Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 2: Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 2: What do we have, Krystal Deed.
Speaker 1: We do a lot of very interesting stories breaking this morning.
Speaker 1: We've got some big updates for you out of Hawaii
Speaker 1: and a lot of residents very concerned about potential disaster capitalism.
Speaker 1: I think those concerns are pretty justice shy, so we'll
Speaker 1: break all of that down for you. And the death
Speaker 1: toll unfortunately continues to rise. US have some new polls
Speaker 1: how Americans feel about the latest Trump indictments. And also
Speaker 1: Fox need is kind of a mess right now trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what they're going to do because they
Speaker 1: were on team Rondo Santis that isn't working out. They're
Speaker 1: floating some new names. It's all kind of hilarious results
Speaker 1: over there, so we will play.
Speaker 3: Some of that for you.
Speaker 1: Also, really dire economic numbers coming out of China. We
Speaker 1: have some reports from there that we can break down
Speaker 1: for you and see what is going on. And a
Speaker 1: story that's kind of flying under the radar. Passports are
Speaker 1: taking forever to be issued by the State Department. It's
Speaker 1: really a mess people. I mean, you might think, oh,
Speaker 1: big deal, but you've got wives who are trying to
Speaker 1: visit their husband's overseas who are deployed and they're not
Speaker 1: getting their passports in time. So for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: this is a major issue and also speaks to broader
Speaker 1: sort of dysfunction. And we've got an update for you
Speaker 1: on that story out of Kansas that we brought you
Speaker 1: earlier this week of a small local newspaper which was
Speaker 1: rated in incredibly aggressive fashion by the police. So we'll
Speaker 1: break all of that down for you before we get
Speaker 1: to any of that, though, Thank all of the premium
Speaker 1: subscribers out there who've been helping us to do all
Speaker 1: sorts of new and exciting things. And we've got a
Speaker 1: big interview that we are taping today. Shall we go
Speaker 1: ahead and reveal the name.
Speaker 2: This is going to be an interesting you can you
Speaker 2: can tease it. I think it's still happening. We're making sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Chris Matthews of former MSNBC fame is going
Speaker 1: to be here in studio.
Speaker 3: We have lots of questions for him.
Speaker 1: We certainly did Gray sorrace questions Biden, how's Biden doing?
Speaker 1: And also we definitely want to dig into the media
Speaker 1: with him. None of this would be possible if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for you beautiful people out there subscribing premium subscribers.
Speaker 3: You really make all of this happen.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you guys will be getting first access to
Speaker 2: the interview. So if you want to go ahead and
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Speaker 2: they go first to our premium subs before they debut
Speaker 2: publicly on our YouTube and our podcast feeds. So we're excited.
Speaker 2: We'll be releasing that one a little bit separately because
Speaker 2: I hope that we get to talk to him for
Speaker 2: a long time, maybe get a little couple barbs in there.
Speaker 2: I have a few questions about Chris's time.
Speaker 1: I want to know if really thought that if Bertie
Speaker 1: Sanders one he was going to be rounded up and executed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just more curious. You know. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: you're a fixture of cable television for thirty years. You know,
Speaker 2: people don't trust the news. I'm like, why do you
Speaker 2: think that is? Yeah, I'm really excited to get into
Speaker 2: that with it.
Speaker 3: It'll be a good conversation.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Hawaii, we have to return. Just absolutely
Speaker 2: continuing devastating news out of Hawaii. President Biden clearly you're
Speaker 2: basically shamed now into saying that he will visit on Monday,
Speaker 2: after days of silence. Here he was announcing that at
Speaker 2: a recent press conference. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4: My wife Jill and I are going to travel to
Speaker 4: why as soon as we can. That's what I've been
Speaker 4: talking to the governor about it. I don't want to
Speaker 4: get in the way. I've been to too many disaster areas,
Speaker 4: but I want to go make sure we got everything
Speaker 4: they need. I want to be sure we don't disrupt
Speaker 4: the ongoler recovery efforts. We're working with the state to
Speaker 4: make sure survivors that have lost their homes have a
Speaker 4: place to call home until we can rebuild. We're also
Speaker 4: surgery Federal personnel to the state to help the brave firefighters,
Speaker 4: who first responders, many of whom lost their own home homes.
Speaker 4: Not just our prayers, every asset, every asset they need
Speaker 4: will be there for them and will be there at
Speaker 4: Maui as long as it takes.
Speaker 2: Took five days to actually open his mouth about that,
Speaker 2: three after this infamous and no comment with a smile
Speaker 2: while he's on vacation. It's obvious that the media and
Speaker 2: national criticism and really, you know so, I guess thanks
Speaker 2: to everybody here and our shows, many others out there
Speaker 2: kind of a cacophony of voices being like, what the
Speaker 2: hell are you doing? Christle. The thing is about his
Speaker 2: explanation is he could have given that explanation three days earlier.
Speaker 2: There's literally no reason that he had to wait so long,
Speaker 2: and then is deciding to go on Monday. I mean, look,
Speaker 2: I think it's good, you know, to go. But more importantly,
Speaker 2: it is like, are these people actually getting what they need?
Speaker 2: And interestingly enough, even the press corps is starting to
Speaker 2: bristle a little bit at some of the Biden administration's claims. Oh,
Speaker 2: you guys are doing everything. One reporter was like, listen,
Speaker 2: I'm talking to people after people to say, I don't
Speaker 2: have any government resources. I don't see the Feds out
Speaker 2: here doing anything, so I don't know what the hell
Speaker 2: you're talking about. The FEMA director herself was directly challenged yesterday.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: We keep interviewing survivor after survivor who says that either
Speaker 5: they didn't see any government personnel or assistance for days,
Speaker 5: or that they still have it. How do you explain
Speaker 5: the disconnect between what they're saying and what you're saying
Speaker 5: about all of the resources that are there at Mali.
Speaker 5: I think you need to understand that this community is
Speaker 5: going through an amazingly traumatic event. I can tell you
Speaker 5: that we have personnel that are on the ground year
Speaker 5: round and embedded in with the States as soon as
Speaker 5: the fire started, so we could continue to understand what
Speaker 5: resources were needed and help move them in.
Speaker 2: What do you see there, Christal? I mean, one is reality.
Speaker 2: One is a spin. And I think from the federal government,
Speaker 2: don't worry. They do have seven hundred dollars that they're
Speaker 2: getting as a disaster relief payment, which is just so ridiculous.
Speaker 2: In the same time, they want twenty four billion or
Speaker 2: whatever extra for Ukraine. Note also that he's basically using
Speaker 2: the same Ukraine language now for Mali but later as
Speaker 2: long as it takes like no matter what. Interesting in
Speaker 2: terms of what gets priority and not. But clearly they're
Speaker 2: on their heels Nash.
Speaker 1: Yeah. In terms of the response, yeah, well understandably, especially
Speaker 1: they were so late to it.
Speaker 3: And look, I'm glad he's going.
Speaker 1: It's I think pathetic that he had to be shamed
Speaker 1: into it, but good that he has taking time out
Speaker 1: of his Tahoe Tahoe vacation to head down there. But
Speaker 1: you know, the real question continues to be the strength
Speaker 1: and aggressiveness of the recovery on the ground. It is
Speaker 1: impossible to wrap your head around the grief and the
Speaker 1: pain and the terror that these people have experience and
Speaker 1: continue to experience. The more that I learn about it,
Speaker 1: the more horrified that I am. And you know, there
Speaker 1: was a hopeful story, which I think also underscores why
Speaker 1: it's important to keep the recovery and relief effort going
Speaker 1: as quickly as you possibly can. They did actually just
Speaker 1: find sixty people who were huddled together in one house.
Speaker 1: Sixty survivors located there at one time. They didn't have
Speaker 1: any electricity and communications were down, so they weren't able
Speaker 1: to alert people. They've now been returned to their families,
Speaker 1: So there may be other really hopeful stories like that
Speaker 1: that are out there. But this morning, the latest numbers
Speaker 1: are one hundred and eleven people confirmed dead. There's still
Speaker 1: more than a thousand people who are missing, and it's
Speaker 1: really slow going in terms of searching this charred landscape.
Speaker 1: The latest that I saw from yesterday evening is that
Speaker 1: you know, they've got cadavertises, really grim stuff, cadaver dogs
Speaker 1: who were going through painstakingly through this area where any
Speaker 1: place could contain human remains, and they've gotten through about
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent of the area that was burned. So
Speaker 1: it is a disastrous situation. And part of what makes
Speaker 1: it so incredibly heartbreaking and heart wrenching is put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. This is from the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1: What happened is there were a lot of the local
Speaker 1: schools were supposed to be back in session that day
Speaker 1: and they had to cancel that morning because the electricity
Speaker 1: went out because of the storm. And so these are
Speaker 1: working class parents here in Leahina and Maui, and they
Speaker 1: had to leave their kids, you know, at home or
Speaker 1: with grandparents or whatever, and go to their jobs, often
Speaker 1: working at the tourist resorts that were outside of the
Speaker 1: burn zone. And so these kids oftentimes were left alone
Speaker 1: or like I said, with elderly relatives. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of fear that overwhelmingly the numbers of the dead
Speaker 1: may be little children.
Speaker 3: Here's a quote from the piece.
