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Speaker 1: Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making

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Speaker 1: it impossible to function as a society and to know

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Speaker 1: what is true and what is false. The good news

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Speaker 1: is that they're failing and they know it. That is

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Speaker 1: why we're building something new. Be part of creating a new, better, healthier,

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Speaker 1: member today at breakingpoints dot com. Your hard earned money

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Speaker 1: is going to help us build for the midterms and

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Speaker 1: the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage

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Speaker 1: of what is sure to be one of the most

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Speaker 1: pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for?

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Speaker 1: Go to Breakingpoints dot com to help us out. Hi

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Speaker 1: everyone before we get to our recorded show. Right after

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Speaker 1: we wrap, there appears to have been an apparent attack

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Speaker 1: in the city of New York in Brooklyn, multiple people

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Speaker 1: shot during rush hour. The FDNY is reporting multiple undetonated devices.

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Speaker 1: At least twelve thirteen people are known to have been

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Speaker 1: injured or have been shot Crystal, So obviously this is

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Speaker 1: a terrible tragedy. We wanted to make sure everybody was

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Speaker 1: aware and didn't want our tone to appear off at

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Speaker 1: this tragic and horrific event. Yeah, exactly, and I mean

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Speaker 1: this is very early phase details that we are getting

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Speaker 1: right now, but just wanted to send our thoughts and

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Speaker 1: our solidarity to New York. We are looking forward to

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Speaker 1: visiting the city. And with all of that, let's get

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Speaker 1: to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have

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Speaker 1: an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: we do a lot of big stories literally breaking this morning.

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Speaker 1: We are waiting to get the report on just how

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Speaker 1: high inflation has gone and what that spells for the

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Speaker 1: economy and what the Fed will do in response and

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Speaker 1: all of that. So we're going to break that down

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Speaker 1: in real time. Also, some new moves from Elon Musky

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Speaker 1: is not going to join the Twitter board. However, that

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Speaker 1: may make him sort of more of a menace to

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Speaker 1: the company and in respect, so will tell you about

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Speaker 1: that new COVID mandates mass mandates in Philadelphia, first major

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Speaker 1: city to reimpose mass mandates. So we'll break down the

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Speaker 1: direction of the country and COVID, and a great in

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Speaker 1: depth look at an epidemic of sadness among gen z

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Speaker 1: from our friend Derek Thompson over the Atlantic. He posits

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Speaker 1: a few reasons why that may be. Also sort of

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Speaker 1: debunks the myth that they're not really different, they just

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Speaker 1: are more comfortable sharing their feelings. But there is hard

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Speaker 1: data to point to a real problem among our young people.

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Speaker 1: So we will talk about that. But first bunch of

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Speaker 1: announcements for you guys. First of all, for our lifetime

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Speaker 1: members I know it's been a little while coming, I know,

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Speaker 1: but we promise you when you signed up that part

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Speaker 1: of what you get as a lifetime membership is you

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Speaker 1: will be a permanent part of the set. Took us

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Speaker 1: a while, more of you than we anticipated, However, we

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Speaker 1: finally got it done. We have plaques. What we're going

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Speaker 1: to do I think is by some we got some

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Speaker 1: easels on the warning. We're going to put them over

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Speaker 1: on the side of the set. So the end of

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Speaker 1: the show, every day, Cameron's will pan over to show

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Speaker 1: the names have all of our incredible lifetime members who

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Speaker 1: really I mean, you guys were the bedrock of building

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Speaker 1: this show from the ground up and we could not

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Speaker 1: possibly be more grateful, so thank you for your patience.

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Speaker 1: It did take us a while to figure out a

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Speaker 1: solution that was going to work but we're excited about it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we tried several different iterations and after different craftsmen. Also,

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Speaker 1: of course, we're committed to buying from a local business

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Speaker 1: and it has to be American made, much harder than

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Speaker 1: you might think in order to do business in this

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Speaker 1: country with actual American citizens. But it's all done laser printed.

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Speaker 1: As we promise. It will be part of the show

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Speaker 1: and it will be visible basically from our Monday show

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Speaker 1: on out because on Thursday we have a special show

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Speaker 1: live from New York City. Let's go and put this

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Speaker 1: up there on the screen. Make this graphic which I

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Speaker 1: don't know why, I have a little silly makes me

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Speaker 1: laugh with Kyle's face picking the front Marshall kind of

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Speaker 1: like cuddled up to you. Anyway, it's fine. We will

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Speaker 1: four of us will be live from the city of

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Speaker 1: New York on YouTube eleven am Eastern Standard Time on

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Speaker 1: the Breaking Points YouTube channel for those who are asking yes.

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Speaker 1: Of course, like our previous live show, it will be recorded.

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Speaker 1: You'll be able to listen to it as soon as possible.

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Speaker 1: Whenever we're wrapped, we'll rip the audio and we'll post

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Speaker 1: it on the podcast app as well. So you guys

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Speaker 1: will get your fix, and we'll cut it up into

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Speaker 1: a bunch of different clips, ideally to post on Friday,

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Speaker 1: maybe Saturday, so all of that stuff will be there

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Speaker 1: for the premium subscribers. Just a reminder, you guys are

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Speaker 1: programming the show. So we put out fifteen different options.

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Speaker 1: About five thousand or so of you have voted so far,

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Speaker 1: which some interesting results. Voting is going to close whence

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Speaker 1: should we close it tonight? Yeah, they close it. We'll

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Speaker 1: close it sometimes tonight, so it gives us a little

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Speaker 1: bit of time to go through the topics and sort

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Speaker 1: depth on these things. There you go. So there's a

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Speaker 1: Google form. It is in your premium newsletter, which James

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Speaker 1: has been working very very hard on. By the way,

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Speaker 1: thank you very much to all of the nice support

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Speaker 1: that we've got on the newsletter. It turns out you

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Speaker 1: guys love yeah written in the same kind of review

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Speaker 1: of the show. So you're gonna get that for everything

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Speaker 1: from every premium subscription here on out, So enjoy. And

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Speaker 1: if you haven't got the premium sbscription, what are you

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Speaker 1: waiting for? There we go. Yeah, And just as a

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Speaker 1: little teaser, for what it looks like the topics may

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Speaker 1: be you guys have some very substantive interest I have

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Speaker 1: to say, yeah, some of the sort of like more

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Speaker 1: political hot topics ones not getting much support really at all.

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Speaker 1: People are gravitating at least thus far. And we're about

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Speaker 1: five thousand votes in to really in depth, like issue

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Speaker 1: you guys respond to that in the show, but it

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Speaker 1: still is kind of cool to see what you all

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Speaker 1: are specifically interested in. So thank you to lifetime members.

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Speaker 1: We will periodically update the plaques, so if you do

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Speaker 1: still sign up for a lifetime membership, you will be added.

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Speaker 1: It will just you know, we'll wait for a sort

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Speaker 1: add them to the plaques and those will be a

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Speaker 1: permanent part of the set that you guys will see

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Speaker 1: every day. We're excited about the show in New York.

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Speaker 1: If you are a Premium member, go ahead and make

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Speaker 1: sure that you cast your vote today so we can

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Speaker 1: and incorporate your feedback into programming the show. I think

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Speaker 1: that is all the announcements we have for this morning,

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Speaker 1: so let's jump right in with the latest with regards

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Speaker 1: to Ukraine and Russia. And this is actually a really

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Speaker 1: big deal. Let's go ahead and throw this first tear

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Speaker 1: sheet up on the screen. It looks like Finland and

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Speaker 1: Sweden may join NATO as soon as this summer. This

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Speaker 1: is really an extraordinary turn for both of these countries,

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Speaker 1: Finland in particular. And this is the way Washington officials

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Speaker 1: are spinning this. They say Russia has made a massive

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Speaker 1: strategic blunder as Finland and Sweden look poised to join

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Speaker 1: NATO as early as the summer. Washington is banking on

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Speaker 1: the move that will stretch Russia's military and enlarge the

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Speaker 1: Western Alliance from thirty to thirty two members as a

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Speaker 1: direct consequence of President Putin's invasion of Ukraine. You know,

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Speaker 1: one thing that is pretty remarkable here to their point

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Speaker 1: about you know, if Russia's concern was NATO enlargement, this

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Speaker 1: is really tremendously backfired because support for joining NATO in

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Speaker 1: Finland in particular has skyrocketed, jumped up over the past month.

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Speaker 1: There was not even close to majority support with that

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Speaker 1: population previously, and now it's up about sixty two percent

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Speaker 1: in March. This obviously is significant because it would increase

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Speaker 1: the land border between NATO territory and Russia. It would

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Speaker 1: more than double from around currently seven hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: four miles to nearly sixteen hundred miles. It would also

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Speaker 1: this is from FP. It would also extend NATO's northern

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Speaker 1: flank across the full length of the border, very strategic

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Speaker 1: area where Russia's navy is a sizable chunk of it

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Speaker 1: is based. And by the way, there doesn't seem to

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Speaker 1: be any objections from NATO members at this point to

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Speaker 1: the idea of further enlarging the alliance. NATO members seemed

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Speaker 1: universally ready to welcome Sweden and Finland with open arms.

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Speaker 1: They're saying effectively that, you know, they'd be kind of

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Speaker 1: a package, even though obviously those country would kind of

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Speaker 1: determine their own fate individually. But the idea is that

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Speaker 1: they both bring a lot to bear, and obviously they're

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Speaker 1: sort of, you know, aligned, and so it makes sense

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Speaker 1: to bring them in together. But obviously this comes with,

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Speaker 1: you know, extraordinary risks. We've already seen the way that

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Speaker 1: NATO expansion has exacerbated tensions with Russia, and while Putin

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Speaker 1: is responsible for his own actions and his invasion into

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Speaker 1: Ukraine was nowhere near justified. It was a predictable response

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Speaker 1: to previous expansions of NATO. Russia is already being very

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Speaker 1: clear that they find this to be an untenable situation.

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Speaker 1: Let's put this BBC tear sheet up on the screen,

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Speaker 1: Ukraine War, Russia warns Sweden and Finland against NATO membership.

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Speaker 1: And we also put this map on the side that

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Speaker 1: shows you the countries that have joined NATO just since

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, fourteen of them you can see there Estonia, Latvia,

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Speaker 1: Lithuania and on and on, and so this would add

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Speaker 1: another to to that mix. Here's specifically what Russia is saying.

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Speaker 1: They've said everything is about mutual deterring and should one side,

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Speaker 1: and we consider NATO to be one side, be more

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Speaker 1: powerful than the other, especially in terms of nuclear arms,

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Speaker 1: then it will be considered a threat for the whole

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Speaker 1: architecture of security and it will take us to take

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Speaker 1: it will cause us to take additional measures. That is

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Speaker 1: from Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman said that to Sky News

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Speaker 1: on Friday. So it looks like this is almost fade accomplished.

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Speaker 1: It looks like there is very little resistance. It looks

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Speaker 1: like the populations of these countries have become firmly in

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Speaker 1: favor of joining NATO. I understand from their perspective why

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Speaker 1: they would want to do it. I do not understand

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Speaker 1: from our perspective why we want to continue to escalate

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Speaker 1: and ratchet of tensions with Russia. Yeah, and I think that. Look,

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Speaker 1: it's difficult to do this without standing callous. However, we

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Speaker 1: should consider the context through which this entire conflict erupted,

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Speaker 1: and NATO expansion was a key part of the impetus

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Speaker 1: that drove Putin's paranoid mindset and let it to the

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Speaker 1: unjustified invasion. Not blaming the United States, but we're also

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Speaker 1: not saying that the US did not have any role

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Speaker 1: whatsoever in setting the table through which this specific conflict erupted.

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Speaker 1: From which then begs the question, given what we know

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Speaker 1: now about Russian behavior and about NATO expansion, is expanding

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Speaker 1: NATO really still a good idea. Look Finland and Sweden,

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Speaker 1: if you're them, I get it. Both have actually been

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Speaker 1: invaded by Russia in the past. Both have a long

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Speaker 1: history of tension and defending their sovereignty and exchanging borders

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Speaker 1: and all of that. However, they do not get to decide.

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Speaker 1: The Swedish people do not get to decide where the

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Speaker 1: United States is going to launch a nuclear weapon on

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Speaker 1: their behalf. The Finnish people do not get to decide that.

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Speaker 1: The American people should get to decide that. And we

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Speaker 1: are missing the exact debate that we lacked in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and eight. Let's put this up there on the screen,

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Speaker 1: and this is important because this debate mirror is what

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Speaker 1: it is today. Fiona Hill, who is herself a russiagator,

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Speaker 1: actually says that she warned George W. Bush in the

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Speaker 1: Oval Office in two thousand and eight that offering Ukraine

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Speaker 1: NATO membership would be seen as a provocation by Putin.

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Speaker 1: Then Vice President Dick Cheney responded by asking her if

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Speaker 1: she hated freedom. As Maddie Haussen says, sounds like familiar

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Speaker 1: rhetoric to some of us today. Do I wish invasion

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Speaker 1: upon the Swedish people or the Finnish people? No, I've

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Speaker 1: been to Finland. Finland is in an awesome place, terrible food.

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Speaker 1: Just have to say it. But you put that out there,

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Speaker 1: and what we see is that that doesn't mean that

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Speaker 1: as Americans, we should be risking nuclear war on the

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Speaker 1: Finnish people's behalf. It can sound callous. You can stand

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Speaker 1: with somebody and also not want to sacrifice perhaps one

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Speaker 1: hundred million of your own citizens on behalf of them.

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Speaker 1: This is the cold language of real politics, which is

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Speaker 1: necessary in terms of strategic balancing. And I think your

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Speaker 1: point about how so many of these actions have been

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Speaker 1: taken with little to no debate is a really important

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Speaker 1: one and one that we keep trying to emphasize here

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Speaker 1: how quickly and how far and how fast the United

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Speaker 1: States has gone in the escalations with Russia with very

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Speaker 1: little public discussion or debate. It's just, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: completely off the table, and then all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: it's a done deal. And it feels very much like,

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is being announced as like it's already done,

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Speaker 1: when to your point, there should be a real debate

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Speaker 1: and discussion over the wisdom of this move, which also

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Speaker 1: was not done before offering Ukraine and Georgia NATO membership

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Speaker 1: back in that era. It is worth I think reading

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Speaker 1: the New York Times article with the specifics of this

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Speaker 1: anecdote from Fiona Hill, because it is so classic, they say.

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Speaker 1: In the Oval Office, Hill recalls, describing a scene that

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Speaker 1: has not been previously reported. She told Bush, Bush and

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Speaker 1: Vice President Cheney that offering a membership past Ukraine and

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Speaker 1: Georgia could be problematic. While Bush's appetite for promoting the

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Speaker 1: spread of democracy had not and dampened by the Iraq War,

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Speaker 1: President Putin of Russia viewed NATO with suspicion and was

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Speaker 1: vehemently opposed neighboring countries joining its ranks. He would regard

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Speaker 1: it as a provocation, which was one reason the US's

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Speaker 1: key NATO allies opposed the idea. Cheney took umbridge at

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Speaker 1: Hill's assessment. Quote, So you're telling me you're opposed to

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Speaker 1: freedom and democracy, she says, he snapped. According to Hill,

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Speaker 1: he then abruptly gathered his materials and walked out of

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Speaker 1: the Oval office. He's just yanking your change, she remembers

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Speaker 1: Bush telling her, go on with what you were saying.

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Speaker 1: But the President seemed confident he could win over the

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Speaker 1: other NATO leaders, saying, I like it when diplomacy is tough.

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Speaker 1: Ignoring the advice of Hill and the US intelligence community,

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Speaker 1: Bush announced in Bucharest that NATO should welcome you Georgia

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Speaker 1: and Ukraine into the membership action plan. So those are

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Speaker 1: the mistakes of the past. That again, it does not

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Speaker 1: justify Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. But there's a difference

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Speaker 1: between justification and saying that our actions created a predictable

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Speaker 1: conflict here, and that's exactly why we're facing now. One

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Speaker 1: thing that people are pointing out is, look, Ukraine used

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Speaker 1: to be part of the Soviet Union, Finland and Sweden weren't,

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Speaker 1: so there may be a little bit less of you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe a little less sort of agitating to Putin in

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Speaker 1: his vision of Russia's greatness and what their sphere of

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Speaker 1: influence should ultimately be. But you're talking about a sizable

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Speaker 1: increase in the land border that they are telling you

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Speaker 1: upfront they will consider to be a sort of provocation.

