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 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 1: Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 1: What do we have, Crystal, Indeed, we do lots of
Speaker 1: interesting things to break down this morning. We have some
Speaker 1: fallout from the Trump indictments this week, and in particular
Speaker 1: a little bit of a media react segment that we
Speaker 1: want to break down for you how everybody handled the
Speaker 1: big news. We also have some new revelations. This pretty
Speaker 1: interesting comment's coming out of Kiev. Largest openness that they
Speaker 1: have expressed in terms of diplomatic negotiations that we have seen.
Speaker 1: This comes as France is meeting with China and expressing
Speaker 1: also openness to China playing a role as peacemaker there.
Speaker 1: So we'll break all of that down for you. We
Speaker 1: also have a whole new story again on the nord
Speaker 1: stream pipeline, and some open admissions that members of NATO
Speaker 1: are just like, yeah, we just kind of don't really
Speaker 1: want to know. It was like openly admitting, like it's uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: so let's just not talk about it. We've got some
Speaker 1: big twenty twenty four fundraising numbers Nikki Haley with a
Speaker 1: big hull that we can break down for you. And
Speaker 1: we also have a couple of media stories that we
Speaker 1: couldn't resist covering one elon designating NPR on Twitter as
Speaker 1: state affiliated media that caused a whole thing, and some
Speaker 1: pretty bombshell revelations about Don Lemon's behavior going back years
Speaker 1: at CNN, so that'll be interesting. I also excited to
Speaker 1: have a first time on the show to talk about
Speaker 1: the Chicago mayor's race, so should be a good one.
Speaker 1: Before we get to any of that, though, reminder about
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Speaker 1: looking at the numbers and I was like, wow, a
Speaker 1: huge portion of our audience is actually using this. Oh
Speaker 1: really Yeah, absolutely, and apparently we are one of the
Speaker 1: largest gated podcasts on all of Spotify, which is not bad. Guys,
Speaker 1: thank you all very much. We really appreciate it. So
Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot Com, as I said, that's the reminder. But
Speaker 1: how did the media handle the Trump arrest and the
Speaker 1: subsequent coverage, Crystal, Yeah, So, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I kind of empathize with the bind that media organizations
Speaker 1: are in because you know, we don't love spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time on ten No, I actually hate doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it distracts from a lot of other really important issues.
Speaker 1: But then again, when you have a former president of
Speaker 1: the United States being indicted for the first time in history,
Speaker 1: you kind of have to cover it, at least to
Speaker 1: some extent. So MSNBC sparked a lot of debate, I
Speaker 1: think over their handling of it because they decided that
Speaker 1: they would not carry live Trump's speech that he gave
Speaker 1: in response to those charges and a number of other
Speaker 1: potential charges coming down both Pike so Rachel Mattow explained,
Speaker 1: they're thinking on not taking that speech. Let's take a
Speaker 1: listen to what she has to say. I need to
Speaker 1: tell you that right now, the former president himself is
Speaker 1: making remarks tonight from his home in Florida, as far
Speaker 1: as we can tell, and what we were prepared for
Speaker 1: here is that this is basically a campaign speech in
Speaker 1: which he is repeating his same lives and allegations against
Speaker 1: his perceived enemies. It is just getting started. So far,
Speaker 1: he's just giving his normal list of grievances. We don't
Speaker 1: consider that necessarily newsworthy, and there's a cost to us
Speaker 1: as a news organization of knowingly broadcasting untrue things. So
Speaker 1: our deal with you is that we will monitor these remarks.
Speaker 1: If he does say anything newsworthy, we will turn them
Speaker 1: around and report on that right away. But for now,
Speaker 1: just know that it's happening and we're not taking it.
Speaker 1: So just know that it's happening, we're not taking it.
Speaker 1: So listen. I think all of these decisions should be
Speaker 1: considered through the lens of business, decisions to do with
Speaker 1: like their journalistic ethics or whatever. Their audience doesn't particularly
Speaker 1: want to hear a long speech from Trump, so they're
Speaker 1: not going to play it. They would rather hear, you know,
Speaker 1: analysis from Rachel and Nicole Wallace and whoever else that
Speaker 1: they have on the panel. Joy, it's not like they're
Speaker 1: not covering Trump. They probably cover Trump more than any
Speaker 1: other network. So it's not like they actually learned, Hey,
Speaker 1: let's not give this guy any oxygen because it only
Speaker 1: empowers him. No, they just feel like their audience doesn't
Speaker 1: particularly want to hear directly for him from him, So
Speaker 1: they're making a business ratings decision. In my opinion, Oh,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I also do think there is
Speaker 1: a powerful brainworm over there where the idea that they
Speaker 1: have a quote responsibility, whereas if they never would have
Speaker 1: broadcast knowingly lies on their platform, that's never happened. Rachel
Speaker 1: Maddout and Nicole Wallace, Rachel the dgin of they don't
Speaker 1: get journalistic fact fighting. People don't care about the truth.
Speaker 1: It's all such a joke. I mean, they are paralyzed
Speaker 1: by the decision that they have the humorist that they
Speaker 1: believe that they got Trump elected in the first place,
Speaker 1: which I don't believe that actually for a second. But really,
Speaker 1: what it comes down to for them is, as you said,
Speaker 1: they are in a bind where their audience doesn't want
Speaker 1: to see the actual newsworthy event. They want to see
Speaker 1: Rachel and Nicole and Joy all breaking down what's happening.
Speaker 1: You know, whenever we covered it on our stream, we
Speaker 1: gave people a preview, and then, because we knew it
Speaker 1: was a newsworthy event live taking problem, we brought everybody
Speaker 1: the full thing. You can watch it for yourself. We
Speaker 1: will tell you what we think afterwards, but in real time.
Speaker 1: What I've always found astounding about these critiques from these
Speaker 1: journalistic professors and all these other little hall monitors is
Speaker 1: they don't want people to just see something for themselves
Speaker 1: and make up their own minds. They don't trust Americans enough.
Speaker 1: It's a good point to watch this and just say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a lie, and I think that's oh
Speaker 1: that was kind of funny. But oh, here's what I
Speaker 1: think after watching the full thing. Why do you mean
Speaker 1: them to tell you? I think that's a great point.
Speaker 1: There's kind of a nanny state, yes, dude, implicit there
Speaker 1: that goes along with their whole like freak own of
Speaker 1: or misinformation and oh my god, we've got to like
Speaker 1: sensor and crack down, and we can't have these untruths
Speaker 1: out there whatsoever. Rather than trusting in a democracy people
Speaker 1: to you know, be able to see the live news
Speaker 1: event in unvarnished format and then make of it what
Speaker 1: they will, you know, based on their own facts and knowledge.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, with the aid of like, you know,
Speaker 1: reasonable analysis on the other side, not that I expect
Speaker 1: as NBC to provide any of that. So I do
Speaker 1: think you're right that there is an implicit like obsession
Speaker 1: with controlling the flow of information that's reflected in that
Speaker 1: decision as well as you know it just being a
Speaker 1: sort of like brass tacks business decision. Now on the
Speaker 1: other end of absurdity with CNN, which we talked about
Speaker 1: on our live stream, you know, again, we made sure
Speaker 1: to thoroughly cover the event. Obviously, we gave it, you know,
Speaker 1: significant attention as well, because it is a historic event,
Speaker 1: and we had legal analysts on and we took the
Speaker 1: Trump presser live, and we went through the indictment all
Speaker 1: of that. But CNN goes that next level above just
Speaker 1: like fully analyzing what's going on, and they have to
Speaker 1: do these like sensationalistic oj Car Chase type shots showing
Speaker 1: the suburban pulling in front of the courthouse and mounting
Speaker 1: a camera on the speeding boat to try to catch
Speaker 1: an image of his plane landing in New York and
Speaker 1: all of this stuff. So they go to the total opposite,
Speaker 1: just total sensationalistic extreme. Jake Tapper felt they need to
Speaker 1: justify that. In his commentary listic listen to what he
Speaker 1: had to say. And I know that media critics are
Speaker 1: taking issue with the way that a lot of the
Speaker 1: news networks are covering this, but I have to say,
Speaker 1: you know, as we watch Donald Trump's limo drive on
Speaker 1: the FDR, this is unprecedented. We've never seen anything like
Speaker 1: this in the history of this country. I want to
Speaker 1: count of how many times CNN said unprecedented. You can
Speaker 1: say it once and I think we always did. Okay,
Speaker 1: and that's fine, that's enough. But the point that again
Speaker 1: he's they let these little nanny state home monitors get
Speaker 1: in their ears where they have to both justify their
Speaker 1: coverage or not. It's like you just said, ratings. Also,
Speaker 1: you know why, I know it was a ratings decision.
Speaker 1: I was reading Dylan Byer's column last night that was
Speaker 1: the biggest day of CNN's modern history since the invasion
Speaker 1: of Ukraine was the Trump arrest. That was their biggest day.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, it was a business. They did it
Speaker 1: because that's what works for all of the time, and
Speaker 1: the handwringing over oh, we're going to go back to
Speaker 1: the center the moment Trump was back on the stage,
Speaker 1: full blown obsession. Soon Trump to speak, shot of the cars,
Speaker 1: shot of the plane, shot of the empty court. That one,
Speaker 1: I don't really guess this is this is also just
Speaker 1: intigency and sure, I mean, this is what is their
Speaker 1: bread and butter, going over the top with these news
Speaker 1: events and completely sensationalizing. Whether I remember the cruise ship
Speaker 1: that they went all land to cover or the flight
Speaker 1: what was it? The yeah that I mean, this is like,
Speaker 1: this is what they do. So the idea that Chris licked,
Speaker 1: we always were skeptical that Chris licked the new head
Speaker 1: of the network was really to be like fundamentally different
Speaker 1: or like represent any fundamental break from the way that
Speaker 1: CNN has always been. That's clearly not the case. I
Speaker 1: actually watched some of their coverage while we were waiting
Speaker 1: for the charges to drop, which took way too long,
Speaker 1: and it was like extremely painful, because God, I hate
Speaker 1: the way on cable news, since it's twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: they feel the need to fill the airspace even though
Speaker 1: there's literally nothing happening and nothing to say. So while
Speaker 1: they're waiting with Trump going through this arraignment, which took
Speaker 1: longer than they expected. I mean, they didn't have the charges,
Speaker 1: they didn't know what happened in the courtroom, and so
Speaker 1: they just have to spend an hour saying absolutely nothing,
Speaker 1: and it's so incredibly painful. So the way they try
Speaker 1: to fill that is with like their ridiculous you know,
Speaker 1: speeding boat camera on the helicopter or whatever thing. Once
Speaker 1: they did get the charges, surprisingly to a lot of folks,
Speaker 1: some of their legal analysts were not all that impressed
Speaker 1: with the case that Alvin Bragg laid out and felt
Speaker 1: that it was somewhat disappointing. They kind of let their
Speaker 1: they kind of show their hand a little bit that
Speaker 1: they were hoping for more, and there had been some
Speaker 1: reporting that, oh, perhaps this will be more than just
Speaker 1: Stormy Daniels. Perhaps there's things Alvin Bragg found out that
Speaker 1: we didn't even have any idea about that wasn't in
Speaker 1: the public record whatsoever. Of course we know now that
Speaker 1: turned out to not be the case. The indictment was
Speaker 1: exactly what we expected. It was all pretty much things
Speaker 1: that were already in the public record. And so here
Speaker 1: is one CNN legal analyst admitting her disappointment. Your reaction
Speaker 1: now that you've had a chance to go through it,
Speaker 1: is it what you thought it was going to be?
Speaker 1: And are you unimpressed? It is what I thought it
Speaker 1: was going to be in terms of focusing on the
Speaker 1: payments that were made, the falsification of the records and
Speaker 1: really tied to the payment that was made to Stormy Daniels.
Speaker 1: In terms of a case that's being brought against a
Speaker 1: former president, it's a little underwhelming. It's a little underwhelming.
Speaker 1: It's just funny because, as you said, after they built
Speaker 1: it up and after they you know, you know, after
Speaker 1: they're sitting there salivating waiting for it, when they actually
Speaker 1: got the indictment, they were like, yeah, I'm not so
Speaker 1: sure about this one. I don't know if this one
Speaker 1: is going to stand, which is you know, if you
Speaker 1: just even listen to the leaks, you could have said
Speaker 1: that from the very beginning. I found it amusing also
Speaker 1: because even the mainstream media now who has been waiting
Speaker 1: for this and salivating over it for so long. With
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen, I mean, even the
Speaker 1: New York Times has to publish op ed saying like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this Trump indictment is a legal embarrassment. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: a vociferous defense of Alvin Bragg on the actual face
Speaker 1: of the charges yet from any mainstream media outlet, even
Speaker 1: like liberal Apparatricks, people like Jonathan Chait and others are
Speaker 1: coming out with columns being like, I don't think that
Speaker 1: this is a good case. I think that this does
Speaker 1: damage in the long run to the case of going
Speaker 1: after Trump, and that this may in fact backfire on
Speaker 1: all of them. So it is interesting also in that
Speaker 1: light of their coverage relative to them. Once they got it,
Speaker 1: how they then had to interpret what happened. So the
Speaker 1: Times published i think four different op eds that offered
Speaker 1: a race, so they had the whole gamut of opinion.