Speaker 1: They say several schools in around Lahina were set to
Speaker 1: open last Tuesday, classes were canceled when the power went
Speaker 1: out that morning. Many families in the largely working class
Speaker 1: community left children home alone or with older relatives, while
Speaker 1: parents went to work at businesses, including resorts, which are
Speaker 1: outside of Lahina and were largely spared. So it gives
Speaker 1: you a sense of the heartbreak here. You know, we
Speaker 1: took a little bit of heat for criticizing Yes, I
Speaker 1: just listen. I cannot imagine really going to the mat
Speaker 1: to say, yes, you're doing. It's already everything that needs
Speaker 1: to be done for these people who are searching for
Speaker 1: their potentially dead children. Yes, we should rest on our
Speaker 1: laurels and I'm sure that they've gotten adequate supplies. No,
Speaker 1: we're going to continue pushing for an aggressive relief and
Speaker 1: whatever it takes for the government to do whatever they
Speaker 1: possibly can for this community.
Speaker 2: Let's review the fact, shall we. The president took days
Speaker 2: in order to open his mouth about this national disaster,
Speaker 2: at the same time requested billions of dollars for aid,
Speaker 2: specifically disaster aid for a foreign nation. At the same time,
Speaker 2: residents of the said disaster say, we are not getting
Speaker 2: enough aid. We don't know where the federal government is,
Speaker 2: we don't see it, we are not seeing anyone here.
Speaker 2: We are of open conversation and have shown multiple reports
Speaker 2: from the people themselves here on this show as well
Speaker 2: as elsewhere about people who are residents saying that they
Speaker 2: were being actively blocked by the local and state authorities
Speaker 2: from even organizing separate relief efforts in order to bring
Speaker 2: supplies to said people who are affected by this disaster. So, okay,
Speaker 2: if you want to defend that, that's fine. Okay. I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess that is you want to flack so hard
Speaker 2: for the current president and overlook those facts when if
Speaker 2: you think back to the freak out over Trump's response
Speaker 2: to Hurricane Maria or Trump's response to Hurricane Harvey, or
Speaker 2: I mean, I think wasn't there another big hurricane also
Speaker 2: while Trump was president, or George W. Bush and Katrina,
Speaker 2: And by the way, I think screwediny of all those
Speaker 2: things is a good thing. I think it is a
Speaker 2: very important order to hold the feet to the fire
Speaker 2: of the federal government, specifically these administrations, especially whenever we're
Speaker 2: talking about far flung places parts of the United States
Speaker 2: of citizens who historically do not get you know, the
Speaker 2: best looked after by the government. Million getting screwed over
Speaker 2: mil which we are about to get to. How they're
Speaker 2: even continuing to try and be screwed. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is just basic governance. One oh one, A big part
Speaker 2: of the show. You know today we're talking about passports.
Speaker 2: But if you combine all this stuff, the FAA is
Speaker 2: breaking down. Apparently, you know, a flying is just too difficult.
Speaker 2: We used to figure it out, not twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: It's somehow has gotten worse, more expensive. The freaking government
Speaker 2: can't even issue the damn passport. Is a little basic
Speaker 2: form of government. And then one of the other basic
Speaker 2: forms is if some really bad stuff happens, the FEDS
Speaker 2: are the ones who are in charge of, you know,
Speaker 2: the state themselves. We know that these states historically have
Speaker 2: been totally unable in order to grapple with this. So
Speaker 2: these are the most basic functions of government. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: apologize for holding our leaders to account for that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for literally one of the most basic aspects of the job. Anyway,
Speaker 2: speaking though, of these people getting preyed on, getting screwed,
Speaker 2: there has been now a disgusting phenomenon where residents are
Speaker 2: reporting that realtors, speculators, and other basically agents of the
Speaker 2: rich are already hounding residents to try and buy their
Speaker 2: land for pennies on the dollar because this is one
Speaker 2: of the most desirable vacation spots for the super rich
Speaker 2: here in the United States. One resident specifically called us out,
Speaker 2: let's take a lesson.
Speaker 6: Yes, homeowners have been reached out by investors and realtors
Speaker 6: offering to buy their land. And this is disgusting, disgusting,
Speaker 6: and we just want to make sure that people around
Speaker 6: the world understand our situation and know that Lahina is
Speaker 6: not for sale. It is important that the multi generational
Speaker 6: families that come from Lahaina get to continue. We've already
Speaker 6: been displaced so much. You know, the cost of living
Speaker 6: in Hawaii is so high. Your median house goes for
Speaker 6: a million dollars, so you know, already dealing with that
Speaker 6: and having an affordable housing crisis, and now this just
Speaker 6: really scares.
Speaker 2: Me and concerns me that there be more.
Speaker 6: Native Hawaiian displacement happening on our among our community.
Speaker 2: They should be scared because, you know, and this is
Speaker 2: one of those where you look at statements like Jeff
Speaker 2: Bezos going to donate one hundred million dollars, like Oprah
Speaker 2: is marshaling resources and all, and I think that's great,
Speaker 2: don't get me wrong. But you start to read about
Speaker 2: it and you're like, oh, Oprah owns like eight hundred
Speaker 2: acres of land on Maui. Jeff Bezos and all these
Speaker 2: other people all have vacation houses in Hawaii, and you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: actually a big part of this is that a lot
Speaker 2: of super rich individuals in the US, billionaires all have
Speaker 2: compounds in Hawaii. And then you're questioning here about, well,
Speaker 2: are we making sure one hundred percent that these people
Speaker 2: are not only made whole let's say, you know, on
Speaker 2: insurance purposes for paid out, but then they're going to
Speaker 2: be able to repurchase or build said land without having
Speaker 2: speculators come in and be like, oh, no, building materials
Speaker 2: are going to be actually like a one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty percent more expensive in order to make sure this
Speaker 2: is one of the most basic again projects of the
Speaker 2: federal government and residents there, I think rightfully do fear
Speaker 2: this because, as she pointed to, I've always kind of
Speaker 2: long been fascinated by the Hawaiian real estate market, where
Speaker 2: it's like Hanulus, one of the most expensive places in
Speaker 2: the country. This is why, because it is such a
Speaker 2: playground for the super rich all across the US. It's
Speaker 2: early estate in the US, it's one of the easiest
Speaker 2: places in order to purchase a buy real estate in
Speaker 2: you know, literally like in a paradise environment. So you know,
Speaker 2: they're effectively being priced out of their own land. And
Speaker 2: then this is the perfect opportunity for those vultures to
Speaker 2: try to swoop in and build even more vacation compounds
Speaker 2: while the native people who actually live there, and as
Speaker 2: you said, how a lot of these people are going,
Speaker 2: they're not even they weren't even at home because they're
Speaker 2: going and working on these damn resorts. It's like a
Speaker 2: White Lotus episode almost come to life here. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: is so true.
Speaker 1: I mean it is like a law of nature under
Speaker 1: capitalism when these disasters strike.
Speaker 3: You see the vultures we made circling.
Speaker 1: Immediately, and you know what, without the government getting involved
Speaker 1: very quickly, she is one hundred percent they're gonna win
Speaker 1: about what's going to happen here. And the reality is,
Speaker 1: let's put this up on the screen from Common Dreams.
Speaker 1: The reality is this has been happening in slow motion
Speaker 1: over decades now in Lahina and surrounding areas.
Speaker 3: That resident we listened.
Speaker 1: To there talked about how the median home press in
Speaker 1: this area is already over a million dollars, so you've
Speaker 1: already had massive displacement of the original inhabitants of this region.
Speaker 1: So now when they're looking at this state of affairs,
Speaker 1: not only do they have to deal with the grief
Speaker 1: of losing very close loved ones of their community being
Speaker 1: charred and destroyed, but they also have to worry about
Speaker 1: their entire way of life and their whole community basically
Speaker 1: being wiped out, being continually priced out of this area
Speaker 1: that is there. You know, that is their home and
Speaker 1: has been their home for a long time. So you
Speaker 1: know they talk to in that piece for Common Dreams,
Speaker 1: they talk to a number of people who were deeply
Speaker 1: concerned about this and their increasing reports of just how
Speaker 1: quickly these speculators have come in to try to turn
Speaker 1: a buck off of the backs of this horrific tragedy.
Speaker 1: And it is utterly disgusting and also sadly completely predictable.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, And you know you see some of
Speaker 2: this here where even the Hawaiian governor now is making
Speaker 2: some very odd claims. Let's go and put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. The governor says that the state
Speaker 2: is now looking to acquire land which is destroyed in
Speaker 2: the fires. He says, quote, we want this to be
Speaker 2: something that we remember after the pain passes. Lahina will rebuild.
Speaker 2: The tragedy right now is the loss of life. The
Speaker 2: buildings can be rebuilt over time. Even the banyan tree
Speaker 2: may survive. But we don't want this to become a
Speaker 2: clear space where when people from overseas just come and
Speaker 2: decide that they are going to take it, the state
Speaker 2: will take it and preserve it first. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: possibly a good move, but then you also have to
Speaker 2: do the follow up here, and you're like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: make sure that the state then resells it back to Yeah,
Speaker 2: that wor.
Speaker 3: The devil's in the details.
Speaker 1: But I mean, if you are going to protect this
Speaker 1: area for local people, you're going to have to have
Speaker 1: government involvement here in order to do it. So, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's all going to depend on how
Speaker 1: this all goes down, if it actually happens, and who
Speaker 1: the land is protected and preserved for. You know, is
Speaker 1: is affordable housing created for local people, local workers, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Or you know, is this a set aside that really
Speaker 1: doesn't solve any of the problems that they're dealing with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's the biggest question. I know, this
Speaker 2: has been a problem, as you said, no, in Hawaii
Speaker 2: literally now for decades, where basically, over the last fifty years,
Speaker 2: all the super rich in the US, and specifically the
Speaker 2: tech sector because they're in California it's only a five
Speaker 2: or six hour flight or whatever away. I mean, they
Speaker 2: have just cannibalized like the entire the entire state. I
Speaker 2: think there's one island, I forget which one it is,
Speaker 2: maybe Lanai, where Larry Ellison basically owns the entire island.
