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Speaker 4: Good morning, everyone, Welcome to Breaking Points. I'm speaking extra
Speaker 4: loudly today because Sager is not here and I'm in studios,
Speaker 4: so I have to make sure Crystal hears me all
Speaker 4: the way out where she is.
Speaker 1: Crystal, good morning.
Speaker 5: Good morning. Nice to see you lovely.
Speaker 2: As always, Emily, a lot of interesting stuff to get
Speaker 2: into in the show today. We've got Trump officially rejecting
Speaker 2: Iron's proposal, BB telling us informing us at the wars
Speaker 2: and over, so always have to listen to what the
Speaker 2: actual president of the United States is saying there's a
Speaker 2: new estimate that takes into account the broader impact of
Speaker 2: the war and says it is going to cost trillions
Speaker 2: of dollars.
Speaker 5: Already, in Virginia.
Speaker 2: Some major political news those new maps that were just
Speaker 2: passed by voters here have been struck down by the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court. So now everyone is looking to see whether
Speaker 2: Democrats are going to just lay in a chalk outline
Speaker 2: of themselves like they typically do.
Speaker 1: Or try to fight that outline up.
Speaker 2: It's good, that's kind of their normal, you know, that's
Speaker 2: their normal mode. But maybe it's a new day. We're
Speaker 2: gonna We're going to find out. We're also going to
Speaker 2: take a look at the hunt of virus. I know
Speaker 2: a lot of people very concerned. How much have you
Speaker 2: been following Haunted news, Emily.
Speaker 1: I started following it closely over the last few days.
Speaker 4: Before that, I was ignoring it. Now I'm paying attention,
Speaker 4: how about you.
Speaker 2: So I actually followed it very closely right when the
Speaker 2: news broke, and then I convinced myself just not to
Speaker 2: worry about it because there's too many other things to
Speaker 2: worry about. So I'm rejoining the Haunted conversation. But apparently
Speaker 2: birdwatchers were vindicated it was not contracted at the landfill,
Speaker 2: even though that seemed like a very like suspect.
Speaker 4: Yeah, huge dub for the bird watchers. We're going to
Speaker 4: get into it, but so far looking so good for them.
Speaker 2: Yes, we've also got some interesting comments from AOC on
Speaker 2: Marjorie Taylor Green and her views there. Emptyg also firing
Speaker 2: back a lot of discourse. I regret to inform you
Speaker 2: we're gonna also have a little more Hassan Piker discourse
Speaker 2: in that luck as well. So get excited for that
Speaker 2: and then very excited to talk to you. Retired Colonel
Speaker 2: Lawrence Wilkritson, formerly the chief of staff to Cole and Pale,
Speaker 2: a very important figure anti Iraq war figure during that
Speaker 2: time period, continues to be a really prescient voice on
Speaker 2: matters of war and peace. So we're going to talk
Speaker 2: to him about the Iran war, and I'm interested to
Speaker 2: get his reaction to a Mark Levin sat that Trump
Speaker 2: had tweeted out Mark Levin telling us, you know, we
Speaker 2: just need to arm these opposition groups because it went
Speaker 2: so great for us in the past. Emily, he specifically
Speaker 2: uses the example of arming the Moujah Hadeen, which is
Speaker 2: pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: And not just that.
Speaker 4: There are more examples, so you're gonna want to stick around.
Speaker 4: He goes through the tour of all of our great
Speaker 4: experience instans arming proxy forces.
Speaker 1: So stick around for that. You can't miss the smart levinsot.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, let's go ahead and jump into the
Speaker 2: latest with regard to the war. As I mentioned before,
Speaker 2: Night Yahoo was on sixty minutes and was asked specifically
Speaker 2: whether he thought the war was over or not. Let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and take a listen to what he had
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 6: Is the war with Iran over? And if it isn't,
Speaker 6: who will decide when it is?
Speaker 7: I think it accomplished a great deal, but it's not
Speaker 7: over because there's still nuclear material, enriched uranium that has
Speaker 7: to be taken out of Iran. There's still enrichment sites
Speaker 7: that have to be dismantled, there are still proxies that
Speaker 7: Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still want
Speaker 7: to produce. Now we've degraded a lot of it, but
Speaker 7: all of that is still there and there's work to
Speaker 7: be done.
Speaker 6: How do you envision the highly enriched uranium will be
Speaker 6: removed from Iran?
Speaker 7: You go in and you take it out with.
Speaker 6: What special forces from Israel, special forces in the United States.
Speaker 7: Well, I'm not going to talk about military means, but
Speaker 7: the present what President Trump has said to me. I
Speaker 7: want to go in there, and I think it can
Speaker 7: be done physically. That's not the problem. If you have
Speaker 7: an agreement and you go in and you take it out,
Speaker 7: why not that's the best way.
Speaker 6: What if there isn't an agreement, can it be taken
Speaker 6: out by force?
Speaker 7: Well, you're going to ask me these questions, I'm going
Speaker 7: to dodge them because I'm not going to talk about
Speaker 7: our military possibilities, plans, or anything of the kind.
Speaker 6: And I'm just trying to get at how long is
Speaker 6: it going to take to achieve that aim.
Speaker 7: I'm not going to give a timetable to it, but
Speaker 7: I'm going to say that's a terrifically important mission.
Speaker 5: Emily.
Speaker 2: We also understand that Trump and NATNYA, who had a
Speaker 2: call yesterday. There was some suggestion that it was rather
Speaker 2: urgent and unexpected. We didn't get a lot of details
Speaker 2: out of what exactly was said on that call, but
Speaker 2: Ntnaho They're saying that Trump told him he wants to
Speaker 2: go in and get that.
Speaker 5: Uranium and that the war is not over. What do
Speaker 5: you make of that?
Speaker 4: Well, he was asked by Major Garrett basically, what do
Speaker 4: you what is the timetable for this as everyone just heard,
Speaker 4: and Yaho says, well, I'm not going to give you
Speaker 4: any information. I don't want to give away our military plans.
Speaker 4: And then Garrett, I think actually pretty shrewdly asked him
Speaker 4: the next question. Well, first he asked are you going
Speaker 4: to do it? Or can you do it? And then
Speaker 4: net Yahuo said, oh, I'm not going to reveal anything.
Speaker 4: And then the next question was what's your timetable? And
Speaker 4: Bibe was like, well, okay, we don't want to get
Speaker 4: into specific so he confirmed by the next question that
Speaker 4: hell yeah, he's planning to do it. He just didn't
Speaker 4: want to reveal any details, which is juxtaposed with President
Speaker 4: Trump somewhat amusing in a very tragic way, Crystal, because
Speaker 4: Trump is out there talking constantly about what this could
Speaker 4: look like and what his plans are. It's such a
Speaker 4: strange contrast where you have the president and then Neta
Speaker 4: Yahoo saying I don't want to reveal too much. Well,
Speaker 4: Trump is constantly talking. It's very odd to see that juxtupposed.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, Trump was constantly talking a lot of nonsense and
Speaker 2: saying sometimes contradictory things in the same sentence. He's loved
Speaker 2: this strategy of just calling random reporters who just reprint
Speaker 2: the or you know, reiterate the garbage that he gives them.
Speaker 1: I don't know who you are talking about, Crystal.
Speaker 2: I don't know, actually, and I'm not just referring to
Speaker 2: one in this particular instance. There have been a lot
Speaker 2: of people who've gotten those calls apparently, And have you know, listen,
Speaker 2: if I got a call from the President, I would
Speaker 2: also indicate what he said, but I also give some
Speaker 2: context for how much stock we should put in his words.
Speaker 2: At this point, you have to look at the actions
Speaker 2: and so the latest words we're getting from Trump are
Speaker 2: that they have rejected the Iranian proposal as unacceptable. Let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and put a three up on the screen here.
Speaker 2: This is from Trump rejecting the Iranian propose. I've just
Speaker 2: read the response from around so called representatives. I don't
Speaker 2: like it, totally unacceptable in all caps. Thank you for
Speaker 2: your attention to this matter. This came after if we
Speaker 2: could put a two up the screen. This came after
Speaker 2: a different, lengthier truth social post saying that Iran has
Speaker 2: been playing games with the United States and the rest
Speaker 2: of the world for forty seven years. Delay delay, Delay,
Speaker 2: finally hit pay dirt when Barak Hussein Obama became president.