Speaker 1: So they did have a defense of the charges. But
Speaker 1: I think the fact that the you know, Trump and
Speaker 1: Diamonds is the legal and the fact that they went
Speaker 1: so hard in that direction allowed that to be published
Speaker 1: was interesting. I do think Democrats are somewhat uncomfortable, especially
Speaker 1: that this was these were the first charges to drop,
Speaker 1: because they are obviously the least serious, they're the oldest,
Speaker 1: they're the ones that you know it's there are like
Speaker 1: novel legal theories in play, and pieces of it certainly
Speaker 1: seem like a stretch from a legal perspective. On the politics,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that the analysis. I think there's a
Speaker 1: legal analysis, and I think there's a political analysis. To me,
Speaker 1: the political analysis in terms of Republican primary very clear,
Speaker 1: and then in terms of the general electorate. As I've
Speaker 1: said before, I'm not sure that the public is really
Speaker 1: all that interested in the specific details of whether it's
Speaker 1: this case or a January sixth case, or a fake
Speaker 1: elector case or a document case or whatever. If they
Speaker 1: like Trump, then they would be opposed to it, and
Speaker 1: if they don't like Trump, then they're like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to like wring my hands about which
Speaker 1: particular indictment drops first, or how I feel about the
Speaker 1: legal analysis of it. I do think again, on the
Speaker 1: politics of it, Democrats, elite democrats, and I have to
Speaker 1: say I think also the Democratic base have decided that
Speaker 1: it politically benefits them for Trump to be the nominee. Maybe,
Speaker 1: but we have been to this movie before, and last
Speaker 1: time they were hoping for Trump to be the nominee
Speaker 1: back in twenty sixteen, it didn't work out so well
Speaker 1: for them. So I do think that there is a
Speaker 1: lot of arrogance around excitement that Okay, he's locking down,
Speaker 1: looks like the Republican nomination. He's in a much stronger position,
Speaker 1: He's much more likely to be the Republican nominee. They
Speaker 1: feel a lot more nervous having to go up against
Speaker 1: Ron De Santis or even Nikki Haley. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: and I just think that that level of hubris about
Speaker 1: their ability to take out Trump and how damaging these
Speaker 1: things will be to Trump, I think it should be tempered.
Speaker 1: That's all im. I'll say, right, I think that's well said,
Speaker 1: And I think the reason we had to just show
Speaker 1: this is that I know there's a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: media analysis right now about the way that they cover it.
Speaker 1: Abou are they doing the wrong thing? But as you say,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, the elite democratic position
Speaker 1: is we want Trump, we want them to come back,
Speaker 1: and the media also finding himself in this very twisted position.
Speaker 1: They're like how do we do this, How do we
Speaker 1: cover responsibly? I think the responsible thing to do is
Speaker 1: let people make up the minds for themselves to what
Speaker 1: we try and do here is show you the fullsome
Speaker 1: nature of where things are and be like, listen, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what I think, but you don't have to agree.
Speaker 1: And that's completely finer with you. You can make up
Speaker 1: your own damn mind, because that's how it actually should be.
Speaker 1: They shouldn't be telling you what to think. And yet
Speaker 1: you know, apparently that's what the underlying assumption behind the
Speaker 1: Mattout coverage and all that, which is bolstered also by
Speaker 1: the business decisions that they have to make. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's all all said. All right, let's get to
Speaker 1: international affairs. There's a lot of stuff going on on
Speaker 1: SOW that was covered up by the Trump indictment. The
Speaker 1: first and foremost is a massive story about the petro
Speaker 1: dollar and about the way that other nations outside of
Speaker 1: the West are handling relations with China, with Russia, with
Speaker 1: Visa Viva, the United States and Ukraine. There was a
Speaker 1: very interesting and noticed clip from Fox News where Senator
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio actually went on Fox to decry Brazil ditching
Speaker 1: the petro dollar for future oil transactions with China and
Speaker 1: talking about the declining efficacy of US sanctions. Let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to that. Today, Brazil, in our hemisphere, largest
Speaker 1: country in the western hemisphere south of US, cut a
Speaker 1: trade deal with China. They're going to from now on
Speaker 1: do trade in their own currencies, get right around the dollar.
Speaker 1: They're creating a secondary economy in the world totally independent
Speaker 1: of the United States. We won't have to talk about
Speaker 1: sanctions in five years because there will be so many
Speaker 1: countries transacting and currencies other than the dollar that we
Speaker 1: won't have the ability to sanction them. As we are
Speaker 1: sitting here focused on some of these nuttiness that's going up.
Speaker 1: People that are basically dedicating their lives in this country
Speaker 1: to ensuring that it is legal to mutilate children to
Speaker 1: do drag shows in schools. They dedicate their lives to this.
Speaker 1: And we have another superpower that basically wants to become
Speaker 1: the world's dominant power at our expense, and these people
Speaker 1: don't want to focus on it. So very interesting, at
Speaker 1: least the front part of acrisis to get there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, it's kind of funny to see the two
Speaker 1: pair together. But look, he's actually not wrong. Let's go
Speaker 1: and put this up there on the screen. China and
Speaker 1: Russia are currently looking to challenge the petro dollars. A
Speaker 1: very interesting write up over from Oil Price. What they
Speaker 1: point to right now is that currently the yuan accounts
Speaker 1: for just two point seven percent of the global oil market. However,
Speaker 1: a lot of the more recent deals in recent weeks
Speaker 1: are signaling that the Chinese and the Russians are moving
Speaker 1: to try and sideline the dollar, not only from Brazil,
Speaker 1: as he said, this is the largest nation in all
Speaker 1: of South America, but actually during that visit to riod Chi,
Speaker 1: Shinping in December said that the China and the Arab
Speaker 1: Gulf states are going to be trying to use Shanghai
Speaker 1: petroleum and natural gas exchange platforms to carry out Yon's
Speaker 1: settlement on oil and gas trades. So a separate infrastructure
Speaker 1: is propping up through which the petro to replace the
Speaker 1: petro dollars, specifically to try and circumvent US sanctions. Right now,
Speaker 1: fifty eight percent of global currency reserves are the US dollar.
Speaker 1: From twenty twenty two, only two point seven percent of that,
Speaker 1: like I said, remains in the Chinese one. But I
Speaker 1: mean even a ten percent increase in that is a
Speaker 1: massive sea change to the global reserve currency. But drop
Speaker 1: even the global reserve currency and all of that rhetoric,
Speaker 1: Why does it matter, Because let's put this up there,
Speaker 1: and this is straight from Chinese media from the South
Speaker 1: China Morning Post. I thought it was important to actually
Speaker 1: pull the perspective that they are trying to push out there,
Speaker 1: which is that the Brazilian inroads and d dollarization is
Speaker 1: quote reflecting cracks in US currency settlements. Here's really what happened,
Speaker 1: and this is why it was a huge critic also
Speaker 1: of what was going on in the initial days of sanctioning.
Speaker 1: We basically blew up the global financial trade system for
Speaker 1: a country Russia and or another country Ukraine, which at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, the material fate of those
Speaker 1: two countries, especially Ukraine, has a zero impact on the
Speaker 1: US economy, on the US wave life. I know there's
Speaker 1: going to have a lot of Ukrainian NEAPO stands in
Speaker 1: the comments, but here's the deal. Whoever controls Kiev, that
Speaker 1: doesn't affect anybody's life in Nebraska. However, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of other countries and potential conflicts where that is
Speaker 1: not the case. And so one of the things that
Speaker 1: I was trying to say then is you only get
Speaker 1: one shot at this, at showing your hand. You know,
Speaker 1: whenever you're the empire and you like pull the ripcord
Speaker 1: on your real like most financial power that you have,
Speaker 1: you better do it on something that really matters. Decided
Speaker 1: to do that on Ukraine. Well, the Chinese, the second
Speaker 1: largest economy on earth, far more powerful ever than the
Speaker 1: USSR they saw all that in Beijing and they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's just never going to ever happen to us, and
Speaker 1: they're not fools. So what do they do? Immediately they
Speaker 1: started doing wan deals with Russia that go to India
Speaker 1: as well. India, then one of the largest nations outside
Speaker 1: of China, says, well, we still want cheap oil, and
Speaker 1: so they decide to start pricing things in different currency
Speaker 1: when buying from the Russians. The Brazilians, who are not
Speaker 1: on board with US at all. And how many times
Speaker 1: Crystal have we pointed to global public opinion that says
Speaker 1: that the rest of the world does not agree with
Speaker 1: US on Ukraine. They don't agree with Russia either, but
Speaker 1: they definitely don't agree with the NATO centric view of
Speaker 1: the conflict that this is some existential threat to their interests.
Speaker 1: They don't really care either way. They're like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it's good, but you know, like cheap oil
Speaker 1: is nice because that's what we have to at the
Speaker 1: end of the the day. We've got to care for our
Speaker 1: own citizens. So looking at this and just seeing the
Speaker 1: colossal economic blunder that we have made, we essentially sacrifice really,
Speaker 1: I think the only chance we ever had at being
Speaker 1: able to like financially push back on China if we
Speaker 1: ever wanted to in exchange for the fate of Eastern
Speaker 1: Dunboss in Ukraine, which I think is nuts. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no balance sheet where any of this makes sense.
Speaker 1: We really warned about this, yes on that there's a
Speaker 1: cost to it's not just a cost to our Russian
Speaker 1: society for the economic warfare that we were waging, but
Speaker 1: that there were real risks entailed here. But I think
Speaker 1: you have to go back even before that. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have tried to throw our weight around with sanctions
Speaker 1: far too many times, and even including with regard to
Speaker 1: Russia before this particular war and illegal invasion, because they
Speaker 1: had years after our initial round of sanctions to build
Speaker 1: up barriers to insulate themselves right past twenty thirteen, to
Speaker 1: insulate themselves from the economic warfare that we wait. So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say that it has had no impact.
Speaker 1: It certainly hasn't had the impact that we thought here
Speaker 1: in the West that it was going to have. And
Speaker 1: this is reminder, with a more or less unified West
Speaker 1: with regard to China, the views are far less unified
Speaker 1: among our European allies and US. So we sort of
Speaker 1: showed our hand here and showed some weakness because China's
Speaker 1: looking at the and go, hey, if Russia can be
Speaker 1: basically okay, we can build up some other relationships here
Speaker 1: that we already have been working on, and then we're
Speaker 1: not so worried about these sanctions either. Now, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, of course, it is a much deeper trading
Speaker 1: relationship with the Chinese, which both entails a lot more
Speaker 1: risk for us and also a lot more risk for them.
Speaker 1: But we gave them the roadmap, We blew our whole wad,
Speaker 1: so to speak, and allowed them to see exactly how
Speaker 1: far we could go, and then they can use that
Speaker 1: as their own roadmap. To make sure they can insulate
Speaker 1: themselves from any future economic warfare to come. So listen,
Speaker 1: I mean, in a sense, number one, can't blame them.
Speaker 1: Number two, we really kind of asked for it, and
Speaker 1: we from the beginning have been warning about the potential
Speaker 1: domestic consequences here and consequences for our standing in the
Speaker 1: world of using these of weaponizing these sanctions over and
Speaker 1: over again. Yeah, and I just can't get over how
Speaker 1: big of fools that we look like on the global stage.
Speaker 1: Zoom out of NATO, where apparently we're like the greatest
Speaker 1: heroes in private. They're happy to take your money and
Speaker 1: then stab you in the back whenever they want to.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that. But look at Saudi Arabia, a
Speaker 1: country that we spend one hundred billion dollars a year
Speaker 1: in sending weapons to, We underwrite their security. This family
Speaker 1: would never be in charge if it wasn't for a
Speaker 1: US global underwriting. They're willing to literally take your money
Speaker 1: and then look at you and put the middle finger
Speaker 1: right in your face. Put this up there on the
Speaker 1: screen right now. The decision to go ahead and cut
Speaker 1: oil to raise oil prices was very simple. This is
Speaker 1: David Ignatius. By the way, who's writing this. The United
Speaker 1: States doesn't call the shots in the Persian Gulf or
Speaker 1: the oil market anymore. For better or worse, the era
Speaker 1: of American hegemony in the Middle East is over. Crown
Speaker 1: Prince Muhammed Ben Salman pressed oil OPEC producers. This is
Speaker 1: the key. MBS specifically went to OPEK and said, we
Speaker 1: want to cut to buy one million barrels per day
Speaker 1: to boost the price of crude from eighty five to
Speaker 1: eighty five dollars a barrel up by six percent? Why
Speaker 1: to make more money and to make it more difficult
Speaker 1: for the US economy and for the West during the
Speaker 1: ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Now, a real ally would do
Speaker 1: what a They would either do what you would tell
Speaker 1: them to do if it's a client state, or b
Speaker 1: somebody who you know, wants friendly relations and thinks that
Speaker 1: this is like a give and take relationship would say,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll hear you out and we'll take the
Speaker 1: temporary hit. You know, it's not like we aren't one
Speaker 1: hundred billionaires several times over, and we'll make sure that
Speaker 1: oil is cheaper. They don't care. They literally don't. They
Speaker 1: disregard what Washington has said they have stabbed us now
Speaker 1: in the eye four or five times whenever it comes
Speaker 1: to OPEC production, and the only fools are us in Congress.
