Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
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Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 1: What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Will today
Speaker 1: be the day that Trump gets indicted? Some indicators pointing
Speaker 1: in both directions, So we'll break all of that down
Speaker 1: for you, as well as a little bit of the
Speaker 1: process of just how exactly this is all going to work.
Speaker 1: Is he gonna be handcuffed? Is he not gonna be handcuffed?
Speaker 1: What will this all look like? Also, Ronda Santis finally
Speaker 1: breaking his side lence about the imminent Trump indictment, kind
Speaker 1: of making things worse for himself in a way, I think, really,
Speaker 1: I think. So yeah, we'll let you decide. We'll play
Speaker 1: the comments and you guys can see what you think.
Speaker 1: France really on the brink today after Matt Crone's government
Speaker 1: barely surviving a vote of no confidence. The people, I
Speaker 1: mean seventy five percent of France completely outraged about his
Speaker 1: quote unquote pension reform changing the retirement age from sixty
Speaker 1: two to sixty four in a very undemocratic fashion as well,
Speaker 1: So we'll tell you all about that some press room
Speaker 1: chaos yesterday. That Saga was particularly interested in mainstream reporters
Speaker 1: rushing to the defense of cream Jean Pierre lest you know,
Speaker 1: one of their colleagues get out of line and be
Speaker 1: in lack proper decorum within the press briefing setting. So
Speaker 1: we've got that video for you. Also, PBS did a
Speaker 1: little documentary following around doctor Fauci as he was trying
Speaker 1: to persuade people to go out and get facts, and
Speaker 1: there was quite an interesting interaction that got a lot
Speaker 1: of people' attend We will show you that as well.
Speaker 1: We also are happy to have a doctor true to
Speaker 1: Parsi in studio with us today to talk about the
Speaker 1: event we're doing together. Remember twenty years of the Iraq War,
Speaker 1: how exactly the media failed us and what if anything
Speaker 1: did they learn from that? And He also wanted to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about, you know, in connection with
Speaker 1: the rock and the media not really learning their lessons,
Speaker 1: the way the Ukraine War has been covered and the
Speaker 1: role that the US has just recently played that we
Speaker 1: covered yesterday in blocking any potential ceasefire if it is
Speaker 1: suggested by China. Before we get to any of that though,
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Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the big story of the day.
Speaker 1: Will he or won't he be indicted. I'm course, of
Speaker 1: course talking about Donald Trump. Manhattan, DA looks like imminently
Speaker 1: they are going to arrest and charge Trump with something
Speaker 1: related to the whole Stormy Daniel's hush money payment situation.
Speaker 1: As we broke down yesterday, it's really sort of a
Speaker 1: combination of two pieces here. There's an outright business fraud
Speaker 1: of recording the payment as something that it wasn't really
Speaker 1: on the books, and then the way that they get
Speaker 1: it from being a misdemeanor to potentially a felony. And
Speaker 1: this is all, you know, speculative until we actually see
Speaker 1: what the charges are. But the way they get it
Speaker 1: to a felony is by arguing this was in service
Speaker 1: of another crime, which was a campaign finance violation. The
Speaker 1: argument here, the theory here is that Trump's campaign, as
Speaker 1: he was running for presidents way back in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: got a huge benefit from these hush money payments. This
Speaker 1: was of course not recorded in terms of their books,
Speaker 1: and it would have been a contribution over the limit
Speaker 1: if it had been. Okay, So that is the legal
Speaker 1: theory of the case. We have some contradictory indications this
Speaker 1: morning about the timing of this potential indictment. Everybody seems
Speaker 1: to think it continues to be imminent in could be today,
Speaker 1: could be the next coming days, could potentially be next week.
Speaker 1: But I think this is coming sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1: The first one is that all NYPD officers, including plainclothes detectives,
Speaker 1: have actually been ordered to wear their full uniform today
Speaker 1: starting at seven am, ahead of a possible indictment. This
Speaker 1: is from a CBS News reporter, So that's one piece,
Speaker 1: is okay, maybe this is coming today. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: Robert Costa with also with CBS News. I thought he
Speaker 1: was with the Washington Post. I guess it was a
Speaker 1: while ago. Anyway, Trump's team did not hear from prosecutors
Speaker 1: this evening. That was last night, according to Susan Nickels,
Speaker 1: an indication that no indictment was made today. So is
Speaker 1: it going to happen a day Is it going to
Speaker 1: happen tomorrow? Is it going to happen a few day
Speaker 1: from now? Nobody really knows. We have some additional reporting
Speaker 1: to I'll get to in a moment, but let's go
Speaker 1: and put our first element up on the screen from
Speaker 1: the New York Times about what this would all look like.
Speaker 1: The headline here is New York authorities prepare for unprecedented
Speaker 1: arrest of an ex president head of a likely indictment.
Speaker 1: Law enforcement officials are making security plans as some of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's supporters signaled that they intend to protest. More
Speaker 1: on that in a moment they talk about in this article,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump would be fingerprinted, he would be photographed, photographed,
Speaker 1: He could even be handcuffed. If he is indicted by
Speaker 1: Manhattan Grand jury and the days ahead for his role
Speaker 1: in hush money payment to a porn star. The former
Speaker 1: president of the United States will be read the standard
Speaker 1: miranda warning. He'll be told he has the right to
Speaker 1: remain silent and the right to an attorney. And the
Speaker 1: wake of mister Trump's public call for action, there were
Speaker 1: some scattered signs his followers were planning to protest on
Speaker 1: his behalf. So far that hasn't really amounted to a
Speaker 1: whole lot, But we'll see, you know, if it scales up.
Speaker 1: And in terms of whether or not he'll be handcuffed,
Speaker 1: that's sort of like, you know, they can make that decision.
Speaker 1: They could handcuff them behind us back. Sometimes white collar defendants,
Speaker 1: they say are handcuffed in front of them, and they
Speaker 1: could also make the decision just not to do that whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It is expected, this has been reported out that Trump
Speaker 1: will surrender himself, so you know, that makes some of
Speaker 1: the point of whether they would have to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: force the next tradition from Florida or something insane like that.
Speaker 1: But listen with this dude, you just never know what
Speaker 1: he's going to decide to do in the moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have no idea how any of this is going
Speaker 1: to go down. And the preparations though, is that clearly
Speaker 1: New York authorities are preparing for the worst. We had
Speaker 1: some video actually from the scene yesterday. Yeah, yes, you
Speaker 1: can see there. This is the NYPD unloading barricades to
Speaker 1: surround digit Attorney's office at courthouse and elsewhere. Couple that,
Speaker 1: I think, Cristle with the report that you read this
Speaker 1: morning about the NYPD officers being told to dress in
Speaker 1: full uniform. They're expecting quite a bit of protesters, but
Speaker 1: said protesters have not yet materialized, so we don't yet
Speaker 1: know what's happening. Yes, that is correct. We also have
Speaker 1: go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen,
Speaker 1: just some additional reporting about potential timing here. This is
Speaker 1: from Politico. They say that Trump indictment could land soon,
Speaker 1: sending law enforcement scrambling. A grand jury is expected to
Speaker 1: charge Trump within days, according to three people involved in
Speaker 1: the deliberations. Now, according to Politico, they say an indictment
Speaker 1: by grand jury is expected late Monday or Wednesday. Well,
Speaker 1: Monday past there was no indictment, so perhaps it will
Speaker 1: happen Wednesday. This is according to three people involved in
Speaker 1: the deliberation. Deliberations, there was one final person who apparently
Speaker 1: was scheduled to testify before the grand jury Monday afternoon.
Speaker 1: There was an expectation that Michael Cohen then might be
Speaker 1: brought back to rebut that witness, but that apparently didn't happen.
Speaker 1: I think all of this Sogren. Why we wanted to
Speaker 1: cover it is just to underscore even though the details
Speaker 1: of this case have been hashed over again and again,
Speaker 1: it really feels like old news. The specter of a
Speaker 1: former president being indicted is I mean, it's historic, like
Speaker 1: this is a first in history. It's a remarkable, unbelievable moment,
Speaker 1: and you know, to see how this all unfolds him
Speaker 1: to think about Okay, they're considering whether or not to
Speaker 1: handcuff him and he's going to be read as Miranda
Speaker 1: rights and he's going to be fingerprinted. To me, really
Speaker 1: brought home the kind of gravity and seriousness of the situation.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that because we have to be
Speaker 1: able to separate out and I think we both have
Speaker 1: said we're like, look on the merits, you know, it
Speaker 1: looks like a weaker case politically, think kind of a
Speaker 1: disaster to be this this is really the one that
Speaker 1: you want to go with. We're talking about bookkeeping fraud
Speaker 1: with a very extraordinary interpretation of the law. Good luck,
Speaker 1: we'll see how that actually works out before a judge.
Speaker 1: Let's put that aside. Just the act of simply arresting
Speaker 1: the former president is something that we have gone out
Speaker 1: of our way to avoid here in the United States
Speaker 1: for literally hundreds of years, especially going back to what
Speaker 1: like Andrew Johnson and then of course a Nixon administration.
Speaker 1: Whenever we think about Gerald Fords at the time unpopular
Speaker 1: decisions basically pardon Nixon for all crimes and to prevent
Speaker 1: the Justice Department forever trying to indict even a current president.
Speaker 1: A lot of these norms and all these things were
Speaker 1: set in place, even though, look, they don't pass the
Speaker 1: smell test in terms of yes, technically, he's a private
Speaker 1: citizen blood, he's an active candidate, and he's a foreign president,
Speaker 1: and he has a large constituency. So it's an extraordinary
Speaker 1: act regardless of what it is. So we have no
Speaker 1: choice but to get into the nitty gritty of the
Speaker 1: bookkeeping fraud, of the exact nature of the payment, of
Speaker 1: whether Michael Cohen was charged or call before the grand
Speaker 1: jury or not. I found that a little bit interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm curious your interpretation. The fact was that he made
Speaker 1: himself available to the grand jury for two hours. They
Speaker 1: did not end up calling him, which means I guess
Speaker 1: to me currently that they will not be pursuing in
Speaker 1: any way the campaign finance allegation, even with respect to
Speaker 1: the way that it would relate to the bookkeeping fraud
Speaker 1: that is there. At least that's a legal interpretation that
Speaker 1: I also saw that was out there, because if they
Speaker 1: had that would have been materially important to the cover up,
Speaker 1: so to speak. But we also know that other members
Speaker 1: of the Trump organization have been cooperating with federal authorities,
Speaker 1: and you know, mary other legal cases on top of
Speaker 1: tax Rod and others, was possible that they also their
Speaker 1: testimony may be material to this as well. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I genuinely don't know. My understanding was that the witness
Speaker 1: who had been called before, who was once advised Michael Cohen,
Speaker 1: who was also a lawyer, This guy, Robert Costello is
Speaker 1: his name, he was brought in to kind of call
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen's character in question, which I didn't think is
Speaker 1: a particularly difficult thing to do jail time for some
Speaker 1: of the same, you know, similar charges. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: think the idea was Michael Cohen could then come back
Speaker 1: in and sort of re establish himself as a credible character.
Speaker 1: Was my understanding. But you know, it's very hard to
Speaker 1: know from the outside what exactly is going on here
Speaker 1: and why the decision was made to not bring Michael
Speaker 1: Cohen back in. Perhaps they just felt that they didn't
Speaker 1: need him in order to secure the intapement state that
Speaker 1: they are looking for with regards to the protests. You'll
Speaker 1: recall in the infamous truth Social Truth post where Trump said,
Speaker 1: you know, he expected to be indicted on Tuesday, and
Speaker 1: the very last part of that called on his supporters
Speaker 1: to come out and protest and quote take America back,
Speaker 1: I think was the language that he used. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of concern that, you know, you could have
Speaker 1: a real sort of you know, violent protest, large scale
Speaker 1: protests could still happen. So far it has none. Let's
Speaker 1: go and put this up on the screen. So this
Speaker 1: is Ben Collins. He says he's at the pro Trump
Speaker 1: protest put on by the New York Young Republicans Club.
Speaker 1: Not a joke. There are more reporters here than Trump supporters.
Speaker 1: This was supposed to be the big one. And Sager
Speaker 1: and I were both choking about how many of those
Speaker 1: so called protesters are actually Feds. I think he's also
Speaker 1: a reasonable question to ask. I think you take out
Speaker 1: the so called the take out the Feds, and there's
Speaker 1: maybe like one guy the entire crowd, just the president
Speaker 1: of the New York Republican Club. Is that that's it? Okay? Well?