Speaker 2: He was not only good to them, he was great,
Speaker 2: actually going to their side, jettison ing Israel, oh my God,
Speaker 2: I wish and all of their allies, and giving Aron
Speaker 2: a major and very powerful new lease on life. Hundreds
Speaker 2: of billions of dollars and one point seven billion dollars
Speaker 2: in green cash flown into Tehran, no mention of the
Speaker 2: fact that was actually their own money. But whatever, every
Speaker 2: bank in DC, Virginia and Maryland empty down.
Speaker 5: Don't remember that?
Speaker 1: Really much money?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, exactly, so much money that when it arrived
Speaker 2: the Iranian thugs had no idea what to do with it.
Speaker 2: They'd never seen money like this, never will again. It
Speaker 2: was taken off the plane in suitcases and satchels. The
Speaker 2: Iranians couldn't believe their luck. They finally found the greatest
Speaker 2: sucker of them all in the form of a week
Speaker 2: and stupid American president. He was a disaster as our leader,
Speaker 2: but not as bad as sleepy Joe Biden. For forty
Speaker 2: seven years, the Iranians have been tapping us along, keeping
Speaker 2: us waiting, killing our people with their roadside bombs, destroying protests,
Speaker 2: recently wiping out forty two thousand innocent, unarmed protesters. The
Speaker 2: number is definitely not that anyway, and laughing at are
Speaker 2: now great again country? They will not. They will be
Speaker 2: laughing no longer President Donald J.
Speaker 5: Trump.
Speaker 2: And of course, you know, any deal, any theoretical deal
Speaker 2: that could possibly be struck Emily, is going to result
Speaker 2: in some sanctions relief. I think their Ranians are committed to,
Speaker 2: you know, full sanctions relief. They're also committed to reparations,
Speaker 2: although that could come in the form of being able
Speaker 2: to collect this toll.
Speaker 5: The strait of horror moves.
Speaker 2: So in any case, you know, the money, their own
Speaker 2: money that they receive back as part of the JCPOA
Speaker 2: is going to pale in comparison to the deal that
Speaker 2: would be available to Trump at this point, given the
Speaker 2: fact that the US has flat out lost this war
Speaker 2: to them. So you know, we're not really in a condition,
Speaker 2: in a position to be making demands, and yet we
Speaker 2: continue to make demands and posture as if we did
Speaker 2: not lose this wars if Ron does not have us
Speaker 2: checkmated in some very real and significant sense. And that's
Speaker 2: why as long as that persists, these negotiations are not
Speaker 2: going to go anywhere.
Speaker 1: Well, or the alternative.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's where this is somewhat chilling that Trump
Speaker 4: is going so hard in the paint right now against
Speaker 4: the handing over of cash.
Speaker 1: These are in some of the deals.
Speaker 4: Obviously, it was actually a point of disagreement intensely between
Speaker 4: Trump and Mark Levin, who he continues to tweet promotionally
Speaker 4: about or truth promotionally about. Just last week, Lindsay Graham
Speaker 4: and Mark Levin were really unhappy with the contours of
Speaker 4: a plan that were released that did find exactly this
Speaker 4: sanctions relief and I think unfrozen assets exag It's always
Speaker 4: hard to keep track of all of these plans, but
Speaker 4: I think that's pretty much stuck in just about I mean,
Speaker 4: all of them that have come out so far. And
Speaker 4: that's where it gets to the point where you wonder
Speaker 4: escalation trap wise, if to avoid this type of consternation
Speaker 4: from Levin, the embarrassment of having people make this argument
Speaker 4: about him, Trump gets sucked into actually some type of
Speaker 4: ground operation, significant ground operation that escalates the war further.
Speaker 4: To again avoid exactly what he's saying is so horrible. Now,
Speaker 4: it could obviously go the other way at the same time,
Speaker 4: and he could just not care and think that he's
Speaker 4: spinning everything as a win, which he's been doing already
Speaker 4: for the past couple of months. But it is a
Speaker 4: little bit chilling, Crystal to see him dunking so hard
Speaker 4: on that part of the JCPOA or I'm sorry, that
Speaker 4: part of the Biden administration because he is it indicating
Speaker 4: that he's moving further and further away from doing it himself.
Speaker 1: Or is it just an outburst. You don't really know.
Speaker 2: No, you don't And let's put the next piece up
Speaker 2: on the screen.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 2: From Iranian sources to their state news outlets, they said
Speaker 2: they just saw the reaction of the so called president
Speaker 2: of the United States to Iran's response has no importance.
Speaker 5: No one in Iran writes proposals to please Trump.
Speaker 2: The negotiating teams should draft proposals only for the right
Speaker 2: of the Iranian people, and when Trump is dissatisfied with them,
Speaker 2: naturally that is better. So that is the way their
Speaker 2: pasture I will say though, based on what we know
Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal and some other outlet of camera
Speaker 2: which one had some details of what the supposed Iranian
Speaker 2: response was, and maybe we can put Trita Parsi as
Speaker 2: the last element in the block A nine. Maybe we
Speaker 2: could put him up on the screen because he had
Speaker 2: an analysis of what the Iranians responded to Trump with,
Speaker 2: and essentially what he's indicating is on the nuclear file
Speaker 2: that they have compromised in some regards. They have walked
Speaker 2: closer to what the Americans are looking for, but they
Speaker 2: have not gone all the way. And Trump has put
Speaker 2: some relatively maximalist demands in there that are more in
Speaker 2: line with what the Israelis want to see than what
Speaker 2: his original original posture had been back when we were
Speaker 2: originally starting these negotiations along before the war.
Speaker 5: So he has.
Speaker 2: Placed his expectations in in you know, im possible position
Speaker 2: for the Iranians to accept. But that doesn't mean they're
Speaker 2: not willing to know, willing to negotiate on that piece
Speaker 2: at all. I think since they in particular, it's logical,
Speaker 2: since they've demonstrated that they have this massive deterrent capability
Speaker 2: through their control of the strait of Horn moves in
Speaker 2: a sense that gives them some more room to be
Speaker 2: able to negotiate on the nuclear file. Because what's the
Speaker 2: purpose of a nuclear weapon. It's deterrence. So if you
Speaker 2: have this derent already established with the strait of Horn moves,
Speaker 2: then you can afford to be a little bit flexible there.
Speaker 2: But it's also a matter of their sovereignty and asserting
Speaker 2: their rights and also reflecting the reality of the situation
Speaker 2: that the US was not able to achieve its objectives
Speaker 2: on the battlefield. There's no expectation the US will be
Speaker 2: able in the future to achieve its objectives on the battlefield.
Speaker 2: So any negotiated settlement is going to in some way
Speaker 2: have to reflect that reality. And Trump is going to
Speaker 2: then have to go out and do his best sales
Speaker 2: pitch job to convince people that this catastrophic loss was
Speaker 2: actually in some way a win.
Speaker 4: Unless, of course, again he tries to do something even
Speaker 4: bigger and tries to escalate militarily to avoid the humiliation
Speaker 4: of obviously losing. I mean, he could end up, and
Speaker 4: this is obvious, he could end up in a situation
Speaker 4: quite clearly where the straight of Hoor moves is under
Speaker 4: Iranian control, they're getting money from the straight of hor moves,
Speaker 4: from basically tolls. They're not bringing the United States in
Speaker 4: on it, as he suggested at one point, that we're
Speaker 4: basically being that we would potentially like split toll fees
Speaker 4: in the straight of horror moves looking less and less
Speaker 4: likely that that's what happens, and so you end up
Speaker 4: in a situation where Trump is forced to either massively escalate.
Speaker 4: We hear people in some neo conservative borders still talking
Speaker 4: about potential like tactical newts or great escalation in one
Speaker 4: way or another, and again I.
Speaker 1: Don't think that's likely. But when you're looking at.
Speaker 4: The options for Trump on the table right now, it's
Speaker 4: either complete capitulation in a way that he tries to
Speaker 4: save face and spend this as a big win, or
Speaker 4: he escalates further. And so I don't think the latter
Speaker 4: is the likeliest outcome at this point, but I also
Speaker 4: don't rule it out because it is so like everything
Speaker 4: that we're seeing play out is so bad for his
Speaker 4: ability to try to spin this as a win, which
Speaker 4: he desperately wants to do, and he has people tripping
Speaker 4: in his ear about the potential historic legacy building implications
Speaker 4: of escalation.
Speaker 1: So we're in a dangerous spot, obviously.
Speaker 2: Absolutely the case, and especially because the Iranians are unlikely
Speaker 2: to mend any further here in terms of negotiations, because
Speaker 2: number one, again they are looking at this like y'all
Speaker 2: lost and we can bear a lot more pain than
Speaker 2: you can. And the global economy is going to continue to,
Speaker 2: you know, to totter on the brink here, and we've
Speaker 2: got some elements will bring in the next block about
Speaker 2: exactly what that looks like. But I know oil is
Speaker 2: up back again this morning because of the rejection of
Speaker 2: this deal, and they're seemingly being no end in sight here.