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Speaker 1: So this should be I mean, this should be a

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Speaker 1: huge debate. People should think very carefully about the consequences

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Speaker 1: of this, and instead it's just being presented by the press.

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Speaker 1: Is like, this is something that's happening, and who could

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Speaker 1: possibly object? Yeah, look at the risk is sounding like

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Speaker 1: one of those boomers. Our founders foresaw this and warned

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Speaker 1: about the risk of foreign entanglements abroad. John Quincy Adams,

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Speaker 1: we do not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

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Speaker 1: We also established under JQA the Monroe doctrine, under which

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Speaker 1: we would focus on our interests in the Western hemisphere

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Speaker 1: and to keep the European powers out, which is what

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Speaker 1: an entire se century of our foreign policy was oriented around.

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Speaker 1: So then we should understand how other countries can also

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Speaker 1: have their own version of that and can want strategic

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Speaker 1: breathing room in their geographical area. That does not mean

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Speaker 1: that I think it's okay for people to be subjugated,

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Speaker 1: but it also doesn't mean that we should downplay the risks.

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Speaker 1: And I just keep coming back to George Kennan, the

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Speaker 1: father of US containment policy in the Cold War, a

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Speaker 1: person who understood Russia probably better than any American for

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Speaker 1: or since, wrote this in nineteen ninety six. Let's put

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Speaker 1: this up there on the screenplase, which is this, expanding

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Speaker 1: NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy

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Speaker 1: in the entire post Cold War era. Such a decision

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Speaker 1: may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti Western militaristic

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Speaker 1: tendencies in Russian opinion, to have an adverse effect on

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Speaker 1: the development of Russian democracy, to restore the atmosphere of

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Speaker 1: the Cold War to East West relations, to impel Russian

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Speaker 1: foreign policy and directions, decidedly not to our liking. Last,

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Speaker 1: but not least, it might make it much more difficult,

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Speaker 1: if not impossible, to secure the Russian Duma's ratification of

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Speaker 1: the start To Treaty and to achieve further reductions of

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Speaker 1: nuclear weaponry. Basically, every sentence in that came true, every

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Speaker 1: single sentence. And I am just begging people, Let's have

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Speaker 1: the debate that we did not have when we expanded

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Speaker 1: NATO into the Baltic States. Let's have the debate that

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Speaker 1: we did not have in two thousand and eight when

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Speaker 1: NATO made an official policy pronouncement that Georgia and Ukraine

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Speaker 1: will be a part of NATO. There's an excellent op

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Speaker 1: ed in the New York Times today by Putins called

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Speaker 1: Putin's War in Ukraine is watershed Time for America to

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Speaker 1: get real. His name is darl Doctor Charles Kupchen is

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Speaker 1: an international affairs professor at Georgetown. He's a realist, and

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Speaker 1: what you actually can point to in doctor Cupchin's op

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Speaker 1: ed is that the invitation of NATO membership to Sokosphilia

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Speaker 1: Georgia in two thousand and eight invited an action on

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Speaker 1: his behalf that he thought the West was a lot

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Speaker 1: more with him than he originally thought, so he launched

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Speaker 1: operations in South a Sessia. That is what then prompted

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Speaker 1: the putin and I'm not justifying it, incursion into Georgia

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Speaker 1: and the takeover of that area, and then Sachosphieli was

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Speaker 1: shocked when the West didn't actually have his back. So

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Speaker 1: the point is is that these grey area pronouncements about

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Speaker 1: who isn't going to be NATO and not can actually

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Speaker 1: increase uncertainty and risk and give people the wrong opinion

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Speaker 1: on all sides. Same thing in terms of Finland and Sweden.

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Speaker 1: It would require a two thirds verte vote in the

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Speaker 1: United States Senate in order to ratify that as a treaty. Previously,

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Speaker 1: these things have sailed through North Macedonia. Do you remember

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Speaker 1: ever deciding whether you wanted to send your kids to

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Speaker 1: go abroad and die from North Macedonia. I don't remember

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Speaker 1: having that discussion, and that happened in the last couple

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Speaker 1: of years. This is exactly the debate we have to

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Speaker 1: have right now over Finland over Sweden. We had extraordinarily

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Speaker 1: huge debates in our history, going back to the League

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Speaker 1: of Nations and lodges, lodges reservations, to Wilson's fourteen points,

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Speaker 1: this became a national policy through which we tried to

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Speaker 1: understand what treaty obligations will the United States have? What

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Speaker 1: does it mean for American boys and blood? And we

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Speaker 1: lost that in the post Cold War era. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: have lost that. And I think that's a part of

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Speaker 1: a larger trend that we've talked about here a number

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Speaker 1: of times with regards to the Federal Reserve and any

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Speaker 1: number of other critical US domestic and foreign policy decisions,

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Speaker 1: which is that there's been this anti populist pushback that

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Speaker 1: has said, this is all too complicated for you all

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Speaker 1: to understand, so don't worry about it. Let the experts

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Speaker 1: handle it, the one with the PhDs and Foreign Affairs

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Speaker 1: and the relevant experience. Let them make the decisions, and

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Speaker 1: you all just trust us, Just trust us. Well, No,

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Speaker 1: this is what a democracy is all about, is citizens

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Speaker 1: engaging and informing themselves and actually having input on what

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Speaker 1: are incredibly consequential decisions. As you put it, even putting

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Speaker 1: Russia aside, Are you prepared to extend that those treaty

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Speaker 1: obligations to two more countries that say if those countries

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Speaker 1: are attacked, we will be at war, period, end of story.

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Speaker 1: Are you ready to do that? I mean, at the

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Speaker 1: very least we should be having a conversation about what

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Speaker 1: that means. And that goes back to my frustration with

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Speaker 1: the press coverage of this war which has not been

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Speaker 1: serious minded at all, which has not helped to inform

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Speaker 1: the American people about the potential consequences and backlash of

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Speaker 1: some of these extraordinary decisions that are being made in

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Speaker 1: a very short period of time with very little, very

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Speaker 1: few dissenting voices. So this is another one that is

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Speaker 1: being presented as a done deal, but it is not.

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Speaker 1: So make sure that if you have an opinion on this,

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Speaker 1: you are making that opinion heard loud and clear. Yeah. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's go ahead and move on to this next one.

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Speaker 1: This one we want to treat very sensitively, but I

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Speaker 1: do want to flag it for all of you, because

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Speaker 1: as obviously the potential in order to go big. So

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Speaker 1: let's set the stage. Let's put this up there on

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Speaker 1: the screen, which is that yesterday there was a report

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Speaker 1: from the Azov Battalion Azov Regiment. This is from the

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Speaker 1: Kiev Independent should know. At the top is one of

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Speaker 1: those white nationalist battalions, which is part of the Ukrainian military.

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Speaker 1: They reported what they said could be the Russian use

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Speaker 1: of chemical weapons against entrenched garrison in the city Ukraine. Garrison.

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Speaker 1: They said an unidentified agent was delivered with the UAV

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Speaker 1: and it revealed effects including respiratory and vestibular failures. Put

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Speaker 1: the next one up there. Now there has been no

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Speaker 1: independent confirmation of this claim whatsoever. Now why does this matter?

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Speaker 1: Because a use of chemical weapon would be a pretext

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Speaker 1: through which there has already been declarations by NATO heads

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Speaker 1: of state, including the President Biden, the US intelligence community,

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Speaker 1: the United Kingdom, whose Foreign minister actually responded saying that

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Speaker 1: if this was true, it would lead to a clear

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Speaker 1: line that was drawn in the sand by the UK

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Speaker 1: and by NATO, could invite further escalation on behalf of

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Speaker 1: the West. And why I think that this is incredibly

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Speaker 1: messy is I would not put it past the Russians

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Speaker 1: in order to do something like this, but the people

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Speaker 1: who are claiming that they did so are Let's be honest,

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Speaker 1: this is the far right wing of the Ukrainian military.

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Speaker 1: We are not saying the entire Ukrainian military are Nazis.

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Speaker 1: That's a ridiculous Russian talking point. They are a small percentage. However,

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Speaker 1: they are a percentage and are a real element that

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Speaker 1: are fighting within this war that President's Lenski himself has

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Speaker 1: accepted as part of the coalition. Let's just be honest

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Speaker 1: about that. That doesn't diminish the justness of the Ukrainian cause.

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Speaker 1: But if they are going to be the ones to

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Speaker 1: claim this, then there needs to be a hell of

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Speaker 1: a lot of independent confirmation and skepticism on your part,

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Speaker 1: because it's very clear that there would be a benefit

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Speaker 1: to them and to the Ukrainian cause obviously if a

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Speaker 1: chemical weapons charge was proven or accepted by the West,

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Speaker 1: because it would possibly invite a military escalation on behalf

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Speaker 1: of the United States, I say this is not a conspiracy.

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Speaker 1: I'm looking at it with as cold hard real politic

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Speaker 1: glasses as possible. I'm not diminishing past use of chemical weapons.

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Speaker 1: I'm just stating the blatant fact that if it were

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Speaker 1: confirmed and it did lead to a mis military escalation

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Speaker 1: on behalf of the US, that that would obviously benefit

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Speaker 1: one side in this conflict, and I'm not saying that

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Speaker 1: they would make it up, but it is possible, and

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Speaker 1: thus we should trust, but verify, or more we should verify, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in terms of what exactly is happening. He here probably

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Speaker 1: mistrust and fair mistrust and verify and then verify it

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Speaker 1: again in order to make sure that this happens before

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Speaker 1: we walk into anything. So we just wanted to set

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Speaker 1: the stage because this is starting to spiral a little bit.

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Speaker 1: This is really dangerous and very important to keep a

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Speaker 1: close eye on because you've already had US hawks, foremost

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Speaker 1: among them Liz Cheney saying that chemical weapons use in

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Speaker 1: Ukraine would be a quote red line for NATO involvement

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Speaker 1: directly in Ukraine. And you can bet that if chemical

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Speaker 1: weapons use was proven or was positive even you know,

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Speaker 1: confirmed by your US intelligence agencies, which you should continue

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Speaker 1: to take with a grain of salt, if they did that,

433
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 1: you would hear more voices added to that, Liz chaining

434
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:09,760
Speaker 1: chorus of Okay, now we have to go in. This

435
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:12,240
Speaker 1: is a red line. We can't allow this to stand.

436
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:16,240
Speaker 1: And so to your point about the Aza battalion and

437
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:20,880
Speaker 1: their incentives and their motivations here. This is putting aside

438
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:26,359
Speaker 1: their neo Nazi affiliation. This is a hard line, right

439
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: wing ultra nationalist group. This political strain within Ukraine is

440
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:37,199
Speaker 1: a major obstacle for Zelensky to try to come to

441
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:41,120
Speaker 1: a negotiated settlement. They do not want a negotiated settlement.

442
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: They want all out victory and they do not want

443
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 1: to give up, you know, even the semblance of a

444
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,160
Speaker 1: square inch of Ukrainian territory. These are the hardliners, the

445
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:53,359
Speaker 1: most difficult ones to sort of bring to heal and

446
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:58,119
Speaker 1: bring to the table. So that's why they have an incentive.

447
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 1: And again we're not saying that this is the case,

448
00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 1: but they have an incentive to try to do whatever

449
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:06,720
Speaker 1: they can to pull the West further into this conflict.

450
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 1: And I also, I mean, you have to keep in

451
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:12,800
Speaker 1: mind this is an existential fight for Ukraine. And when

452
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:15,919
Speaker 1: you're backed into a corner and your backup is up

453
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: against the wall and the fate of your family and

454
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 1: your kids and your homeland and everything is on the line,

455
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be surprised when extraordinary measures are taken to

456
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: try to secure your life, your land, your family, et cetera.

457
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 1: So as you're watching all of this unfold and this

458
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: conversation move forward, and I saw this morning. I think

459
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: that the UK and Australia are investigating these claims to

460
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:45,640
Speaker 1: try to determine whether or not they are true. Keep

461
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 1: in mind what the political motivations here are of everyone involved.

462
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: Z Lenski himself, in his address yesterday he gives you

463
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: a daily address to his people did not say that

464
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: chemical weapons had been so even he is not going

465
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:05,439
Speaker 1: this far. But again, this is very dangerous. One of

466
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 1: the things that we know NATO members have been debating

467
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: is would it constitute an attack on NATO territory if

468
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: you had something like a chemical weapons attack where there

469
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: were reverberating impacts in NATO countries, what would that look like.

470
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: So you're walking up to a very dangerous line here. Yeah,

471
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:25,119
Speaker 1: that's right, and I just think that all of us

472
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: should be skeptical. We should try and look for the facts.

473
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: As we all saw in Syria, these things move extraordinarily

474
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:34,120
Speaker 1: quickly when they can, and the consequences of that while

475
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: in Syria were fine because Syria doesn't have nuclear weapons

476
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: and also isn't you know, pure competitive state on a

477
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: military standpoint, Russia is, and so that is what makes

478
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:46,119
Speaker 1: this all the more complicated. We have to see a

479
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,880
Speaker 1: hell of a lot of evidence before anything should be done,

480
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: and even then we should all have a debate as

481
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: to the ramifications about what's happening. That is not to

482
00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: diminish what is a possible use. However, you know, everything

483
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 1: remained very much in the gray area. As you said,

484
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 1: Zelenski himself is not claiming this. The British Foreign Office

485
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 1: says that they're investigating it, and that is where things

486
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,960
Speaker 1: stand as of right now. We'll keep you guys updated

487
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:14,360
Speaker 1: because the ramifications of this could be extraordinary and it's

488
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 1: one of those things that the media is actually not

489
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 1: spending a whole lot of time on right now, but

490
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: could in the future. Yeah, if it makes it an

491
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 1: official claim. And just to be more specific, I found

492
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:24,920
Speaker 1: some more details about Zelenski's comments. He said in his

493
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,360
Speaker 1: daily video address late Monday that Russia forces could use

494
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 1: chemical weapons in Ukraine, but did not say that they

495
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: had used them already. In terms of our government, Pentagon

496
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: Press secretary yesterday said we are aware of social media

497
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,640
Speaker 1: reports which claimed Russian forces deployed a potential chemical munition

498
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:44,159
Speaker 1: in Maria. Paul Ukraine cannot confirm at this time and

499
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: will continue to monitor the situation closely. So those are

500
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 1: the official communications coming out both from the Ukrainian government

501
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 1: and from our own government. That's right. Okay, let's move

502
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: on to a more fun story. Elon Musk and Twitter.

503
00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: What a whirlwind of things that have happened here. So

504
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: we brought you previously the news that Elon Musk had

505
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,120
Speaker 1: bought about a nine point seven percent steak in Twitter,

506
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: which makes him officially the largest shareholder of that company.

507
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: That spawned all sorts of takes because Elon has much

508
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 1: more of a free speech view and wants to change

509
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: the product. So then Twitter announced that after discussion with Elon,

510
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: the CEO said that Elon Musk would be joining the

511
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 1: board of directors. Now why that's important is because Elon,

512
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:25,360
Speaker 1: if he joined the board of directors, would be subject

513
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 1: to fiduciary responsibilities as a member of the board, meaning

514
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 1: that he could not take actions publicly which could possibly

515
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: impact the stock price, which would open up a up

516
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:37,879
Speaker 1: shareholder lawsuits. But number two, and this was underreported, was

517
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: that as part of his shareholder agreement with the board

518
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: of directors, was he said is that he would not

519
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,880
Speaker 1: acquire more than a fourteen point nine percent stake in

520
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: the company, meaning that he would not increase his ownership stake,

521
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: which could then lead to the grounds for a hostile takeover.

522
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: That was the ground that was set until yesterday morning,

523
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 1: when Paragh Garwall made a shock announcement. He's the CEO

524
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:04,399
Speaker 1: of Twitter. Let's put this up there on the screen.

525
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: He says, Elon has decided not to join our board.

526
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 1: Now here's the note that he sent to his team,

527
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 1: and I'm going to read a lot of this. Elon

528
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: Musk has decided not to join our board. Here's I

529
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: can share what happened. The board and I had many

530
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 1: discussions about Elon joining the board. With Elon directly, we

531
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: were excited to collaborate and clear about the risk. We

532
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: also believed having Elon as a fiduciary of the company,

533
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:27,359
Speaker 1: where he, like all board members, has to act in

534
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: the best interest of the company in our shareholders, was

535
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: the best path forward. The board offered him a seat.

