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: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Chrisols.
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do a whole lot going on here in
Speaker 1: this town this week. So we've got the fallout from
Speaker 1: the shutdown deal that came together over the weekend. Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy's job is on the line, Matt Gates's job on
Speaker 1: the line, big old gopiece of war. So i'll break
Speaker 1: that down for you. Also have some updates with regard
Speaker 1: to Ukraine and high Ukraine politician elected in a NATO country.
Speaker 1: What does that mean for the future of that war?
Speaker 1: Moving forward? RFK Junior announcing that he's going to make
Speaker 1: a big announcement, and it looks like that big announcement
Speaker 1: is going to be that he is exiting the Democratic
Speaker 1: primary and running as an independent. What will the fallout
Speaker 1: from that be that be that'll be an interesting one
Speaker 1: as well. And we've got numbers from the last debate,
Speaker 1: the last Republican debate. They're historic, but perhaps not over
Speaker 1: it Fox Business wanted them to be historically low ratings. Also,
Speaker 1: Jamal Bowman caught on camera pulling a fire alarm for
Speaker 1: certain reasons. We'll get into all of that. Before we
Speaker 1: get to any of that, I want to thank all
Speaker 1: of you guys for the support that you've been showing
Speaker 1: to us premium subscribers. And we have big announcement Sager, Yeah, big,
Speaker 1: do the big reveal.
Speaker 3: We can make officially make the announcement.
Speaker 2: Our next focus group is going to be in the
Speaker 2: city of Atlanta with Democratic voters. We're going to ask
Speaker 2: him about Biden, We're going to ask him about primary challengers,
Speaker 2: about his age, We're going to have a multi racial demographic,
Speaker 2: people who have voted before, not allkinds of stuff that's
Speaker 2: very representative of that critical battleground state for the president.
Speaker 2: And I think it's going to be really interesting, Crystal
Speaker 2: to see. We keep seeing poll after poll everyone says
Speaker 2: he thinks he's too old. I think he's too old.
Speaker 2: But I want to hear it from them in their
Speaker 2: own words, what they think about the president. And these
Speaker 2: are people again who are Democratic voters, and how they
Speaker 2: think about the primary process and also about how somebody's
Speaker 2: going to face Trump.
Speaker 1: Yes, and Georgia's state that obviously the Democratic Party is
Speaker 1: really elevated, very focused on Joe Biden won it last
Speaker 1: time around, so that's really important. How are they feeling
Speaker 1: about the promises he made versus how he has been
Speaker 1: in office? How do they feel like their lives are
Speaker 1: going under the Biden administration? And you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think it'll be any surprise if you have a number
Speaker 1: of people who want to go in a different direction.
Speaker 1: But do they have any names in mind? Because that's
Speaker 1: the thing you see a lot of polling that's like, okay,
Speaker 1: people want other alternatives to Joe Biden, but when they're
Speaker 1: pushed on who do you actually want, they struggle to
Speaker 1: come up with answers. So that's right, there's no substitute
Speaker 1: from just hearing from voters in their own words. Are
Speaker 1: really really excited about that, And again, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: The premium subscribers for making all of that.
Speaker 3: Yes, you guys are making it possible.
Speaker 2: So if you can sign up at Breakingpoints dot Com,
Speaker 2: we're actually going to elevate the production level, so it's
Speaker 2: going to cost you for more money than last time around,
Speaker 2: but that's what we do here. I got a lot
Speaker 2: of attention last time around, not only for us for
Speaker 2: the show, but really I think it helped inform a
Speaker 2: lot of you about how people think. So once again,
Speaker 2: you can become a premium describer. You can go ahead
Speaker 2: and support that VP Breakingpoints dot Com not BP, and
Speaker 2: we will. We're really excited to bring all of it
Speaker 2: to you. It's next week literally, so you'll be seeing
Speaker 2: it very soon.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Okay, So we also have big breaking news this
Speaker 1: morning before we get into the Republican chaos civil war situation.
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, California governor, has made his announcement about who
Speaker 1: he is appointing to that seat that was made open
Speaker 1: by Diane Feinstein's death. Let's go and put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen, he announced on Twitter. I am proud
Speaker 1: to announce California's new United States Senator, Lafonsa Butler. As
Speaker 1: we mourn the enormous loss of Senator Finstein. The very
Speaker 1: freedom she fought for, reproductive freedom, equal protection, safety from
Speaker 1: gun violence have never been under greater assault. Lafonza has
Speaker 1: spent her her entire career fighting for women and girls
Speaker 1: and has been a fierce advocate for working people. She
Speaker 1: will make history becoming the first black lesbian to openly
Speaker 1: serve in the United States Senate. From her time as
Speaker 1: president of Emily's List to leading the state's largest labor union,
Speaker 1: she has always stood up for what is right and
Speaker 1: has led with her heart and her values. I have
Speaker 1: no doubt she will carry the baton left by Senator
Speaker 1: of Feinstein, continue to break glass eelings and fight for
Speaker 1: all Californians in Washington. Okay, so I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you a little bit more about Lafond's butler that a
Speaker 1: left out of that in just a moment, just to
Speaker 1: remind you of the backstory here. So, there was already
Speaker 1: an ongoing Democratic primary to phill Diane Feinstein's seat because
Speaker 1: she was planning on retiring at the end of that term.
Speaker 1: There are three major Democratic contenders there, Adam Schiff, who
Speaker 1: is the choice of Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic establishment,
Speaker 1: Katie Porter and Barbara Lee. Barbara Lee being a solid
Speaker 1: progress so Katie Porter also being a progressive, but Barbara
Speaker 1: Lee being a sort of historic black woman. Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: had previously indicated that if this seat became available, he
Speaker 1: would appoint a black woman, So Barbara Lee has the backing.
Speaker 1: This is actually very unusual, the backing of the Congressional
Speaker 1: Black Caucus and the backing of all the progressives very unusual.
Speaker 1: You see those two groups united. But instead of going
Speaker 1: in that direction, which is not what Nancy Pelosi wants
Speaker 1: and not what the donors went, he instead picks Lafons
Speaker 1: of Butler, So he is correct. She was the head
Speaker 1: of a labor union. Seiu, one of the large locals
Speaker 1: in California. Put this up on this screen. A few
Speaker 1: things that are left out. After she left that position
Speaker 1: as head of that labor union, she basically sold out
Speaker 1: to a bunch of big California corporate interests. She became
Speaker 1: a lobbyist for Airbnb and was advising Uber on their
Speaker 1: fight to basically screw over their drivers. So that's the
Speaker 1: side that she picked in those battles. She was a
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton supporter in twenty sixteen. She is a close
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris advisor advised her on her twenty twenty campaign,
Speaker 1: so very solidly in the establishment camp. And there is
Speaker 1: one other complicating factor here, which is she doesn't actually
Speaker 1: live in California at the moment. Really, she as head
Speaker 1: of Emily's List, which is a sort of like very
Speaker 1: establishment friendly, pro woman Democratic Party organization here in d C.
Speaker 1: She moved to the DC area. Put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. Newsom had to respond to this because a
Speaker 1: lot of people were like, hey, maybe you should pick
Speaker 1: someone who lives in California. She lives in Maryland right now.
Speaker 1: Newsom says she moved to DC area for Emlyy's List,
Speaker 1: but is a long time California resident and homeowner, and
Speaker 1: she will re register in California before being sworn in.
Speaker 1: So bottom line of all of this is this is
Speaker 1: a Newsome Pelosi shift play to screw over Barbarlely is
Speaker 1: basically the bottom.
Speaker 3: Of one hundred percent, except for Adam Schiff, who's livid.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 2: He actually sent out an email this morning saying, hey,
Speaker 2: just see you guys. Remember I have thirty two million
Speaker 2: dollars cash on hand for a Democrat.
Speaker 1: But he's still hoping to end up in this seray, right, And.
Speaker 3: They also adjusted the rules Crystal.
Speaker 2: Just yesterday there was some talk of anybody who was
Speaker 2: appointed and it would not be able to run for
Speaker 2: seid seat in twenty twenty four, So they were wondering
Speaker 2: whether Barbara Lee would even want it. But Barbara Gavin
Speaker 2: Newsom adjusted the rules at the last minute. He's like, no,
Speaker 2: they'll be allowed to run for that twenty twenty four seat.
Speaker 2: So look, I mean, it's very difficult whenever you're already
Speaker 2: the sitting senator to not win said primary, especially in
Speaker 2: a state like California where it's like the top two.
Speaker 3: And all that.
Speaker 2: Maybe Adam Schiff will be able to but at the
Speaker 2: same time, he's going to face a tremendous amount of
Speaker 2: pressure from the Democratic establishment not to challenge a black
Speaker 2: woman a Kamala Harris. Ally, she does have something in
Speaker 2: common in terms of her Uber advisement. Don't forget that
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris's brother in law took in twelve million dollars
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty from Uber. He was actually their top
Speaker 2: legal counsel. I do remember covering some of that. So
Speaker 2: you know, it's all about fulfilling the people who came
Speaker 2: before them, and that's certainly what it is. I mean Newsom,
Speaker 2: you know, he kind of boxed himself to a corner
Speaker 2: because California was California that Democratic Party people were livid
Speaker 2: he didn't appoint a black woman to replace Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2: So this is I guess why he made that pledge.
Speaker 2: Should Feinstein step down? The biggest loser out of this
Speaker 2: is definitely Adam Schiff and barbar Lee. But Barbara Lee,
Speaker 2: I mean really, I mean I'm not going to say
Speaker 2: she had a quote quote lock, but like she was
Speaker 2: one of the leading candidates. This woman's name was never
Speaker 2: even mentioned, Yeah, in some of the top five lists
Speaker 2: and all of that. I think it's just a clear
Speaker 2: indication of Newsom sucking up to the national Democratic Party,
Speaker 2: Harris in particular, and all that setting himself up for
Speaker 2: a potential national run in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: It's that, and it's making the play for the donors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's always because sometimes Gavin Newsom, you're looking at
Speaker 1: these moves he's making in California, You're like this seems contradictory, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: you just signed this law that will give fast food
Speaker 1: workers twenty dollars an that's awesome. Oh, you just vetoed
Speaker 1: this other law that would like protect teamster's jobs, and
Speaker 1: you vetoed this other law that would have given striking
Speaker 1: workers overtime pay. The bottom line for Gavin Newsom is
Speaker 1: what do the tech donors and what do the Hollywood
Speaker 1: donors want from him? And obviously Lafonse Butler was a
Speaker 1: friend to Uber, was a literal lobbyist for Airbnb, so
Speaker 1: she is very good to go with that critical donor class.
Speaker 1: He wants to run for president, he's going to need
Speaker 1: to raise a boatload of money, and so his top
Speaker 1: priority is to service their interests. And I think Lafonsa Butler,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's also just like a classic Democratic
Speaker 1: Party shameless identity play, of course, first black lesbian woman. Okay, like, okay,
Speaker 1: but tell me about what she stands.
Speaker 3: For on policy? First? What's going to invent too?
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 3: How many of these first are we going to invent?
Speaker 2: It's always like, oh, the first black woman, the first
Speaker 2: black babying.
Speaker 3: It's like I'm just like, look, I don't care, all right,
Speaker 3: I want to know what this lady's going to do.
Speaker 1: Right, what's she going to do for other black lesbian women,
Speaker 1: you know, like, what are her policies? Who has she
Speaker 1: sold out?
Speaker 5: Use?
Speaker 1: I mean that is really kind of disgusting. Using your
Speaker 1: labor leader credentials to like sell out your own movement
Speaker 1: is in my opinion, an extra level of grotesque. But anyway,
Speaker 1: congratulations new newly appointed Senator Lafonda Butler.
Speaker 3: Here's the one improvement. She can breathe and she thinks.
Speaker 1: So probably know that she is the United States Senator,
Speaker 1: which is, unlike Diane Fire.
Speaker 3: General improvement for the state of California.
Speaker 2: So congratulations, you guys just got your constituent services. All right,
Speaker 2: let's go on to the shutdown and we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about. Man, this was a dizzying turn of events.
Speaker 2: I brought some of you guys the news of that
Speaker 2: yesterday if you want to go and watch the deals.
Speaker 3: Just in general about what exactly happened.
Speaker 2: The TLDR is basically that a clean cr was passed
Speaker 2: with zero Ukraine ad That has now sparked a massive
Speaker 2: drama here in Washington because Kevin McCarthy had to rely
Speaker 2: on Democratic votes to get this continuing resolution. He had
Speaker 2: ninety something Republicans actually vote against that Continuing Resolution before
Speaker 2: it was when I head and sent to the Senate.
