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Speaker 4: We're joined now by Branco March Titch. He is a
Speaker 4: staff writer at Jacobin. He's the author of yesterday's man,
Speaker 4: The Case against Joe Biden, and is out with a
Speaker 4: truly fantastic deep dive in Deep Dive into Jeffrey Epstein's
Speaker 4: relationship with Peter Teal in Jacomin. Jacobin cannot recommend this
Speaker 4: piece highly enough.
Speaker 5: This is d one.
Speaker 4: When we can put the tear sheet up on the screen,
Speaker 4: you absolutely must go check it out over at Jacobin.
Speaker 4: The headline here Jeffrey Epstein encouraged Peter Teal's pull it
Speaker 4: up journey. So Branco, let's just start with the highlights.
Speaker 4: After spending so much time piecing together these emails between
Speaker 4: Peter Tiel and Jeffrey Epstein, of which there are many,
Speaker 4: what can you tell us about how close the relationship
Speaker 4: was and why?
Speaker 5: Over what types of issues did they bond?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, thanks for having First of all, they were
Speaker 6: extremely close. There's some people that I've written about in
Speaker 6: the context of Epstein, billionaires and you who you know,
Speaker 6: They say, well, just because they were mentioned in emails
Speaker 6: by Epstein doesn't mean that they actually had any kind
Speaker 6: of relationship with them. You can safely say that is
Speaker 6: not the case with Peter tel Teal is all over
Speaker 6: these emails. They are communicating very frequently over the course
Speaker 6: of years. They're having fun calls, they having meetings face
Speaker 6: to face. Epstein is introducing him to, you know, people
Speaker 6: that he seems to think will be particularly useful and influential.
Speaker 7: Fatill t Nar.
Speaker 6: So you know, Epstein is also showering him with all
Speaker 6: kinds of gifts. He's offering to fly into his island
Speaker 6: and his helicopters. He's offering him at one point fifty
Speaker 6: million to one hundred million dollars to invest. He's giving
Speaker 6: him tax advice. He's in turn soliciting investment advice from Teal.
Speaker 6: A Teal at one point introduces Epstein to some of
Speaker 6: his valor co founders and he suggests to put in
Speaker 6: ten million to twenty million dollars into a new fund
Speaker 6: their starting At one point, Epstein even suggests, you know,
Speaker 6: Teal can use one of his top sleep doctors in
Speaker 6: New York. He says, I want you to stay alive.
Speaker 6: So it was a very close relationship and the kinds
Speaker 6: of things they bonded over. I mean, there's a variety
Speaker 6: of things that they talked about, you know. But I
Speaker 6: think that the most pertinent thing to me and looking
Speaker 6: through his emails, is the way that Epstein seems to
Speaker 6: be very interested in Teal's kind of budding involvement and
Speaker 6: interest in politics and geopolitics, and how he seems to
Speaker 6: want to develop and encourage that by kind of introducing
Speaker 6: him to a wide variety of influential players around the
Speaker 6: world and in the context of the US.
Speaker 8: And what I think is so interesting about Epstein and
Speaker 8: who he was connected to, and also Teel aside from
Speaker 8: the obvious is both of these guys were kind of
Speaker 8: on the pioneer of where the kind of Davos world was.
Speaker 8: I don't even even the more extreme weird wing of
Speaker 8: the Davos world almost was headed, particularly when it comes
Speaker 8: to kind of eugenics, when it when it comes to
Speaker 8: mass surveillance and you deploying technologies like Palanteer, that deal
Speaker 8: was developing to usher in kind of new world. Also,
Speaker 8: bitcoin and AI like Epstein Teel like, they were both
Speaker 8: talking about that stuff so much earlier. You know then
Speaker 8: you know, either the public or even kind of other
Speaker 8: people in their set. So what do you make of
Speaker 8: that kind of the ability that they had to see
Speaker 8: where their kind of social set was heading and also
Speaker 8: to kind of drive it in that direction a little bit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned cryptocurrency because that is a
Speaker 6: big theme I think in Epstein's emails in general, but
Speaker 6: particularly with his relationship with Teal. Epstein kind of suggests
Speaker 6: in one early email when he's trying to get in
Speaker 6: touch with Teal, and by the way, he is really
Speaker 6: before they've become friends. He is really trying to meet
Speaker 6: Teal and to forge a connection with him. You know,
Speaker 6: I think I counted something like ten different times of
Speaker 6: the course of two years that he is emailing people
Speaker 6: trying to set up some kind of meeting with him.
Speaker 6: I mean, he says that one of the things that
Speaker 6: is interesting him that he hopes they can connect with
Speaker 6: Teal of is this idea of creating a new financial
Speaker 6: system and alternative financial system.
Speaker 7: Some of that sounds a bit silly.
Speaker 6: He kind of envisions Facebook being the kind of basis
Speaker 6: for a new financial system where you trade favors instead
Speaker 6: of currency. But when you read through the emails, it's
Speaker 6: clear that Epstein's interest in cryptocurrency was a big part
Speaker 6: of this, and you know, I think he hoped to
Speaker 6: use the Teal connection to try and usher this new
Speaker 6: world into into existence. I think there's another aspect where,
Speaker 6: you know, the fact that these guys are both incredibly
Speaker 6: wealthy and that they kind of feel themselves that are
Speaker 6: removed from the rest of humanity. I think both gives
Speaker 6: them the kind of impulse to embark on what might
Speaker 6: look to us like almost wacky schemes. But you know,
Speaker 6: the ones that they're very serious about, and ones obviously
Speaker 6: have very far reaching implications. And you know, in terms
Speaker 6: of the idea of kind of extending lifespan and you know,
Speaker 6: kind of going beyond the limits of normal human existence.
Speaker 6: I would also point to this didn't make it into
Speaker 6: the piece, but there's a exchange that they have where
Speaker 6: it's very brief. Epstein asked Teal, as he does many times,
Speaker 6: whether he's going to come to New York, and Teal
Speaker 6: responds with something like, you know, I don't have any
Speaker 6: interest in coming.
Speaker 7: To the zoo.
Speaker 6: This week or something, and Epstein replies, you know, well,
Speaker 6: sometimes it's fun to look at animals. There's a I
Speaker 6: think that exchange kind of betrays a certain way that
Speaker 6: these guys look at the rest of the world. You know,
Speaker 6: they're so far removed from everyone else that I think
Speaker 6: they kind of view the world as in the rest
Speaker 6: of humanity is is almost kind of a Petri dish
Speaker 6: for for themselves to kind of play around and and
Speaker 6: and re re forge in the in the vision that
Speaker 6: they see.
Speaker 4: For Yeah, a couple of things that stood out to me.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a lot that stood out, but a
Speaker 4: couple of other things they seem to be trying to
Speaker 4: Epstein seems to try to be brokering relationships between Teal
Speaker 4: and the intelligence community. Also people like ultra wealthy both
Speaker 4: businessman like Tom Barack. If I'm remembering correctly, who's what
Speaker 4: our current ambassador.
Speaker 5: To the UAE. He was UAE now he's yeah, but
Speaker 5: he was Trump one UAE, right, Ryan.
Speaker 8: He would know he was doing illegal lobbying for a right.
Speaker 4: Not so he was sort of an ambassador in one
Speaker 4: sense or the other. But he's trying to I can't
Speaker 4: tell if you I'm curious if you read it this
Speaker 4: way as well. Branco, that's he's almost trying to like
Speaker 4: curry favor with Epstein by doing favors for him.
Speaker 5: It seems like he's going out of.
Speaker 4: His way to try to help Teal, that Epstein's going
Speaker 4: out of his way to try to help Teal make
Speaker 4: all of these introductions, and then he's advising him on
Speaker 4: his speech at the r NC. It just knowing how
Speaker 4: much Epstein hates Trump and communicates how much he hates
Speaker 4: Trump to others.
Speaker 5: His relationship with Steve.
Speaker 4: Bannon as much kind of more frank about that, whereas
Speaker 4: with Teal, it's almost like he's trying to imply it
Speaker 4: a Teal that he's fully on board with Trump there's
Speaker 4: just some weird undercurrents.
Speaker 6: I My sense from looking at probably this one thousands
Speaker 6: of these emails is that Epstein did have this falling
Speaker 6: out with Trump, and he was very disdainful towards Trump.
Speaker 6: He did not think very highly of him. But I
Speaker 6: think he understood that Trump was obviously a very influential
Speaker 6: and increasingly powerful person.
Speaker 5: And could be bought in some ways.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think Epstein understood that it was probably
Speaker 6: in his interest to have some kind of in with
Speaker 6: Trump release his administration, and Teal I think was.
Speaker 7: Was his end.
Speaker 6: I mean, when Epstein finds out that Teal is a
Speaker 6: Trump delegate, that's when he starts sending him these emails
Speaker 6: trying to help him kind of increase his influence within
Speaker 6: Trump's circles, trying to advise him on how to you know,
Speaker 6: not pass off Trump basically and get himself kind of
Speaker 6: kicked out of the in a circle. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: he tells him, Hey, I heard that you met with
Speaker 6: Tom Barack, and he basically says to him, I can
Speaker 6: I can you know, make that meeting happen? You should
Speaker 6: know him if you if you can kind of have
Speaker 6: your advice listen to by him, You'll be able to
Speaker 6: increase your influence within Trump's Trump's world.
Speaker 7: Later on, yeah, he broke as a meeting between them.
Speaker 6: He reads a BuzzFeed article where Teal is quoted saying
Speaker 6: some unflattering things about Trump, and he tells him, hey,
Speaker 6: be careful.