536
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: We announced on Tuesday Elon will be appointed the board,

537
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: contingent on a background check and formal acceptance. Elon's appointment

538
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: to the board was to become officially effective on four

539
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: to nine, but Elon shared that same morning he will

540
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: no longer be joining the board. I believe this is

541
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: for the best. We have and will always value input

542
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: from our shareholders, whether they are on the board or not.

543
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 1: Elon is our biggest shareholder. We will remain open to

544
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: his input. There will be distractions ahead, but our goals

545
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: and priorities remain unchanged. The decisions we make, how we

546
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 1: execute is in our hands, no one else's. Let's tune

547
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: out the noise and stay focused on the work and

548
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: what we're building. All eyes on that last paragraph. There

549
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: will be distractions ahead. Sound be honest. There is a

550
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: particular little hint as to what happened. Let's put this

551
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: up there on the screen, which is Elon actually deleted

552
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: a lot of his tweets which were critical of the

553
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:32,959
Speaker 1: Twitter product, but a very conspicuous like which said this

554
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: in response, let me break this down for you. Elon

555
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: became large shareholder for free speech. Elon was told to

556
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: play nice and not to speak freely, and Musk actually

557
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: liked that tweet. Now, the reason that this matters, Crystal,

558
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and put the CNBC piece up on

559
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: the screen is that Elon is no longer bound now

560
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: by the agreement that he made with the board not

561
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: to take up to a fourteen point nine percent stake

562
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: in the company. He could now if he wanted to

563
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: pursue a hostile takeover of the company, where he could

564
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 1: acquire as much of a share as he wanted within

565
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: the company and then cobble together other pieces with large

566
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: shareholders or possibly even retail shareholders, and force changes both

567
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: at the CEO board level, but also in terms of

568
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 1: governance at the company itself. So this could have an

569
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 1: extraordinary impact on Twitter the company. Now the real question,

570
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: obviously everyone's asking is why should I care? Well? Because Twitter, yes,

571
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 1: by only having three hundred million daily active users, is

572
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: disproportionately impactful on the elites of news, of politics, sports,

573
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: pretty much everything. And so with that disproportioned impact, their

574
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 1: content policy, how the company is run, and more, has

575
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 1: a huge impact on the way that you receive information

576
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: from basically all aspects of your entire life. Yeah, I mean,

577
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: just to be you know, give you one really specific example.

578
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 1: Is Trump going to be on Twitter during the next campaign? Right?

579
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: I mean, just that decision alone, it's extraordinarily consequential, and

580
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: it's not just the possibility that Elon could execute a

581
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 1: hostile takeover here, it's also that if he was sitting

582
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: on the board, he would have a fiduciary responsibility to

583
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: act in the best interests of the company and of

584
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: its shareholders. Specifically, now that he's not at the board

585
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: on the board, he's not under that obligation, so it

586
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to go so far as a hostile takeover,

587
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: you can understand. So I can understand why, you know,

588
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: the CEO, the board members, the other major shareholders. I

589
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: can understand why they're nervous about this, because ultimately, regardless

590
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 1: of how you feel about, you know, Elon's ideology versus

591
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: Prague Agro Wall, this is also about control, and it's

592
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 1: about power, and it's about who actually is directing the

593
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: future of this platform, which is extraordinarily significant and central

594
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 1: to our ability to communicate and the way elites process

595
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 1: information in this country. So I understand why they're kind

596
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: of freaked out. But there's a lot of reporting of

597
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: like employees freaking out, which makes a little bit less

598
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 1: sense to me. I mean, I guess ultimately it's also

599
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 1: you know, they are they're probably more comfortable with Perrague's

600
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: interpretation of you know, his basic rejection of the First

601
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,719
Speaker 1: Amendment and free speech. So they are nervous about what

602
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 1: this will ultimately mean from them. I mean, you guys know,

603
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: my overall view is, you know, I feel about Elon

604
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 1: the way I feel about every billionaire. They are acting

605
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: in their own self interest. He has used Twitter in

606
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 1: ways that has been sanctioned by the SEC, even in

607
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 1: this deal. Let's go ahead and put the next element

608
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,719
Speaker 1: up on the screen. So he waited to file his

609
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 1: disclosures with the SEC eleven days, So he was eleven

610
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: days late in publicly declaring that he had amassed a

611
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: large stake in Twitter. So once you acquire a certain amount,

612
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: you're supposed to immediately publicly disclose that. So he was

613
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 1: eleven days late in doing that. While he was doing that,

614
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 1: he continued to acquire Twitter stock at that low price. Then,

615
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: once after belatedly his stake is disclosed. Of course, the

616
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 1: Twitter stock price went through the roof, and he personally

617
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 1: benefited to the tune of one hundred and fifty nine

618
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: million dollars one hundred and fifty six Sorry, So here's

619
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. Elon must delayed filing a form and

620
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 1: made one hundred and fifty six million dollars. I mean

621
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: this is this is securities fraud. Whether it was intentional

622
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: or incidental, he ends up, as billionaires always do, on top.

623
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 1: Even if the SEC ends up finding him for this,

624
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: he made one hundred and fifty six million dollars. The

625
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: fine is liable to be a couple of one hundred

626
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: thousand at the most, So he makes a massive profit here.

627
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: And this hearkens back to other ways he has used

628
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 1: Twitter to his own benefit. Back in twenty eighteen, he

629
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: had to enter into a consent decree with the Securities

630
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 1: Exchange Commission for allegedly misleading investors when he tweeted he'd

631
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 1: gathered enough funding to take Tesla private. Must paid a

632
00:33:57,200 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 1: twenty million dollars fine and agreed to step down as

633
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 1: chairman and vet his tweets with lawyers. Last month, he

634
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: asked the SEC to scrap that agreement. He also has

635
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: pushed the rules by pulling his Twitter followers on whether

636
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: he should sell a ten percent stake in Tesla, and

637
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal also reported in February the SEC

638
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: was investigating a stock sale by Mus's brother. A day

639
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:19,879
Speaker 1: before that tweet. All of this is to say that

640
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: he may be genuinely committed to free speech, but also

641
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 1: keep in mind that his free speech on Twitter is

642
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: something that he has used in order to profit him directly.

643
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 1: My overall view here is that with all of these

644
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: tech companies, these tech giants, and the problems that they

645
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: have created for discourse in the public square, the answer

646
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 1: is not going to be to sort of like libertarian

647
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: entrepreneur our way out of it. There's going to have

648
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 1: to be government regulation because we cannot depend on the

649
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 1: whims of which billionaire happens to be at the helm

650
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: for when all of our public discourse ultimately depends on

651
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 1: these platforms. So if he wants to get involved in

652
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: being part of that broader solution and not just sort

653
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: of screwing around with Twitter here, that would be something

654
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: I would be much more interesting. Yeah, And part of

655
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 1: the issue too is assembling a hostile takeover like coalition

656
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: would just be very difficult. I want to hand pull

657
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 1: to who the other top investors are in the company.

658
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: It's Vanguard, Morgan, Stanley, Blackrock, and State Street. Cool. Good

659
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:21,360
Speaker 1: luck convincing them in order to join a coalition so

660
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 1: that you can enforce more free speech policy. All of

661
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: those people benefit from not having more free speech on

662
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:30,760
Speaker 1: the platform. The other issue here, which is kind of interesting,

663
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 1: is that Twitter's governance structure is actually set up differently

664
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:38,840
Speaker 1: than all other companies. So, for example, Facebook and Google

665
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 1: are set up such that Zuckerberg and Sergei Brinn and

666
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 1: I'm forgetting his name is Larry Page all have mega

667
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 1: controlling voting power in the company, meaning that even though

668
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: they don't own the vast majority of shares, they set

669
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: it up as a Class A and a Class B structure,

670
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 1: where Class B shares have ten times of voting power

671
00:35:57,040 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 1: of a Class A share, which means that they'll always

672
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: remain in total of what they can do. Twitter does

673
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: not have that because they don't have a single founder,

674
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 1: they had a founding team, and they've had a real

675
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,319
Speaker 1: massive government structure, so they're actually much more rife for

676
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: hostile takeovers. But it also makes it so that all

677
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 1: these investors can throw their weight around so that there

678
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:16,320
Speaker 1: could be a big fight. Here is more what I'm saying,

679
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 1: Elon is not the de facto winner by any means.

680
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 1: There's also I mean, there's also a real possibility that

681
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: he's basically just trolling. I mean, oh yeah, definitely, you know,

682
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 1: I mean, that's certainly a possibility here. Is he's just

683
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: being sort of a shit disturber and trolling and throwing

684
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 1: his billionaire weight around because I mean, listen, this is

685
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 1: a guy who's got a lot of other stuff going on.

686
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 1: Is he really like if you were going to actually

687
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: do the hostile takeover and then you know, influence them

688
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: in this way or that way and sort of take

689
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 1: control of the home like that takes a lot of

690
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: time and a lot of focus. And he's certainly got

691
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:50,759
Speaker 1: the money to do it. But does he have the

692
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:54,960
Speaker 1: personal bandwidth or desire to make that core part of

693
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: what he's up to. I think that's a big building

694
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 1: two other companies. The vast majority of his attention should

695
00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 1: be on tests on SpaceX. I frankly prefer it that way,

696
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 1: but you know, it's interesting. Nonetheless, I am enjoying the

697
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 1: Twitter employees freaking out. All right, guys, we have some

698
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 1: breaking news right now this morning, which is we got

699
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:17,359
Speaker 1: the very latest in terms of inflation numbers, and I'm

700
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 1: reading now from a Heatherlaw and washing Post economics reporter

701
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:24,399
Speaker 1: on what those numbers are. She says US inflation hit

702
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 1: eight point five percent in March. That is the highest

703
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: level since the end of nineteen eighty one. It was

704
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: a great year this year. I was have born in

705
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: high gas prices accounted for half the March March inflation.

706
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: Spite gas prices peaked on March eleventh, rising food and

707
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 1: rent prices also hurt. Wages were up five point six

708
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,480
Speaker 1: percent in the past year, and if you can do

709
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:48,839
Speaker 1: basic math, you can see that that does not even

710
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 1: come close to keeping up with inflation. So we were

711
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 1: prepped for this rather dire report that shows an extraordinary

712
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 1: continued increase in It's really not too much of a surprise,

713
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:04,799
Speaker 1: given that on top of all of the issues we

714
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 1: are already having with supply chain shocks and all the rent,

715
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: corporate greed and all the rest that you add on

716
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: top of that, now a war which is causing increased

717
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: gas prices, further increased food prices. We covered yesterday the

718
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: world food prices have shot up to a historic high.

719
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: And you know, it shouldn't be surprised to anyone that

720
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:27,879
Speaker 1: we're having these horrific inflation numbers coming out this month.

721
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: Jensaki actually sort of tried to lay the groundwork for

722
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:35,399
Speaker 1: this yesterday in her own annoying little way. Let's listen

723
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: to what she had to say. So, because of the

724
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 1: actions we've taken to address the Putin price hike, we

725
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 1: are in a better place than we were last month.

726
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: But we expect March CPA CPI headline inflation to be

727
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:52,280
Speaker 1: extraordinarily elevated due to Putin's price hike. And we expect

728
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: a large difference between core and headline inflation, reflecting the

729
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 1: global disruptions and energy and food market. So core inflation

730
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:04,359
Speaker 1: does include energy and food prices. Headline inflation does, and

731
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 1: of course we know that core inflation energy. The impact

732
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 1: of energy of course on oil prices gas prices, we

733
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 1: expect that to continue to reflect what we've seen the

734
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,319
Speaker 1: increases be over the course of this invasion, and just

735
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: as an example, since President Putin's military build up accelerated

736
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,840
Speaker 1: in January, average gas prices are up more than eighty cents.

737
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 1: Most of the increase occurred in the month of March,

738
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:30,000
Speaker 1: and at times gas prices were more than a dollar

739
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,880
Speaker 1: above pre invasion level, so that roughly twenty five percent

740
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: increasing gas prices will drive tomorrow's inflation reading and certainly

741
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:39,879
Speaker 1: it's not a surprise to us, but we certainly think

742
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 1: it will be reflected. The putin price I thing really

743
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 1: annoys the crop on because it's so cringe to start with.

744
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: And second of all, we're not stupid. I mean we

745
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: remember that inflation started long before Russia's war in Ukraine.

746
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:58,840
Speaker 1: Is it making a situation worse? Yes, but God, have

747
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,400
Speaker 1: some basic respect for the American people and level with

748
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 1: them about what is actually going on. Here. One more

749
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: piece of data that is significant about the inflation report,

750
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 1: and this is from Neil Irwin, who's chief economic correspondent

751
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 1: at Axios. He says, the most worrying thing is that

752
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 1: services excluding energy services are also up point six percent,

753
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: and that has accelerated that price increase each of the

754
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: last three months. So he says, even of durable goods

755
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 1: and energy prices stabilized, that suggests real broadening of underlying inflation. So,

756
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,359
Speaker 1: just to break that down a little bit, what has

757
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 1: been driving inflation previously was not services because you know,

758
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: people were locked down from COVID and so they were

759
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: using their money to buy things goods, and that was

760
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 1: part of what was driving up the prices. So the

761
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: thought was Okay, Well, once things sort of level out

762
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 1: and we get these supply chain issues worked out, we

763
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:53,919
Speaker 1: can kind of stabilize again and inflation will go back down.

764
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 1: But when you see services those prices also starting to increase,

765
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,680
Speaker 1: that indicates you have a broader problem than just the

766
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 1: supply chain issues. So all of this adds up to

767
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,360
Speaker 1: a very worrying situation, and it also means the Fed

768
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,720
Speaker 1: is going to be under more pressure to hike interest

769
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: rates more quickly and to rid themselves get assets off

770
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: of their balance sheet more quickly, which also has a

771
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 1: massive tightening effect. We talked to you last week about

772
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 1: how their comments, even from the most dubvish members of

773
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: the FEDS, essentially say they're going to be doing both

774
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: of those things at a rapid pace. We found at

775
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: the meetings from the last the minutes from the last

776
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:37,320
Speaker 1: meeting when they hiked interest rates a quarter of percent,

777
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 1: that there were a number of members who wanted to

778
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: go further than that. So that's the other question is

779
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 1: with the Fed looking at this information, it makes it

780
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 1: more likely that they tighten quicker, and that makes it

781
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 1: more likely that they tip us into recession. Yeah, and

782
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: just to give you guys, an idea inflation is actually accelerating,

783
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 1: because inflation in February was up zero point eight percent.

784
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 1: In March it was up one point two percent in

785
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 1: a single month. And if you think about how that

786
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: compounds from October it was point nine, then point seven,

787
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: then point six, then point six, ten point eight, now

788
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: one point two. As it continues to escalate, you can

789
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:13,319
Speaker 1: just see the compounding effect of food price, gas price,

790
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: now service price. Everything is going up. The food inflation

791
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:20,880
Speaker 1: is actually up eight point eight percent. That's the largest

792
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:25,359
Speaker 1: twelve month increase since the period of May nineteen eighty one.

793
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: And combine that, obviously with gas prices, and it's a

794
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: total disaster. I mean, people are just getting continually hammered

795
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: in such a destructive way. When you consider that most

796
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: Americans spend the vast majority of their income on housing, food,

797
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 1: and gas, and when you have all three of those

798
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 1: go up five point six measily, increase in wage is

799
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: not going to do a single thing. So, look, we

800
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: have big problems in this country right now. I mean,

801
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 1: even on the gas price part of the issue. And

802
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 1: again I know it's unpopular to talk about it, but

803
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:59,399
Speaker 1: we've you know, crude oil prices have actually gone down.

804
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 1: And yeah, but your gas price has not really gone

805
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:04,839
Speaker 1: down that much. The average price is still four dollars

806
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,719
Speaker 1: a gallon. You know why, gas stations actually make the

807
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,840
Speaker 1: most profits when oil prices fall, so a lot of

808
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 1: people are keeping their gas prices high. Now, look, am

809
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 1: I going to sit here and demonize some guy who's

810
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 1: you know, convenience store owner or whatever. He's probably been

811
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:22,840
Speaker 1: hammered all throughout COVID, you know, got wrecked needs the profit.

