
Speaker 2: Assad government are kind of either under my undercut have
Speaker 2: been devastating blows or they're distracted in various other conflicts,
Speaker 2: in particular with regards to the Middle East in Ukraine,
Speaker 2: and so that created the opening here that the rebels
Speaker 2: were able to see it.
Speaker 3: It's crazy to watch I mean, you've been covering these
Speaker 3: conflicts since my very beginning of journalism, and to see,
Speaker 3: you know, Aleppo back in the conversation is wild, especially
Speaker 3: for those of us who remember the Gary Johnson What
Speaker 3: is Aleppo one of the great moments in television history? Yeah,
Speaker 3: like you just said, though, let's all be very honest.
Speaker 3: We've got straight up al Qaeda aligned rebels who are
Speaker 3: the ones who have taken over control of this city.
Speaker 3: How that will play out interesting to watch, It's honestly
Speaker 3: kind of terrifying, because really what we have seen. First
Speaker 3: of all, Also, I can't forget this either. There are
Speaker 3: that of American soldiers who are in Syria illegally for
Speaker 3: no reason, who are now in the or basically in
Speaker 3: the middle of a major conflict zone.
Speaker 1: Are they going to be attacked?
Speaker 3: Last time I checked, al Qaida doesn't like us, and
Speaker 3: so there were actually just air strikes yesterday from the
Speaker 3: United States and a tens that were deployed apparently against
Speaker 3: Iranian proxies. But then that gets to a bigger question,
Speaker 3: who do we even want to win in this war? Previously,
Speaker 3: these al Qaeda rebels were the ones who the United
Speaker 3: States backed. It's very clear. It was clear by like
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen that all of the quote unquote moderates were dead.
Speaker 3: They had no chance. The Islamists were the only ones
Speaker 3: who had an effective fighting force except for the Kurds,
Speaker 3: who we backed and then decided not to back.
Speaker 1: But a complicated story.
Speaker 3: The whole point though, is that it's a mess and
Speaker 3: the idea what has happened here with Russia involved in Ukraine,
Speaker 3: with Iran basically all eyes on Israel. Hezbola, of course,
Speaker 3: has now been decimated in this war. They're no longer
Speaker 3: Assyria as a major, as a major, really important battleground.
Speaker 1: The assad government has lost a lot of the.
Speaker 3: People who are its most effective either fighters, funders, you know,
Speaker 3: people who would pay it a lot of attention. And
Speaker 3: they've been very weak for many years now, so there
Speaker 3: can't rely on Russian barrel bombs to bail them out
Speaker 3: of the city of Aleppo this or maybe they can,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 2: Another thing that was really significant that was noted in
Speaker 2: that Wall Street Journal piece is the Wagner paramilitary group RUNT,
Speaker 2: because you remember, headed by Predosian and he tried to
Speaker 2: do the coup against Putin and then oh it turns
Speaker 2: on you know, their pamplain something happened the hoops. So
Speaker 2: Wagner paramilitary group was really critical in Syria, very important
Speaker 2: for backing Asad, and they're now you know, defunct, so
Speaker 2: that may have been the most significant backer for the
Speaker 2: Asad regime. I think Hesbela was also incredibly important to
Speaker 2: based on the reporting here as well. So the fact
Speaker 2: that Hesblo's dealt such a significant blow by Israel, and
Speaker 2: I think your question of like who do we who
Speaker 2: would we and want to win is important one because
Speaker 2: we shouldn't be left out of this equation either, because
Speaker 2: even though you know, we aren't as engaged in you know,
Speaker 2: backing the rebels and arming them, at least not that
Speaker 2: we know as we once were, we've continued our policy
Speaker 2: of really trying to sort of isolate and sanction Damascus
Speaker 2: and the Esava regime, which has left them also incredibly
Speaker 2: weak and helped to create this vulnerability and you know
Speaker 2: what is now a hot warn additional instability in the
Speaker 2: Middle East as well. So we have our hands in
Speaker 2: this conflict.
Speaker 3: Obviously, our hands are all over this thing. We're literally
Speaker 3: the reason this country basically burned to the ground.
Speaker 2: I mean, and no one is saying Asad is a
Speaker 2: good guy either or like there's no one like no
Speaker 2: good guys.
Speaker 1: Oh he's a hero or whatever.
Speaker 3: You're like, Okay, I have to pick between al Qaeda,
Speaker 3: and we have to al Qaeda Iran and Asad. It's like,
Speaker 3: all right, well, it's a tough, tough choice in terms
Speaker 3: of like what we want, what we really want out
Speaker 3: of Syria is some sort of you know, regional stability.
Speaker 3: Do you think al Qaeda can deliver you know, real
Speaker 3: regional stability or whatever to the people of Syria. Good luck?
Speaker 3: That'll be an interesting one for a lot of the
Speaker 3: religious minorities who live in Damascus and elsewhere throughout the country.