Speaker 2: I read an entire piece about this where he's like
Speaker 2: the landlord and the owner for every president that is there,
Speaker 2: because it's for some reason it still remains private land
Speaker 2: where you could acquire almost all of it because he's
Speaker 2: on the board of Tesla and like built himself a
Speaker 2: test supercharger on this tiny little Hawaiian island just for
Speaker 2: himself so he can rock it around. It's one of
Speaker 2: those where that obviously is an extreme situation, but out
Speaker 2: of microcosm, Like Zuckerberg has got a compound down there,
Speaker 2: the job family, but you know, a long time uh
Speaker 2: Hawaiian like retreating to Hawaii. We've got Oprah who's got
Speaker 2: a big compound. Bezos, like all these people have huge areas.
Speaker 2: I even remember reading about Zuckerberg like constructing a massive
Speaker 2: privacy fence around this compound, which you know, native population
Speaker 2: were very upset about because it was like not only
Speaker 2: blocking views, but like creating a disturbance. It's like the
Speaker 2: world does not exist in order to serve just the
Speaker 2: whims of the ultra wealthy this well, yes, governments that way.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean that's the thing is Listen, if
Speaker 1: it's just just it goes to the highest bidder, you know,
Speaker 1: it's exactly what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: And look, it is paradise.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely gorgeous, spectacular there, and it's a beautiful thing
Speaker 1: to be for people to come and appreciate that and
Speaker 1: enjoy it, but not at the expense of the residents there, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, are the ones who are working two
Speaker 1: three jobs to be able to, like, you know, serve
Speaker 1: you at the hotel or at the resort or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is. I really feel like I'm watching
Speaker 2: White Lotus Season one. Shout out to that show, by
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to stay on it, guys and keep
Speaker 1: you updated there. At the same time, we got some
Speaker 1: news for you over on the Republican side of things.
Speaker 1: We got some new polls about how Americans feel about
Speaker 1: the latest Trump indictments that we're going to break down
Speaker 1: for you, but we wanted to start with a bit
Speaker 1: of an existential crisis. I think it's fair to say
Speaker 1: going on over at Fox News. Fox News in disarray
Speaker 1: because obviously they want to move on from Trump, at
Speaker 1: least the leadership grouper Murdock and co. Want to move
Speaker 1: on from Trump. They picked Asantis as the golden Boy.
Speaker 1: Golden Boy isn't working out, so now they're shopping around
Speaker 1: for like, all right, well, who else we got, can
Speaker 1: you know, can we.
Speaker 3: Prop up and give a go at it.
Speaker 1: At the same time, they know their audience overwhelmingly still
Speaker 1: loves Trump. So one of the manifestations of this inner
Speaker 1: struggle is something they did that was utterly hilarious. They
Speaker 1: just out of nowhere invented these like powers Kings in
Speaker 1: the Republican Primer, based on nothing over the other than
Speaker 1: something they pull down of their own butts. But they're
Speaker 1: selling this as if it's breaking news, and it's amazing.
Speaker 7: Take a listen, our power ranking show former President Trump
Speaker 7: keeping a firm grip on the party.
Speaker 8: So here's what we have, Dana. He is far and
Speaker 8: away the front runner. Ron de Santist Tim Scott are
Speaker 8: in contention. You've got five others in the conversation, and
Speaker 8: the rest are on the outside looking in.
Speaker 7: Hi, Dana Envil, that's right feeling right at home here
Speaker 7: in Iowa. We can tell you that this morning Senator
Speaker 7: Tim Scott breaking into the top three, and those Fox
Speaker 7: News Power rankings that were just released. We caught up
Speaker 7: with him here on the fairgrounds asked him why thinks
Speaker 7: he's moving up in these polls, he said, it's because
Speaker 7: of his common sense conservative policies. Listen, do you think
Speaker 7: you are going to be able to move up in
Speaker 7: those rankings?
Speaker 9: Well, the good news that were we continue to move up.
Speaker 9: More importantly, I'm not spending any time watching poles.
Speaker 2: All my time watching.
Speaker 9: People, so foles don't vote, but people do somema spend
Speaker 9: my time getting to know the average person in the
Speaker 9: state even better, and so far, so good. I expect
Speaker 9: that our momental will continue to increase every day.
Speaker 3: So again, this is not based on polls. This isn't
Speaker 3: based on really like invented it.
Speaker 1: It's just their own invention that's like fanfic of what
Speaker 1: they want.
Speaker 3: The Republican primary to be like. And it's kind of amazing.
Speaker 1: I almost respect the just audacity of making this thing
Speaker 1: up and then pretending that it's breaking news.
Speaker 2: Well, when it pairs next, we're about to show people.
Speaker 2: It makes sense. They want on our trying to suck
Speaker 2: up to Trump as much as humanly possible. And then
Speaker 2: also because they want him to come to the debate,
Speaker 2: they are desperate for him come to the Republican debate.
Speaker 2: If he doesn't come to the debate, they're going to
Speaker 2: look like idiots. It's obviously going to be a side show.
Speaker 2: I'm already seeing two scenarios where Trump could either turn
Speaker 2: himself in in Georgia, which would overshadow it completely, or
Speaker 2: he just might do competing interviews. I saw a float
Speaker 2: that apparently is in conversation with Tucker Carlson's team about
Speaker 2: doing an interview, doing a media blitz at the time,
Speaker 2: just to be like, yeah, I'm actually the center right here,
Speaker 2: which you know, why shouldn't he did that during the
Speaker 2: White House Correspondence Center.
Speaker 1: I have to go to the Tim Scott thing because okay,
Speaker 1: just so you know, I looked up the where he's
Speaker 1: at in the national average two point six percent, Like
Speaker 1: it's very obvious. Actually, I was gonna say the thing
Speaker 1: that's most obvious. I mean, first of all, like they're
Speaker 1: trying to put on a Tim Scott like trial balloon here.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I saw on.
Speaker 1: CNN this morning when I was in the gym, they
Speaker 1: had a similar like, oh, Iowa voters interested in Tim Scott.
Speaker 3: So there's a whole media effort right now to try
Speaker 3: to make Tim Scott. I think that's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two They clearly hate Vivak because he is the
Speaker 1: person who was actually coming up in the polls, has
Speaker 1: some momentum.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about him? Not my cup of tea?
Speaker 1: That's fine, you know, like we had good exchange here.
Speaker 1: I hope he comes back. I hope we talk to
Speaker 1: him more. But he clearly is the one moving up
Speaker 1: in the polls and you know, challenging DeSantis in some
Speaker 1: of these numbers, and they don't give him any.
Speaker 3: Sort of grud.
Speaker 1: They put up a graph later that had everybody's fundraising
Speaker 1: and they made sure to put an asterisk in there
Speaker 1: of like how much came from him, just to sort
Speaker 1: of like undercut you know, the level of any way,
Speaker 1: Tim Scott, this is the new thing that they're trying,
Speaker 1: and I think it's going to work even less well
Speaker 1: than the Rhonda Santis attempts.
Speaker 2: To work here. Oh yeah, absolutely. And just to as
Speaker 2: we alluded to, this is how much they're sucking up
Speaker 2: to Trump. They're like playing up as if his big
Speaker 2: Georgia reveal, where Trump promises on Monday he's did this time,
Speaker 2: he's going to prove that the election was stolen. This
Speaker 2: is how they covered it over at Fox. So this
Speaker 2: one hundred.
Speaker 10: Page report that's going to come out on Monday. The
Speaker 10: former President's going to drop it out at Bedminster, which
Speaker 10: is his golf resort just to the west of New
Speaker 10: York City.
Speaker 2: And the question is what's going to be in it.
Speaker 10: Well, apparently it was in this according to The New
Speaker 10: York Times this morning, compiled at least in part by
Speaker 10: a woman by the name of Liz Harrington, and she
Speaker 10: has been one of his communications staff members. And apparently
Speaker 10: the document focuses on voting anomalies in the state of Georgia,
Speaker 10: and Miss Harrington has been on x formerly known as
Speaker 10: Twitter instead kind of given a preview. It said, Georgia
Speaker 10: has been among the most corrupt elections in the country
Speaker 10: and they haven't gotten any better since twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: They've gotten worse.
Speaker 11: Two in Monday, and he said on truth Social Donald Trump,
Speaker 11: they never went after those that rigged the election. They
Speaker 11: only went after those that fought to find the riggers.
Speaker 11: And in this indictment in Georgia and all these indictments,
Speaker 11: it allows him to have discovery. So his lawyers will
Speaker 11: have discovery and we'll find out information. And I heard
Speaker 11: this morning Brian, an attorney said he give us on
Speaker 11: Fox and Frints first was saying, the best argument he
Speaker 11: has is to tell the truth, and if he finds
Speaker 11: out that something did happen in the election, then he
Speaker 11: would have proof and then maybe he could exonerate himself
Speaker 11: what he has.
Speaker 2: We don't know.
Speaker 11: We'll find out on Monday morning at eleven o'clock.
Speaker 2: We'll find out on Monday morning at eleven o'clock. Actually,
Speaker 2: you know what the funniest thing is report already out
Speaker 2: this morning. Trump's lawyers are desperate for him not to
Speaker 2: do that. They'll really complicate your legal troubles if you
Speaker 2: continue to go down this road, and they want him
Speaker 2: to cancel any very maleway he very well made. So
Speaker 2: it's just funny to see the way that it's I mean.
Speaker 1: It's hilarious that they're like credulously like, oh maybe now
Speaker 1: we're going.
Speaker 3: To get the big revealing.
Speaker 2: It only took three years.