812
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: I get it, But I'm saying that on a broader

813
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: structural level, we have a big problem here because you

814
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 1: the increase in these services inflation too. I mean, I'm

815
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:34,839
Speaker 1: sure you've seen this as too, Crystal. I've been hearing

816
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:36,239
Speaker 1: from people, you know, if you want to get your

817
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: house fixed or something like that, good luck, fifty percent increase.

818
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:43,239
Speaker 1: They could charge whatever they want. Cars obviously the same thing.

819
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 1: The amount of power that some of these people have

820
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 1: and are using in order to increase price even more

821
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 1: so than inflation, makes it so that people are in

822
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: a really really tough bind right now because they're just

823
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: not making more money, but everything costs more, and that just,

824
00:43:57,360 --> 00:43:59,760
Speaker 1: I mean, that really hurts a lot of people's household

825
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:03,239
Speaker 1: balance sheets, and it really affects quality of life. I mean, people, look,

826
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 1: if there's a recession, you should remember that people die,

827
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 1: like people kill themselves during recessions. People die out of

828
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 1: lack of health care and you know, inability in order

829
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 1: to afford certain types of medicine they don't buy as

830
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 1: nutritious food. Mental health suffers dramatically, alcohol and drug use

831
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 1: goes up. It's not a joke, you know, it's really not. Yeah,

832
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 1: And part of the reason why the landscape is so

833
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: distressing right now is because effectively the only economic tools

834
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:33,719
Speaker 1: we have at our disposal are the FED, because Congress

835
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: is so broken and unable to respond to literally anything,

836
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 1: so you have to rely on the FED to get

837
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:44,239
Speaker 1: inflation under control, which is obviously a massive issue for

838
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:47,120
Speaker 1: working people trying to make ends meet every single month.

839
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: I mean, it is by far the number one concern

840
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 1: for voters going to the polls, and just for you know,

841
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 1: ordinary families trying to serve five And the fed's instruments

842
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:59,919
Speaker 1: are very blunt, and the fed's instruments take a why

843
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: for you to see the impact, so that means it's

844
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:06,320
Speaker 1: very easy for them to overshoot the mark they're trying

845
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 1: to bring in the economy for what they call a

846
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: soft landing, okay, meaning that you slowly tighten things up,

847
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:15,799
Speaker 1: tighten things up, and hopefully it sort of you know,

848
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: gets inflation under control without triggering that recession. But that

849
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:25,439
Speaker 1: is no easy task, especially when during COVID they went

850
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:30,440
Speaker 1: even further than they had gone during the financial crash

851
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: of two thousand and eight, they acquired through quantitative easing

852
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: an extraordinary amount. It's like thirty three percent of GDP

853
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:42,640
Speaker 1: of assets on their balance sheet, and so it's not

854
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:46,640
Speaker 1: just a question of how quickly they raise interest rates,

855
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 1: and a report like this will certainly push them towards

856
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:52,680
Speaker 1: hiking them a lot more quickly. But when you also

857
00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 1: are unwindening that balance sheet at a more escalated pace,

858
00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:00,440
Speaker 1: that also has the equivalent effect of even further hiking

859
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 1: interest rates. So that's why you're seeing more and more

860
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 1: economists warning that we're heading towards recession. You're seeing more

861
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 1: and more people who we don't necessarily love, but who

862
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 1: are definitely invested in the future of the economy, people

863
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:18,720
Speaker 1: like Jamie Diamond and others looking at this and saying,

864
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 1: you know, this is a very tough landscape. You've had massive,

865
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:28,520
Speaker 1: ascive price inflation, and it's it's a dangerous situation right now.

866
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 1: It really truly is this inflation report. It's gonna hurt

867
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 1: food prices being so high, gas prices continuing to be

868
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:38,720
Speaker 1: so high. Wage is not even close to keeping pace.

869
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:41,799
Speaker 1: And then you have this pushing the Fed towards more

870
00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 1: dramatic action, which could very well tip the country into recession.

871
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 1: So it really is truly a pretty dire landscape, and

872
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: we got a much better picture of it with this

873
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:52,880
Speaker 1: inflation report this morning. Yeah, I feel really bad for

874
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 1: a lot of working people out there. Okay, let's move

875
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 1: on here. It's COVID. You thought COVID was done, but

876
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 1: some people just won't let it go. Put this up

877
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:05,560
Speaker 1: there on the screen. The City of Philadelphia is reimposing

878
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 1: the indoor mask mandate based upon its own criteria, which

879
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:15,800
Speaker 1: is actually further than CDC guidance. Philadelphia for the moment

880
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:20,240
Speaker 1: has roughly a twenty five percent of the case hospitalization

881
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,880
Speaker 1: rate that would trigger a recommendation from the CDC to

882
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:27,840
Speaker 1: bring back its indoor mass mandate. However, they have decided,

883
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 1: per their own internal statistics that the daily cases right now,

884
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 1: which are three point two percent of the January peak,

885
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 1: is enough in order to bring a mass mandate next

886
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 1: Monday for the entire city, with no definite marker as

887
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 1: to when exactly it will end. Now, this is all

888
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:48,799
Speaker 1: a result of the BA two variant, which a lot

889
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,440
Speaker 1: of people are making a lot of hay of. I

890
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:53,439
Speaker 1: don't want to diminish people out there who are dying

891
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: and who are getting sick of COVID, but at this point,

892
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:58,240
Speaker 1: you've got every single thing that you could possibly want.

893
00:47:58,320 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 1: You can go out and get a vaccine in a

894
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:01,879
Speaker 1: booster if you want it. If you get COVID, there's

895
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: a ton of therapeutics that you can take over the counter. Yeah,

896
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:08,800
Speaker 1: both over the counter and with a prescription for your doctor.

897
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:11,960
Speaker 1: Any of these things are available to any person, and

898
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: it's mostly for free. And then if you also are

899
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 1: still scared, you can wear a mask if you would

900
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:20,359
Speaker 1: like to. There are plenty of people who are doing so.

901
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: You and I were talking just before this. The current

902
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:27,439
Speaker 1: national polling says that nine percent of people right now

903
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 1: think COVID is a serious problem, but some people just

904
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: won't let it go, and one of those people is

905
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 1: possibly the federal government whenever it comes to mask mandates,

906
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 1: whenever it comes to travel, as we have seen, you're

907
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 1: still required to strap a mask to your face whenever

908
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 1: you're on a plane. And somebody who's done a couple

909
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 1: cross country flights lately and it's transatlantic, it's a pain

910
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 1: in the ass. I'm taking a train soon to New York.

911
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:53,800
Speaker 1: Gotta wear a mask during that time too. And yet

912
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 1: the COVID czar over the White House says it's still

913
00:48:57,239 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: on the table in terms of an extension of that.

914
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 1: Let's take listen. As you know, the mask mandate for

915
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 1: public transportation airplanes, airports, trains and the like data is

916
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 1: set to expire next week. Do you still support that

917
00:49:10,560 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: or do you think that perhaps the mask mandate should

918
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:16,920
Speaker 1: be extended for public transportation in light of these rising cases.

919
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 1: This is a really good question. This is a decision

920
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 1: that the CDC director, doctor Willenski, is going to make.

921
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:25,880
Speaker 1: I know the CDC is working on developing a scientific

922
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:28,799
Speaker 1: framework for how to answer that. We're going to see

923
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: that framework come out, I think in the next few days,

924
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: and based on that, we're going to want to be

925
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: guided by this decision. You know, throughout the entire pandemic.

926
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 1: We've wanted to make decisions based on the evidence and science,

927
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:42,399
Speaker 1: and that is what I expect we'll do again this week.

928
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:44,399
Speaker 1: I mean to ask you, doctor John, does that mean

929
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 1: that extending the mask mandate and public transportation is a

930
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 1: live option? It's on the table. Yeah. I look, this

931
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 1: is a CDC decision, and I think it is absolutely

932
00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:58,799
Speaker 1: on the table. And doctor Willenski is going to make

933
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 1: hard decision based on on the framework that the CDC

934
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:05,839
Speaker 1: scientists create, and we'll make a decision collectively based on that.

935
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 1: What about schools, How do these schools determine whether or

936
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: not to have kids get back in masks. I know

937
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 1: in the Northeast we're seeing the cases go up. We're

938
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of kids certainly suddenly turning up with

939
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 1: COVID to mask mandates or mask advisories need to come

940
00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:23,839
Speaker 1: back in schools. Yeah, so you know CDC and again,

941
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 1: you know, CDC has created a framework that I actually

942
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:27,640
Speaker 1: really like and I've been very supportive of it well

943
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 1: before I came into this role, which basically looks at

944
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:34,280
Speaker 1: each community and assesses risk based on infections, based on hostitlizations,

945
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:37,280
Speaker 1: hospital capacity, and one of the points that the CDC

946
00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 1: made was that schools should not be treated differently than

947
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 1: the rest of the community. And so if there are

948
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:44,640
Speaker 1: mask mandas in the rest of the community, schools should

949
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 1: have them. If they're not, they shouldn't be. That's what

950
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 1: we should be doing. So people can go to the

951
00:50:48,440 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 1: CDC look up where the community risk is, and that's

952
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:53,560
Speaker 1: how we should be deciding what's happening in schools. These

953
00:50:54,360 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 1: standards are all fake, these frameworks, all this bs okay.

954
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 1: There's no reason why that you can wear a mask

955
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 1: in Union Station or not have to wear one. They're

956
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:04,279
Speaker 1: and then have to wear one whenever you're on the

957
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:07,360
Speaker 1: Amtrak train. It's all theater. Let's all just accept that

958
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:12,240
Speaker 1: if you're scared, fine wear one. Go ahead, be our guest.

959
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,640
Speaker 1: But right now only twenty three percent of the American

960
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 1: people are still wearing masks. At some point, it doesn't

961
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 1: make any sense, Crystal, and this is going to be

962
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 1: the hill on which Democrats will die if they want

963
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:26,759
Speaker 1: to go down this road. Let's put this up there

964
00:51:26,800 --> 00:51:29,840
Speaker 1: from the Wall Street Journal, which specifically looks at the

965
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 1: quote unquote long COVID effect on the GOP's new coalition

966
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 1: and specifically points to school parents who are still pissed

967
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:42,799
Speaker 1: off a year or so later about school reopenings and

968
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:46,719
Speaker 1: the overall political wins through which you can see that

969
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,439
Speaker 1: a lot of people who were sympathetic and more upper

970
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 1: middle class than others were to the Democratic Party moving

971
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:55,719
Speaker 1: away very much behind the Glenn Youngkin message. Not just

972
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 1: that but also inflation as well. And the number one

973
00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 1: in dedicator sign I saw is that the Democratic candidate

974
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:08,360
Speaker 1: for governor in Pennsylvania decried the Philadelphia mass mandate. Yeah,

975
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:11,800
Speaker 1: so that's why I guess I see the new political

976
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:15,320
Speaker 1: impacts of this. Let's wait and see if they actually

977
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,319
Speaker 1: change policies. I mean, this guy was basically like filibustering

978
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 1: on the Today Show. So we'll see if they actually

979
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 1: do anything. And I'm not going to get exercised about

980
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 1: it until they actually do. A recent Gallup poll says

981
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:29,319
Speaker 1: that three percent of Americans say that COVID is the

982
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,239
Speaker 1: top problem facing the country. I mean, this is Look,

983
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:34,400
Speaker 1: the damage has been done to the Democratic There's no

984
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 1: doubt about it that there are some moms in particular

985
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 1: who were pissed off about schools being closed for so

986
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: long and mass mandates and schools being kept in place.

987
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:47,560
Speaker 1: For so long and they shift their political allegiances. I

988
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:49,760
Speaker 1: think that is baked into the cake at this point

989
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:53,239
Speaker 1: in terms of the midterms. The segment we just did

990
00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 1: about inflation, that's the thing ten times one. That is

991
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:59,080
Speaker 1: the thing. I mean, that is overwhelmingly the number one

992
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:02,640
Speaker 1: issue that people say is on their minds. That's what's

993
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 1: really impacting most people's day to day lives. So, you know,

994
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:13,280
Speaker 1: Philadelphia certainly doesn't help the Pennsylvania Senate races that Democrats

995
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 1: are trying to win. John Fetterman likely to be the

996
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 1: Democratic nomini there. I'm sure he's probably not happy about

997
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 1: the fact that Philly is reimposing a mass mandate because

998
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:24,960
Speaker 1: it may depress Democratic turnout in that city and even

999
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:27,719
Speaker 1: flip some voters to the other side. But the reality

1000
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:30,560
Speaker 1: is he was already in a heap of trouble, not

1001
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 1: because of anything to do with him or anything to

1002
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:35,560
Speaker 1: do with doctor Oz or whatever the other hedge fun

1003
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 1: dude's name is. Because the national landscape is extraordinarily dire

1004
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:44,120
Speaker 1: for Democrats, and it has everything to do with the economy.

1005
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:46,840
Speaker 1: And at this point, I think COVID is basically a

1006
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:49,680
Speaker 1: side show. Yeah, it's a side show, but it could hurt, right,

1007
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: it could hurt a little bit on the margin, Yeah,

1008
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:55,160
Speaker 1: on the margin. And I think that cake is already baked.

1009
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:57,919
Speaker 1: It's impossible for the moms who got pissed off enough

1010
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:03,080
Speaker 1: to And I'm always like, I also haven't seen I've

1011
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: seen a lot of anecdotes about moms who were hardcore

1012
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:10,600
Speaker 1: Democrats and then switch to Republicans. I haven't seen a

1013
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:12,760
Speaker 1: lot of data the backs up that that's a large

1014
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:15,080
Speaker 1: scale trend. I don't doubt it. I'm just saying I

1015
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: have seen more anecdotes that I have seen hard data

1016
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 1: about that that's already done. I don't think that you know,

1017
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:23,040
Speaker 1: a mass mandate in Philly, or even if they decide

1018
00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:26,319
Speaker 1: to extend the travel thing on airplanes, is going to

1019
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:29,280
Speaker 1: really shift the dynamics there. Ultimately, I think that's already

1020
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 1: part baked in the cake of why Democrats are going

1021
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:34,400
Speaker 1: to have a disastrous midterms. This fault totally and on

1022
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 1: a political side. I think that's right, But I mean

1023
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:37,600
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that we still should be tortured for

1024
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:40,240
Speaker 1: no reason on these planes in order wear THESEUS masks.

1025
00:54:40,239 --> 00:54:42,600
Speaker 1: And you could take it down and take a drink

1026
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:45,360
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's just complete fakery. Well that drives me

1027
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:49,280
Speaker 1: the most nuts. I'll get exercised about it if it happens,

1028
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:51,719
Speaker 1: you know, because I mean they didn't give a clear

1029
00:54:51,760 --> 00:54:54,680
Speaker 1: aand I'm going to rite Crystal, I'm telling you right now. Also,

1030
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:57,319
Speaker 1: I can't take it anymore. I mean, also, people, I

1031
00:54:57,320 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: think the school thing for most people is a much

1032
00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:02,399
Speaker 1: bigger dealt to airplanes, because most Americans aren't flying around

1033
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 1: too much. Very true. All right, this is an interesting

1034
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:08,919
Speaker 1: study and interesting report from great front of the show

1035
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:13,160
Speaker 1: Derek Thompson, who always has thoughtful, thoughtful pieces about sort

1036
00:55:13,160 --> 00:55:15,719
Speaker 1: of cultural trends in society. Let's go ahead and put

1037
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:18,520
Speaker 1: this piece up there on the screen, why American teens

1038
00:55:18,560 --> 00:55:21,399
Speaker 1: are so sad? Four forces are propelling the rising rates

1039
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:23,799
Speaker 1: of depression among young people. I'm just going to go

1040
00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:26,279
Speaker 1: through this piece a little bit, so first of all,

1041
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:29,920
Speaker 1: on the numbers. You know, some people have a kind

1042
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 1: of a potential fallacy that the reason it looks like

1043
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 1: teenagers are sadder than previous generations is because they're more

1044
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:41,320
Speaker 1: comfortable talking about their feelings and so teenagers have always

1045
00:55:41,320 --> 00:55:45,040
Speaker 1: been moody. Is just this generation is more comfortable actually

1046
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:48,120
Speaker 1: sharing that and talking about it with polsters, for example,

1047
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:51,560
Speaker 1: but there are some hard data to suggest that that

1048
00:55:51,719 --> 00:55:54,360
Speaker 1: is not the case. So Derek points out, from twenty

1049
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:56,440
Speaker 1: nine to twenty twenty one, the share of American high

1050
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:59,000
Speaker 1: school students who say they feel persistent feelings of statness

1051
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:02,320
Speaker 1: or hopelessness rolls from twenty six percent to four percent.