Speaker 7: You know Trump is very vindictive. You don't want.
Speaker 6: To anger him and kind of get kicked out of
Speaker 6: the clubhouse. And sure enough, from what I could see
Speaker 6: after that that email assent, Teal does not say anything
Speaker 6: negative about Trump up to He's very careful to always
Speaker 6: say positive things. So I think there was a was
Speaker 6: a realization by Epstein similar to the interest he took
Speaker 6: in Steve Bannon, where he similarly tried to introduce him
Speaker 6: to many many powerful and influential people. You gave him
Speaker 6: advice and so on and so forth. I think he realized,
Speaker 6: these two guys are going to be important power players.
Speaker 6: They're going to be influential within the Trump presidency and
Speaker 6: whatever comes after it, and it's probably better for me
Speaker 6: to have a good relationship with him and to have
Speaker 6: a kind of in and you know, the intelligence side
Speaker 6: of things.
Speaker 7: The the some of the other people that he introduced
Speaker 7: him too. I think there's a similar thing going on.
Speaker 6: The names that come up when when Epstein was trying
Speaker 6: to introduce Teal to people includes Bill Burns, who became
Speaker 6: the CIA director under Biden. At the time he was
Speaker 6: a State Department official. They include Kathy Rumler, who was
Speaker 6: the Abartment White House Council once upon a time. He
Speaker 6: says to her at one point when when he's trying
Speaker 6: to get hit to meet Teal, you know, you should bring.
Speaker 7: Some of your spook friends.
Speaker 6: So Epstein seemed to have a particular interest in kind
Speaker 6: of connecting Teal to the world of intelligence.
Speaker 7: And of course, you know what has happened since.
Speaker 6: Then, a Teal is very much deep in the in
Speaker 6: the world of intelligence. You know, Epstein introduced Teal to Hubbarak.
Speaker 6: Teal now has this major partnership with the Israeli military.
Speaker 6: At the same time, Teal also his companies have increasingly
Speaker 6: aligned themselves with this kind of interventionist, pro war side
Speaker 6: of the political spectrum in the United States. Whereas Teal
Speaker 6: used to be, you know, at the time that he
Speaker 6: was had first met Epstein, he was someone who described
Speaker 6: himself as a non interventionist, and he was against the
Speaker 6: US fighting all these wars. So you know whether it's
Speaker 6: what role Epstein played in that. You know, we we
Speaker 6: can only speculate, but Epstein's desire to have it kind
Speaker 6: of have a teal. It's more politically involved and you know,
Speaker 6: a list of us to war. I think has worked
Speaker 6: out for him, even if he didn't live to see
Speaker 6: it happen.
Speaker 8: Well, Bronco, great reporting. Really appreciate you being here.
Speaker 7: Yeah, thanks for having I.
Speaker 8: Just encourage everybody to check out his piece. Bronco Marsh,
Speaker 8: teacher of Jackoman magazine. EPA administrator Lee Zelden came to
Speaker 8: Capitol Hill yesterday appeared before the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee
Speaker 8: on the Environment, where he was grilled by AOC over
Speaker 8: glyphasate and exposing what is a kind of fascinating rift
Speaker 8: developing between Trump and the MAHA movement.
Speaker 1: This is a longer.
Speaker 8: Exchange than we usually play from hearings like this, but
Speaker 8: I think after you watch it, you're going to agree
Speaker 8: that the entire thing was worth including let's.
Speaker 10: Roll that now.
Speaker 11: Secretary Kennedy was here a couple of weeks ago and
Speaker 11: when he was asked about glyph estate and the rollbacks
Speaker 11: against protections against toxic chemical. He said that we would
Speaker 11: quote have to ask Lee Zelden about that. So you're
Speaker 11: here before us today, Administrator Zelden. Have you ever participated
Speaker 11: in a meeting with Bayer where you discussed the legal
Speaker 11: or litigation issues that the company was facing.
Speaker 10: No?
Speaker 12: I never did, okay, I have My meeting with them
Speaker 12: was very brief and that topic did not come up.
Speaker 11: All right, I do. Are you aware of any outreach
Speaker 11: that they would have in your agency about this?
Speaker 12: I could say that I directly had a brief meeting, okay,
Speaker 12: but it was a brief meet and greet and that
Speaker 12: topic did not come up.
Speaker 11: Thank you, mister chair. I'd like to submit EPA visitor
Speaker 11: logs from July seventh, twenty twenty five to the committee with.
Speaker 10: That rejection ordered.
Speaker 11: And you're certain they didn't bring up anything regarding.
Speaker 12: Your work, I'm telling you one hundred percent absolutely. I
Speaker 12: maybe there was some brainstorming that was done beforehand of
Speaker 12: potential talk.
Speaker 10: Are you aware of any topic?
Speaker 11: Are you aware of anything brought up to any members
Speaker 11: of your staff or your team?
Speaker 12: I am not aware of that now.
Speaker 11: In this internal email in your EPA, it says that
Speaker 11: Beyer was specifically seeking to and discussing Supreme Court action.
Speaker 11: They will want an update on EPA's regulatory review and that, interestingly,
Speaker 11: Beyer will provide a small thanks for updating the Glypha
Speaker 11: Sate web page from the EPA and work on MAHA.
Speaker 11: Do you have any idea what they might have been
Speaker 11: referring to in this email?
Speaker 12: Well, first off, as I mentioned a few minutes ago,
Speaker 12: it's possible that the team was doing brainstorming of potential topics. Okay,
Speaker 12: as somebody who actually attended to thank you.
Speaker 11: I'm sorry, I just have forty seconds. I'm not trying
Speaker 11: to be rude. This Glypha Sate update that they're referring
Speaker 11: to seems to be correlated to the EPA agency with
Speaker 11: drawing its support for California's cancer warning on Glynphy Say. Now,
Speaker 11: this is important because five days after the EPO this year,
Speaker 11: Beyer filed their opening brief to the Supreme Court, citing
Speaker 11: the Trump's executive order and hinging their case on the
Speaker 11: EPA's warnings or lack thereof of glyphassay. So we have
Speaker 11: internal emails from your agency saying that Beyer wanted to
Speaker 11: thank you and your agency for removing support for California's
Speaker 11: warning because their court their their case before the Supreme
Speaker 11: Court right now, hinges on you not warning the American
Speaker 11: people and withdrawing your support on Glyphys. Do you understand
Speaker 11: the conflict of interest that is before the American people
Speaker 11: right now? Mister Secretary, thank you.
Speaker 12: The gentleman may respond, Okay, So right now EPA is
Speaker 12: completing a an assessment do in twenty twenty six, and
Speaker 12: I understand this is a very important topic for many
Speaker 12: people in this country. This review that the EPA is
Speaker 12: being conducted. My guidance two dedicated career staffers and then
Speaker 12: we have people who've been there for twenty thirty years.
Speaker 12: Is that I don't want to.
Speaker 11: Preach taking a while, Secretary Zone, because let me ask,
Speaker 11: the Supreme Court is going to be making decisions this
Speaker 11: week and Congress is voting this week on legal immunity.
Speaker 12: You made your point. Now I'm asking do you? I answer,
Speaker 12: this is an important part of this and I'm sure
Speaker 12: you also.
Speaker 11: And I think the timing is also very important, Secretary Zone.
Speaker 1: The general aged time has expired.
Speaker 8: Thank you, So before we break down that exchange, let's roll.
Speaker 8: Thomas Massey, Republican Congressman, giving the kind of Maha angle
Speaker 8: on this.
Speaker 13: One of the things in the farm belob still trying
Speaker 13: to get out of it. Was successful in getting this
Speaker 13: out of prior bills is immunity for a German company
Speaker 13: called Bear that makes blyfe to say this is to
Speaker 13: grant farmers immunity. This is to grant corporation immunity if
Speaker 13: they give farmers. If farmers contract a form of cancer
Speaker 13: or non Hodgson salamphoma from this chemical, if this makes
Speaker 13: it into the farm belt.
Speaker 10: Won't be able.
Speaker 13: You won't be able to sue for that. And I
Speaker 13: know they're dealing with some similar legislation at the state level.
Speaker 8: One of the things that I liked about that AOC's
Speaker 8: element Exchange is that she's been a pretty loyal kind
Speaker 8: of Democratic Party figure fairly and hasn't done a huge
Speaker 8: amount of kind of reach out to particularly to say
Speaker 8: Mago or Maha, even though there are a lot of
Speaker 8: positions that she has that can be very appealing to
Speaker 8: people in those coalitions. This is a perfect example of it.
Speaker 1: What did you make of a substance of the back
Speaker 1: and forth too?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean this is Lee Zelden in the I
Speaker 4: mean when he was picked for EPA, it was obvious
Speaker 4: there was going to be significant tension between him and
Speaker 4: Maha because he's in the position of being a Trump
Speaker 4: loyalist and Republicans are totally in the pocket of these
Speaker 4: big AG companies, Like in they both parties have their
Speaker 4: kind of big.
Speaker 5: Benefactors.
Speaker 1: For Republicans, what do they share, Yeah.
Speaker 4: They share a lot of them, but for Republicans based
Speaker 4: on the states that they come from, of course, like
Speaker 4: one of them is his AG. It's it's a huge,
Speaker 4: huge lobby. And so Zelden's in this position of being
Speaker 4: a loyalist to Trump trumps all of these rich friends.
