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: If you like what we're all about, it just means
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Speaker 2: let's get to the show everything. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Crystal, Indeed we do.
Speaker 1: I'm going to show remotely because my kiddos had first
Speaker 1: day of schools. I had to be mommy first this morning,
Speaker 1: but we nevertheless have a wonderful show for you. We
Speaker 1: have some really interesting stories I think about the state
Speaker 1: of our culture and our nation, starting with numbers on
Speaker 1: real estate and especially apartment buildings and a potential coming reckoning,
Speaker 1: so we will get into all of that. Also some
Speaker 1: fascinating new numbers from Gallop about the widening polarization and
Speaker 1: divides between the two parties on a whole variety of issues.
Speaker 4: Kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: Which issues have become the most divided over the past
Speaker 1: number of years. We have a potential new opponent of
Speaker 1: Joe Biden in the Democratic primary that the media is
Speaker 1: actually taking seriously. We'll tell you about that possibly huge
Speaker 1: breakthrough in terms of what is being described as the
Speaker 1: Holy Grail of energy. This is something we covered before.
Speaker 1: They've been able to recreate that fusion energy generation, so
Speaker 1: we'll break that down for you. And it seems that
Speaker 1: more and more employers, including the federal government led by
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, are pushing their workers back into the office
Speaker 1: after quite a while where workers have been working more
Speaker 1: remotely and hybrid So we will talk to you about
Speaker 1: what all of that means before we get to any
Speaker 1: of that, though, Thank you guys so much for what
Speaker 1: you've been enabling in terms of our interviews. Really enjoyed
Speaker 1: getting to sort of spar a little bit and press
Speaker 1: one of the Biden representatives that we had on set yesterday,
Speaker 1: which is something we honestly have never really been able
Speaker 1: to do before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, we're going to continue to have him back.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to spar. I think with him just a
Speaker 2: little bit more. We've got to get some more into
Speaker 2: the weeds. We've also got some very interesting guests that
Speaker 2: I'm excited to debut here with you Crystal to the show.
Speaker 2: We can't reveal yet some of our methods, but I
Speaker 2: think people are going to enjoy it. Once again, it
Speaker 2: is only a testament to some of the shocking people
Speaker 2: who do agree to come on the show to what
Speaker 2: has been built here by our audience. So Breakingpoints dot Com,
Speaker 2: if you are able, we want to take a stake
Speaker 2: a step and actually look at some of the big
Speaker 2: macro problems that are facing the country. And one of
Speaker 2: the ones that we hear from you guys all the
Speaker 2: time is about housing. And so it's not just though
Speaker 2: that housing market and how it's affected your own personal life.
Speaker 2: It really also relies on the commercial property sector. And
Speaker 2: something that Crystal particular and I have been really looking
Speaker 2: into is about the debt bomb that could come as
Speaker 2: a result of work from home and the economic changes
Speaker 2: that have come since the pandemic. So let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. We're beginning
Speaker 2: to see this now materialized in the marketplace as interest
Speaker 2: rates begin to rise. What you guys can see in
Speaker 2: front of you is a piece from the Wall Street
Speaker 2: Journal with so two very important parts. One is called
Speaker 2: quote the real estate haven turning perilous, with roughree one
Speaker 2: trillion dollars coming due.
Speaker 3: You can see there that.
Speaker 2: The outstanding multi family mortgages from the Mortgage Bankers Association
Speaker 2: has reached well above the normal level of twenty ten,
Speaker 2: increased throughout the late twenty tens, but has now come
Speaker 2: to almost two trillion dollars. What you can also see
Speaker 2: in the costly loans chart there, which is on the
Speaker 2: right for those who are watching, is that the apartment
Speaker 2: mortgage rate is dramatically higher than the ten year treasury yield,
Speaker 2: somewhere between the five and the six percentage that just
Speaker 2: on average, and of course increased interest rates are continuing
Speaker 2: to put pressure on that. And so what they call
Speaker 2: this is that it's a trillion dollars coming doing loans.
Speaker 2: Nobody knows if these are actually going to be able
Speaker 2: to even make them. Many of these quote private real
Speaker 2: estate firms are funded mostly by floating rate debt and
Speaker 2: small investor cash now have even bigger competitors in the
Speaker 2: multifamily market. Some paid high prices based on rosy expectations
Speaker 2: of steep rent increases for years to come, and now
Speaker 2: they are making They are having trouble making the math work.
Speaker 2: They have already shown that there's a huge amount of
Speaker 2: acquisition happening in the space, and in some cases crystal
Speaker 2: these loans are not even be able to be acquired
Speaker 2: by some banks and some purchases out there. So this
Speaker 2: could have a massive impact on our economy and in
Speaker 2: our banking sector in particular.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So there are a few categories of commercial real estate
Speaker 1: that are really in trouble right now. One that we've
Speaker 1: talked about before and which has gotten a lot of
Speaker 1: attention is office buildings. Understandable people are working remotely more now.
Speaker 1: I mean, the vacancy rates are extremely high, and so
Speaker 1: you have a lot of office buildings with you know,
Speaker 1: high vacancy rates, much lower valuations, and with interest rates
Speaker 1: rising because of the FED. You know, this not only
Speaker 1: ups the mortgage rates for you know, residential homes where
Speaker 1: people who are just buying homes, This also really hikes
Speaker 1: interest rates for all sorts of commercial properties. So you
Speaker 1: have that as a very obvious problem, and a lot
Speaker 1: of that debt coming do what's been described as a
Speaker 1: debt bomb sort of looming over all of that. But
Speaker 1: the second most troubled class is actually apartment buildings, and
Speaker 1: this has escaped some notice, but traditionally this class has
Speaker 1: been seen.
Speaker 4: As very sort of solid, very reliable.
Speaker 1: Of course, people have to have a place to live,
Speaker 1: they have to be able to make their rent and
Speaker 1: so some of these property owners thought that they could
Speaker 1: just raise rents into oblivion and that that would be
Speaker 1: able to make the math work. But with interest rates
Speaker 1: going up as rapidly as they have, a lot of
Speaker 1: them are now in really tough positions. So from that
Speaker 1: article that we had, you have one Peter Sodloff, whose
Speaker 1: they describe as a veteran real estate finance executive. He
Speaker 1: described this as a hydrogen bomb scenario. You also have
Speaker 1: some indications that even more sort of solid, you know,
Speaker 1: long standing groups in this space that are having trouble.
Speaker 1: They say, some veteran real estate investors that weather passtorms
Speaker 1: look vulnerable. Veritas Investments, one of San Francisco's largest landlords
Speaker 1: and partners, defaulted on debt backing ninety five rental buildings
Speaker 1: during the past year. It stands to lose more than
Speaker 1: one third of its San Francisco portfolio as a result.
Speaker 1: So obviously, you know if you've got landlords that are
Speaker 1: struggling and that are trying to pass the buck onto
Speaker 1: their tenants, trying to hike rates, hike rents.
Speaker 4: That's going to be a huge issue.
Speaker 1: If you have landlords going into default, if you have
Speaker 1: cascading impacts on the banking sector, this all has potentially
Speaker 1: massive ramifications.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as I referenced earlier, let's put this up
Speaker 2: there from Bloomberg. Another great chart that we can actually
Speaker 2: go ahead and show people, which is that many of
Speaker 2: the property loans that are outstanding right now are so
Speaker 2: unappealing that the banks will quote want to dump them.
Speaker 2: What they point out is that commercial property loans have
Speaker 2: a massively dried up market with very few options for
Speaker 2: an easy exit. All these lenders, including JP Morgan, Goldmen, Sachs,
Speaker 2: they've been trying to sell debt which is backed by
Speaker 2: office hotels and apartments in months, but are having trouble
Speaker 2: actually finding anybody to buy this because nobody believes that
Speaker 2: the underlying loans will actually be made whole. And as
Speaker 2: you can see actually right in front of you, it
Speaker 2: shows why apartments is really second to office buildings in
Speaker 2: what's in trouble. Property values are down some thirty percent
Speaker 2: in the office sector just over the last twelve months,
Speaker 2: Apartment buildings on an average almost down fifteen percent. Hotels
Speaker 2: industrial seem to be hanging on malls we did in
Speaker 2: higher segment about that, and even self storage have taken
Speaker 2: a hit to some degree. So you have two problems there.
Speaker 2: Not only are you having the interest rates continue to
Speaker 2: go up on mortgage and loans and some of these
Speaker 2: adjustable rate things, but you're also seeing an overall decline
Speaker 2: in the value. So these guys can't even sell it
Speaker 2: without being made whole. So this is a real nightmare
Speaker 2: scenario because the banks can't get anyone to buy the debt,
Speaker 2: and then once these people do default, if they do
Speaker 2: want to sell the underlying asset, they'll have to sell
Speaker 2: far below maybe even what's outstanding on the actual loan.
Speaker 2: So the big problem is that a lot of this
Speaker 2: also is concentrated in previously prosperous areas.
Speaker 3: As you reference San Francisco.
Speaker 2: I was reading that the Tri State area in particular,
Speaker 2: which has suffered population loss during the pandemic, has also
Speaker 2: been suffering. And of course you know they have had
Speaker 2: the biggest problem in terms of work from home and
Speaker 2: how much of their economy, even here Washington, DC, many
Speaker 2: Northeastern cities relied on office culture. I think it relates
Speaker 2: to a remote work block that we're going to be
Speaker 2: doing later in the show.
Speaker 3: But you know, the economic changes.
Speaker 2: Here could have a serious, serious effect as all these
Speaker 2: loans come do. And we already know Crystal that the
Speaker 2: bailout calls are going to be coming soon. There's just
Speaker 2: no way that they're going to that they will they're
Speaker 2: going to be able to take this laying down, And
Speaker 2: I think that's why we're trying to prep everybody for it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's a couple other things to say about this.