Speaker 3: Pump this thing up.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it shows you that they just don't know
Speaker 1: where to land with this because they know they want
Speaker 1: him at the debate desperately, which I don't think is
Speaker 1: going to happen. They want to obviously keep their audience,
Speaker 1: which is very overwhelmingly pro Trump, and yet they really
Speaker 1: don't want him.
Speaker 2: To be the guy.
Speaker 1: So they're also trying to flirt with DeSantis, flirt with
Speaker 1: Tim Scott, flirt with whoever might have a shot at
Speaker 1: defeeding him.
Speaker 3: But guess what, guys, it ain't happening.
Speaker 2: Not going to work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, we've got some polls, as I alluded
Speaker 1: to you before, about how people feel about this latest charges.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this up on the screen. This
Speaker 1: is from the AP recent poll that they did you
Speaker 1: approve the Justice Department indicting Trump over his efforts to
Speaker 1: remain in office after losing the twenty twenty election. Yes,
Speaker 1: fifty three percent, No, forty seven percent. Will not surprise
Speaker 1: you to learn that there is a major partisan breakdown
Speaker 1: on this question. Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So Democrats eighty five percent approve of the criminal charges
Speaker 1: brought specifically by Special Counsel Jacksmith. So this isn't the
Speaker 1: Fulton County one. These are specifically asking about Jack Smith
Speaker 1: independence forty seven percent, so they're split pretty evenly and
Speaker 1: Republicans at sixteen percent, so really wide obviously partisan divide
Speaker 1: in terms of how people feel about all of this.
Speaker 1: But the other question that I have is, you know, listen,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot here about the challenges for Biden
Speaker 1: and how people feel like he's too old and they're
Speaker 1: not happy with the economy and all kinds of issues there.
Speaker 1: But you know, Republicans may well be nominating the one
Speaker 1: dude who is almost definitely going to lose.
Speaker 3: To Joe Biden. Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: You've got recent poll that this is from.
Speaker 3: This is from the AP as well.
Speaker 1: Do you want former President Trump to run again in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four? Yes, sixty three percent. This is from
Speaker 1: among Republicans. Back in April twenty two, it was only
Speaker 1: fifty five percent. So for Republicans, they are overwhelmingly in
Speaker 1: favor of Trump running again in twenty twenty four. But
Speaker 1: the next one up on the screen, would you support
Speaker 1: Donald Trump in the twenty twenty four election? Now this
Speaker 1: is for everybody, not just Republicans. So looking ahead to
Speaker 1: that general election, what kind of a shot does he have.
Speaker 1: You've already got a majority of the American people fifty
Speaker 1: three percent who say they will definitely one hundred percent
Speaker 1: not support Donald Trump. You've got another eleven percent that
Speaker 1: say they probably won't support Trump, and then you've got
Speaker 1: thirty six percent who say yes. Now, listen, the way
Speaker 1: that this could go down is he doesn't If you've
Speaker 1: got a few third party candidates in there, he doesn't
Speaker 1: have to get to fifty percent in order to win.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the way that he pulled it off
Speaker 1: back in twenty sixteen. So you know, the fact that
Speaker 1: you've got a majority who are against him doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: mean that he would be unable to pull it off.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I have to think that the fact
Speaker 1: that this whole election cycle is going to be relitigating
Speaker 1: twenty twenty stop steal. You know, he's already going out
Speaker 1: there and want to do press conferences all about this,
Speaker 1: leaning into all of this was going to be all
Speaker 1: the coverages about people hate this part of him, Like
Speaker 1: majority of people hate this part of him outside of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. He may well be facing prison time
Speaker 1: by the time that the election rolls around. I do
Speaker 1: think this is a very tough hand for Republicans to overcome.
Speaker 2: I just don't ever know. I mean, it's one poll, right,
Speaker 2: we can say that, you never know. It's one of
Speaker 2: those where he did win reelection. He did win an
Speaker 2: election twenty sixteen a thirty percent approval rating. There is
Speaker 2: the quote unquote silent Trump voter phenomenon. Some people will
Speaker 2: say that they're not going to vote for him, and
Speaker 2: then secretly they will vote for him. It's also a
Speaker 2: year at more than a year out, you know, before
Speaker 2: the election. Is all kinds of mitigating factors. But would
Speaker 2: I rather would I want to be in this position? No,
Speaker 2: but I'm not yet willing to count him out at
Speaker 2: the same time, like, I just am not sure though,
Speaker 2: And as you said too, I mean Hillary won what
Speaker 2: almost fifty two percent I think of the popular vote
Speaker 2: something around there. It wasn't actually all that close whenever
Speaker 2: you look at it. But you know, if you win
Speaker 2: in the right states, it all came down to thirty
Speaker 2: forty thousand votes last time, across three states. All you
Speaker 2: have to do is switch a few more this time.
Speaker 2: Some people don't come out to vote, some people vote
Speaker 2: third party, you can pretty easily win. I mean Bill
Speaker 2: Clinton won the presidency in two and sorry nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: two with like forty three percent of the popular vote,
Speaker 2: and that's not that far off from where Trump is, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I'm really conflicted.
Speaker 1: I go back and forth on this because also you know,
Speaker 1: it is the case that looking at the national head
Speaker 1: to head polls between him and Biden, he has never
Speaker 1: at this point in twenty sixteen or twenty twenty was
Speaker 1: nowhere close to as strong as his numbers are right now, right,
Speaker 1: I mean if you look at the head to head numbers,
Speaker 1: and I think that might be also why you get
Speaker 1: a little bit of a different picture in this pool,
Speaker 1: because they're just asking me about how do you feel
Speaker 1: about Trump basically, and when you just ask about Trump, yeah,
Speaker 1: you got a majority of people who were like, no,
Speaker 1: not doing it again. But when you're like all right,
Speaker 1: but you're alterative as Joe Biden, then suddenly ends up
Speaker 1: really close, which is utterly pathetic that, you know, the
Speaker 1: Democrats have are tied with a dude who is you know,
Speaker 1: facing like ninety one charges and potential prison time ahead
Speaker 1: of the election, and yet we still have this state
Speaker 1: of affairs where it is very it is impossible to
Speaker 1: say exactly what's going to happen. But you know, I
Speaker 1: do think for Republicans who want to win, I do
Speaker 1: think that they would likely have a much better shot
Speaker 1: with a candidate who you know, didn't have ninety one
Speaker 1: charges and multiple indictments across multiple.
Speaker 2: Stories on that. I don't think it's deniable. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: you know, it looks like we're going to go into this.
Speaker 2: So is it going to work? I saw it. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of triumphant you know, people have been like, oh,
Speaker 2: well this you know, Trump definitely can't win. There's just
Speaker 2: no way. I'm like, how many times we all have
Speaker 2: to learned this lesson?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 2: Like I've seen old Donnie wriggle himself out of many situations.
Speaker 2: Maybe this is it. Okay, it's possible, but I've seen
Speaker 2: enough where until it happens, I'm just really not ready.
Speaker 3: To say a wild situation.
Speaker 2: Let's move on to the next one. With China, some
Speaker 2: really interesting signs. Got to give credit to Peter Zihon,
Speaker 2: who actually has long been talking about some of the
Speaker 2: strategic weaknesses inside of the Chinese economy, and we're beginning
Speaker 2: to see some things come through, even with their official
Speaker 2: data which does not look good for them post COVID.
Speaker 2: Let's gohead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This was just the first indication very reminiscent of the
Speaker 2: evergrand situation if we'll all recall from a year or
Speaker 2: so ago where one of the biggest shadow banks inside
Speaker 2: of China has missed dozens of payments. Many of their
Speaker 2: products have they missed payments have grown to dozens of
Speaker 2: other entities. They have no current repayment schedule, and investors
Speaker 2: inside of China are freaking out. It turns out that
Speaker 2: there was all kinds of corruption that was going on inside.
Speaker 2: They've told their investors that the firm and we missing
Speaker 2: payments on batches of products on August eighth, adding to
Speaker 2: delays to multiple others. This is leading to what they
Speaker 2: say is quote a number of products. The company is
Speaker 2: now facing quote a tsunami of questions from their own investors'
Speaker 2: wealth managers. This is about billions of dollars of capital
Speaker 2: inside of China that touches all sorts of personal and
Speaker 2: industrial different vestments. This is seen also Crystal on a
Speaker 2: bigger macro scale. Let's put this up there. There's actually
Speaker 2: got a decent chart that everybody can see. This is
Speaker 2: the Chinese stocks are actually slumping because economic gloom inside
Speaker 2: of the country is really spreading. They had a bump
Speaker 2: in January twenty twenty three. As you can see right
Speaker 2: there up to fifteen percent. That was largely reopening after
Speaker 2: their zero covid idiocy. But things are all beginning to
Speaker 2: trend down, very much so in the last couple of months.
Speaker 2: And actually the fascinating thing was a new acknowledgment. Actually,
Speaker 2: and this is the closest you'll ever get from Chinese leaders.
Speaker 2: They say, quote, there are new difficulties and challenges whenever
Speaker 2: it comes to China's economy. That was from the actual
Speaker 2: readout of the latest pull Up Bureau meeting just three
Speaker 2: weeks ago. And inside all that people are pointing to
Speaker 2: is the index of Chinese talks straight in Hong Kong
Speaker 2: down nine percent of the month. The benchmark for stocks
Speaker 2: that trade in Hong Kong is down a similar mouth.
Speaker 2: Amongst the actual members, the Chinese real estate firm is
Speaker 2: lose half of its value. That's Country Gardens, one of
Speaker 2: the biggest companies inside of China. The actual stock index
Speaker 2: for Shanghai and chen Jen is down by five percent.