Speaker 4: In fact, it's why people believe he's not doing a
Speaker 4: lot of workforce immigration enforcement is that AG guys call
Speaker 4: up and be like, I can't afford to lose all
Speaker 4: of these workers if you start implementing e Verify or
Speaker 4: the like. And they're very influential on Donald Trump. And
Speaker 4: Trump doesn't need to get reelected again, but he does
Speaker 4: like to keep people that he knows happy and basically
Speaker 4: these responsive to people who pick up the phone. And
Speaker 4: Zelden is a pretty normy Republican who also now because
Speaker 4: he's an EPA, has to be a Trump loyalist. It
Speaker 4: actually might have been interesting to see Bobby Kennedy at
Speaker 4: EPA and not at HHS.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Obama considered Bobby Kennedy for EPA and ultimately decided he
Speaker 4: was kind of too radical. At the time, someone posted
Speaker 4: this fascinating magazine cover from the late two thousands. I
Speaker 4: want to say it was like Vanity Fair with Julia Roberts,
Speaker 4: George Clooney and Bobby Kennedy warning about climate change.
Speaker 8: It's just like, yeah, he was a leading environmental attorney
Speaker 8: for decades.
Speaker 5: Well a far cry from Lee's Eldon.
Speaker 8: Basically, yeah, exactly. The substance of it is truly incredible.
Speaker 8: So effectively Lee's Alden went and changed the EPA's public
Speaker 8: positioning when it came to round up. The fact that
Speaker 8: he changed that public positioning was then extremely useful to
Speaker 8: them as they moved through the courts trying to fend
Speaker 8: off all of the various challenges from all the destruction
Speaker 8: that the ground up is causing. They then meet with
Speaker 8: him to thank him for doing that, and he denies
Speaker 8: that it remotely came up, and AOC has him kind
Speaker 8: of caught red handed.
Speaker 1: And I was a little angry.
Speaker 8: I'm like, hold on, this is we're supposed to be
Speaker 8: doing the foyas and breaking this news.
Speaker 4: Excuse me, Actually, it's oversight.
Speaker 5: Is her job, that's the point of the committee.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 8: No, and also nothing stopping us from doing it, So
Speaker 8: it's on us where we failed.
Speaker 1: She got there first. Kudos for the kudos for the
Speaker 1: scoop you can put up E four.
Speaker 8: This is not a remotely a Republican issue.
Speaker 5: This story is awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell us about tell us about this one. So
Speaker 1: are you sharing some of it?
Speaker 4: Yesterday Halverson went out into a bunch of California wilderness
Speaker 4: and discovered just mass use of roundup, you know near
Speaker 4: I think also in National park space because they're using
Speaker 4: the space essentially as tree farms. Right, you can log
Speaker 4: and grow trees faster if you use glaphy sate and
Speaker 4: just I was gonna say, napalm the National Park Service
Speaker 4: or National Parkland with glaphy sate and that's essentially what's happening.
Speaker 4: So check out that story. There's a video that goes
Speaker 4: along with it. Also a little note in the story,
Speaker 4: Gavin Newsom made it easier to do this. Glafa sa
Speaker 4: Galvin Sagas called greasy Gavin, but I think glyph of
Speaker 4: sake Gavin maybe has a better punch to it.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 8: So another exchange that Zelden had that was going viral
Speaker 8: on the right I saw was with Rosa Delorots, who
Speaker 8: she's eighty plus.
Speaker 1: I believe.
Speaker 5: She's been around forever.
Speaker 1: Let's play a little.
Speaker 8: Bit of This is not on the same issue, but.
Speaker 5: This is the Clean Air Act.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's roll E.
Speaker 12: Three following the law Section two O two of the
Speaker 12: Clean Air Act. Where is the same thing about fighting
Speaker 12: global climate change? Loper Bright Supreme Court case. You're familiar
Speaker 12: with it?
Speaker 7: No, I maybe others are not. But let me ask.
Speaker 12: But that's really important. As a member of Congress, Loper
Speaker 12: Bright says that we as as an agency don't have
Speaker 12: the authority to get creative if section two two of
Speaker 12: the Clean Air Act.
Speaker 1: No, no, but you don't have excuse me.
Speaker 14: You do not have the right to say climate change
Speaker 14: does not exist, that it's a hoax. And that's where
Speaker 14: this administration.
Speaker 10: You're upset.
Speaker 12: You don't know what Loper Bright is? Do you know
Speaker 12: what the major policies doctrine?
Speaker 1: Except I'm upset because.
Speaker 12: You know what the Major Policies doctrine is. You're a
Speaker 12: member of Congress, you should know can tell you what
Speaker 12: the two biggest SIP report cases are the last few
Speaker 12: years Michigan verse EPA, West Virginia versyp No, you're.
Speaker 14: Here because you need money from us, So halt for
Speaker 14: the second and wait for the questions and answer the question.
Speaker 12: I answered your question. Do you didn't like my answer
Speaker 12: because you don't know what Loperbride is? Because you don't
Speaker 12: know what the major Policies doctrine is.
Speaker 14: What you want to do is to deny You want
Speaker 14: to know.
Speaker 1: I actually read the law. I do my homework.
Speaker 12: Really, you're just somebody who likes to have the microphone on.
Speaker 12: You know what I have to do. I read the law,
Speaker 12: I read the Supreme Court cases. And we should do
Speaker 12: for your constituents is actually read statue. How are folks
Speaker 12: that the EPA is that you wanted to.
Speaker 14: Fund us BS?
Speaker 10: Do you think I made up these cases?
Speaker 8: Deloro there kind of gave it away when she's when
Speaker 8: she acknowledged that she didn't know what that. I'm surprised,
Speaker 8: but you know, one she's super old, but two I'm
Speaker 8: sure she does. I'm sure she remembers it from the time.
Speaker 8: That's the case that we covered here that rid of
Speaker 8: the quote unquote Chevron doctrine, which the Chevron doctrine was,
Speaker 8: if federal law is somewhat ambiguous, we will defer in
Speaker 8: a common sense way to the administrative state, basically to
Speaker 8: the EPA or whoever is tasked with writing the rules,
Speaker 8: and as long as it's reasonable, then that's fine. Courts,
Speaker 8: the Court, the Supreme Court, our right wing Supreme Court,
Speaker 8: said no, we're going to take that power, like the
Speaker 8: judges are going to do that instead of instead of them.
Speaker 8: And then the other ones that he's referring to said, well,
Speaker 8: you basically you can't have carbon. You know, they got
Speaker 8: rid of allowing carbon to apply underneath under the Clean
Speaker 8: Air Act.
Speaker 1: The Clean Air Act was very clear that, like we are.
Speaker 8: The the Drug Control Act did the same thing. Drug
Speaker 8: Control Act said, these are the drugs that are illegal
Speaker 8: right now, but people are making new drugs constantly.
Speaker 1: You know, LSD will be tweaked, it will become a
Speaker 1: new thing.
Speaker 8: And if the if the scientists that work for the
Speaker 8: DEA determined that that drug is very similar to LSD,
Speaker 8: then that one is also then banned.
Speaker 1: Under the Controlled Substances Act as well.
Speaker 8: You don't have to go back to Congress and ban
Speaker 8: every little single variation.
Speaker 1: Of a new drug.
Speaker 8: The Clean Air Act was the exact same way that
Speaker 8: they would say, we want clean air, and we want it,
Speaker 8: we want we want to protect clean air from pollutants.
Speaker 8: We use of the known pollutants at the time. As
Speaker 8: new pollutants emerged through the industrial process. We're not asking
Speaker 8: the Executive to come back to Congress every single time.
Speaker 8: Just in coordination with the public and public comment periods
Speaker 8: and through your scientific expertise, just add new pollutants. And
Speaker 8: obviously some things are pollutants at all. Pollutants basically are
Speaker 8: safe at some level for the climate and for the world,
Speaker 8: and unsafe at higher levels. And so the EPA, you know,
Speaker 8: through its process, declared that you know, it had the
Speaker 8: authority to regulate carbon, which was in place for many,
Speaker 8: many years, and then the Supreme Court came in and said, no,
Speaker 8: you don't have that authority. So he What frustrated me
Speaker 8: about that clip is that he was trying to take
Speaker 8: what is really a political disagreement and refashion it as
Speaker 8: you just don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 4: Yes, but I also think that because again we covered
Speaker 4: this at the time, Loper Bread is a really interesting
Speaker 4: case that gets to I think an issue.
Speaker 1: About the fishermen or something right, lobstermen.
Speaker 4: If I'm remember incorrectly, that it actually does get to
Speaker 4: an interesting issue that I think, what Rossa Dolora is Connecticut,
Speaker 4: so I assume her district is some coastline I would assume,
Speaker 4: so I don't know that for sure, but it wass yes,
Speaker 4: bureaucrats in DC basically making rules that were controlling like
Speaker 4: minute details of what these guys were doing off the
Speaker 4: coast of a I want to say it was main
Speaker 4: in Loper Bright. So I also think that something that like,
Speaker 4: first of all, Rosa Dolo should be prepared to make
Speaker 4: the argument that the Clean Air Act, which is at
Speaker 4: the center of Loperbright, should be used differently and like
Speaker 4: it absolutely needs to be guided by Washington for reasons X, Y,
Speaker 4: and Z, so like she should be. If I were
Speaker 4: a Connecticut voter, I'd be like, maam, like get back,
Speaker 4: like let's go, Like this is a very obvious talking
Speaker 4: point against Zelden. But I remember at the time Rain
Speaker 4: and we were talking about how part of the problem
Speaker 4: with Chevron, for example, is that you get these lobbyists
Speaker 4: coming through, or you get the revolving door where you
Speaker 4: have people who were then going to go lobby revolving
Speaker 4: through the door of the EPA, and then they're the
Speaker 4: ones that are empowered to make some of these decisions
Speaker 4: about minute things and you could see somebody from I mean,
Speaker 4: it's happened. You could see people from the industries working
Speaker 4: at EPA making decisions that benefit the industries and then
Speaker 4: getting nice, big fat paychecks. It's really like my dispute
Speaker 4: with it is that I think it's it's anti democratic
Speaker 4: in some ways. So that's to me an interesting for
Speaker 4: democratic to judges. No, I'm not saying that they are,
Speaker 4: but that's like, it's also not a solution to just
Speaker 4: have people who have worked at the EPA and then
Speaker 4: are going over to maybe it's Bear. It's like we
Speaker 4: should actually look up and see how many people who
Speaker 4: have worked at Bear we're here at the EPA now
Speaker 4: or have. But it's I don't think it's a good
Speaker 4: situation either way.