Speaker 1: They're still selling them weapons. The Biden administration goes over
Speaker 1: there and bows down before MBS like a joke, you know,
Speaker 1: in front of the entire world. They're laughing because they
Speaker 1: got the President of the United States to come over there. Whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, he didn't shake his hand, He just gave
Speaker 1: him a fist buck. Why he really showed it to
Speaker 1: him there, mister president. And then the moment you leave,
Speaker 1: they have China over. They strike this deal with Iran
Speaker 1: and allow Beijing to be the broker. And if you
Speaker 1: think Beijing doesn't have its hand behind this decision either,
Speaker 1: and then you're a fool. I mean, it's like in
Speaker 1: every single theater all across the world in Asia, in
Speaker 1: South Korea and Japan, they're doubting whether we're actually gonna
Speaker 1: be doing it. You know, the Taiwanese president is transiting
Speaker 1: through America. I always love how we do these fake
Speaker 1: diplomatic things. She was in California and she met with
Speaker 1: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Same thing, you know, the Taiwanese.
Speaker 1: We're actually been shorting them on arms so that we
Speaker 1: could send them to Ukraine. I've been looking also and
Speaker 1: tracking people who are inside DoD are warning about the
Speaker 1: level of shortages that we have. We are incurring massive
Speaker 1: hurts across the world and here at home on behalf
Speaker 1: of this Ukrainian conflict. And I don't know how you
Speaker 1: can possibly look, you know, at this from a thirty
Speaker 1: thousand foot level and say that any of this is
Speaker 1: worth a visa vi to what we're actually doing. The
Speaker 1: Russian invasion and we're going to get to this in
Speaker 1: just a moment. In a lot of ways, has been
Speaker 1: just a total disaster for Russia. Of course, it really
Speaker 1: sort of forced into reality a multipolar world, and maybe
Speaker 1: it revealed what already existed because the relationships that China
Speaker 1: has been building around the world. I mean, this goes
Speaker 1: back years at this point. I was listening this morning
Speaker 1: to a podcast about their you know, more specifics about
Speaker 1: their efforts in Africa, where it's a double edged sword.
Speaker 1: You know, they load up these countries with a lot
Speaker 1: of debt, but there are very visible signs of Chinese influence.
Speaker 1: A road, a dam, a bridge, an airport, sometimes with
Speaker 1: the Chinese flag flying outside that In some places, people
Speaker 1: are very grateful for this level of development, whereas the
Speaker 1: US has basically treated Africa as like another front of
Speaker 1: their war on terror. So again it's a double edged
Speaker 1: sword because then at the end of the day, you've
Speaker 1: got a nation that's loaded up with debt. But you
Speaker 1: can see in the seeds that the Chinese government has
Speaker 1: been planting for years and years. You know, when the
Speaker 1: US goes to the world and says, hey, we need
Speaker 1: you on our side in terms of the Ukraine War,
Speaker 1: most of the world's like, I think we're going to
Speaker 1: stay on this one. Actually know, whether it's the African nations,
Speaker 1: whether it's nations in South America, whether it's India, They're like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to let you work this one
Speaker 1: out and we're going to kind of stay on the
Speaker 1: sidelines and see how it all unfold. Yeah there. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: New Delhi is happy to take cheap gas as long
Speaker 1: as they can get it. Brazil will do the same thing,
Speaker 1: and so will a lot of developing countries. Even the
Speaker 1: South Koreans are out there selling arms to anybody who's
Speaker 1: got money, because they're like Oh, American arms are going
Speaker 1: to Ukraine. We'll take those dollars and we'll make sure
Speaker 1: that we can stand it up. I was looking at
Speaker 1: it from a macro view, and I was just thinking
Speaker 1: about it this way. Only the US is the nation
Speaker 1: which is not allowed by its elite and its presidents
Speaker 1: to act in its own material interests. All other countries
Speaker 1: on Earth make cold blooded, real politic calculations worth it,
Speaker 1: not worth it, good for my people, not good for
Speaker 1: my people. The idea from the unipolar moment onward has been, well,
Speaker 1: we're such a great nation that we can do both.
Speaker 1: But listen, guys, China allowed them to rise up in
Speaker 1: the meantime, not just China. I mean, there's all kinds
Speaker 1: of global competition that's happening now. We are just like
Speaker 1: any other country. It's checks and balance in terms of
Speaker 1: our sheet, what works and what doesn't, what's good for us?
Speaker 1: And we too, blessings have been had, all this bounty
Speaker 1: of energy and money, and you know, all this benefits
Speaker 1: so called of market capitalism, but a lot of that
Speaker 1: benefit is fading away. We're at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: we're just like everybody else. And I think we're going
Speaker 1: to learn all that real s Liff, and I actually
Speaker 1: think that part of the story there is this is
Speaker 1: a nation that, whether it comes to domestic affairs or
Speaker 1: foreign affairs or anything else, has allowed corporate power to
Speaker 1: supersede any sort of interest of the American people or
Speaker 1: national interest, and so we're unable to act for the
Speaker 1: interests of the people. We're unable to act for the
Speaker 1: interests of the nation because we're so beholden to like
Speaker 1: whoever's making money off of whatever we're doing in the world.
Speaker 1: So really clouds our ability to maneuver in the world. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so let's go to the second bar here because it's
Speaker 1: very important breaking news that actually just came out this morning.
Speaker 1: President Vladimir's Zelenski telling the Financial Times that Ukraine is
Speaker 1: ready to talk to Russia on Crimea if their counter
Speaker 1: offensive succeeds. Let's go ahead and put it up there
Speaker 1: on the screen. Kiev is willing to discuss the future
Speaker 1: of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reached the border
Speaker 1: of Russian occupied Peninsula, a top advisor to President Zelenski
Speaker 1: has told The Financial Times these comments were made by
Speaker 1: the deputy head of Zelensky's office and is the most
Speaker 1: explicit statement yet of Ukraine's interest in negotiation since it
Speaker 1: cut off peace talks with the Kremlin last April. He says, quote,
Speaker 1: if we succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield,
Speaker 1: when we will be able on the administrative border with Crimea,
Speaker 1: we are ready to open a diplomatic page to discuss
Speaker 1: this issue. It doesn't mean that we exclude the way
Speaker 1: of liberation of Crimea by our army. So obviously that's
Speaker 1: important because Crimea was originally seized an annexed by Russia
Speaker 1: in two thousand and thirteen, and one of the major
Speaker 1: worries here and throughout the West has been that escalating
Speaker 1: this to a nuclear conflict would come if some sort
Speaker 1: of Ukrainian offensive is specifically at a US backed weapons
Speaker 1: or any of that we're used on Crimea, which the
Speaker 1: Russians genuinely do consider theirs in a way that they
Speaker 1: don't consider the newly annexed territories of eastern Ukraine. Now,
Speaker 1: though it does not necessarily mean it's the opening that
Speaker 1: we may initially want it to be, because implicit in
Speaker 1: this is what that Ukraine is going to take back
Speaker 1: every inch of territory that they have lost since the
Speaker 1: initial Russian invasion. Now, of course, Ukrainian counter offensive have
Speaker 1: been dramatically successful back in March of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: are still waiting to see exactly how that is going
Speaker 1: to look In twenty twenty three, the long awaited Spring
Speaker 1: Offensive hasn't yet happened. There's been some discussion that the
Speaker 1: Russian Spring offensive did not go the way that they
Speaker 1: want it to be, but it's one of those where
Speaker 1: we don't know if that was the actual Russi effe
Speaker 1: or not. Obviously who has insight into Moscow's plans. Really
Speaker 1: what's going on is a complete meat grinder going on
Speaker 1: in the city of Bakmode, where both Ukrainian forces are
Speaker 1: expending thousands of rounds of ammunition per day and the
Speaker 1: Russians are losing on order of at least like three
Speaker 1: to one because they are the attacking party. Very classic
Speaker 1: in terms of like trench like siege warfare in a
Speaker 1: World War One style conflict. The issue right now is
Speaker 1: one of those where how long could Ukraine realistically keep
Speaker 1: that going because the amount of shells and ammo that
Speaker 1: we are giving them is not limitless. Same from the
Speaker 1: west whereas the Russians have a genuine industrial base and
Speaker 1: they have thousands and hundreds of thousands of people they
Speaker 1: can still throw into this conflict if need be, So
Speaker 1: the question is like who can hold out longer. It's
Speaker 1: really a classic World War One type scenario. The issue
Speaker 1: here too, though, is that yes, they're expressing open to negotiation,
Speaker 1: but the secondary part of it, crystal where any discussion
Speaker 1: with Chinese President Shishinping that hasn't happened yet, we don't
Speaker 1: know if the Chinese shot them down after Zelenski essentially
Speaker 1: said hey, I'll call you know, let's talk, like you
Speaker 1: could call me, you can even visit Kiev or any
Speaker 1: of that. So I'm not quite sure how to make
Speaker 1: of this. I genuinely think it's always a good thing
Speaker 1: when somebody says that they're willing to talk. But also
Speaker 1: obviously the preconditions here are not realistic, at least in
Speaker 1: the eyes of the Kremlin. But you know, maybe they
Speaker 1: need to get realistic too, because it's not like they
Speaker 1: don't have hundreds of people dying literally per day on
Speaker 1: the battlefield. Yeah. No, I mean, it's incredibly welcome to
Speaker 1: see those comments. There's just no two ways about it.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we've been very fearful about
Speaker 1: is that Crimea could represent a kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: really true redline for Russia in the way that some
Speaker 1: of the other territories and regions and actions from the
Speaker 1: Ukrainians may not represent. And you know, we're not alone
Speaker 1: in that. A lot of NATO allies are fearful of
Speaker 1: that as well. You know, it was right after they
Speaker 1: blew up that Crimean bridge that there started to be
Speaker 1: real concerns about Russia could see this as an existential
Speaker 1: threat to the point that they may actually use quote
Speaker 1: unquote tactical nuclear weapons. That has continued to be a concern.
Speaker 1: You've seen so rhetoric that I think has been profoundly
Speaker 1: dangerous from leaders like Nancy Pelosi about Ukraine fully taking
Speaker 1: back all of Crimean US being fully behind them in
Speaker 1: terms of that operation. So it is very welcome to
Speaker 1: see what is a really notable and significant shift in
Speaker 1: tone here from Zelenski. And then, you know, the other
Speaker 1: question that remains to be seen is if there was
Speaker 1: a genuine interest from Ukrainians and engaging with peace talks,
Speaker 1: especially if China was involved in those peace talks, would
Speaker 1: the us be open to it, would we let it happen,
Speaker 1: because it sure seems like we would be interested in
Speaker 1: blocking that, even though the claim has always been from
Speaker 1: the Biden administration that of course it's the Ukrainians who
Speaker 1: are in the front seat, and we'll just you know,
Speaker 1: back them up in whatever they want to do. See
Speaker 1: if that holds, if they actually got serious about engaging
Speaker 1: in peace talks with China. Yeah, we'll see how it
Speaker 1: goes down. And actually this broke this morning, so we
Speaker 1: can add some secondary parts of this also. I just
Speaker 1: want to underscore again just how different things are outside
Speaker 1: of Washington and outside of like Warsaw and Talin and
Speaker 1: Kiev's view of the conflict as opposed to literally everybody else.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and put this up there on the screen,
Speaker 1: you know, for all of the discussion of our great
Speaker 1: European allies and all that they do not see this
Speaker 1: in any way the same way that we do. The
Speaker 1: President Macron is in Beijing actually right now, and as
Speaker 1: many are viewing this, Emmanuel Macrone arrived there specifically to
Speaker 1: try to carve out a distinct role for Europe that
Speaker 1: avoids America's confrontation with an assertive China convinced that there
Speaker 1: is a place for China in ending the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: So you can see that Macron and actually Olaf Schaltz,
Speaker 1: the German Chancellor, also both visited Beijing recently, specifically in
Speaker 1: the attempt to try and bring the Ukrainian conflict to
Speaker 1: an end and to try and put Chinese pressure on
Speaker 1: Russia to bring some sort of political settle. This was
Speaker 1: after we should forget, not forget that Washington ruled out
Speaker 1: the Chinese peace deal as some sort of joke and
Speaker 1: they said that it should not be considered. Well, it
Speaker 1: turns out that the nations with much more skin in
Speaker 1: the game than we do in terms of their own
Speaker 1: territorial borders, they didn't think that at all. The next
Speaker 1: one up there on the screen two, please, there's been
Speaker 1: a string of European leaders that have been heading over
Speaker 1: to Beijing, EU Chancellor, the European Council, the Spanish Prime Minister,
Speaker 1: the Francis President, and also the EU Commissioner President, President Ursula.
Speaker 1: Vonder lyon all of those people's visits to Beijing has
Speaker 1: specifically been with respect to do two things. Number One,
Speaker 1: to say, hey, the US, Japan and South Korea. We're
Speaker 1: not necessarily in any of that. They're like you and I,
Speaker 1: like we should keep businesses going. We don't really agree
Speaker 1: with some of their trade war practices and all of that.