Speaker 1: So the trouble in the office space class and the
Speaker 1: trouble in the apartment building class is a little bit different.
Speaker 1: So for office space, you both have the fact and
Speaker 1: this is why office space is the most troubled. You
Speaker 1: have the fact that interest rates have spiked and you
Speaker 1: have these super high vacancy rates, especially in cities like
Speaker 1: San Francisco, cities like LA cities like New York, apartment
Speaker 1: buildings are actually full, they have low vacancy rates. You know,
Speaker 1: we've had an issue of not having enough apartment buildings
Speaker 1: being built to low supply.
Speaker 4: There's actually I just.
Speaker 1: Saw some charts about how they're a huge, actually increase
Speaker 1: in the amount of apartments that are coming into the market.
Speaker 1: So that is good news for renters. So the issue
Speaker 1: for apartment buildings isn't low vacancy rates.
Speaker 4: The whole issue here is basically interest rates.
Speaker 1: The fact that the FED hiked rates at such a
Speaker 1: rapid pace by historical standards, that's what's caused all the
Speaker 1: stress in terms of that asset class. And you had,
Speaker 1: you know, some new players that got into this game
Speaker 1: that came in with a set of assumptions that turned
Speaker 1: out to not to be true, and so they just
Speaker 1: can't make the math work now. But one other commonality
Speaker 1: with the office space is how much of that debt
Speaker 1: is now coming due. So banks, you know, they see
Speaker 1: this writing on the wall, they see that these assets
Speaker 1: that they have.
Speaker 4: Are in trouble.
Speaker 1: They're trying to offload them in some sort of an
Speaker 1: orderly fashion, and they just can't find buyers. So even
Speaker 1: though in some cases they're willing to take a haircut
Speaker 1: just to have liquidity so that they have some sort
Speaker 1: of you know, stable basis and they aren't overly exposed.
Speaker 1: They aren't able to find anyone to take the deal.
Speaker 1: So it's hard to even say at this point what
Speaker 1: the appropriate valuations are because there are so few buyers
Speaker 1: in the market to actually figure out what the market
Speaker 1: valuation is. They flagged in that article one potential big
Speaker 1: sale that's being managed they say by brokerage new Mark
Speaker 1: Group Incorporated. The FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, is
Speaker 1: actually seeking to offload sixty billion dollars of real estate
Speaker 1: backed loans that they ended up with because of signature
Speaker 1: bank failing. So FDIC ended up with this, you know,
Speaker 1: sixty billion dollars in real estate back loans that they're
Speaker 1: not really trying to offload. So that's going to be
Speaker 1: one indication of exactly exactly where these valuations are since
Speaker 1: they kind of have to get rid of the assets.
Speaker 4: That they have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is all you know, like I said,
Speaker 2: it's going to be looming over the economy. It's going
Speaker 2: to affect bank stocks. The banks themselves are very much
Speaker 2: paying attention to this. Put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is a quote from the Goldman Sachs CEO, just
Speaker 2: from a couple of days ago. He says, quote, there
Speaker 2: is no question the real estate market, in particular commercial
Speaker 2: real estate has come under pressure. That came directly as
Speaker 2: his own bank is trying to unload hundreds of millions
Speaker 2: of dollars worth of loans from his actual portfolio and
Speaker 2: trying to sell it off.
Speaker 3: So there you go.
Speaker 2: Everybody keep an eye on that because the certain that
Speaker 2: if they do fail, they'll have their hat in hand
Speaker 2: coming here to Washington asking for money. But speaking of
Speaker 2: money and of real estate, it's weird because while the
Speaker 2: commercial sector is not doing well and there's all these
Speaker 2: issues on that side, at the same time, housing affordability
Speaker 2: has never actually been worse here in the United States,
Speaker 2: especially given what's going on with interest rates. Let's go
Speaker 2: ahead and put this up there on the screen. The
Speaker 2: mortgage rate actually just this week hit a twenty three
Speaker 2: year high, as a Mortgage News daily rites, quote, is
Speaker 2: there any hope? And as they actually point to, we
Speaker 2: now have mortgage rates so high that we haven't seen
Speaker 2: them since two thousand and one near the dot com era.
Speaker 2: I'll let you guess how exactly the price looked back
Speaker 2: twenty three years ago and ask you whether it was
Speaker 2: maybe a tiny little bit affordable even if the interest
Speaker 2: rate was high. We have not actually seen any aggregate
Speaker 2: decrease in price in real estate markets. In fact, the
Speaker 2: news just came out today Crystal that in two thirds
Speaker 2: of all real estate markets, prices have never been higher
Speaker 2: for homes. So it's not that prices dropped for homes
Speaker 2: as mortgage rates continue to go sky high. It's just
Speaker 2: that they stopped growing as much as they did over
Speaker 2: the last decade or so, and in particular the last
Speaker 2: two years, the underlying value because of our lack of
Speaker 2: supply of housing, has actually knocked down, not gone down.
Speaker 2: So the interest rate remains so high now that the
Speaker 2: math on some of these transactions really starts to buy
Speaker 2: goal of the mind. One tweet in particular put it
Speaker 2: in perspective. Let's go and put this up there shows you.
Speaker 2: Let's say you have a new mortgage math you have
Speaker 2: a one million dollar This guy's.
Speaker 3: From San Francisco, so that's why he's using these numbers,
Speaker 3: but it applies to everybody.
Speaker 2: Say you buy a million dollar house with two hundred
Speaker 2: k down at a seven percent rate mortgage, that's eight
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars loan. Over the first three years you
Speaker 2: will pay one hundred and ninety three thousand dollars on
Speaker 2: this loan five three hundred and twenty two dollars a month.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of money.
Speaker 2: After that one hundred and ninety three thousand dollars of
Speaker 2: payments for your eight hundred thousand dollars loan, the loan
Speaker 2: now stands at seven hundred and seventy four thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and five hundred You have paid one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: six thousand dollars in interest and just twenty five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in principle. So, as you can see from that crystal,
Speaker 2: the math here is just absolutely brutal.
Speaker 3: And yeah, like.
Speaker 2: I said, the guy lives in San Francisco, so the
Speaker 2: numbers are very large. But that same math applies to anybody.
Speaker 2: You know, even if you're not taking out a jumbo mortgage,
Speaker 2: even if you're saying you're buying a three or four
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars house, the proportion is not going to change.
Speaker 2: You're going to be paying vast majorities of your sums
Speaker 2: in the initial years straight to the bank and interest
Speaker 2: payments because the price of the asset remains so high.
Speaker 2: I mean, really, we have never seen housing less affordable
Speaker 2: than it is right now. And then worse, you know,
Speaker 2: not only is it not affordable, okay, five years you
Speaker 2: know most people they don't They're not even barely able
Speaker 2: to put up twenty percent. So let's take in they're
Speaker 2: putting five, maybe ten percent down something like that. And
Speaker 2: then five years from now, you know, they have a
Speaker 2: couple of kids, like, Hey, I want to move, and
Speaker 2: you try to sell. You've got no equity in your house.
Speaker 2: You have almost nothing. You're effectively renting it from the bank.
Speaker 2: Whenever you add on top of that like property, property
Speaker 2: taxes and everything, you're renting it from the bank in
Speaker 2: the city.
Speaker 3: You've got almost nothing in this house by yourself.
Speaker 2: So that strikes at the core and the bedrock of
Speaker 2: what the American dream was supposed to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the worst of all worlds.
Speaker 1: I just saw a report yesterday evening that home prices
Speaker 1: are ticking up again, hitting record highs in nearly two
Speaker 1: thirds of major markets. So I'll never forget soccer. When
Speaker 1: we covered a poll of the number of people who
Speaker 1: were cheering for a housing market decline because they were
Speaker 1: hoping that maybe maybe prices will come down and I'll
Speaker 1: have some shot at some point in my life at
Speaker 1: being able to become a homeowner. Which you know, the
Speaker 1: way that we have our economy structured is like vway
Speaker 1: to build sort of stable middle class prosperity, and it's
Speaker 1: been the exact opposite. I say, it's the worst of
Speaker 1: all worlds because on the one hand, you have you
Speaker 1: have very low supply because a lot of people who
Speaker 1: have houses don't want to sell because they don't want
Speaker 1: to have to get.
Speaker 4: A mortgage rate at the new very high rates.
Speaker 1: You have those high rates making it so unaffordable for
Speaker 1: anyone new to get into the game. As well, then
Speaker 1: you have prices that you know, on the have remained
Speaker 1: high and now are actually ticking up. So this is
Speaker 1: a sport from Black Knight that I'm looking at. They
Speaker 1: say prices grew zero point eight percent in June after
Speaker 1: slowing for more than a year, pushing prices to record
Speaker 1: levels in around sixty percent of the nation's major housing markets.
Speaker 1: So when you consider very high mortgage rates and record
Speaker 1: high prices, it's just a disaster for anyone who ever
Speaker 1: aspires to be able to get into this market. And
Speaker 1: then you pair it with the last story about all
Speaker 1: of these landlords that are under financial pressure also because
Speaker 1: of the rates, and they're trying to hike rents, so
Speaker 1: renters are getting screwed as well because of that scenario.
Speaker 1: You just I mean, housing is this underlying issue that
Speaker 1: I think gets far too little attention in Washington, but
Speaker 1: it's one of the most important factors in people's quality
Speaker 1: of life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. We have to continue
Speaker 2: to stay on top of it. This is one of
Speaker 2: those where you know, we hear from everybody, and it's
Speaker 2: downstreaming of a lot of things. When you got no property,
Speaker 2: that means you have no real equity, you know, in
Speaker 2: terms of society, a lot of it drives political participation.