Speaker 8: Well, you got to you have to have some mechanism
Speaker 8: to actually implement what Congress passes. And if to me,
Speaker 8: if Congress says, and all right, so let's uh, let
Speaker 8: when when Democrats, if they come back into power, fine,
Speaker 8: like maybe they need to in every single bill enumerate say.
Speaker 1: We explicitly allow.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but that that has been the assumption right from
Speaker 8: Congress because that's been the settled law for decades and
Speaker 8: the Supreme Court just got rid of it because they
Speaker 8: don't like it. So okay, I guess if Democrats take
Speaker 8: control again, they can come back and say, okay, we
Speaker 8: want to be very clear here carbon is included.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on and on. I think that's good.
Speaker 8: But yeah, anyway, we thought it was useful to play
Speaker 8: both back to back because it also we looked at
Speaker 8: Deloro's eighty three. Oh well and AOC's what thirty seven,
Speaker 8: and so we like people who are fighting, you know,
Speaker 8: for the environment.
Speaker 1: You know, we need people at their best, like.
Speaker 5: Come on, that's a really good point.
Speaker 4: And also I think it was useful to play clips
Speaker 4: back to back because as much as we probably disagree
Speaker 4: with Zelden on a number of issues, like he's slippery's
Speaker 4: he's an effective defender. This is where you're trying like
Speaker 4: he's possibly one of the names for DOJ successor to
Speaker 4: Pambondi because Trump really likes Lee Seldon exactly over clips
Speaker 4: like that. So the other thing I wanted to mention
Speaker 4: Ryan is this was from Politico last month. They had
Speaker 4: a little blurb in their Influence newsletter, which is a
Speaker 4: great window into Washington, better than playbook.
Speaker 5: They wrote.
Speaker 4: Behind Beyar's success, biotech company Behar scored a massive win
Speaker 4: last month when President Donald Trump signed an executive order
Speaker 4: boosting domestic production of the active ingredient in round Up
Speaker 4: weed killer. That was for national security purposes.
Speaker 5: Keep that in mind.
Speaker 4: Back in February, in a new report political Rights, our
Speaker 4: colleagues Marshall Brown and Shan has a little pull back
Speaker 4: the curtain on how the company made its case in Washington.
Speaker 4: Bears CEO met with top Whitehouse officials last year and
Speaker 4: so the company could absorb billions of dollars in litigation
Speaker 4: costs from lawsuits a legend that Clive Is said the
Speaker 4: active ingredient and Roundup caused cancer. I think they've already
Speaker 4: paid twelve billion dollars in settlements over that point. This
Speaker 4: is in the mother Drones article we talked about earlier.
Speaker 4: But twelve billion in settlements. They always settle, They never
Speaker 4: let it go through court. They settle. So take that
Speaker 4: for what you will, but it couldn't also face down
Speaker 4: the regulatory uncertainty. And what Executive saw is the prospect
Speaker 4: of a government ban. It might leave the US market,
Speaker 4: Bahyar told the White House, taking with it one of
Speaker 4: the most blessed, widely used products on US farmland. The
Speaker 4: President ultimately sided with the agriculture industry, taking Bear's threat
Speaker 4: to leave seriously enough to sign an executive order that
Speaker 4: caused us a lot of political heartburn, said a White
Speaker 4: House official. They know that their own voters are not
Speaker 4: happy with this. The official, however, insisted that the administration
Speaker 4: was concerned with protecting the supply chain for all kinds
Speaker 4: of critical minerals irrespective of Bear's lobbying. The arguments the
Speaker 4: company made, the official said, were already being made inside
Speaker 4: the admin well before Beyer made any demands. They have
Speaker 4: also spent a truly incredible amount of money lobbying. That's
Speaker 4: I'm sure that's not surprising to anybody, but here I
Speaker 4: have the numbers in front of me. During twenty twenty five,
Speaker 4: they spent more than nine million dollars lobbying the federal government.
Speaker 5: So that's what nine million dollars by you here in.
Speaker 8: Washington, DC up Next, leaving Mohammed, former TikTok official, joins
Speaker 8: us to talk about his several years of experience there
Speaker 8: dealing with congressional pressure trying to get TikTok to stop
Speaker 8: letting the American and global public.
Speaker 1: Know what was going on in Gaza over the weekend.
Speaker 8: In a surprising upset in Utah's first congressional district, the
Speaker 8: Democratic Party there endorsed Leban Mohammad, a kind of newcomer
Speaker 8: to the race for the party's endorsement. Doesn't mean the
Speaker 8: primary is over. It's a kind of a weird system
Speaker 8: that they've got there. But interestingly, we had already booked
Speaker 8: Leban to come on the show to talk about his
Speaker 8: previous experience serving on the Congressional affairs team over at TikTok,
Speaker 8: which he quit in order to run for Congress. And
Speaker 8: apparently now you know, a serious content, not just a
Speaker 8: serious contender, but you know, may be with Nate Blewin
Speaker 8: and Brian McAdams Ben McAdams Brian or Ben McAdams, the
Speaker 8: former Academy former Ben McAdams, a former member of Congress,
Speaker 8: we got a serious race on our hands. But so Levan,
Speaker 8: thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 15: Thank you. This is one of my favorite shows. Congrats
Speaker 15: on getting two million subscribers. You're killing it. It's a
Speaker 15: testament to the great reporting work that you're all doing,
Speaker 15: and you know, the highlighting the opinions that need to
Speaker 15: be heard.
Speaker 8: No, you know, we we appreciate it. We're going to
Speaker 8: have Robert Pape on next. He always loves to glaze
Speaker 8: our our audience.
Speaker 4: For sagging show that it's like a cabinet meeting here.
Speaker 12: It's a great way.
Speaker 1: It's a great way to start, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: So well. But first of all, if you would have told.
Speaker 8: Me when we were talking last week the week before
Speaker 8: that you're like, yeah, I think I'm gonna actually win
Speaker 8: the Democratic Party endorsement, I would be like, Okay, this
Speaker 8: guy's kind of uh, this guy's kind of losing it
Speaker 8: a little bit.
Speaker 1: How how did you pull this off?
Speaker 10: Was there?
Speaker 8: Did you come in with an organized support base or
Speaker 8: do you think that you swayed a lot of people
Speaker 8: at the convention.
Speaker 15: I think a little bit of both. We organized, but
Speaker 15: not in a typical way that politics is organized. We
Speaker 15: just organized with real community leaders who are on the ground,
Speaker 15: typically not in the political process, but are the true
Speaker 15: service providers doing the real implement implementation work, working with
Speaker 15: our homeless community, our displaced communities, working with our refugee communities.
Speaker 15: Something about the Salwake Valley in this district is the
Speaker 15: west side is basically an area that consolidates a lot
Speaker 15: of our marginalized groups and has been long underrepresented not
Speaker 15: only on the federal level but across our government positions.
Speaker 15: And this new district flipped from plus twenty points Republican
Speaker 15: to plus twenty four percentage points Democrat, and it presents
Speaker 15: a new opportunity to have a leadership that reflects perspective
Speaker 15: as well the progressive perspective, the working classes perspective. So
Speaker 15: there was a lot of excitement on the ground for
Speaker 15: our candidacy. And the way that we got this done
Speaker 15: ultimately is showing up with the message that they want
Speaker 15: to hear, which is fighting for affordability and showing a
Speaker 15: character that they can trust and believe in.
Speaker 8: And so we'll cover this race more down down the road.
Speaker 8: For now, I wanted to get a little bit of
Speaker 8: your story on TikTok and so October seventh, happens, you
Speaker 8: know, and I were talking about this before, so October seventh happens.
Speaker 8: You were actually So you're working for TikTok at the
Speaker 8: time in their kind of congregional affairs office, and you're
Speaker 8: in Mecca on a pilgrimage with Palestinian friends. So talk
Speaker 8: about what that experience was like while you're and I
Speaker 8: assume that TikTok was like, yeah, you need to you
Speaker 8: need to check in too now because like this this
Speaker 8: is a major world shaping development.
Speaker 1: So what was that? What was that?
Speaker 8: Like, that's that's got to be an experience that you're
Speaker 8: never going to forget.