Speaker 2: This has led now Congressman Matt Gates, who is a
Speaker 2: leader against Kevin McCarthy and against the Continuing Resolution, to
Speaker 2: officially call for a motion to vacate against him. It
Speaker 2: will come sometime this week. He elaborated it a bit
Speaker 2: over the weekend.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4: Speaker McCarthy made an agreement with House Conservatives in January,
Speaker 4: and since then he has been in brazen, repeated material
Speaker 4: breach of that agreement. This agreement that he made with
Speaker 4: Democrats to really blow past a lot of the spending
Speaker 4: guardrails we'd set up is alas straw. And then overnight
Speaker 4: I learned that Kevin McCarthy had a secret deal with
Speaker 4: Democrats on Ukraine. So as he was baiting Republicans to
Speaker 4: vote for a Continuing Resolution without Ukraine money, saying that
Speaker 4: we were going to jam the Senate on Ukraine, he
Speaker 4: then turns around and makes a secret deal. Now, I
Speaker 4: know you and I probably have different views on US
Speaker 4: involvement in Ukraine, But however you think about that question,
Speaker 4: it should be subject to open review analysis and not
Speaker 4: some backgrouom deals.
Speaker 1: So I do.
Speaker 4: I do intend to file a motion of vacate against
Speaker 4: Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to rip
Speaker 4: off the band aid. I think we need to move
Speaker 4: on with new leadership that can be trustworthy.
Speaker 2: So there it is, says you will call for the
Speaker 2: motion of ak We're going to get to the Ukraine
Speaker 2: comment in a bit, because that's not exactly the truth
Speaker 2: coming from Matt Gates.
Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 2: He then quickly responded he was on CBS's Face the Nation.
Speaker 2: Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 6: But I want to start though, on the news this
Speaker 6: morning from Congressman Matt Gates, who says he's going to
Speaker 6: seek a motion to va kate. He's going to try
Speaker 6: to oust you a Speaker of the House.
Speaker 3: That's nothing new.
Speaker 7: He's tried to do that from the moment I ran
Speaker 7: for the office.
Speaker 6: Look, well this time he says he's going to keep going.
Speaker 6: May not get there before the fifteenth ballot, but it
Speaker 6: took fifteen for Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 1: He says he's coming for you.
Speaker 3: Can you survive, Yes.
Speaker 7: I'll survive. You know, this is personal with Matt. Matt
Speaker 7: voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border,
Speaker 7: secure our border. He's more interested in securing TV interviews
Speaker 7: than doing something. He wanted to push us into a shutdown,
Speaker 7: even threatening his own district with all the military people
Speaker 7: there who would not be paid, only because he wants
Speaker 7: to take this motion, So be it. Bring it on,
Speaker 7: Let's get over with it and let's start governing. If
Speaker 7: he's upset because he tried to pushes in a shutdown
Speaker 7: and I made sure government didn't shut down, then have
Speaker 7: that fight.
Speaker 2: Let's have that fight. So fighting words there. Let's go
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. Just a
Speaker 2: bit flashback in terms of the Republicans who voted against
Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy last time around, there were about twenty one
Speaker 2: different members including you can see them in front of
Speaker 2: you for those who are watching, Dan Bishop, Andy Biggs,
Speaker 2: Loewen berber ken Buck, Tim Burchett, Burlison, really ranges mostly
Speaker 2: Freedom Caucus members. Many of them actually did vote against
Speaker 2: the continuing resolution. However, not all of these people are
Speaker 2: on record saying that they would support any motion to vacate.
Speaker 2: So it's a big question right now, Crystal as to
Speaker 2: whether this is even going to come to pass.
Speaker 3: And really the question and all of that is.
Speaker 2: Is that how much of this is personal for Gates,
Speaker 2: how much of this is actually on policy at least
Speaker 2: for some of the people who might join Gates, And
Speaker 2: then how much of this is just chaos as a
Speaker 2: ladder and trying to get to the top. And then,
Speaker 2: I mean, let's be honest, the vast majority of the
Speaker 2: House Republicans overwhelmingly not only support Kevin Karthy, they are
Speaker 2: very angry at Gates for bringing us to the brink
Speaker 2: of a government shutdown. And you know, McCarthy does have
Speaker 2: a point, which is, if you do like social spending
Speaker 2: cuts and all that stuff, they had a bill on
Speaker 2: the floor which they defeated, which had thirty percent cuts
Speaker 2: to like the Social Security Administration food stamp program. It
Speaker 2: would have dramatically reduced discretionary spending, and it had no
Speaker 2: money for Ukraine, and they still voted against it. And
Speaker 2: what ended up passing was actually just, frankly, a forty
Speaker 2: seven day extension of current government funding levels without any
Speaker 2: additional border funding. And the only quote unquote whin they
Speaker 2: had was on Ukraine money.
Speaker 1: To yeah through No, it's just like a clean resolution,
Speaker 1: which is what Democrats wanted from the beginning, and you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, the one piece they didn't get is
Speaker 1: Ukraine aid, which they'll fight you know, another day on
Speaker 1: and we'll get that to that in a moment. But
Speaker 1: you know, just to rewind of how we got here,
Speaker 1: you remember there was that whole big fight over whether
Speaker 1: or not Kevin McCarthy was going to be speaker, and
Speaker 1: Matt Gates was one of the leaders of that charge
Speaker 1: against McCarthy. They make some final back room deal, the
Speaker 1: details of which have never been made totally clear, but
Speaker 1: one of the pieces was that it would be very
Speaker 1: easy that it would only take one member to bring
Speaker 1: this quote unquote motion to vacate to the floor, which
Speaker 1: could move Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. A
Speaker 1: couple problems. Number one, they've never had an alternative. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was the problem when they were initially trying to
Speaker 1: go up against Kevin McCarthy. They did not have an
Speaker 1: actual alternative like this is our guy or this is
Speaker 1: our gal, and this is who we're rallying behind. They
Speaker 1: put up someone different practically for every vote, So that
Speaker 1: continues to be an issue. On the other side, you know,
Speaker 1: Republicans have a very narrow margin here, three vote margin.
Speaker 1: So are Democrats going to vote for Kevin McCarthy to
Speaker 1: keep him in the speakership if you have you know,
Speaker 1: you only need a few people to defect with Matt
Speaker 1: Gates to deny McCarthy the majority that he would need
Speaker 1: in order to remain Speaker of the House. So our
Speaker 1: Democrats going to fill that gap? And it could be
Speaker 1: the case that some do and some don't. You had
Speaker 1: AOC she was asked, you know, about whether she would
Speaker 1: vote to save Kevin McCarthy, and she was like, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Why would I do that? Take a listen.
Speaker 4: Do you think that there will be any Democrats that
Speaker 4: might vote to save McCarthy.
Speaker 5: I mean, I certainly don't think that we would expect
Speaker 5: to see that unless there's a real conversation between the
Speaker 5: Republican and Democratic caucuses and Republican and Democratic leadership about
Speaker 5: what that would mean. But I don't think we give
Speaker 5: up votes for free and.
Speaker 3: You but would you vote to vakate?
Speaker 1: Would you vote to get rid of McCarthy as free?
Speaker 5: I cast that vote absolutely absolutely. I think Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 5: is a very weak speaker. He clearly has lost control
Speaker 5: of his Caucus. He has brought the United States and
Speaker 5: millions of Americans to the brink, waiting until the final
Speaker 5: hour to keep the government open, and even then only
Speaker 5: issuing a forty five day extension. So we're going to
Speaker 5: be right back in this place in November. And you know,
Speaker 5: I think that our main priority has to be the
Speaker 5: American people and what's going to keep our governance in
Speaker 5: a cohesive and strong place. But unless Kevin McCarthy asks
Speaker 5: for a vote again, I don't think we give something
Speaker 5: away for free.
Speaker 2: So interesting there, Crystal, because she didn't say she would vote. Well,
Speaker 2: she's like, I would vote to vacate him. But you know,
Speaker 2: we can also make a deal, you know, and we'll
Speaker 2: see what sort of deal there is to be made.
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm curious to see how it goes, especially because right
Speaker 2: now it's just Gates. He's the only one who said
Speaker 2: he would vote directly in order to ouncet him from speakership.
Speaker 2: Other people like Byron Donald's, Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 2: is very you know, a much a Kevin McCarthy ally.
Speaker 2: And look, if we actually think about it in terms
Speaker 2: of effectiveness, Gates, as I said, torpedoed a bill which
Speaker 2: allegedly did all.
Speaker 3: The things that he wanted. Marjorie has been playing ball.
Speaker 2: She is single handedly responsible for making sure that that
Speaker 2: Ukraine Aid is not in the bill. She was the
Speaker 2: one who fought for it all the way from day one.
Speaker 2: And you don't have to listen to me. Matt Gates
Speaker 2: is the one who said that, not me. So my
Speaker 2: point is that there is a you know, at least
Speaker 2: some like to Marjorie Taylor Green's alliance right now with
Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy because she's actually getting like real policy concessions.
Speaker 2: He's on the very powerful committees and very influential obviously
Speaker 2: right now in terms of the House. So we'll see
Speaker 2: if they have to eventually make a deal. I think
Speaker 2: he's only got a three vote margin. Whenever it does
Speaker 2: come to the Republicans, he can rely on George Santos, Yeah, trying.
Speaker 3: To save him. Sandal's didn't playing ball though, apparently so.
Speaker 1: Interesting under federal indictment ongoing.
Speaker 3: Of course, you know, still every vote counts. I'm curious.
Speaker 2: There's also some different procedural things that they can do
Speaker 2: to stop the actual motion. For example, Gates whenever right
Speaker 2: after the House had passed the consuing resolution. I think
Speaker 2: he was trying to make a different motion. I think
Speaker 2: he was trying to do motion to vacate right there
Speaker 2: then on the floor, and they refused to recognize him.
Speaker 2: And even though they made eye contact, whoever was chairing
Speaker 2: the House gabled him out. It's like a tradition that
Speaker 2: you can pretend not to notice and gabble an official.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of different things people forget that.
Speaker 2: You can machinations behind the make sure that he doesn't
Speaker 2: get recognized. You can burnen floor time. They're only i
Speaker 2: think in session for a couple of days this week,
Speaker 2: and then I know the Senate is going out, so
Speaker 2: there's still a lot left here in Washington today.
Speaker 1: So a few other things to add to the mix.
Speaker 1: I mean, number one, when we're thinking about emotion to vacate,
Speaker 1: which he says is imminent, and Democratic leaders are sending
Speaker 1: out memos to their caucus saying, hey, this could happen anytime.
Speaker 1: It could literally happen today, so they're sort of on
Speaker 1: notice for how this might all go down. But it's
Speaker 1: not like he can't do this more than once. So
Speaker 1: even if the first time around doesn't give much traction
Speaker 1: or fails or whatever. He can just keep doing this
Speaker 1: over and over and over again, and Matt Gates can
Speaker 1: be kind of relentless on this stuff. So that's one
Speaker 1: thing to keep in mind. I think another thing to
Speaker 1: keep in mind is how will the grassroots of the
Speaker 1: Republican base react to all of this. Are they going
Speaker 1: to be more on Gates side? Are they going to
Speaker 1: be on more on McCarthy's side. I actually think it's
Speaker 1: kind of undetermined right now, because they see the way
Speaker 1: that Gates's strategy and tactics with regards to this potential
Speaker 1: government shutdown completely back fired and absolutely failed and left
Speaker 1: McCarthy with effectively no other option than to partner with
Speaker 1: Democrats and pass a clean cr That was after Gates
Speaker 1: and co. Voted down this very conservative spending bill. I
Speaker 1: think that McCarthy was like, what am I supposed to
Speaker 1: do here? Like, I have no other option. So we're
Speaker 1: either going to do this two weeks from now after
Speaker 1: an ugly painful government shutdown that we get blamed for,
Speaker 1: We're just going to go ahead and rip the band
Speaker 1: aid off and do it now. And it seems like
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, Republican influencers online or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's how they see it, and they are not happy
Speaker 1: with Gates. Another thing to throw into the mix here
Speaker 1: is that there is talk of voting to expel Matt
Speaker 1: Gates altogether because he's under ethics investigation, and apparently that
Speaker 1: report is close to coming out, and so the you
Speaker 1: know the word is the reporting suggests that if that
Speaker 1: has some significant findings, then they may vote to expel
Speaker 1: him altogether. But that's complicated too, because on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you got We've just mentioned George Santos, So you're going
Speaker 1: to vote to expel Matt Gates, but you're gonna let
Speaker 1: George Santos, who's literally under federal indictments, lied about like
Speaker 1: every aspect of his life to the American people into voters,
Speaker 1: et cetera. To secure his place in office. You're gonna
Speaker 1: let him go. How much sense does that make? And
Speaker 1: what do they They have a three vote margin, yes,
Speaker 1: so you can't be you know, tossing your members out
Speaker 1: or you're gonna lose control of the House altogether. So
Speaker 1: a lot of different factors here at play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, New Gingrich actually said the effort to expel Matt
Speaker 2: Gates is destructive, irresponsible, and anti Republican. However, expelling him
Speaker 2: from the Republican Caucus and eliminating his committee assignments, that
Speaker 2: could be that's something that he should be entitled to,
Speaker 2: for quote his suicidal efforts to cripple the House GOP.