Speaker 1: A in other words, you know, acting in their material interests,
Speaker 1: and B they want to try and help Beijing bring
Speaker 1: some sort of end to the conflict in there. It's
Speaker 1: just stunning to look at it again and to see France, Germany,
Speaker 1: all of these countries, the EU, these places are underwritten
Speaker 1: entirely by the US Global Security Alliance. We are the
Speaker 1: ones who underwrite their militaries. We sell them all their weapons,
Speaker 1: and we protect them with our nuclear umbrella. And then
Speaker 1: though when it comes to China, they're going to do
Speaker 1: what they want. I don't even bringrudge them. I would
Speaker 1: do the same thing as some fool was willing to
Speaker 1: pay me to do whatever l I wanted. That said, though,
Speaker 1: I don't know why we continue to do that. Why
Speaker 1: do we continue to just let ourselves be humiliated like
Speaker 1: this for our so called you know what Iron brothers
Speaker 1: and allies. But secondary Crystal they view and again they
Speaker 1: have the territory, they have actual territorial skin here. They
Speaker 1: view this peace deal and peace itself as an actual
Speaker 1: goal that you should be willing to work towards with
Speaker 1: anybody who is willing to do that. Unlike President Biden,
Speaker 1: his National Security Council, and apparently all of the entire
Speaker 1: Washington lead, France and Germany, especially in the lead up
Speaker 1: to this ConfL I mean, they took a very different
Speaker 1: approach than the US and UK. Now, some of the
Speaker 1: schism there has kind of been papered over for a
Speaker 1: number of months, but it's in actions like this that
Speaker 1: you see it re emerging. They have a great, much
Speaker 1: greater commitment to actually trying to resolve this conflict and
Speaker 1: bring it to an end than certainly the Biden administration
Speaker 1: has ever demonstrated, and especially with the recent comments very
Speaker 1: clearly from the Biden administration, you know, immediately dismissing the
Speaker 1: Chinese Peace Plan, immediately saying that any sort of offer
Speaker 1: of a ceasefire, brokering of a ceasefire from China should
Speaker 1: be rejected out of hand. Clearly, France and Germany have
Speaker 1: a very different view here, and again, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: that is very welcome because I think it benefits everyone,
Speaker 1: including Ukrainians, to try to reach an end to this
Speaker 1: horrific war which has been devastating to their people first
Speaker 1: and foremost. Yeah, I think you're right, Crystal, And just
Speaker 1: like looking at all of this and just seeing the
Speaker 1: way that it's all coming together, it is clear that
Speaker 1: there is a lot going on outside of Washington where
Speaker 1: people not only disagree with us, are actively bucking us.
Speaker 1: We are the ones at the end of the day
Speaker 1: who might be left holding the bag quote unquote because
Speaker 1: we're the ones basically funding the entire conflict and b
Speaker 1: if it does come to sort of settlement and we
Speaker 1: don't have a major role playing in that and actually
Speaker 1: bringing that about, what is the conclusion for the rest
Speaker 1: of the world, especially in a post Iraq environment, is
Speaker 1: that we are belligerents, that we are opposition to peace,
Speaker 1: that we don't care about peace. And that was something
Speaker 1: that we worked so hard after the perst World War
Speaker 1: two order to establish that as a given. And sure
Speaker 1: Vietnam was bad, but you know, during that basically that
Speaker 1: entire period, it was it was a given that any
Speaker 1: international settlement would be Washington led. And now that's breaking up,
Speaker 1: and it's just even more of a sign of multipolarity. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: all right, let's go to Nordstream. This is just one
Speaker 1: of the most laughable things that you are ever going
Speaker 1: to read. And I almost I'm with a straight face,
Speaker 1: going to attempt to show you what the new intelligence
Speaker 1: is showing you around the nord Stream pipeline bomb that's
Speaker 1: going to put this up there on the screen. Investigators
Speaker 1: are skeptical of a yacht's role in the nord Stream
Speaker 1: pipeline bombing. Officials believe more than one vessel might have
Speaker 1: been involved in sabotaging the natural gas pipeline and wonder
Speaker 1: if a fifty foot sailing yacht that investigators have scoured
Speaker 1: for clues could be a decoy. Yeah you think. Officials
Speaker 1: hope that the true purpose of this quote unquote deep
Speaker 1: sea demolition will provide further insight into high stakes international
Speaker 1: who done it, who could eventually lead to the response
Speaker 1: who is responsible and explain their motives. US and European
Speaker 1: officials said they still don't know for sure who is
Speaker 1: behind the underwater attack said that they shared German skepticism
Speaker 1: that a crew of six on a sailboat laid out
Speaker 1: hundreds of pounds of explosives that disabled the Nordstream pipeline.
Speaker 1: Experts noted while it was theoretically possible to do that
Speaker 1: pipeline by hand, even skilled divers would be challenged submerging
Speaker 1: more than two hundred feet to the seabed, slowly rising
Speaker 1: to the surface to allow time for their bodies to decompress.
Speaker 1: In other words, this was a professional job that basically
Speaker 1: only a nation state could do. And the idea that
Speaker 1: some Ukrainian rotary club that happened to, you know, acquire
Speaker 1: this fifty foot sailing boat and just row it on
Speaker 1: out there by themselves, by their own gumption, and then
Speaker 1: you know, professionally dove down two hundred feet and then
Speaker 1: stuck a bunch of C four all on this controlled
Speaker 1: deminition with military grade explosives just seems a little bit skeptical.
Speaker 1: My personal favorite quote from the entire thing, let's go
Speaker 1: and put this up there on the screen, is this,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to read it in full. At the
Speaker 1: gatherings of European and NATO policymakers, officials have sett into
Speaker 1: a rhythm. Don't talk about Nordstream leaders see little benefit
Speaker 1: from digging too deeply and finding an uncomfortable answer, echoing
Speaker 1: sentiments of several peers in other countries who said they
Speaker 1: would rather not have to deal with the possibility that
Speaker 1: Ukraine or allies were involved interesting or allies. I think
Speaker 1: that's the first time that we've ever seen that, and
Speaker 1: that just opens up the entire discussion as to how
Speaker 1: all this is playing out. I mean, originally, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody knew either way. Of course, there were suspicions on
Speaker 1: both sides, and you had the crazy tweet there from
Speaker 1: the Polish MP who said, thank you USA for breaking
Speaker 1: blowing the pipeline before you then deleted it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to speak to declaratively or any of that.
Speaker 1: Despite suspicions. Then though, the New York Times went through
Speaker 1: the CIA leaks comes out and it's like, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: it was the Ukrainians, Like, the Ukraines are the ones
Speaker 1: who did we see Ukrainian hand But by the ways,
Speaker 1: Lensky didn't have anything to do with it, so don't
Speaker 1: worry about that. It was just like a bunch of
Speaker 1: rogue private Ukrainians that happened to do this. But then
Speaker 1: obviously everyone was like, well, how did the Ukrainians have
Speaker 1: this technology? Like how do they have the you know,
Speaker 1: the logistics, the wherewithal to pull off the operation like this,
Speaker 1: and so increasingly these European allies are like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: just don't really want to know who blew up the pipeline,
Speaker 1: which is actually crazy because at the time they considered
Speaker 1: it one of the most significant acts outside of the
Speaker 1: conflict and thought it was a genuine act of war
Speaker 1: by the Russians, with fears that it would spiral into
Speaker 1: a global conflict. But now even though per their words,
Speaker 1: they thought it was threatening, you know, the global order
Speaker 1: and their own energy supply and all that, like, noah,
Speaker 1: now we have no aga, let's just yeah, let's just
Speaker 1: move on. Let's just move on. They actually had another
Speaker 1: piece in here. They said it's like a corpse at
Speaker 1: a family gathering. This European diplomat said, everyone can see
Speaker 1: there's a body lying there, but pretends things are normal.
Speaker 1: It's better not to know, Okay, I mean, it is amazing,
Speaker 1: and it is also amazing how pathetic that explanation they
Speaker 1: tried to run in the New York Times of like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's at this little like dinky yacht and a group
Speaker 1: of Ukrainian affiliated you know, partisans but not affiliated with
Speaker 1: the government, just the Ukrainian Rotary Club operating on their
Speaker 1: own with such obvious bullshit that even the mainstream press
Speaker 1: had to acknowledge that this seems utterly preposterous. But of
Speaker 1: course they won't give any credence to the reporting from
Speaker 1: Seymour Hirsh, you know, with all the details about you know,
Speaker 1: what his sources suggest actually happened. With regards to the
Speaker 1: US potentially being involved in blowing this thing up, it
Speaker 1: really is beyond parody, and it is important to underscore
Speaker 1: this is an act of international terror. I mean this.
Speaker 1: They were not wrong in the initial assessment that this
Speaker 1: is a gigantic deal, that it is an act of
Speaker 1: war that is a dramatic escalation, But now that it
Speaker 1: looks increasingly clear and sort of undeniable that it was
Speaker 1: Ukraine or their allies quote unquote, now they're like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it wasn't such a big deal and we should
Speaker 1: just not talk about it. It's just Lauren, it's a joke. Amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the ongoing investigation apparently is dead, so I guess we'll
Speaker 1: never know who blew up the noise. All right, let's
Speaker 1: go to the next part here. Some significant news also
Speaker 1: that happened just a couple of days ago April fourth,
Speaker 1: let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: The official release from NATO. Finland has now officially become
Speaker 1: NATO's newest member as of April fourth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: where the flag of Finland was raised upon the North
Speaker 1: Atlantic Treaty Alliance's office in Brussels, where they signed the
Speaker 1: Finland Ascension Protocol on July fifth of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: after all thirty national parliaments voted to ratify the country's membership.
Speaker 1: So currently Sweden is also working its way through the process.
Speaker 1: I believe they had to strike some deal with Erdowan
Speaker 1: and with Turkey around the PKK in order to do so.
Speaker 1: It's just amusing also interestingly, right Turkey the only nation
Speaker 1: in NATO that was like, listen, yeah, sure, we'll give
Speaker 1: it to you, but you actually have to give something
Speaker 1: to us. It's amazing once again that other countries look
Speaker 1: at things in print quid pro quos. We are effectively
Speaker 1: embracing the new and extending the US nuclear umbrella to Finland,
Speaker 1: a nation which we never had a security guarantee with
Speaker 1: ever before, which with eight hundred miles of now new
Speaker 1: NATO border with Russia, and there was not one debate
Speaker 1: or consternation in this country about doing so. This is
Speaker 1: a monumentally strategic decision. You can look at it and
Speaker 1: not say that it hasn't dramatically changed the face of Europe. Now,
Speaker 1: if you in the comments want to comment about why
Speaker 1: you're willing to go die for the fate of Helsinki,
Speaker 1: you know you can be my guest. However, Russia has
Speaker 1: now responded, let's go and put this up there on
Speaker 1: the screen. Russia says Finland's NATO ascension is a dangerous
Speaker 1: and historic mistake. Russia said on Tuesday that the ascension
Speaker 1: to NATO's military alliance was a historic mistake that would
Speaker 1: weaken security in the wider region, increase the risk of conflict,
Speaker 1: and force Moscow to take countermeasures. That's basically the most
Speaker 1: fulsome comments that they've made on it so far. That
Speaker 1: they even had some pro Kremlin activists apparently in Moscow
Speaker 1: but with anti NATO demonstrations. Who knows if that's true
Speaker 1: or not. But look from a broader strategic point of
Speaker 1: view this, let's say you believe the Russians on their face,
Speaker 1: they said that the reason that they were invading Ukraine
Speaker 1: was because that Ukraine was getting too close to NATO
Speaker 1: and to prevent any sort of ascension. So then the
Speaker 1: West was like, well, to make sure that this never
Speaker 1: happens again, we should then induct new countries into NATO
Speaker 1: because Russia said that NATO was getting too close to
Speaker 1: its border, so we're getting even closer to their border. Now.
Speaker 1: I can already hear the screeches about how it would
Speaker 1: be appeasement not to let Finland and Sweden into NATO.
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't say that you wouldn't help them
Speaker 1: if they got into a conflict. I just said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in NATO now we're basically blood brothers,
Speaker 1: and we have to go to nuclear war on your behalf.