Speaker 2: But you know, what else do you do if you're
Speaker 2: Trump and you're not willing to accept the humiliation that
Speaker 2: would be required for you to accept in whatever deal
Speaker 2: you could strike right now, You've got all kinds of people,
Speaker 2: like you said, who are going to be pushing him. Oh,
Speaker 2: let's arm this faction, let's bomb this, let's bomb that,
Speaker 2: let's try for the uranium. Whatever thinks he's being told.
Speaker 2: And he would rather take a gamble, I think, I mean,
Speaker 2: just thinking of his own psychology, he would rather take
Speaker 2: a gamble than have to accept the reality that has
Speaker 2: been revealed by this war. You know, there is one
Speaker 2: positive thing I would say here from the Iranian side,
Speaker 2: This from the Iranian president of a six up on
Speaker 2: the screen, just defending the idea of dialogue and negotiation.
Speaker 2: So Poteshkin says, we will never bow our heads before
Speaker 2: the enemy, and if talk of dialogue or negotiation arises,
Speaker 2: it does not mean surrender or retreat. Rather, the goal
Speaker 2: is to uphold the rights of the Iranian nation to
Speaker 2: defend national interests with resolute strength. So a defense there
Speaker 2: of diplomacy and negotiation and talks and dialogue. That's positive
Speaker 2: to see that from obviously an important and influential figure
Speaker 2: with it in Iran. But again, the reality of where
Speaker 2: their position is and how far they're willing to go,
Speaker 2: it's still vastly different from what the American side, what
Speaker 2: Trump and the American side are willing to offer. And
Speaker 2: I continue to think Emily, that is also a very
Speaker 2: dire sign. That added to the negotiating team, not that
Speaker 2: there are in face, in person negotiations happening right now,
Speaker 2: but that officially added to the negotiating team is this
Speaker 2: hawk from the Foundation for the defensive Democracy is very
Speaker 2: very hawkish outlet, outfit that's been providing lots of the
Speaker 2: worst misinformation apparently to this administration. So the fact that
Speaker 2: guy got added to the negotiating team, and seemingly Janie Vance,
Speaker 2: who's seen as a more reasonable figure, more desirous of
Speaker 2: an end to this war, was apparently taken off the team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great point. Senator Senator Secretary Rubio did.
Speaker 4: The briefing last week, I think notably as well, which
Speaker 4: was you can read into it what you want, but
Speaker 4: to have him do that rather than VP Vance, who
Speaker 4: has been spearheading negotiations, I think there's probably something indeed
Speaker 4: to be read into that. And I just wanted to
Speaker 4: also make the point Crystal that on Trita Parsi's substack
Speaker 4: him saying he has a line in the reces, I
Speaker 4: don't think Americans fully appreciate what it means that Iran
Speaker 4: is coming to the table on enrichment moratoriums, and that
Speaker 4: Ryan and I covered last week. Some of the Democrats,
Speaker 4: by the way, not just left wing Democrats, but some
Speaker 4: people who are probably considered more moderate Democrats pushing for
Speaker 4: the Israelis to be transparent about their own nuclear capability
Speaker 4: that is more important right now than it ever has been.
Speaker 4: To use that cliche that I think actually is fitting here,
Speaker 4: because if you want to make a deal with that
Speaker 4: actually achieves no nuclear enrichment in an Iran, or with
Speaker 4: an Iran that has just heard the President of the
Speaker 4: United States make threats about wiping out an entire civilization,
Speaker 4: and ensure that they're actually is no enrichment as part
Speaker 4: of the deal that will satisfy American presidents, you're going
Speaker 4: to have to be able to be honest.
Speaker 1: In order to enforce that. You have to be honest
Speaker 1: about Israel.
Speaker 4: There has to be transparency about Israel from our government
Speaker 4: and from their government. Otherwise, how on earth do you
Speaker 4: expect that to stick and hold without finding us back
Speaker 4: in this situation a year from now, two years from now,
Speaker 4: or whatever, the deal is cut. Because the Iranians don't
Speaker 4: trust Israel and the United States in their nuclear capacity
Speaker 4: in Israel at the Israeli is nuclear capacity, and they
Speaker 4: have just been pushed into a situation where many people politically,
Speaker 4: as Jeremy Scahole was explaining to us on the Friday Show,
Speaker 4: are more more interested than ever before in obtaining quickly.
Speaker 1: Their own nuclear capacity. So that's right.
Speaker 4: It's an important push I think actually from some Democrats
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, very very noteworthy, and not that it's going
Speaker 2: anywhere right now in this House, but the very act
Speaker 2: that such a proposal was offered and co sponsored by
Speaker 2: a lot of Democrats, mainstream Democrats, is a total total
Speaker 2: sea change. Last thing I wanted to put up in
Speaker 2: this block is a seven, just to show you how
Speaker 2: precarious this moment continues to be. There was a ship
Speaker 2: that was struck off of Qatar's coast cargo ship.
Speaker 5: That has caught fire.
Speaker 2: You know, I've seen some indications that there are more
Speaker 2: ongoing skirmishes in and around this region than what is
Speaker 2: being reported in the media. So this is extremely volatile,
Speaker 2: and you've got Trump in a very desperate situation. You
Speaker 2: have the landscape for the US so dire that even
Speaker 2: Bob Kagan, who is the husband of Victoria Neuland who
Speaker 2: is the co founder of an extraordinarily hawkish thing tanks
Speaker 2: or died in the whole. Niokhan is out in Atlantic
Speaker 2: magazine saying, hey, we're in checkmate here.
Speaker 5: Like Aron's Goddess.
Speaker 2: This is a massive strategic defeat We're going to be
Speaker 2: seeing the repercussions of this for years and decades to come.
Speaker 2: So the landscape is that dire on the American side,
Speaker 2: but the willingness to accept that reality from Trump sublimate
Speaker 2: his aego, accept this humiliating defeat and the reality that
Speaker 2: would set in once you've actually inked a solidified deal here.
Speaker 2: I just it's hard for me to see him going
Speaker 2: in that direction, which is why it continues to be
Speaker 2: so dangerous. And when you see out they're retweeting Mark
Speaker 2: Levin thoughts calling for all sorts of insanity, and you
Speaker 2: see the sorts of people he's surrounding himself with and
Speaker 2: who he's putting on the negotiating team. It's no surprise
Speaker 2: that the Iranians fully expect that they're going to face
Speaker 2: renewed attacks from the US and Israel and the UAE
Speaker 2: and Saudi and the other allies in the region.
Speaker 4: Yeah, none of this has to mean that things are
Speaker 4: going swimmingly for Iran. It's a question of whether the
Speaker 4: cost benefit analysis for Trump for the United States is
Speaker 4: such that it's worth either escalating or to your point,
Speaker 4: Crystal sublement, sublimating his ego and saving face and cutting
Speaker 4: bait at a certain point.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he continues to say they have no cards.
Speaker 4: Well, they do have a card, which is obviously the
Speaker 4: straight of horror moves, and he doesn't want to make
Speaker 4: that one of his key concessions in a peace negotiation
Speaker 4: because it was obviously open before the war began, and
Speaker 4: that sticking point is not budging one bit. Despite the
Speaker 4: Iranians obviously taking some real hits, but in asymmetric warfare
Speaker 4: they continue to have several cards, despite what the President says.
Speaker 2: So in the massive geographic advantage, very low cost their weaponry,
Speaker 2: they have a much more effective, frankly industrial base than
Speaker 2: we do.
Speaker 5: You know, we are still learning.
Speaker 2: Actually, there was a briefing, apparently classified briefing on Capitol
Speaker 2: Hill about how many of our munitions had been depleted.
Speaker 2: Senator Mark Kelly, of course served in the military, came
Speaker 2: out was horrified by the way that our stockpile has
Speaker 2: been diminished, and that can't be dealt with in a
Speaker 2: matter of days or week or even months. This is
Speaker 2: we're talking about years long effort to rebuild what we
Speaker 2: expended during what forty days of warfare. I was pretty
Speaker 2: wild to see. So in any case. That's where things
Speaker 2: are this morning. Extremely volatile, very precarious. The Iranian proposal
Speaker 2: dismissed outright by Trump, and a lot of signs that
Speaker 2: we could be headed in a very dangerous direction. The
Speaker 2: economy certainly had it in a very dangerous direction as well.