Speaker 3: So the likelihood of this just accelerating even more conflict
Speaker 3: over there is a huge problem. That's literally how Isis
Speaker 3: was born, you know, in terms of the vacuum of
Speaker 3: the Syrian Civil War, and so now we're back into
Speaker 3: this and it's just another great example of the fortieth
Speaker 3: order consequences of American form policies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: One of the leaks that came out, you know, in
Speaker 2: the twenty sixteen era was Jake Sullivan to Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 2: we're on the side of al Qaeda in Syria. So
Speaker 2: you know, don't take it from me, take it from him.
Speaker 2: And you know, with regard to Israel, they love to
Speaker 2: see this too because it just means that their adversaries
Speaker 2: are further distracted with another, you know, hot conflict that
Speaker 2: they now have to deal with. Keep in mind, we
Speaker 2: haven't talked about it as much, but Israel's been bombing
Speaker 2: in Syria as well. They've been upset because they felt
Speaker 2: that Syria was a hub for various weapons transfers to
Speaker 2: their enemies, including Hasblas. So they're you know, very they're
Speaker 2: also delighted with this chain of events. So, you know,
Speaker 2: if SOD is able to regroup or if the rebels
Speaker 2: continue to take ground, regardless, what had been a sort
Speaker 2: of tenuous stability in that country has now definitely been broken.
Speaker 5: Definitely.
Speaker 2: All Right, all right, let's go ahead and get to
Speaker 2: Matt Stoller in this whole d banking conversation sparked by
Speaker 2: Mark Andresen on the Joe Rogan podcast.
Speaker 6: All right, so we've.
Speaker 2: Got Matt Stellar standing, by the way in on this
Speaker 2: whole de banking situation. He of course writes the big
Speaker 2: sub stack and is an analyst of the American Economic
Speaker 2: Liberties Project, right to see you as always there.
Speaker 1: Good to see you, man, See you all right.
Speaker 2: So let's take a look at these comments that Indreason
Speaker 2: made which sparked this whole conversation.
Speaker 9: Here we go Sally, for example, with this thing called
Speaker 9: the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau CFPB, which was the it's
Speaker 9: sort of Elizabeth Warren's personal agent. See that she gets
Speaker 9: to control and it's an independent agency that just gets
Speaker 9: to run and do whatever it wants. Right, And if
Speaker 9: you read the constitution, like there is no such thing
Speaker 9: as an independent agency, and yet.
Speaker 6: There it is. What does her agency do.
Speaker 9: Whatever she wants?
Speaker 6: What does it do?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 9: We basically did terrorize financial terrorize financial institutions, prevent crypt fintech,
Speaker 9: prevent new competition, new startups that want to compete with
Speaker 9: a big bankery. Oh yeah, just terrorizing anybody who tries
Speaker 9: to do anything new in financial services. And can you
Speaker 9: give me an example, you said, you know, de banking.
Speaker 9: This is where a lot of the d banking comes from,
Speaker 9: is these agencies. So d banking is when you're you
Speaker 9: as either a person or your company are literally kicked
Speaker 9: out of the banking system, like they did to Kanye
Speaker 9: exactly like they did to Kanye. My partner band's father
Speaker 9: has been d banked. Really, we had an employee for
Speaker 9: what for having the wrong politics, for saying unacceptable things
Speaker 9: under current banking regulations under okay, here's a great here's
Speaker 9: a great thing. Under current banking regulations. After all the
Speaker 9: reforms of the last twenty years, there's now a category
Speaker 9: called a politically exposed person PEP. And if you were
Speaker 9: a PEP, you were required by financial regulators to kick
Speaker 9: them off of your to kick them out of your bank.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to if you're politically on the left.
Speaker 5: That's fine.
Speaker 9: Because they're not politically expressed.
Speaker 6: So no one on the left gets d banked.
Speaker 9: I have not heard of a single list as of
Speaker 9: anybody in the left getting doe.
Speaker 4: Can you tell me what the person that you know did,
Speaker 4: what they said that got them d bank?
Speaker 9: Well, I mean, David Herwitz is a right wing you know,
Speaker 9: he's pro Trump. I mean, he's said all kinds of things.
Speaker 9: You know, he's been very anti Islamic terrorism, he's been
Speaker 9: very worried about him migration, all these things, and they
Speaker 9: debanked him for the bank tod So you get kicked out,
Speaker 9: You get kicked out of your bank account.
Speaker 2: Just so people understand why in recent is so significant.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is one of the most influential Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley venture capitalists funders. So what you say is quite
Speaker 2: consequentially has a lot of way with the Trump administration
Speaker 2: talked to us about you back here.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Yeah, So this is a this is a con right,
Speaker 10: and it's important to distinguish between two things.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 10: One is if you say something or you make a
Speaker 10: political statement that people don't like, can you lose access
Speaker 10: to your bank account? And that is a real problem
Speaker 10: because it does happen, and it happens to people on
Speaker 10: the right, and it happens to people on the left.