Speaker 2: Permanent rentier class is one of the things that we've
Speaker 2: always striven to make sure that we avoid here in
Speaker 2: the United States. It has all kinds of social downstream
Speaker 2: terrible effects really, and then it really is the number
Speaker 2: one way to accumulate any sort of intergenerational wealth over
Speaker 2: the years. It's one of the most important economic markers.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying things should work this way, but that
Speaker 2: is just the way it is. If you're going to
Speaker 2: deny that to the entire new generation. Don't be surprised
Speaker 2: what comes down the pipeline. So we'll continue to keep
Speaker 2: an eye.
Speaker 1: We've got some really fascinating new numbers from Gallup about
Speaker 1: just how the two major political parties, how the base
Speaker 1: of those parties feels about a whole variety of issues,
Speaker 1: and the fact that over the past number of years
Speaker 1: there's been a growing divide on basically all of those issues,
Speaker 1: but some a lot more than others, and the ones
Speaker 1: that are a lot more than others are kind of
Speaker 1: revealing and of themselves.
Speaker 4: So let's go and put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: From Gallop, they say, here, you've got changes in partisan
Speaker 1: gaps on selected issues. And let me just explain what
Speaker 1: you're looking at here for a minute, because I found
Speaker 1: this presentation a little bit confusing. But you have on
Speaker 1: the left side it explains what the issue is. So
Speaker 1: federal government has too much power, human activity is main
Speaker 1: cause of global warming, completely or somewhat satisfied with K
Speaker 1: to twelve education in US, abortion should be legal under
Speaker 1: any circumstance. They test a whole lot more of these,
Speaker 1: but the ones that we show here are the issues
Speaker 1: where the polar where the divide is the largest, so federal.
Speaker 4: Government has too much power.
Speaker 1: That was the category where the divide was the absolute largest.
Speaker 1: Then global warming, then how you feel about K to twelve? Education,
Speaker 1: Then whether abortion should be legal under any circumstance. They
Speaker 1: say in this article that political polarization since two thousand
Speaker 1: and three has increased most significantly on issues related to
Speaker 1: federal government power, global warming, environment, education, abortion, foreign trade, immigration,
Speaker 1: gun laws, the government's role in providing healthcare, and income
Speaker 1: tax fairness. They go on to say that polarization has
Speaker 1: remained more or less the same on certain moral issues
Speaker 1: and satisfaction with the.
Speaker 4: State of race relations.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put the next graph that we have
Speaker 1: up on the screen so you can visualize a number
Speaker 1: of these as well.
Speaker 4: So you can see here.
Speaker 1: The graph between how Democrats feel about these issues and
Speaker 1: how Republicans feel about these issues. So you've got, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty wide divide there between those who believe that government
Speaker 1: should ensure everyone has healthcare. The next one is about
Speaker 1: protecting the environment has priority over energy development.
Speaker 4: Very wide divide there too. Why divide on gun laws? One?
Speaker 1: Why divide on global warming? Another one on global warming?
Speaker 4: Abortion? Federal government has too much power?
Speaker 1: That one is really interesting because you can see the
Speaker 1: way that basically, you know, around twenty ten, with Obama
Speaker 1: and the rise of the Tea Party, Republicans sentiment that
Speaker 1: the federal government has too much power really spikes, and
Speaker 1: Democrats have been going in the opposite direction. They've been,
Speaker 1: you know, feeling less concerned about the federal government having
Speaker 1: too much power, and then you have, as a you know,
Speaker 1: a widening divide also on the government should do more
Speaker 1: to solve the nation's problems.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you Cyber.
Speaker 1: The one of these that I actually found in some
Speaker 1: ways the most interesting was about foreign trade, because I
Speaker 1: don't know if you caught this, but foreign trade is
Speaker 1: opportunity for economic growth. Back in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats basically felt the same way about this.
Speaker 1: It was like fifty to fifty, So fifty percent of
Speaker 1: Republicans were like, yes, foreign trade, fifty percent of Democrats
Speaker 1: were like yes, foreign trade. Roughly since that time, the
Speaker 1: Democratic number has actually skyrocketed. Democrats now seventy four percent
Speaker 1: of them say that foreign trade is an opportunity for
Speaker 1: economic growth. Republicans have more or less remained flat. It
Speaker 1: has ticked down a little bit, but they're now forty
Speaker 1: nine percent that say that foreign trade is an opportunity
Speaker 1: for economic growth. And to be honest with you, it
Speaker 1: was sort of surprising to me this was an issue.
Speaker 1: I would have guessed that both parties became more skeptical
Speaker 1: of foreign trade. The Republicans became a little bit more
Speaker 1: skeptical of foreign trade. But the really, you know, notable
Speaker 1: numbers here are how the Democratic numbers have just absolutely skyrocketed,
Speaker 1: and I can only attribute it and a lot of
Speaker 1: these polarization numbers are just a tribute to the way
Speaker 1: that Trump shapes so much of our politics. Yep, the
Speaker 1: way that partisan affiliation, you know, Trump's any sort of
Speaker 1: like independent thinking and a lot of regards like wherever
Speaker 1: the team is, that's where I'm going to go. And
Speaker 1: Democrats increasingly defined their team as just being the opposite
Speaker 1: of wherever Trump is. And so if you look at
Speaker 1: a lot of these numbers, that's kind of the dynamic
Speaker 1: that you see unfolding.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, yeah, it's actually very unfortunate because you
Speaker 2: can actually see the split on foreign trade happen almost
Speaker 2: exactly around twenty thirteen. But there's also a big education
Speaker 2: polarization element to this.
Speaker 3: I could tell you.
Speaker 2: I mean you and I you know, we both came
Speaker 2: through ECON programs in college. Any basic ECON program in college.
Speaker 2: They're gonna hammer something into your brain. They're like, trade
Speaker 2: is good, foreign trade is great. It's about net economic benefit.
Speaker 2: It's about this. And it's only until you start reading
Speaker 2: about the cost of so called net benefit when the
Speaker 2: net benefit goes to China or Mexico or Canada or
Speaker 2: the EU or Japan, and then you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: actually the cost on the side of the equation was us,
Speaker 2: and then the benefit was to the people over there,
Speaker 2: and then a bunch of bankers here in the US.
Speaker 2: Now we're not talking in economic terms. We're talking a
Speaker 2: little bit more in human and political economic terms. That's
Speaker 2: part of the issue, I think is a big one.
Speaker 2: Education polarization really has its fingers all over this, and
Speaker 2: you know, you can actually really make sense. But same
Speaker 2: with culture, and in some ways you can understand if
Speaker 2: you're a democrat and O three, we just did invade
Speaker 2: it Iraq.
Speaker 3: Of course the government has too much power. But then
Speaker 3: Obama takes over.
Speaker 2: You know, you start then, you know, a slight dip
Speaker 2: ish you know, I guess the Trump years, you mostly
Speaker 2: agree with a lot of stuff that Biden is doing.
Speaker 2: You weren't all that concerned about lockdowns or any of
Speaker 2: this stuff. These are things that you're mostly you know,
Speaker 2: aligned with Ish. So it's a lot of it comes
Speaker 2: down to, like the topics of the day. I wasn't
Speaker 2: surprised by that number. The trade number actually was, you know,
Speaker 2: probably the most troubling one to me in terms of
Speaker 2: where the biggest difference in Republicans have. You can also
Speaker 2: see really what happened with Trump, the fact that the
Speaker 2: immigration number dramatically declined almost thirty percent, and also the
Speaker 2: quote great deal or quite a lot of confidence in police.
Speaker 2: That's not actually all that surprising. I was actually a
Speaker 2: little bit more heartened around where some of the things
Speaker 2: where people it seems people have become much more personally libertarian,
Speaker 2: and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. So
Speaker 2: for example, like if you look at things like not
Speaker 2: only the gay marriage number, but if you really look
Speaker 2: at things like divorce being morally acceptable, or you know,
Speaker 2: people having children out of wedlock, all of that. No
Speaker 2: one's saying like these are necessarily good things like that,
Speaker 2: But the moral equation, the moral police, like the original
Speaker 2: kind of Christian cancel culture that was so prevalent in
Speaker 2: our politics from the nineteen seventies really up until the
Speaker 2: twenty tens. That is a basically dead consensus, which for
Speaker 2: somebody like me who grew up in the evangelical heart
Speaker 2: of Texas, can't help but say it's a good thing.
Speaker 2: But you know, of course that's going to dramatically change
Speaker 2: things in the way that all of our culture looks
Speaker 2: like and how people personally feel about certain things.
Speaker 3: I think that's very interesting.
Speaker 1: It was fascinating to me the places where things diverged.
Speaker 1: Those places tended to be issues that have been put
Speaker 1: at the center of our debate in recent years. You know, immigration,
Speaker 1: huge divergence, how you feel about the police, huge diversions,
Speaker 1: climate action huge divergence, the nature and role of the
Speaker 1: federal government right, which is really very very sort of
Speaker 1: meta conversation, huge divergence. But yeah, it was also fascinating
Speaker 1: to me the places where the trend moved in the
Speaker 1: same direction. So even on something like favor death penalty
Speaker 1: in cases of murder for both parties, the trend was
Speaker 1: actually downward. There were fewer people who favored the death
Speaker 1: penalty in both parties. Now there's still a wide split.
Speaker 1: Seventy three percent of Republicans still do favor the death penalty.
Speaker 1: It's thirty seven percent of Democrats. But it moved in
Speaker 1: the same direction. Marijuana should be legal, that was a
Speaker 1: big one. Trend moved definitely in the same direction. Democrats
Speaker 1: are at eighty three percent. Republicans are now at a
Speaker 1: majority fifty five percent think that marijuana should be legal,
Speaker 1: which makes it you realize how insane it is that
Speaker 1: it's not legal yet, even with the Democrat in the
Speaker 1: White House.