Speaker 2: All of this is indicating that even the real data
Speaker 2: that they can't spin, which let's be real, it's one
Speaker 2: of the most opaque countries on planet Earth in terms
Speaker 2: of the giant economies, you never know whether you're being
Speaker 2: lied to or not. That no indications are good. Also,
Speaker 2: if you think our real estate market is bad, home
Speaker 2: prices have fallen in forty nine out of seventy of
Speaker 2: the major cities in all of China. The thing is
Speaker 2: is that this really came through to me from the
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal piece that we'll put up here. It
Speaker 2: was an op ed, but I actually thought it was
Speaker 2: really interesting. Is that the economic and the social contract
Speaker 2: is really fraying. We pointed to this in the Evergrand Situation.
Speaker 2: One of the biggest you know, the deal with the
Speaker 2: with the CCP inside of China is they're like, listen,
Speaker 2: you know, we're gonna put you under surveillance, you're gonna
Speaker 2: have facial recognition, all of that. We're gonna do what
Speaker 2: we do our party bosses and everybody. Everybody's gonna get
Speaker 2: filthy rich, but we're going to get rich too, So
Speaker 2: don't worry about it. And that mostly worked. You know,
Speaker 2: there are no more chaos, no more cultural revolution. We're
Speaker 2: working through this. Everything's great. It worked in the eighties,
Speaker 2: worked in the nineties, worked all the way to the
Speaker 2: twenty tens. But now that social contractor is really beginning
Speaker 2: to fall apart, largely actually because of housing, which is
Speaker 2: a populist issue over there too, where a lot of
Speaker 2: people are unable in order to keep up with housing
Speaker 2: market or seeing their home equity go down. Then at
Speaker 2: the same time, you could put their social problems in
Speaker 2: terms of the male female mismatch. You put it together
Speaker 2: an unemployment rate there which seems very high. Nobody knows
Speaker 2: really exactly what the actual number is. There's enough social
Speaker 2: strife that this is causing real problems inside the Chinese economy.
Speaker 2: So another kind of tick I think in some of
Speaker 2: Peter's Iion's analysis over the last couple of years on
Speaker 2: where China could be headed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought this was really revealing.
Speaker 1: Youth unemployment just hit, according to their numbers, a record
Speaker 1: high of twenty one point three percent disaster.
Speaker 3: Which is a disaster.
Speaker 1: And the response was we're just not going to rule
Speaker 1: the data anymore from the Chinese government that are like,
Speaker 1: you know enough about that, you don't need to know
Speaker 1: any more about that. So I think that's an indication
Speaker 1: whether twenty one point three percent is the accurate number
Speaker 1: or not. I think it's an indication that you know
Speaker 1: obviously things are really dire, and when you have a
Speaker 1: young population that isn't participating in the new prosperity of
Speaker 1: the country and has long had, you know, similar issues
Speaker 1: to what young people here are facing, which is over
Speaker 1: the past number of years, they have really propped up
Speaker 1: the real estate market and made it so that prices
Speaker 1: were ever escalating, ever escalating, ever escalating, which obviously, if
Speaker 1: you're already a homeowner, that's great for you. Your value
Speaker 1: of your assets is going up and up and up.
Speaker 1: If you're someone who hasn't yet been able to buy
Speaker 1: into the market, this looks like a complete disaster and
Speaker 1: so big picture what has happened in China was listening
Speaker 1: to Martin Wolf of the Financial Times give some of
Speaker 1: this analysis. You know, Initially, the just astronomical growth that
Speaker 1: they experienced there was obviously led by exports there, you know,
Speaker 1: building out their manufacturing base and all of the factories
Speaker 1: that are they're famous for that created this incredible growth.
Speaker 1: As that starts to wane and they sort of like,
Speaker 1: what as far with that as possible, then they invested
Speaker 1: massively infrastructure, huge spending there, which also continued to you know,
Speaker 1: build out the economy.
Speaker 3: And once they.
Speaker 1: Took that effectively as far as they could. Then the
Speaker 1: next piece was building up what is effectively now this
Speaker 1: gigantic real estate bubble. And so when we were covering
Speaker 1: Evergrand and also when we're covering Country Garden effectively, they realized, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is unsustainable. We can't just continue in this direction forever,
Speaker 1: and we are pricing out so much of our population
Speaker 1: were ever becoming homeowners. So they started to try to
Speaker 1: let the air out of that market, and they you know,
Speaker 1: they've been doing it, but obviously is kind of coming
Speaker 1: crashing down. They had a good line in that Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal up at as well that described the housing situation.
Speaker 1: They said, ever since, you know, ever since they started
Speaker 1: propping up this market, housing has functioned for many families
Speaker 1: as a combination of retirement plan, insurance policy in stock portfolio.
Speaker 1: Endlessly rising housing prices and wealth have been a headache
Speaker 1: for young buyers and a driver of indebtedness, but also
Speaker 1: helped paper over gaps in the social safety net for
Speaker 1: middle aged savers. There's another piece of this as well,
Speaker 1: which is obviously, you know, they had massive COVID lockdowns
Speaker 1: that was really devastating.
Speaker 3: For the economy. So the expectation was when they.
Speaker 1: Opened back up that they would restart this huge growth,
Speaker 1: and that's just the opposite of what we've seen. They're
Speaker 1: actually in danger of slipping into a deflationary cycle because
Speaker 1: residents there, our consumers are worried about the future, worried
Speaker 1: about the economic future, worried about their finances, so they
Speaker 1: are saving, they're not spending money, and so where we've
Speaker 1: had massive inflation, which is starting to come under control,
Speaker 1: they're actually worried about the opposite impact, which is potential deflation,
Speaker 1: which can be really devastating. Now, the big question is
Speaker 1: is this a blip. China's obituary has been written many
Speaker 1: times in the past, so let's be really clear about that.
Speaker 1: This could be a blip. They could It's very hard
Speaker 1: to tell exactly what's going on there. They could move
Speaker 1: forward and get back to you know, they're never going
Speaker 1: to get back to like ten percent GDP growth, but
Speaker 1: get back to some level of you know, significant sustainable growth,
Speaker 1: or this could be you know, the start of a
Speaker 1: different trajectory that's very difficult for them to pull themselves
Speaker 1: out of.
Speaker 2: There's also an alternative explanation, which is they have they
Speaker 2: have it's like a time of choosing inside of China
Speaker 2: because the US, at least the US, much of the
Speaker 2: Anglo sphere, the UK, Australia have decided like, look, we're
Speaker 2: not going to necessarily economically decouple with China, but we're
Speaker 2: going to try to do our best. I don't think
Speaker 2: we've done even close to enough, but it is starting
Speaker 2: to make its effect. Net exports and all that have
Speaker 2: decided to drop out of China overall to the West,
Speaker 2: which is hurting their economy. A lot of their economy
Speaker 2: was built effectively on exporting to the countries which they directly,
Speaker 2: you know, not necessarily at war with, but you know,
Speaker 2: they use that rhetoric with those people. They see them
Speaker 2: as direct challengers. The thing is is that and the
Speaker 2: reason why I'm not yet willing to count them out entirely.
Speaker 2: They've got they have got what we don't have. They
Speaker 2: have hard assets, so outside of oil, which they do
Speaker 2: have is still dramatically important. They've got an industrial workforce,
Speaker 2: they've got actual factories, they've got real stuff that comes
Speaker 2: out of their ground that they make stuff with that
Speaker 2: they supply to the rest of the world. And as
Speaker 2: we found out, which with Russia. Yeah, a financialized economy
Speaker 2: and all that. You can take the hit like they're
Speaker 2: having problems right now with their central bank, but they
Speaker 2: can still produce weapons, they can still produce stuff. We
Speaker 2: don't really produce stuff. So they have some structural advantages
Speaker 2: on their side just inherently by being a more recently
Speaker 2: industrialized economy then we do because we are much more
Speaker 2: of a service and a financialized economy than China. So
Speaker 2: I'm not yet ready to count them out, but i
Speaker 2: do think that some of the structural things that Zihon
Speaker 2: talked about on our show and has been talking about
Speaker 2: and pointing there for a long time, which is very
Speaker 2: counter to the narrative that you will often hear about China,
Speaker 2: a lot of that is being vindicated, I think in
Speaker 2: recent months. His population thesis is absolutely correct, and now
Speaker 2: here on the economics, it's very clear that Look, I
Speaker 2: don't know if China's going to collapse like he says,
Speaker 2: but if they have problems that can still lead to
Speaker 2: I've talked to here about the how brands essay around China,
Speaker 2: where one of the things is that a state when
Speaker 2: it's on its way down and it sees that it
Speaker 2: near is its apex of its power. That's actually when
Speaker 2: it becomes the most dangerous, because that's when they're like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: now if we're going to move, we have to move
Speaker 2: now when we have the most advantage kind of our
Speaker 2: on our side. You can think of Japan striking at
Speaker 2: the United States at Pearl Harbord. You're like, look, we've
Speaker 2: only got eighteen months before we can We're going to
Speaker 2: run out of oil. We should strike them now so
Speaker 2: they can't strike us later. And on the future you
Speaker 2: can see very much how that type of calculus also
Speaker 2: could come in. So it's not necessarily good news, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're hoping for peace and security around the globe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean globe like economic turmoil is usually not
Speaker 1: good news. Yes, fact for global peace and prosperity. There's
Speaker 1: a lot more we can say about this, and we'll
Speaker 1: continue to look at it in the future. But the
Speaker 1: other the last thing I would say is even if
Speaker 1: China doesn't continue to grow with the pace that has,
Speaker 1: even if this truly is like an economic turning point
Speaker 1: for them, which again is really up in the air,
Speaker 1: whether this is a blip or this is a longer
Speaker 1: term trend. I think the movement towards a multipolar world
Speaker 1: is going to continue a pace because you're still going
Speaker 1: to have you know, a huge power center in Asia,
Speaker 1: not just with China but with other Asian nations. India
Speaker 1: is overtaking China in terms of population. There's huge, yeah,
Speaker 1: huge growth there and huge possibility for them that has
Speaker 1: not been exhausted yet. And you've got you know, prime
Speaker 1: minister who is very determined to increase their industrial capacity.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot there as well.