1052
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:06,239
Speaker 1: That is the highest level that's ever recorded, and it's

1053
00:56:06,360 --> 00:56:10,080
Speaker 1: matched with increases in rates of people having to go

1054
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:12,799
Speaker 1: to the hospital for suicide attempts or having to see

1055
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 1: counseling for suicide attempts, and so there is hard data

1056
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:21,200
Speaker 1: to match what is being self reported by teenagers. This

1057
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:25,239
Speaker 1: is also not equal among groups. So the chart up

1058
00:56:25,239 --> 00:56:28,319
Speaker 1: there showed some of the different demographic groups within teen

1059
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:31,360
Speaker 1: populations and the way that they are feeling. So you

1060
00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:34,680
Speaker 1: have very high rates nearly half of LGBTQ teens who

1061
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:38,160
Speaker 1: say they have contemplated suicide during the pandemic. That compares

1062
00:56:38,200 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 1: with fourteen percent of their heterosexual peers. But even if

1063
00:56:41,719 --> 00:56:46,560
Speaker 1: you look at every single demographic group, whether it's by race,

1064
00:56:46,719 --> 00:56:51,480
Speaker 1: whether it's by identity, other identity factors, you see sadness

1065
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: being self reported going up and up and up. So

1066
00:56:55,200 --> 00:57:00,000
Speaker 1: Derek looks into this, and he posits for overlapping reasons

1067
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 1: why this might be the case, and I think these

1068
00:57:03,719 --> 00:57:06,920
Speaker 1: are pretty interesting. So number one, he points to social media,

1069
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:10,319
Speaker 1: and he has some data here to back this up.

1070
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:13,719
Speaker 1: In particular, there's a new study from Cambridge University where

1071
00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 1: researchers looked at eighty four thousand people of all ages

1072
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:19,200
Speaker 1: and found social media was strongly associated with worse mental

1073
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 1: health during certain sensitive life periods, including for girls ages

1074
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:26,920
Speaker 1: eleven to thirteen. This is backed by other research, is

1075
00:57:26,920 --> 00:57:32,000
Speaker 1: actually backed by the leaked Instagram Facebook studies about the

1076
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:36,600
Speaker 1: way Instagram made young girls feel worse about themselves. And

1077
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:38,760
Speaker 1: I like the way he explained it. He compared it

1078
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:43,680
Speaker 1: to something like alcohol, which can be social lubricant and

1079
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:47,040
Speaker 1: you know, actually be beneficial in certain situations, but for

1080
00:57:47,160 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 1: a minority of users presents a real significant problem that's

1081
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 1: detrimental to their health and overall well being. The second factor,

1082
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:57,600
Speaker 1: so social media is number one. The second factor he

1083
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:01,240
Speaker 1: points to, which is again related, is so soality. So

1084
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:04,040
Speaker 1: compared with their counterparts in the two thousands, today's teams

1085
00:58:04,040 --> 00:58:06,320
Speaker 1: are less likely to go out with their friends, less

1086
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:08,480
Speaker 1: likely to get their driver's license, and less likely to

1087
00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 1: play youth sports. These are all trends, by the way,

1088
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:16,640
Speaker 1: that predate COVID, but obviously COVID lockdowns exacerbated both the

1089
00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: you know, overdependence on social media and the lack of

1090
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:24,560
Speaker 1: in real life interactions with friends, peers, playing sports and

1091
00:58:24,720 --> 00:58:27,440
Speaker 1: all of those things. And so what he talks about is,

1092
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:29,560
Speaker 1: you know, social media isn't necessarily a problem if it's

1093
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 1: being like instead of watching TV on your phone or

1094
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:35,840
Speaker 1: on your device, it does start to become more of

1095
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:40,080
Speaker 1: an issue if it's replacing real life interactions that you know,

1096
00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:43,880
Speaker 1: are associated with positive health and mental well being outcomes.

1097
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:47,040
Speaker 1: So again, things like playing sports or you know, hanging

1098
00:58:47,080 --> 00:58:50,160
Speaker 1: out with your friends in real life. The third piece

1099
00:58:50,200 --> 00:58:54,200
Speaker 1: that he talks about here is just bad news, the

1100
00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:58,160
Speaker 1: fact that there seems to be an endless spiral of

1101
00:58:58,280 --> 00:59:02,120
Speaker 1: sort of existentially bad news, and of course news media

1102
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 1: which is invested in playing that up at every turn,

1103
00:59:04,320 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, right now looming threat of recession

1104
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:08,480
Speaker 1: and you've got a war, and you've got the climate crisis,

1105
00:59:08,480 --> 00:59:11,200
Speaker 1: and you've got Trump louving on the horizon, and political

1106
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 1: divisions and all of these things that that can certainly

1107
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:18,200
Speaker 1: stress parents and stress kids and by the way, stressed

1108
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 1: parents often contribute to stressed kids. And that's the last

1109
00:59:20,680 --> 00:59:24,280
Speaker 1: factor that he talks about here, which is parenting. Parents

1110
00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:29,520
Speaker 1: are very especially upper class parents, very concerned about their

1111
00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:31,480
Speaker 1: kids being able to go to the good school and

1112
00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:33,320
Speaker 1: get the good job and make sure that they end

1113
00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:36,280
Speaker 1: up on the happy side of the class divide. And

1114
00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:40,480
Speaker 1: that stress is being transmitted to kids in the form of,

1115
00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:43,360
Speaker 1: you know, all sorts of expectations and pressure and tutoring

1116
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:46,240
Speaker 1: and clubs and practices and all of this sort of stuff.

1117
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:49,280
Speaker 1: And that also, you know, the amount of time that

1118
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:52,080
Speaker 1: parents spend Chapper earning their kids around and taking them

1119
00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:53,720
Speaker 1: to all the various things that they think they have

1120
00:59:53,760 --> 00:59:56,240
Speaker 1: to do in order to achieve a basic sort of

1121
00:59:56,280 --> 00:59:58,880
Speaker 1: stable life that has all increased over the years. So

1122
00:59:59,080 --> 01:00:01,920
Speaker 1: just to recap social idea, sociality, bad news, and parenting.

1123
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:04,200
Speaker 1: Those are the four things that he's sort of pointing

1124
01:00:04,240 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 1: to here, many of which were exacerbated by the pandemic.

1125
01:00:07,120 --> 01:00:10,080
Speaker 1: This is really upsetting, obviously, given what's happening. You got

1126
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:13,000
Speaker 1: these teenagers, they're the future, and how you feel and

1127
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:15,280
Speaker 1: your teen years is very informative for how you're going

1128
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 1: to feel for the rest of your life. I never

1129
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:18,920
Speaker 1: thought I would say this, but look, some of these

1130
01:00:18,960 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 1: bad behaviors for teenagers are down, it says per Derek.

1131
01:00:22,560 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 1: Lots of self reported behaviors are moving a positive direction

1132
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:27,520
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties. Drinking and driving is down fifty percent,

1133
01:00:27,560 --> 01:00:29,800
Speaker 1: school fights are down fifty percent, Sex before thirteen is

1134
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:32,640
Speaker 1: down seventy percent, school bullying is down. All of those

1135
01:00:32,680 --> 01:00:35,520
Speaker 1: are good things, but it's indicative of people not taking

1136
01:00:35,560 --> 01:00:38,400
Speaker 1: more risky behavior. And while it can be good on

1137
01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:41,440
Speaker 1: the extremes it behaviors like this, it does indicate that

1138
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 1: people are being more lonely, people are taking less risk

1139
01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: and that that is manifesting, yes, in some of these

1140
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:50,800
Speaker 1: good ways, but that these less risky inclinations and wanting

1141
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:54,080
Speaker 1: to engage in this type of more sociological behavior is

1142
01:00:54,120 --> 01:00:56,960
Speaker 1: obviously way way down, and there's a lot of reasons

1143
01:00:56,960 --> 01:01:00,920
Speaker 1: for that. Social media, obviously, the COVID lockdowns things in

1144
01:01:01,080 --> 01:01:04,200
Speaker 1: the wrong direction. And when you look at all those indicators,

1145
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:07,520
Speaker 1: what Derek points to is that while all of what

1146
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:10,040
Speaker 1: he's saying is that teens are not behaving badly, in fact,

1147
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:13,520
Speaker 1: they're not really behaving in any way whatsoever. They're becoming

1148
01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:17,360
Speaker 1: a lot more lonely, and by being lonely, they're not

1149
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:21,560
Speaker 1: engaging in more social activity, which is then increasing suicide.

1150
01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:26,560
Speaker 1: Social media obviously is a proxy for it's a proxy

1151
01:01:26,680 --> 01:01:31,919
Speaker 1: for social interaction, but it's not real, it's not got

1152
01:01:31,960 --> 01:01:36,560
Speaker 1: the same level of connection. And so by indulging these things,

1153
01:01:36,600 --> 01:01:39,040
Speaker 1: and also with the rise of the parenting and the

1154
01:01:39,040 --> 01:01:42,440
Speaker 1: helicopter parent with that, it's made it so that a

1155
01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:45,280
Speaker 1: lot of people are not experiencing life in the same way.

1156
01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:47,400
Speaker 1: This can sound like a boomer talking point, like I

1157
01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:50,280
Speaker 1: get that, but I think that there is obviously a

1158
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:53,440
Speaker 1: certain level of truth to You're growing up with a phone,

1159
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:56,280
Speaker 1: You're just like your youth, and life is just going

1160
01:01:56,320 --> 01:01:58,240
Speaker 1: to be significantly different from those of us who were

1161
01:01:58,240 --> 01:02:00,560
Speaker 1: not raised with the audemy. Yes, that's very I mean,

1162
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:03,000
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things to say about this. First

1163
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:05,760
Speaker 1: of all, the way Derek paints it, I think is

1164
01:02:06,880 --> 01:02:10,280
Speaker 1: really helpful, which he says basically, in a lot of ways,

1165
01:02:10,520 --> 01:02:14,280
Speaker 1: kids are being sort of kept kids longer and sheltered more,

1166
01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:18,040
Speaker 1: both by you know, anxious parents and by the realities

1167
01:02:18,080 --> 01:02:23,320
Speaker 1: of more social media interaction versus real life experimental action

1168
01:02:23,680 --> 01:02:26,360
Speaker 1: in the real world, and so they're in that way,

1169
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:28,800
Speaker 1: they're being kept kids longer, and yet because of their

1170
01:02:28,920 --> 01:02:31,840
Speaker 1: being exposed to any manner of things on the internet

1171
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:37,400
Speaker 1: in other ways, they're becoming more adult quicker, and those

1172
01:02:37,440 --> 01:02:42,000
Speaker 1: two tensions are creating a lot of stress. So that's

1173
01:02:42,000 --> 01:02:44,760
Speaker 1: one thing. And then you know, I think the other

1174
01:02:44,800 --> 01:02:47,240
Speaker 1: thing is with regards to social media, like I see

1175
01:02:47,240 --> 01:02:50,919
Speaker 1: this in my own life. What I look less at

1176
01:02:51,120 --> 01:02:54,600
Speaker 1: what people are saying about me online, my mental health

1177
01:02:54,640 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 1: certainly improves. And in theory, I'm a growing up with

1178
01:02:57,800 --> 01:03:00,720
Speaker 1: better you know, coping skills to do with those sorts

1179
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:03,560
Speaker 1: of things than you know, a young girl or a

1180
01:03:03,600 --> 01:03:06,200
Speaker 1: young boy who's just sort of like going through puberty

1181
01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:10,320
Speaker 1: and coming of age. And also, I don't have, you know,

1182
01:03:10,360 --> 01:03:13,000
Speaker 1: if somebody says something mean to me online, like I'm

1183
01:03:13,000 --> 01:03:14,800
Speaker 1: never going to meet that person. I don't have to

1184
01:03:14,800 --> 01:03:17,800
Speaker 1: see that person ever in my life. Imagine you have

1185
01:03:17,960 --> 01:03:22,520
Speaker 1: that kind of like nasty or backbiting or petty or

1186
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:25,720
Speaker 1: whatever kind of comment directed at you on social media,

1187
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:27,680
Speaker 1: and then you have to show up and see that

1188
01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:30,720
Speaker 1: person in real life at your high school every day.

1189
01:03:31,080 --> 01:03:34,000
Speaker 1: That sucks. That would stress me out. That definitely would

1190
01:03:34,000 --> 01:03:38,800
Speaker 1: contribute to, you know, an anxiety producing situation. So I

1191
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:41,080
Speaker 1: think it's really important that we dig into these trends

1192
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:47,480
Speaker 1: because look, obviously, a healthy society we've always aspired to,

1193
01:03:47,840 --> 01:03:49,760
Speaker 1: it's going to be better for the next generation. They're

1194
01:03:49,760 --> 01:03:51,480
Speaker 1: going to do better than their parents. We're going to

1195
01:03:51,680 --> 01:03:54,720
Speaker 1: that's kind of a definition of like societal progress, and

1196
01:03:54,760 --> 01:03:57,200
Speaker 1: this is just one more metric where that seems to

1197
01:03:57,240 --> 01:03:59,320
Speaker 1: not be the case, where we no longer have this

1198
01:03:59,400 --> 01:04:01,720
Speaker 1: expectation and that our kids are going to live a

1199
01:04:01,760 --> 01:04:05,320
Speaker 1: better life than we did. And that's a profound indictment

1200
01:04:05,520 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 1: of the values and policy choices of our country. I

1201
01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:13,640
Speaker 1: think that's right, all right, Soccer, what are you looking

1202
01:04:13,640 --> 01:04:15,680
Speaker 1: at As somebody who cares a lot about corruption? What

1203
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:18,520
Speaker 1: drives me crazy about the entire conversation is just how

1204
01:04:18,560 --> 01:04:21,280
Speaker 1: bipartisan it is, and how, when called out on it,

1205
01:04:21,320 --> 01:04:24,320
Speaker 1: the other side can just rightfully point at your hypocrisy

1206
01:04:24,520 --> 01:04:28,160
Speaker 1: to obfuscate theirs. Democrats who care about Jared Kushner and

1207
01:04:28,200 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 1: who excuse Hunter Biden are part of the problem. Republicans

1208
01:04:31,400 --> 01:04:34,320
Speaker 1: who complain about Hunter and then think Jared and by extension,

1209
01:04:34,320 --> 01:04:36,840
Speaker 1: Trump are somehow choir boys are also a part of

1210
01:04:36,880 --> 01:04:39,880
Speaker 1: the problem. And as someone who cares about both and

1211
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:41,720
Speaker 1: has done my best to bring as much attention as

1212
01:04:41,720 --> 01:04:45,160
Speaker 1: possible to Hunter's case. It's also good to remember Kushner

1213
01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:49,000
Speaker 1: himself is just as much, if not more, corrupt than Hunter.

1214
01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:53,000
Speaker 1: Latest deal that Jared has delved into shows this definitively.

1215
01:04:53,320 --> 01:04:56,680
Speaker 1: Leaked documents from within the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Wealth Fund

1216
01:04:57,000 --> 01:04:59,720
Speaker 1: reveal that the Crown pins of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Brins

1217
01:05:00,640 --> 01:05:05,120
Speaker 1: personally greenland two billion dollars in capital to Jared's fake

1218
01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:09,280
Speaker 1: investment fund. In fact, Jared's fund is so fake even

1219
01:05:09,320 --> 01:05:12,760
Speaker 1: the Saudis within their fund were skeptical of giving him money.