Speaker 1: No question about it.
Speaker 4: Republicans right now saying bombing might have to begin once more.
Speaker 4: But the American people are obviously not on board with
Speaker 4: the war, have not been on board with the war
Speaker 4: from the beginning. And the question as to whether the
Speaker 4: American people are making up their mind on the war
Speaker 4: with accurate information is now front and center because of
Speaker 4: a new well some new reporting. There's been some significant
Speaker 4: new reporting actually on this front. Do we know how
Speaker 4: much the war is actually costing? Let's put this New
Speaker 4: York Times tear sheet up on the screen, has a
Speaker 4: headline and Hegseth says this war has cost twenty five
Speaker 4: billion dollars. I tallied up the true amount. This is
Speaker 4: from Justin Wolfer's obviously professor public policy at the University
Speaker 4: of Michigan, and Wolfers wrote in the Times quote. The
Speaker 4: Defense Department says the conflict with Iran has cost twenty
Speaker 4: five billion so far. He says, this tally significantly understates
Speaker 4: the true cost. By my calculations, the bill for a
Speaker 4: typical American household likely runs two thousands or even tens
Speaker 4: of thousands of dollars. He says, Yes, that's a wide range.
Speaker 4: Blame the economic fog of war. But man, crystal these
Speaker 4: numbers right now, as they become more and more pronounced
Speaker 4: and obvious in the media and the American people are
Speaker 4: paying more at the pump and then looking at exactly
Speaker 4: how much more debt we're going into to fund the
Speaker 4: war per person. So it's not even just I think
Speaker 4: first and foremost for most people, it's about prices increasing
Speaker 4: and what you're seeing every day on the table, But
Speaker 4: then just the long term ramifications for your own budget
Speaker 4: as an American and American family because of this, As
Speaker 4: that becomes more and more obvious, I mean, let's put
Speaker 4: B two up on the screen and becomes more obvious
Speaker 4: in people's everyday lives. This is the craft. Heind CEO,
Speaker 4: who said in an interview this last week quote, they're
Speaker 4: literally running out of money at the end of the month.
Speaker 4: We're seeing negative cash flows in the lower income brackets
Speaker 4: where they're dipping into savings. So just about what you're
Speaker 4: already seeing in consumer patterns. We're what two months into
Speaker 4: this thing, two and a half months into this thing.
Speaker 4: And even if it were to hypothetically someone waves a
Speaker 4: magic wand and today the economy is not just going
Speaker 4: to get better, it's turning the Titanic around at this point, Crystal. So,
Speaker 4: heading into the midterms, Trump is poised to lose what
Speaker 4: little support for the war he has left.
Speaker 1: The more we see of this, we haven't.
Speaker 4: Really even seen the beginning here in the United States,
Speaker 4: I should say, we've probably just seen the beginning, just
Speaker 4: the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 1: This is about to get much much worse.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's absolutely the case.
Speaker 2: And Americans famously, you know, already don't have a lot
Speaker 2: of savings, don't have a lot of margin for error.
Speaker 2: So when you have the specter of gas prices going
Speaker 2: up and up and up day after day, week after
Speaker 2: week after week, with no end in sight, you know,
Speaker 2: people in elites, in DC policymakers, they may not be
Speaker 2: feeling the pinch yet, but I can promise you, I
Speaker 2: can promise you ordinary Americans. For them, it's already crisis.
Speaker 2: And that's what you see reflected there in the comments
Speaker 2: from the Kraft Hid CEO. I always pay very close
Speaker 2: attention to those things. You know, we've covered before, McDonald's
Speaker 2: CEO saying, hey, you know, people are just skipping breakfast now,
Speaker 2: and not that we're celebrating people getting breakfast from McDonald's,
Speaker 2: although I am personally a big mcgriddell fan, but we
Speaker 2: put that aside. When people are just saying, I'm just
Speaker 2: not doing this at all, that's a very dire sign.
Speaker 2: I wanted to go back just briefly to that that
Speaker 2: estimate from Justin Wolfer's because I think it's so significant.
Speaker 2: He says, not only does the cost directly to each
Speaker 2: American family total in the thousands to tens of thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars, but when you look at the total cost
Speaker 2: of this war and you factor in, as you said,
Speaker 2: the increase in the cost of service, our debt, which
Speaker 2: has already gone up significantly, When you factor in new
Speaker 2: disability benefits and mental health problems for veterans who are serving,
Speaker 2: God forbid, if we do go in some sort of
Speaker 2: ground invasion, those sorts of costs are going to escalate.
Speaker 5: When you think about repairing all the damages.
Speaker 2: Of those bases that have been obliterated, destroyed, if we
Speaker 2: even decide we're going to go back in there and
Speaker 2: fix them and take up those positions in the region again,
Speaker 2: which I think is a big question, But those are huge,
Speaker 2: huge costs. Then you think about the economic cost day
Speaker 2: to day of the oil markets. The gas price is
Speaker 2: going up the way that fuels inflation, and he says,
Speaker 2: twenty five billion is an insane low ball.
Speaker 5: This is his quotes.
Speaker 2: The best any economist can do right now is get
Speaker 2: the order of magnitude right. And my mass suggests the
Speaker 2: Iran war will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and
Speaker 2: very possibly trillions, trillions of dollars for this folly, For
Speaker 2: this so far forty day accounting folly, He says, wars hell,
Speaker 2: and hell comes with a hefty price tag. So that
Speaker 2: is what this president has signed us up for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I also wanted to go back to Wolfer's
Speaker 4: just on another point about what's happening in the market.
Speaker 4: So before we go back to Wolfers, let's put up
Speaker 4: this next tear sheet.
Speaker 1: This is before This is a quote from.
Speaker 4: A Financial Times article Crazy, Yeah, where you have a
Speaker 4: banker speaking anonymously to Ft, saying quote, does anyone really
Speaker 4: care if the strait of hor moves is open?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 1: My god?
Speaker 4: And the Wolfer's article, he writes, quote wall Street is
Speaker 4: worried despite the market touching new highs every time the
Speaker 4: president takes a more belligerent stance, Stocks tank, suggesting that
Speaker 4: investors think this conflict will undermine the value of leading
Speaker 4: US companies. My estimate, based on movement of oil prices
Speaker 4: along with the S and P five hundred, is that
Speaker 4: stocks are about five percent lower than they otherwise would be,
Speaker 4: suggesting that the war has wiped out about three trillion
Speaker 4: off three tollond dollars off the value of these companies
Speaker 4: and Crystal. The contrast between Wolfer's I think reading what's
Speaker 4: happened in Wall Street pretty accurately and one banker just
Speaker 4: talking about how Wall Street is riding this AI boom
Speaker 4: for now, for now, it is pretty interesting because it
Speaker 4: kind of depends on your vantage point. If you're like,
Speaker 4: if you're worried about the market as a whole, or
Speaker 4: what it means for average Americans or what it means
Speaker 4: for your returns, I guess you're probably thinking of this
Speaker 4: war differently depending on that vantage point. Because if you're
Speaker 4: cool to just coast off of the AI boom, as
Speaker 4: opposed to being like an average American who really does
Speaker 4: have to worry about what's happening in the s and p.
Speaker 1: Five hundred, that is a pretty different vantage point.
Speaker 2: Just extraordinary. Yeah, and it wasn't just that one person.
Speaker 2: Apparently there was a a sort of rough poll show
Speaker 2: of hands about, hey, do you think the stock market
Speaker 2: is going to end up even further on the year.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's going to end down from where
Speaker 2: we are right now? And the overwhelming consensus was that
Speaker 2: the line was going to continue to go up. The
Speaker 2: headline describes it as blissful ignorance, and look, I think
Speaker 2: this is proof positive that the stock market is not
Speaker 2: only divorced from the reality of what ordinary Americans lives are,
Speaker 2: it is a negative indicator.
Speaker 5: The more the stock market goes up.
Speaker 2: Oftentimes in recent years it's been because oh, we did
Speaker 2: a bunch of layoffs because we can use AI or
Speaker 2: place a bunch of workers like that is what they're
Speaker 2: betting on. When we talk about this big bet on AI,
Speaker 2: it's not just how the technology is going to help
Speaker 2: us cure cancer, whatever. No, what they are betting on
Speaker 2: is that AI is going to be able to replace
Speaker 2: a large number of human beings.
Speaker 5: That is the bet.
Speaker 2: Now will that bet pay off or not, It's not
Speaker 2: entirely clear. I think that in some ways it will.
