Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for
Speaker 2: the future of this show.
Speaker 1: This is the only place where you can find honest
Speaker 1: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
Speaker 1: not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
Speaker 2: go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
Speaker 2: you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
Speaker 2: and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 1: We need your help to build the future of independent
Speaker 1: news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. Welcome to Breaking Points. Emily,
Speaker 2: good morning, good morning.
Speaker 3: Also, if people didn't watch the Friday show, they should
Speaker 3: go check out Sager's.
Speaker 4: Baby little bit of news.
Speaker 2: Yeah, congratulations to Sager proud father of a baby girl.
Speaker 3: And there are pictures, so if you go to Sager's
Speaker 3: Instagram you can see the picture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I tried to pull up and failed on Friday,
Speaker 2: but in any case, you can go check those out
Speaker 2: for yourself. Pria June, which I think is a really
Speaker 2: beautiful name.
Speaker 3: So cute too, adorable, adorable, lots of hair, lots of hair.
Speaker 5: So we're just so happy for them.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, meanwhile, you were suffering through our air traffic
Speaker 2: nightmarish landscape here over the weekend.
Speaker 3: So my grandparents' seventieth anniversary was this weekend in Wisconsin. Wow,
Speaker 3: seventieth anniversary.
Speaker 4: Unbelievable.
Speaker 5: So that nineteen fifty five, I think.
Speaker 4: Wow, connect that's God bless amazing.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we were really excited to go. But the
Speaker 3: Reagan Airport was a complete mess on Friday. There was
Speaker 3: a storm that rolled through the entire terminal basically had
Speaker 3: cancelations and delay so we were at the airport for
Speaker 3: seven hours until like three am early early Saturday.
Speaker 5: So the reason I.
Speaker 3: Say that is if you have Memorial Day travel, oh,
Speaker 3: I just be be aware that our air traffic system.
Speaker 5: I mean everyone is already kind of aware of this.
Speaker 3: But I think, honestly, the problems at Newark are still
Speaker 3: that's a problem that creates tangles throughout the entire country.
Speaker 3: It's such a big hub, So things are things are.
Speaker 2: Rough well in Newark has gotten a lot of the
Speaker 2: attention because they had those catastrophic failures where they actively
Speaker 2: lost radar and were just completely blind. But the shortage
Speaker 2: in air traffic controllers is that's nationwide.
Speaker 4: It's a massive issue.
Speaker 3: Yes, and they blamed actually one of the American air
Speaker 3: gate agents when she was making announcements that was she
Speaker 3: was like, we just haven't had enough air traffic controllers.
Speaker 3: So and that was at Reade National, So I'm sure
Speaker 3: that's happening in other parts of the country too. Wow,
Speaker 3: be careful if you have a Memorial Day travel it's it's.
Speaker 5: Rough out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, plan to be in for the long haul seriously
Speaker 2: as well. Yeah, lots to get to you in the
Speaker 2: show this morning. So there are some major developments out
Speaker 2: of Gaza amidst a completely apocalyptic ground invasion from Israel.
Speaker 2: They have agreed to let in some minimal amount of aid,
Speaker 2: so we'll break all of that. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: moving pieces going on in the region right there. And
Speaker 2: we also wanted to highlight for you THEO Vaugh came
Speaker 2: out and you know said he made some comments, you know,
Speaker 2: Mary heartfelt about how he felt that he hadn't said
Speaker 2: enough about the what he's describing as a genocide and Gazo,
Speaker 2: which I think is to me undeniable at this point,
Speaker 2: so wanted to take a look at that and the
Speaker 2: way that public opinion in the US overall has shifted
Speaker 2: with regard to Israel and Palestine. President Biden formed. President
Speaker 2: Biden diagnosed with a very aggressive form of prostate cancer.
Speaker 2: We actually have a Biden insider who had already been
Speaker 2: booked to be on the show, Michael Lorosa.
Speaker 4: We've had him on before.
Speaker 2: He was doctor Jill Biden's press secretary, and so he's
Speaker 2: been talking about, you know, what he saw inside of
Speaker 2: that world and trying to be candid about that. So,
Speaker 2: you know, interested to hear his reaction to this cancer
Speaker 2: diagnosis and look, just to be frank, the timing of
Speaker 2: it raises a lot of eyebrows, especially the fact that
Speaker 2: it is so advanced, and this would be someone who
Speaker 2: would be seen medically, you know, would have been in
Speaker 2: the White House seeing the White House doctors, and certainly
Speaker 2: would be subsequent to that as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, we actually have some a lot of doctors
Speaker 3: were weighing in after the diagnosis and some you know,
Speaker 3: we yeah, I think we have some information from a
Speaker 3: Yale professor who's a doctor. Like we're not talking cranks
Speaker 3: who were weighing in on the diagnosis of Biden, in
Speaker 3: the timing of the diagnosis, or at least the announcement
Speaker 3: of the diagnosis.
Speaker 5: So there's a lot to get to.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: With that, Crystal Friday, Moody's agreed with the other analysts
Speaker 3: and finally downgraded the rating of the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think the markets are down this morning
Speaker 2: because of it, So there's a lot there. There's some
Speaker 2: new comments from Trump and Secretary Bessant with regard to Walmart,
Speaker 2: saying they're going to raise prices. Trump says Walmart should
Speaker 2: eat the tariffs, so we'll see if they oblige. We
Speaker 2: also have our eyes on a horrific system of tornadoes
Speaker 2: that hit the midwest, Kentucky, Missouri in particular. I think
Speaker 2: twenty six people dead after that, and questions about whether
Speaker 2: or not DOGE may have impacted their ability to alert
Speaker 2: people in the area rapidly enough. So we'll dig into
Speaker 2: all of that. And we're also going to have our
Speaker 2: Jun Singh of lever News join us to talk about
Speaker 2: the history of the anti tax movement, which is always relevant,
Speaker 2: but it's particularly relevant right now as Republicans are trying
Speaker 2: to get this Reconciliation bill pass They just passed it
Speaker 2: down a committee actually late last night, and obviously includes
Speaker 2: a giant tax cut for the rich. Again, even though
Speaker 2: public opinion has really turned on the concept of this
Speaker 2: sort of like overall trickle down concept, they're huge majorities
Speaker 2: in both parties and certainly with Independence as well at
Speaker 2: this point for raising taxes on the rich. So in
Speaker 2: any case, he's going to dig into the backstory of
Speaker 2: how we got to this moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, We've got some fun clips in history to go through.
Speaker 3: It'll be a really interesting segment, So stay tuned for that, Crystal.
Speaker 3: We'll be doing an AMA that's right as well. Yes,
Speaker 3: Breakingpoints dot com by the way, to get that subscription.
Speaker 3: If you can't get the subscription, we totally understand. Just
Speaker 3: make sure to subscribe on YouTube. Believe comments like the videos.
Speaker 2: It helps us, Yeah, helps us a lot. So thank
Speaker 2: you guys for all your support that you've shown. And
Speaker 2: if you want to be part of that AMA Live,
Speaker 2: which we try to do every Monday or Tuesday, depending
Speaker 2: on how long the Monday.
Speaker 5: Show us go.
Speaker 2: But we got on the schedule this week for Monday,
Speaker 2: I'll make sure you do that. And one one more
Speaker 2: announcement before we jump into what is going on in Gaza.
Speaker 2: Dave Smith is going to join me tomorrow as so
Speaker 2: that should be fun. I already got a bunch of topics.
Speaker 2: You know, we'll dig into the latest on you know, Ukraine.
Speaker 2: There's movement that I want to hear from him on
Speaker 2: I actually want to get his take on this Epstein
Speaker 2: thing with both Bongino and cash matel being like, yeah,
Speaker 2: he killed himself, there's really nothing to.
Speaker 3: See here, Banino said yesterday, like I've seen the file.
Speaker 3: He kills the whole file. I noticed suicide looks like
Speaker 3: the other.
Speaker 2: One he said, is that there's no there there in
Speaker 2: terms of many like Trump assassination conspiracies as well.
Speaker 3: Which is also absurd to fit. I mean, the stuff
Speaker 3: going on with that assassination secret Service, it's really something
Speaker 3: if that's where they're landing to see here less than
Speaker 3: a year after nothing to see here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in any case, it should be fun. So I'm
Speaker 2: looking forward to that. All right, Let's get into some
Speaker 2: news that is quite grim, quite dire at this point.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and put a eight up on the
Speaker 2: screen here, guys. Israel has agreed to introduce what they're
Speaker 2: describing as a basic amount of food into Gaza in
Speaker 2: order to prevent famine, framing it as necessary to sustain
Speaker 2: the expansion of intense fighting to defeat Hamas. They have
Speaker 2: the full statement here from bb Netnya, who's office is
Speaker 2: from drop Site. They say, on the recommendation of the
Speaker 2: IDF and out of the operational need to enable the
Speaker 2: expansion of the intense fighting to defeat Hamas, Israel will
Speaker 2: introduce a basic amount of food to the population in
Speaker 2: order to ensure that famine crisis does not develop in
Speaker 2: the Gaza strip. Such a crisis would jeopardize the continuation
Speaker 2: of the Gideon Chariots operation to defeat Hamas, that is
Speaker 2: the new apocalyptic ground invasion that they are conducting. Israel
Speaker 2: will work to deny Hamas's ability to take control of
Speaker 2: the distribution of humanitarian aid to ensure that the aid
Speaker 2: does not reach Hamas terrorists. I also have Jeremy Scahill
Speaker 2: of drop Site News, of course, tweeted Netnia who said
Speaker 2: Israel will allow some aid into Gaza because controversy over
Speaker 2: a starvation campaign is hindering implementation of his final solution quote.
Speaker 2: We're going to take control of all the Gaza Strip,
Speaker 2: and to do this, we need to do it in
Speaker 2: a way that they won't stop us. Smotrich endorsed nat
Speaker 2: Nyahu's temporary aid gimmick, saying it will allow the US
Speaker 2: and other israel allies to continue to provide us with
Speaker 2: an international umbrella of protection against the Security Council and
Speaker 2: the Hague Tribunal, and for us to continue to fight
Speaker 2: until victory. So emily, it sounds like they realized that
Speaker 2: the world was not maybe gonna just stand by and
Speaker 2: let them before all of our eyes start. Somewhere around
Speaker 2: two million people left in the Gaza Strip. They also
Speaker 2: will show you some of these images later. They are
Speaker 2: starting to face some significant internal domestic pushback as well.
Speaker 2: There was a march to the border fence there with
Speaker 2: Gaza and attempts actually to cross that were you know,
Speaker 2: of course rebuffed by the Israeli police, but they were
Speaker 2: under enough pressure to feel like, okay, we at least
Speaker 2: need to allow some token amount of food in. It's
Speaker 2: been over two months since any food, water, medicine has
Speaker 2: entered the strip, and we know that there have been
Speaker 2: children who are I mean children who are severe malnourished
Speaker 2: and some who have died as a result of the
Speaker 2: starvation policy.
Speaker 3: Well, and just to I mean make this visual for everyone,
Speaker 3: we can go ahead and start rolling A two.
Speaker 5: This is a mashup of some.
Speaker 3: Footage of what we're seeing from the strip.
Speaker 2: So this was kids who were playing in the street
Speaker 2: in Gaza and an Israeli drone struck them. You can
Speaker 2: see here obviously wounded being carried. These are you know,
Speaker 2: fires amidst the bombing and just just chaos that you
Speaker 2: can see unfolding here.
Speaker 4: Tents that caught fire.
Speaker 2: Here they're attempting to rescue someone from out underneath the rubble.
Speaker 2: They haven't been allowed to have any heavy equipment in
Speaker 2: so it's just all done by hand. Here is the
Speaker 2: destruction of an entire neighborhood. I believe this is in
Speaker 2: or near Rafa. A severely injured child that you see
Speaker 2: here with head and other wounds. People who are once
Speaker 2: again trying to looks like carry their belongings, being forcibly,
Speaker 2: forcibly displaced once again. And here's an overall view that
Speaker 2: you can see of the rubble and the destruction. As
Speaker 2: people go ahead and you know.
Speaker 3: Try to flee to wherever may be safe, you know, Crystal,
Speaker 3: last week we were covering the internal conversation. We talked
Speaker 3: to Jeremy Skhle about this, but in Israel about whether
Speaker 3: or not USAID and this is from the far right
Speaker 3: in Israel, whether or not USAID hampers them ultimately, if
Speaker 3: it's ultimately something that holds back.
Speaker 5: Their efforts to prosecute the war and the way that
Speaker 5: they would want to.
Speaker 3: And that's an interesting context that as the famine was worsening,
Speaker 3: and as you know, they wanted to continue to go
Speaker 3: back in, we saw them, you know, saying, well, maybe
Speaker 3: without the US, without the money from the United States,
Speaker 3: without the resources from the United States, we wouldn't even
Speaker 3: have to have these conversations.
Speaker 5: We could just do whatever we wanted.
Speaker 3: And you know what we saw just in the last
Speaker 3: twenty four hours at least on the AID side, is
Speaker 3: that the pressure was successful for now.
Speaker 5: But this is Steve Whitcough right now.
Speaker 3: He's saying that he's not forcing Israel to end the
Speaker 3: war according to officials. Crystal, That's where I'm most curious
Speaker 3: about what's happened over the weekend. In particular, we still
Speaker 3: don't have a ton of information. The Barack reviewed report
Speaker 3: on AID and Axios suggests that US pressure was instrumental
Speaker 3: in getting the humanitarian aid back into Gaza. But we
Speaker 3: just we don't know what's happening behind the scenes, but
Speaker 3: we have indications, like from Steve Whitcough, that they're not
Speaker 3: being as let's say privately intense as they at one
Speaker 3: point suggested that they would be.
Speaker 2: Well, and we should be clear about what this aid
Speaker 2: really entails. You know, Israel had gone to a number
Speaker 2: of humanitarian aid organizations with this plan of how they
Speaker 2: wanted to distribute aid, and they all effectively said, no,
Speaker 2: this would be unconscionable, it would violate our principles, your
Speaker 2: civilians at risk. You're using food as a weapon of war.
Speaker 2: You know, even in the language that BB uses here,
Speaker 2: he describes it as a basic amount of food. So basically,
Speaker 2: you know, we'll give you enough so that hopefully we
Speaker 2: don't have full blown famine and people starving to death,
Speaker 2: because we don't think the world would just sit by
Speaker 2: and watch that. Potentially, and maybe our own population even
Speaker 2: would not, you know, some portion of it would not
Speaker 2: sit back and watch that. But you know, aid organizations
Speaker 2: rejected this as an outrageous way of going about things.
Speaker 2: There's also some scheme that's been cooked up with US
Speaker 2: non governmental organizations involving effectively US mercenaries who are already
Speaker 2: arriving in Israel to be involved in this aid distribution,
Speaker 2: this basic amount of aid distribution. They did not take
Speaker 2: a vote in the Security Cabinet because the expectation is
Speaker 2: that vote to allow in even this bare minimum of
Speaker 2: food would have failed. Smochrich and Ben Gevie have been
Speaker 2: opposed to it. But again and their justification is, if
Speaker 2: we want to finish the job in Gaza, then apparently
Speaker 2: we're going to have to allow in some amount of food.
Speaker 2: So that is the context in which this is happening.
Speaker 2: We have some comments recent comments from Trump as well
Speaker 2: about whether or not he's frustrated with Netan Yahoo and
Speaker 2: also once again reiterating his commitment to a full ethnic
Speaker 2: cleansing plan. This was in an interview with Brett Barrett.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and take a listen to those comments.
Speaker 7: Obviously, the Israel Hamas and what's happening in Gaza is
Speaker 7: driving a lot.
Speaker 3: How do you see that?
Speaker 5: Are you frustrated at all with Prime Minster?
Speaker 4: Net Yahoo?
Speaker 8: No, Look, he's got a tough situation. You have to
Speaker 8: remember there was an October seventh that everyone forgets. It
Speaker 8: was one of the most violent days in the history
Speaker 8: of the world, not the Middle East, the world. When
Speaker 8: you look at the tapes, and the tapes are there
Speaker 8: for everyone to see. So he has that problem. That
Speaker 8: problem should have never happen. And now if I were president,
Speaker 8: that problem wouldn't have happened because Iran had no money.
Speaker 8: They were stone cold broke and they weren't giving money
Speaker 8: to Hamas. The situation in Gaza is going to come
Speaker 8: to an end soon. The gazzas of nasty place. It's
Speaker 8: been that way for years. I think it should become
Speaker 8: a free zone, you know freedom. I call it a
Speaker 8: freedom zone. It should become a freedom zone. It doesn't work.
Speaker 8: Every ten years they go back, they have Hamas. Everybody's
Speaker 8: being killed all over the place. I mean, you ever
Speaker 8: see you talk about crime sets. It's it's a nasty place.
Speaker 8: Are these people, these countries that you were just visiting,
Speaker 8: are they going to have to be a part of
Speaker 8: the solution. Well, they would be. They would be. I
Speaker 8: spoke to all three of them. They would absolutely be.
Speaker 8: I mean they're really rich and really really really even
Speaker 8: more than rich. They're good people and they would help,
Speaker 8: and so money's not even the problem. You got to
Speaker 8: get countries to say, yes, we'll take them. Look, these
Speaker 8: are people that want to be in the Middle East.
Speaker 8: They really want to be in the Middle East. They
Speaker 8: the Middle East. I see that there's a spirit for
Speaker 8: the Middle East. They didn't have to go to Sweden, Germany,
Speaker 8: these different countries. They could have been home in the
Speaker 8: Middle East if somebody had the brains to build beautiful communities.
Speaker 8: You know, one point nine million is a lot of people,
Speaker 8: but it's not a lot of people.
Speaker 5: He says.