Speaker 1: According to Ben also he said it's just a bunch
Speaker 1: of cameras taking picture of a guy who's putting on
Speaker 1: a rat suit next to a guitar with the words
Speaker 1: hang Fauci on it. And this was supposed to start
Speaker 1: a half hour. Look, we have no idea how it's
Speaker 1: going to go. It's also possible that many Trump supporters,
Speaker 1: even though they may be outraged having seen the events
Speaker 1: of January sixth, or like, well, maybe we won't be
Speaker 1: going at the same time. Look, he also hasn't actually
Speaker 1: been indicted yet, so this not technically something to protest. Now,
Speaker 1: you should hang on with those words, because that's kind
Speaker 1: of the excuse that a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: defending Ron DeSantis are using. But I think that there's
Speaker 1: something materially different about a GOP leader and then somebody
Speaker 1: actually coming out to protest something based on the reaction. Look,
Speaker 1: we have no idea, right. I do not think though,
Speaker 1: that people should read it as some sort of acquiescence
Speaker 1: by the Republican base. You know, you can be outraged
Speaker 1: about something and not technically necessarily take to the streets,
Speaker 1: especially after what happened on January sixth, So I don't
Speaker 1: think people should read it as him losing his power,
Speaker 1: although you know, it is certainly a noteworthy event, and
Speaker 1: ultimately we can't really make that call until well after
Speaker 1: whatever happens with this indictment, and then even you know
Speaker 1: how the judge will handle it if there is even
Speaker 1: a trial or you know, prison or any of these
Speaker 1: other things that we have to speculate on. It's just
Speaker 1: I think it's too early to say it. I just
Speaker 1: do think it is humorous though that the media also,
Speaker 1: the number of cameras there shows you like they want
Speaker 1: this to be a thing. They're like, oh, we got
Speaker 1: to get everybody down there. There's gonna be such a
Speaker 1: massive story. And they show up, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: like that other rally that we covered here where you know,
Speaker 1: it was supposedly some big right wing protests, and all
Speaker 1: that really came out of it is it seemed like
Speaker 1: there were a bunch of Feds that were there undercover, marching,
Speaker 1: marching around and clearly like the most the most like
Speaker 1: tailtale haircut that anybody had ever seen. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: I forgot about that. Some of the reporting suggests that
Speaker 1: actually some Republicans were concerned that the protest could be
Speaker 1: basically a trap. You know, there's a lot of concern
Speaker 1: about what exactly you know, might have unfolded if they
Speaker 1: did show up, So that may be part of why
Speaker 1: so far there hasn't been much to emerge. There's also
Speaker 1: just like the logistical challenge of this all happened really quickly,
Speaker 1: whereas with January sixth, there was a long time to
Speaker 1: sort of like for the Oathkeepers and the Proud Boys
Speaker 1: to get their plans together and gather their weapons and
Speaker 1: plan you know, their hotel rooms and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I don't want to say nothing's going to happen,
Speaker 1: but so far the protests that have been planned have
Speaker 1: not amounted too much, if anything. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: that's where we'll leave it. So we have no idea.
Speaker 1: We have indications in many size. The fact that he
Speaker 1: wasn't notified until last night means it may not come
Speaker 1: this morning, but it could come tonight. You know, it
Speaker 1: could be one of those that is a major breaking event.
Speaker 1: So we'll see what happens. We'll be watching, as I said,
Speaker 1: as Trump always used to like to say when he
Speaker 1: was president. So let's move on now and talk about
Speaker 1: mister Ron DeSantis. And there has been an extraordinary civil
Speaker 1: war kind of breaking out online. But I don't we
Speaker 1: should think we should say that it's merely in the
Speaker 1: online category, because it has real world consequences. There have
Speaker 1: been calls by the Trump campaign people around President Trump
Speaker 1: for Ron DeSantis to come out and to defend President
Speaker 1: Trump against any possible indictment, to say that he will
Speaker 1: not extradite the president, or at the very least rhetorically
Speaker 1: say something about it. DeSantis, while giving a press conference
Speaker 1: yesterday in Florida, was finally asked about this after silence
Speaker 1: over the weekend, and he's trying to have it both ways.
Speaker 1: We're going to play for you the full clip of
Speaker 1: his answer. On the one hand, he takes a dig
Speaker 1: at Trump about any payments to a porn star. On
Speaker 1: the other, on the substance, he tries to attack with
Speaker 1: the DA Here's what he had to say. So, I've
Speaker 1: seen rumors swirl, I have not seen any facts yet,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know what's going to happen. But
Speaker 1: I do know this. The Manhattan District Attorney is a
Speaker 1: Soros funded prosecutor, and so he, like other Soros funded prosecutors,
Speaker 1: they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on
Speaker 1: society at the expense of the rule of law. In
Speaker 1: public safety, he has downgraded over fifty percent of the
Speaker 1: felonies to misdemeanors. He says he doesn't want to even
Speaker 1: have jail time for the vast vast majority of crimes.
Speaker 1: And what we've seen in Manhattan is we've seen the
Speaker 1: scott the crime rate go up, and we've seen citizens
Speaker 1: become less safe. And so you're talking about this situation
Speaker 1: with and like, I don't know what goes into paying
Speaker 1: hush money to a porn star to secure silence over
Speaker 1: some type of alleged affair. I just I can't speak
Speaker 1: to that, can't speak to that. Calling it a circus,
Speaker 1: We're not going to have any part of it. Tries
Speaker 1: to have it his way and attack the Manhattan DA.
Speaker 1: This just shows him. Also, what's another word that you
Speaker 1: didn't hear, literally wants throughout the entire thing the name Trump.
Speaker 1: It seems like he's allergic to actually saying the man's name.
Speaker 1: He really wants to be in some situation where he
Speaker 1: can like maneuver around and sure like on the substance
Speaker 1: like maybe he's right about the Soros DA and all
Speaker 1: of that. I've seen that line of attack, but specifically
Speaker 1: not willing to defend Trump on those merits or call
Speaker 1: it a political prosecution, not take any stand or in
Speaker 1: defense of the former president. Let's just say Trump certainly
Speaker 1: is going to take notice and that's exactly what he
Speaker 1: did in the most Trumpian manner possible. Let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and put this up there on the screen. So he
Speaker 1: tweets out truths out. I'm sorry, I'm still getting used
Speaker 1: to that, he says, quote Ron dasanctimonious will probably find
Speaker 1: out about false accusations and fake stories sometime in the
Speaker 1: future as he gets older, wiser, and better known. When
Speaker 1: he's unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates
Speaker 1: that are quote underage or possibly a man, I'm sure
Speaker 1: he will want to fight these misfits just like I do.
Speaker 1: What he did is he effectively quote truthed a photo
Speaker 1: of Ron DeSantis allegedly partying with underage girls at a
Speaker 1: drinking party while he was teaching at a Georgia school. So, Crystal,
Speaker 1: he not only is intimating that DeSantis is a pedophile,
Speaker 1: but also possibly a gay pedophile. Yes, that was his
Speaker 1: response to the former governor, or, sorry, the current governor
Speaker 1: of Florida. I mean, look, this is middage Trump. You
Speaker 1: can't help but laugh. It also just shows you with Trump,
Speaker 1: I mean whenever, So you know, just Santis is like, well,
Speaker 1: let me get to the substance of like the source
Speaker 1: DA and all this, try and you know, find this
Speaker 1: third way for me politically. And Trump is just like, actually, Ron,
Speaker 1: you're a gay pedophile. And you're like, what do you
Speaker 1: say to that? You do that? But what does he
Speaker 1: call it? The silly circus or the silly season? Silly season?
Speaker 1: It's silly. I'm sorry, that's weak. It's weak. It I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't help but laugh. And I mean it's fun
Speaker 1: at the fact that Trump puts out the truth that's
Speaker 1: like already going hard basically, you know, it's like suggesting
Speaker 1: he's gay, and then he deletes it. Now, most normal
Speaker 1: people when they put on a social media post and
Speaker 1: then they pull it back, it's like, maybe I went
Speaker 1: too fast. I shouldn't have right, I shouldn't know that
Speaker 1: it was does too far, you know, I should I
Speaker 1: should reel it in a little bit. No, with Trump,
Speaker 1: it's like I messed up. I didn't put in the
Speaker 1: groomer allocations. I forgot to call him also a pedophile.
Speaker 1: He's not just gay, he's also a pedophile. And listen,
Speaker 1: here's the thing with Trump, this is what he forces
Speaker 1: in terms of a Republican primary, in terms of American
Speaker 1: society whatever, there is no third way, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: people found this out was stop the Steal. You talked
Speaker 1: about this a lot sogger, this whole idea that all
Speaker 1: we could do like a high brow stop the steal
Speaker 1: type of thing, like do what Josh Holly was trying
Speaker 1: to do, whatj Vake Ramaswami is still trying to do. No,
Speaker 1: you are either with him or you're not. That's what
Speaker 1: he creates. So this notion that Ron DeSantis is trying to, like, well,
Speaker 1: let me carefully craft this talking point that takes a
Speaker 1: little jab at Trump over here, but then has all
Speaker 1: the Soros da language over No, not gonna work. You
Speaker 1: are going to have to figure out how are you
Speaker 1: going to play this. Are you going to just you know,
Speaker 1: not go after him and hope that these indictments and
Speaker 1: whatever else happens in silly season takes him down, or
Speaker 1: are you gonna actually directly go at him and yourself
Speaker 1: because no one's going to do this work for you.
Speaker 1: Muster a case against the former president that is going
Speaker 1: to be compelling to a Republican base. And he still
Speaker 1: seems to not really know how he's going to figure
Speaker 1: this out, and listen. This is when it's the easiest.
Speaker 1: It's not getting any easier from here. You've got time
Speaker 1: to workshop your talking points. I mean forty eight hours. Man,
Speaker 1: how long did they spend with his you know, press
Speaker 1: team figuring out Wordsmith? Okay, here's how we're going to play,
Speaker 1: and here's what we're going to say. This was all
Speaker 1: very very rehearsed. What are you going to do with
Speaker 1: you when you're on a debate stage with this student
Speaker 1: he's calling you a groomer whatever else he throws at you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and you know you okay, you see the
Speaker 1: groomer attack. How you could prepare for that? You know,
Speaker 1: he's going to throw something at you that you have
Speaker 1: no nobody who's going to see coming, because that's just
Speaker 1: what he is. He is an agent of chaos. And
Speaker 1: I see zero sign that DeSantis is really ready to do.
Speaker 1: I do think that there is a way to handle it,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately it's not one that would be politically viable.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've always thought that one of the worst
Speaker 1: things that Takes Crews ever did is whenever he was
Speaker 1: not he was like, hey, Donald, get my wife's name,
Speaker 1: you know, in almost like a Will Smith type thing
Speaker 1: like get my wife's name out of your mouth. Don't
Speaker 1: you dare talk about my wife, you know, and then
Speaker 1: just actually make a stand, maybe you look at the camera,
Speaker 1: just big, hey, Donald, screw you. Something like that actually
Speaker 1: would have been a strong response. Instead he gave some
Speaker 1: like mealy mouth thing and at the end he's like, Donald,
Speaker 1: leave Heidi alone. And by that time everyone's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god. And then with the endorsement that ended up happening,
Speaker 1: the famous photo of him phone banking for Trump. I mean,
Speaker 1: you just look, you can never ever have a real
Speaker 1: stand against this person again. And I do think also
Speaker 1: with DeSantis at this point, like the gauntlet has been thrown.
Speaker 1: The gauntlet is down, Like he's called you a pedophile already,
Speaker 1: now you're a gay pedophile. He's gone after you in
Speaker 1: so many different respects, and you're both trying to find
Speaker 1: this middle ground where look viable path for Ron DeSantis
Speaker 1: in any primary? What do we know? He is not
Speaker 1: winning an outright majority in any way, even of people
Speaker 1: who are skeptical of Trump, because all of those people
Speaker 1: are split, as we showed you in those yesterday. His
Speaker 1: only path to victory is to shore up all of
Speaker 1: the people who are willing to move on from Trump,
Speaker 1: and even amongst those they actually still like Trump, they're
Speaker 1: just willing to move on from him. And then people
Speaker 1: who are absolutely one hundred percent behind him. How is
Speaker 1: that really possible. I mean, there's no way to do
Speaker 1: it without convincing them that they're strong, that he is
Speaker 1: an agent also of the chaos against the liberal establishment,
Speaker 1: whom they hate so much. I think that they correctly
Speaker 1: read this as weakness, and I think that's why his
Speaker 1: poll numbers have gone down significantly in the last two months.