Speaker 2: You could also have a major bubble pop when one
Speaker 2: company succeeds and the rest of them fail, et cetera.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of dire outcomes that could come
Speaker 2: from this, But I think it's very important to understand
Speaker 2: that largely largely at this point, when the stock market
Speaker 2: goes up, given the large bet on AI, that is
Speaker 2: a negative indicator for the wellbeing of Americans. And so, yeah,
Speaker 2: if you're in the top point zero one percent, as
Speaker 2: these individuals, you know, hang down at this milk and
Speaker 2: gathering as they would as they would likely be the
Speaker 2: little more gas prices at the pump, Yeah, you don't
Speaker 2: care about that.
Speaker 5: Who cares if it's straight up formosis. So that's not
Speaker 5: really affecting my life. I haven't changed my consumption habits.
Speaker 2: So they are blissfully oblivious to what the reality is
Speaker 2: and they don't care. I mean, they genuinely don't care
Speaker 2: about the way that this will cause ordinary people to
Speaker 2: struggle and suffer. Now, I think they're somewhat delusional that, look,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, do you need some
Speaker 2: kind of consumer at the end of the day, do
Speaker 2: you need to avoid some sort of revolutionary fervor which
Speaker 2: is very much increasingly on the table, especially the more
Speaker 2: they push things in this direction. But for today, apparently
Speaker 2: they're feeling pretty good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but we have another indicator from Costco. Let's put
Speaker 4: this up on the screen. This is uh, the Costco
Speaker 4: CFO who is saying that members are basically switching from
Speaker 4: beef to chicken. Actually, I'm just gonna read this whole
Speaker 4: quote cause it's very interesting, by the way, not just
Speaker 4: in this current quote. Recession or concern for recession. He said, Historically,
Speaker 4: we've always seen some like within fresh protein. We've always
Speaker 4: seen when there's a recession, whether it was ninety nine,
Speaker 4: two thousand and nine, eight, nine, ten, we would see
Speaker 4: some sales penetration shift from beef to poultry and pork.
Speaker 4: We have seen some of that now, I think anecdotally.
Speaker 4: I heard a few months ago from our head of
Speaker 4: food and Sundrys buyer that we saw some switch even
Speaker 4: from some to some canned products like canned chicken and
Speaker 4: can tuna and things like that. So again just to emphasize,
Speaker 4: this is really the tip of the iceberg in terms
Speaker 4: of price inflation that we're likely to see if the
Speaker 4: war were to end today hypothetically that a lot of
Speaker 4: these prices would still be spiking for the months ahead.
Speaker 4: And there's already what feels like. I mean, we had
Speaker 4: a right hitchopra on last week, formerhead of the CFPB
Speaker 4: Crystal to talk about the circular funding in a lot
Speaker 4: of AI companies, actually just in AI in general, the
Speaker 4: entire structure, which is now like thirty percent of the
Speaker 4: S and P five hundred is the mag seven companies,
Speaker 4: which is actually really horrifying because if you have investments
Speaker 4: from Nvidia to Microsoft and the Microsoft in Nvidia and
Speaker 4: that sort of thing, and they're not anticipating a particular
Speaker 4: shift in the market, or they just haven't they don't
Speaker 4: have it as a high likelihood, they haven't priced it
Speaker 4: in exactly as they probably should be doing, and everything
Speaker 4: starts dissolving in front of us. What could happen economically,
Speaker 4: what could happen culturally? We are not prepared for what
Speaker 4: we could be seeing in the next six months, year,
Speaker 4: two years, just right on the cusp of something potentially catastrope.
Speaker 4: I think at least, I mean, I hope that's not
Speaker 4: the case. But also all of this is going to
Speaker 4: amount to more and more spending from the US government,
Speaker 4: which I think a lot of people on the right
Speaker 4: were correct to point to. I mean, yes, you have
Speaker 4: gre inflation that's absolutely already taking place, there's no question
Speaker 4: about it. You see it sometimes in the earnings calls
Speaker 4: showing up. But also the government spending is going to
Speaker 4: cause average people who now are losing jobs because of
Speaker 4: the AI boom.
Speaker 1: To spend more.
Speaker 4: Think prices are going to go up like that's how
Speaker 4: this works. And so it's just a complete mess, a
Speaker 4: complete mess from the administration that was elected on a
Speaker 4: pledge to stop inflation, to bring inflation or to halt
Speaker 4: the growth at least of inflation, and is now back
Speaker 4: up to about the inflation level month about the monthly
Speaker 4: inflation level as when Prompt took office. It's around three
Speaker 4: percent in January of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5: So any improvement that was made has been effectively.
Speaker 1: Tax cuts too.
Speaker 4: We've said, have you seen the calculations that what average
Speaker 4: people are coming are getting from their tax cuts has
Speaker 4: been erased by gas pricing increases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and I learned from you that they were
Speaker 2: really betting hard on everything's going to turn around for us.
Speaker 2: Once people see their tax bill and getting their tax breaks,
Speaker 2: then that's going to save us.
Speaker 5: And guess what urdis.
Speaker 2: May people know what they're getting in terms of their
Speaker 2: refund and they're not feeling the love here, They're not
Speaker 2: feeling like this is going great and whatsoever.
Speaker 5: Yeah, zooming out. It's just a very volatile mix.
Speaker 2: You've got this AI backlash both of the ground level
Speaker 2: in terms of data centers. You've got deep concerns about
Speaker 2: the way they want to replace labor if this technology
Speaker 2: is anything like what they say, even if in the
Speaker 2: long term the most hopeful optimistic projections, which I don't believe,
Speaker 2: but let's give it to them that over the long
Speaker 2: term it's going to cause more job creation than it
Speaker 2: is job loss in the immediate to medium term.
Speaker 5: Like go look at the destrial Revolution.
Speaker 2: How long it took for in the developed world, right
Speaker 2: in the places that really ended up being beneficiaries of
Speaker 2: the industrial Revolution. It took over one hundred years for
Speaker 2: all of that to ripple through the economy. It's not
Speaker 2: like you just flip a switch. It's going to be
Speaker 2: extremely disruptive and extremely painful if anything approaching what they
Speaker 2: promised comes true. And if it doesn't come true, then
Speaker 2: you've got the biggest bubble probably in human history that's
Speaker 2: been inflated here. I mean, the amount of money that's
Speaker 2: being spent on these data centers is utterly, utterly insane.
Speaker 2: So you've got that. You have in addition to the
Speaker 2: labor displacement. Obviously, that is going to lead to a
Speaker 2: further spiraling of vast inequality, again of the worst that
Speaker 2: we've probably ever seen in human history. You have an
Speaker 2: extraordinarily volatile political climate and an empire here that is
Speaker 2: coming unglued, and that part of why it's coming unglued
Speaker 2: at this point is because of this disastrous war that
Speaker 2: the population did not want, does not want, that has
Speaker 2: now been decisively lost from a strategic perspective, and it's
Speaker 2: imposing massive daily costs on the American people. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a pressure cooker, Emily, that's the only way you
Speaker 2: could put it. It is an absolute pressure cooker. And
Speaker 2: obviously we talked to Professor Pape every week here because
Speaker 2: we've found his insights on the escalation trap very valuable.
Speaker 2: He's also writing a book on.
Speaker 5: The likelihood of political violence, and we need to have
Speaker 5: a conversation with him about that as well, because he's
Speaker 5: deeply concerned about the confluence of some of these events
Speaker 5: and the way that they contribute to a rising trend
Speaker 5: of political violence.
Speaker 4: I think I mentioned this last week, but my final
Speaker 4: thought here is Rod Dreer has he's an orthodox Christian conservative,
Speaker 4: has been working on a book about Wymar America, sort
Speaker 4: of drawing out parallels between Wymar Germany and what we're
Speaker 4: seeing in America right now, just any cultural indicators, looking
Speaker 4: at some of that, and economic indicators and looking at
Speaker 4: that stuff. And he finished it a couple of weeks
Speaker 4: ago and said in his newsletter on Substack basically that
Speaker 4: he believes the one thing that would really be the
Speaker 4: tipping point from America as we know it today to
Speaker 4: something much much darker, including more political violence, would be
Speaker 4: an economic crisis. And Chris, I feel like people's sense
Speaker 4: that I don't think it's you have to write a
Speaker 4: manuscript on this, and I'm not saying, of course, you're
Speaker 4: not making the cliched apples to apples parallel between war
Speaker 4: more Germany itself and what came after in America and
Speaker 4: what might come after. But obviously, when you have economies,
Speaker 4: as you just laid out, with this level of instability
Speaker 4: and pricarity, you could go to some dark places really, really,
Speaker 4: really quickly.