Speaker 2: They could be home in the Middle East. I'm sure
Speaker 2: Palestinians will tell you their home is in Palestine. In
Speaker 2: any case, there were reports as well about a plan
Speaker 2: to potentially ethnically cleanse Palestinians to Libya. We can put
Speaker 2: a four up on the screen. After the report was published.
Speaker 2: Then they put out a denial saying this is untrue.
Speaker 2: But NBC News had given them a chance to comment,
Speaker 2: they didn't say anything. The Trump administration, NBC News says,
Speaker 2: is working on a plan to permanently relocate up to
Speaker 2: one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya. Five
Speaker 2: people with knowledge told NBC News the plans under serious
Speaker 2: enough consideration. The administration is discussed it with Libya's leadership.
Speaker 2: Don't say which factions of Libya's leadership, because Libya is
Speaker 2: basically you know, torn as under thanks to our own
Speaker 2: foreign policy. In any case, they say, in exchange for
Speaker 2: the resettling of Palestinian's administration would potentially release to Libya
Speaker 2: billions of dollars in funds that the US froze more
Speaker 2: than a decade ago. Those three people said, so, you know,
Speaker 2: apparently there have been some conversations there. In addition, Trump
Speaker 2: you know, has consistently reiterated that this is his ultimate goal.
Speaker 2: And one other note on his comments there, Emily that
Speaker 2: I just think is you know, worth considering. He claims
Speaker 2: in that clip we just played that there are one
Speaker 2: point nine million people in Gaza. That would indicate that
Speaker 2: you know, some hundreds of thousands of people have been
Speaker 2: killed since you know, post October seventh. The original estimate
Speaker 2: prior to October seventh was two point two to two
Speaker 2: point three million people. So you know, drop site pointing
Speaker 2: out that that means if his numbers are correct, and
Speaker 2: he said similar things before too, by the way, that
Speaker 2: this campaign's already reduced the Palestinian population in Gaza by
Speaker 2: about fifteen percent.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of the Trumpman station A six, this is
Speaker 3: a drop site report noticing as well. So we'll put
Speaker 3: this in the context of what we were just talking
Speaker 3: about with Steve Witcough. This is the drop site report
Speaker 3: saying that this is from Jeremy. Steve wit Cough personally
Speaker 3: promised to lift the Gaza blockade in exchange for Don Alexander.
Speaker 3: And so it is now May nineteenth, and what we've seen,
Speaker 3: as we mentioned just a couple of minutes ago, is
Speaker 3: indications to the contrary from Steve wit Cough that or
Speaker 3: that he's acting contrary to what Jeremy's reporting suggests.
Speaker 5: He said that he was going to.
Speaker 3: Do and crystal with the humanitarian aid plan that you
Speaker 3: just laid out. This is for a wit Cough, this
Speaker 3: is looking extremely bad. I mean, Trump puts so much
Speaker 3: of his projects and puts so much of his hopes
Speaker 3: onto Steve wit Coough to get an into this conflict,
Speaker 3: but to the point where you know you're telling one
Speaker 3: of these negotiations, which is Hamas, that you're going to
Speaker 3: do something, you don't do it, and they just give
Speaker 3: up a huge piece of leverage for that probably doesn't
Speaker 3: help your ability to continue negotiating in a way that's
Speaker 3: helpful to securing an end to the conflict.
Speaker 2: Right there or anywhere else. Yeah, yeah, I mean if
Speaker 2: you're Iran and you're looking at Whitkoff just told them like, okay,
Speaker 2: you release this American Israeli hostage and we will then
Speaker 2: you know, will secure this aid relief. We're going to
Speaker 2: work and press for an end to the war. We're
Speaker 2: going to give you public credit and there series of
Speaker 2: promises that were made and then you just don't do it.
Speaker 2: How do you think that, you know, the Russians and
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians are going to look at that. How do
Speaker 2: you think that the Iranians are going to look at that?
Speaker 2: How do you think that Hamas is going to look
Speaker 2: at that going forward? You know, if you do want
Speaker 2: to seek an end to this conflict. So it's yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a huge deal in terms of his credibility when
Speaker 2: as you put it, Emily, he has been put so
Speaker 2: central to all of these key high stakes negotiations. Will
Speaker 2: cover with Dave Smith tomorrow. There's supposed to be a
Speaker 2: Trump putent phone call coming up in an attempt to
Speaker 2: you know, to end that war. So in any case,
Speaker 2: you know, not only did he just like get this
Speaker 2: and the the possible trajectory here, one possible reading of
Speaker 2: what the Trump administration has done here, And Michael Tracy
Speaker 2: said the same thing on his Twitter.
Speaker 4: Is basically like they got the last.
Speaker 2: American and then they can just not really care anymore
Speaker 2: about what BB does going forward. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think that's I think that's a real possibility of what
Speaker 2: we're seeing unfold, and especially when again everyone wants to go, well,
Speaker 2: what does Trump really want?
Speaker 4: What's he really thinking?
Speaker 2: Like he's told us multiple times what he really wants
Speaker 2: someone he's really thinking he wants this freedom zone, ethnic cleansing,
Speaker 2: beach development plan. That's what he wants. Now will he
Speaker 2: be able to achieve that? That's kind of the only question.
Speaker 2: But to me, it's not really an open question anymore.
Speaker 2: What Trump wants to see. He wants to see the
Speaker 2: removal of all Palestinians from Gaza and some sort of
Speaker 2: real estate development project that he can participate in going forward.
Speaker 2: And you know, like I said, the only really outstanding
Speaker 2: question in terms of him is how committed he is
Speaker 2: to that and whether that's something that he can actually effectuate.
Speaker 3: It just I mean, we talked about this when he
Speaker 3: announced his first plans for Mara Gaza or whatever.
Speaker 5: You know, it's being dubbed that.
Speaker 3: It's a recipe for complete and total disaster. Like, on
Speaker 3: top of the ethical considerations of what it would entail,
Speaker 3: you're also just going to end up worsening the radical
Speaker 3: rage at US imperialism, Western imperialism. For like the entire situation.
Speaker 3: People have fought for decades literally for the land. And
Speaker 3: we don't even have to get into this, but it's
Speaker 3: so obviously just a recipe for even more and even
Speaker 3: more explosive situation because people are not going to stop
Speaker 3: fighting for the land and there. It doesn't just affect Palestine,
Speaker 3: it doesn't just affect people in the area. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's other groups spread throughout the entire region are react
Speaker 3: to what happens in God's or react to what I mean,
Speaker 3: just to the infamous Osama bin Laden letter, what is
Speaker 3: its site, Well, it talks about Palestine. It's not some
Speaker 3: small issue for a lot of America's adversaries. So it's
Speaker 3: just even on its own terms, a ridiculous idea that
Speaker 3: they seem to actually genuinely be pushing closer and closer
Speaker 3: to making the goal at the end stage of negotiations.
Speaker 2: So increasingly inside of Israel there are protests that are
Speaker 2: not just about retrieving the hostages securiancies fire to get
Speaker 2: the hostages back. They're starting to actually talk about Palestinians
Speaker 2: and the suffering of Palestinians. Now I'm under no illusion,
Speaker 2: based on the pulling that this is anything approaching majority
Speaker 2: coalition in Israel, but this is really the first time
Speaker 2: we've seen any of that messaging at all, any concern
Speaker 2: for you know, the lives of Palestinians being expressed in
Speaker 2: the protest movements that have been ongoing. So we can
Speaker 2: put these images up on the screen. You had a
Speaker 2: group of I believe it's several hundred Israelis who marched
Speaker 2: towards the border with Gasa. Some of them are holding
Speaker 2: signs that said Palestinian lives matter, which again is just
Speaker 2: not something that we've seen in Israel. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: this sort of thing you could be you know, censored for,
Speaker 2: arrested for. You can see one of those Palestinian Lives
Speaker 2: Matter signs there, and you had even attempt to, you know,
Speaker 2: directly approach that border fencing, which was rebuffed.
Speaker 4: By the Israeli police there.
Speaker 2: But Emily, it is significant to me that even within Israel,
Speaker 2: and we've seen this, I mean this, you know, Schild Benefrem,
Speaker 2: who we've had on the show as a liberal Zionist
Speaker 2: who completely changed his mind about He says, Okay, you
Speaker 2: know what, the left is right, this is a genocide
Speaker 2: and this is horrific. Now he's still committed to the
Speaker 2: state of Israel, but you know, I think he's one
Speaker 2: example of how some liberal Israelis have woken up to
Speaker 2: the horrors of the slaughter that is being committed in
Speaker 2: their names. And so in any case, it's even though
Speaker 2: it's a small number, I do think it's noteworthy that
Speaker 2: there's a karen concern for Palestinians here that we at
Speaker 2: least I haven't seen in any evident in any of
Speaker 2: the protests up to this point.
Speaker 3: It's I mean, I think it's very significant, and I
Speaker 3: think some of it also has to do with the
Speaker 3: you know the fact that there it's more obvious now
Speaker 3: than ever before that this idea that the war and
Speaker 3: all of the destruction and death that it's wrought is
Speaker 3: not going to result in the end of Hamas and right,
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 5: That just sort of makes everything.
Speaker 3: It just it makes clear what all of this was
Speaker 3: ultimately for and what it was actually going to end in.
Speaker 3: So it's not a surprising development at all. But I
Speaker 3: have to imagine that some of it it stems from that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I think you're right. Some of these things
Speaker 2: just have become undeniable at this point. Undeniable at this point,
Speaker 2: one of those protest testers actually spoke out about what
Speaker 2: his goals were and why he was there.
Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 9: While our government, the Israeli government, launches another attack on Gaza,
Speaker 9: we are marching hundreds of people choose the Palestinians from
Speaker 9: the rocks to the Gaza voters with that demand to
Speaker 9: stop this assault on Gaza, to stop the horrible killing
Speaker 9: of innocent people, hell of children. And we are demand
Speaker 9: from the Harbor government to sign a.
Speaker 6: Deal to a six fire.
Speaker 5: And I also a we are.
Speaker 9: A human to say very very clearly that Israeli public
Speaker 9: to not support this government. This sport cannot go on,
Speaker 9: This war has nothing with our safety. It's only about
Speaker 9: annexation and building both settlements and transferring the Palestinians, and
Speaker 9: we would not let it happen.
Speaker 2: So he says what you were indicating that, like, at
Speaker 2: this point, it's undeniable. This war is just about annexation
Speaker 2: and settlements and transferring the Palestinians, as he says, effectively
Speaker 2: ethnic cleansing. So that's where things stand this morning in
Speaker 2: terms of Israel. We did want to share with you
Speaker 2: some comments from Theo vonn He's been described as Trump's
Speaker 2: favorite podcaster. It was certainly important as part of the
Speaker 2: like bro podcast sphere that helped to get Trump elected.
Speaker 2: And he took, you know, a good several minutes on
Speaker 2: his show to effectively apologize for not saying more about
Speaker 2: Gaza and to you know, express that he does believe
Speaker 2: that this is a genocide that's unfolding before all of
Speaker 2: our eyes. Let's go ahead and take a listen to
Speaker 2: a little bit of that.
Speaker 10: It feels to me, fact, it just it feels to
Speaker 10: me like it's a genocide that's happening while we're alive
Speaker 10: here in front of our in front of our lives.
Speaker 10: And I don't sometimes I feel like I should say something.
Speaker 10: I'm not a geologist or geographer or anything like that,
Speaker 10: you know, so I don't know a lot of the
Speaker 10: some of it. I do know, though, like I know
Speaker 10: the basics of the issues over there. But for me,
Speaker 10: it's just like how I feel like you see all
Speaker 10: these photos of people, just children, women, people body parts,
Speaker 10: just people like putting their kids back together, and I
Speaker 10: just can't believe that we're watching that and that more
Speaker 10: isn't said about it. And so I'm not saying anyone
Speaker 10: else needs to say anything, but I think I'm just
Speaker 10: that more isn't said about it by me. So I
Speaker 10: just I want to be able to speak up about
Speaker 10: that that I think we're watching, probably, like you know,
Speaker 10: one of the sickest things that's ever happened. And I'm
Speaker 10: sorry if I kind of haven't said about it. I've
Speaker 10: tried to talk about and learn about it, but I
Speaker 10: don't know. Maybe I just want to. I just wanted
Speaker 10: to say something. I don't even know what to do,
Speaker 10: you know. And it's crazy because our country is also
Speaker 10: complicit in in it, you know, it's in it and
Speaker 10: has been for a long time, and and it's just
Speaker 10: kind of interesting because then you just realize, oh, well,
Speaker 10: I'm just a Yeah, I'm a member of this country,
Speaker 10: but I'm just what we want. Sometimes doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: That last part is interesting. We'll come back to that.
Speaker 2: And sometimes in this country what you want just it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. Emily, what did you make at the significance
Speaker 2: of theovon there?
Speaker 3: Well, so he just had dinner with Ivanka and Jared
Speaker 3: Levonka Trump.
Speaker 5: And Jared Kushner.
Speaker 4: Yeah, literally last week, last week.
Speaker 3: And Jared Kushner obviously the architect of the Abraham Accords.
Speaker 5: So I actually find this to be very significant.
Speaker 3: Joe Rogan has reacted to the war in similar ways.
Speaker 3: And I think you know, I was, I was reading
Speaker 3: yesterday and I know you're going to talk to Dave
Speaker 3: Smith about this, But the New York Times had a
Speaker 3: big dive into the Heritage Foundation's Project esther over the weekend, and.
Speaker 2: Which shout out to drop site reported on this like yes,
Speaker 2: what a year ago?
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yes, And you know it's it's basically like
Speaker 3: they're the plan that they put in front of the
Speaker 3: administration to go after students and to suppress speech. And
Speaker 3: as I was reading this story, you know, I know
Speaker 3: a lot of people at the Heritage Foundation kind of
Speaker 3: on both sides of the generational divide, like some of
Speaker 3: the people who are more from the neo conservative version
Speaker 3: of the Republican Party and people who are in the
Speaker 3: like new.
Speaker 5: Right Maga world.
Speaker 3: And as I'm listening to the Avonne, thinking, hmm, this
Speaker 3: is going to be a real problem for the old
Speaker 3: neo conservative Republicans going forward, because as as much as
Speaker 3: it looks like whit Cough is, you know, pulling a
Speaker 3: fast one and not doing what he said to put
Speaker 3: pressure on his reel to get an into the conflict,
Speaker 3: increasingly the younger, younger voters in the Republican Party, but
Speaker 3: even younger staff is just not on board with this anymore.
Speaker 3: And they're all listening to people like Theovonne, Joe Rogan.
Speaker 3: They just have a completely different worldview when it comes
Speaker 3: to this particular issue. So as I was watching it,
Speaker 3: that's what was going through my head that like, this
Speaker 3: is going to this does resonate, this does move young
Speaker 3: people on the right, and it's that that you know,
Speaker 3: is not going to be easily blended with the old
Speaker 3: neoconservative approach to this for much longer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I appreciate him saying this to his audience.
Speaker 2: I want to know if he's also saying it to
Speaker 2: Vana Vanca when he's having dinner with them in a
Speaker 2: very friendly way, like if you're saying this is a genocide,
Speaker 2: and then you're I mean, he also just went we
Speaker 2: can put this up on this green E ten. He
Speaker 2: was in Cutter with Trump there the Ravon rips on drugs, disabilities,
Speaker 2: and homosexuality before Trump speaks at US Space in Kutcher. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, this is someone who has public power because
Speaker 2: he's very influential with a large group of young men,
Speaker 2: and so him using his voice on his platform matters
Speaker 2: a lot there. But he also has private power because
Speaker 2: Trump does attribute, you know, some of his electoral victory
Speaker 2: to people like Theoon, and he's routinely described as Trump's
Speaker 2: favorite podcast.
Speaker 3: Baron probably listens to Theovonna if reports are correct.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: No, that was the reporting that Baron was instrumental in
Speaker 2: putting them together. So he also has private power. And
Speaker 2: I think that's the real question is Okay, if you
Speaker 2: see this is a genocide, which I agree with and
Speaker 2: at this point many other people do as well, not
Speaker 2: to mention international organizations as well, like, okay, are you
Speaker 2: using the inside track that you have to exert pressure
Speaker 2: internally as well, so that that would be my question.
Speaker 4: But I do think we can go ahead.
Speaker 2: Let's skip ahead to a twelve to your point about
Speaker 2: the way that public opinion has shifted, because you know,
Speaker 2: it's this kind of dichotomy where at the same time
Speaker 2: that Israel is at it's almost like most powerful all
Speaker 2: the countries that's bombing in territory that it's annexing and
Speaker 2: you know, on the verge of effectively a final solution
Speaker 2: in Gaza. The backing in the US has taken a
Speaker 2: dramatic hit. I mean not among elite elected politicians so much, right,
Speaker 2: but among the people. Just look at these numbers, the
Speaker 2: way that negative views of Israel have risen in the US. So,
Speaker 2: first of all, for maybe the first time ever, majority
Speaker 2: of US adults majority have a negative view of the
Speaker 2: state of Israel.
Speaker 3: So they were asked yes, so this is a question
Speaker 3: of they were asked if they have an unfavorable view
Speaker 3: of Israel.
Speaker 5: Straight up. That goes from forty two percent.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty two to fifty three percent in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, And Republicans are still the group
Speaker 2: that it has the largest, you know, favorable proportion. But
Speaker 2: look at that generational divide that Emily was pointing to.
Speaker 2: So now you have a majority of Republicans between eighteen
Speaker 2: and forty nine, So not even that particle early young
Speaker 2: fifty percent now say they have an unfavorable view. Man,
Speaker 2: those boomer Republicans, though they love them some Israel, they
Speaker 2: have barely budged.
Speaker 3: Look at those, I mean, the number the generational divide
Speaker 3: is more than so twenty three. Only twenty three percent
Speaker 3: of fifty plus Republicans have an unfavorable view of Israel.
Speaker 3: And it's as Crystal said, fifty percent of ages eighteen
Speaker 3: to forty nine. I bet if you just did eighteen
Speaker 3: to twenty four, that number would be even higher.