Speaker 4: But I digress. But the trend moved in the same direction.
Speaker 1: Same sex marriages should be legally valid, same direction, having
Speaker 1: a baby onside of marriage morally acceptable, divorce morally acceptable,
Speaker 1: sex between unmarried couples morally acceptable. Satisfied with state of
Speaker 1: race relations. The satisfaction with the state of race relations
Speaker 1: in both parties actually declined. So in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: Democrats were looks like at about, you know, forty five
Speaker 1: percent somewhere around there. Republicans were actually maybe like fifty
Speaker 1: five percent, And then today Republicans have declined down forty percent.
Speaker 1: Democrats have declined all the way down to twenty three
Speaker 1: percent in terms of their state of race relation satisfaction.
Speaker 1: But again both parties moving the same direction. And here's
Speaker 1: another one that's interesting. Favorable opinion of Cuba Democrats all
Speaker 1: the way up now at forty nine percent. Republicans also
Speaker 1: trending in the same direction at thirty five percent. So
Speaker 1: it is fascinating that while on the core issues that
Speaker 1: have been the subject of a lot of cable news
Speaker 1: debate and a lot of you know, political struggle over
Speaker 1: these past number of years, you see these increasing divides.
Speaker 4: But let me give you one more where a is
Speaker 4: in the same direction.
Speaker 1: Government should ensure that everyone has healthcare. Democrats now all
Speaker 1: the way up at eighty five percent that say, yes,
Speaker 1: the government should guarantee everyone has healthcare. Republicans have also
Speaker 1: jumped up since twenty thirteen. They're now at thirty percent.
Speaker 1: So over the past decade, that has also moved in
Speaker 1: the same direction. So it's fascinating to dig into these numbers.
Speaker 1: The one like I said that the immigration that there
Speaker 1: is a huge divide didn't surprise me, police, gun laws, whatever,
Speaker 1: that didn't surprise me. The one that I was surprised
Speaker 1: by the numbers on foreign trade, because I thought even
Speaker 1: on the Democratic side post Obama, given the energy behind
Speaker 1: Bernie in twenty sixteen and again in twenty twenty, and
Speaker 1: his skepticism of these bad free trade deals, including NAFTA
Speaker 1: and including TPP, I would have thought the Democratic numbers
Speaker 1: would be more mixed.
Speaker 4: But nope, not at all.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I think that's unfortunate.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it also does come back to
Speaker 2: partisan breaks in terms of like base of the parties.
Speaker 2: It becomes more college educated. That's going to reflect, but
Speaker 2: that doesn't necessarily mean and also the people who like
Speaker 2: do still vote Democrat who are working class, so there's
Speaker 2: still going to be some separation I think within that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, it certainly doesn't form a lot
Speaker 2: of what's going on today.
Speaker 3: So I thought we broke it down.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to this next piece, which
Speaker 1: I think is very interesting. So there's this Congressman Dean Phillips.
Speaker 1: He's considered sort of a centricty Democrat in Minnesota, and
Speaker 1: he has for a while now been saying, you know,
Speaker 1: Biden is too old, basically, and I think Democrats should
Speaker 1: look at there are options in terms of the next
Speaker 1: presidential nominating contest.
Speaker 4: He's now making those calls.
Speaker 1: A little more assertively and not ruling out the possibility
Speaker 1: of he himself jumping into the race. So let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to a bit of what Congressman Dean Phillips,
Speaker 1: Democrat of Minnesota, had to say.
Speaker 5: Democrats are telling me that they want not a coronation,
Speaker 5: but they want a competition. The New York Times poll
Speaker 5: from this week shows fifty five percent of Democratic voters
Speaker 5: want some alternatives to the current people in the primary,
Speaker 5: eighty three percent of those under thirty Democrats under thirty
Speaker 5: want alternatives, and about seventy six percent of independence. So
Speaker 5: I just want to make my case.
Speaker 3: When are you going to decide?
Speaker 5: I think, well, let me get to my point. Okay,
Speaker 5: So if we don't heed, I's giving.
Speaker 3: You some room, Yes you have.
Speaker 5: If we don't heed that call, shame on us, and
Speaker 5: the consequences I believe are going to be disastrous. So
Speaker 5: my call is to those who are well positioned, well prepared,
Speaker 5: of good character and competency, they know who they are,
Speaker 5: to jump in because Democrats and the country need competition.
Speaker 5: It makes everything better. That's my call to them. Right now.
Speaker 3: So if they don't, you will.
Speaker 5: I'm not saying I will. I think I'm well positioned
Speaker 5: to be president of the United States.
Speaker 3: You do.
Speaker 5: I do not believe I'm well positioned to run for
Speaker 5: it right now. People who are should jump in because
Speaker 5: we need to meet the moment. The moment is now.
Speaker 5: That is what the country is asking.
Speaker 1: Would she, in your mind, be the heir apparent if
Speaker 1: for some reason the President of the United States were
Speaker 1: not to seek denomination in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5: I'm glad you asked the question, and my answer is
Speaker 5: really simple, competition. As many people as humanly possible, with
Speaker 5: the talent, the time, the energy, the ethics to enter
Speaker 5: a primary should do it. We have twelve Republicans as
Speaker 5: options for Republican primary voters right now, we only have
Speaker 5: three on the Democratic side. I believe in competition. We're
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party. Democracy means the freedom to make choices,
Speaker 5: and we don't have many of them.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a real classic centrist pitch because there's
Speaker 1: no content to it.
Speaker 4: It's just like choices. I like choices, which listen.
Speaker 1: I agree we should have democracy in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Democratic voters should have the ability to evaluate the choices
Speaker 1: they already have by virtue of a debate that the
Speaker 1: President has said he's absolutely not going to do, and
Speaker 1: the DNC has failed to even make any moves towards
Speaker 1: setting up.
Speaker 4: But there's no critique.
Speaker 1: Outside of just like, hey, we should have choices and
Speaker 1: maybe this guy is too old. I also think it's funny, Sagert,
Speaker 1: that no one knows who Dean Phillips is. No one
Speaker 1: has ever heard of Dean Phillips before in their life.
Speaker 1: He's like the most forgettable, unimpressive character you could possibly
Speaker 1: and this is no offense to him, but this is
Speaker 1: like the most plain, vanilla, random congressman you can possibly imagine.
Speaker 4: And yet this guy.
Speaker 1: Gets taken seriously by the media and the two candidates
Speaker 1: that are actually in the race already don't explain that
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's outrageous.
Speaker 2: You know, you got some freaking backbenching congressman hunt Face
Speaker 2: the Nation. This is one of the most opposed important
Speaker 2: political shows in the country. Mariann Williamson and RFK Junior
Speaker 2: are polling well above the threshold for a debate. To
Speaker 2: my knowledge, RFK has not been on Face Nation, nor
Speaker 2: has Maryanne Williamson. I mean, and you've got Major Garrett there,
Speaker 2: like treating this guy like he's serious, what just because
Speaker 2: he was elected to you know, Congress. It's just one
Speaker 2: of those where it's ridiculous the disparate amount of treatment
Speaker 2: which is happening here, but also so deep indicative of
Speaker 2: so many problems in our primary process. We have it too,
Speaker 2: you know, in many cases on the Republican side, you
Speaker 2: could see, you know, Ron DeSantis, look how much more
Speaker 2: seriously he's taken than Vivike Ramaswami by many you know accounts.
Speaker 2: They're pulling very in very similar position. Vivic's media coverage
Speaker 2: is beginning to tick up with the polling. Maybe I
Speaker 2: guess they're a little bit more likely, but you know,
Speaker 2: they's still treat Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, people who
Speaker 2: are pull like one to two percent barely, you know,
Speaker 2: as serious candidates. And then when you really put it
Speaker 2: up against people like Kennedy and Williamson, you're just like,
Speaker 2: this is insane because Ramaswami is pulling around the same
Speaker 2: levels as RFK or Mary Anne. Same with many of
Speaker 2: the elected Republicans you know, in terms of who are
Speaker 2: in many cases pulling even below them. And yet they're
Speaker 2: getting media treatment and not them, So it's just totally crazy.
Speaker 2: And this guy he hasn't even announced Kennedy and Williamson
Speaker 2: are actually running, Like what are they doing?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, and I love too how his call for choice
Speaker 1: doesn't include any sort of reflection on the cannisated are
Speaker 1: in the race or acknowledgment that they really even exist.
Speaker 1: So there's that as well. But I mean this has
Speaker 1: sparked some speculation. You see these pieces still pop up
Speaker 1: in the press of like, oh, donors are still evaluating
Speaker 1: their options, and maybe Biden is still going to pull
Speaker 1: out of the race, which I think is really fan fiction.
Speaker 1: And I mean, do you think there's any chance this
Speaker 1: guy actually runs. I find it very, very unlikely that
Speaker 1: he would actually jump into the race. I feel like
Speaker 1: he just wants to sort of make a little bit
Speaker 1: of name for himself and a little bit of waves
Speaker 1: in the press.
Speaker 4: Right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's possible. I don't think most people are going
Speaker 2: to care, you know, really either way. But I mean
Speaker 2: here's I guess here's the only pro case for doing this,
Speaker 2: by getting people like him to say it in mainstream
Speaker 2: media and saying, ween, you should have a debate. We
Speaker 2: should have some competition. Maybe they'll wake up to the
Speaker 2: fact that they're already is competition and it could actually
Speaker 2: lead to something. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
Speaker 2: It's such a stupid you know, it's such a stupid
Speaker 2: view into how these people actually view democracy.