Speaker 2: So for even a guy like Newt to come out
Speaker 2: and say something like that, very interesting.
Speaker 1: NUDA saying Matt Gates is like a democratic plan, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he's like, no one has done more to destroy
Speaker 1: curve conservative priorities than Matt Gates. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I saw other you know, new Gingbridge is very sort
Speaker 1: of the old school, but I saw modern right wing
Speaker 1: influencers online saying very similar things. So Matt Gates with
Speaker 1: this whole play to not exactly when the hearts and
Speaker 1: minds of the Republican base, which gives him a much
Speaker 1: weaker hand going into this motion to vacap That's.
Speaker 2: Right, all right, let's get to the Ukraine part, as
Speaker 2: we tease, just to give everybody an update, and everyone's
Speaker 2: very interested. There's a lot, as we said, behind the
Speaker 2: scenes about what might be happening here in Washington.
Speaker 3: A lot of it is a guessing game.
Speaker 2: Matt Gates had intimated previously that there was some sort
Speaker 2: of secret deal made with the House Democrats.
Speaker 3: That is actually not the case.
Speaker 2: However, there is significant pressure from Democratic leaders and Speaker
Speaker 2: A Leader McConnell on McCarthy to bring some Ukraine aid
Speaker 2: to the floor this week. So let's go and put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. This was done immediately
Speaker 2: after the vote. House Democratic leadership said quote, when the
Speaker 2: House returns, we expect Speaker McCarthy to advance a bill
Speaker 2: to the House floor for an up or down vote
Speaker 2: that supports Ukraine. Consistent with this commitment to making sure
Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin YadA, YadA, YadA, let's move on to the
Speaker 2: next one that we're talking about here, and says moving
Speaker 2: forward that there is still work to be done. When
Speaker 2: the House returns, we will advance bill to the House
Speaker 2: floor for an up or down vote. However, when Speaker
Speaker 2: McCarthy and others were asked about this, they did not
Speaker 2: commit to bringing any sort of vote to the floor.
Speaker 2: There is still a big question about whether that's even possible.
Speaker 2: For those who were following all of this fight, there
Speaker 2: was also some high stakes drama where Senator Michael Bennett
Speaker 2: placed a hold on the actual continuing resolution before the
Speaker 2: Senate floor and said that he would not vote for
Speaker 2: it unless leaders in the speak in the leaders in
Speaker 2: the Senate came out in a bipartision statement to demand
Speaker 2: a vote for Ukraine. This is what Senator Schumer said
Speaker 2: as a result of that hold. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 9: But this is a bridge. Cr and Leader McConnell and
Speaker 9: I have agreed to continue fighting for more economic and
Speaker 9: security aid for Ukraine. We support Ukraine's efforts to defend
Speaker 9: its sovereignty against Putin's aggression. So thank you, thank you
Speaker 9: to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for
Speaker 9: their excellent work.
Speaker 2: So as you can see pressure there from Democratic leaders,
Speaker 2: including Leader McConnell's.
Speaker 3: So it's a lot of bipartisanship, but in.
Speaker 2: The House of Representatives, it is no guarantee that this
Speaker 2: is going to come to pass. Let's go and put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. House Republicans in last
Speaker 2: week signaled major opposition to the Ukraine aid, so they
Speaker 2: got only a slim majority of the House Republicans in
Speaker 2: the caucus to actually vote for it. Ninety three Republicans
Speaker 2: voted against Ukraine aid in the House and Krystl. What
Speaker 2: was noteworthy to me is that these ninety three Republicans
Speaker 2: increased dramatically up from seventy in July. But this was
Speaker 2: only over three hundred million. This is not about six billion.
Speaker 2: This is not about twenty four billion or one hundred billion,
Speaker 2: which is what the administration wants.
Speaker 3: This was only three hundred mili.
Speaker 2: If I believe that if they put a twenty five
Speaker 2: billion figure or one hundred billion figure, I think we
Speaker 2: will get a majority of the House of House Republicans
Speaker 2: to vote against it, just on a dollar figure amount regardless,
Speaker 2: and I think that that is very significant in terms
Speaker 2: of the fight dynamics. There's a secondary element to Ukraine
Speaker 2: fight right now, something called transfer authority, where what they
Speaker 2: wanted to include in the bill was the ability for
Speaker 2: if we can't have any more money, what we can
Speaker 2: do is we can legally unlock some funds that we
Speaker 2: have sitting around in the government and we can transfer
Speaker 2: it over to just already run of the mill stuff
Speaker 2: they of course that you always do for the government.
Speaker 2: It's an amazing system that we have. Anyway, the government
Speaker 2: can't even do that right now. So Ukraine actually right
Speaker 2: now has basically zero leeway from the US government. From
Speaker 2: a legal authority perspective, I expect to see the Transfer
Speaker 2: Authority and the AID. One of those two things is
Speaker 2: going to hit the floor. If I had to guess,
Speaker 2: I think the Transfer Authority will pass because it's no
Speaker 2: new money, it's just already existing money. It's not a
Speaker 2: content gimmick. It's a trick, but of course net effect,
Speaker 2: it actually doesn't matter. It is basically a vote for
Speaker 2: more money to Ukraine, but it's easier to justify.
Speaker 3: But in my opinion, it is not nearly as given.
Speaker 2: As much as people are thinking yes, I believe that
Speaker 2: it definitely will pass the Senate, will the House actually
Speaker 2: be able to bring this to a vote. And this
Speaker 2: is where the speakership dynamics come into play. Well, if
Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy is going to vote work with Democrats to
Speaker 2: get Ukraine funding through, it would be a massive betrayal
Speaker 2: for a lot of MAGA Republicans.
Speaker 3: Not just talking about mac aids.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about people like Donald Trump Junior, about Donald
Speaker 2: Trump himself who've been lobbying against it. So the political
Speaker 2: dynamics for Ukraine right now are not good for future aid.
Speaker 2: Despite whatever these Democrats are saying, or even Matt Gates
Speaker 2: is saying about some secret deal. I don't believe there
Speaker 2: is a secret deal at all, based on everything that
Speaker 2: I've been able to see.
Speaker 1: So the difference between the House and the Senate is
Speaker 1: really important to keep in mind. Here in the Senate
Speaker 1: with McConnell and Schumer, and you have more Republican sentiment
Speaker 1: in favor of Ukraine aid, I think pretty smooth sailing there.
Speaker 1: The House is where all the question marks lie, and
Speaker 1: it's very unclear as of today exactly how many Republicans
Speaker 1: would be willing to support additional Ukraine aid. But as
Speaker 1: Soccer was just pointing out, the number who are opposed
Speaker 1: to it continues to go up and up and up.
Speaker 1: So this really all once again comes down to Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy and questions of are how far he's willing to
Speaker 1: push things and how much danger puts his speakership in.
Speaker 1: There's this they call this the hast rule. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like tradition. The idea is that I don't know
Speaker 1: why we're coping hastor with anything, but anyway, the idea
Speaker 1: is that if you're a Speaker of the House, you
Speaker 1: don't bring things to the floor if you don't have
Speaker 1: a majority of your own caucus in support. Again, there's
Speaker 1: no like law or regulation or whatever. This is just
Speaker 1: like a tradition that speakers have tended to follow. And
Speaker 1: so there's a real question mark right now over whether
Speaker 1: or not you have a majority of the Republican caucus
Speaker 1: in favor of Ukraine Aid. Up till now you did,
Speaker 1: but it seems very likely possible somewhere in that zone
Speaker 1: that at this point you actually don't, and especially depending
Speaker 1: on the dollar amount. So this again complicates things, and
Speaker 1: this is another lever that Matt Gates could use if
Speaker 1: McCarthy does try to push Ukraine Aid through the House,
Speaker 1: where to be clear, there is a you know, a
Speaker 1: very clear overall majority when you add Democrats and Republicans
Speaker 1: together in the House, there's a very clear overall majority
Speaker 1: in favor of Ukraine Aid. But does he bring it
Speaker 1: to the floor. Does he violate the quote unquote Haster rule,
Speaker 1: which isn't really a rule, but whatever they tend to
Speaker 1: follow this tradition. Is there a workaround via some you know,
Speaker 1: legislative parliamentary maneuver like the discharge petition that you know,
Speaker 1: if you have a majority who signed on it can
Speaker 1: be brought to the floor without going through the speaker.
Speaker 1: So they do have some things that they can do,
Speaker 1: and I think it is very likely that it will
Speaker 1: take some time, but Ukraine will get the aid that
Speaker 1: the Biden administration wants. But in the meantime, this is
Speaker 1: going to be, you know, quite a fight and quite
Speaker 1: revealing on the Republican side of who stands where. And
Speaker 1: like I said, Matt Gates is a little bit down
Speaker 1: and out right now because this all didn't go that
Speaker 1: well for him. But this could be a direction that
Speaker 1: is very fruitful for him where he definitely has the
Speaker 1: Republican base behind him and where he has significant part
Speaker 1: of the caucus on his say exactly.
Speaker 2: Remember, vast majority of Republicans do not support any more
Speaker 2: A to Ukraine, and even the majority of the country
Speaker 2: now does not support any more A to Ukraine. So
Speaker 2: a lot of all these lawmakers are very out of
Speaker 2: step with the public. But that's nothing new here.
Speaker 3: The real question though, is it politically.
Speaker 2: I do think it would be a disaster for McCarthy
Speaker 2: to actually force this as a fight. It would definitely
Speaker 2: play into the speaker dynamics. And then even if he
Speaker 2: did survive, let's say he made a deal where they
Speaker 2: voted to keep him, and the deal was that they
Speaker 2: had to bring a Ukraine vote to the floor. I mean,
Speaker 2: what does that look like, you know, again to the
Speaker 2: vast majority of Republicans and his political viability in the future.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of question marks that remain there.
Speaker 2: Keeping on the Ukraine subject, there were some major developments
Speaker 2: across the Atlantic. We're going to start with the most
Speaker 2: important one from our allies over at the UK making
Speaker 2: a very very big announcement. Let's go and put this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. Originally reported in an interview
Speaker 2: with the Telegraph. They say that British troops could be
Speaker 2: sent to Ukraine as the country ramps up quote on
Speaker 2: the ground training effort. So this was made by the
Speaker 2: US Secretary of State for Defense or sorry the UK
Speaker 2: to Secretary of Defense Grant As in an interview with
Speaker 2: the Telegraph, he said he aims to get his military
Speaker 2: quote closer and actually into the country. This is the
Speaker 2: first and would be the first like major great power
Speaker 2: to actually send troops directly on the ground inside of Ukraine.
Speaker 2: They allege it's for training. Okay, I've heard that one
Speaker 2: before in Syria. The point though, is that this would
Speaker 2: be a big demarcation point, I think for NATO, especially
Speaker 2: for the second largest military in the Alliance, to actually
Speaker 2: send troops there on the ground. It also comes at
Speaker 2: a time of a new report from Germany, who really
Speaker 2: can't make up its mind with the Ukraine conflict. Let's
Speaker 2: go and put this up there on the screen, just
Speaker 2: so everyone's wondering. This is not Russian Pravda. This is
Speaker 2: from Ukrainian Pravda. However, they do report it accurately. German
Speaker 2: official says that Ukraine has the right to launch missiles
Speaker 2: on Russian territory. This is the chair of the Defense
Speaker 2: Committee in the German Bundestag, and is urging the German
Speaker 2: government to continue giving these long range tarist missiles to Ukraine.
Speaker 2: That she believes that Ukraine has the right to attack
Speaker 2: targets on the territory of the Russian Federation. All of
Speaker 2: this being met with some fury inside of Moscow and
Speaker 2: some frankly terrifying rhetoric. Regardless of whether it hasn't come
Speaker 2: true in the past, you never know when it will.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there from dmitriy Medvedev, of course,
Speaker 2: the former president of Russia. He says, quote that the
Speaker 2: number of idiots and power and NATO countries is growing
Speaker 2: one newly minted blah blah blah. I'm going to skip
Speaker 2: his propaganda to turn the British military instructors into our
Speaker 2: armed force legal targets, while being fully aware they will
Speaker 2: be ruthlessly eliminated, this time not as mercenaries, but as
Speaker 2: British NATO specialists. He again name checks this Bundestag chairwoman
Speaker 2: and he said she is clamoring to provide these with
Speaker 2: the Taurist missiles to enable the Kiyv regime to hit
Speaker 2: deep into Russian territory. This will be in accordance with
Speaker 2: international law. In the case that strikes against the German
Speaker 2: plants which produce these missiles will also fully correspond to
Speaker 2: international raw quote, these halfwits are actively pushing us to
Speaker 2: World War three.
Speaker 3: Now listen.