Speaker 4: I have no doubt, no doubt about that.
Speaker 3: And these are all people in one party. And granted
Speaker 3: it's not what people go to the polls and vote
Speaker 3: based on, but it does create a permission structure for
Speaker 3: politicians to act in various ways. So when you look
Speaker 3: at those numbers, at some point that has to change
Speaker 3: the way Republican politicians approach the issue.
Speaker 5: You would think.
Speaker 3: But that's what theovonn gets to at the end of
Speaker 3: his at the end of his moment, therey right.
Speaker 5: So it feels like there's nothing.
Speaker 2: It feels like what we want doesn't really matter. And
Speaker 2: if you look at the Democratic numbers there, you know,
Speaker 2: you see a huge shift where now you've got sixty
Speaker 2: nine percent of Democrats and lean Dems overall with an
Speaker 2: unfavorable view and a much smaller generational divide, So seventy
Speaker 2: one percent of eighteen to forty nine year old, sixty
Speaker 2: six percent of fifty plus and those fifty plus in
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, that is the group that has moved
Speaker 2: the most, because it used to be just if you're
Speaker 2: of an older generation like Joe Biden, you support Israel
Speaker 2: and you really don't think too much about it, and
Speaker 2: that has shifted dramatically. And yeah, I mean, I actually
Speaker 2: do think that this issue is important electorally. I think
Speaker 2: it's going to be quite significant in the Democratic primary
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty eight. I think it will be a
Speaker 2: litmus test in the Democratic primary in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2: And I also think, you know, I mean, this is
Speaker 2: it speaks to the hypocrisies of America first, when you're
Speaker 2: claiming like, Okay, we're just going to focus on US interests,
Speaker 2: and yet you're still funding this genocide with you know,
Speaker 2: with our tax dollars, shipping all this money and weapons
Speaker 2: and diplomatic support to Israel to do whatever the hell
Speaker 2: Israel wants to do. So there's a there is an
Speaker 2: electoral hypocrisy there that also, I think, you know, it's
Speaker 2: I don't think it will be insignificant, not that it's
Speaker 2: going to be everybody's number one issue, but when we
Speaker 2: talk to those AOC Trump voters, so a lot of
Speaker 2: them actually did bring up Ukraine and Israel, and you
Speaker 2: know a sense of dissatisfaction with Biden Harris on those
Speaker 2: issues in particular.
Speaker 4: So I don't want to downplay it either.
Speaker 3: Well, and for a lot of working class voters, you
Speaker 3: look at that actually as a material kitchen table concern
Speaker 3: for yourself because it makes you angry that you're struggling
Speaker 3: in no small part in some cases because of the
Speaker 3: way the government has structured the economy, because of the
Speaker 3: way the government spends its money, and you see all
Speaker 3: of this funding going to foreign conflicts in many cases
Speaker 3: no end in sight.
Speaker 2: And politicians who seem to care more about a foreign
Speaker 2: country than they do this one.
Speaker 5: One hundred percent.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean I think this is also and
Speaker 3: this is something that I don't think those older conservative
Speaker 3: actually I should say Republicans and Democrats have grappled with
Speaker 3: yet is the post imperial era of America's like approach
Speaker 3: to the Middle East.
Speaker 5: So for generations that grew up.
Speaker 3: Amidst the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, that looking at
Speaker 3: Israel post that post October seventh, I think it's it's
Speaker 3: actually just a.
Speaker 5: Very different dynamic.
Speaker 3: And you know, we could go back and have conversations
Speaker 3: about historical like historical Israel and you know, the last
Speaker 3: one hundred years of history in Israel, if not longer.
Speaker 3: But uh, there's there's definitely this is a new chapter
Speaker 3: in American relationship, like post October seventh is a new
Speaker 3: chapter in a relationship with Israel. And in a sense,
Speaker 3: I think for a lot of people it's it's come
Speaker 3: across as much more egregious as a different version or
Speaker 3: a changed version I shouldn't say different, but a changed
Speaker 3: version of Israel that's engaging in negotiations with the US
Speaker 3: and that is having these back and forth with US power.
Speaker 3: So I mean, I think that's one thing that just
Speaker 3: has not been understood very well, is this is Israel
Speaker 3: is in a different position, yeah these days.
Speaker 2: Well And one of the most going back to Theovonn's comments,
Speaker 2: one of the most potent arguments that pro Israel people
Speaker 2: have made in the past is well, you don't understand.
Speaker 2: The history is too complicated, so just stay out of it.
Speaker 4: Just let us worry about it. You don't worry about it,
Speaker 4: just trust us that you're on the right side. It's
Speaker 4: all good.
Speaker 3: It's good versus bad, right, Like, it's always this very
Speaker 3: maniqueen dark and light, good and bad.
Speaker 5: And what they don't.
Speaker 3: Understand is is now with social media, you can see everything, right.
Speaker 2: And so I think that that like like that worked
Speaker 2: really well on liberals for a long time of like, well,
Speaker 2: the history is just.
Speaker 4: Really complicated, you don't understand.
Speaker 2: And now because those images are so undeniable, it has
Speaker 2: sort of overcome this unwillingness to engage with where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: but maybe I don't need to know one hundred.
Speaker 4: Years of history.
Speaker 2: Maybe I can have my own world judgment about what's
Speaker 2: being done right now today in the present with my
Speaker 2: tax dollars and as the world watches.
Speaker 3: Ryan and I fell into a long conversation on an
Speaker 3: episode a few months ago about how what happened to
Speaker 3: shrin Abu Akla was a sort of changing moment for me,
Speaker 3: and part of that was because you could piece together
Speaker 3: so many different social media, so much different evidence from
Speaker 3: social media, and all these different angles of video, all
Speaker 3: of these different movements were captured on iPhone cameras or
Speaker 3: smartphone cameras, and when you're able to see so much
Speaker 3: different pieces of the puzzle, you can put it together
Speaker 3: in ways that gives the propaganda a lot less power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right, and I think also coming
Speaker 2: at a time when trust in mainstream media has never
Speaker 2: been lower, their ability to manufacture consent is vastly diminished,
Speaker 2: certainly with in the Republican Party, but increasingly within the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party as well. There was one more thing we
Speaker 2: wanted to get to you here, which again I think
Speaker 2: is kind of a sign of the times, which is
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders on the most mainstream shows you could get
Speaker 2: on with Stephen Colbert Late Night and calling out directly
Speaker 2: the influence of APAK, specifically in politics, as the reason
Speaker 2: why Democrats are unable to break with the consensus with
Speaker 2: regard to Israel. Let's go ahead and take a listen
Speaker 2: to what Bernie had to say.
Speaker 11: But on the Democratic side, and this is what we've
Speaker 11: got to deal with. I happen to believe that what
Speaker 11: is going on in Gaza right now is horrific. That
Speaker 11: we are seeing children right now as we speak, starving
Speaker 11: to death, massive malnutrition.
Speaker 7: Your fellow Vermonter Ben of Ben and Jerry's was actually
Speaker 7: at one of the hearings I believe you were at
Speaker 7: yesterday and was dragged out when he was making that protest.
Speaker 11: But why do you think more Democrats are not speaking
Speaker 11: up on the issue.
Speaker 7: Money?
Speaker 11: Yeah, of course, if you speak up on that issue,
Speaker 11: you'll have super packs, like a pack going after you
Speaker 11: in the same way Elon Musk goes after Republicans.
Speaker 2: There you go calling out APAC directly to applause.
Speaker 10: On.
Speaker 2: I still want to call it the Colbert rapport. Old
Speaker 2: I am, but I wish.
Speaker 5: I mean, that would be amazing, that.
Speaker 4: Was the peak he was at his height of his powers.
Speaker 3: Then, I mean absolutely it will never be anything like
Speaker 3: the Colbert rapport again.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I think it's a good point.
Speaker 3: It's just we we see all kinds of anecdotal evidence
Speaker 3: and then the polling numbers bears it out that just
Speaker 3: the US public has shifted on this, and it's I
Speaker 3: think part of it is fatigue and disillusionment with American
Speaker 3: Empire post Iraq and Afghanistan, and a sort of a
Speaker 3: sense of cynicism about what's possible, what the American Empire
Speaker 3: can accomplish and bringing peace to the Middle East as
Speaker 3: opposed to focusing back a And I'm not going to
Speaker 3: open up the can of worms that is that debate
Speaker 3: right now, but I think that is the sense that
Speaker 3: so many people have on top of what they've seen
Speaker 3: over the course of the last several years, and in
Speaker 3: this case, again with seemingly no end in sight. I mean,
Speaker 3: every time it feels like there's a light at the
Speaker 3: end of the tunnel, it goes away, it fades.
Speaker 5: So, yeah, people are just sick of it.
Speaker 2: All right, let's go ahead and turn to this huge
Speaker 2: domestic news. We can put this up on the screen. So,
Speaker 2: Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of
Speaker 2: prostate cancer. I'll read you this last week present. Joe
Speaker 2: Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule.
Speaker 2: After experiencing increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed
Speaker 2: with prostate cancer characterized by a gleasan score of nine
Speaker 2: grade group five with metastasis to the bone. While this
Speaker 2: represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer
Speaker 2: appears to be hormone sensitive, which allows for effective management.
Speaker 2: The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with
Speaker 2: his physicians. Can put the next piece up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is from Ken Klippenstein puld some research about the
Speaker 2: five year survival rate for this form of metastasized prostate
Speaker 2: cancer which has metastasized to the bone. He says the
Speaker 2: study found a five year survival rate of thirty two percent.
Speaker 2: Joe Biden also, you know, relatively elderly at this point
Speaker 2: as well, which doesn't help for the survival rate chances.
Speaker 2: And you know, this comes emily, of course, at a
Speaker 2: time when there has been a lot of focus on
Speaker 2: who knew what and when with regard to Joe Biden's
Speaker 2: mental decline over the course of his presidency and even
Speaker 2: potentially before his presidency, something we've certainly been talking about
Speaker 2: since before his presidency. So a lot of questions raised
Speaker 2: about the timing of this announcement given the advanced state
Speaker 2: of the cancer. So to address all of these things
Speaker 2: and tell us what he saw when he was deep
Speaker 2: inside of Biden world, We're going to be joined by
Speaker 2: Michael Erosa. He is the former press secretary to doctor
Speaker 2: Jill Biden and he's been speaking out about some of
Speaker 2: what he saw while he was on the inside. Joining
Speaker 2: us now in studio is Michael Erosa, form press secretary
Speaker 2: for doctor Jill Biden. Good to see Michael.
Speaker 12: Good to see you too, Thanks for having me here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, So before we jump into all of this,
Speaker 2: including cancer diagnosis and you know, the mental decline and
Speaker 2: what people knew at the time, just lay out for
Speaker 2: our audience, like what was your role? How close were
Speaker 2: you with the Bidens? How often did you see the
Speaker 2: former president? Those sorts of things that we sort of
Speaker 2: have a baseline.
Speaker 12: Sure, so you know I was not.
Speaker 13: I was actually considered more of an outsider, and the
Speaker 13: Bidens did not take many outsiders into their at least
Speaker 13: into their bubble, the traveling bubble on the twenty twenty campaign.
Speaker 13: So I started with them as there as doctor Biden's
Speaker 13: traveling press secretary starting in twenty nineteen, So I traveled
Speaker 13: everywhere with her throughout the Democratic primary, stayed with her
Speaker 13: through the general election in the same position, and then
Speaker 13: went to the White House as her chief spokesperson, special
Speaker 13: assistant to President Biden and also primary traveling spokesperson for
Speaker 13: the first Lady. So we traveled to about eighteen countries,
Speaker 13: thirty eight states, and seventy five cities in that first
Speaker 13: you know, two years of the White House when I
Speaker 13: was there, spent a lot of because our you know,
Speaker 13: what they call the traveling bubble was very small and.
Speaker 3: Uh and that's COVID era too, so particularly COVID area.
Speaker 12: Yes, it was like that.
Speaker 13: Prior to COVID there was his traveling bubble, our traveling bubble,
Speaker 13: and then we all kind of and during COVID we
Speaker 13: would end up staying close physically together, living together in
Speaker 13: Wilmington because we tried to keep the Bidens around the
Speaker 13: same people consistently.
Speaker 12: And a smaller group as well.
Speaker 13: But that smaller group was really the group that spent
Speaker 13: the most time with both Bidens is whether it was
Speaker 13: in Wilmington, Rehoboth, or Camp David.
Speaker 12: They left the White House most weeks.
Speaker 3: So what was your reaction to the news yesterday of
Speaker 3: Joe Biden's cancer is.
Speaker 13: You know, human, sad, heartbreaking, trying to learn more about
Speaker 13: how bad it is, and you know how long the
Speaker 13: treatments can get him.
Speaker 12: Obviously he's eighty two.
Speaker 13: So things when you're diagnosed, I guess or I'm not
Speaker 13: a doctor, but I imagine that when you get diagnosed
Speaker 13: with a cancer like that that metastasizes to bones, that
Speaker 13: it's not good.
Speaker 12: But just praying. I think I've been thinking a lot
Speaker 12: about doctor Biden.
Speaker 13: And I saw the picture that they posted this morning
Speaker 13: with Willow, their cat, who I have a special relationship
Speaker 13: with because I watched her for the first year of
Speaker 13: the White House.
Speaker 12: So it made me. It choked me up a little
Speaker 12: bit to see the three of them.
Speaker 13: But yeah, I'm just thinking a lot about them today.
Speaker 2: So this has raised a lot of questions for people
Speaker 2: about you know, this comes in the context of questions
Speaker 2: about the cover up of his decline. This is unfortunately
Speaker 2: very aggressive and advanced stage of disease apparently, and so
Speaker 2: we can put b three up on the screen. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of people on the right who were
Speaker 2: saying Is this really when they got the diagnosis or
Speaker 2: is this actually time to come out now? But this
Speaker 2: is someone with doctor from Yale.
Speaker 5: Yale Professional was.
Speaker 2: Also raising questions. It's inconceivable that this was not being
Speaker 2: followed before he left the presidency. Glease in grade nine
Speaker 2: would have had an elevated PSA level. That's like something
Speaker 2: that would show up in a blood test. I'm understanding
Speaker 2: for some time before this diagnosis. He must have had
Speaker 2: a PSA test numerous times before.
Speaker 4: This is odd.
Speaker 2: I wish him well and I hope he has an
Speaker 2: opportunity for maximizing his quality of life.
Speaker 4: You know, given what you.
Speaker 2: Saw of the way that the bidens operated, can you
Speaker 2: assure people that this diagnosis was just made now, that
Speaker 2: there wasn't some longer term cover up of an earlier
Speaker 2: cancer diagnosis.
Speaker 13: No, I can't assure you that I saw Zeke Emmanuel
Speaker 13: on Morning Joe for the first twenty minutes of Morning
Speaker 13: Joe basically say the same exact thing. University a pen doctor.
Speaker 13: I think I believe he's an oncologist. I have to
Speaker 13: go back and check. I thought he was. I now again,
Speaker 13: I'm just repeating what I what I observed and heard
Speaker 13: this morning, which is that it would be very unusual
Speaker 13: according to Zeke Emmanuel who was on this morning, that
Speaker 13: they that Gleason level nine would not have been found
Speaker 13: much earlier. He said that generally, you know, he may
Speaker 13: he may have not have had these PSA tests after
Speaker 13: seventy years old. However, the three other presidents, I believe
Speaker 13: it was Obama, Bush and Trump who did have these
Speaker 13: PSA tests when they were in the White House, according
Speaker 13: to their medical results, but Biden did not. So look,
Speaker 13: there's questions, and I understand why there's questions, and I
Speaker 13: think it was BBC journalist Katy k who was on
Speaker 13: today who's also said.
Speaker 12: On this topic.
Speaker 13: You know, given the conversation we are having about trust
Speaker 13: right now, this does raise questions and they're saying that I.
Speaker 12: Am just observing and listening and hearing, but it's.
Speaker 2: Given your experience with them and the way that they operated,
Speaker 2: you're effectively saying you wouldn't put it past them to
Speaker 2: have hit a cancer diagnosis for some amount of time.
Speaker 13: I've always wanted to always give them the benefit of
Speaker 13: the doubt, and my experience when I was there was
Speaker 13: it was hard. It was very hard. Their natural instincts.
Speaker 13: And I'm not talking about Joe and Joe Biden, Okay,
Speaker 13: I want to be clear. I'm talking about the people
Speaker 13: that they listened to, the people in that in our circle,
Speaker 13: in the insular.
Speaker 4: Bubble, donaldin Forshetty, not sister.
Speaker 13: More about the people who were safeguarding their privacy constantly,
Speaker 13: which sometimes took the sort of north star to political.
Speaker 12: Uh decisions.
Speaker 3: So it sounds like there's there's an inner circle which
Speaker 3: you were a part of, and then an inner circle
Speaker 3: within that inner circle. And I think that's something that
Speaker 3: Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson are reporting in Original Sin
Speaker 3: is that? But I also wondered to what extent that's
Speaker 3: a kind of cope And I want to get your
Speaker 3: thoughts on that that it gives some people the ability
Speaker 3: to sort of say, well, we were you know, there
Speaker 3: was this this privacy circle that was being like they
Speaker 3: were circling the wagons around what may have actually been happening.
Speaker 5: What's your take on that?
Speaker 3: I mean, was it is it real that maybe it
Speaker 3: was Joe Biden, Joe Biden and Hunter Biden Valorie, like,
Speaker 3: what is that? Who would have been keeping it so
Speaker 3: that even people like yourself. Weren't thinking, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: this is out of control, unless you were thinking that.
Speaker 12: It's hard to say.
Speaker 13: It's all it's a matter of timing, Like what period
Speaker 13: are you particularly referring to, like at the end, because
Speaker 13: that's what the.