Speaker 4: I think that's a good point. Though.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good point. It puts it on
Speaker 1: the table. I mean, it's silly that it has to
Speaker 1: come from a backbench Congress member that nobody's heard of,
Speaker 1: but that is the way Washington works. When they say
Speaker 1: there's no serious candidate in the race, it's partly because
Speaker 1: you have, you know, people who have not been held
Speaker 1: elected office in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4: Who are the ones in the race. So they find
Speaker 4: it more difficult to.
Speaker 1: Dismiss someone who is a member of Congress, who, you know,
Speaker 1: even though he doesn't have any like ideological content to
Speaker 1: his critique, is at least standing up for the idea
Speaker 1: that there should be some democracy and that there should
Speaker 1: be some choice, a notion that overwhelmingly is held within
Speaker 1: the Democratic base. And we're about to go over some
Speaker 1: of the numbers with young people and Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: The way they feel about this.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just buy huge numbers, want a different candidate,
Speaker 1: are backing other candidates, active, want.
Speaker 4: To see debates.
Speaker 1: But this is really the reality within a lot of
Speaker 1: the Democratic base. So you know, potentially, if you have
Speaker 1: more people who make some waves like this, maybe a
Speaker 1: dam will break and maybe it'll be more pressure put
Speaker 1: on Democrats, or at least a light shined on their
Speaker 1: hypocrisy of running around talking about how much they care
Speaker 1: about democracy and at the same time doing everything they
Speaker 1: can to block the actual democratic will of the people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, why don't we go ahead and get into
Speaker 3: the younger voters.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So this actually jumped out at me.
Speaker 1: In the last New York Times Ciena poll of the
Speaker 1: Democratic side of the race, I was taking into the
Speaker 1: cross tabs and the numbers for Jokepiden among young people
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty nine is the demographic category are just
Speaker 1: really rough. Let's go and put some of these numbers
Speaker 1: up on the screen. Here's his approval rating by age group.
Speaker 1: So both in this one, both eighteen to twenty nine
Speaker 1: and thirty to forty four in the thirties, So eighteen
Speaker 1: to twenty nine is at thirty six percent approval thirty
Speaker 1: forty fours at thirty four percent, and then the numbers
Speaker 1: get better as they get older, although none of them
Speaker 1: crack fifty percent.
Speaker 4: Let's go put the next one up on the screen
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 1: This could give you some clue as to why eighteen
Speaker 1: to twenty nine year olds are not falling in love
Speaker 1: with Joe Biden. Here, sixty four percent say that the
Speaker 1: economy is poor. They rate economic conditions today as poor,
Speaker 1: twenty seven percent say only fair. And then you have,
Speaker 1: you know, a very small single digit numbers saying it
Speaker 1: is good or excellent. Let's go and put the next
Speaker 1: piece up on the screen so we can lay all
Speaker 1: of this out.
Speaker 4: Now. This was what initially caught my eye.
Speaker 1: They asked, okay, if the election for Democratic nominee were today,
Speaker 1: and this was among Democrats who are eighteen to twenty
Speaker 1: nine years old.
Speaker 4: Who would you vote for?
Speaker 1: Joe Biden gets about a third of the vote of
Speaker 1: young people. RFK gets thirteen percent, Maryanne gets twenty seven percent,
Speaker 1: and don't know as twenty six percent. So if you
Speaker 1: put RFK and Mary in together, they are poll way
Speaker 1: higher than Joe Biden among eighteen to twenty nine year olds.
Speaker 1: And then you still have a quarter of the electorate
Speaker 1: that says I don't know. So for Joe Biden the president,
Speaker 1: to be getting one third of young people behind him,
Speaker 1: now you can see why he's making some moves on
Speaker 1: student debt relief. Let's put the next one up on
Speaker 1: the screen. Regardless of who you prefer the Democratic primary,
Speaker 1: do you think the Democratic Party should renominate Joe Biden?
Speaker 4: Again, this is among eighteen to twenty nine year olds.
Speaker 1: Seventeen percent say nominate Joe Biden and eighty percent say
Speaker 1: nominate a different candidate.
Speaker 4: So listen.
Speaker 1: I know people say, oh, young people that don't show
Speaker 1: up to vote, et cetera, et cetera, it's actually not true.
Speaker 4: In recent elections.
Speaker 1: That demographic eighteen to twenty nine has been showing up
Speaker 1: in much higher numbers than they historically have. They were
Speaker 1: really key in the midterm elections in forestalling a red wave.
Speaker 1: They've been energized in general in the Trump era. They
Speaker 1: were absolutely essential part of the Joe Biden victory back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, and they have a scathing, scathing review
Speaker 1: thus far of the Biden administration and are actively evaluating
Speaker 1: other options to include, you know, other candidates in the
Speaker 1: Democratic primary race and also potentially Cornell West in the
Speaker 1: general election.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you add in Cornell West to this, you
Speaker 2: really see the young voter.
Speaker 3: Problem that they have and why they freak out about it.
Speaker 2: And also, I would remind you know, because the election
Speaker 2: was so close, if you just give Margins just a
Speaker 2: little bit both on young people, old people, black people
Speaker 2: a spent wherever. By taking others for granted, you're putting
Speaker 2: yourself in a very vulnerable position. And also Biden doesn't
Speaker 2: even make an effort to speak to people. The President
Speaker 2: today is in Arizona, and I saw that he was
Speaker 2: going to sit for an interview. I said, oh, that's great,
Speaker 2: maybe we'll get a question about hunter By. It's with
Speaker 2: the freaking Weather channel that is the too he's decided
Speaker 2: to sit with, and there's a listen. I'm not you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to denigrate my colleagues channel. I'm sure
Speaker 2: they have some great questions to ask him about the
Speaker 2: heat wave, and that's awesome, but you know the fact
Speaker 2: that that's the only one that he's going to be
Speaker 2: doing or has done now actually in weeks as an
Speaker 2: actual interview.
Speaker 3: We all know what's going on here.
Speaker 2: It makes no effort to either reach out to people,
Speaker 2: to reassure people. That's why only seventy percent of the
Speaker 2: young people even want him to come. You know, in
Speaker 2: terms of the people who are speaking to their interests,
Speaker 2: you've got Kennedy, you've got Williamson, you've got West, people
Speaker 2: who are actually making an effort. I mean, I see
Speaker 2: it all the time in terms of people who are
Speaker 2: younger and not as engaged in the political process, and
Speaker 2: they have no faith. I don't think it's a surprise
Speaker 2: that his approval rating is really only high ish amongst
Speaker 2: people who are over sixty and very much more traditional
Speaker 2: in their political beliefs. So it's a problem really of
Speaker 2: his own making, and they can continue to ignore it
Speaker 2: for as long as they want. But eventually that bill's
Speaker 2: gonna come due. I don't know when. I keep saying
Speaker 2: it could take ten probably to get two decades or
Speaker 2: something like that for it to truly materialize. But you know,
Speaker 2: don't let anybody say no. But he wasn't talking about
Speaker 2: it from the beginning.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, think about how much they denigrate Marianne.
Speaker 1: Remember what Kaarine Jean Pierre said about her from the poty.
Speaker 1: It just so snide and sneering, dismissive, filled with contempt
Speaker 1: as she tried to like artfully deliver her pre planned
Speaker 1: joke and still stumbled over it. And Marian is almost
Speaker 1: tied with Joe Biden among this demographic.
Speaker 4: Like, just think about that.
Speaker 1: Think about the way that she's been shut out and
Speaker 1: the level of dissatisfaction that there has to be that
Speaker 1: they are searching for an alternative that the media will
Speaker 1: not present to them whatsoever. I think that's remarkable. And
Speaker 1: you know, I dug into some of the like Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what's the issue set for young voters and does it
Speaker 1: look a lot different than the issue set for older voters?
Speaker 1: And it really doesn't. I mean, it's the economy. It
Speaker 1: really ties in with what we were talking about earlier
Speaker 1: with like the housing numbers. Now this is this is
Speaker 1: a generation of people really now too, generations of people
Speaker 1: who are looking at the landscape. They're like, I'm never
Speaker 1: going to be able to own a house. I have
Speaker 1: no idea how I'm going to afford to have a family.
Speaker 1: I'm crushed under this student debt load, I am worried
Speaker 1: about the climate, and I don't see you taking the
Speaker 1: action that I think that you should. And so they
Speaker 1: are justifiably very dissatisfied with what the Biden administration has
Speaker 1: been able to do for them in terms of just
Speaker 1: their material reality, being able to imagine themselves in a stable,
Speaker 1: you know, prosperous, like solid middle class life. It feels
Speaker 1: those chances feel vanishingly small.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't always this way.
Speaker 1: I always think it's important to point out at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the Biden administration, young people were his strongest constituency.
Speaker 1: At the beginning, they were very hopeful, they voted for
Speaker 1: him in huge numbers, very supportive of what was done
Speaker 1: in terms of pandemic relief, and you know, some of
Speaker 1: the student debt forbearance and some of those early programs.
Speaker 1: But now as all of that has been stripped away
Speaker 1: and you're left with you know, inflation, you're left with
Speaker 1: this housing market which is crushing to people. Well, it's
Speaker 1: no surprise that it's not that they're voting Republican. They're
Speaker 1: just disgusted with this Democrat. They want a different Democrat,
Speaker 1: or they're open to a third party.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: And look, we'll see how it works out for Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: Come twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Personally, just don't think it's going to work out all
Speaker 2: that Well, Okay, let's go to the next part here
Speaker 2: about fusion. We've talked about the LK ninety nine superconductor,
Speaker 2: and we've got some more news on fusion, which is
Speaker 2: kind of the holy grail of nuke of power of
Speaker 2: recreating the core of the Sun, which I think is
Speaker 2: pretty cool whenever you say it out loud.