1220
01:05:12,920 --> 01:05:16,800
Speaker 1: Their internal documents note quote the inexperience of the Affinity

1221
01:05:16,800 --> 01:05:20,080
Speaker 1: Fund management, the possibility that the Kingdom would be responsible

1222
01:05:20,280 --> 01:05:22,840
Speaker 1: for the bulk of the investment, and risk that due

1223
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:28,120
Speaker 1: diligence on the fledgling firms operations found unsatisfactory in all aspects,

1224
01:05:28,360 --> 01:05:32,040
Speaker 1: and that a proposed asset management fee seemed excessive, as

1225
01:05:32,080 --> 01:05:35,120
Speaker 1: well as a public relations problem for mister Kushner's prior

1226
01:05:35,240 --> 01:05:38,000
Speaker 1: role as senior advisor to his father in law. Yet,

1227
01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:42,880
Speaker 1: days after all those concerns were directly relayed to the

1228
01:05:42,920 --> 01:05:46,280
Speaker 1: Saudi leadership in Riod. The panel of advisors, which recommended

1229
01:05:46,320 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 1: against Saudi investment was overruled by the Crown Prince himself.

1230
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:55,400
Speaker 1: This is obviously repulsive corruption. Jared Kushner, as we all

1231
01:05:55,440 --> 01:05:58,560
Speaker 1: found out during his White House days, is worse than useless.

1232
01:05:58,760 --> 01:06:01,000
Speaker 1: Almost everything that the man touched in the White House

1233
01:06:01,120 --> 01:06:04,720
Speaker 1: died in incompetent death. And yet none of this is

1234
01:06:04,760 --> 01:06:08,480
Speaker 1: actually about money. It is about rewarding Jared for his

1235
01:06:08,640 --> 01:06:11,080
Speaker 1: time in the White House, where Kushner was a key

1236
01:06:11,160 --> 01:06:15,320
Speaker 1: liaison between President Trump and MBS, protecting NBS during the

1237
01:06:15,360 --> 01:06:19,000
Speaker 1: Koshoge killings, and architecting Trump's first foreign trip abroad to

1238
01:06:19,160 --> 01:06:23,040
Speaker 1: Riod in twenty seventeen. Maybe you agree that all of

1239
01:06:23,040 --> 01:06:26,320
Speaker 1: that on a policy level is fine. Okay, that's all good.

1240
01:06:26,520 --> 01:06:29,240
Speaker 1: But even if you do, don't you want the motivation

1241
01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:32,960
Speaker 1: of officials in office to be pure. This corruption honestly

1242
01:06:33,000 --> 01:06:35,840
Speaker 1: matters as much or maybe even more than Hunter, because

1243
01:06:35,880 --> 01:06:37,880
Speaker 1: at least Hunter is not a key official in his

1244
01:06:37,880 --> 01:06:42,000
Speaker 1: father's White House. Jared remains today a key political advisor

1245
01:06:42,040 --> 01:06:45,240
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump. If Trump wins office, that means Jared

1246
01:06:45,280 --> 01:06:47,600
Speaker 1: will remain a key advisor to the next president of

1247
01:06:47,640 --> 01:06:50,160
Speaker 1: the United States, as he was with the last one.

1248
01:06:50,360 --> 01:06:53,560
Speaker 1: What's really astounding here is just how brazen the payoff

1249
01:06:53,560 --> 01:06:57,360
Speaker 1: to Jared is Kushner was able to score two billion

1250
01:06:57,440 --> 01:07:00,480
Speaker 1: dollars from the Saudist That is more than a billion

1251
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:03,959
Speaker 1: than former Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnushan was able

1252
01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:07,120
Speaker 1: to score, even though he, at least to his credit,

1253
01:07:07,400 --> 01:07:11,040
Speaker 1: was an actual professional money manager before holding his position,

1254
01:07:11,400 --> 01:07:14,720
Speaker 1: and key Wall Street executive who a massed hundreds of

1255
01:07:14,760 --> 01:07:17,120
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in his own right now, I'm not

1256
01:07:17,160 --> 01:07:20,040
Speaker 1: saying either of them should take it, period, but I

1257
01:07:20,040 --> 01:07:22,479
Speaker 1: think it's corrupt on both counts. But if you're looking

1258
01:07:22,520 --> 01:07:25,040
Speaker 1: at it from a purely business perspective, why would you

1259
01:07:25,080 --> 01:07:28,160
Speaker 1: give the less experience and more incompetent guy the most money.

1260
01:07:28,400 --> 01:07:31,400
Speaker 1: The Saudis right now are backstopping Jared's fund to an

1261
01:07:31,440 --> 01:07:36,480
Speaker 1: astounding degree. According to the latest spilings, Jared's fund currently

1262
01:07:36,520 --> 01:07:39,760
Speaker 1: has two point five billion dollars under management. So do

1263
01:07:39,880 --> 01:07:44,080
Speaker 1: the math. That means eighty percent of the money under

1264
01:07:44,080 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 1: his management, from which he is deriving a hefty fee

1265
01:07:47,480 --> 01:07:50,880
Speaker 1: higher than the normal fee, is directly from the Kingdom

1266
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:54,040
Speaker 1: of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund is a

1267
01:07:54,040 --> 01:07:57,000
Speaker 1: foreign policy tool that I've highlighted here on the show before.

1268
01:07:57,320 --> 01:08:01,000
Speaker 1: It is nearly six hundred billion under the wrecked supervision

1269
01:08:01,040 --> 01:08:03,880
Speaker 1: of MBS. The money, while yes, is supposed to help

1270
01:08:03,920 --> 01:08:07,880
Speaker 1: grow Saudi wealth in non oil assets, is used strategically

1271
01:08:07,920 --> 01:08:10,840
Speaker 1: by the Kingdom to buy major influence in the West

1272
01:08:11,040 --> 01:08:14,240
Speaker 1: and here in the United States. Massive fortune five hundred

1273
01:08:14,280 --> 01:08:17,320
Speaker 1: companies have the Kingdom as a major investor. It's why

1274
01:08:17,360 --> 01:08:20,280
Speaker 1: they make sure they don't ever say anything about human

1275
01:08:20,360 --> 01:08:23,320
Speaker 1: rights over there. And the strategy of buying off former

1276
01:08:23,320 --> 01:08:26,519
Speaker 1: public officials like Jared and Steve Mnushan. It's a long

1277
01:08:26,600 --> 01:08:29,360
Speaker 1: time play by RIOD that goes all the way back

1278
01:08:29,400 --> 01:08:32,280
Speaker 1: to the Bush family. And this extends very far beyond

1279
01:08:32,320 --> 01:08:35,960
Speaker 1: Jared Kushner. This is about the integrity of our country

1280
01:08:36,160 --> 01:08:39,200
Speaker 1: to keep it free from the influence of corrupt despots

1281
01:08:39,240 --> 01:08:43,040
Speaker 1: in Riod or perhaps in Beijing. I've obviously spoken a

1282
01:08:43,080 --> 01:08:46,439
Speaker 1: lot about what Chinese subservience amongst the US elites looks like,

1283
01:08:46,720 --> 01:08:49,439
Speaker 1: and probably not enough about Saudi. Just to give you

1284
01:08:49,479 --> 01:08:51,720
Speaker 1: a glimpse of how repulsive some of these people are,

1285
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:54,679
Speaker 1: let's take a trip down memory lane to twenty nineteen

1286
01:08:54,920 --> 01:08:58,639
Speaker 1: when Uber CEO Dara Kosrashwahi said that he was quote

1287
01:08:58,720 --> 01:09:01,879
Speaker 1: wrong to call the kill of Jamal Kashogi a mistake,

1288
01:09:02,200 --> 01:09:04,920
Speaker 1: and he compared it to when an Uber self driving

1289
01:09:04,960 --> 01:09:09,519
Speaker 1: car accidentally resulted in a woman's death. Yeah, that's the same.

1290
01:09:09,920 --> 01:09:12,479
Speaker 1: That is the level of subjugation the Saudis demand from

1291
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:15,240
Speaker 1: the CEO of Uber, on which the Saudi Wealth fund

1292
01:09:15,280 --> 01:09:17,599
Speaker 1: sits on their board. And that is exactly what will

1293
01:09:17,600 --> 01:09:21,160
Speaker 1: they demand from Jared Kushner, from Steve Mnushan, anybody else

1294
01:09:21,200 --> 01:09:23,920
Speaker 1: in Trump's orbit who touches their blood money. It is

1295
01:09:24,000 --> 01:09:27,760
Speaker 1: time to enact a complete ban on this outrageous behavior.

1296
01:09:28,080 --> 01:09:30,720
Speaker 1: We need a stock ban for members of Congress obviously,

1297
01:09:31,040 --> 01:09:34,200
Speaker 1: and sure the lobbyist ban, revolving door, all of that

1298
01:09:34,520 --> 01:09:36,599
Speaker 1: on a certain point. On the domestic level, though, there's

1299
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:38,600
Speaker 1: a limited amount we can do given the freedom that

1300
01:09:38,640 --> 01:09:40,439
Speaker 1: we have in the US. But can we all at

1301
01:09:40,520 --> 01:09:44,639
Speaker 1: least agree that former public officials to not take foreign money?

1302
01:09:44,920 --> 01:09:47,559
Speaker 1: Is that really so much dask for? We have former

1303
01:09:47,600 --> 01:09:51,320
Speaker 1: senators working for the Chinese government as we speak. We

1304
01:09:51,400 --> 01:09:57,000
Speaker 1: have foreign ambassadors, foreign former senate confirmed major cabinet officials

1305
01:09:57,240 --> 01:10:01,360
Speaker 1: on the payroll of every despotic regime on earth. It's

1306
01:10:01,400 --> 01:10:04,800
Speaker 1: completely bipartisan. We've got to at least degree on this

1307
01:10:04,920 --> 01:10:07,200
Speaker 1: type of ban. The way that we got the stockban

1308
01:10:07,320 --> 01:10:10,400
Speaker 1: going was that everyone could pick their villain. Dan Crenshaw,

1309
01:10:10,560 --> 01:10:13,640
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi. I don't care, fine, I just want to

1310
01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:16,360
Speaker 1: see this place cleaned up, because it is disgusting to

1311
01:10:16,400 --> 01:10:19,120
Speaker 1: me to watch what is happening and to see selective

1312
01:10:19,120 --> 01:10:22,040
Speaker 1: outrage from both sides when a clear solution is needed

1313
01:10:22,120 --> 01:10:25,080
Speaker 1: for this very very bipartisan problem. I think it's disgusting.

1314
01:10:25,120 --> 01:10:28,439
Speaker 1: Crystal two billion dollars, eighty percent of his fond coms

1315
01:10:28,880 --> 01:10:31,840
Speaker 1: and if you want to hear my reaction to Sagre's monologue,

1316
01:10:31,840 --> 01:10:37,920
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. Crystal,

1317
01:10:37,920 --> 01:10:39,439
Speaker 1: what do you take a look at it? Well, guys,

1318
01:10:39,560 --> 01:10:44,240
Speaker 1: liberalism is back, baby. There's been this weird neoliberal triumphalism

1319
01:10:44,280 --> 01:10:48,320
Speaker 1: following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Western liberal democracies abandoned together

1320
01:10:48,439 --> 01:10:51,360
Speaker 1: for Dick Putin's war move sanctioned as government and present

1321
01:10:51,400 --> 01:10:54,320
Speaker 1: a more or less unified front against his illegal actions

1322
01:10:54,360 --> 01:10:57,559
Speaker 1: and atrocities. This response was led by a US president

1323
01:10:57,680 --> 01:11:02,320
Speaker 1: firmly of the neoliberal persuasion bested left populist Bernie Sanders

1324
01:11:02,320 --> 01:11:04,760
Speaker 1: and fake right populist Donald Trump on his way to

1325
01:11:04,800 --> 01:11:09,080
Speaker 1: the White House. Perhaps analysts posited all this populist uprising

1326
01:11:09,120 --> 01:11:12,080
Speaker 1: against radical free market neoliberalism that was all just a

1327
01:11:12,080 --> 01:11:14,960
Speaker 1: flash in the pan. Maybe in their view, the silver

1328
01:11:15,080 --> 01:11:18,479
Speaker 1: lining of the slaughter in Ukraine would be liberalism getting

1329
01:11:18,479 --> 01:11:21,920
Speaker 1: its swagger back. Well, French voters have joined the conversation

1330
01:11:22,080 --> 01:11:24,840
Speaker 1: to say not so fast. On Sunday, they went to

1331
01:11:24,880 --> 01:11:27,719
Speaker 1: the polls to choose from a wide array of spanning

1332
01:11:27,720 --> 01:11:30,720
Speaker 1: the entire political spectrum, and the first round of their

1333
01:11:30,760 --> 01:11:34,519
Speaker 1: presidential vote. As Daniel Nashenian told us yesterday, the result

1334
01:11:34,640 --> 01:11:37,120
Speaker 1: was both stunning and kind of predictable. The top two

1335
01:11:37,160 --> 01:11:40,400
Speaker 1: vote getters were incumbent Emanuel Macron and perennial right wing

1336
01:11:40,439 --> 01:11:43,760
Speaker 1: candidate Marine Lapenn. Those were exactly the same two top

1337
01:11:43,840 --> 01:11:46,840
Speaker 1: vote getters as the last French presidential election. But the

1338
01:11:46,880 --> 01:11:49,720
Speaker 1: clearest result of the race was a thorough indictment of

1339
01:11:49,760 --> 01:11:53,160
Speaker 1: the establishment center left and center right ideologies, a rebuke

1340
01:11:53,200 --> 01:11:56,120
Speaker 1: of neoliberalism that is just as thorough as any that

1341
01:11:56,160 --> 01:11:59,080
Speaker 1: we have seen. So The center right candidate of the

1342
01:11:59,120 --> 01:12:04,120
Speaker 1: traditionally powerful Republicans garnered a near four point seven percent

1343
01:12:04,280 --> 01:12:07,400
Speaker 1: of the vote. The center left candidate of the traditionally

1344
01:12:07,439 --> 01:12:11,559
Speaker 1: powerful Socialists garnered a pathetic one point seven percent of

1345
01:12:11,600 --> 01:12:13,760
Speaker 1: the vote. Just ten years ago, these two parties had

1346
01:12:13,800 --> 01:12:17,360
Speaker 1: a near monopoly on power at every single level of government. Now,

1347
01:12:17,400 --> 01:12:20,920
Speaker 1: this rejection upends a lot of liberal triumphalism and Washington

1348
01:12:20,960 --> 01:12:25,280
Speaker 1: talking points, even directly rebuking the conventional wisdom about strengthening

1349
01:12:25,320 --> 01:12:29,280
Speaker 1: Western support for NATO in reaction to Russia's invasion. In fact,

1350
01:12:29,640 --> 01:12:32,360
Speaker 1: New York Times points out that a clear majority of

1351
01:12:32,400 --> 01:12:35,519
Speaker 1: French people just voted for candidates who are broadly anti

1352
01:12:35,600 --> 01:12:39,400
Speaker 1: NATO and anti EU. That would include supporters of La Penn,

1353
01:12:39,560 --> 01:12:42,439
Speaker 1: another far right candidate, Zamor, and Melon Schan, a sort

1354
01:12:42,439 --> 01:12:45,400
Speaker 1: of Burningish type lefty candidate. Now, the strength of the

1355
01:12:45,479 --> 01:12:48,000
Speaker 1: leftist Melon Schawn was also a bit of a surprise.

1356
01:12:48,080 --> 01:12:50,439
Speaker 1: He surged in the final weeks of the campaign, even

1357
01:12:50,520 --> 01:12:53,000
Speaker 1: nipping at La Penn's heels for a position in the runoff,

1358
01:12:53,000 --> 01:12:57,000
Speaker 1: on the strength of high support among voters under thirty five. Unfortunately,

1359
01:12:57,160 --> 01:12:59,439
Speaker 1: just as an American politics, these young voters were less

1360
01:12:59,479 --> 01:13:01,639
Speaker 1: likely to share up, giving La Penn, with her middle

1361
01:13:01,640 --> 01:13:04,479
Speaker 1: aged base just enough of a margin to squeak through

1362
01:13:04,520 --> 01:13:07,759
Speaker 1: to the runoff. Melon Shawn's voters will almost certainly decide

1363
01:13:07,760 --> 01:13:10,439
Speaker 1: the final results. Although lefties like me are undoubtedly sick

1364
01:13:10,479 --> 01:13:12,880
Speaker 1: of moral victories, at least both of these candidates are

1365
01:13:12,880 --> 01:13:15,679
Speaker 1: going to have to try to appeal to Melonschawn's lefty base.