Speaker 3: Book suggests that it happens after twenty twenty two printer stuff.
Speaker 12: I left right after twenty twenty two?
Speaker 5: So did you see it?
Speaker 13: So that I've always been consistent by the way, I
Speaker 13: should preface this by saying, no, he never ever gave
Speaker 13: me a moment's pause.
Speaker 12: I was.
Speaker 13: I went on Fox News Jesse Waters at the night
Speaker 13: of the debate to say, look, he's going to run
Speaker 13: circles around anybody on his record on policy, on the
Speaker 13: other guy's record. My concern was the performative aspect of
Speaker 13: debating and showmanship. Did he prepare with a studio light?
Speaker 13: Did he prepare in a Was he prepared for the
Speaker 13: unexpected against Donald Trump? That's why it's not like debating
Speaker 13: a different or a traditional kind of Republican So was
Speaker 13: he prepared for that kind of thing? And remember we
Speaker 13: we were always used to him showing up on game day,
Speaker 13: especially like we beat Trump in the last two debates, he
Speaker 13: showed up at the State of the Union, and if
Speaker 13: you think about it from that inner circle's mind, with
Speaker 13: everything going back to nineteen eighty seven, which it was
Speaker 13: the most and first scarring experience in politics that they
Speaker 13: had Joe Biden to them, and the way they think
Speaker 13: and the way they make decisions is that Joe Biden
Speaker 13: is underestimated. Joe Biden always defies gravity in the face
Speaker 13: of people who doubt them, So you have to keep
Speaker 13: that in mind. That's how they make very big decisions.
Speaker 2: One of the big pieces of information we just got
Speaker 2: is the her audio was just released, and we've had
Speaker 2: a couple of moments here. The first one is with
Speaker 2: regard to the central question with regard to that was
Speaker 2: these classified documents, and he appears sort of confused about
Speaker 2: you know exactly what they were, why there were et cetera.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 12: You were aware that you had kept it after your
Speaker 12: Jarman vice president?
Speaker 14: Did you know that you had it? I don't know
Speaker 14: that I knew, wouldn't wouldn't some something I wants started
Speaker 14: to think about.
Speaker 12: The reason I asked, is it's been written it.
Speaker 15: Out about Woodward wrote about it.
Speaker 16: In one of his books, Jewels we Cover wrote about
Speaker 16: it and his biograp.
Speaker 15: So that's that's the reason I asked if it was
Speaker 15: something that he wanted to.
Speaker 12: Hang on to because he was going to be reporting
Speaker 12: or his.
Speaker 14: Own is gonna be showing reporting. But I wanted to
Speaker 14: hang I guess I wanted to hang on just proposterity setting.
Speaker 14: I mean, this was my position on Afghanistan.
Speaker 15: His president.
Speaker 17: I'm sorry, I mean that's that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 14: I don't know what didn't do with Afghanistan.
Speaker 17: Okay, that way, and Mark just really quickly, I promise
Speaker 17: will be believe. I just really would like to avoid
Speaker 17: the purpose of the clean record getting into specultive areas.
Speaker 17: When the President responded and said, I don't recall intending
Speaker 17: to keep this memo, you then said, well, you know,
Speaker 17: might two have thought it was important to keeping whatever,
Speaker 17: And he said, well, I guess I could have his recollection.
Speaker 18: As I understand it is, he does not recall specifically
Speaker 18: intending to keep this memo after he left the vice presidency,
Speaker 18: and I want that to be I want these questions
Speaker 18: to be as clearly answered and recorded on the transfert
Speaker 18: as possible.
Speaker 12: I bet we should take a bradiance.
Speaker 2: And probably even more significant was the audio that was
Speaker 2: released regarding his confusion of when his son bo passed
Speaker 2: away and also when he was in the vice presidency
Speaker 2: and being confused about the years when he was serving
Speaker 2: in which office.
Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 14: I don't know. This is what twenty seventeen eighteen. Men,
Speaker 14: here is Remember in this time frame, my son is
Speaker 14: either been deployed or is dying. When boone dye got
Speaker 14: a mazed twenty eighteen, when twenty fifteen and died fifteen
Speaker 14: he was twenty fifteen or eat that much of the months.
Speaker 5: Or what he goes.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 14: And what's happened in the meantime is that.
Speaker 3: Has and.
Speaker 14: SHOUMP gets elected in November of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 8: By sixty sixteen, twenty sixteen, all right, so.
Speaker 5: Why have twenty seventeen that's when you left office, and so.
Speaker 14: No, I let me just keep going to get it done.
Speaker 4: Was this year experience of president by at this time and.
Speaker 5: That's twenty twenty three.
Speaker 13: Yeah, and I was not I wasn't there then. But
Speaker 13: part of that a couple of things, just observing and listening,
Speaker 13: hearing how he's responding to answers that are put to
Speaker 13: him or questions that are put to him in a
Speaker 13: context that is in private. Slowly, Yes, oftentimes that that
Speaker 13: could be representative that was accurate of of what I saw,
Speaker 13: that it was slowly processing, or that he was You
Speaker 13: could ask him a question, he'd think about it for
Speaker 13: a little bit and then answer. But I don't know
Speaker 13: what if that is a reflective of decline or not,
Speaker 13: because I only knew him as an older man, right.
Speaker 13: I met him in nineteen and so that was consistent
Speaker 13: for from what I knew. So it's hard for me
Speaker 13: to say that was a like was he messing updates? Sure,
Speaker 13: yeah he was. But I don't know how much that
Speaker 13: is met mental decline an age.
Speaker 12: I just don't know.
Speaker 3: What's interesting from the Tapper Thompson book excerpts is that
Speaker 3: it seems from maybe the donor perspective and the insider perspective,
Speaker 3: it became sort of the scuttle butt that people were
Speaker 3: a bit concerned after what twenty twenty two is roughly
Speaker 3: were they draw on is that was that your experience
Speaker 3: that people started to privately talk about it.
Speaker 13: Oh yes, yes, that was in June of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 13: We started to do some fundraising prospecting, start to sort
Speaker 13: of build out what would be the sort of mechanism
Speaker 13: or operation for a potential superpack for the reelect. And
Speaker 13: when we were going around and meeting with donors around
Speaker 13: the country, I mean there were donors who came up
Speaker 13: to the First Lady and thanked her for all of
Speaker 13: the saving democracy restoring institutions. But part of his legacy
Speaker 13: can also be passing the torch and turning it over
Speaker 13: to an open democratic process. That can be part of
Speaker 13: his democracy legacy. So no, they were hearing from people
Speaker 13: who were and that particular donor, the one that I recall,
Speaker 13: specifically asked her not to do this, that her family
Speaker 13: has sacrificed enough, please don't do this.
Speaker 16: Wow.
Speaker 13: And it was in a very large room with a
Speaker 13: lot of people. It was not open to the press,
Speaker 13: but there was a senior age at the First Lady
Speaker 13: who then went back and said, would that answer be
Speaker 13: different if you knew he was running against Trump? Because
Speaker 13: I think the mindset in Biden world was that Biden
Speaker 13: can do this if it's going to be Trump, He's
Speaker 13: the only one that beats Trump. That was the argument
Speaker 13: that he was the only one who had beaten Trump,
Speaker 13: and so that Donor immediately said, of course not. I
Speaker 13: don't want either of them to be seventy eight or
Speaker 13: older and running for president. He said, I don't want
Speaker 13: my doctor, my surgeon, or my pilot to be eighty
Speaker 13: two either. So no, they were hearing this, But all
Speaker 13: of that, if you understand the bidens and their mindset again,
Speaker 13: if you go back to like and understand what happened
Speaker 13: in eighty seven when they were pushed out very publicly
Speaker 13: and in a humiliating way, it was not that they
Speaker 13: were only going to double down. Ever, if they read
Speaker 13: op eds or if they saw people on the news
Speaker 13: or people like that who who were recommending that he
Speaker 13: shouldn't encant because in our in their experience and what
Speaker 13: we experienced during the primary and the first couple of
Speaker 13: years of the White House, it was basically, Joe has
Speaker 13: defied gravity, Joe always beats expectations, and there's always the
Speaker 13: doubting class.
Speaker 2: How do you reconcile that the public was able to
Speaker 2: have a better understanding of where he was in his
Speaker 2: decline than someone who was on the inside lights such
Speaker 2: as yourself.
Speaker 13: Well, I mean even when I on the outside was
Speaker 13: always you know, I always knew they were running for reelection.
Speaker 13: That was always he's the plan since the transition.
Speaker 2: So the talk about like building a bridge to the
Speaker 2: next generation, I mean he did sort of, I mean
Speaker 2: he did all but say it was going to be
Speaker 2: one term.
Speaker 13: Yeah, well yeah, and that, and he implied that, you know,
Speaker 13: there he was a bridge to the next generation, right right.
Speaker 12: He didn't say when that bridge would be.
Speaker 13: It was when when he was finished. And no, there
Speaker 13: I was never under it was.
Speaker 12: Let's just put this way.
Speaker 13: It was made very clear to me when I raised
Speaker 13: the issue behind close doors, you know, something like I think,
Speaker 13: I said, oh, well, we're not actually running for reelection,
Speaker 13: so what does it matter, and somebody you know, immediately,
Speaker 13: you know, you know, drop the hammer on me and said,
Speaker 13: why wouldn't he be running? Of course, we're running for reelection.
Speaker 13: This is a after this is a second term thing
Speaker 13: we're going to do. This isn't after the re elect.
Speaker 13: The culture and the tone was always so he was
Speaker 13: running for reelection, and our response publicly was nobody runs
Speaker 13: for four terms or for for four years. It's always
Speaker 13: run for president for eight years.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of speculation, and especially people on
Speaker 3: the right look at doctor Joe Biden, and I'm sure
Speaker 3: you've heard this and say it's cruel. But she was,
Speaker 3: she was propping up her husband, and well there was
Speaker 3: a briefing late in his term that I think she
Speaker 3: took the helm of and people were saying that it
Speaker 3: was some type of you know, big power grab.
Speaker 12: We have to separate like reality from from rhetoric. What
Speaker 12: was she propping him up?
Speaker 13: No, but was she certainly undeterred and driven like more
Speaker 13: like as driven to defy the doubters. Of course she
Speaker 13: was because she believed in him. But she had her
Speaker 13: own life, like she had her own career. If she
Speaker 13: continued her own career, she can't stand politics. If if
Speaker 13: he did not want to be president again or to
Speaker 13: continue being president, she'd be the first person in her
Speaker 13: convertible headed to the beach and would never have a
Speaker 13: reason to come back to Washington because she didn't really
Speaker 13: use her platform. And you know, we used to fight
Speaker 13: about this all the time, but like she wasn't she
Speaker 13: didn't have her own agenda there. She didn't use her
Speaker 13: office to sort of pursue a policy agenda or whip
Speaker 13: votes the way many First Ladies have done for for
Speaker 13: their initiatives.
Speaker 12: She did not do that. She didn't want to do that.
Speaker 13: Our office was essentially a continued version of the campaign.
Speaker 13: It was a permanent campaign surrogate operation, which means that
Speaker 13: we were integrated with the West Wing. As for better
Speaker 13: or for worse, we were very integrated into the West Wing,
Speaker 13: and she always had a seat at the table because
Speaker 13: our representatives were there, but because we considered ourselves and
Speaker 13: they considered us a partner in going out and selling
Speaker 13: to the American people his vision, his goals, his agenda,
Speaker 13: the American Rescue Plan, the infrastructure, the.
Speaker 12: Sorry the chip sack.
Speaker 13: Well, but we made We were kind of leading the
Speaker 13: effort for vaccinations all over the country at that time
Speaker 13: and for the first year generally. So I considered it
Speaker 13: what you would call sort of an event driven operation
Speaker 13: that was very coordinated and very integrated into the West Wing.
Speaker 2: Let me get your response to Vader Rourke had some
Speaker 2: very strong comments with the pod save guys recently that
Speaker 2: I want to get your reaction to. Let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and take a listen as be seven guys let's go
Speaker 2: ahead and take a listen.
Speaker 7: Just to be clear, Biden should not have run again,
Speaker 7: And to be even more clear, he failed this country
Speaker 7: in the most important job that he had. In fact,
Speaker 7: the entire rationale for his presidency the first time, and
Speaker 7: the rationale he tried to sell us on for his
Speaker 7: attempt to run for reelection. Only I can stop Donald Trump,
Speaker 7: and he failed to do that. And it's not just
Speaker 7: you and me, but our kids and grandkids and the
Speaker 7: generations that follow that might have to pay the price
Speaker 7: for this. We might very well lose the greatest country
Speaker 7: that this world has ever known, and it might be
Speaker 7: in part because of the decision that Biden and those
Speaker 7: around him made to run for re election instead of
Speaker 7: having an open primary where the greatest talent that the
Speaker 7: Democratic Party can muster could be on that stage, to
Speaker 7: have a competition of ideas and track record and vision.
Speaker 7: I think that credibility problem is going to persist up
Speaker 7: until when Democrats say we fucked up and we made
Speaker 7: a terrible mistake.
Speaker 2: So he says he failed this country. I think the
Speaker 2: current president is a fascist. I think you'll leave Emily
Speaker 2: out of this, but I suspect that you agree with
Speaker 2: that assessment.
Speaker 4: I mean, do you think that don't like ahead? Do
Speaker 4: you think Beto's right?
Speaker 13: Yeah, I don't disagree with anything Beto said that. And look,
Speaker 13: I said to the New York Times Peter Baker in
Speaker 13: an article in February twenty twenty four when Biden was
Speaker 13: still in that this is a gamble that they are
Speaker 13: taking because they that only they can do this, and
Speaker 13: that his legacy and this was more of an article
Speaker 13: about I think his legacy or was you know the
Speaker 13: pressures that they were facing. And yeah, damn right, there's
Speaker 13: pressure because his legacy. And I hope I assumed they
Speaker 13: knew this in February of twenty twenty four when I
Speaker 13: gave this quote, but that his legacy was going to
Speaker 13: be defined on whether he wins or loses to Donald Trump,
Speaker 13: and that running was taking a gamble on that entire
Speaker 13: legacy of fifty years in public life was going to
Speaker 13: be overshadowed. And I think you're seeing that we're not
Speaker 13: talking about Joe Biden and the Chips Act, or or
Speaker 13: the American Rescue Plan, or bringing this country back from
Speaker 13: the brank, or the Violence Against Women Act. That he
Speaker 13: was way ahead of his time on we're not talking
Speaker 13: about those things. And so for the short term, it's
Speaker 13: going to be very unpleasant for the family to sort
Speaker 13: of reconcile the legacy that historians and the news media
Speaker 13: or and Democrats are going to be writing in the
Speaker 13: short term because of the decisions that they made.
Speaker 2: Do you have any personal regrets about how you handled
Speaker 2: or you know he didn't speak up?
Speaker 13: No, because I was speaking up in after I left,
Speaker 13: at least throughout twenty twenty three year, I wrote, and
Speaker 13: the way I spoke up, and the way I spoke
Speaker 13: up was he needs to be his own advocate. When
Speaker 13: I saw the disengagement, when I saw that they were
Speaker 13: giving up opportunities like Kristen Welker's for Sunday Show Meet
Speaker 13: the Press, I tweeted, all right, we can't if we're.
Speaker 12: Going to lose the news cycle.
Speaker 13: We can't complain that they cover Trump for the entire
Speaker 13: weekend and all the news he makes because we are
Speaker 13: turning it down or the Super Bowl interview, or not
Speaker 13: doing press conferences and press avails.
Speaker 4: But did you think that was because he couldn't do it,
Speaker 4: because he wasn't up to it. I didn't know, and
Speaker 4: I thought it was just about.
Speaker 13: Actually, I thought it was a bad strategy. I didn't know,
Speaker 13: and I didn't care, because I knew for three years
Speaker 13: by that point we were running no matter what.
Speaker 12: And in history, as.
Speaker 13: A student of history, I know, like okay, I even
Speaker 13: said out loud that it was a mistake to mess
Speaker 13: around with the primary calendar because it looks like we're scared.
Speaker 13: It looks like we have something to hind and we
Speaker 13: don't need to mess with the primary calendar. It does
Speaker 13: him a disservice, all of these things.
Speaker 12: I was saying.
Speaker 13: I'm from ground zero of the swing district in a
Speaker 13: swing state in Pennsylvania seven that we lost, and it
Speaker 13: was the one of two counties that flipped from Obama
Speaker 13: to Trump to Biden to Trump. Reaganomics is what killed
Speaker 13: bethlum Steel. At least that's what the people of Allentown
Speaker 13: and Bethlehem believe. So to wrap your economy in Bidenomics
Speaker 13: and take credit, wrap your name around inflation in an
Speaker 13: unsettled economy. I wrote this in an OpEd and they
Speaker 13: hated it. They were furious that I was trying to
Speaker 13: at least say you have to show.
Speaker 12: Not tell.
Speaker 13: You can't be a candidate and run for president and
Speaker 13: try to run out the clock.
Speaker 12: It's just not going to work.
Speaker 13: It's not going to work, especially against a candidate like
Speaker 13: Donald Trump, who embraces the media, who is confident enough
Speaker 13: to go and say, go anywhere and talk to anyone.
Speaker 13: And they attacked me, They smeared me, they planted stories
Speaker 13: about me, They were terrible to me. It paid a
Speaker 13: personal price for speaking out. Did I speak out about
Speaker 13: his age.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 13: I did not speak about his age, because again, my
Speaker 13: experience was that I never had that issue with him.
Speaker 13: My issue was what they clearly decided. It was a
Speaker 13: choice not to engage with voters, not to engage with
Speaker 13: the media and the public in the way that you
Speaker 13: do when you run for reelection. And I was seeing
Speaker 13: the same polls you're talking about. None of those polls changed.