Speaker 1: I also want to note that the Groomer allegations obviously
Speaker 1: grab our attention get all the headlines, but Trump is
Speaker 1: also starting to muster a policy case against DeSantis as well.
Speaker 1: This was flagged for me by a friend from Florida Politics.
Speaker 1: Trump says Florida has the worst insurance scam in the US.
Speaker 1: He said this was on true social he said, in
Speaker 1: addition to wanting to cut Social Security and raise the
Speaker 1: minimum age to at least seventy and Medicare, Rhino Ronda
Speaker 1: sanctimonious is delivering the big insurance company bailout to globalist
Speaker 1: insurance companies in history. He's also crushed Florida homeowners whose
Speaker 1: houses were destroyed in the hurricane. They are getting pennies
Speaker 1: on the dollar. His insurance commissioner does nothing while Florida's
Speaker 1: lives are ruined. This is the worst insurance scam in
Speaker 1: the entire country. So this has to do with basically
Speaker 1: like homeowners insurance in the state of Florida, and you know,
Speaker 1: for catastrophic situations. So he's going after him on economic
Speaker 1: policy substance as well. So to your point, Zager, about
Speaker 1: the gauntlet being thrown, I mean, it's being thrown on
Speaker 1: the personal level, it's being thrown on the policy level.
Speaker 1: And you don't have time to wait around anymore to
Speaker 1: join this fight. Right, You're either in it or you're not,
Speaker 1: and that's the only one that at this point. Then
Speaker 1: just bow out and then you know what, you can
Speaker 1: stop all of the speculation, and then you can also
Speaker 1: say whatever you want. You're like, look, I'm the governor.
Speaker 1: I'm going to handle this responsibly. There's nothing for me
Speaker 1: to comment on. Should a time come that I need
Speaker 1: to take action, rest assured that I will make a
Speaker 1: well considered, you know action. That's something that somebody who
Speaker 1: has no political ambition would say, but this was one
Speaker 1: where it's both ways. And look, you know it's not
Speaker 1: just me and you, Crystal that took notice of this.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of folks out there who are
Speaker 1: taking a look and are not very happy with Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 1: First and foremost was Steve Bannon and Mike Lindell, both
Speaker 1: Trump loyalists, who blasted him for his response. Here's what
Speaker 1: he had to say, Governor DeSantis, You're better than this.
Speaker 1: That was a weasel approach, and don't give me the
Speaker 1: don't throw anything about the porn star. Don't need to
Speaker 1: hear it from you, Okay, don't need to hear it, okay.
Speaker 1: Mike Lindell the Election Crime Bureau report sir, well, first
Speaker 1: of all, DeSantis is the trojan horse we thought he was.
Speaker 1: I just want to put that out there, how disgusting
Speaker 1: he is. How disgusting he is, the trojan horse that
Speaker 1: we thought he was. Weasel not the only ones. Let's
Speaker 1: put the next one up there, Candice Owens. Here's what
Speaker 1: she had to say. Anyone's surprised by this been saying
Speaker 1: this forever. DeSantis is a good governor, but he is establishment.
Speaker 1: Will be a major dis pointment to those who think
Speaker 1: otherwise people disenchanted with Trump sometimes rightfully saw things in
Speaker 1: DeSantis that were never there. She follows up, he handled
Speaker 1: COVID correctly and bravely, but DeSantis is not America first,
Speaker 1: so he is really getting it from a lot of
Speaker 1: the magosphere. And actually, has Candace been on DeSantis. She hasn't. Really,
Speaker 1: this is the biggest shot that I've currently seen somebody's
Speaker 1: kept her options open. You very much so, and I
Speaker 1: should also know from the Daily Wire it's really it's not.
Speaker 1: Also just Candace Shapiro actually replied to one of my
Speaker 1: tweets kind of defending Ron DeSantis is approach because I
Speaker 1: just said, look, it's terrible political judgment for him to
Speaker 1: stay silent either way, and then you know, miraculously, the
Speaker 1: moment he does break his silence, it's trying to again
Speaker 1: have the two way approach. That's also even Matt Walsh,
Speaker 1: who I've noted as big DeSantis fan, very much a
Speaker 1: Trump critic in terms of policy, and he's like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: this was not the right approach at all. Another person
Speaker 1: who has actually been pro DeSantis and has not been
Speaker 1: advocating for Trump is Mike Cernovich, who, look, you can
Speaker 1: hand it to the guy. But he's been intellectually consistent
Speaker 1: on this. Here's what he said. Put it up there
Speaker 1: on the screen. Quote DeSantis blew it. Today only people
Speaker 1: saying otherwise personally hate Trump or were never Trump in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. Where were you twenty fifteen? I was explaining
Speaker 1: why Trump would win when he had a ceiling of
Speaker 1: three percent, and Goober's I am not a Trump guy.
Speaker 1: That's the lowest IQ thing that you could say. Again,
Speaker 1: Cernovich is somebody who was an original Trump supporter all
Speaker 1: the way from twenty fifteen onward, very much enjoyed the chaos,
Speaker 1: criticize him heavily over policy throughout the years, has been
Speaker 1: saying that the Republicans should abandon Trump in favor of
Speaker 1: a person like Rond de Santis. But he again is
Speaker 1: speaking I think as you and I are. We don't
Speaker 1: really have a dog in this fight. So I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to look at it politically. Yeah, just being like, look,
Speaker 1: if you want to convince people, many of whom I
Speaker 1: know who are major MAGA, you know, to their core,
Speaker 1: and sure they are not the majority of the Republican
Speaker 1: Party or the American people, but enough of a stronghold
Speaker 1: to give you a very easy path to the primary.
Speaker 1: Then you would have had to make a defense of Trump.
Speaker 1: And one of the reason why I'm noting this is
Speaker 1: look at every other major Republican figure in the country.
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy immediately the speaker, the senior most GOP elected official,
Speaker 1: tweet coming out full bear support of Trump. Jd. Vance,
Speaker 1: many of the other Republican senators, Steve Bannon, and others,
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign publicly praising vivike Ramaswami, calling on Nicki
Speaker 1: Haley and for Ron DeSantis to join vivike Ramaswami and
Speaker 1: condemning what's happening there. The pressure that is coming to bear,
Speaker 1: all of the senior Republicans at the highest elected level,
Speaker 1: almost all the elected GOP senators and others have went
Speaker 1: out on the record. You have Jim Jordan, another MAGA
Speaker 1: figure you know, who's coming out there and calling on
Speaker 1: Alvin Bragg to come and testify before Congress saying that
Speaker 1: will withhold federal funding from your department and all that.
Speaker 1: Like it's out there now. Now it's a political issue.
Speaker 1: The bar has been set by all of the top electeds.
Speaker 1: So your choice to go in a different direction that
Speaker 1: sends a direct bat signal, and it was it was
Speaker 1: read exactly that way as people in the magazine. Let's
Speaker 1: go to the next one here. Jack Pisobiac, another major
Speaker 1: figure in the MAGA community, is at two brew je
Speaker 1: from was it Shakespeare right? Mm hmm. That's all coming
Speaker 1: back to me right now. So the point is that
Speaker 1: accusing DeSantis of stabbing him in the back. Cernovich also
Speaker 1: wrote a substack piece where it's just talking about DeSantis
Speaker 1: blew it today, which passed around heavily in the MAGA community.
Speaker 1: Raheem Cassam, who is also affiliated formerly with Breitbart with
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon as well, coming out and saying that, and
Speaker 1: you know, you can deny it or not. Sure, these
Speaker 1: guys are online, but they represent at least the thoughts
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump the people around him. And it is
Speaker 1: a case that Trump has been racing against DeSantis, which
Speaker 1: we again know has been dropping Desanta's poll numbers like Iraq.
Speaker 1: To be fair, he hasn't even announced yet. Certainly things
Speaker 1: could change, but I do not think that people in
Speaker 1: around Trump, Trump himself and many of the people who
Speaker 1: DeSantis may have been able to win over, like the
Speaker 1: entire conservative kind of media apparatus. They very much took
Speaker 1: notice of this again outside of Ben Shapiro and criticized
Speaker 1: his response. Yeah, and once again there is not going
Speaker 1: to be any third way middle ground, no not. I
Speaker 1: mean we talked yesterday about Mike Pence on January sixth,
Speaker 1: trying to have it both ways. To you see, Nikki Haley,
Speaker 1: this is also relevant to the conversation. She just put
Speaker 1: out an open in the Wall Street Journal that is
Speaker 1: criticizing DeSantis over his stance on Ukraine. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: Dysantis and Trump's Ukraine stances at this point, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not real really clear that they're the same, but
Speaker 1: effectively similar ish similar ish, But the criticism really isn't
Speaker 1: a Trump, it's a DeSantis. So you know, nobody is
Speaker 1: really stepping up to take this guy head on, and
Speaker 1: you have to think about the way this is all
Speaker 1: going to play out. This is probably the first indictment
Speaker 1: of several so this is going to continue to be
Speaker 1: one of the most animating issues within the Republican base
Speaker 1: elector and frankly within American politics. So if you're wishy washer,
Speaker 1: you don't know where you stand on this. Yeah, Republican
Speaker 1: voters are going to have issue with that. This is
Speaker 1: what Trump is so good at. He is so good
Speaker 1: at seizing on issues that he believes are to his benefit,
Speaker 1: making them the central dividing line in Republican politics, you know,
Speaker 1: policy stance. He's obviously doing this with Social Security and
Speaker 1: Medicare as well, and then forcing people to make a
Speaker 1: hard and fast choice. If you are not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent with him, then he then you know, you're seen
Speaker 1: as being one hundred percent against him. And I think
Speaker 1: that's we're seeing that in real time with how DeSantis
Speaker 1: chose to respond to this moment. President's son also joining
Speaker 1: the four let's go and put this up there on
Speaker 1: the screen. So DeSantis thinks DEM's weaponizing the law to
Speaker 1: indict President Trump is quote a manufactured crisis. Isn't a
Speaker 1: real issue? Pure weakness. Now we know why he was
Speaker 1: silent all weekend. He's totally owned by Karl Rove, Paul Ryan,
Speaker 1: and his billionaire donors, one hundred percent controlled opposition. And listen,
Speaker 1: you can also say, what who cares? It's just the
Speaker 1: president's son. As we also repeatedly showed you, Don Junior
Speaker 1: routinely places high in many of these polls simply because
Speaker 1: he's also a MAGA warrior. He's very prominent online. He's
Speaker 1: somebody who a lot of the people on the base loved.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing him once at the Trump Hotel. He
Speaker 1: was like a rock star like whenever he walked in there,
Speaker 1: because at that time, anybody who was visiting DC was
Speaker 1: like very pro Trump would hang out in the lobby
Speaker 1: and they all saw him and they were like stood
Speaker 1: up and clapped. Frankly, I thought it was a little
Speaker 1: bit gross and kind of reminiscent of like the European kings,
Speaker 1: but it is what it is. You can't control what
Speaker 1: people like, so anyway, I'm just saying purely observationally, he
Speaker 1: has also a lot of credibility with a lot of
Speaker 1: the MAGA base. You can dismiss it if you would like,
Speaker 1: and note that majority of Republicans don't align themselves with that,
Speaker 1: But the vast majority of Republicans will see any indictment
Speaker 1: of Trump, especially on Stormy Daniels related bookkeeping fraud, as
Speaker 1: one of a complete political prosecution. It will be a
Speaker 1: complete cross the rubicon moment politically. Also, Crystal and I
Speaker 1: you have discussed I mean the fact that they are
Speaker 1: going first with this, and I'm not saying they because
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's coordinated, although maybe it is. But
Speaker 1: you're going first with Stormy Daniels and not with the
Speaker 1: Fulton County grand jury, not with the January sixth, not
Speaker 1: with any of the other married investigations, where much of
Speaker 1: the American people definitely are with you, if not the
Speaker 1: Republican base on this one. I even think many independent
Speaker 1: voters would be like, listen, I think this is bullshit,
Speaker 1: you know to be It'll be interesting to see the
Speaker 1: polling on it. My guess is you still have a
Speaker 1: majority of American people in favor of it, just because
Speaker 1: they're not paying so much attention to the details. But
Speaker 1: we've had consistent polling that says that they believe Trump
Speaker 1: deserves to be indicted. We'll see, But I agree with
Speaker 1: your fundamental point here that there's a lot more for
Speaker 1: Trump to work with on this particular prosecution versus Georgia,
Speaker 1: versus January sixth, and fake elector schemes. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think if it was coordinated, this is not the
Speaker 1: order that they would have chosen. So I think that
Speaker 1: argues against the idea that there was any sort of
Speaker 1: federal state, local coordinate nation in terms of ordering these indictments,
Speaker 1: because they do not think that this is the order
Speaker 1: that you would choose. There you go. So we will
Speaker 1: watch it closely, guys, and you know, the minute that
Speaker 1: something breaks, we'll try to you know, get up live
Speaker 1: as soon as we can. And of course we've got
Speaker 1: counterpoints tomorrow to cover anything that unfolds overnight as well.