Speaker 15: Yeah, absolutely it was. It was one of the most
Speaker 15: pivotal moments in my life and in my perspective. So
Speaker 15: quick background context. My promo role is I used to
Speaker 15: manage the business's responses to congressional investigations and political vestigations
Speaker 15: at large. What that means is, anytime they want to
Speaker 15: send a letter, there's a briefing request, testimony request for
Speaker 15: an executive, I was the one either writing their responses,
Speaker 15: of providing their responses, or preparing sent an executive for
Speaker 15: those engagements. So I just answered questions all the time,
Speaker 15: and I was in this new position as some colleagues
Speaker 15: of my want to on maternity leave, another one left
Speaker 15: the team, and it was just kind of me and
Speaker 15: I'm just learning. And after October seventh happened, I was
Speaker 15: with Palestinian family who have known since I was just
Speaker 15: a small child, and they were telling me in real
Speaker 15: time as things are unfolding, their childhood home blown to pieces.
Speaker 15: It was a father and a son that was with
Speaker 15: particularly the son his wife's entire family killed. And to
Speaker 15: experience something like that in real time as people that
Speaker 15: you love and care about are finding the news.
Speaker 7: It.
Speaker 15: Was a moment that I truly internalized what the apartheized
Speaker 15: state of Israel really is, what they're capable of, and
Speaker 15: what that means in the ordinary people's lives. I've always
Speaker 15: known what the issue is. I've always been a pro Palestinian,
Speaker 15: but it's different when it becomes real and you see it.
Speaker 15: And my job at TikTok, we're getting all these inquiries
Speaker 15: from different like the officials Pro Israeli or lobbying organizations
Speaker 15: you know, I think a d L and all of those,
Speaker 15: and I'm the person that has to respond.
Speaker 8: Frankly, how did they like that? When you would show
Speaker 8: up at these meetings.
Speaker 4: But I was also going to ask what, just like,
Speaker 4: help us understand, you know, from the position that you
Speaker 4: were in how quickly this was obviously a huge, maybe
Speaker 4: the biggest political challenge that TikTok faced in its entire existence.
Speaker 4: After it happened, probably no exaggeration to say that this
Speaker 4: is what led to ultimately the Trump administration selling TikTok
Speaker 4: to American companies. So talk to us about the pressure
Speaker 4: on the inside. And then Ryan's question of how people
Speaker 4: reacted when when you shared your vantage point at some
Speaker 4: of these meetings.
Speaker 15: As well, great question. So the pressure was unbelievable. Words
Speaker 15: can I describe the amount of pressure that existed, and
Speaker 15: it became the number one head and for the company
Speaker 15: that could result in the lack of its existence in
Speaker 15: the largest consumer market in the entire world. We were
Speaker 15: getting inbound inquiries and this is public information. You could
Speaker 15: see a lot of these letters online, I mean every
Speaker 15: few days, every other day from probally lobbying organizations, from
Speaker 15: Israel perspective legislators, and the company was just being inundated.
Speaker 15: But what's really interesting is the lack of questions and
Speaker 15: investigators and inquiries coming from the pro Palestinian perspective, and
Speaker 15: this experience actually made me understand exactly how this influence
Speaker 15: really works. It's more than money. It's persistence, it's sophistication
Speaker 15: behind their lobbying efforts, and they make you feel like
Speaker 15: you're in a bubble, that their perspective is the only
Speaker 15: perspective that exists because of the volume that you're dealing with,
Speaker 15: and everybody knows in the company what it is the
Speaker 15: pressure that exists, and you have to feel like you're
Speaker 15: walking on eggshells because you know, at the end of
Speaker 15: the day that the ultimate purpose of this business, like
Speaker 15: any other business, is to make profit, and the biggest
Speaker 15: risk to wish profit at the current moment is is
Speaker 15: real perspective threatening to participate in the efforts to ban
Speaker 15: the platform. So it was very difficult, but it was
Speaker 15: a fulfilling experience because we were honestly fighting back for
Speaker 15: a long time up until the bill passed and even
Speaker 15: for a little while after that and not capitulating. And
Speaker 15: the reason we didn't capitulate is because of polarity. I
Speaker 15: think people underestimate the benefit polarity has in our geopolitical
Speaker 15: environments when it comes to tech.
Speaker 8: Explain what you mean by that, Yes, I think it's
Speaker 8: an interesting point. What do you mean by polarity, Yes,
Speaker 8: so you have the United States of America, which is
Speaker 8: the largest consumer market in the world, and not only that,
Speaker 8: they also produce the most volume of content on the
Speaker 8: global scale.
Speaker 15: Ability for the business to be able to generate profit
Speaker 15: even outside of the United States is reliant on the
Speaker 15: volume and quality of the content creators and the content
Speaker 15: that's being reade here. At the same time, the parent
Speaker 15: company has a number of subsidiaries in China that are
Speaker 15: making a immense amount of money doing really well. So
Speaker 15: if the company capitulates to the US perspective, while, they're
Speaker 15: going to risk their interest in China. And if they
Speaker 15: capitulate to the Chinese perspective, well, they're going to risk
Speaker 15: their interests in the US. So the business for a
Speaker 15: long time was incentivized to do the only thing that
Speaker 15: was justifiable, which is the right thing. At the end
Speaker 15: of the day, they're not a nation state, and if
Speaker 15: a country is coming after you, it's quite difficult to
Speaker 15: defend yourself. And so for a while, I believe that's
Speaker 15: the reason why they were not capitulating and the propolacy
Speaker 15: and movement and progressive causes were able to be really
Speaker 15: successful on the platform. But now that polarity has been
Speaker 15: stripped with the acquisition. And this is part of the
Speaker 15: reason why I decided to leave the company and run
Speaker 15: for Congress, because I just didn't feel comfortable anymore that
Speaker 15: the motives of the new ownership would be in the
Speaker 15: right place, not because of any evidence specifically, but just
Speaker 15: the rhetoric and the intention is that seemed to be clear.
Speaker 1: And so back to my earlier question.
Speaker 8: Let's say the ADL comes in from meeting, or you
Speaker 8: get told you got to go visit the ADL.
Speaker 1: Or one of these other groups. What was the reaction?
Speaker 8: You know, I think, you know, they're ready to pressure
Speaker 8: TikTok into, you know, capitulating on whatever particular issue. What
Speaker 8: was the reaction when lead m Muhammed walks into the room.
Speaker 15: I think the last thing they would want as a
Speaker 15: person like myself to be the one answering the questions
Speaker 15: at the end of the day, the policies of the policies,
Speaker 15: and I was answering things in an unbiased way, and
Speaker 15: ultimately the company was operating in an unbiased manner. The
Speaker 15: fundamental issue of their concern was the volume of content.
Speaker 15: And the volume of content has nothing to do with
Speaker 15: the business. It's a reflection of the people TikTok and
Speaker 15: these other platforms. It's not only a TikTok issue. They're
Speaker 15: not putting a camera in front of your face saying
Speaker 15: I make this piece of content. But these people wanted
Speaker 15: to address that and the only way to do that
Speaker 15: is throttling, and the company was not.
Speaker 10: Willing to do that.
Speaker 4: And Ryan, can you set up this situation of what
Speaker 4: we know about Ryan Crystal and soccer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's this is kind this is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: It is interesting.
Speaker 8: I think it's legitimately, and it's related a little bit
Speaker 8: to the way that the politics inside kind of TikTok
Speaker 8: are are are evolving. We started Crystal Eyed, started doing
Speaker 8: soccer took We started doing TikTok a little while ago.
Speaker 8: And then I in particular, there's several accounts that started
Speaker 8: like impersonating me and I'm like, okay, whatever, that's fine,
Speaker 8: like in personally just stripping the videos and like doing
Speaker 8: an account that's like very similar to me.
Speaker 1: There's one, there's one up there now.
Speaker 8: It's like at Ryan w grimm underscore, like they throw
Speaker 8: an underscore at the end. And I started getting bothered
Speaker 8: when they started dming people like you want to like
Speaker 8: rip off my content? Fine, like whatever, but they started
Speaker 8: dming people pretending to be me. I'm like, oh, this
Speaker 8: is actually not good, Like this could go in very
Speaker 8: dark direction fast, if like somebody wanted to do something
Speaker 8: you know, gross or something. It's plain with me. So
Speaker 8: I reached out to TikTok and they're like, well, we
Speaker 8: can't do anything, you know. And a bunch of people
Speaker 8: were reporting this account and they're like, well, they're not
Speaker 8: impersonating anybody because this person's a nobody because they're not verified,
Speaker 8: so you can't impersonate nobody. I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 8: so let me apply for verification. That's been a like
Speaker 8: more than six month process. Now at this point where
Speaker 8: they originally they were telling me that the articles that
Speaker 8: I was submitting about me were not from reputable news outlets,
Speaker 8: even though they were like the New York Times in
Speaker 8: the Washington Post. I'm like, okay, that's kind of funny.
Speaker 8: TikTok doesn't find them credible. I don't either, But who
Speaker 8: then is credible if you don't think the times in
Speaker 8: posts are so, then lev On, you would talk to
Speaker 8: some colleagues internally and try to help Crystal and me
Speaker 8: get going. Crystal, by the way, a former federal candidate
Speaker 8: for office, like there's a rule that basically any federal
Speaker 8: candidate is supposed to get verified, and they still are like, no,
Speaker 8: if you we're not going to verify you. So just
Speaker 8: imposters go so like as somebody who's been involved in
Speaker 8: this kind of verification process, like why do they care?
Speaker 1: Why do they care so much? Like it wasn't when
Speaker 1: I applied.
Speaker 8: It was like not even big deal, just like trying
Speaker 8: to get these imposter accounts not to be doing these
Speaker 8: like fake accounts. But it seems like it's much more
Speaker 8: important to them that Crystal and I not be verified
Speaker 8: than it is dust to get verified. I'm not even
Speaker 8: using the platform as much anymore, Like what, like, is
Speaker 8: what is going on here?