Speaker 10: It's not that common. But you saw it with in Canada.
Speaker 10: You saw it with Canadian trucker protests. You've seen it.
Speaker 10: You saw it with WikiLeaks, you saw it with a
Speaker 10: lot of pro palest Indian advocacy, you know their Venmo accounts.
Speaker 10: Twenty twenty one, PayPal said, we're concerned about people who
Speaker 10: might be spreading misinformation, right, so we're going to implement
Speaker 10: new You do see this fear on the part of
Speaker 10: financial institution's financial censorship. It's a real thing.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 10: The other side, though, is that you have people that
Speaker 10: are engaged in what regulators see as potentially risky activity.
Speaker 10: So this would be things like crypto. Right, if you're
Speaker 10: using crypto and you're engaged in sort of things that
Speaker 10: look a little bit like money laundering, or if you're
Speaker 10: doing things like putting taking ten thousand dollars of cash
Speaker 10: and depositing into a bank account every day for a month,
Speaker 10: banks are going to be suspicious and they are are
Speaker 10: going to file suspicious activity reports.
Speaker 2: They're required to.
Speaker 10: They are required to, and our banking system works by
Speaker 10: saying if a bank is suspicious of you for engaging
Speaker 10: in all sorts of activities, mostly money laundering and fraud
Speaker 10: or other forms of scams, they are required to take action.
Speaker 10: Now those are different things, right, Those are very different things.
Speaker 10: And we do know that debanking for political purposes happens,
Speaker 10: but we also know that banks are required to actually
Speaker 10: implement law enforcement and to be a little bit suspicious.
Speaker 10: It's a little bit like you go to a stop sign, right,
Speaker 10: There's no due process at.
Speaker 6: A stop sign.
Speaker 10: Even if running a stop sign, you know it doesn't
Speaker 10: going to cause any problems, you still have to stop
Speaker 10: at the stop sign.
Speaker 6: So that's the way our banking system works. Now.
Speaker 10: By what Mark Andresen is doing is he's conflating these
Speaker 10: two things intentionally. And the reason he's doing that is
Speaker 10: because he has specific investments in companies, two of them
Speaker 10: that I can think of, one called lend Up and
Speaker 10: one called sinnapps that have both been put out of
Speaker 10: business by the Consumer Financial Protection Agency for stealing from customers,
Speaker 10: all right, or for collapsing and costing people their life savings.
Speaker 10: These are not crypto companies. One of them is a
Speaker 10: paidy lender. The other one is a fintech firm that
Speaker 10: connects people from apps to their bank accounts, and it
Speaker 10: was just forms of fraud and the CFPP went after
Speaker 10: his investments, and he's mad about that now. The CFPB
Speaker 10: is a consumer financial protection agency. They don't actually do
Speaker 10: the things that they don't go to banks and say
Speaker 10: we're really nervous about you having these people banking.
Speaker 6: Those are other agencies.
Speaker 10: The CFPP is the one that protects consumers, and it's
Speaker 10: also one that in the past couple of years has
Speaker 10: actually tried to say as part of their regulatory authority,
Speaker 10: we don't want debanking based on race, religion, political views, etc.
Speaker 5: Etc.
Speaker 10: And they've been stopped by Trump judges from actually trying
Speaker 10: to prohibit those forms of dbanking.
Speaker 6: So that's what's going on.
Speaker 3: The defense full disclosure, I consider Mark a friend. But
Speaker 3: the actual defense of this that I have seen, let's
Speaker 3: put the next part up there on the screen. This
Speaker 3: is from a pro crypto advocate, Nick Carter, and he
Speaker 3: writes here about quote operation choke point two point zero
Speaker 3: crypto in his crosshairs. As I understand it, the defense
Speaker 3: that Nick and others have put forward on Andresen's comments
Speaker 3: is that the FDIC and the US government have put
Speaker 3: in place very onerous regulations basically disallowing crypto companies to
Speaker 3: be able to do business, allowing an effective monopoly to
Speaker 3: the banks. And so what Andresen there is talking about
Speaker 3: is about this US government regulated sec FDIC initiative which
Speaker 3: allows them, under this quote unquote Operation Choke point two
Speaker 3: point zero to basically disincentivize crypto, other fintech or whatever innovation.
Speaker 1: So what's your response to.
Speaker 6: Neck, Well, that's not what he said.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean that's you know, if if Mark Andresen
Speaker 10: is going to say I don't like what the FDIC
Speaker 10: is doing, and I don't like what they're doing to
Speaker 10: prohibit bit crypto businesses from operating. He should say that,
Speaker 10: but he didn't say that. He said I don't like
Speaker 10: the CFPB, right, which isn't doing any of the things
Speaker 10: that he suggested.