Speaker 1: All right, let's turn to what is going on in France,
Speaker 1: because this is quite astonishing we covered before. Macron has
Speaker 1: for years now actually been pushing to raise the retirement
Speaker 1: age in France and is facing vehement opposition from effectively
Speaker 1: all political corners. It's actually a real horseshoe moment. You
Speaker 1: have the nationalist right, as led by Marine le Pen,
Speaker 1: which is opposed to Macron on this. You also have
Speaker 1: the left, led by figures like Jean Luke Mill and Sean.
Speaker 1: They are all united in their opposition to raising their
Speaker 1: retirement age, and the people are behind them too. By
Speaker 1: the way, the polling I've seen has said that anywhere
Speaker 1: from two thirds to three quarters of the French public
Speaker 1: is like, hell no, we do not support this, and
Speaker 1: that has shown up in the legislative tactics that Macron
Speaker 1: has been forced into using if he wants to push
Speaker 1: this retirement age lift through, and it is also shown
Speaker 1: in the overwhelming street protests that have been rocking the
Speaker 1: country for months now, some of which we have covered.
Speaker 1: But yesterday something absolutely extraordinary happened, which is that Macron
Speaker 1: put us up on the screen barely survived a no
Speaker 1: confidence vote by just nine votes. Now, the reason that
Speaker 1: this no confidence vote happened, and I'll get into a
Speaker 1: little bit of the details here, is Macrome could not
Speaker 1: actually muster enough legislative support, it appears, to pass this
Speaker 1: retirement age lift through like normal order. So we had
Speaker 1: to invoke this unusual legislative procedure that I won't get
Speaker 1: into the details of, but that effectively circumvented having to
Speaker 1: go through and actually obtain a majority of the vote
Speaker 1: that can be used for certain particular votes within within France.
Speaker 1: It's very unusual to do, and frankly, it's very anti democratic.
Speaker 1: It seems like all of these neoliberals, when push comes
Speaker 1: to shove, they really show their authoritarian cover colors. But
Speaker 1: after he pushes this through using this unusual mechanism, they
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to then have a no confidence vote,
Speaker 1: and if that no confidence vote had succeeded, not only
Speaker 1: would his government had to like effectively disband, but it
Speaker 1: also would have rolled back the retirement age lift. So
Speaker 1: this came a lot closer than what people thought. And
Speaker 1: the reason is that they lost a good number of
Speaker 1: the like center right Republicans who were in theory in
Speaker 1: support of lifting the age even further to even higher,
Speaker 1: to sixty five. But they saw the freak out of
Speaker 1: the public, and a good like nineteen of them that
Speaker 1: they expected to vote in favor of Macron actually toffected
Speaker 1: and voted along with the no confidence vote, and that's
Speaker 1: why he barely barely survived. There have been protests going
Speaker 1: on over this four months. There continued to be protests.
Speaker 1: We have a little bit of that. Let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and put it up on the screen so you can
Speaker 1: get a sense of this. You see the like, you know,
Speaker 1: cops with riot shields and you know, some smoke there.
Speaker 1: You've got similar interactions here between the police. You've got
Speaker 1: a fire one of the things. Go ahead, put up
Speaker 1: the next vo. Guys. There have been strikes, sort of
Speaker 1: rolling strikes throughout French society. One of the ones that
Speaker 1: has been most visible is the garbage collectors. The rubbage
Speaker 1: collectors have not been working, so there are tons and
Speaker 1: tons of garbage piled up in the streets of Paris.
Speaker 1: And apparently last night, after that no confidence vote narrowly failed,
Speaker 1: a lot of that rubbish was set on fire. So
Speaker 1: that's where we are. It really is quite extraordinary. I
Speaker 1: think you would put it in the context of you know,
Speaker 1: first of all, like the French are very protective of
Speaker 1: their way of life and they see this as an
Speaker 1: assault on their way of life and whatever you think
Speaker 1: about where the retirement age should be. Like, clearly they
Speaker 1: are overwhelmingly opposed to this change. That's number one. But
Speaker 1: it also comes from the context of, you know, you've
Speaker 1: also had in the UK huge protests also over sort
Speaker 1: of neoliberal policies. So it starts to look like a
Speaker 1: real trend, that is, you know, that is burgeoning in
Speaker 1: Europe and perhaps beyond well. I think that the point,
Speaker 1: the major point is if the majority the people in
Speaker 1: France don't want it, well, they're the ones who get
Speaker 1: to decide in their government, and yeah, I mean going
Speaker 1: nine votes away from a vote of no confidence is
Speaker 1: a disaster, but more so I think that the means
Speaker 1: through which that he was trying to do it by
Speaker 1: bypassing parliament, I don't think that that's going to sit
Speaker 1: well with a lot of people in France because it does,
Speaker 1: as you say, look authoritarian in nature. Now, part of
Speaker 1: the problem is, you know, with their party system and
Speaker 1: their fracturing, that they've effectively guaranteed it so that Macrone
Speaker 1: consistently has been able to win power despite that fact
Speaker 1: that almost nobody likes him and he's got a thirty
Speaker 1: percent approval rating, which is outrageous. It almost reminds me
Speaker 1: of our presidential system. But they've always historically had that
Speaker 1: strong parliament as well. And their inability here or the
Speaker 1: inability right now for the Macrone for the Parliament to
Speaker 1: come in and actually block this shows you though, that
Speaker 1: because they got so close, they may have a path
Speaker 1: there in the future. At the very least, it does
Speaker 1: send a signal to him being like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: you're coming right on the razor's edge of actually losing here,
Speaker 1: and it could be it would be a huge blow,
Speaker 1: I think to his presidency. It's also one of those
Speaker 1: strange things where why does he continue to push this whenever?
Speaker 1: Why is so so committed to us? Why are you
Speaker 1: so committed to this whenever? You're it's like, arguably the
Speaker 1: best thing you could do for the French economy right
Speaker 1: now is to try and negotiate peace in Ukraine. That
Speaker 1: actually would be the best possible beats great for energy prices.
Speaker 1: They're actually protests in France over NATO and over the
Speaker 1: continued war in Ukraine right now. So we shouldn't pretend
Speaker 1: like everything is hunky dory over in Paris, something that
Speaker 1: he absolutely would have real control over and probably would
Speaker 1: be politically popular. But you know, this way he's decided
Speaker 1: to go with. I don't really get it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't really get it either. And you know the parallels
Speaker 1: to the US system that you alluded to. You're not
Speaker 1: the only one that took note of that. Remember, after
Speaker 1: mccron was able to win reelection, Ron Klayane, who was
Speaker 1: at that point chief of staff, tweeted basically like, oh,
Speaker 1: he got re elected with an approval rating in the thirties,
Speaker 1: How interesting, effectively intimating that the plan to get Joe
Speaker 1: Biden reelected is very similar, Like, well, you may not
Speaker 1: really like Joe, you may be wildly dissatisfied with his
Speaker 1: inadequacies and his ability to effectively govern, but are you
Speaker 1: really going to vote for Donald Trump? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: And so it was a similar like lesser evil kind
Speaker 1: of dynamic that got Macron into office. It's also worth
Speaker 1: remembering that this form in the first protest, massive protest
Speaker 1: movement that he has faced since he has been the
Speaker 1: leader of that country. In his first term, that's when
Speaker 1: they had the Yellow US protests, which were over you know,
Speaker 1: a different basket of issues, but similarly driven by economics
Speaker 1: and populistic nature. And these sort of like horseshoe coalition.
Speaker 1: So now you have in the second term as well.
Speaker 1: I mean these are massive, like his story. I know,
Speaker 1: like France protests all the time, but this is a
Speaker 1: different level and it's and they recognize it as such, yes,
Speaker 1: And it's across the country. It really is from sort
Speaker 1: of all corners of society. A quite you know, remarkable
Speaker 1: show of force. Many many labor unions involved, like I said,
Speaker 1: you know, not collecting the rubbage and shutting down some
Speaker 1: of the transportation system, even dealing with some of the
Speaker 1: sort of core energy infrastructure scaling back production. So this
Speaker 1: has really rocked this society. And even if he is,
Speaker 1: you know, able to, he already has forced this thing
Speaker 1: through effectively. Now he's facing I just saw this morning
Speaker 1: calls from even some lawmakers within his own party that
Speaker 1: are like, you know, this is really not worth it,
Speaker 1: like we support it principle and it's all about fiscal responsibility,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Of course you could always, you know, you
Speaker 1: could always build that whole another way. But so even
Speaker 1: within his own party, he is losing some support here,
Speaker 1: which I think is pretty extraordinary as well. Put this
Speaker 1: last piece up on the screen from the Financial Times
Speaker 1: just so you can see their take on it. They
Speaker 1: say a Manuel and that Krone to force pension reform
Speaker 1: without vote as protests sweep France, and they say government
Speaker 1: risks a no confidence voting for their backlash on the streets. Obviously,
Speaker 1: they narrowly survived that no confidence vote. But this article
Speaker 1: just goes into some of the details of the legislative
Speaker 1: maneuvering that was required here in order to force this through.
Speaker 1: And it also notes that nearly three quarters of the
Speaker 1: public are opposed to raising the retirement age according to polls,
Speaker 1: and that millions have turned up to protests, not just
Speaker 1: in Paris and other large cities, but also in small
Speaker 1: town So it really is, you know, across the entire
Speaker 1: country that society is revolting against these neoliberal changes he's
Speaker 1: trying to force through. Yeah, we'll keep a close eye
Speaker 1: on it. It's not like anybody's trying to cut retirement
Speaker 1: benefits here in the US. A lot of echoes, doesn't it. Listen,
Speaker 1: You know we are we are cousins, after all, I
Speaker 1: guess from across the right. All right, let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and move on to the next one. This is the
Speaker 1: subject near and dear to my heart. So the cast
Speaker 1: of Ted Lasso was in the White House yesterday. I
Speaker 1: don't really know what they were doing there, but I
Speaker 1: guess I don't even know what tedw It's a show
Speaker 1: on Apple. I hear that boomers like it. It's it's
Speaker 1: a joke boomers. But I do hear that you guys
Speaker 1: like it. But but no, but for real, though, the
Speaker 1: biggest Ted Lasso fans I've ever met are all booms.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna say that, all right, So the
Speaker 1: Ted Lasso fan cast was there not dressed appropriately in
Speaker 1: my opinion, but I guess that's a subject for another day.
Speaker 1: They appeared at the White House podium next to Karine
Speaker 1: Jean Pierre, but some major fireworks erupted after Simon a Tabus.
Speaker 1: We've covered him actually before. He's a reporter for an
Speaker 1: African news outlet who has not been consistently called on
Speaker 1: by the Biden administration. He often wants to ask questions
Speaker 1: to the administration, specifically about policy with regards to Africa. Now,
Speaker 1: I sympathize with Simon quite a bit because his plight
Speaker 1: of not being able to get called on is one
Speaker 1: that has been completely ignored by the White House Correspondence Association. Now,
Speaker 1: yesterday Simon decided to force the moment and to continue
Speaker 1: to shout at the White House Press Secretary until she
Speaker 1: would acknowledge him. Two extraordinary things happen. One, Kareem John
Speaker 1: Japierre basically said that it was an act of disrespect,
Speaker 1: that this can never happen again. But two, and this
Speaker 1: is the most calling part. Yeah, he should always have
Speaker 1: admiralser relations between the press and the press corps. When
Speaker 1: they're yelling or in the Press secretary when she's yelling
Speaker 1: at you, you're doing a good job. The best part, though,
Speaker 1: was that the White House Correspondence Association president and the
Speaker 1: other people in the room turned on Simon for trying
Speaker 1: to get his question answered and actually admonished him. Let's
Speaker 1: take a listen to that full exchange. You can't keeps
Speaker 1: some people in the free field room because you don't
Speaker 1: like them. You don't like that. So you have a choice.