Speaker 1: What's your sense of the politics internally?
Speaker 15: Yeah, it's difficult for me to be able to speculate
Speaker 15: the rationale behind why you or Crystal were not verified.
Speaker 15: I do believe that they're still reviewing your verification applications
Speaker 15: and hopefully they go well, I will say in my opinion,
Speaker 15: it's quite obvious that you guys both and Sagar are
Speaker 15: included far beyond me the threshold of requirements that are
Speaker 15: necessary to be able to receive a verification. And you
Speaker 15: are correct. There is a policy, the acronym is G
Speaker 15: triple PA. But under that there is a requirement for
Speaker 15: government and political accounts, including a credibal congressional candidate, to
Speaker 15: be verified. However, there's a great area that's unclear if
Speaker 15: that applies to retroactively since she's no longer a candidate.
Speaker 15: So I'm unsure there, but we'll see. I will say though,
Speaker 15: as you're somebody that was nominated for a uh yeah,
Speaker 15: what was it? A Plitzer?
Speaker 1: Right, Well, we used to be in the mix for those.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sorry, we run one the iHeart radio or
Speaker 4: actually does that mean nothing?
Speaker 1: That's true iHeart radio podcasts.
Speaker 15: I'll say this, if any of our old colleagues who
Speaker 15: were watching this help about they deserve it. They're good
Speaker 15: people who are advocated for the right thing. Ultimately, definitely
Speaker 15: me all of the requirements that are necessary, So I
Speaker 15: encourage you to do that, and I'm quite confident that
Speaker 15: they haven't violated any community guidelines and if they have,
Speaker 15: you should be able to demonstrate that to them. And ultimately,
Speaker 15: what I really like to talk about as well as
Speaker 15: this campaign, just.
Speaker 8: Before you go, I wanted to ask you, I don't
Speaker 8: want to ask you one one camp, kind of a
Speaker 8: strategic question about the campaign. So Nate Lewin is kind
Speaker 8: of well, there were two progressive candidates before you got in.
Speaker 1: One of them seems to have kind of.
Speaker 8: Torture campaign over some like wild like sexual like me
Speaker 8: too stuff. I don't know if she's still a serious
Speaker 8: candidate any anymore, but Nate Blewin has that you're backed
Speaker 8: by ilhan Omar and also the I saw that the
Speaker 8: minority leader, the Democratic State minority leader was at the
Speaker 8: convention also endorsing you, so that that that gives you
Speaker 8: an interesting kind of stretch of endorsements. Nate Blewin's got
Speaker 8: Bernie Sanders endorsement. So one thing I wanted to ask you,
Speaker 8: there's there's so much splitting of the vote among kind
Speaker 8: of progressive candidates that it that it often leads to
Speaker 8: the kind of the more centrist, kind of corporate back
Speaker 8: to candidate winning. So I'm curious would you commit if
Speaker 8: within what what should the threshold be two weeks of
Speaker 8: the mail in ballots dropping if if you're no longer
Speaker 8: kind of a seriously viable candidate, and I guess we've
Speaker 8: got to figure out how to buy decide that would
Speaker 8: you withdraw and endorse the kind of leading populist candidate.
Speaker 15: Yeah, my answer to that question is quite simple. I
Speaker 15: think I believe I prove that I am the viable
Speaker 15: candidate that is able to consolidate the support and beat
Speaker 15: Ben McAdams. Ben McAdams is backed by APAC, he is
Speaker 15: centris at that I would say basically a Republican, and
Speaker 15: Nate Bloomin didn't be Ben McAdams Ben B. Nate believe
Speaker 15: Ben B Ben. So I think that is answer to
Speaker 15: that question. There's some controversies around him. I'm not gonna
Speaker 15: ridicule him for that. I believe in forgiveness and trying
Speaker 15: to see a path forward for him to come back
Speaker 15: from this. He's been doing a lot of great work
Speaker 15: since then, and I commend him on that. But what's
Speaker 15: also true is most voters are going to get that
Speaker 15: ballot in the mailbox and they're going to do their
Speaker 15: little five minute Google church, and it would be a
Speaker 15: shame that in the most progressive open seat in the
Speaker 15: entire nation, that we lose a working class movement because
Speaker 15: we can't pass that Google search tests because of a scandal.
Speaker 15: We need a person with the track record of both
Speaker 15: integrity and results that's advocating for the right things. And
Speaker 15: those are benchmarks that I believe I uniquely meet and
Speaker 15: I am capable of doing even more than that, which
Speaker 15: is bringing new people into the process, which is going
Speaker 15: to be paramount to be able to be bemic Adams.
Speaker 15: So the answer to your question is, yes, I do
Speaker 15: believe in consolidation of the progressive ideology and movement, but
Speaker 15: I believe that it needs to be behind the person
Speaker 15: that can survive, you know, a negative ad campaign, and.
Speaker 8: We'll ask we'll end up we'll ask Nate the same question.
Speaker 8: If people are curious. I think the thing you're referring
Speaker 8: to is there some old comments of his bashing Mormons.
Speaker 15: Well more In the comments he admitted to a hit crame,
Speaker 15: defecating on the place of worship of the predominant faith
Speaker 15: and our state and a number of other things.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to that's a tough one to overcome.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I don't know if that's going to be a
Speaker 15: survived to Google search test.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 15: We need somebody that's going to make sure that we
Speaker 15: have healthcare as a human right, housing that for her
Speaker 15: own the house, and make sure that we can get
Speaker 15: that as a human rights. Somebody that's going to fight
Speaker 15: to abolish ice and build an immigration system that's rooted
Speaker 15: in our shared humanity. Somebody that's going to fight to
Speaker 15: stop funding endless wars and the genocide of our brothers
Speaker 15: in Sinces and Rosa. Fundamentally, somebody that's going to focus
Speaker 15: on American diplomacy abroad and our own dignity at home,
Speaker 15: and that cannot be jeopardized simply because the character of
Speaker 15: the individual is not able to meet the mark to
Speaker 15: be elected. This is more than just a person. It's
Speaker 15: about the movement and we need somebody that can create
Speaker 15: it and meet it.
Speaker 8: All right, Well, Leban, appreciate you coming on. We'll be
Speaker 8: following this right. This is a This is a really
Speaker 8: interesting one. Thanks thanks for joining us.
Speaker 15: Thank you Ryan, and thank you Emily. This is interesting
Speaker 15: conversation and I hope you guys get your verifacation.
Speaker 5: No mean, I'm not on TikTok. I'm one of the
Speaker 5: good ones that get all right. Thank you even you
Speaker 5: take care bye.
Speaker 4: We're joined once again by Professor Robert Pape over at
Speaker 4: the University of Chicago, also the author of the Escalation
Speaker 4: Trap substack is just escalation trap dot substack dot com,
Speaker 4: where he has been covering the Iraq War from his
Speaker 4: the Iran War from his expert perspective, having spent years
Speaker 4: actually writing about a scenario such as this.
Speaker 5: So Professor Pape, welcome back to breaking points.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much for having me, and have no
Speaker 9: fear we're soon gonna forget about that minor thing called
Speaker 9: the Iraq War.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's so depressing. It's so very depressing to think about.
Speaker 4: Let's just start with the Opek news big news yesterday,
Speaker 4: opeku u a out of Opek by may one.
Speaker 5: What did you make of that? And doesn't fit into.
Speaker 10: Well, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 9: This is part of a large picture that happened this week.
Speaker 10: This is the week.
Speaker 9: That the United States has truly lost control of the
Speaker 9: Iran war.
Speaker 10: This has all happened.
Speaker 9: It's been building and I've been talking about this, but
Speaker 9: you can now see it.
Speaker 10: This week.
Speaker 9: Iran is negotiating without the United States. So Iran's going
Speaker 9: to Pakistan, it's going to Russia, it's about to go
Speaker 9: to Oman. But it's not about meeting with the United States,
Speaker 9: our allies, at least maybe our former allies, our allies
Speaker 9: say the German leader is publicly saying that America is
Speaker 9: humiliated on the world stage.
Speaker 10: Just think about that for a moment.
Speaker 9: And the global system, the region, and the global system
Speaker 9: is essentially moving on without the United States.
Speaker 10: And that's where the UAE comes in.
Speaker 9: So I definitely understand that it's it's it's a data point,
Speaker 9: and it's thought of as a soda straw, but it's
Speaker 9: much more than that. So what I have been explaining
Speaker 9: on your show on the substack for weeks now is
Speaker 9: that Iran is emerging as the fourth center of world power.
Speaker 9: In fact, you got the exclusive first, even before the
Speaker 9: New York Times. And what that is going to have
Speaker 9: major consequences, And it doesn't unfold all at once, It'll
Speaker 9: fold unfolds over time now within the region. And I
Speaker 9: said this in print and on your show. What this
Speaker 9: is going to mean is that Iran, as it gets
Speaker 9: powerful and as America loses control here and everybody sees
Speaker 9: that this is going to fragment the GCC countries. This
Speaker 9: is not They're not going to all respond in a
Speaker 9: wave or in unison to these changes. What you're going
Speaker 9: to see is each of them increasingly is going to
Speaker 9: act on their own. Think of them as they were
Speaker 9: part of a group and they had group interests. Well,
Speaker 9: now that America is not there to serve as a
Speaker 9: real anchor, and it's now all clear for everyone to see,
Speaker 9: America's just lost control, not losing, but lost control.