Speaker 2: And this person doesn't even claim they are right.
Speaker 1: Right, and he didn't say Nick has to be clear.
Speaker 3: Nick has been like, I think he misspoke, and this
Speaker 3: is what he was talking about.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, yeah, I'm saying no, fair.
Speaker 10: Enough, but I'm only taking his comments. I mean, and
Speaker 10: he spent a while on Joe Rogan saying they're terrorizing
Speaker 10: financial institutions for political speech, right, And and then you
Speaker 10: know they're kind of like, oh, well he didn't he
Speaker 10: didn't really mean it, all right, Well, then don't say it, right.
Speaker 10: I Mean, the point here is if you want to
Speaker 10: have a debate about crypto, and we can have a
Speaker 10: discussion about crypto and you know the banking system and that,
Speaker 10: that's fair. But the point here isn't to have that discussion.
Speaker 10: The point here is to say, if policymakers are going
Speaker 10: to regulate crypto in a certain manner, it means that
Speaker 10: if you say something that they don't like, that they
Speaker 10: can debank you. And that's a con it's not true.
Speaker 10: What they should be saying is they should keep those
Speaker 10: two things separate and say we want to have a
Speaker 10: debate about whether you should be able to do your
Speaker 10: crypto thing, which you know, or and we're going to
Speaker 10: have a discussion about dbanking because you say political speech.
Speaker 10: But I think it was pretty clear in that clip
Speaker 10: that Mark Andreeson put out to millions of people. He
Speaker 10: was saying you could be dbanked because of what you say.
Speaker 6: Right, you can that it's the CFPB the the way, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 6: that's right, it's the CFPP doing it.
Speaker 10: And he didn't say, oh, by the way, I have
Speaker 10: these investments that ended up hurting a lot of people
Speaker 10: and the CFPB, you know, for deception, not like you know,
Speaker 10: and and the CFPB came in and said you can't
Speaker 10: do that.
Speaker 6: Right, He didn't say that either.
Speaker 10: So it's like I'm not inclined to give him the
Speaker 10: benefit of the doubt. And with someone like Nick Carter,
Speaker 10: I mean, fair enough, the guy misspoke, but you can't
Speaker 10: just say, oh, well, yes, there are these massive conflicts
Speaker 10: of interest and oh he didn't. You know, he didn't
Speaker 10: mean what he said, even though he said it to
Speaker 10: millions of people. And then I'm going to talk about
Speaker 10: the thing I want to talk about. It's like, you can't.
Speaker 10: That's not a form of fair policy.
Speaker 3: I think that's fair. I think what as I understand it,
Speaker 3: there are two things happening. There's this conversation about the
Speaker 3: D banking for political purposes, and I do think it's
Speaker 3: pretty clear the cfeb Row hitch opra In particularly spoken
Speaker 3: out against D banking, so we got to give him
Speaker 3: that benefit of the doubt. On the crypto side, I
Speaker 3: think what it is a lot of regulatory fear. I mean,
Speaker 3: let's be honest too, there's a big right wing kind
Speaker 3: of you know, like a marriage I guess now with
Speaker 3: the crypto industry, and so that is the lens through
Speaker 3: which they're looking at it about quote unquote being d
Speaker 3: banked for these purposes. I do, do you think it's
Speaker 3: an interesting conversation. For example, I saw David Marcus, who
Speaker 3: previously led the Libra project over at Facebook or I
Speaker 3: guess Meta now talking about being D banked, and I
Speaker 3: was like, well, you know, to be honest, I think
Speaker 3: that was a good thing. I don't really want the
Speaker 3: global financial system to be run also by meta, So
Speaker 3: there are there.
Speaker 6: Is also I think that still has a bank account.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Medasaw is a make account.
Speaker 3: But the point was, actually you and I talked about
Speaker 3: Libra a lot at the time, because Libra, for people
Speaker 3: who don't remember, is what was it. It was basically
Speaker 3: like a platform for global financial transactions that will be
Speaker 3: run by Meta on it. And I'm getting a lot
Speaker 3: of this, you know, technologically and correct, but it was effectively.
Speaker 11: Changing it measure blockchain which they would adjudicate and run
Speaker 11: to get around the global financial banking system and effectively
Speaker 11: allow them to control payments, which has been very profitable
Speaker 11: for Visa and for all these other places.
Speaker 3: I would be very concerned about that. So I think
Speaker 3: it's a fair conversation around regulation. And I guess I'm
Speaker 3: not giving more quote unquote benefit of the doubt or whatever,
Speaker 3: but that does seem to be like the high.
Speaker 1: IQ version I guess of what's happened.