Speaker 1: That seems kind of concerning. I'm just wondering exactly what
Speaker 1: you bring to the alliance. Finland and Sweden, two countries
Speaker 1: which are massive welfare states with less than two percent
Speaker 1: national spending on GDP for literally for years. What are
Speaker 1: you doing for us? I would be apparently a trader
Speaker 1: and a pro Kremlin activist to be asking these types
Speaker 1: of questions, which I would just remind everyone there's a
Speaker 1: great book called The Wise Men about the people who
Speaker 1: built the post Cold War or the post war nineteen
Speaker 1: forty five International order. These were, as the title alludes, to,
Speaker 1: the wise men who went through the horrors of the
Speaker 1: Cold War and of the Second World War and watched
Speaker 1: fifty five million people die and decided to be cold
Speaker 1: blooded strategic analysts to try and forge a path through
Speaker 1: the Cold War in which the world would not be
Speaker 1: annihilated through nuclear war. One of those men was George Kennon,
Speaker 1: and George Kennon who we have spoken repeatedly about here
Speaker 1: on the show, and I did an entire monologue about
Speaker 1: some of his private thoughts about NATO expansion, and others
Speaker 1: warned repeatedly about expanding NATO eastward, specifically to avoid some
Speaker 1: nightmare scenario like this one. Now again I want to
Speaker 1: represent the counterview. The counterview is is that US security
Speaker 1: guarantees to Finland and to Sweden guarantees that those nations
Speaker 1: never will be invaded because the cost would be so
Speaker 1: high to the Russians and extends broader peace and security,
Speaker 1: you know, throughout the European continent. And maybe you're right,
Speaker 1: but the problem that I always come back to is
Speaker 1: if you're wrong, now we are literally going to nuke
Speaker 1: Russia on behalf of the fate of Helsinki. And you
Speaker 1: know I've said this before, helsinc have been there. It's fine,
Speaker 1: it's a nice place. That said though, just looking at it,
Speaker 1: as I alluded to earlier in our show cold Hard
Speaker 1: balance sheet trade with Finland, what is Finland bringing to us?
Speaker 1: What exactly are we getting out of this? I don't
Speaker 1: see it. I don't see why we should annihilate our
Speaker 1: entire country for hell Sinki or for Stockholm. Once again,
Speaker 1: they're nice places, but I don't know why their fate
Speaker 1: literally matters to us here at all. Nobody can answer
Speaker 1: that question. Yeah, I think you lay that out all
Speaker 1: very well. There's just two pieces that I would add.
Speaker 1: Number One, we made a mistake in the past by
Speaker 1: not listening to our adversaries and what they were saying
Speaker 1: and taking serious what they were saying. Now, Russia is
Speaker 1: responsible for the invasions. They're bald, it's illegal, one hundred
Speaker 1: percent all of that stuff. However, there is no doubt
Speaker 1: that our actions in expanding NATO eastward, after basically saying
Speaker 1: that we wouldn't and over and above the vociferous objections
Speaker 1: of Russia, that we sort of just swatted aside as
Speaker 1: bluster and nonsense and big talk, but no action. Clearly
Speaker 1: that helped provide a justification in terms of Russia's view
Speaker 1: for this war, illegal war that they launched in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: So that's number one. We never learned the mistake of
Speaker 1: you actually have to listen to your adversaries and take
Speaker 1: serious seriously what they're saying. The other thing that I
Speaker 1: would say here is, you know, I think in a sense,
Speaker 1: and we've been talking a lot about China and how
Speaker 1: they're viewing this conflict and how in certain ways they
Speaker 1: have really benefited from this conflict. It really has forced
Speaker 1: into view what was probably already there, which is a
Speaker 1: new multipolar reality. I think this has been This war
Speaker 1: has been a disaster though for Russia because the last
Speaker 1: thing they wanted was a NATO expansion. And so even
Speaker 1: as I you know, obviously share your concerns about what
Speaker 1: this means for us as well, they are very very
Speaker 1: unhappy with this, and it's the polar opposite of the
Speaker 1: result that they would have wanted to see in terms
Speaker 1: of prosecuting this war. So those are the only two
Speaker 1: pieces that I would add to Oh you should add.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, that's all I think it should be given. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's been a disaster for them. This is one of
Speaker 1: the dumbest things that they've ever done. They've wasted probably
Speaker 1: hundreds of billions of rubles on them if they crippled
Speaker 1: their economy, They've become pariahsed in the eyes of the world.
Speaker 1: They've increased defense spending in Germany and France, which is
Speaker 1: literally a miracle because there were some cheap asses over there,
Speaker 1: and you know, it hasn't worked out well for them,
Speaker 1: and no matter what decades from now, it won't. The
Speaker 1: real question is what do you do about it? You're like,
Speaker 1: do you want to keep kicking them when they're down
Speaker 1: and assume that they'll always be down? You could think that,
Speaker 1: you know, that's basically what we did throughout the nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties and the two thousands. We said, look at this country,
Speaker 1: it's a joke. They just lost half their territory through
Speaker 1: the USSR. They're economically in the middle of a nightmare.
Speaker 1: You know, during all this, during the transition from communism
Speaker 1: to free market capitalism, they're basically got gangster oligarchs running
Speaker 1: their country. What are they going to do if we
Speaker 1: expand an Ato into Estonia and Finland. Fast forward twenty
Speaker 1: two years and you find out so that's one of
Speaker 1: those where look, this is irrevocable. You can't take it back.
Speaker 1: It's not a temporary action. I can tell you right now.
Speaker 1: There were only like four people in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: whenever all of this was being considered in the US
Speaker 1: public sphere, that were like, hey, you may want to
Speaker 1: think twice about this. One of them was George Kennon,
Speaker 1: the guy who warned and built the post world Cold
Speaker 1: War order and they literally the father of a containment strategy,
Speaker 1: and he said, there may come a time when Moscow feels,
Speaker 1: you know, like they have been encircled, and that they
Speaker 1: may retaliate out as a result of that. This is
Speaker 1: not a justification. It's only to say Russia is going
Speaker 1: to exist. You know, unless you are the most online
Speaker 1: NAPO person in the world, Russia is not just going
Speaker 1: to die anytime soon, and so you should assume it'll
Speaker 1: probably be around in some form in the next twenty
Speaker 1: five years. You should also assume that Putin is not
Speaker 1: just the expression of like who he is, but is
Speaker 1: expressing a longstanding tradition. Frankly in terms of how Russian
Speaker 1: leaders view their security situation. So even if he is
Speaker 1: dead twenty five years from now, where is the guarantee
Speaker 1: that the future leader will have learned anything or isn't
Speaker 1: even more hawkish and warlike than Vladimir Putin? Right? Are
Speaker 1: you setting the table for a future piece or are
Speaker 1: you setting the table for what the next conflict is
Speaker 1: going to look like? And very much my fear with
Speaker 1: the further expansion of NATO as that we are just
Speaker 1: setting ourselves up for further conflict in the future. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about what we just learned.
Speaker 1: In terms of twenty twenty four politics, everybody is sending
Speaker 1: in their big fundraising numbers for the first quarter. Nikki
Speaker 1: Hayley is bragging about the number that she was able
Speaker 1: to post. Let's go and put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Apparently she announced she raised more than eleven million dollars
Speaker 1: in the six weeks since she announced. This person indicates
Speaker 1: that for comparison, the Trump campaign says he raised upwards
Speaker 1: of ten million just since the news of his formal
Speaker 1: indictment broke on Thursday, So it does take a little
Speaker 1: bit of the windown of the sales, but Nevertheless, eleven
Speaker 1: million dollars is a significant sum. I crunch the numbers.
Speaker 1: Her average donation is something like one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: six dollars. A person comes from seventy thousand donations, and
Speaker 1: a number of them, she says, are two hundred dollars
Speaker 1: or less. So they're very excited about this. But you know,
Speaker 1: Sagom and I look at it. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I ever doubted Nikki Haley would
Speaker 1: have big money behind her. That's her whole reason for existing.
Speaker 1: That's the only reason why she's in the political landscape
Speaker 1: at all, is because she is sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris figure that the donor class loves, even as
Speaker 1: there's very little public appetite for her. That's number one
Speaker 1: and number two. At the presidential level, money becomes so
Speaker 1: much less relevant when you have Donald Trump in the
Speaker 1: race and he literally gets millions tens of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars in free airtime and publicity every single day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about it this way too,
Speaker 1: Like you know, Trump was outspent almost ten to one
Speaker 1: in the twenty sixteen campaign, and he won. He actually
Speaker 1: reasspending parity or ish in twenty twenty and he lost.
Speaker 1: So it's not like money actually matters all that much,
Speaker 1: you know, And also at this level to Trump and
Speaker 1: presidential level. When it comes to Trump in the presidential level,
Speaker 1: I just don't think money is the big deciding factor here.
Speaker 1: I think it's cope basically on everyone's part. Now, it certainly,
Speaker 1: obviously it does matter, but to what level. Nobody can
Speaker 1: really tell you that. And just by and large, like
Speaker 1: insurgent campaigns have won before, you know very well, money
Speaker 1: campaigns have lost. If anything, there's a lot of good
Speaker 1: evidence on the Trump side that anytime he's hamstrung by
Speaker 1: a real professional organization, it actually doesn't work out as
Speaker 1: well for him, and that he's better in a freer
Speaker 1: and a loose environment. And you know, Jeb Bush had
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars, Like, how did that work? Came
Speaker 1: in fifth place? So like there's also no evidence that
Speaker 1: Visa v. Trump, that running all these negative ads and
Speaker 1: trying to work against him, even with all the money
Speaker 1: in the world, is going to do a damn thing.
Speaker 1: So you know, Okay, congratulations Nikki Haley. I guess you
Speaker 1: know you can you can buy more than Scott Walker.
Speaker 1: Remember that. I mean the guy had thirty forty million
Speaker 1: dollars in the bank. Yeah, didn't do anything. I mean
Speaker 1: the problem of for Nicki Haley is the same problem
Speaker 1: that Hillary Clinton had, which is, you can have all
Speaker 1: the money in the world, but if you're selling a
Speaker 1: product that nobody wants, doesn't really make a big difference.
Speaker 1: We also got some numbers from Ron DeSantis' affiliated super pack.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up on the screen there. His pack
Speaker 1: is called Never Back Down. And the committee raised thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars in fundraising since the super pac launched back
Speaker 1: on March ninth, so you know, basically in a month's time.
Speaker 1: They said the money was raised rather than transferred from
Speaker 1: other committees, and half of the contributions came from donors
Speaker 1: outside of Florida. So also certainly plenty of money behind
Speaker 1: the Rohn DeSantis hope, right, Yeah, I mean thirty million dollars.
Speaker 1: Once again, it sounds like a lot of money if
Speaker 1: that's actually only one third of what Jeb Bush had
Speaker 1: raised whenever before he eventually even declared in it. And
Speaker 1: where is the evidence that money is what's where's the
Speaker 1: evidence that what can money buy you? Nay id in advertising.
Speaker 1: Is that really DeSantis' problem here, or is it that
Speaker 1: people like Trump more than him or may not even
Speaker 1: like him in the GOP primary, that they feel that
Speaker 1: Trump is under threat and they need to stand with
Speaker 1: him over this. No money in the world is going
Speaker 1: to fix it. And as you just said, Trump probably
Speaker 1: just got a billion dollars in free media just in
Speaker 1: the last week from the coverage that he received in
Speaker 1: terms of his arrest. You can outspend that. Theres are
Speaker 1: you can't compete with the amount of you know, unpaid
Speaker 1: media that Trump is able to garner just every single
Speaker 1: day because obviously the more that the liberal networks hate him,
Speaker 1: the better it is for him. And Fox News, which
Speaker 1: really was trying to turn the page on Trump and
Speaker 1: really do their Ronda sand As that boosting, you know,
Speaker 1: they're backed into a corner where they can't help but
Speaker 1: go all in on Trump coverage as well, because, as
Speaker 1: I think was revealed in the dominion lawsuit, like they
Speaker 1: just don't have control over their audience to force something
Speaker 1: different on them. They have to go with the flow
Speaker 1: of where the Republican base is at right now. And again,
Speaker 1: even as you know, these are impressive fundraising numbers. It's
Speaker 1: not like Trump isn't also raising a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up on the screen. Apparently he has
Speaker 1: raked in ten million dollars from supporters since a Manhattan
Speaker 1: grand jury indicted him. They collected roughly two million on
Speaker 1: Tuesday alone, as Trump was being arraigned in a New
Speaker 1: York courtroom. And as part of that fundraising campaign, they
Speaker 1: actually are selling a T shirt with a fake Trump
Speaker 1: mugshot on it to show you how much they see
Speaker 1: the indictment here and you know, potential ones in the
Speaker 1: future as a boon for him, at least in the
Speaker 1: Republican primary. I think it's a different story in the
Speaker 1: general election. I always want to say that, but pretty
Speaker 1: clear in the Republican primary, his polling numbers have just
Speaker 1: shot through the roof. He now is the clearly dominant
Speaker 1: figure in terms of Republican voters, in terms of media coverage, like,
Speaker 1: good luck with all of your millions other contenders getting
Speaker 1: any oxygen and airtime in this race at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating, you know, just continuingly breaking it
Speaker 1: down and just looking at the way that Trump is
Speaker 1: able to dominate all of this like ten million dollars
Speaker 1: in a single week. Is again, it's not about the money.
Speaker 1: It's just about the expression of love and of loyalty
Speaker 1: that he is willing to garner from millions of small
Speaker 1: dollar donors that just don't exist for any other Republican candidate.