Speaker 2: So, as you guys likely know, there was a ballot
Speaker 2: referendum here in Virginia to where voters went to the
Speaker 2: polls and voted on whether or not they wanted the
Speaker 2: maps here to be redrawn. This was a response to
Speaker 2: Trump's push to do these mid decade redistricting so that
Speaker 2: Republicans could gain a partisan advantage. You at Texas really
Speaker 2: kicked this off.
Speaker 5: They redrew their map.
Speaker 2: Their map has basically been validated at this point. You've
Speaker 2: had other Republican states that have followed suit. You also
Speaker 2: just had the Supreme Court striking down aspects of the
Speaker 2: Voting Rights Act that are going to enable Southern states,
Speaker 2: in particular, to eliminate those majority black districts and wipe
Speaker 2: out many of the Democrats that represent the Deep South.
Speaker 2: So that's the landscape in the context in which Virginia
Speaker 2: voters go to the polls and they say, yes, we
Speaker 2: are going to two can play this game. We are
Speaker 2: going to also redraw our maps so that Virginia would
Speaker 2: become I think it was eleven to one, where you'd
Speaker 2: likely have one Republican representative and eleven Democratic representatives. So
Speaker 2: this was working its way through the court system, and
Speaker 2: you just had the Virginia Supreme Court again. After all
Speaker 2: these millions of people voted and said yes, we want
Speaker 2: to do this, the Virginia Supreme Court come in and
Speaker 2: say no, we believe that this ballot referendum violated some
Speaker 2: procedures that were required in the original passage of a
Speaker 2: constitutional amendment that required this whole process. There's a reason
Speaker 2: why Virginians had to go to the ballot versus in
Speaker 2: other states where the legislature could just go in and
Speaker 2: redraw the maps. There was a procedure laid down in
Speaker 2: Virginia based on a constitutional amendment. In the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: here said that you violated the process. Not to get
Speaker 2: too much in the weeds here, but basically the deal
Speaker 2: was you had to have voted on this before the
Speaker 2: next election starts. And they're saying that since early voting
Speaker 2: has started that you were too late, that you couldn't
Speaker 2: do this, that this wasn't proper. So obviously, Emily Democrats
Speaker 2: are furious, absolutely furious, and really quite beside themselves because
Speaker 2: they're looking around the country at all these other states
Speaker 2: that are redrawing their maps to gain a partisan advantage
Speaker 2: for Republicans. California has been able to do a version
Speaker 2: of this, although actually not the most maximis version. They
Speaker 2: may still go back to the drawing board and make
Speaker 2: it even more maximals, but California has been able to
Speaker 2: it appears like redraw their maps. But when Virginia Democrats
Speaker 2: come and say, okay, we're going to do this too,
Speaker 2: then the courts step in, Oh no, no, no, you can't,
Speaker 2: you can't, and again coming right on the heels of
Speaker 2: this Voting Rights Act decision as well. I think it
Speaker 2: was particularly enraging. So the question now is whether Democrats
Speaker 2: are going to just accept this and say, all right, well,
Speaker 2: I guess the Republicans get to redraw their maps, but
Speaker 2: we don't, or if they're going to try to take
Speaker 2: some more extreme measures. And The New York Times has
Speaker 2: a report that in the case, there is some brainstorming
Speaker 2: about what could be done here the headline, and this
Speaker 2: is this is significant reporting. Is the headline from the
Speaker 2: New York Times. The private call reveals Democrats desperation over
Speaker 2: tossing of maps, and so what they are considering is
Speaker 2: a couple step process where effectively they would lower the
Speaker 2: retire hirement age for Supreme Court justices I think down
Speaker 2: to the mid fifties. That would kick the entire seven
Speaker 2: justice court out, like everybody would be tossed out because
Speaker 2: they're all older than that. And then you would put
Speaker 2: in justices that you believe will be supportive of your
Speaker 2: view of the world. And then they would go back
Speaker 2: in with a case challenging the original Constitution amendment that
Speaker 2: required this whole process to begin with, so that then
Speaker 2: the legislature, which is dominated by Democrats at this point,
Speaker 2: could just redraw the mass without having to go to
Speaker 2: the voters. So that is what they're contemplating. Obviously, this
Speaker 2: would be, especially for Democrats, a relatively radical move to
Speaker 2: change the retirement age and toss out all of Supreme
Speaker 2: Court justices so that you could put your people on
Speaker 2: the bench. But they point to something very similar that
Speaker 2: just happened in Utah, where their Supreme Court also tossed
Speaker 2: out a pro Republican Jerrymann in that state, and they
Speaker 2: decided to move forward with packing the court in Utah
Speaker 2: so that they could get ultimately what they want. And
Speaker 2: there were some other examples of Republican states in the
Speaker 2: past you have done similar things. So these are the lines,
Speaker 2: Emily that Democrats are thinking along. I'm curious for your thoughts.
Speaker 4: Well, the Indiana results last week are really relevant here
Speaker 4: because what happened in that case is Republican voters, I mean,
Speaker 4: some people were very irked by the fact that you
Speaker 4: had around ten million dollars I've seen eight million dollars estimate,
Speaker 4: twelve million dollars estimate come into these state races in
Speaker 4: Indiana from national magat groups and try to oust as
Speaker 4: many people as possible who wouldn't go along with the
Speaker 4: Trump redistricting plan. And Indiana voters, Republican voters look around
Speaker 4: and they say, we don't want to unilaterally disarm now
Speaker 4: that this has become like an arms race to see
Speaker 4: who can out Jerrymann er the other side, which is
Speaker 4: exactly what Democrats in Virginia are saying now too, which
Speaker 4: is don't just what did you say at the beginning
Speaker 4: of this show in.
Speaker 1: A chalk outline. Uh, lay in your talk, Yeah, lay
Speaker 1: in the chalk outline of yourself. Don't do that.
Speaker 4: And it's the pressure cooker is getting to a wild point.
Speaker 4: I don't know that anybody, I mean, you could have
Speaker 4: seen this coming as soon as Texas and California happened,
Speaker 4: but I don't know if anybody was like fully prepared
Speaker 4: for what it was going to look like, Like, what is
Speaker 4: the joke?
Speaker 1: Did you think it? What did you think jerry mandering
Speaker 1: was just Vibes essays, No, it's it's this, And Indiana
Speaker 1: Republicans said, uh, listen, it's not that you know, we're
Speaker 1: we need you to like bow to.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, but we're pissed because we know what's going
Speaker 4: to happen in other states now that Democrats have said.
Speaker 1: We're going for it too.
Speaker 4: Obviously, jerry mandering goes back many, many years, and you
Speaker 4: know there are dem states that have been jerrymannered, Republican
Speaker 4: states that have been jerry mandered. This current wave obviously
Speaker 4: really started with Texas, and so as soon as Gavin
Speaker 4: Newsom took that bait, it was spreading nationwide, and Indiana
Speaker 4: Republicans said, well, you know, you can't just you can't
Speaker 4: just say, in principle, we're not doing this anymore, because
Speaker 4: the principle has already been tossed out the window. You
Speaker 4: have to live in the here and now, and Crystal,
Speaker 4: it's interesting because that sounds like it's exactly how Virginia
Speaker 4: Democrats are reacting too.
Speaker 1: And you said you didn't want to get too much
Speaker 1: in the weeds. But I am curious.
Speaker 4: I've heard some analyses that say Virginia Democrats were like,
Speaker 4: maybe probably should have been prepared for this potential outcome.
Speaker 4: And I have no idea whether or not that's true,
Speaker 4: but that it was rushed and sloppy.
Speaker 1: Is there anything to that? Is that part of this?
Speaker 2: I to be honest with you. I mean, obviously they
Speaker 2: should have foreseen it. Since this did happen there, it
Speaker 2: was very the attitude was very dismissive towards the idea
Speaker 2: that the Supreme Court would overturn this.
Speaker 5: And you know, it was a four to three decision.
Speaker 5: It was closely decided.
Speaker 2: Obviously the three dissenting justices felt very strongly in the
Speaker 2: opposite direction, but there was a sense of we've got
Speaker 2: to go for this. This is what the base wants.
Speaker 2: But I think it also there was a bit of
Speaker 2: a ha measure here because you didn't deal with the
Speaker 2: partisan makeup of the court before you went in and
Speaker 2: tried to redraw the maps. So in that sense, I
Speaker 2: think you could say perhaps there was a lack of planning.