Speaker 2: It's just hard for me to accept that when that's
Speaker 2: not remotely what he said. It's like he didn't even
Speaker 2: talk about crypto, does he. I mean, he's about political
Speaker 2: speech later okay, later on he gets a crypto. But
Speaker 2: the other piece about it that irritates me is this
Speaker 2: characterization of this agency, which was inspired by Elizabeth Warren,
Speaker 2: but Obama wouldn't even put her in as the first
Speaker 2: head of the CFPB because he was, I don't know, afraid,
Speaker 2: And then it's portrayed as just like her personal governmental.
Speaker 10: Arm and they have the authority to do anything, including
Speaker 10: terrorized people.
Speaker 6: I mean, he's talked about that.
Speaker 10: He consistently said they terrorize and it's unconstitutional. On all
Speaker 10: of these like ideologically freighted arguments about how we never
Speaker 10: had an administrative state, which is not true. I mean,
Speaker 10: that's that's just not a real reading of history. I
Speaker 10: think there's a broader point here, though, which is that
Speaker 10: the Trump administration is coming in on a populist wave
Speaker 10: that is different, I think than the traditional Republican Party,
Speaker 10: and I you know, we all know people on the
Speaker 10: New Right. They have different views about how to regulate
Speaker 10: the relationship the government and the state, sorry, the government
Speaker 10: and private interests.
Speaker 6: And one of the things that's happening.
Speaker 10: Is there's this attempt to kind of subvert the New
Speaker 10: Right within the Republican Party by conflating legitimate points of
Speaker 10: disagreement like crypto policy, with this other thing like should
Speaker 10: we have an administrative state that could protect people? And
Speaker 10: I can guarantee you that the CFPB can be a
Speaker 10: super useful tool for Trump to protect his new working
Speaker 10: class voting coalition, But it is also something that I
Speaker 10: think a lot of the billionaires that are backing him
Speaker 10: really would prefer out of the way so they can
Speaker 10: steal from that working class coalition, right, And that's the tension.
Speaker 10: And I think the danger here among populists on the
Speaker 10: right is that they fall for the cultural arguments that
Speaker 10: are I think legitimate, but are conflated and I think
Speaker 10: dishonestly with the broader attack on the administrative state. So
Speaker 10: that's what I worry about him.
Speaker 3: What do you mean when you say how Trump could
Speaker 3: use it? Like, could you give an example?
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, you know Synapse is a good example, right.
Speaker 10: Synapps is a is a company that you know connects
Speaker 10: connected new fintech you know apps to a bank account.
Speaker 10: And they had a dispute with the bank that they
Speaker 10: were working with, which is called Evolve Bank. And there
Speaker 10: there there's hundreds of millions of dollars that are caught
Speaker 10: in the middle. No one knows what happened to the money,
Speaker 10: and now a lot of people are missing their life savings.
Speaker 10: I don't know if if those are Trump voters or
Speaker 10: if they're Biden voters.
Speaker 6: My guess is it's probably both.
Speaker 10: And the CFPB came in and is investigating and trying to,
Speaker 10: you know, get some of the money out and get
Speaker 10: some of the money back. That would be an example,
Speaker 10: but there's a ton of other examples, from you know,
Speaker 10: payday lenders to just Wells Fargo with the with the
Speaker 10: bank accounts right, you know, opening up fraudulent bank accounts.
Speaker 10: It's just like anything that banks can do to screw
Speaker 10: you over or Venmo or any of these payment apps
Speaker 10: or or the new big tech payment systems, like there
Speaker 10: is supervision that is coming from the CFPB.
Speaker 6: All of that stuff can be really useful, you know.
Speaker 10: I mean, think about all the surveillance that these companies
Speaker 10: can engage in over your payments and how they can
Speaker 10: manipulate what you pay. All that stuff can be overseen
Speaker 10: by the CFPB or by other administrative agencies and or
Speaker 10: it cannot be right, or you can just have let
Speaker 10: meta and Walmart and whoever just kind of worked together
Speaker 10: to charge you more when they know you'll pay versus not.
Speaker 10: And I think that's kind of the open question, right
Speaker 10: is where where is Trump going to go? And we
Speaker 10: can see that this is a move from Mark Andriesen,
Speaker 10: who's a very smart guy, to push the Trump in
Speaker 10: a certain direction.
Speaker 2: As another example, just last year, they returned one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty million dollars to consumers who were hit by
Speaker 2: illegal junk fees and banking auto loans remittances. You know,
Speaker 2: over its lifetime, it's returned nineteen billion dollars to consumers.
Speaker 6: Kyle actually was hit with.
Speaker 2: Some of these, yeah, illegal fees that he was, you know,
Speaker 2: a beneficial area of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And I
Speaker 2: think your point, which has helped me understand what's going
Speaker 2: on here, is that it's very easy to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Warren's associated with it. You don't like her, right,
Speaker 2: she's this you know, political villain or I'm trying to
Speaker 2: create her as this political villain. Ergo, this agency that
Speaker 2: she's somewhat associated with must be part of the bad administration,
Speaker 2: that administrative state that you want to just get rid of.