Speaker 13: The polls in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three
Speaker 13: were saying at least three fourths of our voters did
Speaker 13: not want him to run again. People and Democrats were
Speaker 13: speaking through the polls.
Speaker 12: I saw that.
Speaker 13: I said that, and I would say things that would
Speaker 13: make them very angry, Like we loved polls four years ago,
Speaker 13: because when we were running for an entire year, about
Speaker 13: two hundred, I went and looked it up. Two hundred
Speaker 13: and fifty one out of two hundred and fifty six
Speaker 13: public polls had us ahead, and we.
Speaker 12: Loved Poles then.
Speaker 13: So I really hate it that my old teammates were
Speaker 13: denying polls, denying data, denying the journalism out there, denying
Speaker 13: the the inflation numbers. It made me angry because you're
Speaker 13: supposed to at least try to see your flaws and
Speaker 13: your vulnerabilities in real life for what they are and
Speaker 13: then tried to confront them and change them.
Speaker 12: And they wouldn't do any of that.
Speaker 13: It was undermining the media, trashing the media, trashing the Times,
Speaker 13: trashing the journal and I didn't get it.
Speaker 12: They ran scared.
Speaker 13: Well, these were the things I had a problem with,
Speaker 13: and these were the things that ultimately cost me a
Speaker 13: lot of close friendships and probably my relationship with them.
Speaker 13: But the other thing that they didn't like, that I'll
Speaker 13: go ahead and say to you guys, is they didn't
Speaker 13: like I was joining the effort to help their son.
Speaker 12: The Bidens loved it.
Speaker 13: I was the only public advocate for their son because
Speaker 13: I hated the idea of children being weaponized or families
Speaker 13: of politicians being weaponized, and I saw what it did
Speaker 13: to the Bidens in a real life nineteen and twenty
Speaker 13: and through the White House, and the people in that
Speaker 13: White House who called me disloyal were throwing their son
Speaker 13: under the bus constantly. Nobody was using the bully pulpit
Speaker 13: to fight back against Comer and Jim Jordan. They weren't
Speaker 13: doing anything. They weren't fighting back to help Hunter. I
Speaker 13: was out there, but the White House did not want
Speaker 13: a They wanted distance from Hunter, which is why you know,
Speaker 13: Hunter fired Anita Dunn's husband and brought in his own
Speaker 13: knife fighter, Abby Lowell.
Speaker 12: And they didn't like that.
Speaker 13: They didn't like that we were being aggressive and defending
Speaker 13: their son, in defending and trying to set up a
Speaker 13: legal defense fund for him, which by the way, George
Speaker 13: Bush forty one's donors did for his son, who costs
Speaker 13: the American people a lot more money than Hunter Biden.
Speaker 3: My last question is on family. It's you know, I
Speaker 3: look at you Biden. I wonder if he was in
Speaker 3: a place where he could be trusted to make the
Speaker 3: decision about whether he can run again, if he was
Speaker 3: like sort of had his faculties about him in order
Speaker 3: to say I'm running for reelection.
Speaker 5: Who was telling him or was it him?
Speaker 3: From your understanding is that he wanted to run again,
Speaker 3: and so as you said, Jill, Biden was all in
Speaker 3: as long as but he was he in a position
Speaker 3: to competently say I want to run again and then
Speaker 3: have the people.
Speaker 5: Who love him say, oh, yes, this is a good idea.
Speaker 5: Or should people have stepped in and said.
Speaker 12: Well, you're not well.
Speaker 13: I don't want to adopt your questions, but but you're
Speaker 13: correct that he did think that I have Again, I
Speaker 13: do not know whether again, there's a difference between covering
Speaker 13: up age and mental decline. And I have no idea
Speaker 13: behind the scenes, whether he was there's a cognitive issue.
Speaker 12: What I will say, we.
Speaker 5: Did see it in front of the scene in the debate.
Speaker 12: We ended up seeing what we saw.
Speaker 13: We don't know because none of us are medical doctors, right,
Speaker 13: so we can't say. What we can say is something
Speaker 13: was wrong, something was not right. Going back to the
Speaker 13: point where if you can't perform as a candidate, you
Speaker 13: can't be running because you can be president. But there's
Speaker 13: a difference between a running for president and running the country.
Speaker 13: So who do you've land So here's the thing. There
Speaker 13: were one of the smartest strategist in democratic politics. I'm
Speaker 13: talking about a pollster who has a lot of Democratic
Speaker 13: candidates as clients, governors, senators. John Anslong was our chief
Speaker 13: polster in twenty twenty and twenty nineteen. A Biden guy
Speaker 13: since nineteen eighty seven. He was iced out after twenty
Speaker 13: twenty two because he the team. Who's the team, Anita Dunn,
Speaker 13: Mike Donalalan. I don't know about the others, Doctor Buden,
Speaker 13: I don't know. She would not make a decision like that.
Speaker 13: But the other one would be the ones to say,
Speaker 13: all right, he cannot be showing the president this data
Speaker 13: because John was actually sending us monthly data and polling
Speaker 13: updates in the first year on you know, where the
Speaker 13: party was, where the country was, the mood of the country,
Speaker 13: on inflation, things like that before the Virginia gubernatorial and
Speaker 13: in twenty twenty two, they just ice. John was never
Speaker 13: even told he was going to be not with us
Speaker 13: in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: The other person, they didn't like the numbers.
Speaker 12: They didn't like the numbers.
Speaker 13: And Steve Shale another one who ran President Obama's state
Speaker 13: operation in Florida, not once, but twice. Ran the Draft
Speaker 13: Biden movement in twenty fifteen, was going to be the
Speaker 13: lead strategist for the twenty sixteen campaign had he run.
Speaker 13: Steve Shale ran our super pac in twenty twenty or
Speaker 13: twenty nineteen. Twenty twenty raised US millions of dollars. He
Speaker 13: was doing analysis, and he was doing surveys and polling.
Speaker 13: In June of twenty twenty two, he also provided the
Speaker 13: Boss data that wasn't looking good about twenty twenty four
Speaker 13: and what we needed to do to fix that, and
Speaker 13: at that point he was iced out, never even invited
Speaker 13: to the White House in four years.
Speaker 4: Well, Michael, thank you so much for coming by sharing
Speaker 4: your experience.
Speaker 12: Sorry for the over talking.
Speaker 13: There's a lot to talk about in this and there's
Speaker 13: a lot of different facets. I love them, I love
Speaker 13: Joe and Jill Biden, and I love the family, but
Speaker 13: I do think they were done a disservice by the
Speaker 13: people around them, and I hope they can start making
Speaker 13: adjustments to some of the advice that they've been getting.
Speaker 4: Michael Rossa, thank you.
Speaker 12: You're welcome.
Speaker 3: Some more bad economic indicators here in the United States.
Speaker 3: We can put this first element up on the screen
Speaker 3: from Bloomberg. The headline is market set for bumpy ride
Speaker 3: after Moody's downgrades US, so Crystal WIRECORDI this before the
Speaker 3: bell opens on Monday morning.
Speaker 5: Futures are down, I believe.
Speaker 3: But the Moody's US credit downgrade, as Bloomberg says, quote
Speaker 3: sets the stage for a jolt to the trading week.
Speaker 3: Big tech stocks go from a safe bet to a
Speaker 3: question mark.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 3: They also say quote traders are bracing for a rocky
Speaker 3: starts the week after the US was stripped of its
Speaker 3: last top credit rating. Now just zooming in on that
Speaker 3: last top credit rating. Moodies was the last to formally
Speaker 3: make this decision, and they cided quote mounting concern about
Speaker 3: debt as it knocked the country score down a notch.
Speaker 3: Scott Bessant called the move a quote lagging indicator. So
Speaker 3: they're once again kind of trying to point the finger
Speaker 3: back at Joy Biden, and he was on Meet the Press.
Speaker 3: We have some clips of that. So just yesterday Scott
Speaker 3: Bessant was asked by Kristen Welker to comment on it.
Speaker 5: Let's go ahead and take a listen to C two.
Speaker 19: Does the President's tax bill need to do more to
Speaker 19: address the nation's debt and deficit.
Speaker 15: Well, Kristen, first of all, I think that mood is
Speaker 15: a lagging indicator. I think that's what everyone thinks of
Speaker 15: credit agencies. Larry Summers and I don't agree on everything,
Speaker 15: but he said that when they downgraded the US in
Speaker 15: two thousand and eleven. So it's a lagging indicator. And
Speaker 15: just like Sean Duffy said with our air traffic control system,
Speaker 15: we didn't get here in the past hundred days. It's
Speaker 15: the Biden administration and this spending that we have seen
Speaker 15: over the past four years. We inherited six point seven
Speaker 15: percent deficit to GDP, the highest when we weren't in recession,
Speaker 15: not in the war, and we are determined to bring
Speaker 15: the spending down and grow the economy fair enough.
Speaker 19: Why is it appropriate for the president to accept a
Speaker 19: four hundred million dollar jet from Kutchup, Well.
Speaker 5: It's not.
Speaker 15: The president accepted to be the United States government and
Speaker 15: Senator Mullens said this weekend that the talks had actually
Speaker 15: begun under the Biden administration. The President Trump has brought
Speaker 15: back trillions of investment in the United States. Every stop
Speaker 15: we made that the enthusiasm in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar,
Speaker 15: in the United Arab Emirates to invest in the United States,
Speaker 15: that they want to push more and more. They have
Speaker 15: funds here. And if we go back to your initial
Speaker 15: question on the Moody's downgrades, who cares? Kut doesn't, Saudi doesn't,
Speaker 15: Uee doesn't. They're all pushing money in.
Speaker 5: They want to.
Speaker 15: They've made tenure, they've made tenure investment plans.
Speaker 3: All right, So we can go ahead and put the
Speaker 3: next element up on the screen as well. Consumer sentiments
Speaker 3: from CNBC slides to second lowest on record as inflation
Speaker 3: expectations jump after tariffs. So Bessett, on the one hand,
Speaker 3: is correct. Biden era spending was really, really high. And
Speaker 3: it's possible that Moodies, if they're citing concerns about debt,
Speaker 3: is still is still reacting to those heightened levels of spending.
Speaker 3: But if that is the case, they should We're going
Speaker 3: to talk about this later in the show. Be fairly
Speaker 3: concerned about the Reconciliation bill that is about to explode
Speaker 3: the debt as it makes its way through the Republican
Speaker 3: controlled Congress, the Republican controlled House of Representatives, the Republican
Speaker 3: controlled Senate, their own party is, you know, waiving kind
Speaker 3: of the red flag about that problem, and it's not
Speaker 3: going well.
Speaker 5: So it's also.
Speaker 3: Possible that Moody's is looking at that and saying, holy smokes,
Speaker 3: tariffs needed, even by the Trump administration's own admission, some
Speaker 3: form of industrial policy that is now hinging on the
Speaker 3: Republican's ability to lose no more than two votes if
Speaker 3: everyone is there and voting, they can only lose two
Speaker 3: votes to get this bill passed. And if it's a
Speaker 3: deficit exploding bill, if it has industrial policy, We're still
Speaker 3: not completely sure about that, but I think to some
Speaker 3: extent bestment, it's probably correct that it's a lagging indicator.
Speaker 5: The US economy has been in rough shape.
Speaker 3: For a long time, but also the the forecast is
Speaker 3: incredibly uncertain because of Trump administration policies. Again, by their
Speaker 3: own admission, they're in the middle of a sort of
Speaker 3: laboratory style experiment at the moment, and there are a
Speaker 3: lot of uncertainties in the months ahead. Crystal, what did
Speaker 3: you make of this and do you agree that it's
Speaker 3: to some extent a lagging indicator.
Speaker 2: I mean, somewhat these things build on each other. But
Speaker 2: to me, it's like an indictment. It's the final indictment
Speaker 2: of DOGE too, because you know Doge was supposed to solve.
Speaker 2: We're going to find all this, We're going to cut
Speaker 2: two trillion dollars to be all good.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm not a deficit hawk.
Speaker 2: However, I will say if we do have the world
Speaker 2: move away from the US and the dollar as the
Speaker 2: world reserve currency, then we are going to have a
Speaker 2: problem with debt. I mean this is you know, the
Speaker 2: flight to safety of treasury bonds, like the fact that
Speaker 2: the whole world looks to us to buy our debt,
Speaker 2: and you know, to use dollars as the global reserve currency,
Speaker 2: you know, the base of basically every international transaction. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if the world moves away from that, we are going
Speaker 2: to have to reckon with some of these things. So
Speaker 2: number one, like DOJE obviously total incomplete failure. Number two,
Speaker 2: you know the House Budget resolution that just passed through.
Speaker 2: You're talking about some four to five trillion dollars in
Speaker 2: deficit increase because of these massive tax cuts for the rich.
Speaker 2: So if this is something you really have a concern about,
Speaker 2: then they're running a million miles in the wrong direction
Speaker 2: and did in the first Trump administration as well, So
Speaker 2: it's just as much a lacking indicator of his first administration,
Speaker 2: where they also gave massive, expensive tax cuts as it
Speaker 2: is the you know, the COVID era spending, which was
Speaker 2: absolutely essential to keeping Americans afloat during a very rough
Speaker 2: time through no fault of their own. So, you know,
Speaker 2: I think it's in a lot of ways, it is
Speaker 2: a real indictment of the direction and what has already
Speaker 2: been done in this Trump administration, just judging by their
Speaker 2: own goals and standards of what they claimed they wanted
Speaker 2: to set out to accomplish. And then I do think
Speaker 2: it also, you know, in terms of the world moving
Speaker 2: away from the US as like the central essential nation
Speaker 2: and this incredible privilege that we've had being at the
Speaker 2: center of the global financial system, you know, this is
Speaker 2: another sort of this is another knock on US as
Speaker 2: being the place, the center of everything, the center of
Speaker 2: the world, and this just puts us a little bit
Speaker 2: more in the direction of a post US world.
Speaker 5: Order into the question of the lagging indicator.
Speaker 3: When we put that CNBC Tear Street up on the screen,
Speaker 3: one of the quotes from it is then the index
Speaker 3: of consumer sentiment drop from fifty point eight down from
Speaker 3: fifty two point two in April. In the preliminary reading
Speaker 3: for May, that is the second lowest reading on record
Speaker 3: behind June twenty twenty two. That gets to particularly the
Speaker 3: last five months and the Trump and really it's post
Speaker 3: Liberation Day, post April second. Yeah, but that gets to,
Speaker 3: you know, the fact that Moody's aside, it gets to
Speaker 3: the fact that the uncertainty in the Trump era economy,
Speaker 3: which again even by their own emission, is part of
Speaker 3: their plan, is affecting the economy in and of itself.
Speaker 5: Like this kind of meta.
Speaker 3: But if you're going to create an uncertainty, that will actually,
Speaker 3: if you're going to create in certainty as leverage, it's
Speaker 3: it's going to have an immediate effect on the economy.
Speaker 4: Also, I mean, the terrorsts are supposed to make us rich.
Speaker 4: What happened to that?
Speaker 5: I'm feeling liberated.
Speaker 3: I guess you're not feeling liberated, but some of us
Speaker 3: are feeling liberated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, congratulations to you.
Speaker 2: M There was one other piece of this that I
Speaker 2: actually want to hear your thoughts on that part where Bus'
Speaker 2: is like, well, why should we care. Kusher doesn't care,
Speaker 2: the UA doesn't care, Saudi Arabia doesn't care.
Speaker 4: It's like wow, And.
Speaker 2: It reminded me of something actually, Rocana has been really
Speaker 2: going after them for which again is the distance between
Speaker 2: the America First rhetoric and the reality of this administration
Speaker 2: setting up this massive AI data center in UAE.
Speaker 4: Versus we were told, oh, well, this is all these jobs.
Speaker 2: Of the future, We're going to be here in the
Speaker 2: US and you know, as a core part of the
Speaker 2: America First project, and yet here we are instead they're
Speaker 2: going to be in the UA.
Speaker 4: Apparently.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I thought that was a great point from Rowe. He
Speaker 3: was making it over the weekend. I mean, them saying
Speaker 3: hedging their bets with these golf countries. It's actually like
Speaker 3: kind of frightening for I mean, who knows what happens
Speaker 3: the next president and Trump administration can do whatever the
Speaker 3: Trump administration does for three years potentially, and then things
Speaker 3: can change. But it's quite a way to go about it.
Speaker 3: And Chris, so I really want to move on to
Speaker 3: this post from Donald Trump, and I also just kind
Speaker 3: of want to inject it straight into my veins.
Speaker 5: This is C four.
Speaker 3: This is a true social post from Trump where he
Speaker 3: said Walmart should stop trying to blame tariffs as the
Speaker 3: reason for raising prices.
Speaker 5: Throughout the chain.
Speaker 3: Walmart made billions of dollars last year, far more than
Speaker 3: expected between Walmart and China, that they should, as A said, quote,
Speaker 3: eat the tariff as one says, as A said the
Speaker 3: popular phrase popular TIFFs, and not charge valued customers anything
Speaker 3: all caps. I'll be watching, and so will your customers.
Speaker 3: The reason I say I wanted to inject this into
Speaker 3: my vein crystal is this is how I generally feel
Speaker 3: about most things that get passed down to consumers from
Speaker 3: these corporations.
Speaker 5: It drives me completely insane.
Speaker 3: They never pass it down to their workers, and they're
Speaker 3: doing all kinds of stupid stuff like buybacks and whatever else.
Speaker 3: But uh, it's it's actually, I think, a really fantastic point.
Speaker 3: But the problem for Trump obviously is he's not really
Speaker 3: doing anything to force them.
Speaker 5: To pass the to not pass the costs down.