Speaker 2: He said a lot of different things in the past,
Speaker 2: and many of them have come true. He's been one
Speaker 2: of the chief nuclear saber rattler, so I want to
Speaker 2: be very clear that a lot of his rhetoric has
Speaker 2: been empty in the past. However, it only has to
Speaker 2: be not be empty once and everything is completely has
Speaker 2: gone off the cliff crystal. And so this is a
Speaker 2: real fight, you know, with the Atlantic. And what's really
Speaker 2: happening is that as US support for Ukraine diminishes, the
Speaker 2: Euros have to make a choice. They're like, Okay, are
Speaker 2: we going to ramp up or are we going to
Speaker 2: just say, let's go for diplomacy, Let's try and move
Speaker 2: this in a different direction. I think this is probably
Speaker 2: the last ditch effort on the pass of the great
Speaker 2: Atlantic powers to try and at least ramp up the
Speaker 2: conflict or show that they're able to. But from a
Speaker 2: sheer dollar perspective and even put dollars aside equipment, they
Speaker 2: have no chance of backfilling even twenty five percent of
Speaker 2: what the United States has been able to provide Ukraine,
Speaker 2: because we are the largest and greatest military power on earth. Like,
Speaker 2: even with all of our problems of capacity, of which
Speaker 2: we have highlighted here which do harm us in terms
Speaker 2: of sending to Ukraine, even with all of that, it
Speaker 2: is still many orders of magnitude larger than what these
Speaker 2: militaries are. So I saw this as a pretty major
Speaker 2: development in the conflict, and especially because it's the nightmare
Speaker 2: scenario just like what we used to deal with in Syria,
Speaker 2: and I used to think about it all the time.
Speaker 2: I'm like, we've got two thousand guys on the ground
Speaker 2: in Syria. All it takes is one Russian plane to
Speaker 2: kill one of these guys, and we're in a whole
Speaker 2: other situation.
Speaker 3: You just you don't know.
Speaker 2: And there were all these moments in Syria where our
Speaker 2: deconfliction line wasn't working with the Russians. We got very
Speaker 2: lucky that nobody was actually, as far as we know,
Speaker 2: was not killed by a Russian strike or vice versa.
Speaker 3: But you know, things got real close.
Speaker 2: I don't forget whenever Turkey shot down a Russian jet
Speaker 2: with a NATO aircraft firing on a Russian jet.
Speaker 3: I mean things got very hairy there.
Speaker 2: For a twenty four to forty eight hour period before
Speaker 2: things were allowed to de escalate.
Speaker 3: And you're only one bad move away from a very
Speaker 3: very significant event that something like this happens.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, which is why the one line that the US
Speaker 1: has consistently said, Okay, no boots on the ground, well,
Speaker 1: for what we know right right exactly what that's been
Speaker 1: the one piece where they're like, all right, that's that's
Speaker 1: going to be a bridge too far. But now we've
Speaker 1: got British NATO folks on the grounds in Ukraine. I mean,
Speaker 1: now even that line is getting pushed and really actively
Speaker 1: crossed with potentially really catastrophic consequences. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a very very dangerous escalation that clearly the Russians see
Speaker 1: it as such as well. And it's not just that.
Speaker 1: Chaps also said that British defense companies like BAA Systems,
Speaker 1: they're going to move manufacturing into the company into the country,
Speaker 1: and they're floating the idea of the British Navy helping
Speaker 1: Ukraine in the Black Sea madness, So continuing to push
Speaker 1: further and further up the chain of escalation. And listen,
Speaker 1: I mean, Medvedev has been full of shit and this
Speaker 1: you know, oh, they might push us into World War three,
Speaker 1: all right, Russia has total agency in this situation as well,
Speaker 1: So don't give me this nonsense. But there is no
Speaker 1: doubt about the fact that every step we go up
Speaker 1: this ladder becomes more and more dangerous. And now we're
Speaker 1: also you know, Germany floating these long range missiles as well,
Speaker 1: and actively being fine with them striking Russian soil. We now,
Speaker 1: if we had jumped to this place early on in
Speaker 1: the conflict, I think that Americans and a lot of
Speaker 1: the global community would be like, whoa, this is way
Speaker 1: too far. But because they did it so slowly, step
Speaker 1: by step by step by step, there isn't nearly the coverage,
Speaker 1: nearly the freak out around these sorts of actions that
Speaker 1: there should be.
Speaker 2: I know, and you know this, Look, everybody, we took
Speaker 2: a lot of heat here Crystal in the early days
Speaker 2: worrying about this, and I didn't care when ninety percent
Speaker 2: of the public was like, I support this, because I've
Speaker 2: seen the story so many times. You know, you only
Speaker 2: have to be I'm on thirty one and I've seen
Speaker 2: multiple conflicts where this starts. First we're in Afghanistan for what, Oh,
Speaker 2: we're going to get bin Lauden. Then we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: well we last beIN Lauded, so now what Well, now
Speaker 2: we got to defeat the Taliban.
Speaker 3: It's like, wait, why for what reason?
Speaker 2: Well, so we can't come back, okay, But then that
Speaker 2: turns into democracy promotion, and then that turns into we
Speaker 2: got to defend the new democracy from the town, and
Speaker 2: the next thing you know, they're for twenty years and
Speaker 2: you're building wells and you're building girls' schools, and that's
Speaker 2: the entire mission that you're there for.
Speaker 3: And you're like, well, why were we there in the
Speaker 3: first place.
Speaker 2: The original thing that we said is like, no boots
Speaker 2: on the ground, no escalation, We're going to help Ukraine
Speaker 2: defend its sovereign territory. Then it was like, well, which
Speaker 2: sovereign territory pre existing February twenty second.
Speaker 3: Borders, pass borders.
Speaker 2: And then really, what I believe the most irresponsible move
Speaker 2: that we made from day one is we mortgaged the
Speaker 2: whole conflict and gave it to Zelenski and we said no, no,
Speaker 2: you're in charge. When here's the truth. This man, he
Speaker 2: would be dead if it was out for the US
Speaker 2: and Fernado. And I don't say this with disrespect, it's
Speaker 2: just a go ask them, ask people in keep. Would
Speaker 2: you be alive right now and under Ukrainian sovereignty if
Speaker 2: it weren't for the United States and NATO? Obviously not
Speaker 2: So if that's true, then you're not the one who's
Speaker 2: in the driver's seat. Sure it's great, you know, yes,
Speaker 2: it's brave, and it's valiant that you are the ones
Speaker 2: who are doing the fighting and the dying, but we
Speaker 2: are the ones who are doing all of the bank rolling.
Speaker 2: And I think we're all probably about to find out
Speaker 2: real soon how much they really are reliant on USA.
Speaker 2: The rug gets pulled, we'll see you very quickly their
Speaker 2: ability to actually have any semblance of command and control
Speaker 2: without us, And I think that that is probably somewhere
Speaker 2: near zero, which points again to our driver's seat, our choices.
Speaker 2: And I think what you said was very smart about
Speaker 2: how if you keep it two years on and drag
Speaker 2: it and you know, timeline in headlines to where he's
Speaker 2: like considering it, It's like he's not considering, he's going
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 1: This is the track they're floating it. It's happening. It
Speaker 1: probably is already.
Speaker 2: Happened exactly, probably happened for the last year. They're just
Speaker 2: now acknowledging it.
Speaker 3: We don't know.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's so true. And I think this all comes
Speaker 1: in the context too, frankly, some desperation from the NATO
Speaker 1: Alliance because they can read the writing on the wall
Speaker 1: of the way the politics are shifting here, most critically,
Speaker 1: but also you know throughout Europe, and we're about to
Speaker 1: cover a story that I think underscores that. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the sentiment is with the British public. They've
Speaker 1: always been very hawkish. I don't know if there's any
Speaker 1: slippage there as well, but there's clearly a sense of Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how long our populations are going to
Speaker 1: continue to support this direction. So I guess we got
Speaker 1: to pull on all the stops and actually kind of
Speaker 1: sort of put boots on the ground. And I guess
Speaker 1: we got to go ahead with those long range missiles
Speaker 1: because we're getting a little desperate to make some progress
Speaker 1: here so that we can continue to prove to our
Speaker 1: populations that Ukraine has any sort of a shot in
Speaker 1: this war.
Speaker 2: That's well said, and you know, look, data speaks for itself.
Speaker 2: Russia took more territory in August, which was the flagship
Speaker 2: month of the offensive, than Ukraine did. Okay, go look
Speaker 2: at a map. We can go over it again if
Speaker 2: you really want to. Let's go to the next part here.
Speaker 2: As you said, major election in Slovakia. Let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. The former
Speaker 2: prime minister, how do we say it again, christ So Fetso,
Speaker 2: all right, Slovakians, we're trying our best here. I'm assuming
Speaker 2: it's also not Robert. It's probably like Robert or something
Speaker 2: like that. But anyway, Robert Fiso has won the Slovakian
Speaker 2: election with an anti Ukraine stance. Critically, he is the
Speaker 2: former actual prime minister of the country. Now he has
Speaker 2: to set and try and form a coalition, but he
Speaker 2: absolutely blew out the Pro EU Pro Ukraine Party. He
Speaker 2: won twenty three percent of the vote, actually surpassing with
Speaker 2: the last exit polls in Slovakia where the Liberal party
Speaker 2: the Pro EU party was only able to gain eighteen percent.
Speaker 2: But when you look at the coalitional results, very much
Speaker 2: on the side of what he has been saying. Now,
Speaker 2: mister Fiso is far more of an anti Ukraine politician
Speaker 2: than anybody who currently exists in Europe. So just to
Speaker 2: give people a taste of some of the things that
Speaker 2: he has said and has asked for in the past,
Speaker 2: he says no NATO membership for Ukraine. Remember Slovakia is
Speaker 2: a member of NATO. And remember also that NATO ascension
Speaker 2: requires the unanimous consent of every single member inside of
Speaker 2: the inside of the Alliance. Also, he is in the
Speaker 2: European Union. The European Union right now is trying to
Speaker 2: put Ukraine on fast track for actual entrance into the Block.
Speaker 2: This would easily allow him in order to join with
Speaker 2: Hungary and to block that with two members. This is
Speaker 2: also what he has said in the past Crystal Is,
Speaker 2: He's like, not only do I not want to send
Speaker 2: a to Ukraine, I don't want to even allow Slovakian
Speaker 2: territory to be allowed to transship aid to Ukraine. Of
Speaker 2: course he's being blamed as a pro Russian and all
Speaker 2: of that, but it's complicated because I was looking back
Speaker 2: at some exit polling from just a couple of months
Speaker 2: ago in Slovakia, like half of the Slovakians are like, no,
Speaker 2: it's Ukraine's fault. They're full of Nazis. And You're like, wait,
Speaker 2: hold on what, And it's like, well, this is the
Speaker 2: former country with deep ties to Russia. They consume a
Speaker 2: lot of Russian media.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like one of those where culturally it's actually really
Speaker 2: very split. It's probably difficult for us in the West
Speaker 2: to really comprehend. But the point is that the Populist Party,
Speaker 2: who was explicitly run on an anti Ukraine stance, also
Speaker 2: focusing on the economic cost, and it harkens back to
Speaker 2: some of the protests which we covered here on the show,
Speaker 2: maybe more than a year ago. Now at this point,
Speaker 2: the Slovakian public is very fed up, and don't forget this,
Speaker 2: there are elections happening right now in Poland. One of
Speaker 2: the reasons why Polish politicians changed their tune and started
Speaker 2: calling Zelenski out for basically calling the anti Russian for
Speaker 2: protecting their own grain markets was because the right wing
Speaker 2: party in Poland, which is against Ukraine AID, is surging
Speaker 2: in the polls there and the pro EU pro Ukraine
Speaker 2: consensus is very much under attack. So remember this is
Speaker 2: the Eastern Bloc countries, you know, it's not necessarily the
Speaker 2: former Baltic States, and a big split in NATO will
Speaker 2: come if this man becomes the next Prime minister. I mean,
Speaker 2: if he's straight up is like you know, is able
Speaker 2: to block unanimous decisions. I question whether Sweden and Finland
Speaker 2: would have even been allowed in the NATO Alliance if
Speaker 2: this man had been the Prime minister. So this could
Speaker 2: significantly change what a lot of the future looks like
Speaker 2: with respect to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I think the one thing we can say really clearly,
Speaker 1: har is that this is just a pretty clear warning sign. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of question marks. As you mentioned,
Speaker 1: he is a two time former prime minister, and when
Speaker 1: he was Prime minister, even though his rhetoric was very blustery,
Speaker 1: he ended up governing as more of a pragmatist than
Speaker 1: a firebrand, even though the rhetoric was very fire brandish.
Speaker 1: But you know, from based on what I was reading,
Speaker 1: this guy's he's a very interesting character. He's become sort
Speaker 1: of more radical in the time that he spent outside
Speaker 1: of office. And by the way, the reason he got
Speaker 1: outsted from office was over a lot of questions about corruption.