Speaker 1: And that's just something that he will always be able
Speaker 1: to tap over and over and over again, and none
Speaker 1: of these other yeah, actually have. It's a huge strategic
Speaker 1: advantage on his behalf. And also, I mean he's been
Speaker 1: building these lists for a lot of years now. Now
Speaker 1: I do think they have gone back to the well
Speaker 1: of these lists. I mean, he is very abusive in
Speaker 1: terms of the amount of fundraising emails that he sends out,
Speaker 1: and it has really taken away. Other Republican candidates in
Speaker 1: setate primaries and whatever have really complained about the way
Speaker 1: that the whole Republican base is like tapped out because
Speaker 1: the Trump operation is just constantly like clawing whatever scraps
Speaker 1: of dollars they can from this fundraising base. But you know, nevertheless,
Speaker 1: he has certainly built an extensive list, He certainly has
Speaker 1: a really dedicated, enthusiastic following, and you know, the more
Speaker 1: that they see him as being under threat, the more
Speaker 1: that they are likely to give. The more the media
Speaker 1: covers him, the more Democrats salivate about what they think
Speaker 1: is great for them and Donald Trump being potential next
Speaker 1: Republican nominee once again, and you know, just full service
Speaker 1: economy there for everybody fault. Yeah, absolutely, all right, couple
Speaker 1: of media stories that we could not resist. All right,
Speaker 1: you're gonna enjoy this one. So Elon Musk has been
Speaker 1: in full troll mode recently, taking away in your time's
Speaker 1: blue check mark, which is legitimately funny. And now another
Speaker 1: move which I also think is legitimately funny. Let's go
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen. He marked NPR
Speaker 1: as US state affiliated media on Twitter. You know, same
Speaker 1: designation that like RT or whatever would ultimately get. And
Speaker 1: so obviously there was a lot of debate about this
Speaker 1: and a lot of hand ringing among liberals in particular.
Speaker 1: How dare you now? Just like I looked at the numbers,
Speaker 1: NPR does receive a significant portion, I think like ten percent.
Speaker 1: Hold on, I've got it. So this is where it's
Speaker 1: in dispute, and that's actually wanted to spend some time off.
Speaker 1: So they claim that they only get one percent or
Speaker 1: so of their operating budget from the federal government, or
Speaker 1: at the very least in taxpayer dollars. However, in several
Speaker 1: of their communications they actually say that they would be
Speaker 1: it would be impossible for them to actually it would
Speaker 1: be impossible for them to operate without federal funding. So
Speaker 1: the true figure is actually very unclear. But in their
Speaker 1: marketing dollars, from what they have put out at least
Speaker 1: so far, they make it clear that federal appropriations, at
Speaker 1: least in some cases, are basically the only reason that
Speaker 1: they are allowed to exist on top of their overall donors.
Speaker 1: So Michael Tracy has been digging into this a lot,
Speaker 1: and so I have one of the things that he
Speaker 1: pulled up here. I mean, first of all, yes, in
Speaker 1: their communications, they said federal funding is essential to public
Speaker 1: radio service in the American public and its continuation is
Speaker 1: critical for both stations and program producers, including and PR.
Speaker 1: And then they offered a breakdown of where their funding
Speaker 1: comes from. The plurality. Forty three percent, according to their communication,
Speaker 1: comes from individuals, eight percent comes from federal appropriation, and
Speaker 1: five percent comes from federal, state and local governments. So
Speaker 1: you're talking about thirteen percent there nothing coming from government entities.
Speaker 1: And look, by the way, I don't like I'm actually
Speaker 1: fine with the government like supporting nonprofit radio, PBS whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't have an issue with it. But there has
Speaker 1: always been a level of not even arbitrariness, but clear
Speaker 1: bias in how news outlets are labeled, whether they are
Speaker 1: dismissed as state propaganda or not, based on the relationship
Speaker 1: to like is it an Allied Nations state propaganda network,
Speaker 1: is it a US state propaganda network, or is it
Speaker 1: a you know, official US bad guy States state propaganda network.
Speaker 1: And that's just not just on Twitter. That's on all
Speaker 1: kinds of places, like things like Voice of America, which
Speaker 1: are truly your like the BBC right, which are truly
Speaker 1: I mean Voice of America is directly like American US
Speaker 1: government propaganda, and that doesn't get the label on certain
Speaker 1: platforms where of course, you know, RT which also you know,
Speaker 1: deserves the label and people should be aware of the
Speaker 1: biases inherent there consistently does so I'm not saying Elon
Speaker 1: is being even handed here, of course he's not. He's
Speaker 1: being completely biased as well. And my bigger issue I
Speaker 1: have complicated feelings about this because in some ways, I'm like,
Speaker 1: maybe our lives would all be better if Twitter just
Speaker 1: did like die and go away. So I can't even
Speaker 1: say like I'm fully mourning it. But the one silver
Speaker 1: lining to me is that his totally random, capricious, troll
Speaker 1: like behavior really demonstrates the total arbitrariness with which all
Speaker 1: of these platforms are really run and how much they
Speaker 1: are just subject to the whims of whoever happens to
Speaker 1: be in control. And I don't think it's a bad
Speaker 1: thing that that is exposed, So I see it as
Speaker 1: sort of silver lining, even as I find most of
Speaker 1: his decision making a Twitter to be a total disaster,
Speaker 1: and the platform is already snificantly degraded and way less
Speaker 1: useful and way less of a decent user experience than
Speaker 1: it used to be, and it already wasn't great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely correct, And nothing would convince you
Speaker 1: that NPR is not state media than the White House
Speaker 1: Press Secretary coming to their defense. Yeah. So social media
Speaker 1: companies make their own independent decisions about content rules, so
Speaker 1: I won't comment on Twitter's rules, But what I will
Speaker 1: say more broadly, I'll say there's no doubt of the
Speaker 1: independence of NPR's journalists and has been. If you've ever
Speaker 1: been on the receiving end of their questions, that you
Speaker 1: know this, You know that they have their independence and journalism.
Speaker 1: NPR journalists work digitally to hold public officials accountable and
Speaker 1: inform the American people. The hard hitting independence nature of
Speaker 1: their coverage speaks for itself. Why does she have a
Speaker 1: prepared statement defending NPR is not state media whend she's
Speaker 1: the government propagandist. That's nuts. That actually convinces you the opposite.
Speaker 1: NPR's managing editor also put out a very upset statement
Speaker 1: that's put this up there on the screen. We were
Speaker 1: very disturbed to see last night. Twitter has labeled NPR
Speaker 1: state media. Description that per our guidelines, does not apply
Speaker 1: to NPR. NPR and member stations are supported by millions
Speaker 1: of listeners who depend on us for independent, fact chase
Speaker 1: journalism that we provide. NPR stands for freedom of speech
Speaker 1: and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter
Speaker 1: to label us this way. A vibrant, figorous free press
Speaker 1: is essential to the health of our democracy. But some
Speaker 1: of us didn't yet. Forget about a tweet sent in
Speaker 1: October of twenty twenty let's go ahead and put this
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. From the NPR public editor,
Speaker 1: Why haven't you seen any stories from NPR about the
Speaker 1: New York Post Hunter Biden story? Read more in this newsletter,
Speaker 1: here's the quote. We don't want to waste our time
Speaker 1: on stories that are not really stories. We don't want
Speaker 1: to waste the listeners and readers' time on stories that
Speaker 1: are just pure distractions. So how can the Biden administration
Speaker 1: claim with a straight face that they have faced tough
Speaker 1: questions from NPR when they were the most forward and
Speaker 1: out there really in leading the campaign to discredit the
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden laptop story. Like your joke, you're not actually independent,
Speaker 1: you are one hundred percent actually state affiliated media with
Speaker 1: an obvious bias. And as you said, Crystal, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's just a joke that we all pretend that VOA,
Speaker 1: Radio Free Europe and BBC also aren't. Yeah, they are good,
Speaker 1: you know, put I guess just put the labels on
Speaker 1: all of them. Yeah, just be consistent. I mean again,
Speaker 1: this isn't consistent. The problem for NPR is actually not
Speaker 1: that they receive funding from the government, because it's not
Speaker 1: like their ideological disposition changed during the Trump years when
Speaker 1: they were getting funding from the Trump administration. Right, their
Speaker 1: issue is the same issue that CNN has that MSNBC has,
Speaker 1: which is the sort of ideological capture really by their
Speaker 1: audience base where they rather than really doing independent fact
Speaker 1: finding or really surfacing stories that are stories in their
Speaker 1: own words, they're serving their audience, which is overwhelmingly like affluent, liberal,
Speaker 1: educated liberals, and so they are putting out the content
Speaker 1: through the ideological lens that serves that audience base. Same
Speaker 1: thing New York Times is doing, same thing, CNN is doing,
Speaker 1: same thing MSNBC is doing. So yes, they get funding
Speaker 1: from the government, but the real issue with them in
Speaker 1: terms of any you know, their reporting failures in particular
Speaker 1: on the Hunter Biden issue, is more about sort of
Speaker 1: ideological audience capture and playing to what where they see
Speaker 1: their primary revenue coming from their you know, ideologically not
Speaker 1: diverse base. That's where I think they get into trouble
Speaker 1: in the same way as many other news organizations. I
Speaker 1: think you're correct. The entire thing just reveals like how
Speaker 1: much of a farce really that they handle themselves. And yeah, look,
Speaker 1: the freak out is delicious, It's enjoyable and to the
Speaker 1: extent that I'm enjoying the chaos, even though my own
Speaker 1: personal Twitter experience has become far worse. This is definitely
Speaker 1: why Yeah, for sure. Speaking of other liberal media outlets
Speaker 1: with issues we have covered here, you know Don Lemon's
Speaker 1: comments about you know, when women are in their prime
Speaker 1: and the obvious hatred that his female co hosts have
Speaker 1: for him on their new failing morning show. Variety has
Speaker 1: a new in depth report about a long track record
Speaker 1: of alleged behavior from mister Lemon within the network that
Speaker 1: has been really, according to their reporting, again quite outrageous.
Speaker 1: I mean some of the cat shit it's psychotic. That
Speaker 1: he is used to bully and intimidate his colleagues across
Speaker 1: the board is quite disturbing. Let's go on and put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. Daily Beast had a write
Speaker 1: up of the reporting that again originated in a Variety.
Speaker 1: The headline here is Don Lemon's history of alleged misogyny
Speaker 1: and diva like behavior detailed in a new report. I
Speaker 1: will give you some of the low lights here. One
Speaker 1: in particular is he was upset that one of his
Speaker 1: colleagues I think got sent to a rock had like
Speaker 1: some you know plum prominent position. This was back a while,
Speaker 1: It was like two thousand and eight. He got a
Speaker 1: burner phone and started sending this colleague these threatening messages
Speaker 1: through the burner phone, things like now you've crossed the
Speaker 1: line and you're going to pay for it. CNN did
Speaker 1: an internal human resources investigation and they traced those texts
Speaker 1: back to Don Lemon. Now, in any sane workplace, that
Speaker 1: sort of like truly psychotic behavior would certainly get you fired.
Speaker 1: But not for Don Lemon. He was pulled from his
Speaker 1: co anchor duties with this female. He was just moved
Speaker 1: to the weekends, so push to the weekends. Demoted, but
Speaker 1: not removed from the organization. They also say that those
Speaker 1: who worked with him say he was a quote shameless
Speaker 1: name dropper, left behind hints that he socialized with important people,
Speaker 1: like a handwritten note from Stedman Graham that he had
Speaker 1: taped on his computer. Some were also unnerved by his
Speaker 1: talk of previous lawsuits, believing it signaled he was litigious.
Speaker 1: He frequently let drop that he successfully sued Tower Records
Speaker 1: as well as the Chicago PD for racial profiling and
Speaker 1: didn't need to worry about money thanks to the settlements
Speaker 1: called one of his producers fat to her face. He
Speaker 1: mocked Nancy Grace on air. He apparently was particularly prickly
Speaker 1: about any other host getting prominent, any sort of prominent
Speaker 1: hosting gigs with regard to issues like black American focused issues.
Speaker 1: So Solo Dad O'Brien landed the gig of hosting CNN's
Speaker 1: Black in America docu series and ring an editorial call
Speaker 1: attended by roughly thirty staffers, he suggested O'Brien was not
Speaker 1: actually black, according to two witnesses, who found the characterization
Speaker 1: wildly offensive. He made some nasty comments about Si Cub
Speaker 1: having like mommy brain on air. It just goes on
Speaker 1: and on with this type of bullying, gross behavior, and
Speaker 1: you know, and some of it certainly verges on, like
Speaker 1: you know, sexual harassment. Now, Don Lemon is a gay man,
Speaker 1: so this really isn't about sex in any way. It's
Speaker 1: just about power with these sorts of comments and behavior
Speaker 1: from these individuals who think they are above it all
Speaker 1: and won't face any consequences, which by the way, he
Speaker 1: has not. They do this sort of stuff just to
Speaker 1: prove to you that they can and that they can
Speaker 1: get away with it, and that you're smaller than them
Speaker 1: and you just have to take whatever they're going to
Speaker 1: dish out. And that, to me is the pattern of behavior. Well,
Speaker 1: that really shows us. That's what they did. I mean,
Speaker 1: they elevated him over and over again. He's only been
Speaker 1: promoted and maybe made one of the major force faces
Speaker 1: in the network. And to your point about the whole
Speaker 1: power dynamic, they literally had a rule that you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to date anybody in the office, and he started
Speaker 1: dating one of his producers who was twenty years his junior,
Speaker 1: literally showing up at the office and riding to the
Speaker 1: car in the same time just to show everyone that
Speaker 1: he's like, the rules don't apply to me. He would
Speaker 1: flaunt it in front of everyone. The text though, that's
Speaker 1: got to be one of the craziest things I've ever heard, right,
Speaker 1: like you go and you buy. This was also fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, so remember guys, like, it's not like that
Speaker 1: easy to just go get There were no apps at
Speaker 1: that time that you could just download a number or
Speaker 1: whatever for a fake day. You had to go to
Speaker 1: a store on phone. You had to go to like
Speaker 1: a seven to eleven. You had to buy a burner
Speaker 1: phone that like drug dealers use. You had to get
Speaker 1: a card, you had to set this thing up, you
Speaker 1: had to put her phone number in, and then you
Speaker 1: had to text from that phone to that person that
Speaker 1: is strown cold crazy like what is going And then
Speaker 1: they do an investigation apparently so dumb that he's able
Speaker 1: to trace it back to him too, the only guy
Speaker 1: who've ever had a burner phone. Fair dumb they and
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, it was you, and then they don't
Speaker 1: do a damn thing about it. This moves of the weekends.