Speaker 3: Let's put put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: US scientists have now actually repeated and replicated the fusion
Speaker 2: power breakthrough which excited the world just last year.
Speaker 3: As a catch up.
Speaker 2: It is achieved quote net energy gain in a fusion
Speaker 2: reaction for the second time, fueling optimism that progress is
Speaker 2: being made towards the dream of limitless zero carb in power.
Speaker 2: Physicists have sought since the nineteen fifties to harness the
Speaker 2: fusion reaction that powers the Sun. Until just December of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, no group had ever been able to
Speaker 2: do it in terms of energy from the reaction that
Speaker 2: it consumes, which is known as ignition. So researchers at
Speaker 2: the Federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California who actually
Speaker 2: achieved this ignition last year, repeated it on July thirtieth,
Speaker 2: producing higher energy output than actual input. Now there's still
Speaker 2: quite a long way to go, and just if anybody's
Speaker 2: interested in the mechanics quote achieved by heating two hydrogen
Speaker 2: isotopes usually deterium and tritium, to such extreme temperatures that
Speaker 2: the atomic nuclei fuse, releasing helium and vast amounts of
Speaker 2: energy in the form of neutrons. Really fun to have
Speaker 2: this actually happen right after the movie Oppenheimer.
Speaker 3: And what they talk about is that it is quote.
Speaker 2: One of the most impressive scientific feats already of the
Speaker 2: twenty first century. And if they can not only continue
Speaker 2: to replicate the experiment on a consistent basis, but then
Speaker 2: try to make it cost effective, scalable and of course
Speaker 2: safe everywhere, it could unlock of course literally quite like
Speaker 2: limitless energy and lay a lot of the concerns that
Speaker 2: we have and change superconductors if that technology all works out.
Speaker 2: So it's a really exciting time, I think, and it's
Speaker 2: always important. Look, everyone hears about crazy breakthroughs. I even
Speaker 2: said this on a superconductor. You got to wait for
Speaker 2: replication we're still waiting on that, by the way, But
Speaker 2: when you do have at least one verified instance of
Speaker 2: this happening again, you could say, hey, maybe in a
Speaker 2: decade it'll get to prototype stage. And I know that
Speaker 2: that's very frustrating for people to kind of take in
Speaker 2: that timeline, but you know, it's like energy wasn't built.
Speaker 2: Rome wasn't built in a day, like oil took what
Speaker 2: decades really to catch on really from its discovery. So
Speaker 2: these things move at a slower timeline than we might want.
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean that thirty forty years from now
Speaker 2: we won't be living in a.
Speaker 3: Very different reality.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So to put this really simply in terms of the science,
Speaker 1: so you know, if you saw Oppenheimer that was all
Speaker 1: about splitting the atom apart, that's fission. This is fusion,
Speaker 1: which is taking two atoms, two lighter atoms, and making
Speaker 1: them into one. So it's sort of like the opposite
Speaker 1: of the nuclear reactions that we have been able to
Speaker 1: achieve for.
Speaker 4: Both good and ill.
Speaker 1: So in terms of what this would mean based on
Speaker 1: we covered the original ability, the original test case where
Speaker 1: they were able to achieve this sort of increase in energy,
Speaker 1: which is like the gold standard for proving this out
Speaker 1: as a concept of something that could potentially work for
Speaker 1: energy generation in the future. They say, these reactions emit
Speaker 1: no carbon, produce no long lived radioactive waste that's obviously
Speaker 1: an issue with nuclear power, and a small cup of
Speaker 1: the hydrogen fuel could theoretically power a house for hundreds
Speaker 1: of years.
Speaker 4: Also, in a hopeful.
Speaker 1: Sign and this replication of the initial experiment, they were
Speaker 1: actually able to generate somewhat more energy than they were
Speaker 1: the first time around, which moves it one step closer
Speaker 1: to being out of the lab and into some sort
Speaker 1: of a practical application because that energy loss in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, if you're able to actually produce this
Speaker 1: and a commercial capacity, it's still a very, very very
Speaker 1: difficult challenge to solve. But the fact they were able
Speaker 1: to increase the amount of energy that they obtained here
Speaker 1: is an encouraging sign. So when a temper expectations like
Speaker 1: you were saying, soccer is still a long time before
Speaker 1: they'd be able to figure out how to make this
Speaker 1: use for you know, commercial.
Speaker 4: Applications or household applications, et cetera.
Speaker 1: We are a long way from that. But the fact
Speaker 1: that this wasn't a what off that they were able
Speaker 1: to recreate. It is really exciting.
Speaker 4: And very encouraging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the jump from the theoretical to the engineering side
Speaker 2: is kind of interesting. So right now, one of the
Speaker 2: ways that they achieve it is through lasers, and one
Speaker 2: of the only reasons they can do it once a
Speaker 2: day is because the laser needs to cool down. The
Speaker 2: problem is that to actually make this scalable and commercially viable,
Speaker 2: you can't just use the laser once a day. You
Speaker 2: have to use it quote several times a second. And
Speaker 2: so getting from a point where you can use it
Speaker 2: once a day to several times a second sounds like
Speaker 2: a little bit of an engineering challenge in order to
Speaker 2: try and make this commercially viable. Who knows if we'll
Speaker 2: ever even be able to get there, but it certainly
Speaker 2: does sound cool. And what the researchers are pointing to
Speaker 2: is like, once you've got viability and you think you
Speaker 2: start to move things into the realms of like material science,
Speaker 2: engineering and all that, it's not that it still can't fail.
Speaker 2: It's just that things it's like another step forward in
Speaker 2: trying to make this technology actually move forward. That's why
Speaker 2: I think it's particularly exciting. We see a lot of
Speaker 2: the same issues in nuclear power. One of the bigger
Speaker 2: problems is around cost, and it's largely because we don't
Speaker 2: have the capacity to scale real largely because of commercial
Speaker 2: factors in terms of design and things don't have economies
Speaker 2: of scale develop There wasn't enough investment and a lot
Speaker 2: of it was allowed to like rot on the line
Speaker 2: over the last fifty years. So scale and the ability
Speaker 2: to implement on a cheap or relatively cheap and consistent
Speaker 2: basis is the most important thing.
Speaker 3: Maybe we'll see it. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 3: if we'll see it in our lifetime, but I hope.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, Well, just to get people a sense
Speaker 1: of the time frame that we could be talking about.
Speaker 1: This fusion reaction has been positive as theoretically possible since
Speaker 1: literally the fifties. They've been working on this, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't until December of last year that they were finally
Speaker 1: even able to demonstrate in a lab under ideal conditions
Speaker 1: the reaction that they have theorized for you know.
Speaker 4: Seventy years, So you know, will it.
Speaker 1: Take another seventy years to get out of the laboratory
Speaker 1: and out into the wider world impossible to say, but
Speaker 1: just to give you a sense.
Speaker 4: Of the timeframe that it took even.
Speaker 1: To get to this initial step and then their ability
Speaker 1: to recreate it.
Speaker 4: All.
Speaker 1: Right, guys, one more cultural domanon that we wanted to
Speaker 1: take a look at, because this is coming down from
Speaker 1: the White House. There seems to be a major push
Speaker 1: really happening right now to get workers out of their
Speaker 1: homes and back into the office. Of course, this is
Speaker 1: largely applies to white collar workers. Blue collar and service
Speaker 1: workers never had this luxury. But nevertheless, let's put this
Speaker 1: first part up on the screen. President Biden is pushing
Speaker 1: to unremote work era for federal government employees. It's calling
Speaker 1: for his cabinet, according to Axios, to aggressively execute plans
Speaker 1: for federal employees to work more in their offices this
Speaker 1: fall after years of working remotely. This is the Biden
Speaker 1: administration's most overt push yet to get them back to
Speaker 1: their offices, a dynamic that many businesses have struggled with
Speaker 1: as Americans are rather enjoying their remote or hybrid work situations.
Speaker 1: But there's been political pressure on the White House to
Speaker 1: curb remote work that's come primarily from Republicans in Congress
Speaker 1: who blame remote work for delays and backlogs. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, Democrats and advocacy groups and unions largely blame
Speaker 1: lack of funding for the backlogs and site telework as
Speaker 1: a key tool in recruiting staff. I think there is
Speaker 1: something to that, because we've seen workers willing to take
Speaker 1: lower salaries if they get that flexibility in pay. You
Speaker 1: also had the DC Mayor, Muriel Bowser, who's very concerned
Speaker 1: about her city, which we can attest to the fact
Speaker 1: is a lot emptier than it was pre pandemic.
Speaker 4: She's really been pushing also to.
Speaker 1: Try to get the White House to force workers back
Speaker 1: in to try to revive the DC economy. She said recently,
Speaker 1: we need decisive action by the White House to either
Speaker 1: get most federal workers back to the office most of
Speaker 1: the time, or to realign their vast property holdings for
Speaker 1: use by the local government, nonprofits, businesses, and any user
Speaker 1: willing to revitalize it. Because soccer, I mean, just like
Speaker 1: the office space all around the country that we were
Speaker 1: talking about, which has huge vacancy rates. The federal government
Speaker 1: now was so much of their workforce being remoter, at
Speaker 1: least hybrid. Much of their office space is also completely vacant.
Speaker 1: So the city of DC is like, listen, hey, if
Speaker 1: you're not going to use it, at least let us
Speaker 1: try to get a business in here or something going on,
Speaker 1: because you know this is killing us downtown.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, here's the thing.
Speaker 2: I have sympathy with people who want to work remote,
Speaker 2: but I was telling you yesterday, I saw that the
Speaker 2: FAA is apparent many parts of the FAA, not just
Speaker 2: not the air traffic controllers per se, don't want to
Speaker 2: go back in the office. And I'm just like, look, guys,
Speaker 2: my flight was actually literally canceled because of FAA and competence.