Speaker 2: And look, I find it really outrageous, quite frankly, that
Speaker 2: we had tens of millions of dollars spent on this thing,
Speaker 2: and everybody going out going into the post, millions of
Speaker 2: people voting, and then after the fact, after everybody's voted,
Speaker 2: and by the way, after the court sees what the
Speaker 2: results of that vote are, that they come in and
Speaker 2: well know where you're not allowed to do that. And
Speaker 2: that is the sort of thing that will absolutely enrage
Speaker 2: and radicalize people. And I feel that, I mean it,
Speaker 2: it is outrageous. You have all these other states, just
Speaker 2: thinking of from a fairness perspective, all these other states.
Speaker 2: Texas can just go in and rewrite their maps, no problem.
Speaker 2: You've got Florida just came and they're going to rewrite
Speaker 2: their maps. But Virginia and no input from the voters.
Speaker 2: But Virginia, you actually get input from voters in a
Speaker 2: pretty large turnout election for like this weird special election
Speaker 2: and that gets thrown out as unacceptable. You could see
Speaker 2: how that is extremely extremely frustrating for people. Let me
Speaker 2: put C five up on the screen. There was a
Speaker 2: sense when the Virginia maps passed, in this brief moment
Speaker 2: in time, when the Virginia maps had passed and you
Speaker 2: had not yet had the Supreme Court decision on the
Speaker 2: Voting Rights Act, where people are feeling like, Okay, Democrats,
Speaker 2: they may not come out on top in the redistricting battles,
Speaker 2: but they're going to maybe at least be able to
Speaker 2: get it to a draw. You can see in this
Speaker 2: map that that is just nowhere near the case at
Speaker 2: this point. All of the red states and red here
Speaker 2: are ones where Republicans are going to be able to
Speaker 2: add one to you know, to like three or four
Speaker 2: seats to their you know, based on their gerrymanders. Virginia's
Speaker 2: in yellow because it's been tossed down, so obviously no
Speaker 2: seats are going to change there outside of being able
Speaker 2: to win some seats, which I think is possible just
Speaker 2: with the maps as they exist.
Speaker 5: California and one.
Speaker 2: Seat in Utah are the only places where Democrats have
Speaker 2: made up ground, and I'm not sure if that Utah
Speaker 2: one is going to hold because of the court packing
Speaker 2: that they're engaged in there. I'm not sure what the
Speaker 2: timeline is in terms of whether they'll be able to
Speaker 2: reverse that map that was drawn there. But in any case,
Speaker 2: you know, Republicans now are just romping in the mid district,
Speaker 2: mid mid decade redistricting wars. It's not even close. And
Speaker 2: so you know, when you look at Donald Trump, extremely
Speaker 2: unpopular Republicans in every single special election taking on water,
Speaker 2: losing seats that you never thought that they would lose,
Speaker 2: and then you see the way that these rules are
Speaker 2: being changed in a mostly one sided direction to block
Speaker 2: the will of the people. Yeah, I think it's a
Speaker 2: very radicalizing thing. And we can put Hassan's tweet up here.
Speaker 2: He's sort of channeling that energy. Quoting JFK. I think
Speaker 2: in a way that maybe, especially because of who Hassan is,
Speaker 2: this is C two guys, was perhaps intentionally provocative, especially
Speaker 2: because he didn't put the quote in quotes, so people
Speaker 2: who don't know any history thought maybe he said this himself. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Hassan says the Virginia Supreme Court deny the results of
Speaker 2: the redistricting referendum, Scotus gutted the Voting Rights Act, and
Speaker 2: Tennessee carved up the last m districts black voter power
Speaker 2: in the state. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make
Speaker 2: violent revolution inevitable, which again is a JFK quote, and
Speaker 2: as an analysis of where we are of reality, I
Speaker 2: don't think you can deny that, Eily. Again, I think
Speaker 2: we already see the stirrings of that. I think when
Speaker 2: you see Luigimanngioni being treated like a hero, at least
Speaker 2: a lot of very normal people going, well, I don't
Speaker 2: like it, but I kind of get it when you see,
Speaker 2: you know, the level of fury and the backlash against
Speaker 2: Trump with very little outlet to be able to have
Speaker 2: the will of the people actually express. Yeah, you're going
Speaker 2: to have people begin to do crazy things because they
Speaker 2: don't have a peaceful means to be able to change
Speaker 2: reality in their supposedly democratic country.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a totally anodyne, accurate, eloquent quote. Actually,
Speaker 4: so it's perfectly applicable in the situation. It's probably You're
Speaker 4: probably right, coming from Hassan and the capitalist blood in
Speaker 4: the streets quote in the past, people like connect the
Speaker 4: dots and like, oh, this guy must be calling for
Speaker 4: violent revolution, which is obviously not all is happening in
Speaker 4: that case whatsoever, And Crystal, it's the disconnect between I
Speaker 4: think this is this is real. One of the things
Speaker 4: that you referenced how Professor Robert Pape, who we've had
Speaker 4: on many times to.
Speaker 1: Talk about Iran.
Speaker 4: One of the points he made was in The Daily
Speaker 4: last week, right, he had that interview in the Daily
Speaker 4: about his work. He's currently working on a book he's
Speaker 4: been researching for a long time what he describes as
Speaker 4: quote populist violence, and we could get into that as
Speaker 4: a descriptor, but basically he's saying that you have a
Speaker 4: situation right now where people feel like they are the
Speaker 4: political political class is not listening to them. And if
Speaker 4: you look at polling over time, people do feel like
Speaker 4: they lack agency, They feel more powerless in the political process,
Speaker 4: and that is really dangerous because if you have an
Speaker 4: unpopular war waged by president who said he was elected
Speaker 4: not to get into quote new wars, put all of
Speaker 4: his hawkishness ran aside. That's what a lot of average
Speaker 4: normal Americans heard when he said he didn't want to
Speaker 4: start new wars, that he wouldn't start new wars.
Speaker 1: War is very unpopular. That is unlike George W.
Speaker 4: Bush campaigning cynically shamefully on not nation building and then
Speaker 4: going to nation build because obviously nine to eleven happened
Speaker 4: between point A and point B and that situation which
Speaker 4: changed public support for the war, at least at first.
Speaker 4: So you have that happening, and people from the right,
Speaker 4: I would just say, think about what you felt like
Speaker 4: when President Biden's immigration policy was out of step with
Speaker 4: where public opinion was.
Speaker 1: That those things do matter.
Speaker 4: We don't have a direct election for a reason, and
Speaker 4: I think it's for a good reason. I believe in
Speaker 4: the Republican system, we don't have rule by referendum for
Speaker 4: a reason. And you and I could debate how that's
Speaker 4: gone in California, but the point is, you know, yes,
Speaker 4: it's true that you have the cooling saucer of the
Speaker 4: Senate and you have the lowercase our republican process playing
Speaker 4: out in the United States, but you have wild mismatches.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're not just talking about one tough decision
Speaker 4: that the president is making. We're talking about wild mismatches
Speaker 4: across the board between what people say they want and
Speaker 4: what's actually happened happening not only in Washington, but now
Speaker 4: in their state houses too, which is a really really
Speaker 4: bad sign, especially because of the proximity.
Speaker 2: So there's some of this debate been playing out on CNN.
Speaker 2: Kind of a fun exchange here between Scott Jennings and
Speaker 2: a Democratic strategist.
Speaker 5: Let's go ahead and take a list of the seat four.
Speaker 5: Let's listen to a little of this.
Speaker 8: The political map. Like, y'all are cheating, Okay, just accept it. Yeah,
Speaker 8: let me just finish on. You're cheating because you politically
Speaker 8: are not favorable right now, and so this is the
Speaker 8: only way you would actually win the House is by
Speaker 8: drawing maps.
Speaker 1: Partisan redistricting is a fact of life. On the campaign,
Speaker 1: on the campaign.
Speaker 8: Politically, are taking Memphis, which is a city that was
Speaker 8: black voters, and you split it in three stretching three
Speaker 8: thousand miles.
Speaker 9: Who's the current Democrat congressman there?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 7: What is it?
Speaker 5: A black congressman?
Speaker 8: Just because black people are allow the white people that
Speaker 8: don't look like those exactly.
Speaker 9: And that is the point I wanted you to make,
Speaker 9: because just because you're not going to have a black congressman.
Speaker 9: Why is it that a Republican can't do just as
Speaker 9: well representing black voters as a Democrat.
Speaker 1: Why is electing why.
Speaker 8: It does, it doesn't, It doesn't know, just be you're
Speaker 8: making my point. Actually, the assumption is a black people no, no, no.