Speaker 1: You have a choice. You have a choice. Okay. And
Speaker 1: what I'm saying that that's right. This is China, this
Speaker 1: is the United States. The White House stings here to
Speaker 1: pal don't you. You should bring them to her later.
Speaker 1: I have press chorus tired of dealing with this. No no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, that's not We're not doing this. We're
Speaker 1: not doing this. We're not doing this. We're not doing this.
Speaker 1: You've been based disimulation against some people in this and
Speaker 1: I'm saying that you start Russia. Okay, he's been seven months.
Speaker 1: That does not right. Funtis, welcome back, Welcome, welcome to
Speaker 1: the press briefing room. Okay, let me go. Are you ready?
Speaker 1: Are we going to behave? Are you ready? Are we
Speaker 1: going to behave? I mean, listen, I was there in
Speaker 1: the Trump ears Crystal. I remember when a guy named
Speaker 1: Jim Acosta, who is now the host very low rated
Speaker 1: Saturday morning program, but who's watching that, happened to get
Speaker 1: his career and make millions of dollars on a book
Speaker 1: by literally grabbing a microphone out of a White House
Speaker 1: intern's hand, refusing to give it up, and consistently shouting
Speaker 1: at the president. And guess what, Although I made fun
Speaker 1: of him at the time for the way that he acted,
Speaker 1: I would still be outraised if other people in the
Speaker 1: press corps were to shout him down, because the whole
Speaker 1: point is adversarial relations with the press, and look, it
Speaker 1: can take it in whichever direction that you want at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, are exactly how it should exist.
Speaker 1: And instead, the White House Corresponds Association president Zeke Miller
Speaker 1: actually apologized to the Press Secretary after that and set
Speaker 1: our apologies on behalf of the press corps. And I
Speaker 1: think it's always important that we try and take you
Speaker 1: guys inside of the room. Is the entire system is
Speaker 1: rigged completely. The government has no say over the press room.
Speaker 1: It's all controlled by the White House Corresponds Association, including
Speaker 1: the seating chart, including who they allow in and out
Speaker 1: whether people like Simon and others, people like me who
Speaker 1: had to stand in the aisles and try to get
Speaker 1: called on by the Press secretary also in with respect here,
Speaker 1: as you can clearly see, what they have done is
Speaker 1: the Biden administration returned to the rule where the first
Speaker 1: person to get called on in the briefing room is
Speaker 1: the Associated Press. Worse, though, is that the traditional custom
Speaker 1: in the room is that the Associated Press correspondent, in
Speaker 1: this case also the White House Correspondents Association president. He
Speaker 1: also gets to decide when the briefing is over. So
Speaker 1: people should remember, we'd played that audio of a fight
Speaker 1: that broke out last time that we exclusively obtained here
Speaker 1: at breaking points, which showed that the White the Associated
Speaker 1: Press president called the briefing over and reporters in the
Speaker 1: back were like, hey, you didn't have to call it over, Like,
Speaker 1: we still have questions here. The point is is why
Speaker 1: are they the ones effectively apologizing here for the breach
Speaker 1: in decorum or whatever whenever you're supposed to have adversary relations.
Speaker 1: And two, why are you policing people for acting the
Speaker 1: way that you all acted During the Trump administration. They
Speaker 1: used to screaming like Banshees when Sarah Sanders came out,
Speaker 1: and it's outrageous that now that they are getting called on,
Speaker 1: it's decorm that's dcormfest. We have to police each other
Speaker 1: when they weren't getting called on. Oh, it's an attack
Speaker 1: on the First Amendment. The press was in trouble. We
Speaker 1: all have to stand together. I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: many times it would come to all of us, you know, afterwards,
Speaker 1: and be like, we got to stand together, guys, like
Speaker 1: we've got to make a big stand for press freedom
Speaker 1: and all this. Well, what about this, it's the same thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean to be honest with you, that's the part
Speaker 1: that is really galling to me. Like, I can't really
Speaker 1: blame Krein John Pierre for that's her job, right, that's
Speaker 1: her job. Her job is to be spokesperson as president
Speaker 1: and to call on the people she wants to call
Speaker 1: on and answer the question she was I can't really
Speaker 1: blame her because she is basically just doing the role
Speaker 1: that she's supposed to do. What is unforgivable is all
Speaker 1: of those supposed journalists in the room teaming up against
Speaker 1: their fellow colleague who is trying to get heard and
Speaker 1: trying to get a question answered, and he says he
Speaker 1: hasn't been calling months and months and months. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that he raises and asks questions about
Speaker 1: issues that most of the rest of the press corps
Speaker 1: isn't really paying attention. Yes, yeah, so it's not without consequence,
Speaker 1: especially when you consider the fact that this administration is
Speaker 1: very close to Biden gives very few interviews. You know,
Speaker 1: they mostly only make themselves available to friendly outlets. So
Speaker 1: this is one of the only times when you have
Speaker 1: a little bit of give and take where you might
Speaker 1: be able to get a response on an issue that
Speaker 1: you know they're not going to get asked about otherwise.
Speaker 1: So there are real stakes here, and it just demonstrates that,
Speaker 1: you know, the ones who sit in the front row
Speaker 1: and get most of the questions, they are more interested
Speaker 1: in preserving decorums in service of their access and their
Speaker 1: friendly relations with the White House than they are with
Speaker 1: actually fulfilling the adversary or role that the process is
Speaker 1: supposed to fill, right, and that was the major one,
Speaker 1: And of course you know this has been met with
Speaker 1: complete silence. They have no answer for their hypocrisy. I again,
Speaker 1: you know, I literally was once shouted down by April Ryan,
Speaker 1: who basically threw one of the biggest fits I've ever
Speaker 1: seen whenever she didn't get called on by President Trump.
Speaker 1: I've seen Jim Acosta, Peter Alexander, and all of these
Speaker 1: other people clown themselves to a historic degree. I was
Speaker 1: standing right next to them while they were doing it.
Speaker 1: And guess what, they were making millions of dollars. They
Speaker 1: were becoming heroes amongst their fellow press member for standing
Speaker 1: up to Sarah Sanders and Sean Spicer to President Trump.
Speaker 1: And now whenever somebody acts exact same way that they did,
Speaker 1: but it's somebody who's outside the club, oh, this is
Speaker 1: a breech of decorum. Also, here's the other favorite part.
Speaker 1: You can raise them with her later. Yeah, she's gonna
Speaker 1: take a meeting with her. It's not so easy to
Speaker 1: meet with the press secretary. Okay, it actually is very
Speaker 1: hard if you don't want to. I used to have
Speaker 1: to get up at like six in the morning and
Speaker 1: go stand by Sarah Sanders's door just to literally get
Speaker 1: two seconds with her, just like hi, you know, just
Speaker 1: so you know, that's how it works. If the big
Speaker 1: time reporters though of course they get meetings with them
Speaker 1: all the time. It's a complete inside again, you know
Speaker 1: George Carlin quote big club, you ain't in it, and
Speaker 1: Simon is finding out the hard way. He had the
Speaker 1: temerity to shout at the press secretary, which is literally
Speaker 1: supposed to what these people are supposed to do. But
Speaker 1: they don't have to shout anymore because they've got that
Speaker 1: inside relationship. This is. It's totally rich the way that
Speaker 1: this happened, and he just exposed it again once once
Speaker 1: again after his last big stand. So here you go,
Speaker 1: And if you really want to be disgusted, just look
Speaker 1: at the online reaction of this was all in favor
Speaker 1: of dare he how dare he speak up? And the
Speaker 1: Queen great break de Korum, etcetera. So anyway, okay, so
Speaker 1: this there's a clip that has been getting passed around
Speaker 1: quite a lot online that is quite a storinary. So
Speaker 1: we want to play it here. Put actually the second
Speaker 1: element guys up on the screen. First. PBS is doing
Speaker 1: a little documentary of doctor Fauji. I guess they followed
Speaker 1: him around for a while of part of their American
Speaker 1: Masters series and as part of this documentary, where again
Speaker 1: they were following Fauchi for a while with a camera crew,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and seeing what was happening. This was like
Speaker 1: in the height of the vaccine push. As part of this,
Speaker 1: they went to a historic black neighborhood in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: It's Fauci and current mayor maryel Bowser, and they are
Speaker 1: trying to get people who are not yet vaccinated to
Speaker 1: go and get the JAB. So mostly I watched the
Speaker 1: whole clip that they've posted. Most interactions very friendly. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of people are like, oh, I already
Speaker 1: got it done. People were excited to see him or whatever.
Speaker 1: But one of the interactions did not go exactly as
Speaker 1: doctor Fausci expected. Let's take a look. People in America
Speaker 1: are not settled with the information that's been given to
Speaker 1: us right now. So I'm not going to be lining
Speaker 1: up taking a shot or an vaccination for something that
Speaker 1: wasn't clear in the first place. And then you all
Speaker 1: create a shot in miraculous time. It takes years to
Speaker 1: create well, it used to take years. Okay, you know
Speaker 1: how you know how many years we're invested in this
Speaker 1: in this approach, about twenty years of science to get
Speaker 1: us to be what to do not enough, and nine
Speaker 1: months it's definitely not enough for nobody to be taking
Speaker 1: no vaccination. That you all came up with, what are
Speaker 1: we going to do about those other states? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: they're going to keep the outbreak smoldering in the country.
Speaker 1: It's so crazy. I mean, they're not doing it because
Speaker 1: they say they don't want to do it with their Republicans,
Speaker 1: they don't like to be told what to do. And
Speaker 1: we've got to break that, you know, unpack that. Well.
Speaker 1: I heard that it doesn't hear it and it doesn't
Speaker 1: stop you from getting it. So on the very very
Speaker 1: very rare chance that you do get it, even if
Speaker 1: you vaccinated, it's a very you don't even feel sick.
Speaker 1: It's like you don't even know you got infected. So
Speaker 1: the first interaction that we play that went on for
Speaker 1: some time. He had a lot of and they just
Speaker 1: had to eventually be like, all right, you're obviously not
Speaker 1: going to get the vaccine. But there's actually a lot
Speaker 1: to unpack here. I mean, first of all, in that
Speaker 1: last interaction, what Fauci says is really not accurate. It's
Speaker 1: just not accurate, literally not true. It's just not true, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, we all found out that okay, the vaccine
Speaker 1: was very effective in preventing severe illness into that is
Speaker 1: that is absolutely especially amongst those who are menal compromises, elderly. Yes,
Speaker 1: but it really didn't do a whole lot in terms
Speaker 1: of just keeping you from COVID as we discovered in
Speaker 1: the rest of the country. And he's telling that to
Speaker 1: a mom with her kids. That's actually what really called me, Chris.
Speaker 1: So that was that the first guy. Also, you know,
Speaker 1: zad Jlawni was talking about this. He was like, listen,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever you think about the vaccine, that's not
Speaker 1: how you convince somebody. Whenever you're like, well, actually it
Speaker 1: was twenty years of sign Now, look, maybe the man
Speaker 1: was unconvinceable, but he was so arrogant in his presentation
Speaker 1: about the data, about the way that he was talking
Speaker 1: to that mother. Also in that comment that he was
Speaker 1: making to Muriel Bowser about oh, these Republicans and their
Speaker 1: choice and all this basically ridiculing them. You know, this
Speaker 1: was at the time, I believe this was in May
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one. At that time, whenever President Biden
Speaker 1: was like it's a pandemic or whatever of the unvaccinated
Speaker 1: and I did end up being true either, And the
Speaker 1: point was is that he was ridiculing and admonishing people
Speaker 1: rather than actually trying to meet that man with his
Speaker 1: legitimate concerns and just say listen, man, like tell me,
Speaker 1: what would you need to hear from me right now?
Speaker 1: Like what can I try and give you right now?
Speaker 1: I mean, okay. So there's a lot of research about
Speaker 1: the best ways to actually persuade people, and the least
Speaker 1: effective thing you can do is sort of what Fauci
Speaker 1: did there, which is girl a bunch of statistics at them,
Speaker 1: beat them over the head with like well actually it
Speaker 1: was blah blah blah blah blah. The best thing you
Speaker 1: can do is engage in a conversation and ask them
Speaker 1: some questions that maybe allow them to themselves question some
Speaker 1: of the assumptions that they had made. Now, look, I
Speaker 1: think it's entirely possible that this man was not persuadable.
Speaker 1: He clearly was like, you know, we're very invested, and
Speaker 1: that exchange, like I said, goes on for a long time.