Speaker 2: So unless that starts working properly, like, that's just not
Speaker 2: going to fly. And so I think that whenever it
Speaker 2: comes to federal workers and all that, I don't really
Speaker 2: care about the state of Washington, DC. I do think
Speaker 2: it is pathetic how badly things are going down the
Speaker 2: tubes here. I don't think that's the federal government's fault.
Speaker 2: And a lot of that has to do with Miro Bowser,
Speaker 2: and of course the people who live here who decide
Speaker 2: that this is the hell hole that they want to
Speaker 2: live in.
Speaker 3: Put that aside.
Speaker 2: I also think though, that this does show and signal
Speaker 2: how coercion on workers is almost certainly going We're almost
Speaker 2: certainly entering that era when you combine it with other
Speaker 2: companies that are also doing this as a result of
Speaker 2: both city pressure, rising interest rates, and then frankly, just
Speaker 2: like a totally changing business environment, things are not only
Speaker 2: return They're not returning back to normal per se. They're
Speaker 2: entering a new era where a lot of the zero
Speaker 2: interest rate phenomenon and all that, and I'm talking specifically
Speaker 2: of the business world, and you know, the your ability
Speaker 2: in order to float a lot of stuff on debt, a.
Speaker 3: Lot of that is going away.
Speaker 2: And I think we kind of see that with the
Speaker 2: Zoom announcement that probably that one more than anything and
Speaker 2: any other company that we've seen call people back into
Speaker 2: the office.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So Zoom, the product that I am actually using right
Speaker 1: now to come to live from my house and which
Speaker 1: millions of office workers have been using for their meetings
Speaker 1: during the pandemic era, Zoom is now calling their employees
Speaker 1: back to the office. Now, Well, this headline over sells it,
Speaker 1: in my opinion a little bit, because they are requiring
Speaker 1: their workers to be on site two days a week,
Speaker 1: a hybrid approach, they say is most effective for Zoom.
Speaker 1: This is per a Zoom spokesperson, because it will be
Speaker 1: in a better position to use our own technologies, continue
Speaker 1: to innovate and.
Speaker 4: Support our global customers.
Speaker 1: However, when you have the bedrock of the work from
Speaker 1: home infrastructure, when you have that company saying like we
Speaker 1: want our employees back in the office, I do think
Speaker 1: it is a sort of sign of the times. Now,
Speaker 1: let me give you the other side of the equation,
Speaker 1: which is remembers are we covered how actually the workers
Speaker 1: who liked remote and hybrid work the most were like
Speaker 1: the managers. It was the boss class. They've been enjoying
Speaker 1: it the most. And so that may actually make it
Speaker 1: so that the trend back into the office is slower
Speaker 1: because the people who have the most power within the
Speaker 1: organization are the ones who are, you know, most reluctant
Speaker 1: to give it up. I also pulled there's some new
Speaker 1: research about the impact on productivity of workers working remotely.
Speaker 1: This is from Economists mag They compiled a number of
Speaker 1: studies from recent research.
Speaker 4: Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: I think we've got this for our last element, but
Speaker 1: they found that some of the original research seemed to
Speaker 1: indicate that work from home actually made workers more productive,
Speaker 1: that they got more done. There's now some updated research
Speaker 1: that shows the opposite impact that some of these employers
Speaker 1: are leaning into of like, ah, now we've got studies
Speaker 1: that say it's actually makes you less productive, so we
Speaker 1: want your butts back at the office. But there's also
Speaker 1: a lot of research and to me, this is what's
Speaker 1: most important, that work from home and hybrid and just
Speaker 1: having choice in your work situation creates much happier employees.
Speaker 4: Like employee productivity is not the end all be all.
Speaker 1: Now, if there's critical functions that need to get done
Speaker 1: with federal government, et cetera, like, obviously you have to
Speaker 1: take that into account. But I think it's also important
Speaker 1: that we take into account how people's lives are and
Speaker 1: their work life balance and how much they're like enjoying
Speaker 1: their situation.
Speaker 4: And because you have very clear numbers.
Speaker 1: That people like remote work, they like having the choice
Speaker 1: of flexibility, they are willing to take pay cuts in
Speaker 1: order to maintain a hybrid work environment. I do think
Speaker 1: this trend is here to stay because you're going to
Speaker 1: have companies that are competing for workers based on how
Speaker 1: flexible their you know, work from home or hybrid work
Speaker 1: schedules are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, as I said, I think it's complicated,
Speaker 2: and the managers of course like it for a reason.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of cultural reasons also why
Speaker 2: work from home may actually not be beneficial to people
Speaker 2: we're younger and who are entering a workforce. So there's
Speaker 2: actually quite a lot to be said in terms of
Speaker 2: productivity and all that, don't you know, I don't doubt
Speaker 2: that really for a second. I've always believed like less
Speaker 2: or more flexibility, less rigidity around some of these things,
Speaker 2: in many cases is the best key to actually unlocking
Speaker 2: the specifically in a white collar environment. And obviously all
Speaker 2: of that is going to be different when you're talking
Speaker 2: about people who work blue collar, who are like, what
Speaker 2: the hell are you guys even talking about this is
Speaker 2: a completely luxury conversation. I always try to remember them too,
Speaker 2: because so many of them didn't have the luxury of
Speaker 2: working from home. They were going to work throughout the pandemic.
Speaker 2: They never stopped, you know, they still had to deal
Speaker 2: with all the inconveniences of the COVID restrictions and problems,
Speaker 2: and if anything, they're the ones who've been hit worse,
Speaker 2: you know, by this entire thing. Their wages have not
Speaker 2: kept up with inflation, they still have to commute, they
Speaker 2: don't have the luxury of being able to move to
Speaker 2: a town with nicer weather and all of that.
Speaker 3: So you always got to keep them in mind when
Speaker 3: we're talking about this.
Speaker 1: Sure, but that doesn't mean that, you know, what we
Speaker 1: should be aspiring to is bettering their situation, not making
Speaker 1: things should bear for the white collar workers, which is
Speaker 1: why you know, the uaw I covered yesterday their potential
Speaker 1: strike and their contract negotiations that are going on right now.
Speaker 1: One of the key demands there is better work life balance,
Speaker 1: more paid time off. Obviously that was a key demand
Speaker 1: of the railway workers. So I mean this should obviously
Speaker 1: should be done at the federal level, but we should
Speaker 1: also be encouraging and supporting those efforts at workplace by
Speaker 1: workplace and union by union to achieve those same benefits,
Speaker 1: because yeah, I mean, there's some jobs that you can't
Speaker 1: do from home.
Speaker 4: You have to be there.
Speaker 1: But we should also be doing our best to consider
Speaker 1: the happiness and work life balance of people in all
Speaker 1: sectors of our society in my humble.
Speaker 3: Opinion, no question no questionnaire.
Speaker 2: All right, Zachary be looking at Yesterday I did a
Speaker 2: monologue about how Western sanctions have failed to deter the
Speaker 2: Russian war effort in Ukraine, how their failure has revealed
Speaker 2: that the United States, and specifically the Biden administration have
Speaker 2: really revealed the declining say of America in the affairs
Speaker 2: of the world. That's more of a metapoint to which
Speaker 2: many people say, so, what, how does that really affect me?
Speaker 2: Unfortunately for all of us out our hardest way, whenever
Speaker 2: it comes to the price of gas, I'm sure enough
Speaker 2: to tell you this because you already know the price
Speaker 2: of gas is beginning to go up. The current average
Speaker 2: price across the United States is three dollars and eighty
Speaker 2: two cents, rising, already up thirty cents from just last month.
Speaker 2: Gas remains stubbornly over five dollars a gallon in California,
Speaker 2: and high prices are dominating the Western United States, Northeast
Speaker 2: and also Florida.
Speaker 3: What's going on?
Speaker 2: It's actually directly related to a Biden failing foreign policy
Speaker 2: and also relates right back to Russia and to Ukraine.
Speaker 2: In the last month, Saudi Arabia has teamed up with
Speaker 2: Russia to deepen cuts to global oil production, despite warnings
Speaker 2: from the International Energy Agency that crude markets are likely
Speaker 2: to set and tighten significantly in the next few months.
Speaker 2: The preliminary cut by Saudi Arabia and by Russia was
Speaker 2: then followed up with a new statement by just days
Speaker 2: ago by RIOD that not only were the existing cuts staying,
Speaker 2: but that they would likely continue all through the summer
Speaker 2: to support higher oil prices and thus higher gas price
Speaker 2: here in the US. Oil remains the number one driver
Speaker 2: of inflation here in the US for a number of reasons. First,
Speaker 2: is a product you need regardless of price. More importantly,
Speaker 2: it is a higher price, and it is reflected across
Speaker 2: the entire supply chain. Anything from materials to food that
Speaker 2: needs to be transported is going to be impacted by
Speaker 2: the price of oil and specifically diesel. In just the
Speaker 2: last three months, wholesale diesel costs have jumped forty six percent,
Speaker 2: jet fuels up forty gas has rose nineteen This is
Speaker 2: going to massively impact FED policy. If high gas prices
Speaker 2: remain throughout the next year or so, it will continue
Speaker 2: to encourage the Federal Reserve, pushing interest rates even higher
Speaker 2: aimed at getting Americans to consume less. The sledgehammer to
Speaker 2: the economy could easily put us back even more of
Speaker 2: a recession when we're already in. It could even trigger
Speaker 2: a large collapse. The worst part is that we have
Speaker 2: literally no barrier to save the US economy should we
Speaker 2: even get to that point. At the very same time
Speaker 2: that Russia and Saudi Arabia are voluntarily cutting oil, we
Speaker 2: are sitting bone dry with very little reserve. The US
Speaker 2: Strategic Petroleum Reserve currently is at its lowest level since
Speaker 2: November of nineteen eighty five. Why well, for several reasons.