Speaker 3: And you know, there are all kinds of carrots and
Speaker 3: six that can be used as part of an industrial policy,
Speaker 3: so that aside, I do want to say, I mean,
Speaker 3: according to Business Insider, I'm sorry. According to the a
Speaker 3: FL CIO, which tracks CEO pay. Walmart's CEO is the
Speaker 3: high paid CEO in all of retail, which is not
Speaker 3: surprising at all, but took home a cool twenty seven
Speaker 3: million dollars last year. And again, if you're looking at
Speaker 3: Target CEO, by the way, that was down to nineteen
Speaker 3: million Costco sixteen million. I mean, this is an incredibly
Speaker 3: high level of CEO pay. The ratio to worker pay
Speaker 3: is not great obviously either. And that stuff actually does
Speaker 3: drive me absolutely insane that we just say, you know,
Speaker 3: instead of maybe reshoring, eating some costs whatever, they insist
Speaker 3: on paying their executives at completely unpatriotic, unethical levels, and
Speaker 3: it is absolutely bananas. So on the one hand, uh yeah,
Speaker 3: I think Donald Trump is absolutely one thousand percent correct
Speaker 3: on this question. On the other hand, there have to
Speaker 3: be a series of carrots and sticks.
Speaker 2: Well, and listen, corporations are going to corporation, they're gonna business.
Speaker 4: Oh, they're gonna you know, they're going to do.
Speaker 3: Their care marketab yeah and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're not doing anything to your point to
Speaker 2: make that not be the case. But also, watch me
Speaker 2: here defend Walmart when you're talking about a thirty percent
Speaker 2: tariff their profit margins are not thirty percent, Like you
Speaker 2: can't just eat that. There is inevitably going to be
Speaker 2: some amount of that even if they eat some of it,
Speaker 2: and they can't eat some of it. This is a
Speaker 2: very profitable corporation, don't get me wrong. And they pay
Speaker 2: their CEO an insane amount. All of those things are
Speaker 2: absolutely true. They don't have a thirty percent profit margin.
Speaker 2: So if many of their goods are coming from China
Speaker 2: or you know, parts coming from China and being assembled here, etc.
Speaker 2: Then what you're going to end up with is, yes,
Speaker 2: some cost getting passed on to consumers, or the other
Speaker 2: alternative is some cost getting passed onto the small businesses
Speaker 2: that are selling those goods to Walmart. And that's actually
Speaker 2: where a lot of the squeeze is going to come.
Speaker 2: Remember we talked about this lady who has her like
Speaker 2: busy baby Matt thing that you finally got into Walmart,
Speaker 2: small business you know, based here in America. She wanted
Speaker 2: to make a product America was literally impossible, so she
Speaker 2: made it in China, and you know it is the
Speaker 2: only place where she could really go and get what
Speaker 2: she needed for this very specialized product. She gets her
Speaker 2: product picked up by Walmart. Well that's at a set
Speaker 2: contracted price. So and Walmart, I think, weren't they the
Speaker 2: ones that put out the thing that we're like, we're
Speaker 2: not accepting price increases sorry with regard to tariffs. So
Speaker 2: it's going to be people like her who get completely screwed,
Speaker 2: who are locked into this contract at this price that
Speaker 2: is now completely unattainable. Now, thirty percent tariff is better
Speaker 2: than the one hundred and forty five percent tariff that
Speaker 2: it was, but that is still a dramatic increase in costs.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't know the specifics for her business,
Speaker 2: but for many small medium business owners, that will completely
Speaker 2: put them under. So that's the real, the actual reality
Speaker 2: that you're talking about here in terms of who is
Speaker 2: going to quote unquote eat the tariffs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again like it's Donald Trump knows who how
Speaker 3: Walmart is going to handle this, Like, yeah, he knows
Speaker 3: exactly that they can't. The CEO pay thing is an
Speaker 3: interesting glimpse into all of this, Like it's it's not
Speaker 3: just one company like Walmart couldn't just stop paying this guy.
Speaker 3: It's like twenty million of this is tied up in
Speaker 3: stock awards annually so.
Speaker 5: Like they can't do that.
Speaker 3: He could choose to be a decent human being and
Speaker 3: pass some of those some of his salary on to
Speaker 3: workers and not you know, high prices, Like he could
Speaker 3: choose to do that. But the entire system is not
Speaker 3: going to fix itself because the Walmart, because first of all,
Speaker 3: Walmart in and of itself reacts as Donald Trump wants them,
Speaker 3: and singling out Walmart, by the way, means that he's
Speaker 3: taking away or he's trying to take away some of
Speaker 3: the market advantage for them, and that their competitors can
Speaker 3: do differently. So it's it's an incredibly fragile ecosystem that
Speaker 3: he's working with here, and you can't just expect, you know,
Speaker 3: one person or one retail chain, even as massive as
Speaker 3: it is, to do those sorts of things. But CEO pay,
Speaker 3: I mean, these guys, if you if you want to
Speaker 3: find a CEO, they're all making stupid, stupid money, and
Speaker 3: so you have to pay them competitively. The thing to
Speaker 3: do is just to create a culture of shame around
Speaker 3: that level of intake, and especially when it's the ratio
Speaker 3: like that should be so incredibly shameful. The idea that
Speaker 3: you would be taking home this type of money and
Speaker 3: then hiking prices on consumers because there's an attempt to
Speaker 3: actually reshore some manufacturing and those like that's that should
Speaker 3: be shameful, and so I think Trump is trying to
Speaker 3: do some version of that, but it's it's pretty hard
Speaker 3: for it, especially when they're doing their tax cut bill. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're about to cut corporate taxes best in s goals
Speaker 3: to take it from twenty one to fifteen percent. It's
Speaker 3: a really mixed messaging situation for the administration.
Speaker 2: That's about the most positive thing you possibly say about it.
Speaker 2: But yes, I'm in favor of creating culture shame, growing
Speaker 2: a culture shame around this and many other things besides,
Speaker 2: because I think shamelessness is one of the sort of
Speaker 2: like key values of the NAGA world.
Speaker 3: And Trump we're actually going to talk about this in
Speaker 3: the tax block. So stick around, and we're going to
Speaker 3: talk about how it was created and how it sort
Speaker 3: of was grown on the right and then's where it
Speaker 3: took off. So that's actually a good tie in to
Speaker 3: that segment.
Speaker 5: Let's listen to C six.
Speaker 3: This is Donald Trump talking about the return of those
Speaker 3: arbitrary tariffs.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, roull it.
Speaker 8: We just reached a fantastic trade deal, as you know
Speaker 8: with the United Kingdom, which was wonderful, And do we
Speaker 8: have another big one that we just reached with China.
Speaker 8: China deal is a very big deal. It's in the
Speaker 8: process of continuing.
Speaker 12: To be formed. But they wanted to make that deal
Speaker 12: very badly. And we have at the.
Speaker 8: Same time one hundred and fifty countries that want to
Speaker 8: make a deal. But you're not able to see that
Speaker 8: many countries. So a certain point over the next two
Speaker 8: to three weeks, I think Scott and Howard, we'll be
Speaker 8: sending letters out essentially telling people it would be very fair,
Speaker 8: but we'll be telling people what they'll be paying to
Speaker 8: do business in the United States, so essentially be paying
Speaker 8: to be doing business in the United States. I guess
Speaker 8: you could say they could appeal it, but for the
Speaker 8: most part, I think we're going to be very fair.
Speaker 8: But it's not possible to meet the number of people
Speaker 8: that want to see us. And but this was coming
Speaker 8: to UAE was very important. Coming to Saudi Arabian Qatar
Speaker 8: was very important to me because of personal relationships that
Speaker 8: I had, maybe more than anything else.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that was Trump and the UAE now this is.
Speaker 2: The personal relationships part was interesting too there at the
Speaker 2: end of like, yeah, it probably went there because I
Speaker 2: just I like these guys.
Speaker 4: They we're going to give me some business deals.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and he also I'm also saying we aren't.
Speaker 3: We don't have the ability to meet with all the
Speaker 3: people that want to meet with us. That's something we
Speaker 3: were told that they did have the ability.
Speaker 5: To do during Liberation Day.
Speaker 4: Remember, it wasn't that the goal.
Speaker 5: It's no problem whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Is the greatest deal maker of all time, and he's
Speaker 2: going to put on a masterclass for all of us.
Speaker 3: They're teasing what like eighteen deals that they say they
Speaker 3: have something like that over the course of this week
Speaker 3: that they're planning to get to the bottom of. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, it sounds like what they're doing right there
Speaker 3: is lowering expectations for that not coming to fruition. And
Speaker 3: maybe they'll get a few key deals UK, India, maybe Japan,
Speaker 3: Like maybe they will get a few things that they
Speaker 3: can point to and say, listen, this is we put
Speaker 3: the screws to everyone. But it sounds like they're actually
Speaker 3: not getting the response that they want from other countries.
Speaker 15: Well.
Speaker 2: Lowering expectations and other countries looked at what China did,
Speaker 2: which is basically nothing, and whin, Yeah, that's true, and
Speaker 2: they're like, well, why should we come on bended me
Speaker 2: when we've got a model here in what the Chinese
Speaker 2: were able to pull off. Now, not every country has,
Speaker 2: No other country really has as much sort of power
Speaker 2: in these negotiations as the Chinese do, but I do
Speaker 2: think that that was a learning and a model and
Speaker 2: a lesson for other countries that make it less likely
Speaker 2: that you're going to be able to strike all of
Speaker 2: these deals that we were promised going in. And Scott
Speaker 2: Bessant was pressed on, okay, well, so if you're going
Speaker 2: to just sort of like figure out whatever the teriff
Speaker 2: rate is without going through these negotiations, what level are
Speaker 2: we looking at? And he said, effectively, well, I guess
Speaker 2: we'll go back to the liberation day rates. So the chart,
Speaker 2: you know, with the penguins and all of that, and
Speaker 2: fifty percent on littho and all of that, apparently that's
Speaker 2: coming back.
Speaker 4: So let's take a listen to Charger Secretary Scot Besson.
Speaker 19: Mister secretary, does that effectively mean that these negotiations with other.
Speaker 4: Countries are over?
Speaker 19: And how high should they expect tariffs to go above
Speaker 19: ten percent?
Speaker 15: This means that they're not negotiating in good faith. They
Speaker 15: are going to get a letter they saying here is
Speaker 15: the rate. So I would expect that everyone would come
Speaker 15: and negotiate in good faiths you expect.
Speaker 19: That rate though, that you would slap on any country
Speaker 19: that you think is not negotiating in good faith to
Speaker 19: be above ten percent.
Speaker 15: Well, I think that it would be the April second level.
Speaker 15: Some countries were at ten percent somewhere substantially higher.
Speaker 4: So back to Liberation Day, Emily.
Speaker 5: Well, that's why.
Speaker 3: So what was this? Yeah, it was last week. I
Speaker 3: think it was last Monday. I just like was not
Speaker 3: willing to call Trump's China tariff move capitulation quite yet
Speaker 3: because I'm like, I think they still don't know what's happening.
Speaker 5: Like there's still they don't really have a strategy here.
Speaker 3: Their strategy is still just like let people come to
Speaker 3: us and do ad hoc, have a kind of ad
Speaker 3: hoc approach to putting the screws to other countries and
Speaker 3: getting like, they don't have levels that they want to
Speaker 3: see other countries get to. They just want to sort
Speaker 3: of negotiate some of these non trade barriers and like
Speaker 3: the all non tariff trade barriers and all this stuff.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what we're seeing from that Trump
Speaker 3: clip and this Besting clip is just that they're they're
Speaker 3: feeling like they're not getting good enough deals and so
Speaker 3: they're going back to threatening April second levels. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just completely unpredictable, which is not what they need
Speaker 3: right now at all. They need some type of certainty
Speaker 3: at this point. They need to have a lot of
Speaker 3: deals inked that look good, that look you know, pretty
Speaker 3: that people can be confident that that's where the level
Speaker 3: is going to be going forward, that people can be
Speaker 3: even if they think it's too high and it's it's
Speaker 3: not going to be great for the United States, at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, they can say this is
Speaker 3: what it's going to look like, and we can make investments. Accordingly,
Speaker 3: the bill is a disaster for them right now in
Speaker 3: the in the House, and well it's not even over
Speaker 3: at the Senate side yet, but like that's already choppy.
Speaker 3: So if they're even able to pass that is an
Speaker 3: open question. And despite or on top of that, they
Speaker 3: now don't have like they're they're going away from clarity
Speaker 3: on these questions, and they might need to to get.
Speaker 4: Good tax credits even in this bill.
Speaker 3: Do we know, Yes, yeah, they're in the bill, but
Speaker 3: I don't know, like that could change. I mean that
Speaker 3: could change when it gets the Senate. The whole reconciliation
Speaker 3: process is right, so so so uncertain. You're throwing things
Speaker 3: in and taking them out at the last minute to
Speaker 3: make these deals. So who knows that they stick around?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: The other the reason why I felt comfortable calling it
Speaker 2: a capitulation still do is in the context of China,
Speaker 2: the initial rhetoric for Trump was so maximalist about like
Speaker 2: we I don't even know why we have overseas supply chains,
Speaker 2: and they were talking about a total decoupling from China
Speaker 2: and backing off of that unilaterally without getting anything really
Speaker 2: in exchange, I mean really truly nothing in exchange from
Speaker 2: China other than oh, they'll talk to us about ventanel.
Speaker 2: That I think is fair to call a capitulation. They
Speaker 2: realized they could not take this immediate maximalist approach to
Speaker 2: China specifically and be able to survive what the stock
Speaker 2: in the bond markets and the domestic political situation, all
Speaker 2: of that was going to throw at them. Now, I
Speaker 2: think it's fair to say, and I felt this as well,
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that Trump is done.
Speaker 4: With tariff's say, I think because it's still changed.
Speaker 2: Well, and first of all, I mean thirty percent, Like
Speaker 2: I just we got a level set here. If we
Speaker 2: had gotten thirty percent, if there'd never been the one
Speaker 2: hundred and forty five percent and just out of the
Speaker 2: gates what was announced was thirty percent, we would all
Speaker 2: be like, holy shit, forget that is a gigantic yeah, right,
Speaker 2: that's like smooth Holly level style tariff. It's a massive
Speaker 2: tax increase on working class people, like it is an
Speaker 2: extraordinary economic political event. And as I've also been saying,
Speaker 2: Trump loves tariffs because they give him all of this
Speaker 2: unilateral power, and we've learned more about that since the
Speaker 2: Liberation Day and what they've been using some of the
Speaker 2: things that he's been using that leverage in order to accomplish.
Speaker 2: And actually one of the key things is apparently to
Speaker 2: help out his buddy Elon Musk with starlink. You know,
Speaker 2: they've been using the State Department, as you've been using
Speaker 2: the tariffs as sort of a you know, mob boss
Speaker 2: tactic to get countries that were reluctant to take up
Speaker 2: starlink to go ahead and you know, accept to have
Speaker 2: licenses for this product. So, you know, I don't think
Speaker 2: that he's done with tariffs, because if there's one thing
Speaker 2: we've seen in Trump two point zero, it is all
Speaker 2: about him consolidating as much power as he can in
Speaker 2: his own hands and in the hands of the executive and.
Speaker 4: Tariffs are a key part of that story.
Speaker 2: That allows him to you know, all the businesses have
Speaker 2: to come to him, all the countries have to come
Speaker 2: to him something that he can use as a carrot,
Speaker 2: as a stick et, cetera. And that's why I think
Speaker 2: we're far from finished with the tariff conversation.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: And your point about the thirty percent level, I mean
Speaker 3: when orange Cast in American Compass proposed that ten percent
Speaker 3: global tariff, there was a massive freakout. And now that
Speaker 3: looks like sweet relief to the markets and to the
Speaker 3: corporate class.
Speaker 2: Well, what was inflation at its peak in under Biden
Speaker 2: with COVID It was it never hit ten percent, And
Speaker 2: so if you're talking if you are talking about ten
Speaker 2: percent around the world, you know it may not be
Speaker 2: exactly ten percent inflation that you're going to experience, but
Speaker 2: it's going to be a significant amount. I mean, that
Speaker 2: is a dramatic economic event. Just ten percent across the board,
Speaker 2: let alone thirty percent here and fifty percent there. And
Speaker 2: you know what they're what they contemplated on April second,
Speaker 2: and apparently are still contemplating going back to and.
Speaker 3: As possible, we look back at this moment and you know,
Speaker 3: the the last two plus months, I mean, it's been
Speaker 3: so crazy. You never know how this stuff ages because
Speaker 3: they're so at hoc about this. And again I think
Speaker 3: they see that as part of the leverage that it's
Speaker 3: creating uncertainty and other countries, to your point, have to
Speaker 3: kind of come on bend and d And that's sort
Speaker 3: of what they're saying. Here is Trump and the UAE
Speaker 3: and that clip we rolled saying, we don't even have
Speaker 3: time to meet with all of you. You want to
Speaker 3: do trade with us, but we don't even have time
Speaker 3: to talk to you, Like that's.
Speaker 5: How powerful we are.
Speaker 3: And of course I think we could look back on
Speaker 3: this and be like, this was just a moment where
Speaker 3: they were, you know, feeling uncertain about the deals. They
Speaker 3: felt like they weren't getting enough deals and because they
Speaker 3: flexed like this, everyone ended up coming back and you know,
Speaker 3: making better deals whatever. But that's just really not the
Speaker 3: trajectory again of the last like six weeks. We're just
Speaker 3: how many weeks into six seven weeks into post liberation
Speaker 3: day world, and there aren't a lot of deals coming
Speaker 3: to fruition, and there's scattershot ones, and I think some
Speaker 3: of them are like actually good changes. The way that
Speaker 3: it's looking with the UK, it looks like a decent step,
Speaker 3: that looks like a step in the right direction roughly,
Speaker 3: but this was worldwide essentially.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 2: Also, it's not like, I mean, whether you think that
Speaker 2: the UK deal is marginally better than the status quote
Speaker 2: or not, it's not like this was a game changer.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no, it's just all of this,
Speaker 3: you know, no, not at all. And that's the thing.