Speaker 1: So he's now made his comeback. In terms of his politics,
Speaker 1: I mean, he started as a communist under the old
Speaker 1: you know, Soviet regime, and then he has been on
Speaker 1: the left until he's made this sort of like transformation
Speaker 1: into a very orbon like figure. So he's anti immigrant,
Speaker 1: he is, you know, I guess I think I think
Speaker 1: it's accurate to say he's pro Russia. But he also
Speaker 1: on economics is very much in favor of like social
Speaker 1: safety net, welfare type programs, So there's not really an
Speaker 1: American politician who kind of exactly fits the mold of
Speaker 1: what he does. The other thing that's really interesting to
Speaker 1: keep in mind here is that sort of like the
Speaker 1: way that our industrial Midwest has been decimated under neoliberalism,
Speaker 1: and you've seen this shift to the right over cultural
Speaker 1: issues and also over dissatisfaction with the direction of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party in the industrial Midwest. You have a lot
Speaker 1: of people in places like Slovakia that did better under
Speaker 1: communists and have not done well under this new like
Speaker 1: you know, market based neoliberal whatever. And so there's a
Speaker 1: lot of nostalgia in a certain sense for that era,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of like you said, cultural ties
Speaker 1: and affinity for you know, the way things were, and
Speaker 1: so it's a complicated cultural portrait, is all I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say here. And he's a very you know, a
Speaker 1: very different politician than exactly what we have a mold
Speaker 1: for here. I think internationally, or Bon is probably the
Speaker 1: closest comparison. There's also real questions over whether or not
Speaker 1: he's going to be able to form a coalition one
Speaker 1: of the parties that was a likely candidate to be
Speaker 1: in the coalition, this sort of like far right ultra
Speaker 1: nationalist Party. They failed to garner enough of the vote
Speaker 1: in order to get a single seat, so he can't
Speaker 1: rely on them as part of a coalition. That complicates
Speaker 1: his path to be able to form this government. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, there's still a lot of question marks
Speaker 1: here in terms of whether he will actually be prime
Speaker 1: minister and how he would govern if he is prime minister,
Speaker 1: if he will be as hardline as his rhetoric has been.
Speaker 1: But I think the one thing that is pretty clear
Speaker 1: is this is a warning sign and this plays into
Speaker 1: the picture of why there it's some desperate moves happening
Speaker 1: among other NATO allies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely well, said Christal.
Speaker 1: All Right, so let's turn to our own domestic politics.
Speaker 1: Here very interesting developments. RFK Junior, who as of now
Speaker 1: is running in the Democratic primary against Joe Biden, is
Speaker 1: teasing a big announcement. Let's take a listen to what.
Speaker 3: He has to say.
Speaker 10: Hi, everybody, I'm going to be in Philadelphia on October
Speaker 10: ninth to make a major announcement at the very birthplace
Speaker 10: of our nation. I'm not going to tell you right
Speaker 10: now exactly what that announcement will be. I can say
Speaker 10: though that if you've been waiting to come to one
Speaker 10: of my public events, this will be the one to
Speaker 10: come to him. There, I'll share with you our path
Speaker 10: of the lighthouse and how we can all participate in
Speaker 10: healing our nation.
Speaker 1: So, big announcement coming shortly, and we have some idea
Speaker 1: of what that is going to be. Media got the
Speaker 1: scoop here. Apparently he plans to announce that he will
Speaker 1: run now as an independent. That announcement, as he said,
Speaker 1: coming on October ninth in Pennsylvania. They are planning attack
Speaker 1: ads against the Democratic National Committee in order to pave
Speaker 1: the way for this announcement in Philly about running as
Speaker 1: an independent. According to a text reviewed by Mediaite, quote
Speaker 1: Bobby feel So that the DNC is changing the rules
Speaker 1: to exclude his candidacy, so an independent run is the
Speaker 1: only way to go. So looks like that's happening. That
Speaker 1: was from a Kennedy campaign insider, according to media, i'd
Speaker 1: so there's been a lot of takes, yes on questions,
Speaker 1: questions if he does run as an independent, which I
Speaker 1: think looks fairly likely, and he's been sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: moving in that direction for a little while now. Who
Speaker 1: is he likely to take more votes from? Is it
Speaker 1: going to be Joe Biden the Democrats? He is, after all,
Speaker 1: running in the Democratic primary right now, Allen has this
Speaker 1: famous Kennedy last name that is closely associated with the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party, Or is it going to be from Trump?
Speaker 1: Given that the vast majority of his sort of like
Speaker 1: online support and energy around his campaign has come from
Speaker 1: the writing, He's had supporters like, you know, people like
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon who have been speaking favorably of him, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So one piece of data that we can throw into
Speaker 1: the mix here is his favorability ratings among Democrats versus
Speaker 1: among Republicans. Got and put this up on the screen
Speaker 1: so we can see. As his campaign has gone on,
Speaker 1: his net image rating has grown more favorable among Republicans,
Speaker 1: now stands at a positive thirty percent among Republicans. And
Speaker 1: as his campaign has gone on and people have heard
Speaker 1: more about his anti vax views and his anti Ukraine
Speaker 1: views and the sort of like, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: affiliations that he makes with people like Elon Mustke, et cetera,
Speaker 1: his negative approval rating has fallen down to minus forty
Speaker 1: three percent among Democrats. So it certainly seems at this
Speaker 1: point it is Republicans who have a more favorable view
Speaker 1: of RFK Junior, and so I think the logical assumption
Speaker 1: would be that he's more likely to take votes from Trump.
Speaker 1: But I have to say it's not one hundred percent
Speaker 1: clear to me at this point. I think it depends
Speaker 1: a little bit on how he positions himself.
Speaker 2: It's occur exactly right. So this is here's my other
Speaker 2: big question, which ticket are we doing?
Speaker 3: A write in?
Speaker 2: Right in is a failure, It never works, and it's
Speaker 2: one of those where you know it's it would be
Speaker 2: marginal at bats and I wouldn't even think he would
Speaker 2: take a lot of votes. But there was a report
Speaker 2: some weeks ago which we took a look at, but
Speaker 2: I was dubious of some of the reporting.
Speaker 3: It makes a little bit more sense now they'd.
Speaker 2: Had a meeting with the chairman of the Libertarian Party.
Speaker 2: So if he does run for the Libertarian Party, then
Speaker 2: I actually don't think there's any question that he would
Speaker 2: draw more votes from Trump.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons I.
Speaker 2: Say that is they've done a decent analysis of the
Speaker 2: past in twenty sixteen of Gary Johnson voters and of
Speaker 2: past Libertarian Party voters and their crossover. Their number two
Speaker 2: choice was never the Democratic Party. It's almost always the
Speaker 2: republic Party, so that means that they're more Republican aligned.
Speaker 2: Many of these people voted for Johnson as a protest
Speaker 2: vote against Trump in twenty sixteen. The same actually tracks
Speaker 2: for Joe Jorgensen, who ran. She's a bit different now,
Speaker 2: she's probably more like liberal libertarian aligned. However, at the
Speaker 2: time in twenty twenty, there were still a decent amount
Speaker 2: of voters who were libertarian aligned, even not even necessarily
Speaker 2: with Jorgenson, but with the brand of the party that
Speaker 2: did come out and to support her. I actually checked
Speaker 2: the margins. I didn't realize, you know, you could make
Speaker 2: a case. I will not make this case, but if
Speaker 2: you were like one of those vote read No matter
Speaker 2: what people you it, what is the pejorative at the end,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. My point is is that she took
Speaker 2: about one point two one point five percent in Georgia
Speaker 2: and in the state of Arizona.
Speaker 3: That's basically the margin of victory for Biden.
Speaker 2: Actually, more so, you could easily make the case then
Speaker 2: that a lot of the people who would have voted libertarian,
Speaker 2: who will voted Republican almost certainly cost Trump those two states.
Speaker 2: Now I won't say that because I believe in you know,
Speaker 2: people can run whatever they want and it's your job
Speaker 2: in order to earn votes. But on a practical level,
Speaker 2: that's likely how it would manifest. I do think that
Speaker 2: given the favorability. Also in terms of if he's announcing
Speaker 2: this campaign anti DNC, well it's unfortunate, but it is
Speaker 2: true that the vast majority of Democrats, they're institutional voters,
Speaker 2: they like the DNC, they like the media, they have
Speaker 2: high approval ratings for the Democratic Party Capital d People
Speaker 2: who don't and who are Democrats are much more in
Speaker 2: the independent line camp, and some people who are on
Speaker 2: the Trump side.
Speaker 3: Now it's not just me who is saying this.
Speaker 2: I've done like a survey every MAGA influencer, people like
Speaker 2: Jack Pisobek, people like Mike Cernovich, many others who had
Speaker 2: their immediate take. Because I didn't want it to be
Speaker 2: for me. I wanted to see it from the eyes
Speaker 2: of people who are all in for Trump. For the Republicans, yeah,
Speaker 2: unanimous from them, they believe that he would take more
Speaker 2: votes away from Trump. And I also believe that if
Speaker 2: he's going to run anti DNC and specif if he's
Speaker 2: going to talk about morey with Ukraine, you can read
Speaker 2: a poll far more aligned with the Republican Party. The
Speaker 2: vaccine skepticism. I mean, there's no question that is far
Speaker 2: more prevalent right now amongst Republicans. Right dreams of polling
Speaker 2: data to tell us that. And so if those are
Speaker 2: the three things which you know, he gets coveraged for
Speaker 2: fairly or not, depending on what he's running, but you know,
Speaker 2: if that's what he chooses to lean into, quote unquote,
Speaker 2: then I do think absolutely I guess the case if
Speaker 2: he were to draw votes from Biden, I'm curious, like,
Speaker 2: what do you think he would have to do? It
Speaker 2: would obviously and he said this boy, he's like, look,
Speaker 2: I don't lead with the vaccine.
Speaker 3: You know, he's alleged with Ukraine. So then it would
Speaker 3: be I guess he would have to attack him on
Speaker 3: the environment, and no.
Speaker 1: I'll make the case. So I think it's most likely
Speaker 1: that he takes more from Trump given his current positioning,
Speaker 1: as you lay down, is much more coded right wing.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's evident by his support. The more
Speaker 1: that Democratic voters learned about him when he went on
Speaker 1: his podcast tour, the less they liked him, and his
Speaker 1: polling fell off in the Democratic primary or whatever. So
Speaker 1: it's very clear that, you know, when they were hearing
Speaker 1: what issues he was leading with, it was not it
Speaker 1: was not landing. I actually think probably the best case
Speaker 1: for him taking more votes for Biden is he just
Speaker 1: doesn't get a lot of attention and Democratic voters see
Speaker 1: Kennedy on the ballot or are not happy with Joe
Speaker 1: Biden and they just vote for a Kennedy. And I
Speaker 1: think that's you know, that accounts for our significant bit
Speaker 1: of his support within the Democratic primary, because you have
Speaker 1: to I mean, people are busy in their lives, right,
Speaker 1: they're not paying attention. It's all the ins and outs
Speaker 1: of this, and you know, you hear like even the
Speaker 1: way he framed his announcement there, it's just like, hey,
Speaker 1: these parties aren't serving as let's do some lists come together,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. That's a very broadly appealing message
Speaker 1: that resonates with a lot of people, including a lot
Speaker 1: of Democrats. So you put that together with the Kennedy name.
Speaker 1: If he doesn't get a lot of attention or scrutiny
Speaker 1: for his other positions, then I think you could theoretically
Speaker 1: end up with a situation where he takes more from
Speaker 1: Biden or where it's roughly fifty five. That would be
Speaker 1: my case.
Speaker 2: I just think that given the electoral College, given the
Speaker 2: margins that I laid out about the Libertarian again, I
Speaker 2: only see an avenue for him in the Libertarian Party
Speaker 2: because he needs ballot access very late in the game.
Speaker 2: At this point, if you're going to go in all fifty,
Speaker 2: I mean, he's basically impossible to go with any other party.
Speaker 2: So if he's going to go Libertarian that's already generally
Speaker 2: aligned ish with the Republican Party or has been in
Speaker 2: the past, and then you have the issue set at
Speaker 2: the same time.
Speaker 3: Funnily enough, one of our producers found this.
Speaker 2: He actually addressed this on the theo Von podcast about
Speaker 2: who he thinks he would take more votes away from.
Speaker 8: Take a listen, some people say that you are that
Speaker 8: the Republican Party like sets you up to take Do
Speaker 8: you ever hear do you hear about this?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I hear that I'm like a stocking arse for Drumpa.
Speaker 8: And all I can say is, you know, I don't
Speaker 8: believe that I'm just asking you. I don't believe, well,
Speaker 8: you should ask me. I mean, you shouldn't do it
Speaker 8: publicly like you just did. Really no, No, I'm just kidding. Okay,
Speaker 8: now you should have asked me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, But here's the thing. Here's the problem with that.