1366
01:13:16,120 --> 01:13:18,559
Speaker 1: Now we already know how Makron will try to make

1367
01:13:18,600 --> 01:13:20,559
Speaker 1: that appeal. It's going to go all in on a

1368
01:13:20,640 --> 01:13:23,759
Speaker 1: lesser evil argument. You must vote for me to stop

1369
01:13:23,800 --> 01:13:27,400
Speaker 1: the fascist Lapenn. Now, it's extremely unlikely that the bulk

1370
01:13:27,400 --> 01:13:29,920
Speaker 1: of the Melonchon votes will ultimately go to La Penn.

1371
01:13:30,240 --> 01:13:33,760
Speaker 1: Last time, under a similar situation, Macron won a majority

1372
01:13:33,920 --> 01:13:38,719
Speaker 1: of melonchn lefty votes and only seven percent went to Lapen. However,

1373
01:13:39,120 --> 01:13:43,679
Speaker 1: a sizeable forty one percent of Melonschon voters simply stayed home,

1374
01:13:43,800 --> 01:13:48,000
Speaker 1: apparently unimpressed with the lesser evil argument. Now, this antipathy

1375
01:13:48,080 --> 01:13:52,400
Speaker 1: seems to have only increased. Turnout dropped in the first round,

1376
01:13:52,479 --> 01:13:55,920
Speaker 1: and as I mentioned before, that drop was particularly significant

1377
01:13:55,960 --> 01:13:59,240
Speaker 1: among young voters. What's more, La Penn seems to have

1378
01:13:59,240 --> 01:14:01,920
Speaker 1: successfully re branded in opposition to the war as a

1379
01:14:02,000 --> 01:14:05,120
Speaker 1: more mainstream friendly candidate, making the second and final round

1380
01:14:05,200 --> 01:14:07,320
Speaker 1: polls a hell of a lot closer than they were

1381
01:14:07,400 --> 01:14:10,760
Speaker 1: the last time around. Democrats facing the prospect of a

1382
01:14:10,800 --> 01:14:14,200
Speaker 1: Trump versus Biden redo might want to take note of

1383
01:14:14,240 --> 01:14:18,160
Speaker 1: the waning effectiveness of some of these tactics. In particular,

1384
01:14:18,479 --> 01:14:22,520
Speaker 1: the lesser evil voting argument. Raising the specter of fascism

1385
01:14:22,680 --> 01:14:25,519
Speaker 1: while maintaining the comfort of elites is not in fact

1386
01:14:25,600 --> 01:14:28,840
Speaker 1: a big electoral winner. After all, Macron may well hang

1387
01:14:28,880 --> 01:14:31,080
Speaker 1: on for a narrow wind here in the end, but

1388
01:14:31,200 --> 01:14:33,360
Speaker 1: he had some thirty percentage points he could give up

1389
01:14:33,360 --> 01:14:36,080
Speaker 1: between his first run and now. Biden, on the other hand,

1390
01:14:36,360 --> 01:14:38,280
Speaker 1: barely won by the skin of his teeth in a

1391
01:14:38,320 --> 01:14:41,799
Speaker 1: few key battleground states during a pandemic that Trump massively botched.

1392
01:14:42,120 --> 01:14:45,679
Speaker 1: It simply is not enough to just not be Trump.

1393
01:14:46,120 --> 01:14:49,519
Speaker 1: Mccron's sliding political fortunes offer another lesson in dire warning

1394
01:14:49,560 --> 01:14:52,520
Speaker 1: for Democrats as well, one that they are heavily invested

1395
01:14:52,560 --> 01:14:56,479
Speaker 1: in not learning. When mccron ran and won in twenty seventeen,

1396
01:14:56,680 --> 01:14:58,639
Speaker 1: he promised to break up the old left right divides.

1397
01:14:58,720 --> 01:15:01,840
Speaker 1: Running as a Pete Boudaget or John Kasik style technocrat,

1398
01:15:02,120 --> 01:15:04,880
Speaker 1: he then governed as a typical neoliberal, cutting taxes for

1399
01:15:04,880 --> 01:15:07,439
Speaker 1: the rich, cutting benefits, attempting to tax the working class,

1400
01:15:07,479 --> 01:15:10,679
Speaker 1: or hiking gas taxes, and ultimately sparking the Populace gille

1401
01:15:10,840 --> 01:15:14,559
Speaker 1: Jon backlash. So on economics, he was a candidate of

1402
01:15:14,560 --> 01:15:17,559
Speaker 1: the elites. On culture, he actually moved right in an

1403
01:15:17,600 --> 01:15:20,680
Speaker 1: attempt to try to appease La Penn's growing base. As

1404
01:15:20,760 --> 01:15:24,639
Speaker 1: Daniel points out, mccroun's government justified various crackdowns on immigration

1405
01:15:24,760 --> 01:15:27,959
Speaker 1: under the theory it would contain the far right. Yesterday,

1406
01:15:28,040 --> 01:15:30,559
Speaker 1: La Penn got the highest result for a far right

1407
01:15:30,600 --> 01:15:34,040
Speaker 1: candidate in round one of a presidential race. Ever, trying

1408
01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:36,800
Speaker 1: to play the rights culture war never works, and that

1409
01:15:36,920 --> 01:15:39,360
Speaker 1: is exactly what Biden and co. Are up to right now.

1410
01:15:39,760 --> 01:15:41,479
Speaker 1: Just while I was writing this, I saw Biden giving

1411
01:15:41,479 --> 01:15:43,000
Speaker 1: a speech going out of his way to trash the

1412
01:15:43,000 --> 01:15:47,320
Speaker 1: police reform movement and promising to beef up police state funding. Also,

1413
01:15:47,520 --> 01:15:50,400
Speaker 1: I saw Senator Maggie Hassen debuting new tough on the border,

1414
01:15:50,439 --> 01:15:53,599
Speaker 1: messaging guys, you're not going to out cop and outdo

1415
01:15:53,640 --> 01:15:56,080
Speaker 1: the Republicans on build that wall. And you should know

1416
01:15:56,120 --> 01:15:58,559
Speaker 1: that because you've been literally running the same playbook for

1417
01:15:58,600 --> 01:16:01,680
Speaker 1: the past thirty years, further and further right, and then

1418
01:16:01,720 --> 01:16:05,000
Speaker 1: somehow blaming the left when you lose over and over again.

1419
01:16:05,560 --> 01:16:09,559
Speaker 1: But when your economic agenda consists of that best passing

1420
01:16:09,600 --> 01:16:12,719
Speaker 1: decent benefits that you then rip away after a single year,

1421
01:16:13,200 --> 01:16:14,840
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to fight the right from a

1422
01:16:14,880 --> 01:16:18,440
Speaker 1: place of strength. And when you've all but abandoned material politics,

1423
01:16:18,600 --> 01:16:21,320
Speaker 1: you put culture wars front and center of every single

1424
01:16:21,320 --> 01:16:25,160
Speaker 1: political debate. In the end, mccron is likely to hang

1425
01:16:25,160 --> 01:16:29,320
Speaker 1: onto power narrowly, just as Biden. The Democrats narrowly squeaked

1426
01:16:29,360 --> 01:16:31,799
Speaker 1: by Trump and secured a bare majority in the Senate,

1427
01:16:32,200 --> 01:16:36,280
Speaker 1: but their closely held grip on government is a thin edifice,

1428
01:16:36,520 --> 01:16:40,280
Speaker 1: barely covering the thorough indictment of the neoliberal ideology that

1429
01:16:40,320 --> 01:16:43,960
Speaker 1: they represent, and Sager again the ultimate result here, And

1430
01:16:43,960 --> 01:16:46,679
Speaker 1: if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

1431
01:16:46,680 --> 01:16:53,000
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. So

1432
01:16:53,080 --> 01:16:56,559
Speaker 1: there's some significant news coming out of Yemen. The UN

1433
01:16:56,600 --> 01:16:59,479
Speaker 1: has just announced a two month truce between the Saudi

1434
01:16:59,520 --> 01:17:02,519
Speaker 1: led cold and Yemen's hoofy rebels. Joining us now to

1435
01:17:02,560 --> 01:17:05,000
Speaker 1: talk about whether we should be hopeful that the ceasefire

1436
01:17:05,040 --> 01:17:08,160
Speaker 1: holds or not. Is doctor Annell she Line. She is

1437
01:17:08,200 --> 01:17:11,040
Speaker 1: a research fellow at the Quincy Institute. Welcome to the show.

1438
01:17:11,080 --> 01:17:13,720
Speaker 1: Gard to see you, doctor, Good to you, thanks for

1439
01:17:13,720 --> 01:17:16,840
Speaker 1: having me. You recently wrote a piece on this. Let's

1440
01:17:16,840 --> 01:17:18,400
Speaker 1: go ahead and put this up on the screen so

1441
01:17:18,479 --> 01:17:22,480
Speaker 1: people can see it. The headline here is cautious optimism

1442
01:17:22,720 --> 01:17:25,679
Speaker 1: hovers over new seasfire and Yemen. If the Saudis were

1443
01:17:25,680 --> 01:17:27,920
Speaker 1: looking for a face saving way to end its war

1444
01:17:27,920 --> 01:17:32,160
Speaker 1: against the hoofis this latest cessation in hostilities? May be it?

1445
01:17:32,200 --> 01:17:34,240
Speaker 1: Can you just bring us up to date with what

1446
01:17:34,360 --> 01:17:38,720
Speaker 1: is happening right now on the ground. Sure. So the

1447
01:17:39,560 --> 01:17:43,240
Speaker 1: ceasefire that was announced by the UN actually followed a

1448
01:17:43,400 --> 01:17:47,439
Speaker 1: unilateral ceasefire that the Hooky rebels had declared, which then

1449
01:17:47,800 --> 01:17:51,920
Speaker 1: was followed by a ceasefire from the Saudiast side. So

1450
01:17:52,400 --> 01:17:55,759
Speaker 1: already we had seen the two sort of name primary

1451
01:17:55,800 --> 01:17:59,960
Speaker 1: belligerents in this war, which again is multifaceted, so there

1452
01:18:00,040 --> 01:18:02,799
Speaker 1: there are other actors here, but the two main diligence

1453
01:18:02,840 --> 01:18:06,000
Speaker 1: had agreed to a ceasefire, which I think provided some

1454
01:18:06,040 --> 01:18:09,400
Speaker 1: of the momentum that then allow allowed the new UN

1455
01:18:09,560 --> 01:18:14,519
Speaker 1: envoy Hans Grunberg to successfully achieve this two month truth.

1456
01:18:15,080 --> 01:18:17,400
Speaker 1: But again it's important to keep in mind that just

1457
01:18:17,439 --> 01:18:21,360
Speaker 1: because the truth has been declared, this doesn't mean the

1458
01:18:21,400 --> 01:18:25,000
Speaker 1: war is over. You know, unfortunately often see during wars

1459
01:18:25,040 --> 01:18:28,680
Speaker 1: that the warring parties will use a temporary ceasefire to

1460
01:18:28,720 --> 01:18:33,240
Speaker 1: sort of reconsolidate their positions. And the other recent headline

1461
01:18:33,280 --> 01:18:36,960
Speaker 1: people may have heard about was that President Hadi, who

1462
01:18:37,160 --> 01:18:41,000
Speaker 1: had been the interim president who'd been in exile in

1463
01:18:41,040 --> 01:18:45,920
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, who essentially, you know, had had almost no

1464
01:18:46,040 --> 01:18:48,240
Speaker 1: power of his own but was sort of propped up

1465
01:18:48,280 --> 01:18:54,240
Speaker 1: by the Saudis. He stepped down and allocated his authority

1466
01:18:54,280 --> 01:18:59,240
Speaker 1: to an eight member presidential Leadership Council, which is comprised

1467
01:18:59,240 --> 01:19:02,519
Speaker 1: of sort of an ant tai hoofi coalition of leaders

1468
01:19:02,520 --> 01:19:07,000
Speaker 1: from around different parts of Yemen, militia leaders and political leaders.

1469
01:19:07,640 --> 01:19:11,160
Speaker 1: And so the question now is is this leadership council

1470
01:19:11,320 --> 01:19:14,400
Speaker 1: supposed to negotiate with the Houthis, which would be the hope,

1471
01:19:15,200 --> 01:19:18,240
Speaker 1: or are they a consolidation of forces to fight the

1472
01:19:18,320 --> 01:19:22,000
Speaker 1: Houthis such that you know whether the seasfire breaks down

1473
01:19:22,080 --> 01:19:24,040
Speaker 1: or at the end of the two months, when the

1474
01:19:24,080 --> 01:19:28,439
Speaker 1: Seaspire is over, it will simply lead to not only

1475
01:19:28,479 --> 01:19:32,519
Speaker 1: a resumption of hostilities, but an escalation and violence. Right,

1476
01:19:32,560 --> 01:19:34,400
Speaker 1: And so doctor I can go to zoom out a

1477
01:19:34,400 --> 01:19:37,800
Speaker 1: little bit. What is the role also of the United

1478
01:19:37,880 --> 01:19:42,920
Speaker 1: States here in either supporting this conflict facilitating this cease fire,

1479
01:19:43,040 --> 01:19:45,600
Speaker 1: because this is one of the biggest humanitarian disasters on

1480
01:19:45,640 --> 01:19:50,680
Speaker 1: the planet right now, exactly. So, unfortunately, the US is

1481
01:19:51,360 --> 01:19:55,720
Speaker 1: completely complicit in what Saudi Arabia is doing to Yemen. So,

1482
01:19:55,840 --> 01:20:00,519
Speaker 1: like I said, President Hadi, who was the interim residents

1483
01:20:00,520 --> 01:20:05,120
Speaker 1: who's been in exile and relatively powerless, Saudi Arabia was

1484
01:20:05,479 --> 01:20:10,960
Speaker 1: fighting on behalf of his government, bombing Yemen, blockading Yemen

1485
01:20:11,080 --> 01:20:14,280
Speaker 1: preventing fuel from entering Yemen at the port of Bodda,

1486
01:20:14,760 --> 01:20:19,000
Speaker 1: pre venturing flights from taking off from Senna International Airport.