Speaker 10: It's no surprise they're fragmenting.
Speaker 9: Earlier, a few weeks ago, Iraq started to move toward
Speaker 9: positions of Iran and started to become increasingly critical of
Speaker 9: American presence in Iraq. This was the beginning of this fragmentation.
Speaker 9: Now what you're seeing is the UAE. They're not moving
Speaker 9: toward Iran. That's not what they're what they're doing because
Speaker 9: they're pretty terrified Iran's about the top going to want
Speaker 9: to topple their government. What they're doing is they're fragmenting.
Speaker 9: They're not going to let Opek or Saudi Arabia, who
Speaker 9: really is the main driver in Opek, just run them
Speaker 9: into the ground. So that's why they are moving away,
Speaker 9: and what they're doing is moving away from a concerted
Speaker 9: counterbalancing coalition that the United States has been trying to
Speaker 9: build for years now with the Abraham Accords counter balancing Iran. Well,
Speaker 9: this is all now just fragmenting. It's falling apart, and
Speaker 9: this is you're only seeing the beginning of the fragmentation.
Speaker 9: This is likely going to get worse, and America can't
Speaker 9: stop it. Notice nobody's even bothering to consult President Trump
Speaker 9: here to say, well, do you think you could change
Speaker 9: the uee's mind.
Speaker 10: What do you think about this? They don't care.
Speaker 9: And that's really devastating for America's interests, America's role in
Speaker 9: the world. And it's kind of hard I think for
Speaker 9: a lot of people to imagine. Although I've been saying
Speaker 9: to expect this, I think now the reality is just
Speaker 9: kind of hard to accept here that it really is
Speaker 9: the case that this is all tragic, but it was
Speaker 9: predictable and you've got basically the decisions of one guy
Speaker 9: in the world. President Trump has enormous power, and he's
Speaker 9: used that power to devastatingly negative consequences for America, the
Speaker 9: region of much of the world's economy, and to the
Speaker 9: growing power of America's leading rivals.
Speaker 5: It puts those reports that the Saudis were pushing for
Speaker 5: Theiron War behind the scenes and interesting context too.
Speaker 8: Indeed, so when we started this program, Brent crude prices
Speaker 8: we're at I think one hundred and fourteen dollars a barrel.
Speaker 8: They're now, as we're kind of getting towards the end
Speaker 8: of the show, up to one hundred and seventeen dollars
Speaker 8: a barrel. That's despite an enormous amount of you know,
Speaker 8: American pressure to keep the prices down, both both through
Speaker 8: kind of deliberate attempts at kind of spreading you know,
Speaker 8: nonsense about their rodians are headed to Islamaba, they're about
Speaker 8: to capitulate, you know, they said they're collapsing. Maybe we
Speaker 8: want they want to open the straight plus actual material
Speaker 8: manipulation using the power of the you know, US Treasury
Speaker 8: to actually get into the markets and play with the numbers.
Speaker 8: What it as you do your kind of forecasting, What
Speaker 8: does one hundred and seventeen dollars barrel oil due to
Speaker 8: those calculations, and what does it say about what what
Speaker 8: what room Trump has to maneuver?
Speaker 9: Well, Well, what we are seeing and I we've talked
Speaker 9: about this before, is there is a trajectory here with
Speaker 9: the straight of horror moves being closed down and everybody
Speaker 9: now knows closed down eight percent of the world's oil,
Speaker 9: thirty percent fertilizer dot dot dot. But the trajectory is
Speaker 9: in the first forty five days and we're nowaday sixty.
Speaker 9: The first forty five days it was simply price rising
Speaker 9: and price rising notably, but in anticipation of stage two,
Speaker 9: which started about actually two weeks ago. It's this middle
Speaker 9: stage where shortages, actual shortages are appearing, and that has
Speaker 9: been recorded here. You know the worry about the jet
Speaker 9: fuel Europe, and this is just the beginning of all this.
Speaker 9: But that is what you are seeing now, and this
Speaker 9: is going to get worse because the all the ships
Speaker 9: that were in transit over the last couple of months,
Speaker 9: it could possibly still have some oil in them, they've
Speaker 9: all hit dry dock, they've all been there. The storage areas,
Speaker 9: the storage bends that are full here have now started
Speaker 9: to be suck dry. So what you were getting now
Speaker 9: is the true shortage period starting, and it actually started
Speaker 9: about ten days ago. And we've talked a bit about this,
Speaker 9: and this is why now the price of oil. Is
Speaker 9: it's not like prices just went up once and then
Speaker 9: they stopped once the shortage is actually hit. It's not
Speaker 9: a probability, it's a reality. And that's what you're seeing
Speaker 9: with the price of oil. And this is, unfortunately something
Speaker 9: that's going to go on because as shortages occur, it's
Speaker 9: supply and demand. There's still demand for this, but there's
Speaker 9: less of it, so the price of what's left must
Speaker 9: go up. That's the only way to sort that out.
Speaker 9: And so that's why the price is going to go up.
Speaker 9: And this was fully predictable. This is not a you know,
Speaker 9: the markets may have tried to pretend. Donald Trump may
Speaker 9: have tried to pretend, but you know, reality has a
Speaker 9: way of coming in and showing its ugly head, and
Speaker 9: that's what you were seeing. And unfortunately, May is going
Speaker 9: to be this period where the real shortages and those
Speaker 9: effects are going to be start to be felt. And
Speaker 9: then by the middle of May, probably the end of May,
Speaker 9: you will see actual contraction occurring. You'll liftimes announce for example,
Speaker 9: a week ago it would lay off or not lay
Speaker 9: it would have twenty thousand flights canceled, These short haul
Speaker 9: flights canceled well, this is probably.
Speaker 10: Then going to lead to in a month, a few
Speaker 10: weeks later layoffs.
Speaker 9: That is, you will start to see in the middle
Speaker 9: of May, end of May, you're going to start to
Speaker 9: see rising inflation. The prices going up equals inflation, and
Speaker 9: you'll see the beginning then side by side of rising unemployment.
Speaker 9: This is just the beginning. This is the first ninety days.
Speaker 9: Now as we get into one hundred and twenty days,
Speaker 9: these things will simply get worse. That's what happened in
Speaker 9: the nineteen seventies. It was called the misery index. We
Speaker 9: haven't used that term since I was a kid. I
Speaker 9: was a kid, and that term was really quite common
Speaker 9: because it went on for years, and it got worse
Speaker 9: well before it got better. It didn't just get better
Speaker 9: and went on for years. Interest rates on holmes went
Speaker 9: up to sixteen percent. My grandparents had to pay to
Speaker 9: buy a home at one point. And so what you're
Speaker 9: seeing is that's the trajectory we're on, and it'll start
Speaker 9: to be called again. I suspect the misery index, maybe
Speaker 9: the Trump misery Index.
Speaker 4: Well, and there were dueling reports in the New York Times,
Speaker 4: the Wall Street Drow.
Speaker 5: They weren't really doing.
Speaker 4: They're basically saying, actually that what the rub is right
Speaker 4: now is Iran has said they will come to the
Speaker 4: table on the straight if Trump agrees to table the
Speaker 4: nuclear negotiations. Donald Trump just last night at the State
Speaker 4: dinner said we have defeated Iran militarily. So, Professor Paip,
Speaker 4: we're all trying to do our best here to learn
Speaker 4: to speak fluent Trumpies and understand what exactly he's saying
Speaker 4: and projecting or attempting to project. So what do you
Speaker 4: make of where these negotiations are right now? Because I
Speaker 4: could see someone saying, Professor Iran is willing to come to.
Speaker 5: The table and reopen the straight.
Speaker 4: Does this not undermine your argument that we are headed
Speaker 4: to a potential catastrophe worse than a round.
Speaker 9: Yes, we just need to peel the a little bit
Speaker 9: under that phrase.
Speaker 10: What does the word open mean?
Speaker 9: And by the way, I'm going to define it the
Speaker 9: way Secretary Rubio did just yesterday, just recently yesterday where
Speaker 9: he explained that what Iran means by the word opening
Speaker 9: the strait is that chips can pass through the strait
Speaker 9: as long as they coordinate with the Iranian military in
Speaker 9: advance and as long as they pay the toll, which
Speaker 9: I believe is currently set imagine to be about two
Speaker 9: million dollars a ship a ship to pass one time.
Speaker 9: So if you have say one hundred ships, that's two
Speaker 9: hundred million dollars a day that Iran would be bringing in.
Speaker 9: That's sixty billion dollars a year. That would be also
Speaker 9: over and above that much or more that Ron would
Speaker 9: make on.
Speaker 10: Selling its own oil.
Speaker 9: So this is why Secretary Rubia, this is not really
Speaker 9: an open This this not open. So what Iran is
Speaker 9: doing is going through it's ten points that it delivered
Speaker 9: to Trump. Remember when we started the ceasefire, Trump agreed
Speaker 9: to the ten point plan as a basis for negotiation.
Speaker 9: All Iran is doing is literally going through the ten points.