Speaker 8: First of all, if the Democrats make rules that say
Speaker 8: I can when you know, and then they complain about
Speaker 8: me running somewhere else, it's like it's like the you know,
Speaker 8: it's like a guy who murders his parents and then
Speaker 8: throws himself on the mercy the court because he's an orphan. Yeah,
Speaker 8: they're they're they're they're trying to get public sympathy for
Speaker 8: a problem that they created. I hate when I see
Speaker 8: bananas Foster on the menu that I take more votes
Speaker 8: from President Trump than I do from President Biden, Right,
Speaker 8: so why would that help them? Yeah, it's not helping him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I thought about that.
Speaker 2: Okay, So from the man himself, I take more votes
Speaker 2: from President Trump than I do from President Biden. So
Speaker 2: I actually think that that's uh, I think that declaratively
Speaker 2: he's seen the polling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he says that's what he thinks.
Speaker 2: Well, so it's funny because I've seen a lot of
Speaker 2: MAGA influencers in the past who have promoted him or
Speaker 2: at the very least of like, you know, promoted some
Speaker 2: of his clips things like that, who are now like
Speaker 2: they're like, this is a problem, They're like, this is
Speaker 2: really bad for Trump. I mean, as I laid out already,
Speaker 2: you know, one two percent, and that was somebody like
Speaker 2: Joe Jorgenson given the Kennedy name. Let's say against three percent,
Speaker 2: that is a complete chaos factor in Pennsylvania, in Michigan,
Speaker 2: in Georgia, in Arizona, maybe even in Florida. I mean,
Speaker 2: remember Trumpling. I think it won Florida by three point
Speaker 2: something percent. So if we're talking about you know, up
Speaker 2: there with the most amount of independent votes since Ross Perrot,
Speaker 2: it could significantly change the dynamics of the whole election.
Speaker 2: I do think it would Hurtrump though.
Speaker 1: I think that's most likely.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing that could happen though, is like RFK
Speaker 1: Junior is not a fan of Trump. I mean, he
Speaker 1: said he said very clearly to us he did not
Speaker 1: want to run as you know, as his vice president,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So if he was out vociferously attacking Trump,
Speaker 1: then I think it could change the dynamics about you know,
Speaker 1: who's supporting him, because Biden's very dependent on their theory
Speaker 1: of how they win is by pulling together this anti
Speaker 1: Trump coalition and sort of put all the ideology aside.
Speaker 1: If you don't like Trump, you're on our team. And
Speaker 1: so if you're pulling even a trunk of that away
Speaker 1: by you know, attacking Trump as RFK Junior running as
Speaker 1: an independent, then I could theoretically imagine Again, I think
Speaker 1: it is more likely, given his approval writing with Republicans
Speaker 1: versus Democrats, that he takes more from the Republican side
Speaker 1: of the ticket. But again, I don't think it's like
Speaker 1: locked in stone. It could be kind of fifty to fifty.
Speaker 1: It could be a little bit muddled. It depends, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, somewhat on how he positions himself moving forward.
Speaker 1: So anyway, very interesting development.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it'll be fun to cover. I'll tell you that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: enjoy these.
Speaker 1: Things hundred percent. Okay, so we have some numbers for
Speaker 1: you about exactly how many people watched that glorious second
Speaker 1: Republican debate. I'd also like some numbers about how many
Speaker 1: people watched it and then regretted watching it please that one,
Speaker 1: all right, So put this up on the screen. Apparently
Speaker 1: it had the lowest TV viewership since twenty fifteen. Wednesday's
Speaker 1: debate had the lowest fearership of any Republican presidential debate
Speaker 1: since Donald Trump became a cannon. You know, Trump is
Speaker 1: absolutely loving these number. Put the next piece up on
Speaker 1: the screen so we can show you specifically. According to
Speaker 1: Nielsen's rating service, about nine point three million people tuned
Speaker 1: into the debate. They say, that's a steep drop from
Speaker 1: the first debate, which also was held without Trump and
Speaker 1: attracted about twelve point eight million viewers. Got and put
Speaker 1: the next piece up on the screen. Also represents by
Speaker 1: a significant margin a low STV audience for the Republican
Speaker 1: presidential debate since the start of the twenty sixteen cycle,
Speaker 1: when Trump first became a candidate. This is kind of
Speaker 1: interesting too. So, Okay, not a lot of people watched.
Speaker 1: But for the people that watched, did it change their minds?
Speaker 1: Was impactful? Did it shift the primary race whatsoever? You're
Speaker 1: not gonna be surprised to learn the answer to that
Speaker 1: is absolutely not. Put this up on the screen. From
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, how Republican preference has changed after watching
Speaker 1: the debate. So you can see pre debate how many
Speaker 1: people were considering voting for these various candidates, and then
Speaker 1: after they watched the debate, and this was only among
Speaker 1: people who did watch the debate, how did things shift?
Speaker 1: And the reality is they didn't shift all that much.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just not a lot of change here.
Speaker 1: Chris Christy got a five point bump from fourteen percent
Speaker 1: we're considering him to nineteen percent. Doug Berghum, I guess
Speaker 1: the other big winner here, six point vump from nine
Speaker 1: percent we're considering him to now fifteen percent are considering him.
Speaker 1: No one else saw really a significant shift four points,
Speaker 1: three points, et cetera of people not that are going
Speaker 1: to vote for them, but are even considering voting for them.
Speaker 1: So not a lot of change here. And this part
Speaker 1: is different. We covered after the first Republican debate. There
Speaker 1: were some big shifts here. Nikki Haley got a big
Speaker 1: bump in the number of Republican voters who was considering
Speaker 1: voting for her. I think Vivik ramaswamming. My recollection is that,
Speaker 1: you know, he had a bump as well, So that's different.
Speaker 1: We also had some interesting numbers from the same Washington
Speaker 1: Post piece about what people were doing other than watching
Speaker 1: the debate, and notably not many of them were watching
Speaker 1: Trump's speech. You have only four percent who said that
Speaker 1: instead of watching the debate, they were watching Trump's speech
Speaker 1: in Michigan at that non union plant. But you had,
Speaker 1: you know, watching someone else, something else on TV. Thirty
Speaker 1: five percent good choice. Friends spent time with a family
Speaker 1: member another good choice. Twenty two percent slept, twenty one
Speaker 1: percent worked, ten percent cleaned, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: I wish I was in the slept category.
Speaker 1: Yeah, same, That's where both our hearts were at that moment. Definitely,
Speaker 1: about halfway through the Devado, It's just like, what are
Speaker 1: we doing here?
Speaker 2: Heett, I said, I cannot believe I put up past
Speaker 2: my bedtime for this bullshit outrage ended up being the
Speaker 2: most popular tweet of my time.
Speaker 3: Really, I was like to get all the substance.
Speaker 2: And I made one joke and then that was the
Speaker 2: only thing that got on you coverage, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: it kind of tracks yeah what happened.
Speaker 3: So I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think I think rightfully, there was anticipation from you
Speaker 2: and I from everybody. After the first one, we're like, hey,
Speaker 2: who knows, it's interesting, right, it's a new thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we have this debate and Trump's not there. Millions of
Speaker 2: people watch and they're like, yeah, I'm good. And that's
Speaker 2: basically what happened for a lot of Republican voters. Republican
Speaker 2: voters are like, yeah, I like Trump. Those who like Trump,
Speaker 2: they didn't even watch the debate, or they did watch
Speaker 2: the first one. They're like, I'm good. I don't really
Speaker 2: need any of these people. There's a very few number
Speaker 2: of undecideds. In terms of the people who are undecided,
Speaker 2: I don't think they're making their choice based on the debate,
Speaker 2: I will say. I mean, I think it's sad because
Speaker 2: if Trump did attend, it would be a ratings bonanza.
Speaker 2: That's why it's the lowest since Trump came on the scene.
Speaker 2: Politics is boring without him. That's why I won in
Speaker 2: the first place. But it would have gotten people to
Speaker 2: watch and we could have actually had some real democratic choice.
Speaker 2: So I won't move past that, even though on a
Speaker 2: substantive level he definitely did the right thing from a
Speaker 2: politics point of view. He's like I'm the king, you know,
Speaker 2: there's no reason for me to put myself in the
Speaker 2: line of fire or even the ten percent risk that
Speaker 2: I wouldn't come out of this looking good. So I'm
Speaker 2: just going to keep doing what I'm doing, and I'm
Speaker 2: just going to keep winning, and all these people can
Speaker 2: keep running for second chance. I think it's sad that
Speaker 2: it has devolved into this, but it is also just
Speaker 2: a sign of his strength. The reason there to ratings
Speaker 2: are lower since before he came on the stage is
Speaker 2: because people like he's funny, interesting, he's unpredictable. And that
Speaker 2: second debate, it was the most cookie cutter debate that
Speaker 2: we've seen in a long time, just nonsense.
Speaker 1: I wish it was hockey cutter and he was still
Speaker 1: talk yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: It was just like it was awful, and I think that,
Speaker 2: I mean, in a lot of ways, some debates were
Speaker 2: like that in the past. Maybe it's a little bit
Speaker 2: nastier now, but it wasn't. It had it didn't have
Speaker 2: the fun factor of Trump, and without that people don't
Speaker 2: want to tune in.
Speaker 1: It had the whiff of desperation because before the first debate,
Speaker 1: you could imagine, like, hey, maybe this will change things,
Speaker 1: Like maybe this will really shake up the race. Maybe
Speaker 1: someone is going to emerge that's like, oh, they could
Speaker 1: really you know, challenge Trump, or maybe they're going to
Speaker 1: actually like put on their big boy pants and really
Speaker 1: you know, go after him in some significant way outside
Speaker 1: of Chris Christy. And then you know, you had the
Speaker 1: first debate. There were Nicki Haley had her moments, Bag
Speaker 1: had his moments. People felt like Ron DeSantis did fine enough,
Speaker 1: and you look at the polls and Nicky got a
Speaker 1: few point bump, but nothing that was going to change
Speaker 1: the state of play. So Trump still umber one by
Speaker 1: this huge margin. Ron de Santis still number two, you know,
Speaker 1: even though he came down a little bit, Nikki Ahee
Speaker 1: coming up a little bit, nothing changed. So then the
Speaker 1: drama and the anticipation of like, hey, maybe you never know,
Speaker 1: cold something crazy could happen, could really shake up the race,
Speaker 1: that was all gone. And then it's just like, why
Speaker 1: am I going to watch this tier of also rans
Speaker 1: who you know the best that they could hope for.
Speaker 1: I don't even think any of them is really in
Speaker 1: the running to be the vice presidential pick at this point,
Speaker 1: you know, which I think Trump himself said no one
Speaker 1: was able to take advantage of that moment in the
Speaker 1: spotlight to really assert for Republican voters what a Republican
Speaker 1: party post Trump would look like, why they should want
Speaker 1: to choose a Republican party post Trump, why they should
Speaker 1: move on from this man that they've been enamored with
Speaker 1: for some time now. No one was able to grab
Speaker 1: the spotlight and do that. And so even though you know,
Speaker 1: with the first debate, it's not like people were really
Speaker 1: like Trump's Tucker interview got a whole lot of play.
Speaker 1: It in spite of whatever the Twitter allegend numbers were,
Speaker 1: it's certainly that his speech in Michigan also didn't get
Speaker 1: a lot of play, didn't get a lot of clips circulated.
Speaker 1: Fox was certainly not covering it because they didn't want
Speaker 1: to undercut their own debates that they were hosting. So
Speaker 1: even though it's not like people were going over to
Speaker 1: watch Trump instead of these debates, it just it didn't
Speaker 1: really shift things. And now there's no drama left in
Speaker 1: terms of what's going to happen moving forward. And you're right,
Speaker 1: it is sad I said this before, you know, this
Speaker 1: is the first presidential election cycle I can remember where
Speaker 1: these debates are just like on the Democratic side, there
Speaker 1: aren't debates, so there's no drama anticipation there, even though
Speaker 1: you have an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters who were like,
Speaker 1: we want choices, we want a democratic process, but that's
Speaker 1: not happening. And on the Republican side, you know, they're
Speaker 1: effectively meaningless. They don't mean anything. There's no consequences, there's
Speaker 1: no anticipation, there's no stakes here whatsoever. And it is
Speaker 1: a sad sign of the current decrupit state of our
Speaker 1: pseudo democracy that we're living in now.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's a major sign of institutional democratic decline. And
Speaker 2: unfortunately it's a real like jump the shark moment too,
Speaker 2: because it means in the future other candidates will not
Speaker 2: feel as if they need to comply.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Only only pro.