Speaker 1: Obviously, you know, you have Russia doing whatever Russia is
Speaker 1: doing and forming this new alliance. You already see the
Speaker 1: makings of a multipolar world. And I don't think whatever
Speaker 1: happens with China and their future economic growth, I don't
Speaker 1: think there's any to putting that toothpaste.
Speaker 2: Back then, no question at all. All right, let's go
Speaker 2: on to passport. Everyone should get a passport if we're
Speaker 2: going to be living in a multipolar world, because it
Speaker 2: means we've got to go understand what the hell else
Speaker 2: is going on now. The problem is it's nearly impossible
Speaker 2: to get a passport right now. Let's go and put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. It turns out while
Speaker 2: our government is shipping billions of dollars to Ukraine, and
Speaker 2: our Secretary of State is always worried about what social
Speaker 2: issues and all this that the very basics of his
Speaker 2: job of not working very well. There is a massive
Speaker 2: backlog of passport applications quote, creating summer travel nightmares for
Speaker 2: Americans who are finding getting a new passport or renewing
Speaker 2: an expired one is taking months on end, forcing them
Speaker 2: now into panicked races against planned travel dates and an
Speaker 2: often bewildering bureaucratic maze. The thing is is that this
Speaker 2: is a bipartisan issue. Senators and congressmen are sounding the
Speaker 2: alarm because they are getting bombarded with constituent complaints of
Speaker 2: I can't get a goddamn passport. And it's amazing because
Speaker 2: the State department current guidance right now is that you
Speaker 2: should apply for a renewed passport for nine to twelve
Speaker 2: weeks ahead of your travel date. That is four months
Speaker 2: of the processing time. It used to be that routine
Speaker 2: was six to eight weeks for renewing your passport. The
Speaker 2: crazy thing is is that it used to be six
Speaker 2: to eight weeks. They haven't been able to fulfill that deadline,
Speaker 2: so people who were promised or passworts not getting their
Speaker 2: passports and are now they're like, oh no, no, it's going
Speaker 2: to take weeks and weeks and more, and we have
Speaker 2: no update for you. If you have the privilege to
Speaker 2: pay like two hundred dollars or whatever for expedited service,
Speaker 2: well even that is now returned to what the original
Speaker 2: promise was. So it's outrageously expensive in order to get
Speaker 2: a passport. I remember I had to get I had
Speaker 2: a passport nightmare situation too. I got really lucky because
Speaker 2: it was before the big surge. I was able to
Speaker 2: get one of those emergency appointments here in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: It coust like two hundred fifty dollars, And I remember
Speaker 2: thinking about that but being like, wait, if you have
Speaker 2: a family of four or a family of five, that's
Speaker 2: like a thousand bucks. Don't get your path. That's not
Speaker 2: like a plane ticket.
Speaker 3: That's a lot overseas right there.
Speaker 2: Yes, I wish it was a plane ticket overseas or
Speaker 2: really nowadays I've been overseas for a while to overseas
Speaker 2: plane ticket, Yeah, I three thousand if you're going to
Speaker 2: Asia like I was. The thing is is that when
Speaker 2: you think about it. One of the most basic functions
Speaker 2: here of government is just breaking down and a touch
Speaker 2: point where millions of Americans are finding themselves fed up.
Speaker 2: That is actually where states begin to lose the population.
Speaker 2: It's not always some of the big stuff that we
Speaker 2: talk about here. It's like, you know, getting a driver's
Speaker 2: license for now always a pain in the ass, but
Speaker 2: usually you can get it, you know, in a semi
Speaker 2: routine fashion. The same the thing is with the passport
Speaker 2: is like when it breaks down like that, yeah, and
Speaker 2: millions of people have to cancel their plans. That is
Speaker 2: when people really start to understand like the state functions
Speaker 2: at a most basic level, when those are going away,
Speaker 2: That's what declining states look like. And you know, I'm
Speaker 2: not exaggerating. Put this up there. This is from just
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago that other media organizations are talking about.
Speaker 2: Cancel trips with no refunds. Passport delays are derailing travelers.
Speaker 2: You know, people are out thousands of dollars on these
Speaker 2: trips because they are not able to get their passport
Speaker 2: in time. It's not like the airline is going to
Speaker 2: give you a good excuse for that one. They're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: we got you Also, millions of people were locked inside
Speaker 2: for years. That's part of the reason why travel prices
Speaker 2: are so high because people put off travel and a
Speaker 2: lot of people didn't renew their passport then at the time.
Speaker 2: So we have a record amount of Americans, which I
Speaker 2: think is great, who do want to travel and want
Speaker 2: to get out of the country and are unable to.
Speaker 2: We've got some twenty two million passports that were issued
Speaker 2: last year. That's a record high. Twenty four million right
Speaker 2: now that are currently going through the State Department says
Speaker 2: it's getting about four hundred thousand applications a week from
Speaker 2: Americans in order to renew their passport. But the fact
Speaker 2: that they're unable to keep up with it just shows
Speaker 2: you that like those again, the basic functions of government
Speaker 2: are just falling apart. It's like the FAA, and it's
Speaker 2: like others, and for some reason it's not getting the
Speaker 2: attention that it really deserves.
Speaker 1: Well, no one should be surprised when we've had forty
Speaker 1: years of both parties attacking government and stripping government capacity.
Speaker 1: I mean, this has been the ideology since Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 1: So yeah, after forty years, things are going to fall apart.
Speaker 1: Just to give you a sense of I know, this
Speaker 1: can seem like a first world problem, and in some
Speaker 1: ways it is right by having the luxury and the.
Speaker 3: Ability to travel overseas.
Speaker 1: But in that piece from NPR, they talked to this woman,
Speaker 1: Dakota Hendrix, from Virginia Beach, Virginia. She says she did
Speaker 1: everything right in order to try to visit her husband,
Speaker 1: who's deployed overseas this summer. This is like her only
Speaker 1: opportunity to see him. She fought an application for a
Speaker 1: new passport months in advance, paid for expedited processing to
Speaker 1: make sure, she spent hours on the phone with the
Speaker 1: passport hotline, sought help from her local congressman. Four months later,
Speaker 1: she had no choice but to miss her flight.
Speaker 3: She told NPR.
Speaker 1: I applied for this with enough cushion room for there
Speaker 1: to be delays, but that didn't matter. So she was
Speaker 1: unable to make that trip to go see her husband
Speaker 1: who has deployed overseas.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of heartbreak.
Speaker 1: That comes along with this, not to mention just the
Speaker 1: sign of a government that's falling apart. There was this
Speaker 1: line in the you know, the initial report that we
Speaker 1: had up on the screen from Senator Mark Warner who
Speaker 1: was blaming hiring freezes during the Trump administration for helping
Speaker 1: to create this situation. And I sort of assumed that
Speaker 1: was probably cope from Democrats, but I actually looked into it,
Speaker 1: and there is something to this. So Trump had this,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of like vendetta against the State Department.
Speaker 1: This is where Hillary Clinton was part of the deep state,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And so you not only had the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Which led to all sorts of issues, led to this
Speaker 1: huge backlog, led to this huge surge, record breaking numbers
Speaker 1: of Americans who wanted to be able to get passports,
Speaker 1: you also had under Trump a six month, sixteen month
Speaker 1: hiring freeze that, according to Government Executive Magazine, which is
Speaker 1: the thing that I was reading to try to get
Speaker 1: information on this, told its Inspector General in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: that it created critical understaffing for passport services. In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: you're going to love this, ac or you're going to
Speaker 1: enjoy this. In twenty seventeen, when passport applications started to spike,
Speaker 1: the State Department implemented a number of resiliency initiatives to
Speaker 1: help workers deal with the added strain including management meet and.
Speaker 3: Greets and casual dress dates.
Speaker 1: Officials also deployed Passport Pete, a stuffed porcupine mascot, to
Speaker 1: regional offices for photo opportunities and activities. Unfortunately, those efforts
Speaker 1: failed to reverse the workforce trend, so staffing was sort
Speaker 1: of stripped down during the Trump years. Then they had
Speaker 1: this huge surge post pandemic of Americans wanting to get passports,
Speaker 1: record breaking numbers. They've been trying to staff up, but
Speaker 1: it's just, you know, they have.
Speaker 2: It's everally got it again.
Speaker 3: I just sawsport Pete couldn't rescue them.
Speaker 2: I just saw a guy yesterday, so he had to
Speaker 2: wait two and a half hours to process customs at
Speaker 2: Dollar two and a half hours because the TSA had
Speaker 2: like two passport boots or whatever that was open. I
Speaker 2: had the same thing. I landed in JFK. I think
Speaker 2: it took me an hour and forty five minutes in
Speaker 2: order to clear customs. I mean, it's just ridiculu. And
Speaker 2: there was only what three planes or whatever at the
Speaker 2: tarmac LANDA at like six am in the morning, maybe
Speaker 2: seven hundred people. I've moved through lines like that years ago.
Speaker 2: You'll get through them in five ten minutes something like that.
Speaker 2: This is it's just over and over again. You're seeing complete,
Speaker 2: like breakdowns of the most basic government functions whenever it
Speaker 2: comes to travel. And like you said, it can sound
Speaker 2: like a first world problem, but you know a lot
Speaker 2: of middle class people, I mean, I grew up in Texas.