Speaker 3: It's like, you just need to see. I mean, you
Speaker 3: would need to see a lot more than what's been
Speaker 3: seen so far.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and turn to this extreme weather that
Speaker 2: we saw with horrific deadly consequences in the middle of
Speaker 2: the country, Kentucky and Missouri in particular, really hard hit
Speaker 2: by this strong line of tornadoes and storms. You can
Speaker 2: put some images up on the screen here. Twenty six
Speaker 2: people are dead after these tornadoes hit in those two states.
Speaker 4: Here's some footage from USA today.
Speaker 2: They say deadly tornadoes leave a trail of destruction Kentucky.
Speaker 2: There you actually see the tornado itself. They say this
Speaker 2: is Scott County, Missouri. Here this is terrifying, as part
Speaker 2: of an apartment building just blows apart like it's made
Speaker 2: of absolutely nothing. We've got some of the aftermath here.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if this is Kentucky or Misseri. I
Speaker 2: think this is in Kentucky, but I'm not one hundred
Speaker 2: percent sure. But you can see just the level of devastation.
Speaker 2: And this is in London, Kentucky. Looks like it was
Speaker 2: a small airport there. You can see the debris and
Speaker 2: wreckage of some of those small planes that were just
Speaker 2: absolutely torn apart. And this obviously is really significant in
Speaker 2: and of itself, just given the loss of lives at
Speaker 2: least twenty six people dead that we know of at
Speaker 2: this point, but it also has raised some real questions
Speaker 2: about the impacts of DOGE cuts and whether there was
Speaker 2: sufficient warning given or whether more lives could have been
Speaker 2: saved if the relevant weather office there, which had experienced
Speaker 2: these cuts, had been fully staffed. Ryan Hall, who's a
Speaker 2: fantastic whether YouTuber Kyle's a big weather guy who watches
Speaker 2: him all the time on YouTube, was astonished that there
Speaker 2: hadn't been sufficient warnings put out at the time as
Speaker 2: he was covering this live. Let's go ahead and take
Speaker 2: a listen to a little of what he had to say.
Speaker 20: We're talking about here is a big deal.
Speaker 5: I am so.
Speaker 20: Surprised that we don't have an upgraded warning from the
Speaker 20: National Weather Service. One of the things that I do
Speaker 20: want to mention is, I'm pretty sure this is the
Speaker 20: National Weather Service in Jackson, Kentucky, my local National Weather
Speaker 20: Service here. This is one of the places that's understaffed
Speaker 20: right now. I don't know if you guys have been
Speaker 20: following the news big layoffs across National Weather Service and
Speaker 20: stuff like that, that might be a result of a
Speaker 20: problem that we're having there. If so, that's crazy. That's crazy.
Speaker 20: We're about to have a large tornado go through a
Speaker 20: very populated area with much less warning than what there
Speaker 20: should be as a result of that, guys, all I
Speaker 20: can tell you right now is if you know anybody
Speaker 20: in Somerset, call them, call them right now and let
Speaker 20: them know what's going on. I'm not kidding like this
Speaker 20: is a big deal. This is a huge deal. We've
Speaker 20: got a massive tornado about to slam through o'kill, Bourbon
Speaker 20: and Ferguson here.
Speaker 2: And he was absolutely right in the dire nature of
Speaker 2: those warnings. That Kentucky Weather Office, they say scrambles for
Speaker 2: staffing is severe storms bear down. New York Times right
Speaker 2: up here, Washington posts how to write up as well.
Speaker 2: National Weather Service office in eastern Kentucky was scrambling to
Speaker 2: cover the overnight forecast on Friday as these tornadoes were
Speaker 2: moving through much of the eastern US, According to the
Speaker 2: union that represents the department's meteorologist, Tom Fahey, the legislative
Speaker 2: director for that union, was one of four that no
Speaker 2: longer had a permanent overnight forecaster after hundreds of people
Speaker 2: left the agency as a result of cuts ordered by
Speaker 2: the Department of Government Efficiency. Mister Fahey said on Friday
Speaker 2: that because of the threat for flooding, hail, and tornadoes
Speaker 2: facing eastern Kentucky, the West Weather Service had to find
Speaker 2: forecasting help for that office spoke women for the Weather
Speaker 2: Service said the Jackson's office would be relying on nearby
Speaker 2: offices for support throughout the weekend. So Emily, that's you know,
Speaker 2: the lay of the land here. Now, I will say
Speaker 2: that the government is claiming, no, this did not impact.
Speaker 2: They were able to fully staff, They were able to
Speaker 2: have the coverage that they need. But you know, it
Speaker 2: certainly raises questions whether lives could have been saved if
Speaker 2: this office had been fully staffed and not subject to
Speaker 2: those DOGE cuts.
Speaker 5: It does.
Speaker 3: I mean, there should be an investigation. And I think
Speaker 3: it's crazy, Crystal. I mean, this always happens with tornadoes.
Speaker 3: You lived in Kentucky briefly, I did. Yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 3: you know this. It's whenever there's a snowstorm in New York.
Speaker 3: I actually, like when we I used to teach students,
Speaker 3: I would use this as an example, and never there's
Speaker 3: a snowstorm in New York, it's national news for days.
Speaker 3: A tornado can rip through the Heartland, killed twenty eight
Speaker 3: people and it's a blip on the national news radar
Speaker 3: because most of the newsrooms are in New York, they're
Speaker 3: in DC, they're in LA and the gutting of local
Speaker 3: media means that there are just a few newsrooms that
Speaker 3: are kind of concentrated in big cities Saint Louis, for example,
Speaker 3: throughout the Midwest, but the main producers and editors and
Speaker 3: everything aren't there. And so I mean, this is getting
Speaker 3: to the bottom of whether or not these cuts actually
Speaker 3: may have actually like resulted.
Speaker 5: In a loss of life.
Speaker 3: I really hope that national media is sending people, is
Speaker 3: paying attention to the local media, sending people out to
Speaker 3: get to the bottom of this, because it's a hugely
Speaker 3: significant story. And it's one of those things that when
Speaker 3: you look at Elon Musk in the way he's been
Speaker 3: parading around with the chainsaw at Seapack, for example, that
Speaker 3: Melee gifted him, it's never been funny. It's just it's
Speaker 3: not funny. It's eighty percent of federal workers are outside
Speaker 3: of DC. And I say that as somebody who loves
Speaker 3: the idea like in theory of doge, but like you're
Speaker 3: actually playing with people's lives. And it'd be one thing
Speaker 3: if the Trump administration had tapped someone like Russ Vote,
Speaker 3: like a type of like policy person to do it,
Speaker 3: but they went with Elon as the figurehead of it,
Speaker 3: and it just gave the whole project this sense of
Speaker 3: what's the right word for it, Like, I don't know
Speaker 3: if casualness is the right word, but that bazard Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: this sense that like, and he has openly said that
Speaker 3: his strategy involves mass firings and then if you realize
Speaker 3: you need to bring people back, then you bring people back.
Speaker 5: Like that's he said, that's the way to do it.
Speaker 3: Basically is that, like you learn who's essential after you
Speaker 3: fire them on a nationwide scale. And me, we're talking
Speaker 3: about one of the biggest countries in the world, one
Speaker 3: of the biggest countries that has ever existed, massive piece
Speaker 3: of land with a huge population. That's a really really
Speaker 3: really really really dangerous game, and that is obvious to everyone.
Speaker 5: So I'm really curious.
Speaker 3: I mean, maybe it turns out that you know, they
Speaker 3: were they came in overnight and they staffed up because
Speaker 3: they realized these storms were going to be bad and
Speaker 3: this would have happened no matter what. Maybe that turns
Speaker 3: out to be the case. But when you juxtapose it
Speaker 3: with National Weather Service cuts and Elon Musk parading around
Speaker 3: with the chainsaw, it's a pretty bad look.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and Here's what I would say too, is I
Speaker 2: do think some of the cuts were just completely haphazard.
Speaker 2: But there even with RUSS vote like Project twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five took direct aim at Noah, and there is an
Speaker 2: ideological project on the right that would like to see
Speaker 2: some of this weather tracking privatized so that we don't all,
Speaker 2: you know, Ryan Hall and everybody else who wants access
Speaker 2: to the data doesn't get access to the data. You
Speaker 2: have to pay for it. There is an ideological agenda
Speaker 2: behind it as well. So it's not just random that
Speaker 2: these offices get hit with cuts. In the National Weather
Speaker 2: Service gets hit with cuts, and you know, Noah overall
Speaker 2: gets hit with cuts. There is also an ideological project
Speaker 2: behind it, and this is the fallout from that project,
Speaker 2: or demonstrates what the potential for the fallout could be
Speaker 2: from that project. There are a lot of things the
Speaker 2: government does that you know, actually are effective that we
Speaker 2: just don't think about, you know, like.
Speaker 4: They do track the weather very effectively.
Speaker 2: It takes a lot of resources, it takes a lot
Speaker 2: of people, it takes you know, these weather balloons going up,
Speaker 2: which also have been cut significantly, but actually they do
Speaker 2: have done a pretty good job at that and that
Speaker 2: is now being put at risk. We see it also,
Speaker 2: you know with the air traffic controllers and the horrific
Speaker 2: situation you know with the FAA. Again, this is something
Speaker 2: that is a life or death issue that we really
Speaker 2: depend on the federal government for and when it doesn't function.
Speaker 4: When it does function, you don't think about it too much.
Speaker 2: When it doesn't function, suddenly it becomes really front of mind.
Speaker 2: If you want to, you know, go somewhere from Royal
Speaker 2: Day weekend and be able to actually, you know, get
Speaker 2: where you're going and not be terrified that what's going
Speaker 2: to happen when you're trying to land and there's another
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and put this FEMA piece up on
Speaker 2: the screen because this is you know connected. Obviously, you
Speaker 2: have a newly appointed head of FEMA, and Trump.
Speaker 3: Has been FEMA is a mess, like a mess.
Speaker 4: I think everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like I think anyone who's been associated with
Speaker 2: FEMA would have said going into this administration there were
Speaker 2: things that needed to be resolved. Trump has an ideological
Speaker 2: agenda against FEMA at all. He thinks this should be
Speaker 2: basically dismantled and it should all be sent to the States.
Speaker 2: Now if you have a minor weather disaster, states may
Speaker 2: have sufficient funds and resources to handle it. When you're
Speaker 2: talking about increasing extreme weather events year after year after year,
Speaker 2: you need the federal government just for you know, resource's
Speaker 2: sake to be able to assist, and states do not
Speaker 2: have the capability to be able to respond. So this
Speaker 2: is coming, you know this. There was some leaked information
Speaker 2: coming out of FEMA that the newly appointed head says
Speaker 2: the agency does not yet have a fully formed disaster
Speaker 2: response plan going into hurricane season.
Speaker 4: A little bit of this.
Speaker 2: David Richardson, who previously served as a senior official at
Speaker 2: DHS does not have a background in emergency management, told
Speaker 2: staff he would share a hurricane plan with CHRISTINOAM after
Speaker 2: he completes it late next week. He said Thursday, he's
Speaker 2: eighty to eighty five percent done with the plan. Agency
Speaker 2: is already months behind schedule in its preparations for the
Speaker 2: hurricane season, which starts June one and is expected to
Speaker 2: have above normal activity. Richardson said in a recent meeting
Speaker 2: the FEMA staff that clarifying the intent of the president,
Speaker 2: who has called for terminating the agency, was a challenge
Speaker 2: in preparing a strategy for hurricane season. According to a
Speaker 2: video recording of the media of the meeting that was
Speaker 2: viewed by the Wall Street Journal, and there was another
Speaker 2: wild quote in here, Emily he was apparently asked during
Speaker 2: this town hall meeting if the will of the president
Speaker 2: or the will that well being of Americans was more important,
Speaker 2: and he responded, I think those two things are essentially
Speaker 2: the same. So this is a you know, this is
Speaker 2: a Trump loyalist, yes man whatever, And FEMA is dramatically
Speaker 2: behind in preparing for the impending hurricane season.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The Reuters headline three days ago, staff losses and
Speaker 3: low morale are derailing FEMA hurricane preparations. Internal documents says,
Speaker 3: And then there's another headline this is two days.
Speaker 5: Ago as well.
Speaker 3: Trump's firing a FEMA director unsettles GOP. Senators and the
Speaker 3: Republicans made a big deal, rightfully so of the FEMA
Speaker 3: response after.
Speaker 5: The hurricanes Helene.
Speaker 3: Yeah, after Helene, North Carolina, last South Carolina last fall,
Speaker 3: that was I mean reasonable, Everyone was right to be
Speaker 3: outraged about the FEMA response there. So if the FEMA
Speaker 3: response to these tornadoes, which have now killed what twenty
Speaker 3: eight people, is lacking, Trump is going to hear from
Speaker 3: the senators in those states, Republican senators in those states.
Speaker 5: He's going to hear.
Speaker 3: From the governors in those states, Republican governors in those states.
Speaker 3: And what's interesting, Crystal is that's the type of thing
Speaker 3: that will start to change the prem mission structure for
Speaker 3: DOGE and for massive cuts. If Republicans are saying the
Speaker 3: way you were going about, these cuts are worse than
Speaker 3: just continuing to spend at the same level, Yeah, which
Speaker 3: is not impossible.
Speaker 5: By the way. That's the thing, like you can again,
Speaker 5: like I.
Speaker 3: Support the idea of DOGE in theory, and I would
Speaker 3: say like in some cases these cuts are like if
Speaker 3: they you can still end up when you're making cuts
Speaker 3: that are necessary or that I think are necessary from
Speaker 3: a perspective of like just a more limited government perspective,
Speaker 3: you look at them and you say, the cuts themselves
Speaker 3: can be worse than the alternative status quo because they're.
Speaker 5: Done in a way that is cruel.
Speaker 3: And one thing I wanted to mention is if you
Speaker 3: are in DC, you don't understand how important the emergency
Speaker 3: warning systems are for tornadoes and saving lives because people
Speaker 3: rely on them to make a judgment about where to go,
Speaker 3: what to do? Do they get out of the soccer
Speaker 3: car pool and go home right away? Is it that
Speaker 3: serious or are they up ending, you know, everyone's routine
Speaker 3: for something that's not serious at all. The warnings are
Speaker 3: important to that if you live in the Midwest or
Speaker 3: in the South, or in an area with tornadoes, and
Speaker 3: if you don't understand that, and you're just saying we
Speaker 3: will fire people, then we will learn and hire anybody
Speaker 3: who's necessary. People get caught and fall through the cracks,
Speaker 3: and tragedy happens.
Speaker 2: And some of his strongest supporters, like in terms of states,
Speaker 2: have already been impacted by the denial of FEMA assistants,
Speaker 2: so flooding in West Virginia. FEMA denied assistance for windstorm
Speaker 2: damage in Washington, not a Trump's state, but FEMA staff
Speaker 2: said there's no longer a clear process for assessing assistance
Speaker 2: requests from states. Their concerned disaster victims aren't get the
Speaker 2: help they need. In Arkansas, they were initially denied funds,
Speaker 2: but Sarah Huckevee Sanders is now the governor of Arkansas,
Speaker 2: so she was able to go to Trump and say, please,
Speaker 2: we need these funds and eventually they were able to
Speaker 2: they relented. But if you don't happen to have a
Speaker 2: personal relationship with a apparently are our sovereign monarch now,
Speaker 2: then you you know, then your residents are going to
Speaker 2: get screwed, including you know, in a state like West Virginia,
Speaker 2: which I covered here, that flooding was apocalypt It's the
Speaker 2: worst they've ever seen the level of disaster, and it
Speaker 2: hit the poorest part of an already poor state which
Speaker 2: has been screwed over and left behind, you know, many
Speaker 2: times over and so denied assistance for flooding. There is
Speaker 2: you know it honestly, to me, it shocks the conscience.
Speaker 2: But this is the direction that they have gone in,
Speaker 2: and they put in just you know, a Trump scaphan
Speaker 2: and the head of this agency who was apparently unprepared
Speaker 2: for the hurricane season. So you know, it's it's very
Speaker 2: it's unsettling. It's very unsettling to see things that were
Speaker 2: previously taken for granted. And again not to say FEMA
Speaker 2: was great or perfect. We've all seen, you know, what
Speaker 2: happened with Katrina. We saw the inadequacy of a response
Speaker 2: in Helene et cetera. But once again you're taking something
Speaker 2: that needed work and you are eliminated and eliminating it.
Speaker 4: Entirely or making vastly worse.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, this is an indication of
Speaker 2: potential things to come.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with a tone of flippancy and you know, job reality,
Speaker 3: like it's just all a chainsaw game, Which is probably
Speaker 3: why Ela Musk has stepped into the background, because they realized.
Speaker 5: Quiet lately it wasn't.
Speaker 2: He's devoting its time to reprogramming GROC to talk about
Speaker 2: white genocide and deny the Holocaust apparently is what he's
Speaker 2: spending his time doing.
Speaker 5: Now, let's get all kinds of stuff to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as a man, Crystal, let's move on to the system.
Speaker 5: Is so interesting.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited about Argent Singh, who joins us to
Speaker 3: talk about the history of how Republicans became an anti
Speaker 3: tax party, fundamentalist anti tax party, and what that means
Speaker 3: for today.
Speaker 2: So, guys, Trump's big beautiful bill passed a clear, cleared
Speaker 2: and important hurdle in the House.
Speaker 4: I can put us up on the screen.
Speaker 2: The Tax and Immigration Bill clears hurdle after late night vote.
Speaker 2: It had previously failed in committee, and a late night
Speaker 2: vote was able to pass after some Republican dissenters just
Speaker 2: voted present, so it can make it out of committee.
Speaker 2: All of that is a long way of saying this
Speaker 2: bill still has a long way to go before it
Speaker 2: actually is efectuated into law. But at the center of
Speaker 2: the bill is a big old tax cut for the rich,
Speaker 2: doubling down on Trump's key priority accomplishment from his first administration.