Speaker 2: Side I will give is that this will destroy, hopefully
Speaker 2: RNC control of the debates and we will return to
Speaker 2: a type of system that we had in the past
Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies before the Commission on Presidential Debates,
Speaker 2: where the League of Women Voters and campaigns themselves sometimes
Speaker 2: organized forums like Reagan did with George H. W. Bush,
Speaker 2: the famous like I'm paying for this microphone, sir. There
Speaker 2: was a lot of cool stuff that actually used to
Speaker 2: happen in the seventies and eighties that we could go
Speaker 2: back to. So if we destroy the current institution and
Speaker 2: bring back like a new free willing system, it's possible
Speaker 2: that we could get to a better one. But it
Speaker 2: still would require an obligation on behalf of those candidates.
Speaker 2: So they all had at that time that we do
Speaker 2: have to do some sort of debate, which I will
Speaker 2: always support because it's good for democracy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they just don't even pretend anymore like they have
Speaker 1: to answer to us, and it's kind of it's sad
Speaker 1: and pathetic. Okay, So in the midst of shut down
Speaker 1: mania over the weekend, a photo emerged of a man
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen who was pulling the
Speaker 1: fire alarmed in Canon Office Building, which is one of
Speaker 1: those for people who haven't been in DC that around
Speaker 1: the Capitol there's all these House and Senate office buildings.
Speaker 1: Cannon is one of the House office buildings that connect
Speaker 1: our adjacent to and by underground tunnels are connected to
Speaker 1: the Capitol. Okay, so this is one of those office buildings,
Speaker 1: and people immediately noticed this man looks a lot like
Speaker 1: Congressman Jamal Bowman. Sure enough, it was Congressman Jamal Bowman
Speaker 1: pulling the fire alarm at a moment when I believe
Speaker 1: it was McCarthy had just brought this deal the floor
Speaker 1: and Democrats were trying to scramble to delay the vote
Speaker 1: on this because they wanted to read what was in it.
Speaker 1: King Jeffries, I think, gave some long floor speech to
Speaker 1: try to delay so that people had a chance to
Speaker 1: go through what was in this thing figure out whether
Speaker 1: they wanted to vote for. So Jamal Bowman puts on
Speaker 1: a statement copying to the fact that this is in
Speaker 1: fact him, go ahead and put this up on the screen,
Speaker 1: and he gives this explanation. He says, I want to
Speaker 1: personally clear up confusion surrounding today's events. Today, as I
Speaker 1: was rushing to make a vote, I came to a
Speaker 1: door that is usually open for votes, but today would
Speaker 1: not open. I'm embarrassed to admit that I activated the
Speaker 1: fire alarm mistakenly thinking it would open the door. I
Speaker 1: regret to this. I regret this and sincerely apologize for
Speaker 1: any confusion this cause want to be very clear. This
Speaker 1: was not me in any way trying to delay any vote.
Speaker 1: It was the exact opposite. I was trying urgently to
Speaker 1: get to a vote, which I ultimately did, and join
Speaker 1: my colleagues and bipotters and effort to keep our government open.
Speaker 1: I also meant after the vote, with the Sergeant at
Speaker 1: Arms and the Capitol Police, at their request, explain what
Speaker 1: had happened. My hope is that no one will make
Speaker 1: more of this than it was. I'm working hard every day,
Speaker 1: including today, to do my job, to do it well
Speaker 1: and deliver for my constituents. Needless to say, you know,
Speaker 1: Trump is now demanding he'd be thrown in jail for
Speaker 1: triggering the fire alarm. There's a whole freak out he's
Speaker 1: being compared to go ahead and put the Trump thing
Speaker 1: up on the steering and them we'll get.
Speaker 3: The side what is above the la crystal.
Speaker 1: Trump puts out a true social Congressman Jamal Bowman be
Speaker 1: prosecuted and imprisoned for very dangerously pulling and setting off
Speaker 1: the main fire alarm system in order to stop a
Speaker 1: congressional vote that was going on in DC. His egregious
Speaker 1: act is covered on tape. Horrible display of nerve and criminality,
Speaker 1: very dangerous obstruction of an official proceeding the same is
Speaker 1: used against our J six prisoners. Ashley Zac may have
Speaker 1: been worse. He must suffer their same fate. When will
Speaker 1: his trial begin? Of course, all of this is ridiculous nonsense,
Speaker 1: because even in the worst interpretation of events, it's not
Speaker 1: like he was like trying to steal an election.
Speaker 2: Wow, well, that's not what the J six people were
Speaker 2: doing that, that's not what they were charged with.
Speaker 1: Of course they are trying to do.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: They were charged with obstructing official proceeding, which is what
Speaker 2: a technically could be construed for a fire alarm. There's
Speaker 2: actually Glenn Greenwall's done a great piece on this in
Speaker 2: terms of the legal precedence said about January. I recommend
Speaker 2: people go and watch this because it's a very extraordinary
Speaker 2: interpretation of a case law, of which, of course people are.
Speaker 3: Not objecting to. Let's put that aside. I do not
Speaker 3: believe him for a second.
Speaker 2: There has been Now can we put the picture please
Speaker 2: back up on the screen. So let's take a look
Speaker 2: at this very clearly, and please keep it up. So
Speaker 2: in front of you you have the doors that are closed.
Speaker 2: There's a sign. I've seen this sign before, anybody on
Speaker 2: Capitol Hill has, which basically says this entrance is closed.
Speaker 2: You can't read it there where very clearly, And what
Speaker 2: people have pointed to is that there is another sign
Speaker 2: elsewhere on Capitol Hill which talks about if you press
Speaker 2: the door handle, it's an emergency exit and the alarm
Speaker 2: will sound after three seconds. So Bowman revisionism is that
Speaker 2: he had seen that sign and had then decided to
Speaker 2: pull the fire alarm because he thought that it would
Speaker 2: then trigger the door. Now that is stupid on its face,
Speaker 2: but as you can see very clearly in this photo,
Speaker 2: there is no I repeat, no sign anything about a
Speaker 2: long arms alarm sounding after three seconds. That is another
Speaker 2: door in the Capitol. There is simply no conceivable world
Speaker 2: in which pulling a fire alarm could be construed as
Speaker 2: being allowed to open the door. Now do I believe
Speaker 2: he was doing it in order to delay the vote?
Speaker 2: I actually have a contrary view. I think that he
Speaker 2: was terrified of missing the vote, and so instead of
Speaker 2: delaying the vote for democratic processes, I think he pulled
Speaker 2: the fire alarm so that he could delay the vote,
Speaker 2: so that he could get to the floor, so that
Speaker 2: he could then participate in the vote. So it wasn't
Speaker 2: some grand evil plan in terms of like stopping the
Speaker 2: vote so that he could vote against it or hold
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 3: It was simply so that he did not miss said vote.
Speaker 1: But here's the part of the okay, so unpopular opinion.
Speaker 1: I believe Jamal Boman because there's no way, okay, that
Speaker 1: could be right, that could be But listen, it doesn't
Speaker 1: make if you're trying to delay a vote that's happening
Speaker 1: in the US Capitol, why are you pulling a fire
Speaker 1: alarm in a different frickin building.
Speaker 3: Well, that doesn't make any sense. Let's explain it.
Speaker 1: That makes nense in.
Speaker 2: Terms of geography. So we got the capital behind us.
Speaker 2: This is what the capital looks like. So I got
Speaker 2: to orient myself. The house side would be over here,
Speaker 2: it would be on this side. Now, for those who
Speaker 2: don't know, this happened in the Cannon Office Building, which
Speaker 2: is the closest office building to the US Capitol. You
Speaker 2: can basically see it through the door of where his
Speaker 2: offices right here, Like I said, on this side. For
Speaker 2: people were watching, it would basically be like right over
Speaker 2: that's the closest one.
Speaker 1: That would be. Like if I was trying to avoid
Speaker 1: doing the show and I pulled the fire alarm in
Speaker 1: the next door apartment building, like that would be stupid,
Speaker 1: That wouldn't make any sense.
Speaker 3: What if they were owned by the same people.
Speaker 2: What if they were owned by the same people and
Speaker 2: there was something It's not like their discrete buildings.
Speaker 1: They are discreen buildings well, but they're connected by an
Speaker 1: underground Lots of buildings are connected by underground tunnels. Like
Speaker 1: go to Minnesota and you'll see this all the time.
Speaker 1: They are separate buildings. So if I'm trying to delay
Speaker 1: a vote over here, I would pull the fire alarm
Speaker 1: over here. If I'm trying to obstruct an official government
Speaker 1: proceeding or whatever. So that explanation doesn't make any sense
Speaker 1: to me, And in general, I always feel like the
Speaker 1: most likely explanation is human failure and inconscience. That is
Speaker 1: usually what's going on versus a nefarious plot.
Speaker 2: My personal favorite contribution to this discourse is let's put
Speaker 2: E four or sorry, E five please up on the screen.
Speaker 2: Is for those who don't know, Bowman is actually a
Speaker 2: former high school principal and at his former school, the
Speaker 2: Cornerstone Academy for Social Action.
Speaker 3: Here is how they punish kids.
Speaker 2: School initiated consequence will include a suspension for ten days
Speaker 2: with a contract level five and then level six long
Speaker 2: term suspension and or expulsion. So, Crystal, you have children
Speaker 2: who are currently in school, so I don't know. When
Speaker 2: I was a kid, it was a very big deal
Speaker 2: to pull the fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't.
Speaker 2: You can't be pulling that fire, and that was like
Speaker 2: a cardinals fin. I don't know if it's still the
Speaker 2: case inside of schools in terms of pulling the fire alarm.
Speaker 2: Somebody did actually do it, I think whenever I was
Speaker 2: in high school, and they got into very big trouble.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm assuming that they still have these procedures
Speaker 2: which are in place.
Speaker 3: And that's what to me makes it so unbelievable.
Speaker 2: How many dumb ass state mandated drills that the man
Speaker 2: have to do about fire drills in fire alarm, Like,
Speaker 2: you don't know that the fire it says fire on it,
Speaker 2: and it's big and it's red.
Speaker 3: It doesn't open the door in no scenario, doesn't open
Speaker 3: the door.
Speaker 1: Okay, but I know the signs do not appear on
Speaker 1: the door. But that sign is very.
Speaker 3: But that's not on that door.
Speaker 1: It's in a different maybe it's like on the wall
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no no, I'm gonna have to go
Speaker 2: down I'm gonna drag my ass down there, and we're gonna.
Speaker 1: Take some investigative reporting into this situation. I honestly might
Speaker 1: have a friend go through with the camera, but you
Speaker 1: have to find these specific doors. And also they said
Speaker 1: that normally these doors are open.
Speaker 3: That's true, that is true.
Speaker 1: And so they maybe sometimes have the signs up and
Speaker 1: sometimes they don't. Anyway, I guess for me, none of
Speaker 1: the various explanations make a lot of sense, and so
Speaker 1: I just default on the side of like, oh, somebody
Speaker 1: just doing something stupid, because sometimes human beings just do
Speaker 1: stuff that.
Speaker 2: I thorough investigation. Personally, no one is above the law.
Speaker 2: No one is above the law. Christil, what do you
Speaker 2: take a look at?
Speaker 1: Well, a poor, majority black city struggling with unsafe water
Speaker 1: that could poison residents for years to come. Stop me
Speaker 1: if you've heard this one. As New Yorker saw subways, roadways,
Speaker 1: and homes flooded from an extraordinary rain event that dropped
Speaker 1: more than eight inches of rain at JFK Airport down
Speaker 1: to Louisiana, the state is dealing with the exact opposite problem.
Speaker 1: Extreme drop has taken hold in and around the whole region,
Speaker 1: dropping the water level and speed of the Mississippi River
Speaker 1: with potentially dire implications. This drought may make for a
Speaker 1: less dramatic video, but it is imminently threatening the city
Speaker 1: of New Orleans and surrounding areas with a mass poisoning compromise,
Speaker 1: drinking water and desiccated crops. So pure exactly is what's
Speaker 1: going on. President Biden's declared state of emergency for for
Speaker 1: Louisiana parishes near New Orleans as a wedge of saltwater
Speaker 1: travels from the Gulf of Mexico up the Mississippi River,
Speaker 1: threatening the drinking water supplies for that historic city and
Speaker 1: for the surrounding areas. Southeastern Louisiana depends on the Mississippi
Speaker 1: River for its drinking water and does not have expensive
Speaker 1: reverse osmosis plants in place remove salt from that supply now.
Speaker 1: Typically the flow of the Mississippi River is strong enough
Speaker 1: to keep that salt water from the Gulf at Bay,
Speaker 1: but drought throughout the region has left the river several
Speaker 1: feet below normal and running with a lot less power
Speaker 1: than it usually does. According to the Army Corps of Engineers.
Speaker 1: The river needs to flow at roughly three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: cubic feet per second in order to overcome the weight
Speaker 1: of the salt water, which is actually heavier than fresh water,
Speaker 1: and the most recent reading had to speed at around
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty six thousand cfs, or roughly half
Speaker 1: of what is actually required. What's more, there's really no
Speaker 1: end in sight. Rainfall projections are low for the next
Speaker 1: several months, and what rain does fall is being sucked
Speaker 1: up by parched soil before it can run off into
Speaker 1: the mississ Zippy River. Experts are preparing for that saltwater
Speaker 1: wedge to continue its way upstream all the way through January.