Speaker 1: He is very invested in his view of the vaccine,
Speaker 1: which wasn't accurate. But to me, what it reminded me
Speaker 1: of was the fact that, especially early in the vaccination campaigns,
Speaker 1: there was a median narrative that the only people who
Speaker 1: were vaccine hesitant were basically like crank, right wing Republican
Speaker 1: and that was not true. That it wasn't true at all.
Speaker 1: And so I actually, I mean, I'm glad that Fauci
Speaker 1: actually went out and talked of some p people that
Speaker 1: didn't fit the narrative that was being sold. But you know,
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense that the people who
Speaker 1: have been screwed over the most in modern history, in
Speaker 1: past history, in further back history, by American society and
Speaker 1: by specifically the medical establishment in a lot of instances, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're going to be skeptical. That is the natural reaction
Speaker 1: to their experience and the history of what they have
Speaker 1: suffered in this country. So I think it was a
Speaker 1: real reminder of that time period and how much we
Speaker 1: were kind of gaslet about where vaccine hesitancy was coming
Speaker 1: from and what it was all about, when in reality
Speaker 1: it was a much more complex and multifaceted picture. And
Speaker 1: the other thing that it reminded me of, which is
Speaker 1: just like pretty service level, is there's oftentimes an attempt
Speaker 1: to paint the quote unquote black community as one single
Speaker 1: monolith that holds one single set of views. And I
Speaker 1: think if you watch this clip in its entirety, it's
Speaker 1: very clear that you cannot reduce any demographic group of
Speaker 1: people to a single monolith. People are complex and they
Speaker 1: hold a wide variety of views within any demographic It
Speaker 1: turns out black people who are just like the rest
Speaker 1: of us individuals. Shocker. I know it's actually racist to
Speaker 1: think the otherwise, but what of course, I'm sure that
Speaker 1: point has been made a million times. My major takeaway
Speaker 1: from that was Number One, Fauci is the least effective
Speaker 1: science communicator of all time, even though quote he is
Speaker 1: literally the science, as he dubbed himself. And two, which
Speaker 1: is a core tenant of the show, is I trust
Speaker 1: regular people. Man. You know these people are out there.
Speaker 1: I'm going to presume that they work very hard, that
Speaker 1: you know, necessarily that life has been tough in some cases,
Speaker 1: especially in that neighborhood. And guess what, those people are
Speaker 1: often the best at sussing out information for themselves, and
Speaker 1: they can legitimately ask that question. And actually thought it
Speaker 1: was really outrageous the way that he lied to her
Speaker 1: about preventing transmission and all that, and trying to guilt
Speaker 1: trip this mother into trying to to protect her children
Speaker 1: when the information that she presented was fundamentally accurate as
Speaker 1: to what she wanted to do. Also, it's not like
Speaker 1: she wasn't COVID unsafe. She was wearing a mask at
Speaker 1: the time. I don't know if everybody noticed that. So
Speaker 1: it's not like she didn't care about protecting her kids.
Speaker 1: She was. It turned out what we knew about mass
Speaker 1: and all that. But I guess, to the best of
Speaker 1: her knowledge, what she thought she was doing best for
Speaker 1: protecting herself and protecting her family. And at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, like, this is America, and it also
Speaker 1: underscores I think I did a monologue about this with
Speaker 1: Don Lemon and with others where he was calling out
Speaker 1: like white unvaccinated whites and how they should be banned
Speaker 1: from society and all that, and I was like, here,
Speaker 1: you have like one of the top black people in
Speaker 1: news who's basically advocating for poor blacks in New York
Speaker 1: City and throughout the rest of America to not be
Speaker 1: able to enter a public space. Yeah, that's crazy to
Speaker 1: be kicked out. And there was a conversation about kicking
Speaker 1: people out of school. Yes, yeah, I mean listen to
Speaker 1: to go back to that first exchange with the guy.
Speaker 1: It was very hard against the vaccine. I mean, some
Speaker 1: of what he said was not correct, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: But it was also interesting to hear how he was
Speaker 1: consuming the information that was available to him. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that made him really skeptical was
Speaker 1: there were a bunch of these incentive programs like oh,
Speaker 1: we'll pay you, which I at the time thought, okay,
Speaker 1: well maybe that's a reasonable life thought. But clearly, at
Speaker 1: least for some percentage, this was taken of a sign
Speaker 1: of like, oh you're going to pay, then there must
Speaker 1: really be something else going on here if you're willing
Speaker 1: to pay me for it. And that's again because there's
Speaker 1: this deep mistrust. And by the way, you know, to
Speaker 1: bring this background to Fauci, and I think that guy
Speaker 1: mentioned some of this or at least alluded to it
Speaker 1: as well. We know that at the beginning of this crisis,
Speaker 1: Fauci was not He admitted to lying to American people
Speaker 1: about masks and about herd immunity. So if that's your
Speaker 1: starting point of like out of the Gates on one
Speaker 1: of the most important questions of like should you mask
Speaker 1: or should you not mask? You're gonna lie to us
Speaker 1: about what you actually think and what the science and
Speaker 1: research to that point actually says, Well, then yeah, that's
Speaker 1: going to degrade our trust than down the road when
Speaker 1: you're asking us to take these other steps. To me,
Speaker 1: it also just exposes that one of the I've met
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are unvaccinated. I've met a
Speaker 1: lot of people who refuse to get the vaccine, and
Speaker 1: the number one thing that they cite to me every
Speaker 1: single time is the pharmaceutical profit incentive. Can you blame them?
Speaker 1: I absolutely cannot. And that is something which in retrospect
Speaker 1: and I mean we certainly said at the time, but
Speaker 1: also any injection of money into this process corrupted it
Speaker 1: in the minds of the skeptical from day one. You
Speaker 1: cannot but look at the outrageous profits of a Pfizer
Speaker 1: and of Maderna, of their changing their tune from the
Speaker 1: original vacs to them the boosters to now continual boosters,
Speaker 1: and not say, hey, you're making a ton of money
Speaker 1: off this thing. You are also literally exempt by the
Speaker 1: US government over liability and so it's like you exempt
Speaker 1: the liability, but you get to keep the profits. So
Speaker 1: it's like, well, so it's literal, the literal meme of
Speaker 1: socializer skin privatize the profit. I think that was the
Speaker 1: original sin. Yeah, from the beginning, I personally think there
Speaker 1: would have been much higher vaccine uptick A if they
Speaker 1: were way more honest about the data and B if
Speaker 1: they had taken money out from the process in the
Speaker 1: first place. Because that's one of the first things he
Speaker 1: sides too about the process, the opaqueness. That's something I learned.
Speaker 1: I have learned so much from John Abramson, who we
Speaker 1: had here on the show about the actual process to
Speaker 1: which these drugs get Greenland through. With the way the
Speaker 1: flu shot so so much of this stuff that, you know,
Speaker 1: my own skepticism is skyrocketed about the entire medical system
Speaker 1: through this, and I don't think I'm alone. And a
Speaker 1: lot of it does come back to money. I think
Speaker 1: I think you're right to pinpoint the profit motive, because
Speaker 1: even if we zoom out from this particular incident, etc.
Speaker 1: It's no accident that the US has a larger percentage
Speaker 1: of vaccine hesitant people than other developed nations that have
Speaker 1: universal healthcare where you don't have the profit motive at
Speaker 1: the core of every single interaction anyone ever has with
Speaker 1: our medical system, it is obtaining health insurance, whether it's
Speaker 1: trying to get the you know, drugs that they've been
Speaker 1: prescribed or anything else. Yeah, guess what when your experience
Speaker 1: with the medical system is these people are just trying
Speaker 1: to price gouge me at every single point of interaction,
Speaker 1: that's going to fuel some skepticism and some hesitancy. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think in this particular instance, going with
Speaker 1: a for profit approach to vaccine development, I do think
Speaker 1: that that was a mistake. But it is not just
Speaker 1: a mistake, but a tragedy and a real crime against
Speaker 1: you know, the people of America that we are the
Speaker 1: only healthcare system in the world that operates in the
Speaker 1: way that we do where it is about profit and
Speaker 1: not ultimately about health outcomes. So this is what you
Speaker 1: end up with, and it is sad. Yeah, Fauci, the
Speaker 1: people who all supported this strategy of the privatized vaccine
Speaker 1: and all of that, You people are the ones who
Speaker 1: are responsible for this. It's not on those individuals for
Speaker 1: asking questions, Crystal, what are you taking a look at
Speaker 1: a call FTX led by Sam Bankman. Freed collapsed spectacularly.
Speaker 1: While back in the wreckage, it became quite clear this
Speaker 1: was no ordinary business failure, but a classic Ponzi scheme
Speaker 1: in a modern crypto wrapping with billions and missing funds,
Speaker 1: a mountain of lies, and a founder who used a
Speaker 1: carefully cultivated public image to hide an alleged white collar
Speaker 1: crime spree. SBF is now wearing an ankle bracelet at
Speaker 1: his parents' mansion awaiting trial. Well, there's an interesting new
Speaker 1: sub drama playing out which could have huge ramifications for
Speaker 1: the entire YouTube creator space, but especially for the world
Speaker 1: of financial influencers. Investors who claim they lost money in
Speaker 1: FTX because of YouTube creator hype have filed a class
Speaker 1: action lawsuit against a number of popular finance YouTubers. The
Speaker 1: list of ten defendants here includes Graham Stephen of The
Speaker 1: Graham Stephen Show. They have four point twenty six million subscribers,
Speaker 1: Ben Anderson of the bit Boy crypto channel it has
Speaker 1: one point five to four million subscribers, and Kevin Papras
Speaker 1: of Meet Kevin one point eight seven million subscribers. Now,
Speaker 1: I actually wasn't familiar really with any of these dudes before,
Speaker 1: but looking at their channels kind of looks like a
Speaker 1: standard combination of get rich, Quick stuff, crypto promotion, elon standing, etc. Now,
Speaker 1: the lawsuit makes a couple of key claims here. First,
Speaker 1: claims that the promoters were involved in the illegal sale
Speaker 1: of unregistered securities. Effectively, the argument here is that the
Speaker 1: FTX high Yield accounts were really technically unregistered securities, which
Speaker 1: then have to be handled legally in a very specific way.
Speaker 1: The suit claims that these influencers are sophisticated and should
Speaker 1: have been able to see that FTX was a scam,
Speaker 1: and it also claims that these promoters were selling FTX
Speaker 1: without sufficiently disclosing that they were getting paid for that endorsement.
Speaker 1: For the complaint, though FTX paid defendants handsomely to push
Speaker 1: its brand and encourage their followers to invest, defendants did
Speaker 1: not disclose the nature and scope of their sponsorships and
Speaker 1: or endorsement deals, payments and compensation, nor conduct adequate, if any,
Speaker 1: due diligence. For example, Meet Kevin was apparently paid twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars every time he even mentioned FTX, an
Speaker 1: arrangement that he told coffee Zilla netted him more than
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars. How clearly was this disclosed? Well,
Speaker 1: that'll be a key question for Meet Kevin and other
Speaker 1: influencers who took money from FTX and then subsequently hyped
Speaker 1: their products. You'll recall that Kim Kardashian actually settled a
Speaker 1: case against her for a million dollars because she was
Speaker 1: alleged to have insufficiently disclosed that she was getting paid
Speaker 1: to show for some schlocky ethereum knockoff coin. She put
Speaker 1: hashtag ad in her Instagram post, but regulators claimed this
Speaker 1: was not enough. Now, in terms of this legal case here,
Speaker 1: to be perfectly honest with you, after reading the complaint,
Speaker 1: far from persuaded that this suit is going to actually succeed.