Speaker 2: When in reality, this is probably one of the parts
Speaker 2: of government that has been most effective in actually protecting
Speaker 2: and delivering for regular people.
Speaker 6: It is that's exactly right.
Speaker 10: And I would say, like another example that is not
Speaker 10: you know, poor put upon consumers, but is maybe more
Speaker 10: what Mark Riesen is talking about, which is competition. They
Speaker 10: just implemented what's called an open banking rule right where
Speaker 10: they said, your data at your bank account, right is
Speaker 10: yours and if you want to take it somewhere else
Speaker 10: you can. They have to make it easy, easier to
Speaker 10: switch bank accounts with all of you know, your bill
Speaker 10: pay and all the rest of it. And that, you know,
Speaker 10: one of the reasons. So I got screwed by Capital One.
Speaker 10: They they said, oh, we're going to pay a certain
Speaker 10: interest rate. And then a few years later I was
Speaker 10: on my bank account. I was like, oh, I'm not
Speaker 10: getting what happened. They're like, oh, you you know, there's
Speaker 10: some technically I read about that, yeah, you know, And
Speaker 10: then there was a class actually made the lost because
Speaker 10: they right, but I wanted to switch and it was
Speaker 10: it's a pain in the ass to switch bank accounts.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 10: So this open banking rule, which was put into statute
Speaker 10: in twenty ten, right, and Rohe Chopra finally implemented it. Right,
Speaker 10: it's going to go into effect, and that's going to
Speaker 10: allow new companies, new banks, new FinTechs to come in
Speaker 10: and compete for your business. Right, it's going to help innovation,
Speaker 10: and it's going to threaten the bank the big bankers, Well,
Speaker 10: the big bankers are really mad about it in our
Speaker 10: suing the CFPB about and that's that's kind of a
Speaker 10: big fight.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 10: If you accept Mark Andriesen's argument that the CFPB is
Speaker 10: this Elizabeth Warren agency that's just out for terrorizing, you know,
Speaker 10: financial institutions. It doesn't like competition, then why are the
Speaker 10: bankers suing to block the CFPB from forcing the banks
Speaker 10: to allow competition?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 10: That's kind of the question here, And and I think
Speaker 10: we we have to move beyond these old kind of
Speaker 10: hoary arguments about about the administrative state and get to
Speaker 10: the point which I think Trump is going to realize,
Speaker 10: which is that this is a complex society. You have
Speaker 10: to figure out how to govern it, right, And I
Speaker 10: don't think Biden figured that out. I don't think we've
Speaker 10: we've had effective governance for a long time, and we
Speaker 10: need it, and they're going to have to figure out
Speaker 10: something right. And I think if you listen to Mark Andreeson,
Speaker 10: they're not going to They're not going to figure.
Speaker 6: It out right.
Speaker 10: And then you're going to see the same thing we've
Speaker 10: seen for a long time, which is swing backs, swings
Speaker 10: back to the other party, right, And that that's the
Speaker 10: broader point here. It's not just about the CFPB, It's
Speaker 10: about can you accept governance?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 1: Interesting rebuddle. Thank you, appreciate it, Matt.
Speaker 2: Always great to see you.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders, who's model of class first, anti billionaire politics
Speaker 2: has just been dramatically vindicated by the sweeping verdict against
Speaker 2: the Democratic establishment, had some advice for Democrats who were
Speaker 2: thinking about the upcoming DNC chair race. In particular, he said, quote,
Speaker 2: if the Democratic Party is to become a small d
Speaker 2: Democratic party, the first job of a new DNC chair
Speaker 2: is to get super pac money out of Democratic primaries.
Speaker 2: APAC and other billionaire funded superpacks cannot be allowed to
Speaker 2: select Democratic candidates. Now, that's something that I and others
Speaker 2: have been calling for. After all, sure will be difficult
Speaker 2: to get the Supreme Court to overturn the rash of
Speaker 2: decisions which have flooded unlimited money into our politics. But
Speaker 2: at the very least democrats within their own party contests
Speaker 2: can model cleaner elections by banning super PACs from playing
Speaker 2: at all. This would prevent massive interest groups like APAC
Speaker 2: and cryptolobbyists from having more ability to pick Democratic candidates
Speaker 2: than Democratic voters do. Apparently, However, MSNBC they found this
Speaker 2: suggestion from Bernie to be what are we preposterous? Just
Speaker 2: take a listen.
Speaker 5: So you have Bernie Sanders tweeting on Monday.
Speaker 8: If the Democratic Party is to become a democratic party,
Speaker 8: the first job of the new DNC chairs to get
Speaker 8: the super pac money out of Democratic primaries. APAC and
Speaker 8: other billionaire funded super PACs cannot be allowed to select
Speaker 8: Democratic candidates.