Speaker 1: It's totally crazy, like the way that he behaves. As
Speaker 1: you said, he's obvious like one of the most narcissistic
Speaker 1: individuals on all of television. And it's an indictment for
Speaker 1: all of the preening and you know liberal me too
Speaker 1: covers that they claim to stand for over there. This
Speaker 1: guy obviously should have been fired over fifteen sixteen years.
Speaker 1: Think of how demoralizing this far. Yeah, oh it must
Speaker 1: be tough one. I can't imagine everyone who has to
Speaker 1: come in contact, right And by the way, whenever you
Speaker 1: see these sort of stories uppear, which clearly they add
Speaker 1: a number of sources for and tons of stories going
Speaker 1: back years, it is once again a sign that everyone
Speaker 1: who has to work with you hates your guts and
Speaker 1: they are looking for any chance that they have to
Speaker 1: try to stick the knife in. I was reminded of
Speaker 1: the shitty men and media list, of course was like
Speaker 1: slanderous and you know, and recently actually they just had
Speaker 1: to settle that case, right, Yeah, But the reason it
Speaker 1: took off is because there are a lot of truth
Speaker 1: to the number of I wouldn't say just shitty men,
Speaker 1: but shitty people in media who rise to the top
Speaker 1: not because they're talented, not because it's some like meritocracy
Speaker 1: or whatever, but because of the gross tactics, psychopathic behavior,
Speaker 1: bullying power games that they are willing to play and
Speaker 1: know how to play. That's how a lot of these
Speaker 1: people rise to the top. And that was what really
Speaker 1: came out for me from reading this piece. And you know,
Speaker 1: by the way, I know some people at CNN and
Speaker 1: who confirmed much of this, you know to me privately
Speaker 1: that oh yeah, this is exactly how he's known as
Speaker 1: this bullying, abrasive diva who you know thinks that he's
Speaker 1: completely untouchable and has been right about that. By the way, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, it's crazy. I feel bad for anybody
Speaker 1: who has to work with him, although I don't have
Speaker 1: too much simply because they actually signed up for it
Speaker 1: and everybody knows that he's a monster, low level like producers,
Speaker 1: they shut to get their foot in the door, and
Speaker 1: they're subjected to this like psychode. That must be really
Speaker 1: tough working with somebody like that. I genuinely can't imagine.
Speaker 1: So thoughts and prayers for anybody who has to come
Speaker 1: into contact with Indeed, Crystal, what do you take a
Speaker 1: look at? Well? On January sixth, a Proud Boy member
Speaker 1: named Erin pushed his way towards the Capitol, reaching a
Speaker 1: barricade and holding it open for other rioters to more
Speaker 1: easily enter the building. At some point, however, he paused
Speaker 1: and sent the following message to his FBI handler quote
Speaker 1: barriers down at Capitol Building. Crowd surged forward about to
Speaker 1: reach the building. Now Proud Boys did not do it
Speaker 1: nor inspire now. Erin is one of quite a number
Speaker 1: of FBI informants who we now know we're working inside
Speaker 1: the right wing groups that have been charged with seditious
Speaker 1: conspiracy in connection with those January six attacks. The FBI
Speaker 1: had men inside the Proud Boys and inside the oath keepers.
Speaker 1: The founder of the Proud Voice himself had been a
Speaker 1: FED informant. So if the FBI had paid informants with
Speaker 1: a front row seat to January sixth, plotting, how the
Speaker 1: hell did law enforcement fail so dramatically on that day,
Speaker 1: caught seemingly with their pants down as a bunch of
Speaker 1: Mega and q Andon nut jobs storm the Capitol. Now,
Speaker 1: right wing commentators have suggested this wasn't actually a failure,
Speaker 1: but rather a plot by the deep state to make
Speaker 1: Trump supporters look bad. The new evidence that has emerged
Speaker 1: as part of the Proud Boys Proud Boy's trial reveals
Speaker 1: a much simpler explanation. Law enforcement failed to disrupt the
Speaker 1: attack or secure the capital due to run of the
Speaker 1: mill human failings of incompetence and ideological blindness, fueled by
Speaker 1: a Trump administration that was obsessed with Antifa and other
Speaker 1: left wing groups. Now, Aaron and every other FBI informant
Speaker 1: associated with the Proud Boys, and there were a lot
Speaker 1: of them, tell basically the same story. The FEDS had
Speaker 1: actually no interest in the Proud Boys, only in their
Speaker 1: left wing nemesis and Tifa. Courting the Washington Post quote,
Speaker 1: the evidence shown in court indicates that many of the
Speaker 1: FBI sources inside the Proud Boys were asked only about
Speaker 1: their ideological opponents on the left, even as that right
Speaker 1: wing group was implicated in threats and violce at protests
Speaker 1: across the United States. Aaron himself testified that before January six,
Speaker 1: the FBI never asked him to look for information about
Speaker 1: the Proud Boys. When he informed his handler he was
Speaker 1: going to DC for the protest, he was asked only
Speaker 1: to try to see if I could locate someone in
Speaker 1: DC that had nothing to do with the Proud Boys,
Speaker 1: he testified. So, even as he is telling the FEDS
Speaker 1: he's going to DC for January six protests, his FED
Speaker 1: handlers are not remotely curious about what the Proud Boys
Speaker 1: might be planning there. It appears the FEDS didn't ask
Speaker 1: any of their Proud Boys informants for Proud Boys Info
Speaker 1: founder in Rique Tario was a FED informant on a
Speaker 1: healthcare fraud case a while back, and continue to engage
Speaker 1: the agency in the years to come. Another defendant, Joseph Biggs,
Speaker 1: admitted he had also been an FBI informant providing information
Speaker 1: on quote Antifa networks, another right wing activist Jenny Lynn
Speaker 1: Salinus was revealed to be a government informant just before
Speaker 1: taking the stand to defend Proud Boys founder in rikue Tario.
Speaker 1: She was so cozy with the group that she was
Speaker 1: providing extensive advice for Proudboys members legal defense, unbeknownst to
Speaker 1: her FBI handlers. Similar to the others, Szalinas reportedly swore
Speaker 1: under oath that she was only providing info to the
Speaker 1: government on Antifa and the border, not on the members
Speaker 1: of the violent group that she was apparently deeply enmeshed with.
Speaker 1: As the judge explained quote, she wasn't tasked with reporting
Speaker 1: on Proud Boys. Her contacts with the defense camp are
Speaker 1: easily explained by her sympathy for the defendants. Another FED
Speaker 1: informant was actually at a heavily screwtinized parking lot meeting
Speaker 1: between Prodboy's leader Tarrio and Oath Keeper's leader Stuart Rhodes
Speaker 1: on the day before January sixth, So the FEDS literally
Speaker 1: had a guy at what they contend was a key
Speaker 1: meaning the day before the attacks. Still nothing, no action.
Speaker 1: Now that particular informant was able to avoid testifying because
Speaker 1: of fears of incriminating himself. The whole situation was really
Speaker 1: summed up quite well by yet another Proud Boy informant
Speaker 1: who said that quote they didn't want to know about
Speaker 1: the Proud Boys, they wanted to know about Antifa. With
Speaker 1: regards to January six he indicated that the FEDS were
Speaker 1: radio silent, apart from asking in advance whether he was
Speaker 1: going and afterwards whether he committed any crimes. This fits
Speaker 1: with the picture of law enforcement failure that has emerged
Speaker 1: since January sixth, because while the FBI may not have
Speaker 1: been getting tips when there are Proud Boy sources who
Speaker 1: were only focused on a mostly fictional Antifa, they were
Speaker 1: getting hundreds of other tips from a variety of sources
Speaker 1: around the country. Among those many tips was actually an
Speaker 1: Oathkeeper member who was so alarmed by the group's increasingly
Speaker 1: violent rhetoric he secretly recorded a meeting provided to the FBI.
Speaker 1: Once again, FBI took no action on this or any
Speaker 1: other tip until after the fact, failing to disrupt the
Speaker 1: activities in advance, failing alongside every other law enforcement agency
Speaker 1: to provide adequate security on the day of the attacks.
Speaker 1: Their own ideological biases, combined with the Trump administration's obsession
Speaker 1: with the Antifa blinded them to the possibility of violence
Speaker 1: that was literally right in front of them. So if
Speaker 1: they weren't disrupting actual plots being hashed red under their
Speaker 1: noses with help from their own informants, what were they
Speaker 1: actually Doingjournalist Trevor Aronson of The Alphabet Boys podcast provides
Speaker 1: one answer here, they were apparently using criminals to infiltrate
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter protests and an attempt to entrap protest leaders,
Speaker 1: follment violence and so dissent in those groups. The Gretchen
Speaker 1: Whitmer kidnapping plot mess provides another answer. They were also
Speaker 1: apparently helping to hatch high profile plots that they could
Speaker 1: then swoop in and pretend to disrupt in a way
Speaker 1: that would be advantageous for a lot of law enforcement careers.
Speaker 1: Because it's so high profile, it's a lot of work,
Speaker 1: I guess, to invent kidnapping plots and entrap protesters with
Speaker 1: low level gun charges. I suppose there just wasn't any
Speaker 1: time leftover to notice and deal with any actual threats.
Speaker 1: This whole rotten system has got to be reformed, root
Speaker 1: and branch. The failures, the blind spots the lawlessness, innocence
Speaker 1: are entrapped, criminals are paid, fake plots are invented, real
Speaker 1: plots are ignored. Instead, I guess they'll just get another
Speaker 1: budget increase to spy more, fail more, and fund even
Speaker 1: more criminals. It is unreal when you every time, and
Speaker 1: if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. All right, sorry,
Speaker 1: were you looking at it? Well? The story of American
Speaker 1: internal migration patterns after World War II has actually been
Speaker 1: pretty basic. We used to be a rural country, especially
Speaker 1: before the Great Depression. Industrialization, the loss of family farming,
Speaker 1: the call to arms for World War Two, the development
Speaker 1: of full blown market economy pushed us away from all
Speaker 1: of that. Americans moved only two direction, towards the rural areas,
Speaker 1: and they fulfilled the dreams of our forefathers by going west.
Speaker 1: Concentration was everything. Black Americans were haunted by the legacy
Speaker 1: of Jim Crow and the promise of industrialization up north,
Speaker 1: moved in great numbers from nineteen ten to nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1: It was actually called the Great Migration at the time.
Speaker 1: Remains one of the most significant internal migration patterns in
Speaker 1: American history. After that, though, the trends basically normalized. White
Speaker 1: and Black Americans were concentrated around cities, be it in
Speaker 1: the Northeast, the Midwest, or the West. The city was
Speaker 1: the nexus of capital, of offices, and of leisure activity.
Speaker 1: Internal migration patterns suggested Americans were moving towards cities to
Speaker 1: either live within them or live near them in a
Speaker 1: suburb or an exurb. The trend almost never reversed and
Speaker 1: was bolstered by the housing boom floated by cheap credit
Speaker 1: up until two thousand and eight. Even with the wipeout
Speaker 1: of American household wealth in two thousand and eight, the
Speaker 1: trend didn't really reverse, and if anything, before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: city life remained a major attraction for dynamism, job opportunity,
Speaker 1: and quality of life for the upwardly mobile. But then
Speaker 1: the pandemic struck, something absolutely crazy happened. People said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I think, I'm going to buck nearly a
Speaker 1: century of American internal migration history and move the other way.
Speaker 1: The Census Bureau is out with some stunning new data
Speaker 1: highlighting two straight years of massive change in American migration.
Speaker 1: Trends in twenty nineteen. Before the pandemic, smaller counties with
Speaker 1: fewer than thirty thousand people actually lost population. However, during
Speaker 1: the peak of the pandemic between twenty twenty and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, it flipped entirely. The least populous counties actually
Speaker 1: gained people for the first time in a long time.
Speaker 1: While this trends slowed, that life into rural areas is
Speaker 1: still going up today with internal migration flows going positive.