Speaker 1: The New Orleans Times PKAUN has been providing extensive coverage
Speaker 1: of this threat. Here is their map of where the
Speaker 1: saltwater wedge is now and where it is projected to
Speaker 1: be based on US Army Corps of Engineers analysis. So far,
Speaker 1: the wedge has traveled roughly seventy miles upstream from the
Speaker 1: gulf An underwater levee, signified by the yellow triangle. You
Speaker 1: can see they're on the map that was overtopped on
Speaker 1: September twentieth. The saltwater extent is expected to reach New
Speaker 1: Orleans in near weeks. Plaque of Mine's Parish has been
Speaker 1: distributing bottled water to their residence for months and is
Speaker 1: working feverishly to install reverse osmosis systems at their water
Speaker 1: plants that our government is barging in fresh water to
Speaker 1: mix into the water supplies to decrease the overall salinity,
Speaker 1: but they're already warning that these efforts are likely to
Speaker 1: be insufficient to deal with this threat to the drinking water,
Speaker 1: and that threat is really quite severe. Obviously, humans cannot
Speaker 1: drink salt water, but even if that immediate threat to
Speaker 1: life is mitigated by bottled water, the broader impacts here
Speaker 1: could be devastating. Farmers depend on water for irrigation, threatening
Speaker 1: crops and livelihoods, and New Orleans is chalk full of
Speaker 1: lead pipes. They'll be corroded by saltwater, potentially leaching lead
Speaker 1: into drinking water for years to come. This is partly
Speaker 1: what happened in Flint, Michigan, when they switch water supplies
Speaker 1: from the Great Lengths to the Flint River. The river
Speaker 1: had a high degree of salt due to runoff from
Speaker 1: road treatments that Flint river water then corroded the lead
Speaker 1: pipes and poisoned an entire American city as the government
Speaker 1: engaged in a massive cover up. And like Flint, New
Speaker 1: Orleans is struggling with an epidemic of poverty that leaves
Speaker 1: residents with few resources and no margin for error. Reports
Speaker 1: several years back reveal that a full half of New
Speaker 1: Orleans residents are struggling to get by, living either an
Speaker 1: outright poverty or severely cash strapped thanks to an economy
Speaker 1: dominated by low paying service sector jobs. Put it all together,
Speaker 1: and it is a perfect storm for calamity and human misery,
Speaker 1: something the residents of New Orleans are sadly already all
Speaker 1: too familiar with. This is what the latest disaster, triggered
Speaker 1: by the climate crisis and what now seems to be
Speaker 1: a near weekly refrain. Wildfires in Maui, flooding in New
Speaker 1: York City, extreme drought all along the Mississippi River, each
Speaker 1: of these events causing untold suffering, trauva, and expense, each
Speaker 1: exposing the cracks and the neglect within our society. Disaster capitalism,
Speaker 1: greeting neglectful utilities, centuries old infrastructure, government and confidence or
Speaker 1: sheer indifference already we're being trained to grow numb to
Speaker 1: all of these crises. This year alone, we've had twenty
Speaker 1: three different billion dollar weather events. That's already war than
Speaker 1: the previous record, and we've still got three more months
Speaker 1: left to go in this year. So Kyle and I
Speaker 1: spent part of our honeymoon actually in New Orleans and
Speaker 1: has got to be one of the most unique cities
Speaker 1: in all of America. The history, the character is extraordinary,
Speaker 1: and like nowhere else in the country or even the world.
Speaker 1: The culture and people of New Orleans have also been
Speaker 1: central to the story of American America. Its large population
Speaker 1: of educated blacks. We're pivot in the Civil War reconstruction
Speaker 1: and in the fight against Jim Crow. Half of the
Speaker 1: city is also below sea level, and so Crescent City
Speaker 1: is now locked in an existential struggle for its very existence.
Speaker 1: The battle against the saltwater is really just the beginning
Speaker 1: of the problems in this era of climate chaos, and
Speaker 1: as usual, it will be the poor with no other
Speaker 1: options who suffer the most. It's sager, this is one
Speaker 1: that's kind of gone un.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 2: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
Speaker 1: All right, saga, were you looking at well?
Speaker 3: Before the Ukraine War began.
Speaker 2: I did a monologue on the tendency of the establishment
Speaker 2: mind here in Washington to think that Putin is Hitler.
Speaker 2: If Putin is Hitler, the policy implications are obvious. That
Speaker 2: policy is to basically treat Ukraine as the UK and
Speaker 2: World War two back it to the hilt no matter what.
Speaker 2: There's another option, though, that I'm going to lay out
Speaker 2: in this monologue. What if Putin is not Hitler. What
Speaker 2: if he's still bad but more akin to Soviet Stalin
Speaker 2: or you're to run of the mill Russians are. If
Speaker 2: that's the case, the policy implications and the historical analogies
Speaker 2: become a lot more interesting. I would posit Ukraine is
Speaker 2: not England, and then actually a better World War two
Speaker 2: example could be Finland. Let me explain, most Americans don't
Speaker 2: really know all that much about World War two. That
Speaker 2: doesn't have anything to do with us or with the West.
Speaker 2: We vaguely understand that the war was bad in the
Speaker 2: East between Germany and Russia, but we do not have
Speaker 2: the same encyclopedic knowledge or cultural knowledge about like d Day,
Speaker 2: A lot of people, including many Russian historians, tend to
Speaker 2: brush over that period of World War II, where Hitler
Speaker 2: and Stalin were not only allies but fellow belligeran powers.
Speaker 2: Following the shock signing of the Non Aggression Treaty between
Speaker 2: Stalin and Hitler in the August of nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union went on a shopping spree. No longer
Speaker 2: having to worry about Nazi Colossus, they decided to take
Speaker 2: advantage of the chaos of Hitler's invasion of Poland and
Speaker 2: annex some territory of their own. Stalin and Premier Molotov
Speaker 2: approached the Baltic nations like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia with ultimatums
Speaker 2: they would either bis basically had to consent to annexation
Speaker 2: and occupation by the Soviet Union, or they would face invasion.
Speaker 2: And much like the ultimatums that Putin delivered before his
Speaker 2: invasion of Ukraine, the three Baltic nations quickly conceded to
Speaker 2: Soviet demands, emboldening Stalin and Molotov to their next scheme, Finland.
Speaker 2: With all the chaos again and the successful Baltic negotiations,
Speaker 2: they were flying high. So they invited the Finns to Moscow,
Speaker 2: and they gave them a similar ultimatum. Finland had to
Speaker 2: agree to immediately seed a large portion of their territory
Speaker 2: and destroy their defensive fortifications, or they would face war.
Speaker 2: The Finns stood tall and said to the Soviets, kick
Speaker 2: rocks that immediately and bold into their populace to fight
Speaker 2: with everything they had and a struggle for their national identity,
Speaker 2: very much like what's happening in Ukraine, and just like Ukraine,
Speaker 2: nobody on Earth expected the Finns to actually be able
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 3: A damn thing.
Speaker 2: This was the Red Army that we were talking about,
Speaker 2: one of the largest militaries on Earth. All of this
Speaker 2: sound familiar, and just as familiar, Russian incompetence and over
Speaker 2: confidence led to a disaster for the Ussry. To this
Speaker 2: day knows how many Soviet soldiers were killed. It is
Speaker 2: somewhere between fifty thousand to one million, with frostbite and
Speaker 2: humiliating military setbacks being a key part of the story. Quickly,
Speaker 2: the Soviets found themselves the butt of the joke in
Speaker 2: all of Europe and non Allied nations like France and England.
Speaker 2: Even considered coming in on the Finnish side to stand
Speaker 2: up against Stalin, who they would later ally with. Hitler too,
Speaker 2: saw the disastrous invasion of Finland as evidence that he
Speaker 2: could then invade the Soviet Union and prevail, considering how
Speaker 2: badly they had fought. To this day, the Winter War,
Speaker 2: as it is known, is considered up there with Afghanistan
Speaker 2: as one of the most humiliating incidents in Russian military history,
Speaker 2: and that is how they usually tell the story, but
Speaker 2: they never focus on how the actual conflict came to
Speaker 2: an end. After a series of embarrassing Soviet defeats on
Speaker 2: the battlefield, Stalin had enough. He previewed Red Army tactics
Speaker 2: in the forthcoming war with Hitler, and he was willing
Speaker 2: to take massive casualties as long as they were gaining territory.
Speaker 2: Hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers were sent to the front,
Speaker 2: and slowly but surely they were stopping the Finnish advances
Speaker 2: and even had some breakthroughs of their own. The war
Speaker 2: was settling into a stalemate with the frozen frontline and
Speaker 2: forthcoming Russian offensive. The Finnish government then did what appears
Speaker 2: unthinkable today with respect to the Ukraine. Throughout all of
Speaker 2: the hostilities, even when they were winning, they kept appealing
Speaker 2: to Moscow for peace. Moscow refused to respond because they
Speaker 2: thought they could win on the battlefield. Only after the
Speaker 2: Finns humiliated them and the Soviet Union began to see
Speaker 2: the costs of the war did they come back to
Speaker 2: the table. And when they did, they came to a deal.
Speaker 2: Finland agreed to give up nine percent of its territory
Speaker 2: occupied at that time by Moscow. Now it's time to
Speaker 2: ask was that a victory or was it a defeat.
Speaker 2: Let's consider something. The initial Soviet demand of finished territorial
Speaker 2: loss was a smoke screen. They had no intention of
Speaker 2: stopping there. They wanted to take over all of Finland,
Speaker 2: just as they had the Baltic States eventually and played
Speaker 2: ball with them. Finland was a long looked at prize
Speaker 2: for Russia. Instead, what happened is the Winter War in
Speaker 2: vigorated finished national identity and showed the Soviets that they
Speaker 2: had bitten off far more that they could chew. Yes,
Speaker 2: they had to give up nine percent of their territory,
Speaker 2: and they did it after affirming though their will to
Speaker 2: fight and to live as an independent people. Just like
Speaker 2: Ukraine has already done today. Most importantly, their fight is
Speaker 2: what guaranteed their sovereignty in the long run. They remain
Speaker 2: neutral throughout the entire Cold War, and today they owe
Speaker 2: their independence and survival to those who fought the Russians
Speaker 2: on the battlefield in nineteen thirty nine. I've been Telsinki myself,
Speaker 2: I've seen some of these monuments. They are genuinely touching.
Speaker 2: So we bring it full circle. What can we learn
Speaker 2: from this? Ukraine is very much like Finland structurally, it
Speaker 2: faces the Russian colossus bravely and at a massive structural disadvantage.
Speaker 2: In the long run, it cannot sustain a horrific war
Speaker 2: of attrition because it doesn't have the manpower or the
Speaker 2: materiel to do so. Furthermore, it's an insane ask for
Speaker 2: the West to simply supply them with hundreds of billions
Speaker 2: of dollars per year to keep up their operations, especially
Speaker 2: considering how little territory they have been able to win
Speaker 2: back in their latest counter offensive. Their victory could be
Speaker 2: just like Finland's, a bitter deal to swallow, yes, where
Speaker 2: they have to give up some territory in the immediate term,
Speaker 2: but with a major win. In the long run, they
Speaker 2: get to keep their independence, they get to keep their sovereignty,
Speaker 2: they get to live and survive as an independent state
Speaker 2: with the vast majority of their territory intact. That's the victory,
Speaker 2: just like Finish victory in nineteen thirty nine. But instead
Speaker 2: Ukraine and the West have poisoned the rhetoric such that
Speaker 2: only absolute maximal victory is politically acceptable in this there
Speaker 2: is no way that this will happen because absolute victory
Speaker 2: for Ukraine would likely mean a full blown World War three.
Speaker 2: This is obviously not worth it for us. It is
Speaker 2: why I am against all further aid to Ukraine. It
Speaker 2: is misshaping their strategic calculus, stopping them from getting to
Speaker 2: where we are going to end up. Anyways, they can
Speaker 2: face reality now or years from now with hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands more dead on both sides.
Speaker 3: So consider the Finish example. I'm curious what you think.
Speaker 1: Crystel and if you want to hear my reaction to
Speaker 1: Sagre's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
Speaker 2: Okay, guys, we're gonna have a great show for everybody tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Fun We're gonna have Congressman Rocannon. That's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 2: Little bit of the tease.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got some things to start about Avenue sold A,
Speaker 1: California and drama there would be interesting.
Speaker 3: It'll be fun.
Speaker 2: Don't forget if you can't help us out by signing
Speaker 2: up and helping support the focus group breakingpoints dot com. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: you've got a great week of content for everyone.
Speaker 3: We'll see you tomorrow.