Speaker 4: So joining us now to discuss.
Speaker 2: How the Republican Party became this anti tax juggernaut is
Speaker 2: Argent saying with lever News, and you guys have a
Speaker 2: new podcast series out called Tax Revolt, which tracks the
Speaker 2: history of.
Speaker 4: The anti tax movement. So great to see, Argente.
Speaker 6: Yes, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, so we can put you two up
Speaker 4: on the screen.
Speaker 2: That's just the logo, so you guys can see here's
Speaker 2: Tax Revolts. We've got four part series. And let's go
Speaker 2: ahead and take a listen to a little bit of
Speaker 2: the trailer to set this up for everybody.
Speaker 12: All taxes are bad. The power to tax is the
Speaker 12: power to destroy.
Speaker 17: Some are worse than others.
Speaker 16: We have a new revolution against the tax, tax, tax
Speaker 16: spends and spend.
Speaker 6: The mindset of diehard tax cutters has dominated politics since the.
Speaker 3: Nineteen eighties, and today cutting taxes is practically a religious
Speaker 3: mandate in conservative politics.
Speaker 21: And government agencies like the irs are partisan battlegrounds.
Speaker 12: The dream in America is not to make the rich poor.
Speaker 12: The dream is to make the poor rich. The era
Speaker 12: of big government is over.
Speaker 2: Don't hurt the top, and if you're gonna fight rich people,
Speaker 2: you're gonna lose.
Speaker 21: From the landmark California tax revolt to Trump's latest push
Speaker 21: to cut taxes for the rich, this movement claimed to
Speaker 21: fight for the average American, but really deepened inequality and
Speaker 21: helped the rich get richer.
Speaker 6: This is the story of how a small but powerful
Speaker 6: movement reshaped our economy, weakened our democracy, and left the
Speaker 6: government scrambling to serve the people it was.
Speaker 15: Meant to protect.
Speaker 12: But that's not the way the world is.
Speaker 5: Guys.
Speaker 2: Do you want to sit there and scream and holler
Speaker 2: and hate rich people and lose every election.
Speaker 4: It is time for a wealth tax.
Speaker 15: And a mirror.
Speaker 12: You'll lose everything. If you don't lose the election, you'll
Speaker 12: lose the country.
Speaker 2: So I like the description there of tax cutting as
Speaker 2: an almost religious mandate, because at this point, you have
Speaker 2: a broad national coalition, really quite bipartisan at the grassroots
Speaker 2: level in favor of taxing the rich more, and yet
Speaker 2: you still have the Republican Party going in the polar
Speaker 2: opposite direction. Yeah.
Speaker 16: And one of the funny things that we actually talk
Speaker 16: about in this series is that when you get to
Speaker 16: the nineteen eighties, when Reaganomics is becoming very popular, Democrats
Speaker 16: vote for Reagan's bills. Tip O'Neil's Speaker of the House.
Speaker 16: Reagan's got these Democratic legislators, and part of the reason
Speaker 16: that Democrats are on board with it is they hear
Speaker 16: from their own constituents how upsetting it is to see
Speaker 16: how easy it is to gain the tax code. They're
Speaker 16: saying that our rich friends who have fancy accountants can
Speaker 16: do all these loopholes. The tax code is so complex, now,
Speaker 16: why don't we get any relief just because we have
Speaker 16: to pay our taxes like suckers. And the Democratic response was,
Speaker 16: you're right, the tax code is too e to game,
Speaker 16: and so we'll bring down your tax rates. And they
Speaker 16: tried to fix some of the loopholes. But as we
Speaker 16: know through history, the winners of all of that was
Speaker 16: the business community and corporate interests who managed to bring
Speaker 16: everybody's taxes down and also take their taxes down to
Speaker 16: the point that some billionaires don't even pay taxes, they
Speaker 16: pay negative taxes they earn from government subsidies.
Speaker 5: Believable. Well, yeah, let's keep pulling at this threat of religion.
Speaker 3: Actually, because this is one on the right, we're seeing
Speaker 3: what on the right is the fading of what's called fusionism,
Speaker 3: which is the three legged schools Frank Meyer a whole
Speaker 3: thing basically as it combines limited government, social conservatism, and neoconservatism,
Speaker 3: and that's completely falling apart at this moment. Maybe it'll reconstruct,
Speaker 3: but at this part, at this point, it's really difficult
Speaker 3: for the publican party to maintain that coalition. So, as
Speaker 3: you went back through history, can you can maybe tell
Speaker 3: us a little bit about what it was like as
Speaker 3: the Milton Friedman wing coalesced with the social conservatives and
Speaker 3: the neo conservatives. It's such an interesting marriage, especially between
Speaker 3: neo conservatives and Milton Friedman types, because the Reagan eras
Speaker 3: saw massive spending on defense and at the same time
Speaker 3: there was this mandate.
Speaker 5: For tax cuts.
Speaker 3: It's sort of similar to what we see people talking
Speaker 3: about right now.
Speaker 16: Absolutely, I'm so glad that you distell that like that,
Speaker 16: because that is one of the most fascinating things that
Speaker 16: I came out from the series is that the Republican
Speaker 16: Coalition is kind of a Frankenstein monster of different groups
Speaker 16: that have made alliances with each other, but when it
Speaker 16: comes down to it, do end up being on different
Speaker 16: ends of the issues. So when we start in the
Speaker 16: nineteen seventies, you have the post Watergate era and you
Speaker 16: have stagflation happening, high uninflated, high unemployment, and high on
Speaker 16: and high inflation. You want to which I think is
Speaker 16: what everybody which is what's happening, But no, you had stagflation,
Speaker 16: which was the worst of the worst, and so you
Speaker 16: had an economic crisis. You had people actually seeing real
Speaker 16: pain paying their taxes because their money was getting cheaper
Speaker 16: and cheaper by the day. And what you see entering
Speaker 16: that is different groups of conservatives trying to take it
Speaker 16: advantage of that. So you have the people from the
Speaker 16: business community who say, listen, let's just knock down the
Speaker 16: whole tax code. Free market capitalism, you know, this is
Speaker 16: the way everyone's going to prosper. That would be kind
Speaker 16: of like the art laughers who we heard in the
Speaker 16: trailer just now, the godfathers supply side economics, you know,
Speaker 16: will take them at kind of face value that if
Speaker 16: this is what they believe, they believe that low taxation
Speaker 16: will lead to so much prosperity, you don't really need
Speaker 16: a government to play the role of an administrative state.
Speaker 16: Those people find alliances with another group of conservatives who
Speaker 16: are seeing integration happening, who are seeing changing social values,
Speaker 16: and they're seeing a Democratic party in a government that
Speaker 16: they feel is becoming too tolerant of women and minorities,
Speaker 16: and that a lot of the white working class people
Speaker 16: are being left behind. And in our first episode we
Speaker 16: talked about Howard Jarvis in California in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 16: He gets this ballot proposition on there that says, let's
Speaker 16: just cap the property tax, and he messages both of
Speaker 16: those things, isn't the government bloated? Aren't the bureaucrats overpaid?
Speaker 16: Isn't your tax Aren't your taxes too high? And he
Speaker 16: would also say to certain people, should your taxes pay
Speaker 16: for school integration? Should your taxes pay for a social
Speaker 16: educational system that is slowly moving away from you? And
Speaker 16: he merges these two things together, and we talk about
Speaker 16: Newt Gingrich the same year, nineteen seventy eight, that's when
Speaker 16: he wins his selection to Congress. He sees the potency
Speaker 16: of the practicality of telling people you don't have to
Speaker 16: pay as much anymore. A lot of people vibe with
Speaker 16: that message, but he sees an undercurrent of people who
Speaker 16: are starting to view the federal government as something that
Speaker 16: they should be opposed to, that's an enemy to them.
Speaker 16: In the nineteen seventies, Jimmy Carter's IRS was withholding tax
Speaker 16: exem status from schools that refuse to integrate violating court orders.
Speaker 16: In this period nineteen seventy eight gain Rich, but also
Speaker 16: you know people like Howard Jarvis and California that started
Speaker 16: the ANTIIRS movement, which they said, the tax collectors are
Speaker 16: a tool of an ideologically driven government. Your taxes going
Speaker 16: to them is helping an ideological battle, not just funding
Speaker 16: kind of the base social services that were pretty popular
Speaker 16: and that a lot of Republicans agreed with too, because,
Speaker 16: like you said, Republicans like George Herbert Walker Bush and
Speaker 16: Ronald Reagan wanted strong military, they wanted more spending on
Speaker 16: the on defense, So they wanted government.
Speaker 6: To do things.
Speaker 16: They just didn't like the intrusion of government on the
Speaker 16: tax codes, certainly taking big business as profits. And so
Speaker 16: that's kind of what the series leads up to. And
Speaker 16: by the nineteen nineties, when Newt Gingrich gets into office,
Speaker 16: the movement of conservatives has become so fractured that the
Speaker 16: Pat Buchanan hard proto Trump conservatives now they have a
Speaker 16: lot more influence over this party, and they're saying Ronald
Speaker 16: Reagan's too moderate because he compromised with Democrats, and George
Speaker 16: Bush is of course way too moderate because he would
Speaker 16: even consider raising taxes. And they see new Gingrid shut
Speaker 16: down the government and they say, this is what we're
Speaker 16: all about, aggression, hostility, and the movement takes a hard
Speaker 16: turn to the right right there. And it's not to
Speaker 16: say that the entire Republican Party believes like this. I
Speaker 16: think that the Republican Civil War is still happening right now. Yeah,
Speaker 16: But that is how this tax issue then mores into
Speaker 16: what we see right now, which is you have whole
Speaker 16: anti government forces, people who saw Waco in Oklahoma City saying,
Speaker 16: you know what, the government is taking away our rights
Speaker 16: and it is a frightening force. And if our taxes
Speaker 16: defund the government, more power to that. And that's by
Speaker 16: the way, Grover Norquiz do we interview in our last episode.
Speaker 6: He's that faction of the conservative movement.
Speaker 16: Art Laugher, who we heard on the trailer is the
Speaker 16: other side, which he says, low taxes equals prosperity. But
Speaker 16: he'll message all these kind of pro government values.
Speaker 5: Interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, no coincidence, by the way, that happened during
Speaker 3: the fall of the Soviet Union just that time when
Speaker 3: in the early nineties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a fantastic point, and so sort of bring
Speaker 2: us to today. I mean, on the one hand, again,
Speaker 2: this four trillion dollar tax cut for the rich centerpiece
Speaker 2: of the Trump agenda, he sort of flowed like, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe I won't cut taxes as much on the millionaires
Speaker 2: with an He backed off of that immediately when it
Speaker 2: became clear that he'd actually have to exert some pressure
Speaker 2: to get that to happen. He wasn't all that interested
Speaker 2: in doing it to start with. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: you know, in the time period that you're covering, they
Speaker 2: really were on the offense. They felt very confident in
Speaker 2: their messaging. Now you can see from Steve Bannon and
Speaker 2: others that they realize this. If they're going to really
Speaker 2: position themselves as this populist party, it's a little bit
Speaker 2: of a problem for them. They're at odds with their
Speaker 2: own voters, let alone the national conversation. So kind of
Speaker 2: where is the anti tax movement today?
Speaker 16: I think the anti tax movement is still very powerful
Speaker 16: because of things like Elon Musk and Doge, and that
Speaker 16: is that they are taking the rhetoric that the government's
Speaker 16: a hostile action and dialing it up to eleven. And
Speaker 16: as we talked about in the series, when you message
Speaker 16: that rhetoric in an era where people are already dissatisfied
Speaker 16: with their government, they feel let down by it and
Speaker 16: they're frustrated, you can get people who initially were pro
Speaker 16: government agreeing with you that you know, the government is
Speaker 16: doing negative things.
Speaker 6: I think the biggest contract is.
Speaker 4: A big part of that.
Speaker 12: Guy is a big.
Speaker 16: Part of that. I think the big thing that the
Speaker 16: Steve Bannon thing is trying to do is he's trying
Speaker 16: to make more language of the progressive left and the
Speaker 16: left wing and hoping that left wing allies will also say, hey,
Speaker 16: isn't this the future, we should be no taxation on
Speaker 16: everybody else, but putting some taxes on the wealthy. And
Speaker 16: I think that the anti tax movement is realizing. The
Speaker 16: Republican Party was never a good vehicle if that was
Speaker 16: the kind of politics that you wanted to espouse. The
Speaker 16: more progressive Bernie Standers style of politics vibes a little
Speaker 16: bit more with that. So the anti tax movement is
Speaker 16: still clearly very strong. Because Trump himself got scared by
Speaker 16: his own statement of putting taxes on multi millionaires, and
Speaker 16: I think the quickness with which he kind of pulled
Speaker 16: that back, and even his Trump his Truth social posts
Speaker 16: where he was like, I'll put the taxes on there,
Speaker 16: but if they don't want to, I'll still be okay
Speaker 16: with it.
Speaker 12: It might be a good idea.
Speaker 6: You can see his hesitancy and how powerful the entrend
Speaker 6: interest that run the party really are.
Speaker 16: And that's the struggle for the Trump administration. He's tried
Speaker 16: to tailt his base towards the populist working class base,
Speaker 16: which was the Democratic base for a long time, and
Speaker 16: he's seeing why Democrats politically found favor when they would
Speaker 16: raise taxes on the wealthy.
Speaker 6: That was their base. So that's the base he wants
Speaker 6: to have, but the party is still dictated by the
Speaker 6: entrenched corporate interests.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's the problem for Grover spent decades.
Speaker 3: He spent decades on this like anti tax, you know,
Speaker 3: hard line. Yeah you said, and he bullied everyone into
Speaker 3: a signing. I shouldn't say bullied. I mean everyone was
Speaker 3: doing it willingly.
Speaker 6: Sign He was quite the bully that It sounds like,
Speaker 6: oh yeah, that'd.
Speaker 5: Be a bully.
Speaker 3: But when you know they have an opportunity to do
Speaker 3: a big tax bill in twenty seventeen and Paul Ryan
Speaker 3: saying we're gonna get your taxes down to a postcard,
Speaker 3: it's going to look like something like a flat tax.
Speaker 3: Well that never happens because the corporate interests need there
Speaker 3: to be significant tax rates still to fund defense spending,
Speaker 3: to fund all that other corporate fair And that's what
Speaker 3: Grebern Norquist and the anti tax crusaders, who genuinely do
Speaker 3: believe in limited government and extremely limited taxes, they've ended
Speaker 3: up sort of being the vehicle for corporate interests to
Speaker 3: continue the welfare's bigot.
Speaker 16: Yeah, the flat tax debate is really interesting to me
Speaker 16: because you know, I will say that when I sat
Speaker 16: down with Grover Norquist. There are people on the anti
Speaker 16: tax side who seem to genuinely believe just a complicated.
Speaker 12: Tax code is bad. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 16: Need it will lead to people gaming the system, which
Speaker 16: it completely has, and it's unfair to people who don't
Speaker 16: have the means or the knowledge base to understand what
Speaker 16: all the complicated tax code means. And I think that's
Speaker 16: why tax cutting a flat tax became a really salient message,
Speaker 16: which is that if you're trying to live your life,
Speaker 16: you have your full time job, you have your family,
Speaker 16: and if someone says to you, do you just want
Speaker 16: to pay a simple tax code and know that the
Speaker 16: code is fair, that you know your neighbor who's an
Speaker 16: accountant who knows the system is paying less just because
Speaker 16: they have that knowledge base. That's a really powerful message.
Speaker 16: But again, the flat rate cutters, and a lot of
Speaker 16: them like to talk about Ronald Reagan, they're like, Ronald
Speaker 16: Reagan was our hero, he was gonna do that, but
Speaker 16: you know, everybody else made the tax code more complicated. Well,
Speaker 16: the story of Republican politics, and you know, arguably democratic
Speaker 16: politics too, is that the powerful interest whenever you offer
Speaker 16: a tax cut are going to be able to find
Speaker 16: what they can do. They used to call the hallway
Speaker 16: outside of the Senate Budget Writing Room in the eighties
Speaker 16: Gucci Gulch because Bob Dole came out and he saw
Speaker 16: all the tax lobbyists wearing Gucci shoes and suits, and
Speaker 16: he would say, it's Gucci to Gucci in the whole way.
Speaker 5: Gucci.
Speaker 16: Yeah, and that's who wrote the nineteen eighty six tax
Speaker 16: cut bill.
Speaker 4: There you go. That says it all right.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: Tell people where they can find the series and take
Speaker 2: a listen so you can.
Speaker 16: Find it wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is
Speaker 16: levernews dot com and if you start Tax Revolt in
Speaker 16: your podcast players and lever time, you will find our podcast.
Speaker 4: Fantastic. Good to see you, Thank you.
Speaker 12: Yeah too, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: You're pleasure all right, guys. That does it for us.
Speaker 2: We are going to do an AMA live today, so
Speaker 2: if you want to be part of future amas, make
Speaker 2: sure to sign up at Breakingpoints dot com. I will
Speaker 2: see you back here with Dave Smith tomorrow and then
Speaker 2: we will go from there. Emily fun always.
Speaker 3: I'll see it too, because I'm going to be watching.
Speaker 4: Oh wait, there you go.
Speaker 5: I'll be fun.
Speaker 2: I was watching and Ryan's here, Just so you know,
Speaker 2: you watch everything I do. I do I genuinely like
Speaker 2: I learn and I'm.
Speaker 3: A fan, so I mean, how can you not learn
Speaker 3: from Ryan? The man is just a font of wisdom infinite.
Speaker 4: There is a lot. There is a lot going on
Speaker 4: in that brain, isn't there.
Speaker 5: Well, he'll be here on Wednesday. Dave is in tomorrow.
Speaker 5: Can't wait to see it.
Speaker 4: Yep, sounds good. All right, guys, have a great day.