Speaker 1: Even more interesting, the largest counties with populations of one
Speaker 1: million or more. We're losing people through domestic migration before
Speaker 1: the pandemic at a slow rate, but the outflow exploded
Speaker 1: post pandemic. This is the major story that so many
Speaker 1: people are missing right now. The South is booming in
Speaker 1: a reversal of nearly one hundred years of history. Take
Speaker 1: a look at the map in front of you. The
Speaker 1: burnt orange areas of the map are those which saw
Speaker 1: the highest levels of domestic migration in the last year.
Speaker 1: What emerges is not just Texas and Florida, which are
Speaker 1: certainly doing well, but a huge concentration in the suburban
Speaker 1: American South. Zoom out of the South and you also
Speaker 1: see a major outflow from California all across Idaho, Arizona, Colorado,
Speaker 1: and even midwestern concentration places like Arkansas and Missouri. Take
Speaker 1: states out of it, though, and you look at it
Speaker 1: in terms of urban, suburban, and exurban, it's even more interesting.
Speaker 1: Across the entire country. People are leaving the urban core
Speaker 1: for the suburbs. Even in Florida, which is doing very well,
Speaker 1: Miami Dade County is actually losing residents who are moving
Speaker 1: to more affordable parts of the state. Look at Texas,
Speaker 1: same story. People left the urban core of Houston and
Speaker 1: of Dallas for the suburban areas, and the northeast trends
Speaker 1: actually are exactly the same. People are abandoning in droves
Speaker 1: New York City, Washington, d C, Boston, not just to
Speaker 1: move to other states, but to move to other areas
Speaker 1: nearby Chicago, Denver, Seattle, Portland, same case nationwide trend. It's
Speaker 1: accelerating year after year, and it shows no signs of stopping.
Speaker 1: It will change the face of America and of our
Speaker 1: culture as we know it. Our pop culture and news
Speaker 1: still exists in a nineteen eighties mindset where New York City, Boston, Washington,
Speaker 1: d C, Los Angeles and San Francisco ruled the world,
Speaker 1: and for a long time they were the engines of
Speaker 1: economic growth, of power, and the tastes of upper middle
Speaker 1: class professionals. Still they reflect that. But compare it though,
Speaker 1: to today places where actual am Americans are moving, It
Speaker 1: couldn't be more different. The top ten metro areas which
Speaker 1: gained population twenty twenty twenty twenty two are as follows Dallas, Texas, Houston, Texas, Phoenix, Arizona, Austin, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, Tampa, Florida, Charlotte,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, San Antonio, Texas, Orlando, Florida, and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Speaker 1: You notice a trend there. We are becoming more and
Speaker 1: more spread out as a country and actually less geographically concentrated.
Speaker 1: The availability of high speed internet across the United States
Speaker 1: a few years ago from now, with technology like Starlink,
Speaker 1: will only further change everything. The once forgotten places of America,
Speaker 1: which haven't seen population growth since the mid eighteen thirties,
Speaker 1: will significantly change in their ability to attract residents. Just
Speaker 1: think how many massive changes that's going to bring. Georgia
Speaker 1: already is no longer a red state, It's purple Texas too,
Speaker 1: seems to be moving in the purple ish direction. Population
Speaker 1: growth in Arizona and outflows from the Midwest are changing
Speaker 1: the makeups of political parties. They are changing the way
Speaker 1: our literal economy functions. The ground is shifting beneath our feet. Now.
Speaker 1: You can try to fight it, but I don't really
Speaker 1: think you can. We're in it now and we should
Speaker 1: embrace it. My major hope and takeaway is this, the
Speaker 1: center of gravity of culture is just being uprooted right now.
Speaker 1: It's upwardly mobile people who are moving with their feet.
Speaker 1: But what makes me really what we really need to
Speaker 1: do is to make this available to everyone. Choosing a
Speaker 1: new place to live if you want to is the
Speaker 1: ultimate expression of the American character and claiming the bounty
Speaker 1: of beautiful land that we've been blessed with, shaking up
Speaker 1: the established institutions to create a new order. That's what
Speaker 1: the benefit is. The added also, though, is that new
Speaker 1: order with the existing centers of pop culture and power
Speaker 1: will significantly diminish, and like in the older great migrations,
Speaker 1: you get to claim a new destiny. I think it's
Speaker 1: fascinating looking at and if you want to hear my
Speaker 1: reaction to Sager's monologue become a premium subscriber today at
Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com. As you know if you watched our
Speaker 1: live stream on Tuesday night, there is a new mayor
Speaker 1: who has been elected in Chicago and quite an interesting race.
Speaker 1: So we wanted to get someone who was local, who
Speaker 1: could really break down the unique dynamics here. So we're
Speaker 1: excited to be joined by Frank Calabresi. He is a
Speaker 1: local Chicago political consultant. Great to have you, Frank. Good
Speaker 1: to see you man, Thanks for having me. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: the general dynamics of this race, as I understand them,
Speaker 1: as you have Paul Vallas, who was backed by the
Speaker 1: police union and really ran on this like you know,
Speaker 1: law and order, tough on crime type of posture. And
Speaker 1: then you had Brandon Johnson, who was a middle school
Speaker 1: teacher and a labor activist, who was backed by a
Speaker 1: coalition of lefties backed by Bernie Sanders, and he ends
Speaker 1: up actually prevailing, which is a break from some of
Speaker 1: the dynamics we've seen in other cities, in particular New
Speaker 1: York with the election of Mayor Eric Adams. So just
Speaker 1: give people a sort of general sense of the race
Speaker 1: and how Johnson was able to be successful here as
Speaker 1: a more left wing candidate. So I would compare this
Speaker 1: race more of the Los Angeles what happened in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and you had a wealthy white man who was a
Speaker 1: former Republican, and then we had more of a mainstream
Speaker 1: Democrat Karen Bass and Karen Bass one. So the Johnson
Speaker 1: campaign they tried to cast Paul Vallas as essentially a Republican.
Speaker 1: He was supported by Republican donors, he appeared a lot
Speaker 1: on conservative talk radio. And what the results were is
Speaker 1: that the more wealthy areas of Chicago, the more socially
Speaker 1: conserved areas of Chicago, a lot of police and firefighters lived,
Speaker 1: they voted for Paul Vallas and big numbers. But then
Speaker 1: a lot of the minority areas in Chicago, and the
Speaker 1: more of the liberal activist areas of Chicago, kind of
Speaker 1: our local version of Williamsburg, you know, Logan Square and
Speaker 1: Rogers Park, they voted for Brandon Johnson in really big numbers,
Speaker 1: and Brandon Johnson one got it. So, Frank, a lot
Speaker 1: of people are interpreting this nationally about crime and all
Speaker 1: it can you what are the actual issues that were
Speaker 1: before people in Chicago. What was Johnson talking about? What
Speaker 1: was Valas talking about? Wasn't all about crime? Teachers break
Speaker 1: it all down for us. So so crime, according to
Speaker 1: all the polls, was the number one issue. However, it
Speaker 1: kind of meant different things for different people. So Brandon Johnson,
Speaker 1: he's a counting commissioner. He was supporting defunding the police
Speaker 1: as accounting commissioner. When he ran for mayor, he changed
Speaker 1: his tone. He said he will not defund the police.
Speaker 1: And I think this election came down to just dynamics
Speaker 1: of you know, who do you trust more to handle
Speaker 1: the crime issue. So Paul Valles he kind of ran
Speaker 1: as a lock him up, throwing away the key type
Speaker 1: of tough on crime. And then you know, Brandon Johnson
Speaker 1: ran as more of a holistic kind of you know,
Speaker 1: your progressive approach to treat crime. You know, look at
Speaker 1: the root cause of crime. So both campaigns ran on crime,
Speaker 1: but the more mainstream democratic, progressive version of that, which
Speaker 1: is kind of a more holistic approach to crime that
Speaker 1: one in the day with City Chicago voters. Let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to you a little bit of Brandon Johnson.
Speaker 1: I believe this is part of his victory speech just
Speaker 1: so folks can get a bit of a sense of him.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to that. Make no mistake about it,
Speaker 1: Chicago is a union town by investing in what actually
Speaker 1: works to prevent crime, and that means youth employment, mental
Speaker 1: health centers, ensuring that law enforcement has the resources to
Speaker 1: solve and prevent crime. A city that actually respects the
Speaker 1: workers who keep it running and supports the entrepreneurs that
Speaker 1: keep it growing. A city where trains run on time
Speaker 1: and where no one is too poor to live in
Speaker 1: one of the richest cities in one of the wealthiest nations,
Speaker 1: have the richest time in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: A city where public schools have the resources to meet
Speaker 1: the needs of every child across this city. Now, in
Speaker 1: other words, tonight is the beginning of a Chicago that
Speaker 1: truly invests in all of its people. So Frankie can
Speaker 1: really hear the way that he framed his public safety messaging,
Speaker 1: and it is sounding some sort of classic progressive themes.
Speaker 1: I know that the numbers I saw, he won something
Speaker 1: like eighty percent of the black vote in the city.
Speaker 1: Working class black voters are actually an area where progressives
Speaker 1: have sometimes struggled. Do you see his messaging as being
Speaker 1: key to putting together this winning coalition. Is this something
Speaker 1: that you think progressives could look to replicate in other
Speaker 1: cities or are there unique dynamics here in Chicago which
Speaker 1: really just have to do with the particulars of these
Speaker 1: communities and this particular political race. Yeah, I think you
Speaker 1: have to look at Chicago again. It's two person race,
Speaker 1: right and Paul Vallas. Again it's a majority minority city
Speaker 1: to very liberal city Chicago is, and Paul Vallas he
Speaker 1: had a like a high floor and a low ceiling.
Speaker 1: You know, he he essentially was branded as a Republican,
Speaker 1: and you know, he he had trouble on hitting fifty percent.
Speaker 1: It's really crazy because all the polls was having him
Speaker 1: like a forty eight percent, and that's probably where he's
Speaker 1: going to finish. He was not able to grow his coalition.
Speaker 1: So I'm not too sure that you know, a progressive
Speaker 1: in the brand of Brandon Johnson could win in New
Speaker 1: York per se, which historically you know, vote for more
Speaker 1: modern type of mayors. You know, people like Bloomberg and
Speaker 1: now you know Eric Adams. So yeah, so I think
Speaker 1: you have to look at Chicago. You have to look
Speaker 1: at both the candidates and how Paul Vallas was was
Speaker 1: kind of a flawed candidate for a big liberal city. Yeah,
Speaker 1: another question I had for you, Frank, is did abortion
Speaker 1: politics play here at all? They were obviously quite significant
Speaker 1: in a Wisconsin state Supreme Court race that we covered
Speaker 1: here at breaking points too. It was really, you know,
Speaker 1: potentially the determinative factor in the more liberal candidate just
Speaker 1: absolutely romping in that race. But I had read that
Speaker 1: Vallas had made some previous comments that were oppositional to abortion,
Speaker 1: and that Brandon Johnson also used those against him. Do
Speaker 1: you think that abortion politics played in this at all?
Speaker 1: Wasn't a significant factor, even as we understand, crime was
Speaker 1: kind of the main focus. So when it comes to
Speaker 1: Chicago politics, you look at local aldermen, you know, the
Speaker 1: city council members, we call them aldermen here. They really
Speaker 1: run on kind of bread and butter type issues, and
Speaker 1: they run on crime, they run on quality of life.
Speaker 1: You know, they've run on taking the trash out. When
Speaker 1: people vote for mayor and local officials, I really don't
Speaker 1: think they vote on abortion politics or more national politics.
Speaker 1: You know, abortion was talked about in this campaign. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't really highlighted like you see in the Wisconsins
Speaker 1: Supreme Court race. We're obviously the Supreme Court Wisconsin. They're
Speaker 1: going to be dealing with abortion directly. In Chicago, you know, abortion,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's going to be as safe and accessible,
Speaker 1: you know, at least in my lifetime, because it's a
Speaker 1: very liberal city. So it wasn't as talked about as much. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: perhaps just used is a way again to sort of
Speaker 1: paint him as like, this guy's not really one of us,
Speaker 1: he's really a Republican. Frank, tell people where people where
Speaker 1: folks can find you on Twitter, because that's where we
Speaker 1: found you and found your analysis really useful. Oh thanks
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, so it's just my name. It's at
Speaker 1: Frank Calbary's. I do a lot of politics in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and you know, I wasn't I work for the government now,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't on the side. So the media they
Speaker 1: used me a lot kind of for my analysis, and
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I got to be on TV a lot, nicely graduated
Speaker 1: locally in Chicago, but it was a lot. Now we're
Speaker 1: bringing out your national making me a national taking a
Speaker 1: national Frank, great to have you. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time. Thanks man, great, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Yeah, pleasure you. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for watching. Really appreciate it. The shout out to all
Speaker 1: the premium subscribers watching our show on Spotify, you guys
Speaker 1: are loving it and also still you know, the existing
Speaker 1: show on YouTube. Everybody, thank you also for supporting our
Speaker 1: show enabling our live stream that we had. It was
Speaker 1: a great time. We've still got a great counterpoint show
Speaker 1: for everybody tomorrow to bring everybody up to date on
Speaker 1: the news for Friday. So you basically had something every
Speaker 1: single day this week, which I think is really cool
Speaker 1: here for breaking points. We appreciate everybody who enables our
Speaker 1: work and we will see you all next week. Love
Speaker 1: y'all have a great weekend.