Speaker 1: I was expecting to see a lot of specific details
Speaker 1: about who was getting paid what, and specific comments they
Speaker 1: made which were fraudulent or lacking in appropriate disclosure. Those
Speaker 1: details could come out still in discovery, but there was
Speaker 1: not a whole lot here. At least one of the
Speaker 1: named influencers, bit Boy actually warned that FTX was a
Speaker 1: scam a month before its collapse, and claims he had
Speaker 1: no financial deal with them whatsoever. Coffee Zilla interviewed a
Speaker 1: lawyer who raised a lot of red flags about the
Speaker 1: case as well, finding in in particular, the notion that
Speaker 1: these YouTubers should have had special, non public knowledge of
Speaker 1: FTX to be a pretty unreasonable notion. But taking a
Speaker 1: step back from the rather murky legal analysis, there are
Speaker 1: some very clear lessons inadvertently revealed by used uber Meet
Speaker 1: Kevin in his response to the filing. Now that's the
Speaker 1: guy again, and who's getting twenty five hundred bucks a
Speaker 1: pop every time the word FTX came out of his mouth.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to a portion of the response video
Speaker 1: that he posted to his channel. At what point does
Speaker 1: sort of the promotion of an idea or a suggestion,
Speaker 1: paid or unpaid rise to the level of actually being
Speaker 1: personalized advice? And in my opinion, it does it. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, at no point does me saying I think
Speaker 1: oil is going down and it's a good short rise
Speaker 1: to the level of personal financial advice. At no point
Speaker 1: does me saying hey, I'm investing in something rise to
Speaker 1: the level of personalized financial advice. Personalized financial advice is
Speaker 1: when somebody signs a contract with a financial advisor and says, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm paying you specifically to advise on my portfolio. And
Speaker 1: by signing that contract, now the other person is taking
Speaker 1: the fit duciary obligation of providing the best responsibility in
Speaker 1: service to that person for their case. And see that,
Speaker 1: I think is the big difference here is when people
Speaker 1: who are content creators are sharing ideas and perspectives, they're
Speaker 1: doing just that. They're not giving you personalized insights. They're
Speaker 1: giving you ideas and perspectives. And the reality is people
Speaker 1: have to put on their big boy pants and realize
Speaker 1: that if you make a decision because of something you
Speaker 1: heard online, that's your responsibility. So when people who are
Speaker 1: content creators are sharing ideas and perspectives, they're doing just that.
Speaker 1: They're not giving you personalized insights. They're giving you ideas
Speaker 1: and perspectives. So here, this guy's whole thing is being
Speaker 1: a financial YouTube or the whole reason that people watch
Speaker 1: him is to get advice, But he says he's not
Speaker 1: actually giving advice. He loves the followers listen, of course
Speaker 1: to what he has to say when he's building his
Speaker 1: channel and cashing those checks from FTX and whoever else,
Speaker 1: But he wants another responsibility that comes with having an
Speaker 1: audience that you have explicitly cultivated to trust your guidance.
Speaker 1: In his words, quote, people need to put on their
Speaker 1: big boy pants and realize if you make a decision
Speaker 1: based on something you heard online, that is your responsibility.
Speaker 1: So basically its position here is that if you were
Speaker 1: dumb enough to take my advice, it's your own damn fault. Now,
Speaker 1: I hope anyone who listens to this type of contact
Speaker 1: really takes this in. If you trust a word of
Speaker 1: the advice that they're giving you, they think you're a
Speaker 1: fool who needs to put on your big boy pants
Speaker 1: and accept personal responsibility for the catastrophic investments that they
Speaker 1: were paid in many instances to promote to you. Now,
Speaker 1: what many of these influencers did. It might not be illegal,
Speaker 1: but it is wildly unethical to pump a bunch of
Speaker 1: risky bets that you are being paid to promote. Knowing
Speaker 1: how we approach our business here and our responsibility to
Speaker 1: all of you, I genuinely cannot wrap my head around it.
Speaker 1: We have decided not to talk to or take direct
Speaker 1: money from corporate sponsors at all, because I would feel
Speaker 1: terrible if I even just promoted some product that was
Speaker 1: kind of crappy and didn't work as advertised. When you're
Speaker 1: talking about people's money, or I should add also their health,
Speaker 1: that is a whole other level of response and a
Speaker 1: whole other level of callousness. I could not live with
Speaker 1: myself if I thought there were people who lost everything
Speaker 1: because I was on the FTX dole shilling for their crappy,
Speaker 1: fraudulent Ponzi ski. The bottom line is this, They're happy
Speaker 1: to profit off your trust, but they take zero responsibility
Speaker 1: for any wreckage that that trust creates. Meet Kevin says
Speaker 1: you should not consider his or any other financial influencers
Speaker 1: comments as personal advice, and ironically that is actually good advice.
Speaker 1: It's so scummy this world, I don't I mean, listen
Speaker 1: and if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. All right,
Speaker 1: sorry were looking at yesterday. March twentieth was an important day.
Speaker 1: It's one that will likely pass with little fanfare and
Speaker 1: acknowledgment by the mainstream media. But as we covered and
Speaker 1: those who know, it's the twentieth anniversary of the day
Speaker 1: that we invaded a rock March twentieth, the day that
Speaker 1: American ground force has crossed to Iraq for the race
Speaker 1: to Bagdad. Little did those men know that we were
Speaker 1: doomed to waste five trillion dollars, thousands of American lives,
Speaker 1: who knows how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and
Speaker 1: pouring gasoline on a global jihadist movement that took almost
Speaker 1: twenty years to actually bring to Bay. It is difficult
Speaker 1: to describe how bad the Iraq War was what it
Speaker 1: did to this country. It actually ruined us to our
Speaker 1: core at home and abroad. It set us back in
Speaker 1: ways we still have yet to recover from, and to me,
Speaker 1: it's where the root of almost all our modern problems
Speaker 1: stem from. Yet those who led us into the war
Speaker 1: in Iraq, those who supported it and beat the war
Speaker 1: drump for it, are still amongst us. George W. Bush
Speaker 1: is a celebrated painter, now pro democracy because he stood
Speaker 1: up to Trump. The Cheney family is a paragon of virtue. Apparently,
Speaker 1: Press Secretary is George Bush, who lied to the American people,
Speaker 1: who doomed young men to their deaths in a far
Speaker 1: away land, are now MSNBC stars and never Trump heroes.
Speaker 1: Lawmakers and thinkers who justified the war in Iraq. They
Speaker 1: voted for it, they defended it, propagated it remain amongst
Speaker 1: us to this day. Iraq is important not just because
Speaker 1: of how bad it was, but because those who pushed
Speaker 1: and justified this war today have been reborn as icons
Speaker 1: of the liberal establishment. They have moved from the center
Speaker 1: of power from right to left in this country throughout
Speaker 1: the ideological takeover, never taking their hands off the wheel
Speaker 1: of foreign policy. I was especially struck by this in
Speaker 1: the freak out over Ron DeSantis' comments on Ukraine and
Speaker 1: the people who crawled out of the woodwork to criticize him.
Speaker 1: Exactly four GOP lawmakers went on the record in the story.
Speaker 1: The first was Liz Cheney. Do I even need to
Speaker 1: tell you that not only did the Cheney support the
Speaker 1: war at the time, but that she continues to support
Speaker 1: the invasion and the acts of her father. The next
Speaker 1: one was Lindsay Graham, another noted GOP clown, who supported
Speaker 1: the war in Iraq at the time, never stopped supporting it,
Speaker 1: and recently advocated for World War three with Russia because
Speaker 1: our drone was forced down. The next was Marco Rubio,
Speaker 1: who of course, famously defended Bush for invading Iraq in
Speaker 1: his twenty sixteen campaign and subsequently was trounced by Trump
Speaker 1: in the primary. Finally, the last was John Cornyn. Cornyn,
Speaker 1: conveniently for US, represented Texas in the US Senate at
Speaker 1: the time, he voted for the war in Iraq and
Speaker 1: actually said in it was not a war of our choosing,
Speaker 1: Let's keep going. Among so called prominent conservatives who criticized DeSantis,
Speaker 1: David French, now a New York Times columnists who lambasted
Speaker 1: DeSantis for his carefully worded answer to imply that it's
Speaker 1: not a core US interest for Ukraine to defeat Russia
Speaker 1: and calling it at least in part a quote territorial dispute.
Speaker 1: French laid out his take on DeSantis, which is of
Speaker 1: course fine and a legitimate opinion, saying he's no Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 1: But I also happened for no, he's still a viamin
Speaker 1: defender of the Iraq war. He wrote in twenty nineteen quote,
Speaker 1: I believed the Iraq War was just and proper in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three. I still believe that today. So
Speaker 1: by that metric in the Frenchian worldview, if this is
Speaker 1: something that Reagan would have done. Well. I think we
Speaker 1: should all be out on that one. Let's keep going,
Speaker 1: shall we. Let's move on. David from of the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: from never Trump figure. Also the guy literally wrote the
Speaker 1: access of Evil speech the President Bush delivered dumius to
Speaker 1: the quote forever war on Terror? A week ago, he writes,
Speaker 1: is DeSantis flaming out, already advancing the idea that embracing
Speaker 1: a skeptical view of the US view towards Ukraine is
Speaker 1: trying to win quote the Fox News primary, and not
Speaker 1: even a few days later, comes out with a piece
Speaker 1: that to this day defends the Iraq War, admitting that
Speaker 1: while it might have been a mistake, we got at
Speaker 1: least something out of it. Right. Yeah, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go with wrong. I'll keep going. Let's go. Bill Krystal,
Speaker 1: served as a mouthpiece of the Bush administration, ran a
Speaker 1: magazine whose entire job it was to push for the
Speaker 1: Iraq war. Also hit DeSantis for not supporting Ukraine's freedom.
Speaker 1: Reminded me of a tweet that I'll never forget of
Speaker 1: his November twenty sixteen. The Iraq War was right, necessary,
Speaker 1: and we want it. Let's go. I can continue even more.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you get the point. Nicole Wallace, the former
Speaker 1: push a Kom's official who shielled for the war, aired
Speaker 1: multiple segments on her show denouncing DeSantis. All of this
Speaker 1: is just compiled to show you the loudest voices out
Speaker 1: there today beating the drum from more aid to Ukraine
Speaker 1: and attacking DeSantis for half harded endorsement of a trump
Speaker 1: Ist style worldview. Shows you how these people have suffered
Speaker 1: no real consequence. Worse, it shows that a group of
Speaker 1: people who hold tremendous power over our foreign policy and
Speaker 1: remain influential, are also completely out of step with most
Speaker 1: Americans today. The vast majority of Americans say the Iraq
Speaker 1: War was a terrible mistake. Sixty one percent say they
Speaker 1: do not believe that the US made the right decision.
Speaker 1: If you remove boomers from that equation, it is overwhelming
Speaker 1: almost all young voters saying it was a catastrophic mistake.
Speaker 1: With respect to Ukraine, this also shows out of step
Speaker 1: even these lawmakers are from their own voters. Only forty
Speaker 1: two percent of GOP voters even support aid to Ukraine,
Speaker 1: with most turning against it. This is the same trend
Speaker 1: amongst independents. One of the most enduring lessons of Iraq
Speaker 1: is that monoculture views on foreign policy lead to inevitable disasters,
Speaker 1: that intervention has fortieth order consequences, often which are far
Speaker 1: worse than people ever could predict, and that you can
Speaker 1: deal with the fallout for years to come if you
Speaker 1: get it wrong. We escaped Iraq merely penniless, torn apart
Speaker 1: as a country, and with a million or so people dead.
Speaker 1: Let's hope that the Butcher's bill is not as high,
Speaker 1: if not higher, for our current posture abroad. And isn't
Speaker 1: it amazing when you look at those side by side
Speaker 1: pieces on what people say and if you want to
Speaker 1: hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber
Speaker 1: today at Breakingpoints dot com. So, guys, as we have
Speaker 1: been discussing in the show, this week marks twenty years
Speaker 1: since the Iraq War invasion and joining us now to
Speaker 1: talk about some of the media failures then and whether
Speaker 1: they have learned anything in the present is doctor Tree
Speaker 1: to Parsi. He is executive vice president of the Quincy Institute.
Speaker 1: It's great to see you, sir, good sez back before
Speaker 1: we get into the content here, I do want to
Speaker 1: flag for everybody. I'm moderating a panel in conjunction with
Speaker 1: Quincy Institute that is going to be tomorrow and it's
Speaker 1: going to tackle It's a great group of people that
Speaker 1: are going to be on this panel, and we're sort
Speaker 1: of tackling how the media led us into war and
Speaker 1: some of these questions about what if anything has changed
Speaker 1: in terms of their coverage. So you can RSVP online,
Speaker 1: you can join us online, you can join us in person.
Speaker 1: It should be a great event. So with that being said,
Speaker 1: doctor Parcy just remind people of what a monolith the
Speaker 1: media was leading up to a Rock War. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just conservative media, it was almost uniformly across the board.