Speaker 8: The assumption is black people will only elect black people. No,
Speaker 8: black people are smart enough to let me finish black people.
Speaker 8: Black people will elect people who will actually represent them,
Speaker 8: who have their best interest in heart. And what Republicans
Speaker 8: have done in Tennessee is dismantled the power for black
Speaker 8: people to have their voice. They did the same thing
Speaker 8: in Texas because they said they thought Latinos were going
Speaker 8: to swing for Republicans. There are black people that are represented.
Speaker 8: I'm black, and I got a Republican president right now.
Speaker 8: Black people don't elect black people based on race. They
Speaker 8: elect people that are aligned with their moral their beliefs injustice,
Speaker 8: and just took that away from them in Tennessee and
Speaker 8: in other states.
Speaker 9: I just disagree that the only person, the only kind
Speaker 9: of a politician who can elect black people in Congress
Speaker 9: must be a Democrat.
Speaker 1: This is just an artificial That's.
Speaker 8: Not what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Democratic, That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 9: Black voters are still fully franchised and go vote for
Speaker 9: who are they want.
Speaker 2: So they're talking there, Emily about Steve Cohen, who is
Speaker 2: the white representative for a majority black district in Tennessee.
Speaker 2: That map has already been redrawn going through the legislature
Speaker 2: in Tennessee of or you know, much protesting and so actually, Ryan,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize this. Ryan told the story on the
Speaker 2: show before that Steve Collen actually tried to try to
Speaker 2: join the Congressional Black Caucus because he's like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: not black, but my constituents are, and isn't that what
Speaker 2: this should be about, which I'm with him on I
Speaker 2: agree with him. They should have led him in the
Speaker 2: Congressional Black Caucus. But in any case, I thought that
Speaker 2: was pretty funny for Scott Jennings to be taking that side,
Speaker 2: and in my opinion, it did prove the point of
Speaker 2: the democratic strategy there of like, no, this is not
Speaker 2: about just like electing black people.
Speaker 5: This is about black people having a voice to vote
Speaker 5: who they want to vote for, and they do not
Speaker 5: want to vote for your Republican friends.
Speaker 4: Well, this is where Republicans can get I mean, I've
Speaker 4: seen some speculation about dummy mandering happening, and I don't
Speaker 4: think those entirely out of the question. Republicans are now
Speaker 4: really really excited that their chances to hold onto the
Speaker 4: House have just gotten stronger.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I went and looked at the generic Congressional vote on RCP,
Speaker 4: so the RCP average where it was in twenty eighteen
Speaker 4: versus where it is now Dems have. It's at plus
Speaker 4: five point six right now. It was at plus five
Speaker 4: point eight for Democrats at the same point in the
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen cycle. So it's very very close to where
Speaker 4: it was then. And as we've been talking about, we're
Speaker 4: sort of at the tip of the iceberg in terms
Speaker 4: of what we're going to see with price increases in
Speaker 4: all likelihood between now and November.
Speaker 1: So they can do this all they want.
Speaker 4: I actually don't know that it's always going to be
Speaker 4: splendid for them, that it's going to salvage I certainly
Speaker 4: don't think it's going to salvage the House of Representatives.
Speaker 1: They may staunch some of the bleeding.
Speaker 4: They may be able to prevent a total blue tsunami
Speaker 4: like what happened in twenty eighteen and thrust Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 4: back into the speakership. But I don't know that it's
Speaker 4: actually going to be like a huge, huge wave. And
Speaker 4: the cook political analysis of this is doesn't suggest that
Speaker 4: it's going to be like a big wave for Republicans
Speaker 4: right now either, Crystal, because they still have to win
Speaker 4: support from voters, and you still have to get people
Speaker 4: to vote for you, and when you are even struggling
Speaker 4: with your own party, higher numbers, voter motivation, excitement for turnout.
Speaker 4: Someone else made a really good point too, that this
Speaker 4: could I think it was in playbook this morning, that
Speaker 4: this could energize black voters, in particular, if you need
Speaker 4: in a midterm cycle, low propensity voters, people who might
Speaker 4: otherwise just not turn out because they're not super excited
Speaker 4: about candidates so they have other stuff to do. That's
Speaker 4: a lot of Trump voters, So you already have that problem,
Speaker 4: and then you could potentially be invigorating black voters to
Speaker 4: like get out and actually go vote. That's going to
Speaker 4: be a real problem for Republicans in November two. This
Speaker 4: is I don't think any of this has necessarily been
Speaker 4: a guarantee of higher success for Republicans.
Speaker 1: Maybe a bit, I mean, maybe a few seats, but nothing.
Speaker 5: I mean dramatic.
Speaker 2: I think overall, based on the landscape, now, it's definitely
Speaker 2: going to help Republicans. I don't think it will save Republicans.
Speaker 2: But just to give everybody's sense of the magnitude here,
Speaker 2: these are all rough estimates based on what we know
Speaker 2: of what the maps are and where the maps are growing,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. But one analyst I saw projected that
Speaker 2: this would mean that Democrats have to win the popular
Speaker 2: vote by four points four points in order to take
Speaker 2: the majority in the House. And look in past eras,
Speaker 2: maybe four points wouldn't be a lot.
Speaker 5: But now, in a time when you have.
Speaker 2: Very strong partisan polarization and these things usually hang hang
Speaker 2: on a knife's edge, four points is a landslide. You know,
Speaker 2: Trump obviously won by less than four points, and he
Speaker 2: certainly considers that to be a landslide in terms of
Speaker 2: the popular vote. So that is the level of a
Speaker 2: tilted playing field that we're talking about. And then you
Speaker 2: also do think about specific instance. It's like I think
Speaker 2: in Mississippi, I think the state population is like it's
Speaker 2: like forty percent black something like that. They have one
Speaker 2: right now, majority minority district, and very likely that's going
Speaker 2: to be right. So then you have forty percent of
Speaker 2: your state that is and I'm being a little bit
Speaker 2: broad because obviously there are black people who've loved for Republicans,
Speaker 2: but it's also pretty over as like ninety percent vote
Speaker 2: for time Democrats, right, and so that part of the
Speaker 2: population is just not going to be represented, you know.
Speaker 2: And this isn't about an identity thing. This is about
Speaker 2: their political views and having any sort of voice for
Speaker 2: them in d C. That's going to be erased. And
Speaker 2: when we talk about a crisis of democracy, I think
Speaker 2: that's a problem.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: I think this whole thing is a disastrous race to
Speaker 2: the bottom. Like it would be great, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: if we pass national anti jerrymandering laws. But certainly this
Speaker 2: outcome that we're having now, where the redistricting battles are
Speaker 2: being won so out out, you know, so lopsidedly for Republicans,
Speaker 2: is going to create you know, a significant, significant strain.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think I think you're right. I
Speaker 2: think Democrats probably still favored to win the House. You know,
Speaker 2: when I look at the odds the poly market and
Speaker 2: the Calshi and whatever. There's still very much favored to
Speaker 2: win the House. But when you have this tilted of
Speaker 2: a system, it does make it very difficult. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's another it's another blow to the idea that we
Speaker 2: have even representative democracy.
Speaker 4: Well, some good news for Democrats. The twenty eighteen popular
Speaker 4: vote margin in the House was seven percent, seven point
Speaker 4: one percent, And again, I think the conditions are only
Speaker 4: going to get more favorable for Democrats down the line,
Speaker 4: so it's as possible they still get a decent sized
Speaker 4: blue wave. I actually think the Senate is very very
Speaker 4: much in play. I'm sure you do too, Crystal, but Nebraska.
Speaker 5: May They can't jerry manders states.
Speaker 2: No, and yeah, given the rural power in the Senate,
Speaker 2: there's already a Republican advantage there.
Speaker 4: But yeah, well but Democrats in like rural states have
Speaker 4: fielded much better candidates this time around, which is very interesting,
Speaker 4: like really learning from the mistakes. I would argue, of
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen, you have a Platner instead of a Gideon
Speaker 4: type candidate in Maine, you have Dan Osburn in Nebraska. Sure, Brown,
Speaker 4: I think it's very very competitive. In Ohio, I think
Speaker 4: Texas is probably out of the question. But North Carolina
Speaker 4: looking really good for Democrats and that's the ballgame right there.
Speaker 5: And Peltola in Alaska.
Speaker 2: It was a very good candidate there and pulling has
Speaker 2: her up as well, So so yeah, I think I
Speaker 2: think that's very possible.
Speaker 5: So we will see how that all goes.
Speaker 1: H