Speaker 9: And the first point is they get to keep the
Speaker 9: straight that is, they will they're gonna keep a tight
Speaker 9: fist on the jugular of the world's economy, and they
Speaker 9: will extort costs here from the world, which is two
Speaker 9: million dollars a ship. And then also they want their
Speaker 9: own oil to be sold, and so they're perfectly going
Speaker 9: to be happy at manipulating the price of oil. So
Speaker 9: what also that means just to be also what The
Speaker 9: implication here is is that if Iran wants to keep
Speaker 9: the price of oil at one hundred bucks a barrel,
Speaker 9: they know how to do that. They can regulate what
Speaker 9: happens across the strait. They can optimize, in other words,
Speaker 9: their financial earnings from controlling the Straight. Now, the second
Speaker 9: point is the nuclear negotiation. So notice that before this
Speaker 9: we're kicked off on February twenty eight, Iran and the
Speaker 9: United States, we're in negotiations on the nuclear material. That's
Speaker 9: what was being discussed. What Iran is simply saying is
Speaker 9: that's off the table now. They're just not interested in
Speaker 9: that now. They're not saying at all when that will
Speaker 9: come back. So what that tells me is Iran is
Speaker 9: not giving up this power of the Straight of Horror
Speaker 9: moves anytime soon. And Iran is probably starting to lay
Speaker 9: the groundwork for developing nuclear weapons over the next maybe
Speaker 9: year or so. And that would also dovetail with why
Speaker 9: they're talking with Pakistan, a nuclear weapons state that helped
Speaker 9: Iran with centrifugees have started its program in the first place,
Speaker 9: and also Russia, another nuclear weapons state that's been a
Speaker 9: military ally of Iran. So if Iran is going to
Speaker 9: pursue this very aggressive agenda to truly emerge as the
Speaker 9: fourth center of world power with nuclear weapons. It needs allies,
Speaker 9: and it looks like it's working with its allies, and
Speaker 9: it's certainly working with its allies better than we're working
Speaker 9: with ours.
Speaker 8: Well, well, I think what Iran is saying here is
Speaker 8: that they're not going to discuss the nuclear issue until
Speaker 8: the naval block of the Strait is lifted. But at
Speaker 8: that point, I think there is real willingness to discuss
Speaker 8: it now whether well.
Speaker 9: I would just be I guess we maybe have a
Speaker 9: slight difference of you here. They say if they will
Speaker 9: not enter face to face negotiations with America at all
Speaker 9: unless America lifts the naval blockade. So I think that's
Speaker 9: my understanding of this. Now, you may be right, I
Speaker 9: want to not get into it, but it is the
Speaker 9: case that they've said that now multiple.
Speaker 1: Times and again this.
Speaker 9: Issue of postponing the nuclear negotiations here, I guess I
Speaker 9: just have the view I'm reading it that they really
Speaker 9: are working with others along the trajectory of gaining power.
Speaker 9: And also I just want to point out that this
Speaker 9: is going to have global consequences.
Speaker 10: Even beyond the Iran War.
Speaker 9: So Russia here is going to want something from a
Speaker 9: on and that may be tighter coordination as Russia tries
Speaker 9: to gain power over Europe, not just in the battle
Speaker 9: space of Ukraine and Iran and Russia together control now
Speaker 9: thirty percent of the world's oil, so.
Speaker 10: We need to keep our eye on that.
Speaker 9: And then also we need to look over at Asia,
Speaker 9: so we shouldn't forget that. All the estimates now that
Speaker 9: are coming out of the Pentagon is we have spent
Speaker 9: fifty percent roughly of our patriot arsenal, our that arsenal,
Speaker 9: a number of our very important precision interceptor arsenals, and
Speaker 9: that means we're leaving Taiwan essentially naked here or virtually naked,
Speaker 9: and that opens all kinds of possibilities for President She
Speaker 9: to want some concessions, either tacitly or explicitly vis a
Speaker 9: v US relations with Taiwan. So I just point out
Speaker 9: that this is a when I say Trump, the United
Speaker 9: States has lost control of the Iran War, and it's
Speaker 9: having global implications. It actually has global implications even beyond
Speaker 9: the price of what's happening to the world economy and
Speaker 9: the price of gasoline here at home.
Speaker 8: And on the nuclear point, the trip that Raji took
Speaker 8: to Russia could also you can imagine well in which
Speaker 8: wells to back up in twenty As you know, in
Speaker 8: twenty fifteen, Russia was part of the Iran nuclear deal,
Speaker 8: and Iran, through that deal, agreed to ship and did
Speaker 8: in fact ship. And I don't think most people know this,
Speaker 8: twenty five thousand pounds of enriched uranium to Russia. Let
Speaker 8: me talk if it's okay, and they now less than
Speaker 8: a thousand, but go ahead.
Speaker 9: Let me talk, if it's okay, just for a minute
Speaker 9: about the JCPOA and how it came about, because I'm
Speaker 9: pretty familiar with this, and what of your listeners may
Speaker 9: not know that. Part of the other area I've been
Speaker 9: studying for thirty years is economic pressure, economic sanctions, blockades, etc. Well,
Speaker 9: one of the things it's important to know is that
Speaker 9: the Obama administration had economic sanctions on Iran and then
Speaker 9: we got the nuclear deal. Well, why did that economic
Speaker 9: pressure work? It worked because Russia and China, these are
Speaker 9: the military allies of Iran, joined in that America's coalition
Speaker 9: against Iran. In fact, Russia stops selling their SSAY three
Speaker 9: hundreds to give you a very specific point.
Speaker 10: But then let's back it up a little further.
Speaker 9: Why did Russia do this out of the goodness of
Speaker 9: its heart? Well, in two thousand and eight, I was
Speaker 9: part of Obama's primaries teams, and I had an idea,
Speaker 9: and I was on one team and got my name
Speaker 9: of Sean Kay was on the NATO team, And I
Speaker 9: said to Sean on a phone call, you know the
Speaker 9: number one issue here that we should really worry about
Speaker 9: for the Middle East, because I was on the Middle
Speaker 9: East team, was really a nuclear weapon by Iran. It
Speaker 9: would set off all kinds of issues. But in order
Speaker 9: to stop it, we need Russia because if you could
Speaker 9: get the military ally of Iran on board.
Speaker 10: But how do you do that? We should trade.
Speaker 9: Missile defense US missile defense in Eastern Europe to get
Speaker 9: Russia's concession to go along with Obama's plan to get
Speaker 9: a counterbalancing coalition against Iran. Well that's exactly what Obama did.
Speaker 9: So Sean wrote that up, send it up the chain
Speaker 9: on the NATO team, and well.
Speaker 10: And behold, Obama wins. And what does he do.
Speaker 9: He trades directly with putin US national missile defense to
Speaker 9: get Putin's work. I mean agreement to be part of
Speaker 9: the coalition against Iran, and that's how you've got the JCPOA.
Speaker 9: That's actually now, how would you recreate that? Well, that
Speaker 9: means the United States would have to really give major
Speaker 9: concessions here to Putin.
Speaker 10: What would those concessions look like?
Speaker 9: They would have to be much more than simply don't
Speaker 9: send aid to Ukraine because that's already going way down.
Speaker 9: You're probably going to have to work to undermine European
Speaker 9: support for Ukraine in a direct way if you want
Speaker 9: Putin here to even think about the idea of joining
Speaker 9: the naval blockade, and what we would be talking about
Speaker 9: would be Putin sending a Russian ship to join the
Speaker 9: US naval blockade. Now, that would change things. But this
Speaker 9: is the level at which we're talking about. We're not
Speaker 9: talking about minor cosmetic issues. That's not what brought Russia
Speaker 9: in with Obama, and that's not what's going to bring
Speaker 9: Russia in to help with this situation. They're simply not
Speaker 9: going to bail out the United States because Russia. Levrof
Speaker 9: just gave this big speech a few days ago where
Speaker 9: he explained that from Russia's perspective, they're at war against
Speaker 9: the West. Well, what do you do when you're at war?
Speaker 9: You want to crush your opposition. And now you have
Speaker 9: Iran in Russia meeting. What are they talking about. I
Speaker 9: think they're talking about how to do things against their
Speaker 9: common enemy.
Speaker 1: Sounds right, Professor Pape, always a pleasure. Thank you spoking,
Speaker 1: and I'm.
Speaker 9: Sorry I don't give you a very many ways out
Speaker 9: of the escalation trap.
Speaker 5: To the point.
Speaker 4: Glad, that's right, that's right, and the escalation trap is
Speaker 4: over on sub stack. You can follow Professor PAP's work there.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much again.
Speaker 10: Professor Yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 9: Always a pleasure and very smart questions and interjections, very smart.
Speaker 5: Ryan will take it right, Thank.
Speaker 10: You, bye bye.
Speaker 1: Ran.
Speaker 4: I think what we've learned today is that you run
Speaker 4: guest segments like a Trump cabinet.
Speaker 1: Me start with a lot of praise and continue the
Speaker 1: praise throughout it.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 1: Then the interview is going to.
Speaker 4: Go well, the praise is its own escalation trap, right
Speaker 4: once you start.
Speaker 1: Ry, well, you were an incredible interview or.
Speaker 4: You know, questions smart question I mean I have to
Speaker 4: agree your questions are very smart.
Speaker 8: So and we have the greatest comments, so our YouTube commenters, nobody.
Speaker 4: Smarter, greatest everything all around. Well, thank you everyone for
Speaker 4: tuning in today. As a reminder, Ryan's going to be
Speaker 4: live in a debate with Scott Jennings on the After
Speaker 4: Party Channel tonight nine pm on Yeah It's it's an
Speaker 4: interesting one. The students had great questions. Actually, it would
Speaker 4: have been great if the students just asked you guys
Speaker 4: questions for like two hours. That would have been wild.
Speaker 4: But anyway, Breakingpoints dot coms where you can go to
Speaker 4: get a premium subscription. Otherwise, Chris and Soccer, we'll see
Speaker 4: you back here tomorrow. We'll see you Friday.