Speaker 1: How did they make such a grave era error of
Speaker 1: just trusting hook line and sinker whatever the Bush administration
Speaker 1: wanted to feed them the Mata error by not doing
Speaker 1: their jobs. The job of journalism is to question power,
Speaker 1: to scrutinize it, and there was no scrutinizing. There was
Speaker 1: no tough questions being asked instead of the media really
Speaker 1: helped create a groupthink situation in Washington and beyond. I
Speaker 1: was on the Hill at the time and it was
Speaker 1: very clear. It's like a switch went off when once
Speaker 1: the White House set the signal that they want to
Speaker 1: do this, you could not disagree with it publicly. People
Speaker 1: had to whisper in the corners if they had any
Speaker 1: qualms about it, and the media helped create that atmosphere
Speaker 1: in which if you questioned it meant you were on
Speaker 1: the other side, you were a Saddam hugger, just as
Speaker 1: much as Putin hugger today if you have question marks
Speaker 1: about the wisdom of this, about the tactics, about the strategy,
Speaker 1: but the very inception of the idea that yes, it
Speaker 1: is the job of the United States to go all
Speaker 1: the way to the other side of the world to
Speaker 1: create a democracy in a country that we know literally
Speaker 1: nothing about. Yeah, and that's something we wanted to dig into.
Speaker 1: Is the dynamic that you said, let's ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. From Bronco. Marstig made
Speaker 1: a great point twenty years ago, the Iraq War changed
Speaker 1: everything and taught it leads nothing. Can you, since you
Speaker 1: were at there at the time, compare that time to
Speaker 1: where we are right now in not just the Ukraine debate,
Speaker 1: but really the foreign policy debate in general. Well, I think,
Speaker 1: I have to say, having gone through Iraq, I never
Speaker 1: thought was going to happen again, you know, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't because I thought humanity had this amazing ability. I
Speaker 1: thought there were specific circumstances that made it particularly bad,
Speaker 1: and so I was quite wrong. And then seeing it
Speaker 1: being repeated in Ukraine, and I think what happened with Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason why, both from the media and
Speaker 1: other ends, there was this desire to just think that
Speaker 1: this is the right thing to do is because of
Speaker 1: that desire of us wanting to be on the right
Speaker 1: side of history, which then means that logic and nuance,
Speaker 1: all of that stuff has to be said to decide.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't a way way of correcting in the
Speaker 1: minds of some people what had happened for the last
Speaker 1: twenty years when the United States used to be the
Speaker 1: aggressive of one country that invaded others, preemptive words, etc.
Speaker 1: And now it was someone else doing it. Great, Now
Speaker 1: we can be on the right side of history. We
Speaker 1: can be the good guys thinking that we are in
Speaker 1: a Marvel movie rather than being in a reality in
Speaker 1: which nuance is unfortunately the key thing that makes us
Speaker 1: better understand the world and chart it better is direct
Speaker 1: than for direction for our foreign policy. So I think
Speaker 1: that desire really kicked in and it made it at
Speaker 1: times even worse. And one thing I have to say
Speaker 1: that is really really scary. I follow stuff in Europe
Speaker 1: a lot. I grew up in Sweden. They didn't have
Speaker 1: the group think back in two thousand and three, as
Speaker 1: you know want critically. Now they're in a worse situation
Speaker 1: than the United States. I have to say, the conversation
Speaker 1: here not saying that it's great, but the conversation here
Speaker 1: is better, and it is in many capitals in Europe
Speaker 1: right now. And that really came as a surprise. That
Speaker 1: was your experience when you were there. I was going
Speaker 1: to say, I was just in the UK a month
Speaker 1: ago and I was I was like, man, they put
Speaker 1: us to shame their media. Yeah, there was a caller,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it was like LBC radio is
Speaker 1: exactly what you're referencing. All he said was maybe we
Speaker 1: shouldn't send fighter jets to you, and this guy, the
Speaker 1: host just lost it on him. My anti democracy all that.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, if that's how it is here,
Speaker 1: you know, And to be fair, I guess London is
Speaker 1: the most hawkish. But maybe talk about that as well
Speaker 1: in the context of the need at the time with
Speaker 1: Iraq to have the countervailing point of view. I said yesterday,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the great failures. Sure the media
Speaker 1: was there, but it was also the Hill, you know,
Speaker 1: like there at the end of the day, could have
Speaker 1: had access to the secret intelligence. They could have asked questions,
Speaker 1: had hearings. Instead, he had Joe Biden and the Senate
Speaker 1: Foreign Relations Committee. But not just but he is a
Speaker 1: president now, but all senior leaders are completely lining up
Speaker 1: the President Bush at the time and basically validating their
Speaker 1: case for Iraq. I mean, has that changed in any
Speaker 1: way at least or what do you have not to
Speaker 1: an extent that it should. And I think again it
Speaker 1: comes down to, instead of looking at to his issues
Speaker 1: as hard foreign policy issues that need to be analyzed,
Speaker 1: we quickly moralize it. There's a good and a bad side.
Speaker 1: And once we do it that way, you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to any longer have question marks about strategy, tactics, etc.
Speaker 1: Because if you have those questions marks, you are then
Speaker 1: citing with the evil guy in the equation. That's not
Speaker 1: to say that what Russia did in Ukraine is completely wrong,
Speaker 1: it's a violation of international law. All of those things
Speaker 1: are true, but when we look at foreign policy through
Speaker 1: that moralizing lens, we eliminate the possibility to be able
Speaker 1: to actually have a nuanced, logical, critical conversation about what
Speaker 1: the right way out of this situation is. It's all
Speaker 1: about taking side, and the end result of that is
Speaker 1: that far more people die. So even if you want
Speaker 1: to take a look at it from a moral position,
Speaker 1: the outcome is likely going to be worse from that
Speaker 1: moral position as well. You know, I was thinking the
Speaker 1: other day about remember when progress is put together that
Speaker 1: letter that was like so mild, was like, look, we
Speaker 1: totally support what the president is doing. We think he's great,
Speaker 1: and Russia's you know, obviously illegal invasion, all of that,
Speaker 1: but maybe we should potentially consider diplomacy. That's not exactly
Speaker 1: what it said, but that was basically the gist of
Speaker 1: the letter, and the backlash to that was so over
Speaker 1: the top. They end up apollo, they pull it, they
Speaker 1: apologize for it. We really haven't heard a word of
Speaker 1: dissent from progressives since then. And that was you know,
Speaker 1: both sort of like political backlash but also a lot
Speaker 1: of that was fomented by the media. It seems to
Speaker 1: me like the the attempt to crush descent coming from
Speaker 1: the progressive left elected left has been very successful. I
Speaker 1: have to say the idea that this only comes from
Speaker 1: one side is simply not true. It comes from all sides.
Speaker 1: It's an unfortunate human condition, and we have to recognize
Speaker 1: that rather than again throwing ourselves and thinking, oh, it's
Speaker 1: only the political opponents that are doing it this way,
Speaker 1: this is happening on both sides. I think it was
Speaker 1: a huge mistake the reaction to that letter. That letter
Speaker 1: simply just said, look for supporting the defense of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: but there's got to be a diplomatic element to it
Speaker 1: as well, and rest a sure at one point there
Speaker 1: will be. And at that point the closing of political
Speaker 1: space that has happened is going to make it all
Speaker 1: the more difficult for the White House to go in
Speaker 1: that direction. This was a letter aimed at creating political
Speaker 1: space for the administration so that when it felt that
Speaker 1: the opportunity was there to shift towards diplomacy, it would
Speaker 1: be able to do so without having a lot of
Speaker 1: resistance in Washington. And that was squashed that was a
Speaker 1: huge mistake. And incidentally, just a couple of days later,
Speaker 1: it turns out that Jake Salloon was going to Moscow,
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, what was going and talked to a Russian counterpart.
Speaker 1: So clearly the White House was already engaged in some
Speaker 1: of this activity of diplomacy. So those who thought they
Speaker 1: were defending the president by squashing it had no clue
Speaker 1: what the White House actually was doing, because they were engaged.
Speaker 1: Not at the level, not at the extent that I
Speaker 1: would like to see, but nevertheless there were some diplomacy
Speaker 1: taking place. Whereas the defenders of the White House thought
Speaker 1: that they had to squash this clearly showed they had
Speaker 1: no clue what was going on. They had no clue
Speaker 1: where the White House wanted to go. But they were
Speaker 1: acting as this moral police of being able to decide
Speaker 1: who's allowed to have an opinion on this and who
Speaker 1: was not. Well, my last question is on at least
Speaker 1: the space has been opened. You're with the Quincy Institute,
Speaker 1: with figures like you in the foreign policy debate, do
Speaker 1: you think what are the best ways that you think
Speaker 1: that people ordinary people, but also here in Washington, we
Speaker 1: could move it so that there is at least a
Speaker 1: fair one and stood a Iraq style event happen again. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the key thing again is to have the
Speaker 1: moral courage of asking questions and doesn't mean you're taking
Speaker 1: the other side. It means that you have to question
Speaker 1: these things in order to improve the various directions that
Speaker 1: we might consider to go. And I think the emergence
Speaker 1: of breaking points and alternative media is essential to this.
Speaker 1: The problem I see though, is if you have half
Speaker 1: the population only watching mainstream media and the other half
Speaker 1: only watching alternative media and never talking to each other,
Speaker 1: all that's going to lead to is further polarization, further
Speaker 1: looking at it from a moral lens of you know,
Speaker 1: there's us and then there's the others, and that's not
Speaker 1: going to help. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's still a step in the right direction, because if
Speaker 1: we didn't have breaking points and alternative shows that brought
Speaker 1: on other guests that asked these questions, it would be
Speaker 1: exactly where we were with Iraq, in which no questions
Speaker 1: were acting and incidentally was very fascinating. I personally benefited
Speaker 1: from this. I was leading the Iranian and nationally Irani
Speaker 1: American Council and then the way the media two years,
Speaker 1: three years after the Rock War wanted to compensate for
Speaker 1: a mistake that they had committed, that they knew that
Speaker 1: they had committed, but very few of them were willing
Speaker 1: to admit, was to actively go and seek alternative voices
Speaker 1: and bring those in. That's good, it was not bad. Again,
Speaker 1: it's not good if you're not learning from it in
Speaker 1: order to prevent the mistake in the first place. Right. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things, you know, I'm excited to talk
Speaker 1: to Jonathan Landay is on the panel tomorrow and he
Speaker 1: for people who don't know, he was a journalist with
Speaker 1: Knight Ridder at the time and one of the few
Speaker 1: who actually dared to question and they were on an island.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're putting out you know, they're putting out
Speaker 1: reporting that was accurate. That said basically the vice president
Speaker 1: is lying. This case about WMD is completely made up
Speaker 1: and fictitious. Meanwhile, you know, the paper of record, New
Speaker 1: York Times is publishing Judy Miller columns practically every day
Speaker 1: that are directly opposed to that. And part of what
Speaker 1: he has said in the past, and I want to
Speaker 1: hear more from him tomorrow, is that the reason he
Speaker 1: and some of his colleagues there were able to get
Speaker 1: the story right is because number one, they actually didn't
Speaker 1: have access to these top level officials who would lie
Speaker 1: to them. And when they did talk to them, they
Speaker 1: were skeptical, right, they were talking more to like the
Speaker 1: mid tier career bureaucrats. But also they really took to
Speaker 1: heart the fact that their papers were were going out to,
Speaker 1: you know, towns that had military bases where they saw
Speaker 1: themselves not as writing for the DC elite. They were
Speaker 1: doing journalism that they wanted to serve, you know, the
Speaker 1: sons and daughters who are going to be sent over
Speaker 1: to Iraq to fight and die. And that's what they
Speaker 1: really took to heart. So, you know, I think part
Speaker 1: of why things may have gotten worse is there's been
Speaker 1: so much media consolidation, like everything is basically national press
Speaker 1: now at least at this sort of like corporate legacy
Speaker 1: media level, and so you don't have that same local
Speaker 1: connectivity or sense of loyalty to people who are out
Speaker 1: in the nation who are the ones who bear the
Speaker 1: cost of horrible foreign policy decisions. Yeah, I mean everywhere
Speaker 1: else we hear that the diversity of views and viewpoints
Speaker 1: are important in order to get the best possible decisions right,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to the media, we see the
Speaker 1: direction going in exactly the opposite direction. As well as
Speaker 1: within government as well. I mean, it cannot be easy
Speaker 1: to be inside government having a different view, knowing very
Speaker 1: well that your career path is going to be severely
Speaker 1: set back if you are expressing questions and skepticism about
Speaker 1: certain decisions. Yeah, I think that's all well said. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm excited for the panel tomorrow. Thank you for inviting
Speaker 1: me to do it. It's going to be really interesting
Speaker 1: to dig into and it's always great to have you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thank you so much. Good to
Speaker 1: see you appreciate it. All right, we'll see you guys later.
Speaker 1: Abou