Speaker 2: You don't want to have to be rich to go
Speaker 2: to Mexico you need a passport. Or people who are
Speaker 2: from New York, I mean they're going to Canada all
Speaker 2: the time, or you know, if you like you said,
Speaker 2: it's like you got this woman whose husband is deployed overseas.
Speaker 2: He apparently the way a schedule works only at one
Speaker 2: break that was the only time in order. Again, that's terrible,
Speaker 2: It's just terrible. And there's a lot of let me
Speaker 2: tell you, one of the biggest, one of the worst
Speaker 2: places on earth that you want to go to as an
Speaker 2: emergency passport center. Everybody there is weeping because everybody there
Speaker 2: basically the only way to get one of those is
Speaker 2: you've got a dead relative. It's really sad. People are
Speaker 2: weeping there, like, oh, I've been trying to get my
Speaker 2: passport my you know, Grandma just died in Africa or whatever.
Speaker 2: I gotta get this back. I gotta get on a
Speaker 2: plane like tomorrow. I need this thing right now. It's this,
Speaker 2: It's real life. Here is actually affecting people, and these
Speaker 2: you know, I just can't get away from what it
Speaker 2: really shows about the government right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I mean these are things like I know,
Speaker 1: it's easy to just deride, like arm A bureacratser. It
Speaker 1: feels like it doesn't really impact your life. But this
Speaker 1: is a place where it really matters to have enough
Speaker 1: skilled professionals in place and a system in place, and
Speaker 1: to take it seriously to be able to deliver on
Speaker 1: basic services for the American people. All Right, we have
Speaker 1: an update for you on the story we brought you
Speaker 1: earlier this week. Wild story about a local Kansas newspaper
Speaker 1: that was rated by the entirety of the local police
Speaker 1: department over some weird beef of a local restaurant owner
Speaker 1: who thought and accused them of getting her DUI record
Speaker 1: under suspicious or illegal circumstances. Normally, there are First Amendment
Speaker 1: protections for journalists that require if you're going to subpoena materials,
Speaker 1: you subpoena specific materials not this broad search and seizure,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what they did, taking computers, taking cell phones,
Speaker 1: even rating the owner of the newspaper's house. One of
Speaker 1: the elderly co owners died days later out of the stress.
Speaker 1: A crazy, crazy story. Okay, we have an update for you.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up on the screen. So the prosecutor
Speaker 1: in this small town Marion County has now withdrawn the
Speaker 1: search warrant that was executed at that small town Kansas
Speaker 1: newspaper that police raided on Friday, the paper's lawyer said
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, which the Kansas Bureau of Investigation soon confirmed.
Speaker 1: All electronic devices seized by police will be returned to
Speaker 1: the Marion County Record, said Bernie Roads. He's a Kansas
Speaker 1: City based attorney that is representing the Kansas City Star
Speaker 1: and also represents the Marion County Record. Let's put this
Speaker 1: quote up on the screen. So this lawyer said, we
Speaker 1: have stopped the hemorrhaging, but it does nothing about taking
Speaker 1: care of the damage that has already occurred from the
Speaker 1: violation of the First Amendment in the first place. The
Speaker 1: KBI investigation, this Kansas Bureau of Investigations, remains open, but
Speaker 1: the probe will proceed without review or examination of any
Speaker 1: of the evidence that was seized Friday, that they will
Speaker 1: present their findings the prosecutor once the investigation is complete.
Speaker 1: In a statement, Marion County Attorney Joel Enzi said he
Speaker 1: concluded that insufficient evidence existed to establish a legally sufficient
Speaker 1: nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and
Speaker 1: the item ceased.
Speaker 3: So there's two pieces here. First of all, you've got
Speaker 3: this beef with this.
Speaker 1: Local, well politically connected restaurant owner. Then it came out
Speaker 1: that the police chief who was involved directly in this search,
Speaker 1: he was under investigation by the newspaper for the circumstances
Speaker 1: surrounding his departure from a different police department, apparently amid
Speaker 1: some issues with sexual improprieties, so very convenient for him
Speaker 1: that he could to seize all the materials of their
Speaker 1: investigation into him as well. But now we have another
Speaker 1: layer here that I was just reading about zaar. So
Speaker 1: one of the questions was this local judge who signed
Speaker 1: off on this thing, which many experts are saying was
Speaker 1: completely illegal, this search warrant to start with. So this judge,
Speaker 1: Laura Vr, she had her own multiple duys which were
Speaker 1: apparently completely covered up and swept under the rug. Me
Speaker 1: read you from the news report. The first arrest in
Speaker 1: Coffee County, about an hour and fifteen minutes southeast of.
Speaker 3: Her home, hasn't been reported.
Speaker 1: The second came amid an unopposed reelection bid for Morris
Speaker 1: County Attorney. She wasn't supposed to be driving at all
Speaker 1: because her driver's license was suspended in that county. She
Speaker 1: reportedly drove off road and crashed into a school building
Speaker 1: next to a high school football field while driving then
Speaker 1: eighth District Magistrate judges Thomas Ball is his name, his vehicle,
Speaker 1: so she was driving a judge's vehicle, drunk, not supposed
Speaker 1: to be driving at all, and crashed into a school building.
Speaker 1: None of this came out, and they have no record
Speaker 1: actually of there even being any sort of like case involved.
Speaker 1: It looks like it was just completely swept under the
Speaker 1: rug by this local cabal of whatever is going on there.
Speaker 1: She'd never sanctioned by the state's Attorney Discipline Board one
Speaker 1: reelection multiple times as a Republican candid from Worris County
Speaker 1: attorney because the public had no idea what was going on,
Speaker 1: and she is by the way up for a retention
Speaker 1: vote during the twenty twenty four general election, so we'll
Speaker 1: see if the people take a very different view of
Speaker 1: what's going on here.
Speaker 2: This is as good as it gets for the whole
Speaker 2: small town corruption Cop four story. It's almost, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: I can't even well.
Speaker 1: The fact that she had DUIs too is like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's why you were sympathetic to this lady whose duys
Speaker 1: are being made.
Speaker 2: Public, and just the seizure of all of them. I'm
Speaker 2: glad it actually captured the nation's attention. And you know,
Speaker 2: we saw a tremendous amount of interest in it as well,
Speaker 2: and I think that people will just understand like this
Speaker 2: is just so fundamentally corrupt and unfair. So glad to
Speaker 2: see some of it rectified, and we'll continue to get
Speaker 2: the details out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, all right, Sacher. We were looking at.
Speaker 2: Well doing this job for a while now. I've lived
Speaker 2: through some pretty dumb content moderation policies. We started rising
Speaker 2: in the height of the era of YouTube demonetization, where
Speaker 2: for some reason or another never could quite figure out
Speaker 2: why certainly videos are simply deemed not suitable for advertisers.
Speaker 2: Usually they have the title Epstein in them. On the
Speaker 2: one hand, I do get it. On the other, as
Speaker 2: I've told them directly, you're kind of incentivizing people who
Speaker 2: do cover the news to not cover controversial topics. Luckily,
Speaker 2: for us, we have a premium subscription program, but many
Speaker 2: people are not so lucky. Little did I know, though,
Speaker 2: at the time, that worrying about whether Epstein videos are
Speaker 2: getting demonetized is the least of our problems, especially when
Speaker 2: COVID began to hit all of a sudden, We're in
Speaker 2: the midst of one of the most intense censorship regimes
Speaker 2: the Internet has ever seen, and navigating it was not
Speaker 2: only a total nightmare, it is now clear in retrospect
Speaker 2: the regime itself was totally wrong on so many things.
Speaker 2: The most obvious is Labla hypothesis. Several content creators banned
Speaker 2: from various social media websites, but I remember many other ones.
Speaker 2: They are probably memory hold Sky News, Australia YouTube channel
Speaker 2: that was banned for questioning the effectiveness of mass and
Speaker 2: lockdowns because they broke COVID misinformation rules, or when doctors
Speaker 2: were testifying before Congress about the efficacy of true treatments,
Speaker 2: or even those at the time that were discussing claims
Speaker 2: around the COVID vaccine. It is pretty clear now that
Speaker 2: allowing questions to surface was correct in many cases. Allowing
Speaker 2: dissenting views to the medical establishment would have provided Americans
Speaker 2: and really everyone with proper understandings of medical guidelines. The
Speaker 2: problem is it would have made people less compliant. We
Speaker 2: simply can't have that, can we. In fact, COVID really
Speaker 2: proved once and for all that trying to navigate any
Speaker 2: sense of what is true and what is not medically
Speaker 2: in the sense of a fraud situation like a pandemic,
Speaker 2: is nearly impossible. The only way to know is to
Speaker 2: see results in the real world at scale and then
Speaker 2: adjust accordingly, allowing all kinds of debates, seeing who was
Speaker 2: right and who was wrong. Unfortunately, many people are now
Speaker 2: learning the opposite lesson They think the censorship resim under
Speaker 2: COVID not only worked, but is now a model for
Speaker 2: the future. That is very evident some policies YouTube announced
Speaker 2: yesterday Let's actually dig in YouTube rights that going forward
Speaker 2: it will streamline all medical misas information guidelines into three categories, prevention, treatment,
Speaker 2: and denial. These apply to any specific health condition, treatment,
Speaker 2: or substance where content quote contradicts local health authorities or
Speaker 2: the World Health Organization. To determine if a video violates
Speaker 2: their policy, they quote evaluate whether it is associated with
Speaker 2: the high public health risk publicly available guidance from health
Speaker 2: authorities around the world. I can't believe the only one
Speaker 2: who sees a glaring hole in this policy. What if
Speaker 2: the World Health Organization is wrong? Luckily that's never happened before. Right, Well,
Speaker 2: how about this. For the first several months of the pandemic,
Speaker 2: the WHO said mass didn't prevent the spread of COVID.