1487
01:20:19,640 --> 01:20:22,240
Speaker 1: And none of this would be possible without US assistants

1488
01:20:22,320 --> 01:20:26,240
Speaker 1: because two thirds of the Saudi Air Force are US

1489
01:20:26,320 --> 01:20:29,360
Speaker 1: made and they only operate with the assistance of US

1490
01:20:29,400 --> 01:20:35,800
Speaker 1: military contractors. And so if President Biden or if Congress

1491
01:20:35,840 --> 01:20:38,880
Speaker 1: acted to say the US is no longer going to

1492
01:20:38,880 --> 01:20:42,160
Speaker 1: support this, the Saudi Air Force would be essentially grounded

1493
01:20:42,200 --> 01:20:45,040
Speaker 1: and they would no longer be able to run bombing

1494
01:20:45,080 --> 01:20:47,280
Speaker 1: sorties on Yemen, they would no longer be able to

1495
01:20:47,880 --> 01:20:51,160
Speaker 1: maintain this sort of air blockade of the airports in

1496
01:20:51,200 --> 01:20:55,240
Speaker 1: northern Yemen. So this is part of why we may

1497
01:20:55,280 --> 01:20:58,519
Speaker 1: have seen this movement towards cease fire now, because this

1498
01:20:58,640 --> 01:21:03,000
Speaker 1: conflict has been intracted. The Huthis took over in twenty

1499
01:21:03,040 --> 01:21:06,760
Speaker 1: fourteen and the Saudis invaded in twenty fifteen, so it's

1500
01:21:06,800 --> 01:21:11,240
Speaker 1: been seven years. But the fact that Congress had announced

1501
01:21:11,240 --> 01:21:14,200
Speaker 1: this intention to again try to pass a war powers

1502
01:21:14,240 --> 01:21:18,400
Speaker 1: resolution to end US support for what the Saudis are doing,

1503
01:21:19,120 --> 01:21:21,160
Speaker 1: this may have been why the Saudis were like, you

1504
01:21:21,160 --> 01:21:22,919
Speaker 1: know what, we don't want to be in a position

1505
01:21:23,000 --> 01:21:25,400
Speaker 1: where we can't fly our own planes anymore, like you

1506
01:21:26,400 --> 01:21:30,120
Speaker 1: any's need to figure this out before we lose even

1507
01:21:30,160 --> 01:21:32,719
Speaker 1: more face. I mean, Saudi Arabia has already been somewhat

1508
01:21:32,760 --> 01:21:37,000
Speaker 1: humiliated by not being able to win here, right, but

1509
01:21:37,400 --> 01:21:41,760
Speaker 1: it would be obviously much more embarrassing if they were

1510
01:21:41,760 --> 01:21:44,479
Speaker 1: faced with the reality of not being able to fly

1511
01:21:44,560 --> 01:21:48,479
Speaker 1: their own planes. Are there other dynamics on the ground

1512
01:21:48,479 --> 01:21:51,479
Speaker 1: that have shifted that may have helped to create this

1513
01:21:51,880 --> 01:21:55,599
Speaker 1: space for a truth? Yes, So the part of this

1514
01:21:55,720 --> 01:21:58,559
Speaker 1: also comes out of the fact that the Houthis have

1515
01:21:58,720 --> 01:22:03,240
Speaker 1: demonstrated and expanded capacity to hit targets in Saudi Arabia

1516
01:22:03,320 --> 01:22:07,680
Speaker 1: and abud Be. So people may recall in January a

1517
01:22:07,760 --> 01:22:10,320
Speaker 1: hoothy drone strike that hit abud Be. This was the

1518
01:22:10,360 --> 01:22:14,880
Speaker 1: first time in years, in part because the UAE had

1519
01:22:14,960 --> 01:22:18,479
Speaker 1: previously reduced their involvement in the war, but then once

1520
01:22:18,520 --> 01:22:24,080
Speaker 1: they re escalated it, the Houthis responded by retaliating, and

1521
01:22:24,720 --> 01:22:27,920
Speaker 1: the UAE has subsequently pushed really hard to try to

1522
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:33,160
Speaker 1: get the Houthies relisted as a foreign terrorist organization. This

1523
01:22:33,400 --> 01:22:38,320
Speaker 1: was something that they were demarcated as an FTO at

1524
01:22:38,360 --> 01:22:40,519
Speaker 1: the very end of the Trump administration, and the Biden

1525
01:22:40,560 --> 01:22:46,280
Speaker 1: administration lifted that designation, mostly just because of awareness that

1526
01:22:46,360 --> 01:22:52,480
Speaker 1: this would severely impact the humanitarian situation without actually necessarily

1527
01:22:52,479 --> 01:22:54,479
Speaker 1: doing all that much to the Huthis, who are not

1528
01:22:56,080 --> 01:22:58,920
Speaker 1: integrated into international markets. You know, these aren't sort of

1529
01:22:59,000 --> 01:23:02,880
Speaker 1: Russian oligarchs with money parked around the world. These are

1530
01:23:03,760 --> 01:23:08,200
Speaker 1: you know, their their assets are mainly in Yemen. But

1531
01:23:08,360 --> 01:23:12,040
Speaker 1: because then subsequently we also saw an attack by the

1532
01:23:12,080 --> 01:23:15,040
Speaker 1: Hoofis on the city of Jedda, which is the second

1533
01:23:15,120 --> 01:23:20,439
Speaker 1: largest city in Saudi Arabia. This threatened to disrupt a

1534
01:23:20,520 --> 01:23:24,240
Speaker 1: high profile Formula one race which was scheduled to take

1535
01:23:24,280 --> 01:23:27,200
Speaker 1: place in Saudi Arabia, which represents the sort of events

1536
01:23:27,240 --> 01:23:29,639
Speaker 1: that Muhammad bin stung Nan has been trying to use

1537
01:23:30,160 --> 01:23:33,840
Speaker 1: to transform the image of Saudi Arabian to somewhere that's

1538
01:23:33,880 --> 01:23:37,160
Speaker 1: open to tourists and you know, while ready for investment.

1539
01:23:37,720 --> 01:23:40,880
Speaker 1: And so although it was only you know, the one

1540
01:23:41,040 --> 01:23:45,479
Speaker 1: drone successfully hit Abudabi, others were blocked and then we

1541
01:23:45,560 --> 01:23:49,320
Speaker 1: had this one very dramatic explosion at an oil facility

1542
01:23:49,360 --> 01:23:54,400
Speaker 1: in Jeddah, but even just those a single attack really

1543
01:23:54,560 --> 01:23:57,439
Speaker 1: shatters the image of these as places that are safe

1544
01:23:57,520 --> 01:24:00,760
Speaker 1: and secure and somewhere that tourists would like to come.

1545
01:24:01,360 --> 01:24:04,439
Speaker 1: And so it's sort of ironic because Yemen has dealt

1546
01:24:04,479 --> 01:24:07,200
Speaker 1: with you know, hundreds of air strikes a day for

1547
01:24:07,439 --> 01:24:12,080
Speaker 1: years and there's been very little attention, whereas you know,

1548
01:24:12,240 --> 01:24:14,240
Speaker 1: one drone had said, would that be you know, one

1549
01:24:14,280 --> 01:24:17,800
Speaker 1: big attack in Judah, and suddenly the Saudis and amaranthis

1550
01:24:17,800 --> 01:24:21,200
Speaker 1: are scrambling to try to impose a cease fire. So

1551
01:24:22,680 --> 01:24:28,479
Speaker 1: it's my hope is this realization that increasingly the war

1552
01:24:28,640 --> 01:24:32,280
Speaker 1: is becoming more costly for the Saudias and for the Amortis.

1553
01:24:32,360 --> 01:24:38,120
Speaker 1: It has obviously been horribly, horribly costly for Yemen, but

1554
01:24:38,720 --> 01:24:41,600
Speaker 1: finally the costs are starting to come home, and so

1555
01:24:41,760 --> 01:24:44,920
Speaker 1: the Saudis may decide that it's really not worth it

1556
01:24:45,120 --> 01:24:49,120
Speaker 1: for them anymore to keep whiting. And can you talk

1557
01:24:49,160 --> 01:24:52,320
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the human beings in Yemen

1558
01:24:52,600 --> 01:24:55,040
Speaker 1: that are suffering. Let's go and put this tweet up

1559
01:24:55,080 --> 01:24:57,439
Speaker 1: on the screen. This is the latest update from the ceasefire,

1560
01:24:57,479 --> 01:25:00,080
Speaker 1: they say. This is from the Yemen Data Project one

1561
01:25:00,120 --> 01:25:02,120
Speaker 1: of Yemen ceasefire update. For the first time since the

1562
01:25:02,160 --> 01:25:04,439
Speaker 1: Saudi Laed air war began in March twenty fifteen, there's

1563
01:25:04,479 --> 01:25:06,880
Speaker 1: been a week without air strikes and Yemen. This is

1564
01:25:07,000 --> 01:25:10,760
Speaker 1: unprecedented ceasefire in the air war holds in the first

1565
01:25:10,800 --> 01:25:15,240
Speaker 1: week of declared two month halt in military operations. First

1566
01:25:15,280 --> 01:25:19,040
Speaker 1: of all, just remind us of what a catastrophe this

1567
01:25:19,160 --> 01:25:23,280
Speaker 1: has been for the human beings who live in Yemen.

1568
01:25:23,520 --> 01:25:27,640
Speaker 1: And then does this ceasefire come with any relief in

1569
01:25:27,760 --> 01:25:34,160
Speaker 1: terms of the humanitarian situation? So it does come with relief,

1570
01:25:34,240 --> 01:25:36,800
Speaker 1: As the Yemen Data Project pointed out, this is the

1571
01:25:36,880 --> 01:25:41,400
Speaker 1: first week apparently without air strikes or none that they

1572
01:25:41,520 --> 01:25:46,000
Speaker 1: have been able to record. And the Yemen Data Project

1573
01:25:46,080 --> 01:25:49,679
Speaker 1: has done hugely important work throughout the conflict keeping tabs

1574
01:25:49,800 --> 01:25:55,040
Speaker 1: on just the extreme volume of fouty lead air raids

1575
01:25:55,280 --> 01:26:00,640
Speaker 1: that are being conducted on Yemen Unford. So it's wonderful

1576
01:26:00,800 --> 01:26:03,439
Speaker 1: from the perspective of the people on the ground in

1577
01:26:03,560 --> 01:26:07,000
Speaker 1: Yemen to not be dealing with the threat of bombs falling.

1578
01:26:07,800 --> 01:26:11,360
Speaker 1: But at the same time, much of the humanitarian catastrophe

1579
01:26:11,600 --> 01:26:14,679
Speaker 1: in Yemen is from the secondary effects of the war,

1580
01:26:14,880 --> 01:26:19,120
Speaker 1: So not direct kinetic violence that has killed approximately ten

1581
01:26:19,240 --> 01:26:23,000
Speaker 1: thousand people, but the four hundred thousand people who have

1582
01:26:23,160 --> 01:26:26,439
Speaker 1: died since the start of the war in Yemen that

1583
01:26:26,560 --> 01:26:30,880
Speaker 1: has largely been from starvation, from disease, from lack of

1584
01:26:30,960 --> 01:26:37,640
Speaker 1: access to clean water, lack of functioning medical facilities, and

1585
01:26:37,760 --> 01:26:42,000
Speaker 1: these are unfortunately all compounded right now, especially the hunger

1586
01:26:42,080 --> 01:26:46,280
Speaker 1: crisis by the spike in wheat prices caused by the

1587
01:26:46,520 --> 01:26:51,440
Speaker 1: Russian invasion of Ukraine. And so we know major humanitarian

1588
01:26:51,560 --> 01:26:56,519
Speaker 1: organizations were already struggling with reduced budgets, they were already

1589
01:26:56,600 --> 01:27:01,280
Speaker 1: cutting what services they could provide to start manis and

1590
01:27:01,880 --> 01:27:04,719
Speaker 1: that's only going to be further cut because the price

1591
01:27:05,000 --> 01:27:12,320
Speaker 1: of wheat is that much higher, so in terms of relief, unfortunately,

1592
01:27:12,760 --> 01:27:15,280
Speaker 1: the other side of this, so part of this ceasfire

1593
01:27:15,320 --> 01:27:19,960
Speaker 1: agreement was to allow some shifts. The Saudi Coalition was

1594
01:27:20,000 --> 01:27:22,600
Speaker 1: going to allow ships to the port of Jodeeda, and

1595
01:27:22,760 --> 01:27:26,920
Speaker 1: especially fuel ships are what is needed because there's been

1596
01:27:27,160 --> 01:27:30,040
Speaker 1: almost no fuel in the areas controlled by the hoopies,

1597
01:27:30,439 --> 01:27:33,000
Speaker 1: and to allow flights to stun At airport again a

1598
01:27:33,040 --> 01:27:37,000
Speaker 1: limited number of flights only to Jordan and Egypt. But

1599
01:27:37,160 --> 01:27:40,760
Speaker 1: this would be a game changer because people have been

1600
01:27:41,160 --> 01:27:45,320
Speaker 1: stuck in Senna and in the area around Senna, and

1601
01:27:45,439 --> 01:27:47,760
Speaker 1: it's been very dangerous for people to try to sort

1602
01:27:47,800 --> 01:27:50,640
Speaker 1: of make the overland route. You know, a journey that

1603
01:27:50,920 --> 01:27:53,080
Speaker 1: once would have just taken a number of hours in

1604
01:27:53,160 --> 01:27:55,800
Speaker 1: a car can take more than a day due to

1605
01:27:56,360 --> 01:27:59,080
Speaker 1: checkpoints or blocked roads or things destroyed by the fighting.

1606
01:28:00,200 --> 01:28:02,560
Speaker 1: So it's just really not possible for the majority of

1607
01:28:02,680 --> 01:28:08,080
Speaker 1: people to escape from these areas, especially for things like

1608
01:28:08,520 --> 01:28:12,680
Speaker 1: medical treatment that is no longer available in Yemen. I

1609
01:28:12,800 --> 01:28:15,720
Speaker 1: myself had a friend who had a treatable form of

1610
01:28:15,800 --> 01:28:19,840
Speaker 1: cancer but passed away unfortunately because he just couldn't get

1611
01:28:19,880 --> 01:28:25,200
Speaker 1: out of Sanath. It's horrific. I mean the pictures of

1612
01:28:25,520 --> 01:28:30,960
Speaker 1: these babies and small children severely malnourished, many of whom

1613
01:28:31,000 --> 01:28:35,479
Speaker 1: have ultimately perished. It is a shameful situation that the

1614
01:28:35,640 --> 01:28:38,720
Speaker 1: US is in any way complicit. So thank you for

1615
01:28:38,880 --> 01:28:41,320
Speaker 1: bringing us the few signs of hope here that this

1616
01:28:42,200 --> 01:28:45,320
Speaker 1: conflict may be resolved in the near term, and we'll

1617
01:28:45,320 --> 01:28:47,760
Speaker 1: watch it closely. Welcome to the show, doctor she lyin,

1618
01:28:47,840 --> 01:28:51,360
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. Appreciated, Doctor, thank you.

1619
01:28:51,479 --> 01:28:53,560
Speaker 1: If I could say one thing, I would say that

1620
01:28:55,200 --> 01:28:59,040
Speaker 1: Americans can do something here. Because Congress did commit to

1621
01:29:00,080 --> 01:29:05,960
Speaker 1: reintroducing a war Powers resolution, which passed successfully in twenty nineteen,

1622
01:29:06,080 --> 01:29:10,360
Speaker 1: but then President Trump vetoed it. We had Representative Jaiapul

1623
01:29:10,479 --> 01:29:14,400
Speaker 1: and Difasio and Rocanna, and then on the Senate side

1624
01:29:14,439 --> 01:29:17,320
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders say they were going to reintroduce the war

1625
01:29:17,360 --> 01:29:23,880
Speaker 1: Powers resolution. And the point being that if Americans care

1626
01:29:23,960 --> 01:29:27,000
Speaker 1: about this, call your member of Congress and call your

1627
01:29:27,040 --> 01:29:29,639
Speaker 1: senator and tell them to support a war Powers resolution,

1628
01:29:30,280 --> 01:29:34,400
Speaker 1: because that would reassert congressional war making authority and would

1629
01:29:34,439 --> 01:29:39,240
Speaker 1: tell the Biden administration Congress is shutting down your ability

1630
01:29:39,320 --> 01:29:42,960
Speaker 1: to continue to assist Saudi Arabia here, and we're going

1631
01:29:43,000 --> 01:29:47,800
Speaker 1: to end us complicity in this war. Thank you for that. Yeah, guys,

1632
01:29:47,920 --> 01:29:49,600
Speaker 1: call your members of Congress if you care about this,

1633
01:29:49,840 --> 01:29:53,200
Speaker 1: tell them support a war powers resolution because of this

1634
01:29:53,320 --> 01:29:57,400
Speaker 1: conflict and also because Congress should have power over whether

1635
01:29:57,479 --> 01:30:00,320
Speaker 1: or not we go to war. Doctor. Thank you great

1636
01:30:00,320 --> 01:30:03,280
Speaker 1: to have your insights today. We're grateful. Thanks doctor, thanks

1637
01:30:03,320 --> 01:30:06,759
Speaker 1: so much our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching.

1638
01:30:06,800 --> 01:30:09,320
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. As a reminder, New York, we're

1639
01:30:09,360 --> 01:30:12,840
Speaker 1: coming Thursday live show. If you're a premium subscriber, go

1640
01:30:12,880 --> 01:30:16,200
Speaker 1: ahead and vote Lifetime members. We got the plaque finally done.

1641
01:30:16,240 --> 01:30:19,120
Speaker 1: We're very very happy about that, and we will have

1642
01:30:19,280 --> 01:30:21,559
Speaker 1: it on set for all of you on Monday. We're

1643
01:30:21,600 --> 01:30:23,800
Speaker 1: really looking forward to this live show and experimenting with

1644
01:30:23,840 --> 01:30:27,280
Speaker 1: all these new formats. Many big more announcements coming soon,

1645
01:30:27,400 --> 01:30:29,720
Speaker 1: but for now, we'll see you all on Thursday. Yeah,

1646
01:30:29,800 --> 01:30:32,280
Speaker 1: get your votes in, folks. We're closing voting tonight so

1647
01:30:32,400 --> 01:30:35,200
Speaker 1: we can prepare for the in depth topics that you

1648
01:30:35,280 --> 01:30:37,320
Speaker 1: apparently want to hear about. We're excited about to be

1649
01:30:37,400 --> 01:30:39,320
Speaker 1: fun to experiment with. Enjoy your day, we'll see you

1650
01:30:39,320 --> 01:30:40,080
Speaker 1: back here on Thursday.