Speaker 2: One is that Biden actually began tapping the Strategic Petroleum
Speaker 2: Reserve all throughout twenty twenty two. I actually largely supported
Speaker 2: that action, even though I think it came far too
Speaker 2: late to actually have a meaningful effect on price. But
Speaker 2: the issue is that Biden expended so much of the
Speaker 2: SPR and had no plan to replenish it. Since then,
Speaker 2: the Energy Department has consistently said they have to delay
Speaker 2: the replenishment of the SPR because a market price of
Speaker 2: oil is too high. This, of course is a bad
Speaker 2: signal to the market and others keep the price high
Speaker 2: as long as possible force Washington to put it hey
Speaker 2: whatever they want. It is also a major point of
Speaker 2: foreign leverage that international oil producers have over the US.
Speaker 2: Just last week, the administration announced it is again delaying
Speaker 2: the SPR replenishment, leaving reserves extraordinarily low as we head
Speaker 2: into a season of likely even higher prices. This is
Speaker 2: bad because if we head back up to five or
Speaker 2: six dollars again on there's not very much left in
Speaker 2: the tank literally to release and lower the overall price. Overall,
Speaker 2: it shows that our foreign policy is leaving us incredibly
Speaker 2: vulnerable here, both economically and politically, at the hands of
Speaker 2: the Saudis and of the Russians. Already, international analysts are
Speaker 2: predicting the NBS and Putin are going to use the
Speaker 2: price of oil to try and hurt Biden's political chances
Speaker 2: before the election. That is almost certainly true, and honestly,
Speaker 2: it is his own fault. There was a moment two
Speaker 2: years ago when the price of gas was trending up
Speaker 2: when some truly innovative policy action could have triggered more
Speaker 2: refining of oil, more domestic production. If you combine that
Speaker 2: with better foreign policy and coercion of Saudi Arabia, we
Speaker 2: would not be in this mess right now. Instead, Putin
Speaker 2: and MBS have now read their man. They know that
Speaker 2: Biden is not actually going to do anything to cut
Speaker 2: off Saudi Arabia or punish them, just as here we
Speaker 2: continue to ship them billions of dollars of weapons. They
Speaker 2: know that they can be openly disrespected, and all that
Speaker 2: will really happen is a strongly worded statement from Biden. Putin, meanwhile,
Speaker 2: is open suddenly showing that the so called Western boycott
Speaker 2: of Russian oil that he is confident enough that buyers
Speaker 2: he can even cut production and increase the price on
Speaker 2: his Asian buyers with no repercussions at all. All of
Speaker 2: this could lead to a terrible scenario, really not that
Speaker 2: far away sky high oil price, declining economic prospects, no
Speaker 2: way out. The entire reason the Strategic Petroleum Reserve exists
Speaker 2: is because the US went through the horror of the
Speaker 2: oil embargo.
Speaker 3: In the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: The irony is we somehow are still dependent on in
Speaker 2: many cases, the same nations for gas, with almost no
Speaker 2: innovation in our oil infrastructure since then. The failure of
Speaker 2: imagination and the short term thinking here of the Biden
Speaker 2: administration has left us incredibly vulnerable. Crystal, I'm curious what
Speaker 2: you make of all of this, specifically, you know, the
Speaker 2: spr getting drawn downs.
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagre's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 3: Cristal, what are you taking a look at.
Speaker 1: Hugch election today in the state of Ohio that could
Speaker 1: be potentially bell weather for twenty twenty four. Let's go
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen. The backstory here
Speaker 1: is also really interesting. This is from Bolts magazine. They
Speaker 1: say an attempt to full voters, Ohio GOP sets up
Speaker 1: vote to weaken direct democracy. Let me explain what's at stake.
Speaker 1: They say, voters will decide today whether to adopt a
Speaker 1: proposal that would increase the threshold to change Ohio's constitution
Speaker 1: from fifty to sixty percent.
Speaker 4: That would make it harder.
Speaker 1: For residents to get constitutional amendments on the ballot in
Speaker 1: the first place as well. So the idea here in
Speaker 1: terms of what's being voted on today is you can
Speaker 1: vote yes and instead of being able to change the
Speaker 1: Ohio Constitution by fifty plus one, that threshold would go
Speaker 1: up to sixty plus one. But the backstory here is
Speaker 1: part of what makes this sort of democracy ballot initiative
Speaker 1: so interesting, because in the fall, there is a ballot
Speaker 1: initiative that voters are going to have a choice to
Speaker 1: vote on that is, would add a reproductive rights constitutional
Speaker 1: amendment into the Ohio Constitution. Right now, the pro choice
Speaker 1: side is winning that fight dramatically in terms of what
Speaker 1: the polls say. So Republicans realizing they are unlikely to
Speaker 1: win at the ballot box in the fall on this
Speaker 1: abortion access constitutional amendment, they want to change the rules
Speaker 1: of the game so that they've got a better shot
Speaker 1: at being able to block that abortion rights constitutional amendment
Speaker 1: from coming. So they did a bunch of maneuvering to
Speaker 1: try to get this thing on the ballot super early
Speaker 1: here in August. It's an odd time, and they'd previously
Speaker 1: been against August elections, but let's put that aside, and
Speaker 1: so they are trying to make it so that it'll
Speaker 1: be a lot harder to get that abortion rights amendment through.
Speaker 1: Thus far, though it doesn't look like the plan is
Speaker 1: working out too well for them.
Speaker 4: Let's put this up on the screen, so.
Speaker 1: First you can see this is the support per a
Speaker 1: USA Today poll or the abortion rights amendment. Fifty eight
Speaker 1: percent of residents in Ohio, which at this point is
Speaker 1: quite a red state, are in favor of adding that
Speaker 1: amendment to guarantee access to reproductive services, whereas thirty two
Speaker 1: percent are opposed. But on this ballot measure that is
Speaker 1: being voted on today, let's put this up on the screen,
Speaker 1: you also have a very lopsided result. Only twenty six
Speaker 1: percent of Ohio voters support changing the threshold to sixty
Speaker 1: percent over fifty seven percent who say no, we want
Speaker 1: to keep the direct democracy that we have as it is.
Speaker 1: According to Boltz Magazine, this is part of a broader
Speaker 1: push among Republican parties across the country who realize at
Speaker 1: this point that when they have these pro choice versus
Speaker 1: pro life ballot amendments, that voters are overwhelmingly backing the
Speaker 1: more liberal pro choice position. And so there's been a
Speaker 1: number of states where they've tried to change the rules
Speaker 1: of direct democracy to give their side a better chance.
Speaker 1: Bolt Magazine name checks Arkansas Republicans. They recently passed a
Speaker 1: law that makes it harder to qualify for ballot measures.
Speaker 1: Utah did the same. Arizona Republicans tried to do the
Speaker 1: same last fall. Republican legislators in Florida, idahom Missouri, North Dakota,
Speaker 1: and Oklahoma have made similar attempts, and now Ohio is
Speaker 1: trying to play the same game. So that's what's actually
Speaker 1: on the ballot right now. Thus far, it looks like
Speaker 1: turnout for this kind of random August special election is
Speaker 1: absolutely through the roof.
Speaker 4: Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Analysts looking at how many ballots have been cast early
Speaker 1: thus far say that they are at goubernatorial level of
Speaker 1: voting in this issue one referendum election.
Speaker 4: Which is pretty wild.
Speaker 1: As of last Wednesday, more than five hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: three thousand people had voted by mail or in person
Speaker 1: since early votings started. That's nearly double the final early
Speaker 1: voting figures for Ohio's two previous mid term primary elections,
Speaker 1: which included races for governor and for Congress.
Speaker 4: So again take that in. As of last Wednesday.
Speaker 1: They already had doubled the turnout for the two previous
Speaker 1: midterm primary elections. So there's obviously huge interest in this
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of money that has flooded into
Speaker 1: the state on both sides of this issue. And you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of billionaire money coming in on the side
Speaker 1: of vote yes, which would you know, undermine the direct
Speaker 1: democracy of Ohio citizens. And the last thing I'll say
Speaker 1: here in Theniwai and get Socker's reaction is five point
Speaker 1: thirty eight recently tracked how all of these special elections
Speaker 1: are going across the country and it's actually quite interesting
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. There has in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three been a very lopsided result in favor of
Speaker 1: Democrats in these special elections. So even in stricts that
Speaker 1: are overwhelmingly read, Democrats are narrow narrowing the gap. But
Speaker 1: in districts that are purple they are winning. In districts
Speaker 1: that they are that are blue, they're winning by blowout margins.
Speaker 1: This analysis by five thirty eight found that in thirty
Speaker 1: eight special elections held so far this year, Democrats have
Speaker 1: outperformed the partisan lean of the areas where the races
Speaker 1: were held by an average of ten percentage points. They say,
Speaker 1: romping in parts of the country that typically support the
Speaker 1: party while cutting down on GP margins in red cities
Speaker 1: and counties too. So Democrats so far in the thirty
Speaker 1: eight special elections that have been held this year, outperforming
Speaker 1: by double digits. And I think, Sager, it shows, you know,
Speaker 1: the impact of Dobbs and the overturning of Roe versus
Speaker 1: Wade has completely upended our politics and it was not
Speaker 1: a flash in the pan. This continues to be a
Speaker 1: really determinative issue in terms of how voters are casting
Speaker 1: their ballots.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean looks and if you want to hear
Speaker 2: my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today
Speaker 2: at Breakingpoints dot com. All Right, guys, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for watching bearing with us, and we'll have a
Speaker 2: full show for everybody on Thursday.
Speaker 3: We're excited for it. We'll see you then,