Speaker 5: They typically don't.
Speaker 8: They're not going to put their money into a DNC
Speaker 8: chairman's race. So again, for me, as the head of
Speaker 8: former head of a party, as county chairman and a
Speaker 8: state chairman, that to me is shortsighted. Thinking about where
Speaker 8: the landscape is one thing that has very little to
Speaker 8: do with the other super PACs and all those guys
Speaker 8: play in elections and campaigns. That's a different conversation than
Speaker 8: running for chairmen and telling the people.
Speaker 5: Who will write checks, we don't want you write checks.
Speaker 12: Yeah, you're absolutely right. With all due respect to Senator Sanders,
Speaker 12: you know you might want to join the party if
Speaker 12: you want to have some Well, there is that, so
Speaker 12: you know, just on its face it that's problematic for me.
Speaker 12: Now in terms of the money, Look, that's not the
Speaker 12: DNC's issue. You're you're exactly right, mister Sherman, that that
Speaker 12: kind of money is in local races and state races,
Speaker 12: and the laws vary by state. So you for the
Speaker 12: DNC to spend its time and energy on what State
Speaker 12: A says versus what State B says, what versus what
Speaker 12: see canadacy is just doesn't make any sense to me.
Speaker 12: There's so much work for the next chair to do
Speaker 12: that would not be in the top ten of things
Speaker 12: that I focused on.
Speaker 2: Wow, these people are so accustomed just swimming in the
Speaker 2: water is a big money political corruption and donor domination
Speaker 2: that they cannot even conceive of doing things a different way,
Speaker 2: as MSNBC has always done towards Bernie's incredibly common sense approach.
Speaker 2: They can do little other than Scoff and sneer writing
Speaker 2: him for not officially being a member of their little club.
Speaker 2: It's worth taking note, by the way, of who these
Speaker 2: three actually are. You've got Michael Steele, a former Republican
Speaker 2: Party chair who is considered apparently to be a more
Speaker 2: worthy ally and advisor than Bernie Sanders. Leah Daughtry is
Speaker 2: a former chief of staff to the DNC chair. She
Speaker 2: was prominently featured in a New York Times article in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen about panicked Democratic insiders who are organizing an
Speaker 2: internal effort to stop Sanders. Let me give you a
Speaker 2: little taste of that article so you can get a
Speaker 2: sense of her politics. Quote from canopey filled fundraisers on
Speaker 2: the coast to the cloak rooms of Washington. Mainstream Democrats
Speaker 2: are increasingly worried that their effort to defeat President Trump
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty could be complicated by mister Sanders in
Speaker 2: a political scenario all too reminiscent of how mister Trump
Speaker 2: himself sees the Republican nomination in twenty sixteen. Because God forbid,
Speaker 2: the guy with an actual organic populist following represent this
Speaker 2: decrepit party and then coming out the trio. You've got
Speaker 2: Alicia Menendez, who happens to be the daughter of the
Speaker 2: guy who was convicted of selling his Senate influence for
Speaker 2: gold bars and other goodies. Gee, can't imagine why MSNBC
Speaker 2: is lost half of their viewership. In fact, while I
Speaker 2: and others have said plenty and written plenty about how
Speaker 2: Democrats need to embrace a populous class war frame, the
Speaker 2: obvious first and essential battle in this fight is the
Speaker 2: one that Bernie Sanders identifies, getting money out of politics. Ironically,
Speaker 2: since Trump just won while raising vastly less money than
Speaker 2: Kamala did, the old excuse the Democrats can't unilaterally disarm
Speaker 2: lest they be electorally destroyed, that is now totally bunked.
Speaker 2: They have got no plausible excuse left to keep orienting
Speaker 2: their party around the needs of their donors instead of
Speaker 2: the needs of workers. In a new op ed, Rocanna
Speaker 2: and Larry Lesseg lay out some specific ideas for how
Speaker 2: to begin this fight. One battle is demanding, as Bernie
Speaker 2: did that the next DNC chair bans super Pac money
Speaker 2: in dem primaries. But the other front is in the courts.
Speaker 2: In fact, the corruption case against MSNBC host Alicia Menendez's
Speaker 2: dad provides a roadmap forward because it proved that super
Speaker 2: pac giving could in fact constitute a quid pro quo.
Speaker 2: That was something the courts had previously said was impossible.
Speaker 2: Now they use that flawed rationale to strike down all
Speaker 2: limits on super pac giving. That's why billionaires can give
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars to super pac but individuals can
Speaker 2: only contribute a few thousand dollars directly to a campaign.