Speaker 2: Then in June of twenty twenty, they changed their mind,
Speaker 2: and then this year they changed it again. So which
Speaker 2: is it at wenny? Which point? Which was it true
Speaker 2: or not true? And then liable to be taken now
Speaker 2: off the YouTube platform. The last few years have been
Speaker 2: extraordinary in the context of what we really know and
Speaker 2: don't know. For years, for example, they told this depression
Speaker 2: was a chemical imbalance, that they had the proof, that's
Speaker 2: why I have to take this multi billion dollar SSR drug,
Speaker 2: a treatment regimen still recommended by the WHO. And yet
Speaker 2: what did we learn? A large meta study showed the
Speaker 2: chemical imbalanced thesis is likely bunk. For depression SSRIs. They
Speaker 2: do kind of work, but we don't really know why.
Speaker 2: And that's a myriad of other treatments though that may
Speaker 2: actually be far more beneficial because they have no side effects.
Speaker 2: Or who can forget the bombshell study around Alzheimer's where
Speaker 2: a central study which guided research for sixteen straight years
Speaker 2: may have been straight up fabricated, or recall one of
Speaker 2: my more recent monologues about mammograms and has showed that
Speaker 2: much of our medical guidance, including from the WHO, even
Speaker 2: in the prevention realm, is really not that well thought out,
Speaker 2: and that a rigorous debate around recommendations, especially when money
Speaker 2: is involved, is vital and essential. I say all of
Speaker 2: this because I actually care about YouTube. Obviously, it's where
Speaker 2: we build our careers, but more so I recognize it
Speaker 2: as one of the most powerful forces on Earth. Somewhere
Speaker 2: around three quarters of the entire US population uses YouTube.
Speaker 2: If you want to fix something, you have to look
Speaker 2: it up on YouTube, I can tell you. As I
Speaker 2: continue on health journey, there is nothing I love more
Speaker 2: than going on YouTube and watching debates around diets or
Speaker 2: exercise protocols or nutrition. COVID should have been a lesson
Speaker 2: to all of us that the medical establishment doesn't know
Speaker 2: nearly as much as they claim to, and it should
Speaker 2: have been a lesson to the censors the regime really
Speaker 2: doesn't work. Instead, they have decided to expand it further,
Speaker 2: showing us that what was promised as a temporary measure
Speaker 2: has simply become a new normal, and this will make
Speaker 2: getting good information only harder in the years to come
Speaker 2: as we navigate who the hell knows what comes next
Speaker 2: in our public health discourse. I only know that things
Speaker 2: today are not that different from the way that things
Speaker 2: have always been. Free and open debate is always better
Speaker 2: than the alternative. I thought it was crazy, Crystal that
Speaker 2: they basically reversed.
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagres's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 2: Cristle, what are you taking a look at?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: I've got some devastating new numbers on homelessness to share
Speaker 1: with you this morning, But contain within them is maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit of hope or at least some what
Speaker 1: of a possible answer? Can't be any real silver lining
Speaker 1: to this level of human carnage, but at the very least,
Speaker 1: we can begin to chart a path forward and regain
Speaker 1: some confidence that solving big, intractable problems is still something
Speaker 1: our nation is actually capable of doing.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 3: First, the numbers.
Speaker 1: According to the Wall Street Journal, the US is experiencing
Speaker 1: a record increase in homelessness. The number of homeless people
Speaker 1: has risen a full eleven percent year over year. That
Speaker 1: is the largest single spike recorded since that metric started
Speaker 1: being tracked part of the Great Recession. So to put
Speaker 1: that in context, even during the worst of the housing crisis,
Speaker 1: we did not see numbers jumping up this dramatically. Now,
Speaker 1: if you watch this show, you'll not be surprised by
Speaker 1: the causes. Even as the numbers do continue to shock.
Speaker 1: Housing has never been more unaffordable. Addiction continues to ravage millions,
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Aid that was a lifeline to so many expired.
Speaker 1: It's a disgrace that is a nation. We choose to
Speaker 1: continue to allow this suffering, and make no mistake, it
Speaker 1: is a choice.
Speaker 3: How do I know. We'll just take a look at
Speaker 3: this chart.
Speaker 1: Just look at how much we actually reduced homelessness in
Speaker 1: a single year. Back in twenty twenty one, when policymakers
Speaker 1: decided to make it a priority as COVID was rampaging
Speaker 1: before there was a vaccine, and during the worst of
Speaker 1: the crisis, lawmakers were worried enough about the spread of
Speaker 1: the disease that they actually took some aggressive measures to
Speaker 1: house people who needed help. And maybe it should be
Speaker 1: obvious that getting people housing will dramatically reduce homelessness, but
Speaker 1: that is not the way that policymakers.
Speaker 3: Often look at this issue. But look at this.
Speaker 1: They made real progress on a seemingly intractable complex issue,
Speaker 1: and guys, they could do it again.
Speaker 3: It's not just homelessness.
Speaker 1: Though I have plenty of critiques of how we did
Speaker 1: COVID relief, who we helped most, how we structure the program,
Speaker 1: who got bailouts, who got jacktion, But even imperfectly designed
Speaker 1: as it was, the unbelievable possibilities of the government to
Speaker 1: do good for the American people are really clear when
Speaker 1: you look at the data. All measures of debt, including
Speaker 1: debt and collections and overall consumer debt plummeted. Credit card
Speaker 1: debt actually dropped the largest amount in history. You see,
Speaker 1: just like when you get people housing, it reduces homelessness.
Speaker 1: Turns out when you give people money, it reduces debt.
Speaker 1: The COVID relief checks were a god send to millions,
Speaker 1: from those who were desperate, were out of work, needed
Speaker 1: it just to get by, to those who were able
Speaker 1: to finally get a little bit of breathing room from
Speaker 1: the creditors who had been breathing down their necks. Same
Speaker 1: with the so called superdoll which took regular unemployment and
Speaker 1: pumped it up to keep people going while businesses were
Speaker 1: shutter during the pandemic. Many also, as part of that,
Speaker 1: went through some really dramatic lifestyle changes that had them
Speaker 1: at home with their support systems instead of papering over
Speaker 1: their psychic wounds with retail therapy, which also forced them
Speaker 1: to eat at home, saving money on restaurant meals and
Speaker 1: gas with no commutes. Thanks to the short lived Child
Speaker 1: tax Credit, we also dropped child poverty to a fifty
Speaker 1: year low.
Speaker 3: Just look at that chart.
Speaker 1: It is actually stunning and once again provides an ingenious insight,
Speaker 1: which is that giving money to families with kids can
Speaker 1: dramatically reduce the number of poor children, and research has
Speaker 1: shown that that money was largely spent on the kids.
Speaker 1: An incredibly official ways, school supplies, after school activities, nutritious food.
Speaker 3: And the like.
Speaker 1: I will never get over the fact that we provided
Speaker 1: such a wildly successful program for our nations kids and
Speaker 1: then cruelly ripped it away.
Speaker 3: And these economic supports.
Speaker 1: Which materially improved the lives of many Americans, did not
Speaker 1: just stay in the realm of bank accounts. Suicides actually
Speaker 1: dropped during the pandemic quite significantly. This was counter to
Speaker 1: the predictions of basically every expert plenty of pundits too,
Speaker 1: myself included. The pandemic, after all, was really stressful. People
Speaker 1: were isolated, many measures of mental health deteriorated, But when
Speaker 1: the numbers came back, suicide rates actually dropped around three
Speaker 1: percent during the height of COVID. Experts attribute this to
Speaker 1: a number of factors. Being forced home wasn't a bad
Speaker 1: thing for all people. After all, if you were being
Speaker 1: bullied at school or your soul was being crushed by
Speaker 1: your boss, you were plenty happy to be at home
Speaker 1: with your family. Telehealth was also expanded during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: giving more people easier access to your range of health care, and,
Speaker 1: of course, for many pandemic, aid programs loosened. The financial
Speaker 1: news that had been around their necks. Now, of course
Speaker 1: we're back to normal and suicides have returned to the
Speaker 1: ever upward assent. Now, I am not trying to say
Speaker 1: every aspect of the response was puppies and rainbows.
Speaker 3: Far from it.
Speaker 1: Lawmakers obviously screwed up a lot, to school closures being
Speaker 1: the most obvious example. Plenty of people also fell through
Speaker 1: the cracks of pandemic programs or were the essential workers
Speaker 1: who were forced to keep working and risk their lives
Speaker 1: without getting much more than a patronizing pat on the back.
Speaker 1: But you can see really clearly that even as feckless
Speaker 1: as our government sometimes seems, it can genuinely do good.
Speaker 1: There is no charity or financial planning app or individual
Speaker 1: bootstrapping that can come close to matching the mass impact
Speaker 1: of the federal government. And the numbers tell us clearly
Speaker 1: we do not have to accept this pain. The government
Speaker 1: helped the people once, and it could do it again.
Speaker 1: Don't let anyone gaslight you into thinking otherwise.
Speaker 2: And sooger. Basically, we had and if you want to
Speaker 2: hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber
Speaker 2: today at breakingpoints dot com. All right, guys, we had
Speaker 2: a great show for all of you today. The Chris
Speaker 2: Matthews interview should have gone out first, so we apologize
Speaker 2: for this coming late, but we promised it was definitely
Speaker 2: worth it. Thanks to all the Bringium subscribers.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to see what you want to say
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: Let us know, let us know what you think. I
Speaker 2: see you guys later.