Speaker 2: But plainly, if Menendez can be convicted for accepting super
Speaker 2: pac contributions in exchange for political favors, then super PACs
Speaker 2: can be part of a quid pro quo and thus
Speaker 2: subject to contribution limits. That alone would represent an absolute
Speaker 2: sea change in the campaign finance landscape. For example, Barry
Speaker 2: Maddilson just effectively reportedly bought our foreign policy with a
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollar contribution to a Trump super pac.
Speaker 2: That's why evangelical end time zionis psychos like Mike Kacabee
Speaker 2: are now in key positions of power. If she can
Speaker 2: only kick and say five or ten thousand dollars, we
Speaker 2: might have gotten a little bit more sane foreign policy
Speaker 2: team ount of Trump. And that is obviously just one
Speaker 2: example Trump's political project. It's largely not that antagonistic towards billionaires,
Speaker 2: which is why so many have backed him. They get
Speaker 2: their tax cuts and their government goodies. All they have
Speaker 2: to do is to stay on Trump's good side. His
Speaker 2: villains are immigrants and cultural elites like Hollywood and academia,
Speaker 2: so he can fully pursue his political project while sucking
Speaker 2: up hundreds of millions in billionaire cash with little conflict.
Speaker 2: For Democrats to answer trump Ism, however, they need to
Speaker 2: go full class war. And you ain't waging class war
Speaker 2: as long as your entire party apparatus and leadership class
Speaker 2: is designed to cater to billionaires. In their op ed,
Speaker 2: Conna and Lessig say that this dynamic results in what
Speaker 2: they call golden handcuffs. The treasure the Democrats raise from
Speaker 2: the billionaire class then locks them in to a status
Speaker 2: quo friendly orientation, and you can actually see those golden
Speaker 2: handcuffs snap into place in real time over the course
Speaker 2: of the hairt campaign. My friend Branco marsaitiic over at
Speaker 2: Jacobin ran the data, and I have yet to see
Speaker 2: anything more compelling in terms of understanding Kamala's momentum stall
Speaker 2: and eventual loss. So if you look at this chart.
Speaker 2: The blue line you see here tracks quote democracy rhetoric
Speaker 2: over the course of the campaign. That would include the
Speaker 2: use of words like authoritarian checks and balances, insurrection and
Speaker 2: the like. The red line tracks quote anti elite rhetoric
Speaker 2: over the course of the campaign, so that would be
Speaker 2: words like elites, billionaire's, corporate greed, things like that. You
Speaker 2: can see as the campaign went on, Kamala's brother in
Speaker 2: lawn uber exec Tony West, got his way. The campaign
Speaker 2: backed away from their price gouging corporate greed rhetoric. They
Speaker 2: put tim Walls on the shelf, and they lean into
Speaker 2: the Liz Cheney strategy. It was a disaster. Now we've
Speaker 2: covered here the research from the Center for Working Class
Speaker 2: Politics that found democracy rhetoric was the least effective of
Speaker 2: all messages for working class wing voters. Conversely, a populist
Speaker 2: economics pitch was the most effective and yet the most
Speaker 2: powerful ad that the Kamma campaign cut, which focused on
Speaker 2: price gouging and greedy landlords, never even saw the light
Speaker 2: of day. That makes no electoral sense. It only makes
Speaker 2: sense once you understand that the campaign's first goal was
Speaker 2: not to win, but to keep their big money backers happy.
Speaker 1: To not rock the boat.
Speaker 2: Now, if you don't change that dynamic, this party is
Speaker 2: never going to change. But of course no one should
Speaker 2: be under any illusions of the difficulty of accomplishing this shift,
Speaker 2: because not only our messages and issues selected to put
Speaker 2: donors at ease, candidates are as well. Have you ever
Speaker 2: wondered why so many politicians, both left and right, are bland, talentless,
Speaker 2: well credentialed packs. The reason is they were not selected
Speaker 2: for their deep insights, ratorical skills, or leadership prowess. They
Speaker 2: are selected because they are either themselves wealthy self funders,
Speaker 2: or because they are skilled at separating rich people from
Speaker 2: their money. That was the secret to Kamla's success, and
Speaker 2: it's the reason why so many of the Democrats in
Speaker 2: leadership are from New York and California, because that's where
Speaker 2: the money is. So if raising money is your primary
Speaker 2: skill and the key to your political power, you are
Speaker 2: probably not going to be too eager to shift to
Speaker 2: a model that might actually prioritize not being repellent to voters. Now,
Speaker 2: if all the questions facing Democrats as they consider a
Speaker 2: new chair, this one is non negotiable. Will they ban
Speaker 2: big money from party primaries. That answer will tell you
Speaker 2: whether Dems are serious at all about change, or, as
Speaker 2: Bernie and I unfortunately suspect, just interested in keeping their
Speaker 2: lucrative racket. I know this a little bit of a
Speaker 2: weedzy debate, but it's an absolutely
Speaker 3: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 3: become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com.